Scenes 31, 32 & 33

Blinky exits the Star-Lite. The relentless gray of the day has yeilded to the beginnings of a sunset.

He walks through the exhausted commercial smattering of the exit. He passes a venison-prepping business with a yellow sign showing an elk head. There’s a trenchdigger dealership, and a derelict Hen House restaurant. Blinky looks at the blank cinder block walls and the dumpsters and the spinning fan things atop the flat roofs. He picks his way across the enormous, littered lot behind the Fuel King.

Blinky squats for a moment at the base of a giant streetlight. He looks across at the overpass.

He watches a semi-truck hauling a big load of steel coils disappear down the highway. Then a car with a canoe tied to its top, and a pickup carrying debris. Next comes an Extra Wide Load, jeeps with bikes, a man with a sack. Blinky, so accustomed to all things quick and light, is beginning to discover gravity. He’s weighed down by the spectacle. He labors under the concept.

Myron’s anxiety has nested right in between his shoulder blades.

The sun casts long blue shadows across the earth. The engines groan. Orange light inflames the asphalt and the signage. Blinky trudges back to the station, stooped over a little, like he’s got osteoperosis or something. Or possibly an anvil on his back.

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32


“Did you see that guy that was here?” says Myron.

“What guy?”

“The Indian.” Charlene makes a crooked face.

“I think maybe I just had a hallu--. I hallucinated,” says Myron.

“Oh,” says Charlene. “Of an Indian?”

“Never mind,” says Myron.

Chalene is blowing over the hole in Myron’s empty beer bottle, trying to produce a sound. It’s working, sort of.

“I think I want another drink,” he says.

_______________

33


Old Mr. Quinn is sitting at his breakfast nook in Naples, Florida.

Q has a bunch of law books out, and a legal pad. The guy is up there in age, but he’s still got his shock of white hair and his can-do fighting spirit.

Like many victims of the various Sucke swindles, Q has tried to reach someone inside the organization; also like the others, he’s gotten lost inside the Byzantine SBE, Ltd. voice mail systerm. But Q has not let up. He’s working on the beginnings of a class-action lawsuit against Sucke Brothers Enterprises, Ltd. He’s writing letters with a fountain pen.

In the meantime, Q’s condo is on the market. And he’s looking for commerical opportunities.