CHAPTER 1
CORNDOGS
Max plopped into his chair and automatically tapped a brick into its usual place under the broken table leg. A collection of empty and crinkled beverage cans rattled into the wastebasket as he scraped away to form a clear space. Removal of the loose debris exposed the mummified remains of an antique combination burrito, organically fused to the ersatz wood veneer. Chipping away at the pinto bean slag was relatively heavy work, quickly sending Max to the kitchen in search of food and drink.
The kitchen was in its usual place.
The refrigerator was not.
The night before, upon returning from his usual pool room haunts, Max had come face-to-face with the other occupant of his apartment. Staring into the wide-set beady black eyes, Max's heartbeat raced. A wave of anger and blood lust overtook control of his senses. His opponent faced him in unblinking anticipation, twitching slightly at the prospect of battle. Max snapped up a poker from the fireplace hearth. He swung the tool in a savage arc, just missing the fast moving enemy, and smashed his fish tank into oblivion. Crouched on hands and knees, he could just make out the savage creature lurking behind the refrigerator, barely out of the poker's reach.
Grunting, sweating, cursing, and straining at the edge of a hernia, Max had wrestled the greasy icebox out of its niche. He didn't notice that the little grey mouse was watching with amusement from the living room. Another of his rodent brethren was busy sniffing at a drying goldfish.
Needless to say, the unplugged and dislocated refrigerator contained no food or drink at the optimum serving temperature.
At this point, Max had not only been stymied again by his minute and furry roommate, but his creative talents were being stifled by a refrigerator that refused to provide the required essential fluids at a civilized temperature. Disgruntled and disappointed with his lot, Max cogitated deeply and searched for an appropriate reaction to this particular predicament.
"Mouse," said Max "go obscenity thyself."
* * *
Even the doorknob was hot. Inside, even with the air-conditioner control twisted up to full blast, the thermostat indicated 83 degrees. The scorching western desert atmosphere was relentless in running up the electricity bill. Max could see the car out in front by the curb. Waves of heat shimmered up from the faded paint, transforming the air above into the shimmering, wiggling display of a fun house mirror. With saliva quickly turning to dust in his throat, He jerked open the door and bolted out into the inferno. Piercing high noon sun instantly and mercilessly went for the eyes. The scorching superheated air desiccated unwary mucous membranes and encouraged his underarms into full-time production of aromatic excretions.
Max made a rabid dash across broiling asphalt, his tender toes urging him to reach the cool grass near the curb. Reaching the auto and its promised sanctuary from the blistering driveway, he gingerly hopped in. The classic 1962 Ford Falcon's thick embossed vinyl seat covers were heated to the point of melting. Tender flesh pooching out from the bottom of his hacked-off Levi's sent a cascade of urgent, and impossible to ignore, signals to his fevered brain. The brain, not accustomed to such violent distress signals, instantly instructed Max's feeble body to respond as if his most tender man-parts had been snagged in a grizzly bear trap.
***
The clerk at 7-11 didn't seem to notice the basket-weave pattern branded upon Max's nether regions, nor did he seem to understand when asked for a corndog with mustard. To every question, curse or threat, he would respond with: "Tenk-yoo. Tenk-yoo veddy veddy much!" Max couldn't begin to comprehend why the crazed swami had a turban twisted around his sweaty forehead in the 112 degree heat.
Giving up on the corndog, Max grabbed another six pack from the cooler and paid with exact change.
"Oh sir, that is most gracious, tenk-yoo. I am hoping that your little doggie is found." The gracious guru was bobbing up and down with his palms pressed together. He was grinning psychotically through a full set of grey teeth outlined in gold.
Max beat a hasty retreat.
The trusty Falcon waited in the parking lot. It began to hiss at him as soon as he approached. The feeble old engine complained at being left to idle in the heat.
Back in the marginal anonymity of the car, Max popped the top of brew number one. The minute puff of what he imagined as canned Clydesdale sweat had the same effect on him as would a cap of amyl nitrate broken under the nose of a groggy boxer. His vital creative juices began to flow and gurgle, along with a foggy belch dredged up by the cold brew. With the first 12 ounces dispatched, his head began to clear. He knew very well that another can of the suds would bring him up to, if not past, the point where the gentle fog began to roll back in. With any luck at all, the Budweiser haze would shortly be replaced by the pleasant buzz of Dom Perignon. Manny just might come through with the big score this time.
The urological pressure of brew number two was relieved just as the temperature gauge had begun its unavoidable journey into the red zone. Max swerved into the left lane for his approach back onto the freeway. He hoped that the increased speed would provide the air flow necessary to cool down the Falcon's straining four cylinder engine. Merging into the traffic, a sleek, silver Mercedes blasted up his tailpipe and screamed by, passing on the right. The pilot was a frail little old lady with blue hair and sequined cat-eye spectacles. She flipped Max the finger as her car bounced through the gutter, spewing dust and gravel. A bumper sticker on the speeding machine read, I BRAKE FOR SMALL ANIMALS. Another proclaimed, GOD IS MY CO-PILOT.
Motoring along at 55 mph, Max and the Falcon squeezed out from the bowels of the city. The temperature gauge slowly edged out of the red.
Out in the western expanses, cities have a tendency to quickly give way to wide open spaces. Emerging from the endless concrete and plywood sprawl of suburbia brought welcome relief from the choking madness eternally belching from a zillion cars and their rabid pilots. Light poles and fire hydrants were slowly replaced by sage brush and tumbleweeds.
But it was still hot. Very hot. A few miles outside of town, jagged peaks had begun to claw their way out of the sandscape. The remaining beers had taken on the temperature of the surrounding air, rendering them unfit for human consumption.
Even Max had his standards.
A series of muted backfires pooped out of the tailpipe when he eased off the throttle and swooped onto an off-ramp. Traffic had dissipated enough so that this foray onto a different path didn't present the excitement of the old bat in the Benz. He rolled up to a checked and sand-blasted stop sign. The balding narrow tires made a sticky-pulling-crunching sound as gravel was ground in and pulled loose from melting asphalt. He carefully looked both ways down the dusty road and checked once more in the rear view mirror. He reasoned that it was probably safe to step out.
By the time he had finished the task in hand (the relief of internal fluid pressure caused by Budweiser consumption), the Falcon's temperature gauge had embarked on another journey back up into the red zone. He took a left on his way back to the southbound lane of the freeway.
Max relished the cool shade as he traversed beneath an underpass. Emerging from the shadows, he noticed a cluster of ramshackle old buildings in the distance. Detouring onto a side road across abandoned railroad tracks brought him to what was once the main highway. It had long ago been relegated to the local wildlife and an occasional thirsty refugee from the city. Max definitely was a member of the latter group, perhaps even the former.
Down the road and across a rickety one-lane bridge spanning a river of rocks and tumbleweeds, he approached the buildings. The central structure was a two story wooden monstrosity with a sagging whitewashed facade. As his instincts had told him, it bore the faded logo, 'Rock Springs Bar'.
He bumped and rattled across the hard-packed dirt parking lot amidst several scratching chickens, a nondescript yellow dog, and ten thousand assorted insects. The Falcon had commenced to hiss again as he pulled up to a big rotten log that served as a parking bumper. The yellow dog ambled up to the Falcon, sniffed twice, and lifted his leg to wash away a layer of dust from the right front hubcap. Max gathered up an armload of empties and other sundry flotsam and jetsam and pitched the lot into a garbage can fashioned from an empty Pennzoil grease drum. He stepped up onto the weather beaten wooden boardwalk and into the bar.
Driven by a long twanging spring, the screen door slammed shut. A muggy, yet very welcome breeze was blowing from a swamp cooler hanging in one of the boarded-up front windows. A ceiling fan with one blade missing, wobbled incessantly near the kitchen entrance. On the back wall, a big slate chalk board advertised that the special of the day was bean enchiladas, menudo, and rice for $3.49. Tecate with lime was only a buck fifty. The joint was furnished with a mongrel collection of old wooden straight chairs and folding card tables. In the front corner was a big cable spool surrounded by three tall bar stools.
Max walked over and leaned on bar. It was free of varnish or wax, but polished smooth by millions of bending elbows over the years.
"Got any corndogs?"
"Huh?"
"Corndogs! Got any corndogs?"
"What?"
"Gin and tonic. Make it a double. Lotsa ice."
The combination of alcohol and quinine in the tonic quickly did its work. Max mused that this particular elixir must have been designed by pasty-faced English military officers while they were trudging around in blistering North African deserts. The alcohol brings blood to the surface of the skin, thereby enhancing the cooling process, while the quinine does its part in lowering the body temperature.
The bartender's attention was held by a squadron of Kamikaze house flies, swooping and zooming just out of reach. Max decided to engage his host in conversation by discussing the gin and tonic phenomenon with him.
"Huh? What?"
"I'll have another. Thanks."
Well, he thought, at least this guy doesn't have a turban, and I think he understands English. Sure wish I had a corndog.
Max spied a crusty crock-pot. It was on a shelf in back of the bar near the cash register, where beer-nuts and little bags of Alka-Seltzer were hanging like Christmas ornaments. Tiny droplets of condensation were continuously formed near the center of the domed glass lid and crept down the sides, back into the brown ceramic cauldron. A downdraft from the cattywampus ceiling fan wafted tantalizing and aromatic vapors of beer boiled knockwurst into Max's searching nostrils. His ever present appetite had started-in with painful jabs and an occasional audible complaint. He figured that a deep-fried dog coated in greasy cornmeal was not nearly as appealing as plump little sausages merrily floating and bobbing in boiling brew.
The bartender had given up his pursuit of the killer flies and was now stalking a senorita (and I use that term very loosely) occupying a stool at the far end of the bar. She was leaning over in order to take advantage of the cool breeze from the swamp cooler. The bartender was taking advantage of the view as she rhythmically opened and closed her hand-loomed poncho in the breeze. The bartender heated up as the senorita cooled off.
Max had been rattling the ice in his empty gin and tonic glass in a futile attempt to attract the bartender's attention. In a cunning and clever move, he let the glass slip from his fingers. The tub glanced off the foot rail and skittered away across the floor and into the kitchen, momentarily grabbing the attention of the bug-eyed bartender. He looked to the kitchen and over to Max.
"Goddamned mice!"
Seizing the opportunity, Max asked for a knockwurst.
"Huh?"
"A knockwurst. One of those sausages," he explained, pointing to the simmering pot.
"Oh, okay. You want mustard or horseradish?"
"Yeah, I'll take mustard." said Max, flabbergasted that he had finally broken through the intelligence barrier.
The bartender shuffled over. "Ain't got any mustard. How 'bout horseradish?"
"You have any?"
"Of course, asshole! You think I'm dumb or sumthin'?"
"Okay I'll have horseradish. Thanks."
The bartender grabbed a pair of tongs hanging from a nail behind the bar. He lifted the lid from the knockwurst pot using a corner of his spattered apron as a pot holder. A cloud of vapor mushroomed out of the little brown pot. Just visible through the delicious cloud, shiny reddish-brown links, taut to the bursting point, busily bobbed up-and-down. He set a plump little sausage, oozing with juices, onto a paper plate. He turned ever so briefly to hang up the tongs and grab a napkin.
In the split second that his head was turned a savage beast with wide set beady eyes emerged from behind the cash register. In a flash of bared teeth and a streak of grey fur, he raced for the steaming knockwurst.
Not to be done-in by a scurrilous rodent for the second time in one day, Max vaulted across the bar and prepared to defend his sausage to the death. His desperate lunge left him just inches short as the mouse clamped his tiny choppers into the bulging knockwurst and scrambled down the bar leaving a trail of overturned ashtrays and rodent scat. Nearing the end of the bar he had no place to turn, except the inviting opening of the fluttering poncho. A heroic dive through space delivered the athletic rodent and the steaming wienie directly to the exposed torso of the cooling senorita.
The strident shriek of initial surprise from the senorita was nothing compared to the bloodcurdling scream emitted by the bartender. His gallant efforts to rescue the damsel in distress by groping around beneath the poncho were not well accepted. She had responded instantly with a vigorous and strategically targeted upward knee-thrust.
Max pulled himself up from the floor, barely avoiding the grisly contents of an overturned spittoon. Deciding that discretion was the better part of valor, he gave up all hope of rescuing his lunch. With the senorita gesticulating madly, spewing forth curses in several languages, and the bartender still rolling about the floor in obvious distress, Max hastily made tracks out of the Rock Springs Bar.
Looking back through the rusty screen door, the savage mouse could be seen in a corner, happily consuming his hijacked booty.
"Mouse," Max muttered, "go obscenity thyself."