Read Online Last Ride to Graceland by Kim Wright - Free Book Online Page B

into the dark Georgia night, enough so that the whole front of the restaurant is eerily illuminated. I venture up and try the door. It’s locked, but the windows, low and already half broken, would be easy enough to push out in case I decide to enter in the morning. Thanks to the combined costs of the gas and the milkshake and the dog, I’m going to have to spend the night in the car—that’s a given. Mama obviously slept in this car once, and maybe she even slept right here, in front of the Juicy Lucy, in this same passenger seat that’s still half cranked down. I consider driving farther up the road and parking under one of the streetlights near the strip clubs, which may or may not be safer, and which definitely ups the chance some cop will notice the car. There’s no explanation for why I’m driving a vehicle that is more than three decades overdue for inspection and has no registration card in the glove compartment. I know because I checked. Justseeing the car in the name Elvis Presley would have answered a lot of questions—and raised as many more, I guess—but having a fancy old car with no registration at all would surely cause the cops to haul me in. And, awful as Freight Road is, I bet it’s a lot better than the Macon jail.
    The other option is to stay right here, parked in front of the Juicy Lucy. A place where I’m less likely to be found by a cop and more likely to be found by some sort of slasher-movie boogeyman. I don’t want to be murdered any more than I want to be arrested.
    â€œAre you going to protect me?” I say to Lucy, who is crunching kibble right out of the bag. I’ve got to break him of this snacking—that sack of dog food has got to last us to Memphis and back, but for now all I can seem to do is crank down the seat a few degrees and finish the last of the Stellas, warm as it is. A milkshake and a protein bar and two beers hardly constitute a proper day’s sustenance, and I know I’ll wake up hungry and have to spend more money on breakfast. I look over at Bradley’s waders, which are still strapped in the passenger seat, even though they’ve been knocked all askew by the dog. I unstrap them and put the soles against the passenger side glass, facing down, in hopes that any murderer who comes knocking might logically deduce that there’s a big man doing his private business in this car. A man so big that nobody in their right mind would want to mess with him.
    And then we settle down, me in the driver’s seat and the dog in the back and Bradley’s boots up against the glass. The seats go almost totally flat and are deep and cushioned. This is a car that was meant to sleep in, I think. Or have sex in, or escapein. And despite everything, despite all the events of this bewildering day, I feel myself drifting off almost at once. My last thought before I go under is that I think I can smell honey on the seats. Not the person, but the actual stuff, rich and sweet, the kind of honest honey that comes straight from the bees, with ragged walls of comb half floating in the jar. The kind of honey you dribble over warm biscuits on Sunday morning, before your grandmother takes you to church.
    And then, with the next breath, I’m asleep.
    When I awaken, there’s a man staring down at me from outside the car. He’s tall, or maybe he just looks tall because he’s standing and I’m lying flat. I struggle up, waking Lucy as I thrash, and roll down the window.
    â€œWho are you?” he says. “And what the hell are you doing here?”
    â€œWho are you?” I say back. “And what are you doing here?” For once in my life I’m not trying to sass anybody. They’re two honest questions. I’m still half asleep.
    â€œI own the land you’re parked on,” he says, the sort of information that partly explains things, but not really. The clock on the dashboard isn’t