..... It was really motherfucking hot out, must have been ninety or worse. Stan and Fish had been walking along the road out by Southland Mall near Route 23 for an hour at least, trying to thumb a ride down to Portsmouth. Toxic Shock, the old death metal band from the '90's, was going to play at the Scioto County Fair, and though they weren't very popular anymore - wouldn't be playing this shitty fair otherwise, of course - Fish was a big diehard fan of theirs. Stan was just going along for something to do over the weekend.
..... A lot of cars had been going by but they weren't getting rides, and what with the oppressive heat, Stan was starting to think it was a stupid idea to go in the first place, when this fucking weird guy came up, said, "Yo, dudes," and just stood there with them with his arms folded. He was tall and real wasted-away looking, not real young, like maybe even 40, but with a spiky orange haircut and a long amber King Tut beard that was so thin you could see through it. He was wearing raggedy cut-offs and thongs on his feet, no shirt, and had real crudely-drawn tattoos all over his chest, arms and legs. Some of them were superheroes from comic books; one was definitely Wolverine from X-Men and another might have been the Human Torch from Fantastic Four. It was someone on fire, anyway. The guy looked like a tweeker to Stan. A geek, anyway.
..... "Fuckin' hot out here, man," he said, like he'd been hanging with them all day, if not for years.
..... "No shit." Fish stepped out into the road with his arm stuck way out and thumb up, because a couple more cars were coming. They both whizzed by. "Jesus! Fuckers."
..... "Where you guys headed," said the geek. He didn't say it like it was a question.
..... "Goin' to Portsmouth," said Fish.
..... Stan was looking at Fish, smiling and shaking his head, like "who the fuck is this," but Fish didn't respond. He could be that way, real casual about whatever shit came up. But if Stan didn't know this guy, Fish didn't either, probably.
..... "Awesome," said the geek, "I'm going there too. You going to see Toxic Shock at the fair?"
..... "Yeah, how'd you know?"
..... "Your shirt." Fish was wearing his old Toxic Shock t-shirt. When he first got it, at a concert of theirs about 10 years before, it had been mostly black with red lettering surrounded by yellow flames, but now it was grey, pink and piss-white and had holes in it. "I'm going to see them too," the geek said.
..... "No shit," said Fish. "How you getting' down there?"
..... "I was gonna thumb."
..... "That's what we're trying to do."
..... "I figured," said the geek.
..... "Not getting any fuckin' rides though," said Fish.
..... "We'll get us a ride pretty soon. I get rides on this road all the time." Great, thought Stan, now the geek was going with them!
..... "Yeah? We been out here a fuckin' day already," said Fish. "Hot as a motherfucker." A truck came barreling up, and Fish started to step into the road to thumb, but the truck driver blasted his horn and swerved at them slightly, sending a shitload of gravel and dust flying into their faces, especially Fish's. "Jesus Fuck!" yelled Fish.
..... Stan wanted a chance to talk to Fish, say that if they couldn't get rides for two people they sure as shit weren't going get picked up when there's three, but the geek kept moving up close to Fish every chance he got. He wasn't paying much attention to Stan. Stan glanced over his tattoos, trying to figure whether he might have done them himself, because they were all so badly drawn. He had some on his shoulder blades, even, two bearded faces that were real distorted. One of them was Jesus, Stan guessed, because it had a halo. The other one had jagged lines like lightning around it, so it might have been Satan, though the face just looked like another hippie-Jesus face. Maybe they were all distorted because the geek had reached way back over his shoulders to ink them in.
..... The next vehicle that went by was a big-ass maroon Cadillac Escalade. Stan was pretty sure that another Escalade had gone by a while before, but maybe that earlier one wasn't maroon. He was pretty sure it had been, though. The geek went out and put his thumb up, for the first time. The big car pulled over and stopped.
..... "Awright!" said Fish. Stan thought something was weird, no rides and then this creepy guy turns up and right away a big expensive car stops for him. Oh well, shit.
..... The geek scurried up and unlatched the back door, held it open and bowed, like he was saying "after you." Stan was reluctant to get in, but Fish went right ahead and jounced into the back seat. The geek got in next, and then, with misgivings, Stan. The geek reached across Stan and pulled the door closed. The AC in the car was delightfully cold and humming. There was a big old guy driving, and next to him a woman with long, fancily tangled hair of a very artificial blonde color.
..... "Welcome abroad, young men," said the driver, who huffed as he turned halfway around in his seat, pinned sideways against the steering wheel. He looked huge in the light-blue suit he was wearing, along with a green tie with a marlin on it. His slicked-back wavy white hair had two fat streaks of gold on either side of the top of his head, and that along with his overgrown grey eyebrows gave him a mad-scientist look. His eyes were watery blue and sullen, but he grinned widely at Stan and Fish, showing teeth that looked like dentures. "Where you be headed this damn uncomfortable day?" The woman didn't turn around or speak.
..... "We're going down to Portsmouth," said Fish. "You goin' that way?"
..... "Happen to be," said the driver. "You in luck. Goin' right through there."
..... "Awright," said Fish, nodding.
..... "Goin' to see a band down at the county fair," said the geek. "By the way, my name's Ryan." He reached up to shake hands with the driver, who grinned wider and shook heartily. The geek, Ryan, turned to Stan and put his hand out with a solemn expression, so Stan had to shake too. Ryan's hand was damp.
..... "I'm Stan," he said, giving in just a little to being sociable, "and that's Fish." "Fish," said Ryan.
..... "'S'up," said Fish and reached over to shake with Ryan as well. Fish always shook hands in a crusher grip, but Ryan didn't flinch or say anything. The driver had turned back around and started rolling again, and they got onto 23.
..... The woman, Stan noticed, was looking into the rear-view mirror. He could see a little of her reflection and that she had a lot of spidery eye-makeup on. He wasn't sure if she was studying him and the other guys in the back seat or her own image, but then he noticed that she was holding a little golden tube, applying lipstick.
..... Whirling, she turned completely around in her seat and smiled widely with bright red lips. "They call me Shy Ay-unn," she announced, in a flat, twangy drawl. She obviously wasn't young but, except for a mild case of turkey-neck and some lines in her face, didn't look too bad.
..... "Cheyenne, like the Indian tribe," said the driver. "She's part Indian."
..... Cheyenne, her hands with purple-painted fingernails clutching the back of her seat, looked intently from Fish to Stan, fixing on Stan. She smiled until her cheeks widened with dimple, and pointed a long finger at him. "That one looks skeered."
..... "What?" said Stan, embarrassed. "I don't think so." He glanced at Fish, who shrugged. The driver was going pretty fast, it seemed, though Stan couldn't see the speedometer from where he was sitting, because the driver was so big himself.
..... "Damn," said the driver, "just look at all these dead critters along this road." Stan looked as they passed a furry pile by the side of the highway that had probably once been a possum, and a ways further, another larger one that might have been a dog. "Yes, it's a tough world out there for the simple," the driver added.
..... Cheyenne turned back and faced front. She was peering in the rear-view mirror again, definitely, this time, studying Stan and Fish. She didn't seem to be interested in Ryan.
..... They drove for a while in silence. Ryan started to whistle. When Stan glanced at him after he'd continued for a minute or so, he said "I was just tryin' to remember this one Toxic Shock song I like. I hope they play it."
..... "What one?" asked Fish.
..... "I don't remember. It used to be on the radio a lot."
..... "Was it 'Death Defiler'"?
..... "Maybe."