Blacktop Wasteland

The point of view shifts to Bug, who has spent a lot of money on Kia. The two of them, along with Kelvin and his latest girlfriend, are dancing at Danny’s, a favorite tavern and dancehall. When Bug goes to the bar and orders drinks, a scarred stranger—Burning Man—strikes up a conversation with him about poker, but the man turns it into a discussion about murder methods. Bug knows something is off. He goes back to his table, scanning the saloon. He sees two other strangers, Carl and Jim Bob, who are armed. The guns exactly don’t shock Bug, since there’s no bouncer, and “[t]he sign on the door prohibiting weapons was taken as a suggestion by most of the patrons” (179). He tells Kelvin to leave and take Kia home. Both Kia and Kelvin realize something is wrong, but they leave as Bug asks.

Bug sits beside Carl and snatches Carl’s gun, poking him in the ribs with it. Horace comes over to the table. He shows Bug a picture of the back of Kelvin’s Nova and tells him that another car with two men is following it and will shoot the occupants if Bug does not return Carl’s gun and get in the car with them.

Bug rides in the backseat of the Cadillac all the way to the suburbs of Lynchburg, Virginia, where the men take him into a store. It is the middle of the night. Led to the store’s backroom, he is seated in between Ronnie and Quan, both of whom appear beaten up.

Lazy comes into the room. He compliments the three on the robbery, especially Bug for his driving skills. He explains that the diamonds were worth $3,000,000 and remarks that Ronnie must have gotten at least $700,000 out of it. He then laughs as Quan and Bug glare at Ronnie, who they now realize lied to them about the profit and shorted them. Lazy explains that usually he would have just had them killed but that he needs a favor from them. He wants them to steal a truck loaded with contraband platinum—a precious metal even more valuable than gold—and he says the job will get them off the hook for the diamonds. Bug doubts Lazy is telling the truth about letting them off the hook, and when he asks more about the truck and those guarding it, Bug gets hit from behind. Lazy says no one talks without his permission. He says that while Jenny gave up Ronnie and Quan, she didn’t know about Bug; he asks Bug to guess who told him that Bug was the driver. Bug knows it was Quan, as Ronnie isn’t a “snitch.” One of Lazy’s men shoots Quan three times, killing him. Lazy tells Bug and Ronnie that if they fail to capture and produce the truck, their families will be killed in front of them.

After the meeting, the point of view shifts to Lazy. He confides to his henchmen that using a biracial robbery team will convince his adversaries, who are moving the platinum, that Lazy had nothing to do with stealing the truck; they believe Lazy would only ever consort with white people (from the sound of it, he has a racist track record). After the theft, he says, he intends to kill Bug and Ronnie.

It is 5 a.m. when Lazy’s men drop off Bug and Ronnie on the outskirts of Red Hill, giving Bug a burner phone and a piece of paper with information about the truck. Bug grabs Ronnie by the throat, choking him and dragging him into the bar ditch alongside the road. When Bug finally lets go of him, Ronnie says they have no choice but to rely on each other. Bug confronts him with the likelihood that Lazy still intends to kill them after they steal the truck; however, Bug has been developing a plan to turn the tables and kill Lazy and his men instead. Ronnie comments on how dangerous these mobsters are, to which Bug replies, “They think they are. But they bleed like everybody else” (195).

Bug drops Ronnie off at Reggie’s trailer, telling him that they will need two additional helpers. When Bug asks if Reggie can help, Ronnie says Reggie can drive but is otherwise useless. Going inside, Ronnie startles Reggie, who points a gun at him but does not really know how to use it. Ronnie tells Reggie the thugs who came for him intend to come back and take everything they have.

When Bug gets home, Kia asks him what happened, seeing blood on his face. He replies the blood isn’t his. She knows that whatever happened, it’s the aftermath of the heist, though he won’t speak about it. Bug embraces a frightened Kia, who confesses she’s often so scared for him that she’s planned his funeral multiple times.

Bug and Kelvin drink beer at Danny’s at the end of the workday. After Bug explains to Kelvin everything that happened, Kelvin wants to help him steal and deliver the truck. Bug has investigated both Lazy and his adversary. Lazy controls payday loan companies, smoke shops, moonshine, and sex work through western Virginia. His opponent, known as Shade, controls crystal meth in the Carolinas. Bug explains his plan to trick Lazy and Shade into showing up at the truck’s delivery point at the same time; if this works, he’ll let them shoot it out while he watches from a distance with his scoped rifle.

The point of view shifts to Ronnie, who is hanging out in Reggie’s unairconditioned mobile home with no money and no foreseeable future. Bug calls him to ask if Reggie can drive to North Carolina on Friday night, to which Ronnie replies, “Well, kinda. They shot him in his foot when they came and scooped me up. He patched it up with some gauze and duct tape. […] it should hold” (203). Ronnie asks when they will get their money back, and Bug explains the money is gone and they need to focus instead on saving their own lives.

Bug hides alongside a deserted rural North Carolina highway, carrying a .45. He’s seen no other traffic in the past hour. Kelvin, who is discreetly following the platinum-loaded van and an accompanying SUV, texts Bug that the van is five minutes away; Lazy had been wrong, as the vehicle is not a truck but a van. Bug sets afire a 19-foot Lincoln Continental that is sideways across the road; he knows the van and the trailing SUV will be blocked. As intended, when vehicles arrive, they stop. Three armed men—one with an AR-15—get out of the SUV and bicker over what to do about the roadblock.

Moments later, Kelvin stops his truck behind the other vehicles and approaches, asking what is going on. He tells the guards he has a fire extinguisher and offers to put out the fire if they help him push the Lincoln out of the way afterward. Meanwhile, Bug approaches the van driver, who is still at the wheel, and hands him a note telling him to crawl back in the van and handcuff himself to the supports.

After the fire is out and the Lincoln is pushed out of the way, the armed men get back in SUV, thumping on the hood of the van to tell the driver to continue; they don’t notice Bug is now in the driver’s seat. Having driven the highway several times before, Bug bides his time to a certain geographical point—then removes the brake light fuse and speeds to full throttle, leaving behind the SUV, whose occupants shoot at him even as it recedes in the distance.

Bug texts Ronnie, who is ahead of him on the road with a bobtail truck that Bug has retrofitted to hold and conceal the van. Ronnie lowers the ramp, and Bug pulls the van into the back of the truck.

Further down the road at a gas station, the SUV drivers see the van parked at a service station. They discover it is completely empty. They stop a man leaving the service station with a beer, asking him if he knows who was driving the van. The man is Reggie, who had driven the decoy van to the service station earlier. He tells them three times that he doesn’t know who drove the van to the service station. As Reggie walks down the road, Kelvin stops and picks him up safely.

Bug’s plan is working as intended. In a staging area in the woods off the highway, he and Ronnie unload the van from the back of the bobtail truck. Ronnie says they should keep a couple rolls of platinum for themselves, but Bug squeezes his shoulder painfully to imply no, they will not keep any of the contraband. He notices the outline of a pistol in Ronnie’s pocket. Soon, Kelvin and Reggie arrive.

The original driver of the van has been handcuffed in the back of the van until now. The group intends to handcuff him to a tree and leave him, since he can saw through the tree branch with the cuffs eventually. Bug feels no need to kill the driver, who has not seen any of their faces.

Charged with the duty of blindfolding the driver, Ronnie ties the bandana so loosely around his head that it slips off and the driver sees Ronnie’s face. Knowing they might kill him now, the driver bolts into the woods. Bug, Ronnie, and Kelvin take off after him. In the darkness, Bug crashes into the driver, who tries to strangle Bug with his handcuffs. They struggle and fight over Bug’s gun. Kelvin and Ronnie emerge from the forest, shooting and killing the driver: “Beauregard peered over Kelvin’s shoulder. He saw Ronnie looking down at the driver’s body. He was humming the tune that Beauregard didn’t recognize. Beauregard turned his attention back to Kelvin” (229). As Bug and Kelvin discuss getting back on schedule, Kelvin is suddenly shot in the head. Another bullet hits Bug in the shoulder. Losing consciousness, Bug rolls down a steep embankment as bullets fly around him. Ronnie has turned on them and shot them both.