Abnormal Man: A Novel

by Grant Jerkins

  “Maybe later?”

  “They’re busy with that serial killer case. The jars. And these two men are detectives from Atlanta. Want to see you.”

  “Well, we just—” you start to explain.

  “Atlanta? Why the fuck for?” The sheriff sighs and looks defeated. “Come in the office.”

  And you follow him.

  Sheriff Anderson is tall, at least six-four, with a big belly and grey hair. He tells Burdick to close the door.

  “Listen fellas, I appreciate it and everything, but you should’ve called first. We’re not Mayberry, for Christ’s sake. I may not be Andy Taylor, but I’m sure as shit not Barney Fuckin’ Fife. Like I say, I appreciate it, but we’re okay. And why Atlanta cops? Who called you?”

  “Is there maybe something going on here we don’t know about?”

  “How’s that?”

  “Sheriff, I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “You’re not here ‘cause of the abduction?”

  “Abduction?”

  “Jesus-in-a-side-car. I’m sorry.”

  The sheriff extends his hand and you shake it. Then he does the same for Burdick.

  “I thought . . . It’s been so crazy around here. The Lovejoys are—well listen, what can I help you with?”

  Burdick speaks up. “There is a man living in Stockmar County, one John Chandler Norris, who we are investigating in connection with a vice operation in Atlanta.”

  You jump in. “And as a courtesy, we wanted to check in and let your deputies know we’d be asking questions and snooping around. We didn’t really need to see you. Just a courtesy check-in.”

  “One a them perverts, huh? Yeah, we got us a few. Snoop all ya want. You can check with Belk out front, see what we got on file with him, but other than that, we kinda got our hands full. Any chance he could be involved in our abduction? A little girl, eight years old, and a boy—young man about eighteen.”

  “Highly unlikely. Norris’s M.O. is a slow burn. Building relationships with children over time. Earning their trust. He’s never advanced beyond child grooming and enticement. Never snatched a child. And he typically targets boys. Prepubescent boys.”

  Burdick adds, “Although he will exploit young girls, pornographic images—”

  “Child abuse images,” you cut in. You prefer the current terminology. Also, it is more accurate.

  “Child abuse images he can sell or trade,” Burdick says, correcting himself and cutting his eyes at you. “But, no, he’s never done anything violent. Never hurt a child physically.”

  “Still sounds like he ought to be locked up.”

  “He used to be. Now he’s cured. Ha-ha,” Burdick says.

  “Thank you, Sheriff. Is there any way we can assist in your current situation?”

  “No. It was a violent abduction. Beat the child’s mother severely. No contact from the perpetrators, yet, but we expect a ransom demand. Wealthy family. GBI was called in for an assist, but they got their hands full with that nutcase in Valdosta puttin’ peoples’ heads in jars. People preserves. Goddamn ocean’s cracked in half and boiling over with black tar oil and us human beings runnin’ around like we can’t kill each other fast enough and just what in God’s name is this world comin’ to?”

  “Before we go,” Burdick says, “the address we got for Norris on the sex offenders registry—can’t get it to come up on our GPS. Like it doesn’t exist.”

  “What is it?”

  Burdick read from his notepad, “1300 Lynch Mountain Meadows.”

  Anderson nods and says, “Yep, that’s just a clearing in a stand of woods at the base of Lynch Mountain. Homeless camp there. People livin’ in lean-tos and cardboard boxes. A little hobo camp. That’s the address that goes into the computer for anyone who don’t have anywhere to live. I’ll draw you a map how to get there.”

  * * *

  Yes, Norris is small time. The so-called “innocent” stuff. Barely a blip on the trafficking radar. Never explicit, yet intended to arouse. He sticks to the indicative/nudist category. The kind of thing every family photo album has at least a few of. But context is the key. Family snapshots are not sold on the Internet and masturbated over in locked rooms. Context. Sick, yes, repulsive, yes, but certainly nothing worth driving three hours for. Still, though, Norris is plugged into the network. They find each other. Even before the Internet, they always somehow managed to find each other. Network. Buy. Sell. Trade. They find each other. They know things. You want to talk to him. You want to know who he knows. See if he’s got any fresh pictures. You hate the smell of Polaroid pictures. That plasticy odor and the sharp sting of the chemical reactants and the self-developing agents. That smell makes you angry. You just want to talk to Norris. See what he knows. Who he knows. He’s a dough boy. He’ll yield to your touch.

  The shantytown looks just like you expect it to. Campfires and cardboard shacks. Plywood lean-tos. Plastic roofs and canvas sheeting. Every town’s got a place like it, some big, and some small like this one. Even mountainfolk. But not many people ever see it. Shantytown. Niggertown. The Barrens. Dodge City. Hooverville. Nice Job, Mr. President.

  You are obviously police, so nobody much wants to talk to you. You describe Norris (fat, white, gross) over and over. Finally you see recognition in one man’s eyes. The man has lost several teeth, most likely from poor dental hygiene—you have to reposition yourself to stay upwind of his breath. He tells you that Norris was ostracized. Run out of the camp. These are people who have fallen victim to the hard times, the man tells you. The economy. Some folks are here with children. And Norris became too friendly. People didn’t like it. Forced him out. He says there was talk of an empty trailer, in Chastain Holler right on the Chattahoochee River. Drug up there as a hunter’s cabin, but abandoned, the man said, and maybe you all might want to take a look see.

  And he drew you a map.

  It’s a good map. Through sweet gum and scrub pine, over rutted, crumbling asphalt that disintegrates into dirt roads, until you make your final left turn and there sits the trailer like a polyp on otherwise healthy skin. A Cutlass and some kind of old Datsun are parked beside the trailer—atypical moles that threaten to divide out of control. In the distance, storm clouds portend that this day will not end well.

  Cris is curled up next to you, and you are lying on the couch looking at your Canadian travel brochures. There are pictures of jagged rocky mountains, dusted in snow like something sweet from a bakery. Then photos of vast prairies that give way to ancient, continent-wide expanses of spruce, balsam fir, jack pine, white birch, and aspen. It says the northern stretches of this region are home to Canada's boreal forest—one of the earth's last remaining relatively undisturbed forests large enough to maintain its biodiversity. And that is where you will live. You know the air up there has got to be pure. And you wonder if Cris would thrive up there, too. Away from all the junk that makes her sick. You could fish from the clean rivers and you wouldn’t have to worry about mercury contamination or PCBs that build up in the fish.

  “This is where we’re going to live,” you tell Cris, and point at the picture of the boreal forest, even though you know she isn’t looking or listening. She is sluggish. Groggy. Tired and out of it. But she will be okay. “Just me and Frank. He takes care of me. And I take care of him, too. Not in obvious ways, but in ways that are important. He needs me.”

  You want to burn something. You need a release. But there is nowhere to do it. You are good at hiding the smell, but you don’t want to risk any smoke at all in the trailer in case it messes up Cris’s breathing. You could go out in the woods, but you don’t want to leave Cris by herself. But the brochures are working. They calm you, and they seem to soothe Cris too.

  In the back of a kitchen drawer you found an old piece of candy. Butterscotch wrapped in yellow-orange cellophane. You’re sure it’s stale but probably still okay. You cleaned it up by rubbing it on your shirt and it is transformed into a shiny disc like the sun. Now you pull it out o
f your pocket and put it in Cris’s hand. Or you try to. Her hand is clenched into a hard little fist and you can’t pry it open to put the candy inside. Even if she doesn’t want to eat it, you figure she might enjoy having something to hold on to. That it might bring her comfort.

  “And after we build the cabin, we can lay out on a rock in the warm sun next to the river. But not too long, because there’s a chunk missing out of the sky now, called the ozone hole, and it lets in the bad—”

  There is a knock at the door and you put the brochures in your rear pants pocket. You put the butterscotch disc in your front pocket. You are about to run out the back door, but you don’t want to leave Cris, because you don’t know who is out there, and maybe they are going to try and break in. You are stuck. Frozen. Then a voice calls through the door, “Police.” And what you do is take the blanket and cover Cris with it so that she is hidden. You open the door.

  The man at the door shows you a gold badge in a little black wallet. He says, “Hello, I’m Detective Jernigan and this is Detective Burdick. May we come in?”

  You have seen enough TV to know that you never ever tell the police it is okay to come into your home. It’s like inviting a vampire inside. It gives them power.

  “I’m not allowed to have people inside,” you say, which seems pretty reasonable and not likely to instill suspicion.

  “Could we speak with Chandler Norris please?”

  “He’s not here.”

  “Are you sure?”

  You nod.

  “When will he be back?”

  “Should be in a couple of hours.”

  “Couldn’t we just come inside and wait for him?”

  You think of Cris hidden under the cover on the couch and you feel the muscles in your arm tighten in preparation for opening the door wide and letting the detectives inside, because what you are doing, what you are a part of, is wrong, but then you think about Frank and vast prairies and jagged mountains dusted like powdered sugar and the undisturbed biodiversity of the boreal forest. And you can see Frank emerging from the clean river, reclining on an oven-warm sun-baked slab of smooth river rock. He does not wear his artificial leg. He is naked and unashamed and made warm in the diffuse glow. And you join him there, naked and unashamed in the warm light.

  “No,” you say. “I’m not allowed.”

  “Son, how old are you?”

  “Eighteen.”

  “Uh-huh. Well, you might want to be careful whose company you keep.”

  “Yes, sir,” you say and close the door.

  * * *

  Frank and Chandler are sitting in lawn chairs in the backyard. Particolored vinyl straps stretched across rust-pitted aluminum frames. It is a wonder Chandler’s chair can hold him.

  As you walk up, Frank says to Chandler, “Damn, look at those clouds.”

  “Quite ominous looking, my boy, quite ominous.”

  You are always careful in how you approach the two of them. They have taken to lounging around, long hours of inactivity, but you’ve found that small disturbances can pierce that calm shell the way a pin pops a balloon, and the turmoil underneath boils to the surface.

  You clear your throat to announce your presence. Chandler cranes his head on wattled neck flesh.

  “Sweet William!”

  “The police were here. They asked for Chandler.”

  Chandler stands and the lawn chair is stuck to his backside. The aluminum frame is bowed and molded to his flesh. He picks it off the way someone might pick underwear out of their butt.

  He turns to Frank and says, “Get the rope.”

  The name of the roadside diner is actually THE GREASY SPOON. You like that.

  The waitress’s name is Starla, and after you’ve both given Starla your orders, you tell Burdick to save your seat while you walk out to the parking lot. You prefer privacy when you make personal phone calls.

  “Hey, it’s me. You up?”

  You listen to what she has to say. You hate the lethargy and apathy that is always in her voice. It’s been so long now, you can’t even remember what it was her voice used to sound like. And then you realize that you can’t remember what your own voice used to sound like, either. Carefree? No, you’re sure that you never sounded carefree. What an absurd word.

  “I know,” you say. “Me too. Are you sure you’re okay? If it gets too bad you’ve got some of those other pills left. In the cabinet.”

  The wind is picking up, the temperature dropping. The blowing makes it hard to hear her on the other end.

  “I’ll be home tonight. Why don’t you see if there’s a good movie on TV? Maybe Lifetime. Okay. Me too. I better get off. Bad storm coming. I love you.”

  You press End and stand there at the edge of the parking lot, looking down into a trash-filled gorge. The shifting atmospheric pressure plays havoc inside your head.

  * * *

  At the booth in The Greasy Spoon, you find Burdick hunched over his phone. He’s running some kind of map application and as he runs his finger over the screen, little text balloons pop up.

  “Just checking the area on the registry map,” he says. “Got one Uday Rajaguru. Possession of child pornography. Currently employed as a gardener.”

  “Birds of a feather.”

  “Might as well check. Stir them up a little bit.”

  Starla sets your plates down and says, “Y’all enjoy that.”

  You stand outside the trailer. The wind is blowing leaves and pine needles from the trees. You look over and see Billy holding the girl wrapped in a blanket, cradled in his arms. She is somewhere between sleep and coma. A clenched fist dangling from the cloth folds is the only real sign of life.

  Chandler walks up to you, his black caftan or muumuu or housedress or whatever it is, flowing around him like Lawrence of fucking Arabia. He’s carrying a shovel in one hand, and with his other hand he drags a thirty-two-gallon Rubbermaid tote. From inside the tote Chandler pulls out a five-foot section of garden hose. He uses a box cutter to carve an X in the lid of the tote, and he feeds the section of hose through it. A breathing tube. This is Plan B.

  “Where’s the rope?”

  You open the Cutlass’s trunk using the key. The nylon cord is in there, coiled and ready. There is Chandler’s Colt .45, nestled in the center of the coil. Bessie. Like the head of a sleeping snake. And you remember. You remember. The convenience store. Shop N Save. You were still a kid. Chandler wouldn’t carry a gun. He was afraid of guns then. Squeamish. And that makes you realize that Chandler really is different since they gave him the shock treatment, but he was never a good guy.

  * * *

  You stand together at the counter. Chandler sets a forty-ounce Miller Lite next to the register and asks the man behind the counter for a carton of More 120s. When the man turns to reach for the cigarettes, Chandler hands you the forty. You take aim, then shatter the heavy bottle at the base of the man’s skull. He goes down. Even then, you were prone to violence. You were different from other people. Something inside you was missing. You would cut, and kick, and shoot, and break and stomp and hurt and twist and tear, and you never thought twice about it. That was the way God had made you. Or maybe it was the way your father made you. It didn’t matter. You didn’t feel it.

  Chandler helps you over the counter. On the other side, your foot slides in the pool of beer and blood that has oozed across the floor and you go down. You get back up and punch the No Sale key on the register. You grab all the cash and hand it to Chandler and it disappears into the folds of the material that drapes his body.

  * * *

  You pull the gun and the rope from the trunk. You shove the gun through your pants waist and hand the rope to Chandler.

  “Frankie, I want you to stay here. Don’t open the door. Just keep watch. We need to know if we have visitors.” Chandler, the folds of his garment whipping around him, turns to Billy and says, “Okay, let’s go.”

  You pull the Colt from your waist and level it at Chandler’s head, stoppin
g him cold. Your mind is as conflicted and uncentered as the weather.

  “Don’t let me down. Not again.”

  “Moi? Bitch, please. You’re not making sense.” But he knows. He understands.

  * * *

  Chandler reaches across the counter and gives you a hand, pulling you out of there. But the cashier is up on his knees and he grabs your shirt tail. He pulls you back and you fall on top of him, both of you covered in a rusty mixture of beer and blood.

  Chandler has waddled to the door, looking back at you. “C’mon, Frank!” he says—an impatient parent scolding a lackadaisical child. You hit the clerk in the head with your fist and scramble back over the counter. You are free, on the other side, except the son of a bitch has latched onto your shirt tail again, and you can’t get traction, your feet spinning like a cartoon road runner in the beerblood that has spread from behind the counter all over the floor.

  Chandler is waving you forward like you are dawdling over the selection of chewing gum instead of caught by the clerk. The man has you with one hand, and when you look back over your shoulder you see that the clerk, blood streaming down his neck, is reaching under the counter with his other hand. And he comes up with a sawed-off shotgun. The man doesn’t even hesitate, he just takes aim at your leg, the knee area, and gives you both barrels. It’s like a stick of dynamite went off. A six-inch section in the middle of your leg just vaporizes. The man lets go of your shirt and you fall to the floor in a deaf bloody heap.

  While you are waiting for the pain to hit you, you look down to your right and see that the bottom half of your leg is separated from your body. It’s still wearing a scuffed black leather boot at one end, and at the other you can see the shredded denim of your blue jeans and white bone and ragged scorched flesh.

  Beyond your leg you can see the clerk struggling to reload the shotgun, but he is shaking too hard, too jittery to do it. You look in the other direction, still deaf, still no pain, and there is Chandler. You cry out for him to help you, but you can not hear your own voice and neither apparently can Chandler because he turns his back on you and pushes his way out the door.