Chapter Eight
“Hey Tiko,” Louis said, pointing at the engine compartment, “Do you know if these guys are any good in repairing engines? Some of the rocks tore apart a few tubes inhere and I could sure use some help.”
“Let’s go and ask them,” Tiko said.
To be honest, the rest of us didn’t know what to think of that. I had very mixed feelings as I watched Louis and Tiko walk off to Fatman’s Paradise. I was reminded of a strange ritual in Liège. Somehow over-religious people make me feel bad. Once a year a group of masked people used to carry a huge cross through our street. They always scared me to death. But at least they practiced their faith in the open. These guys had gone underground to celebrate their so called beliefs. They’d become nearly untraceable. What was it they were hiding?
“Damn! I’ll never make it in time for the opening match,” Mark said, kicking a broken sideview mirror into the dust.
“I don’t think there’s another way out,” I said. “The engine needs to be fixed. Nobody else around except for these freaks.”
“Why don’t we use the time to clean up the bus,” Lucy said. “Better than sitting around waiting.” She went over to Mark and smacked him a kiss.
“She’s right, Mark,” I said. “In a few hours it’ll be too dark to separate the bus from the rocks.”
He stared at Lucy for a second. What is there left to say when you got Lucy shooting her twin-barreled love gun right into your face? No way he was going to deceive his girl.
“O.k.,” he said. “They’ll simply have to wait a while longer.”
He stepped back into the bus. At least we got that settled. Lucy and I both went after him. Mark climbed up the roof to check on his board.
“It’s whole!” he yelled as if he’d just met Jesus.
He stood on the back of the bus, his arms stretched out wide. I thought of freedom.
“Why don’t you bring it down here. There’s enough space left and it might be safer,” I said. “Just push it over – I’ll give you a hand.”
After we stored away the board in the back of the bus, we started working on the mess. Not only had the roof been severely damaged, with one huge hole in the middle and a few smaller ones upfront. Six windows had been shattered and roughly a third of the seats had been ripped off their poles with their vinyl covering in stripes.
“We’ve got a lot of work to do. How about if I’ll clean out the sand while you guys take care of the seats. That o.k. with you?”
“Sounds like a good plan to me,” I said to Lucy.
I felt happy finally being able to do something and not just to sit around sweating and looking at the boring landscape. Mark and I first lifted all the broken parts from the bus and stuffed them into one of the baggage compartments. We didn’t know if and when Louis would be able to get spare parts or if he’d need to repair them. I wondered why he’d taken it all so lightly. With practically half of the interior more or less in shambles, I hoped he’d get some help from the religious guys to at least get the thing back to life again.
To fully restore it back to the original condition, he’d need to find a store specialized in these kind of vehicles, or one selling original parts. Maybe we’d find one in L.A. After Mark and I had removed all the broken parts, Lucy started with the cleaning. We got out to inspect the bus’ chrome hull. We were just able to make out a few scratches. Strange that the damage had been much heavier inside the bus. It almost looked as if whatever had hit the roof had been going for us. Judging from the width of the hole it only could have been something huge and heavy. But so far we hadn’t found anything to prove the theory. It wouldn’t simply have bounced back out again?! That’d be very strange ….. and highly unlikely.
I remembered my first thoughts after waking up were of Wild Cloud’s ghost and some of his friends. But no. I quickly rejected those as plain bullshit. Ghosts? No, I mean, get real, stone-throwing ghosts. Please …. even if, then why? After all we had done them no harm, we even took care of Wild Cloud’s son. No, it might as well have been zombies escaping a B-movie script, developing a crush on Lucy …
I stared at the bus. Huge clouds of dust protruded from the broken windows. Lucy was busy.
About an hour later I heard someone approaching the bus. The sun was already leaving us as I looked out of a broken window. It was Louis standing in a cloud of dust and debris. He stared at me the pathetic smile of someone having found the pleasure dome. Tiko was nowhere to be seen.
“Please come with me and y’all forget about the mess here. We found some people who are going to help us solve the problem.”
It sounded strange coming from his mouth. Louis, always being so realistic and down to earth, standing there and blabbering like a Jehovah’s Witness.
“Where’s Tiko, Louis?” I yelled.
“Tiko stayed in the igloo and waits for us to come over,” Louis said.
I looked at Lucy. We had the same thought: Something was very wrong here. First we needed to get Louis back to normal, then free Tiko and get out of there as soon as possible.
“O.K. Louis, we’re coming,” I said. “Let’s just get some stuff together. Mark, you come with us?”
“Yeah sure, whatever you say. Let’s see what’s going on in them iglos.”
He let go of half of the backseat he was trying to repair with a lot of tape. Sweat and dust stuck to his face. We must have looked like the Freemen of Arrakis, the Dune Saga Planet. But we didn’t care. At least we had managed to clean things up a little.