Crusade (Eden Book 2) Read online

“Take it easy you little peckerheads!”

  The boys laughed and giggled. They liked it when Steve called them peckerheads.

  “Buckwheat! Farina! Stymie!” Mason called to the boys and Eva laughed. When the kids responded to the names and climbed down off of Steve she laughed harder.

  “Buckwheat?” she asked Mason. “Farina?”

  “Funny, right?”

  “What do their parents think of the names you’ve given them?”

  “Ah, it’s just a joke. The boys know those aren’t their real names.”

  “Yeah, I’m not a Stymie,” said the youngest, a tow-headed boy. “I’m a pecka-head.”

  Eva laughed and patted the boy on the shoulder. “You guys are bad.” She indicated Mason and Steve.

  “You got my Oscar winners?” Steve asked Mason.

  “Yeah, right here.” Mason unlatched an overhead compartment, reached in, and handed him a brown paper bag. “Thanks.”

  “No problem. Anything else you want to borrow?”

  “You got anything, I don’t know, foreign maybe?”

  “Foreign how?”

  “I’m thinking Asian. Maybe a little Chinese or Japanese?”

  “Chinese is hard to come by, but I think I can hook you up with the Japanese.”

  “You all right. No matter what those roommates of yours say. Or what Sonya says.”

  Eva laughed.

  “Steve,” she reminded him. “Council.”

  “Yeah. Gotta run. We still on for Friday night? Texas Hold-‘Em?”

  “You bet your a—” Mason stopped himself, looking at the children. “We sure are.”

  “Okay then.”

  “Steve! Steve! Steve!” the boys chanted as they turned to leave. He spun and hit a faux-most muscular pose and the kids squealed in delight.

  “Remember little pecker heads—”

  “Train hard!” one of them shouted.

  “Say your prayers!”

  “Eat your vitamins!”

  They had memorized the litany.

  “What you gonna do—”Steve’s face turned bright red as he pumped out a series of most musculars and front double biceps shots, spittle frothing from his mouth “—when Hulk-a-mania runs wild on you?!”

  The kids cracked up laughing and Steve and Eva left the bus.

  “Those boys love you.”

  “Yeah, little kids and dogs,” said Steve. “I would have made a good pedophile.”

  “You’re a sick bastard.”

  “Thanks. I try.”

  Council was held out in the open with a few rows of folding chairs set up. Every vehicle sent one representative each night to discuss the day’s events and the plan for the morning. The Greeks had arrived before them and gave their report from the road. While he listened to Markos, one of the Greeks he knew better, Steve scanned the council for fuckable chicks.

  Life on the road was tough, thought Steve, and it took a toll on broads. Some of these at council looked rough as shit. But he knew they weren’t here because they were beauty contestants. They were here, because, number one, they were tough enough to make it this far, and two, because they commanded enough respect in their own vehicles to be chosen to go to council.

  He looked around and wondered who he’d bang if he had the chance. There was Stacey, the Greek chick. But she was always hanging around with Markos and the other Greeks. And Steve thought she had something going on with the one older Greek guy who spoke no English whatsoever and always wore the Kangol. Steve and his friends referred to the guy as Saki, as in Socrates. He didn’t think the guy took it the wrong way. Anyway, he’d figured out a long time ago that malaka meant asshole, and the Greeks seemed to enjoy calling Steve malaka every chance they got, usually with smiles on their faces, so he thought they meant no harm.

  There was Eva. She was hot as shit. Steve had pleasured himself several times, thinking about her tits, about her with another woman. It turned him on all the more that she was really into women. The night Sonya had been drunk and banged him, he had fantasized about having her and her sister Eva in bed at the same time. He’d felt it was some sick perverted line he didn’t want to cross, and was worried about cumming too soon anyway, so he’d immediately banished the image from his head and thought about Chuck Norris in Invasion USA.

  Nothing sexual about Chuck for him, but it kept his mind off the here and now and allowed him to give it to Sonya hard and good. Or so he believed.

  Next to him, Eva listened as the council discussed the Greeks’ findings. She looked around at the women in attendance. Eva found herself thinking she was such a dog. She wasn’t particularly attracted to any of the women who attended council, but she could find one or two that would do in a pinch. Markos’ cousin, Stacey or whatever her name was, she would do just fine. There was that older lady from the end of the convoy—maintained a pretty classy look given the situation and all. Eva didn’t know much about her, didn’t even know her name, but she noticed the woman wore a wedding ring though there was no husband in the picture. She’d gotten a vibe off the woman once or twice but hadn’t pursued it. She filed her away as a future prospect as the council turned to her.

  Steve listened as she laid out for those gathered where they had been that day and what they had seen. It all went in one ear and out the other. He had made up his mind that if the situation ever presented itself he would, indeed, join the non-English speaking Greek in a threesome with his leggy woman, but there’d be no gay stuff, no double penetration with his ball sack bouncing against the Greek’s shaft. None of that shit. Steve kidded around about fags all the time with Mo and Damar and his roommates, but he didn’t consider himself homophobic. That said, he wasn’t too keen on ever crossing swords with another man.

  After her brief presentation there was some discussion and a vote to embark on the road Eva spoke of, as this seemed to harbor less obstructions and undead than the road the Greeks had investigated.

  Steve and Eva walked back to their trailers, which were four vehicles apart. Steve shared a Dutchmen Travel Trailer with his roommates, Brent and Chris. When he arrived back home Brent was standing on the roof talking to Sam, the man who lived in the Eco-line van next to their RV with his wife and kid.

  “Hey, Steve,” Brent said.

  “Brent. Sam.”

  “How’d it look out there today?”

  “Good. Quiet.”

  “Hey Steve,” Sam called down. “We’re pretty close to Pittsburgh, aren’t we?”

  “Yeah. I heard them talking about that at council. But we ain’t going anywhere near the city.”

  Sam nodded and stood where he was with an assault rifle resting across his shoulders and neck, his arms bent at the elbows, one hand on the barrel, one on the stock.

  “Hey, Brent.” Steve had Sam pegged for a modern rock type of guy. “You remember that song I’m not a playa I just fuck a lot?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Who sung that?”

  “Big Pun. R.I.P.”

  “Shit.”

  He opened the door to the Dutchmen and stepped up inside. Chris was spread out on the flip-over sofa bed, watching a wrestling DVD. One of their neighbors, a guy they called married-man Bob, was seated at the dinette plus area, drinking one of their beers, talking. It looked like he was rambling away to himself as Chris was engrossed in a wrestling match between the Ultimate Warrior and Randy “Macho Man” Savage.

  Steve had watched the DVD with Chris before. Savage was calling himself “Macho King.”

  “Hey, you ever tapped that blind chick again?” Married-man Bob asked him without taking his eyes off the screen.

  “No. Hi Bob. Hi Chris.”

  “Steve likes to act like he threw that girl a mercy-fuck,” Chris said, not taking his eyes off the screen. “But truth is she’s the one who mercy-fucked his obnoxious ass. Watch this!” The Warrior lifted Savage off his feet by the neck and choke slammed him back to the mat. “Whoa!”

  “Yeah, well at least I get laid,” said
Steve, “and don’t spend all my time watching old wrestling videos.”

  He went to their freezer/fridge and took out a beer and a couple of hot pockets. Popping the beer, he drank and put the hot pockets in the microwave.

  “Anyway,” married-man Bob continued, “like I was saying to Chris here before you came in, I live vicariously through you younger guys now. It’s a trade off is all it is.”

  “How’s that?” asked Steve, listening to the microwave hum as it turned.“Strange pussy.” Married-man Bob took a slug of his beer and burped. “It’s a trade off, and the grass is always greener on the other side and that’s all well and good, right? But when I weigh, on the one hand, my wife and kids, and the smiles on the faces of my kids when I come home after a day driving or something, versus—” married-man Bob killed his beer, “the uncharted territory of some sweet young ass, well, shit, it all evens out in the wash.”

  Steve had heard this strange-pussy trade-off spiel on that couch several times before and was just glad he’d walked in on the end of it. He wondered how many of their beers Bob had finished.

  Chris yelled out “Hell yeah!” as the Macho King jumped off the top rope. The Warrior caught him in mid-air, placing him on his feet then slapping the man across the face.

  “You know,” Bob said. “That Ultimate Warrior motherfucker was the motherfucker.”

  “Shit yeah.”

  “How the spooks treatin’ you, Steve?” Bob said.

  “We get along just fine. Thanks for asking.” He tried to take a bite out of his hot pocket but it was too hot so he had to wait.

  “I was just sayin’ to Chris, trannies are the next big thing for black guys.”

  “Trannies?”

  “Yeah, you know, chicks with dicks.”

  “I know what a tranny is.”

  “Well, trust me. You know how, first, fat white chicks were all the rage with black guys? Then Asians, right? Well, I’m predicting a trend and—”

  “Hey,” Steve interrupted. “Don’t you have a family to get back to?”

  “Why do you think I’m here? They threw me out of the van.”

  He finished one hot pocket and started on the second. “I wonder why.”

  “I guess I just gotta stop foolin’ myself.” Married-man Bob shook his head.

  “About what?”

  “Oh shit, did you see that?” Chris said. Randy Savage leaped off the top rope and landed on a prone Warrior. Steve knew he would do this five times in succession.

  “My age, man. I used to tell myself sixty is high middle age, end of middle age.”

  “Sixty ain’t old,” Steve said. “If sixty is old what is eighty?”

  “Old as dirt.”

  “You ain’t anywhere near sixty yet, Bob.” Steve picked up the brown paper bag of DVDs Mason had given him and walked over to the liquor cabinet.

  “Chris, where’s my Blue Label?”

  “Huh?”

  “Forget it. I got it.”

  “Don’t underestimate the Ultimate Warrior,” an announcer on the DVD said as Steve headed back to the double bed he shared with Brent. Chris had dibs on the fold-out sofa bed.

  He took his boots off and lay down. He and Brent took shifts with the bed. Because he had been out scouting all day he’d be able to catch a solid eight hours of uninterrupted sleep or wanking to Eva’s tits or whatever he wanted. Then he would get out of bed and trade places with Brent when the convoy pulled out in the morning.

  He opened his bottle of whiskey and took a slug.

  Chris was all excited up front but hadn’t left the couch. Steve knew what was happening on the video. The Warrior was talking to his hands and getting ready to guerilla press Savage.

  There was a framed poster of Farrah Fawcett in a red one-piece swimsuit on the wall above the bed. The poster was Steve’s. His brother had had one in his room in the 70s. After Steve had been born and grew up in the 80s the poster had still been in the room. An old Navajo blanket formed the backdrop behind the beauty.

  He took another swallow of the booze. It was better than Nyquil.

  When Eva returned to the RV Winnebago she shared with her sister and her nephews and niece, the bunch of them were seated around the dinette playing a board game. Edward brought his dogs, and Lauren and Maurice were there too.

  “Aunt Eva!”

  “Nicole!” She kissed her niece’s forehead, high-fived Nelson, who gave her a knowing look, and squeezed baby Victor’s cheek. The eleven-month old squealed in glee.

  “Eva,” Edward said. He was sitting in the driver’s seat, nodding his mutton chopped head to his music on the stereo, petting one of his two long-haired dachshunds, Ennis and Ellis. Eva could never figure out which was which.

  “Edward.”

  She didn’t see what her sister saw in the old guy, with his 70s music, those two flea bags he clung to, and that out of date facial hair. But he was Sonya’s flavor of the month and he treated her sister correct, so Eva was cool with him. She placed her assault rifle/shotgun combo on the rack over Lauren’s MP-40.

  “Evangeline,” Sonya said, “what’s this I hear you let Nelson shoot at Zed today?”

  Nelson gave his aunt a sheepish look and mouthed, “I didn’t say anything, Aunt Eva.”

  She looked at Maurice, sitting next to Lauren, petting one of Edward’s dachshunds. Maurice looked down. Lauren had her Browning Hi Power on the table, the slide locked open, the magazine well empty, the clip lying next to it.

  “Hi Sonya,” she said. “Nice to see you too.”

  “I’ll buy three houses,” Nicole said and handed over the Monopoly money.

  I sez Pig-Pen, this here’s Rubber Duck an’ I’m about to put the hammer down, sang C.W. McCall.

  “Eva?” Sonya said.

  She crossed the Winnebago to sit behind Edward in the swivel chair. Sonya continued to look at the door where she had been.

  “He’s not a little baby anymore.”

  “He’ll always be my baby,” Sonya said..

  “This world doesn’t allow extended childhoods.”

  “Ladies,” Edward said.

  “We’re not done talking about this, Evangeline.”

  “I’d hope not, sis.”

  Maurice sneezed and little Victor laughed hilariously, like this was the greatest thing the toddler had ever seen.

  “That makes you laugh, little man?” Maurice asked and the kid looked at him with anticipation so he faked a second sneeze, jerking his head and making the noise, and the baby cackled.

  “Hey Eva,” Lauren said.

  “Hi Lore. Looks like your friend Mo’ there ratted me out.”

  “Looks like.”

  “You must be hungry, Eva.” Edward stood.

  “Edward made us a wonderful dinner,” Lauren said.

  Ennis or Ellis splayed on his back and Maurice rubbed his stomach. Eva noticed Maurice still wasn’t making eye contact with her.

  “Oh yeah, what’d you guys have?”

  “Peas and beets and ham!” Nelson said.

  “Mommy, pay me. You’re on Astor Place.”

  “Beets, huh?”

  “Victor likes beets,” Lauren said.

  “You’re a tough little man, little man.” Eva hid her face behind her hands, said “peek-a-boo,” opened her hands and said, “I see you!”