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Eddie stared some more. The log dangled at his side. “I guess you’re right,” he said. He spread his elbows to make room. The other men stood aside. With both hands, Eddie raised the log up over his head, as if he were chopping wood. The animal wasn’t moving at all now. The checkered cloth fluttered gently and was still. At the top of his swing, Eddie stopped. I can’t say why, but I knew he was going to. In that instant, I felt that my arms, too, were locked above my head, my fingers were gripping a wet and heavy club that now seemed somehow mean. White Sox shot a hard glance at Eddie, and finally Eddie brought the log down with a soft thud. Bunny grabbed my arm and covered her eyes. Eddie struck three more times, going easier with each blow.
“Now it’s dead,” said White Sox.
Eddie looked down at what he’d done and then heaved the log, end over end, far out into the swamp.
“I’m glad I didn’t bring Grandmother’s good tablecloth,” Bunny whispered to me.
For the ride home, Bunny made Eddie strip down to his underwear and sit in the backseat, so he wouldn’t get the Pontiac full of mud. “There’ll be hell to pay if the cops catch us like this,” said Eddie, grinning.
Bunny was worried about getting stopped for speeding, so we crawled back toward town. Coming in on Fogarty Road, a line of cars got stuck behind us because the road curves, and they couldn’t pass. Someone started to honk. Eddie laughed. “Go slower,” he said. “I’m enjoyin’ this.”
Suddenly, a squad car was beside us. The cop gestured for Bunny to pull over to the side of the road. He parked behind us and walked slowly up to Bunny’s window. He was a big, barrel-chested man. I recognized him, but I didn’t know his name.
“Somethin’ wrong with your car?” he asked.
“No, officer,” said Bunny.
“You know, there’s a minimum speed limit,” he said. “Twenty-five miles an hour.”
“I guess I forgot.”
He looked past Bunny to the back seat, where Eddie was sitting with his legs crossed. The policeman straightened up. He stepped over to the back door and flung it open so hard the hinge screamed. “Out,” he ordered.
Eddie climbed out, grinning. He looked ridiculous in his underwear beside the cop.
“His clothes got wet when I was attacked by a raccoon,” said Bunny.
“Yeah, yeah,” said the cop. He spun Eddie around. “Are you drunk, Boggs?” he said.
“Not enough,” said Eddie.
“This is Sunday, you know,” said the cop, without explanation.
Eddie smirked. “There’s a dead raccoon with rabies out to Mason’s Farm,” he said. “You ought to go bury it.”
“I don’t do work like that,” said the cop.
An old, brown car passed by, and a passenger, seeing Eddie, hooted and waved.
The cop leaned down and reached into the back seat of the Pontiac, pulling out a Hamms can. He jiggled it next to his ear, and you could hear the liquid slosh. “Open liquor,” he said.
Eddie climbed back in and slammed the door. The cop took Bunny’s license and walked to his car to write a ticket. Bunny looked at Eddie in the rear-view mirror. “Thanks,” she said.
Eddie grunted.
When the cop came back, he gave Bunny her license and a copy of the ticket. He put his face in the window and looked at Eddie. “You got no pride,” he said.
“Don’t need none in front of you,” said Eddie.
“Thank you, officer,” said Bunny quickly. “We’ll go now.”
The cop straightened up. As Bunny pulled back onto the road, he slapped the trunk of the car with his hand, making a loud, ringing smack.
“Jesus!” said Bunny.
She kept at exactly twenty-five miles an hour the rest of the way back. When we got to Rose Dry Cleaners, the parking lot was empty. Bunny pulled up beside the stairway leading to Eddie’s room. He climbed out and took his sopping clothes from the trunk. Then he stood in front of the car and did a little hula dance in his underwear, swinging his hips from side to side. “Get going,” said Bunny angrily. She gunned the car and spit gravel all over the building as she pulled away.
We didn’t say much on the way back to the Vernons’. I was thinking about Eddie, and I was starting to see how hard it was going to be for Bunny to let him go.
