Danger, Sweetheart (14 page)

21. INXS's “Devil Inside”

22. Def Leppard's “Love Bites”

23. The theme from
M*A*S*H

24. The theme from
Psych

25. The theme from
Rocky

26. The theme from
The Simpsons

 

Eighteen

PLAN D

“How?” he shouted, rolling to his feet and smacking the dust off his rear end. “How are you able to get
any
of your devil hooves off the ground enough to throw me? You're so fat! Yes! I'm fat shaming you! That's what your demon-pony antics have reduced me to! Margaret of Anjou, you are morbidly obese! I am switching you from hay to rice cakes
at once
.”

PLAN E

“If I put you back on hay and bring back your salt lick, will you stop shitting everywhere? My research on whether or not they make diapers for ponies has thus far proved inconclusive.”

 

Nineteen

“Son of a
bitch.
”

Whispers became rumors became common knowledge became fact. Garrett Hobbes, self-proclaimed man of action, decided enough time had passed. Time to visit one of Shannah's bastards and find out what was going on. Blake or Rake or Jake or whatever the hell; trust Shannah to not only
not
be embarrassed at being caught out as a slut in front of the whole town but then also give the bastards cutesy names. Like spreading her legs hadn't gotten her bounced from Sweetheart! The whole town had seen
that
coming and the schadenfreude had flowed like wine. The Banaan family of quitters quit on Shannah Banana.
Ha!

He left his office and eyeballed his shark gray Fiat convertible, parked haphazardly to the left of the crip space. No scratches or dents from errant car doors this time, excellent. The local fucks were all jealous, and knowing that made it worth the occasional trip to the auto-body shop. Sure, visibility was shit and the car handled with all the maneuverability of a pumpkin, but still: convertible!

I know you're all mad about being losers, but leave the car out of it, chrissakes.

He climbed in, started it, and waited a long moment to give the jealous fucks on the street a chance to see the difference between his future and theirs. The only people he could see were that crone Bev Harmon and her gross gay grandson, Cameron. Bev ran Sweetheart Sew and made a decent living doing alterations. She and her husband liked to flaunt their great love affair by tearing each other's clothes. Fucking ripping her blouse like an animal! Bev mended so much of her own crap that she soon started doing it for neighbors. Her queer son was probably primed to take over the business.

Oh, well.
Maybe Cameron would mention it while he was repairing ripped bodices or braiding his hair or whatever the hell gay guys did. Not for the first time, Garrett breathed thanks he was a man's man.
No, not like
that.
A real man.
That's what he meant. Besides, the one time he'd asked Benjie to the movies, the guy had the fucking gall to point out Garrett's 1) homophobia, 2) shit taste in movies, and 3) contempt for the Harmon clan.

When did everybody start keeping track of every innocent little comment to come out of his mouth? He was surrounded by people who couldn't appreciate him, never mind catch on to his subtle sense of humor. And they all had minds like fucking tape recorders, always braying back things he'd said like he didn't have layers or something. He had plenty of layers, dammit! And a convertible!

He had to drive through town to get out to Heartbreak, and was treated—as always—to a reluctant
This Is Your Life
slide show as he drove past businesses and people familiar from his earliest childhood.

Here was the Dipsy Diner, where he'd knocked a tray of entrées out of the waitress' hands for a joke nobody got, including the basketball players in the booth behind him. They'd expressed their displeasure by holding him down and squirting mustard up his nose. His luck to prank the one waitress working while her son, a center on the varsity squad, was three feet away. Fucking jocks, no sense of humor. He'd sneezed mustard for three days. Ruined his taste for the stuff; now he was strictly a ketchup man.

Here was Sweet Gas, where he'd shoplifted half a dozen Hershey bars and a two-liter bottle of Coke with no one noticing. It was winter, he was in his parka, he was supposed to look bulky, it was working, dammit!

His foolproof plan disintegrated when he tripped and fell against the counter, which made the bottle of Coke blow up. He'd looked like he was streaming Coke from every orifice, plus it turned out he'd snatched Hershey's dark, not milk. He hated dark. And the old fuck running the station made him mop the floor
and
reimburse him for the Coke (no biggie) and the dark chocolate (which sucked), and he had to do it all without changing his clothes, so every step was a sticky squish.

Here was Sweet Soft-Serv, where, after being ditched for prom, he'd eaten seven vanilla ice-cream cones in a row, then promptly thrown them up with a
glurt!
His barf had still been cold; that's how quick it had come back up. He remembered watching it drip off his shoes and thinking,
Jeez, tell one or two nigger jokes and Myra Dedman gets violently politically correct. Fifteen bucks for a box of condoms going right down the tubes with the puke.

Here was Heartbreak Farm, onetime cool-kid hangout/cow-tipping HQ. For whatever reason, people liked the place. Didn't matter if they were from a neighboring farm or sold used cars on the other side of town, the fucking idiots were drawn here. The unromantic origin story struck a chord with just about everybody, and once they saw the place for themselves they kept coming back. It was weird and baffling.

Jonathan Banaan's monument to his lost love, what a joke. What had been going through his mind, obviously gone to Swiss cheese after so many years of unrequited nooky?
Welp, she said no to the house and no to the garage, but she sure won't say no to the barn!
Fucking moron. People ate it up, though. It had been the social center of the town—a good trick for a farm ten miles outside the city limits—and people had been gathering there for a hundred years, seemed like. Heartbreak had hosted fireworks and barn dances and (
weird
) christenings and (
weirder
) funerals.
Funerals! Of people who didn't own or work on the farm! What. The. Fuck?

He was glad he'd outgrown the place even before he was forbidden to return because people have no fucking sense of humor. The horse was barely singed when the cherry bomb went off. You'd think the whole town had been brainwashed by PETA fucks.

And it didn't matter. It was over and it didn't matter, and sometimes he could forget the misunderstandings, and sometimes he couldn't; sometimes they seemed so fresh they were like big bruises all over his chest. And it didn't matter! Sweetheart was dying, and Garrett was almost free, and everything was going to work the way it should, and Blake Tarbell, who'd so obligingly bought up the deeds, who essentially traded deeds for a ticket to Garrett's very rich, very exciting future, was somehow in this awful fucking town and somehow working as a fucking plow hand at fucking Heartbreak Farm, for fuck's sake.

And there he was! Striding from the house to the barn like he knew where he was going. Like he knew where things were, even. Which was so ridiculous it was funny. Where'd he even get blue jeans that not only fit him but looked like he'd been working in them for days? The guy had probably been born in a three-piece suit; who was he trying to fool?

Garrett pulled up right next to the barn and climbed out, giving Vegas Douche a long look at his car. Blake might want to know where he could get one himself. Garrett would be happy to tell him—he wouldn't even have the car if not for Blake Tarbell.

“Hey.”

Blake had paused, pitchfork over one shoulder, and nodded back. Then continued into the barn to do God-knew-what. A pitchfork? The fuck?

Garrett raised his voice and tried again. “Hey, how are you?”

“I'm fine,” came the cheerful reply. Tarbell had a helluva phone voice, all deep and rumbly, which translated well in person. Garrett had heard the old joke about the fat guy on the radio who sounded thin, or whatever the fuck, and had expected someone not at all exceptional. So of course the guy was tall and broad shouldered and blond and good-looking.
Fucking
of course
.
He was streaked with dust and sweat, was tanned in some spots and burned in others, and looked like he'd keel over and die if someone even glared at him, and
of course
he somehow made all that work. “Everything is fine.”

“It is?”
Fucking better not be.
Sweetheart was going and Heartbreak was gonna be gone soon, too. Well, not so much gone as made into a much better thing. A much much
much
better thing. “Everything is fine” was
not
the goal here.

Tarbell waved an arm to indicate the general area. “This isn't here, you know. I'm not here, either.”

“Uh, what?” It was warm, temps in the high seventies, but not that warm. Garrett, mindful of where he was stepping

fucking shit,

followed Blake into the barn. “Sorry, I didn't get that.”

“I'm bleeding out at the bottom of a train wreck.” Blake grabbed a wheelbarrow, plunked the pitchfork into it, pushed it to the stall at the far end, then opened the stall and started forking the soiled straw into it.

“What. The. Fuck?” It was the only thing Garrett could think to say. Crissakes, it was true. Blake Tarbell, millionaire douche, was living on Heartbreak and working the place. Of his own free will, apparently. Or maybe not; maybe there was a bad guy around who had stuck the barrel of a gun in Shannah Banaan's mouth (which could only be an improvement) and said … what?
Muck out stalls or the old lady gets it?

“None of this is happening,” Blake explained with puzzling good humor. “You're not real.”

“I am too real!”

“Sorry. You are not.” Both men heard an agitated whinny from just outside and Blake at once turned to yell in that direction. “You will get your apple pieces after I have cleaned up all eighty pounds of your shit, Margaret of Anjou! So it will be some time, as I'm certain you are aware! Plus I have to cut the fruit into tiny pieces because it would be a terrible loss to the world if you were to choke and die!” He turned back to Garrett. “She has recently allowed me to groom her, but I suspect it's because she enjoys the humiliation I feel when I have to brush her gigantic belly.”

Garrett couldn't manage words, could only feel incredibly puzzled and freaked out. He finally found his voice and went with the obvious question. “Why are you here?”

“The stall, alas, is not going to muck itself out. Also, my mommy has taken away my allowance.”

Garrett stood, watery brown eyes

(fucking allergies)

watering from the dust

(fucking dust),

and recalled reason eight thousand why he fucking hated fucking barns. Buildings built, literally, to house dirt and filth and smelly animals. The fucking things were dusty and smelly in February, crissakes, which this wasn't; it was late spring and there was as much mud as grass. “But why are you
here
?”

“Have we met? I think not, stranger who has come to a farm to take an unsanctioned poll, apparently. My name is Blake Tarbell,” he said with exaggerated formality. He stripped off a glove and extended a hand filthy despite the glove. Garrett looked at it, appalled, until Blake shrugged and put the glove back on.

“Christ, your hand! What have you been doing? Punching cactuses?”

“Cacti. And no.” He examined his hands and added, “Margaret of Anjou did not take kindly to her new bridle. The good news is, the pain lessens when I pass out. And you are?”

Garrett shook himself like a cat pissed off after a bath. Or a land developer after getting disturbing news about what was supposed to be a sure thing. “Sorry, we've only spoken on the phone.… Garrett Hobbes.”

“Ah.” A nod. “Yes, I recall the name.”

“Just wanted to swing by, say hi.”

Blake cocked an eyebrow, which would have been all debonair and everything except he was slinging shit at the time. “Just to meet and greet? No curiosity as to what I'm doing here? I commend your restraint.”

“What
are
you doing here?”

“Farewell, restraint. And that.” He paused and forked up more shit. Dumped it into the wheelbarrow. “Is the question.”

“Yeah, I know. Are you maybe gonna answer it?”

“I am here to make amends. And possibly become a better person. And try to form a love for a specific patch of land, because some parts of the planet have greater sentimental value than others. News to me,” he added with a shrug. “I live in a desert.”

“But all the other farms have been taken over.”
Love for a specific patch of land? Become a better person? What. The. Fuck?
“It's just Heartbreak left now, and Putt N'Go needs it for the water table.”

“Poop-scented golf balls,” Blake muttered, because the fucker was clearly losing his mind. “Now I get why she found that so amusing.”

He ignored the mumble and stayed focused. Like a laser! “Without this farm, Putt N'Go can't build.”
Without this farm, I'm trapped.

“I sympathize,” Blake replied with an utter lack of sympathy, “but the goals of the Putt N'Go corporation are irrelevant to me.”

“But not to me! Look, a lot of people are counting on this going through!”

“Excuse me,” came the polite reply, “but it's been brought to my attention that the opposite is true.”