by Newman,James
Sheriff Burt Baker knew all this. He was well aware of the fact that most folks in his county considered a man with skin the color of Calvin “Rooster” Mooney’s guilty from the moment he was born. He knew someone with Mooney’s intellect could not defend himself against vigilantism, especially when said street justice was doled out by bloodthirsty fellows who considered a “nigger” less than human to begin with.
As far as Polk County’s redneck contingent was concerned, that man as dark as my hometown’s namesake had killed a girl. A white girl. Now, it was just a matter of time before Sheriff Baker’s satanic plan came to fruition.
Midnight was about to change, I feared. I could feel it coming, and I had never been so afraid. I no longer wanted to live there. I wanted to leave. I was ashamed of my hometown, and of what I knew it would soon become.
The place was about to implode.
I did not hear the rest of what the anchorman said. I just sat there, numb, as he droned on and on: “In other news, New York Police arrested twenty-four-year-old David Berkowitz yesterday for the infamous ‘Son of Sam’ shootings that have plagued the city for the last thirteen months. Oddly enough, it was a series of unpaid parking tickets that led to the alleged killer’s arrest, say authorities…”
AUGUST 13
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
In the days following Calvin Mooney’s so-called “escape,” Midnight became an unfamiliar place to me. Just as I had suspected. Yet I never could have imagined the chaos that would ultimately transpire in the space of just two or three days.
How could this be the town I had grown up in, I asked myself several times throughout it all. Before long, I hardly recognized Midnight, North Carolina, and that fact alone terrified me even more than the things I had seen in the Snake River Woods on the night of August 5.
I felt like a stranger in a stranger land. A small, skinny alien in a mad world filled with hateful, red-faced creatures hungry for revenge. So hard to believe that these monsters had once been my neighbors. That these roads had once been my stomping grounds. Now, they were as unfamiliar to me as the dark side of the moon. Or Mars. Or Tallahassee, Florida.
Everywhere I looked, burly rednecks in flannel jackets carried giant black shotguns and hate in their eyes, searching for the man they believed to be Cassandra Belle Rourke’s foul killer. Ugly curses and cruel epithets echoed through the wet gray streets of my hometown from sunrise to sunset, punctuated by the staccato farting of mud-spattered pick-up trucks decorated with Confederate flags and NRA stickers. Floppy-eared coonhounds the color of rust and dried shit sat in the beds of those white trash death machines, baying at the chaos or, perhaps, the distant scent of the hunted. Every so often a shotgun blast would split through the chaos from somewhere across town, louder even than the thunder that never stopped booming above Midnight, and every time I heard such an ominous sound I wondered if it was finally over. If Calvin Mooney lay dead, and somewhere in the center of my hometown a new “hero” had been born amidst the smell of blood and sweat, chewing tobacco and gunpowder.
I imagined Rooster’s head on a wall, eternally gawking from some proud hick’s living room wall like a prize blackbird. I envisioned him smiling that goofy, buck-toothed grin of his even in death, and I wept for him. More than once, as I stared out my bedroom window at the loud, drunken posses cutting through my backyard to get to the Snake River Woods with no respect for the boundaries of private property, I could not distinguish between the autumn rain trickling down the glass and my own salty tears flowing down the pale doppelganger face of my reflection.
The few times I dared to leave my home and venture into town, I could feel the rage coming off my neighbors like the stench of body odor. I could no longer look any of them in the eyes. I felt so ashamed that I knew them, even more ashamed that I had liked a few of them. Particularly unsettling, however, was the fact that I was distantly related to one or two of them.
I hated them. I thought I had known them, but I had not. They were all like hairless werewolves to me, the way they had changed…
Case in point: Mr. Willy Putnam, owner of the hardware store on King Street. Gone was the round little man in the GOD BLESS AMERICA cap who had called me “Hotshot” for as long as I could remember, always gave me a piece of peppermint candy any time he would see me around town. In place of that kind middle-aged gent lurked a bloodthirsty thug, a short but no less imposing figure whose high-pitched war-cry of “Die, Nigger, Die!”—this I heard him bellow one afternoon when I sneaked across town for a peek at the burgeoning chaos, as Mr. Putnam led a group of heavily-armed men over the railroad tracks behind old man Gash’s junkyard toward the broken-down homes on Jefferson Circle—seemed to become the motto of those who had taken it upon themselves to become Calvin Mooney’s judge, jury, and executioner.
Once or twice I even heard a rumor that the local chapter of the KKK planned to get in on the action. They were based over in Asheville, called themselves the White Knights of the Lord’s Army. Supposedly they were scheduled to roll into town early the following week, and they planned to help Polk County wrap up this nasty business once and for all.
Go figure.
Calvin “Rooster” Mooney was the most loathed man in Midnight, I knew—in the history of my hometown—and though I did not want to admit it, I knew he would not be alive by the end of the week.
To this day, I do not know how I lived with such knowledge, yet still kept what I saw that night in the woods to myself.
I was angry. Pissed off. My hatred for Sheriff Baker knew no bounds. Yet I was also still so very afraid. My rage did not dilute my terror, or that instinct of self-preservation.
I waited. Praying that the answer would come to me.
Somewhere, somehow. Some way.
AUGUST 14
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
That evening I sat in the living room devouring my nails while Mom watched a new show called Three’s Company and laughed like it was the funniest damn thing she had ever seen.
Her laughter made me sick. It hurt my ears and sounded more like the braying of a lascivious donkey the louder and louder it got.
All day Mom had pretended as if there were nothing wrong between us at all. She sipped a cup of brandy-laced coffee and watched TV, only getting up to refill her mug and—once—put a load of dirty clothes in the washer. I played her game, chose not to bring up her recent indiscretions no matter how badly I wanted to give her a piece of my mind. I sure did not wish to talk about Sheriff Baker, even as I knew we should discuss what Dan would undoubtedly have called the “elephant in the living room” before our relationship became irreparable and I really did start hating her.
Somewhere around the time Jack and Janet were trying to talk Chrissy out of moving to a commune with a fast-talking guru named Swami Rama Mageesh on Three’s Company, the phone rang.
Mom hardly batted an eye at first. She shook her head, laughed at something on the television, and sipped from her mug.
The phone rang again.
“Ah, crap,” she said, as if hearing it for the first time. “What is it now?”
Why don’t you ask your stupid boyfriend? I wanted to say, in the snottiest voice I could muster. But I didn’t.
The phone rang again.
“Get that, Kyle, would you?” Mom said.
I grunted. Stood. Went to the kitchen and picked up the phone.
“Hello.” My tone was flat. Disinterested.
“Hey-hey!” came my big brother’s voice, from three hundred forty-eight miles away as the crow flies. “How’s it hangin’, Tiger?”
An instant rush of bliss nearly took my breath away. He sounded so close, as if he were talking to me from just a house or two down the block. Tears gathered in the corners of my eyes, but they were tears of joy.
Nevertheless, I did not miss a beat: “Twelve inches long, four around, and slightly to the left.”
“Ha!” Dan laughed loudly in my ear. God, it felt good to hear that. “You have learned we
ll, grasshopper.”
I giggled.
In the background, on Dan’s end of the line, I could hear several people talking. I imagined a dorm room full of college students laughing and partying and carrying on when they should have been studying. One girl had a very annoying high-pitched laugh that reminded me of the cawing of a crow gone insane.
“So how’s things, little bro?” Dan said.
“Okay, I guess. Man, it’s great to hear from you!”
“Same back atcha.”
“I miss you so bad, Dan.”
“I miss you too. Boy, do I ever.”
“So why haven’t you called before now?”
“I did!” Dan said. “Night before last. Mom said you had already gone to bed.”
“Whaaat?” I scowled in my mother’s direction, but lowered my voice so she could not hear me from the other room. “Dammit. I sure would have liked to talk to you, Dan.”
I wondered if she had kept Dan’s call all to herself on purpose. While I could not understand her motives for doing such a thing, I figured I wouldn’t put it past her.
“It’s okay,” Dan said. “You know Mom.”
I rolled my eyes, sighed. “Yeah, I do.”
“Anyway, we’re talking now, right?”
I said nothing. Just basked in the moment. Loving it. Never wanting it to end.
“God, it’s good to hear your voice, Kyle.”
“Yours too,” I said. I sniffled, cleared my throat. “So what’s it like down there? How’s Florida?”
“Hot. It’s very hot. Dude, I’ve been here a week, and I’ve already got a sunburn like you wouldn’t believe.”
“At least it’s not raining all the time.”
“Jeez, man. You gotta be kidding me. It’s still raining up there?”
“It never stops,” I said.
Neither of us spoke for the next few seconds. There was so much I wanted to tell my brother, so many things we had to cover. I didn’t know where to begin!
“So,” Dan said. “I’m on a payphone, bro. I can only talk for a few minutes. Tell me whatcha been up to the last few days.”
“Not a whole lot,” I said. “Just hanging out. Trying to avoid Mom. You know.”
“Cool. And…anything else?”
I could hear it in his voice, the way it went low and serious all of a sudden. I gnashed my teeth, dreaded the next words out of his mouth. But there was little doubt in my mind where he was going with this.
“So did you do it?” he whispered. “Please tell me you did.”
“What?”
“You know.”
“No, I don’t.”
“Come on, Kyle. It’s me. Don’t play dumb, okay?”
“I…um…”
“You didn’t, did you?” Dan said. “Jesus. You didn’t do it.”
“Umm…”
“It’s been over a week, Kyle! I can’t believe it’s been this long, and you haven’t told anyone!”
God, it hurt, my brother talking to me like that. I would have preferred he shouted at me, berated me…either would have been far more endurable than the sound of utter disappointment in his voice.
“Why didn’t you go talk to Deputy Linder, like I told you to?”
“I tried, Dan. I did.”
“What do you mean you tried?”
“I went to see him.”
“And?”
I glanced over my shoulder to make sure Mom could not hear our conversation. She was still engrossed in Three’s Company, though, hadn’t even bothered to ask who was on the phone.
I quickly turned back toward the phone on the wall when she started scratching at her crotch like a man.
“I was going to tell Mike what I saw. I swear to God I was. But then…then he walked in, just when I was about to tell Mike everything.”
“Baker? Shit.”
“I was so scared. I froze up. I didn’t know what to do.”
Dan didn’t say anything. I wished he would. But the silence on the other end of the line further cemented the fact that I had let my big brother down. The quiet itself was like a stake made of ice slicing through my heart.
“He was right there, Dan. In front of me. He looked at me. He talked to me.”
“Hmm,” said Dan.
“I’m sorry,” I said.
“Don’t tell me you’re sorry. Tell that to Cassie Rourke. Tell Calvin Mooney.”
“What was I supposed to do?” I whined.
“You know what you have to do.”
“Mom’s dating him, you know.” I said, barely above a whisper, before he had a chance to say anything else. I think I expected that to get me off the hook. Perhaps with these new developments Dan might suddenly jump off my back and realize exactly what I was going through.
But that didn’t happen.
“She told me several weeks ago,” he said instead. His tone was sad, devoid of hope. “Ain’t that a load of crap?”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I didn’t want to upset you. It was bad, Kyle. Real bad.”
“You fought about it?”
“That’d be one word for it. Dude, it was like World War Three. I’m surprised we didn’t wake you that night.”
Neither of us said anything for a minute or so. In the living room, I could hear the theme song to Three’s Company blaring as the show ended for another day.
“What are we gonna do?” I asked my brother.
“I’ll handle Mom,” Dan replied. “You just focus on what you have to do.”
“God, Dan. I’ve never been so scared.”
“Can’t blame you. But you don’t have a choice about this, bro. You can’t pretend you didn’t see it.”
I said, “Yeah, but…how? This is the sheriff we’re talking about, Dan. He’s not some homeless person. He lives up on Foxwood Terrace. People know him. People like him.”
“I told you already. Go see Deputy Linder. He’ll help you.”
“I tried that,” I said. “It didn’t work. I can’t go back there.”
“You can’t just give up, though, Kyle!”
“I know. But I can’t go back there.”
“You could call him.”
I let out an exasperated sigh, but Dan ignored it.
“Hell, call him at home, if you have to. Tell him what you saw in the woods. Then hang up.”
“Maybe,” I said, but my heart wasn’t in it.
“It’s gone too far, Kyle. Baker needs to be stopped.”
“I know.”
“You are the only one who can set this right. If you don’t do what you need to do…what you have to do…Cassie Rourke will rot in the grave without vindication. Calvin Mooney will be punished for a crime he did not commit.”
“I’m not denying something’s got to be done, Dan,” I said. “I just don’t know that I’m the one to do it.”
“Damn it, Kyle. You are the one. You’re the only one. Were there any other eyewitnesses out there that night?”
I let out an exasperated sigh. “No.”
“Call Deputy Linder,” Dan said. “As soon as you get off the phone with me. I mean it.”
“I just…I can’t, Dan.”
“Yes, you can. Please, Kyle.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Fine. Okay. Tell me why, then. Why can’t you do it? Why can’t you pick up the phone, make a ten-second call to Deputy Linder, then hang up.”
“Because he’s got my bicycle, Danny!” I nearly shouted into the phone. I glanced back at Mom, but she had nodded off. She licked her lips in her sleep as if lapping up delicious pools of alcohol even in her dreams. “He’s got Burner, and I’m sure he knows who I am!”
“What the hell are you talking about?” Dan said.
“He’s got my bike. Baker’s got Burner. Or somebody does. Henry, maybe. I don’t know. But he’s gone. Someone has him. And they’re gonna come after me, Dan. They’re gonna get me…”
“No. Wait, Kyle…let me get this straight—”
“That night after the Apple Gala,” I said, my tone so tired and defeated. “I forgot my bicycle in the woods. I ran away, without thinking, and I left Burner there. I know it was stupid. I went back for him the next night, but he was gone. Now all Baker has to do is find out who owned that bicycle, Dan. Once he does that, I’m history.”
At first I thought I was hearing things, on the other end of the line. I frowned.
Dan started laughing. My big brother was laughing at me.
Had he gone crazy?
“I don’t believe this!” Dan said, between chuckles. “Holy shit…”
“I don’t think it’s funny,” I said, dabbing at my tears with my T-shirt. “Not at all.”
“You thought—” Dan could barely get out what he was trying to say, he was laughing so hard. Yet there was something in that laugh, I realized, that was not borne of anything truly comical. It was the throaty chuckle of a man who has been sentenced to die, but has been granted a last-minute reprieve by the Governor. A laugh of relief.
“What, Danny?” I said, irritated. But I let a nervous chuckle slip out in spite of myself. I couldn’t help it. Dan’s laughter had always been so infectious. Perhaps his insanity was too. “What is it?”
“You can rest easy little buddy,” Dan said. “Trust me.”
I wiped my eyes again, hard. Sniffled.
“I can’t believe I forgot to tell you, man! I feel so stupid.”
“Tell me…what?”
“I guess with all the chaos last Sunday, running late for the airport and all, it totally slipped my mind. I am so sorry. No wonder you’re a nervous wreck, dude!”
“What, Dan?” I said, impatient as hell. “What’s going on? Please. Tell me.”
“I got your bike, Kyle. It’s okay.”
“You…what?”
“I got Burner. I went back for him that night.”
“Oh, my…you…what…?”
