“Yeah, that was me. My name’s Davis Reed. I’m a friend of your cousin Dale. I’m renting his cabin for a few months.”
Floppy waved his arms like he’d just walked into a spider web.
“He ain’t no family of mine! He thinks just because he wears a uniform and carries a gun that he’s better than me. Well, he ain’t. I got more knowledge between my ears than that fat ass has in his whole body. Do you know he can’t even find Kansas on a map? I showed him a map one time and challenged him to find it, and he pointed to South Dakota. Can you believe that? And he walks around acting all cocky. Just because you’re a deputy don’t mean you’re smart; just means you didn’t fail out of tech school.
“I’m Gerald Johnson, by the way, named after my granddaddy. People call me Floppy ’cause of my leg. When I walk, it sorta flops behind me. I was struck by lightning back when I was in high school. I was out at the football field after a game one evening with my metal detector looking for coins and rings and stuff. Did you know people lose things like that all the time at sportin’ events? You can find some good stuff if you got a good detector. Anyways, I’s hunkered down with the detector and had my headphones on, ’cause you can’t always hear the detector when it beeps—it’s subtle and such—and sometimes you can’t always hear it unless you got a good set of headphones. So I didn’t notice they was a storm coming up, and dang if I didn’t get struck right in the leg. Threw me halfway up the bleachers. Set my pants’ leg on fire. They didn’t find me till the next morning.”
While listening to Floppy, I made a mental note to kick Dale’s ass the next time I saw him.
“So what can I help you with?” Floppy asked. “That kraut wagon giving you some trouble?”
I thought about how to get inside the garage to take a look around. It obviously wasn’t going to be hard to keep the man talking, but there was no way I was going to let him near my car.
“I’d like to talk to you about Cold Mountain. I’m writing a book about it and talking to some of the locals to find out more about the folklore and history.”
“There’s already a book about Cold Mountain. But I guess they’s enough about that mountain to write another one.”
“I’d appreciate any help. Can we go inside and talk about it?”
“I know everything there is to know about that mountain. My granddaddy used to bear hunt up there all the time. Did you know a black bear can eat a man in less than nine minutes? It’s true. People don’t worry about black bears as much as they worry about grizzlies, ’cause grizzlies are real nasty and can probably eat a man in less than five minutes—I don’t have the statistics on that—but black bears are mean too if you catch them at the right time. I was chased by a black bear once. People say you’re supposed to play dead if a bear’s chasing you, but it’s awful hard to play dead when you’re worried about dying.
“Speaking of bears, I used to go with this woman had a bear paw tattooed on her right titty. I called it her tit-too cause it was on her titty. Get it? I don’t understand women that get tattoos on their titties. Do they think they need something to draw attention to their titties? I mean, we’s gonna look at their titties no matter what’s there. It’s like them nipple piercings. Now why would a woman go do something like that? Put a piece of metal through a perfectly good nipple? That’s like a man sticking a nail through his pecker. Ain’t no reason for that. I tell ya, some thing’s I just don’t understand.”
I looked over Floppy’s shoulder into the junk-filled garage and decided I was on a fool’s errand. I took a step backward while glancing at my watch.
“You know, actually I should probably get going. It’s later than I thought, and I’m sure you’re busy.”
“I ain’t got no tattoos. A lot of people ’round here do, but I didn’t never see no point in it. Dale’s got a tattoo of a skull wearing a cowboy hat with the words Lynyrd Skynyrd under it. He got it about twenty years ago, and I said what the heck did you get that for, your momma’s gonna kick your butt when she sees that. But his momma died ’fore she ever saw it. I ain’t never smoked, but she smoked a lot and that lung cancer ain’t no good way to die. I guess there really ain’t no good way, if you think about it. I was lucky I didn’t die that first time I got struck by lightning. That was the bad one that fried my leg. The second time just stung. I don’t know, maybe the second time you’re struck don’t hurt as bad. I’d like to talk to people who’ve been struck by lightning more than once. I’ve heard they’s a group of people on the internet who’s been struck by lightning multiple times, but I don’t trust the internet because you don’t know who you’re talking to. You could be talking to somebody who says they been struck by lightning a couple times but really they’s just some pervert trying to find out where you live.”
I had to yell Floppy’s name twice to interrupt his stream of consciousness. Once he stopped talking, I told him it was nice chatting with him but I was going to head on out.
“But hey, didn’t you want to ask me about something?”
For a moment the old Clash song “Should I Stay or Should I Go” rattled in my head. I wanted to find out if Floppy had the keys, but talking to the man was like playing Whac-A-Mole. I looked again over Floppy’s shoulder into one of the garage bays and noticed a refrigerator wedged between two workbenches. I pointed toward it and said, “You got any beer in that fridge?”
Floppy gave me the same look Dale had given Daiquiri’s ass.
“Heck yeah,” he said. “Come on in.”
19
When we walked into the garage, Floppy hobbled over to the refrigerator door and pulled out two cans of light beer.
“Dale likes that fancy beer,” he said. “But beer’s beer, if you ask me.”
He handed me a can and pointed to an oil-stained bench next to a hydraulic lift.
“Now what did you want to know about?”
“What can you tell me about Cold Mountain? My book deals with the plane that crashed up there in the 1940s.”
Floppy didn’t hesitate an instant. With rapid-fire delivery, he told me everything from the mountain’s elevation to the names of the trails that webbed across its acreage to the variety of trees that grew out of its soil. As he spoke, I sipped the light beer, which tasted like dirty water, and glanced around the garage hoping to catch sight of the missing keys. It was like searching through a landfill. Every surface was covered with tools and junk and garbage. It would have been hard to find a haystack in the place, much less the needle inside it.
“Now, people say wormy chestnut ain’t an indigenous tree to these parts, but it’s an indigenous tree if you consider that it was brought here by the Spanish who planted it in order to make cabinets and furniture out of it once it matured. Now, I don’t like wormy chestnut myself—I prefer oak because it’s a much hardier wood, although some say it’s not as attractive. But then again, you can’t always account for taste.”
When I’d had as much botany as I could take, I stopped Floppy midsentence and asked him if he would show me around the garage.
“Oh yeah, I got a lot going on here. I work on all types of vehicles. Now, I don’t know much about them electric cars, but it’s no matter, ’cause they ain’t none of them around here nohow. I changed the oil in a Jaguar once. Did you know a Jaguar can cost over sixty thousand dollars? I don’t know who’d spend that kind of money on a car—”
I interrupted again. “Mind if I get another beer?”
“No, help yourself. I buy ’em by the case over at the Walmart. I keep ’em for customers and such—they like it much better than them garages that just have a Pepsi machine.”
Over the next hour and five beers, Floppy showed me every inch of his garage. During that time I learned how the government was spreading chemicals through the vapor trails of airplanes, how climate change was a fraud perpetrated by the green-energy lobby, and how the United Nations had helped fake the moon landings. One thing I didn’t discover was a set of keys.
I finished th
e last sip of the last beer and tossed the can in an overflowing garbage bin sitting next to a welding machine.
“It’s been great talking to you, but I really need to get going,” I said. “Thanks for the beer.”
I walked out of the garage and heard Floppy dragging his foot as he followed me to my car.
“Hey now, wait a minute,” he said as I slipped behind the driver’s seat. “You was talking about that plane crash on Cold Mountain. Are you trying to find out about that gold?”
20
I drove back to El Bacaratos and called Dale from the parking lot. He answered on the first ring and, as usual, didn’t bother with a hello.
“How’d it go with Floppy, dickhead? You two best buddies now?”
For a second I considered telling Dale I’d had a very pleasant chat with Floppy and he’d handed over the keys, no questions asked. But lying took energy, and Floppy had worn me out.
“I ought to kick your ass for sending me up there,” I said.
“Brother, you couldn’t kick my ass even if both your legs worked right.”
“That man is insane. He thinks the moon landing was faked.”
Dale laughed. “Yeah, and you wondered why I didn’t tell you we was kin.”
“He also swears his grandfather found a chest of gold from the bomber crash, and get this, he says your dad and Sheriff Byrd stole it when they were kids.”
Dale groaned. “I’ve listened to that bullshit for years. Floppy’s fucked up in the head. I think all them welding fumes has burnt his wiring.”
“Well, I looked all around the garage and didn’t see the keys. But I don’t how anybody could find anything in that shop—there’s stuff strewn everywhere.”
“You didn’t flat out ask him about ’em, did you?”
“How could I? I couldn’t get a word in edgewise, between the conspiracy theories and the talk about some woman with a bear paw tattooed on her boob.”
“Oh yeah, Tanya. I remember her. I should see if she’s on Facebook.”
* * *
I drove to the sheriff’s department and parked in the same VISITORS spot I’d used the previous day. I wanted to talk to Barbara about the keys and find out if she thought Floppy might have taken them.
“Did you look at my blog?” Barbara asked when I stepped up to the counter. “I wrote a new post last night. It’s a recipe for heavy-cream biscuits.”
“I haven’t had a chance to check it out yet,” I said. “But I promise I will.”
Barbara smiled in a way that communicated That’s sweet, but you’re full of shit.
“Listen, Dale told me that the keys I turned in yesterday are missing.”
“That’s right,” Barbara said. “A young couple came in early this morning to pick them up, but when I went to pull them out of my desk drawer, they were gone.”
“Do you have any idea where they could be?”
“I don’t know. They threw a big fit and then stormed out the door.”
“Not the couple, the keys.”
“Oh. I put the keys in this drawer right here.”
Barbara opened the top drawer of her desk and waved her hand over the contents like a magician gesturing over a magic hat. The drawer contained multiple lip balms, notebooks, a compact, and a travel-sized pack of incontinence pads. Barbara caught me staring and slammed the drawer closed.
“I lock the drawer every night before I leave. And I’m the only one who has a key. I have personal items in here, and no one else needs access to it.”
“But the drawer is unlocked while you’re here, right?”
Barbara nodded.
“So anybody could have opened it and taken out the keys when you weren’t at your desk.”
“I’m always at the desk.”
“Surely you go to the restroom.”
Barbara frowned and folded her arms.
“What about that guy that came in yesterday while I was here?” I asked. “You said he was Dale’s cousin.”
“Floppy?”
“Yeah, Floppy. Could he have taken the keys when you weren’t looking?”
Barbara seemed to consider the idea for a moment, then quickly shook it away with a jerk of her head. “Absolutely not.”
Just then Dale appeared in the doorway behind the counter, the same one I’d watched Floppy and Skeeter disappear through the previous day.
“What are you doing?” Dale said.
“I was just talking to Barbara about her blog.”
“No, he wasn’t,” Barbara said. “He was asking me about the missing keys.”
Dale shot me a look and I shrugged in return.
“Get your ass back here,” he said.
* * *
I went around the counter and followed Dale through the doorway. We walked down a long hallway past several rooms with open doors. Through one doorway I saw Sheriff Byrd sitting behind a large desk. He was staring at a computer monitor while speaking to someone on his desk phone. He glanced at me as I walked by, and I waved with a wiggle of my fingers. He didn’t return the gesture, but his hound-dog jowls dropped another quarter of an inch, so I was satisfied.
At the end of the hall we turned left and passed through a set of double doors propped open with two red bricks. We entered a large room containing several metal desks. A few deputies milled around the room, each one giving me a sour look as Dale pointed to an empty chair next to one of the desks. Maybe they thought I was under arrest or had been brought in to give a statement. Maybe they were like Sheriff Byrd and thought I was here to “sniff around” the department. I honestly didn’t care.
“How was court?” I said to Dale as I sat down.
Dale took off his duty belt and placed it in a drawer, then wedged himself into the office chair behind his desk.
“They didn’t call the case,” he said. “Gotta go back tomorrow. But I don’t mind. There’s this bailiff down there got an ass that looks like two coons fighting in a sack.”
I tried to imagine what that would look like. “I thought you were interested in Daiquiri.”
Dale spread his arms wide.
“Brother, there’s enough of me to go around.”
* * *
As we talked, I saw Skeeter walk through the doorway. He was still wearing those ridiculous aviators, and I wondered how often he replaced the toothpick he kept clenched between his teeth. When he noticed me, he walked toward Dale’s desk. My morning pill had long worn off and my insides were pulsating like I’d swallowed a vibrator.
“You owe me twenty,” Skeeter said, holding out his palm to Dale. “I told you the Vols were shit.”
It took Dale a good thirty seconds to fish his wallet out of his pants pocket. When he finally wriggled it free, he pulled out two tens and handed them over.
“That game was bullshit,” Dale said.
Skeeter smirked and gestured toward me. “What did you pick him up for?”
“General dickheadedness,” Dale said. “I’m not sure what the code is for that one.”
Skeeter snickered, and I imagined squeezing his nuts so hard his eyeballs would pop out and knock those stupid glasses off his face.
“Being a dickhead is a serious offense around here,” Skeeter said. “You best watch yourself.”
“You know, I’ve learned only two kinds of people wear sunglasses indoors: blind people and assholes.”
Skeeter took a step toward me, and when I stood up I could see my neck turning red in the reflection of his glasses. The only thing that kept me from knocking Skeeter to the floor was the thought of carving up his beloved Mustang. That and the fact that punching a deputy while surrounded by other deputies is a form of assisted suicide.
“You best watch your mouth,” Skeeter said.
“That’s a nice goatee. Where I come from, we call it prison pussy.”
Skeeter reached to his side and pulled his handcuffs off his duty belt. Dale stood up with a loud grunt and wedged his bulk between us.
“Cool your jets, Ske
eter. Davis here’s not as big an asshole as he pretends to be.”
Skeeter snorted and glared at me over Dale’s shoulder.
“Bullshit,” Skeeter said. “I pulled him for speeding a couple days ago. He was going seventy-five on 276 up by the golf course.”
Dale turned around and shot me a stunned look. “Holy fuck. Did you have a stroke or something?”
I shrugged and continued to give Skeeter my best menacing stare. Dale turned back to Skeeter and said, “Well, if my man here was going that fast, there was surely some good reason for it.”
Skeeter and I continued to glare at each other, neither of us willing to back down.
After letting the tension build for a few more moments, Dale put a hand on Skeeter’s chest and pushed him away.
“Quit fucking around,” Dale said. “And stop pulling over speeders. You got better shit to do than that.”
It was good to know Dale had my back, even when I was up against one of his own. I grinned, and Skeeter’s face twisted so tight I thought his toothpick might shoot out of his mouth like a dart from a blowgun. He stared at me for another moment, then turned and walked away. When he was passing through the double doors, he glanced back at me and I blew him a kiss.
When Skeeter was out of the room, I turned to Dale.
“What is his problem?” I said.
“Ah, he’s just young, dumb, and full of cum. Thinks being a deputy is all about bringing people to justice. Boy thinks he’s judge, jury, and executioner. He just ain’t learned my social skills yet.”
I heard someone say “Yoo-hoo” and turned to see Barbara standing next to the double doors.
“That young couple is out front asking about those keys,” she said.
Dale leaned back and stared at the ceiling. “Oh, for fuck’s sake.”
Barbara’s face soured. “Watch your mouth, Deputy.”
Dale pushed himself out of his chair and threw his duty belt back around his waist. “C’mon, Davis, let’s go talk to these assholes.”
Graveyard Fields Page 10
