CAINT BEAT OUR MEAT

He in handcuffs, girl working register asks. Larsen turns and looks at Cready and grabs his hands and holds them up and looks at the girl and says, Them are handcuffs, yes m'am. What he done, she asks. Larsen shakes his head. You aint want to know, he says and smiles at the girl. But I do, she says, smacking her gum and smiling back. He kilt three girls round your age in Coosa National Forest. Theys hiking them trails round it. Girl at the register asks how he kilt them. Larsen looks at the floor. He beat them unconcious with an extension cord and then he removed their extremities with a saw, he says. The girl behind the register's whiter than rice. He aint rite, she says. Bout as wrong as they made, Larsen says. An y'all come to eat hamburgers, she says. We're hungry, Larsen says. I'm drivin Mister Cready here to Walton County and since we come through Flobama we decide to get us a Whataburger.

Cready look up at the girl with his faded blue eyes and says, Do y'all beat your own meat here. Or y'all buy them pre-hammered patties. I aint sayin nothin to you mister, she says. You aint got to talk, Cready says. Aint like it much no how. Larsen holds Cready behind him and orders two Whataburgers and fries and coffees. Put a lot of jalapeno peppers on one of em, he says. Cready, you like jalapeno peppers, Larsen says. Aint care much for hot food, Cready says. You eat on it and it realase endorfins. I manange my endorfin release through other means.

Larsen takes the food to a table and helps Cready set in his chair. He squirts ketchup on his fries. Pulls a cigarette from the pack and lights it and drags hard on it. You gone eat or smoke, Cready asks. Sometimes it all I can do not to do both, Larsen says. I know I caint do both. But I try. All I can do.

The girl from the register taps Larsen on the shoulder and says, Mister you caint smoke none in here. Larsen picks up a gold foil ashtray. Why y'all got these on the tables then, he says. I don't know, she says. But I know you caint smoke. It aint allowed. Larsen stubbs his cigarette out in the ashtray. That look like y'all beat your meat here, Cready says, nodding at the hamburger. The girl stands there and looks at Cready. Do y'all beat it hard and slow or soft and fast, Cready says.