Desperation Road

by Michael Farris Smith

  He took his eyes off the steeple and he walked up the steps of the church. Wondered if the old preacher was still alive. If he was still helping those kinds of men find their way home.

  On that night he had drunk more than usual for no particular reason other than it was one of those hot Mississippi Friday nights when you have a paycheck in your pocket and a good woman who loves you and clear reception on the radio station out of New Orleans that plays the old blues, aching voices that sing of mojo and insatiable women and red roosters and sneaking in and out the back door. One of those nights when the light stays until well into the evening and pushes the night out further and further and as long as there is gasoline being pumped at the gas stations then it seems a shame not to burn it up. Many times he had thought that it might have helped him if there had been some reason. Something that triggered him, shoved him, irritated him, violated him, motivated him to drink so much. Many times he had wished that there would have been something to point his finger at other than his own stupidity. But there wasn’t.

  Got off work early on Friday afternoon. Payday. Put some of his check in the bank and kept some of it in his pocket and he drove to a house on the east side of town where his father had asked him to see about something. Got there and knocked on the door and a woman with a baby on her hip and another little one holding on to her leg opened the front door and let him in and took him to the kitchen and showed him the leak. Went back out and got a toolbox from the truck and came back in and crawled underneath the sink and fixed it. Then she took him to the bathroom and flipped the light switch and no light came on and he asked if she had changed the bulb and she shifted the baby to her other hip and swatted at the kid on her leg and said do I look like a fool. Don’t guess so he said and then he took a screwdriver and removed the switch plate and then pulled out the light switch and as in many of the dejected old houses his father had brought back to life there was a loose wire and it was the hot one and he tightened it and flipped the switch and the light came on.

  He asked if there was anything else and she said no and he took his toolbox and left. Stopped at a gas station and filled up with gas and started to buy beer but then got that feeling. That Friday night, nothing to do tomorrow, damn it’s a beautiful night feeling. And beer wouldn’t do so he stopped at the liquor store and bought a fifth of bourbon. Old Charter. Aged eight years. The same kind of bottle that his dad had kept in the kitchen cabinet over the stove. Drove over to Sarah’s apartment and she and her mother and her maid of honor were there. Planning. Always planning now. Only a handful of weeks away. He talked to them a minute and kissed her and she asked if he’d take her car and get the oil changed tomorrow and he said yeah. Got his bottle out of the truck and got in her car and slid the seat back all the way. Stopped at a convenience store and bought a giant Styrofoam cup filled with Coke and he poured out a third of the Coke and opened the Old Charter and started up. Drove out on the highway to JC’s. A few trucks and a few motorcycles in the gravel parking lot. Door open to the pool hall and music coming out and he took his bottle in because JC only sold beer. Couple of guys with beards and tattoos at one table and a couple of guys in their work shirts at another and JC sitting behind the bar reading the newspaper. The small, wrinkled man looked up and said hey to Russell and saw the bottle in one of his hands and the giant cup in the other and he opened up the cooler and set two cans of Coke on the bar. He sat and talked with JC and watched them play pool. Some left and others came in and a couple of hours passed and it was closer to dark. A solid dent in the bottle now. Said goodbye to JC and nodded to some men he knew and walked out and got in her car. Head feeling about right and the night feeling about right and his life feeling about right. Drove on and felt good. Couldn’t help but feel good. Stopped on the side of the road to piss and lightning bugs flashed across the field. Hundreds of them. Sat down on the hood of the car and watched them for a while.

  Then he had to drive back to town for more ice and more Coke and he ran into an old girlfriend at the convenience store and she made a joke about him getting married and that being the end of it and he told her that he didn’t hear many women talk like that but he knew she wasn’t like many women. She said you damn right, Russell. You by yourself? I am except for half a bottle of Old Charter and she said you need some company. He said I thought you said that was the end of it. She said you ain’t married yet and he smiled and said you don’t need me. The night is young. It always is she said and she slapped him on the rear end and climbed in and they drank and drove through the neighborhoods a couple of blocks back from Delaware. She bit his ear and ran her hand under his shirt and he did the same to her while trying to keep it on the road. She grabbed at his belt and he said you better not and he drove back to the convenience store. She kissed his neck and got in her car and drove off and he did the same. Close to midnight now and back out to the desolate roads. Drinking more than he had planned on but driving and singing now and then with the voices on the radio and stopping at a stop sign and not sure which way to go. Then driving on and stopping at another and not sure which way to go. Eyes lagging behind if he moved his head from side to side. A deer cut across in front of him and he swerved and spilled his drink in his lap and he stopped the car. Got out and wiped his pants with napkins from the glove compartment. Poured another one and got back in and driving on and playing with the radio stations and coming over the hill and picking up speed coming down the hill and never seeing the truck with its lights off parked on the bridge.

  The end, he thought. Then he corrected himself.

  The beginning.

  He walked down the church steps and the exhaustion grabbed him as the chimes in the steeple rang and announced 5:00 a.m. There was nothing to do but go and lie down. Several blocks later he turned onto his street and he saw the truck in his driveway.

  Those sons of bitches, he whispered.

  He parked the truck at the end of the street and grabbed the 20-gauge from behind the seat and walked toward the house. The light was on in the living room and Russell walked quietly to the front door and it was open, a foot wide. He nudged it fully open with the barrel of the shotgun and he saw Larry standing at the mantel and holding the picture of Sarah.

  Larry looked at him and held the frame toward him. “That’s real sweet.”

  Russell stepped through the doorway with the gun barrel toward the floor. “Get out of here,” he said.

  Larry set the frame down on the mantel. He adjusted the angle once. And then twice. “I don’t sleep much,” he said. He looked back at Russell.

  “So what?”

  “Just so you know. I don’t sleep much. Ain’t going to.”

  “Me either.”

  “I guess you know she’s signed, sealed, delivered,” Larry said. He pointed his thumb at Sarah. “Shame, too. She was a good ride. That’s what I hear. Woman’s got to cope somehow when her man is gone away.”

  Russell raised the barrel and held it on Larry. “I told you to get the hell out of here.”

  “I saw her damn near strip naked downtown one night. Dancing and drunk and it was hot as hell. This ol’ boy started grabbing at her on the dance floor and next thing we knew she was down to her bra. Skirt was up. He had his hands full of it.”

  “Where’s your stupid brother?”

  “I think I might’ve even stuck a five in her panties. It was a good show.”

  Larry picked up the picture frame again and rubbed her face on his zipper. “Like that, honey. Like that,” he said. He grinned and winked at Russell.

  “Come on out. I know you’re here,” Russell said.

  Walt moved into the living room from the kitchen. He was holding a beer he’d gotten from the refrigerator in one hand and he had a pamphlet he had taken from the manila folder in the other.

  “Becoming a citizen again,” Walt read. “How to become a model member of your community.” Walt held the brochure out to Larry and Larry laughed.

  “I don’t get the feeling it’s
gonna be that easy,” Larry said.

  “He’s got a whole file in there,” Walt said. “Looks like they ain’t expecting to see him again.”

  “I would not count on that. You know he’s gonna fuck up again.”

  “Bound to.”

  “Some stupid little slip and he’ll be back.”

  “Just one.”

  “Like shooting somebody. That’d be real dumb.”

  Russell raised the shotgun and held aim on Larry and then he spelled the word trespassing out loud. One slow letter at a time.

  “It’s got two s’s,” Walt said.

  “It’s got three s’s,” Larry said.

  “No it don’t.”

  “Yeah it does.”

  “No it don’t.”

  “You want him to do it again?”

  “Shut the hell up and get your ass out of here,” Russell said.

  “Here, Walt. You want some of this?” Larry handed the picture to his brother.

  “Nah,” Walt said. “I know where all that’s been.”

  “I said get the fuck out of here,” Russell said.

  “That ain’t exactly what you said,” Walt said.

  “You look like a fag with that beard,” Larry said. “Don’t he, Walt?”

  “Mostly.”

  “Put the picture down.”

  Larry dropped the frame on the floor and smashed it with his heel. Walt turned up the bottle and finished the beer and then he threw it at Russell but he was wild right and Russell didn’t flinch as the bottle smashed on the wall behind him. He stuck the pamphlet in his back pocket.

  “Our boy has a shotgun,” Larry said.

  “That ain’t fair,” Walt said.

  “For now.”

  “They do make more than one.”

  “Where’d you get that?” Larry said. “Part of your package when they showed you the door? Or Daddy give it to you?”

  “I’m gonna count to three and then one of you is gonna lose a foot,” Russell said. He put the shotgun against his shoulder and aimed at Larry’s feet.

  “Fine,” Larry said. “Come on, Walt. Guess we gonna have to come back tomorrow.”

  “One,” Russell said.

  “Where’s your girl? The one you left the Armadillo with?”

  “Two.”

  “See? We’re watching you, boy,” Larry said. “Know where you are. Who you with.”

  Walt grabbed Larry’s arm and pulled him on, his eyes a little wider than Larry’s at the sight of the gun. They moved away from the mantel and in front of the couch and toward the front door. Russell circled around them. Walt walked out first and Larry stopped in the doorway.

  “You’d better keep that thing close.”

  Larry stepped out the door and Russell held the gun pointed at the open door until the truck was cranked and gone. When he was sure he leaned the gun in the corner and he walked outside and down the street to his truck. He pulled it under the carport and he went inside and picked up the pieces of wood and glass from the frame. And then he took Sarah’s picture and he ripped it twice and he walked into the bathroom and flushed it down the toilet. Looked at himself in the mirror. The gray hints in the beard. The scar. The eyes that seemed to belong to a stranger.

  He glared and was quickly impatient with the image and he headbutted himself and the mirror shattered and cut a gash in his forehead. He felt the blood run down the tip of his nose and across his lips and he leaned his head over the sink and let it drip among the shattered shards of mirror. He held his fingers to the gash and pulled a tiny piece of mirror from it. Then he wadded up some toilet paper and held it on the cut while he went to the truck and drove down to the all-night gas station where he bought Band-Aids. He sat in the truck and wiped the gash clean and covered it with a Band-Aid and then he went back inside and bought a pocket-size notebook and a pack of pens. The eastern sky had begun to change color and the sun would soon be on the horizon but he wasn’t going to stop now.

  Back down to Magnolia. He felt the bruises from the fight and a lag from the booze. He drove fast and hoped that the dawn would wait until he did what he had to do. In ten minutes he was idling in front of Sarah’s house. He sat and stared and watched for lights. For movement. When he was certain the house was still he scribbled a note on the small notebook paper. He got out and hustled to the front door and slid it through the brass mail slot on the antique door. Then he got in the truck and left and regretted dropping the note through the slot but it was done now.

  On one side he wrote his address.

  On the other—Right or wrong I wanted to let you know I was back. Russell.

  He drove back to the house and he walked into the bedroom and lay down on top of the covers with his clothes on. Just ahead of the rising sun. The shotgun next to him like a good friend. The bus ride and the fishing and the woman and the beer and the brothers all bunching together and taking over and pushing him to sleep though he hated the thought of closing his eyes. Knowing that the world still had him by the throat.

  19

  AT DAYBREAK MABEN WOKE ANNALEE AND TOLD HER TO GET dressed. Hours gone now. Enough time for the body to be taken away and examined. Enough time for men in uniforms to have combed the cruiser and the roadside. Enough time for word to have spread. Annalee asked why are we leaving and Maben said because we got to go and the girl moaned at walking again. Get up I said. We don’t have time for this.

  When they were dressed Maben put the few remaining bills in her pocket and said I’ll be right back. She walked over to the café and stopped at the cash register. The same waitress from yesterday came over and said I bet you slept good.

  Maben nodded and handed her the key and the girl said thanks but Maben didn’t answer. She turned to walk out and noticed two men sitting at the counter, one with his glasses on top of his head and rubbing at his eyes while he waited on the other man in a black suit to finish talking on the phone. Maben hurried out and across the lot and Annalee was standing in the motel room door. Maben stepped around her and picked up the garbage bag containing all they owned and said let’s go.

  “I’m thirsty, Momma.”

  “Come on. We’ll get something down the road.”

  “Why can’t we get something here?”

  “Because I said so.”

  She had wrapped the deputy’s pistol in a shirt and buried the shirt in the middle of the rest of the clothes. They walked out of the parking lot and to the interstate and turned north. Four miles to McComb. Not far after that. The morning sun met them without regard and they were both redfaced within a mile. Cars passed on their way to work. Or to wherever. She kept thinking of tossing the pistol into the weeds or into a ditch but there was too much traffic and she didn’t want to stop, didn’t want to be noticed or remembered. And she hadn’t completely convinced herself that having a pistol was a bad idea no matter who it belonged to or how she got it. Maben and Annalee walked on and gusts brought the wind to them but it also brought dust and sometimes rocks with the wind. In a little more than an hour they saw the exit sign for McComb. One mile.

  “Is that it?” the girl asked.

  “That’s it.”

  “Where are we going when we get there?”

  “Somewhere. Just keep on.”

  She had lain awake the rest of the night wondering what to do. And she still didn’t know. So they were heading toward the shelter. It was another two miles along a four-lane. They walked on past used car lots and hardware stores and liquor stores and Maben finally let them stop at a gas station that had a picnic table at the side of it. The table was in the shade of the building and mom and child sat down with cold drinks and powdered doughnuts. They finished up and walked on again, Maben promising the girl that it wasn’t much farther. Another half hour and they could see the downtown buildings and Maben thought she remembered Broad Street being the street closest to the rails. The bag was getting heavier with each step and Maben’s shirt was soaked through with sweat. The child’s forehead was red and w
et and her face seemed stuck in a squint.

  Maben hadn’t noticed it but creeping up behind them in the southern sky had been thick gray clouds and still blocks away from the shelter they were startled with a snap of lightning and then came the thunder. The sunlight disappeared almost instantly and a moodiness fell around them and at a street corner Maben looked down to the left and she saw a pavilion and playground equipment and she pulled the child and said hurry on this way. They walked as fast as their tired legs would take them as the wind kicked up and then the first drops fell, fat drops that hit the pavement like nickels. They were nearly there when the bottom fell out and by the time they had made it under the pavilion they were as wet as if they had been dipped into a pool. Maben set the garbage bag on top of a picnic table and she shook her arms and head and the child did the same.

  Gray hovered in every direction and it looked like they would be there for a while. Maben realized they were next to the cemetery. The rain washed the footprints from the playground slides and seesaws and puddles began to form in the holes that had been dug in the sandbox. Annalee walked over to the edge of the concrete where the drip from the roofline hit in tiny claps and held out her arms and let the water splash on her wrists. Maben sat down on top of a picnic table with her hand propped under her chin. She watched the rain bounce off the swing seats and then she turned and stared across the graveyard that sat next to the playground and she wondered whose bright idea it was to put the playground next to the graveyard. The gravestones looked slick in the rain and the red dirt of a fresh grave was turning to mud. The thunder roared and roared and there were quiet flashes of lightning and then the rain came harder and an unexpected gust of wind brought it to them. Annalee squealed and she ran over to her mother and Maben helped her up onto the table next to her and the rain beat on the pavilion roof and the sound of their desolation was even greater than it had been before.