THUGLIT Issue Seven

by Joe Clifford

  "I been by her place. Looks like she didn't take anything with her."

  "She's wanted for attempted murder," Mitch says. "I wouldn't come back here for lipstick and panties neither, if I were her. How'd you know she disappeared anyway? The wanted notice?"

  Bud nods.

  "I'm guessing you didn't know she was here."

  "You guess correctly."

  "You been looking for her since she left?"

  "I was waiting for her to come back."

  One of the waitresses—a cute blonde with short hair and a great rack—stops by the table to take Mitch's glass. "Can I bring you gentlemen some refills?" she asks.

  "No more whiskey for me, sweetheart, but I will take a bottle of Coors," Mitch says.

  Bud just shakes his head.

  She leaves them and goes up to the bar to trade Mitch's glass for the beer.

  "Why'd you want to find me and my brother?" Mitch says to Bud.

  Bud doesn't answer right away, picking at the edge of his cardboard coaster. "If you were the last ones to see her, you'd have an idea about where she went more than anybody else. And I wanted to hear from the source what was true."

  "Is that all?"

  Bud stares at Mitch with his mouth in a thin, pursed line. "Should there be something else?"

  Mitch sips on his beer. "Nope."

  "You mind if I take a look around your property?" Bud asks, after a pause. "See where she did the damage?"

  "I understand you want to find your wife," says Mitch. "But my brother needs to rest up in peace. I ain't let him had visitors since he came home from the hospital."

  Bud doesn't answer for a minute. "And I suppose there'd be nothing to see outside, in the area."

  "Well, she didn't leave tracks, if that's what you mean." Mitch smiles as he lifts his beer bottle to his lips again.

  Bud takes out his wallet and leaves a ten on the table. "I hope your brother gets well soon," he says, darkness in his eyes.

  Mitch sits there alone in the booth and takes his time finishing the rest of his Coors.

  "I just don't understand why you want to do this," Kelly says, lying in her bed with the sheet pulled up over her breasts. She's propped up on one elbow, watching Mitch put his clothes back on. "Nothing's happened. Nobody knows what you did, and there's no reason they'd go looking for anything at your place."

  Mitch pulls his jeans up around his waist, zips the fly, buttons them, and leans over for his belt on the floor. "I told you," he says. "As long as her widower's poking around, Cole and I aren't safe. And I don't want anything else bothering my brother. I already had to tell him about Bud, and I shouldn't have."

  "What's leaving going to help? Won't it just look like you got a reason to hide, if you run while this man's still in town?"

  Mitch picks up his flannel shirt and puts it on, leaving it open over his t-shirt. He stops and looks at Kelly for the first time since he got out of bed. God damn, is she pretty. So good-looking with her bed-tossed hair hanging over her bare shoulders, Mitch almost wants to strip and ride all over again.

  It won't be easy to leave her behind, that's for sure.

  "We're not going to be gone forever," he says. "It's just for a little while—until Bud goes the hell back to where he came from and stays there. Shit, Cole's probably better off recovering someplace other than the house where the bitch nearly killed him."

  "Staying in some cheap motel, eating junk food and sleeping on a hard mattress that hasn't had the sex washed out of it in thirty years isn't what's best for Cole," Kelly says. "And you know that."

  He does. But he's afraid Bud'll show up at the house any moment and hurt Cole just for fucking Ruby Jean. Mitch is so afraid, he can't stay here with Kelly for another hour because he needs to go home to protect his brother. He already feels guilty for taking the extra time away for Kelly, even though he called Cole from Black Moon before coming to her.

  "I have to get him out of here, Kelly," Mitch says. "I have to keep him safe."

  "You could keep him here, and he'd be safe," says Kelly.

  "I can't drag you into this any more than I have. That's not fair to you."

  Kelly sits up in bed and scoots forward. "It's not fair to leave me behind while you go off to God-knows where without knowing how long you'll be there! Christ, Mitch. I'm keeping your secret, aren't I? That's dragged in enough."

  "I know. That's why I can't ask you for anything else."

  "You're not asking. I'm offering. You want to lay low until Bud leaves town? You and Cole stay with me for a few days."

  Mitch blows air through his nose, setting his hands on his hips and looks down at the floor. Putting Kelly in the line of fire—whether Bud Wolfe's or the law's—would be unbelievably irresponsible of him. If anything happens to her, he'll never forgive himself.

  "Mitch?" she says.

  "I'll think about it," he says.

  He shoves his feet back into his cowboy boots and kisses her hairline before he leaves.

  Rain's coming down hard by the time Mitch pulls his truck into his and Cole's driveway. He can see it falling at an angle in front of the bright, white bulbs mounted on the eaves of his neighbor's house. His own house is dark, which fills Mitch with a sense of foreboding. Cole knows to leave a light on for him at night.

  Mitch finds his brother at the back of the house, door to the yard wide open. He's staring outside through the screen door, dressed only in a pair of sweatpants and socks, ribs tightly wrapped and shoulders too angular in the faint light cast over him from outside. Mitch approaches him from behind as if this man's not his brother, as if Cole might turn around any second and jump him.

  "Cole?" he says, stopping a few feet away.

  "Bud's here," says Cole. Matter-of-fact. Fearless.

  "Where?"

  "Out there."

  Mitch's brain freezes for a beat. First question that occurs to him: "Did he see you?"

  "No," Cole says. "Didn't even knock on the door."

  Mitch goes into his bedroom and takes his pistol out of the top drawer in his dresser—the same one he used to kill Ruby Jean. He's been meaning to get rid of it, but he hasn't saved up enough money for a replacement.

  "You stay here and keep the doors locked," he says to Cole, maneuvering past him.

  "Mitch."

  Mitch pauses to look at his brother in the dark. "What?"

  "Let me call the cops."

  Mitch shakes his head.

  "This ain't you."

  "It's got to be, now."

  "None of this would've happened if it weren't for me," Cole says. "You've done enough. Give me the gun."

  "No way in hell."

  They hear a shout from somewhere outside, incomprehensible through the rain and distance.

  "For the love of Christ, Cole, just listen to me this once and stay here," Mitch says, before pushing the screen door open and leaving his brother behind.

  Bud Wolfe's standing in the vacant lot behind the Rose brothers' back fence, feet planted wide in a power stance. His clothes cling heavy to him, soaked through, hair darkened and stuck down to his forehead. The lights on the backs of both houses make the sight of him clear. The night is coal black behind him, and standing there with water streaming down his body, he looks like some agent of death and judgment dispatched by a wrathful, bloodthirsty god.

  "Didn't I tell you to stay off my property?" Mitch calls out to him, past his own yard now and at the edge of the vacant land. He's got the gun in his hand alongside his thigh.

  "She didn't run any farther than this, did she?" Bud says, spreading his arms out. When Mitch doesn't respond, Bud drops them again. "I found Ruby Jean in the lake—you murdering son of a bitch."

  Mitch stares at him for a silent beat, eyelashes separating in wet clumps. Tonight's the first rain in weeks, and it's been ungodly hot. The water level must've dropped in the lake. It wasn't high to start, and Mitch left Ruby Jean's car closer to dry land than he should've. "What do you want?"

  "I
want to take you back to that lake and put your dead ass in the seat next to her…but I'll settle for packing you into this mud."

  Mitch doesn't move. If he runs, Bud might shoot him in the back. Mitch isn't about to lead the bear in Cole's direction anyway.

  "You come here and take your beating, or I'll have everybody in this bumfuck town out at that lake to see what you done," Bud says.

  "Not if I shoot you first," says Mitch.

  "I don't think you're that dumb." Bud takes something off his waistband and throws it on the ground between them. "Put your gun down and we'll see if you're as good at harming a man as you are a woman."

  Mitch considers shooting Bud. Maybe dead. Maybe just enough to keep him where he is, until the sheriff comes. But he's already got one dead body a stroll away from his house, bullets matching his gun still in her. He doesn't know if he can contain any more criminal secrets, if he can cover them up enough to stay out of prison.

  The coonhounds growl and bark and rattle the gate on their fence as the two men beat each other. After ten minutes, Mitch lies on his back in the mud, one eye swollen shut, rain washing the blood off his face.

  "The funny thing is," Bud says, looking down at him, "I do believe my wife got what she deserved."

  He lifts his right foot over Mitch's skull.

  A flash of lightning cracks through the storm.

  Mitch rolls onto his side, as Bud collapses.

  Cole's standing in the gateway of the backyard fence, strong hand curled around his own gun. He lowers his arm and doesn't move for several seconds, as thunder growls in the distance. The neighbor's hounds start to settle down a little, as if they can sense the fight's finished.

  Cole gives Mitch a hand up, and they drape arms around each other's back on their way into the house. They drip water and track mud on the floor, as Cole leads his big brother to the master bathroom. Mitch sits on the lip of the tub and tries to catch his breath. Cole washes his hands in the sink and glances at himself in the mirror.

  "What the fuck are we going to do?" Mitch says, gasping. He can feel adrenaline coursing through his blood and the shivers starting in his muscles. His head's pounding, and his face burns. His dirty knuckles sting.

  "Clean up and dry out," Cole says, voice almost too low for Mitch to hear him over the storm. "We'll take out the trash come sun up."

  He turns the hot water on in the shower for Mitch and leaves him alone.

  Quiet Dell, 1914

  by Benjamin Welton

  Sid Hartsell had been throwing hot that year. The other boys in Harrison County couldn't keep up with him, and when he threw that trademark Canadian palmball of his, hitters started going down like flies. Everyone in the small town of Quiet Dell knew that Sid Hartsell—old Andrew Johnson Hartsell's boy—was destined to skip the minor leagues and go on into the big show. The only point of contention argued over at Bob McKinley's country store was which team in particular was going to pick up Sid. Hank Kunkle was of the idea that the Pittsburgh Pirates would chose someone from their own neck of the woods, while his main adversary across the aisle, Vernon Roberts, was in favor of the New York Giants. Roberts, a man who had taken the bar and passed it without a day in law school, fancied himself an educated man, and because the Giants were the home of the great college boy Christy Matthewson, Vernon figured them to be the only team worthy of having such a fine, smart West Virginia boy like Sid Hartsell.

  Despite Vernon and Hank's solid belief in their own correctness, neither the old boozer or the sham lawyer knew that much about Sid Hartsell. For starters, the boy had no intentions of sticking around Appalachia, so even if that that team from the City nabbed him, he would more than likely say "no" in order to find a team in finer climes. Conversely, Sid Hartsell was a true-blue backwoods boy, and he considered a book a monumental waste of time. I should know, it was my job to cover him for three seasons. The name is Thaddeus O' Connor, pleased to meet you.

  I am sort of a gadfly around these parts, and much of my conversation comes from two sources: one, my love of aimless perambulations among the forests, hills, and backroads of this fine state, and two, my four years spent at Gettysburg College—one of America's premiere institutions of higher learning. I take great pride in being a learned man, and that fact makes me terribly unpopular around these parts. West Virginians and hill people more generally respect only men who've risen from the bottom on the merits of their pluck and relentless determination. "College boys," on the other hand, are either the spoiled sons of formerly out-of-state merchants or are viewed with a sense of mysticism. A college education is viewed as somewhat magical to people without one, and since most people in Quiet Dell stopped attending school sometime before the eighth grade, they consider me a wizard cut from the silken robes of Merlin.

  Unfortunately, I am all too human, and my days in Pennsylvania caused me significant financial harm. My weakness is gambling, and like the great Virginian scribbler Poe, it has caused me no undue harm to kith and kin. After spending away the last bit of my money on a graduation celebration, I was forced to recognize the necessity of moving back to my place of birth. Quiet Dell is as unassuming as its name would lead you to believe, and stunningly, it might even be more quiet that your wildest guess could imagine. The fact that a high school ball player was the main point of interest should let you know immediately the type of place that Quiet Dell is.

  This all changed the year that the war broke out in Europe. I heard that the summer of 1914 is considered the last great moment in Continental history—a time when the women were beautiful, the drinks were cold, and the future seemed unclouded. This was not the case in Quiet Dell. The summer of 1914, which was one of the hottest on record, is considered a tragic time in our history. It was the time when Sid Hartsell fell from grace, and when Alfred Holmes came to town.

  In June, I was working in the press office as usual. Since moving back home, I had taken up work as both a reporter and an editor. Our local rag, the Mountain Times Informer, had been a mere bit of toilet tissue when I first came aboard. Within my first year, the former owner—the octogenarian Abraham Easton—passed away, leaving a vacancy open. I took the role without much of a challenger, and quickly set about reforming the Mountain Times Informer. It was my vision to not only have a newspaper dedicated to meeting the local needs—sports, pot-boiling gossip, and news of the coal mines—as well as providing a form of cultural enrichment. Under my care, the Mountain Times Informer began covering stage dramas, offering book reviews, and leading the way in film criticism. For these radical changes, I was called everything from a "no good city punk" to a "blasphemer." Many of the old writers left under a boycott. This proved no problem, for I soon filled their vacancies with men that I had recruited from the state university in Morgantown. I decided to keep one writer from the Keaton era, Stanley Woodside, owing to his abilities as a copywriter and his liberal politics. By the summer of 1914, the Mountain Times Informer was considered an oasis of culture in a desert of ignorance.

  Still, despite this successful growth, our staff was still relatively thin. This meant that I had to cover stories and "pound the beat" as they say in New York. I gave myself the role of covering Sid Hartsell because the boy fascinated me. Sid Hartsell was a great baseball player, yes, but I care nothing about baseball. What interested me about the case of Sid Hartsell was his scientific complexities and the physiognomy of his features. Despite his dark hair and soft blue eyes, Sid Hartsell had the face of a fiend trapped in a different epoch. His brows were pronounced and had a longitude that nearly stretched to his ears, which were themselves of abnormal height. His cheekbones were high upon his face like an Indian's, and his teeth (especially his incisors) were of a canine fashion. When Sid threw a fastball, the dark, coarse hairs on his arm would wave in the wind, helping the spectator to visualize him as a sort of evolutionary creature, a simian-esque ancestor of primordial time.

  Of his personality, Sid Hartsell was also a boy of fierce temper. He came from a rough family
wherein the whip was the primary tool of discipline. His father was known to patronize not only the town's lone tavern, but his heavy feet were often heard climbing the stairs to the tavern's upper floor. On a filthy bed of dusty sheets, Andrew Johnson Hartsell grew to know Emily Jane Snider a little better. This of course was not known to the long-suffering Mrs. Gwendolyn Hartsell, a poor, ignorant girl originally from a mountain family of degenerate stock. Sid Hartsell knew quite well of his father's indiscretions, for the man kept no secrets from his son. In fact, it was rumored that when the boy turned thirteen, his father provided the boy with one-night company in the form of Greta Long, Emily Jane's teenaged cousin.

  Rather than be appalled by such sinfulness, Sid Hartsell seemed to be enraptured by his father's doings. He often told me after our interviews that his chief goal in life was to become a man like his father. Mr. Lombroso would certainly find the Hartsell clan a perfect example of the genetic source of crime, and furthermore, when the news about Greta and Sid came to light in August, only myself, an amateur criminologist, was exempt from the shock of the revelation of young Sid's wickedness.

  Whilst Sid Hartsell was throwing strikes and learning to commit crimes along the lines of his father, a new, never before encountered evil was making its way through the one thoroughfare of Quiet Dell. This evil was named Alfred Holmes, and he was the epitome of innocuousness. Alfred Holmes was a man of thirty years with a medium stature and an average build. His hair was of a brown that seemed less like an individual color and more like a conscious combination of blonde and black. His hands were slight and artistic, and his face was mostly flat with little in the way of irksome or protruding features. His voice was soft and only faintly betrayed a Midwestern accent.

  Mr. Holmes came to Quiet Dell as a salesman trying to convince housewives to purchase life insurance. Rather than being one of those noxiously smooth creatures that one hears about from time to time, Alfred Holmes was a bumbling salesman with no small amount of awkwardness. The women in town regarded him as a clown, and the men figured him as a threat to nothing. This is why so many of them left their wives alone with the stranger from the West, and this is also why so many of them were crying tears of relief when the summer came to an end.