She’s not keeping close track of the radio: now it’s Otis Redding singing “Dock of the Bay.” This one always chokes her up. You can picture poor Otis looking out over the water, the terrible sadness in his voice suggesting he already knows he’s going to end up frozen in a Wisconsin lake while the fans wait and wait for his plane to come in, for the concert to begin.
You can’t think too much about luck, good or bad. Taylor has decided this before, and at this moment renews her vow.
Lucky Buster is lucky to be alive and unlucky to have been born with the small wits that led him to disaster in the first place. Or lucky, too, for small wits, that allow him so little inspection of the big picture. In the ambulance on the way to the hospi-tal, he wanted to go to McDonald’s.
Over the phone, Angie Buster confided that Lucky had run away many times before. She asked Taylor not to repeat this to the doctors, fearing that it might interfere somehow with Lucky’s insurance. “He’s not really running away,” Angie explained, “he just don’t have a real good understanding of where home ends and the rest of the world takes up.”
Taylor agreed that was sometimes a tough call.
Sand Dune is not sandy so much as dusty. Everything Taylor can see in the Parker Strip is covered with dust: battle-scarred regiments of mobile-home parks, cellophane flags whipping from the boat docks, and out in the river the duckish, bobbing boats with yellow bathtub rings on their bellies. A fine silt clings even to the surface of the Colorado, proof that this river has had all the fight knocked out of it.
The town is a congregation of swayback tile roofs and front yards blighted with the kind of short, trashy palm trees that harbor worlds of sparrows. Portions of dilapidated stucco wall stand along the road like billboards, crowded with a square-lettered style of graffiti. There’s no chance of losing her way here: the approach to Angie’s Diner is fes-tooned with yellow ribbons and a bedsheet banner stating: HAPPY EASTER LUCKY BUSTER. Taylor pulls in at the motor lodge Angie told her to look for, the Casa Suerte, next door to the diner.
“Wake up, kiddos,” she says gently. She’s afraid Lucky might bolt, but he doesn’t. He and Turtle both rub their eyes, equally children. “We’re here,” she says, and helps Turtle out of the car. She’s uncertain how to handle Lucky.
He takes off in no particular hurry across the courtyard of the Casa Suerte toward the diner. At the buildings front entry is a shrine to the Virgin of Guadalupe, who is studded all over with yellow stick-on bows as if she’s been visited with some kind of pox. On the other side of the door a colorless bulldog is ensconced on a padded chair, panting in the air-conditioning. He stands up and barks twice. A big woman in Lycra shorts and a tight yellow T-shirt appears, arms open, to envelop Lucky like a starfish.
“Get in here!” she shouts at Taylor, scooping a hefty arm through the air. Taylor has Turtle in hand and was hanging back to give them their reunion, but apparently this is routine.
Some women have swarmed out to make a brief fuss over Lucky, while an old man stands picking the bows off the Virgin, putting them in a plastic sack to save for next time.
Angie’s Diner is draped with paper streamers and banners welcoming Lucky home. “Get in here,” Angie repeats, once they are inside. “This photographer here wants to take the little girl’s picture that saved my son’s life. Is this her?”
“This is Turtle,” Taylor says. Turtle’s grip on her fingers is jeopardizing the blood circulation.
“Oh, Lord,” Angie says, swamping Taylor with a hug. “I about lost my mind this time. Once he got kidnapped down to the border by some mules, and that was bad but I think this was worst. Sit, let me get you some pie. Did you all eat lunch yet? Red, get over here!”
The counter is crowded with porcelain knickknacks, and Angie is so busty and energetic in her yellow T-shirt it seems likely she’ll knock something over. A freckled man with a camera introduces himself as “Red from the paper.” He hands Taylor a copy of the Sand Dune Mercury and attempts to remove Turtle from her other hand.
“It’s okay, I’ll be right here,” Taylor promises Turtle’s upturned eyes. She rubs the feeling back into her fingers and stares distractedly at the paper while Red poses Lucky and Turtle in front of the salad bar. She’s stunned when the banner headline eventually registers: LUCKY BUSTER SAVED BY PERVERSERING TUSCON PAIR.
She has to read it twice to get the intention of perversering.
“Wow,” she says.
“The papers picked it up all over the state,” Angie informs her. “Would you sit down and let me get you something to eat? You kids must be starved.”