Motor Mouth

hill and dale, and as luck would have it, ended up at a fast-food joint. We bought a bag of food, stopped at a neighboring gas station and filled up, bought more food at the gas station convenience store, and skulked away.
    Hooker drove north out of habit. We couldn’t go back to the warehouse. We were afraid to check into a motel. We didn’t want to involve friends. So we parked in a supermarket lot and fed Beans and started eating our way through a bag of doughnuts. I was on my second doughnut when Hooker’s phone rang. It was Spanky, and Hooker didn’t need to use the speakerphone function for me to hear. Spanky was yelling into the phone.
    “You sonovabitch,” Spanky yelled. “I know you’re responsible for all of this. I saw you sitting there watching. You think this is funny, don’t you? You did this just to ruin my week. You knew I had a new motor coach that was better than yours. So you had it wrecked. And it wasn’t enough to waste Oscar and your poor retard rent-a-cop, you had to leave Bernie in my bed. You are such a dumb sick fuck.”
    “Okay, let me get this straight,” Hooker said. “You think I killed three men and arranged to have your motor coach trashed because why?”
    “Because you’re jealous of me. You can’t stand that I won the championship. And I know you put Oscar in my new truck, too. I’m gonna get you for this. You better watch your ass.”
    Hooker disconnected. “Spanky’s an idiot.”
    Hooker’s phone rang again.
    “Uh-huh,” Hooker said. “Uh-huh, uh-huh, uh-huh.”
    “Now what?” I asked when he was done.
    “Skippy calling back. He wanted to remind me that the banquet was black tie.”
    “It’s Sunday, and the banquet is Friday. There’s no way.”
    “Obviously you’ve never been called into the NASCAR hauler after a race you just screwed up and had to face Skippy. Remember the time I flipped Junior the bird on national television? And the time I got pissed off and punted Shrub into the wall and caused a seven-car wreck? Trust me, we’ll make the banquet.”
    “Where are we going?” I asked Hooker. “Where are we going to sleep tonight?”
    “I thought I’d go to Kannapolis. I figure they won’t look for us there. No one intentionally goes to Kannapolis.”
     
    “This is it?” I asked Hooker. “This is where we’re going to spend the night?”
    “You don’t like it?”
    “We’re parked in front of a house.”
    “Yeah, we’re tucked between a bunch of cars that belong here. We’re invisible. And my buddy Ralph lives two houses down. He lives alone in one of these ramshackle little houses, and he’ll leave for work tomorrow at six in the morning. And he never locks his house. Got nothing worth taking, if you don’t count a fridge full of Bud. So we can go in and use his bathroom and not get busted.”
    “That’s great, but I need a bathroom
now
.”
    “There’s a patch of woods two blocks from here. I was planning on walking Beans and hiding behind a tree. You’re welcome to join me.”
    “You’ve got to be kidding. Women don’t hide behind trees. We aren’t built for it. Our socks get wet.”
    Hooker looked down the block at Ralph’s house. “We could probably trust Ralph to let us stay with him tonight. Ralph’s the one person who wouldn’t get accused of aiding and abetting. Nobody would ever think Ralph knew what he was doing. He’s a good guy, but his primary skill is his ability to open a beer can.”
    Hooker searched for Ralph’s name and dialed it. “Hey, man,” Hooker said. “How’s it going? Are you alone? I need a place to crash tonight.”
    Five minutes later, we were standing at Ralph’s back door. Hooker, Beans, and me. I had a bag of clothes. Hooker had a bag of junk food. Beans had himself.
    Ralph opened the door and looked out at us. “Whoa, dude, you got a family.” He stepped to one side. “Me casa is your casa.”
    Ralph was raw-boned skinny. His snarled brown hair was shoulder length. Baggy jeans hung frighteningly low on plaid boxers. His shirt was rumpled and unbuttoned. He had a beer can in his hand.
    Hooker made the introductions, and then he and Ralph did one of those complicated bonding handshake things that men do when they don’t want to hug.
    “We’re sort of hiding out,” Hooker said to Ralph. “I don’t want anyone to know we’re here.”
    “Gotcha,” Ralph said. “Her old man’s looking for her, right?”
    “Yeah,” Hooker said. “Something like that.”
    Ralph