Growth

by Jeff Jacobson

  Main Street marched east for three blocks, with a few banks, a church, a car wash, a couple of gas stations, a combination video store and karate studio. The police station was two blocks down. The few other commercial buildings clustered a block or two along Main Street included a Moose Lodge, more churches, a library, a volunteer fire department, a Stop ’n Save grocery store, an empty hardware store. Every building and light post was covered in red, white, and blue bunting in preparation for the big Fourth of July Sweet Corn Jubilation.

  It went without saying that Parker’s Mill lived and died with the corn.

  Only Edgar noticed that instead of turning right and heading to the police station, Sandy kept going north along Highway 67. He tried to get his brothers’ attention. They ignored him. A mile later, she turned left on Highway 104 and they crossed over the river.

  Edgar couldn’t hold it in anymore and said, “I don’t know what you think you’re pullin’. It ain’t gonna work.”

  Sandy didn’t answer, and turned off immediately after crossing the river, into the Fitzgimmon driveway. This was a long dirt road that wandered through the scrub along the river.

  Edgar said in delight, “Oh, I get it. It’s that time of the month, right? You’re on the rag. Making you all screwy. Cause you, you have no idea what your fuckin’ doing, do you?”

  When the road abruptly turned into the foothills, the cruiser’s headlights found a gate in the middle of the road. Beyond it lay the Fitzgimmon farmhouse. It was set back from the gate about fifty yards, surrounded by a dozen or so oak trees at least a hundred years old.

  Sandy got out and found the gate locked. It didn’t surprise her. Purcell didn’t trust anybody outside of his own family. She waited a moment, knowing he’d damn well seen the headlights and was watching her, probably through a scope.

  The porch light flicked on, and in the glow, the house didn’t look like it had been painted or repaired since it had first been built, right around the time the trees had been planted. Purcell’s rail-thin silhouette appeared in the doorway.

  At least it wasn’t obvious if he was carrying a firearm.

  Sandy took that as a good sign.

  Purcell was something of a dark legend in town. Everybody had heard about him, but few had seen him. He didn’t like to leave his farm unless it was an emergency. He coaxed corn and soy out of the thin soil that covered the slanted creek beds and rolling hills. He lived off his own well, grew his own food, and crapped in his own septic tank. He sent his wife to the Costco once a month for staples like flour, coffee, and Pop-Tarts.

  Everybody in town had their own stories. The only thing they agreed was that Purcell had done time. The stories ranged anywhere from six years in the easygoing county jail or ten years in nasty San Quentin. Beyond that, they said he was a gunrunner. He used his farm as a hideout for drug shipments. He’d found Jesus. He was in the witness-protection program. He was plotting something evil with Charlie Manson. He was ex-CIA.

  To Sandy, it sounded like a small town with too much time.

  She had checked one night, feeling that as the chief she should know as much as possible about any known lawbreakers in town. Purcell wasn’t the only problem child, not by a long shot, but he was one of the most colorful, and in some ways he was downright alarming.

  He had been part of a crew in St. Louis, taking down a Brink’s armored car outside of the last grocery store stop of the day. They got five miles and it all ended in a roadblock. No shots were fired. Purcell served five years in the Chillicothe Correctional Center for armed robbery. Moved back to his parents’ homestead when he got out. His parents were long gone. The house was barely habitable. He married a woman from Finland. Nobody knew a damn thing about her and either she didn’t speak English or pretended not to when she came to town.

  Nobody saw him or heard from him for years. That’s why folks weren’t sure about him. Until all three of his boys were the right age, and Purcell sprung them on the Parker’s Mill public school district at the same time. Edgar went into the third grade, but was eventually moved down to the first grade so he could learn the basics of reading and arithmetic. He eventually caught up when he was in the fifth grade, but forever suffered being adrift, and never had any friends. Axel unleashed holy hell on the kindergarten and was eventually expelled in the first grade. His education came in the form of homeschooling until he was fifteen. Charlie’s academic career began smoothly enough, until he managed to scandalize the entire town when he was arrested for releasing all of the animals tethered to the lawn of the First Baptist Church’s nativity scene. Sheep, goats, and a blind mule went wandering through Parker’s Mill in the early morning hours, while Charlie took the baby Jesus doll and sent him down the Mississippi River, much like Moses.

  “Evenin’” said Purcell as he approached the gate.

  “Evenin’” Sandy said. “How you doing?”

  “Aw hell, you know. Can’t complain. Well, I could, you know, but nobody’d listen,” Purcell laughed. “How’s the new job working out for ya?”

  “Not exactly what I expected.”

  “I’ll bet.”

  “Heard you were working on an organic certification.”

  “Yeah, yeah. They’re makin’ me jump through more hoops than a goddamn circus freak.” He rested his forearms on the gate and shook his head. “They got people crawling all over my farm, taking samples of everything, the soil, the water, the corn. Surprised they didn’t want a sample of my piss.”

  Neither Purcell nor Sandy acted as if the three brothers in the backseat of the cruiser even existed. They might have been two old friends shooting the shit on a slow Sunday afternoon.

  “Still, it’s worth it,” Purcell continued. “Seems to me it’s maybe the last act of freedom we have left, not being forced to put all these asshole chemicals in our food.”

  Sandy got a better look at the man. It looked like his wife had been keeping his hair short with the sheep shears. Ropy muscles slid and rolled under leathery skin. His eyes sparkled in the glow of the headlights. Purcell was getting old, but he was still tougher than tree bark.

  “Well, best of luck to you,” Sandy said. “Suppose it’s time we get down to the reason I’m out here.”

  “Thought you might, sooner or later.”

  “Your boys, they were causing the Whistle Stop some problems. Gave the bouncer a hard time. Now, he’s a good guy. Not the kind of bouncer that picks on folks ’cause he gets bored.”

  “Can’t say I’m surprised. They been awful jumpy these past few days. Thought they might blow off some steam somewhere. So . . . why’d you bring ’em back here? Seems to me, folks like you think they belong in jail for a night or two, they cause that kind of ruckus. Ain’t that what usually happens?”

  “Usually.”

  “Yeah, and you brought ’em back here. Why’s that?”

  Sandy shrugged. “You helped my dad out once. Figured I owed you one for my family.” Her family car’s tire had blown out on the way for an Easter Sunday church service in 1994. Purcell, who had clearly spent the night in his pickup, was on his way home from a night out. He pulled over and helped Sandy’s dad pull off the tire and even donated the spare tire when he discovered Sandy’s dad didn’t have one.

  “Shit. I’ll take your word for it.” He grinned in the headlights. “Don’t remember much. That was what, twenty some-odd years ago? You been waiting all this time to say thanks? Coulda sent a thank-you card.”

  Sandy didn’t answer. It was difficult to explain. She just knew she would never forget the image of this man as he loped across the highway twenty years ago, long hair in his face, carrying the tire over his shoulder, hair sticking to both the tire and his tongue. He took the jack from Sandy’s dad without a word and crawled under the car. Sandy and her mom waited way, way back, damn near in the freshly plowed field. It was still a little close for Sandy’s mom, who wasn’t sure if they should break into a run, fleeing to the nearest farmhouse, or offer the man some freshly bake
d cookies as a thank-you. Sandy didn’t know why her mom was so nervous; she understood just fine that the man was helping them.

  This wild man, this force of nature, this was her first real encounter with a human who had endured unthinkable violence as well as inflicted severe pain on others. At eight, she had listened keenly to her parents’ private conversations and had heard of Purcell Fitzgimmon. He supposedly put a poor mail carrier in intensive care due to the unacceptable condition of a package.

  And yet here he was, calm and collected and kind as Mr. Rogers. She would never forget his languid wave as he got back in his truck and pulled back onto the highway. She wasn’t around when her dad returned the spare, but she didn’t need to be. Purcell had already made a long-lasting impact. He taught her that the world could be gentle and beautiful and wild and vicious all at the same time.

  The Chisels were on their way in less than ten minutes and even made it to church on time.

  Sandy finally just said, “If your boys get out of line again, they will face some serious problems.” She wasn’t kidding. If Charlie got arrested, he could get kicked out of the armed forces, or whatever the hell he was doing. Edgar and Axel had enough combined charges to put them in the state pen for a long time if they were unlucky enough to face a pissed-off judge who wanted to prove he was tough on crime.

  “And I appreciate that,” Purcell said. “What happens next?”

  “Up to you. They’re your problem now.” Sandy went to the back door and pulled out the boys, one by one. They stood, a little too meek and mild, like they were trying not to laugh. Sandy unlocked the cuffs from Edgar and snipped through the zip ties on Charlie and Axel with her Leatherman.

  Purcell never opened the gate. “Well then. It’s gonna be like this. You three. You look at me. You too, Charlie. You ain’t so big, boy. You get caught doing dumb shit and you’re out with my vehicle, thought you were smarter’n that. We gonna have a talk when you get back.”

  They flinched as if he’d thrown a punch.

  Purcell’s polite, civilized veneer was gone. His features had shifted slightly, eyebrows lowered, eyes narrowed, lips pulled back, as the headlights lit his face from below, giving him a feral, savage look; Sandy understood she was looking at the real Purcell. The transformation unnerved her.

  For a moment, she worried she had made a terrible mistake. If the Fitzgimmons wanted, they could be on her before she could reach her weapons, let alone her radio. And she was the one that had let them loose.

  But Purcell never looked at her. His rage was aimed at his sons, every word a razor wrapped in barbed wire. “Right now, you gonna march on back down to the Whistle Stop and bring my truck back.” Sandy now understood why the brothers had reacted as if each word was a physical blow. God knew what this man had done to them as they grew up.

  “The walk will sober you up and make you think,” Purcell said and gave Sandy a challenging look. She didn’t object. It was a hell of a walk. The Whistle Stop was over twelve miles south. “And if there is one dent, one single hint of a scratch, when you get back here you will beat the living shit out of each other for my amusement.” It was not an idle threat.

  They didn’t argue, didn’t glare at their old man—nothing. They waited silently, like cowed dogs that had the shit stomped out of them.

  It was time to go. “Gentlemen.” Sandy nodded at them and their father and got back in the car. She backed up into a wide space, pulled around, and drove back down the driveway.

  The spiders crept out of the darkness of the far southern edge of Bob Morton’s private cornfield, drawn toward the movement and soft sounds inside the Einhorn henhouse. The sagging structure was built out of leftover scraps of lumber that Kurt had scavenged from construction sites. He’d thrown it together down at the edge of the huge backyard, where the grass ran up against the rows of crops. He sank a few fence posts, surrounded them with old chicken wire to encircle a ten-foot rectangular pen, and built a little house that sat unsteadily on stilts at the end. Thirteen hens called it home. There used to be a rooster, but when it wouldn’t shut up early one dawn, Kurt, fighting a brutal hangover, trudged down the lawn, grabbed the rooster by the neck, and whipped the body around until its neck had snapped.

  Under a perfectly curved sliver of a nearly blackened moon, the creatures scuttled into the cool grass and passed easily through the chicken wire. At first glance, they might have been mistaken for fat spiders. Spiders didn’t quite move like these organisms, though. These blobs lurched along unsteadily on mismatched legs. They moved slowly.

  The spider-things gathered around all four of the support posts and swarmed up into the henhouse. As they climbed, the blobs hung unnaturally, as if they weren’t connected to the legs by any kind of bones, either internal or external. They swayed, plump and gray as death, as their too-many legs clumsily worked their way up all of the four-by-ten posts.

  They left nothing but silence behind them.

  As the nearly invisible moon passed through the long night, the spiderlike creatures laboriously crawled up into the henhouse. Dozens. Then hundreds. At first, there were a few mildly startled clucks, a few investigative pecks, as the chickens tasted the new creatures. The insects tasted sour, and the texture of the flesh was even softer than worms. The chickens snapped at the spiders in irritation, but even that slowed and stopped as the spiders overwhelmed the birds.

  Silence descended upon the henhouse.

  SUNDAY, JULY 1st

  CHAPTER 6

  When the sun rose, Sandy was out in the garage, beating the shit out of a punching bag while an old boom box blasted Ramones tunes.

  She had learned long ago not to think about her job when she was punching and elbowing and kicking and kneeing and head-butting the bag. When she had started out as a deputy, she would come home and try and relieve her stress by gathering a mental image of some asshole she’d encountered on the job, then dump as much aggression and anger as possible on the bag, unleashing all that steam in one forty-five-minute eruption.

  It worked fine, until one night on the job she almost put her fist through some drunk dipshit’s face thanks to her new muscle memory. Since then, while working out, she found it was better to disassociate from the worst images of humanity and focus solely on the movement of muscles as they drove her skeleton.

  She would have preferred to hang the bag outside, but she had to be conscious about how she was viewed in the community. It was bad enough that some of her fellow cops teased her, saying that she must have been picturing the father of her boy when she was attacking the bag. She’d laugh, too, and say, “Sometimes.” For her, though, it was more about taking out her frustration about everything that she couldn’t control, wringing stress out of her body, simple and complicated at the same time.

  Her ex, Kevin’s father, would probably say that she couldn’t make up her mind about a damn thing. The irritating thing was that he was probably right.

  She stepped back a moment, gathering herself for another flurry of punches, and looked back to the door to the house. Kevin liked to get up late on Sundays, so she let him. She used to take him to church, but finally stopped when he asked her about her own beliefs, specifically what she thought happened when somebody died. She thought this might be one of those Hallmark or Lifetime moments where the parent sits down with their child for a life-changing talk, a moment they would both remember forever. She had also decided long ago that honesty was the only policy, with the exception of Santa Claus. She told him, “I took you to church not because I was worried about your immortal soul. I took you because . . . it was expected of me. I thought it was the right thing to do. I never worried about any of the stuff they told us. Life is beyond all of us. It’s up to you to find what you believe.”

  Kevin nodded. Said, “Cool.” And ran off to play with his rocket ship models.

  So much for the Hallmark moment.

  Sunday mornings now, she let him sleep in and play video games if he wanted. He was old enough to pour h
is own milk into a bowl of cereal and had proved more than capable of feeding himself. It wasn’t always appropriate, such as Cheese Doodles at six a.m., but he never went hungry.

  Last Sandy had heard, Kevin’s father was in southern Indiana, wiping down windshields while the other worker drained oil from cars in a Quik-Change. There was no paternity test. They both knew, without a doubt, he was the father, even if he never admitted it.

  The other problem was that Barry, Bar to his buddies, had tried to disappear two or three times now.

  The last time Sandy had caught up to her dear old ex, he was working at a big box superstore as the guy who collected the shopping carts. The confrontation in the middle of the massive parking lot was brief, painful, and embarrassing for both. Disgusted, Sandy got back in her car. She told him to get in touch when he was a man, and until then, well he could fuck right off.

  Bar assured her he was getting his life together, and he would send her money.

  They both knew this was a lie.

  It was easier to pretend it wasn’t.

  She usually spent Sunday mornings in the garage, then went back and made a big breakfast. If nothing important happened, like a car wreck or robbery or, God forbid, a murder, Sundays were her days off. The town, for the most part, complied. Nothing much happened and since things stayed quiet, Sandy could enjoy a full day at home with her son.

  But lately something wasn’t working with Kevin. Most times, they got along fine. He understood the rules, he did his chores and homework without complaining too much, and was happy to once in a while put down his books or tablet and join her for dinner. The past few months, though, the timing was off, they weren’t connecting, and Sandy couldn’t figure out what she was doing differently, and wondered what problems her son was facing alone.

  Whatever it was, she’d bet that it was probably related to the town, channeled through the school. She hoped it wasn’t a girl. He hadn’t exactly discovered sex yet and it took a backseat to his TV shows and books. She knew it wasn’t the most comfortable thing for him, being the son of the police chief, but they’d had long talks about bullying and how to respond, and she felt he would open up if that was the situation.