“You really won’t like me if I gotta resuscitate you with a boat battery and a set of rusty jumper cables.” Growls the monstrously obese woman in a roughly worn denim dress. Slowly she circles the badly battered man tied to a wicker chair. Sweat trickling down her brow and collecting in pools along her waistband at the back of her skirt. Her wedged heels are cracked and smudged with a mixture of dirt and Bob’s blood, among other things. “Stay with me Bobby, I know the room is hot and all, but… just hang in there big man.” After walking a full circle around the restrained Bob, she leans over at her thick waist to lift his head by the sweat soaked patch of hair. A straggly tuft of grey brown crusted with his own blood. Lifting his chin with her greasy sausage fingers Bob grins through cracked lips, showing off the remains of shattered teeth. He spits a thick glob of bloody phlegm onto the fat womans skirt. “Don’t you worry ’bout me Doris, I’ve got you pegged – babydoll.” With a grimace she drops his head and watches it hang and sway under it’s own weight. Stepping away from the chair and the small violently hot room, she nods at the guards just outside the heavy metal doors. With a scrape the two men get up from their seats, one cracks his knuckles and the other wipes off his glasses with a corner of his t-shirt. Doris shuts the door behind her as the guards step into the room. Not a moment passes as the sounds of a fight break out.
“You fucker! I almost laughed when you called me Doris. Dickhead. You were supposed to call me Delores.” She barks out in a raspy laugh. Bob, a medium sized man with an array of bumps, bruises and lacerations covering his body looks up from his White Castle burger and grins. “You didn’t exactly pull any punches yourself – shit teeth. I gotta find a dentist or something, right fucking quick. Why’d you use a bat anyhow? I thought we agreed on fists only. Cunt.” Bob gums on the last few swallows of his mushed burger. Taking his time dunking the bread and meat patty in his Cola cup. Taking a gulp of his drink and squashing his waffle fries in his hands before slurping down the paste. “Christ almighty this hurts.” He warbles through a mouth full of mush. “Dust your gums with a little coke, and nut up.” She replies tossing a massive ziploc bag of nose candy into Bob’s lap.
After a long, and mostly silent drive out into the desert of Arizona along the historic route 66, Robert and Mary Hutchins pull into a pock marked parking lot of a Motel 6. The vacancy sign flashing a dim neon pink intermittently showing swarms of winged insects. The back end of their nineteen ninety four Ford Taurus is riding decidedly low. Straining as it is, under the weight of various bodies tied up and bound together in the trunk. The late evening sun making the trunk hot to the touch. “How long you think they got?” Asks Bob, chucking the keys over hand out into the field beyond the now dim parking lot. “I don’t know? Why? You really give a shit?” She drawls in response. “No – no I don’t. I do however, gotta see a dentist. Fuck.” He spits out a thick glob of blood, and a tooth chip. Reaching into the back window Bob pulls out a dazzlingly turquoise leather Gucci bag, it has some heft to it.
The couple exit the parking lot on foot, cross over the sun baked black asphalt of route 66 to a small lot set beside a CVS. Open the doors to a pewter coloured mini van and drive off back towards Las Vegas Nevada. With the windows down, and the ac cranked, Mary turns on the radio. They drive off with the sound of Bob Seager trailing behind them in the sweltering night. The sky is a pink, orange, navy blue combo, and the stars begin to twinkle.
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