Last of the Dixie Heroes

by Peter Abrahams

  It was Gordo.

  “Rise and shine, good buddy. We got job huntin’ to do. How about we start with bacon, eggs, and brewskis? Get back to me.” Beep. Gordo: cheered by all the company he suddenly had.

  Roy tried to sink back into sleep. He couldn’t do it. Memories were waiting now, little shards of them, coming in waves. The clothing memories alone-blue-diamond tie, silk shirt with cuff links, Georgia Football T-shirt, red bikini top-were enough to drive sleep away all by themselves. But how he wanted it, the unconscious part, at least.

  Roy got up, went into the bathroom, gave himself a shock. There he was in the mirror, fully dressed in his inherited uniform. He’d forgotten that part, the final act of a long day. He stared at his image, had a funny moment of not quite knowing it was him, as though he were looking in the mirror and seeing someone else. More than a moment, actually; he wasn’t able to snap out of it, not completely. And the battle-weary look that Lee had worn in the photograph beside the cannon: the man in the mirror had it too.

  The phone rang again. He heard a woman’s voice coming over the answering machine, missed the first part of what she said, caught, “calling from Globax. You can reach-”

  Roy hurried out of the bathroom, snatched up the phone.

  “Roy Hill here,” he said, unbuttoning the uniform jacket, shrugging off the suspenders.

  “Oh, you’re there.” She introduced herself. “I’m with human resources,” she said.

  “Human resources?” Were they offering him a job in human resources? He didn’t know anything about human resources. He knew shipping.

  “All terminated employees are entitled to free career counseling. I’m booking appointments.”

  “For what?”

  “A forty-five-minute career-counseling session, at Globax expense. We outsource it to several companies so you can actually choose the one you want. As luck would have it, two happen to be quite close to you.” She named them. “I can book either one, your choice.”

  “Then what?” said Roy.

  “Then if you decide to add extra sessions, Globax subsidizes the cost on a sliding scale depending on the number of sessions.”

  Not what he’d meant. He’d meant: How long till I get a new job?

  “Still with me?” said the woman. “This sliding scale goes from fifty down to ten in even increments. Percent, is what I’m talking about, Ray, depending-”

  “It’s Roy,” Roy said, and too loudly. “Roy Hill.” He came very close to saying Roy Singleton Hill.

  There was a pause. Roy could hear a stock market report from a TV in the woman’s office. “Sorry, Roy,” said the woman. “I’m just trying to inform you about the counseling opportunity, that’s all. A lot of people have found the program very helpful.”

  “Helpful for what?”

  “Why, resumes, retraining, interview skills, networking, job search-everything you could possibly want.”

  Roy had a vision of Mr. Pegram puking on his shoes.

  “I’ll let you in on a secret,” said the woman, “based on twenty years’ experience. A lot of people in the same boat as you end up in much better jobs. They look back at all this fuss and muss as the beginning of a positive period in their working careers.”

  Roy caught his image in the bedroom mirror, a full-length mirror beside the closet, in front of which he and Marcia had once-he throttled that memory right there. He saw that the uniform was back on properly, suspenders in place, jacket all buttoned up: when had he done that?

  “So I can book you an appointment?” the woman said.

  “What kind of appointment?”

  “At one of these services.” She named the two near him again.

  Roy shrugged.

  “Hello?” said the woman.

  “Yeah?” said Roy.

  “What about it?”

  “I guess.”

  “Which one would you prefer?”

  Roy took the first.

  “All set,” said the woman. He could hear the squeak of her felt pen making a check mark. “Three-fifteen this afternoon okay for you?”

  “Why wouldn’t it be?”

  Squeak.

  Roy took off the uniform, folded it away in the trunk between layers of the thick wax paper. He flossed and brushed his teeth, showered, shaved; groomed himself like any other office worker. What were you supposed to wear for career counseling? Roy dressed the way he did for the job, minus the tie. He went into the kitchen, opened the fridge, closed it again. Not hungry.

  Roy boiled water in the kettle, poured it in a cup. He didn’t make coffee or tea with it, just drank it as hot water, something he’d never done before, never even thought of doing.

  The front door buzzer buzzed. Roy put down his cup, almost dropped it in his hurry, thinking, Some kind of good news, although he couldn’t imagine what. But it wasn’t good news, just Lee, in his denim jacket and jeans, motorcycle parked in the driveway.

  “Thought you might be ready for some black powder shooting,” Lee said.

  “Not today.” Roy didn’t feel like talking to anybody, not if they weren’t in a position to make things better.

  “No?” Lee said. “From what Gordo told me, I thought today might be good.”

  “What did he tell you?”

  “About Globax. Sorry, Roy. Not that I was surprised.”

  “Why not?” Roy said. “I’m good at my job.”

  “I’m sure you were. I’m talking about the mass firings. That’s the nature of the beast.”

  “What beast?” Roy said.

  “Put it this way, Roy-where’s the headquarters for Globax?”

  “New York. But it could be anywhere, and the work ended up in Miami.”

  “A model Southern city,” Lee said. He held out a paper bag. “I brought you some muffins.”

  Roy stood there, not taking the bag. Not hungry.

  “Baked them myself,” Lee said.

  Roy took the bag. “Cup of coffee or something?” he said.

  “Sounds good.”

  Roy didn’t think he’d made it sound good at all. He moved aside, let Lee in. Lee went by him with a light, springy step. He reminded Roy of a kid he’d played high school football with, one of those too-small but very fast kids who get to play safety or wide receiver. Roy’s teams had always had big kids just as fast, so this one had been cut, but not before one preseason ninety-yard punt return Roy could still see in his mind.

  “Instant okay?” Roy said.

  “Sure.”

  But he was out of instant. All he had was a foil bag of beans he’d bought at Starbucks in preparation for Marcia coming home. He thought of returning it, getting his money back: an idea that filled him with self-disgust but also opened a window on a possible future and its meanness. He got busy with the grinder, the coffeemaker, filter basket.

  “Who did these?” said Lee. He was standing by the fridge, looking at the artwork taped to the door.

  “My son.”

  “They’re pretty good.”

  “Yeah?”

  “His number’s fifty-six?”

  “How did you know?”

  “Fifty-six has a kind of prominent role in these pictures, Roy.” Roy went over to look. “I like the way all the helmets are too big,” Lee said. “Must be how it feels to him inside one. And see those eyes between the face mask bars?”

  The eyes looked scared. Roy hadn’t noticed before. “You think he has talent?”

  “I’m not competent to judge,” Lee said. “What’s his name?”

  “Rhett.”

  Lee turned to him quickly.

  “It’s his name,” Roy said.

  “A fine name,” Lee said.

  “My wife chose it. I like it too.”

  Lee looked at him for a moment, his gaze fixing on Roy’s cheek. The scratches: Roy had forgotten that part too. “That makes three of us, then,” Lee said.

  Roy heard sounds from the coffeemaker. He turned away, filled two mugs. One was an Olympics souvenir;
the other said Globax. He noticed that too late, after he was done pouring, took the Olympics mug for himself.

  They sat at the kitchen table.

  “This is a nice house,” Lee said.

  Roy watched the steam rising from his coffee, the way it bent in a little plume, then disappeared. A nice house, with a big first mortgage, a maxed-out home equity loan-the emeralds! — no savings, no paycheck.

  “Muffin?” Lee said, reaching into the paper bag, taking out two: small light brown muffins with dark red berries poking out here and there.

  With an effort, Roy took his eyes off the rising steam. The smell of the muffins reached him. “You baked these yourself?” he said; he himself had never baked muffins, doubted he knew another man who had.

  Lee nodded.

  Roy tasted one, just to be polite. Not hungry at all, even though he hadn’t eaten since… when? He couldn’t remember. But that feeling of not being hungry left him the moment he tasted the muffin. Had he ever tasted a muffin this good? Just sweet enough, just tart enough, light and firm at the same time, and the berry so close to being bitter, but not quite. He was ravenous by the time he finished it.

  “There’s one more,” Lee said.

  Roy shook his head. Lee took the third muffin from the bag, slid it across to Roy. He thought of the steaks and Sonny Junior.

  “Split it?” Roy said.

  “All yours,” said Lee.

  Lee watched him eat. “Picked the berries yesterday,” he said.

  “Berries this time of year?” Roy could hear his mother asking the same question, the same way.

  “Mountain winterberries. There are still some around my place.”

  “Where’s that?”

  “Not far. We can do some shooting while we’re there.”

  Roy finished the second muffin. It had a strange effect on him: he was still ravenous, but now felt himself warming up inside. “I’ve got a gun,” he said.

  “What kind?” said Lee.

  “I’m not sure.”

  “Where is it?”

  Roy looked at Lee: he had a fine face, open and honest, as far as Roy could judge. Roy didn’t want to get into the whole leather-bound trunk thing, but neither did he want to sit by himself in the house all day, waiting for his career counseling opportunity. “I wouldn’t want this generally known,” he said.

  “You can trust me.”

  Roy took Lee into the bedroom.

  The bedroom was dark, still smelled of sleep. Lee put on a pair of glasses, the kind with small lenses that Roy associated with European revolutionaries or hippies from the sixties. Lee didn’t look at all like a hippie-he had short dark hair and was smooth shaven, almost like a boy who hadn’t started shaving. His gaze went to the bed, one side unslept in, the other in disarray.

  “What else did Gordo tell you?” Roy said.

  “About what?”

  “Anything.”

  “Just that they fired everybody. All he doesn’t understand is why he was the first to go.”

  “Anything else?”

  “Like what?”

  Roy opened the leather-bound trunk. “My father died.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  Roy shrugged. “I got this.”

  “Can I look?”

  Roy didn’t see why not.

  Lee bent over, started going through the trunk. “My God,” he said, straightening up, the uniform jacket in his hands. He went to the window, examined the threads, then pressed the jacket to his face, breathed in deeply.

  “There’s more,” Roy said.

  Lee went back to the trunk, pulled out the gun, Roy Singleton Hill’s gun with death carved on the wooden stock. He examined it from several angles, ran his fingers along the barrel, tested the hammer with his thumb.

  “Is it a carbine?” Roy said.

  “Oh, yes, one of the very best-a Sharps fifty-two-caliber breech-loading carbine made in eighteen fifty-nine, as it says right here.” Lee raised the gun in an easy, economical movement and took aim at something across the room; a pillow at the head of the bed-Marcia’s, actually.

  “Will it still work?” Roy said.

  “No reason why not. I can check it out for you, if you like.”

  “Course there’d be no bullets,” Roy said.

  “Bullets are easy to make.” Lee handed Roy the gun, started folding the jacket, paused. He felt in the pockets, turned the jacket upside down, gave it a gentle shake. Bullets fell out, eight or ten, landed on the sheets where Roy had been sleeping. They were smaller than Gordo’s bullet and not as completely oxidized, glinting dully here and there with lead. Lee cupped them in his hands, held them out for Roy like they were nuggets scooped from a stream.

  “Let’s do some shooting,” he said.

  Roy checked his watch. He didn’t see why not.

  Mountain winterberries, picked yesterday: Roy in his Altima, the Sharps breechloader in the backseat, following Lee on the motorcycle, assumed they were on their way to one of the expressways out of town. But Lee went under the connector, turned up Northside, entered Buckhead.

  Buckhead, but not Marcia’s Buckhead. This was the part Sunday drivers liked to tour, especially when they had visitors from out of town. The houses got bigger, but how much bigger was hard to tell because they were set farther and farther from the road. Lee rounded a bend, much too fast, Roy thought, disappeared from view. By the time Roy picked him up again, he was darting through gateposts a quarter of a mile ahead, leaning low.

  Tall brick gateposts, Roy saw as he drove between them, joined by a brick arch. Two stone eagles stood side by side on top of the arch, one facing forward, one back. The lane Roy followed was brick as well, a long lane that took him past perfect lawns, blooming gardens, more lawn, a house that seemed low and massive, but was four stories tall in the central section, possibly with another half story above. Lee kept going, down a curving grade, past a pond with floating purple flowers, to a small brick house with purple shutters, a purple door, leaded windows, brass fittings.

  “Welcome,” Lee said, coming to Roy’s car.

  Roy got out. “This is your place?”

  “This is my grandmother’s place, Roy. I live in the guest house.” Roy glanced toward the big house, mostly hidden by a grove of low trees. Roy could see shiny red berries clinging to the nearest branches. “Got the gun?” Lee said.

  They went inside: books everywhere, on floor-to-ceiling shelves, on tables, chairs, the floor. On the spines and jackets Roy saw the same images-muskets, cannons, flags-read the same words- blue, gray, Lincoln, Davis, Grant, Jackson, war.

  Lee took the gun into the kitchen, laid it on the table beside a vase of purple and yellow flowers; a fine crystal vase-Roy remembered Marcia admiring a similar one in a store window. “Know much about small arms?” Lee said.

  “Nothing.”

  Lee knelt, peered down the barrel. “No rust at all-it must have been practically soaked in oil. Whale oil being what they used back then. First, you pull the hammer back to half-cocked. Then bring the lever down like this. Rotate the pin, pushing down this little button. And the whole breech block slides out just like so.” Lee held up the breech block. “These are the vent holes-it’s all about controlling rapidly expanding gas.” He dug a toothpick into two tiny holes in the breech block. “Like it was cleaned yesterday.” Lee put the gun back together, found linseed oil under the sink, rubbed it into the stock and grip. He went still. “Don’t laugh at me if I tell you this.”

  “What?” Roy said.

  “It feels like something coming alive in my hands.”

  Roy didn’t laugh.

  Lee laid the bullets on the table. “No cartridges,” he said, “meaning these were probably picked up off the ground. I doubt cartridges would have fired anyway, after all this time. Instead-” He left the room, returned with a small plastic tube, a brass cylinder, and a red can with Globax on the label.

  “Not wearing synthetics, are you, Roy? Static electricity can be a problem with
this stuff.”

  “I know,” Roy said.

  Lee glanced at Roy, then at the label. He turned the can so the word was out of sight and held up the brass cylinder, as though distracting a child with something shiny.

  “Adjustable powder measure,” he said, twisting a screw in its base. “A fifty-two caliber takes sixty grains, but we’ll shoot straighter with fifty.” He poured powder into the plastic tube. “No plastic tubes back then, of course, but they do work well with these ring tails.” He stuck one of the bullets in the top of the tube, opened the breech, jammed the tube right into the barrel, leaving the bullet and powder inside. “As for caps, musket ones will do.” He stuck a tiny hemisphere of copper onto a nipple under the hammer, then closed the lever with a snap. The sound itself was satisfying.

  They went behind the house. It was very quiet, not like being in the city at all. Ahead lay a long, narrow stretch of lawn, not much wider than a country lane, with a line of trees on one side and a high brick wall on the other. “There were riding trails in here when my grandmother was young,” Lee said. He raised the gun, aimed at a low wooden fence-a riding jump, Roy saw-in a sunny patch a hundred yards or more down the grassy lane. Glass bottles glinted on top of the fence.

  Lee lowered the gun. “You first,” he said, handing it to Roy.

  “I’ve never fired a gun,” Roy said.

  “Then this is even more special,” Lee said. “Hold it like so.” Roy held it like so. “Look through that V with your right eye.” Roy looked through the V with his right eye. Coke bottles, seven of them. The middle one was framed in the V. “Pull the hammer back all the way, Roy. Now squeeze like you want just a little toothpaste, but all at once.” Roy squeezed the way Lee said. He heard a bang, felt the kick of the gun, much stronger than he’d anticipated, strong enough to hurt, saw a puff of blue-gray smoke, smelled burned chemicals-nitrates, a smell he knew.

  Lee put on his glasses. “My God,” he said.

  The middle Coke bottle was gone.

  “Beginner’s luck,” Roy said.

  Lee took the gun, reloaded it, handed it back to Roy. “Don’t you want a turn?” Roy said.