Utah Saints (pt 12).

There’s a restaurant down the street; me and Carl Lee go there for breakfast. I don’t say too much to him. If he’s thinking anything about last night, he aint’ saying it. The snow’s stopped for a little while, though I bet it’s coming back real soon. So after we’re done eating I’m gonna give him some money and tell him to get lost. I wish I could keep him around, but after last night, no fucking way.

My clothes are dirty, Carl Lee says. Will you wash them?

No, I say. I park the car in the lot and we get out. Carl Lee makes a snowball and hits me in the arm with it. I make one and throw it back at him, hitting him in the leg. We laugh. We sit down in a booth. Carl Lee says he’s so hungry that he’s gonna die, and I tell him not to talk like that. He holds his arm up; he’s got this green watch on that I bought him at the gas station yesterday. It’s TWO O’CLOCK, he says. This restaurant is called THE VILLAGE INN.

It’s not two o’clock, I say. It’s almost ten. You got that thing set wrong.

This place is called THE VILLAGE INN, he reads off the menu. I got a lot of books in my room all piled up on the floor, he says. Papa he was going to make me a bookcase to put them in, but he never did. I used to go to the library and take out the metal strips in the middle of them so I could put them in my coat and nobody would know.

You’re a regular James Bond, I say; I start playing the drums with my fork and my spoon until Carl Lee copies me, and I tell him to knock it off. Right behind him is this little girl, sitting by herself at a table. She’s coloring on a piece of paper and pouring ketchup onto her fries. She’s got these earphones on that are way too big for her head and they keep falling down and she keeps pulling them back up.

Carl Lee sees me looking and turns around. He waves at her. Can I have a french fry?

She says yes, and he takes one. Carl Lee, don’t bother her, I say.

He don’t listen. What’s that song? he says. I like that song, can I hear it?

She gives him the headphones and goes back to eating her fries. She points to the bathrooms that are across the room. My daddy’s in there.

My name’s CARL LEE, he says. His name is HAM LIKE HAM SANDWICHES.”

Would you fucking knock it off?” I say.

She points a finger full of ketchup at the bathroom door again. My daddy said not to talk to anybody. I live in Oklahoma but daddy says we can’t go back for a while.

Did your daddy take you? Carl Lee says, mouth open real wide. Did he KIDNAP YOU?

I kick him under the table and he about jumps out of his skin. The little girl just keeps on coloring her placemat twice as hard.

I lean over. Hey. Kid. Are you shitting me? Your dad take you?

The bathroom door opens and a guy comes out, a guy in one of them hunting vests, rubbing his hands together. I tell Carl Lee to give her back the headphones. Carl Lee does and his head drops down like he did something bad; the little girl starts crying.

Jesus Christ, her dad says. Now what. Now what. Lemme get you some tissue.

He turns around and goes back the bathroom.

I get up. Carl Lee, I say – but that’s all I say. I ain’t even here no more, I’m just a fucking ghost floating over these tables and chairs and people eating, floating down next to this dude standing in front of the mirror with paper towels in his fists breathing hard like he’s gonna pass out.

What, he says, looking at the me in the mirror. What.

I don’t know, I say, but I think there’s got to be three. It can’t be two and it can’t be four.

What the –

Is about all the guy gets a chance to say because I’m into him like a rocket, and my head is as white as nothing and I ain’t never felt better in my whole life that to beat it into every god damned bastard who ever looked down on me and alla the shit I ate and ate and ate. I’m screaming at this guy while I’m hitting him over and over. UTAH! UTAH! UTAH! Because crazy’s a bug you can catch like the flu, and I caught mine way back in the dark in the woods at Fort Knox.

I come out and people are looking, but I don’t look back; Carl Lee ain’t at the table and neither is the little girl; they’re both waiting in the truck.

I ain’t never been this happy, not ever, not never, not even with Dixie. ‘Cause Carl Lee and her and me makes three – and that’s good. Real good. Three. Dixie figured it out just right with his two, but I think I can do it better. Three. Three is good. So, so good.