I gape at him.

– You can’t use the bathroom. For customers only.

I don’t need the bathroom. I need. Oh, crap, what do I need? I look around the store. What did I want? No clue. I reach in my pocket and feel around. Guns: two. Check. Cigarettes: none. Check. Cigarettes! I need cigarettes. I take the empty Benson & Hedges box from my pocket, walk to the counter, and show it to the kid. He finishes the page he’s reading, puts down his comic, and looks at the crushed box.

– Benson & Hedges?

I hold up two fingers, and he reaches up to the rack above the counter, grabs two packs.

– Seven even.

I hand him a hundred. He takes it and holds it up to the light, then rings in the sale. I take my smokes and the change and he picks up his comic.

Cool, I’ve achieved something. He lowers his comic a bit and looks at me still standing there.

– What?

Huh?

– You need something else, hombre?

Uh?

– Yes? No?

I shrug.

– So get lost then.

Lost! I look around the store again, and see the maps on the magazine rack. I grab one of Vegas and hand it to the kid. He slaps his comic down on the counter.

– Fucking A. Three ninety-five.

I walk out of the store, map in one hand, cigarettes in the other, and get blinded by the headlights of a car as it pulls up to the pumps. I head for the light cast by a street lamp, and sit down on the curb. I open the map and run down the lists of street names, looking for Commerce. I find it and trace it until it runs into the intersection with West California where the gas station sits. OK, this is a start, I know where I am. I smudge some grease from my finger onto the spot so I won’t lose it. Now, what is Tim’s address? Shit! I had it before. I know where Tim lives, and his address is? Oh, fuck me!

I’m cold and tired and lost and I’ve had enough and I want, I want, I want to call home. I’ve got a phone. But I can’t call home. I can’t do that to them.

Sitting still isn’t good. It’s too easy to feel the pain. Pain spiking my head, throbbing in my thigh, and scratching at a hundred nicks and bruises. My head drops forward, my arms flop at my sides, the map held limply. I’m in bad shape. I know I’m in bad shape. I gotta get out of here, I gotta get up off the ground and go somewhere and get some sleep. I’ll be so much better if I can just get some sleep, give my brain a chance to shut down. Where? Where am I gonna go? What am I gonna do?

I dig a cigarette out of one of my fresh packs.

Where are my matches? I paw through my pockets looking for a match. Where are my goddamn matches? I empty everything from my pockets except for the guns, and dump it all on the cement between my legs. Map, cell phone, charger, cigarettes, Christmas card, empty matchbook, a crumpled pile of hundreds and twenties, a spill of change. Headlights blast me from behind and a car horn jolts me to my feet. I spin, the car from the pumps is a few feet from me, its horn blaring. The silhouette of a head emerges from the driver’s window.

– Get the fuck out of the way!

I look around. I’m right in the middle of the entrance to the station. The driver honks again, loud and long. I hold up a hand, palm out toward the car, bend down to pick up my stuff, and step out of the way as the car moves forward. It’s a taxi. The driver looks at me as he eases past, shakes his head in disgust. I stand there with my hands full of junk. Map, cell, charger, smokes, Christmas card, money.

Christmas card!

The cabby taps his brakes, halting for a moment as a bus drives past. I run up to his open window and stick the red Christmas envelope inside.

– Here, I need to go here.

He ducks back from me and pushes my hand away.

– Fuck off!

I have my head and right shoulder stuck in the window. He tries to shake me loose, and I stumble alongside the crawling cab. I shove the envelope in his face.

– Here!

He’s looking less pissed and more scared now as he slaps at his armrest, trying to roll up his window, but only succeeding in locking and unlocking the doors over and over. I get my other hand inside the window and shake a handful of cash at him. The taxi stops moving.

– A hundred bucks. I’ll give you a hundred.

He looks at the envelope I’m sticking in his face.

– That address is in California.

What? Oh, Christ.

– The other one, the return.

His eyes move to the return address and then to the money in my other hand.

– Two hundred.

– Two hundred.

I peel off two hundreds and hand them to him along with the card in its envelope, then I pull open the back door and flop across the seat.

– You puke or piss or anything back there and it’s gonna cost you another hundred.

The taxi starts to move. I close my eyes.

I OPEN my eyes.

Fuck me; oh fuck me, what am I doing? I look around. Taxi. Got it, I remember. I scooch up in the seat. The cabby is looking at me in the rearview.

– Too much tonight, buddy?

Way too much.

– Yeah.

He stops at a red light.

– In town for the rodeo?

Rodeo?

– Uh.

– Only guys I see as messed up as you are cowboys. You a cowboy?

I laugh.

– Yeah, yeah, I’m a cowboy.

– I figured. Couldn’t pay me enough. Crazy shit.

– Yeah, crazy-shit cowboy, that’s me.

He’s looking at me again in the mirror.

– It’s about a ten-minute ride. Go ahead and take a nap. I’ll wake you.

A nap. That sounds good. I close my eyes.

SOMEONE IS pulling on me. I open my eyes.

– OK, buddy, here we are.

The cabby is tugging me out of the back of his cab. I jerk free and get out, almost fall, and he catches me.

– I got ya.

He’s leading me toward a rust-streaked, white and turquoise trailer. We’re in a trailer park. He helps me up the steps to a small porch and plops me onto a beat-up couch, setting off an eruption of dust. I cough. He points at the trailer.

– OK, this is the place. Don’t look like anyone’s home.

He’s whispering.

– How can ya tell?

– I knocked.

He’s still whispering.

– Just lie down.

He pushes on my shoulder. I lie back on the couch and close my eyes.

– Here’s your Christmas card back.

Still whispering. I feel his hand shoving the card deep in my hip pocket. His hand grasping.

I grab his wrist and lurch up from the couch. He takes a step back, my hand locked on his wrist, his hand still deep in my pocket. I jerk it out and it comes free; the card and a litter of my cash dropping from his fingers. He yanks his hand away. Both of us standing now, he sees just how big I am, how big he is not. I take another step toward him. His eyes are huge. He’s appalled at what he’s tried to do: roll a crazed drunk.

– Easy, buddy.

But I don’t want to be easy. I’ve been easy, now I want to be hard. Instead, I trip over my own feet and fall onto the porch. The cabby seizes the moment, runs to his taxi, and speeds away toward the entrance of the trailer park.

I lower my head. The Astro Turf that covers the porch scruffs against my ear. I look across the flat plain of the porch at my scattered money, and the Christmas card a few inches from my face. I grab the card and roll onto my back. I take the card from its envelope and hold it up to catch the light from one of the lamps that illuminate the park.

It’s a homemade job, worked up on Photoshop or something. It’s a still from A Charlie Brown Christmas, the part where Lucy is flirting with Schroeder, bent over his piano trying to get him to play “Jingle Bells.” The still has been altered. Charlie Brown is standing next to his director’s chair shouting “Action” into his megaphone. Schroeder is playing the piano, he’s naked except for blinders and a red ball-gag. Snoopy is dancing on the piano in front of Lucy, his big dog dick stuck in her mouth. The caption reads “EUGH! DOG GERMS.” Inside is another altered still that features Charlie and Lucy engaged in an act of coprophilia with the caption “Of all the Charlie Browns, you’re the Charlie Browniest.” Charlie’s face has been removed from this one and T has superimposed his own.