Old Hickory walked through the desert and smiled. He was almost to Nevada and hoped to make it to Las Vegas by the end of the week. A car pulled up along side him and seemed to shimmer in the heat. Hickory allowed himself a wider smile and got in.

“Jesus Buddy,” the driver said, making Hickory cringe ever so slightly. “What are you doing walking out in this fucking heat?”

“Just hoping to catch a ride to Vegas,” Hickory said in his easy way.

“Well, you’re in luck cause that’s where I’m headed.”

“Perfect.”

“Yeah, going out there to sell vacuums. I’m a salesman.”

“That right?”

“Sure is, it sucks.”

The salesman laughed, Hickory grimaced.

“Is it the life you always wanted?” Hickory asked after the man had gotten a hold of himself.

“Heck, no. I always wanted to be somebody, you know. All I ever wanted was the chance to make enough bread to spread around and enough blow to keep me happy.”

“That’s what it’s all about isn’t it?”

“Amen, brother.”

Hickory frowned. “What if I told you that everything you’ve ever wanted was possible to have, what would you say?”

The salesman grinned, “I’d say you’re full of shit.”

Now it was Hickory who laughed. He turned to the salesman and held him with an odd look. The salesman couldn’t help but take his eyes off the road and stare into the stranger’s face. Hickory’s eyes lit up, he pointed ahead toward the road that neither of them were watching and said, “Better look out.”

The salesman tore his eyes away and stared forward in disbelief. He cranked the wheel hard and narrowly missed an overturned vehicle in the road.

“Holy shit!” The salesman said screeching to a stop.

He leapt out of the car and ran over to the wreckage. What appeared to be two gang-bangers were hanging upside down by their seatbelts. Blood dripped down from the corpses and there was an awful smell in the desert heat.

“Well what do you know?” Hickory said from the back of the overturned car.

The salesman went over to the stranger and couldn’t believe his eyes. “Is that . . .?”

“I’m no expert, but yes, I think it is.”

“It’s gotta be worth, what . . .?”

“A lot.”

“Yeah, a whole fucking lot!”

“Definitely a whole fucking lot.”

“Gimme a hand will ya?” The salesman said, picking up an armload of white bricks that had spilled out of the car’s trunk.

“Certainly.”

The men made quick work of transporting the wrapped white powder from the wrecked car to the salesman’s trunk and were back on the road in under five minutes.

“Jesus, what a score, huh?” The salesman shouted deliriously.

Hickory shuddered.

“We’ll split it, you and me, 50/50.”

“No, that’s quite alright.” Hickory said with laughter in his eyes. “I don’t want to have anything more to do with it.”

The salesman looked at him in shock, “Are you serious?”

“Very.”

“What the fuck, are you crazy or something?”

“Something.”

“You a fucking narc or something old man?”

“No, not a narc.”

“No fucking way, man. You are not blowing this for me.” The salesman whips the car off onto the curb. “Get out.”

“You’re serious?”

“Get the Hell out of my car!”

Hickory smiles, “If you say so.” He hauls himself out of the late model sedan and watches the salesman peel off in a cloud of dust. He begins walking down the road again.

Careful what you wish for, you just might get it.

The salesman made it to Vegas by mid-afternoon. He knew a shady fellow that ran one of the many strip clubs and told him that he wanted to make a sale. The two men squeezed in-between the sweaty stripers in the back dressing room and slipped out into the alley. The salesman popped the trunk and showed his acquaintance what was inside.

“So what do you think? How much could I get for all of that?” The salesman asked.

“Jesus, Mary mother of Joesph. What you have there is a fucking death wish.”

“C’mon man, can you make the deal happen or what?”

“Yeah man, but I want a fucking cut off this shit.”

“How much are we talking?”

“50.”

“Fuck you, man.”

“Alright, fuck dude. Gimme 30 and I can make it happen tonight.”

“Done.”

2

Old Hickory came upon a roadhouse. He wasn’t particularly hungry, but he did often enjoy a cup of hot coffee. Hickory went in and sat himself. The table was greasy and the ketchup bottle was half full. A waitress came over to him, she had the body of a pear; little tits, big hips.

“Can I get cha, darlin?”

“Cup o’ Joe,” Hickory said, reading her nametag. “Dorothy.”

“High test?”

Hickory nodded with an easy grin.

“Comin up, sugar.”

Dorothy strolled over to the waitress station and Hickory regarded her swaying bottom with mild interest. Dorothy filled the white ceramic mug and came back with a hand full of creamers.

“That’s fine,” Hickory said, holding up one hand as Dorothy sat the mug down on the table. “I’ll just have it black.”

“Can’t say I’ve had much demand for coffee with the weather like it is.”

“Ya don’t say? I’m always up for a shot of caffeine no matter what the thermometer says.”

Dorothy smiled and turned to leave.

“Say, your parents name you after Judy Garland?” Hickory called after her.

Dorothy stopped and turned to face him.

“Yep, my mother loved the Wizard of Oz. Always told me I’d be a star one day, just like that Judy Garland.”

“What happened?”

“Got off the yellow brick road somehow. Got knocked up, had kids, got beat up; the kids left, my man left and here I am trying to make ends meet.”

“You know it’s never too late,” Hickory smiled in that cunning way of his. “Never know who might walk through that door one day. Casting agent, Hollywood producer, some studio exec big wig. Hell, might even be Tom Cruise.” Hickory chuckled.

“That would be something,” Dorothy smiled.

“What if I told you that everything you’ve ever wanted was possible to have, what would you say?”

“About being a movie star?”

“Yep, big cars, lots of green backs, plenty of people writing you fan letters. Why there’d be media interviews, Regis & Kelly, The Daily Show, Late Night; lots of people knowing your name, loving you, cheering for you, worshipping you. Then there would be the men salivating over you. You could date within your newly exclusive Hollywood circle of power players. Buy a big house, fill it with whatever your heart desired; fame, riches, happiness.”

Dorothy thought for a long moment. “Nah, I don’t think that would be the life for me. I’m happy just the way things are. I’m not rich, but I make enough to take care of myself. The kids are all grown up, but they call me every weekend like clockwork. I don’t have a car, but I live upstairs in a nice room with a great view of the sunrise every morning. Lenny, the chef, he makes me whatever I want to eat and never charges me. Sides, I think he’s sweet on me. No, I wouldn’t want Tom Cruise or any of his cronies to come in here and turn my life upside down. I’m happy with things just the way they are.”

“Humph,” Hickory grunted. “If you say so.”

Dorothy suddenly felt uneasy and a little squeamish. It felt like someone had jacked up the heat, or left a door open or something.

“Well,” Dorothy said shakily, suddenly uncomfortable around her customer. “Anything else I can get cha?”

“No, that’s enough,” Hickory muttered.

“Lenny?” Dorothy said going into the kitchen.

“Back here!” He called from the walk-in.

Dorothy walked quickly back toward the big freezer, “There’s this strange guy out on the floor, maybe you ought to tell him to scram.”

Lenny had the freezer door propped open with his foot. The vent was on so Dorothy knew he hadn’t heard her; she stepped inside the walk-in. That’s when Lenny grabbed her by the shoulders and shoved her back against the stack of lemon crates. He kissed her hard, she opened her mouth for him. He groped with her brazier and she helped him. He slid her dress up over her thigh and she wrapped her leg around his ample waist.

“Oh God,” Lenny panted. “You don’t know how long I’ve wanted to do this!”

“Me too,” Dorothy whimpered into his ear. “Take me right now.”

“No, wait, I need to tell you something first.”

“Anything, Len.” Dorothy breathed.

He grabbed each side of her face in his big hands. “I love you, Dough. I have ever since I first laid eyes on you.”

“Oh, Lenny.” Dorothy said, with tears in her eyes.

“Dorothy,” Lenny said sliding down to one knee in front of her. He pulled a diamond ring out of his shirt pocket. “I want you to be my wife.”

Dorothy dropped down in front of him, “Yes! Lenny oh yes, yes, yes!”

She kissed him hard and he slipped the ring onto her finger. Dorothy sucked on his neck hard and he breathed into her ear, “What better place than a freezer to give my girl some ice.”

Dorothy jerked her head back and laughed louder than Lenny had ever heard her do before. She stared at him hard, “Lenny, you have made me so happy!”

“The feeling’s mutual, darlin.”

Dorothy pushed Lenny down on his back; they made love in freezer and the two of them never even shivered.

3

Hickory walked further along the highway and more signs of civilization began to spring up around him. Strip malls, gas stations, businesses; before long he found himself in a suburb of Las Vegas. Hickory did not attempt to thumb a ride, did not rest his weary feet, instead he entered a playground and smiled at the youngsters rushing about. He found a wooden bench off to one side and watched the little ones on the swings, the monkey bars and the bright colored fort with attached slide. Why, he might have been a grandfather out on an afternoon stroll.

“Hey mister!”

Hickory turned his old head in time to see a young fellow kicking sand nearby.

“Hey mister. What’s your name?”

“I doubt you could pronounce it, little one.”

“Huh?” the child asked, confused.

“What’s your name?”

“Chris, Christopher.”

“Hello, Christopher, or would you rather I call you Chris?”

“Umm, Chris.”

“Well Chris, do you live around here?”

“Uh-huh.”

“You do? Well who are you here with?”

“My baby-sitter, that’s her over there on the phone. Her name’s Jamie.”

“Well Jamie certainly looks like a good baby-sitter.”

“No she’s not, she won’t let me or my sister have ice-cream!”

“No? Perhaps I could give you some ice-cream, would you like that Christopher?”

“Umm,” Christopher looked nervously around. “My Dad said never to take candy from strangers.”

“Well it’s a good thing it’s only ice-cream then, huh?”

“Yeah,” Christopher giggled. The child hopped onto the bench beside the old man and began swinging his feet.

“It’s almost Christmas time, you know.” Hickory said with a warm grin.

“Yeah.”

“What if Santa could bring you anything you wanted, no matter what, what would you ask for?”

Christopher sat there a long time, kicking his feet. “Maybe for there to be no more wars.”

“No more wars? Why is that?”

“My daddy is in a war. I would wish for Santa to make it so that there was peace everywhere in the whole world!”

Old Hickory was taken aback. Jamie called out in a frightened voice for Christopher to, “Get over here this instant!”

The children ran around him. They screamed and shouted; they cried and laughed. The swings creaked, a soft desert wind blew and Hickory sat there for a while, thinking and smiling that awful smile.

4

That night the salesman met with Baby Guido, a local mafia tough, outside the strip club. The bass thumped from inside as the strippers bounced and rubbed their breasts across their customer’s faces. The music covered the sound of Baby Guido putting a bullet in the salesman’s brain, before putting the old sedan in drive and leaving with enough cocaine in the trunk to make him a fortune.

Lenny and Dorothy drove into Vegas and were married at a drive-thru church.

Christopher’s daddy called after dinner and said his tour was up. He was finally coming home.

At a secret government lab in nearby Berkley, California; a tech who had been up for the past 48 hours getting high while screwing his girlfriend dropped a vial onto the laboratory floor. The contents were a new breed of super-virus developed in order to keep the United States ahead of the biological warfare curve.

The sun rose the next morning. Vegas was unusually quiet, but Hickory figured that the same could be said for any place, say from New York right down to the tiniest village buried deep in the Amazon; the Earth was probably the quietest she’d ever been in a long, long time. Other than the native wildlife, Old Hickory was the only living thing that walked the Earth that day. He smiled to himself, the widest smile he’d allowed himself in eons.

Old Hickory, Asmodeus, Mr. Scratch, Old Gooseberry; these were all his names. He was the prince of Pandemonium, the Hooven Cloof & the Angel of the Bottomless Pit. Lucifer, Satan, Old Hickory himself thought of little Christopher’s wish, “I would wish for Santa to make it so that there was peace everywhere in the whole world!”

Careful what you wish for, you just might get it.