Free Train Wreck Girl by Sean Carswell

you can make fun of people and call them a retard and that’s a bad word. On the other hand, retard can just mean a person you take to the zoo. So in this song, it’s not a bad word because it’s just talking about people you take to the zoo. Understand?”
    Little Johnny nodded.
    â€œNow give me a hoot,” Bart said.
    Little Johnny cocked his head back and hooted. Bart smiled. I remembered this about my old, close friend Bart Ceravolo: don’t ever trust the guy.
    After we dropped off the short bus riders and Bart smoked another joint and I put in an old Clash CD, Give ‘em Enough Rope, Bart said to me, “So what are you running from, Danny?”
    â€œWeed making you paranoid?” I asked.
    â€œJust a little inductive reasoning, my friend. Everything you own fits in a seat on a bus—and the surfboard you got from your sister’s house this morning. You took a Greyhound from Flagstaff. A fucking Greyhound. No one rides a Greyhound if they don’t have to. You’re still the same guy I always knew. So add it up. You got into some shit in Flagstaff and you’re running away.”
    Of course, Bart was right, but I wasn’t surprised enough to not be suspicious. I said, “How’d you know I was in Flagstaff? I didn’t tell you that.”
    â€œI saw Janie this morning,” Bart said.
    â€œWhere?”
    â€œIt’s Tuesday. Janie and I fuck on Tuesday mornings.”
    Bart paused. I knew he was full of shit. I hadn’t been away so long that I forgot about his sense of humor. I said, “Where’d you really see her?”
    â€œAt the Circle K, but that’s not the point. What happened in Flagstaff? What are you running from?”
    What I was running from had obviously been on my mind nonstop for days now. Not a minute passed when I didn’t think about Libra or see that fucked up leg and that bad tattoo in my mind. Not one minute. I had to tell someone sooner or later, so I just came clean. I said, “I found my ex-girlfriend’s dead body a couple of days ago. I freaked out and came here.”
    Bart jammed on the brakes and swerved into the nearest parking lot. He turned off the engine, took the keys out of the ignition, and spun in his seat to face me. “Wow,” he said. “I was expecting something fucked up, but, wow.”
    â€œIt’s not as bad as it sounds,” I said.
    â€œWell, it can’t be good.”
    â€œNo, it’s not good,” I said, “but it’s not as bad as it seems.” I laid out the story for Bart, from my New Year’s Eve fight to my decision to breakup with Libra to the final fight and the tattoo and the leg on the railroad tracks. Bart just stared at me with big, bloodshot eyes. Occasionally, he’d nod or say, “yeah, yeah.” But mostly he just stared.
    When I got done, Bart said, “How rich was this girl?”
    â€œWell, she wasn’t rich. Her parents were.”
    â€œObviously, but how rich were her parents?”
    â€œRich.”
    â€œHow rich?”
    â€œHer dad owned banks.”
    â€œWhat do you mean, he owned banks?”
    â€œI mean he owned a bunch of banks in Phoenix. I don’t remember how many. Ten. Maybe a dozen. A bunch.”
    Bart rubbed his short, curly hair. “I don’t get it. How do you own a fucking bank?”
    â€œYou just own it,” I said. “Someone has to own it.”
    â€œI thought corporations owned banks.”
    â€œI think they do, now. They own Libra’s dad’s banks, anyway. He sold the whole lot of them to Bank of America a few years back.”
    â€œGoddamn,” Bart said. “How much do you get for a fucking bank? Wow. You’re fucked, Danny.”
    â€œHow do you figure?”
    â€œThis guy’s got ten or twelve banks’ worth of money and his daughter’s dead and you’re the last one who saw her? You’re going to jail.”
    Of