Barber John held tight to the steering wheel as they drove down the back roads, sometimes sand roads, sometimes rocky ones. He had more than one moment where he regretted taking Sunny Spike with him, but what was the alternative? Leave the crippled guy in a wheelchair, no matter how disagreeable and maybe even crazy, on the side of the road in the middle of nowhere? Leave the only other human being who seemed to know something that might lead him to his dear Marilyn behind and head on by himself? Maybe Jesus had meant for them to hook up. Why else had Sunny Spike come to his shop in the first place?

Barber John had closed up the wheelchair as best as he was able and shoved in the back seat. One corner stuck out of the right hand window in the back. And then there was the matter of the gun. There was now a gun under his seat, and he’d never expected that.

He’d had to pick up Sunny Spike, getting one arm under him and one around, following Sunny Spike’s directions about how best to hoist, while Sunny Spike pushed up with his arms and hurtled himself into the front seat of Barber John’s car, and that’s when Barber John saw the gun.

“Not going to have a firearm in my car,” he said.

“It’s cherry man, but I ain’t waiting for no FUGAZI.”

“Translation?”

“Weapon’s virgin, but I got it in case things get all Fucked Up, Got Ambushed, Zipped In because this is some crazy mission we’re on now, brother.”

“Well, it’s going under my seat, or it’s not going in my car at all,” said Barber John shaking his head and wondering just what kind of mission God was sending him on.

Heading down the road, the two men relaxed a little. Barber John told Sunny Spike about Marilyn’s death and how long that death had been postponed over the years. He told the same story he told in the Barber Shop to Casey and so many other customers. “It’s a funny though because I know she’s not dead. I don’t know how this can be. I don’t know what God has in store, but I know I have to find her.”

“This is some crazy shit,” said Sunny Spike, “I ain’t no believer, but something serious is going down, and I got your back if you got mine, brother.”

Barber John nodded his assent. “Seems we’ve been thrown together, doesn’t it?”

“Belly of the whale,” said Sunny Spike.

Later, as they drove, Barber John asked the question that nagged him, “How did you come to be in the wheelchair?” He hoped it wasn’t too indelicate a question, but he wanted to know, and they needed something to talk about. “You were in the service, right?”

“No,” said Sunny Spike, “I just like to blow a lot of military slang out my ass,” he said, but he laughed and went on. “Yeah, I ate my share of Beans and Dicks – that’s pretty funny, too, when you know my story, which I ain’t gonna tell you.”

“No problem; I shouldn’t have asked,” said Barber John with a wave of his hand. He glanced in the rearview mirror.

Sunny Spike kept talking anyway. “See, people always want to know what happened, how I got shot up, what kind massacres I saw. Figure every guy there must have been shooting into the brown, killing babies, that sort of thing. Never think of friendly fire, and they never,” he wagged his head back and forth with exaggerated vigor, “ever think of what happened to me.”

Barber John didn’t say anything. He figured things were weird enough, and he better not pursue it.

“Okay,” said Sunny Spike, “You and me are on our way to God only knows what, this Ong’s Hat thing, so I’m gonna tell you.” He paused, “I was a Gun Bunny. You know, Angel Food, Sea Food, each branch got its slang. Well, if you’re a – now it’s Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell – but they know, and I can tell you some of these guys can sniff it out even if you’re a Poodle-faker poser; they got such heat in them, they can sniff you out and they want to pound you…”

“Are you saying…”

“Gay as a two dollar bill…”

“And you’re saying…”

“Friendly fire is FUBAR, baby. That’s Fucked Up Beyond All Recognition.”

“You’re saying…”

“That was after they beat the shit out of me with sacks full of helmets and boots.”

“Don’t tell me anymore…”

“Nothing more to tell, man,” said Sunny Spike, “I promise you, there’s nothing more to tell. So don’t ask.”