The Man With the Barbed-Wire Fists

by Norman Partridge

  Jimmy looked up sharp and when he seen who was talkin to him his ears got awful red. But he come ahead anyway. And when he got close enough Jess squatted down real low til he could look him in the eye. “You like that, over in there?” he asked and Jimmy kinda looked away but he was smilin. Then Jess said, “Well, it sure didn’t take you long.”

  Now Jimmy’s whole face got red and Jess said, “Yeah, well, don’t never take a cherry very long. I figure that was bout four… mebbe five minutes, countin unbuttonin and buttonin time. Now, you tell me boy was that worth your daddy’s RCA?” But Jimmy didn’t say nothin so Jess said some more. “Well, I’m sure gonna enjoy that radio.”

  Jimmy was lookin at the dirt but he said in a loud voice like they do in the gangster pictures, “It ain’t for you it’s for the lady.”

  Jess curled up a fist and smacked Jimmy’s ear real good like Joe Louis does and the blood come like Jimmy been cut, and while Jimmy was swayin all woozy Jess said, “The lady is mine and I’m hers, so it goes to figure that your RCA is mine and hers.” He took hold of Jimmy’s shirt and pulled him close and I seen Jimmy cringin away from Jess’s lemonade breath. “Now, you listen up, boy. And you do like I say unless you want your daddy to find out where you been playin.”

  Jimmy listened real good now cause I reckon I should have told you before that his daddy was a soldierman like the soldierman with the rubber arm in the picture ceptin Jimmy’s daddy didn’t have no rubber arm. Anyhow, I never seen anyone talk to Jimmy like Jess did, and I spect no one ever had ceptin his daddy. But Jess didn’t just talk he dragged Jimmy over by the old busted fence that we come up through when we come up from the creek bed over the hot fryin pan rocks. He give Jimmy some wire cutters and told him to cut the rusty wire off them old posts, but Jimmy tried to give them cutters over to me.

  “I paid with my radio to do what I wanted to do,” Jimmy said. “I ain’t gonna do no nigger work for you.” But Jimmy looked kinda sick when he said it somehow, and I knowed his stomach was feelin like mine always did when he throwed them rocks at me, and I was gonna say so when Jess said, “What kinda nigger work you think I’m talkin bout, white boy?”

  “Buildin a new fence,” Jimmy said. “Look here, I know you got a whole spool of wire in there on account of that’s what Little Pete brought. I thought you aimed to sell it to somebody, but if you think I’m gonna— ”

  Rusty come out of the shack just then wipin his nose on his shirttail. I grabbed hold of Jess’s hand feelin like Ygor in the picture when he grabs hold of the Monster and sends him after them fellas who hanged him and busted his neck but didn’t kill him through and all of a sudden I knowed just how wrong Jimmy was bout Ygor. “Him too,” I said, pointin at Rusty. “Him too.”

  In a minute Rusty was cryin cause Jess had told him what he imagined would happen if Rusty’s daddy found out bout the missin car keys. So Rusty got real busy quick workin the posts out of the ground. It wasn’t hard work cause them posts was already leanin and wasn’t set in cement like they set posts in these days. But like I said Rusty was a lazy sort and so it was hard for him and it didn’t help when he got to sneezin again.

  “Look here.” Jimmy pulled Rusty away from his work and stood up to Jess cept he was so small standin in Jess’s big shadow that he was silly lookin. “We paid you, mister. We ain’t gonna build no fence.”

  Jess just laughed that same real hearty laugh, mainly at that “mister” stuff I spect cause it come right out of the blue.

  Bout then was when she come out of the shack. The witch did. She was holdin Mary Hannah’s hand and Mary Hannah was as pretty as could be with powder and lipstick and you could see how she wasn’t no little girl no more.

  “Now don’t you be scared,” was what the witch whispered to Mary Hannah. “There ain’t one thing to be scared of.”

  Jess looked Mary Hannah over with a big grin then he says to Jimmy and Rusty, “Now you remember what I said bout your daddies.” And then he took hold of Mary Hannah’s hand and took her up to the big house.

  I sat down in the dust, in the sun, right tween them two postholes, listenin to the radio and lookin at the worms squirmin in the black-red mud and tryin to recollect how things went when I’d brung Jimmy’s notes to the witch.

  All of a sudden I smelled sulphur.

  Soon enough the witch got Jimmy and Rusty busy with a shovel and them old posts and that old rusty wire. Their hands got cut up somethin awful cause they didn’t have no gloves, and she just shook her head at Rusty when he begged for somethin to drink. She said, “You boys wanted to make men, didn’t you?”

  Like the Doctor in the picture. That’s what I got to thinkin. He said he wanted to make a man. But that ain’t what he ended up makin. He ended up makin a monster. A giant that stoled storybooks from nice little fellas like Peter. But Peter thought that giant was nice and Ygor thought he was nice too. And Mary Hannah always said how sad he was and how he never did nothin bad that those other folks didn’t make him do cause he was really just gentle as could be. And I watched Jimmy and Rusty and I thought Jess was pretty nice and I recollect diggin them two holes by the porch after the witch took me inside the shack. And then I took off my gloves and looked at the scabs on my palms and recollect how she told me to hold that last note to Jimmy real careful so I wouldn’t get no blood on it.

  Rusty finished makin his barbed-wire man first. The witch pushed him up against it and then pushed him away and she started rubbin on the barbed-wire man with her red dress all wrinklin up round her like before. And then Jimmy finished and she did the same thing to his barbed-wire man and Rusty started cryin then. But I think it was just cause he was scared cause he couldn’t have knowed what was gonna happen to him cause of that man.

  And then the radio went quiet and Jess come out of the house with one arm round Mary Hannah and the other round the RCA. He walked right over to Jimmy and handed him the radio, sayin, “I was just spoofin you bout keepin it, boy. We sure wouldn’t want you to get into trouble with your folks.”

  The witch laughed at that and then Jess give Rusty the keys to his daddy’s Ford and Rusty stopped bawlin so I knowed for sure he didn’t really understand.

  “Skedaddle, now,” the witch said and Rusty and Jimmy did just that real quick, runnin down the creek bed over the hot fryin pan rocks, runnin like they was so happy to be free and didn’t have a care in the world like you can still see them boys runnin today.

  Then Mary Hannah come over and took my hand, and she had little scratches on her hand. And the witch went round them postholes and slid her little hand into Jess’s big one. I looked up at him and I was all mixed up cause I didn’t know if he was the soldierman with the rubber arm who come to save me or the Monster or the giant who stoled my storybook or maybe all three, like Ygor was Dracula and the Monster was the Mummy. But I looked at his eyes and I looked at them two big holes like sores in the ground that was dug by me when I made my barbed-wire man and I knowed that I was never gonna grow up to be a man cause Jess had done that for me and I was grateful cause I bet it was somethin I never coulda done by myself anyhow.

  And Mary Hannah had a hold of my hand. She said, “C’mon, Little Pete, I’ll take you home.” And she picked up the witch’s shovel and the poke of lipstick and powder and I got the spool of barbed wire. Off we went tween Jimmy and Rusty’s barbed-wire men and that rusted wire was startin to sigh and then we was climbin through what was left of that busted-down fence and it was singin in the hot breeze.

  And the witch waved goodbye and said, “Thank you for my man, Little Pete.”

  And I looked one last time at Jess who looked mighty happy and big and strong as anybody could ever want to be and it was like lookin into a mirror and seein somethin that was never gonna be.

  And I smiled at the witch and said “Thank you” right back.

  (For Alan M. Clark)

  THE PACK

  ONE

  The deputy’s name was Vin Miller, and the waitress’s name was Vera Marlow
e. Truth be told, Vin didn’t much like Vera, but Vin wasn’t one to let like get in the way of need.

  Vera did have her faults, though. She was a little on the plump side, and she kept the jukebox in the diner jumpin’ with Dion and Fabian and Bobby Rydell and even Elvis, now that the hillbilly cat was out of the army and had a new set of tunes to peddle. The deputy was a Marty Robbins/Johnny Horton/Jim Reeves kind of guy, so that teenybopper stuff didn’t sit well with him. But neither did the diner’s menu, a wide array of overcooked meat dishes which were invariably served with either undercooked fries or lumpy mashed potatoes lathered with greasy gravy.

  Vin figured that Vera had a real taste for that gravy, judging by the swell of her Playtex girdle. Still, Vera had a pretty nice ass if you stacked it up against the local competition. There were far too many rawboned Okie asses around these parts for the deputy’s taste — flat dust-bowl behinds that had cannonballed into the local gene pool thirty years back without hardly making a splash.

  Personally, Vin preferred something he could hold on to, and Vera had plenty of that. Plus, she took real care with her hair and make-up. Why, if Vin squinted just right, the waitress looked kind of like a meatier Carroll Baker, and Vin thought a whole hell of a lot of Carroll Baker. But Vera wouldn’t go out with him even though he’d been piling on the tips since the sheriff had first pinned a star on his chest three months before.

  Three months on the graveyard shift in a one stoplight town. For all the headway he’d made, the deputy might as well have arrived yesterday.

  Just like Elvis, Vin was a veteran. He’d come to California from Germany, where a stint as an army private had ended in an honorable discharge, just barely, and only because all military defense attorneys weren’t the chuckleheads you’d imagine. But that was in the past, and Vera was part of the future. Vin knew that in a podunk town like this one he had to take it where he could find it. And if he couldn’t even make it with the queen of the local diner, he was going to have one hell of a time getting to the undertaker’s daughter, or the straight-razor tottin’ lady barber, or the banker’s wife. All three were on the deputy’s short list.

  So when Vera brought the prisoner’s meal over to the jail herself — instead of sending the Mexican clean-up boy, as was the usual case — Vin had an inkling that things might be taking a turn for the better. And when she moved close to Vin — so close that he could smell that sweet gravy on her breath — he had a sudden premonition that he’d be hearing a whole hell of a lot of Elvis Presley in the very near future.

  Vera’s eyes sparkled in a way that the diner’s silverware never dared. “Did you really catch him all by yourself?”

  ‘‘Yeah,” Vin said. “The sheriff didn’t have a damn thing to do with it.”

  The waitress nodded, almost blushing, and for the first time Vin could see her noticing his big arms, his big chest, the way he filled out his uniform.

  Vin stood up so Vera could see the way he filled out his slacks, too. “You want to get a good look?” he asked.

  Now she did blush, but Vin pretended not to notice. “It’s no problem,” he said innocently, shooting a thumb over his shoulder. “He’s right back there, locked up good and tight. You can look all you want.”

  “Could I? I mean, isn’t he dangerous?”

  Vin slapped the six-gun strapped to his thigh and attempted to keep his voice television cowboy cool in the manner of Cheyenne Bodie or Paladin. “Honey,” he said, “when it comes to me, the thing locked back there in that cell ain’t nothin’ but a hound dog.”

  The cellblock was red brick that had faded pumpkin orange over the years. A narrow hallway fronted five iron-barred cells — four of them empty. Along the hallway ceiling, a lone electric line looped from one overhanging, tin-hooded light to the next. The cord was badly frayed, as if it had been chewed, and the dull, waxy circles of illumination that spilled from the fixtures looked as if they had been chewed as well.

  The prisoner sat on a cot in the last cell, well out of the light. The deputy and the waitress couldn’t see him, but he could see them. “You got to do something about this bed,” the prisoner said. “Goddamn fleas are eatin’ me alive.”

  Vera laughed. Her Bakeresque breasts jiggled in spite of Playtex cross-your-heart engineering, and the dinner plate danced on her little tray. “You hear, that, Vin?” she said. ‘Your wolfman has fleas.”

  Vin chuckled and gave Vera a quick squeeze, one hand on her hip but not too low. She felt nice and warm and just soft enough under that Playtex — the girl had some muscle on her and that came as a surprise — and Vin started to think that maybe he could get a “yes” out of the waitress if this little sideshow expedition went just right.

  The prisoner chose that moment to step into the light. He was looking down, at Vin’s hand, and then his gaze drifted to the right, to the bulge that strained against Vin’s tight slacks.

  The prisoner shook his head as if disgusted. “Must be tough, livin’ in a small town. Slim pickin’s.”

  Vin’s hand came off of Vera’s hip like it was a hot skillet, but she didn’t see the connection. She was too busy staring at the skinny boy locked up in the cell, at his black leather jacket and greasy blue jeans and scuffed engineer’s boots and the weird tattooed star on the back of his left hand. “What gives?” she asked. “He ain’t no werewolf. He’s just a kid who’s seen too many Marlon Brando movies.”

  The prisoner winked at the deputy. “Oh, she’s a brain surgeon, this one, ain’t she?” He laughed, snapping his fingers in Vera’s direction. “Ain’t gonna be no full moon tonight, sweetcheeks. Unless, of course, you want to bend over and raise that tight skirt of yours. Big white moon like you’ve got, well… it’s bound to make me howl, at the very least.”

  Vera gasped. Vin said, ‘You watch your mouth, punk.”

  But the kid wouldn’t quit. “I’ll shut up when I’m good and ready, Deputy Fife. This your little Juanita from the diner? That what we have goin’ on here? My my my… what’s Thelma Lou gonna make of this, Deputy Fife?”

  Blood raced to Vin’s cheeks. Then the smartass kid sang it just the way Don Knotts did on television… Juanita, Jua-a-a-nita. Next he started to pop his fingers, whistling the theme from The Andy Griffith Show.

  Vera laughed, and the kid stopped instantly. “See, your girl thinks I’m funny.” He moved to the bars, wiggled his nose, as if catching Vera’s scent for the first time. “You smell just good enough, baby. Full moon’s comin’ tomorrow night. I’m gonna have quite an appetite, and that big behind of yours might be just enough to fill the bill.”

  Vera dropped the dinner tray. The plate broke. Undercooked french fries leapt onto the floor like albinos abandoning a sinking ship.

  The kid’s leather-sheathed arm was between the bars in a flash, and he snatched the hamburger just that quick. Tossed the bread and lettuce and various condiments aside. The hunk of gray meat disappeared down his gullet in one swallow.

  “See how hungry I am, baby? I’ll even eat dried-out, overcooked cowbutt. But that big behind of yours, it’s gonna take three or four bites, minimum, and I’m gonna have it raw and bloody.” As punctuation, the kid grinned, his lips still slick with hamburger grease. Then he started up whistling Andy Griffith again, real high-pitched.

  Vin’s ears hurt. He was all tense, quivering muscles straining the seams of his shirt.

  “He scares me, Vin.” Vera latched onto the deputy’s rocklike biceps. “Is he crazy? Or is he… is he really what he says he is?”

  Vin barely heard her. He had the key to the cell in one hand, and his gun was in the other, and all he could see was the puckered smirk plastered on the kid’s whistling mouth.

  Vin sucked a deep bread. A button popped off his shirt.

  “I don’t know if he’s a wolf,” the deputy said finally. “But you watch me bring the dog out of him.”

  TWO

  When Sheriff Dwight Cole stepped through the jailhouse door at seven-thirty the following morning, Deputies
Jerry Rutherford and Ben Hastings looked up from their checker game and said simultaneously, “We didn’t have a damn thing to do with it.”

  Sheriff Cole sighed. He hadn’t been getting much sleep lately. Seven-thirty in the a. m., and he hadn’t even had a cup of java or a decent breakfast, because he’d been steering clear of the diner for the last couple weeks.

  But that didn’t mean he couldn’t smell trouble in the air. “Vin Miller?” he asked.

  “Yep,” Hastings said. ‘Your big old meat-on-the-hoof Charles Atlas deputy has about done it this time.”

  Rutherford nodded. “I ain’t gonna say I told you so, Dwight… but I told you that you shouldn’t never leave a gorilla in charge of the zoo.”

  Rutherford laughed at his own joke. Hastings joined in.

  Dwight Cole didn’t.

  “That musclebound Barney Fife of yours figured he’d take my pelt,” the prisoner said. “I gotta admit he did a pretty fair job. It’s a good thing that I’m a fast healer.”

  Dwight cringed. The kid’s face was one big welt — green and blue and purple and red all at the same time. The kid could hardly breathe through his nose — which was surely busted — and his voice sounded like a gurgling echo that came from a deep well down in his gut.

  “I’ll get Doc Rivers to look at you,” Dwight said.

  The kid barked a short laugh. “Forget the doc. Better make it a vet, Sheriff. Or have you already forgotten my warning?”

  “I haven’t forgotten,” Dwight said. “You’re a werewolf. When the full moon rises tonight, you’ll change. And then you’re gonna make mincemeat out of me and my deputies and my jailhouse.”