Free Calloustown by George Singleton Page B

day.”
    _______
    I had read somewhere along the way that owning a pickup truck between the ages of twenty-two and thirty created a number of inescapable furniture-handling weekends for friends and strangers alike, and that ownership past the age of thirty brought about requests from friends and strangers to borrow the truck in order to haul firewood, mulch, and potting soil. Whoever came up with this little truism needs to update his or her adage to include a menagerie of rabies-worthy stuffed animals. Well, not quite true. I felt obligated to buy every available bobcat, fox, raccoon, and beaver that Ruben Orr needed to evict from his storage unit.
    â€œI’m going to use this money to start my grandboy up a college fund so he can be like you,” Ruben said as I tried to drive off. He said, “You know what his name is?” I didn’t say “No,” for I felt pretty certain it was Finley. I stared at Ruben Orr. He said, “That’s right, you know.”
    I said, “I’ll get you the rest of the money when I can,” for, even though he offered me a deal—we went inside and looked on his Mac at various stuffed mid-sized mammals for sale on eBay, Craigslist, and some kind of Mountain and Lake Cabin Interior Decorator’s site—we wanted to make sure that neither of us over- or underpriced the value of a beaver.
    I began driving home, careful not to veer across lines that weren’t even painted on our back roads, my eyes in the rear-view mirror. I didn’t want my animals to topple roadside, for one, and I feared that Ruben Orr might follow me. What would I do if, as I pulled into my own driveway, he puttered up to tell me how his grandson kept asking who his father was? Would I reach beneath my seat and pull out one of my so-called weapons? Would I cry? What kind of explanation could I summon up honestly should he bring along a lawyer, social worker, or Mayley Orr herself?
    I looked down at my fuel gauge and noticed how I no longer owned a seven-eighths-full tank. My truck missed twice, and I said to no one, “That fucker siphoned gas when I wasn’t paying attention.”
    Rajer changed the price back up to $3.65 as I coasted into his convenience store. I looked at my wristwatch to read that, just like the smart man on TV pointed out, it would be between four and five in the afternoon. I looked over to check on Ruben’s blackberry cartons, which seemed to be undisturbed. Rajer yelled out, “Hello, Mr. Finley, good to see you again! Are you going to construct a humorous diorama so that those weasels hold your special ukuleles? Very good! Very funny, when animals look like they possess musical abilities. I have seen many, many animals playing music on the Internet. Always good. Bullfrog with banjo!”
    I said nothing to Rajer for two reasons. Later on I would fret endlessly that he considered it a snub. I didn’t respond to him because I pictured all those stuffed animals actually holding ukuleles for some kind of promotional advertising, maybe in the back of Taxidermy Today or Yuke and Yours . Secondly, beyond the sparse afternoon Calloustown traffic I detected the faint sputtering—at first not unlike a brave gnat entering the ear canal—that turned to distant chainsaw, then unmistakable poor cousin of a Honda 150, or Yamaha 175, or Japanese electric turkey knife.
    I said, “I know the trick y’all are playing on people, Raj. The noon news can do some kind of survey saying gas prices are low, but then y’all jack it up crazy when most people need to fill up.”
    Ruben Orr neared. I imagined him riding that moped with sawed-off shotguns swathed around his back. Rajer got off his ladder. He didn’t smile. “You shouldn’t drive all day long. You filled up this morning! In my city back in India, gasoline costs $5.03 all the time, no $5.01 between nine and four.”
    I started to say something about how my previous