Peckerwood

by Jedidiah Ayres

  Praise for JEDIDIAH AYRES & PECKERWOOD:

  “Peckerwood is intensely original and harrowing country noir. Ayres delivers sharp-edged prose that lands like a knife under the ribs.”

  – Dennis Tafoya, author of Dope Thief and The Poor Boy’s Game

  “A masterpiece of dirty, down-low rural noir. Read it and sink a little further into the muck.”

  – Scott Phillips, author of The Ice Harvest and Rake

  “Some people find comfort in religion, booze, sex, drugs. I don’t judge. But I find comfort in Jedidiah Ayres.”

  – Benjamin Whitmer, author of Pike and co-author of Satan is Real: The Ballad of the Louvin Brothers

  “Jedidiah Ayres combines a crooked world view and a dark turn of mind with a genuine, increasingly rare pulse of humanity to create stories that stand apart.”

  – Sean Doolittle, author of The Cleanup and Lake Country

  “One of the most innovative crime fiction writers currently on the scene.”

  – LitReactor

  A Broken River Books original

  Broken River Books

  103 Beal Street

  Norman, OK 73069

  Copyright © 2013 by Jedidiah Ayres

  Cover art and design copyright © 2013 by Matthew Revert

  www.matthewrevert.com

  Interior design by J David Osborne

  Excerpts from Peckerwood first appeared in Thuglit, Crime Factory, and Noir at the Bar Vol. 2.

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without the written consent of the publisher, except where permitted by law.

  This is a work of fiction. All names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination. Where the names of actual celebrities or corporate entities appear, they are used for fictional purposes and do not constitute assertions of fact. Any resemblance to real events or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.

  ISBN: 978-1-940885-01-8

  Printed in the USA.

  For Cort McMeel

  PART I

  If Terry Hickerson had had a working doorbell in the front of his place it wouldn’t have rung anyway. It was one of those nagging bits of faulty or expired equipment he always seemed to be surrounded by. He was constantly leveraging the value of his precious time and energy against the odds that he’d ever need a functional whatsit again, appreciating only in a moment of need or crisis their importance.

  A new light bulb in the bathroom would have perhaps spared his tripping over the half full can of Milwaukee’s Best beside the toilet and cracking his head against the tub. That drip in his ceiling, if tended to earlier, might not’ve progressed across the room and left the pungent smell of mildewed carpet to greet him when he returned after a week-long bender. If he’d seen to the truck when it first started making that Jimi Hendrix feedback sound every time he touched the brakes, maybe it would still be running instead of sitting in a junkyard, twisted around itself, the shape of a big knotty pine discernible in the negative space. And maybe whatsername, the sad-eyed hippie chick, and Layla, his hound, would not have died refusing to make way for the shattering glass and tree branches suddenly violating the truck’s interior. Made him think hard about the consequences of his inaction sometimes.

  Really missed that dog.

  But the doorbell, had it been fixed, would never have rung in the first place and that was what he clung to now, squeezing all the comfort he could from it, the fact that he’d not wasted one minute of his life in the impossibly fruitless task of fixing the damn thing.

  It wouldn’t have rung because Chowder Thompson would not have pressed the button. Chowder would not have wanted Terry to know he was there until it was too late to fetch a weapon.

  The road they were exploring seemed not to care for travelers in first class conditions, let alone the undignified fashion he found himself riding in now, hog-tied with a bungee cord and gagged with dirty socks, bouncing defenselessly against the hood of the trunk every time they hit a pot hole, which were legion. There was a deep and widening cut above his left eye. The flow of blood had slowed, but because of those bumps, never stopped. Every few seconds the wound reopened against the ceiling, leaving a touch more stickiness. He imagined the torn flesh around the cut a new set of lips opening compulsively to kiss the car.

  His mind was racing now, trying to come up with a way to live long enough to make a better last mistake than the glaring one coming to his mind. He was entitled to more time, more life and more free shit from wherever he could take it.

  Maybe there was something he could offer Chowder, if he was ever given the chance to speak again. What could that be? What could a cold man like Chowder Thompson really want from a skid mark like him?

  In his desperation he did something he’d never done before in his lazy-ass parasite life. He put his mind to it.

  CHAPTER ONE

  TERRY

  The idea had been Cal’s. “We should go to spring break.”

  Terry snorted. “That’s a long way away.”

  “Well maybe not Mexico or Florida, but we should look for the slutty college girls around here come spring break time.”

  “There’s a couple of problems I see right away with that. One, not many girls around here go to college and two, the type that like to hang around with their tits askew won’t come here to do it.”

  “No, but the ones who do come back here, they’re probably pissed about not being able to go for whatever reason. There’s bound to be a few hanging around, looking for a party. Could be.”

  Working on an idea about comely coeds returning home to Spruce, Missouri to release some sexual tension, Terry Hickerson and Cal Dotson had opted to give their usual watering hole, The Gulch, a rest for a week or two. They’d decided to try elsewhere after watching a series of documentaries about exotic locales where the girls had apparently “gone wild.” The films were enough to make Terry think, for the first time, that maybe he should’ve finished high school and gone to college.

  Deciding that it was worth a shot, they’d traveled all the way to Joplin and found themselves at one of those nightclubs with the blue neon lighting and expensive sound systems blasting that shitty music kids liked.

  The drinks at this nightmare palace were expensive as hell, and there was a policy about different pay rates based on gender, whereas back at The Gulch, drinks were a reasonable price and there was true equality of the sexes. On the other hand, at The Gulch there were never any women south of thirty, unfamiliar with the sad effects of gravity, or likely to recognize the business end of a toothbrush.

  They sat at a table in the back corner surveying the scene through their first pitcher of Bud when Cal made a move into a circle of girls who looked like gazelle around the watering hole. Terry noticed him suck in his gut as he closed in. Terry couldn’t hear what anyone was saying, but he had a pretty good idea of how it was going. The gazelle stiffened their posture as the gangly lion approached. They huddled closer together then dispersed on some unseen cue leaving for Cal the slowest of their pack to devour. He backed her up against the bar. The girl was round, but young. Her generosity of flesh was still buoyant instead of slack and she looked not entirely put off by her predator. This might be easier than Terry’d thought.

  After a few minutes, Cal left the girl at the bar and returned to the table.

  “What’s the matter? She looked willing.”

  “Yeah, think you’re right, but I’m in no rush. See how this plays out. Fortunes might improve, but it’s good to know I’ve got options.”

  “You’re too picky.”

  Cal sounded hurt. “No way
. I don’t want to settle. I don’t have to do fat chicks.”

  “What’s wrong with fat chicks?”

  “Sometimes I’m just not in the mood for a fat chick.”

  “Tell you what though, fat girls know how to present themselves. They can wear make up and they tend to smell good too. They put forth a lot more effort than those skinny-pretties you’re saving yourself for.”

  Cal considered that. After a moment he shrugged, “Not in the mood. Maybe later.” He looked at Terry, “You’re so hot to trot, go for it, her name’s Mindy or Cindy or something.”

  “Nah, that’s okay. Think I’ll keep my options open.”

  “Hypocrite.”

  “Faggot.”

  As the night wore on, Cal laid his particular brand of charm on a half dozen other college girls without any success. Terry watched his friend’s mood sink. “Stuck up college bitches. Think they’re such hot shit, but nobody took them to Florida.” After a couple of hours’ worth of drinking, Cal abruptly snapped to attention when he noticed Cindy or Mindy flirting with another college boy.

  And it was decided. She was for him. Cal staggered confidently across the room and simply shoved the young man out of the way. Terry couldn’t hear the exchange, but figured the young guy could also see the look in Cindy or Mindy eyes as well as he could, ‘cause he didn’t give any more than a token objection to Cal’s intrusion which Cal waved off with a distracted swipe that barely connected. Cal hooked his arm into whatsername’s and they walked out the front door.

  Terry guessed he was on his own. Cal could find his own way home.

  In the wake of Cal’s exit another group of young women came through the front door and Terry’s eye snagged on one of them. She was young, but not scary young. Nothing the law would have an opinion on. She came in with friends, but sat alone while the others quickly picked up escorts and dispersed.

  Terry couldn’t figure it. He was fairly certain she was attractive; had shoulder length blonde hair. She had high cheekbones and a small bust, nearly delicate, but not. She was dressed in a floral-print skirt and shirt without sleeves. She had slender, firm arms and what looked like a dragon’s tail tattoo snaking around her upper arm. She had a look he decided could be wholesome or wild depending on the cast of her eyes. After his money ran out, Terry went to talk.

  “What’s wrong with you?” hardly slurring at all.

  She looked up, surprised. “Excuse me?”

  “Why aren’t you paired off?” He gestured at the rather sad collection of talent available. “You engaged?” She shook her head. “Is it the clap?” She started to turn away from him. “Wait, I know. You’re a born-over-again?”

  “Cold.”

  Terry helped himself to the seat opposite her. “You got a dick in your panties? I saw that in a movie.”

  She looked at him again, smiling this time. “Oh yeah? I look like a hermaphrodite? Nice.”

  “I knew there must be a word for it. I bet you intimidate all the boys with your intellect.”

  “But not you, huh?”

  Terry made a face like he’d bit into a lemon and exhaled, flapping his lips. He was aiming for suavely dismissive, but just sounded like a pissed off horse. “Nah, I’m just drunk enough to ask about what makes me curious.” He smiled and winked with both eyes. “And seeing you all alone while your ugly friends have a good time makes me curious. So what is it?” He stared intently at her chest for a three count and then resolutely focused on her eyes.

  She turned away again, coyly. “If you don’t know, I’m not going to tell you.”

  “What if I can guess?”

  “Okay. Three tries.”

  “You’ll have a drink with me?”

  “Three tries.”

  Terry sat down on the stool next to her and put his beer on the table. Up close she had a natural attractiveness that allowed her to flaunt the conventions of beauty. Her body hair was fine and hardly visible, but there was a bush of it under her arms and probably on her legs too. She had an under-washed and earthy scent to her, but it was light and improved the sterile atmosphere of the club. He closed his eyes and put his fingers to his temples in concentration. After a long moment, his eyes popped open and he tried, “Dyke.” She shook her head and he smiled. “Good, though you should know that wouldn’t have stopped me.” Once more he meditated, then, “Cripple of some sort?” Again she said no. Terry shook his head and dropped his hands in his lap. “Ah, hell. They’re just afraid of you.”

  She smiled. “Maybe.”

  “Well that settles it, I’m your man. I guarantee I’m not afraid. Guess we’re having that drink.” He rose and extended his hand to her.

  “Where are we going?”

  “I’ve got drinks in my truck.” He waited a beat. “I spent all my money already.” He ran his fingers through his stringy hair and put on his shit-eatingest smile. “What do you want to do?”

  “Get out of here.”

  “Me too.”

  Cliff was in no mood.

  Chowder Thompson was nothing but a new splinter in his asshole and every minute wasted on this rinky-dink, shitkicker operation Cliff felt that sliver push in deeper. Got fidgety.

  The backwood badass routine was tired and Chowder’s ex-Buc status meant exactly dick back in Memphis, but Bug was also an ex-Buc and Bug thought he saw fortune flash her snatch when Chowder’s name had popped up. Bug had sold the Memphis outfit on the benefits of a partnership with his ex-biker pal and they seemed overly impressed with Chowder’s independent status – said ‘Go feel him out.’ Now Cliff was stuck chaperoning the date. If they woke up knocked-up it was Bug gonna hold the grip-end of this stick, and Cliff would have to jump.

  As far as Cliff was concerned, independent just meant Mickey Mouse stakes, plus having to deal with a buncha new poor white trash with very little cash money to spend and another entrenched good-old-boy cop-force to cut in. Besides, since when did they negotiate with two-bit, ofay trailer park pimps?

  Watching the former bike buddies trade stories, Cliff thought hard about his options. One way or the other, he didn’t figure Memphis needed Chowder Thompson or Spruce, Missouri, and if Bug couldn’t see that, then Memphis didn’t need his ass either.

  Play his cards right, Cliff might be able to have Chowder knock off Bug.

  Then maybe Cliff would draw the assignment to deal with Chowder.

  The chance to prove his worth like that would be more than an honor. It would be a pleasure.

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHOWDER

  Chowder looked at this puffy version of his old comrade limping along behind him, and had an unpleasant revelation: I am fucking old. Bug was giving him a hard-sell, but thought he had the common touch. Chowder’d heard similar offers before. Work with us. Work for us. Let us lease your assets. From Little Rock, Tulsa, Louisville. He hadn’t been sold.

  But here came Memphis trotting out Bug. Used to look like a flinty Chuck Connors, but now he resembled a twice-fried ham-steak in a new leather jacket and crisp do-rag carefully tied over that scarred old pate. Bug, who’d done three years in Joliet for the Bucs, back when people said Chowder himself looked like Lee Majors’ ugly brother, but was now evangelizing some kind of middle-management office job working for criminal K-Mart.

  “Shit, we’re getting old, y’know?”

  “Speak for yourself, Bug.”

  “Someday sooner than before is all I’m saying. How well you walking these days, Chowder? Your knee bend more than thirty degrees? Time to get a cushy job, I think.”

  “So why Memphis?”

  Bug shrugged. “Just the way it happened.”

  “These guys are organized?”

  “Like you wouldn’t believe.”

  Chowder’s cabin was not on the lake itself, but high up in the hills beyond with a view that included a fat slice of the water. It was less than ten miles from Darlin’s, his trailer park brothel, but nearly an hour’s drive along the winding, narrow, unpaved roads that snaked through t
he hills outside Spruce.

  Chowder led his two Memphis guests through the front room and out to the back porch that rested upon fifteen- and twenty-five-foot-long stilts dug into the slope below. With all the lights off, the three of them could see for miles and the sounds of the woodland nightlife was spread over the gaps in the conversation like so much padding. The atmosphere was thick with heat and life. Speaking inside it was like moving under water. Everything slowed to the rhythm of the place.

  A glow was visible on the horizon and Cliff, his other Tennessee visitor, the skeptic, pointed languidly toward it. “Branson?”

  Chowder leaned forward and spat over the railing. “Yeah. Fuckers taking it in hand over fist.”

  “Don’t have to tell me. Least Elvis had the decency to die before he ended up there.” Cliff braced his hands on the railing and looked off into the inky black of the Eastern view. Bug sat in a deck chair and lit a cigarette. Chowder rested his tailbone against the railing and the three of them let the bugs and birds feed and fuck as loudly as they would.

  Finally Chowder spoke. “How qualified are you to talk to me?”

  Cliff turned and looked at Bug coaxing smoke through the filter.

  Bug said. “Hey, you know me, man. I wouldn’t bring anybody along that was gonna waste your time. Cliff’s qualified, trust me.”

  Chowder didn’t take his eyes off of Cliff. “Whatever I say to you, I don’t want to have to say it again to somebody else in a month.”

  Cliff’s gaze firmed up. Chowder went on, “If I deal with you, that’s it, right?”

  Cliff turned away from Chowder and addressed the night. “I speak for Memphis.”

  The crunch of tires sounded on the gravel driveway out front. “Good. C’mon, entertainment’s here.”