Donnybrook

by Frank Bill

  Angus’s mouth was devoid of moisture, dry as three Sundays without a drop of rain. He’d no pain. Just petrol in search of a spark. He fished a smoke from the pocket of his sleeveless gray T-shirt, lit it, and exhaled. “Fixing to get a drink chased with some answers.”

  A man. Midforties. Black T-shirt wrinkled around the collar. Chicken-skin flesh. Jaws rough lumps of biscuits browned in the oven too long. With a sixteen-penny-nail stare driving into Angus, he told him, “You’re wrong. Ruined my boy with that shit you sell.”

  From the jukebox, Bascom Lamar Lunsford wailed “I Wish I Was a Mole in the Ground.” A few men sat at a table behind the man, shaking their heads and sipping sweaty cans of Falls City. Angus let the cigarette dangle from his lip. His arms hung loose at his sides like an ape’s. He took in the man’s worn appearance, said, “You wanna bruise me up? Meet me outside when I’m done. But here’s a warning, you’re good as ash scattered in fresh loam when I finish with you.”

  The man’s frame pulsed tight. “Why, why you gotta intrude here?”

  Angus steadied himself, clenched a fist. Got the blood flowing, said, “’Cause I gotta find someone to earn my keep. Every man makes a living off another human being, that’s life.”

  The man dribbled, “You mean ruin people. Cause them impurities of life.”

  Angus inhaled deep. Drew the smoke into his lungs, blew it from his mouth while telling the man, “I get by on what’s been dealt to me.”

  * * *

  The man wouldn’t quit, said, “That ain’t God’s way.”

  Angus laughed. Couldn’t help it. “And getting shit-faced in a tavern is? Look, if they’s a God, I’m doing right by his examples set upon man, woman, and child. Guess you are too.”

  The man clenched his teeth. “Don’t say that.”

  Angus had had his fill, said, “Whatever your damage is with me, take it outside to the shit-green Pinto. Be there in a few.”

  Angus brushed the man’s shoulder. Felt the give, the unbalanced push of his frame. Inexperienced, Angus thought, knowing he’d take the bastard out in two licks.

  He made his way through the noise of bodies. Late evening slurps. Hoots and howls. Sat at the bar. Poe met him with a slow push of words. “Ain’t seen you in a long while. Your girl was in here few nights back.”

  Angus didn’t even smile, said, “Why I’m here.”

  Poe told him, “You’s a few nights shy, friend.”

  Unblinking, Angus ripped Poe’s eyes out with his own, said, “You ain’t my friend. But you can be friendly.”

  Poe held the dead gaze of the pearl eye in Angus’s face and asked, “How’s that?”

  “We can do this civil. Or I can dislocate your shoulder. Segregate your eyes. Then drag your ass over this bar. Make things real bad for you in the coming years. I need to know where the girl, my sister, went with a fella named Ned.”

  Poe, cadaver-faced, channeled the noise of patrons in and out. The smell of smoke and booze lacquered his frame. The jukebox stopped. His heart rushed. A new song was coming. He took in Angus’s shoulder with the white bandage. Thought about digging it open with the fork that lay below his crotch behind the bar. Angus interrupted, “Don’t think that wound will slow me down none regardless of what you try. Just spit it to me straight. I’m out of your hair. No foul.”

  “3 Dimes Down” by the Drive-By Truckers started on the jukebox. Guitars whined: It was a straight shot. All it took was luck to not get caught. I laid three dimes down and the machine wanted twenty-five cents.

  Poe knew Ned and this Liz were in the middle of something bad. Couldn’t be good. Poe knew Ned always burned his bridges. And Poe’d heard about Angus. Never lost a fight. That was the rumor. Apparently the dumb shit at the door hadn’t heard that one. Either way, it didn’t matter. If Poe told Angus what he wanted, Ned might be pissing blood by morning if it weren’t for several others wanting to make him do the same. Angus wouldn’t find Ned before the others found him. But Lang and the others might be willing to trade their prize for some cash. Then again, that’d be between them and Angus. Like he said, no foul.

  Poe told him, “You ever hear of a place called Cur’s Watering Hole?”

  Angus nodded.

  Poe grinned. “How about the Donnybrook?”

  * * *

  Behind dark-tinted windows, Fu sat in a dusty navy blue Tahoe. He’d been staking out the tavern. Entrance in the front. Exit out the side. Was waiting till after midnight. Let the crowd get good and wobbled before he found the man named Poe. Didn’t need every backwoods brother, cousin, and father getting fiery with him if he had to bloody the man.

  Fu watched a man exit the tavern as quick as he’d entered. Lean barbed-wire muscle beneath sleeveless cotton. Tattoos in gothic script and a braided cord of hair down his back. Another man exited after him, stood by a rusted car. Near the same age. Waited. Feet unsteady. No balance. Carried himself all wrong. Started to approach the man dressed in the T-shirt without sleeves. Whose left hand came like a blink. Raised from his side. Separated the night. Met the man who waited by the rusted car. Made his nose plywood-flat. Rocked his head back. Clenched his jaw, which cracked along with his teeth. Blood smeared the air. The rocking wasn’t from the left hand. The left hand hid the right uppercut that followed from the twist and dig of the right hip. The man who waited by the car fell to the gravel lot. The man who dropped him helped him to his feet. Escorted him back to the tavern’s entrance.

  Fu glanced at the photos that sat on his dash. This was the man with the puzzle-pieced face. He could fight. Held a form of honor. But there was no woman. Fu didn’t need unwanted attention. Needed to question the man in solitude. Get Mr. Zhong’s money. Fu opened his glove box. Pulled out plastic twist ties. Popped the back door open. Clicked the interior dome light off. Opened his door.

  Angus heard the distant squeak of a car door. Faint crunches across gravel. Felt a presence flare in his neck. He released his car door’s handle. Turned with his gun removed from his waistband. Raised it too late. Someone hit a nerve in Angus’s arm. It went limp. He released the gun. The same quick hand caught it. A fist straight-lined him, the index finger bent, thumb on top of it, caught him below his nose. Delivered a loss of motor function throughout his body.

  Angus fell forward. Was broken at the waist over a small man’s shoulder. Carried and thrown facedown into the rear of a vehicle that smelled like leather seats and noodles with beef. Angus’s elbows were twisted and bent behind his back. The wound in his shoulder burned. Wrist laid over wrist. Then tightened. He couldn’t move them. A cloth sack slid over his head. The door slammed. The engine started.

  Soon Angus sat with his head spinning. Cloth sack over his head. He’d been pulled from the back of the vehicle. Carried from the outdoor heat to the indoor cool of AC. His hands were still pulled behind him. Restrained. His back pressed into the cold wood of a chair. Wherever he was smelt of fresh-poured concrete. Basement, maybe. Footsteps were light. Near silent. He started to move when he felt the pierce of metal. Something needle-fine passed through his flesh, hit a nerve. His legs went limp. He felt another pierce of metal. His arms lost feeling. Fuck!

  The sack was removed from his head. Overhead lights burned bright. Angus sized up the small man. Saw flat-knuckled hands attached to arms bone-hard. The man wore glasses, his eyes snakelike behind the deep lenses. He stood by a small jade table. A stainless steel dish sat on top of it. Long needles lay inside it. The smell of rubbing alcohol.

  Behind the man, two large leather sacks were suspended from the rafters by chains. Stuffed like punching bags. Shoulder level. Angus started to open his mouth, was cut off by the Asian man’s tongue.

  “My name is Fu. I work for a man named Mr. Zhong. He has a client, Mr. Eldon, who owes a large gambling debt. Mr. Zhong tells me you and your sister have an agreement for the exchange of money to Mr. Eldon. Money that he needed to pay Mr. Zhong. As it now stands, Eldon is dead. So you and your sister must pay the said money to Mr. Zhong
to make all parties involved happy.”

  All Angus wanted was to find Liz and Ned, get his dope. Any money they had, he wasn’t sharing. But sitting here paralyzed with a needle in his neck wasn’t helping. He’d try his luck with the slant. “I don’t got your money. My sister and some swinging cock took all that pervert Eldon’s cash. And the drugs. Left me for dead. How I got the new shoulder decoration.”

  Fu didn’t blink. “Why were you at the bar?”

  Angus said, “Same as you. Looking for my sister and some guy goes by the name Ned. She hung out there. Sold our crank from time to time.”

  Fu questioned, “Why did you have a feud with the man in the lot?”

  Angus chuckled. “Misunderstanding.” He wanted to deal, laid a few cards on the table. “But I know where my sister’s headed.”

  Fu’s face lightened from stone to violently sweet powdered sugar. “Where?”

  Angus said, “Look, you pull these needles out of me, untie my hands, we can talk.”

  Fu shook his head. “You tell me,” he lied, “then I’ll let you go.”

  Angus clenched his teeth. Tried another set of cards, said, “You can have the money. I want my crank. Wanna watch Liz and this Ned guy swim in they own filth. Look, I ride shotgun, give directions while you drive.”

  Fu stood, considering. Remembered Angus leading the man he’d dropped with two punches back to the bar. The way he’d carried himself. He’d some hint of reverence. Fu asked, “So, you will tell me where to drive? And we will get the money from your sister?”

  Angus said, “Yeah, they’s a ways off the beaten path. No offense, I tell you where they is, you get lost in the sticks, the sticks people ain’t none too fond of giving your kind directions.”

  Fu considered this. Didn’t need trouble. If he killed Angus now, Mr. Zhong might have to wait even longer than he already had. Mr. Zhong was twenty grand in the hole from Eldon. Wanted his money now. Fu nodded. Stepped to Angus. A grunt erupted from one of the suspended leather bags. Fu stopped and turned in one motion and said, “Quiet!”

  His voice bounced in the concrete room. The grunt turned to panting. The leather bag started to flail and expand violently. Angus’s eyes bugged. His heart sped up. Fu approached the bag. Quick as the wind, he struck the bag with a right palm. A left elbow. The bag bent and jerked. The noise ceased. A spot formed on the bottom. Darkened the leather. Began to drip onto the gray tiled floor along with the faint sound of crying.

  Fu laughed, explained to Angus, “Students.”

  He grabbed another needle from the dish. Calm as a clear blue sky. Stepped toward Angus and slid behind him. Angus tried to tense his body but was devoid of feeling.

  Fu thought about the obsidian butterfly knife in his pocket. Glanced at the braided scalp of Angus. Imagined the blade parting Angus’s throat halfway. Methodical and slow. Taking away his air. Watching the blood bubble and seep. Watching Angus cough, fight for air.

  Angus tried to jerk and asked, “Motherfucker, we got a deal?”

  Fu smiled. Pushed the needle into the side of Angus’s neck. He went lights out. Fu whispered, “We have a deal. But now, you sleep.”

  * * *

  Purcell lit a Marlboro Red. Smoke trailed from his mouth along with words. “Refresh me on why you’s running from Alonzo Conway’s property.” He waved his fingers in the air. “It’s a bit muddled.”

  Jarhead drummed his fingers on the hardwood table. Cuts on his face cleaned. His body scented with Irish Spring. Purcell had offered him to stay overnight. Get some food and rest. Said he’d drive him to Orange County in the morning. Jarhead explained, “Broke down outside of Frankfort. Tig give me a ride. Said he’d get me to Orange County. Helped him siphon some gas along the way. Didn’t really know what-all he and his cousin Alonzo was into. He offered me a teenage girl for sex. He wanted to pay me for helping him and Tig out. Didn’t want no part of it. That’s when the police showed up. So I got out of there. How you know Alonzo?”

  Purcell smirked. “Know everyone on both sides of the Ohio River. Know what they do. Who they fornicate with. When they shit. Alonzo and Tig is into anything that brings cash. Whores and guns, mainly. Also know you ain’t from around here.”

  Jarhead nodded. “From Hazard, Kentucky.”

  Purcell shook his head. “I know. It’s pretty country.”

  Jarhead said with sarcasm, “Right, you know everything. Like how Hazard’s real pretty, but they’s no jobs. Can’t even get your foot in at the coal mines like my stepfather did.”

  Purcell flipped his ash into the ashtray. “They’s no jobs anywhere these days. Gonna keep being fewer and fewer.”

  Jarhead said, “Seems the only way a man can make a living without going to school anymore is to get his hands dirty, run some kind of illegal trade.”

  Purcell said, “World’s changed. Time is come when education, self-improvement don’t matter. It’s come back to a man’s got to know what he’s good at. Your history will either help or hinder.”

  Jarhead waved the smoke from his face and said, “History?”

  Purcell said, “Your kin. What they done did hoping to make this world a better place. Things your father and grandfather learned you. How to use your hands. Plant a garden. Hunt. Fish. Fight. What some seem to forget is history is now doomed to repeat itself, seeing as ain’t nobody learned from their mistakes. Now no one can stop what has started.”

  Lost, Jarhead asked, “What’s started?”

  Purcell told him, “We’re at the beginning of a violent era. Jobs are gone. Self worth and moral values have been sold. Some, like Alonzo, even prey on children. Film it, take pictures of it, and sell it. They’s too much freedom, addiction, fear, and violence blinding us from the truth.”

  Jarhead crossed his arms across his chest, convinced that Purcell was fifty-two cards shy of a full deck, and asked, “What truth?”

  Purcell could read Jarhead’s expression, his thoughts. “That things have fallen apart. Everything our kin suffered to build is being disassembled. Criminals run everything now, government, everything. Gangsters the only one seeing any profit. We got no jobs, no money, no power, no nothin’, nothin’ to live for ’cept vice and indulgence. That’s how they control us. But it’s falling apart. What we got is our land and our machines, our families, and our ability to protect it all, to keep them alive. We got our hands. Ones who’ll survive will be the ones can live from the land. Can wield a gun. Those folks’ll fight for what little they’ve got. They’ll surprise the criminals with their own savagery. Man, woman, and child will be tested. Others’ll be too weak and scared. Uneducated in common sense. Won’t know what’s happened. But believe me, war is coming.”

  Jarhead sat lost in thought. Finally asked, “You expect me to believe this?”

  “Why you think I was waiting for you? Did you see any fish in my boat? How you think I knew your name, where you was headed? You got a girlfriend named Tammy Charles, two mouths to feed with her. One named Caleb, the other named Zeek. You robbed a man in Hazard of one thousand dollars. Not a dollar more, not a dollar less. You plan on paying him back. Your girl Tammy is pained from a family member that you rescued her from. She’s addicted to—”

  “Stop!” Jarhead shouted, raised his hands, palms facing Purcell, unable to swallow this prophet’s pill. He said, “Fine, say I believe you. How the hell would you know any of this?”

  Purcell stubbed out his smoke, said, “Things come to me I can’t explain. Names. Faces. They actions. I see them. Have to put them in place. Sometimes it’s too late. Other times it ain’t. All I know is you need to get to Orange County. I need to get you there. So’s you can fight in the Donnybrook. It’s your calling. Our calling.”

  “Calling? For what?” Jarhead asked.

  “That part ain’t come to me yet.”

  15

  Kildrett and May Farnsley were shit-heel kin to Govern Farnsley. Living on his property. Producing children like mice in a cage. Cooking meth. Selling it. Snorting
it. Smoking it. They weren’t the ones killed Eldon, the ones Whalen was searching for. They, like Officer Meadows, lay in the Harrison County Hospital. Meadows with third-degree chemical burns about his face and arms. The Farnsleys with gunshot wounds. The kids with Child Services.

  Sheriff Moon Flispart, newly elected, was pissed off. Wanted to know what Deputy Sheriff Whalen thought he was doing, searching abandoned houses down in bum-fuck. Whalen hollered while the nurse bandaged his left leg in the ER. “Thought I’s searching for some meth-cook killers.”

  Moon bitched, “Got two gunshot victims, Child Services up my ass like two dozen hemorrhoids ready to burst for three children being raised like animals and maced, and an officer laid up ’cause of your horseshit Dirty Harry way of handling things.”

  Whalen yelled, “It was probable cause. They’s cooking meth. I smelt it.”

  Moon hollered, “Here’s my probable cause. I’m taking your badge till further investigation. You’ll be having a hearing at the Sellersburg State Police Post in forty-eight hours.”

  That’d been over twelve hours ago. The sun had brought on a new day. Three hours of sleep. Pot of coffee. Shit and shower. Whalen pulled on a black T-shirt, worn-out Levi’s. Laced up his work boots. Grabbed his 9-mm Glock for personal protection, seeing as Sheriff Moon had taken his service Glock. Fuck him. He’d find these bastards. Knew where he’d start. Part of being a county cop in a small town—Whalen knew where everyone laid their heads to rest. He’d do this the old-fashioned way.

  * * *

  Logs had started to moss over. Matched the tin roof’s shade, hunter green. The Blue River ran just as green on the other side of the road. That hint of fish smell wafted into Whalen’s inhale. The yard was littered with beer cans and pine needles. A small brown fridge sat on the wooden deck up next to the cabin’s front door.

  Whalen opened the fridge. Pulled a matching bottle from it. No name for this brew. Poe’s personal batch. Whalen smirked. Pushed the bottle up into the flaking silver bottle cap opener attached to the side of the cabin. Popped it open. Swigged near the entire contents. His eyes peeled tears at the cold. He stepped to the front door. His fist met the gray hardwood. He raised the bottle again. Finished it. Listened to the steps behind the door. Locks clicking. Tarnished knob turning.