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Carefully, so as not to lose anything, I broughtattention "I’ about chicken souls I don’t believe roosters have souls," I said slowly "What I believe is that huood about peoplea spectator sport out of puncture wounds and internal hee"

Loyd kept his eyes on the dark air above the road Bugs swirled in the headlights like planets cut loose from their orbits, doomed to chaos After a full half hour he said, "My brother Leander got killed by a drunk, about fifteen miles from here"

In another half hour he said, "I’ll quit, Codi I’ht now"

Chapter 17

17 Peacock Ladies at the Cafe Gertrude Stein

"He’s giving up cockfighting for you?" Emelina’s eyes were so wide I could only think of Mrs Dynauess We’ll see if he stays on the wagon"

"Codi, that’s so ro forhis knuckles"

"Well, that’s so," I said

"No, it doesn’t even count, because I terrorized hiive hi chili dogs at a roadside diner on 1-10 Loyd’s pickup, which we’d borrowed for the trip, was parked where we could keep an eye on it Piled high in the back, individually wrapped in dry-cleaner bags, were fifty peacock pinatas with genuine peacock tail feathers We were headed for Tucson, prepared to hit the streets with the biggest fund-raising enterprise in the history of the Stitch and Bitch Club

The project was Viola’s brainchild, although she shared credit with Dona Althea, who had opened up her storehouse of feathers They’d held two all-night assembly lines to turn out these masterpieces, and really outdid themselves These were not the likes of the ordinary pinata, destined to meet its maker at the end of a blindfolded ten-year-old’s baseball bat They had glass-button eyes and feather crests and carefully curled indigo crepe-paper wings These birds were headed for the city, and so was the Stitch and Bitch Club, en masse, by Greyhound Our plan was to meet at the bus station and take it from there

I was surprised when Viola asked if I’d come She said they needed me, I knew the city; you’d think it was a jail break But Loyd was doing switch-engine ti and it was Christed Emelina to come too, and spend a few days in Tucson I needed to walk on flat sidewalks, riskJT could stay with the kids He was home on thirty days’ probation from the railroad, for the derailment that was officially not his fault The railroad one anywhere without a child in thirteen years Out of habit she packed a roll of paper towels in her purse As we drove out of Grace she gasped for air, wide-eyed, like a hooked fish "I can’t believe I’ "Turn the truck around I can’t go"

I drove ard, ignoring e "What, you think JT doesn’t kno to take care of his own sons?"

"No," she said, staring at the center line "I’m afraid I’ll come back and find him dead on the kitchen floor with a Conquerers of the Castle arrow stuck on his head and a fistful of Hostess Ding Dongs"

By the time we hit the interstate she’d decided it would work out The boys could go to college on JT’s life insurance

"Oh, they won’t pay if it’s htened a little "I always forget He’s the one that wanted sodays till Christmas, and by afternoon it was clear and cold Twenty-tomen in winter coats and support hose took the streets of don Tucson by stor a papier-mache pinata in her aret it

Emelina and I and the truck were more or less set up as headquarters We parked in front of a chichi restaurant called the Cafe Gertrude Stein, for the sole reason that it sported an enorreen plastic torso out front and the women felt they could find their way back to this landmark As soon as they sold their birds, they were to head back for more Emelina and I held the fort, perched carefully in the midst of our pyralen plaid scarf caave us a startled look We’d not been there when he went in "How much?" he asked