Stories of Breece D'J Pancake

by Pancake, Breece D'J

Estep honked his horn again, and Lindy danced by the door, howling.

  “I’m comin’, dammit,” Buddy muttered, buttoning his shirt. The clock on the nightstand glowed ten after eight.

  Sally propped her pillow against the headboard and lit another cigarette. As she watched Buddy dress, her jaw tightened, and she rolled ashes from the tip of her cigarette until the fire came to a point. “See ya,” she said as he started down the hall.

  “Yeah. See ya,” he answered, keeping the dog inside as he closed the door.

  Outside, the mist mingled with snow, and the spitz lay cold as the water beaded on its fur. Buddy left it to warn the pack, and walked toward the clicking of Estep’s engine and the soft clupping of wipers. Before he could open the door, a pain jabbed his lungs, but he held his breath against it, then tried to forget it in the blare of the car’s radio.

  “Whadya know, Mad Man?” Estep said as Buddy climbed in, coughing.

  “Answer me this—Why’d ya reckon Curt wants props for?”

  “To shore the damn face, dumbshit.”

  “An’ doghole that goddamn seam, too. He’s a ol’-time miner. He loves doin’ all that ol’-time shit.”

  “Whadya drivin’ at?”

  “How many ya reckon’d walk out if I’s to dump the water Monday?”

  “Buddy, don’t go callin’ strike. I got family.”

  “C’mon—how many ya reckon?”

  “Most,” Estep said. “Maybe not Fuller.”

  Buddy nodded. “I’d say so, too.”

  “Yer talkin’ weird. Curt’s kin—ya can’t go callin’ strike on yer kin.”

  “I like Curt fine,” Buddy coughed. “But I’m tellin’ ya they’s a easy way to run that coal.”

  “Won’t work, Buddy. Operation like that’d put ever’body outa work. ’Sides, land ain’t good fer nothin’ after ya strip.”

  “That land,” he gagged, “that land ain’t no good noway, and we could so use work. We’d use ever’body in our hole. An’ Storm Creek. An’ that piddlin’ of Johnson’s. Fair an’ equal. Know how much that’d be?”

  “Can’t be much with all the fellars in the line.”

  “Try on fifty thou. Does it fit?” He slapped Estep’s arm. “Well, does it?”

  “Where’d we get the machines?”

  “Borrow on the coal. Curt’s got the deed—just needs some new thinkin’ put in his head’s all. You with me?”

  “I reckon.”

  They rode, watching the snow curve in toward the lights, melting on the windshield before the wiper struck it. Through the trees, Buddy could see the string of yellow light bulbs above the door and windows of Tiny’s.

  “Johnson found out who’s stealin’ his coal,” Estep said, letting the car slow up. “Old Man Cox.”

  “How’s he know for sure?”

  “Drikked a chunk an’ put in a four-ten shell. Sealed ’er over with dust an’ glue.”

  “Jesus H. Christ.”

  “Aw, didn’t hurt ’im none. Just scared ’im,” Estep said, guiding the car between chugholes in the parking lot.

  Buddy opened his door. “Man alive, that’s bad,” he mumbled.

  Inside Tiny’s, Buddy nodded and waved to friends through the smoke and laughter, but he did not see Fuller. He asked Tiny, but the one-eared man only shrugged, setting up two beers as Buddy paid. He walked to the pool table, placed his quarter beside four others, and returned to lean against the bar with Estep.

  “Slop,” Buddy yelled to one of Johnson’s shots.

  “Slop you too,” Johnson smiled. “Them quarters go fast.”

  Fuller came in, walked to the bar, and shook his head when Tiny came up.

  “ ’Bout time ya got here,” Buddy said.

  “Sal’s out yonder. Wants to talk to ya.”

  “Whadya got? Carload of goons?”

  “See fer yerself.” Fuller waved toward the window. Sally sat with Lindy in the front seat of Fuller’s car. Buddy followed Fuller outside motioning for Sally to roll down the window, but she opened the door, letting Lindy out.

  “You baby-set for a while,” she said.

  Fuller laughed as he started the car.

  Buddy bent to collar Lindy, but she stayed by him. Straightening himself, Buddy looked after the car and saw his TV bobbing in the back seat.

  “C’mon,” Estep said from behind him. “Let’s get drunked up an’ shoot pool.”

  “Yer on,” Buddy said, leading the dog into the bar.

  Buddy lay on the trailer’s carpet, a little ball of rayon batting against his nostril as he breathed, and tried to remember how he got there, but Sally’s smile in his mind jumbled him. He remembered being driven back by Estep, falling down in the parking lot, and hitting Fred Johnson, but he did not know why.

  He stood up, shook himself, and leaned down the hall to the bathroom. The blood flow from his head and the shock of the light turned the room purple for a moment, and he ran water from the shower on his head to clear the veil. Looking into the mirror, he saw the imprints of the carpet pattern on his cheek, the poison hanging beneath his eyes. He wanted to throw up but could not.

  “Ol’ dead stuff,” he muttered, and heaved dryly.

  Atop the commode sat a half-finished bourbon Coke, and he tossed it down, waiting for it to settle or come up again. Leaning against the wall, he remembered the dog, called to her, but she did not come. He looked at his watch: it was five-thirty.

  He went into the living room and opened the door—the wet snow was collecting in patches. He called Lindy, and she came to him from behind the trailer, a hound close behind her. He shut the door between the dogs and sat on the couch. Lindy hopped up beside him. “Poor old girl,” he said, patting her wet side. “Yer in fer the works now.” His knuckles were split, and blood flaked from his fingers, but he could not feel any burning.

  “Sal’s gone, yes, she is. Yes, she is. Couple of months, an’ we’ll show her, yes we will.” He saw himself in Charleston, in the Club, then taking Sally home in his new car…

  “Hungry, ol’ girl? C’mon, I’ll fix ya up.”

  In the kitchen, he looked for fresh meat to treat her, and finding none, opened a can of sardines. Watching her lap them up, he poured himself a bourbon, and feeling better, leaned against the counter. Sally’s plate lay skinned with beansoup in the sink, and for a moment he missed her. He laughed to himself: he would show her.

  Lindy walked under the table and coughed up her sardines.

  “Don’t blame ya a damn bit,” he said, but in the roil of sardines and saliva, he saw himself cleaning it up, knew the smell would always be there. There was no reason he should have to clean up, no reason he could not have meat, or anything he wanted. He took up his rifle, leaning where he had left it, and Lindy barked around his heels. “No,” he shouted, hanging her by the collar from his forefinger until he could shut the door.

  Outside the snow fell harder and in thick, wet lumps, making patterns in the darkness. The climb up the hill to the ridge behind the trailer stirred his lungs to bleeding, and he stopped to spit and breathe. Rested, he walked again in a quiet rhythm with the rustle of snow on the dead leaves.

  In the brush by the trail, a bobcat crouched, waiting for the man to clump by, its muscles tight in the snow and mist. Claws unsheathed, it moved only slightly with the sounds of his steps until he was far up the trail, out of sight and hearing. The cat moved down the trail, stopping only to sniff the blood-spit the man had left behind.

  By the time Buddy crested the ridge, he could feel the pain of trailer heat leave his head, and he stopped short of the salt blocks he had laid out last fall. He held in a breath to slow the wheezing, and when it stopped, sat on his old stump, watching the first mild light of the sky glow brown. He loaded his gun and watched a low trail in the brush, a trail he saw through outlines of snow in the ghost light. From the hollow, dog yelps carried to the ridge. The trail was empty.

  Behind him, something rattled in the leaves, and he turned his head slowly,
hearing the bones in his neck click. In the brown light he made out the rotted ribs of an old log barn he had played in before they sold the land, moved to the hollow. Something scurried past it, ran away from him, and up the ridge. From the baying of the dogs below, he was sure it was a fox.

  Between the clouds and the hills hung the sun, moving fast enough to track, making the snow glisten on the branches. When he looked away from the sun, his eyes were drawn to the cool shadow of a deer standing against the yellow ribbon of sunlight.

  He moved slowly, lifting the gun to his face, aiming into the shadow, and before the noise splintered into the hollow, he saw a flash of movement. He ran to the place where the deer had stood, but there was no blood. He tracked the animal only ten yards to where it had fallen. It was a doe with a pink lip of wound near her shoulder, but no blood.

  Working quickly, he split her hind tendons, threaded them with a stringer, and hoisted her from a low limb. He cut across the throat, and blood dripped into the snow, but as he ran the knife up the belly, something inside the carcass jolted, moved against the knife point. He kept cutting, and when the guts sagged out, a squirming lump fell at his feet.

  He kicked the unborn fawn aside, disconnected the doe’s guts, sliced off the hindquarters, and let the rest of the carcass fall for the scavengers to find. He laid three small slices of liver aside in the snow to cool.

  Warm doe blood burned his split knuckles, and he washed them with snow, remembering why he had hit Fred Johnson—for spiking Old Man Cox’s coal. He began to laugh. He could see Old Man Cox screaming his head off. “Shit,” he laughed, shaking his head.

  He bit off a piece of the cool raw liver, and as it juiced between his teeth, watched the final throes of the fawn in the steamy snow. He could not wait to dump the water at the mine tomorrow, and laughed as he imagined the look on Curtis’s face. “Strike,” he muttered over and over.

  On a knoll in the ridge, run there by the dogs, the bobcat watched, waiting for the man to leave.

  A ROOM FOREVER

  BECAUSE of New Year’s I get the big room, eight-dollar room. But it seems smaller than before; and sitting by the window, looking out on the rain and town, I know the waiting eats at me again. I should never show up in these little river towns until my tug puts in—but I always come early, wait, watch people on the street. Out there vapor lamps flicker violet, bounce their light up from the pavement, twist everything’s color. A few people walk along in the drizzle, but they don’t stop to look into cheap-shop windows.

  Aways past the streets I see the river in patches between buildings, and the black joints of river are frosted by this foggy rain. But on the river it’s always the same. Tomorrow starts another month on the river, then a month on land—only the tales we tell will change, wrap around other times and other names. But there will be the same crew on the Delmar, the same duty for eighteen hours a day, and pretty soon there won’t be tales. For now, I wait, watch the wind whip rain onto the panes and blur the glass.

  I plug in the hot plate for coffee, look through the paper for something to do, but there is no wrestling or boxing for tonight, and even the bowling alley is closed for New Year’s. I could maybe go down to a bar on First Avenue, sort of tie one on, but not if I have to watch barge rats and walk the wet steel edges tomorrow. Better to buy a pint and whiskey myself into an early sack, better not to think about going out.

  I down my coffee too soon, burn my mouth. Nothing ever goes just the way it should. I figure that is my bitch with New Year’s—it’s a start all right—only I think back on parties we had in the Navy, and how we pulled out the stops the year we got to be short-timers, and it leaves me feeling lousy to sit here thinking about parties and work and the baby year and the old worn out year. I want to haul my ass out of here—I have been inside too long.

  I get my jacket and watch cap, then stand outside my door and light a cigarette. The hall and stairwell are all lit up to keep away the whores and stumblebums. The door across the hall opens and the drag queen peeks out, winks at me: “Happy New Year.” He closes his door quietly, and I cut loose, kick the door, smudge the paint with my gum soles. I hear him in there laughing at me, laughing because I am alone. All the way down the stairs I can hear his laugh. He is right: I need a woman—not just a lousy chip—I need the laying quiet after that a chip never heard of. When I come to the lobby full of fat women and old men, I think how this is all the home I have. Maybe I have bought this room forever—I just might not need another flop after tonight.

  I stand under the marquee, smoke, look back into the lobby at the old cruds. I think how all my fosters were old and most of them dead by now. Maybe it’s better they are dead or I might go back and visit them and cramp their style. There wouldn’t be any welfare check tied to me now, and I am too big to be whipped.

  I toss my cigarette, watch it bob down the gutter-wash and through the grate. It will probably be in the Mississippi before the Delmar. Moping around these towns for nine months has made me screwy; walking barges and securing catheads in high water has finally got me down here with the rest of the cruds. Now my mouth hurts from the coffee burn, and I don’t even feel like getting soused. I walk down the street, watch people as they pass, and think how even the chippies in their long vinyl coats walk like they have someplace to be. I think I am getting pretty low if these old sows are starting to look good.

  I walk until I see a stumblebum cut into a passage between two buildings. He has got his heat in him and he is squared away. I stop to watch this jake-legger try to spread out his papers for a bed, but the breeze through the passage keeps stirring his papers around. It’s funny to watch this scum chase papers, his old pins about ready to fold under him. The missions won’t let him in because he is full of heat, so this jake-legger has to chase his papers tonight. Pretty soon all that exercise will make him puke up his heat, and I stand and grin and wait for this to happen, but my grin slips when I see her standing in that doorway.

  She is just a girl—fourteen, fifteen—but she stares at me like she knows what I’m thinking, what I’m waiting to see with this old bum, and she keeps looking at me like she is the Wrath of God or something. My eyes hurt to watch her from the side while I keep my face on the stumblebum, but I watch just the same. I can tell right off she is not a chippy. Her front is more like a kid who had a home once—jeans, a real raincoat, a plastic scarf on her head. And she is way too young for this town—the law won’t put up with fresh chicken in this place. I think she has probably run off, and that type is hard to figure out. I walk past her, pay no attention, then duck into a doughnut shop.

  Prince Albert sits at the counter talking to himself, running rusty fingers through his hair and beard. His skin is yellowish because he cauterized his brain with a forty-volt system aboard the Cramer. I hear he was a good wireman, but now he is just a gov’t suck, and he is dirty and smells like any wino on the street.

  I eat my sinker, sip coffee and look out the window. Traffic thickens, the parties are building up. That girl walks by, looks in the storefront at me like she knows exactly when I’m going to fall between two barges in a lurch. It gives me the creeps and I leave my coffee, go for some whiskey and a nap, but when I get outside, she is far down the street, going toward the shanty bars on First Avenue. The rain blows up a howl, whipping sheets of water along the sidewalks. I follow her until she gets into another doorway. My watch cap is soaked, and water starts running down my face and neck, but I go to her doorway, stand in the rain looking at her.

  She says, “You want to buy me?”

  I stand there for a long time trying to figure if it’s a coneroo. “You got a room?” I say.

  She shakes her head, looks across the street, then up and down it.

  “We’ll use mine, but I want some booze.”

  “All right, I know a place that sells it,” she says.

  “I know a better place.” I am wise to that trick. I am not about to let her pimp roll me. But it bugs me—I can’t figure what
kind of pimp wouldn’t keep a room. If she is working alone she won’t last two days between the cops and the pimps.

  We go on down the street to a state store. It is good to have somebody to go along with, but she looks too serious, like all she thinks about is the business end of this. I buy a pint of Jack Daniel’s, try to joke. “Jack and me go way back,” I say, but she acts like she can’t hear me.

  When we walk into the lobby of the hotel, two old men stop talking to look at us. I think how they must have the hots for her, envy me, and I am glad these cruds are paying attention. At my door, I take my time unlocking, and hope the queen peeks out, but he is off getting buggered. We go in, and I get us a towel to dry off, make coffee for the whiskey.

  “It’s nice here,” she says.

  “Yeah. They spray regular.”

  For the first time she smiles, and I think how she ought to be off playing jacks or something.

  “I’m not much good at this,” she says. “The first guys hurt me pretty bad, so I’m always sort of scared.”

  “That’s because you ain’t cut out for it.”

  “No, it’s just I need a place. I got to stop moving around, you know?”

  “Yeah.” In the window I see our ghosts against the black gloss of glass. She puts her arm around me, and I think how we maybe never left the business end.

  “Why’d you come to me?” she says.

  “You looked at me funny—like you seen something awful was going to happen to me.”

  She laughs. “Well, I didn’t. I was sizing you.”

  “Yeah. I’m just jittery tonight. I’m second mate on a tug. It’s kind of dangerous.”

  “What’s a second mate do?”

  “Everything the captain or first mate won’t do. It ain’t much of a life.”

  “Then why don’t you just quit?”

  “Some things are worse. Quits ain’t the answer.”

  “Maybe not.”

  Her hand on my neck teases me into smiling about her, liking her. “Why don’t you quit trying to be a chippy? You ain’t got the stuff. You’re better than that.”