American Elsewhere - By Robert Jackson Bennett Page 0,66

is only too happy to oblige. He’s one of the few Roadhouse employees to actually live in Wink. This is not, of course, coincidence—Bolan decided (or was told) a year ago that he’d need people actually in Wink, rather than on the periphery like the Roadhouse. Zimmerman and Norris got stuck with the job, which only occasionally seems like a bad one—Wink is a terribly nice place to live—though the job does come with a lot of rules. Some of which make it a little difficult on a man like Norris.

He tries to be good during this cautious period. He buys groceries, and cooks, and watches television. He cleans his house and mows his yard and just tries to be a generally agreeable neighbor. And everyone just smiles and waves to him, as if there’s nothing wrong.

And there isn’t, Norris says to himself. Nothing is wrong at all. They certainly didn’t kill the town’s eldest, most respected resident up on the mesa nearly a month ago. Why, it’s just insane to consider. No, it’s just old Norris here, going about his normal, respectable business.

But then it happens: he’s at Mr. Macey’s checking out (his bag contains only tuna, bread, and mustard, for though he attempted cooking as Bolan said, it was an unmitigated disaster) when his eye scans the magazines at the counter. Most of them are the usual forgettable fare (but the magazines in Wink, though all slightly bland, are ones Norris has never seen elsewhere, like Southern Housekeeper and Gardener, Our Day Today, and Southwestern Steppes Outdoorsman). Yet one, a fitness magazine Norris has never seen before, features a cover that leaps to his eye: a young man in a white T-shirt and acid-washed jeans leans against the hood of a Corvette, staring into the sunset. He is thin and bronzed and his oiled hair features a wandering forelock, an enticing thread of hair that curls across his smooth brow. And there is something about him—the way his hips are thrust forward, maybe, proffered to the viewer, or the way he seems both aware of the beauty of the sunset and totally indifferent to it—that puts a cold fire dancing down Norris’s bones.

He freezes up. Bolan said to be good, after all. And the urge that has charged every molecule in Norris’s body is most certainly not good. Yet Norris cannot help himself. He swallows, picks up the magazine with trembling hands, and places it in his bag as he checks out.

Even though he pays for the magazine honestly, he feels as if he’s stolen the damn thing. He tucks his bag under his arm and hunches over as he walks out. Yet as he leaves, he sees he is being watched: he looks up to see an old, lined face staring at him from the yellowed office windows near the exit. It is Mr. Macey, the shop’s owner, and though he is often genial and pleasant, now his face is fixed in a look of terrible fury.

Norris runs out the door, and even hides behind a parked truck, watching the store’s door and waiting for Macey to follow. Yet he never comes. Norris slinks away, feeling guilty and jittery and nauseous.

For the rest of the day he goes through his normal routine. He eats his tuna sandwiches and watches Howdy Doody on the TV. He plays darts on his porch and has to turn down an offer from his neighbor to join in. When night falls he returns inside.

Sometimes Norris must remind himself that he is not on friendly territory. Somewhere in the woods there is a border, and what is on one side of the border is not the same as what is on the other. The Roadhouse, he knows, just barely rides that invisible line. Most people can cross the line, if they wish—but most don’t, fearing what would happen if they tried. Yet They can’t, at all. Norris knows that, and thanks God for it. But since Norris is in here with Them, on the inside of the border, he has to be mindful about himself.

He turns on all the lights in the house, for to turn them off would look suspicious. He makes sure all his chores are done, all the dishes put away and the laundry neatly folded and sorted, and as he finishes up he picks up a stack of books very nonchalantly—Just carrying these books around, no problem here—and begins placing them on random shelves. About halfway through, he comes