Holding Smoke

by Steph Post

  “Never trusted that one.”

  The interior of the trailer was much as Judah remembered it from his last, and only, visit at the beginning of the summer when he and Ramey had needed information on the Scorpions. Hiram stomped into the kitchen, but waved Judah and Benji toward the cramped living room, made even smaller by waist-high stacks of outdated survival manuals and gun magazines, and a tower of crates stuffed with balls of copper wire and lengths of rubber hose, topped with a spray of thin plastic tubes, coiling down to the plywood floor like a decorative houseplant. Benji stood motionless in the narrow hallway connecting the two rooms and Judah finally had to push him forward, maneuvering him into a corner next to a coat stand draped with various lengths of rusty chain and nylon rope. Judah banged his shins as he edged around an empty fifty-five-gallon fish tank filled to the brim with ammo cans and made his way over to the sagging olive-green couch. It was carpeted with matted cat hair, though Judah couldn’t remember Hiram owning a cat. Judah gingerly sat down as Hiram slammed cabinets and rattled silverware drawers, grumbling and cursing all the while. Benji collapsed beside Judah and leaned over to whisper.

  “You see the squirrels, right?”

  Judah nodded. Just like last time, they were everywhere. He recognized Rambo, the stuffed squirrel with the AR and bandolier, and a few others, but there were new ones it seemed as well. From atop a stack of yellowing phonebooks, a squirrel streaked with red war paint and plumed with a crest of feathers was pointing a drawn bow and arrow directly at Judah’s kneecap. Another new addition, clad in green fatigues with a tiny knife glinting between its jaws, balanced on the shade of a standing lamp.

  “Yep. He makes them. Stuffs them and sews their outfits. It’s sort of his hobby, I think.”

  Benji stared around the room, gaping.

  “He needs another hobby?”

  Next to the Vietnam-era squirrel and hanging from the top of a bookcase with a row of gasmasks neatly arranged on the bottom shelf, was a map of Florida, plastered with hand drawn circles, arrows, and exclamation points. Sticky notes scrawled with illegible words were clustered along the map’s frayed edges. Judah leaned forward, trying to follow one of the arrows, just as Hiram came around the corner carrying a lidless Styrofoam ice chest. He scowled, dropped the cooler on top of a wooden crate filled with unlabeled food cans, and ripped the map down from the bookcase. He rolled it tightly between his gnarled hands and then tucked it carefully behind the coat stand.

  “I don’t care if you know what I’m building. I just ain’t want you to know where, exactly.”

  Hiram fell into an orange corduroy armchair and plunged his hands into the container of ice, pulling out three glass bottles of beer. He swept the mess off the coffee table between them—mostly crumpled wads of sandpaper, dried out magic marker, and empty shell casings—and lined the bottles up in a solemn row. Like the cans in the crate, the paper labels had been peeled off. Hiram bent down to eye the beers and then selected the one in the middle. He smashed the top open on the edge of the coffee table, leaned back, and took a long swig.

  “Fridge broke last month.”

  Hiram tipped the end of his bottle toward the others on the table. Judah reached for the beers and pried them open while Hiram eyed him over the neck of his bottle.

  “Sorry to hear ’bout your brother, by the way. Your other brother, that is. ’Less you offed him yourself. In which case, congrats?”

  Hiram hesitantly raised his bottle in the air. Judah shook his head as he passed a beer to Benji and took a sip of his own. It tasted like it’d been brewed inside an old tire, and Judah wouldn’t have been surprised if it had.

  “Thank you. And no, Levi’s death wasn’t my doing.”

  “Guess you’re here then ’cause you planning on doing something about it.”

  “You guessed right.”

  Hiram hung his head.

  “Figures. Ain’t nobody never come by just to try the beer.”

  Hiram jerked his head up. His grin was cockeyed and he craned his neck out toward Benji, getting a closer look.

  “So then. Benji. You’re the younger brother. The one got pulled down the road like a fly hook in a fish’s mouth.”

  Hiram’s eyes narrowed.

  “Explains the face.”

  Beside Judah, Benji tensed, but kept it together. And kept his mouth shut. Hiram leaned back, spread his arms out wide over the back of his chair, and nodded thoughtfully.

  “Yeah, I heard ’bout that. Heard what happened after, too. To Jack O’ Lantern and his crew up at the church. Can’t say I shed a tear over it. Can’t say I’m disappointed in you neither, Judah.”

  Hiram winked and then suddenly bounded up from his chair.

  “Hey, that reminds me. I got something for you.”

  He disappeared down the hallway. Judah turned to Benji, holding his beer in one hand, the top of his cane with the other. Both looked like they might be crushed in his grip.

  “I mean it.”

  “But—”

  “Just keep it inside.”

  Benji’s eyes bulged, the tendons in his neck straining, but Hiram was back, carrying something covered by a square of purple velvet. He set it down with a thump on the coffee table and whipped off the cloth with a flourish. Hiram stepped back to take in Judah’s reaction, his lunatic grin shearing his face in two.

  “Ta-da! I made him just for you. I call him Wyatt Earp.”

  The squirrel was sporting a mustache, a long black coat and matching string tie. Its black hat was pulled down low over its fixed, glass eyes and one arm was extended, a miniature pistol clutched in its claw. Judah hesitantly touched one of the squirrel’s pointed leather boots.

  “Um. Thank you.”

  Hiram flung himself back into his chair.

  “Thought you’d like him.”

  Judah didn’t know what else to say.

  “I do. Thanks.”

  Hiram grunted approvingly before groping underneath the frilled skirt of his chair. He wedged out a gray canvas bag and slung it up on the table beside the squirrel.

  “That’s what you really want, though, ain’t it?”

  Hiram shook out his shoulders and reached for his beer.

  “I moved it ’round a couple times, just to keep it safe, you know.”

  Judah nodded warily as he unzipped the bag.

  “I didn’t know you knew where Ramey had buried it.”

  “You think something happens on my property I ain’t know about? But don’t you worry, I won’t go digging your brother up no time soon. I always find it best to just leave the dead alone. Always seems to work out better that way.”

  Judah cut his eyes up at Hiram as he pulled out two stacks of bills. Beside him, Benji gasped. The bag was brimming with them.

  “What in God’s name?”

  Hiram picked up his beer and began to guzzle it.

  “It’s all there. Down to the last cent. Won’t put me off none if you count it, though. No skin off my nose.”

  “I trust you.”

  Judah pushed the stacks across the coffee table.

  “This is for you.”

  Hiram froze, the bottle halfway to his lips.

  “Oh, hell no.”

  Judah zipped the bag up.

  “Hiram, I mean it. If things go south…”

  Judah paused, the words sticking in his throat. He quickly glanced sideways at Benji, still ogling the bag of cash.

  “There’s a chance I may never be able to repay you.”

  Hiram crossed his arms, spilling his beer, and stubbornly shook his head.

  “Well, man, that may be the case, but I ain’t touching it. Shit, you and Ramey, and even handsome over here, you’re like family to me. I had any friends, I’d number you among them.”

  Hiram rubbed at his face with his fist. Judah didn’t make a move to take the money back, but Hiram shoved the cash to the side. He leaned forward with his elbows on his k
nees and a sharp glint in his bloodshot eyes.

  “Now, that all? Or there something else you need from me?”

  Judah leaned forward as well.

  “There’s something else we need.”

  Hiram sniffed and wiped his nose with the side of his hand.

  “Well, all right then. That’s what I’m here for. Let’s get down to business.”

  15

  “Your man afraid I’m going to make him eat another oyster sandwich?”

  Ramey stood on the bottom step of the Red Creek Fish House and held up the crumpled paper bag in her hands, hefting it a few times for the eyes all around her to take in. Rain dripped from the tin eaves, and the steaming, muddy yard in front of the restaurant was deserted, but Ramey was still sure she was being watched on all sides. From the screened-in porch above her, she could feel the penetrating stares of Malik, Isaac, and half a dozen other men lounging at the two-tops running down the sides of the porch, splintered toothpicks or plastic straws cocked between their teeth, hands out of sight beneath the tables. Ramey stared straight ahead, refusing to look at anyone but the old woman with the knobby crossed arms, sucking her teeth behind the closed screen door.

  “Sukey.”

  “Ramey.”

  Sukey regarded her for a long moment and Ramey never broke eye contact. Though the sun was back out, a sprinkle of rain suddenly broke over her shoulders, the drops glistening through the haze like an opal shattered. Sukey spat.

  “Well. Get on out of the weather, girl. The devil might be beating his wife right now, but those black clouds could roll back in any minute.”

  Ramey climbed the steps and tugged open the screen door, letting it rattle and slam behind her. She glanced uneasily around the porch as the men sauntered closer. Malik was grinning at her and from the corner, near where Herbert still sat, installed in his chair, drooling down onto the plastic lobster bib tied around his neck, came a whistle. Ramey shot the man—boy, really—a look that could freeze a sinner in hell and thrust the paper bag out to Sukey. The old woman took her time, unfurling the top of the bag, shaking it and peering inside, all while Ramey waited, feeling as though she was paying tribute to a chieftain who could determine her fate on a whim. Sukey finally reached into the bag, pulled out a bundle of cash, and snapped the rubber band before making a show of flipping through the bills. The men around her inched forward, murmuring under their breath, trying to gauge the width of the stack and guess how many more like it were still in the sack.

  Ramey skimmed her palm over the top of her head, slicking off some of the rain, and wiped her hand on the seat of her jeans. Her fingers brushed the grip of the 9mm, tucked in with her black tank top. She wasn’t trying to hide the gun and she wasn’t going to hand it over, either. Not after last time. Ramey hooked her thumbs into her belt loops and coolly raised an eyebrow.

  “We good?”

  Sukey dropped the bills back into the bag with a sniff.

  “And Levi Cannon?”

  “Won’t be a problem for you. Ever again.”

  “That so?”

  Ramey crossed her arms and nodded toward the bag in Sukey’s hands.

  “And I hope the extra helps to make up for some things.”

  Sukey sniffed again and rolled the top of the sack down noisily before shoving it under her armpit.

  “Huh. It don’t.”

  Ramey didn’t say anything. She was trying to ignore the corral of men, on the edge of closing in, waiting for Sukey’s signal.

  “But we good. For now.”

  The crowd instantly eased back and Ramey hoped that fingers were also sliding off of triggers. Sukey jerked her head toward the gloomy interior of the restaurant behind her.

  “Come on back. I got something for you.”

  She started to turn, but paused in the doorway, shooting Ramey a sly glance over the ridge of her shoulder.

  “And, no, it ain’t got nothing to do with seafood.”

  Ramey followed Sukey through the musty room, the buzz of the coolers and the hiss of the grill overpowered by the clamor of a sudden downpour hammering on the tin roof above. The old man wiping down the counter with a greasy rag raised his rheumy eyes up to the rafters. Ramey nodded to him, and to the younger woman sitting at the counter, barefoot, but squeezed into a tight sequined dress. Both ignored her; the man staring up at the ceiling, the woman down at her basket of fried catfish. Just as she was stepping through the narrow door next to the cigarette machine, Ramey felt someone coming up behind her. She whirled around, but Sukey had already jumped between them, waving her arms for Malik and Isaac to scram.

  “Shoo! I said, shoo, boys. Go on and bother Yolanda if you ain’t got nothing better to do. This ain’t for you.”

  Sukey smacked Malik on the side of the head, but Isaac ducked out of range. Both men, sulking, retreated to the counter to stand on either side of the woman in the strapless dress. Malik flashed Yolanda a smile as he leaned one elbow on the counter, but she only continued to dig her long, aqua nails into the slab of catfish, picking out the gummy bones. Sukey darted back through the door and curled her finger for Ramey to follow. Once inside, Sukey snapped the light chain above their heads and shut the door behind them.

  “Jesus, I can’t get no peace with those boys. Never around when you need ’em, always underfoot when you don’t.”

  Thrown off guard by Sukey’s conspiratorial, almost friendly, tone, Ramey backed against one of the walls, lined with bags of cornmeal and crates of moldy lettuce, to better see all corners of the cramped, windowless storeroom. At first, a bomb shelter came to mind. Then a coffin. The cement floor of the tight space was smeared with trails of dirt and littered with flattened cigarette butts and coils of hair. Cobwebs like raw cotton, still clotted with seeds, scalloped the low ceiling just above her head. Shrimp husks crunched beneath her boots as Ramey inched around, trying not to touch the damp, flyspecked walls, trying not to think of the word claustrophobic. Sukey lifted the top of an unassuming plastic cooler in the corner, tossed in the bag of cash, and pulled out a dusty, pale-blue Ball jar. She twisted it in her hand, sloshing the corn liquor around, as she held the quart up for Ramey to see.

  “Now, some folks, even folks ’round here, even my own kin, mind you, will live out all of their days without tasting nary a drop of this on their tongues.”

  Sukey grimaced as her gnarled fingers struggled with the corroded zinc lid until it finally spun open beneath her hand.

  “It’ll burn your face, make you feel like Old Scratch’s digging white hot hooks all down your throat, all the way into your belly to pull out your entrails, but it’s worth it.”

  Ramey eyed the jar.

  “That’s quite the endorsement.”

  “It’s the truth, so don’t go getting no lip with me.”

  Sukey took a swig and quickly passed the jar to Ramey, but not before jamming her face into the crook of her elbow, coughing and sputtering. Ramey took the jar before it crashed to the floor between them and didn’t give herself a chance to think. She tipped her head back for a pull and instantly knew what Sukey had meant. For a brief second, her head crackled like it was filled with Pop Rocks, like her brain had been switched to late-night static. Then came the fire. Hooks be damned, it felt—and tasted—like she’d swallowed gasoline, followed by a box of matches for a chaser. Ramey bent over double, braced herself against her knees and wiped her wet mouth with the back of her hand. She held out the jar for Sukey with sharp tears still stinging in her eyes. From across a searing chasm, she could hear Sukey’s gravelly laugh.

  “Just give it a second there.”

  Almost as quickly as it had come, the burn receded, replaced by a warm, honeyed glow, flushing back up from her gut to her cheekbones. Ramey stood up straight, unable to keep back the smile tugging at the corner of her lips.

  “What the hell was that?”

  Sukey grinned as she screwed the lid tightly back on the jar.

 
; “A secret.”

  She returned the jar to the cooler and Ramey was hoping she could edge her way out now, but when Sukey turned back around, the grin had begun to wane.

  “And that ain’t the only one I got to share, neither.”

  Ramey nodded cautiously.

  “All right. Let’s hear it.”

  Sukey put her fists on her hips and cocked her head.

  “I like you, Ramey Barrow. Lord knows why. You never done much for me. I ain’t never done much for you.”

  Sukey ran the pointed tip of her tongue over her crumpled bottom lip.

  “You know my husband, Herbert. Everybody’s got them some idea of how he ended up like that. Head dented in, drooling like a baby, can’t even hold his own pecker to piss. Everybody thinks they knows.”

  Sukey paused and tilted her head back to the other side, her eyes reptilian in their sheen, obviously waiting. Ramey jammed her hands into the pockets her jeans and rocked back on her heels.

  “Yeah, I heard something about falling off a roof.”

  Sukey gave Ramey a sick smile.

  “You heard I done pushed him off a roof. Don’t go getting timid on me now.”

  Ramey scuffed her boot at a sticky wad of paper towel glued to the floor.

  “Okay. I heard you two were fighting and he chased you out onto the roof of your house with a shotgun. You pushed him over before he could shoot you.”

  “Yeah, they would tell it that way over on your side of the creek. Give him the gun, have me running. But I guess the details don’t matter so much. ’Specially since that story ain’t true.”

  Sukey snorted.

  “Neither’s the one where I throw him out a Cadillac heading down State Road 18. And the one where we was fighting on a bridge and I knocked him over the rail. Bust his head on the water. I don’t know where the idea come from that I pushed him. Somebody got nothing better to do than tell tales, I reckon.”