Blood in the Woods

by J. P. Willie

  “Good. You boys take care and remember what I said.” And with that, the cashier flicked his cigarette to the ground, stomped it out and went back inside.

  Jack and I stood there in total shock, trying desperately to process the information that he’d just dumped on us. Deep down in my soul, I had already known these people were evil, but up until now, hadn’t known exactly what they were. But now we knew everything our parents had been too scared to tell us for fear of terrifying us even more.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  THE BOMBSHELL: 1992

  The rest of that summer, Jack and I laid low, mostly focusing on basketball. Memaw had bought me a real basketball goal, and we had it put up behind my trailer. Mr. Shawn helped lay down the cement and I gazed upon that hoop as if it were Jesus Christ himself up on the cross. The backboard was a light grey and had red lightning designs in each of the four corners, which gave it a hip nineties look. Jack loved the goal too, and once Mr. Shawn said the cement was dry, we’d shot hoops on it ‘til nine o’clock at night.

  We had stopped terrorizing the road – temporarily – which was pretty hard for us; it was like weaning a Meth addict off of his drug of choice. We would get urges to break shit, and the feeling to light things on fire, but when we thought about what the cashier at Taco Bell had told us, we didn’t want to go around pissing off the wrong people.

  One night, I was watching The Burbs – Tom Hanks is so damned funny in that movie! It’s a comedy, but the part in which Tom Hanks’ character imagined his next-door neighbors to be a group of homicidal maniacs kinda got to me a little – too close to home for comfort. As it transpired, Hanks’ character wound up in a huge barbeque pit, strapped down while a guy in a black robe stood over him with a knife.

  There were other people in black robes around the pit, most of them wearing masks, and of course that made me think of the night at Jack’s house. When the main guy – whose robe bore a symbol uncannily like the pentagram I’d seen – brought the knife down, Hanks let out a goofy scream and then he woke up; it had all been one of those bad movie dreams.

  I’d turned the movie off at that point, as I realized that it most likely had basis in some sick kind of truth.

  I told Jack about the movie the next day, and we tried to think of people in our neighborhood who fit the profile of a Devil worshipper.

  “Mr. Freeman who lives down at the beginning of the road looks like a creep. He could be one,” Jack suggested.

  “No, too old.” I replied, “Even though I didn’t get a look at the guy’s face that night at your house, I could still tell he wasn’t old.”

  “How?”

  “By his eyes, that’s how.”

  And that’s how it went the rest of the summer, us living in fear and with constant paranoia of who might be what. We’d make our assumptions about the people we thought weird, and those we saw outside of their houses; we truly believed at one point or another, that they all could be Devil worshippers, but as the saying goes – when you assume, you make an ass out of you and me.

  Summer ended, and I began what would be my last year at Nelson Middle School. I didn’t know it yet, but my life was soon about to be flipped upside down again, and in more ways than just one.

  Two months into the school year, and about a week before my twelfth birthday, Momma dropped one of the biggest bombshells on me; I guess I returned the favor later in life when I joined the Army, but whatever, that’s just how life goes sometimes.

  I was playing Street Fighter one evening, doing my best not to get shocked by Blanka, and Momma walked into my room with a look on her face that I knew couldn’t be good. “Jody,” she said, “I have to talk to you about something.”

  “Can it wait until I beat this guy?”

  “Please, Jody,” Momma insisted. She reached over and took the controller from me, “this is serious.”

  “Aww – you just let Blanka win!”

  “Could we please talk for a second?”

  “About what?”

  Momma looked away from me as if she didn’t want to say what was eating her up, but I saw her work up the courage to force it out.

  “Memaw is thinking about moving to Baton Rouge.”

  “And?”

  “We’re gonna go with her.”

  “What?!” I yelled, completely over taken by shock. I jumped to my feet. “No way! I’m not going anywhere. I’m staying right here.”

  “You can’t be like that, Jody, Memaw needs us.”

  “I don’t care! I’m not moving to Baton Rouge!”

  “Listen to me, Jody,” Momma said quietly and sat herself beside me on the bed, “ever since Pepaw died, Memaw has been wanting to get away from here. There are too many memories here, and she can’t get over losing Pepaw. Being in that house every day doesn’t make things better for her, so she wants to start a new life somewhere new, closer to Uncle Jerry.”

  “And she can’t do that by herself?” I asked angrily. I could feel myself beginning to tear up; the thought of leaving Jack and Angela was heart-wrenching.

  “No, she can’t, Jody, and neither can we. We can’t make it here by ourselves – we’d be eating off the streets in less than a week because we have no money.”

  “Can Daddy help more?” I suggested.

  “He already does, son, but it’s not enough. We can’t live off of four hundred dollars a month. It’s impossible.”

  “Is that the only reason why you want to go, Momma, huh? Because we don’t have any money?”

  “My mother needs me, Jody, and my daddy told me to take care of her. I plan on doing that for him,” Momma said, and she was tearing up, too.

  “Well, Pepaw told me to take care of ya’ll, too. You don’t see me ready to pack up and leave town.”

  “I’m sure he did, Bubba, but you’re not getting the big picture. Memaw is miserable here.”

  “Well I’ll be miserable if we move from here. I promise you that!”

  “Jody,” Momma spoke calmly as she tried to diffuse the tension that sparked between us, “I think it would be better for all of us. With everything going on around here, I really think it would be for the best.”

  “Maybe for ya’ll, but not for me,” I said. I threw myself onto the floor and faced myself away from her.

  “Look, Bubba. If Memaw decides to go, we’re going to be there with her every step of the way. Just be prepared,” Momma ended our conversation and left my room.

  I didn’t want to go – end of story.

  Everything I needed was right there in Hammond; there was absolutely no need for me to go anywhere. And even if there was a group of lunatics stalking us, I didn’t care – I was tough, and I could handle it!

  If only I had known what was going to happen; I would have left right then and there.

  The floodgates of my self-destruction had been reopened by Momma’s unsettling news.

  ***

  After my birthday party, Momma had dropped me and Jack off at a haunted house in downtown Hammond. We went in, scared out of our minds and when the first guy jumped out and spooked us, we took off running through the place like Speedy Gonzales, screaming at the top of our voices like silly little schoolgirls. We neared the exit, and a guy in a monkey suit jumped out in front of us.

  “Holy shit!” Jack screamed.

  “Kick that motherfucker!” I yelled back, suddenly very angry.

  Without hesitation, Jack landed a flawless jump-kick right in the middle of the guy’s chest, and Monkey Man flew backwards and landed hard on his ass. Jack and I just trampled over him and proceeded to the exit, not looking back once. We laughed about it when we got out into the parking lot, but I did wonder why I’d gotten so angry; haunted houses were usually a blast for me, but this time it had felt different – something was very wrong.

  I took out my frustrations on everyone, beginning with Angela. I ignored her at school, and I never answered her phone calls. I was suspended from school two weeks after the haunted house incident – I
got caught hitting a teacher in the head with my notebook while walking down the hallway. I’d only done it because she’d been in my way as I was attempting to get around the horde of annoying kids in the hallway. I just gave the old gal a good pop to move her out of my path, and when Momma got the call from the principal she was furious.

  Momma grounded me for a week from Jack, and that was a big mistake on her part. Jack began sneaking out of his house to come see me, and when Mrs. Renee found out, she punished him, keeping him away from me. And after the punishments were all served and Jack and I got back together, we were so angry with our parents that we turned against them. We decided then and there to cause as much pain and destruction as we possibly could, and wreak havoc on those who tried to stop us; everything the satanic cashier had told us seemed irrelevant, and so the rebellion began.

  And boy, what a ride it was.

  We began riding our bikes further and further each day, and soon we were so far away, no whistle Momma could ever blow would have reached our ears. We didn’t care if we got in trouble, we just wanted to have as much fun as we could before I left. Momma had told Jack’s Mom about us moving, and from what Momma told me, Mrs. Renee didn’t want us to go either, although she did understand why we had to. Jack didn’t seem to let it bother him for the time being, and each time I brought it up, he’d change the subject and turn his focus on the positive; which was me still being around, for the time being at least.

  I stole a can of spray paint out of Pepaw’s shed one day and brought it out to the road, where Jack was waiting for me. I had just recently discovered that Pepaw’s shed had a shit load of goodies in it, so whenever I needed something that would help us to cause mischief, that was my first port of call. And I’d always end up looking over at Pepaw’s old table saw and tear up.

  “That’s what I’m talking about,” Jack was beside himself with excitement.

  “I know. I found it behind some plywood. What do you wanna go do with it?”

  “We could tag up Kyle and Lucy’s mailbox?”

  “No. They’ll know it was us.”

  “You’re right.”

  “How about tagging some trees instead?”

  “We could, but people drive by too fast, they might not see it.”

  “Well, how about the street, then?” I asked.

  “Sure. Let’s go down in front of the field between my house and yours. We’ll do some tagging there.”

  “Sounds like a plan to me.”

  We walked down Rhine Road about a good sixty yards and stopped in the middle of the street. The field that sat between our houses was used to make hay, but during the fall the grass began to die off and it now looked like a brown graveyard full of straw, with some rebellious strands of green still trying to hang on until winter. We looked around to make sure no one was watching, and Jack grabbed the can from me.

  “Whoa, what are you doing?” I blurted out.

  Jack didn’t respond. He just shook up the can, and I watched as he sprayed the letters RRB and under it to the left, his own initials, JLM. Jack stood up when he was done and handed me back the can.

  “What the hell does that mean?” I asked.

  “Rhine Road Boys, remember? That’s who we are – forever and always. It doesn’t matter if you leave, Jody, because we’ll always have this mark here on the road to let everyone know that we were here. This will always be our road, no matter who takes our place. Right now, we run this fucking street, and we always will.

  I understood what Jack was saying; he knew I was going to leave, but wanted to have a piece of me stay behind. Even though it was just some stupid initials and a childish gang name, it meant something to us; it meant the world.

  Jack and I sat awhile and admired his creation. This was my home and it would always be in my heart, and I decided that I, too wanted to leave my mark. I hunched over and sprayed squiggly lines under the RRB, and then my initials to the right of Jack’s. Then we stood over our work, looking upon it as if it was a masterpiece from Da Vinci himself.

  It was a peaceful moment, when time stood still with the both of us, and the cool, fall wind blew swiftly through our hair. Jack and I had been there for each other through thick and thin, and the thought of me having to leave was ripping me apart inside. As we stood there, silently side-by-side, I did my very best not to think about life without my best friend and blood brother.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  FIRST BREAK-UP: 1993

  The school year was flying by faster than any other so far, and next thing I knew I was spending my last New Year’s on Rhine Road with my family. We brought it in with fireworks, bottle rockets, black cats, M-60’s, Roman Candles and the ones everyone in the South called Nigger Chasers; the ones that were long like candles that whistled extremely loud and shot off in one direction.

  We popped so much shit that night, you’d have thought there was a goddamned firefight going on in the front yard. I had a blast while popping the fireworks, but once we were done and Jack went home, Momma and me went back inside and she told me for sure that we were leaving as soon as school was over.

  Happy fucking New Year.

  Momma told me Memaw had already put a down payment on a house and there was no way she was going to back out of it now. I got angry again, but when I thought about living in a house instead of a trailer, I did get a little excited, although not enough to make me happy about the whole thing.

  After Christmas break was over, I played basketball with Jack out front, and I finished up the basketball season in March, scoring over twenty points in my last game; the most I had ever scored in my life –I actually made it into the town newspaper! Momma cut the section out, and I believe she still has it to this day.

  Once the season was over, the next couple of months were filled with yet more repercussions over my bad behavior at school. I had grown at least another two inches, sprouted more hair on parts of my body, had a full set of pubes (which I was real proud of), had underarm hair that looked like I had Chewbacca in a headlock and finally, I had gotten those goddamned braces off.

  I was at the peak of my adolescence, and testosterone was coursing through my body like drunken college kids in the streets of Florida during Spring Break. Momma understood that, and knew I was becoming a man, but it was hard for her as a single parent; especially when with an ex-husband who never helped. My behavior got so bad that Momma stopped disciplining me; she was just so numb and worn out from all my shenanigans; I was out of control, there was no denying that at all, but there wasn’t anything she or anyone else could do about it. All she did was keep grounding me from Jack and that only fueled the fire.

  Jack and I, over the next couple of weeks, began doing whatever the fuck we felt like, playing very much by our own rules. There was not one thing you could say or do to us to break our reckless spirits and it rubbed everyone the wrong way. It didn’t matter how many times Jack and I got called down to the office for harassing Cat Ass Boy, or how many Saturday detentions the teachers gave us; none of it mattered.

  Simply put, we’d become the type of kids that all parents hope and fear that theirs won’t turn out to be. Our friendship was so strong that we had become untouchable when together; we were hoodlums and our egos were so damn huge, we really began to think that our shit didn’t stink. Yep, Jack and I were the Rock Stars of Nelson Middle School, and they could say whatever they wanted to say, but mere words barely penetrated our eardrums.

  The kids that were jealous of us tried kicking our asses, but we either fought back together and beat the shit out of them, or just ran off at the mouths and kept them at bay. And I had gotten so bad that Angela actually broke up with me. I’d just come out the boy’s bathroom because I’d flushed a full roll of toilet paper, trying to overflow the lavatory, when I bumped into Angela.

  “Jody,” Angela said quietly, “I need to talk to you.”

  “Well go ahead and talk, I’m right here.”

  Krystle stood behind her, giving that mo
ral support that girls need during times like these.

  “I can’t go out with you anymore.”

  “Why the hell not?” I sounded angry, but in actuality, I was hurt; first break-ups are tough.

  “My mom says I can’t be going out with a kid like you anymore.”

  “A kid like me?” I asked, “What am I, a fucking vampire or something?”

  “It’s not that, it’s just...”

  “It doesn’t matter, Angela. If we’re done, then we’re done. I only have a couple of months left here anyways, so it wasn’t like we were going to last forever. Shit, that doesn’t happen in real life.”

  “Why,” Angela said, biting her bottom lip, “do you have to be such an asshole about this? You think you’re so cool, Jody, but you’re not. You’re looked upon as a bully and a foul-mouthed heathen, and that’s why I can’t go out with you anymore. My parents won’t have it.”

  “I didn’t do shit to your parents, so why are they so pissed at me?”

  “Everyone knows what you and Jack do, Jody. This is a small town and everyone knows everybody. Do you remember throwing an egg at a blue car on Rhine Road last week?”

  “Yeah, I popped that joker right on the windshield,” I said proudly.

  “Well, that was my aunt and she told my mom.”

  “She didn’t see me throw it, so how did she know it was me?”

  “Because you left your bike on the side of the road. My aunt asked who rode a blue and silver bike, and my mom knew exactly who she was talking about. Maybe you should hide your getaway vehicle better next time, Jody?”

  “Whatever,” I said, and flung my hands up into the air. “I don’t give a shit if she saw me, who cares?”

  “I don’t want to stand here all day and argue, okay? I just wanted to tell you in person instead. I’m sorry, Jody.”

  I could feel the rage burning inside me, but I didn’t know how to express it. I had been dating Angela since the summer, but the relationship didn’t really start getting serious until the new year. I didn’t know what had pissed me off most, the fact that she was breaking up with me, or the fact that her parents thought I was a heathen.