Free Planet Willie by Josh Shoemake

find that the variety of wildlife you encounter
while smashing through the foliage will often make it worth your while. I’m
thinking of Billy, who’s telling me they’ve done studies with siblings
separated at birth.
    “Put them in a
room together,” he says, taking a long sip of beer, “they know something
funny’s going on. Nine times out of ten they’ll end up talking. Seven out of
ten they’ll discover they’re siblings in the first conversation. There’s more.
We’ve done experiments with pigs. Remove their vomeronasal organ, and they
can’t feel love – often they don’t even recognize their own mothers. They are
emotionally dead pigs.”
    “Tell me
you’re releasing this technology to the general population,” I say. “I’ve had
more than a few requests to bottle my essence, and now I see it may be
possible.”
    “I’m doing a
presentation tomorrow morning for a major perfume outfit,” he says. “Naturally
they are very interested in my products. We’re talking perfumes that turn
heads. Unscented perfumes. Perfumes that communicate directly with your
emotional core.”
    “Tell me
you’re wearing some right now,” I say
    “That I am,
sir,” he says with a grin.
    “Then brother,
I’m with you. Let’s have another beer for the road, and then I’ve got us a party
to go to. Test out your product on the general population, so to speak. You
know any of the martial arts? Good. I might need some backup. We might just
experience some turbulence out there, but nothing that can’t be handled by two
emotionally dead pigs set to put the man back in Manhattan.”

7
    Billy and I
take it out into the streets and attempt to get reacquainted with walking,
proving yet again that there is really so much we take for granted on this
earth. With the kind of beer we’re carrying around inside, I’m thinking it
might not have been a bad idea to ease up a bit back there at the brasserie.
Smelled the roses, so to speak. The night is young.
    Moving along,
more or less, we pass one of these costume shops with one-toothed witches and
headless superheroes in the window. Billy’s been eyeing The Kid all evening and
has decided he needs himself a cowboy hat. Normally I would agree, but under
the circumstances I have to advise against it.
    “It’s not you
who wears the hat,” I tell him real serious. “But the hat who wears you.” Zen
koans, I believe they’re called. Anyway, he reflects on this for a moment, then
bolts into the store like a maniac, and by the time I arrive in the Wild West
section he has picked himself out a shiny yellow affair that fits him nicely
but is unfortunately made of plastic and generally unflattering to Billy and
anyone else within a hundred mile radius. I attempt to enlighten him on this,
but Billy is one stubborn son of a bitch.
    “Let’s ride,”
he says. What the hell. Considering the circumstances, specifically considering
the alcohol, I just nod and pick me out one of your finer suede capes to
salvage something from the experience. Willie El Matador – who knows, it’s
worked before. At the cash register I pull out the wallet and tell Billy we’re
putting this one under the column that reads business expenses.
    “What business
is that?” he says.
    “Trouble
incorporated,” I say. “And you’re vice president.”
    He nods real
slow. Catches sight of himself in the mirror behind the counter, makes a finger
gun, and shoots himself dead. Takes a rack of clown wigs down with him and
appears to have abandoned the land of the living till I break into Mama,
don’t let your babies grow up to be cowboys , which is a duet I know he
can’t refuse. Eventually I manage to coax him out of there with They’ll
never stay home, and they’re always alone, even with someone they love .
    By the time we
get to Fernanda’s we’ve worked ourselves up enough glamour to formally declare
ourselves a constellation and name it Willie Nelson. I’m also expecting some
more glamorous of