REYoung was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania and lives in Austin, Texas, in a limestone cave deep beneath the city. He is the author of Unbabbling, a novel (1997). This excerpt from Margarito and the Snowman is published here courtesy of Dalkey Archive Press.
From the publisher: “REYoung’s latest novel — Margarito and the Snowman — features a nation buried in snow and ice in an obligatory 365 days a year Christmas celebration, a tribe of Mayan warriors in comedy troupe disguise, an existentially challenged hero known as the Snowman on a quest that takes him south of the border down ol’ Mexico way, and a B-grade movie director named Boone Weller with his own agenda. Is it a book? A movie? Told in a shoot from the hip Texas style, Margarito and the Snowman is loose, rangy, battered with an attitude and bound to offend everybody…”
Then he’s cruising at seventy miles an hour across the barrens, a winding section of two-lane blacktop that once acted as the sole arbiter between the quietude desired by the habitués of the former municipal golf course and the requisite noise of the former municipal airport, the cold wind screaming in through that crack in the side vent, as well as myriad pinholes, mouse holes, bullet holes, that big old Dyno V8 awash and agush in thick black oil pounding away under the hood of this over-sized behemoth exhumed from the neo-plasticene age, from the rust and decay of Tommy’s Repurposed Automobiles and Parts after his last piece of shit, a little foreign economy model with three-hundred-thousand miles on the odometer, broke down on him for good halfway across the railroad tracks on Maynard (it’s Mannered, remember?) at five-thirty a.m., just about right on schedule for the first commuter express of the day, which hurtled past a mere thirty seconds after he managed to push the car off the tracks, followed by fifteen minutes of fooling around under the hood before he finally gave up and staggered homeward, his body beat, his brain a fog, his thoughts vaguely suicidal and even more so when his gaze fell on the eight-foot-tall chain-link fence topped with razor wire surrounding the very establishment where he’d purchased the above-mentioned vehicle. And speak of the devil, at that very moment Tommy, the host and impresario himself, a chemically orange splat of hair shellacked to his skull with motor oil, appeared at the front gate in a pair of torn tennis shoes and greasy orange coveralls from which a tangle of black and copper chest hair sprouted at his throat. Morning, Snowman, Tommy purred, stopping in the middle of unlocking the gate to leer at him, the milky blue-gray discs of his severely bloodshot eyes staring madly, infused with hydrocarbons, THC, methamphetamine, nicotine, malt liquor, Ice. In reply, he glowered significantly. If Tommy got the message he didn’t show it. Taking the bus today, Snowman? Tommy growled through a frosty breath. Grr, that did it. He started to convey his severe disappointment regarding his previous purchase but, beneath Tommy’s mad, unwavering, one might even say psychotic gaze, his complaint quickly deteriorated into a rambling sort of apology for his own incompetence with auto mechanics, because of course if he’d thought to take the distributor cap off right there in the middle of the railroad tracks and lightly sand and blow dry the contact points and rotor as Tommy suggested, he probably wouldn’t be here right now to press his case. Which was probably true, he wouldn’t be here. He’d be smashed flat under a train. Tommy, whose attitude until now had suggested nothing but utter contempt, suddenly beamed as if the light of true understanding had cast a narrow shaft into the bedlam of his brain. In a single instant he had not only assessed the Snowman’s current car-less status, but also remembered the nature of his own business. Hey! Tommy growled, jabbing a thick, scarred, grease-blackened finger in the Snowman’s face. Maybe you’d like to take a look at some of the little beauties I got sitting out back. Oh, come on, Snowman, don’t give me that look. What? You’re still sore about that wuvable wittle VW bug? Or was it a—HaHaHa—Honda? Don’t tell me it was a Yugoslo?! Look, Snowman, I know times are tough, your paycheck’s never enough, just have a look around, get some ideas. Remember, at Tommy’s, no money down until you sign on the dotted line. I’ll do you right, Snowman. Trust me. Tommy’s pushing open the gate and chattering away in a friendly, jocular tone while clutching the Snowman’s elbow in a greasy black claw and forcefully steering him into an elephant’s graveyard of car parts, engines, chasses, front ends stacked like empty eye-socketed Neanderthal skulls, piles of tires, racks of gleaming hubcaps, a colony of dislocated car doors, they’re splashing through chocolate milk mud puddles skinned with thin sheets of ice, tripping over bumpers, grills, Tommy kicking at snow-covered radiators, rear axles, growling disdainfully, goddamn junk, then fixing him with those mad, staring eyes—it’s a joke, Snowman! Of course it’s junk! Tommy’s bending under the hoods of Chryslers, Plymouths, Fords, Chevies, Pontiacs, he’s urging and cajoling him in a gravelly, boozy, tobacco-worn voice. What you need, Snowman, is a vehicular apparatus, a motorized appliance, I mean to say, an automobile! Hey! smacking his forehead again, completely stunned, stopped dead in his tracks by the holy throes of another epiphany. What about that one? Tommy’s blasted eyes focus on a dully gleaming black hull half-buried in a snowdrift like the wreckage of an alien spaceship, adding to this impression the tall black tailfins stacked with brake, back-up and parking lights that do kind of look like the rocket ships in old sci-fi films. Before the Snowman can say or even think to say, what, are you crazy? Tommy’s leading him forward and earnestly purring, Oh, she runs, Snowman, she runs. She’s got a motor in her that’d power a tank. Love, Snowman, that’s the key. A little love, a little black magic, a quart of elbow grease. Tommy the raconteur, fast talker, snake oil salesman and back alley sleight-of-hand magician, he’s on a roll now, he’s a card shark warming up his mark, he’s a carney barker beckoning a country bumpkin to his booth, he’s talking and gesticulating and coaxing the Snowman’s eyes past the rough spots, the rust spots, the dings, dents and snicker doodles crumbled on the dash, not to mention the pattern of bullet holes like a distant flock of geese winging their way across the left front quarter panel. But Tommy has a tune for that, too. A crazy deer hunter, Snowman! It’s the last day of the season, two minutes before sundown, he’s got a wife at home, children—sons, Snowman, he’s got sons! He’s gotta show them he’s a man, he’s gotta bring home the meat, he’s gotta fill their bellies, the old lady’s already got the frying pan on the stove, the boys are out back chopping the last quarter-acre of forest into firewood. Our citizen’s cold, he’s shivering, the sun’s just dropping below the horizon, it’s past the legal hunting hour now but he doesn’t care, it’s no longer the noble hunt, the struggle between man and beast, it’s outright poaching, it’s a violation of some civil code amended to the laws of nature, but he’s got the itch now, it’s crawling under his skin like a caffeine overdose, he’s twitching and blinking, he’s trembling so hard he can’t even hold the damn gun straight, and there it is, thrashing around in the thicket, a fucking bear! Keee-rrriist, it’s a big motherfucker! He opens up on full auto, empties half a clip of steel-jacketed armor-piercing shells into the beast. He approaches his kill, chest heaving, adrenaline flooding his veins, ready to tear out the monster’s throat with his unsheathed Bowie knife. Too late he realizes his mistake. But it’s nothing, Snowman! Just a flesh wound! It doesn’t even pierce the interior. This baby’s built like a fucking battleship, Snowman. The previous owner was apparently some kinda safety nut. You could crash head-on into a semi hauling Icine and come out as clean as any unbaptized heathen. And the appointments, Snowman! Phone, mini-fridge, kitchen sink. Kitchen sink? The whole time Tommy’s watching him, gauging him, Tommy the simpleton turned sinister, lynx-like, oozing ninety weight gear oil. Oh, I don’t know, Snowman, maybe you’re right, maybe she’s not the one for you. It takes a unique sort of in-da-vi-jool to appreciate a classic like this. Tommy’s grabbing him by the elbow again, escorting him toward the Asian market, Hondas, Hyundais, Toyotas, Banzais. But . . . hey, wait, hold on a minute, the Snowman interrupts Tommy’s spiel. I wanta take a closer look at that coupe. A closer look! Tommy roars, reeling around in mid-step, his eyes rolling a full revolution in their sockets before stopping at 13 o’clock. And actually grabbing the Snowman by the collar, he drags him back to this automotive classic, creaks open the heavy black door, slides his lanky frame behind the wheel and, with a conductorly flourish, turns the key in the ignition. The engine coughs, a cloud of black smoke pops out the tailpipe and va-va-Vooom! a powerful throbbing roar reverberates in the Snowman’s eardrums and chest, suggesting possibilities of both very high speed and acceleration—should one ever need them. How much? Grinning like a fox licking egg yolk from its chin when into the chicken coop struts a big fat hen, Tommy climbs out of this hoary pride of Detroit, feels around in his coveralls, pulls out a TV remote and furiously starts punching buttons. A thousand bucks, Snowman, it’s the best I can do. I’ll have to think about it, he says. Tommy makes a face like he’s suffering acute indigestion. Yeah, sure, think about it, Snowman. The thing is, I got this guy coming by later, see, I think he’ll go one-and-a-half Ks. Let’s face it, Snowman, it’s a fucking classic! It’s in demand! I gotta think about business! Go to the Salvation Army if you want a fucking handout! That’s the problem with society today, everybody wants something for nothing! Nobody takes no goddamn responsibility! Look at me, Snowman! I built this thriving enterprise with the sweat of my brow and my own two hands. (As well as the proceeds from several profitable years of dealing Ice without getting busted.) The only thing is, he really hadn’t planned to drop a thousand bucks right now. But what if someone was coming by this afternoon? Tommy kicked a loose distributor cap, sending it tumbling across the snowy yard. Look, Snowman, I’ll tell ya what. I’ll knock off the cost of registration and plates, and all the special appointments convey at no extra charge. And what could he say but okay, I’ll take it, at which point Tommy was already leading him back across the yard and up the creaking wooden steps to his office, a small, cramped hut, kind of like a glorified deer stand, but stifling hot from the kerosene stove in the corner as well as the narcotizing smells of several gallons of spilled hydrocarbons, oil, gas, transmission fluid, antifreeze, etc. that have dangerously saturated this shack over the years, further adding to its combustibility, the walls papered with automotive calendars, big-breasted women in tiny, cutoff jeans and overflowing polka-dot bikini tops, the desktop a sprawling landfill of greasy invoices, bills, business cards, burger wrappers, pill bottles, cigarette packs, packed ashtrays, a half-empty bottle of whiskey. In the middle of this firetrap Tommy’s trying to light a cigarette and throwing still-burning matches on the floor while he forages through a pile of vinyl cleaning fluid-soaked papers, finally extracting a transfer of title and shoving it at him to sign, which he does swooning in waves of petroleum fumes. Snowwwwmannnn.
Then he was back outside in the cold, keys in hand, still convinced that the Coupe, uppercase C now, really was a beaut and he really was going to fix it up and take care of all those little dents and dings and other things that from the very minute he pulled out of Tommy’s junkyard began to nag at the back of his brain like an incipient toothache, not only that high-pitched whistle and whine of cold air streaming in through the cracked side vent, or the heater that came on at its own caprice—just enough to get his hopes up before it conked out again—and the lush pile carpet on the floorboards long ago worn away revealing corroded sheet metal, and the white vinyl seat pocked with tiny brown volcanic craters from dropped or carelessly stubbed-out cigarette butts, or that the special appointments Tommy had mentioned turned out to be: 1) an old black rotary phone plunked on the dash; 2) the kitchen sink literally a sink Tommy’d dumped in back and never bothered to dispose of; and 3) the fridge—a vintage green metal Coleman 54-quart ice chest, actually in pretty good shape. Even worse the barrels of gas and oil the Coupe guzzled, spewing half of it back on the pavement through endless leaks in the gaskets, tubes, cracked hoses and connectors, the whole creaking, rattling, rusting and banging cacophony of springs, popping rivets and sheet metal screws gradually uniting and blending into an almost pleasant background noise in which his thoughts roamed like a mouse in a boiler or, in this case, ice factory. He came around a bend and there it was, an enormous, roaring, clanking, floodlit, black corrugated metal building, lightning rods, weathervanes, giant spinning fans, squalls of fluffy, powdery snow flurries blowing under sheet metal doors and out of gill-like louvers, and towering above it all, the two huge smokestacks gushing great, semen-like clots of snow.
Excerpted from Margarito and the Snowman by REYoung. Published in 2016 by Dalkey Archive Press. Copyright © 2016 by REYoung. All rights reserved.
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