Nobody

Run, Johnny, Run

I just wanted to be somewhere that didn't remind me of Pru.

God, just thinking her name made my chest hurt.

A congenital birth defect. A heart attack in her sleep barely into her thirties. The doctors had told me she never felt anything, she'd just gone to sleep and never woke up.

I'd been asleep, holding her, while she died. When I woke up, she had that smile of hers on her face and at first I had thought she was still asleep.

Ant and the rest of my old friends from the military had arrived to bury her with me. They'd left a week ago, after I'd lied and told them I would be fine, that things were OK.

But how could they be OK?

Pru was dead.

I hit the Interstate and headed toward Austin, keeping it five miles over the speed limit. I knew what was going to happen when I didn't show up by dinner tomorrow. My sister and my brothers would call the cops. Hell, by the day after tomorrow the Texas Rangers and the FBI would be involved.

I was a Bomber, of the Texas Bombers, owner of a ranch bigger than some states, hell, bigger than some countries. We produced beef, yeah, but also a lot of other stuff. Hell, there was an old uranium mine on the property.

If Ant vanished, it would just be a case of a burnt out vet vanishing again.

But me? They were going to look for me under every rock.

And if they found me, my sisters and brothers would guilt me into coming back.

To that house.

Without Pru.

So for the first time in my life...

...I was running.

At a trucker gas station I stopped, buying a pop, a pack of smokes, a lighter, and one of those cell phones that couldn't be traced. I pulled four hundred bucks out of the ATM and paid cash. On a whim, right before I walked out, I bought a baseball cap and put it on, putting my hat on the seat next to me as I drove off.

I didn't care any more. I just wanted gone.

When I spotted a Wal-Mart I pulled off, stopping in the parking lot and getting out of the truck. Even at midnight there were still people there. I stood next to my truck, a good solid work truck, not some jacked up piece of shit, and watched people get out of their vehicles and head into the store or vice versa.

I was jealous of the small families I saw, even though they were dirt poor. They still had each other, and the way some of them held hands and smiled at each other made my chest hurt.

Pru was dead.

Composing myself, pushing back the pain, I went in, looking around. It took me a minute to orient myself and find what I wanted.

The clothing section.

I bought a package of boxers, ones printed with a cartoon character on them. His smile made me smile faintly. A t-shirt with some slogan I was too old and uncool to get. A flannel shirt. Not a heavy one, a thin one. A pair of boots. A pair of Levi jeans. A leather wallet.

I paid for them, went into the changing room and changed clothing, swapping the wallet's contents.

The only thing I had from before I had left the house was my dogtags.

For some reason the clothing, less than a hundred dollars in all, made me feel better. I grabbed more clothing, then a suit case, and went back to the register at the clothing department. I paid for it all with a single swipe of my credit card. I gave her a twenty dollar bill and told her to forget she'd seen me, shoved my clothing in the trash can, and walked toward the exit.