“I ain’t, Trudy. I gotta work for Corey,” he said, watching her pout.
“Them ol’ chicken-fights…”
“Well, stick around and talk to Ellen.”
“Last time that happened, I ended up smellin’ like a hamburger.” Skeevy laughed, and she hugged him. “I’ll go visit the preacher or somethin’.”
“You watch out that ‘somethin’ ain’t about like that,” he said, measuring off a length with his arm. She knocked his hand down and started toward the road, until he could only see her yellow slacks pumping through the fog. He liked her, but she made him feel fat and lazy.
“Hey, Trudy,” he shouted.
“What?” came from the foggy road.
“Get respected,” he said, and heard “I swan to goodness…” sigh out of the mist.
A clatter came from the church across the road as two drunken miners dusted themselves down the wooden steps and drifted up the road toward the houses.
Skeevy took two cups from the shelf, filled them, and crossed the road to the church. There was only a shadow of light seeping through the painted window. The old deacon was sweeping bottles from between the pews, talking softly to himself as the glass clanked in empty toasts.
“Here, Cephus.” He offered the heavy mug. “Ain’t good to start without it.”
The skinny old man kept to his chore until the mug grew too heavy for Skeevy and he set it on the pew.
“They had a real brawl,” Skeevy offered again.
“Ain’t right, drinkin’ in a church.” The old man looked up from his work, his brown eyes catching the hazy light. He took up his coffee and leaned on his broom. “How many?” he asked, blowing steam from his brew.
“Even ’nough. ’Bout twenty-five to a side.”
“Oooowee,” the old man crooned. “Let’s get outa here. Lord’s abotherin’ me for marvelin’ at the devil’s work.”
Once outside, Skeevy noticed how the old man stood straighter, making an effort, grimacing with pain in his back.
“Who won?” Cephus asked.
“Clayton, I reckon. C’mon, I gotta show you a sight.”
They crossed the blacktop to the abandoned mill basement beside the diner. There, with its wheels in the air, lay Jim Gibson’s pickup truck.
“Five Clayton boys just flipped her in there.”
“Damn” was all Cephus could say.
“Nobody in her, but she made one hell of a racket.”
“I reckon so.” He looked at Skeevy’s knuckles.
Skeevy rubbed his hands against his jeans. “Aw, I just tapped a couple when they got bothersome. Those boys fight too serious.”
“I usta could,” Cephus said, looking back to the murdered truck.
Skeevy looked to the yellow pines on the western hills: the way the light hit them reminded him of grouse-hunting with Bund, of pairing off in the half-day under the woven branches, of the funny human noises the birds made before they flew, and how their necks were always broken when you picked them up.
“You chorin’ the juice today?” Cephus kept looking at the truck.
“Sure. Where’s the cockfight?”
“I figger they’ll meet-up someplace or another,” he said, handing Skeevy the cup with “ ’Preciate it” as he started for the church. Skeevy side-glanced at the old man to see if his posture drooped, but it did not.
He returned to the diner, plugged in the overplayed jukebox, and threw a few punches at his shadow. He felt tired, and only fried one cheeseburger for breakfast.
Because the woman’s back was toward him, Skeevy kept looking at the soft brown scoops of hair. It was clean. Occasionally the man with her would glance at Skeevy to see if he was listening. Being outsiders, they shouted in whispers over their coffee.
Tom and Ellen Corey pulled up in their truck. Ellen’s head was thrown back with laughter. Before coming in, they reviewed the upended truck in the neighboring basement. Ellen kept laughing at her short husband as they entered, keeping to the upper side of the counter and away from the customers.
As he leaned over the counter to catch Corey’s whispers, Skeevy noticed how Corey’s blue eyes were surrounded by white. He had seen the same look in threatened horses.
“Jeb Simpkin’s barn,” he whispered. “One o’clock.”
“Okay.”
“Was he all right when he left?” Corey asked.
“Who?”
Skeevy kept his face straight while Ellen sputtered beside him, her hand over her mouth. The outsiders were listening.
“Gibson, dammit. How hard did I lay him?”
“Too hard. You used the club, remember?”
“Oh, shit.”
“Yeah,” said Skeevy as Ellen broke out laughing.
Skeevy took the keys and went to the Coreys’ truck. Across the road, children, women, and old people were shuffling to church. Rev. Jackson and the deacon greeted them at the door, shaking hands. Cephus shot Skeevy a crude salute, and Skeevy made the okay sign as he climbed into the cab. He wondered if Cephus could see it.
As the truck rumbled down the blacktop, Skeevy leaned back behind the wheel, letting his eyes sag, and he could feel his belly bouncing with the jolts of the truck. He took the revolver from beneath the seat, and watched the roadside for groundhogs to shoot. Between the diner and Corey’s coal-dust driveway he saw nothing.
From the cellar of Corey’s house he loaded the truck with pint cases of Jack Daniel’s and Old Crow: four-dollar bottles that would sell for eight at the cockfight. When he first came to Clayton, he had hated bourbon. He noticed the flies were out, and in Hurricane they would be crawling quietly on Bund’s tongue. He opened a case, took a bottle, and drank off half of it. Before the burning stopped, he was at Simpkin’s barn, and could hear the chickens screaming.
Warts Hall, a cockfighter from Clayton, came from the barn with a stranger, catching Skeevy as he finished the pint.
“Got any left?” Warts asked. His face was speckled with small cancers.
“More than you can handle,” said Skeevy, throwing back the blanket covering the cases. Warts took out two Crows, handing Skeevy a twenty.
“Kindy high, ain’t it?” the stranger asked, seeing the change.
“This here’s Benny the Punk from Purserville.”
“Just a Pursie?” Skeevy asked.
Benny looked as if to lunge.
“Well,” Skeevy continued, “I don’t put no price on it.”
The Punk pretended to read the label on his bottle.
Gibson came out of the barn and Skeevy sidestepped to the cab where the revolver was hidden.
“Got one for me, Skeev?” Gibson asked.
“Sure,” Skeevy answered, moving to the truck bed. “I reckon I forgot my cigarettes.”
Gibson offered one from his pack and Skeevy took it, handing the man the bottle and pocketing the cash. He noticed the yellow circle around Gibson’s eye and temple where the club had met him. Gibson stood drinking as Skeevy counted cases and pretended to be confused.
“Where’s the mick?” Gibson asked.
Skeevy turned back smiling. “Ain’t got no idy.”
“You see him, you tell him I’m alookin’.”
“Sure.”
The Punk followed Gibson back into the barn, where the gamecocks were crowing.
A wind was rising, pushing the clouds out of the hollow and high over head. Cally, Jeb’s daughter, stood on the high front porch of the farmhouse. Skeevy watched her watching him. He had heard Jeb talk of her at work and knew she had been to college in Huntington; he believed Trudy when she said college girls were all looking for rich boys. He watched her clomp down the steps in chunky wooden shoes, and as she crossed the yard between them, he saw how everything from the curve of her hair to the fit of her jeans was too perfect. She looked like the girls he had seen in Playboy, and he knew even if she stood beside him, he couldn’t have her.
“Your name’s Kelly, isn’t it?” Her voice was just like the rest of her.<
br />
“Yeah,” he said, not wanting to say his first name. He knew she would laugh.
“Mom said you were related to Machine Gun Kelly…”
He pulled a case out onto the tailgate as if to unload it, wishing somebody had shot the bastard the day he was born.
“He was a cousin of mine—second or third—ever’body’s sort of ashamed of him. I don’t know nothin’ ’bout him.”
“I thought you might know something. I’m doing a paper on him for Psych.”
“Say what?”
“A paper for Psychology.”
Skeevy wondered if she collected maniacs the way men collect gamecocks. He hoisted the case. “Comin’ to the main?” he asked.
“Gross.”
“They don’t have to fight if they don’t want to,” he smiled, carrying the case inside. Seeing Cally standing at the door, he went back for another. She followed him slowly on her chunky shoes.
“Where do you live?” Cally asked.
“In the holler ’twixt Purserville an’ Clayton.”
She looked puzzled. “But there’s nothing there.”
“Sure,” he said, and wondered if she would add him alongside his cousin in her collection.
They watched as Cephus’s truck bounced through the creek and climbed, dripping, up to the barn. Cephus rushed in without speaking, and Skeevy left Cally standing as he followed with another case. When he came out, Corey had her cornered.
“Gibson’s lookin’ for you,” he said to Corey.
“Been talkin’ ’bout that very thing to Cally, here—”
“All Mr. Gibson wants is to restore his dignity,” she interrupted.
“So I thought we’d arrange a little match. Since you got boxin’ in your blood, I’d be willin’ to let you stand in. Loser pays for the truck—’course I’d be willin’ to do that, but I know you won’t lose.”
“I quit boxin’ five years ago,” Skeevy said, playing with the chain on the tailgate.
“You’re quick, boy. I seen you. Don’t even have to box. Just dance Gibson to death,” Corey laughed. “ ’Sides,” he said to Cally, “Skeevy loves to scrap.”
She giggled.
“Hell, scrappin’s different. This here’s business.”
Cally giggled again.
He looked to the pasture field where wind-pushed clouds were blinking the sun on and off. He spotted a holly tree halfway up the slope. His mother had always liked holly trees. He had never told anybody about his promise to her; he knew they would laugh.
“Two-huntert bucks,” he heard himself say.
Corey’s eyes grew white rims, but they receded quickly. “Half profit on the booze,” he bartered.
“Take it or leave it,” Skeevy said, watching Cally smile.
“All right,” Corey said. “Cally, you talk good to Jim. Get him to agree on Saturday.”
Watching her walk into the barn, Skeevy knew Cally could probably make Jim forget the whole thing. But he was glad for the fight, and began starving for wild meat.
“Where’s lunch?” he asked Corey.
In the pit, two light clarets rose in flapping pirouettes. Skeevy neither watched nor bet: newly trained cocks had no form and spent most of their time staying clear of one another.
“Lay off,” Cephus yelled. “Ain’t no need to make no bird fight. Break for a drink.”
For ten minutes, Skeevy and Corey were run ragged handing out bottles and making change. Suddenly there were no more takers, and they still had half a truckload.
“The Pursies ain’t buyin’ from me after last night,” Corey whispered. They loaded all but a half-case into the truck, and Corey took it back to his house.
Leaving the half-case unguarded, Skeevy walked to the pit to examine Warts’s bird, a black leghorn with his comb trimmed back to a strawberry. Warts had entered him in the main against a black-breasted red gamer. Skeevy watched as the men fixed two-inch gaffs to the birds’ spurs. The Punk stood by him, cleaning his nails with a barlow knife.
“What you want laid up, Benny?”
“Give you eight-to-ten on the red,” he said, his knife searching to the quick for a piece of dust.
“Make it,” said Skeevy. They placed their money on the ground between them, watching as the two owners touched the birds together, then drew them back eight feet from center.
“Pit!” Cephus yelled, and the cocks strutted toward each other, suddenly meeting in a cloud of feathers.
Warts’s rooster backed off, blood gleaming from a gaff mark beneath his right wing.
“Give me—” But before the bettor could finish, the two birds were spurring in midair, then the gamecock lay pinned by the leghorn’s gaff.
“Handle!” said the judge, but neither owner moved; they were waiting to hear new odds.
“Dammit, I said ‘handle,’ ” Cephus groaned. The birds were wrung together until they pecked, then set free.
“Even odds,” someone shouted. Benny leaned forward for the money, and Skeevy stepped on his hand.
“Get off!”
“Leave it there.”
“You heard. It’s even.”
“You made a bet, Punk. Stick it out or get out.”
The Punk left the money.
The birds spun wildly, and again the leghorn came down on the red, his gaff buried in the gamer’s back.
“Handle.” Cephus was getting bored.
The red’s owner, a C&O man from Purserville, poured water on his bird’s beak, and blew down its mouth to force air past the clotting blood.
“He’s just a Pursie chicken,” Skeevy grinned. Benny threw him a cross look.
Warts rubbed his bird to the gamer but got no response.
“Ain’t got no fight left,” Cephus grumbled.
“Don’t quit my bird,” the C&O man shouted, his hands and shirt speckled with blood.
“If I’s as give out as that rooster, I’d need a headstone. Break for a drink.”
“Pleasure,” Skeevy said to Benny as he picked up his money and returned to the half-case. After selling all but the two bottles in his hip pockets, Skeevy started out the door to look for Cally. Gibson stopped him, smiling.
“I’ll make you fight like hell,” he warned.
“Well,” said Skeevy, “anytime you get to feelin’ froggy, just hop on over to your Uncle Skeevy.”
“See you Saturday,” Gibson laughed.
Outside, he looked for Cally, but she was not around. He went down the farm road, across the blacktop, and up the hills toward his shack. When he topped the first hill, he could see rain coming in from Ohio; and looking back on the tiny people he had left behind, he could see Benny standing with Cally. He wondered if Benny would have to clean his nails again.
Trudy’s silence was building as he poured another bourbon and wondered why he gave a good goddamn. When he switched on the light, he disturbed the rest of a hairy winter-fly. He watched it beat against the screen, trying to get to another fly somewhere to breed and die.
“It ain’t like I’m boxin’ Joe Frazier…” He watched her cook and could not recall when she had cared so much about her cooking. “You done tastin’ them beans, or you just run outa plates?”
She granted a halted laugh, turned and saw him grinning, and broke into a laughing fit.
“I swan, you made me so mad…” she snorted, sitting.
“Ain’t nothin’ to get mad over.”
“Ain’t your fight, neither.”
“Two-huntert bucks makes it pretty close.” He had meant to keep quiet and send the money to Bund. For a moment he saw her eyes open then sag again, and he knew she was worried about the hospital bills. He went back to watching the fly.
Outside the rain fell harder, making petals in the mud. He saw his ghost in the window against the outside’s grayness and felt his gut rumble with the flux. Lightly, he touched the scar above his eye, watching as his reflection did the same.
He got up, opened the screen, and let the black fly buzz out into the ra
in. When he saw the deep holes the drops were making, he wondered if the fly would make it.
“Why don’t winter-flies eat?” he asked Trudy.
“I figger they do,” she said from the stove.
“Never do,” he said, going to the sink to wash.
Taped to the wall was a snapshot of a younger self looking mean over eight-ounce gloves. That was good shape, he thought, fingering the picture. Because it was stained with fat-grease, he left it up.
Trudy put supper down, and they sat.
“You reckon that money would do for a weddin’?” she asked.
“Maybe,” he said. “We’ll think on it.”
They ate.
“Did I ever tell you ’bout the time me an’ Bund wrecked the Sunflower Inn?”
“Yeah.”
“Oh.”
In the stainless steel of the soup machine, Skeevy could see his distorted reflection—real enough to show his features, but not the scar above his eye. His mouth and nose were stuffed with bits of torn rags for padding, and breathing through his mouth made his throat dry.
“Too tight?” Corey asked as he held the bandages wrapped around Skeevy’s knuckles. Skeevy shook his head and splayed his fingers to receive the gray muleskin work gloves. He twisted his face to show disgust, and sighed.
“Well, you’re the damn boxer,” Corey said. “Where’s your gloves?”
Skeevy made a zipping motion across his lips and stuck out his right hand to be gloved. He knew it would hurt to get hit with those gloves, but he knew Gibson would hurt more.
A crowd had formed around Corey’s truck, and he had Ellen out there to guard it. She was leaning against the rear fender, talking to a longhair with a camera around his neck. Cally came out of the crowd, put her arm around the longhair, and said something that made Ellen laugh. Skeevy squeezed the gloves tighter around his knuckles.
When Skeevy and Corey came outside the crowd howled with praise and curses; the longhair took a picture of Skeevy, and Skeevy wanted to kill him. They cornered the diner and skidded down the embankment to the newly mown creek-basin. The sun was only a light brown spot in the dusty sky.
Jim Gibson stood naked to the waist, his belly pooching around his belt, his skin so white Skeevy wondered if the man had ever gone shirtless. He grinned at Skeevy, and Skeevy slapped his right fist into his palm and smiled back.
Stories of Breece D'J Pancake Page 10
