Freezer Burn by Joe R. Lansdale

sound of the wind, the fan, and the freezer. He was even brave enough to place his dinner on the freezer glass and eat while looking at the Ice Man’s face, clearing the glass from time to time with the hair dryer. Later, if they were near where he could pick up a channel, he would grapple with his aluminum-foil-covered rabbit ears, trying to bring in a TV station, or he would listen to the radio, listen to anything playing or talking, as long as it was noise.
    Conrad loaned him books, and he was amazed at how much company they were. He had never read much before, just some little Reader’s Digest things, but he foundthe Westerns soothing. Most of them were by someone called Louis L’Amour, and there were older ones that he liked even better by someone called Luke Short, and sometimes the books were not Westerns, but were about men with blazing machine guns who killed lots of other men, then got lots of pussy and flew off in planes on their way to other adventures. He wondered if you could really get a job like those guys had, and what the requirements for hiring were.
    But, TV or not, radio or not, books or not, as night moved on toward sleep, he would begin to feel ill at ease. He began to think of the Ice Man all over again.
    On nights when he couldn’t sleep for thinking about it, he’d go outside. Outside usually being some pasture or park area Frost had arranged for them to stay in, and he’d look at the sky and all about, trying to make some sort of plan, but never making one, and being confused on what he should make a plan about anyway. His last plan had certainly been a doozy. A plan like that made you hold back on future arrangements.
    It was on his first late night of doing this that he discovered Conrad lying on top of Frost’s trailer. He was a fair distance away, his back to Bill, and he lay still, his ear to the roof. At first Bill thought he was up there eavesdropping, trying to catch the sound of lustful breathing inside, or listen to the mousesqueak rhythm of bed springs.
    But, as he became accustomed to the dark, Bill saw that Conrad lay with his head on a pillow, and there was a blanket stretched over him. He was sleeping there, like a pet near its master, waiting for tidbits, soon to be called, tucked in for the night with a dream and a razor.
    Bill’s first thought was: What if it rains? Where doeshe sleep then? Underneath? Does he have a basket there? A bowl?
    But it never seemed to rain anymore, not since that day it had cooled his mosquito-wounded face. It was hot with a constant savage wind blowing, the air so brittle a wave of your hand might knock a crack in it.
    Every night when Bill came out of his trailer unable to sleep, there was Conrad. On occasion the trailer would be rocking to the lovemaking of the two inside, and above them, on the rooftop, Conrad would be sleeping, as content as a baby in a wind-up swing.
    It got so watching Conrad was a kind of diversion. Late nights, Bill would sneak out and around the side and get in a place where he could see Frost’s trailer.
    On occasion Conrad would not be there, but more often than not he was. One night Conrad was there, and so was the bearded lady. She had her hefty self on all fours and her dress pushed up over her ample ass and her panties around one ankle. Conrad, naked except for his hind leg shoes, was mounting her, proving that he did indeed do it doggie style.
    The bearded woman’s head was tossed back, and the way her beard stuck out she looked like those pictures Bill had seen of the Sphinx. Conrad was so eager with his work on the bearded lady’s white round ass, he looked not unlike a child wrestling a beach ball about to roll out from under him. In time Conrad settled down, got his bearings, and the motor home began to rock with a tidelike motion. Bill figured the bearded lady and Conrad were working to the rhythm of the humping of the Frost couple inside; a foursome sharing the same sexual cadence if not the same