Peckerwood

by Jedidiah Ayres

  Terry squinted at his glue-lacquered wounds. “Over a couple hundred bucks? The fuck out.”

  I’m telling you, man, I needed my partner. Watch my back.” Cal scratched at some of the flaking glue on his belly. “Yeah, everybody’s getting touchy about their money.”

  “Well, I’m back.”

  “Fuckin A. From where though?”

  “I been around.”

  Cal pulled his shirt down. “Doin what? Nobody’s seen you since spring break.”

  “Affairs of the heart.”

  “You sly dog. Who is it been squeezing your lemon?”

  Terry leaned over and whispered salaciously, “Just take a wild guess.”

  When they pulled into the lot, both were grinning stupidly and Cal was shaking his head. Terry’d been telling the tale of his time with the sheriff’s daughter and his decision to chronicle it with an eye toward publication.

  “You wrote it all down? What if the sheriff has a gander at that?”

  “I hope he does and everybody else too.”

  “You’re my hero, man.”

  “You heard about Earl Sutter, right?”

  Cal nodded solemnly. “Took his house. He’s going away for a long time.”

  “And over what? Chickenshit cook charge.”

  “Intent.”

  “Fuckin A, man. He was my sometime hookup, too.”

  “Didn’t make him rich, did it?”

  “Fuckin movies got it wrong. So fuck the po-lice.”

  Cal smiled. “Fuck their daughters anyway.”

  As devout and dedicated as they were to the philosophy and discipline of always having a good time, Terry noticed that more often than not, the two of them were likely to clear a party out. The social circle around the eternal pit-fire out front of Darlin’s was crowded when they arrived, but after two quick beers all the johns had moved on save one stubborn old fucker Terry’d seen there before, leaving Terry and Cal the run of the suddenly available stock.

  Terry hosted a pudgy girl with wide hips and flesh spilling out every gap in her clothing, on his lap. He made her to be twenty, as she looked to be in the neighborhood of thirty. She pushed her chest into his chin and it reeked of five-dollar perfume, but smelled better than most other things in his life. He whispered into her cleavage. “What’s your name, girl?”

  “Cinnamon,” she cooed, pressing his face deep into her gland canyon. “Call me Cinnamon, sugar.”

  “What if I wanna take you to dinner, Cinnamon? What would I call you then?”

  “You can’t afford to buy me dinner, sugar.”

  What did that mean?

  Irm Thompson came out of one of the trailers just then. She caught Terry’s eye and he called out to her. “Hey, I’m kindly needin some big girls tonight. You interested?”

  Irm bristled as she passed, muttered, “Lick my cunt, shitbird.”

  He called to her retreating backside. “Take you up on that, sweetie.” He had an appetite this night. He wasn’t interested in one of the stick-girls that looked like they might snap in two beneath him. He thought he’d need every inch and pound of Cinnamon to satisfy him. Recounting his exploits with Eileen Mondale for Cal, after kicking on the neighbor, had stoked a heat inside him. Not yet a flame, but he could tell it was going to burn bright and hot tonight and he wanted to build up to it proper. Cracking his third silver bullet he turned to the gnarly geezer.

  “You sure are one horny old toad, huh? Waitin for that turtle to come out of its shell?”

  The old man wore dingy, once-blue jeans so big on him a new hole’d had to be poked in the leather belt that was cinched up near his armpits. He had a J.B. Hunt ball cap high up on his forehead with long, stringy strands of gray hair poking out the back and he didn’t acknowledge Terry, but kept on staring into the fire, throwing in a plastic bottle now, a pine cone later.

  Cal was having difficulty deciding who, among the professionals, to invest his great aunt’s government check in. He sought guidance from his friend. “What do you think, tonight? I can’t say blonde ever gets old, but y’know there is something a little dangerous about red.”

  “So get both. What kind of cheap bastard are you?”

  “Yeah, I like Vanilla and I like Strawberry and I sure as shit like Chocolate, but I don’t truck with Neapolitan. It don’t seem right.”

  “First time I heard you use that logic to talk yourself out of a thing.” Terry turned to the old-timer, “What do you think?”

  This time the geezer did speak, but he never looked out of the flames. “I think you talk too much.”

  This brought a laugh from Cal. “You got his number, mister.” He turned to Terry. “He’s got your number.”

  Terry admired with his hands the soft roll of skin exploding out between the top of Cinnamon’s jean shorts and beneath her blouse knotted at the midriff. He clutched two handfuls. “The hell you say?”

  The elder poked a blackened pop can in the fire with a long stick and ignored Terry completely. Terry snaked one of his hands into Cinnamon’s jean shorts, but quickly ran out of room to maneuver. He sat there with his hand stuck and turned toward the ancient mariner. “I asked, ‘the hell did you say?’”

  The old-timer turned and looked at him like a mirror, the way his son Wendell did when Terry could establish eye contact. Terry felt punched. It charged the moment in another fashion that he was not crazy about. When the man spoke, his gums rubbed together and made Terry want to plead with him to stop. “I said you talk too much. You think anybody likes to hear you talk? You think anybody likes you period? You think you got a reason to live? Shut the hell up.”

  Cinnamon gave a grunt, the beginning and end of a short-lived bout of indignation, as she was ejected from Terry’s lap. Terry leaned forward, elbows on his knees, and gave the old-timer his full attention.

  “Do you know me? Think you dish out the wisdom of the ages?”

  Cal had put his important decision aside for a moment, watching the exchange with great interest.

  “What’s a shriveled up piece like you do here other than burn trash and scare off the young girls?” Terry stood before the old man who leaned his head sharply to his right in order to look around Terry’s legs at the demise of a plastic bottle he’d pitched atop the fire. “Hey, old-timer, ain’t you got kids or descendents or something to spend your money on?”

  “Nah, fuck that.” The geezer was trying to see the fire that Terry was crouched in front of. “Move out the way. I can’t see.”

  Terry moved as best he could to block whatever the old-timer was staring at and received a sharp knock on the side of his knee from a stick the elder held in his fist. Terry yelped and hopped out of range of the stick. He came down clutching his knee.

  Cal guffawed and Cinnamon covered her mouth, chuckling. Terry stood firmly on one foot and extended the other, kicking the old man’s chair over backward. Cal laughed harder, but Cinnamon gasped and rushed over to the old man’s aid. The old-timer was like a turtle on its back, unable to roll onto his side because of the chair’s arms.

  When he was back on his feet, there was fire in the man’s eyes.

  “Anything more to add?” asked Terry, fairly certain there wasn’t.

  This time, the old man’s stick jutted straight into Terry’s stomach and knocked the wind out of him. He clutched his midsection and doubled over without any breath to curse the geezer with.

  The old man turned and ran, which was more like a shuffle, and disappeared into the nearest covering of trees. Terry stumbled after him a couple of steps before stopping to rest his hands on his knees and pant.

  Cal decided on red.

  CHOWDER

  From inside the trailer that served as Darlin’s office, Chowder watched the circle of regulars sitting around the bonfire outside. He was going over the receipts with Tate Dill. The skinny little shitheel was the closest thing to a manager he had to leave in charge if he ever left town. He was supposed to be training Irm to run all the businesses, but out
side of muscle work, she’d shown little aptitude for it.

  Behind him, Tate sat at the desk completing a customer transaction. “Can I get a copy of the receipt?” asked the man. Chowder turned around and watched Tate print one up, tear it off and hand it to him. Ed Castro was a harmless guy. Fifty years old, six foot one, two-forty-five, grey where there was any left up top. He wore glasses and plaid shirts beneath pressed coveralls and a ball cap creased in the middle, which recommended Chowder’s Bait ’N More.

  Chowder leaned against the wall and asked him, “What’s that for?”

  Ed shrugged. “Always get receipts. Just a habit, I guess.”

  Chowder held out his hand, “Lemme see it.”

  Ed looked at Tate, then fished it out of his pocket, which was littered with crumpled souvenirs of the day’s transactions. He dropped a reminder he’d spent twenty-three dollars on gasoline and a keepsake from the Come Back Again with a personal note from the waitress, Jackie, telling him to ‘have a good day’ and signed with a heart in place of the dot above the “i” in her name.

  Chowder looked at the receipt just issued for fifty dollars worth of live bait and Coors Light from Chowder’s Bait ’N More. “What’s your business, Ed?”

  “Pardon?” asked Ed, a little uncomfortable being under Chowder Thompson’s microscope.

  “What do you do for a living?”

  “Jeez, Chowder, you know I got the grocery.”

  “Uh-huh. You carry beer at your place?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Imports and shit?”

  Ed looked to Tate for help. He was confused. Tate had nothing. “Not really. Not much.”

  “Coors Light? You carry that one?”

  “Sure. Of course.”

  “Then what the fuck do you need to be buying it from me for?” Chowder handed the receipt to the big man to inspect.

  “Uhhh.”

  Chowder crumpled the receipt and tossed it into the trash can. “You show your wife those receipts?”

  Ed Castro’s face turned red. “Of course not.”

  “Well, I hope not, Ed. Seems that might be the kind of thing that’s tricky to explain.”

  “Yeah, guess so.”

  Chowder turned to Tate. “No more receipts for customers. Some genius’s gonna try and deduct a blow job from their taxes.” Ed Castro looked at Tate.

  Tate winked. “You wouldn’t do that would you, Ed?”

  Ed stammered. “Huh? No. ’Course not. Hey.”

  Chowder turned his attention back to the fire outside while Tate reassured Ed Castro that he was a valued customer and ushered him out the door. In the lot a Chevy truck pulled in. There was a cramp in his gut. Maybe he was getting an ulcer.

  Chowder sat on the commode with a book trying to coax his stubborn bowels into some kind of truce. This sort of sneak attack worked sometimes. If he sat long enough, relaxed and concentrating on something entirely other, he might produce, but at the moment he was accomplishing exactly nothing.

  The door shook with a sudden pounding and Tate’s frantic voice shouting, “Chowder, you better come see!”

  He clenched his sphincter tight and knew it would take a professional safe cracker to open it again. His anger rose quick. “Get out!”

  “Sorry Chowder, but you’re gonna need to come out here quick.”

  “The hell, Tate?”

  “Irm’s gonna kill him.”

  He dropped his book and wiggled his jeans over his hips. He looped his belt and smacked Tate with the door when he flung it open. Tate just pointed to the window. Chowder went to it and parted the Venetian blinds. Tate was right. Irm looked like she might kill the shitbird bleeding all over the side of the trailer. Had the guy pinned against the aluminum side with her left forearm and was hitting his face repeatedly with her right. After a blow, which left a tooth embedded between her knuckles, she let him drop to the ground and began kicking his ribs in.

  Chowder looked at Tate and saw the beginning of a rising welt above his right eye. Chowder guessed it was from trying to interfere with Irm’s whuppin and not from getting hit by the bathroom door. “Told ya.”

  The front door crashed open and Chowder stepped out and across the lot in five seconds. He roped his arm around Irm’s midsection and she screamed and struggled as he picked her up off of the unconscious man. Chowder caught an elbow on the side of his head for his efforts and threw her against the wall of the trailer.

  With a yell of frustration, Irm launched off the dented aluminum back toward the man on the ground and Chowder put her down with a right to the left side of her head. His daughter was out immediately and farted loudly as the tension melted out of her. She looked fifteen years younger instantly. He saw her round-faced and chubby, wearing purple tights and a hooded sweatshirt in the principal’s office, sitting in the chair, sullenly swinging her feet while the flustered educator recalled the list of injuries she’d inflicted on boys during the school year.

  “I’m afraid young Irma has exhausted the last of our good graces, Mr. Thompson. She has no respect for the authority of faculty or the right of her classmates to an education.”

  He’d taken her for a root beer on the way home while he thought on it, trying to predict her mother’s reaction to the news she’d been ejected from school again. Irm had picked her nose and wiped her fingers on the underside of the table, unflinching beneath his gaze while he killed a pot of coffee. Neither had said a thing the whole time.

  “Grab her up top.” He said to nobody. Tate came around and reached under her armpits while Chowder got her knees. They hefted her into the office and laid her on the couch. Her left eye was beginning to blow up and turn purple. Tate went to the kitchenette and began filling a Ziploc baggie with ice cubes. “What’re you doing?” asked Chowder.

  “Just getting her some ice,” Tate said, “For the swelling.”

  “Uh-uh. Let that shit swell. Her pageant days are behind her anyhow.”

  The sound of a truck pulling quickly out of the lot sent him to the window again. That rusty Chevy was gone, leaving a cloud of exhaust. Great. His chicken-dick buddy had split. He went back outside to check the damage.

  There was a semi-circle of spectators around the bloody guy on the ground. Some of them glanced in the direction of the departing car. “What happened?” Chowder demanded.

  The chunky new girl, Cinnamon, spoke up. “He provoked her.”

  Chowder looked down at the victim and saw that it was Terry Hickerson.

  “Shit,” he muttered. No doubt he did. “How exactly did he do that?”

  Cinnamon giggled a bit at the memory. “He was real worked up all night. Just all riled. Kept after folks till, I don’t know, they hit him.” She shrugged like he was a puzzle. “Offered Irm twenty bucks to go three ways with us.”

  “That’s all?”

  Cinnamon nodded. “He had a way, though. You had to be there, I guess.”

  Chowder patted Terry’s pockets and retrieved his wallet. Inside, he found three credit cards, none with names matching Terry’s, a couple old lotto tickets and a note written in magic marker.

  Chowder unfolded it and saw a phone number written beneath the announcement that if you have found this note on the unconscious body of Terry Hickerson you were advised to call his son Wendell Hickerson, who would come pick him up.

  “You gotta be kidding me.”

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  TERRY

  Terry Hickerson’s house had been constructed much like his life had been - with many odd bits strung together in unlikely juxtaposition, blaspheming symmetry and patched on as afterthoughts years in between inspirations.

  The original structure consisted of a small bedroom and bath with a kitchen and living room heated by a wood-burning stove, simple and executed with enough integrity to bear the years and indignities they carried without a creak. A door had been cut into the bedroom and another, larger bedroom and bath added on so that reaching them required passing through the front. The addition was n
ot heated and thus unused during the coldest months. It leaked in the northwest corner during the constant showers of spring and late summer.

  A canopy had been erected on the house’s east side and converted later into a single car garage. Eventually, this was the new, improved kitchen with cabinets on the back wall and linoleum tile on the floor. Somewhere along the way, enthusiasm for this project had waned and the south wall was never completed, leaving the barn-style doors, added when it was a garage, until they broke completely off the rusted hinges. Now there was a vinyl tarp fastened across, which whipped about in the winds strong enough to penetrate the woods, and required replacing every two years. The room’s function had returned to garage, though not the type used to shelter automobiles, only tools, scrap wood for the stove or for patching holes, paint cans and sundry broken things awaiting repair or salvage.

  Each addition, over the years, had begun to sink into the soft earth of the yard, leaving varying degrees of incline toward the original modest square structure and daylight gaps in portions of the ceiling that were covered eventually by plywood pieces which had formed, by providence, to the same approximate size and shape.

  With his parents separated Wendell Hickerson had split time between them by season once he’d started school. During the winter and spring he lived with his mother in the house she’d moved into just before Wendell’s first birthday. At the last bell of every school year he’d take up residence in the back room of his father’s shack.

  The morning of Terry’s eviction from Darlin’s, thirteen-year-old Wendell had taken him back to his home, but been unable to move him out of the car and so left him to sleep it off in the back of his mother’s station wagon, parked in the shade of the long, dirt front drive. The trees surrounding the house provided the only shelter from the summer heat and served to obscure the dwelling almost completely from the pig-trail it was serviced by. In effect, it was more a cave than a building and passers by, were there ever any, might puzzle over the mailbox standing alone on the side of the road.