Free The Mortal Nuts by Pete Hautman

wear your glasses?”
    â€œI paid good money for these lenses. Besides, once I get them in I see better. Are you going to help me or not?”
    Carmen sighed. She picked up the lens and squirted it with saline solution, then knelt on the carpet before him. “Lean forward.”
    She separated the upper and lower eyelids, letting her breasts brush against his forearm, and planted the lens over his bright-green iris.
    â€œThere. Now you got your eyes on.” She sat back and crossed her arms. “There something you wanted to look at?”
    Axel sat propped against the headboard, looking at his wall of Coca-Cola crates. Carmen had gone back to her room, insisting that she needed another hour of sleep. Axel couldn’t remember the last time he had been able to sleep like that. He was lucky if he got four hours at a time. One of the things that happened when you got old. Tired all the time, but can’t get a good night’s sleep.
    He wondered why he’d had so much trouble with his contacts. Had he been acting like a kid, looking for attention? Probably.
    And that Carmen, thinking she was such hot stuff. Not that she wasn’t a pretty girl, but that didn’t make him so mush-brained that he hadn’t noticed her looking at his coffee cans. Last year, she had grabbed just a few hundred dollars, thinking he wouldn’t notice. He hadn’t minded that so much, and had never called her on it. But this year she might want more. Carmen liked money more than anything.
    The last time he counted, the coffee cans contained two hundred sixty thousand dollars, cash money, most of it undeclared income. He’d thought about putting the whole pile in the bank, but he was scared the IRS would notice, and besides, Axel had never trusted bankers, doctors, politicians, or preachers. Still, he had to do something—it was far too easy to imagine Carmen stuffing her purse with roll after roll of his hard-earned green.
    Axel wished, not for the first time, that he had a backyard. If he had a backyard he could bury it. Put it about four feet down, then plant a tree over it. That would make him feel good. Axel sighed. He had been through it in his head a hundred times before, but the money was still sitting in his room, where anybody with a spare key or a crowbar could bust in and walk off with it.
    He would have to do something soon, make some decisions.
    But not today.

Chapter 8
    This time, Carmen was awake enough to notice his new truck.
    â€œCool!” she said, pressing the buttons on the radio. Her extra hour of sleep, plus a jumbo coffee from Denny’s, had perked her up considerably. “Hey, you got them all set for WCCO.”
    â€œI like ‘CCO,” said Axel as he steered onto the freeway entrance ramp. He did not want to tell her that he had accidentally—no idea how he’d done it—set all the buttons on the same station. Besides, it was true. He did like WCCO, the Good Neighbor station. It was the only station where you could get the weather report anytime you wanted, and they didn’t play any of that rock and roll.
    Carmen did something to the radio and found a rock station. “Listen to this, Axel. Guns n’ Roses. You got the same name as their lead singer. Except he spells it different. They’re really cool. Listen.” She twisted the volume knob.
    The shrieking that poured out from his new speakers caused Axel to cross two lanes of freeway traffic before he found the volume knob, turned it down, and regained control of the vehicle. Angry motorists passed him on either side, glaring and honking. Carmen was doubled over, laughing.
    â€œGoddamn it, Carmen, you want to get us both killed? The fair starts tomorrow!”
    â€œSorry,” she gasped, wiping her eyes. “It was just too funny, you and Axl Rose singing….”
    â€œWell, don’t do that anymore. You’ll wreck the speakers.” He guided the truck onto the