Old Hoss rumbled across the black pebbles that were once Route 80, moving with the steady verve of something that couldn’t pass an emissions test and despised anything that could. Not that an annual inspection was still a thing. Cars were barely still a thing. Trucks were a hair more common, but just a hair. There was, however, only one Old Hoss.
“Coming up on Colfax. You remember Colfax, got that tractor graveyard just off the highway, right next to the truck repair shop. Used to be a few families farming and scavenging out there. Might still be there. Skunk River is running better than ever, and it’s good farm country. You could grow potatoes. Raise hogs. Hell, just try to stop the hogs! Maybe the hogs will raise you.”
The radio hissed for a bit, seeming to tune into a distant heretical Christian radio station, before fading into Haitian Creole as spoken by seven pekin ducks wearing a single pair of Clarks Wallabees. Then silence.
“Oh don’t be like that. You know we’ve got to get you up on jacks for a tune up, and they got plenty of good quality automotive steel there. And plenty of tires we can recycle. Sure, it’s summer now, but if we’re going to winter up in the mountains, we need winter tires.”
There was a rattle from the AC unit.
“No, I am not going down south again! Not after last time. I’m still picking birdshot out of my hide, metaphorically speaking, and the locals called it a friendly greeting. There’s nothing good in Amarillo, nor Brownsville, nor nothing in between. And Flagstaff is a bit too hot for you.”
The vibration coming through the steering wheel was a bit hard to interpret. Dapper Dale had wrapped the wheel in a dense Pendleton blanket with a tribal pattern on it that said the designer had likely met a Navajo, or a Pueblo, or at the very least seen something inspired by them. He carefully cut and stitched the blanket to provide a comfortable, breathable hold on the wheel, as well as protection from evil desert spirits and aliens. When combined with the dreamcatcher and forty nine other talismans and ornaments hanging from the interior of the… truck? It worked. They hadn’t been abducted in years, depending on how you defined “abducted.”
“You might want to go another few rounds with the Greebles and the Big Eyes, but I don’t. No Sir! We’re for the Lodge and Eldora. Plenty of supplies, good hunting, clean water, and no neighbors unless we really want them. Is that a farmhouse? Naw, it’s a whole village! Neat. C’mon, let’s see if we can’t do a bit of trading.”
Dapper Dale drove Old Hoss up to where the turn off to the former shopping plaza turned village met the once highway, then put Old Hoss in park. This was something of a symbolic gesture, but Old Hoss liked it. There was even a completely non-functional, but vital, turning of a key and quieting of the “engine.” Old Hoss believed it mattered, so Dapper Dale did too. He wasn’t sure who persuaded who. They worked it out a long time ago.
Dapper Dale fixed his hair in the mirror, flipped the sun shade back up, flipped it down, opened the vanity mirror again, gave his hair a last pass through with his switchblade comb, double checked that his shave was holding up (it was) and gave himself a quick sniff. Two dabs of Old Bay were applied, then he stepped out, pulling his battered camel colored suitcase with its bakelite handle behind him. A quick check made sure his shirt was tucked properly, his trousers hanging just-so from his braces, his driving loafers were spotless, and his sports coat was wrinkle-free. Even the pocket square was artfully messy, the intentional inattention that defined sprezzatura. His tortoise shell sunglasses were properly tinted green, and his summery straw hat sat at exactly the right tilt. Yes, everything was just as it should be.
Dapper Dale gave Old Hoss’ hood a few quick wipes with a shammy before setting his suitcase on the hood, and leaning back on the hood himself. He waited a moment, then turned back to the case, opened it, and pulled out a slim book. He had read it before, and it suited the ensemble. It always took the villages a minute to decide how they wanted to handle things. No sense in getting bored or impatient. It’s just how things were.
Aujourd'hui, Maman est morte. Ou peut-être hier, je ne sais pas. He grinned at the familiar opening, the pages nicotine yellow with age. You just had to laugh sometimes, you really did, if only to keep from screaming. The author got that. J’ai reçu un télégramme de l’asile : « Mère décédée. Enterrement demain. Sentiments distingués. » Cela ne veut rien dire. C’était peut-être hier.
“What brings you out here, stranger?” An older man, in patched dungarees and a faded flannel shirt and boots that some amateur cobbler was barely keeping together, walked out of one of the converted shops. He had his shotgun with him, to show he was not to be trifled with, but it was pointed at the dirt because even an apocalypse couldn’t quite get rid of Midwestern Nice.
“La lutte elle-même vers les sommets suffit à remplir un cœur d'homme. Il faut imaginer Sisyphe heureux.”
“What you say?” The shotgun edged up slightly.
“Haw! I’ve been too long on the road. Name’s Dapper Dale, and I travel in Oddities. I saw your village and thought I might do a spot of business. Not often you see such a prosperous community, these days.”
Dale stood straight, but he didn’t step away from Old Hoss. There were protocols to this sort of thing. He kept his hands in plain sight, one holding the book, the other fixing his already perfectly centered bow tie.
“Oddities. You don’t mean them… touched things, do you?”
Dapper Dale nodded, his eyes crinkling with a well practiced sincere smile. “Indeed I do, Sir, indeed I do. Buying, selling, and above all trading. You wouldn’t happen to have anything that needs taking away, Mister…?”
“Durbin. You can take away touched things?”
“Well, I wouldn’t take it for nothing, of course.”
“Not like we can pay you,” Durbin’s eyes narrowed. “We got little enough for ourselves.”
Dapper Dale laughed. “Why, Mister Durbin, you got it entirely the wrong way around. I’d pay you! I know how useful some of those Oddities can be for small communities, even if they don’t quite know how to make use of them yet.”
That got a raised eyebrow. Durbin’s eyebrows were a sort of nicotine yellow color, Dale noticed, much like the pages of his book. They were badly in need of both combing and trimming. Unlike the book.
“You would pay us.”
“Indeed I would. Barter. I have carefully evaluated and screened Oddities, all with certificates of authenticity, appraisal and provenance, duly signed and stamped. If you are willing, I’d love to take a look at whatever Oddity you have, then make you an offer.”
Durbin’s eyes narrowed, even as the corner of his mouth twitched. The gun stayed pointed down, though. “Most folks come looking for a meal. Or trouble.”
Dapper Dale chuckled and shook his head. “Well, I wouldn’t say no to a glass of clean water and a chance to use the outhouse, but I’m afraid I don’t have time for a meal. Got to reach Adel before sunset, and you know better than me what it’s like driving through Des Moines these days.”
“Adel? The hell’s in Adel?”
“A hot meal, a soft bed and the sweetest little lady to ever smile at a traveling man.” Dale smiled, the deepening crinkles around his eyes testifying to his fond sincerity.
That got a snort from Durbin, who waved him over. “Alright, keep those hands empty, and your eyes off what they shouldn't be on, and I expect we can do a trade. Come on. We got a touched thing, and I’d be happy enough for you to take it off our hands.”
The Oddity was a rapidly spinning can, the label long since rotted away to nothing, the shiny tin or steel dulled to a matte grey. There was a faint howling sound, as it spun and bobbed three feet in the air. The Durbin family, or one of their neighbors, had built a shed around it out of old corrugated vinyl roof panels, cracked and useless before being drafted into service once more. Not to keep anything contained, as a warning for people to stay back.
“It’s hot. In both senses.” Durbin grunted. “Some falls, we back up planters to it, with glass and concrete around them. Just to keep ‘em growing later than they ought otherwise. You know how it is.”
“Sure do, sure do.” Dale nodded. “Mind if I take something out of my suitcase? Just to measure the heat?”
“You got something that works for that?”
“I do travel in Oddities. May I?”
“I guess.”
Dale unlatched his camel colored suitcase and reached in without opening it wide enough for anyone else to peek inside. He pulled out a popsicle stick, displaying it with great ceremony. It had clearly been used for its intended purpose; you could see where the red food coloring had stained it. He reached out with the popsicle stick, probing the air around the howling can. A few seconds later, he pulled it back, the red entirely turned to blue.
“I’d call that turquoise, wouldn’t you? And about five seconds for the change. I’d say you have a Type E Oddity here, Mister Durbin. That is, something harmful that can be cludged into something that is sometimes useful. I’ll fill out the evaluation form, naturally, go through the full analysis, but I’d rate that a three on the power scale, and a one on the utility scale, which gives it a K value of Four. Preliminarily, pending the full assessment. Would you agree, Mister Durbin?”
“Fraid I don’t have the faintest idea what you’re talking about.” Durban shook his head. “It screams, and it makes you deathly sick if you get too close for too long. That’s what I know about it.”
“It’s the old Kaldenrot Typology of Oddities. Industry standard, never improved on after all these years, even if some say it’s outdated.” Dale flashed his Colgate smile. “I think I have just the thing to swap for it. You can look it over while I fill out the paperwork.”
“You have paper? And paperwork?” Durbin gave the traveling man a skeptical look.
“You know how it is. Management.” Dale opened the suitcase one more, returning the popsicle stick and pulling out a thick packet of paper on a clip board. The forms had that copy-of-a-copy look to them, but neither recognized it.
Dale properly filled out the freshly printed forms, carefully describing the item, where it was found, who it belonged to, and how it had been used, along with more arcane details like “Vercumited” and “Lagish-3-4-4,” to say nothing of the scale from “Abstruse” to “Banal.” (Dale circled one dot up from “Abstruse,” which he reckoned was generous but it made people feel better when their oddities weren’t all the way on the left hand side of a graph.)
“There now. If you just take a look at the offer section, you will see I’m setting out a Hot Plate. Same K value, but much, much more useful for you. Please feel free to examine it for yourself.” He reached into his suitcase once more, and pulled out a cardboard box. He carefully opened it, removed the packing paper, and displayed the goods.
“Huh. When you said “hot plate,” I didn’t think it was an actual plate.”
“See that beautiful orange glaze? You don’t get that vibrant orange these days. And there isn’t a chip or crack on this beauty, practically factory fresh. It doesn’t get better than that, I can promise you. A classic piece of Fiesta-Ware that maintains a steady, toasty, hundred and ninety degrees, rain or shine, every day the Good Lord sends. Please do look through the documentation, you can see it’s been thoroughly appraised.” Dale passed the opened cardboard box to Durbin, his Colgate smile never wavering. “Safe to eat off of, or to keep your bed warm in the winter. I know people who use these plates to help incubate chickens, but I’ve never been agricultural.”
Durbin grunted. “I ain’t ever been anything but agricultural. Alright, deal. You take away the screaming can of sickness, and I’ll take the plate.”
“Excellent! I’ll just need your signature, or your mark, right here.” He tapped the bottom of the page. “Let me get out my good pen for you. Isn’t she fine?”
“That’s a pen?” Durban made a sort of D shape, with an X through the bottom of the D. He pressed too hard, soaking the paper in blue ink and subtly damaging the nib. Dale hid a sigh.
“A genuine article limited edition Mont Blanc, an homage to Moctezuma. Quite the rare find. But back to the dull part of the job.” He put away his prized pen and once more reached into his suitcase. He pulled out what looked like a glorified butterfly net made out of bamboo, with a net of some silvery material that shone like metal and flowed like muslin. There was a little string that ran up the shaft to the mouth of the net.
With a practiced reach, Dale netted the rotating can, then pulled the net tight shut by means of the drawstring. The can stopped floating and rotating, dropping to the bottom of the net with a soft bounce.
“Now how in the hell did you do that?”
“Tools, and tricks, of the trade, Mister Durban. I’ll just pop this into storage.” Dale pulled out an old ammunition box from his suitcase, carefully detached the net from the bamboo, and deposited it into the box. The box and the net were returned to the suitcase, which was once again carefully shut and latched.
“Now how in the hell did that box fit in that suitcase?”
“Pleasure doing business with you, Mister Durban.” Dapper Dale was an old hand at selective hearing. “By the way, could I trouble you for a glass of water and your outhouse? It’s been a long day’s drive, and I’m not done yet.”
The farmer stared at him for a long moment, then shrugged. “Sure. The outhouse is over there. I’ll have the missus bring you the water.”
“Much obliged.”
When the necessaries were taken care of, and his hands carefully scrubbed afterward, he walked back towards Old Hoss and a stout older woman with a battered plastic cup.
“Thank you, Ma’am.”
“No problem. Glad to be rid of that thing, really.”
“Happy to help. A fair trade, I’d say.”
“So long as you're happy. Say, do I know you?” She asked.
“You might. I don’t come this way often, but I do pass through from time to time.”
“I do know you! Dapper Dale, the Man from Mars, that’s what my daddy called you. I couldn’t have been more’n ten. Must have been more than thirty years ago.”
“That can’t be right. You don’t look a day over twenty now.” Dale shook his head.
“I’m forty seven and look it. You, on the other hand, haven’t aged a day.”
Dapper Dale thought about it, then nodded. He held up the glass. “Tall glass of water every hour or so. Nobody drinks enough water, and it ages you. I’m very regular on my water. I make sure I have a solid eight hours of sleep every night, and I moisturize. If you don’t look after yourself, who will?”
They had to skip the tractor graveyard in Colfax. The damn paperwork had eaten up too much of their time, and he was determined to not be late to Adel. Navigating Des Moines was its usual unpleasant struggle, but as Dale was at pains to remind Old Hoss, the sensible gentleman traveler always kept a Colt Python, chambered in .357 magnum, with the shorter six inch barrel, safely stowed in a holster by the side of the driver's seat. Any and every respectable traveler would have such a weapon, and it would be always loaded and in best condition. Just like the one he pulled from the side of the seat, and used to drive off the skelkies haunting the streets of Des Moines.
You had to repeat things a lot with Hoss. He forgot things, sometimes, and then you wouldn’t have your gun. The skelkies weren’t any trouble. The two were old hands at this, and Des Moines had never been a densely packed sort of place.
Old Hoss’s grill, which had something of an old dent-side Ford about it, seemed to grin as it made its way through the rubble and the ruins. Dale was grinning too. He never got tired of watching the houses go past. Some completely collapsed, some burned, others holding up better than they seemed to have any right to. There might even be people living there, small groups of survivors eaking out a sort of life.
“It’s like a forest. Sure, the tree dies, but that’s a bonanza for all the little bugs and bacteria and things. Rodents and whatnot dig holes in it, insects make nests, termites eat up the wood, all kinds of good things. Eventually, it all turns into nourishment. Everything grows when the big tree dies. So, sure, we lost most of humanity, but that just means it’s time for the decay. It all gets broken down and turned into nourishment. You’ll see. What’s coming next, it’s going to be great.”
He patted the steering column fondly. Old Hoss just squeaked, indifferent to the cycle of what others might mistakenly call life. Or, perhaps, indifferent to the concept of life itself. Such an empty abstraction, wasn’t it meaningless? Dale just laughed. You had to laugh, you really did.
They pulled into Adel just as the copper-penny sun was kissing the western horizon. Long shadows fell, blending and twisting into strange shapes that comforted the soul on a hot summer’s afternoon. A welcoming strangeness, cool and inviting with its thoughtless, intangible, tentacles and intestinal twists. A few trees and a partially burned church combined their shadows in a shifting wonder on a fine old craftsman bungalow, still standing bright, white and pretty with its asbestos siding and asbestos shingled roof. Dale parked Old Hoss in the driveway in front of the attached garage, checked his appearance in the mirror, and pulled his battered camel colored suitcase from the back of Old Hoss's covered bed.
He gave himself a final examination, touched up the casual flop of his pocket square, then marched up the steps. The interior of the house might look ruined, with missing floorboards and stripped wire and stolen copper piping, but Dale knew better. He waited by the door. If you peeked through the window, you could just about see a mannequin leaning up against the wall. Well. That’s what you would see if you couldn’t really see.
The wind stirred the shadows. For a moment, the shadows converged, leaving a keyhole of light. Dale pulled out an old-fashioned iron key, put it in the keyhole, and turned the lock. He then politely knocked on the door.
“Oh, you! Why do you bother knocking? You know you are always welcome here. Come on in, come on in.” A smiling woman in a yellow dress with a little white apron, wearing kitten heels at home, opened the door and waved him in.
“Courtesy never goes amiss, Ma’am.”
“Now, if you don’t call me Marsha, I really will be mad. Let me take your coat.” Cool hands, smooth as plastic, took the sportscoat from his shoulders. “I’ll have it steamed for you by morning.”
“Much obliged. I left an oddity in Old Hoss, K-3, emitter type.” She led him into the house, past the mid-century furniture and the rooms covered in overlapping pink waves wallpaper, and into the dining room.
“I’ll add it to your tally, of course. Can I offer the usual hospitality? I made your favorite meatloaf and green beans.” Her smile never wavered, nor did the kind sincerity in her voice.
“You always take such good care of me, Marsha. Yes please, and Old Hoss will need his tucker bag too. He worked hard today, and he’s earned his oats.”
“You two are such a caution! You’ve built up a bit of credit, would you like to spend some of it?” She stepped into the kitchen and came back with what, if you had practiced seeing what you should see and not seeing what you shouldn’t, was a thick slice of meatloaf, glazed with ketchup and topped with a little sprinkling of crispy fried onions.
On the side of the plate were what, when you didn’t let your mind wander, were, “Hariocot vert, avec ail et beurre!” He glanced and saw a basket of warm sliced baguette, gently set next to his plate “Et pain! Meci, Marsha!”
She smiled, and said your welcome, though for a moment it sounded like a sky scraper collapsing onto a SEC-grade drumline, driving their snares for the championship. But that was life on the road for you, sometimes you just heard things wrong.
“You know, I think I could use a little tune up. Bring everything back how it ought to be.” Dale tried not to speak with his mouth full. The food was so good, it was hard to speak at all.
“Just a refresh, no upgrades?” Marsha waited by the table, her hands neatly folded over her apron as she watched him eat. “We’d be happy to do so much more for you. You could be so much more. Isn’t it past time?”
“Naw, just the usual for me. But Old Hoss, he needs a tune up too, and some upgrades. Some winter tires, insulation, bear proofing. We’re going up into the mountains for the winter, you see. Could you possibly…?”
“We can do that. Let me show you the way to your room.”
Dale looked down. He had cleared his plate in record time. What could he do? It was so delicious, miles better than any of the lousy things scavenged or grown in the ruins. “Sorry to trouble you. Let me grab my suitcase.”
“It’s already in your room. No need for the evening routine. When you wake, you will be a new man.” Marsha guided him to a very normal single bed in an upstairs bedroom, with crisp white sheets and a wonderfully light cotton blanket, just the thing for a warm summer’s night. There was even a cool breeze coming from the window, carrying the sweet evening air into the house.
Dale stripped off his clothes, not minding Marsha’s unchanging smile and unmoving eyes, then slid between the sheets. He sighed, as his eyes closed. Something about sliding into cool sheets just put him right to sleep.
Outside, the garage door rolled up, and a bucket slid out, moving unaided until it reached the side of Old Hoss. The gas port popped open, and a long tube unfurled, reaching down into the bucket. You could see bulbs of some viscous liquid deforming the flexible tube, being pulled upwards in gulps until they vanished inside the body of Old Hoss. The roof, or possibly carapace, of Old Hoss split and opened wide, exposing thin fins, or gills, or some other, less explicable thing to the starlight. On the faintest edge of hearing, if you had the right sort of ears, you could hear singing. Though a song of what, and in what tongue, perhaps no one truly knew.
The tires shifted, getting more knobbly. The panels slowly thickened, the glass hardened. Other, less visible changes slowly shifted the interior of old Hoss. The Python chambered in .357 Magnum started to sink into the center console, but was pushed back out again. Old Hoss had been reminded just a few hours ago. It? He? They? Wouldn’t forget quite so soon.
Dale woke standing by the front door, immaculately dressed, feeling fresh and wonderfully fed. Marsha’s warm smile hadn’t shifted an inch as she handed him his suitcase. “Thank you for coming by, Dale. You know you are such a joy to have around.”
“Aww, that’s so kind of you to say, Marsha. Did the boss drop a line?”
“The boss?” She tilted her head to the side for a moment, her eyes blank but no less affectionate. Then something seemed to click inside her. “Oh yes, The Boss. You are meeting your quota, but there will be bonuses if you can start bringing in some higher value goods. I know you have had your eye on expanding your suitcase again. With your current balance, I’d say you were just ten K away. And as always, the best investment is in yourself.”
“Bonus season already? I guess it has been about a year, hasn’t it? Tsk. Management. Always pushing, pushing, pushing.” Dale shook his head. “Any leads?”
“You might try Rippy. I hear the corn’s mighty fine down there, and the season’s just starting.”
“You’re the best, Marsha. I’ll see you again real soon.”
He strode out into the sunlight, a whistle on his lips and a song in his heart. “Old Hoss, ready to hit the road again?”
Old Hoss grumbled and rumbled into a semblance of life, and the two pulled out onto the quiet roads of the apocalypse. Off to see what the day would bring, and what fortune might find them. It wasn’t easy, traveling in Oddities, but Dapper Dale wouldn’t change his job for the world. Sure, most people had died, but wasn’t he living well? Wasn’t every day an adventure, filled with new sights and new people, finding new wonders and treasures? Even the little frustrations just leant spice and challenge to the day.
He chuckled, thinking of those poor beasts trapped in their offices, proud of their managerial roles. Packed into cell-like cubicles and harsh fluorescent lit offices the size of a solitary cell, all packed into an anonymous box in a suburban office park. They must have busted their tails, just to live like insects in a hive. Meanwhile, he and Old Hoss were living large out on the roads. Happy in the sunshine. He threw his head back and laughed merrily, passing the burned out fire station and the mutated remains of an elementary school. Really, you just had to laugh. What a life. You really just had to laugh!