[Icelander]

Zamal Juman drives with a casual competence, if somewhat slower than Wojciechowski apparently favors, at some 5 mph under the posted speed limit. The two men bicker for a while about the choice of radio station, before compromising on KGLK 107.5, a classic rock station playing Stairway to Heaven. Kit offers to set up his iPhone to play Spotify on Bluetooth speakers, for when they drive out of range of radio stations they might know, but Wojciechowski blows off his offer.

“Better save phone charge, boychik. Battery bank is not going to last forever. Besides, Zamal here has had some absolutely top of line electronics installed in this hulk, like cassette player older than his driving. Zamal, has it occurred to you that you were hipster before it was cool?”

Revealing tobacco-stained teeth, Juman retorts, “I always been maximum cool cat, not like dem millennial hipster punannies. Besides, you mad rass. Is am me dem collect dem antique cameras, you lenky hipster antee-man?”
“Is that true, Mr. Wojciechowski? Do you collect cameras?”

Grimacing, Wojciechowski counters, “Just call me Tomasz, youngling. I don’t want anyone to assume you’re my new son-in-law. And yeah, I guess you could say I collect cameras, though it’s more accurate to say that I like taking pictures and prefer cameras from when they were made by craftsmen. Look at this here.”

Wojchiechowski takes a silver and black vintage camera out of a large pocket on his jacket. “It’s Leica IIIa, 35mm rangefinder camera made in 1936. You can fit it in pocket, retractable lens, but it does everything you need camera to do. Full range of lenses available, easy to change, pleasure to feel. And look at precision; workmanship. That’s not made by pushing buttons on an assembly line, boychik. A German lens maker, world-class expert in a country with finest precision industry in the world between the wars, poured his heart and soul into this device. Probably why it always exaggerates hooked nose of anyone with trace of Jewish blood, but, eh, nobody’s perfect.”

Snapping a picture of a shocked-looking Kit and the dozing pig next to him, Wojciechowski grins puckishly. “You flinch because I mention race? You Americans, so serious, so sensitive. Of course, you have unique perspective on racial relations, because no one in Europe ever experienced prejudice or discrimination, nor did we have benefit of enlightened Texans solving racism forever.”

“Tomasz, I realize that as a white American from Texas, my perspective is a privileged one and I don’t pretend to any insight into European or Polish history. Just, please, try to avoid saying anything offensive about race or religion, dude. That’s not funny, here or anywhere else. Okay?”
“Okay, White Knight. At next meeting of Elders, maybe I should recommend you as Righteous Gentile.”
“[Excrement],” says Kit ruefully. “You’re Jewish?”

“Not religiously,” Wojciechowski says, “But by the Law of Return I qualify, if I ever want to go to Israel, thanks to my sainted mother, may she live forever.” He crosses himself. “Why do you think I keep calling you ‘boychik’?”
“I just assumed you’d lived in New York.”

Wojciechowski hawks rudely. “Bah! Pretend to be politically correct, but then you want to call me DamnYankee by association! I am proud Texan. I like my brisket barbequed and pronounce ‘bagel’ incorrectly. Every night, before I go to sleep, I remember Alamo. Sometimes twice, if I accidentally watched real football or believed in global warming that day. And I own more guns than Zamal owns underpants, though we both know that is low bar.”

Drily, Juman interjects, “You keep dem guns cleaner than you keep am own underpants, you dutty rass.”
“I assure you; my gun, my drawers and my weapons are all kept immaculate and in perfect working order. Your mother cleaned them all last night, most thoroughly,” says Wojciechowski with a vulgar and complicated gesture of his tongue, to derisory jeers from his compatriot.

---

Traffic on I-45 North is murder, probably due to the extensive police manhunt ongoing for the perpetrators of the series of violent incidents over the last few days in the Galveston area. It takes two hours to get to the exit for I-69, but fortunately, while a Highway Patrolman eyed the car sharply around League City, nobody stops them.

While the pig is docile, Kit has a chance to bombard both Juman and Wojciechowski with questions. He learns that Juman has been a Night Rider for thirteen years and Wojciechowski for eight. Juman comes from the Tactical Services Unit of the Guyana Police Force and Wojciechowski has a varied and complicated military career.

“When I was young, I didn’t know what I was going to be. Maybe engineer, philosopher, physicist; maybe priest, maybe chess master. I was lucky, my parents still many friends in academia, even though they were not Party members. So I went to university and had much fun, for many years. I was medical student in Uniwersytet Jagielloski, in Krakow, when Solidarność demonstrations took place in ’82. Because I was young and stupid and political, I didn’t graduate. Expelled and not even for seducing professor’s wife or daughter. That, they didn’t know.” Wojciechowski shrugs eloquently.

“So I joined military. Because I am badass, I was 1 Batalion Szturmowy and then later, under Col. Petelicki, I was, how you would say, plankholder of GROM. After how they treat the Colonel, kurwa generals and politicians, I finally resigned in 1999.” Wojciechowski sighs, “Left Poland.”

“Because I was no longer young, but still stupid, I joined French Foreign Legion. Saint Michael l'archange save us, I was parachutist, lying about my age, so they wouldn’t put me behind desk. The ignorant and unemployable of some fifty countries, all the tactical acumen that lost Dien Bien Phu and half our NCO corps hopeless alcoholics. It was szajs, but I loved it.”

From the driver’s seat, Juman interjects, “That’s how you know am is na officer, he is dutty NCO. He’s always drunk on am nasty cheap liquor. In dem Foreign Legion, they na have ‘Rum, sodomy and lash’, they gots am ‘Battie, buggery and beer.’”
“As you hear, Zamal objects to beer while he’s being sodomized and whipped. It’s rum or nothing. Strange place to draw line, but it takes all sorts to make world, boychik.”

---

As they continue down the I-69, Kit tries to draw more information about their decisions to become Night Riders from his traveling companions. Juman claims facetiously that he did it for the Green Card and Wojciechowski says that monsters were the only thing tough enough to challenge him. He does acknowledge, though, that he learned about Kessler’s network of occult troubleshooters through some friends in the Legion, old, broken-down Legionnaires who knew Jean-Michel Alexandre, Kessler’s right hand man, from his time there.

“And what about you?” Wojciechowski stabs a finger in Kit’s direction. “I suppose you ask all these questions to distract from your cliché life story? Grew up in small Texas town we probably never heard of, but probably in some piney woods backcountry because there’s hint of Matthew McConaughey on your tongue. Fixed pick-up trucks, finger cheerleaders and watch fireflies. Played quarterback in high school, but wasn’t good enough for Longhorns. Went to some local college, to study… maybe communications or some fake major like that. Bored out of your skull and went to recruiting station because you saw Lone Survivor or Zero Dark Thirty.”

“That’s not even remotely accurate,” says Kit. “I was a defensive back and the movie was Michael Bay’s ‘The Rock’. Why would you even assume I was a quarterback?”
“You’re tall, boychik, but not wide enough to be lineman. And you’re too white to be anything else.”
“That’s just racist nonsense. My ethnicity has nothing to do with what position I play.”
“Yes, boychik, and that is why you never joined the military, but got a full-athletic scholarship and now play in the NFL with all the other white cornerbacks.”

A deep rumbling laugh booms from Juman in the driver’s seat. “Don’t let dis lenky illegitimate get to you, banna. He’s just gonna keep pushing buttons if you let him.”

Waving his hand dismissively, Kit says, “Alright, alright, it doesn’t really bother me.”
“Sure, banna. Where are you really from?”
Kit makes a face. “Actually, Lufkin.”
Juman laughs again. “Fifty miles ahead Lufkin? East Texas, pinewoods Lufkin? No [excrement]? You got kin in am?”

While adjusting the CamelBak to water the pig, Kit says, “My parents still live there.”
“Wanna drop in on am?”