Free Travelling Light by Peter Behrens Page B

over, rolled up the passenger window, and locked the door. Olsen started banging on the window with the pistol butt. He began moving around the car, striking the fenders with the pistol.
    â€œLet’s get out of here,” I said.
    â€œHold your horses, professor.” Timothy shifted into reverse and the Falcon rocked backwards, grazing Olsen, who barely had time to skip out of the way. We began chasing him across the parking lot. He dodged and twisted like a matador. He managed to get behind the car and break the taillights. Timothy went into reverse again and backed up over the seabag. Olsen leapt onto the hood and started banging on the windshield with his pistol. Timothy jerked and swerved, trying to shake him off the car, but he held on by clutching the stem of a windshield wiper. Timothy slammed on the brakes and he tumbled off, landing on hands and knees on the asphalt.
    We started driving away. I looked back and saw Olsen scrambling to his feet. He crouched and took aim, gripping the pistol with both hands just like a policeman in a movie. I saw the pistol buck and flame but didn’t hear the shots. Timothy hit the gas and we went screeching out of the parking lot, bouncing over the curb and thrusting into the hectic traffic on the boulevard.
    I could see the big green sign for the I-80 but at the last moment Timothy changed his mind, and instead of joining the entrance lane we stayed on the overpass. On the other side of the interstate the boulevard was immediately narrower and dustier, lined with furniture stores, auto-supply stores, churches, gun shops. At the first big intersection Timothy made a U-turn, and I knew we were heading back to the parking lot and Olsen. Timothy said now I would have something to write about. I imagined him in the library of a great university, poring over all the wrong books, noting their wrongheaded anti-wisdom in a ledger he’d keep tucked inside his shirt.
    We passed over the interstate once again. Up ahead I saw Olsen hiking alongside the road, seabag on his shoulder, pausing only to stick out his thumb. We passed him and made a U-turn, then passed him again, then pulled over. As Olsen approached the car Timothy reached over and unlocked the passenger door.
    Olsen got in.
    â€œDon’t ever put a fucking piece in my car without telling me,” said Timothy.
    â€œYeah, yeah, yeah,” said his brother, twisting around to drop his seabag on the back seat beside me. “Let’s get out of here.”
    â€œI mean it.”
    â€œI heard you the first time,” said Olsen.
    Between Winnemucca and Reno the Falcon blew a front tire. Timothy wrestled the car to the shoulder and we all got out. Timothy opened the trunk and dragged out the jack and the spare. They both took off their shirts. The same eagle tattoo was scribed on both their backs. They knew how to use tools and worked fast, wrenching off the shredded tire. While they were fitting on the spare I saw my backpack nestled in the trunk. I decided I would grab it, dash across the interstate, and try hitching another ride. It didn’t matter if I was going in the wrong direction: I needed to get away from these two. Olsen was torquing lug nuts. Timothy was cranking down the jack.
    As I reached for my pack I heard a rustling. Looking up, I saw a pair of needle-shaped fighters. As I watched they launched missiles from their wings, and I watched the missiles trace incisions on the sky.

LYLE
    Jerry watched his father dashing his horse around in the corral muck, cutting out the animals he wanted, running them through the gate Jerry held open.
    At noon Jerry’s mother called them in for dinner. He ate lentil soup while his parents listened to the livestock report on CKRD Red Deer. His parents loved listening to the radio. His mother had it on in the house all day and his father kept a Japanese transistor radio in the barn. They loved rock and roll. They had met at a high school dance in Caroline