Life and Death of Bayou Billy

by Bevill, C. L.

  At one point in time, Don considered recruiting Gibby Ross to the ‘dark side.’ She was moody, antagonistic, and unwavering in her efforts to make sure her immediate supervisor didn’t get to cut any corners on her watch. Perfect mole material. However, she was also moody, antagonistic, and unwavering in her efforts to treat Don the same way she treated Pascal, so that plan crashed and burned.

  Then there was the abrupt resurgence in Pascal-happy constituents. All because of a stupid, dead, decomposing lump of worm-food who happened to have once been a famous criminal. Pascal was getting Bayou Billy buried in Sawdust City. He was going to get investment funds in loans and lots of them. Sawdust City would have a nice renewal impact and people wouldn’t be worried about whether their next paycheck was going to bounce or not. There would be plenty of opportunity. There would be jobs. New people. New voters. New money.

  Good for Sawdust City. Bad for Don Swancott. Of course Don didn’t hate Sawdust City. On the contrary, he was fond of the old girl. It was a seasoned old southern belle, replete with southern, gentile accent, and fading glory. But anyone could see that effective leadership would be the cure and not some get-rich scheme based on the plan of using a tired old legend’s infamy for tourism dollars.

  At least, that was Don’s take. Nevertheless, people were excited, thrilled even, by Pascal’s arrangement. They danced eagerly around as if they were twelve year old boys and about to get their first glimpse of the notorious female titty. Moreover, Pascal had taken the proverbial corpse by the short and curlies and brought it nonkicking and nonscreaming back to Sawdust City, lest anyone else could claim it first for their graveyard. It was one more praiseworthy deed for the community to ooh and awe over as they thought about the city’s looming future. Then over the weekend, sometime around Sunday, nasty little rumors started to ooze across the Sabine River. The rumors weren’t really nasty or little to Don, but that was neither here nor there.

  Here it was: Albie, Louisiana was going to bury Bayou Billy in their cemetery. Not Sawdust City’s cemetery. Oh, golly gee whiz. They were planning their own ceremony on Friday, July 21st, the same as Sawdust City’s proposed ceremony. Oh, lordy mcfordy. And finally, lastly, most conclusively, they had Bayou Billy’s honest to God body. Oh, whatever is the world coming to?

  Although a dozen residents of Sawdust City asserted to have held a private wake for William Douglas McCall AKA Bayou Billy at the Gray Goose Inn on Friday night last or early Saturday morning, depending on who was telling the story. The aberrant and deceased outlaw had been present for the wake and evidently had participated in a very sedentary and dead manner. Then Pascal Waterford had taken the corpse off to be embalmed and the next thing that was happening was a bunch of rumors floating over that Albie had legal possession of the dead man and the right to choose where he would be buried. I.e., he was going to be interred in Albie Cemetery and definitely not Resurrection Cemetery in Sawdust City. Pascal was running around like a chicken with his dick caught in a wringer and Sawdust City residents were starting to get very nervous.

  It was enough to make Don giggle. So he did giggle. He giggled all day Monday and most of Tuesday morning. Then some damn other thing happened.

  Into Sawdust City’s city hall marched Albie Chief of Police Paxton Andrews, Sawdust City Chief of Police Burt Elder, and Rector Mortuary’s chief pain in the societal ass, Ophelia Rector. It was a small city hall, and everyone wanted to know just what the heck was happening. One of the secretaries whispered into Don’s ear that Bayou Billy’s body had been…gasp…stolen from Rector Mortuary the night before. Also a night watchman had been brutally assaulted and someone had peed in Ophelia Rector’s coffee pot.

  Don’s first impulse was to giggle again. Then the secretary said that the gruesome threesome had gone in to speak with Pascal Waterford, and also that Gibby Ross hadn’t shown up for work. Oh, the myriad mass of meaningless questions that positively writhed and wriggled.

  With a cup of swill that his secretary called coffee, Don continued to sit at his desk and think about the state of affairs.

  Known facts: Pascal and Gibby had gone to Shreveport and retrieved the body of one William Douglas McCall, authentic criminal and honestly dead person. On Friday night the body was sighted at the Gray Goose Inn during a drunken reverie of corpse celebration that would make an Irish dockworker blanch. On early Saturday, the remains were whisked away to a mortuary to be embalmed. On Monday, Albie alleged that they were burying the body of the outlaw instead of Sawdust City. On late Monday night or early Tuesday, the body was swiped from Rector Mortuary by person or persons unknown. On Tuesday the fuzz showed up with Ophelia Rector to speak with Pascal about unknown topics. Let us not go there until we have placed a glass at the nearest wall and attempted to listen.

  Legal possession of the body? Don had to think about that. That implied that Albie had some kind of legal right to claim Bayou Billy’s corpse. Don knew Ophelia Rector just about as well as anyone did in town. She was ruthless, determined, and very interested in promoting her pet project, the Albie Cemetery, into its own kind of infamy. It really made sense when someone thought about it. When Bayou Billy died, Pascal wasn’t the only one wanting to get his mitts on the cadaver. But Pascal probably hadn’t even given it a moment’s thought. Everyone who had met Bayou Billy hated him within five minutes, except maybe for the seven women he married and they must have been drugged for that. The only reason someone would want the old son of a bitch was because of the revenue he would bring after he had kicked the bucket.

  Pascal had heard the news and went straight to Shreveport and said, ‘Yo. Me take body. Me tough mayor guy.’ Then he’d gotten drunk with a bunch of local yokels and they had said, ‘Hey, body smell bad. Take to mortuary. Pew-eww.’ Then Pascal had taken the body to the only mortuary within thirty miles. Rector Mortuary. Ophelia Rector, being a dogged cuss and a bitch of the highest order of bitchdom, had also heard the same death related news. She, with more funerary knowledge than Pascal, had taken the more lawful road. She had found a relative of Bayou Billy’s and conned them into signing over their legal rights to Albie. She’d probably paid them off, too. The Rectors had a lot of cash. It seemed that people just kept dying in this part of the two states and their bereaved relatives kept paying for funeral services at the only such place around. So when Pascal took Bayou Billy’s body to Rector’s, he practically gave the goods away wrapped up with a bow and a please-would-you-fuck-me-up-the-ass note. Unknowingly, but given away all the same. She and, by whatever legal wrangling she’d undergone, the city of Albie weren’t obligated to give the corpse back to Pascal or to Sawdust City.

  Don had to stop and goggle to himself. It’s just like a fucking soap opera.

  So what does a big, walking, rednecked boob do? He steals the body back.

  Don couldn’t get that one. Pascal couldn’t come out and say, ‘Oh, me got body now. Have ceremony. Party hardy,’ without being charged with body-snatching. Pascal was a big dummy, but he wasn’t a moron. Was it a case of ‘Me no have, no one have?’

  No, Pascal Waterford doesn’t think like that. If the big boob stole the corpse, then he has reason to think that he could use it legally. After all, the rotting carcass was the essential aspect of saving his reelection campaign from completely fizzing out.

  Ah, Gibby Ross, Don thought triumphantly. She wasn’t at work today. She was suddenly on Pascal’s side. She had even gone with him to Shreveport to pick up the bag-o-bones. The answer must be that she had gone to find another Bayou Billy relative. Or maybe she had gone to convince the one Ophelia had paid off to change their mind in Sawdust City’s favor. Whatever she was doing, she was trying to make it legal for Sawdust City to bury Bayou Billy’s stiff. Pascal wouldn’t, no, he couldn’t, own up to corpse-nappery, but the body could be ‘found’ at a convenient location within Sawdust City’s legal limits when the tide had turned. Then, Ophelia wouldn’t have a leg to stand on, much less a carcass for which to dig a grave.

  Pascal w
ould be the hero again. The man who would save Sawdust City from a fate worse than certain death. The big, walking, rednecked boob who would be mayor until the next eighty years until he was blind, impotent, and confined to a wheel chair.

  Crap. Crappity do-dah. Crappity day. My oh my, what a crappity day. Plenty of crapshine, plenty of pain, crappity do-dah, crappity day.

  And what would Donald P. Swancott be? Nothing. A measly mayor pro tem and first council member. A man who would be forgotten by all five minutes after his death. No impact. No way of ensuring his mark upon Sawdust City. No elementary schools named after him.

  There would be just the Pascal Waterford Memorial Elementary School. On the corner of Main and Third Streets, a shining edifice to remember a man who was much revered. There it would remain until people would have to look at the bronze plaque in the hallway to figure out exactly why the school had been named after the not-so-honorable Pascal Waterford.

  “CRAP!” Don yelled viciously.

  He took a drink of the foul brew that was misleadingly named coffee and instantly sputtered half of it out on his shirt.

  I’m smarter than Pascal Waterford, he thought. I’m smarter and I’m a better politician. Plus I wear briefs not boxers. And I don’t drink much. And I’ve never belched louder than a moose’s mating call at the Masonic Hall in front of a crowd of two hundred people.

  Don dabbed at the coffee stain with handkerchief and cogitated. Stealing a body. No body worthy of the mayor’s honorable position would steal crowbait. No, not even to save the town. No, Pascal’s doing it to save his own ass. That’s right. He’s backed us into a corner and he’s trying to fight his way out. He’s getting desperate. Don shook his head sadly. What’s really sad is the wretched lengths that a man will go to get elected. Or reelected in Pascal’s case.

  Bobby Joe Bruce stuck his head into Don’s door and said, “Did you hear about Bayou Billy, Don?”

  Don nodded thoughtfully. “Say, you were there when Pascal got the body, at the Gray Goose, weren’t you, Bobby Joe Bruce?”

  “Sure was,” Bobby Joe Bruce said firmly. “Hell of a sendoff. Don’t know why Albie’s got it into their heads that they get the body, but Pascal’s got himself a plan and I’ll bet he stole the body just because he’s needing time to work it out.” He smiled and showed a single gold incisor. “Yessirree. You betcha. Damn straight.”

  Then he disappeared and Don muttered, “Ignorant cock-sucking noodle butt. I hope a comet strikes his house while he’s asleep in it.”

  Sure, Pascal stole Bayou Billy’s body back. The police were in his office asking questions about the body. Ophelia Rector is so pissed you can see the steam shooting out of her ears from a hundred yards away. Can they prove that Pascal did it? Don sighed. Probably not. Or Pascal would have already been led out the door in cuffs.

  Then Deanna of the large breasts popped her head around the corner of Don’s door. Half of the front of her boobs came around too, but Don wasn’t paying attention to them. She said, “Did you hear, Don? About Bayou Billy? And the mayor?”

  “I heard,” Don snarled. Deanna yelped and vanished. Then her boobs vanished. He heard her footsteps scurrying down the hallway toward the bathroom.

  Hey. If Deanna is in the bathroom, then no one is in Gibby’s office right now. While the cops are talking to Pascal. Don was rather pleased with himself. So he hurried down to Gibby’s office, carefully shut the door, and put his ear up to Pascal’s office door.

  With his ear glued to the door, Don learned several things. Ophelia Rector was positively incensed. Pascal had denied culpability in a roundabout manner. Ophelia had a power of attorney from the dead man’s grandchild. Paxton Andrews suspected that Pascal had taken the body but had no proof. Most importantly, Don learned since Pascal was willing to let the two police chiefs search City Hall and his residence that Pascal was hiding the corpse elsewhere.

  With that fascinating tidbit, Don hauled ass for his own office and pretended that he was as guiltless as a newborn infant. He had more thinking to do, also.

  The two police chiefs tromped past followed by Ophelia Rector and then by Pascal, who smiled at Don like he had a secret.

  I got your secret, you ill-bred, scumbucket, son of a rotten Democrat. Don waved cheerfully. Pascal frowned and disappeared.

  So, Don thought. If I stole a stiff, where would I put it? Pascal couldn’t have it in City Hall or his house because he had given permission for the police to search there. Not only had Pascal given permission, but he was rather happy to do it. Obviously not those two places. Gibby Ross could have the remains at her place, but Don shook his head. No, everyone knows she went with Pascal to Shreveport. They’ll probably look there next. And then probably at anyone else’s who even has a passing friendship with Pascal.

  Don tapped his desk with his fingers. He saw Deanna walk past rustling in her purse and pulling out a pack of cigarettes. Deanna was a smoker and smoking wasn’t permitted in the building.

  Therefore, a golden opportunity presented itself to Don and he went to search Pascal’s office. Deanna, not only a smoker and big breasted, was rather dimwitted. She had left both doors unlocked. Unlike Gibby, Deanna was woefully slow and unknowledgeable about the secret, vicious wars fought in the name of office politics.

  Don figured he had about ten minutes, maybe more if Dexter the garbage man cornered Deanna in the courtyard where most smokers went to assuage their habits. He looked over Pascal’s desk, saw nothing important. Then he went through some of the drawers.

  Pascal, you one messy fuck, he thought. He saw some receipts for a chest freezer, duct tape, and some garbage bags, a broken ruler, a map of the county, and fifty-three cents in change. Pocketing the two quarters, but leaving the pennies, Don went through the remainder of the drawers. Unfortunately for Don nothing leapt out at him.

  Sitting down in Pascal’s chair, Don looked out at the nice view of the main drag. I deserve this view. It should be mine. Yep. I should be mayor and Pascal should be in jail. As a matter of fact, Pascal should be in jail with that smelly cadaver for company. Yeppers. Just him and a stinky old dead guy.

  Hey, he stopped suddenly. What do you do with a smelly old dead guy? You put him someplace where the smell won’t really be apparent. Don opened the drawer with the receipts. The one on top was a receipt for a chest freezer, paid with cash, from the nearest Lowe’s, some twenty miles away. There was a little pamphlet under the receipt that said it had 13.8 cubic feet in it, that it was frost-free, and had four bins that could easily be removed. The dimensions were 35 inches high, 48 inches wide and 29 ½ inches deep.

  Uh, Don wondered silently and uneasily. Can you fit a body into that? Maybe if you…gross…fold it in half. Pascal ain’t rolling in dough lately so he couldn’t afford to buy the bigger freezer. Supposedly half of his income goes to his ex for child support. The house belonged to his parents. I don’t know where he gets the bucks to pay for the Ford, but he’s probably living via credit card, like nine out of ten folks around here. And how would he have transported a freezer anyway? I guess it could have fit in the back of the Expedition if he folded all the seats down. But would he have driven his own vehicle to steal the body?

  Don shook his head. No, no, no. Pascal won’t have done that. He’d of borrowed someone’s. He used the dog catcher’s truck to pick up the corpse in Shreveport, so he won’t have used that again, not to mention it’s got the city’s name in big three inch letters on the side. Friends? Pascal’s got some. Drinking buddies who go fishing with him. Supporters who regularly plan with him on how to get revenue back into the town. B.B., i.e., Before Billy, there’s the Extend Toledo Bend Reservoir Plan. Didn’t work. There’s the Catfish Days in Sawdust City Plan, attempting to lure, no pun intended, fishermen in droves to stay here, enjoy the festivities, and buy stuff here with which to have a fishing trip. No one was really excited about that, even though Toledo Bend is a big fishing spot.

  Tapping his fingers on the receipt, Don cogitated. There�
��s the short lived Nuclear Waste Dump Site Plan. Pascal wasn’t crazy about that one, but a more than a respectable few folks didn’t mind too much if they glowed green in the middle of the night. Other people weren’t happy about the proximity to the reservoir, a major water source, and that was the end of that. Okay, what else? The Reindeer Farm Plan went into the poop chute almost immediately. Ditto the Christmas Tree Farm Plan. The East Texas Rose Garden Plan is already being done in Tyler, down the road a ways. So that belly flopped like a five hundred pound man in a kiddie pool.

  Don looked outside and then back down at the desk drawer and saw the map of the county. Slowly he pulled it out and discovered to his dismay that there wasn’t a single notation on it that said, ‘Bayou Billy body here,’ with a highlighted star. Then he frowned and turned the map around. It was folded all cockeyed. Don’s wife made a point of folding maps incorrectly and it bothered the holy living bugshit out of him on a regular basis. He started to open the map to its full size and then hastily froze.

  It had become readily obvious to Don how Pascal had been looking at the map. The folds were well-creased and the map flattened into a state of dirty fingered permanency. Don would have thought that the mayor knew every backwoods road and every hidden little copse in which to take the army of women he’d charmed and seduced over the years. But Pascal wasn’t looking for a secluded spot to have a kissy-kissy-face session. He was looking for a spot to plug in a freezer. And there it was, bigger than day.

  It had opened in the fall of 1995 and made a lot of Sawdust City residents happy, happy, and happy. It had closed in the fall of 1997 and a significant portion of the population had headed for bigger cities and regular jobs. One man had even committed suicide because of the loss of his managerial position, shooting off the top of his head with a shotgun at the front gate of the building.