Donnybrook

by Frank Bill

  Empty smaller jars lined the weathered wood table in the kitchen. A heat-resistant rubber band secured a coffee filter to the opening of each. Angus poured the large mason jar of cooked material into them. Separated the good into the jars, the filters keeping the bad. He filled each mason half full. Removed the coffee filters. Took an empty plastic two-liter, placed a funnel into its opening, poured in a bottle of Liquid Fire. Removed the funnel. Filled the two-liter a quarter full of rock salt. He watched the concoction smoke, twisted the two-liter’s lid back on with a clear tube inserted through it and secured by duct tape. Held the two-liter above each of his small masons, pushed the clear tube into each opening, smoking the contents into a wet snowy powder. Then he strained the contents of the small masons through coffee filters for the last time.

  Angus took a few sample bumps chased with two kettles of thick coffee for the second and final batch. Repeated the process. After ninety-six hours, he’d a mess of corrosive white powder that he bagged into Ziplocs. Over six hundred doses. Bringing Liz and him more than a hundred and twenty dollars per dose.

  * * *

  Lurking like a feral ape, the configuration studied the tin-framed screens of the farmhouse’s kitchen windows, sniffed the fried heat that came toxic and caused his eyes to bat and bulge. What he could make out through each opening was sheened and slick, almost rubbery, but he could get no glimpse. Stepping backward, he poked at the thin fibers with the corroded curve of a corn sickle he carried, watched it indent. He twisted his glance and saw that each window was covered by a black film or drape. And for the first time in months he cursed, lisped words fell in a slobbering start and stop, saying, “Sh … sh … shit!” Though it rolled from his tongue like, “Ch … ch … chit!” A muffled sneeze.

  Stepping to the other side of the house, he ducked down when he noticed the windows were not covered, could smell the hints of cigarette smoke, peeked in from the corner. Saw the embered tobacco burning bright then dim. A slab of man sat shirtless, his back pressed into the crumbling paste and paper of a wall. With his head leaned back, every time he puffed on the cigarette it’d light up his face and torso with the shadowing of letters about his frame and a pearl glob for one eye sprayed by disfigured skin.

  On the floor lay a female curled on her side, the slow rise and drop of her ribs. The figure felt his pulse redline with sadness as he watched her sleep, just as he’d done his sister, who’d been seeded by a neighbor boy. The shape of her stomach growing rounder and rounder over the weeks. Before his daddy came from the woods, delivered the horror that screamed like an engine laying tire skids on a road of carnage. He wondered how much longer these two lopers would squat. Felt as if his privacy were being invaded. He watched the man stub out the smoke, reach for a mound to lay beneath his head. Without the cigarette’s glow the room was blanketed by dark and the figure stood with these memories haunting him as he backed away from the house, started for the woods to check his animal traps.

  * * *

  They slept like two fetuses in a womb. Warmed by sleeping bags and lantern light.

  Twelve hours later, they ate food they’d packed in coolers of ice. Bologna or ham blanketed by cheese, mashed between slices of bread. Garnished with mustard. Washed down with bottled water. Sides were bags of chips. Desserts were unfiltered Pall Malls. Trash was packed in large Hefty bags, later dumped in nearby hollers or in the Leavenworth Tavern’s dumpster. They lived like gypsies during an apocalypse. Had been surviving in this way going on a year.

  Smoke whispered into the air from Angus’s Pall Mall dangling from his lip. He dragged a metal feeding trough from up by the corncrib that sat off from the barn. Dragged it through the high weeds down to the house, next to the old apple tree, where Liz stood shaking her knotted buds of hair, asked, “The shit you fixing to do with that?”

  His lungs felt as though someone’d dropped an old Pontiac’s rear end down on them, and he heaved, “Figure we’d need a good cleaning before we go out. Do our rounds tomorrow night. Need to wash the chemical stink from our asses. You might need double what with the chemical and dead fuck stench from Eldon.”

  Liz pushed the corner of her lip up into a smirk, wondering how she’d make him meet his end, said, “Ain’t got no hot water.”

  Angus pointed to buckets stacked next to the house. “You can fill them metal buckets with water, heat them on the hotplate and the Coleman.”

  Liz said, “Think I’m gonna step out in all these weeds? Get ticks and chiggers biting all up in my privates?”

  Angus finished his coffin nail. Wiped the beaded stink from his wool brow, said, “I’ll see what I can cipher up at the barn, clean out this area of weeds. Take yourself inside, start heating them buckets.”

  Opening the barn door, Angus felt eyes shadow his every creaking step across the wood floor coated with straw. Overhead, rafters ran gray with dust and thick puffs of webbing. A roll of twine hung from a far wall. In the right corner sat a metal table sandblasted by age. Two chairs with busted vinyl cushions pushed beneath. He walked to it, fingered the pages of a Sears catalog from the early eighties. A checkerboard sat beside it, each devoid of dust.

  Along the right wall hung a ditching shovel, pick, double-sided axe, maul, barley fork, pitchfork, sickle, potato planter, bill hook, and root pick. All looked crafted by hand. Antiques from a time long forgotten. On down the wall, various-sized hunting traps decorated the barn wood. Smooth metal mouths closed, rouged by blood from the captured.

  Angus fingered the handle of his .45, his eyes taking in silence’s movement. He smelled a hint of lye. Felt as though eyes were following his hand grabbing the sickle. But he knew not where the eyes were or if it was just paranoia from all of the crank cooking.

  * * *

  Rocking in a rusted metal chair, Angus sat in the uneven lengths of yard, scented of soap, watching the night for any hint of trespass.

  The screen door squeaked open, slammed into the frame from behind. Liz pressed an ivory hand onto his cotton-shirted shoulder, glanced down at the .45 in his lap. “The shit you doing?”

  “Can smell wood smoke.”

  “So?”

  “So it’s summer. What the shit someone need a fire for?”

  “Don’t know, maybe cooking? Who cares. I’m going over to the tavern, get some smokes. Toss a few drinks. You wanna saddle up, ride shotgun?”

  “Watch you get glass-eyed for stray cock? I’ll pass.”

  “Suit your damn self.”

  Liz turned. Angus yelled, “Hey, get me some smokes while you’re cock hunting—Pall Mall.”

  You’re good as buried, Liz thought. Said, “Sure.” Walked down to her station wagon.

  Angus gripped the Para Ordnance handgun in his lap, looked out into the barnyard of weeds, listened to Liz’s wagon fire up as he told himself, If someone else is squatting around this place, they gonna get opened up wide and buried deep.

  * * *

  The figure sat in the soggy darkness turning the spit every so often to brown the muscled creature, careful not to burn any angle of its pink. The spit was set end to end into the makeshift stove of limestone rock piled into a boxed pit. He kept the fire at night with chunks of cedar and tangy spruce, making orange coals to simmer in the daylight, keeping the smoke unseen, not wanting any attention from the outside world.

  Several nights ago he had smelt the strange burning rotating from the farmhouse’s kitchen window, wondered what they were cooking and went to investigate before he disappeared into the woods, guided by moonlight and stars to check his traps. Animals flailing with metal teeth biting into their hinds till he pressed a boot into their necks, wielded a blade down across their throats.

  He had stored the meat in a large wooden barrel he’d sunk into the earth next to his water source at the bottom of the darkness in which he sat. Insulated the outside of the barrel with stone and silt, built a wooden box, sealed the cracks with red clay, placed it over the barrel’s opening to maintain a cold inside the barrel. It
was something he’d learned from his father.

  Potatoes and carrots from his hidden garden were pushed down into the coals. Removed them with a tin shovel. He’d lived here off the land in this way since that day years ago, knowing only the farm, the land he trapped and hunted within the valley.

  He’d watched the towering man enter the barn. Same man he’d watched smoking nights back. Sized him up as he gazed at the tools and animal traps on the wall. Watched one of his long arms decorated with inked lettering, vines, and skulls remove the sickle from the wall while his other arm touched a gun handle pressed down the front of his waistband. The sight drove a shiver through the figure.

  He pulled the spit from the flame with an animal-hide glove, blowing on the meat to cool it, wondering what the man and woman were doing in the old house, what they were cooking the other night that smelt so god-awful. Biting into the meat, he hoped they’d leave soon. Or he’d have to bring chaos to the farm like his father had years ago.

  7

  Liz’s ass swung from side to side. The sound of John Prine’s voice amped from the jukebox: “But Your Flag Decal Won’t Get You into Heaven Anymore.” Every gap-toothed male’s bloodshot eyes branded holes through the denim on her left and right ass cheeks. Especially the man sitting alone in a dark corner of the Leavenworth Tavern.

  Smoke and booze warmed her body. Made her feel at home as she pressed herself onto a worn barstool. Pulled a wad of bills from her front pocket and met Poe’s surprised eyes. “Ain’t seen you here in a few. What can I get you?” he said.

  Liz smiled without trying, feeling all the eyes on her, happy to have distance from Angus. Glad he didn’t saddle up shotgun. Running her tongue over thick lips, she told Poe, “Five packs of Pall Malls, two shots of Turkey 101, bottle of Bud, and two dollars in change.”

  Poe winked. “Making up for lost time, I see.”

  Turning his back to Liz, he grabbed the smokes, opened the cooler, removed the cap from a bottle of Bud. Set those in front of her. Turned back to the bottles of whiskey that lined the mirror behind the bar. On his way back around, made eye contact with a far corner beyond the bar. Nodded his prickled head. Poured two shot glasses of Turkey, set them in front of Liz with her Bud already half gone. He told her, “That’ll be thirty-five even.”

  Liz pulled two twenties from her wad of bills and said, “Don’t forget my two dollars in change.”

  Two shots back to back ignited Liz’s tonsils. She chased the burn with her beer. Told Poe, “Get me another Bud.” He obliged. She took her loose change and fresh beer, stepped past the sex-starved stares of working-class and full-time drunks, made her way to the jukebox. She entered two dollars’ worth of quarters, flipped through the selections, punched in some Skynyrd. “The Ballad of Curtis Loew” and “Call Me the Breeze.”

  She sat back down at the bar. Finished her Bud. Ordered another. Laid a twenty out, said, “Keep ’em coming.” Poe nodded, set her down another beer.

  She fingered the cold bottle, knowing that after what she had done to Eldon she could kill Angus. But she had to be smart about it. He was clever. Not a man to cross. But she wanted him to suffer. Not by torture. Just a slow death. Like slitting his wrists, ankles, and throat. Leave him to bleed out in battery acid. That was an Old Testament idea.

  She could shoot him, but she’d need a gun. Could maybe get one of his pistols. Only he kept those close and hidden. She took a swig of the Bud, telling herself she was already tired of thinking about it. Needed a good buzz. A stiff dick. Something to whittle the edge off.

  Beside her a man’s voice growled, “Poe, get this fine piece of ass another Bud and shot of Turkey. It’ll be on me.”

  Liz turned her attention to her new benefactor. He’d been kicked around by the years. His hair thinned back over his ears like threads of twine. His brows were swelled and spongy, eyes bored into his head. Cheekbones pulled tight with scars, worked down into a clean shave. The wired muscles of his body sat hidden beneath a navy blue Lucas Oil T-shirt tucked into Dickie jeans and work boots.

  Liz said, “Thank you, Mister—”

  The knuckles of his hand were flat like Angus’s, not round. His long fingers swelled around a can of Natural Light. He took a sip, said, “Ned. Just call me Ned, sugar.”

  “Well, Ned, what brings you here?”

  Beneath the dim bar lighting his lips parted. He’d a mouth of staggered teeth. Missing more than his gums held. Taking in Liz’s shape, he thought he’d never seen something with such vile beauty. He could see the poison Poe’d spoke of. Felt it in his loins same as the yearning for a bump, and he said, “Looking for some crank.”

  Keeping her eyes on the man, Liz swigged her Bud. Acted surprised, said, “Crank?”

  He pushed his forefinger to his right nostril, inhaled hard. “Crank, godliness, crystal, whatever you wanna call it.”

  She laughed, ran a fingernail up into the hem of his shirt sleeve, said, “You old bone. Now, what would a sweet girl like myself know about something illegal like that?”

  Ned flashed a meth-mouth smile, wanting to embed his old bone in her, said, “Sugar, just letting you walk God’s earth is illegal. Word around this here tavern is that a female shaped like hunger peddles some high-grade shit from time to time. Maybe you ain’t that female. Either way, the drinks is on me and it was nice making your acquaintance, Miz—”

  She grasped his arm. Dug her nails into his biceps. Said, “Call me Liz. Say I am that shape of hunger. How much you craving?”

  “However much you got.”

  Liz released his arm, asked, “How I know you good for it?”

  Ned dug down into his pocket. “The Ballad of Curtis Loew” ended. He laid down a thick coil of bills. “Call Me the Breeze” started. Ned tongued his broken teeth, said, “I’m good for it.”

  Liz smiled sucrose-sweet. Her eyes went Asian-thin. A gunshot went off in her mind’s eye. The plan hit her all at once. She said, “Ned, I got a deal for you.”

  * * *

  From the pitted cast-iron skillet on the gas stove came the pop and sizzle of green tomatoes that’d been soaked in buttermilk and breaded in cornmeal and cracker crumbs. Purcell stood over the rust-colored counter, pressing the steel of a skinner against a gray rectangular stone that’d been lubed by 3-in-1 oil. He was honing an edge. Thinking about what he’d read in the newspaper earlier in the day, about wage cuts and unemployment. How companies across the U.S. were in a slump. Some were sinking while others tried to do more with less. The American way had expired, been lost somewhere. Now it seemed to work in the U.S. just meant you were a number trying to make big numbers for the men above you. And if you couldn’t do it, there was another number that could.

  Forking the crumb-coated slices, Purcell turned each piece in the grease as the sounds of a barking dog arced through his mind. The shouts of a female came, and faces, inflamed and hurting. Jarhead was in a vehicle. Beside him was a man who went by the name Tig. And Purcell knew that batch of bad the man was associated with. He’d ties to a man named Dillard Alcorn. Gunrunner. But Tig took his shut-eye across the river at Alonzo’s place, and they dealt in all manner of crime and young skin to turn coin. And like always the visions stopped. Purcell knew he’d need to start packing, as it was only a matter of time before the arrival.

  * * *

  When Jarhead saw a light come on inside the house, he cursed under his breath. He stood out in the country road by Tig’s truck with the cloak of night all around, the truck running with the lights off. This was the fifth and final house.

  A full moon guided Jarhead’s quick jaunt up the drive. He watched each room of the house come to life with light, the shadow inside bouncing from room to room. Jarhead’s heart raced, him hoping he’d make it to Tig before the shadow did.

  Out back of the house a dog barked. Sounded like it weighed two hundred pounds.

  Tig lay under the rear of the truck. Gas container. Small hose. Handheld, battery-powered drill. Maglite. Gas being siphoned fro
m the tank and into the red container. Tig and his cousin would sell it for a cheaper price than was paid at the pump.

  The creak of the door went unheard. Light footsteps across the wooden deck. Down the steps. Into the dew-covered grass. A single-barrel 20-gauge lifted the same time Tig stood up. He heard the click and then the voice. “You thieving piece of—”

  From behind, Jarhead wrapped a sleeper choke on the man with the shotgun. But not quick enough. An explosion lit up the dark, hollowed everyone’s eardrums. Lead dinged against the truck. Shattered the driver’s side window.

  The barking dog went psychotic behind the house, whining and howling.

  The man dropped the gun. Tried to stomp Jarhead’s boot with a bare foot. Reached for the arms around his neck. Scratched and dug into Jarhead’s forearms. Jarhead held tight. The fight slowed. The man went limp. Jarhead let him fall to the ground. Stepped across the yard over to the truck. Found Tig pushed up against the back tire. Moonlight beat down on his shaking body. “Goddamn that was a rush,” Tig huffed.

  Dark moisture ran from Tig’s leg. Jarhead sucked air, said, “Looks like you got hit.”

  “Can’t feel shit,” Tig grunted, offering a hand to Jarhead. “Pull me up. Let’s push some back road ’fore the shit gets too deep for wading.”

  Behind Jarhead, the house door opened. A woman’s voice screamed back into the house, “Sarah! Sarah! Dial the county police. They’s men out here done shot your daddy! They stealing his truck!”

  “Fuck!” Jarhead shouted. “Fuck!” Took Tig’s hand and pulled him to his feet. Reached for the gas containers. Tig said, “Give me one them sons a bitches, boy.” Jarhead helped Tig across the yard, each weighted down with a container in tow, half running toward the road where the truck sat idling. Tig laughed. “Ain’t this fun?”