Read Online Carl Hiaasen by Lucky You - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: Lucky You
Tags: Fiction, General, Humorous, Action & Adventure, Mystery & Detective, Florida, White Supremacy Movements, Lottery Winners, Newspaper Reporters, Militia Movement, White Supremancy Movements
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Soon the Road-Stain Jesus was regionally famous, as was Shiner’s mother. Nothing much went right for him after that.
One day he came home to find her burning his collection of heavy-metal CDs, which she had taken to calling “devil wafers.” She forbade him to drink beer or smoke cigarets, and threatened to withhold his five-dollar weekly allowance if he didn’t stayhome Friday nights and sing hymns. To get out of the house (and far away from the pilgrims who came regularly to snap his mother’s picture) Shiner joined the army. In less than a month he washed out of basic training, and returned to Grange twenty pounds lighter but infinitely more sullen than when he’d left. To a depressed job market Shiner brought neither an adequate education nor practical work skills, so he wound up working the graveyard shift at the Grab N’Go, doubles on Saturday. Nothing much happened except for the stickups, which occurred every second or third weekend. Some nights barely a half dozen customers came through the door, leaving Shiner loads of free time to paw through the latest
Hustler
or
Swank
. He was always careful to sneak the nudie magazines back to the frozen-food aisle, the only place in the store that was blocked from the fish-eye gaze of the security camera. Shiner would dissect the magazines and arrange his favorite snatch shots across the Plexiglas lid of the ice-cream freezer—it was colder than a frog’s balls back there, but he couldn’t risk getting caught at the front of the store. His mother would be ruined if her only son got fired for whacking off on the job, especially on videotape. Even though Shiner was mad at his Ma, he didn’t want to hurt her feelings.
At 2 a.m. on the morning of November 27, he was hunched feverishly over a
Best of Jugs
when he heard the jingle of the cat bell that was fastened to the store’s front door. He tucked himself in and hurried up toward the register. It took him a moment to recognize the two customers as the same men who’d stopped by earlier in the evening for jerky and Quick Picks. Clearly they’d been in an awesome bar fight.
“The hell happened to you boys?” Shiner asked.
The short one, dressed in camo, asked for Band-Aids. The one with the ponytail requested malt liquor. Shiner obliged—finally, some excitement! He helped the men clean and bind their multiple wounds. The camouflaged one introduced himselfas Bodean Gazzer, Bode for short. He said his friend was called Chub.
“Pleased to meetcha,” said Shiner.
“Son, we need your help.”
“OK.”
Bode said, “You believe in God and family?”
Shiner hesitated. Not this again—more pilgrims!
But then Chub said, “You believe in guns?”
“The right to bear arms,” Bode Gazzer clarified. “It’s in the Constitution.”
“Sure,” said Shiner.
“You got a gun?”
“Course,” Shiner answered.
“Excellent. And the white man—you believe in the white man?”
“Goddamn right!”
“Good,” Bode Gazzer said.
He told Shiner to take a hard look at himself. Look at where he’d ended up, behind the counter of a miserable motherfucking convenience store, waiting on Cubans and Negroes and Jews and probably even a few Indians.
Chub said, “How old are you, boy?”
“Nineteen.”
“And this is your grand plan for life?” Chub sneered as he waved a hand around the store. “This is your, whatchamacallit, your birthright?”
“Hell, no.” Shiner found it difficult to meet Chub’s gaze; the split eyelid was distracting and creepy. The closed portion hung pale and unblinking, a torn drape behind which the yolky bloodshot eyeball would intermittently disappear.
“I bet you didn’t know,” Bode Gazzer said, “your hard-earned tax dollars are payin’ for a crack NATO army to invade the U.S.A.”
Shiner had no clue what the camouflaged man was talking about, though he didn’t let on. He’d never heard of NATO and in his entire life hadn’t paid enough in income taxes to finance a
One day he came home to find her burning his collection of heavy-metal CDs, which she had taken to calling “devil wafers.” She forbade him to drink beer or smoke cigarets, and threatened to withhold his five-dollar weekly allowance if he didn’t stayhome Friday nights and sing hymns. To get out of the house (and far away from the pilgrims who came regularly to snap his mother’s picture) Shiner joined the army. In less than a month he washed out of basic training, and returned to Grange twenty pounds lighter but infinitely more sullen than when he’d left. To a depressed job market Shiner brought neither an adequate education nor practical work skills, so he wound up working the graveyard shift at the Grab N’Go, doubles on Saturday. Nothing much happened except for the stickups, which occurred every second or third weekend. Some nights barely a half dozen customers came through the door, leaving Shiner loads of free time to paw through the latest
Hustler
or
Swank
. He was always careful to sneak the nudie magazines back to the frozen-food aisle, the only place in the store that was blocked from the fish-eye gaze of the security camera. Shiner would dissect the magazines and arrange his favorite snatch shots across the Plexiglas lid of the ice-cream freezer—it was colder than a frog’s balls back there, but he couldn’t risk getting caught at the front of the store. His mother would be ruined if her only son got fired for whacking off on the job, especially on videotape. Even though Shiner was mad at his Ma, he didn’t want to hurt her feelings.
At 2 a.m. on the morning of November 27, he was hunched feverishly over a
Best of Jugs
when he heard the jingle of the cat bell that was fastened to the store’s front door. He tucked himself in and hurried up toward the register. It took him a moment to recognize the two customers as the same men who’d stopped by earlier in the evening for jerky and Quick Picks. Clearly they’d been in an awesome bar fight.
“The hell happened to you boys?” Shiner asked.
The short one, dressed in camo, asked for Band-Aids. The one with the ponytail requested malt liquor. Shiner obliged—finally, some excitement! He helped the men clean and bind their multiple wounds. The camouflaged one introduced himselfas Bodean Gazzer, Bode for short. He said his friend was called Chub.
“Pleased to meetcha,” said Shiner.
“Son, we need your help.”
“OK.”
Bode said, “You believe in God and family?”
Shiner hesitated. Not this again—more pilgrims!
But then Chub said, “You believe in guns?”
“The right to bear arms,” Bode Gazzer clarified. “It’s in the Constitution.”
“Sure,” said Shiner.
“You got a gun?”
“Course,” Shiner answered.
“Excellent. And the white man—you believe in the white man?”
“Goddamn right!”
“Good,” Bode Gazzer said.
He told Shiner to take a hard look at himself. Look at where he’d ended up, behind the counter of a miserable motherfucking convenience store, waiting on Cubans and Negroes and Jews and probably even a few Indians.
Chub said, “How old are you, boy?”
“Nineteen.”
“And this is your grand plan for life?” Chub sneered as he waved a hand around the store. “This is your, whatchamacallit, your birthright?”
“Hell, no.” Shiner found it difficult to meet Chub’s gaze; the split eyelid was distracting and creepy. The closed portion hung pale and unblinking, a torn drape behind which the yolky bloodshot eyeball would intermittently disappear.
“I bet you didn’t know,” Bode Gazzer said, “your hard-earned tax dollars are payin’ for a crack NATO army to invade the U.S.A.”
Shiner had no clue what the camouflaged man was talking about, though he didn’t let on. He’d never heard of NATO and in his entire life hadn’t paid enough in income taxes to finance a
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