One thing that Pascal wasn’t fond of was getting clotheslined. It had happened once or twice in college football with immediate painful, physical results. It happened more frequently in politics. Metaphorically anyway, although it still hurt just about as much. Small town politics sometimes got particularly sadistic. Example: One neighbor lets a dog take a crap on the other one’s azalea bush and preliminary attacks on each other escalate into WWIII. They drag local council members into the sorties quicker than shit passes through a goose. Quickly, everyone is forgetting about what really needs to go on to make even a small town run and instead is bitching about dog poop and azalea bushes. Even the UN couldn’t knock out a vilifying denouncement fast enough to stomp out that kind of diplomatic uproar. Before you know it, everyone’s in-fighting and the fiscal agenda goes to hell in a hand basket. It’s like peeing into the wind, which is if someone was apt to do that.
And people like Don Swancott, who were the worst of the seedy political bottom level of pond scum, seemed to multiply in small town governments like kudzu on a Georgia embankment. Worse, they seemed to thrive, until there was nothing left but desiccated bones and leather-like gristle that even the basest insects didn’t want to touch. They couldn’t wait to get the nitty-gritty on people they didn’t like and then to use it in the worst imaginable manner possible.
And me losing Bayou Billy’s body like a used condom? Pascal thumped his head violently on the side of the Expedition again. This is like the picture of Donna Rice sitting on Gary Hart’s lap on a boat called the Monkey Business. This is like the photograph of Lynndie England holding the leash on the Iraqi prisoner at Abu Ghraib Prison. It was like Bill Clinton saying, ‘I did not have sexual relations with that woman, Miss Lewinsky.’ Then baby-faced, innocent looking Monica produces the infamous cum stained, blue dress, which seemed like a kind of weird keepsake even for a Whitehouse intern and she says, in not so many words, “Look, I really did have his dick in my mouth! See I spit his cum out on my dress in the oval office! I’m a truthful little sleazy ho instead of a lying little sleazy ho!”
One more thump against the hapless Expedition assisted in getting Pascal’s thoughts off of icky blue dresses and moronic interns. Instead, the bad news was that it was Monday and Ophelia Rector was busily and happily making arrangements for Bayou Billy’s grand finale. Word was going to sweep back to Sawdust City like a California wild fire in the windy season.
Depressing, pathetic logicality number one: Both towns cannot be planning for the same event in both of their towns on the same day. Depressing pathetic logicality number two: Albie Cemetery in Albie, Louisiana and Resurrection Cemetery in Sawdust City, Texas cannot both bury the corpse of the iniquitous criminal in said cemeteries at the same time. Depressing, pathetic logicality number three: One or the other of the two people claiming rights to Bayou Billy’s body must be lying. One said person was Pascal Waterford, who had the corpse but drunkenly left the remains for what seemed like a good idea at the time on the steps of Rector Mortuary because it smelled like rotting ka-ka. The other person was Ophelia Rector. Since Ophelia had her grubby hands on the body, so to speak, it would be assumed that Pascal was the liar, despite several witnesses proclaiming drunken toasts to the cadaver on Friday night.
Possession was nine points of the law. 1) good lawyer, 2) good witnesses, 3) good money, 4) good judge, 5) good luck, 6) good timing, 7) bad opposing lawyer, 8) good jury, and 9) whose ass one kissed. The last point was open to argument. Ophelia Rector had them all just about licked.
Pascal hit his head again. Stars and moons reappeared and danced like inebriated little green strippers from Mars.
“Oh, look at the poor dear, Beatrix,” said a wavering voice. “He must be grieving something awful.”
“There, there,” said another voice. “Death is the great leveler. Death carries a fat king on his shoulders as easily as a lean beggar. All you can do is get ready to accept it when the grim reaper comes and make sure you tell the devil to go back to hell without you if he’s about when you pass.”
Pascal looked up sourly and saw two elderly ladies with blue hair and matching black dress suits. His head hurt too much to stare so he considered cracking it into the unfortunate Expedition again. Then he decided against it.
“There, there,” one of the ladies said again, soothingly, patting his back. “Do you need us to call someone for you, dearie?”
“A hit man? A super hero? God?” Pascal muttered.
“You should really stop hitting your head against the car, son,” the one named Beatrix said. “It’s bad for the paint job.”
The other one said, “Must not be here for the Harris Service, then. Perhaps he’s just dealing with general stress.”
“Oh, hush, Eglantine,” Beatrix said. “Thrusting one’s head against the side of a hard metal object could hardly be stress relieving.”
“You’d be surprised,” Pascal said.
“What’s the problem then, dearie?” Eglantine asked elegantly.
Pascal slid to the ground in a generous heap of rumpled, stained, slightly blood-stained, political, hopeless self-pity. “I had something that is very important to me,” he said carefully. “Then, because of stupidity, I lost it. As a result, people are going to suffer because of my idiocy. I am so fucked that the supreme god/emperor of fucking couldn’t fuck me anymore than I have already been fucked.” He stared off into the distance, looking at the bright green colors of high summer.
Beatrix made a tutting noise. “Well, that is a pickle. Is there anything you can do to fix it?”
Pascal laughed bitterly. “Go back in time and nail that old bastard to the wall with an iron-clad legal document.”
Eglantine sighed. “Well, you can’t do that, silly. Nailing any old bastard would be against the law.”
“What did you lose, dear?” Beatrix asked. “Perhaps we can help you find it.”
“I know exactly where it’s at,” he said sullenly and pointed at Rector Mortuary. “Right in there. Laid out on a slab, getting ready to be buried on Friday. And my ass, as well as a couple hundred other innocent asses, is now in a collective wringer.”
Beatrix and Eglantine both turned to look at the mortuary.
A long minute later, Beatrix said heatedly, “Today’s generation is a bunch of dyed in the wool wimps, Eglantine. No spit and vinegar at all. Just whining about why it is that no one does anything for them. When someone finally does something, then it’s, ‘Oh, he went too far. He didn’t ask our permission. Why weren’t we consulted?’ Nowadays, folks want action, but they sure as hellfire and damnation don’t want to get off their cabooses and get to work themselves.” She turned and looked wrathfully down at Pascal, straightening a calcium deprived back to its most erect bearing achievable. “I have only one thing to say to you, sir. Get off your lazy, silly tuckus and go and get it.” Then she let out a loud, “Hmph,” before she turned back to her elderly cohort and added, “Come on, Miss E., the Harris Service is about to start and I don’t want to miss the canapés. They’re serving shrimp and brie. If we’re late, that terrible Mrs. Kirkpatrick will eat everything just like she did at the Prentice Service yesterday. It might be our last chance this week, you know, for some decent food. After all, the Weather Channel says Hurricane Alexa is headed right toward the gulf.”
“Really? How fortunate I brought the large handbag, then.”
As they stalked haughtily off, Pascal was left alone with a throbbing headache and a writhing stomach. When he had woken up that morning he was feeling good. How had it gone south so fast?
He crawled to his feet, brushed off his pants and jackets and studiously ignored the passing people dressed in mourning clothing who gave him odd looks. He achingly climbed into the Expedition as if he were a thousand years old and wearily adjusted the rear view mirror.
That asinine, smug expression stared back at Pascal knowingly. “Told you, you’re an uneducated bag of pimple pus.”
Pascal couldn’t quite put his hea
rt into it. “Your mama wears army boots.”
“Oh, God, that’s bad. Couldn’t you at least put a little zing on it? Get your blood flowing. Get that adrenaline pumping? Put some snap in your pecker? Come on, you the man, P. You the man.” Sarcasm positively dripped from the last part.
“Fuck…you,” Pascal said bluntly. “My head hurts and I’m screwed. Sawdust City is screwed. Half of the people who live in the city will have to go on food stamps or welfare. The other half will probably move to Albie or Dallas or any place that has a semi-decent mayor who actually gets something going that’s good for the population.”
His reflection stared at Pascal. “You’re a wussified wiener,” the reflection finally declared. “You’re an undefined load of crusty sewage from a baby poop factory. You’re an unbelievable tub of donkey shit. You’re an excuse for fossilized whale puke. You’re a low-budget bucket of decomposed toe jam left out to rot in the Gobi Desert.”
“God,” Pascal swore. “Stop already. I know. I know. So much for hope and optimism. I’m fucked and I fucked up.” He sighed heavily. “The day couldn’t get worse. Except I have to tell Gibby that she has to pay off the credit card debt herself and then I think she might kill and bury me in a shallow grave.”
“You inadequate mound of termite jism! You contemptible mass of nauseating pustulant nerf-herders! Look at me when I’m verbally abusing you, you pompous loaf of horse apples!”
Pascal flipped the rear view mirror up toward the ceiling and cut his reflection off in mid-insult. If I want to be insulted I’ll go tell all my constituents that I misplaced Sawdust City’s last hope for a money-making venue because I’m a drunken moron and wait for the filth to pour forth.
•
Sawdust City, Texas
The mayor’s parking place was magically empty of garbage trucks. A horde of rampaging villagers armed with torches and pitchforks was remarkably absent. There wasn’t even a pack of iniquitous news reporters present to ask why he was such a dumb shit.
As a matter of fact, the sky was delightfully blue, devoid of clouds and a northern breeze had brought the afternoon temperature down to a balmy ninety degrees. This was the kind of afternoon that Pascal typically played hooky on, driving out to Toledo Bend Reservoir with his fishing tackle and rod, to catch a few bass or stripers. He’d borrow Bob Cumberland’s fishing boat and grab a six pack of Bud from the marina’s quickie mart. Ah, idyllic, heavenly hours of thinking about nothing but where the next fish is going to get caught.
But I can’t, Goddamnit, he thought as he pulled the Expedition into the mayor’s parking place. He sat for a minute looking at people coming and going and wondered how he was going to get through the day without drinking the entire contents of a keg of an as-of-yet-to-be-announced beer.
Pascal straightened out his rear view mirror and heard, “-Cranky blob of bloated toad tumors. You psychotic lump of malignant cow guts-” before he flicked the mirror back up to face the roof of the car. He adjusted his tie by feel and brushed bits of dust off his jacket. Then he breathed deeply, got out of the car, and went inside the building.
Just as he opened the door, the garbage man, Dexter, called out, “Hey, Your Honor! You know you got a big dent in your car door? I dint do it!”
Pascal ignored him. Doesn’t that guy ever pick up garbage?
As Pascal passed through the building people talked to him as if nothing was wrong and he still had Bayou Billy’s body in possession. They smiled at him and greeted him cheerfully and merrily went about their business. Life was good. Life was happening. Life was peachy. Life was turning around for the best.
Life spews. Pascal looked at the tiled floor and headed for his office.
At his first glimpse of Gibby Ross’s face, Pascal knew that not everyone was ecstatically ignorant of his folly. Gibby’s face was a portrait of glaring, pissed off, dazzling, and glorified fury.
Pascal stopped in his tracks and stared. Her blond streaked hair was loose today and her green eyes shot fire at him. Her entire body radiated with righteous anger. God, she’s cute when she mad. Even her long, beak nose is cute. And she’s wearing something a little tighter today. Everything is jiggling nicely with virtuous annoyance.
Gibby said, “Do you know who I talked to today? No, you don’t. I talked to Jobeth, who is a secretary over at Albie’s city hall, and I bet you know what she told me about Albie’s big plans for Friday. You putrefied turd. You miserable snot-sucking worm. You’re lower than the rancid poop on the bottom of a farmer’s boot. Did you just run over and give the body to Albie or was this because of some intoxicated, macho-induced stupor?”
Pascal glanced over his shoulder. No one had stuck their head out of their offices or even stopped the animated flow of talking that buzzed pleasantly in the background. “You want to hear my side of the story, Gibby?” he asked when he looked back at her.
“I think I tore a back ligament helping hide that freaking casket,” she said vehemently. “I made sure you hadn’t made a mistake. I put nearly $25,000 on my credit cards, which means no new car for the next ten years, and I’m eating generic chicken noodle soup for dinner for the next five years. I covered for you,” she wailed. “And you….you….you…”
“You?” he repeated helpfully.
“You fucked us,” she said furiously.
Pascal shook his head solemnly. “It still doesn’t sound right coming out of your prim little mouth, Gibby. Maybe if you practiced more.”
“Fuck. Fuck. Fuck,” she swore ferociously.
Pascal nodded approvingly. “Definite improvement.” He carefully shut the door behind him and sat on the battered leather settee that blocked one of the walls to Gibby’s tiny office. Then he looked around while her simmer continued unabated. She had pictures on her desk of her parents, who were both deceased. She had a picture of a toddler who was her nephew and who lived with Gibby’s brother and sister-in-law in Lubbock, Texas. She had a picture of herself skydiving. He did a double take on that photo. Yes, it’s Gibby and she’s skydiving. Hmm.
When his interested gaze came back to Gibby, he found that she had crossed her arms defiantly over her chest and was twitching with barely suppressed rage. “Okay,” Pascal said mildly. “Albie has decided that it’s entitled to Billy’s body. Furthermore, Ophelia Rector, you know her, right? Well, Ophelia has a power of attorney from Billy’s granddaughter that gives her control over Billy’s estate, including the decision on where to bury the body.” He took the folded power of attorney out of his jacket pocket and tossed it onto Gibby’s desk.
“But didn’t Billy promise that he would let Sawdust City bury him?” she grumped bitterly. Then Gibby unfolded her arms and the document, in that order, and began to read. She said, still reading, “So your dropping the body off, so to speak, at Rector Mortuary, was what, a sorry coincidence?”
Pascal nodded unhappily. “I think Ophelia went to claim Billy right after we did. I also think she’s laughing her ass off at the fact that we paid his hospital bill and by the way, I did ask her to pay it back. The very worst case scenario is to sue his estate, and Ophelia Rector, for the fees. It might take a while, but we’ll get your credit cards taken care of.” Please, please, let that be true for Gibby’s credit cards’ sake. Also Gibby’s sake.
“You think I’m worried just about my credit cards?” Gibby’s face came up and glared at him again.
“Uh, no?”
“Hell, no,” she said. “There’s a lot more than that to worry about.” Her eyes went back down to the document. “You know this is notarized by Ophelia Rector?”
“I noticed that,” he said dryly.
“She’s a notary public,” Gibby said.
“That’s what her little stamp says.”
Gibby suddenly smiled smugly at him. “In Louisiana.”
“What?”
Gibby tapped the document. “Ophelia Rector is a notary public in Louisiana. Only in Louisiana. Actually only in the parish of St. Germaine. Not in Texas. My friend
just got her notary public certificate. You have to be a Texas resident to get one in Texas. And Mrs. Ophelia Rector is not a resident of Texas. Since Tamara Danley resides in-” Her eyes skimmed paperwork. “-Edom, Texas, I’ll just bet that Ophelia went to her instead of the other way around. I’ve heard that Billy’s relatives positively detested him and I don’t think sentiment overcame loathing after he died.”
Pascal’s mouth twisted. “Not that it matters. Ophelia’s still got Billy and she’s making big plans for Friday’s burial. In Albie. Not here.”
“But this document is no good,” Gibby protested, shaking the papers in her hand defiantly. “Right now she doesn’t have the right to make that decision.”
“As soon as she figures that out, she’ll head right back to Tamara Danley with a Texas notary public to make it official,” Pascal determined.
“Not if we can get to Tamara Danley first,” Gibby vowed.
“And what are we going to convince her with?” Pascal asked sarcastically. “Because we’re fresh out of money.”
Gibby frowned. “You got a better idea?”
Pascal frowned. A mental image popped into his mind of an old woman dressed in black lurching over him while she irately expressed her opinion of people who didn’t take action. “I have only one thing to say to you, sir. Get off your lazy, silly tuckus and go and get it.” Get what? You know what. You know what your reflection, that smart-assed prick, would say. Go get it, and don’t mess around doing nothing else.
“Yeah,” Pascal said. “I do have a better idea. You’re going to find Tamara Danley, that’s her address on the power of attorney, and you’re going to convince her that Sawdust City has a lot more to offer than Albie. You’re going to run down our business plan and offer her a percentage of the proceeds, in perpetuity. You’re going to wax prolific on how great it’s going to be and how much money we’re all going to make. You’re going to pull it off.”
“Me?” Gibby said with whiny protest. “You should do it. You’re the one who can make an armless man pick his nose. I mean, why aren’t you going to do it?”
Life and Death of Bayou Billy Page 15
