A night's non-sleep wracked with enough whiskey
and beer to wash away the disjunctive memory of the child that had hurtled over
the side of the embankment. Enough alcohol to obliterate the pain, fear and
anguish of the child's mother as she leapt one foot 10 feet in front of the
other, over the shoulder and down the bank - screaming frantically back up the
embankment as Cletis and Billy Bob walked away from the edge and back to the
truck. Enough booze to wash all that from Cletis's mind - but it didn't. The
pain of his own guilt and fending off the endless dry well of vomit that came
and came and was never there, did little to displace the horror. "She barely saw us - she'll never be able to identify us." Billy Bob had said pulling Cletis back from the edge and pushing him back into the driver's seat.
"That's right" Cletis realized "Billy Bob had made him leave the scene - he had wanted to help but Billy Bob forced him to leave with out seeing if there was anything that could be done. It was and is Billy Bob's fault."
Not only that, but Billy Bob had made Cletis drive after they had left Fossil, and Billy Bob had put the beer in Cletis' hand.
"Fuck - I'm a criminal now -
probably a murder - and its Billy Bob's fault. The fucking Son-of-a-BITCH."
thought Cletis. "all this because he wouldn't take the penalty sip of bourbon on
the road to Kodachrome." With this and a ton of alcohol in mind, Cletis tossed, rose, walked and stewed the night away. By morning things had become clear and Cletis had a plan.
He'd hunched on the edge of the picnic bench for the hour before sunrise and listened as Billy Bob moved in and out of noisy slumber - loud snoring - enough to keep the bears at bay.
Not being a bear himself, Cletis approached the tent with the end of a fifty-foot length of nylon chord in hand. He ran the end through each of the tent peg loops and up around the shock chords. Three times around the tent and Cletis knew there would be no escape for Billy Bob. Once secured, Cletis ran the chord around the bike rack and looped it tight on the truck's bumper.
He got in the truck, not worrying about waking Billy Bob, and started it up. He lurched forward to tighten his rope loops, then with Billy Bob awake and scrambling to force his way out of one or the other exits, Cletis reversed the truck over his friend. Thump, thrunk and roar from the truck as he backed up 20 feet forcing the tent and contents off the camping pad, through the long cool fire pit and to the edge of the site. The truck cleared the tent and, through the front windshield, Cletis could see the frantic thrashing of the blue skin in front of the truck. He hesitated (NOT) before forcing the transmission into first to make a second run at the evil sack of nylon. Forward, and then back again - thump, crunch, thump before grinding and dragging the sack further from the fire pit and over the log that marked the edge of the camp site. Forward again, this time not stopping but, dragging the screaming Billy Bob forward over the logs and up onto the road. Back now, a little disappointed that the tent was only slowly turning red in spots, and was not the oozing mass of used nylon gauze that Cletis had envisioned.
Three more times he drove over the hapless Billy Bob before he got out
of the truck and cut the nylon rope to set himself and the truck free.
Then he looked back on the campsite and heard Billy Bob's last groan as he quietly dumped his Prozac in the ditch And he headed home alone.