Forever Odd

floor.
        Much closer now, but not from within the suite, perhaps from the intersection of corridors, Datura shouted my name. She wasn’t calling me out for a milkshake at the local soda fountain, but she sounded more excited than pissed.
        The shotgun barrel, breech, and receiver were warm from the recent firing.
        Leaning against a wall, shuddering as I remembered Robert plunging backward off the balcony, I plucked the first of the spare rounds from a pocket of my jeans. I fumbled in the shadows, clumsy at the unfamiliar task, trying to insert the shell into the breech.
        “Can you hear me, Odd Thomas?” Datura shouted. “Can you hear me, boyfriend?”
        The breech continued to defeat me, would not take the shell, and my hands began to shake, making the task more difficult.
        “Was that shit what it seemed to be?” she shouted. “Was that a poltergeist, boyfriend?”
        The standoff with Robert had prickled my face with sweat. The sound of Datura’s voice turned the sweat to ice.
        “That was so wild, that really totally kicked!” she declared, still out in the hallway somewhere.
        Deciding to load the breech last, I tried to insert the shell through what I believed to be the loading gate of the three-round magazine.
        My fingers were sweaty, trembling. The shell slipped out of my grasp. I felt it bounce off my right shoe.
        “Did you trick me, Odd Thomas?” she asked. “Did you get me to crank up old Maryann until she blew?”
        She didn’t know about Buzz-cut. There was some justice in letting her think that the spirit of a merely pretty-but-not-pretty-enough cocktail waitress had gotten the best of her.
        Squatting in the dark, feeling the floor around me, I feared that the shell had rolled beyond discovery and that I would have to use the flashlight to locate it. I needed all four rounds. When I found it in mere seconds, I almost let out a groan of relief.
        “I want a repeat performance!” she shouted.
        Remaining in a squat, the shotgun propped across my thighs, I tried again to load the magazine, turning the shell first one way, then the other, but the loading gate, if it was the loading gate, wouldn’t receive the round.
        The task seemed simple, a lot easier than flipping eggs over-easy without breaking the yolks, but evidently it wasn’t so simple that someone unfamiliar with the weapon could load it in the dark. I needed light.
        “Let’s crank up the dumb dead bitch again!”
        At the window, I eased aside the rotting drapery.
        “But this time, I’m keeping you on a leash, boyfriend.”
        An hour or two of light remained in the afternoon, but the filter of the storm cast false twilight across the drenched desert. I could still see well enough to examine the gun.
        I fished another shell from another pocket. Tried it. No good.
        I put it on the window sill, tried a third. In the grip of absolute denial, I tried a fourth.
        “You and Danny the Geek aren’t getting out of here. You hear me? There is no way out .”
        The ammunition I had found on the bathroom counter, beside the sink, had evidently been for another weapon.
        For all intents and purposes, this couldn’t be considered a shotgun anymore. It had become just a fancy club.
        I was up the famous creek not only without a paddle but also without a boat.

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    FORTY-SEVEN
        
        I USED TO THINK THAT I MIGHT ONE DAY LIKE TO WORK in the retail tire business. I spent some time hanging around Tire World, out near the Green Moon Mall, on Green Moon Road, and everyone there seemed to be relaxed and happy.
        In the tire life, at the end of the work day, you don’t have to wonder if you’ve accomplished anything meaningful. You’ve taken in people with bad rubber, and you’ve sent them rolling away on fine new wheels.
        Americans thrive on mobility and feel shrunken in spirit when they do not have it. Providing tires is not only good commerce but also soothes troubled souls.
        Although selling tires does not involve a lot of hard bargaining, as do real-estate transactions and deals brokered with international arms merchants, I am concerned that I might find the sales end of the business too emotionally draining. If the supernatural aspect of my life involved nothing more stressful than daily interaction with Elvis, tire sales would make sense, but as