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  SOLOMON BULL

  WHEN THE FRICTION HAS ITS MACHINE

  Clayton Lindemuth

  Hardgrave Enterprises

  SAINT CHARLES, MISSOURI

  Copyright © 2017 by Clayton Lindemuth

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law. For permission requests, write to the publisher, addressed “Attention: Permissions Coordinator,” at the address below.

  Clayton Lindemuth/HARDGRAVE ENTERPRISES

  218 Keith Drive, Saint Charles, MO 63301

  www.claytonlindemuth.com

  Publisher’s Note: This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are a product of the author’s imagination. Locales and public names are sometimes used for atmospheric purposes. Any resemblance to actual people, living or dead, or to businesses, companies, events, institutions, or locales is completely coincidental. Stock trading techniques are described purely for atmospheric purposes. They do not constitute advice. If you try them as described in this book, you will almost certainly lose money.

  Book Layout ©2013 BookDesignTemplates.com

  Solomon Bull/Clayton Lindemuth -- 1st ed.

  Dedicated with love to Cindy and Joy.

  Also by Clayton Lindemuth

  Cold Quiet Country

  Nothing Save the Bones Inside Her

  My Brother’s Destroyer

  Tread

  TWELVE DAYS to RACE DAY

  I was not born to be forced. I will breathe after my own fashion. Let us see who is the strongest.

  Henry David Thoreau

  That crunchy noise was a rattlesnake. Its fangs skewer my sole. I leap a basin, searching ahead for ankle-breaking cobble. My next step will crush the snake’s skull and drive its fangs into my heel. This very thing happened to a guy in the Revolutionary War and they made the Gadsden flag in his honor.

  Five miles of the run are packed away and salted, and this. I don’t want to suck snake poison from my foot. Not in the desert. The air is a hundred and ten degrees and flat like ten-day cola.

  Country and western line dancers lift their boots and smack their heels. I attempt this while glissading limestone talus—but I’m slapping a snake, trying to grab the fat reptile’s neck. Sweat burns my eyes and eight feet of serpent corkscrews behind me. I grab him by the throat and fall, slide on rocks as I ease him from my shoe. Cuff his tail to keep him from wrapping around my wrist.

  I chuck him. He twists in the air, lands in century plant and looks like a heavy metal band’s logo until he slinks back to the trail. Coils. Stares. Flicks his bifurcated tongue. His tail sounds like bacon cooked right.

  I pitch a rock and he gives me a head fake. Advances a foot. I watch his hips to know which way he’ll go.

  Voices approach around the bend, where the trail pitches to a streambed. Their voices are merry, young, female.

  “Stop!” I call. “Rattlesnake!”

  Quiet.

  One of the girls soprano-whispers, “…pepper spray.”

  “Give the snake a minute to clear the trail,” I call.

  My palm bleeds. Sliding on rocks has misaligned bones in my back. It’s going to take two hours of ice packs to get to sleep. I lift my butt and crabwalk away; twist to all fours as the snake slithers toward me.

  I grab a rotten saguaro shaft and it crumbles. “Stay back, girls. This fella’s got a ‘tude.”

  I chuck another rock. The snake has moxie. Fine, I have a reptile brain too, except mine is surrounded by another three pounds of gray. We face off, me crouching, him coiled. My fingers are splayed. My knees are rubber and my thighs, after five miles pounding the trails, are Jell-O.

  My foot feels hot, like the snake filled my shoe with sulfuric acid. He advances and coils again. He’s a spring, ready to explode into fangs and venom.

  I ease my fingers to a water tube that traces over my shoulder to my Camelbak, while slipping my arm to the lower half of the pack. I press the water bladder and squeeze open the mouth valve. Yellow Gatorade rains on the rattler. His head darts sideways, back and forth. He blinks. Flicks his tongue and breaks to the side. Disappears into a crag.

  “It’s all right, girls. He’s gone.”

  They arrive around the bend, cautious, poised for flight. One points a pepper spray canister at me. Her finger trembles on the trigger.

  I point. “The snake is off in the rocks, there.”

  They look at the fissure, then at the wet spot on the trail. The dribble of Gatorade on my shorts. One tries not to giggle.

  ***

  Desert Dog is in twelve days. I paid a grand to enter. The prize is a t-shirt numbered with my finishing place and the honor of having completed the most brutal race in the country. An old Green Beret hosts it on his ranch, north of Happy Valley Road. The Internet chat is that he uses the event to recruit mercenaries. The winners sometimes disappear.

  I want to know where they go, and I want the t-shirt.

  Cal Barrett, race organizer, runs Desert Dog during the monsoon season. Rock climbing, running, mountain biking, aqueduct swimming, cactus walk. Barrett designed the course to shred a man, alternately take him to the threshold of heat stroke and drowning, give him a thousand reasons to quit, and see which iconoclast will stand center-arena and fight to the death for a t-shirt.

  I’ve seen interviews before the Super Bowl. DeJohnDa was born in a bad part of town … fought off the drugs ... his dog died ... his daddy beat him … his mama prayed. He’s bought her a house and a Cadillac and just signed a ninety-three-million-dollar contract, but golly if he doesn’t win the Super Bowl, it’s all for naught.

  Hype. To quote Jim Morrison, who is dead: I think it’s a bunch of bullshit.

  I don’t have a reason to win. My mother did a better job of raising me than I did of growing up. I’ve never been a victim. I have all my limbs. My worst addiction is caffeine. All I know that if I’m conscious at the end of the race, I better be holding the first-place t-shirt.

  So I’m out running in hundred and ten heat. The Camelbak carries three liters of iced Gatorade. I dig the calories and salts, but the life saver is the ice right next to my core. Without my Camelbak, the twelve-mile run would be lethal. With it, mere torture.

  I finish the last mile. Wobble to my Jeep, sit on the bumper, stretch my hamstrings. Glutes. Those chicks were young for me—bodies still made of elastic. Immune to hangovers. They know how to use their iPhones. And they thought the only snake on the trail was in my shorts.

  I power down the windows and turn on the radio. Blast the air-conditioning. The black steering wheel is a hundred and forty degrees. I tilt the air vent at the wheel; sit on the gravel and stretch. Girls giggle a little way off and I know it’s them.

  Closer, the brunette says, “Was there really a snake?”

  “A big one,” I say. “Look at my shoe.”

  Brunette keeps her distance, eyes dubious.

  “The snake bit my sole. I left a trail of venom with each step.”

  Brunette gives me a buzz-off look. I accept.

  The steering wheel is touchable. I hang a towel on the seat and climb in. I’m at my apartment in ten minutes. The building manager has hung a banner stating rent has dropped from six hundred to four hundred and sixteen. I make a mental note. My lease is up in a month.

  I
glance at the pool. Three chicks, backsides broiling. My roomie Keith’s car is in the lot. And since she’s not at the pool, Katrina probably is too. Keith is nailing my girlfriend. I know, and they know I know. The topic lurks the way death lurks when there’s a corpse. I’d break the silence but I’m waiting for my moment.

  I open the door.

  They’re on the couch, opposite sides, but the middle cushion is dimpled like a dog was there twenty seconds ago.

  Keith looks like Kurt Cobain would have if he’d gotten off the drugs, ate some kale and lifted weights. Same hair and face dropped on a linebacker’s frame. Keith and I were roommates at ASU and miserliness has kept us renting the same apartment years after finishing our post-graduate work. We’re skinflints: me, because I don’t want much; and him, because he doesn’t earn much.

  He’s a lawyer working for the state. Wants to save the world. Puts him at sixes and sevens with the people who don’t want saved. Makes him come across a smidge haughty. Sometimes he does worthwhile work, like donating time and money to the battered women’s shelter. Other times, frankly, he needs his comeuppance.

  Katrina is a nine. She’d be a ten if she’d ever shut up about the dysfunction in her past. I rescued her, and now she’s a bored prima donna. She was happy about the hurricane because it made her name cool. We’ve moved beyond each other, but Keith has kept us in the same orbit. By screwing her.

  Things change. Brew. Like a jug of homemade wine with a balloon on top. Sourer and sourer. The snake incident needled everything… or maybe I’m sick of the games.

  “Hey,” I say. “Curious. You two have been beating guts how long?”

  “What?” she says.

  Keith exhales.

  “Simple question.”

  She looks at him. “What’s that mean?”

  “Having sex.”

  She shrugs. “Two years?”

  He shakes his head. “Seems like a lot longer. Why?”

  “What’s the big deal?” she says.

  “Let’s end it on this.”

  “Whatever,” she says.

  “Alright,” I say. “Go pack.”

  I sit between them. Grab the remote. Flip the channel from the game to a channel on commercials. Katrina hasn’t moved. Keith adjusts his crotch.

  “I’m going to be doing a lot of training,” I say. “The race is in twelve days. Let’s end it on this.”

  “You were serious?” she says.

  “Hey,” Keith says. “I live here too.” He faces Katrina. “Put your things in my room.”

  “That’ll work,” I say.

  Katrina snorts. Big airplane hangars have weather systems inside. They’re like Katrina’s head—mostly vacant, with little mechanics scurrying around the ground floor. It can be sunny outside, but a storm will brew inside. Suddenly you’re turning a wrench and it’s raining. That’s Katrina’s head.

  “You’re not going to win this race,” Katrina says.

  “Thanks. Your nipple is showing.”

  She tugs her tube higher. “I’m serious. Why do you even try? You’re going up against a bunch of mercenaries. Guys who look like Van Dammage used to. If the heat doesn’t kill you, they will.”

  “Mind over matter,” I say. “I can do anything. It’s about learning the price and deciding to pay it.”

  “What about genes? Ability?”

  “The mind is superior.”

  “Yeah, but not yours.” Keith smiles.

  A new commercial flashes on the tube. Senator Cyman’s reelection campaign is in full swing.

  “I hate Cyman,” Katrina says.

  “Hypocrite. He’s on the take,” Keith says.

  “Didn’t you date his daughter?” I say.

  “Ash Cyman,” he says.

  Katrina studies Keith’s misty face. He sees her and says, “Years ago. Undergrad days.”

  “Who’s Cyman running against?” I say.

  “Some schmuck real estate developer who’s running like he wants to lose,” Keith says. “Two weeks ago, he came out in favor of banning firearms. Just started making progress and he comes out against mom’s apple pie.”

  “I’d prefer if both lost,” I say.

  “Cyman’s a six-term incumbent. He’s royalty.”

  “I could make him lose.”

  Katrina stares, then Keith.

  “I could bring him down.”

  “Do you know something?” Katrina says. “I mean, do you know something?”

  “Mind over matter. I can do anything.”

  “Fair enough, Lizard King,” Keith says. “Bring him down. The nation will be grateful.”

  “I don’t believe you,” Katrina says. “The news just said he’s up twenty-three points. You can’t dent his numbers. If it was so easy, the other guy—Duane Hock—would have done it.”

  “Wait,” Keith says. “You’re a conservative. You’d be bringing down your own guy.”

  “No. I have no party. How about this for a disbeliever’s special: I’ll take ten points off Cyman’s popularity in three weeks. Fair enough?”

  “Ten points in three weeks,” Katrina says. “You’ll cut Cyman’s lead to thirteen?”

  “I accept,” I say.

  “Done.”

  “Good. You want to get your junk out of my room? I’m going to nap.”

  ***

  I wake like I’ve slept exactly six and one half hours, though it’s only been three. It is midnight. With Katrina’s things gone, my room is empty. On the flip side, Keith went to sleep wondering if formalizing his fling was worth losing his space. I can tell him now, it wasn’t. Soon she’ll park bags in his brain, too.

  Katrina needed him. He was there for her, and now he’ll suffer. He’s got at least three other women who will question why his room has bras on the floor.

  For me, I have a joyous project: bringing down a senator. Five years ago, while attending Arizona State, I picked up a couple cardboard tubes from the Phoenix Times that had fifty feet of blank newsprint left. Keith and I taped the paper over the dorm room’s cement block walls. We got drunk and engaged in magic marker brinksmanship. I wrote Nietzsche and Derrida aphorisms, build your cities under Vesuvius, and Keith wrote his favorite FDR and Sonny Bono lines. The New Deal… goes on and on and on…

  One tube of paper remains in the closet, a blank slate waiting a profound message.

  I swing by an all-night Wal-Mart and buy three cans of spray paint, red, white, and blue. People on Keith’s side of the spectrum would hang me for buying at Wal-Mart. But I say put Wal-Mart in charge of Washington DC—the whole outhouse. We’ll have plenty of gasoline and health insurance will cost as much as a bag of chips. Everything will be bright and cheerful and thieves will be prosecuted.

  Back home I don a backpack of paper, paint, and tape. A climbing rope and ascenders in case things get hairy. A Soloist belay device, because I have one.

  I board my mountain bike. My tires sound like a three-mile zipper. The air is hot, high nineties. The sky is devoid of clouds and the smog diffuses a fake borealis of ambient city light. I race along Interstate Seventeen’s access road, north. Cycling brings insights. Ed Abbey advocated burning, chain-sawing, or using an acetylene torch to topple billboards. I say, we’re accustomed to the ugliness, we may as well co-opt the signage to democracy’s noblest purpose: shoveling political dirt.

  The billboard is impressive architecture. Small from the highway, up close, it’s a monster. Moths and bats flutter above spotlights spaced evenly along its twenty-foot scaffold. Though I anticipated pitching a rope and climbing with ascenders, the center column sports a ladder. I stash my bike a dozen yards away in a wash, deep in low-hanging juniper branches. Trot back to the pole. Standing at the base, after an approaching vehicle passes, I dash up the rungs.

  On the ledge I learn that although the guys that put signs up here look like acrobats, they’ve got all kinds of room. I could build a campfire and pitch a tent.


  A string of cars approaches. I lie on the metal grid as they pass, then wiggle out of my backpack. Remove my shirt, wrap it around my hand, and loosen each spotlight until I work in the dark.

  I empty my backpack. Grab duct tape and line the guardrail with a hundred hand-length strips. I manufacture loops and stick them to the billboard face, then roll the paper across. A quick snap at the end tears the paper like foil. I roll two more sheets and I’ve covered nine vertical feet, or two thirds of the billboard.

  In red, I script inner-city graffiti: BREAK THE CYMAN.

  In blue: VOTE HOCK.

  Leaning against the rail for as much perspective as possible, I wonder if I might reduce the subtlety of my humor. Will anyone be dyslexic enough to get it? I spray a few white stars so the whole thing looks like a giant campaign bumper sticker, and outline the C and H in white. Gather my gear, drop my pack to the ground, screw in the floodlights, down-climb, retrieve my bike, and drop head to pillow in twenty minutes.

  ***

  Train, Train, Train. I wake with the Desert Dog race in my dreams. I slug my way to consciousness like a cat escaping a sinking burlap bag.

  There’s dead weight on my arm.

  “Katrina? What?”

  She mumbles.

  “Nah, nah. Naaaaah! Wrong bed, baby.”

  I remember, now, the playboy bunny dream right before the Desert Dog race dream, where I was drowning inside a barrel of hair and boobs. I slip from beneath Katrina. Check Big Murtha for crusties.

  Katrina did the wave on me.

  It is five o’clock—the New York Stock Exchange opens in an hour and a half. I’ve got time for a mad bike ride through the desert. Slip on some spandex with the pads in the butt. Keith snores in the other room and Katrina mumbles. She flips over and the sheet pulls away. There’s a blue streak on her breast and I check my hands. My index finger is bank robber blue from a leaky spray can nozzle.