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Danny McGregor. You’re still facing a horizon full of crazy broads and dead people.

7
Forget the Car, Remember the Spare Tire
    Well, it’s true I’d left things badly in Flagstaff. But now I was in Florida and that was my new problem. I hadn’t been back to Florida in four years. Not since Sophie stabbed me. And, on the whole, I hadn’t left things much better in Florida than I had in Flagstaff.
    The only person from home I’d kept in touch with during my four years away was my brother Joe. I knew he wasn’t around when the dog parked in Titusville, so I tried the next best thing: my sister Janie.
    I dropped a quarter and a dime in a pay phone and dialed her number. She picked up on the third ring. I said, “Sister Janie, this is Brother Danny.” Not that she was a nun and I was deacon or anything like that. I just got into the habit of calling her sister and myself brother because, if I didn’t, Janie would always say, “Danny who?” And that kinda hurt my feelings.
    â€œKnucklehead,” Janie said, because that’s what she always called me. “So you are alive.”
    â€œAlive and stranded at the Greyhound station in Titusville.”
    â€œAnd I suppose you want me to pick you up.”
    â€œIf you don’t mind.”
    Janie sighed and let the line fill up with silence until I fully understood how much this was putting her out. Finally, she said, “I’ll be there in a couple of hours.”
    Which was Janie’s way of fucking with me. I knew this. Janie’s a big believer in justice or karma or whatever. If the universe didn’t mete it out, she’d do it herself. We both knew good and goddamn well that there was no reason for her to take a couple of hours to drive the twenty-five minutes to the bus station. It was seven in the morning. Unless things had changed drastically since last I heard—which they hadn’t—she still didn’t have a job to go to or kids to take care of. How busy could she be? So I bluffed. I said, “No sweat. I can take a cab. Will you be around?”
    â€œForget it,” she said. “I’m leaving right now.”
    Janie saw me before I saw her. I was leaning up against the wall of the Greyhound station, reading the last chapter of an old crime novel. She pulled up in her big-ass Land Rover. She rolled down the window and hollered, “Daaaammmn.” Long and slow. And then: “Who ate my brother Danny?”
    Because, yeah, I’d gained about twenty or twenty-five pounds in the past four years. It was all that free beer at The Corner Bar. Plus, we served hot dogs there. Beer and hot dogs. Libra called it my Babe Ruth diet. It worked exactly how you’d expect it to.
    I picked up my backpack and climbed into the Land Rover. “Hey, Sister Janie,” I said.
    Janie pulled out of the Greyhound station. “What happened to your Galaxie?”
    â€œI left it in Flagstaff.”
    â€œFunny.” Janie patted me on my belly. “You forgot your car but you remembered the spare tire.”
    â€œGo on,” I said. “Pick on the fat kid.” Which was actually okay with me. I’d rather Janie pick on me than talk about the real shit that we probably should’ve been talking about.
    Janie asked me how my car ended up in Flagstaff and I told her I’d been living there for a couple of years. Janie said, “Well, it was nice of you to come back for your brother Joe’s big send off.”
    â€œI didn’t know until it was too late,” I said.
    â€œSo you did know?”
    I nodded.
    Like I said, I’d kept in touch with Brother Joe. He was kinda like a father to me. The long story short is this: my mother died two months after I was born. I don’t know much about it. All Joe told me was that she died of some kind of “woman’s cancer.” My dad died when I was four. He’d always been a heavy drinker and big eater