Day 10 - As I remember
As Cletis recalls, they left Susan and Al's in the bright sunshine after some serious "thank
you"s. He and Billy Bob debated a while on whether to head due west out of Salt Lake City
and across the Bonneville Salt Flats (the outside edge of the grand interior sea that
has been evaporating for 30 thousand years), or head up the interstate in a straight
line to Idaho.
Going across the salt flat would have conjured up visions of Beach Boys squallin about American
Spirituality, land speed records, and Mormon girls. It would also have given them a chance to
cut back up through Jackpot to see Irene, Sean and Chey - Bob's ex-wife and two kids. Cletis smiled
at the thought of phoning home from a Jackpot telephone.
Cigarettes were low and they agreed it was a good time to quit. Cletis bought some Marlboro's at
their first stop of the day - a truck stop just north of Salt Lake, where they had a 10:30 AM
breakfast handed them by a Waitsian waitress with "Scrambled yellow hair". The truck stop doubled
as a convenience store, five-and-dime and telephone exchange. There were souvenirs for "all the family" on
sale, bright plastic menus in easy to clean colours, and telephones at each booth, where the old mini
jukeboxes used to be.
There was beer for sale, but no Mickeys. The Mickeys' drought had moved on past sublime by this time and
the boys considered never returning to Utah because of it. They didn't care that the good folks of Utah
wouldn't be hurt by that.
Billy Bob had last seen Irene in 1993 when he'd been through Nevada en route to some convention
of computer nerds in Provo. Irene had left Jackpot, taken the kids to Winnemuca in 1992
and tried to make a go of it with some truck driver named Saul (or was it Sue)?
Saul (or Sue) and Billy Bob never hit it off so good. Saul (or Sue) being a Christian trucker and Bob being
an avid idiot, they got into some kinda argument about the exploitation and relative value of
lesbian women in the porn industry and sex trade. As near as Cletis could piece together,
Billy Bob just up and left again. 5:00 in the morning - no note, no nuthin. Irene was pissed; the kids
were hurt.
Bob's not quite a cowbird, but he is a cad.
Saul (or Sue) left the following week according to Irene, and so she packed the kids up and returned
to Jackpot to be near her cousins and get free rent, living in the trailer out back of HER uncle
Bob's Exxon station.
Cletis never figured out how Billy Bob and Irene got together - at least not in any detail, and he
really didn't have enough interest to just ask, so his understanding of their relationship is
kinda limited. He does know that they met when they were living in Berkeley. Billy Bob was on some kind
of government funded research project that no one was keepin tabs on - something to do with
recreational drug use and ... recreational drug use. Irene had gotten there on an English scholarship
(only scholarship ever awarded to anyone from Jackpot) and was actually attending classes. Beyond that,
the reader kinda has to build their own turth.
Without planning it, Irene had given birth to Sean and Chey within 30 minutes of each other in 1982.
Somehow, neither child has ever made a move to get out on their own and, at 18, they were/are still
sharing one of the two bedrooms in the trailer in Jackpot. With the money Irene makes managing the
Golden Shower Casino and Truck Stop, and the $800.00 a month that Bob's parents send her to support
the kids, they could live in a real home, but Irene doesn't want to and the twins didn't seem to care.
Cletis met Irene in 1989 when he and Billy Bob stopped by on their way to Four Corners. Nice as she was
at the time, it disturbed Cletis when she answered the door in her black scarf, panties and "criminal
underwear bra".
As Billy Bob and Cletis debated their route choice, Cletis remembered Chey hanging off his leg like an
amorous puppy rocking back and forth on his foot while chanting "Bob's your uncle, Bob's your uncle".
Cletis had replied "Bob is NOT MY uncle" and shook the giddy urchin off his leg.
Chey tumbled out of the room and rode/skipped back in, seconds later, on a brown headed cockhorse chanting
"Must be your sister...Bob's your sister! Bob's your sister!!.."
The more he thought about, it the less he wanted to see Billy Bob's unforgotten family; the less
Cletis wanted to hear Irene talk about the importance of marriage and, prattle on about what a
great husband Billy Bob could have been if only he would have stuck around. Neither Cletis nor
Billy Bob wanted to hear Irene sweetly emphasize how much the twins missed Billy Bob (though
in fact they've never got to know him). Cletis especially did not want to be sitting in that trailer
getting drunk and listening to Irene encourage him to go home and build himself a "nice little nest".
At their first meeting Irene had gone on, through the thickening cigarette smoke and odor of cheap rye,
for countless hours and in countless ways about the sanctity of marriage and how a woman has to stick
by her man.
"Bob is not my sister either!" Cletis recalled shouting after Chey as she chased Sean, sliding along
the linoleum floor of the skinny hall, toward the cold end of the trailer.
Here's a picture of Billy Bob's sister.
Billy Bob decided he didn't want to go to Jackpot.
Cletis was okay with that.