In a couple of weeks.
Tell her to get that rent to me, okay? But maybe I’ll cut her a break if—you know? Never mind. All right? But soon!
Okay, Eddie said, and he could almost see time accruing, as if he had turned a crank and made the sun go backward and rise in the west. Nacho’s patience would eventually run out. But Eddie hoped Darlene would get back long before then.
7.
Who Is
Delicious?
The minibus done slowed down to a bumpity-bump. The headlights lit up a wall, and the bricks of the wall turned out as part of a farmhouse made of cinder blocks. The red-eyed driver, a brother they called Hammer, put the thing in park, let the engine idle, and went, We’re here. Hammer wasn’t his name, they called him that on account a he look like MC Hammer—he a skinny brother with his hair shaved in stripes on one side and got them same big glasses. He stretched his arms by grabbing the top of the steering wheel and said, Home sweet home, y’all, then a second later he said GET OUT in a real loud voice, like the Amityville Horror demon, to a dude name Hannibal and to TT, who twitching and talking shit and hadn’t got up yet.
Didn’t nobody in that minibus care about nothing. TT and Hannibal—a spacey man who always wearing this raggedy-ass fedora—almost got into a fistfight over if Michael Jordan was the best ever. They agreed that he played the best, but Hannibal said just playing the best ain’t make nobody the best ever, because what about sportsmanship?
So nobody seen them headlights shining on the new digs as we passing, let alone the whole farm. I coulda told em ’bout some shacks I seen next to some white propane tanks, and then some wide-ass fields with orange trees sometimes, and swampy saw grass far as the headlights could throw they beams. Looked peaceful, like a place where wouldn’t nobody get up in our business, and you know I hate when people be judging my friends for hanging out with me. Whenever I could take a vacation with em I jump at the chance.
A chicken waddled into the road in front of us. Hammer almost hit it—he had to stomp on the brake with both feet and that made the bus jerk forward like Sherman Hemsley, so much that Darlene seen the bead cushion under Hammer’s ass when he leapt up. The whole crew got jostled and took to complaining. Hannibal dropped his pipe, and it ain’t break but it did roll up under the seats, and he had to get down on his knees and crawl around to find it while it’s rolling back and forth. When he bent down, everybody could see his butt crack and that caused some serious hilarity for everybody except a lively woman name Michelle who wearing pigtails even though she thirty-something—you know that girl hopped over Hannibal ass and looked out the window with a scared face on, gripping the seat back.
Did you hit it? she asked. You didn’t hit it, did you? That’s bad luck to hit a chicken!
Especially for the chicken, Hammer said.
Down in the road, the chicken waggled them red things on its head at the new employees in the bus like it saying, Course I made it, you dumbasses. The fuck you looking at?
In all the drama of stopping, Darlene and I sat in the back looking at the scene, studying it like it’s some philosophicated hypothenesthesism and with a li’l giggle we thought to ourself, Why did the chicken cross the road? Kind of as a joke, but Darlene also said that shit out loud. Why did the chicken cross the road? Ain’t nobody act like they heard, so we start asking the question seriously—my girl wanted a answer. Why did the chicken cross the road?
Right then the chicken booked into them tall grasses off to the side of the minibus. Hammer pointed at it and said to Darlene, Look like you missed your chance for a exclusive interview. Then he jump off the driver seat and gone to unlock the door that let us all out.
Michelle told Hammer, You funny. Glad you ain’t hit it.
Jackie frowned and squinted, tryna see where the chicken had went, like maybe she gonna have to go chase it down. How did she get out? Jackie muttered under her breath. But then her expression changed into one that ain’t care no more.
We was in front of this long one-story building made of concrete that had a line of muddy windows along the top of the wall. Jackie, Michelle, TT, and Darlene slid down out they seats into a pothole filled with water and had to shake out they shoes; Hammer poked and punched Hannibal and Sirius B till they stood up and got out, all sloppy and nervous. Now that Darlene out the shitty-ass A/C in the van, the humidity put her in a chokehold. She searching for a clue to where we had gone to—was we still in Texas, or had we went far as Louisiana or Mississippi or even the Florida Panhandle? Couldn’t nobody tell, and if I was the only motherfucker paying attention, they sure had a mucho problema. How long do it take to get how far? Was that a Texas tree? Was that? The hell time it was? Was that sugarcane?
Darlene look at the building kinda suspicious, and then, right with everybody else, the good smells in her memory gone away and got replaced with a strong shit smell. Like a shit smell so bad that it reached its whole hand up inside your nose, pinched the bottom of your brain, and twisted your tear ducts like a lemon peel going into a motherfucking cocktail. The newbies all gagging and making disgusted faces and talking with vomit voices. Somebody seen feathers on the ground and pointed and said they saw feathers on the ground.
This is a chicken coop, Darlene said, like she just discovered America. Why did we stop here?
No, no, this ain’t no chicken coop! TT said. How it’s a chicken coop when we just seen a chicken running around outside?
Basehead, she muttered.
Bitch, I heard that, TT started, but Sirius B took a step to stand between em.
Darlene screwed up her face at TT and then turnt around, sighing to herself, ’cause TT always be saying the negative of whatever you said. She knew to ignore his ass.