Free Country Hardball by Steve Weddle Page A

you know?”
    “I know,” she said. ;
font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Verdana, Geneva, sans-serif;
}

an H“But that don’t always matter, now does it?”
    “No, ma’am. Guess it doesn’t.”
    “Well, she’d best stay safe. Got a feeling in my bones all heck is about to break loose.”
    “Sure that ain’t just rain coming?” I asked.
    “You joke all you want, but you heard what happened up there on the hill. Those Sawyers and Pribbles cooking up all those drugs until the whole house exploded.”
    &#r a child fill

HOW MANY HOLES
    The light was fading away as they pulled into town for gas. “Need anything?” he asked Loriella, climbing out of the truck.
    She shook her head.
    Randy Pribble reached into his pocket, counted out some singles. A Camaro squealed in on the other side of the pumps, engine rattling.
    He put eleven dollars in the tank, walked in to pay. Saw a newspaper on the rack by the beef jerky. Picture of cops standing around a car, looking in the windows, red splatters from the inside. The story said the man had been laid off from some factory that morning. Father of three young boys. He drove around all day instead of going home. When five o’clock came, he pulled a pistol from the glove box, put a hole through his head. Above the car, the light had changed to green.
    When Randy got back, the guy from the Camaro was leaning against a post, trying to talk to Loriella through the truck window. He was a big guy, skin tight like a child’s balloon twisted into the shape of a man.
    Randy coughed, walked up behind him. “You got a problem?”
    The guy’s shoulders jumped, and he took a step back. “No. No. Just … ” he said, looking around the parking lot, “just saying ‘hi.’”
    “Well, maybe you oughta just shut your mouth, fatas” McWilliams said like set the s.”
    “Yeah. Sure. No worries.”
    Behind Randy, a minivan had pulled up, slowed, rattled around a pothole, kept going. He watched the fat man walk into the store; then he took a breath, counted the potholes in the parking lot. One at the van. Thought about what Loriella was going through. That part of life where the pastor takes you by the shoulders and talks about how God never gives you more than you can handle. Two more potholes near the road. Same as we all go through. A couple along the back. And all you get are the little things to keep you going. A lottery ticket. A good dinner. And Randy with barely enough cash for dessert. Forget about dinner.
    He saw the fat guy walking out of the store holding a piece of wood with the bathroom key. Thought about his car. That gold necklace with the cross. He watched the man turn the corner at the building, step out of the streetlight. Thought about the guy driving his Camaro through town, able to stop anywhere he wants to buy something. The sort of asshole who never checks his pockets before getting to the counter, never counts his change, never checks the soda machine for a loose quarter. The sort of asshole who goes to work on a Friday and puts twenty on the Cowboys because he thinks it’s fun to gamble. The sort of asshole who gets into his Camaro after work and stops for dinner and those drinks they make with four or five ingredients.
    Randy followed the man into the darkness.
    • • •
    Loriella was fingering the graduation cap tassel hanging from the rearview mirror when he got back into the truck.
    He asked her was she all right.
    “Not the same, is it? If I get my GED instead of walking.”
    “Diploma? You mean maybe you want to finish?”
    “I don’t know.” She pushed the tassel away, rested her chin on her hand. “I just don’t want to go back there, you know.”
    “Yeah. Nobody blames you.”
    “Blames me?” She turned to Randy as he pulled onto the highway. “Blame me for what?”
    “For quitting,” he said, checking traffic. “I mean for not going back. Hell, Keith ain’t going back, neither.”
    “Yeah, I heard that. What about his scholarship?