Larry Underwood, dressed in a tuxedo and smoking a cigar, was stalling for time. His mother was glaring at him in a way that said he would never be forgiven again. It was time for him to, maybe boogie on down to L.A. for a club gig that could keep him going until he found new studio work.

“Hey, ma, don’t,” Larry said, crushing out his cigar. The smoke cloud drifted to the ceiling. He looked at her pleadingly. “Can’t we talk about this?”

Larry’s mother shook her head in a violent negative. She was so angry with him that she wouldn’t look at him or speak to him. Her fists, which were neatly trimmed and clean, made balls against her hips. As she stood over her son, her face changed from thunderous anger to woeful sorrow, a miraculous transformation which Larry knew meant he would be out on his ass in the street soon.

“You can’t commit to anything, can you?” Mom said, in a tired voice. She threw herself down in a chair, which creaked in upset protest. “Why are you here, Larry? What do you want?”

I wanted my mother, that’s all, Larry thought miserably. He looked down at his lap and saw his fly was unzipped but did nothing to correct the deficiency. “I’m sorry, can’t we start again?”

“There’s no starting over with you. You’re damaged goods. I can’t take this anymore. I’m going to work. Have a nice day.”

Larry was horrified enough to widen his eyes. She was leaving him alone! Don’t go, ma! Don’t! Larry panicked, then stood up with a scrape of wooden chair legs. “No, mom, listen, we can go to a movie, have fun, talk — anything, I’ll do anything!”

His pleadings fell on deaf ears. She ignored him as she gathered up her things (purse, handkerchief neck protector, car keys) and prepared to leave. As she was stepping out the door, she spared him one final glance. Larry, in abject defeat before his mother, hung his head. “Absolutely not,” she said, then left. The door slammed behind her.

Whether it involved writing lyrics, making music on his guitar, or just breathing in the atmosphere of some hot new club, Larry’s life was a long sequence of switched-up interests that only lasted long enough to birth the new one.

Larry walked to the window to see if his ma was out of sight. There she was, struggling to get into her Korean compact car. Her ass was as big as a crowbar held horizontally, and she moved eternally slow, as if conscious of her weight of presence.

Finally, she was driving out for God knew where. Larry’s heart began to beat a little more normally and he relaxed somewhat. At ease in her kitchen, he looked in the fridge for some vanilla ice cream to eat.

= = =

Stu Redman was pissed off, royally so. In the East Texas heat, with sludge water filling up with mosquitoes that buzzed around and around, there was no respite from the soaring temperature. If Dallas was overcrowded from end to end, then Arnette, Tx, could just as easily be described as an unpopulated death zone.

Still, Stu was moderately appeased by Hap waving to him from across the street. There was bad blood between them now, that had to be acknowledged. Hap, whose fat ass and arms wobbled while he moved from lamp post to lamp post, still needed to be respected and liked. Stu wasn’t going to give that to him, so he moved away from the gas station toward the highway that wound in a wide curve toward the north.

Hap followed Stu home. Stu lived in a modest house on Truckerby Lane, two streets away from the rushing highway. Like a great many other citizens of Arnette, Stu was poor. His only memory of comfort came from when he was a baby, snoring in a crib placidly.

= = =

The Walking Dude was walking along the side of the highway, mere steps from tall bushes and overgrown grass, when a car appeared in the night. Fading out quickly, the Dude hid himself as well as he could, hoping for the best. The car passed by in a blur of motion, like a dream. The Walking Dude nodded in self-important approval: that was right, keep going, buddy.

He re-emerged with his backpack in his hands, containing R. Crumb combs, Hitler pamphlets, and the blasphemous last section of the Mormon bible. The Walking Dude was a man who knew what he liked to read, and didn’t care what you thought of it. His hair, blowing in the savage wind, blew back in awkward strands. He walked steadily until he reached the turnpike. When he heard a transport truck approaching, then got a dose of the truck’s air horn, he jumped to one side to avoid being hit.