Empty Pockets

by Dale Herd

  “Now y’all comes on up here ’n’ gets out of the sun,” the big woman said, all the women now smiling at him, their voices all crossing in a chorus, all saying, “Oh, yes, oh, my yes, oh, thank you, Jesus, oh, thank you, dear sweet Jesus, oh, thank you, oh, thank you, Jesus,” and as Jack started up the steps somehow a chair was produced, and the big woman was telling him she would invite him in, but there was only one room, and Gram’momma was down sick, and she was sorry, “Oh, praise Jesus,” her face very happy, all the other women continuing, “Oh, thank you, Lord, oh, praise be to Jesus,” then the woman called Momma came out with a large blue glass, handing it to Jack, the glass very cold to the touch, of a fluted, translucent, deep aqua blue, as large as a milkshake container, holding, as he lifted it to his mouth and drank, the coldest, cleanest, most pure water he had ever tasted.

  He couldn’t believe it.

  Dropping the duffel, Jack drank and drank and drank, all the women continuing to thank Jesus, telling him they all had been praying since before last Christmas for a bicycle for the children and had been telling them to trust that Jesus would not disappoint them and when they saw him coming down the hill they knew he was coming with their bicycle.

  “No way coulds I keep ’em back from runnin’ out to meets you,” the big woman said.

  The water was absolute bliss.

  They got him another glassful, and a third, and a cold wash-rag, and Jack cooled his face and the back of his neck, and the whole time the women kept saying, “Oh, praise, Jesus,” and finally, cooled down, he got up, handing the beautiful blue glass back to the big woman, thanked them all, nodding to the older woman called Momma, looked into the house, a hot, musty smell coming from inside the small, dark room, then turned, taking up his duffel, and stiffly walked back down the steps out into the strength-sapping heat and sunlight, and out onto the dusty track going by the little girl up on the seat of the bicycle being pushed by the boy, both very happy, and on past the yellowing grasses and finally up onto the heated road where almost before he had time to turn and wave to the women, all standing on the porch watching, he was picked up by a middle-aged white guy with a truck driver’s belly and red sideburns with a yellow, plastic snap-tabbed baseball hat driving a blue-and-white Colonial Bread step van who, when they were passed by two blacks in an old Chevrolet a few miles farther on, floored the van and raced after them flat out at fifty-five miles an hour, the van actually shuddering the whole time, not even for a second coming within sight of the Chevy, the speedometer needle quivering right around the fifty-five mark, completely pissed off that two blacks had had the nerve to pass him, saying, “That’s what that fuckin’ cocksucker John Kennedy ’n’ his brother Bobby did to this country. Lettin’ all them niggras think they can run everybody, them cocksuckers are takin’ over everything!”

  Morrison, he said his name was, racing the van like that all the way into Meridian, spilling most of the bread off the side shelves in the process, in between offering Jack drinks of J.T.S. Brown from a glass bottle.

  “The best bourbon,” he said, “in the whole entire goddamn United States of America.”

  Rawlins

  It was blowing again when Davis walked back, the wind coming hard down the cut along the switching tracks, the parked rows of empty boxcars hot sided and dead looking against the hillside of fine blowing dust sheeting behind them. A haze of dust was drifting east down the roofs of the cars, and coming back to the motel there were fire engines in the alley, the burned tool shed still smoldering, with the smoke mixing in the dust and the wino off one of the freights, who had apparently gone in, started a fire, and fallen asleep, being carried out badly burned and not expected to live.

  In the room Kathy and Glen were no longer playing Monopoly and the sequence of pills had worked, Joni was finished, and the doctor was coming out of the little bathroom with the steel pan full of the yellowish clear fluid mixed with blood standing there showing them the fetus. It was tiny, curled, and pinkish like a shrimp, and the fluid stank, and Kathy wouldn’t look at it, but Joni did and didn’t say anything, then said, “That’s my baby,” and said it again, disgusting Glen who went outside with the doctor to give him the other five hundred.

  Glen’s little brother was the one who had gotten Joni pregnant, with Glen getting him out of it, and Joni was crying now and was still crying when Glen came back in. He told her to knock it off, to not confuse, “What could be with what is.”

  Then they started another game of Monopoly without Joni.

  She had a fever and Kathy kept leaving the game to go ice her down. Finally Glen won the game, having two hotels each on Park Place and on Boardwalk, which broke everyone.

  In the morning Joni was better and ready to leave. The wind had stopped blowing and the sky was clear, but there was dust all over everything, and in the car going back to Boulder she told Glen she was in love with him. She made a big deal about it. She was sincere about it. She was riding up front with Glen. Kathy and Davis sat in the back. Davis was looking out at the desert. Kathy said to Joni, “Please, shut up.”

  A New Pair of Shoes

  SHERIFF’S DEPUTY R. O. HERNANDEZ:

  “The subject was facedown, the soles of his shoes facing the ceiling of the car. He didn’t respond or react to my tapping on the window. Using a wire I fished open the lock latch. There was no movement from him the entire time. Upon entry I pulled at his legs. They were stiff. There was no pulse. The hands were cold, with the fingers stiff. A coat of a brown rayon-like material was draped over the head. No ID was found on his person.”

  MR. ROBERT GAINES:

  “He came to the door right at closing time, him, and the gentleman over there. He said no one was going to push him around, he was coming in to see his brother. I let them in and they went by me. Then there was a banging-like in the office, then all of a sudden this strange screaming but choking-like sound, like someone couldn’t get their breath—that was Bill, I guess—then they came wrestling out, Vic with his hands squeezing around Bill’s neck, both of them rolling around. We jumped in there like a shot, trying to get Vic off him. It took both of us to pry them loose. Bill was trying to talk, you know, crying-like, ’cause he’d been choked, just lying there, but still trying to fight.

  “Finally he stopped fighting.

  “Both Mr. McNulty there and I had Victor over in the corner and we let Bill up and then this white stuff started coming out his mouth and he put his arms up above his head, and all of a sudden he starts this growling way down deep in his throat-like, and before we knew it he’s going after Vic again.

  “Well, I tripped him and then Vic jumps in, slugging him on the back, yelling, ‘Bill, Bill, I’m your brother, your brother!’ you know, trying to calm him down, then Mr. McNulty grabbed Victor and pulled him off.

  “Bill wasn’t moving. He was lying facedown. There wasn’t anything coming out of his mouth now. It was shut, and so were his eyes. ‘He’s out of it,’ Mr. McNulty kept saying.

  “I said, ‘I hope to Christ you didn’t hit him too hard, Vic.’

  “Vic was saying, ‘He’s my brother, he’s my goddamn brother!’

  “To me, neither of them, McNulty or Vic, were making much sense, but McNulty was trying to help. He had the front of Bill’s body, trying to pull it out from Vic, but Vic had Bill’s arm twisted behind his back, crying and yelling at him things like, ‘I’m your brother,’ which I already said, and that if he didn’t listen to him and calm down he was gonna get his arm broke.

  “He, Bill, wasn’t moving, though. Vic had hit him on the back when he’d fallen down.

  “Hard, I’d say, fairly hard. And he, Bill, Mr. Galen that is, went still, kind of sagging-like.

  “There was no way of knowing whether he was conscious or not.

  “I finally told McNulty to let it go. And then Vic let go, too.

  “I don’t know whose idea it was, but we picked Bill up and took him out to the car. I guess it was Vic’s idea.

  “Anyway, he,
Bill, was motionless all the way out to the car. I asked Vic if he thought Bill would be all right. He said, ‘Yeah, he’s done this before. We’ll just let him sleep it off.’

  “Thinking about it now, I remember he moved around for a few minutes there after he was hit.

  “No, sir, we didn’t think he was hurt that bad, I guess.”

  AUTOPSY REPORT:

  “Scrapes and bruises on the cheeks and bruises on the fore-head. Small hemorrhages on the skin indicating the body had been lying facedown for some time. The blood had settled. An extreme amount of congestion in the lungs: approximately 745 to 800 grams. A normal amount for a man of this size and age is 250 to 300 grams. Death resulted from pulmonary congestion and edema; that is, he suffocated to death.”

  MR. DOUGLAS “SKIPPER” MCNULTY:

  “Yes, sir, I believe at least three or four drinks. Vodka doubles, with a side of orange juice and a side of water, all in separate glasses.

  “Yes, I believe he was drunk at the time.

  “When we left the Wagon Wheel he asked would I like a pair of shoes. I said, ‘Sure.’

  “We drove out to his brother’s store and had a hassle about getting in, then went in the back into the office.

  “Billy, Mr. Galen that is, told Mr. Galen there, Victor, to fix his buddy up—that was me—with a pair of shoes, good dress shoes.

  “Mr. Galen there said something like, ‘No, not now. We’re too busy.’

  “He was sitting at his desk and had his computer on, and he turned around in his chair with his back to us, one of those swivel office chairs, and all of a sudden Billy lunged for him and grabbed him around the neck.

  “No, sir, I’d never met Mr. Galen before. That was our first meeting. I knew Billy several months before that. We were working at the Salvation Army and were on Disulfiram or Antabuse, as it’s commonly called, and got enough money collected to go out and get one tied on.

  “No, sir, I didn’t know the car was stolen. I thought it was Mr. Galen’s, Bill Galen’s, that is.

  “No, sir, we didn’t put no coat over his head, though we tried. That is, I don’t think there was no coat over his head. I don’t remember whether there was or not. I think I tried to pull that coat up over his head, but when I started to I got scared and felt foolish and—

  “No, sir, I didn’t know if he was dead or not.”

  MR. VICTOR GALEN:

  “They came about five minutes after closing. We were going about our normal procedures. I was in the back in my office totaling the daily sales. This guy I didn’t know and Bill—that’s my older brother—came in, and Bill asked for a pair of shoes. I said, ‘Not now, Billy, I’m tied up. I can get them for you tomorrow or any other time.’ The next thing I knew someone was grabbing me around the throat.”

  MR. DOUGLAS “SKIPPER” MCNULTY:

  “Yes, sir. I can say that as a fact. Even before we went to the store he was definitely drunk and didn’t seem to be acting like himself. I always thought he was pretty even tempered about things. He never gave me any grief. On the way over there, though, to the store, I mean, he got to talking about his father and his brother and that his father had screwed him over, giving the family business to his brother and sister, and had been responsible for a lot of bad things that had happened to both himself and his mother, but there was nothing he could do about it now.

  “No, sir, I didn’t have no driver’s license. I was afraid to drive anyways. I walked on down the street and over to the Conga Room. I was there until it closed. At least I think I was. I don’t remember what happened after that.

  “No, sir, I don’t know why Mr. Galen then came out and gave me the pair of shoes. It seemed sort of crazy to me, but I thanked him for them. These are the same shoes here, the ones I’m wearing now.”

  Skipper McNulty lifted his legs up from under the heavy oak table and extended them out beyond the edge to show his shoes. The shoes were highly polished. Several of the jurors exchanged looks.

  The coroner, a hint of a smile leaving his face, said, “So you like those shoes?”

  “Yes, Your Honor, I do.”

  “Mr. Firestone.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “Mr. Firestone. I’m the county coroner. I’m not a judge.”

  “Yes, sir, Your Honor,” McNulty said.

  Barnett laughed and heard Hummer laugh.

  “That’ll be all,” the coroner said.

  Everyone stood up and began to file out from the courtroom.

  Victor Galen got up heavily from the table. All three hundred pounds of him. He was using his hands on the table to steady himself. They were the biggest hands Barnett had ever seen on a man.

  Barnett watched Galen talk to his attorney, receive several pats on the back, then turn and lumber out of the room.

  Barnett got up and walked over to Hummer. “What happens now?”

  “Nothing happens,” Hummer said. “The coroner will advise to exonerate. The jury will come back in and do it. They don’t call these things unless they’re going to exonerate. You call in a graf, two grafs tops.”

  “You mean we spent four hours sitting in here for that? Can’t we do more, a human-interest feature or something?”

  “Guy was a drunk, a fuckup, and now he’s dead,” Hummer said, opening his phone. “That’s the human interest? Where’s the human interest?”

  “Well, the way McNulty held his feet out to show off the shoes, for one thing.”

  Hummer laughed.

  “Save it for a book,” he said. “It certainly isn’t news.”

  Then: “No, amend that to a drunk, a grandstanding fuckup, and now a corpse—dead at fat brother’s giant hands after diddling himself out of family fortune.”

  “Maybe I will,” Barnett said.

  “And make mention of those hands. Once they were around the poor bastard’s neck, the weight alone was enough for asphyxiation. And even if that didn’t do it, once he was hit it was done. Can you imagine getting hit by one of those and then having the rest of him fall on you?”

  “Of course,” Barnett said, “I’ll certainly use that, too.”

  “Sure, you will,” Hummer said, putting the phone to his ear. “Always leaves an impression, your first one of these.

  “Hello, Desk?” he said, then handed the phone to Barnett.

  “Aren’t we jumping the gun?”

  “Nope. You do it. Got to get started sometime.”

  “What’ll I say?”

  “Coroner’s Inquest Exonerates Shoe Store Owner,” said Hummer.

  “Nothing about the shoes.” Barnett smiled.

  “That’s for your book.” Hummer smiled.

  “Desk . . .” Barnett said into the phone

  “No, no, wait a minute,” said Hummer. “Let’s hold on a minute.”

  “They’re not going to exonerate?”

  “No,” Hummer said, “let’s think about your book. First there’s the unanswered question of our pal McNulty. Is it, one, he went there with Billy, as he called him, to help kill Victor and it backfired, or two, and more likely, he went there at Victor’s request to set Bill up so Victor could get rid of him once and for all, and our Mr. McNulty gets a new pair of shoes?”

  “Jesus Christ,” Barnett said, lowering the phone, “maybe you should write the book.”

  “You see,” Hummer said, “if you go talk to McNulty, you might just find out he’s done time for aggravated assault.”

  “How do you know that?”

  “I’ve been covering this beat for thirty years, Richard. I’ve run across McNulty before. He’s not very bright, our Mr. McNulty, but he likes to dress nicely. And then there’s the other character, this Gaines character. Now who do you think it was that went in the pen with old Skipper on the same charge?”

  “You’re kidding!”

  “Nope,” Hummer said. “Not at all. You should have seen what they did to the guy they did. Hammered him in the back of the skull with a carpenter’s hammer for his wallet, then tossed him
into a dumpster in back of the Safeway, and remarkably, the guy crawled out and lived to tell about it. This was back in ’99, and now here they are again.”

  “Well, with Victor it still could be self-defense,” Barnett said.

  “Always a possibility,” Hummer said.

  Barnett saw the jurors already filing back in. He lifted the phone back up to his ear, ready to speak. “Now what am I supposed to say?”

  “Coroner’s Inquest Exonerates Shoe Store Owner,” Hummer said.

  The Mary Magdalene Suite

  My dear Bobby, I am sorry I could not talk with you when you called but I had a client here and was with her in a trance reading then. You should have called back later. I guess you didn’t have your phone and cannot call back so easily. Call again and if you call between 8 a.m. and noon you will be able to talk with me. I hope you like the new Chopin nocturne I sent you and I trust the piano is still able to play. Tell me if it isn’t and we will get help to fix it right.

  I have bad news to tell you.

  My daughter Mary murdered her best girlfriend three Mondays ago at midnight and now Mary has to stand trial and may go to a women’s prison for life. I have a good defense attorney hired and he is going to have her plead temporary insanity, then she will go to a state mental hospital for the mentally ill for five to ten years. It is a sad story of a girl who has been on drugs for these last four years and an alcoholic for eight years before that. Mary weighs less than one hundred pounds now and has no desire to live anymore. She knows she has wasted her life and all my money for the past fourteen years. I’m broke now. I have gone through two hundred and fifty-four thousand dollars in that time, trying to make something of her, but she didn’t want to be anything, and has been my enemy.

  So now the preliminary comes up August 15 and we shall soon see what they decide to do with her after much psychiatric evaluation with three psychs. This is the angelic-looking little girl you used to jiggle on your knee. I saw this tragedy all coming a long time ago and warned her to quit that girl. Mary is a lesbian and this was a sordid type of affair with a cheap whore girl. Mary got tired of her but the girl wouldn’t let go of her and asked Mary to kill her rather than ever leave her. Mary obliged and shot her four times.