Time continues to be unreliable.
I believe several weeks have passed, but I can’t be sure. A terrific windstorm yesterday, though, nearly shook the bear out of the tree, and unseated me from my torpor. I don’t think the torpor has all that much to do with prison. It happened outside, too. Some people would call it depression, but I don’t like to give it that term because it places a pejorative on this natural slowing down.
Hmm, you’re telling me you dig a hole? I see, I see. You crawl inside, and all body functions slow down? Your appetite—oh, I see. You stop eating completely. You sleep, and sleep, and sleep? Until spring?
Bear psychiatrists don’t prescribe bears anything in the winter. Bears are smart. They allow winter its soporific effect. All of them, except for my bear. After the windstorm, I looked outside as soon as red sunrise was brimming in the east, and there it was, bravely clung to the wind-lashed tree, having made the climb in the gale just like any other night to listen to the storm blowing itself out over the plains.
Another letter from Toni this morning.
Dear Betty,
Bitch they almost got me. It is a new day and I am in one peace and I am never going back to Winnemucca. Here is how it shook out. I was in a motel off the highway on the north edge of town and already feeling a little jumpy being in Nevada cuz you know the gaming commission still pumping money into the state so even in the country there’s food relief witch keeps the law here some, but I come down here anyway because I read in the paper that there’s a couple of small fry who decided a last month to become a discount bonnie & Clyde on you know what kind of diet. They took they first in a room up at the MGM Grand and I been to Vegas and done that whole bit so you know I know how much it take to get a maid to call in management for something, and then how much more it take for management to call the cops, because nothing makes people forget that number one moneymaking phrase “whatever happens in Vegas stays in Vegas” that keeps the liquor and blow coming and the dice rolling until you do something fucked up enough to start the police chasing you out through Clark County clear to the state line. And I don’t know all the specifics cuz they kinda laundered that newspaper story cuz they don’t want no copycats but even from the piney scented version it sounded like discount bonnie and discount Clyde got a talent for interior decorating. Meaning decorating rooms with peoples interiors. And this pissed me off more because you know if they in Vegas pissing away cash they aint hungry. They started killing for the fun of it, and they done some eating just cuz they like the taste I guess. But you know I wouldn’t go to Vegas for the life of me. Not even if the Whopper was down there. So when I heard they was gone up towards Winnemucca somewherebouts I headed straight down to camp out and see what wandered in. The beepbeep have only about a five mile range on it but I figured if they was coming up north and over the state line there was a good chance of them passing by whatever motel I chose and then I’d have em. So I went down and chose a little establishment called the Scott Shady Court Motel and lemme tell you that is a Mo fuckin Tell for the books. Nothing much to write in there but it got a sauna and a swimming pool indoors and I like the vibe. That’s what almost got me got. Cuz you never ever ever pick a motel for the swimming pool when your names Toni TransAm. You pick it cuz it’s got a straight shot back on the freeway. But anyway I’m at the pool cuz why not, that’s what you do at Scott Shady Court. And I’m drinkin an umbrella drink fit to stay dry and drunk in a seven year storm cuz the umbrella big enough to cover up the whole pineapple and all its frends. And I think what got me was being at that pool in a bathing suit and with my beepbeep right on the side table next to me. Cuz you know how when I wear my one piece I look a little lumpy down there. And at Scott Shady Court Motel they like it one way or they like it the other way. They don’t like no in-betweens, witch I guess I shoulda called for a place right down the street from the Buckaroo Hall of Fame, and in-between is how I look in my one piece. I don’t fuck with no bikinis. Anyway when the poolboy in his uniform is bringing me my third pineapple he look at my beepbeep and he ask me Whats that. And I’ve already drunk a whole food group twice so I tell him that’s my Chi Neese pager. And he ask me whats a Chi Neese pager and I tell him it tells me when a special delicacy is near and I give him a look like he’s something nice to eat but not in the way Yang’s beepbeep is for, and he scurries off and I think that’s the end of it. But before my drinks halfway south I get a little tickle. And I start listening hard. And I hear footsteps running in the hall and I reach into my purse and close my hand real steady over my blaster.
Betty you know I’d prefer it to always have Merle playing when I pull the trigger. But lucky for me I can always get him playing in my head. And when they swing that door open and cowboy in two at a time I start in with some Art Deco rating and blast holes on the tile walls witch basically becomes a tile grenade an I blast down the top lights cuz I don’t wanna kill no cops but I don’t want em putting no holes in me either. I’m a wyman bitch. I already got all the holes I need. Anyway they scurry back out and kinda regroup while I do the same, which means throw the beepbeep in my purse and sling it over my arm and hightail it to the service entrance with my pineapple in one hand and my blaster in the other. And before I blast that door open I hear them yell TONI TRANSAM THIS IS THE HUMBOLT COUNTY SHERIFF and I think well, you did that backwards sheriff, and skipped the first part which was to locate and fuck with my bike tho as you know Betty my bike got a few tricks up it sleeve too. And I am on that shit and waving goodbye to Scott Shady Court in about six seconds and I tear outta there with a whole herd of cop cars wailing after me but it is like a magic cheetah getting chased by a herd of hippos and I am out through town and on the 95 and I swear there is no straighter road than coming up north outta Winnemucca. And you know once my bikes going straight and hot it makes the miles melt down to slag and only take about three minutes to melt ten before I pull over and put on my goggles and change into my zip suit cuz my favorite robe is ribbons from the wind, god fuckin dammit. And I can see the cop lights about two miles back. What the fuck they trying to do catching a Chinese e-bike with a buncha crown fucking vics. Like you can add up the speed of all five of em to suddenly match mine. It don’t work like that: fast is fast, and slow is slow, and if they couldn’t catch me by the pool they certainly aint catching me out on the flats, and I think they probably knew that but sheriffs are all cowboys, and cowboys like to saddle up and ride after bandits. I shoulda expected nothing less from a sheriff living down the street from the Buckaroo Hall of Fame. So I open it up, nothing crazy. And it was a nice visit to Nevada but I decide I’m all full up on whores and alien jerky so I’m heading back to Oregon. And by the time I reach that state line I realize I shoulda got off the 95 back at the 140 and headed the way I came back towards Denio because the line is furry with cops, and I think Well the compass got four arms. Left is California, and they got law so they got no need for me. East is thick with mormons and they’ll shoot me on sight. The ways left to go: forwards and back, and I don’t wanna head back down south to 1 2 3 4 declare a thumb war with the long arm of the gaming commission. So I open it up towards the fuzz.
Good lord it was beautiful Betty. I aint never used the trick I was planning cuz Yang said not to use it until I really really need it, but I figured Californians on my left Mormons on my right the Humboldt County Sheriff on my tail and whatever gaggle of vigilantes they was able to radio for and stir up ahead constitutes a dire need indeed. But I didn’t know if it would work. Well guess what. Just like Yang said all you need is a straight shot and the throttle opened up to 170 and then you hit that switch. And when you hit that switch she sprout wings, and when you hit that second switch she shoot fire out her brand new robot azzhole. And that makes perfect sense to me, because Betty you lift me and you light me up, and you know I named my bike after you. But anyway the fuzz don’t have a Yang wing sprouter button, and they definitely aint going 170. So they just sit and gape up. I blast a couple holes in front of there barricade, not cuz I think they’re gonna be able to hit me, just cuz I like a little lasers and flame with my exit. You gotta have some style. But I know I don’t have to tell you. Anyway I soar up over the winking lights and am outta there, hooting up towards the alkali lake outside Paisley cuz I’ll need to power down and open up my panels to charge up cuz I don’t wanna risk a plug with them so hot on me. I will never let them take me. I am the only law worth a damn between the cascades and the snake and the Columbia and the Great Basin, and the innocints need me. I am a hot mess biker and a internet sensation and a goddam badass muthafuckin gunslinger and a good person. And I’m big in Japan/China. And oh woops I guess I’m not humble anymore. But there’s a difference between humble and smart, and to hunt the big bad ones you gotta have the smart and better than humble you gotta have some swag. Plus I’ll tell anyone who wants to know that I owe my new life to you. You inspire me bitch.
Yr friend,
Toni
P.S. You were in the papers again.