Bless the Beasts & Children Read online

  "How's come you listen to all them radios?" asked the other.

  "We're musicians," Shecker said. "A rock outfit. Drums, four guitars, and a front singer. From L.A."

  "Musicians, huh. You got a name?"

  "Group Therapy," said Teft.

  "Then we changed to After Death," said Goodenow, "but that was too morbid."

  "So what're you now?"

  "The Before Christ," Shecker said.

  "Before Christ?"

  "Dig our backs, man."

  The sideburns studied the BC's on the backs of jackets. Then they studied the miscellany of headgear along the counter.

  "Want an autographed picture?" asked Lally 1.

  "Give us a listen on the Groovy label," said Goodenow.

  The sideburns were not amused. "I asked what you doin' out so late," said one. "Now less hear, you hear?"

  "In the West," said Teft, apropos of nothing in particular, "everything sticks, stings, or stinks."

  "We're on tour," Shecker said. "Also we're talent scouts. Looking for local vocal talent."

  "Sure," said Lally 1. "Sing something. We like it and we might wax you."

  "We're from a boys' camp near Prescott," Cotton said quickly. "We've been camping out and now we're on our way back."

  "Walkin'?"

  "We've got a car."

  The sideburns snorted. "None of you sonnys old enough to drive."

  "You learn guitar and you might be as big as Simon and Garfunkel," Shecker said.

  "Anything I can't abide," said one of the sideburns, reaching for Shecker's milk and pouring beer from his glass down the straw, "is a driplip dude kid."

  "Would you like to know who my father is?" Shecker said.

  "Okay." Cotton was off his stool. "Okay, you guys, let's go." He had his wallet out, and dropping a five on the counter, motioned at the door. "Let's go, we're late."

  "But I'm hungry!" said Lally 2.

  "I said let's go!" Cotton cried, his voice so shrill that it woke the Navajo in the green velvet shirt and the counterman dropped a plastic mustard dispenser and the other five were on the floor and ahead of him out the door like scalded cats.

  "Walk, don't run," he said, his voice low now. "Walk and into that damn truck and let's roll, don't look back, act natural, and keep moving."

  Just as they reached the pickup and were going over the tailgate and into the cab the beanery door opened and the two locals stepped outside and watched as Teft cooled away from the curb.

  "Why'd we have to leave?" demanded Goodenow, who was up front with Cotton. "What's the matter with those jerks?"

  "Gunslingers," Cotton said. "Out for fun and games. And we can't take chances."

  "Oh-oh," Teft said. He had turned left and intersected again with U.S. 66 and, waiting for a green light, stared into the big side mirror on the Chevy. "Trouble. I think it's them, the local Mafia."

  "See if they tail us when we turn." The light changed and Teft swung onto the interstate. "They following?"

  "Yup."

  Cotton knocked on the cab window and yelled at those in back to lie low, then banged his helmet liner on the dash. "Dammit, to be almost there and run into those hoods and Shecker get funny in a New York accent. Anyway, stay in the speed limit till we're out of town, we can't afford to have the fuzz after us, too."

  They snailed along at thirty-five for a mile, through a warren of motels and gas stations, then half a mile at forty-five, watching for the city limit sign. Cotton asked what kind of car the gunslingers were driving and Teft said a real rod, a '63 Plymouth he thought, which had been a hot model, and he could guess they'd souped it up—a pair of four-barrel carbs and a fullhouse cam at least, and chopped the front end. It would run rings around this thing.

  "What do they want?" Goodenow asked faintly.

  "To cut us down," Teft said. "Once we're out of town, pass and make us pull off."

  "Then what?"

  "Show us their talent."

  "Talent?"

  "Sure, sing for us."

  Suddenly lights behind them blinked once, twice, three times, and a hardtop zoomed even with them and stayed even though Teft stepped on it, then drew slightly ahead and began to bear right, bearing down on the front fender of the pickup and offering two alternatives only: pull over or collide. Teft held course as long as he dared.

  "Cotton," he said finally, "I've never done this before. I'm chicken."

  "Pull over," Cotton said.

  Goodenow put hands over his face. "What'll we ever, ever do?"

  Teft braked gradually and left the highway and they chunked over gravel and came to a stop as the Plymouth crowded in close ahead of them and doused its lights. In their own lights they could see its wide, smooth tires, racing slicks, and extending from beneath it, puttering at them, four scavenger pipes.

  The two locals strolled back toward the Chevy. Even at second survey they did not seem mean or menacing. They were as clean and shaven and goodlooking, actually, as old Wheaties. But there was a scary difference. Old Wheaties was stupid. They were merely mindless. Wheaties had a lockerful of vices and a gizzardful of platitudes. They seemed to be unmotivated.

  Cotton put the .22 on the cab floor and said to sit tight and stuck his head out the window and told the three in back to sit tight and no damn jokes.

  "Well," said one local, "if it ain't The Before Christ. Howdy."

  "Lights off," said the other.

  Teft turned them off.

  "Didn't eat your num-nums," said one.

  "Everybody out," said the other.

  Thumbs hooked in belts they waited on the highway side while the six boys climbed out and ranged themselves opposite, along the shoulder side of the pickup.

  "How's come, if you're in a camp over to Prescott, you're headed for Albuquerque?" asked one.

  No one answered.

  "Less turn off that engine," said one sideburn, putting his head and arm into the cab. He ducked out. "I'll be a suckegg mule. No keys."

  "Hey, you got this thing wired?" grinned the other.

  "Whatta you guys want?" Cotton asked.

  "Don't fuss now," one said. "Lessee what else." He bent over the bed. "What the?" They both looked, then stood back grinning at the line of boys across the pickup, at their sober, stubborn faces as traffic passed. "If this ain't something to see in the night. Six milkdrinkers in a wired car and fancy hats with a half a pillow and a buffalo head with a bullethole in it."

  "Whatta you want?" Cotton demanded.

  One local scratched his head. "I dunno now."

  "Me neither," said the other.

  "Tell you what," said the first. "Less let the law know in Flag what we got here. They'd be obliged to hear about a wired car. Then they'd owe us a favor."

  "You right," agreed the other. "You truly do have talent."

  "Like to see something else?" Teft asked.

  "Purely would."

  Teft stood next to the cab. The door was open. Taking one step he was out of sight for five seconds. They heard a click. When he reappeared he laid the barrel of the rifle across the flanged top of the truck bed.

  "You got a popgun," said one sideburn.

  "Smile when you say that, stranger," Teft said.

  "You wouldn't have the hair."

  Teft took another step, backward, and turning, raised the .22, aimed, and fired. There was a high-pitched explosion after the rifle crack, then a lugubrious sigh, and the Plymouth settled perceptibly to the right. He had punctured one of the racing slicks. They put him aboard the plane at Kennedy like a prisoner. His father pulled strings and boarded with him and guarded him till they detached the loading ramp from the aircraft. There were eighteen other boys aboard for the flight to Phoenix, and a dozen more were due to board when they landed at O'Hare in Chicago. No one was supposed to deplane. Teft did, though. Service personnel caught him after a merry chase round and round the terminal and half walked, half carried him aboard again. The continuation to Phoenix was non-stop, and Teft made
it a memorable flight for crew and passengers. After he tried to open an emergency exit at 35,000 feet, the first officer belted him into his seat, arms and all. Over Kansas the stewardesses allowed him to go to the john. On the way aft he flipped open an overhead hatch and ripped out an oxygen mask by the roots, providing an excuse for several grandmotherly females, who were convinced this would decompress the cabin and give them the bends, to have nervous breakdowns. In the john he locked the door and refused to come out. Before the first officer could force the "Occupied" lock with a screwdriver, Teft jammed the Kleenex and toilet paper and soap and towels down the head and ran water into the washbowl till the john floor was flooded. The crew belted him into a window seat and posted a stewardess. But as New Mexico appeared below him, he ceased to struggle and hunched forward, gazing open-mouthed. Lawrence Teft, III, was from Mamaroneck, New York. He had seen country like this in Westerns, but he had never believed the illimitable redrock land was real.

  None of them could comprehend it. Behind the barrier of the pickup the Bedwetters stood at attention like tin soldiers. Before the two locals could react, Teft ejected, chambered a second round, clicked the bolt home, laid the barrel of the rifle over the top of the bed again, leaned, sighted on them.

  "I got the hair," Teft said, too loudly. "And I got another BB in here. And you start for Flag or I'll hang it in your ear. This close I can't miss. So start walking or one of you country & western hippies can wear earrings."

  The sideburns stared at him.

  "You hear me, hippies?" Teft shouted. "I said move—move it!"

  "Partner, you gonna pay for this," said one.

  But they did start, their boots crunching gravel, their figures enlarged by the sweep of headlights and diminished as darkness cut them down to size. When they were a hundred yards away, Cotton pushed the button.

  "In the truck—fast! C'mon, let's roll!"

  They jumped into the bed and the cab and Cotton grabbed the .22 from Teft and unloaded and as soon as the Chevy was geared up and hightailing down the interstate again they let loose.

  "Yaaaaay, Teft!"

  "What hair!"

  "The Daltons ride again!"

  "Earrings!"

  "Nothing stops us!"

  "Teft, goddammit, Teft, I can't tell you!" Cotton warbled. "But that was beautiful! Beautiful!"

  8

  "Oh-oh."

  A thought punctured. Cotton's exultation sighed from him. "They'll phone the cops in Flag," he worried, "and identify us and this junker. And the cops'll radio out here for the state police to set up a roadblock on us. That's what they do on TV. Then we've had it. Unless we make the turnoff first. How far to the turnoff?"

  Teft said seven, eight miles at most.

  "Then floor it."

  "Floor it?" Teft made a Ferrari face and pulled down the bill of his Afrika Korps cap and knuckled the wheel. "Jawohl!"

  They watched the speedometer. It hit 80 mph and held and over the hullabaloo of the engine and the whine of the tires Teft shouted this was it, this was the best the old clunker had in her, and unless they threw a rod she sounded good for seven miles. Along they barreled, fearful the three in back would be blown away, hypnotized by the grayriver of concrete pouring under them and the trucks and cars and U-hauls and campers flitting by like moths in the other lane.

  Cotton clutched the .22.

  Goodenow was petrified. His fingers worked at the Hopi headband as though unbeading it.

  "Whooooeeee!" Teft hollered.

  Shecker was thrown out of four cabins in two days. On the third, Cotton let him in, and on the fourth, regretted it. Shecker was as insufferable as his father, the famous Sid, whose indulged and overdominated mimic and victim he had become. He was the screech of chalk on slate. He was as loud and nervous and nosy and braggart as New York. He nibbled compulsively at his nails, he ate compulsively, he rattled off his father's routines compulsively, he was always "on." And eventually Cotton confronted him.

  They took in just about anything in that cabin, Cotton said, but they had to draw a line. They wanted no more of his fathers jokes, no more about the saloons he played or the shows he was on or who important he knew or how much money he made. In short, shape up or ship out. Shecker said he knew what they really meant. It was because he was Jewish. Cotton sighed and said no, it wasn't, and if there was one thing they didn't need around there, on top of everything else, it was a persecution complex. Shecker shouted they were Nazis. That burned Cotton. No, he said, they weren't. They had their own problems and merely wanted a little less yak and a little more peace and quiet in which to solve them. Shecker lost control Why didn't they call this camp what it really was, he screamed, a concentration camp? If they wanted him out, why didn't they just build an oven and gas him? Cotton groaned and made the mistake of turning his hack and Shecker jumped him. He was bigger and forty pounds fatter and soon had Cotton down and lay on him like a lump, pounding him till the others yanked them apart.

  The incident cleared the air. Shecker settled down and began to be human. When he did lapse, being Miami Beach or putting on the persecution act, all they had to do was chorus "Gas 'im!" and he cut the comedy.

  Large yellow letters against brown wood, the sign on the right side leaped into the headlights without warning. Teft braked and slewed onto gravel and then they were turned and through the open gate and away from fullhouse cams and mechanical bowling alleys and civilization and abruptly, marvelously, back into the night again and the West.

  It was two thirty-six. They had left Box Canyon Boys Camp at eleven forty-eight and now, three hours and a bagged truck and some milk and a shoot-out later, they were practically there. The last three miles would be slow going, however, for this road, a dirt singletrack which dipped into gullies and dry washes, was so corduroy that the frame of the pickup chattered with vibration. The sensation here was one of breadth and elevation and the triviality of their vehicle, which, like some quadrupedal insect, explored the brow of the sleeping earth, feeling with the antennae of its headlights for something edible and finding only scrub oak and salt cedar and the manzanita bush. To assert themselves and their importance they turned radios up, producing a cacophony of "The Ten Commandments of Love" by Peaches and Herb and "I Feel Like I'm Fixin' to Die" by Country Joe and the Fish.

  They had descended into a dry wash and across a wooden bridge and were grinding over the far lip when the engine sputtered.

  It was Shecker's lousy personality, though, that goaded the Bedwetters into their first feat. The fourth week of camp a movie played the Prescott drive-in which they wanted painfully to see. It was The Professionals, starring Burt Lancaster and Lee Marvin. The Apaches got to go of course, they were top tribe, but the Bedwetters had as much chance of seeing it as they had of winning a ballgame. For three nights in a row Shecker, who was accustomed to having his own New York way, swore that after lights out he was taking of and hiking into town and going to the late show. He did not, naturally. But the third night Cotton could bear no more of his mouth. All right, he said, can it and we'll all go, the damn scoring system's unfair so we'll beat it. And they did. After Wheaties was asleep they dressed, slipped down to the corral, saddled up, led horses out of camp and, rode the two miles to the drive-in entrance at the edge of Prescott. The manager wouldn't let them in at first, mounted, but it was a week night and the late show and there were only a few cars of neckers and after Shecker slipped him a twenty-dollar bill he sold them tickets. They rode in, tied horses to loudspeakers, bought popcorn and ice cream bars and hot dogs and corn chips and Cokes and enchiladas and sat down and enjoyed themselves totally. In the last reel the Camp Director drove in like a posse—the twofaced theater manager had probably phoned him—and made some uncharitable remarks about juvenile delinquency. But while he discoursed they took their sweet time mounting up and so contrived not to miss the ending. Back at camp, the Director warned them: pull a similar stunt and he'd expel them. The Bedwetters listened and looked at each other like Lanca
ster and Lee Marvin.

  Teft floored it and pumped the handchoke. The engine responded and they bumped another hundred yards but no further. It conked out again, this time with a last carburetor gasp. Front and back, the six just sat there.

  "Don't anybody say it," Teft said.

  No one did.

  "Don't even think it."

  But everyone was.

  "Maybe the wire's come unclipped," he said, and getting out, went round to the front of the truck, raised the hood, and extracting a flashlight from his pocket, switched it on, and had a superfluous look. Switching it off, he returned it to his pocket and let the hood down slowly, ceremoniously.

  Through the windshield Cotton and Goodenow stared at him. From the bed, Shecker and the Lally brothers stared at him.

  As though onstage, Teft stood self-consciously in the headlights. On his cap the silver eagle glittered. He began with a vagabond grin. "How about that?" he appealed. "I just never noticed the gauge. Believe it or not, I've bagged cars before and driven them dry and no sweat. I just wired a fresh one."

  He lost his grin. "Destroyed," he said. "This really destroys me."

  He gave up. Spreading his long arms he flapped them against his long legs in contrition. He opened his jacket to expose his chest.

  "So I now offer myself. As a human sacrifice to the Gas God."

  And with a low bow and a martyred expression he draped himself over the white altar of the hood. "You may now cut out my heart," he said, "and eat it."

  Suddenly the stage went dark. Teft vanished. Cotton had pushed the headlight knob. It was the most unfortunate thing he could have done. For the night came down upon them. They cowered before it, and before the implications of an empty tank. Except for the ticking sounds of the engine cooling, they sat in a kind of stranded silence, hushed by the dark and this new, blabbering proof of their ineptitude.

  "Oh, I am so sorry," Teft said. "I am just Christfully sorry."

  9

  "Sorry? You're sorry!" Cotton blasted. "One hell of a lot of good that does!"

  Shecker and the Lally brothers jumped over the tailgate and Goodenow slid across the seat and out of the cab. But his lash cracked after them.