OCR Text |
Show Acting Alone Page 9 flat western distances behind Sam's padded shoulder, of the huge Rocky Mountains. Hip Colorado slunk up among those mountains; while down and back east here it was all flat and Kansaslike, Kansoid. Kanorado is what people called it. Up in the foothills of those giant mountains Sam had a congenital Marxist buddy, name of Axelrad, Sam's own little Jewish prepschool buddy. Axelrad was on sabbatical from the University of Chicago or Houston or someplace, and hiding with a bunch of other weird academic types behind a kind of duckblind, doing archaeological or anthropological stuff, or something. (Peeping out at whom or what?) Sam was about due to bring dope and wine pretty soon up to Axelrad, to appease Sam's long-term conscience. He tormented the little prick in highschool; so Sam had to bring him dope and wine for the rest of their respective lives. But, meantime, now, Sam was with Shanny, preparing spiritually for the big showdown with the bouncer. Shannon was showing Sam America's Largest Oak Tree. "Championchip," she said, winging a rootbeer can at at. And they drove past Shannon's foulmouthed uncle's popcorn farm. "Popcorn's m'life," said Shannon, mimicking her uncle's orking hick voice. "What a dipwad," she said. They went gathering arrowheads in the sole remaining virgin forest between the Rockies and the Mississippi River. Sam whistled the Gymnopedes softly - a regular date. Shannon was being nice to the condemned man. She let him lift her up onto a rock so they could hug chin-to-shoulder in the fully frontal, fully human way. They kissed each other in the oblique Kanorado light, and kissed once again. One bona-fide regular date, and |