by Ed Kurtz
Quay sits on an aluminum gas can, smoking, with the bow laid in front of his feet. Three hay bales smolder behind him, glowing like the tip of his cigarette when the wind picks up. In the extra light put off from the flames, Wyatt sees the limp figure of a man tied to an unlit bale, his face more pulpwood than flesh. He squats down on his haunches as soon as the hill flattens out into field. When his father finishes, he flicks the cigarette towards the man, then gets up and draws the bow back a few times, being careful not to dryfire the line.
“Come on over here, son,” Quay yells. “Got some target practice.”
Wyatt rubs his kneecaps, eases himself up, edges along the dark into light of the clearing.
“Glad to see your legs work still,” Quay says. “Figured you’d come down faster if I left you outside.” He lowers the bow, wipes his hand on the seam of his jeans.
“What did you do here?” The heat from the hay warms Wyatt’s face. Adrenaline flows into his arms, speedbags his heart against his ribs.
“Don’t worry bout your aim being off. Sighted this to fifty yards. I’ll even give you first shot.” Quay removes an arrow from the quiver. Nocks it in the string. Extends the bow to him.
“You think I’m going to plug that man after you killed him?”
“Why not,” Quay says. “He won’t feel a thing. I just want his soul to leak out some.”
Wyatt’s close enough to notice Quay’s red-veined eyes, the fresh meth powdered around the edges of his mouth and nose. His clinking teeth.
“I’m through here,” Wyatt says.
Quay’s eyes swell open more. “You think you’re done with this? We haven’t even burned him yet. Nobody’s going to autopsy a meth-head who burned up in his own lab.”
“Don’t matter none to me.” Wyatt jerks the arrow from its rest. The broad head slices his hand as he breaks it in half across his knee. His body has softened from the drugs, grown light enough for pain to sting a little more.
Quay stumbles backwards and trips over the can, but monkey-rolls back to his feet. He nocks another arrow, torques the string. Aims for Wyatt’s center mass. But turns and squares himself away. Fires into the dead man. The tip thuds when it connects, fans out and punches a half inch hole between the man’s collarbone and shoulder. Quay drops the bow at Wyatt’s feet.
“You’ve calmed down a lot since your last concussion, boy,” Quay says. “I’d figured jail would’ve put more stiffness in your spine. Now take your shot so we can cut him loose and clean up.”
Wyatt picks up the bow, loosens an arrow from the quiver. Feels his blood cool and stick to the aluminum shaft. Quay stands behind him, his breath boiling down Wyatt’s neck. Wyatt’s back muscles tense when he draws the string up to his eye to line his shot.
Quay says, “Use the center sights,” and then steps a few paces back.
Wyatt’s hands grow tighter. He stares down the green tipped sight pin at the No Longer Man with his father’s arrow sticking out like a single quill. Hears his father’s laughter blend in with the pops from the burning hay bales. With a compound bow, he knows he could look down this sight forever—the tension slack and settled. He exhales and holds a few times, lets the cold night air settle in his lungs.
Waits until his father’s laughter dies down.
Then spins around to face Quay, opening his fingers.
The blur of metal leaves him too fast to see where the arrow bites at first. But then his eyes and ears catch up. The shot’s too low for a kill. Quay plugs his thumb in the new hole above his hip. He rushes Wyatt. Paws at him like a cornered beast. Wyatt comes up with his boot and tags Quay in the thigh, staggers him. He nocks another arrow, keeps his grip, and steadies himself for the shot. It’s enough this time.
He cuts the No Longer Man from the hay, pushes the arrow through, and breaks it off to pull out both pieces. He figured he at least owed him that much. He would have to work the rest of this night to hide these men, but he would have the hay cinders to work by.
The meth lab his father mentioned is a windowless house with sheets hung for a door not far from them.
Wyatt drags his father first, then the other. Holds his breath when he douses a tattered sheet in the last of the kerosene. Sparks it. Keeps his lips sealed after he walks out. There were six more days left, but Wyatt had survived this one.
Redemption
By Terrence McCauley
It was toward the end of August way back in 1980 and hotter than it had any right to be. Hotter than it had been in Georgia, anyway.
Mama had just moved us up to my grandma’s house after Daddy died in a car accident the winter before. Slippery road conditions following a storm, they’d said. One morning, he was at the breakfast table, kissing me on the cheek and telling me to be a good girl at school. The next day, he wasn’t there. And he hadn’t been there any of the mornings since.
There hadn’t been much to keep us in Georgia once Daddy had gone to live with Jesus in Heaven. So Mama took me back to a place called Amenia, New York. It was the same place where she’d grown up and my grandma still lived. She promised that the summers would be shorter and cooler up north than they’d been back home. But that summer had been the worst heat I’d ever known. I’d only lived through ten summers, mind you, but still considered myself a great expert on summertime.
I supposed I considered myself an expert in a lot of things back in the summer of 1980. But that particular summer taught me a lot. About life. About everything, really.
I remember one day in particular in the middle of August. I was working on my bicycle under the shade of an elm tree near Grandma’s house, swatting away sweat and mosquitoes, when I heard Charlie’s truck coming down our street. I did what I always did when I heard his truck: I grabbed the Miraculous Medal that hung around my neck—the same medal Mama and Daddy had given me for my First Communion. I squeezed it hard and prayed to God with everything I had. Please let Charlie keep on going, Lord. Don’t let him stop here. Please!
You see, I didn’t like Charlie very much.
But Charlie liked Mama a whole lot. Most men did. She was thin and pretty and friendly, with long brown hair and a smile that made men smile, too.
But out of all the men in the area she could’ve picked, she’d gone and picked Charlie Mills.
Charlie always smelled of old beer and motor oil and Marlboros. His beard was bushy and flecked with gray. Some of it was from age, some of it was from cigarette ash. I never could figure out which.
But Mama didn’t seem to mind. She said he looked like Burt Reynolds, but I always thought he looked more like Cooter from The Dukes of Hazzard. Mama warned me to never say that around Charlie because he might get mad.
Trouble was: Charlie got mad anyway. A lot.
But I was the only one in the house who seemed to mind him coming around.
Grandma liked him because he always brought along a six-pack of Budweiser whenever he came to visit. He let her smoke his cigarettes, too. Marlboro Reds, which weren’t Grandma’s brand, but she wasn’t very particular. Especially if the cigarettes were plentiful and free.
Just about the only one in the house who didn’t like Charlie was me. And the feeling was more than mutual.
The rattle of Charlie’s old truck grew louder and louder as it came down our street, making me squeeze that medal tighter. Please, Lord Jesus, please don’t let him stop. Please, God, just let him keep on going.
His truck sounded like no other truck I’d ever heard, a kind of squeal mixed in with the rumbling and rattling. It sounded like it was about to break down at any moment. I found myself daydreaming sometimes that it did break down on an old back road somewhere in Millbrook or Pine Plains; somewhere where no one would find him for days and he’d be out there in the cold all alone. Yes, I knew it was August, but I was never one to allow seasonal realities to get in the way of my daydreams.
Mama did her best to make me like Charlie. “I know he’s not your daddy, honey, but be a good girl and give him a chance.
He means well and he loves us.”
But I knew better. Charlie never meant well, except to get something he wanted. I knew he liked Mama because she gave him want he wanted almost every night. They used to keep quieter about it when he first started coming around since they always thought I was sleeping, but it was always too hot to sleep. Besides, I could never sleep when Charlie was in that house.
From my room, I could hear him sweet-talk her until she gave him what he’d come for. After he got it, he’d be mean to her again. He’d raise his voice and sometimes, I thought I heard slaps. I used to hear her crying just before his truck door slammed and that engine of his started up.
I knew I should’ve gotten up and comforted her, but I never did. Because she knew what Charlie was, but let him come around anyway. Grandma had an excuse: she got a couple of cans of beer and some cigarettes out of him. All Mama got was poked and abuse.
I always wanted to talk to Mama about it, but never did. I tried telling Grandma about it, but she just told me to mind my own business. “Grown ups cry for lots of reasons, Sarah. You’ll learn that as you get older. ‘Til then, you just keep your eyes open and your mouth shut and you just might learn a thing or two about the ways of the world.”
So that’s just what I did whenever Charlie was around. I kept my mouth shut. But my eyes open. My ears, too.
Those same ears heard Charlie cut the engine as he pulled into my Grandma’s driveway. Mama would’ve been angry at me for saying that. She wanted me to start thinking of this place as our home. Home was back in Georgia, in our house with Mama and Daddy. For me, home was gone for good and forever.
Since Charlie was already there, I stopped squeezing the medal. I knew God always answered. Sometimes He said yes. This time, He’d said no.
I made like I was fiddling with my bike chain as I heard the door of his truck squeal as he opened it and the gravel crunch beneath his boots as he climbed down. I heard the rustle of the paper bag with the six-packs in it, and most likely, a pack of cigarettes for Grandma. That’s all he ever brought with him. Nothing practical like food.
My stomach ran cold as I realized he’d most likely be staying for supper.
And for dessert with Mama later.
My stomach ran colder when I realized Charlie had stopped behind me on the driveway.
It wasn’t because I was too close to the driveway.
It was because of the bike.
“Why are you working on that old piece of junk, bumpkin?” Charlie always called me that when no one was around. He said he called me that on account of my accent, but when Mama or Grandma were around, he made it sound more like Pumpkin. “What happened to the bike I bought you last week?”
“Nothing,” I lied. He’d left it waiting for me in the garage a week ago and I still hadn’t touched it. “I just wanted to fix the chain is all.”
“But it doesn’t need fixing, bumpkin. You should just throw it out.”
“I ain’t throwing out nothing my daddy gave me,” I said louder than I knew I was supposed to speak to an adult, especially Charlie.
I closed my eyes and thumbed my Miraculous Medal again, praying he’d just storm off into the house and drink his beer and smoke his cigarettes with Grandma. But I knew he wouldn’t do that.
He just stayed exactly where he was and sucked his teeth. “Is that how they’re teaching kids to talk in school today?”
I couldn’t believe I said: “They teach me to speak the truth.”
“Well you’re not down south any more, bumpkin? You’re up here now, where people talk good English, not like some goddamned field hand.” He took a step closer and I squeezed my medal tighter. I couldn’t move, even though I wanted to. He tapped the side of his boot against my bike. “Up here, people appreciate the gifts they get.”
“I appreciate my gifts. This bike was a gift from my daddy! My real daddy, not you.”
He shifted the bag of beer to his left hand and flipped my bike with his right. It flew a few feet and crashed against the same elm tree that had been giving me shade.
I didn’t know if it was broken and I didn’t dare look. I just stayed where I’d been, looking down at the grass, pinching my medal harder than I ever thought possible. Please, Jesus. Please, God. Please, Virgin Mary. Just let him leave.
“You’d better remember two things, bumpkin. First is that your daddy’s dead.” He leaned down close enough for me to smell the stale beer and cigarettes on his beard and breath. “Second thing is: I’m not going anywhere. And don’t worry, little lady. In a year or two when you’re grown a bit more, you’ll be awful happy to have me around.”
I flinched as he grabbed the chain and snatched it from my neck. The catch at the back was thicker than the loop that held the medal and it flew out of my fingers with the rest of the chain.
“That’s my communion chain!” I shrieked at him. “My mama and daddy gave that to me!”
I watched him put it around his own greasy neck as he walked away. He pulled the screen door open and went inside. I heard Grandma put on a fuss about how good it was to see him. I heard the crack of beer cans being pried open a minute or two later.
I stayed kneeling in the grass, alone, as the coldness in my stomach was replaced by heat. A white heat of anger. I wanted to jump up and claw his eyes out. I wanted to pull him by his greasy hair and throw him out of my grandma’s house. And I called it my grandma’s house on purpose because it would never be my house. Not as long as he was welcome in it.
I wanted to do a lot of things, but I couldn’t. I was only a ten-year-old girl in the fifth grade so all I did was kneel there and cry.
I’d just finished wiping my eyes when I noticed Mr. Anderson standing on the sidewalk, looking at me over the low hedges that lined my grandma’s property on Firehouse Road. He had a fishing pole on his shoulder like a little boy running away from home.
But he was far from a little boy. I knew Mr. Anderson was eighty years old because he’d told me, but if he hadn’t told me, I would’ve thought he was younger than that. He was still a large man, wide and tall and thin. He wasn’t stooped over and wrinkled like lots of old people are. Grandma was only seventy, but looked like she could’ve been Mr. Anderson’s mama.
He was grandma’s neighbor, living in a small old house across the way, and he’d been the only friend I’d made since coming north. The only friend I guess I’d even tried making, especially since school wasn’t set to start for another month or more.
Most grown-ups did the same thing when they saw a kid crying, especially a little girl. They ran over and tried to dry your tears and told you everything would be okay.
But not Mr. Anderson.
He didn’t try to comfort me or tell me it was going to be okay. He just stayed on the sidewalk and smiled at me, like we both knew there was nothing he could do that would make it better. Because he couldn’t. And that made me cry all the more.
“I hate him!” I shouted into the grass over and over again. “I wish he’d die. He kicked over my bike for no good reason. I hate him!”
Mr. Anderson still stood there, still smiling. “I know, honey. That wasn’t a very nice thing to do, was it? But you’re not going let him ruin our date are you?”
My eyes were still blurry when I looked at him pointing to the fishing pole on his shoulder. “We’re supposed to go fishing today, remember?”
No, I didn’t remember and I knew I didn’t forget, either. I never forgot when I was supposed to see him. But I didn’t want to be there when Mama got home from the bank. And I didn’t want to sit around by myself and listen to Grandma and Charlie get drunk. Grandma got a hoarse, sloppy laugh when she got drunk and I didn’t like it.
I ran to the shed where I kept my fishing things because Mama didn’t want the house to smell like fish. She didn’t have to worry, since Mr. Anderson and I never really caught much. And if we did, we usually dumped them back in the stream.
We walked along Route 22 to our favorite fishing spot. It was
well off the highway behind thick trees and brush, so you didn’t hear the noise from the cars speeding up and down Route 22. The old train tracks didn’t have trains running on them anymore, so we didn’t have to worry about the train rumbling by or blowing its whistle to scare the fish. Every once in a while, an old deer would come out and look at us before taking a drink of water and disappearing back in the woods, but that didn’t bother us. We figured he had more of a right to be there than we did.
The late afternoon sunlight had turned the leaves to a golden hue all around us and the grass smelled warm and good. It was only a half a mile away from Grandma’s house as the crow flies. But if I was a crow, I would’ve flown further away than that.
We’d had our lines in the water for a while before Mr. Anderson got around to asking me: “You want to tell me what all that screaming was about?”
I’d been feeling so good, I’d almost forgotten all about it. “Same as it always is. Charlie.”
Mr. Anderson checked his line for tension, then let it sit for a while. He was the oldest man I knew, but he didn’t wear glasses and his hands didn’t shake, either. He didn’t grunt or complain when he sat down and his bones didn’t pop when he moved. He might’ve been old, but he didn’t feel or act old. His hair was grayer than it was white and he had a big jaw that didn’t tremble when he spoke.
“Why don’t you like Charlie?” he asked me.
“He doesn’t treat me very well,” I said. “He doesn’t treat Mama very well, either.”
I knew I’d complained about Charlie before, but I’d never told him that and he caught it. “What do you mean?”
“He never brings anything important, like food or stuff,” I said, meaning it. “He gave me a bike a couple of weeks ago, but…”
I left the thought hanging there, like our hooks at the end of our line. I’d hoped I wouldn’t have to talk any more about it, but Mr. Anderson wasn’t the type who let me get away with things like that. “But what, Sarah?”
