Free Willard and His Bowling Trophies by Richard Brautigan Page A

the stolen bowling trophies and why not an extra can of gas as part of the robberies.
    “Sounds like a good idea,” one of the Logan brothers said.
    The other two agreed.
    And the newspapers referred to them after that as the “Five-Gallon Gang.”
    FIVE-GALLON GANG STRIKES IN FLAGSTAFF
    LAST SEEN DRIVING TOWARD PRESCOTT
    BUT VANISH INTO THIN AIR
    POLICE CAN’T FIND THEM
    No, these were not the simple honest Logan brothers who’d left home less than a year ago in search of their stolen bowling trophies.
    “Why did you kill him?”
    “Do you want to go back to stealing rugs out of backyards and stepping all over people’s flowers?”
    “No, but I don’t think you should have killed him. He wasn’t doing anything. He was just getting the money like all the rest of the guys except for that guy we had to shoot in the leg. He was bothersome, so we had to shoot him. He was a son-of-a-bitch and I’d shoot him again if I had the chance, but I wouldn’t kill him.”
    “Then you do want to go back to stealing rugs?”
    “No!”
    The Logan brother who wasn’t in the conversation was drinking a can of beer. They tried to get him into the conversation.
    “What do you think?”
    He didn’t answer. He just waved his can of beer in such a way as to show that he wasn’t interested. He had no interest. All he wanted to do was enjoy cold beer trickling down his throat.
     
     

Johnny Carson
    Patricia finished her turkey sandwich before John fin ished his. She wasn’t a fast eater either. It was just that he was a very slow eater.
    Constance was holding Bob’s hand as they took a short walk to Fillmore Street. They didn’t say anything as they walked along. The evening was still warm. They walked very slowly. When they reached Fillmore, they turned around and started walking back. They still hadn’t said anything.
    Patricia was asleep before John finished his sandwich. He continued eating his sandwich very, very slowly and watching Johnny Carson tell jokes. He tried not to laugh too hard at Johnny Carson’s jokes because he didn’t want to spit a mouthful of turkey sandwich all over the bed.
    The next guest on the Johnny Carson show was a young actress who was wearing a dress with a very low neckline. She had giant breasts and tried to walk demurely over from the curtain to where Johnny Carson was sitting with his other guests. Johnny Carson made a joke about her breasts as she walked toward him. The audience laughed heartily. The actress tried to smile. And John spit a big mouthful of turkey sandwich all over the bed.
    The actress sat down.
    John checked to see if he had awakened Patricia when he laughingly spit the sandwich on the bed. No, he hadn’t awakened her. Good. He didn’t want her to see the pieces of turkey sandwich on the bed. That would have embarrassed him. He quickly cleaned them up.
    The actress told Johnny Carson and millions of insomniac Americans, many of them surrounded by fragments of food that they had just laughed out of their mouths, that she had just finished making a Western in Italy.
    That’s all she said.
    But Johnny Carson was able to use it to make another joke about her breasts. The audience laughed heartily again. John was glad that he didn’t have any more food in his mouth.

Beards
    The Logan who had gone berserk a little while before, and then after he’d come to his senses was able to convince his brothers that they should kill the people who had stolen the bowling trophies, had gotten the .22 pistol out of their only suitcase.
    They’d had three suitcases when they started out looking for the bowling trophies but the Logans after a little while stopped paying any attention to their wardrobe anymore and wore the same clothes all the time now. They didn’t need three suitcases, so they carried their lives around in one battered suitcase.
    It had been years since they’d brushed their teeth.
    And they were very remiss in shaving but somehow they managed to shave just short of