It was 100 degrees in the shade...if there had been any shade, as Floyd made his way down Route 66 heading towards Red Rock. The Dodge had overheated and conked out three miles back. Unless he got somewhere, or anywhere that was even close to somewhere, sometime soon, he didn't have a Pudding Pop's chance in hell of surviving out here on the highway in this heat. Maybe he should have bought a Honda after all, he thought. Turning back, he couldn't even see the Dart anymore. The black road swept on ahead of him into the horizon like, well, a big ,long black road. He should have brought the Yoo-Hoo with him...even a warm Yoo-Hoo would hit the spot right about now. He was a desperate man.
Suddenly a figure stepped out of a wave of shimmering heat rising up from the black asphalt. And oh boy, what a figure it was. A woman, dressed in tight stonewashed stretch jeans and a lime green tube top, carrying a shotgun in one hand and a cigarette in the other. "Looks like you could use a ride," she said, with a voice that resonated with all the twang of a shoebox strung with rubber bands being plucked by a hyperactive five year-old.
Floyd thought for sure she was a hallucination caused by heat exhaustion. Before him stood a blonde (well, blonde with a good couple inches of black roots) vision in aqua blue eyeliner and high-heeled lizard cowboy boots. She extended one Lee-Press-On-Nail-ed hand. It felt too solid to be a mirage. He had never seen too many mirages wearing a mood ring, either.
"My name's Earletta Sweetman," she cooed. "Come on, mister, I'll give you a ride to the next Gas N' Go."
Earletta Sweetman. The name reverberated, exploded in his mind like a beautiful sonic boom. He hadn't been this impressed since he'd heard that guy in junior high who could belch the alphabet forwards and backwards. Earletta, Earletta, Earletta.. He imagined himself in a beautiful field of wildflowers, running towards her in slow motion - she wore a flowing white dress, had daisies in her hair, a lit Camel in her hand and was leaning up against a shining white El Camino...
Floyd snapped out of his reverie. Earletta Sweetman was smiling at him -- he realized she had a front tooth missing. He also realized he was falling head over heels in love. Like a puppy, but one without the wagging tail and wet nose, he followed her the short distance to her car that was pulled off the road, engine still purring petulantly.
He couldn't believe his eyes. It was synchronicity. It was fate. It was destiny. It was a green Dodge Dart Swinger with one blue door.
"Don't usually pick up strange men out on the highway, you know, " she said, opening the door and sliding her shotgun across the seat. Funny, he had barely noticed the gun. He opened the door on his side, and slid in very carefully. She eyed the gun, and then Floyd. "You give me any trouble, mister, and I'll shoot your head clean off. "
He had no doubt she was serious. He also had no doubt she was the most attractive woman he had ever met in his entire life. Of course, he didn't get out of Yuba City often, either. "You talk, mister?" she yelled. "Are you deaf or somethin'?"
"Um, no, " Floyd stammered. It wasn't often Floyd Roscoe "Yuba City" Nelson was at a loss for words. Earletta just nodded, smiled, and crushed the remains of her cigarette out in the ashtray. She popped an 8-track tape into the stereo.
" You like Elvis? " she inquired hopefully. Strains of "Jailhouse Rock" wheezed out of the speakers like water from leaky plumbing. Floyd only shrugged -- his gaze was focused on the tattoo that embellished her wrist -- the tattoo that looked unmistakably like a Cow Crab.
Earletta followed his line of vision down to her wrist and
back.
"You like that? It's a unicorn," she said proudly, waving her
hand in front of his nose. She pronounced the name of the
mythical beast YOOO-NEE-CORN, and it seemed to Floyd that she
dragged each syllable out for as long as humanly possible
without taking a breath. The little greenish-blue sketch
embedded in her wrist looked exactly like a Cow Crab. He was
either completely delusional, or it was the most horrible,
hideous tattoo of a unicorn that ever existed.
"Did you get that in prison?" he mused.
"No," she said, throwing her head back and laughing
hysterically. "My ex-husband did it."
"That explains the divorce," Floyd replied.
The sound of Earletta's laughter washed up over him as if he were splashed by a bus running through a mud puddle -- only in a good way, as if you weren't going anywhere dressed in your best suit and now it was all ruined, and besides, you'd missed the bus and were now going to be late as well as muddy. He was smitten.
As they drove along towards Red Rock, thoughts of his search for the Cow Crab were being quickly replaced by thoughts of Earletta. Earletta laughing...Earletta smiling at him...Earletta seductively tossing her hair...Earletta and something involving a llama and a six-pack of warm Yoo-Hoo...oh, never mind. The sun was setting over the desert to the tune of "Heartbreak Hotel", and there wasn't a Gas N' Go, much less another car, in sight. Floyd didn't give one doo diddly damn.
Suddenly, out of nowhere, something huge lurched in front of the car. Earletta hit the brakes, but they'd been cruising at eighty-five miles an hour, and that Dodge Dart couldn't stop on a whole pocketful of loose change, much less a dime. Whatever it was, they didn't hit it head on -- but the car spun several times skidding off the road and down a slight embankment, rolling onto its side and coming to rest against a group of cacti.
All Floyd remembered was waking up -- the car wasn't moving, and he was dangling precariously from his seatbelt. Earletta seemed to be unconscious, but not bleeding, nothing seemed broken, she just looked asleep. Elvis blared from the dashboard -- Floyd instinctinvely reached out and snapped it off. What little light had previously emanated from the stereo winked out, leaving the interior of the car now pitch black and silent. It must be just past sundown, Floyd thought, noticing the Dodge's vinyl seats were still relatively warm.
Earletta made mumbling sound and moved, to Floyd's intense relief. Moments later, her frosted-blue lids flickered open."Holy moly! What happened?" she gasped.
Floyd thought he had never heard such a melodic exclamation. His great rapture was disturbed only by another sound that shattered the brooding silence around them, a sound that came out of the darkness somewhere unsettlingly close to the Dodge -- a sound that seemed to be moving slowly closer...
"Moo, pinch pinch."
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