Savage Gerry

by John Jantunen

  He pondered on that until he was washing down the last bite of his sandwich with the last sip from the water bottle without coming to any definite conclusion except that whatever had happened must have been pretty bad. The food had barely put a dent in his hunger and as he cracked the tab on the tall can of Old Style Pilsner he turned back to the pig roast, wondering if maybe they were handing out seconds, and catching a whiff of skunk. Thinking he’d just as soon have a taste of that, he tracked its drift back to the bonfire’s revelry. Sure enough, he could see several cigar-sized tubes of rolled paper being passed amongst the throng of men, each of them taking a heady drag and passing it to the next, holding the smoke in and exhaling only when another of the cartoonishly oversized joints came their way.

  But it wasn’t on them that his gaze finally settled. It was on Jules.

  He was now standing just outside the perimeter of the bonfire’s illume and appeared to be pleading with another man. The latter was a gargantuan six foot eight and as well built as your average professional wrestler except that his left arm ended at the elbow and in place of the joint there sprouted a hand no larger than a baby’s. It was the arm as much as his stature that told Gerald the man was Mathew Del Papa, whom everyone called “Pops” because of his name and for a couple of other reasons besides. As to his affliction, it didn’t seem to bother him too much. Mostly he treated it like it was a big joke, calling the baby hand Junior and telling anyone who’d listen that it was Junior’s fault he’d ended up serving five for aggravated assault, since Junior had all the discretion of a two-year-old and held his liquor about as well. If Pops caught someone staring at Junior in the yard, he’d go right over and introduce himself and Junior too. Junior would be reaching out, patting the other’s shoulder or poking him in the ribs, sometimes prodding at the other inmate’s face like a blind man’s would, his Pops all the while apologizing for the little rascal, But what are you going to do? He won’t listen to a damn word I say.

  At least he ain’t got a temper like Senior does, he’d then offer, holding up his right hand. There was a patchwork of scars latticed over its knuckles — a record of how many teeth it had reduced to bloody shards — and those would make his point clear enough so that after he’d introduced someone to Junior they rarely ever gave him a second glance.

  It had been Orville who’d introduced Jules to Pops, the very same day a guard had led the investment broker to their cell, the latter carrying a thin foam mattress rolled up and clutched to his chest. Orville had raised a stink, complaining that the cell was hardly big enough for two men much less three (at which the thought had crossed Gerald’s mind that it was hardly even big enough for one man, if that man was Orville Gates).

  The guard had promised that it’d only be a few days, a week at the most, they were just waiting on a bed to become available in one of the medium security prisons. That had been six months ago. A bed had never become available or someone up the ladder was making an example of Jules or maybe they’d just forgotten about him. Regardless, he’d never been transferred and the only person who’d come out ahead in the deal was Mathew Del Papa.

  Jules’s trial had made the national news as the largest case of investment fraud in the nation’s history so it wasn’t a surprise he’d have registered as a cruise ship–sized blip on the big man’s radar. All of his assets had been seized but anyone with even a passing knowledge of this breed of malfeasance must have suspected that Jules had a rainy-day fund somewhere, in the Cayman Islands or another suitably safe haven, all the while earning him interest over the course of his sentence.

  It wasn’t more than a few minutes after Jules had been assigned to their cell that Orville had taken him under his prodigious wing, offering to introduce him to someone who’d give him “a little hand on the inside,” the obvious pun lost on Jules until he was standing outside Pops’s cell a few moments later.

  Gerald would shortly learn from Jules that Pops was a Sergeant-at-Arms in the Thunder Bay chapter of The Sons of Adam. It wasn’t much of a surprise then that he’d now been let out by his brethren and that Jules would search out the big man to get another little hand up. In response to his pleas, Pops was frowning and shaking his head as if the story Jules was telling him had all the earmarks of a great tragedy.

  They wouldn’t give you any food? he was saying, his voice of such an elevated pitch that only a deaf man wouldn’t have known that he was having Jules on. Jules though didn’t seem to notice the sarcastic tone and nodded solemnly, looking about as pitiful as he could without actually resorting to tears.

  Well, we’ll just have to see about that.

  If there was one thing Gerald had learned about Pops after all these years, it was that the friendlier he got the more likely it was there’d be trouble for someone down the line. And Pops was being plenty friendly right now, setting his good arm over Jules’s shoulder, Senior giving him a pat on the back for good measure. Jules must have got a hint that things had taken a turn for the worse too, for instead of leading him on a straight line towards the trailer’s ramp Pops had taken a sharp left and was hustling him towards the darkness enshrouding the semi’s front grill. Jules’s head was arched in a desperate crane towards the fleeting promise of food and he must have said something in protest because Gerald could just make out Pops’s voice raised in joyful declaration, Don’t you worry about that, we got something special planned for you!

  Exactly what that might be would have to wait. Just then Gerald heard a sharp voice, almost a squeak, calling out, Gerald Nichols, as I live and breathe!

  He jerked around and saw a figure striding towards him. The lank of his form was reduced to ribbons by the blaze of the bonfire at his back such that at first glance the man looked like a floppy-eared puppy’s head had been impaled onto a scarecrow’s body. As he came closer, Gerald saw that what had first appeared as floppy ears was a furred cap — he’d have guessed rabbit — with mangy flaps hanging to the man’s shoulders. He also saw that his face resembled more a rat’s than a puppy’s except for his eyes, eager and beseeching, which did indeed remind him of the border collie his grandfather had owned when Gerald first moved in with him, though Whiskey was already an old dog by then and the man standing before him couldn’t have yet been twenty.

  He’d cut off the sleeves to his jumpsuit at the shoulders, exposing his rail-thin arms, and while he spoke he shuffled nervously from one foot to the other like he had to pee or was standing on hot coals.

  I saw you sitting over here, he was saying. Shoot, I said to myself, that looks like Gerald Nichols. And here you are!

  The scarecrow then stuck out his hand like he was practising a quick draw.

  Clayton, he said. Clayton Crisp.

  Gerald had learned over his stint at Central North that any perceived slight, such as refusing to shake a proffered hand, could mean a knife in your back and also that often the most harmless-looking sorts ended up doling out the most grief. And the scarecrow certainly looked harmless enough, if a little off, so Gerald played it safe by offering his own hand. Clayton gave it a vigorous shake such that his whole body seemed in danger of coming apart at the joints.

  Shoot, he said, here I am shaking Gerald Nichols’s hand!

  Once he’d released his grip, he stood a moment staring down at his hand as if he expected it to be glowing, shaking his head like he couldn’t believe his luck, and Gerald wishing he was anywhere but here.

  I didn’t know you’d joined The Sons, the scarecrow said after a moment.

  I didn’t, Gerald answered, searching out the trailer for signs of Pops or Jules and seeing neither.

  How’d you get the food then? They say only Sons is allowed to eat.

  First I’m hearing about it.

  A queer look came over the scarecrow’s face, that of a child who’d just caught his father in a lie. After a moment, he shook his head and went back to smiling in his lackadaisical way.


  Well, he said, I guess it’s true what they say.

  And what’s that?

  It pays to be famous.

  Gerald had never considered himself such but then it wasn’t much of a mystery to him why Clayton might think he was. It was that damned book! Gritting his teeth, shaking his head and silently cursing Jordan Asche, the journalist who’d written it, Clayton Crisp just one more notch in the belt tabulating all the reasons he’d have to kick that son of a bitch’s ass if ever they should meet again. The bile was rising in his throat even thinking of him and he took a sip from the can in his hand to wash it back. The beer had gone warm. It tasted little better than piss being poured into the bottomless pit that had become Gerald’s stomach and his eyes wandered back to the hog.

  Its ribs were showing and the cook was down to sawing off meat from its shanks.

  The scarecrow was looking at the same thing and his tongue was rolling around inside his bottom lip, imagining, no doubt, getting itself a taste.

  Listen, he said, leaning close and lowering his voice to a conspiratorial whisper, I know where there’s an apple tree. I saw it when I was on a garbage detail down on Gilwood Park Drive. That ain’t more’n a ten-minute walk. All we have to do is get past them.

  He motioned towards the grim riders with a slight jerk to his head and Gerald glanced their way. They stood beside their bikes as before and there was a man, one of the uninvited who’d broken off from the group, standing in front of the one facing into the yard. He was maybe three paces on this side of him and cast in the shadows. Gerald couldn’t see much about him except that he was tall and had long dark hair, almost to his waist, but something about the subtle mockery in his slouch reminded Gerald of Wayne-Jay, his only real friend back home. Wayne-Jay was an Ojibway from Wahnapitae, the reserve north of Capreol, and over the course of their acquaintance they’d also discovered they were distant cousins, seven or eight times removed. So this man could be an Indian too. It was a term that Gerald didn’t much like to use since it always came out sounding like a slur, the last thing he’d have wanted, but as there was no one likely to be reading his thoughts right then, he let it stand at that.

  The man’s head was cocked to one side, as if he was sizing up the grim rider. He took a tentative step closer. If the grim rider saw him he made no sign, staring straight ahead like one of those palace guards in London. This seemed to give the man a measure of courage and he inched closer until he was standing right in front of the rider, staring into his eyes, daring him to make a move. When he didn’t, the man flopped his head backwards and let fly a caterwauling ululation, a war cry it sounded like.

  Still not a hair’s breadth of movement from the grim rider and the man turned back to the crowd of uninvited.

  Fucking chickenshits! he yelled then made a quick dash past the man and his bike.

  When he’d made it into the field, he whirled around, flashing both middle fingers and yelling, Thanks for nothing, assholes! Then he was spinning back around and starting off at a hard run towards the woods on the far side of the field, letting fly his war cry again.

  The crowd of outcasts at the fence replied by shuffling a little closer to the hole, none quite yet willing to get within ten feet of the five ghouls who stood between them and freedom. For their part, the four grim riders facing out responded by mounting their bikes as if maybe they were planning on running the man down. Instead, they set the barrels of their rifles on their handlebars, hunkering low and taking beads on the forest across the field through their scopes, the green tint of the lenses giving Gerald every indication they had night vision. The middle rider, facing inwards, had also mounted his saddle and was flashing his headlight three times. This had the immediate effect of silencing the music and reducing every man within view to a silhouetted statue, leaving the bonfire’s shimmer the only shade of movement in the entire yard aside from a few stragglers on the fringes — those still hurrying to join the party — and Clayton striding towards the hole in the fence.

  Come on, what you waiting for? he called back over his shoulder as a spot of light appeared from between the trees at the edge of the field, no more than a flicker, almost like a … a firefly. And though it was too bright to be that, and also of a whiter hue when Gerald well knew that fireflies shone yellow, the mere thought was enough to freeze Gerald where he stood.

  His eyes flitted about the glade as if at this, the moment of his release, it would only seem right that a flurry of these winged creatures would appear before him, the insects having played a not insubstantial role in his capture those five years ago. A fleeting thought interrupted in the next instant by a sharp pop! ringing out from across the field, calling Gerald to full attention even as it snapped the fleeing man’s head back, same as if he had just run into a span of wire strung nose high. His legs flew out from under him and even before his body had been absorbed into the field’s dark Gerald was pitching to the right, diving behind the pile of rubble as a barrage of similar pop!s rang out with the urgency of hailstones on a tin roof. These were almost at once drowned out by a barrage of machine gunfire.

  Face buried in the grass, his hands clamped over his head, waiting for the onslaught to relent. But it went on and on and on. When he finally found the will to look up, he saw Clayton unmoved and peering towards the forest on the far side of the field with a mix of curious wonder and morbid delight even as a shot ricocheted off the cement slab not a foot from where he stood. Another tufted a divot at his foot and yet that still wasn’t enough for the scarecrow to glean that someone was plainly shooting at him.

  Get down, you damn fool! Gerald hollered up at him from the ground. You’re going to get yourself killed!

  7

  Is it the cops shooting at us?

  The scarecrow hadn’t moved an inch from where he’d sprawled onto the ground beside Gerald. He was lying prone with his hands clasped over his head, clutching at his rabbit-skinned hat as a trench-soldier might clutch at his helmet while the mortar shells flew, though it seemed unlikely that the people across the field, whoever they were, would be equipped with artillery such as that. Gerald had since crawled to the far corner of the cement slab, where he now crouched peering out from behind its cover, trying to get a sense of how the battle — if that’s what it could rightly be called — was playing out.

  Could be, he answered.

  Maybe it’s the army.

  It ain’t the army.

  How do you know?

  If it was the army they’d have blowed us all to shit by now. It’s probably just a buncha locals.

  You think?

  If you’re so hell-bent on finding out, why don’t you come on over and see for yourself.

  The scarecrow opened his mouth but didn’t seem to have an answer to that and Gerald turned back to the field.

  After the first barrage of pop!s, the battle had become a decidedly lopsided affair. The grim riders had roared off into the field’s dark, releasing bursts of machine gunfire, and these provoking only a few more staggered pop!s from whoever it was hiding in the trees.

  From Gerald’s vantage he couldn’t see the hole in the fence and thus couldn’t tell the fate of the uninvited who’d huddled together a few feet away from it. The only evidence he could make out of the men who’d been engaged in the festive revelry were the vague outlines of crouched legs between the wheels on the far side of the trailer and the no less docile forms of others who hadn’t made it that far, lying face down and likely dead within the halo of light cast by the bonfire.

  An almost ghostly silence had settled over the prison yard, buffeted by the distant rumble of motorcycles on the war path and broken shortly by an intermittent beeping. Red lights flared from behind the trailer as a white cube van backed slowly into view, a group of four men creeping along behind on the mincing tiptoes of cartoon villains. They were all holding assault rifles and one had a cylindrical object propped at a slant on h
is shoulder, its size and shape making it immediately recognizable to Gerald as being some form of rocket launcher.

  As the van passed from view behind the sheet of concrete, the man with the cylinder stepped away from the others, moving on a quick lateral towards the hole in the fence and also disappearing from sight. Pushing himself up and steadying himself with one hand on the crumbling edge of the cement slab, Gerald peered over its top, watching the man raising the front end of the tube, taking aim at the trees.

  Is it over? Clayton asked.

  As if providing its own answer, the launcher gave out a sudden whoosh!

  The rocket leapt from the tube, the sight enough to propel Gerald to his feet, watching with muted apprehension as it flared through the hole in the fence and across the field. It struck just inside the treeline, exploding with a ball of fire and lighting the field with the sudden incandescence of a flash bulb, searing Gerald’s vision and making him avert his gaze. When he looked back, flames were sweeping up a copse of spruce gathered within the blast zone, their sun-blanched needles turned to embers and set aloft against the star-riddled sky, splinters of wood and leaves flittering about with the lassitude of feathers. Two of the spruce were leaning forward, toppling into the field, and even before they hit the ground a frenetic pounding, like a jackhammer’s, erupted from the back of the cube van.