by J. D. Wilkes
“Wow,” I muster through a fog of woe, swallowing a lump. “Wow…”
“What?”
“Nothing,” I sigh. “Nothing at all.”
“I wish I coulda seen ol’ Carver in action, boy. He always was a dead aim.”
“He must’ve picked him off with that concrete grape he swiped from the graveyard.”
“Well, y’all are both lucky as all git out. Hell, they found you wound up in some weeds floatin’ face down in a swamp, swoll up with a snakebite. They picked up some faint radio message outta your neck of the woods. Not sure about that though. They’re callin’ it a miracle. And I don’t know if you’ve noticed or not but they had to whack yer arm off, dude. You musta got a corruption, pukin’ up all that blood like ya did. Shoooo! Well, yer mama says she’ll be back by later with the doctor. They’re gonna put one of them robot hooks on ya. So I reckon you’ll hafta get used to beatin’ off with the other hand, ha ha!”
Before I pass out again, I catch one last fleeting glimpse of the TV bolted up in the corner of the mint green ceiling. Skitch has flipped it to a 24-hour cable news network. Beneath footage of a smoldering Walmart, today’s true date is indicated along the crawl.
Yes, it has been well over 365 days since Carver first kicked that KEEP OUT sign into toothpicks. And, while I may have lost a year—and my One True Love—I must remember that I’ve gained two other very important things, things a whole lifetime can be spent in search of. I have won both a best friend in Mr. Carver Canute and the perfect father figure in the LORD God Almighty. My father’s back-assward quest for God has been attained by the son. For how can such evil run amok on our planet without some sort of balancing force?
Don’t get me wrong. It’s not like I’m going to join back up with some temple full of moneygrubbing preachers and crackpots. Yeah, I’m content to go it alone, parting the sea of charlatans, townies, meth heads, and trailer brides, and focusing on the positive, especially now that I’ve run a gauntlet of negativity. I’m too tired to live a life of doubt and darkness. It’s just flat out crippling.
Yes, now I must focus, focus, focus. I will meditate on and stand by my new Father. Because, even if God doesn’t exist, everybody in the “New South,” myself included, would probably be better off going back to thinking that He does.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
CARVER part 2
Dear Jesus. God, if you can hear my monkey ass… Man, I am soooo sorry. I know I done a lot of downright mean things. I’ve stole a buncha thangs what didn’t belong to me. I’ve done a lot of fornicatin’ and drankin’. I even kilt a man or two. Demp, fer one. (Well, I stand by what I done to him. Self-defense, plain as day!) But you know as well as I do that that other feller, he was already deader’n shit. (Pardon my French.) I hope to God (I mean I hope to YOU) that this old boy, lyin’ in that other bed right cheer, Crap Knife, never finds out about his daddy and what an asshole he was.
I mean, you saw them that day… all them Santannic weirdos tryin’ to kill one another in the woods out there. Goofy buncha fellers, wearin’ them funny-lookin’ capes. Lookin’ as queer as a football bat. And if you ask me, they had to be into some pretty blackish magic or somethin’. Hell, I watched ’em fight for a half an ire. Floatin’ in the air like that? I thought I done walked up on a movie shoot! Till I saw all them blood and guts a-blowin’ out of ’em.
But, Lawd Lawd, how I knowed that one hurt one in the middle! Ho ho ho! Yessir! Meemaw made me promise to never forget that face. He was a thief, a criminal, a murderer! Hell, they all were. No Mad Stone belongs to any white man. No offense, Jesus. But you know I’m right.
Besides, it was a downright act of mercy, what I done. The mean thang to do woulda been to just let him lay there sufferin’. I did the right thang, even though I didn’t report it… though I stashed his body where them Masons might get the blame.
But, the way I see it, I kilt two birds with one stone: I showed him mercy and I ridded the world of one less black-magic asshole. But it ain’t like I’m pride of it. It ain’t like I don’t worry at night thinkin’ about it. I know I got a messed-up thrill showin’ my buddy his own dead daddy. And I know I’m bound fer hell-far tarnation… where the worm dyeth not.
But, spare me Jesus Christ and I swear I’ll get right! No more cussin’, screwin’, stealin’, trestpastin’, nothin’! Hell, I’ll even start goin’ to church again and drag Skitch along! Oh please, please. Please set this Mad Stone to healin’ me quick. Right cheer. Right now. Please man. Aw, come on!
Well, wait a minute, buddy. On second thought, hold up! Let’s cut the crap. I know you know that I know. That I seed a lot of strange things while lyin’ here half-dead. So there ain’t no need for us to kid one another or me to keep tryin’ to kiss your butt.
So how ’bout this?
If you set me back on the good foot, I’ll run over and put that damn dog down. Then I’ll get that spirit deep down in my bones… right on down in my soul. Then you and him kin settle this thing face to face, once’t and for all. And that orta be one helluva time!
What d’ya say, old man?
The End
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
This book is dedicated to my wonderful parents, Steve and Linda Wilkes; and to all who bear the Wilkes family name.
Much obliged to the “oral tradition” and to those who have shared stories with me over the years: K. Layne Hendrickson, Jessica Wilkes, Michael Hagaman, Jamie and Katie Barrier, Shooter Jennings, Billy Bob Thornton, Brett Whitacre, Barry Winfield, Lesley Patterson, Keven McQueen, Blake Judd, Jim Joyce, Nathan Blake Lynn, Patty Templeton, Keven McQueen, Keith Holt, Linda and Stephen Wilkes, Steph and Andrea Atnip, Blanca Fiser and Sam “Dreams Don’t Chase Themselves” Barrett.
Special mention must also be made of the influence of the late great Southern writers Irvin S. Cobb and John Faulkner.
Thanks also to Eric and Eliza Obenauf for seeing potential in the earlier, written stages of this strange dream.
