T-R-O-U-B-L-E

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The deputy wrote down our names and car license. Then Dad looked at me and rolled his eyes up, sorta like he was saying it wasn't T-R-O-U-B-L-E, but just regular old trouble now. He opened the door and squeezed the cream out on his hand and started to rub it all over my legs, cold at first but then it felt better. He started to put the cap on and I said to put on more so he did.

The deputy shook his head and started up his car and drove off. The white car turned different colors and got all curvy from the heat rays and then it was gone.

I looked around at the dry hills and the palm trees and the gas pumps and the store. Everything felt fake, like those flying saucer movies where they hung a hubcap off a wire and jiggled it to look like flying.

We waited with the car doors open and then drove off on the same road. I couldn't feel anything weird happen. Except that snake felt like it was crawling around. But it was just drops of sweat. The car was always hot until the air conditioner got going but Dad wouldn't open the windows, 'cause it would mess up her hair. Then he rolled his window down and Candy Ass started telling him off and they were making so much noise I put my hands over my ears and yelled out Hellsonofabitch!

Why you little shit, Dad yelled and reached back over the seat and nailed me, but not too hard. I knew how to dodge. In that ugly ol' Dodge.

You lie down on the damn seat and I don't wanna hear another peep out of you, or there's gonna be T-R-O-U-B-L-E he said. And Candy just looked at me 'til I wanted to poke her eyes out, telling everybody she was Dad's fiancé and stuff. Fat ass liar.

I laid down and that snake moved. Icky! The air conditioner was going but it didn't come in the back seat when you were lying down, unless you put your head against the door. So I slid over.

We got to the place where the road went up and down. The Dips. I rolled a little with each one and could feel that snake. I rolled over towards the back and it was hotter, because the cool air didn't hit your face. The Dips kept on dipping. The Dodge would bottom out on each one and then on the next crest, feel like it was taking off. Dad let out a whoop every time, like it was big fun.

Then we were past the Dips and the road flattened out across the desert, all this gravel and weird green bushes and dead stuff. Probably poison lizards and snakes hid out underneath, waiting for sundown.

Dear—I'm feeling rather nauseous, Candy Ass said.

Why don't you put your head down on my lap, Dad said, and there was rustling.

How's that, he said.

Much better, she said. Mmmmmmm.

Dad looked away from the road, at me lying there on the back seat. Our eyes met. He nodded and looked down at his lap, then out the windshield again. His shoulder dipped and the radio clicked on. News.

World-famous scientist Dr. Albert Schweitzer today called for an end to nuclear testing, saying that it poses a danger to children yet unborn. His statement was followed by a speech from the Kremlin, in which Russian premier Nikita Kruschev claimed that U.S. nuclear testing threatens the peace-loving nations of the earth.

What a buncha crap, Dad said. If we didn't have the bomb, the commies would be marching in next week.

Then there was a commercial—luxurious rooms, a ten-million dollar addition to the fabulous Las Vegas Strip. . . the spectacular Lido de Paris, featuring. . . dusk- to-dawn entertainment in the Stardust Lounge featuring the Mary Kaye Trio.

We kept on toward the main highway. The car was a little bit cooler, but I could feel those dates sorta slithering around in my stomach, like big, fat bugs.

Dad started breathing through his nose. Candy Ass wiggled around on the seat. She thought she was slick, but I could hear the zipper. One tick at a time, like a little clock. Then some rustling and a slurpy sound.

I reached down the elastic of my pink shorts and got that snake, and held it up to my face and breathed the rubber smell. It was supposed to be a rattler, with these little balls in pairs down the tail. It was still warm from my underpants.

Candy Ass was getting down to it. Mmmm-mmm–mmm. The car was slowing way down, then speeding up, kinda jerky-like.

Whoever tried to paint the fangs must've slipped. The white streaks didn't match the ones molded on. It had a tongue painted, a little red stump coming out of its lips.

I put that ol' snake's head in my mouth and I bit it off.

The rubber squeaked inside and made my teeth itch, so I chewed it into pieces and then spit it out into the crack between the bottom and back of the seat. Guess I swallowed some. Where the head used to be it was shiny. The car was hardly going. I bit off some more.

The snake's belly was sticky from me sweating so much. I rubbed it on the back of the seat to dry it off some. I didn't want to look at my Dad. Then the car sped way up.

Uhh-ohhh said Daddy. Ah-ahhhhhh.

His head rolled back and the car sped way up.

Goddamshitpisssonofabitch! I didn't say it out loud. Then I grabbed that ol' rubber snake and chucked it over the seat, so it would land right on Candy Ass's face. She made a weird noise and Dad hollered like he'd been shot.

The car went off the road and made a big bang.

When I woke up, I was crammed between the steering wheel and the door, with a handle or something sticking into my back. Not just poking but really sticking in. The roof was smashed down and the windshield was gone, with sharp hunks of glass like shark teeth around the edge. Couldn't see Dad, nowhere. Candy Ass was half out the windshield, like her butt was too big and got stuck inside. I looked hard and couldn't see the rest of her.

Then it all went dark again.