by Ace Atkins
“Can you stay for breakfast?” he said. “I cooked it before you came so you couldn’t make an excuse.”
“No,” she said.
“Five minutes won’t matter.”
“No one can see me here.”
Quinn did not turn around, staring into the curtain as it fluttered and settled in the spring wind. “I don’t much care anymore.”
“You don’t have as much to lose.”
“You know what I want to say,” Quinn said.
Her hand reached up over his shoulder, and she put two fingers to his mouth. “Hush.”
“I want to say it.”
“That just makes this all harder,” she said, getting off the bed, the mattress creaking and releasing as she stood small-breasted and wide-hipped, with her strawberry blond hair cut in blunt bangs that shielded her eyes. She laughed as she searched on the floor for her panties and her jeans and walked from the dark room into the kitchen, where she returned clothed and holding her boots. She sat on Quinn’s locker and slid her stocking feet into them and then stood and walked to the half-closed door. “At least this is something,” she said.
“Who’s at your house?”
“My mother.”
“Does she know where you are?”
“Sure,” she said. “Grocery shopping.”
“You do know,” Quinn said, standing and dressing.
“I do,” she said. “But if you ever say it out loud, I swear to Christ that this will all end. I don’t know what this is. But it’s something and works for now.”
Quinn rubbed his temples, listening to the heavy steps of her boots and the door slamming behind her. Anna Lee Amsden was back in his life.
Caddy liked having a purpose. Most mornings, she would drop Jason at preschool, and, if she didn’t have to go to work, she’d head right for The River, knowing there was plenty of work to be done. Jamey left her in charge of the gardening and the gathering of used clothing. They planned to open a thrift shop in an outbuilding, and the cleaning and organizing took most of her day. But it was spring now, and she had to continue to plant, scatter the compost, and cultivate rows for the small tomato plants she put in the ground last week. If everything worked the way Jamey saw it, they could feed and clothe most of the congregation. And those who joined the church would work and earn, giving their life some purpose, too. Jamey said that was the only way he’d survived the Farm, getting away from lying in his bunk and watching television and getting out in the fields. And from the fields, finding the course work through that seminary in New Orleans. He walked away from prison not only a free man but a full and complete human being and an ordained minister.
She was on her hands and knees that morning, the sun breaking through the clouds, dirt up under her nails, and feeling good spreading the mulch around the little plants. Caddy stood up to wipe the sweat from her face when she saw the silver truck running down the dirt road toward the barn. She’d never seen the truck before, but that wasn’t that peculiar. Jamey invited everyone he met to come out and join them, and even if he got turned down, he’d ask them to think on it and come out and just see what The River was all about. He didn’t care if they became members, only that they witnessed what they were doing. If Jamey and Caddy could serve as examples to those they met, then they had done something.
Two men got out of the truck, one white and one black. The black man was tall and skinny, and the white man had hair the color of copper wire. They were a far bit off, and as she was deciding whether to meet them, she saw Jamey emerge from the barn and walk toward them, suddenly stopping where he stood. They were exchanging words and Jamey was pointing for them to turn around and head back down the road they’d come.
The copper-haired man kept walking, and Jamey threw down the paintbrush in his hand. He was repeatedly shaking his head until the man, looking thick and muscular, got within a foot of Jamey and punched him square in the stomach. Caddy wasn’t even aware she was running until she was ten feet away, tripping and crushing the new plantings and heading from the garden. She ran to Jamey, who was on his knees. The man yelled at Jamey, telling him he was a coward and a piece of shit, and Caddy didn’t know much about the situation but found herself in front of the man with the red hair and beard, spitting right into his face.
“Leave us alone,” Caddy said. “Get the hell out of here.”
Jamey was back on his feet, taking in big gulps of air and pulling her back. He told her to run away, this wasn’t her business.
“Get out of here.”
The black man joined his friend. He looked Caddy up and down like the men used to appraise her in Memphis. And she thought back on the time when she’d work for forty dollars a dance, two for sixty, in a uniform of bra and panties, dancing full of vodka and pills and being numb to the lights and dance music and not being a participant in her own existence. She wanted to spit on him, too, but her mouth was too dry.
“Glad to see you back with women, Dixon,” the black man said. “You come a long way from Louis Scott cornholing you in that tool shed.”
She looked to Jamey, feeling like she wanted to cry but instead setting her jaw. Jamey pushed her behind him and looked right at the man with red hair. “Don’t make me call the police,” he said. “Get gone from here.”
“Is your brain fried?” the red-haired man said. “You got something belongs to me.”
“I got nothing but what I wear.”
“Motherfucker,” the black man said.
“Don’t make me call the police.”
“Call ’em,” the red-haired man said. “But I swear I’ll kill you before they get here. I am not going back before I get what’s mine or before you’re dead.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” The man struck Jamey again hard in the mouth, reeling him backward, stumbling on his feet. But he stood his ground, telling the man to leave. “Not here, not in this place.”
“What is this?” the black man said. “Some kind of dope-smokin’ hippie commune? I thought you’d be up to your eyeballs in pussy and Cadillacs about now. Although this one sure is something sweet. I can smell her from here.”
“You nasty piece of shit,” Caddy said. She reached for her cell phone, dialing for 911, and Jamey pulled the phone from her hands.
“Not here,” he said. “We’ll talk. But I don’t have what you want. I need you to understand that. Anything we talked about at the Farm is gone. That’s not my life now.”
“Well,” the red-haired man said. “It’s my life. It’s all I got.”
“We have volunteers coming,” Jamey said. “Where can we meet?”
“You tryin’ to set us up?” the black man said.
Jamey looked to Caddy and then back to the men. “I set you up, and I kind of do the same to myself.”
The men studied Jamey, thinking on what he said. The daylight white and slatted, running for acres and acres through the tilled land and the half-painted barn. Caddy held on to Jamey’s arm, holding him back, holding herself on her feet. Without a word, the men were back in the truck, cranking the engine and turning away in a spray of dirt and gravel.
“OK,” she said, steadying herself. “Just what the hell is going on?”
• • •
“Why’d we leave?” Bones said, driving the Tundra down the long gravel road. “Ain’t no reason to leave.”
“You want to talk to the locals?”
“Hell, naw.”
“Dixon is right,” Esau said. “He fucks us, he fucks himself.”
“That really true what you said about Scott cornholing that motherfucker in the shed?”
“Don’t know,” Esau said. “That’s what I heard. I know they took the hide off his ass before we started looking out for him. Wasn’t for us, Dixon knows he’d be dead.”
“We take care of him,” Bones said. “Protect him. And then he supposed to take care of us. Only when he get out, he can’t even remember our fucking names.”
Esau gritted his tee
th, nodding.
“Where do we go?” Bones said, hitting the main county highway and driving north, up toward Jericho and the Town Square. A handmade sign on the side of the road read: HELL IS REAL. ARE YOU READY?
“Back to the hunt club,” Esau said. “Let’s eat and wait for Dixon to call.”
“What if the man who owns the place shows up?” Bones said.
“Son of a bitch probably owns ten places just like that one,” Esau said. “Rich men don’t value what they got. That’s what makes them have soft bellies and little dicks. Reason their women don’t have respect for them.”
“You give me a bunch of money and I don’t care if I get fat and my pecker shrinks,” Bones said. “How about you?”
“Guess not.”
“So how come Dixon pretending like he don’t know what the fuck we’re talking about?”
“He was putting on a show for his woman,” Esau said. Lots of rolling farmland and open barns with heavy equipment zoomed past. Along the county road stood cattle, some donkeys, and a large, hilly pasture dotted with goats. “You know Dixon is starting to believe his own bullshit now? He can’t be connected with men like us.”
“And who the fuck are men like us?” Bones said.
Esau scratched and smoothed his beard. “Men with the road map to hell who quit caring about fifty miles back.”
Bones grinned and turned west on another county road right before the Jericho Square, passing an old gas station that had been turned into a diner and a cinder-block building with a big picture window advertising extensions and weaves. Men worked on the loading platform of a county co-op, heavy sacks of feed on their shoulders. A VFW sign told about a fish fry and country band on Friday night.
“I’ll meet with Dixon alone,” Esau said. “If he turns me in, make sure you kill him.”
“Done.”
“You know, he may never have touched that armored car,” Esau said. “Maybe he’s trying to keep clean and wants to sidestep things he used to do. Maybe that car’s still buried deep with them dead men.”
“Bullshit.”
“Yeah,” Esau said. “You’re right.”
“Why don’t we just go down to that bass pond tonight and see if it’s still down there? We might can’t get the money, but we sure as hell can see if he’s pulled it out the car.”
Esau stared out at the greening countryside and dark clouds on the horizon, more fucking rain over the big forest, a dense fog clouding the top of the hills. He leaned forward in the passenger seat, staring down the road as they got close to the hunting lodge.
“What’s eatin’ on you?”
“Up there,” Esau said. “Whose car is that?”
Bones kept driving up into the forest and the wooded hills, toward the big lodge tucked into the old-growth trees. A tired old Honda Accord, red paint worn thin on top, sat parked crooked by the front path. Esau was out of the car before Bones had fully stopped.
“Hey, man,” Bones said. “Hey! Let’s just keep going. No need for this shit. Let’s just keep going.”
“Don’t you want some steak and eggs?”
“Hell yeah,” Bones said, falling in beside him. “But I don’t want to have to kill a motherfucker to eat ’em. Let’s keep it cool till we get our money and drive out of Shitsville.”
“You know I grew up in a county just like this,” Esau said. “Back in Alabama.”
“Ain’t that nice.”
The hunting lodge’s side door was cracked open, and Esau and Bones walked right through the big kitchen, the appliances humming softly, a couple more lights on in the great room, making the dead animals’ glassy eyes stare numbly at them. Doors lined the walls downstairs and up along a squared balcony that overlooked the space. Somewhere up there, Esau heard a shower going.
He reached for the .357 at his waist and walked the steps above.
“God damn,” Bones said to his back. “Sure hate to fuck up such a good thing.”
• • •
Quinn had come into Mr. Jim’s barbershop fifteen minutes earlier to get his weekly high-and-tight. Keeping his hair blade-short was just something he couldn’t shake after leaving the 75th. He woke up every day, checked his weapon, shaved his face, and ran a hand over his head to see if he was getting sloppy. As he waited for the old man ahead of him, he thumbed through a new copy of Field & Stream, a story on “16 Early-Season Wall-Hangers and the Tactics That Took Them.” He was also interested in a consumer story about the “Best Hunter’s Hatchets,” Quinn always feeling that a man and a hatchet could survive a good long while out in the woods.
Mr. Jim stared at the television atop the Coke machine showing The Price Is Right and sadly shook his head. “Sure miss Bob Barker. I don’t care for this goofy son of a bitch in glasses. He ain’t funny atall.”
“What else do you all watch?” Quinn said.
“I have to admit I got hooked on General Hospital about fifteen years ago,” he said. “Don’t think I’ve missed a show since.”
Quinn read a little more about a hatchet with a carbon blade and a handmade handle. He felt like he’d been sitting on that same mustard-yellow Naugahyde sofa most of his life. His father, Jason Colson, had first taken him to Mr. Jim for haircuts. And then when Jason left Jericho for good, everyone knowing that Jason had made it big as a stuntman in L.A., Uncle Hamp had tried to make Quinn keep his hair short and his attitude straight. When that failed, he pointed the way to the local Army recruiter.
Luther Varner, smoking down an extra-long cigarette, sat in a chair by the gumball machines. He wore a mesh baseball cap with the words DA NANG printed above the bill, forearm showing a faded Semper Fi tattoo. Luther glanced up at the television set and agreed with Mr. Jim. “Since when do they got men showing off the prizes?” Luther said. “What happened to the women in bikinis?”
Mr. Jim spun around another old man in the barber chair, showing the man the mirror. He pointed out the work he had done and made sure it was to his liking. The customer, a bald man with a thin strip of hair over his ears, nodded with satisfaction.
“Quinn,” Mr. Jim said, motioning that it was his time.
Quinn closed the magazine and stood. He waited till the man had paid his ten bucks and then took a seat. Last year’s football schedule for the Tibbehah High Wildcats hung on the walls among the stuffed ducks and deer and an old electric clock advertising Dr Pepper. Outside the glass door, there was a spinning barber pole and a flag that Mr. Jim, a veteran of Patton’s 3rd Army, brought in and folded every night when he closed up shop.
“My road’s a mess,” Mr. Jim said. “I was gonna plant corn this weekend, but ground’s too wet.”
“Why waste your time?” Luther said, lighting up another lengthy cigarette. “I gave up farming when they opened up the Piggly Wiggly.”
“Who’s minding your store?” Mr. Jim asked.
“Peaches,” he said. “She’s working the Quick Mart regular since Donnie’s been gone.”
“Any word on his sentence?” Quinn asked.
“His lawyer wants him to make a deal,” Luther said, a long ash on the end of his cigarette. “He has to say he stole those Army guns and they take off charges he helped the illegals smuggle them out.”
“Sounds like a solid deal,” Quinn said.
“When have you ever known my son to do the sensible thing?” Luther said.
Quinn shrugged. Mr. Jim fluttered a cutting cape over Quinn’s chest and lap and tied it at the neck. He reached for the clippers, setting them on the lowest level possible, a notch up from a straight razor.
“Ever think of trying out a different style, Quinn?” Mr. Jim said.
“Nope.”
“You know you could do this yourself and save ten bucks?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Then why don’t you do it?”
“I appreciate y’all’s entertainment value.”
In the mirror, Quinn watched Mr. Jim and Luther Varner exchange looks. Luther ashed the cigarette into the pal
m of his hand and walked to the trash can. On TV, The Price Is Right stopped for a moment and the news station cut in with an update on the storms. There was a lot of footage of downed trees and power lines up in Memphis, roof damage and flooded roads in north Mississippi. The weatherman said they could expect more of the same for the next few days, a front headed in from Oklahoma, listing flash flood and thunderstorm warnings for most of the mid-South.
“Maybe I should prep my johnboat,” Luther said.
“You hear about those boys who escaped Parchman day before yesterday?” Mr. Jim said. “They stole a couple horses and rode about twenty miles up to Tutwiler, where they stole a car. Law hadn’t caught them yet.”
“We got an alert yesterday from the highway patrol,” Quinn said. “They think they may already be in Alabama. One of the convicts is from there. And a third son of a bitch got through the front gate. All of Parchman is on lockdown.”
“Hell, maybe they’ll all drown,” Luther said.
“Rats always find higher ground,” Mr. Jim said, lathering up Quinn’s neck and pulling out his straight razor. “The way of the world.”
Bones asked Esau to shag ass one final time before he said fuck it and walked back to the lodge kitchen, leaving Esau to walk up the steps to the second-floor balcony. That’s where Esau had heard the shower and could see the steam coming out from the cracked door. He inched along the upstairs railing, looking down into the big square opening of the room, silent and still with all those dead animals and cold guns. He used the .357’s barrel to crack open the door and stepped inside a small bath just in time to see the flash of a woman’s naked leg emerge from the tub. Esau slipped the gun into his belt and reached for a monogrammed beige towel and walked toward the woman with a grin.
She let out a shriek, covering her mouth, her titties jiggling a bit, as she’d gotten a start from seeing Esau. She reached for the towel, laughing, covering her mouth with the back of her hand and then wrapping the towel around her body. Damn if Becky didn’t look better and better to him. Trusted and true, going through all them years at Parchman for nothing but a throw every few weeks at the visit house and eight bucks a year. Man, it was good to see her when they didn’t have a guard waiting with a stopwatch and fifty horny stinking men waiting in line to use the same damn room. Never was much time for cuddling in that trailer.
