Life and Death of Bayou Billy

by Bevill, C. L.

  Finally, he took the remainder of the pile and indomitably pushed them into the trashcan. Pascal sighed and decided he needed caffeine. Any kind of caffeine would be acceptable. He looked into his drawer for change. “Well, shit on toast,” he said after a moment. “No change except three measly pennies. I thought I had some more quarters.”

  Then Pascal noticed the map on top of his desk. It was a county map and it was neatly folded up. Next to the map was a receipt for a chest freezer as well as the little booklet that explained in excruciating detail how the user was to plug in the device and then on how to insert stuff that was to be frozen.

  “Oh, hardened fudge nuggets,” he said. Someone had been looking through his desk. The receipt and the map had been inside a drawer. The map had been folded to show the area Pascal had been looking at in order to find a back way into the abandoned GM factory. Now it was like a little accordion with all its corners crisply taut. Two quarters were gone.

  Pascal got up and went to the door. Deanna was talking to another secretary. “-Stupid jerk tripped over Dexter’s foot, like there wasn’t ten other feet of concrete that he could have walked on, in order to go past. Then he starts cussing at us, like I made Dexter trip him. He was in such a hurry that he wasn’t looking where he was going. I mean, he was, like, spastic.”

  Both women noticed Pascal at the same time and the visiting secretary scuttled off like a crawdaddy looking for a rock to crawl beneath. “Say, Deanna,” he said mildly. “You wouldn’t know if someone came into my office after I left with the police, would you?”

  “Oh, no, Your Honor,” she said. “I went to the bathroom. I had to pee something awful. Then well, I had to go have a cigarette. I had a terrible nic-fit. I really should quit smoking. I suppose anyone could have come in.”

  “You didn’t, oh say, lock the door,” he ventured.

  “Why would I do that?” she said unpretentiously.

  Pascal thought. Nastiness was seeping back into his brain and he didn’t care for the direction it was taking. It was leading him down the road to stupidity of past events, such as leaving a folded map and a receipt in his drawer instead of shredding and burning both. “And while you were outside smoking, Dexter came out to hit on you again?”

  “Yes, he’s a terribly dense person when it comes to seeing that I just don’t want to go out with him.” Deanna looked around as if trying to determine if anyone was listening. “He smells like garbage,” she complained.

  “He is a garbage man,” Pascal said.

  “It doesn’t mean he has to smell like garbage,” she stated unequivocally.

  “And while Dexter was attempting to seduce you in the courtyard, someone came out in a very big hurry and tripped over Dexter’s foot?”

  “Yes. What a total jerkface.”

  “Who was it?” Pascal closed his eyes and prayed for a scant second. Please, please, please, don’t let it be Don Swancott.

  “Don Swancott,” she said.

  “Son of a bitch,” he swore violently. Pascal jogged out of the door and down to Don’s office. It was empty and the communal secretary that the council members used said he had left for the day. Pascal went into Don’s office and saw the list written on the little white notepad. His eyes scanned the contents and then rolled skyward. I cannot believe this. He said, “Don, you stupid fucktard.”

  The list read: Steal Billy’s body back. Hold for election. Win election. Call in anonymous tip where body can be found. Hose Pascal Waterford in perpetuity.

  “You ignorant, dumb, horse-humping, spineless douche bag,” Pascal said vehemently, secretly impressed that Don could spell ‘perpetuity’ correctly. Then he grabbed his keys from his office, told Deanna he’d be out for the rest of the day, and raced out of the building himself. He did not, however, trip over Dexter’s foot.

  •

  Pascal had to do some quick thinking. It had been hours since he’d left City Hall with the police chiefs. If Don had gotten into the office right away and managed to figure out the plan despite his inherent idiocy, then he could already have gotten to Billy.

  Pascal looked into the rear view mirror. The cocky, wise-assed reflection looked back frankly. “You testy lump of musty hippo jism. The police would have picked you up already if he’d found the body and called them.”

  “A map and a receipt doesn’t prove anything,” Pascal defended.

  “Well, you did take that little plate with the registration number off the freezer, you ridiculous truckload of used condoms.”

  “So how do I know if he did or didn’t call the fuzz?”

  “The list, stupid. He wrote it down on the list.”

  “Oh, yeah. The moron.” Pascal thumped his fingers on the steering wheel. He was halfway to the GM plant and he had a pretty good idea of what he would find. To be more precise, he only had to drive to the end of the dirt treks and see the obvious drag marks across the field. When he’d toted the freezer in with the body already inside it, he’d used a furniture dolly. “Guess Don didn’t have one of those.”

  “Don’s got a bad back, you irresponsible bag of putrid chicken guts.”

  “Where is he going to take the body?” Pascal asked.

  “Oh for the love of St. Asswipe of Our Lady of Bidets. He’s a twit! He’s so stupid he tried to drown himself in a carpool. Where do you think he’s going to take it?”

  “His house,” Pascal answered triumphantly. “Nowhere else to take it.”

  Pascal drove over to Don Swancott’s house and watched from the end of the street as Don tipped the freezer out of the back of his Dodge. Then he watched as Don nearly ruptured a disc trying to get the freezer inside the garage so that he could shut the door. However, he failed and very nearly crawled back into the Dodge.

  “Doctor’s office,” Pascal guessed.

  “He put his back out, you sun-ripened lot of hospital sewage. Of course, he’s going to the fucking doctor. Now’s your chance. Steal the body back.”

  “I can do that,” Pascal said and ducked before Don drove the Dodge Durango past him. After a minute he peeked up and made sure that no one was around. Unfortunately a blue Ford Mustang was backing up into Don’s drive-way. Then two men got out and Pascal said, “Who the fuck are they?”

  He observed them looking inside the freezer and was a little surprised that they didn’t cringe in shock at the contents. Then he realized that one of the men looked familiar. It took Pascal’s dog-tired brain a few moments to place him, but he eventually recognized Oscar Rector as one of the two. “Oh, man,” Pascal said. “The fucking Rectors again. How in shitfire did they know about Don getting to the body today?”

  His reflection said, “Bet they were waiting for someone to come rushing out of the building as soon as the cops left. Maybe you or someone else. Saw old monkey genius Don come out like his ass was on fire and followed him. Waited for the same opportunity you were waiting for, you mass of decomposing testicle warts.”

  “Didn’t you use that one already, spooge bitch?”

  “Your mama,” the reflection said nastily and fell silent.

  The two men spent about ten minutes trying to get Billy out of the chest freezer and mostly succeeded. Pascal winced a few times as pieces of the deceased outlaw emerged not connected to other parts.

  When they drove off, Pascal followed and was happy to find that they didn’t go very far.

  Chapter Nineteen

  From an article in The Albie Times, dated January 19th, 1977:

  Infamous Outlaw to Be Released!

  William McCall, also known as Bayou Billy, will be released from Oakdale Federal Penitentiary in Oakdale, Louisiana. Pardoned by President Gerald R. Ford on the last day of his presidency, Bayou Billy is in company with the equally infamous Tokyo Rose, also known as Iva Toguri D’aquino, who was pardoned for her treason convictions after World War II.

  The Presidential pardon occurs in part because of the severe illness Bayou Billy has developed while in the penitentiary. Bayou Billy is su
ffering from acute kidney failure and expects to remain on dialysis for the next year. Quoted from Oakdale Penitentiary, he said, “Ain’t got nothing left in this world ‘cepting a rusty Model-T Ford and a few dollars from the government. Ain’t nobody wants to take care of an old man like myself. Ain’t got a clue as to where I’m gonna get the money to pay for such things. Reckon Medicare ought to cover me.” When asked where the pardoned criminal will reside, he stated, “Reckon I’ll go to the old haunts. Mayhaps Albie in Eastern Louisiana or Sawdust City in Texas. They treated a man quite rightly. Didn’t make much of a fuss about what I done stole or who I done hit over the head or even who I might have kilt. Undemanding kind of people there. Ain’t gonna make a ruckus over an old reprobate like mysef.”

  Bayou Billy is 77 years old.

  The Present

  Tuesday, July 18th

  Albie, Louisiana

  “John Lennon had it right,” Oscar Rector said reflectively.

  Orem exhaled a stream of bluish smoke and said, “John who?”

  “Pass me the bong, fuck hamster,” Oscar said. “John Lennon. One of the Beatles, you know?”

  “Dude, I was born after he got killed,” Orem stated. He took another hit off King Kong holding Fay Wray by the titties and handed the bong over to his older brother. Holding smoke deep in his lungs, he said, “So what did he get right?”

  “Instant karma.” Oscar took a hit and looked up at the ceiling of his living room. He sang, “‘Instant karma’s gonna get you. Going to knock you right on the head.’”

  Orem looked puzzled. “Instant karma? What the hell are you talking about?”

  “Bayou Billy, of course,” Oscar replied, blowing smoke in rings. “Billy was a bad motherfucker. He screwed people left and right. He took things that didn’t belong to him. Hell, he probably broke all of the Ten Commandments. “

  Orem thought about that. “The Ten Commandments. Do I remember any Sunday school stuff? Did Billy worship other gods? I dunno. Maybe he was a Lutheran. Do not make idols. Did Billy make an idol? Um, there’s taking the lord’s name in vain. Bet he did that. Keeping the Sabbath holy. Well, I think that’s a gimme. Then there’s honoring your father and mother.” Orem paused to chuckle, thinking that immensely amusing. “I’m pretty sure Billy didn’t do that. Okay, what’s left?”

  “Murder and adultery,” Oscar said. “Billy was definitely a murderer. And if he had seven wives and a mistress, then he was porking someone else at some time during his marriage or theirs.”

  “How many is that?”

  “Gods, idols, Lord naming, holy Sabbath, honor pops and moms, murder, and adultery.” Oscar counted on his finger. “That’s seven.”

  “Okay.” Orem tapped his fingers on his cheek. “Stealing,” he said suddenly. “Billy was a big time thief.”

  “And lying,” Oscar added. “Fairly certain Billy lied about a lot of things. Ma would sure agree.”

  Both men giggled.

  “And coveting,” Orem said. “If old Bill was adulterizing, then he was definitely coveting.”

  Oscar nodded in agreement and handed the bong back to his brother. “He was an old son of a bitch. Mama wants him so bad she can taste it, and now we got him.”

  “So why did we leave him in the trunk of the Mustang?” Orem asked.

  “He’s frozen as solid as a turkey at the supermarket, doofus dick. I can’t do anything with him when he’s like that.” Oscar thumped Orem on the side of his ear.

  “Oww,” Orem complained mildly. He took a hit on the bong and watched as bubbles came up through King Kong’s massive chest. “How long will it take to thaw him out?”

  “Who am I, Martha Stewart? I don’t have a chart on defrosting meat, dingus. I guess it’s going to take at least a day. It’s pretty hot out there, so I think we have to check him in a couple of hours.” Oscar paused and screwed up his face in recollection. “You know I do have a cookbook. It was a gift from Oakley’s wife, whatsherface. She thinks men should all cook.” He got up from the sofa and went into the kitchen, returning with a large red covered book. Blowing dust off the cover, he flung it down on the coffee table and flipped pages until he found what he wanted. Reading for about thirty seconds, he announced, “It says you should defrost all meat in a refrigerator.”

  Orem scratched his head. “I don’t think Billy will fit.”

  “No, I guess not. Then there’s cold water thawing.” Oscar read from the book, “‘The meat should be enclosed in a leak-proof package or a sealed plastic bag because meat tissue can absorb water as it thaws and result in a watery product.’ Yuck. Like I’m going to put him in my tub and I don’t think baggies come in Billy’s size at the supermarket.”

  “What else?”

  “Microwave thawing, skid mark,” Oscar said blandly.

  Both men laughed again helplessly. Orem wiped a string of snot from his chin and said, “Next?”

  “There’s a chart for thawing times for refrigerators,” Oscar said. He ran his finger down the chart. “We can apply it to your car’s trunk and adjust for temperature. Or something like that. ‘Steak, one inch thick, seven hours. Steak, two inches thick, up to 24 hours. Pot roast four to seven hours per pound. Pot roast, large, up to eight hours per pound.’”

  “So if Billy weighs what, 120 pounds, that’s eight times 120?”

  “If we had a fridge big enough to put him in,” answered Oscar. “Instead we have a trunk in a Mustang in 105 degree weather.” He glanced outside. “Well, maybe 100 degrees now. We should wait until after dark to check him. We don’t want that green mold growing on him.”

  Orem looked at Oscar with apparent disgust. “Ah, dude, my trunk is going to smell like dead bodies and you know what that does to me. They don’t make enough Febreze in the entire world to take that smell away from something like that. Why can’t we take him to the funeral home, Oscar? There’s refrigerated units there, made just for final remains.”

  “Hey, I’m not letting Mama see us like this,” Oscar said. “I’m higher than the fucking space station and she can see that shit from a mile away. I like all my bits and pieces right where they’re at.”

  “Okay, then, why do we have to leave Billy in my car? Why not your car?”

  “He’s already in your car, dingleberry lips,” Oscar exclaimed. “Why move him? Besides what if one of the neighbors sees?”

  Orem sighed. Then he sat up straight. “Why not call Ma and tell her we have the body, uh, I mean, last remnants? Get her off our backs.”

  “Because Ma will want to see Billy now, and right now I don’t want to be sober,” Oscar explained. “After prying a corpse-cicle out of a freezer and scraping little frozen pieces of human skin over hill and dale, I think I’d rather get as wasted as I can and then take a bath. Or both at the same time. I don’t want to talk to Ma, who is at this very moment, having a hissy fit of the supreme order of hissies. She is Mt. St. Helens on the verge of erupting. She is a vengeful god about to rain fire and brimstone upon Sodom and Gomorrah. She is going to kill and dismember the very first of her children who says boo to her. And I don’t wanna be that one.” He paused for theatrical effect. “Do you?”

  Orem shook his head slowly and took another hit off the bong.

  “And that is also why my cell phone is off and the telephone is unplugged,” Oscar proceeded to explain, as if talking to a completely demented lump of beach-stranded jelly fish. “And so it shall remain, until I have run out of hash, forever more.”

  “Amen,” Orem said firmly and both men giggled again.

  “Goober,” Oscar added for good measure.

  They were quiet for a while, passing the bong back and forth until the stick of hash was completely gone. Presently Orem said, “How can it be instant karma that got Billy? He lived for a hundred and ten years. I mean, dude, that wasn’t instant. It was over a century. If you ask me, karma took its sweet assed time.”

  “Who knows about karma?” Oscar said meditatively. “Karma is like, what we do in this life
is going to impact the next life. What we did in past lives, it’s coming to get us.”

  Orem said, “That’s fucked up. You mean, the fact that I helped steal a frozen dead guy, I mean, the icy final vestiges of a lost soul, is going to count against me in the next life?”

  “Serendipity, slug slime, blessed, convenient fate,” Oscar stated emphatically, unconsciously repeating his mother’s words to Pascal Waterford. “Wonderfully serendipitous.”

  “Ser-in-dip-ah-dossss,” Orem repeated, drawing the word out. “Got any brownies?”

  “No, I got Cheez Doodles. Or cream of mushroom soup. I think there’s a can of water chestnuts, too.”

  “Wow. What if we mix them together?”

  “Gross,” Oscar said. “You’d have to put Tabasco on top.”

  “Cool.”

  •

  Ophelia Rector was having a shitty day. There was no other way to for her to aptly describe it. She had woken up happy and pleased with her accomplishments and now life was changing into an enormous pile of putrefying crap covered with festering maggots with a dung-eating beetle teetering on the very top. Outrageously, it wasn’t even the good kind of poop that smelled like normal poop. Instead, it was the kind of crap that smelled like the person crapping had an extreme digestional disorder and was eating broccoli, popcorn, and baked beans all together at the same time. It was the type of poop that her dear departed father laughingly called a ‘Mexican poop,’ loosely defined as the kind that smelled so dreadful that people’s noses burned and they screamed in agony as they ran for the border. To be perfectly specific, Ophelia’s day was so terrible that she was actively trying to think of suitable comparisons to human excrement because there was simply no other way to accurately articulate the wretchedness of the situation.