Bad Guts

by Lowell Mick White

Wes Leonard sat at the bar, leaning back a bit and looking out through the dark, tinted, bulletproof glass of the door. Outside, a street crew was pouring asphalt into a hole. There were three Mexicans and a black man on the crew, and they were sweaty and dirty, and they looked tired. They looked hot: even through the thick glass of the door Leonard could see the air boiling and shimmering, shimmering and boiling, not just from the heat of the asphalt but from the very heat of the sun itself. Leonard watched the workers for a long time. Maybe there was a story there. But maybe not. It was sometimes hard to tell.

After a few minutes Leonard took a sip of his beer and looked across at Jillian, the barmaid.

"It's 105 degrees out there," Leonard said. "How they expect that asphalt to get hard in weather like this?"

Jillian shrugged and smiled. She was sitting on an empty Budweiser box, and she stood up and reached across the bar and took Leonard's empty beer pitcher.

"Want another?" she asked.

Leonard looked at his watch. He had another three hours.

"Yeah, I guess," he said. "Give me another."

Leonard watched Jillian draw the beer and bring it back down the bar to him. She took five dollars from a pile of Leonard's money on the bar and went over to the cash register. She brought back a dollar and laid it next to his notebook. Leonard was staring at his reflection in the mirror behind the bar.

Jillian looked closely at the notebook. She turned it around and looked at it again. Across the top line was written the word GUTS.

"Guts?" Jillian asked. She arched an eyebrow. "Just guts?"

"Just guts," Leonard repeated. He poured beer into his mug.

"I see," Jillian said. She sat back down on the beer box and looked up at the TV. A golf tournament was on.

"Bad guts," Leonard said.

Jillian looked back at him and blinked. "Oh, of course," she said. "Bad guts. I haven't seen any good guts around here in a long time."

"No," Leonard said. "I'm serious. These are bad guts. I've gotta go out to Pflugerville this afternoon to be the celebrity judge at the goddamn Greater Southwest International Chitlins Cookoff and Jamboree."

"Oh," Jillian said. "That'll be interesting."

"No," Leonard said. He shook his head and looked down at the bar. "It's going to be horrendous. You know? It'll be deadly. It'll be hell. It's 105 degrees outside and I'm going to be up to my goddamn armpits in hog guts."

"Oh," Jillian said, "that's too bad."

"No kidding," Leonard said.

He looked at the neon beer sign hanging behind Jillian--a rainbow trout leaping for a mayfly--and felt like weeping. There would be no cool water in Pflugerville--no fame, no fun. Just heat and hog guts, and who wanted to write about that? In the fifteen years the newspaper had been running his column he had written about barbecue (chicken, sausage, ribs, brisket), country music, tractor pulls, pro wrestling (he had a fondness for Nature Boy Ric Flair, the People's Champion), ice cream, fraternity hijinks, the color orange, rodeo, Juneteenth, Confederate Heroes Day, the NAACP, the Ku Klux Klan, beer (local beer, imported beer, cold beer, the meaning of beer), homosexuals, lesbians, zoophiles, necrophiles, Aggies, airports (airports in general, the old airport, the new airport, funding for the new airport, the land scandal surrounding the new airport, and why the old airport was better), light bulbs: incandescent versus florescent, thunder, lightning, tornadoes, hurricanes, ice storms, floods, droughts, cold, heat, rock'n'roll, nose rings, nipple rings, navel rings (he wrote a penis ring story, too, but the editor said it didn't belong in a decent family newspaper), motorcycles, skateboards, in-line skates, pogo sticks, dogs, cats, parrots, grackles, ostriches, golden-cheeked warblers, bats, mice, rats, raccoons, possums, lions, tigers, bears (grizzly bears, black bears, and teddy bears), old cars, new cars, art cars, pickup trucks, and diesel mechanics. He had attended the Budafest, the Wurstfest, the New Highway Fest, the International Barbecue Fest, the Aquafest, the Cedar Chopper Fest, the Sorghumfest, the Pecanfest, the Cotton Pickin' Fest, the Fleshfest, the Locust Fest, the Chiggerfest, and the Crappiefest, along with Catfish Days, Frontier Days, Buffalo Days, Pioneer Days, Prickly Pear Days, Crazy Daze, the Rattlesnake Roundup, the Chilympiad, the White Bass Run, the Mesquite Burn, and the Skunk Wallow. He had been to dozens of county fairs and stock shows--dozens. Three times a week for fifteen years he'd written about colorful folksy stuff--all kinds of colorful folksy stuff--and he was popular, he won awards, and people actually read his column. All it got him in the end was a spot as the celebrity judge at the Greater Southwest International Chitlins Cookoff and Jamboree in Pflugerville.

"My god," he asked aloud, looking into his beer, "what kind of monster would schedule a chitlins cookoff for the middle of August?"

"People who like their chitlins hot," Jillian said.

"Don't be cute," Leonard said. He took a long drink of beer. "I know it's hard for you, but don't be cute. This is going to be the worst day of my life."

When Leonard finally left the bar the heat hit him like a hammer. His eyes watered, and he squinted and quickly put on his sunglasses and looked around. The workers who had been filling the hole were gone and all that they left behind was a black patch of smoking asphalt. He suddenly envied them: all they had to do was work all day in the heat--which was probably very healthy, something that rich women would probably pay to do if it was promoted properly--and then go home at the end of the day and drink beer and sit in front of the air conditioner and watch tv and beat their wives and children or whatever else it was the newspaper said working people did to pass the time. They didn't have to worry about deadlines--there were so many holes in the city's streets that filling one hole more or less per day made no difference at all. And the public, the public--who hated anyone in the media, even folksy award-winning columnists--loved the guys who filled potholes. A humorous, folksy column about a chitlins cookoff could not prevent a flat tire, but a formerly nine-inch deep pothole newly filled with hot black asphalt surely could. People appreciated that.

It wasn't fair.

Leonard heard the door open behind him.

"Hey, Wes," Jillian said. "You forgot your notebook."

She stood in front of him holding the slim reporter's notebook in her hand. Leonard took it from her and looked at it, not sure at first if it was really his own.

"Damn," he said.

"Drive careful," Jillian said.

"Huh?"

"I told you to drive carefully," Jillian said. She opened the door of the bar and leaned on it, holding it open. Leonard could feel cool air rushing out of the bar, and he was tempted to rush back in. "Bring me some chitlins," Jillian said.

"Chitlins," Leonard repeated. "You're insane."

Jillian laughed and disappeared into the bar. Leonard stared at the heavy glass door for a moment, looking at his reflection. He thought he looked like somebody else; it frightened him. He turned away and carefully made his way down the steps--he'd tripped and fallen down them more than once--and went across the street to the gas station. Leonard had once written a column about the little Nigerian guy who worked at the gas station--his name was Francis Something African, Leonard remembered--and how hard he worked, and Francis had loved the column, one of the few people Leonard had ever written about who approved of what he'd said. Francis not only loved the column, he'd made dozens of copies to send back to relatives in Lagos.

"How you doing today?" Francis had the air conditioning in the store turned on to the max, and was wearing a sweater over his gas station shirt.

"I'm going to Pflugerville to eat chitlins," Leonard said.

"Yes!" Francis smiled. "That's very good!"

"You're way wrong." Leonard went to the back of the store and pulled a 12-pack of Busch from the cooler. Frigid air came spilling out of the beer case, and Leonard wished he had something like that at home, a walk-in freezer that he could move his bed into and sleep in and freeze and never have to wake up and write folksy award-winning columns ever again.

Leonard paid cheerful, sweater-wearing Francis for the beer and left the store. The sudden change in temperature made his sunglasses fog, and his eyes again began to water. His face pulled back in a grimace. The image of a steaming pot of chitlins entered his mind, and he gagged and did his best to push it back out again. He stopped and ripped open the cardboard box of beer, pulled one out, and popped it open. He took a long pull from the can and, looking past it, saw that people in the used bookstore next to the gas station were looking out the window at him. Too bad. What were people doing inside a bookstore on a day like this, anyway? There were potholes to be filled, televised golf to be watched, chitlins to be judged--and beer to be guzzled, too. To hell with them. He finished the beer and dropped the empty can to the hot pavement of the parking lot, then went over to his car.

The inside of the car was like a furnace, of course. Leonard expected that, but still, the physical force of the heat came as a shock. He tossed the box of beer across the seat and sat down and started the car as quickly as he could. It fired up immediately. He turned the air conditioner on full blast.

"Air conditioning!" Leonard barked at the car. Sweat already was beading up his face and rolling down his neck. "Air conditioning!"

A woman herding her two children down the hill to the neighborhood swimming pool looked incredulously at Leonard yelping in the front seat of his car, but he ignored her.

"Air conditioning! Air conditioning!"

Leonard reached across the seat and pulled a beer from the box and opened it, and took a swallow. Still cold. Good. After a moment or two nice, cool air began spilling from the vent, and he sat squarely behind the wheel and shut the door. He took another gulp of beer and placed the can between his legs.

"On to...uh," Leonard said aloud. Then he remembered. "Pflugerville." Pflugerville. Chitlins. Pflugerville. Chitlins. Hell.

He drove up to the corner and made a right turn at the bar, crossing the new, black asphalt that the workers had laid down, and headed across town. He sucked at his beer occasionally, feeling professional and on top of things, resigned to slurping down buckets of hot chitlins.

---

His right front tire blew out just past Manor. By this time Leonard had drunk most of the twelve-pack and his reflexes were a tad on the ragged side, and though he fought to keep the car on the road it ended up in the ditch. Leonard got out and stumbled around to the front and looked at the tire. The shredded remains were smoking and hot. Leonard smiled. Saved from the chitlins!

A deep blue Buick pulled up on the shoulder of the road, and a short, chunky blonde woman with glasses got out and leaned over the hood.

"You okay?"

"I got a flat tire," Leonard said.

"Yeah, I saw. Can you change it?"

"Huh-uh," Leonard said. He took a step backward and almost fell. "I've been driving on the spare for about six months now." That stupid little donut spare: Leonard had written a column about it.

"I can give you a ride on in to Pflugerville, if you want," the woman said.

"Well..."

"It's not a problem."

"Okay, I guess," Leonard said. "As long as you stay away from the chitlins cookoff."

The woman shook her head and frowned and got back into her car. Leonard went around and got his notebook and the remaining warm beer from his car, and locked it, then clambered up out of the ditch and got into the blonde woman's Buick.

"Thanks," he said.

"No problem." The woman glanced over at him. She looked very angry.

"I'm Wes Leonard," he said. "I work at the paper."

"Yeah, I know." The woman glared at him. "My name's Barb Krause."

"Hi." Leonard managed a loopy smile. "You read my column?"

Barb shrugged. "Only when I have to."

There was silence in the car. Leonard steeled himself for some sort of attack--it was obvious the blonde woman didn't like him, for some reason.

"I work there, too," she finally said.

Leonard looked at her. "At the paper?"

"Yeah," Barb said. "They sent me out to be your photographer."

"Oh." Leonard thought for a moment and decided he had never seen her before. He opened a beer and looked at her again. Short, fat, angry, blonde women were usually more noticeable than Barb was. "How long you been there?" he asked.

"Six years."

"Oh."

"You're drunk," Barb said.

"So? You'd be drunk, too, if you had to go to a goddamn chitlins cookoff."

"I am going to a chitlins cookoff."

"Oh, that's right," Leonard said. "Want a beer?"

"No."

---

A wisp of smoke hung on the horizon, marking the location of Pflugerville. As they got closer, Leonard could see the town itself rise up out of the pastureland--houses, stores, a barbecue place (closed for the chitlins cookoff), a cotton gin. The smoke itself was coming from the high school football field, home of the Greater Southwest International Chitlins Cookoff and Jamboree. Leonard felt his stomach turn over and rumble--he really hadn't had anything to eat all day, just a bag of pretzels with Jillian at the bar--and the scent of wood smoke and bubbling pork guts actually smelled ... pretty good. He finished off his last beer and dropped the empty can to the floor of Barb's car.

"I guess we can park just about anywhere," he said.

"Yeah?" Barb glanced at him and pulled around to the shady side of the high school. Leonard got out and then stood close to the building and began to urinate against it.

Barb got her cameras and gear from the trunk of the car and watched him for a moment.

"Hey, Wes! The cops are coming!" she yelled.

"Damn!" Leonard jumped back around, fumbling at his zipper, peeing all over his leg. He looked for the cops but didn't see any.

Barb laughed at him and walked away.

"Bitch," he said. He pulled out his notebook and followed Barb around the side of the school to the football bleachers. A crowd of people were milling around in front of a gate.

Leonard went up to one of the men sitting at the gate, a big black man wearing a cap that was embroidered with the word "Chitlins!" There was a purple ribbon on the man's chest that read BEN HENDERSON: COORDINATOR.

"I'm Wes Leonard," Leonard said. "I'm supposed to be, like, a judge here or something."

Henderson was wearing mirrored sunglasses and he looked at Leonard for a moment, breathing deeply.

"Like a judge or something?" he asked. "You mean sober?"

"No ... "

Henderson was laughing, his big belly jiggling in and out. Leonard looked over his shoulder. Barb was smiling, too--not a friendly smile, either. He felt lost and all alone and feverish hot. He felt his lower lip pulling down--he was afraid he might start crying.

"I'm just here to judge the guts," Leonard said. He was blinking behind his sunglasses. "Okay? That's all. I don't want a hassle or anything. I just want to judge the guts."

"Well, Wes, we got guts to judge." Henderson slid off his stool and pointed through the gate. He clapped Leonard on the shoulder. "Come on in."

They went through the gate and under the bleachers and out onto the asphalt track that ran around the football field. There were four or five dozen booths set up on the sidelines of the football field, facing the track, each booth with a big pot of chitlins, the people in each booth in crazy costumes, music blaring from jam boxes, smoke rising into the pale hot sky. A band had set up under the north goal post and though Leonard could not clearly hear or understand the music he did see a few fools jumping around, dancing in the hot sun. There was some sort of Frisbee dog contest going on back on the football field itself--people hurling plastic disks in the air, dogs jumping and barking and panting. Four or five joggers were doing their laps around the track, going pretty fast up the far side of the field but slowing and fighting their way through the chitlins crowd on the near side. Occasionally the wind would shift and clouds of chitlins smoke blew down the track like a smoke screen; runners and chitlins people in costume would come bursting through the smoke at unexpected times, screaming, attempting to sound like fog horns. There were collisions: Leonard saw one runner hurdle a baby carriage and slam into a man wearing a DeKalb? Corn hat, knocking him down and disappearing around the bend of the track. The guy in the DeKalb? Corn hat staggered to his feet and headed in the direction of a booth proclaiming "Homeland Security Chitlins"; then he vanished into the smoke. The baby was left unattended and began to cry. All up and down the row of booths people were chanting "Chitlins! Chitlins! Chitlins!" Leonard felt lost.

Henderson pinned a hog-shaped badge to Leonard's shirt that read "CHITLINS JUDGE." Leonard didn't say anything; he felt sad. It's come to this, he thought. I am a chitlins judge.

"There you go, Wes," Henderson said. "I suppose for right now you can just wander around and look things over. Remember, when you get around to do the serious judging, you judge on taste, texture, and showmanship."

"Showmanship."

"Yeah, the costumes, the booths, the music."

Leonard took a deep breath and looked at the mob of chitlins fans. "I'll need drinks," he said.

Henderson laughed again. "Comin' up."

He disappeared. Leonard looked around. Barb was fifty or so yards away down the track, shooting something. A cloud of smoke obscured her. Leonard was glad; he wanted to stay as far away from her as possible. She was scary. He started down the row of booths.

The first one was run by a bunch of black people in pirate costumes. They had a sign over the booth: WALK THE PLANK FOR OUR CHITLINS. The had a Jolly Roger flag flying over the booth. Leonard smiled; he liked pirates, they seemed to have interesting lifestyles. Ride around in a boat, sleep till noon, drink free rum.

"Har, shipmates!" he said.

The pirates looked back at him blankly. A little-boy pirate waved a sword and yelled something.

Henderson appeared with a six-pack of beer. "Here you go, Wes."

Leonard quickly slammed one of the beers, then opened another. He wandered along the row of booths, dangling the beer from the plastic six-pack rings. Not everyone was in costume, which made things less confusing to look at, though there were enough cowboys and soldiers roaming around the field to make a movie--or a war. Now that he was here, and had some beer, he felt he could relax.

But maybe not. Ahead was a booth manned by a bunch of people in clown costumes. He stopped and stared at them. All his life he had been afraid of clowns--he loathed them, he feared them, he wished they would all go far away and die miserable deaths. They were awful beings; along with dwarves, nuns, doll-babies, and puppets, they were the scariest things in the world.

"Have some chitlins," a clown called to him.

"Go to hell," Leonard mumbled.

"Hey, Wes," Henderson said quietly, "you got to judge all the chitlins regardless of race, creed, or costume."

"Bullshit" Leonard said. "If these were KKK clowns, they wouldn't even be here."

Henderson looked at Leonard for a second. "But if they weren't here, you wouldn't have to judge them."

"That's my point."

"But the clowns are here. Just go on up and taste their chitlins."

Against his better judgment, Leonard took a step toward the clowns. A female clown with cat whiskers on her face--and she was pregnant, Leonard realized with horror: they're breeding!--aimed a squirt gun at him and fired.

"Argh!" Leonard yelled and jumped back, tripping over Henderson and falling to the ground. The asphalt track was hot and dirty and Leonard yelled again. He tried scrambling back to his feet--tripping over an untied shoelace and falling twice more--fleeing the clowns, flailing, trying to get away, when he looked up and saw Barb aiming a camera at him. He could hear the whirring of the machine.

"I'm not the story here, dammit."

Barb smiled at him. "You are now."

Henderson helped Leonard to his feet and handed him his four remaining beers.

"Sorry about that," he said. He looked over at the clowns. "You oughta be ashamed, shootin' the Judge."

"I'm sorry," the biggest, scariest clown said. He was a sad clown with a big drooping yellow mouth and red tears. "Come on over and have some chitlins."

"Clowns suck," Leonard asked. "You guys are disqualified."

A runner came through the crowd and knocked Leonard aside and went on up the track. Leonard staggered a bit again, but Henderson caught his arm and held him up.

"Are these kamikazes part of the show?" Leonard asked.

"We're sponsoring a marathon as part of the Chitlins Cookoff and Jamboree," Henderson said. "One hundred and four laps around the high school track."

"A marathon," Leonard said. He watched a pair of runners dodge through the crowd and vanish into a cloud of smoke. "Jesus."

Henderson looked down the track, squinting. "I'm not sure who's in the lead," he said.

"Why don't you guys just have a marathon like in the old days?" Leonard asked. "You know, have some fool run around out in the country for 26 miles and then drop dead. It would be a lot more convenient for everybody."

Leonard looked around for a moment, searching for his notebook, when he saw that Barb the photographer was holding it out to him. He took it. Several pages had ripped in his falls.

"Why don't you go shoot those Frisbee dogs?" Leonard asked. "The editor always likes pictures of Frisbee dogs."

"I think I'll stick with you," Barb said.

Leonard was feeling a tad woozy. It wasn't the sort of thing he would admit to a co-worker, like Barb, or to a Chitlins Coordinator like Henderson, but there it was: a spot of dizziness that hit him every now and then, a brief fade and then a return. Actually, Leonard thought, the return--the reality--was so awful that the fades were rather pleasant, sort of like taking three or four Xanax with a tumbler of vodka. Still, it was a bad sign to get dizzy at a chitlins cookoff--there was no telling what could happen. It was the damn heat, and the smoke--maybe, too, all the beer, but that was really just a minor detail. It was the heat that was the killer. He wiped his hand across his forehead and noticed that he had ceased sweating. A bad sign. Need more beer.

Leonard popped open another can. It had been knocked around pretty good when he fell, and when he pulled the tab beer foam sprayed all over his shirt.

"You sure you need another one?" Henderson asked.

"He's fine," Barb said. "He always works this way."

"How would you know?" Leonard asked. Barb glared at him and he looked away. Through a gap in the smoke he saw an attractive dark-haired woman at a chitlins booth. He stumbled off in her direction, Henderson and Barb trailing along after him.

"He really always works this loaded?" Leonard heard Henderson ask Barb.

"Sure," Barb said.

"Damn," Henderson said. He sounded impressed.

Leonard wheeled around, knocking over a little blonde girl carrying a plastic bowl of chitlins. Spilled chitlins splashed on Leonard's chinos but he didn't notice.

"I wish you people would just leave me alone and let me get on with my chitlins judging," he said.

"You need a photographer," Barb said.

"You need something," Henderson said. He squatted down and helped the little girl to her feet. She looked angrily at Leonard.

Leonard shook his head and began walking rapidly up the track into the smoke. He spotted the dark-haired woman behind a chitlins booth and headed in her direction, dodging two runners and a fat woman with a tired Frisbee dog on a leash, all the while keeping an eye on the sign above her booth: HENRY'S MACHINE SHOP CHITLINS.

"Today's the day!" Leonard smiled as best he could and pounded his fist on the booth's counter. "I'm in the mood for some machine shop chitlins!"

"Huh?"

"Chitlins," Leonard said. He was aware that his speech was a tad impaired, somewhat slurred on the 's' sounds--it was that damn heat--but felt that the girl ought to be able to understand him well enough. "Chit-lin-sh."

The woman looked around for help. She was darkly tanned and wore neon pink gym shorts. A pink tulip was tattooed on the inside of her forearm and another tattoo--a parrot, it looked like--was half-hidden by her black tank top. The booth was decorated with a drill press and a tool and die set. A sign said, "Henry's Machine Shop, Hutto, Texas." There was a photo of the tattooed woman sitting on the lap of a bearded fat man--Henry, no doubt.

Leonard nodded at the drill press. "While I'm here I might as well get some holes drilled, too, please."

"What?"

"Holes." Leonard smiled at the woman. He thought he might be falling in love with her--he had always been attracted to women with tattoos, and this woman had both a tulip and a parrot tattooed on her body. She was wonderful. Leonard tried to enunciate clearly. "I need hole-sh and chit-lin-sh. Thank you."

The tattooed woman shook her head. "I--I don't know."

Henderson stepped up and put his hand on Leonard's shoulder. "He's okay. He just wants some chitlins."

"Exactly," Leonard nodded. He had an urge to run his finger across the tulip tattoo but restrained himself. "I'm here to judge the chitlins and to drill some holes."

"Oh yeah?" the woman asked. But she got out a pink paper plate (embossed with the words HENRY'S MACHINE SHOP, HUTTO, TEXAS) and scooped a dipper full of chitlins onto it. She pushed it across the counter to Leonard. "Here."

"Thank you." Leonard frowned at the plate of chitlins and looked up at Henderson. "Am I supposed to make notes about this stuff or something?"

"That's the idea."

"Hmm." Leonard looked at the plate of chitlins for a moment. Steaming hog guts in some sort of stewy sauce. He'd eaten worse-looking things. He just hoped they didn't taste of machine oil. He took a plastic fork and lifted some to his mouth -- and heard Barb's camera whir.

"Stop that!"

"We need to document this moment," Barb snickered.

The tattooed woman looked from Barb to Leonard and back again. "Am I gonna be in the paper or something?"

"Sure," Barb said.

Leonard turned away so that they would not be able to see him eat. All his life he'd disliked having people see him eat. He took a step out onto the track, holding the plate and the fork, when something hit him from behind.

There was a long period when there was nothing except heat, and the heat for once was actually rather pleasant. Then he felt someone hauling at his shirt collar and Henderson was looking into his face and saying something.

"I'm fine," Leonard tried to say. But Henderson shook his head. Everything was very warm and damp.

Henderson let go of the shirt collar and Leonard again flopped over and went face-first into the asphalt track. He just felt like going to sleep.

"Roll him over," someone said.

Several hands grabbed at Leonard's arms and he felt himself being pulled over onto his back.

"Jesus," somebody said.

Leonard opened his eyes--something wet in them--and sat up. "I'm fine," he said. He noticed the tattooed girl was kneeling next to him, holding something to his forehead. He smiled at her and she grimaced and looked away.

"Lay back down," Henderson said. "We got a medic coming."

Leonard braced himself on the tattooed woman's shoulder and pushed himself to his feet. The woman collapsed backward under his weight and only Henderson's strong grip on Leonard's arm kept him from falling on top of her. Leonard said, "I'm fine."

"Get him over in the shade," the tattooed woman said, getting up. Leonard noticed specks of black asphalt stuck to the backs of her tanned legs and tried to smile. Henderson and the woman led him wobbling over to the machine shop chitlins booth. He sat down in a nylon lawn chair. He noticed that there was blood everywhere.

He held out his blood-covered hand. "Is this me?" he asked.

Henderson said, "Don't worry, we got a medic coming."

Barb nudged aside Henderson and came in for a close shot of Leonard's battered face.

"Go away."

Barb just laughed. The camera whirred. "Hey, man," she said, "you made that runner blow his knee out. He's gonna sue your ass big time."

Leonard didn't say anything. Behind Barb loomed the pregnant woman clown, her cat whiskers running a little from the sweat and heat.

"Here's Becky," Henderson said. "She's a nurse."

The pregnant cat-woman clown pushed Barb aside and looked into Leonard's face. He shrank back in the chair as far as he could, eyes wide with fear. She pulled away the paper towel the tattooed woman was holding to his forehead and new blood cascaded down through his eyes and across his face. Leonard groped wildly for a beer, feeling faint, wishing he was back at the bar watching televised golf with Jillian--it must be the damn heat, he said to himself. I just can't take the heat.