Velocity

short while, without conscious intention, to the truck stop. He parked where he had parked before, in front of the diner.
    His left hand ached. When he fisted and opened it, he could feel that it had begun to swell. The Vicodin had worn off. He didn’t know whether or not he should take another, but he should get some Motrin.
    He was hungry, but the thought of another candy bar curdled his appetite. He needed a caffeine jolt, but he wanted more than pills.
    After stowing the pistol and the revolver under the front seat, in spite of the broken-out window that left the vehicle unsecured, he went inside.
    At 3:40 in the morning, he had his choice of empty booths.
    Four truckers sat on stools at the counter, drinking coffee and eating pie.
    They were attended by a beefy waitress with the neck of an NFL fullback and the face of an angel. In her masses of hair, dyed shoe-polish black, she wore yellow butterfly bows.
    Billy sat at the counter.
     
     
     

Chapter 67
     
    According to the tag on her uniform, the waitress’s name was Jasmine. She called Billy “honey,” and served the black coffee and lemon pie that he ordered.
    Jasmine and the truckers were in a lively conversation when Billy settled on a stool among them. From their exchanges, he learned that one of the men was named Curly, another Arvin. No one addressed the third man as anything but “you,” and the fourth had an upper gold tooth in the front of his mouth.
    At first they were talking about the lost continent of Atlantis. Arvin proposed that the destruction of that fabled civilization had come to pass because the Atlanteans had gotten involved in genetic engineering and had bred monsters that destroyed them.
    This quickly turned the subject from Atlantis to cloning and DNA research, soon after which Curly mentioned the fact that at Princeton or Harvard, or Yale, at one of those hellholes or another, scientists were trying to create a pig with a human brain.
    “I’m not sure that’s so new,” Jasmine said. “Over the years, let me tell you, I’ve met my share of human pigs.”
    “What would be the purpose of a humanized pig?” Arvin wondered.
    “Just because it’s there,” said Y.
    “It’s where?”
    “Like a mountain is just there,” You clarified. “So some people have to climb it. Other people, they’ve got to make a humanized pig just because maybe they can.”
    “What work would it do?” Gold Tooth asked.
    “I don’t think they mean for it to have a job,” Curly said.
    “They mean for it to do something,” Gold Tooth said.
    “One thing’s for sure,” Jasmine declared, “the activists will go nuts.”
    “What activists?” Arvin asked.
    “One kind of activist or another,” she said. “Once you’ve got pigs with human brains, that’s the end of anyone allowed to eat ham or bacon.”
    “I don’t see why,” said Curly. “The ham and bacon will still come from the pigs that haven’t been humanized.”
    “It’ll be a sympathy thing,” Jasmine predicted. “How’re you going to justify eating ham and bacon when your kids go to school with smart pigs and ask them home for sleepovers?”
    “That’ll never happen,” You said.
    “Never,” Arvin agreed.
    “What’ll happen,” Jasmine said, “is these fools playing around with human genes, they’ll do something stupid and kill us all.”
    Not one of the four truckers disagreed. Neither did Billy.
    Gold Tooth still felt the scientists had in mind some kind of work for a humanized pig. “They don’t spend millions of dollars on something like this just for the fun of it, not those people.”
    “Oh, they do,” Jasmine disagreed. “Money means nothing to them. It isn’t theirs.”
    “It’s taxpayer money,” said Curly. “Yours and mine.”
    Billy offered a comment or two, but he mostly listened, familiar with these conversational rhythms, and curiously warmed by them.
    The coffee was rich. The pie tasted wonderfully lemony and was topped with toasted meringue.
    He was surprised by how calm he felt. Just sitting at the counter, just listening.
    “You want to talk about a total waste of money,” said Gold Tooth, “look at this damn fool monstrosity they’re building out by the highway.”
    “What—you mean across from the tavern, the thing they’re gonna burn when they no sooner finish it?” Arvin asked.
    “Oh, but it’s art,” Jasmine archly reminded them.
    “I don’t see how it’s art,” You said. “Doesn’t what’s art have to