�You mean the one with its head in my crotch?� I asked coldly.
�He is a rascal, ain�t he just?� she laughed, presenting an assortment of unhealthy-coloured molars that made it look as if she had a mouth full of pilau rice.
�Yeah,� I echoed, wondering if killing cats was legal. �Ain�t he just.� I was in no position to complain (no matter how much one of her cats mistook my carrots n� onions to be a ball of wool), as she�d been the only decent so-and-so to pick me up in the four hours and a half hours I had spent thumbing it. I just hoped she wasn�t expecting any kind of �service� in return, if you catch my drift�
Her older-than-me pickup chugged along at a crawling pace. We were moving so slow that at one point she�d even had me running ahead to make sure nothing was approaching fast around the next bend. If I lifted the hood to find a stove rather than an engine I wouldn�t have been gob smacked.
The night had long since taken up residence when we arrived in Jefferson Tract, two hours later than the time I would have arrived if I�d have hiked it. My hangover had mercifully gone the way of the Dodo but another ailment had took it�s place; seven hours in an enclosed space with eight cats, a batty old dame positively reeking of mothballs (and worse) can�t be good for you.
I didn�t waste an instant as I thrust my door ajar so quick that I thought it was going to come away at the rust. I gulped in the night air. As if on cue the first speckles of a no doubt hefty downfall pattered upon my shoulders. I thanked her kindly (in other words, I lied) and went on my merry way. Where my merry way was however, I hadn�t yet worked out. It was the dead of night and the only folks I met on my meander through the town of roughly three thousand residents were the odd cat-burglar doing their rounds here and there.
There were only two hotels in this town as, as you can no doubt imagine, Jefferson Tract wasn�t the main port of call for your average, this-side-of-sanity tourist. I had more chance of finding a one-legged ballerina than I had of getting a room in either of those. Seeing as all the brothels were closing where else was there to do a spot of - nah, better not; this is supposed to be one for all the family and so am trying my best to keep this second part cleaner than a preacher�s vest.
The night was blacker than a judge�s heart. The sky was moonless which didn�t come as a surprise, as, in this anything-but-law-abiding town, leave something that shiny lying about in the sky someone would most likely try and pocket it. Something that did occupy the skies, and plenty of them, were clouds of the rain-bearing sort.
I passed by a convenience store and in the window I noticed a sign. It read:
Shoplifters will be thumped, stabbed and shot.
Survivors will be prosecuted.
Underneath that was another notice. This one read:
Police Warning!
The police have issued a warning for citizens to keep a lookout for the notorious cross-eyed burglar. House owners have been advised that if you see him looking through your windows then you are to warn the people next door.
I had been walking for roughly twenty minutes when I tripped over something hard - almost bust my toe on it - but, preventing spending an enjoyable evening with a mouth that was a few teeth lighter, I luckily caught a hold of something, something wooden. I could feel stones moving under my feet as I ran my hand along the edge of whatever had saved me a trip to the dentist. Whatever it was it was huge and suddenly, thinking of size, my mind veered back to that morning as I remembered the anything-but-petite disposition of Miss Burger King nineteen thirty nine and what she was paying me to do.
I shouted: �F**k!� in a meaningful kind of way - the kind of way you adopt when you�ve just being doing a spot of illegal shopping and you�ve just spotted the store detective following you in the reflection of a passing automobile - as a splinter the length of a pencil slid into my palm. That�s what you get for rubbing your hand along an un-sanded wooden surface in pitch-effin-darkness. Using my other hand (I apparently hadn�t learnt) I continued where the other hand had left off and was thankful that I found an opening and a ledge before I acquired a matching piece of wood in that one too.
The downpour, like my mood, started to get lousier. There was nothing for it. I thrust my hand into the interior of the whatever-it-was, and, seeing as it seemed dry in there, unlike the place the majority of my body currently occupied, which was starting to take on the similar atmosphere of a fish tank, I hoisted myself up and into the appreciatively dry space, caring little for what this place was.
Clumps of straw and hay littered the floor. I lay myself down and was amazed at how comfortable it was. I hadn�t felt comfort like this since the days before the massage parlour down on forty-second had been raided. I felt as if I could sleep for days and so, it wasn�t exactly an eternity before I was knocking the Z�s out.
I dreamt, strange as it sounds, that I was on a train. I passed a station where my target, Joe Kerr - and indeed he was of similar stature to his daughter, as he too looked too large to be allowed - was enjoying a hot dog, or fifteen. The train though failed to stop and I had to watch helplessly as his smiling, flabby cheeks and wobbling hotdogs disappeared into the distance.
I suddenly awoke - or I thought I had, as it felt as though my dream was still in full swing and I was still a passenger on that blasted train. Maybe it�s a dream inside a dream, I considered uncaringly, and decided to go back asleep in my dream. In my carefree state I rather enjoyed the rhythmic clunk of the tracks beneath me and was three-quarters of the way to the Land of Nod when suddenly, thanks to something of the wriggly assortment entering my earlobe, I jumped like an acrobat who�s just sat on a porcupine.
During the course of the next three seconds I learnt three things: one, creepy crawlies that are green and fluffy emit a yellowish liquid when squashed; two, I wasn�t the only occupier of this wooden box, as a dirty grey, no-doubt-a-prime-location-for-fleas dog stood over yonder next to a pile of grubby rags a bit too close for comfort as it looked like it had long since forgotten what eating felt like - oh, and the third and probably most important was that I discovered that the dream I had thought to have been a dream hadn�t in fact been a dream - as it was in fact reality. That�s right folks, I was on a choo-choo.