by Ace Atkins
“My brain is fried,” she said. “How can you believe a word that comes out of my mouth?”
Quinn drove on, turning off the main road, following the signs to the clinic where he’d check in Caddy for detox. The radio played Ferlin Husky, “I Wouldn’t Treat a Dog Like You’re Treating Me.”
“Why do you listen to that?” Caddy said. “All that old music. You know, they’ve made music in the last fifty years that might be a little better.”
“Name one.”
“I know why you like that old stuff,” Caddy said. “Because it reminds you of Uncle Hamp’s house and all those old records he kept in wooden crates. You used to put them on when we were kids, the adults sending us back to the junk room to play while they carried on, drinking, talking bad about each other, whispering things about the world that we shouldn’t know.”
Quinn kept on driving, seeing the flat, low brick complex coming into sight down the road. He slowed. Caddy closed her eyes and swallowed. She looked better than she had the other night, but not much. The sores all over her arms and face had scabbed over, making her look as if she’d been in a street fight. She had on old faded jeans and an oversized man’s flannel shirt that Quinn was pretty sure belonged to Jamey Dixon.
He parked the truck and killed the engine, the DJ announcing the next song was Johnny Paycheck singing “Green, Green Grass of Home,” the man saying this was his favorite version of the old standard.
“Momma would fight the man on that,” Caddy said. “Elvis. Elvis. Elvis. No wonder we are all so fucked-up.”
Quinn shut his mouth.
“Oh, I’m sorry,” she said. “You’re the good one. Oh, favorite son.”
“Jesus Christ,” Quinn said. “Can I at least carry your bag while you tell me to go to hell?”
Caddy swallowed and nodded. She slipped on a pair of very large and dark sunglasses. The glasses hid half of her face. Quinn got out of the truck and reached into the back for the bag, reminding him of the little pink suitcase she’d brought with her following her brother into the Big Woods.
“You might want to talk to these people about what happened when we were kids.”
“I don’t know what I need to talk about.”
“It doesn’t matter if things come out,” Quinn said. “You don’t need to protect me for what happened.”
“Did you do what I asked?”
Quinn reached into his jacket and brought out two packs of cigarettes and a new lighter. For the first time in a while, his sister smiled, leaning forward and kissing him on his cheek.
“You do love me,” she said.
“No shit, Caddy,” he said, picking up her two bags and walking toward the front door of the detox center.
• • •
Do we really need to wear masks?” Chase said. “I feel pretty goddamn stupid.”
“You’re going to feel even dumber when the cops get you on a surveillance camera,” his Uncle Peewee said. “Or when some witness picks you out. Would you rather wear a ski mask or something?”
“You got one?”
“Nah,” he said. “Ain’t no skiing in Mississippi. Just this shit Mr. Walls got for us.”
Mr. Walls had told Chase he’d picked up the masks earlier that year at the Dollar Store for a Halloween party that he never went to. Maybe if he’d chosen something else, something scary, it wouldn’t have made him feel so dumb. But the goddamn Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, his Uncle Peewee wearing the Donatello mask. Shit, it was too damn much. He was even wearing the fucking purple bandanna that came with it and flipping around a pair of plastic nunchucks, saying he knew some moves from this guy over in Columbus who’d been a real-life Green Beret.
Walls was gone. Already halfway down to the beach.
Soon it would be dark. And wouldn’t be too long before that Kyle fella would come on over and they’d all pile into his uncle’s van. Peewee had said they could use some walkie-talkies in the truck, but Kyle had said the law might be listening in. So they’d agreed just to use their phones, in case something was going on. Other than that, everyone was supposed to stay quiet until the door opened on that safe.
Peewee had pushed the mask off his face and set it on top of his head. He’d helped himself to a cold Coors and was sitting in Mr. Walls’s easy chair, watching a damn porno movie. Chase had watched some of it, but he wasn’t buying none of it. Just ’cause the girl kept on saying, “Oh my God. Oh my God.” Shit, that didn’t mean a thing. At one point, the girl looked up at the cameraman like she was asking when is this damn donkey gonna quit riding my asshole.
“I want to find me a woman like that,” Peewee said, a little high but not drunk, looking silly as hell with a kid’s mask on his head. “Down at Temptations.”
“Hell, that woman is a fat-ass.”
“How old are you, Chase?”
“Eighteen,” he said.
“You don’t know nothing about real women yet,” he said. “I bet you like all them stickly skinny girls with those big blow-up boobies. Wait till you get older and you’re gonna appreciate some shaking goin’ on.”
“I’m hungry.”
“Mr. Walls got some cereal,” he said. “Eat some of that shit.”
“I don’t want any more fucking Frosted Flakes,” he said. “Give me the keys. I saw a Sonic back in town. I want a cheeseburger. I’ll bring you back one.”
“Think,” Peewee said. “Think on it, son. How many folks you want seeing our getaway vehicle. Good Lord in Heaven. You sure got the brains of your daddy.”
“You never told me you knew my daddy.”
“Me and him run together before he got sent on to Kilby,” Peewee said. “You might think about going on and seeing him sometime.”
“Hell, no.”
“That may be for the best,” Peewee said. “The man has gone and turned queer. Dresses up like a woman and slow-dances with the biggest niggers in the joint.”
Chase opened his mouth. And then he closed it.
“Ha, ha, ha,” Peewee said. “Shit, man. I’m just messing with you. Your daddy ain’t no fucking queer. Not that I know about. He’s just a real asshole.”
“Momma won’t tell me what he did.”
“He busted a man’s head open at some beer joint,” Peewee said. “It was a fair fight, but the fella died.”
Chase nodded, picking up his own mask off the kitchen table, it being Raphael. He slipped the elastic band over the back of his head and slid the mask down over his face, now seeing the world through eyeholes. Uncle Peewee was right. He could see just fine.
He reached around and touched the small of his back, where he kept his new gun. The little .32 felt snug and tight, hanging right there in his waistband and under his drawers. Everyone who’d been telling him no guns tonight—Peewee, Mickey Walls, and that dumb fucking hick Kyle—could all smooch his redneck ass. He wasn’t showing up at this party empty-handed.
He was too damn smart for that.
13.
Quinn was into his last hour, his last patrol as sheriff, when he spotted the black woman in the white nightgown wandering along Jericho Road. The closer he got, the more he realized it had to be Miss Magnolia, an elderly woman with dementia who often locked herself inside her own house, or wandered off into the woods, and many times carried a little .22 no one would take away from her. Quinn approached the woman with caution, as he eased the Big Green Machine onto the side of the road and walked out behind her. She didn’t slow a bit, picking up her feet in the tall brown grass, walking with purpose to god-knows-where.
Quinn called her name.
She didn’t stop.
Quinn called her name again and the woman stopped cold. Her right hand appeared to be empty, but he couldn’t see the left. He recalled she often carried the pistol in her left when he’d made welfare checks on her late at night.
He w
alked up to her, coming from behind her shoulder, the thin, gauzy material of the nightgown, made for a woman much younger, billowing up and around them in the brisk wind. Her blued cataract eyes gave him a blank stare. She was barefoot and holding the little pistol. The sun was going down over the low rolling hills, the light a faded orange.
Quinn quickly snatched the .22 from her hand so fast, the loss barely registered.
“Mr. Beckett?” she said, calling Quinn the name of his dead uncle.
“Yes, ma’am.” No need to fight it.
“He done it again.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“That son of a bitch gone out drinking,” she said, almost spitting the words. “Whoring.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“I’m going to shoot him this time,” she said. “I swear on it.”
“Who?” Quinn said.
“Who do you think?” she said. “James. Once he gets to drinking, he’s gonna get laid. Has to get laid.”
“Mr. James has been gone for some time,” Quinn said, looking down at the little old woman, hand on her shoulder.
“I know,” she said. “That’s why I’m gonna shoot his ass.”
“He’s dead, ma’am.”
“Lord,” she said. “What happened?”
“He died about forty years ago,” Quinn said. “I heard he had a heart attack. Long time ago.”
She stared at him, weathered face, clouded eyes, not knowing what to say. Her dry mouth then formed the words to ask, “What kind of nonsense are you talking, boy? I used to change your diapers.”
“That was my uncle.”
“You don’t get out of my way, Hamp Beckett, I’m going to the nearest tree and switching your ass red.”
The night was coming on fast, dark clouds moving in from the Delta, folks talking about rain and sleet through New Year’s Day. He took off his old coat, the one that had belonged to his uncle, maybe making the confusion complete, and set it across her brittle shoulder bones. The faded tobacco brown ranch coat reached the old woman’s knees.
“I’m going to kill him.”
“Your grandson called,” Quinn said. “He’s worried about you. He came to bring you supper.”
“I don’t have no grandkids.”
“Come on back with me,” Quinn said. “It’s cold.”
“Won’t stop me,” she said. “Won’t stop me shooting his pecker clean off.”
“I understand.”
The old woman turned her head, a different light coming into her eyes, watching Quinn’s face, a moment of something like embarrassment that quickly went away. “I am cold.”
“It’s going to sleet tonight.”
“Man shouldn’t be whoring,” she said.
“No, ma’am,” Quinn said, leading her back to the truck. The wind coming on hard at their back, Quinn in shirtsleeves rolled to his forearms, as he took the radio off his belt and called in to dispatch.
He had to lift the old woman, as light as a bird, off the ground and set her in the passenger seat. When he started the truck, she turned to him and smiled. “I know you,” she said. “What do they call you?”
“Quinn.”
“I know your uncle,” she said. “Fine man. Fine man.”
• • •
When Mickey Walls and Tonya got down to Gulf Shores, they skipped the condo and went right to Lulu’s. They’d been listening to Jimmy Buffett and Kenny Chesney the whole way down, and all Mickey could think about was one of them Cheeseburgers in Paradise and a cold deluxe margarita. The windows and doors had been covered with heavy plastic, and they had a few big industrial heaters glowing red up under the ceiling, the restaurant made to look like some kind of Key West beach house. A band onstage was singing “A Pirate Looks at Forty” just as they got their drinks, and by the time they’d ordered some crab claws with dippin’ sauce, he had Tonya on the dance floor to “Fins,” Mickey making his hands into a shark fin and dipping back and forth around Tonya. She had her eyes closed, holding on to that margarita for dear life and not spilling a drop.
Mickey ran out of breath a couple songs later, knowing he was going to be getting on that P90× exercise plan next year, and they went back to their little table facing barges on the Intercoastal.
“You’re getting old,” Tonya said, smiling, straw in her mouth. “I bet you’ll be snoring before midnight.”
“Bull,” Mickey said. “Shit.”
“We’ll see,” she said, playing around with the straw on her lips. “Let me ask you something.”
“Shoot,” he said, reaching for one of the crab claws, already grown a little cold while they were on the dance floor.
“Why’d you ask me down here anyway?”
“Do I need a reason?”
“All my friends say I’m crazy,” Tonya said. “The ones I told anyway. They can’t believe I’d be spending New Year’s Eve with the ex-husband that I supposedly hate.”
“You hate me?”
“I hated you and I wouldn’t have come.”
Might have been the margarita soaking into his brain, but, god damn, Tonya looked good tonight. She didn’t seem to have a trace of Larry Cobb in her, only seeming like a younger and thinner version of her mother. Her big chest just swelled in that dress, under a red motorcycle jacket with sparkly jewels on the shoulder. Those big old linemen calves were nowhere to be seen in some tall blue-and-pink cowboy boots. Lots of makeup and hair spray. She smelled good.
“What are you looking at?”
“You just look good, is all,” he said. “I need a reason?”
“I just want us to get one thing straight,” she said. “Me coming down here doesn’t mean that we can have sex. I came down with an old friend, just like you offered. So no matter how drunk we get, we’re both keeping our pants on.”
“Hell,” Mickey said. “I know. Shit.”
He checked out his watch—getting to be about six o’clock. The Alabama boys would just be getting ready to go over and lighten Larry Cobb’s load. He smiled and finished off the margarita. The band had taken a break, speakers overhead playing some good old classic Garth Brooks. “Friends in Low Places.” He had to laugh, as he thumped out the song on the table and sang along.
She reached for his fingers, the place where he’d had that wedding ring still showing off as white as a whale’s belly. “You understand,” she said. “Right?”
“No sex.”
“No, sir.”
“Just dancing and laughing.”
“Old friends.”
He nodded. Sure would have made things easier if she hadn’t come along all tan and smelling so damn good. Mickey turned in time to see three women walking in, singing along with Garth, drunk as goats, and heading up to the bar. The girls couldn’t have been long out of high school, tight bodies and short skirts. He bet girls like that could go all night long. As soon as he could touch that money, able to enjoy it, he and Kyle might head down to the Keys to do some bonefishing.
The young women ordered a line of shots, knocking them back like those high times wouldn’t ever end.
“I sure am glad we didn’t stay in Jericho,” she said. “I probably would’ve just watched the ball drop with my momma and daddy like always.”
“They wanted you to go to Tunica?”
Tonya wasn’t listening, snapping her fingers for the waitress, another round, maybe go ahead and order those burgers. “They changed their mind,” she said. “Daddy wanted to go on and get back tonight. Momma said he’d already lost five hundred dollars playing blackjack.”
Mickey swallowed and stood up. “I’ll be right back.”
• • •
When Quinn got back to the sheriff’s office, there was a cake and sparkling grape juice.
And almost every deputy on the payroll: Kenny, Ike McCaslin, Cullison, and Watt
s. A few friends had joined them to say good-bye: Boom, Diane Tull, Luther Varner, and the only two county supervisors he respected, Sam Bishop and Bobby Pickens. Betty Jo Mize from the Tibbehah Monitor took pictures and said she was working on a story about Quinn’s last night on the job. She said she planned to run Quinn’s picture big and tall as a real Screw you to all the ungrateful bastards who’d turned their back during the election. “You flip them all the bird and I swear I’ll run it on the front page.”
“You want to say a few words?” asked Kenny.
Quinn smiled and faced the little gathering in the sheriff’s office. “Appreciate it.”
“That’s Quinn Colson,” Betty Jo Mize said. “A real quote machine.”
“Y’all didn’t have to come out,” Quinn said. “Just locking up some guns and writing reports.”
“To hell with that mess,” Mize said. “I wouldn’t file one more of those things.”
“I actually have two,” Quinn said.
“Hurry up, then,” Mize said. “You got a whole lot more folks waiting on you at the Southern Star. I refuse to toast you with grape juice. This little send-off is purely for the teetotalers.”
Quinn shook a lot of hands and drank a little grape juice. A lot of people made apologies for the county, saying Quinn was too good for them. Some just wanted to know what he was going to do next. Quinn would just shrug and say “Hunt” because he really wasn’t sure beyond next week. There was a chance of some contract security work in Afghanistan with his old friend Colonel Reynolds. He could make enough money in a couple months to live the rest of the year. But tonight he’d only thought of making a fire in his old rock fireplace, sitting in with some good bourbon and getting into a new book his mother had bought him on Stonewall Jackson. He’d always admired the man’s tactics, even though the Colson family had come from Jones County—the Free State of Jones, since it voted against secession—and had joined up with a Union regiment.
“I’m going to miss seeing Hondo,” Kenny said. “I don’t think Rusty even has a dog. Don’t know if I can work for a man who doesn’t own a dog.”
“His wife has a shih tzu.”
