“Calm down,” Pascal said. “Coffee’s behind the bar. Mrs. August keeps some Kona beans for me. Make it a big pot. Biiiiigggg.”
“Uh, uh, uh,” Gibby gibbered. “You’re in the casket, Pascal! Jesus Christ Almighty, what did you do with Billy’s body?”
“There was a wake,” Pascal went on blithely. “The guys thought Billy should be in on the wake. Sounded good to me at the time.” He blinked his eyes warily at the bright sunlight, and then attempted to climb out of the casket. Then he grunted and fell on his head on the table. His body followed and knocked over two chairs in the fall to the floor.
Gibby covered her mouth with a hand. What could a group of drunks have done with Bayou Billy? He could be hanging from the flag pole at City Hall. He could be propped up against the large welcome to Sawdust City sign next to a blow-up dolly from a lewd internet store. He could be taking a boat ride in Toledo Bend Reservoir with a bottle of thirty year old sipping whiskey, a fishing pole, and a frilly parasol to shade him from the sun once it had come up.
Pascal groaned loudly. “Somebody call me a doctor.” Then he chuckled. “One with really big tits.” His head popped up and he eyed Gibby sourly. “Not that yours are small. As a matter of fact, they’re bigger than I realized. I mean, I thought they were smaller before. I mean, I never noticed your…oh, crap.”
Smooth. Charismatic. Charming. Like a deranged bull in a china shop. Right. Gibby counted to ten. “What else do you remember about last night? Or rather, this morning.”
“Make the coffee,” Pascal muttered. “I’m trying to remember.”
Gibby made the coffee and Pascal sat at the bar with his head in his hands. “If you drink like this every day of the week,” she said, conversationally. “You’re going to be an alcoholic wreck with liver disease within a year or two.”
Pascal sneered. “What, that long?”
“Where’s Billy?”
“Someone wanted to look at him,” Pascal said. “So the casket got opened up. Billy came out for a drink and a smoke. With some assistance, of course. We even found him a raincoat to wear from Mrs. Austin’s lost and found. You know, the guy had his hand on his dick?”
Gibby rubbed her eyes tiredly. “Just how much did you drink?”
“Okay. Okay. Let me think.” Pascal rested his cheek on the cool surface of the bar and said, “He smelled bad.”
“He’s dead, Pascal. I think that’s a given.”
“Really bad,” Pascal added. “Like rotting flesh bad.”
“Dead, remember?”
“So someone said something about how Billy should be taken care of,” Pascal said the words slowly. “Like at one of those places.”
“One of those places,” Gibby repeated. She poured him a cup of coffee and pushed it across the bar to him. Pascal wrapped his large hands around the cup and drank it like it was water and he had been lost in the desert for a few days.
When he was done, he put the cup down gratefully and said, “A funeral home.”
“You took him to a funeral home,” Gibby surmised. “In the middle of the night?”
“I think that was the plan,” Pascal admitted. “It’s a little fuzzy.”
“Did you just leave him on their doorstep?”
“Something like that,” Pascal said guardedly.
“With maybe an IOU or something?”
“A note,” Pascal said positively. “I seem to recollect a note. Definitely a note.”
“You left a dead body at a funeral home with a note,” Gibby summed up.
“Well it wasn’t a sticky note. I think someone found a safety pin and put it on the table cloths we used to wrap him up in.”
“Table cloths,” Gibby said chokingly. “Why not put him in the casket?”
“Somebody was asleep in it at the time,” Pascal said defensively.
“You?”
“No, of course not,” he denied wrathfully, conveniently ignoring where he had been sitting minutes before. “It was Hewitt Donally and Bobby Joe Bruce Lane,” Pascal admitted carefully. “They both passed out and we put them in the casket together. Took pictures too.”
“Oh, Christ,” Gibby swore vividly. “Thank God it wasn’t you.”
“No, we drove Billy over to Albie and left him at Rector Mortuary.” Pascal shrugged. “They’re the only mortuary around, you know. Where else was I going to take the poor dead bastard?”
Chapter Eleven
From a transcript of an interview dated July 13th, 1997 with Mr. Roland Thibeaux. It is noted that the interview was for background material for a magazine article on Bayou Billy AKA William Douglas McCall.
The interviewer was Stillman Floyd, a biographer interested in William Douglas McCall, and who consequently published a tome on Mr. McCall’s life through a university press in limited edition.
Mr. Floyd’s notes indicate that Mr. Thibeaux was ninety-two years old at the time and was living in the small town of Provencal, Louisiana. Mr. Thibeaux has since passed away due to natural causes and Mr. Floyd’s papers were donated to the University of Arizona’s library and historical archive:
Floyd: I appreciate your time, Mr. Thibeaux. I’d like to-
Thibeaux: What the hell else am I doing? The grandkids take care of the yard ever since they say I ran over a cat with the riding mower. Oh, don’t look at me like that. The cat was fine, ‘cepting its tail. Don’t have much need for a tail. Cat was in the way, anyhow. If it don’t have enough sense to get out the way, then it don’t belong on this earth. Darwin had that right, no matter what the bible thumpers say. In any case, since they gots to do the yard, I ain’t got much else to do, ‘cept go to church and the VFW and talk to folks like you. You ain’t the first what wanted to know about Bayou Billy. Lessin’ I die, you won’t be the last.
Floyd: Yes, sir. About William Douglas McCall.
Thibeaux: Who? I don’t know any Will Yam Douglas Micky Call. I thought we were going to jabber about Bayou Billy.
Floyd: Yes, sir. McCall was Billy’s real name.
Thibeaux: Is that so? Well, I ain’t never called Bayou Billy Willie Douglie Mac Cray afore. I don’t reckon many folks called him that neither.
Floyd: No, sir. Most people called him Bayou Billy or just plain Billy.
Thibeaux: That’s right, sonny, and don’t you never forget it. That man was a true gentleman, even if he were a bald-faced thief.
Floyd: Would you mind telling me in what capacity you knew Bayou Billy, Mr. Thibeaux?
Thibeaux: Capa City. I ain’t never been to Capa City. I ain’t never heard tell of it, neither. Is my hearing aid on?
Floyd: I meant, how did you happen to know Bayou Billy.
Thibeaux: Oh. The boy robbed my train three times. The Southern Express. I was a trainman. I did a right number of jobs on the train. Engineer. Conductor. Brakeman. But Billy done robbed the Express three times in 1931. Not that folks had two pennies to rub against each other then. I believe I was conducting then. It didn’t pay much and I had to steal food from the food car like most of the other people who got paid squat. But it weren’t the worst job I ever did have. And I had a job, unlike a whole lotta other poor folks.
Floyd: And you met Bayou Billy while you were a conductor then?
Thibeaux: Ain’t that what I just said? Lord, boy, you got a college degree? College degrees don’t account to a hill of baked beans. You should have just gone into the Army, just like a real man, just like I did. I was thirty-six when them damn Japs bombed Pearl Harbor and it didn’t stop me from signing my name up. Though I ain’t never got further than San Francisco. I still would a gone, if I had been sent. I would have kilt the lot of them slant-eyed, imperialist, war-mongering (expletives deleted)s. And the (expletive deleted) donkeys they rode themselves in on.
Floyd: Yes, sir. Your wartime service is commendable. We need to appreciate our WWII veterans. I make it a point to personally extend my profound gratitude to those brave men who served in the Second World War.
Thibeaux: (An un
intelligible mumble). Damn skippy. Anyhows, Billy hopped the Express three times in 1931. Bold as brass that boy, with big shiny balls to match. Stole wallets, watches, rings, and the such from the passengers, using a big old Colt 45 that looked about as big as a cannon when it was pushed up into a man’s face. But after the first time, he only stole from the first class coach and not from the economy passengers. Mighty white of that fella.
Floyd: It was probably because he could get more money out of the richer passengers.
Thibeaux: The hell it was. It was on account that them folks could afford to be robbed. Them little folks in the back had to scrimp and save to get the few dollars and nickels it cost them to go from a place to another place, else they be walking, and more than a few peoples had to ride in wagons drawn by old, raggedy, flea-bitten nags. Thems that got on the train were those who were going one way in hopes of getting a job. Or else to live with family what weren’t starving. If they had a spare penny on them, it was because they’d missed more than one meal to save it. Billy done saw that, right off and he done the right thing by leaving them alone after that.
Floyd: But it didn’t stop him from taking their money the first time, did it?
Thibeaux: Boy, who be telling this tale? It seems to an old warhorse like myself that you be a little biased on the subject of Bayou Billy.
Floyd: Just trying for objectivity, sir.
Thibeaux: Less objecting then and more listening. Billy be the kind of fella who only taking when he needed to take. Them folks in the front car, the hoity-toity car, as we called it, had coins to spare. Thems in the back did not.
Floyd: And Bayou Billy told you how his name came about?
Thibeaux: Stop getting ahead yourself. One day Billy happened upon the train at Vicksburg, Mississippi. He rode for a while until we got well in Louisiana, and then him and his boys cleaned out the cars. Whilst Billy was waiting on his boys to finish with the first class car, he bade me get him a cup of Joe and a sammich. (Sandwich?) Seeing as how he had that cannon of a gun, of course I did. Then he gave me his autograph on the back of a ticket and told me he had been born in the bayou, way down south in Louisiana. It was where he most felt comfortable. As he had been born in the bayou, thems got to calling him Bayou Billy. Right back from the beginning. That be from the horse’s mouth.
The Present
Monday, July 17th
Albie, Louisiana
Ah, life is good, Ophelia Rector thought. She had Bayou Billy, lock, stock, and barrel. She had him on paper. She had him in person. She had him. And Albie Cemetery was going to be the showstopper of memorial parks. It would be the unconditional, most divine, splendiferous, breathtaking graveyard since a bunch of silly pharaohs had gigantic pyramids built to commemorate their measly, long forgotten passages into mythical heavens that in which only phuddy-duddy doctoral candidates and slack-jawed idiots were interested.
And Ophelia had planning to do. William Douglas McCall would have the funeral of a much beloved patriot, a man who had lived through some of the 20th century’s most vivid experiences, a man who had laughingly flouted the political system, and a man who had spat in the face of so-called lady justice. He was infamous and mysterious. He would be remembered with the passion and fire that he so rightfully deserved. His name would be synonymous with the likes of Billy the Kid, Bonnie and Clyde, and Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. People would flock to the area to be awestricken by the absolute transience of existence as compared to the extraordinary splendor of man’s tribute to death and remembrance.
A temporary mausoleum would be used for the containment of Bayou Billy’s earthly remains. The best stonemasons would be employed to construct his final resting place with exquisitely hewn marble angels gazing benevolently down upon the site of one of God’s roguish mischief makers’ ultimate quiescent locality. His gravesite would be surrounded by a lush garden of funereal shrubbery. A marker worthy of the name of the legendary outlaw would be assembled. Then the name and eminent words would be carved into the eternal stone. Those words would be remembered for ever and more, so long as the stone remained standing. Like the majestic obelisks at Stonehenge, the builders have been forgotten but the monument remained a testament to man’s ingenuity and dedication to mesmerizing all those who came afterwards.
There would be a celebration as well. There would be a dedicated ceremony to commemorate the passing of a legend. The bands would come to play sad music and Bayou Billy’s secular remnants would pass through the streets for all those to pay homage. It would be only just. Mr. McCall’s family would be invited to grieve with the rest of the world, so that they could see all that Albie was willing to provide to their dearly departed and infamous relative. There would be gratitude. There would be joy in knowing that the notorious criminal would be appreciated by all and sundry.
Ophelia took up pen and paper and began compiling a list.
•
Oscar Rector was in the preparatory room with William Douglas McCall. The room was located in the basement of Rector Mortuary and had up to date ventilation systems and mortuary equipment. The floor was cement and angled to empty into a central drain. The tables were stainless steel and the lights bright and polished.
A stereo system was playing; the radio was set on a XM station. Golden moldies was what Oscar called the station. XM called it Sunny. Ophelia insisted upon the station. Regardless, clients weren’t allowed in the prep room. If they saw what happened to their loved ones they would probably lose their minds and beg for cremation instead of the more expensive embalming and preparation that Rector Mortuary regularly gouged out of families.
Oscar was setting the features of Bayou Billy. Setting the features was a phrase that morticians used to describe the process of closing the corpse’s mouth by ligature or glue, placing an eye cap under the eyelids to keep them from sinking, and the remainder of the preparation process that allowed the body to be viewed by their families. Word had trickled down that Bayou Billy wasn’t going to have a lot of relatives to mourn his passing, but there would be others, dignitaries, even the governor of Louisiana, who would be present to venerate the departure of a revered luminary.
The once brash brigand had to look good. Oscar nodded to himself. He was the best at making dead people look good. Even his mother, who was as sparing with compliments as a diabetic with sugar, admitted the fact. He could make a decapitated man look as though his neck had never been separated from his body. He could make a battered wife appear as though she were ready for a beauty pageant. He could fill in a gaping gunshot wound as if it had never happened. He had countless thank you letters on his prowess as a funerary mortician.
When a person was the fifth son of Ophelia Rector, he didn’t have much choice but to be as good or to be cut off like an unwanted tumor.
Over the soothing yet irritatingly annoying sound of the easy listening station, Oscar heard the front door buzzer. He kept massaging Billy’s rigid flesh, attempting to get the expression to relax into something more natural. Billy looks like the cat that ate the canary, he thought. I mean, was it the fact that he was 110 years old, or that he smells like he was bathing in cigarettes and liquor or was it the fact that he died with his hand on his chubby? Oscar shrugged. Either should have been a cause for celebration. It had been Oscar’s opinion that men over the century mark didn’t get boners and he was rather pleased to discover he was incorrect.
The buzzer rang again and Oscar sighed. He looked around but Oren had disappeared. Oren didn’t care for body prep and traded Oscar for those duties. His younger brother would wash the dishes for a month and clean the toilet for two months in order to avoid embalming corpses. The extended trade-off also implicitly purchased Oscar’s silence to their mother about the unequal exchange of duties.
The buzzer rang again and then repeated.
Oscar took his plastic gloves off and headed upstairs. When he arrived in the front foyer he found Mayor Pascal Waterford there. Oscar took a moment to check out the older man, kn
owing that what Ophelia had waiting for him would probably piss the politician off to no end. Six feet tall and two hundred pounds, the mayor was a good looking guy in his forties. But he had the disposition of a bulldog and was known to be relentless about getting what he thought he needed for Sawdust City. It made other politicians hate his guts and the constituents love him.
There’s going to be an international incident like finding nukes on Cuba, Oscar determined. So he greeted the mayor politely, apologized for the bulky apron he was wearing and went upstairs to the second floor to see if his mother was in. The secretary had fled to parts unknown, probably having heard the buzzer and deducing that the other shoe was about to drop or detonate or both. The secretary proved to be particularly skilled at knowing when she should be mysteriously absent. Ophelia was in.
“Uh, Mama,” he said.
Ophelia sighed dramatically. She sat up straight in her high-backed leather chair and swiveled around to look on her fifth child. “Yes, dear,” she said politely.
Oscar knew better than to be fooled by the polite tone. It had a layer of ice that close proximity to Hiroshima on August 6, 1945 couldn’t have melted.
“Mr. McCall is in the final preparation area,” Oscar said carefully. “The deceased has been washed and disinfected. His face has been shaved and his hair carefully groomed according to the photograph we have of him. We’re setting the features now.”
Ophelia didn’t say anything. She merely stared at her son. He had a pretty good idea that she was waiting for Oscar to get to the real point of why he had come into her office at a moment when she was obviously wrapped up in mental development of what she considered to be her crowning glory.
Life and Death of Bayou Billy Page 13
