(no subject)
I drove out on the red Mojave desert. The wind blew sand against my face, setting the deep grooves of the road in leather on my brow. Frankie the Mulatto sat shotgun and smoked a cigarette. His hazel skin glowed in the heat. We popped something real smooth into the tape deck of my old blue Lincoln convertible and let the song roll along with the tumbleweeds.
“Think we’ll find the place alright?” Frankie turned and asked as he let out a puff of smoke. I shrugged my shoulders and kept my eyes on the road.
“It’s not so much the place,” I finally said, “It’s the finding it that I like.” The way the black rubber tires spun over the grey concrete and made that soothing hum that told you, you were going somewhere.
Frankie laughed and took another drag from his cigarette. His skin matched the color of his eyes and his nose was thin and sharp. The feathered tan hat covered his tightly curled black hair. He looked out to the jagged cliffs that watched over the cacti and the shrubs, took a deep breath and let it out slowly.
“Who we meeting again?” he turned again and asked.
“Jones, man. The guy from the department store.” Jones could get anything and got it wholesale. He’d worked at the same department store since he was seventeen and never thought to do anything but sell men’s pants and shirts.
“Oh yeah. Wait, why we meeting him?”
“I told you before man, to get a crate of dog food for Alice,” I said, losing patience with Frankie’s questions.
“Oh, okay.” He put is cigarette out in the ashtray and looked ahead into the endless stretch of road..
“When we get there, I don’t want you to say nothin. You hear me Frankie? Nothin. I’m gonna try to get Jones to knock the price down a few bucks and I don’t want you blabbin on and on. Got me?”
“Sure Bill, I got you.”