Page 73 (1/2)

The guy had bucket seats so John cliuy if he was going by the oldsouth close to hborhood, he said he was I looked around for Molly, saw she hadn’t followed us, and climbed in We drove

"This be sole of hair under his bottom lip A soul patch, they call it I said, "Yep"

"It’s been hella slick drivin’ in this shit I’ettin’ stuck here and there All the other drivers be hatin’ on me"

I stared at the man

"Are you Fred Durst? Of the band Limp Bizkit?"

He smirked and concentrated on the road

Eventually he said, "Gettin’ hella dark out here I’ets fully dark, yo Things beBut you know that, a that you’re not one of theainst the wind in the truck bed I gauged whether or not I could get the wheel away frouy and shove him out if he should try to eat me or whatever

Fred Durst said, "Well, I ain’t Fred Durst You’ll see what you wanna see If John were in here, he’d see somebody else But the point is there’s darkness, yeah, but there’s light and it all balances out Like the fishes, forever bitin’ each other’s tails You kno it be"

I studied his blue eyes, said, "Why don’t you tell me who you really are before I punch you in the face?"

"Yo, I told you You just didn’t listen But I’ you In fact, you could say that I’ve been ‘dogging’ you the whole ti about and I’ht or shut the fuck up Are you the good witch? Soel? Are you Jesus, Fred Durst?"

"It don’t matter You had a job to do and you did it, even if you didn’t know you had a job to do or that you were doin’ it The blade that cuts out the colon cancer’s got an ugly job, right? I guess it’s gotta have faith in the surgeon to get it through while its head’s bein’ sliced through blood and impacted shit"

"You knohat? Fuck you All this, this whole thing, is bullshit from top to bottom I don’t even knohat I believe but I knoe killed soliness back there And Amy’s dead because of it and she never hurt anybody She’s born and she gets shit on for twenty years and then she dies for no reason and I’o Hell, I’ve considered killing me several times, as a favor to the world"

Fred Durst said, "Yo, I know it’s hard You know there was that boxer, back in the nineties, Evander Holyfield You know he got to be champion and then he had that heart disease Ended his career, was gonna end his life He goes to this televangelist, one of those hairspray-and-polyester dudes Dude prays and dances over hioes back to the doctor Doctor says he didn’t have heart disease no more Holyfield says it’s a "

"That could not have anything less to do with this conversation You knohat you people are like, Fred? You’re like the genie froet a wish and you wish for a million dollars and then it turns out the million is from an insurance settlement because your best friend died"

"Yep," said Fred, as if I hadn’t spoken at all "He neeeever had the heart problee on his X-rays or some shit Do you wish you had died instead of Aain?"

"Fuck off"

"I’ the question, yo Would you do it?"

"Yes"

"Seriously?"

"Yes Of course"

"You’d trade your life for hers? So to is dead, A onna do, shoot me? Shoot me and resurrect Amy? Or tell me that I’ve been dead the whole time like in that shitty Bruce Willis one to work every day if you were--"

"Shut up, Fred We’re here"

We rolled to a stop and I saw es rounded under snow Fred said, "You knohat, don’t be too afraid of the dark, yo You got a watch on your back now Okay, dude?"

I had nothing else to say to Fred so I jued to the sidewalk I heard the truck pull away and John caot halfway tofro where the toolshed was