by CS DeWildt
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Love You to a Pulp
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By CS DeWildt
Love You to a Pulp
Copyright © 2014, CS DeWildt
All rights reserved. No part of this electronic book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by electronic or mechanical means including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without the written permission of the publisher, except where permitted by law.
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Published by Mike Monson and Chris Rhatigan
Edited by Rob Pierce and Chris Rhatigan
Cover design by Eric Beetner
For Sarah, Toby, and Ben
CHAPTER ONE
Neil Chambers couldn’t help it. It was one of those dirty little habits that had followed him his entire life, like a stray dog too good natured to kick the hell out of. And that’s what Neil was thinking about: dogs. One in particular.
In front of the apartment complex, someone laid on the horn as they passed, and the sound pulled Neil free from his toxic dreams as he took the glue-soaked rag from his face, the burning fumes arousing defensive tears.
It was two in the morning and Neil had no intention of calling it a night. Real sleep had eluded him as long as he could remember, the glue usually tucked him for a time, but he kept no regular hours, and that irregular rhythm of rest allowed him to spread his work thin over the twenty-two hours a day he was more or less conscious, spread it thin like the shoddy concrete job in the parking lot outside.
Work was all that kept him going, but the work had dried up. That was a symptom of being a snoop in a small town like Brownsville: alienation, enemies. Neil figured he made two enemies for every client he served. People don’t appreciate being checked up on. They don’t forget.
Public relations aside, it didn’t matter much. People in Brownsville weren’t swimming in cash and most of them found Neil’s services could be done themselves for the price of a six pack, a baseball bat, and a shadow.
Neil capped the tube of glue and put it back into the junk drawer among the take-away menus and business cards, mysterious keys, and his shining piece. He shut the drawer and walked on rubber legs to the bathroom, ran the water cold and splashed his face. Neil stared at his wood-carved mug in the scummy mirror. He was pushing on forty, stocky and solid with a mop of wiry brown hair. He had the look of a tensed metal spring waiting to jump.
He stretched his mouth over his teeth and felt the pull and crack of the dry skin that didn’t snap back with quite the elastic tenacity it once did. He felt old. Aging didn’t bother him, but he felt shiftless, a shell, beaten. So he ruminated on his worries with the glue most nights, alone, and let his mind drift over both the works done and those big ones left undone, left to rot, smelling of garbage and fire and flesh. And even a little sex.
Neil grabbed his .45 from the drawer, took it over to the gouged and nicked coffee table and began to dismantle the nickel-plated nightmare. He cleaned each piece of the weapon, blew away the dust with quick bursts from his lungs, then polished each piece, the tips of his fingers shining bright with oil. He assembled it absently, fingers moving from memory, leaving Neil to appreciate how smoothly each piece fell back into place. Neil didn’t like friction. That was his motivation for going snoop in the first place, to make things smooth. Take some photos, bust a head or two; it may create a hot rub someplace else, but that wasn’t Neil’s problem.
The work gave him the opportunity to smooth out other situations as well. The butt of the .45 saw action in Neil’s hands. And that was the reason for a cleaning schedule just short of ritual: to smooth over the roughed up, crooked metal inside, a delicate thing twisted to an unpredictable beast, efficient only when treated with more care than it deserved.
There was a tap on the door. Neil slid the piece back into the drawer. Through the peep Neil saw the man shifting his weight from one foot to the other on the dark, second-floor landing. Even in silhouette Neil knew that it was Jenkins the pharmacist. Whatever the reason for his visit, it brought him to Neil at two in the AM. That was fine by Neil. He had nowhere to be.
Neil unlocked the door and continued eyeing Jenkins through the glass lens for a beat, making out the battered face as Jenkins turned, catching some of the light tossed over from the Porky Pig diner across the street. Open twenty-four hours it was still dead as everything else in Brownsville. Neil turned his attention back to Jenkins. The man was bleeding from about every natural hole in his head and from a couple of manmade jobs too. Neil opened the door. “What the hell happened to you?”
Jenkins moved past Neil without invite and began to absently wipe at the blood, and tears, and snot with the sleeve of his jacket, smearing the wet red all over his face.
“Neil. I don’t know what the hell I’m supposed to do. It’s Helen. Isn’t it always Helen?”
Neil nodded, vaguely understood where the conversation was going. Helen was Jenkins’ daughter, a hell raiser from the age of five. Her mama had died years back and it had been Helen and Jenkins for longer than it had been the three of them.
“What’d she do? She do that to your face?”
“Yes. Well no, not directly, was that boyfriend. Helen comes in with that second asshole of hers, and they start helping themselves to the Oxycontin. I couldn’t believe it, didn’t even say a word and then that son of a bitch lit into me. I thought he was going to kill me.”
“That Hoon boy?”
“Yeah. Him.” Jenkins grabbed a cleanish white rag from the sink and wiped his face.
“You need to go to the hospital?” Neil asked.
“No. I’ll be fine I think. Just,” and then the man began to tear up, “I just want Helen home. She’s a lot of things, created all kinds of bad for me, but nothing like this. Help me, Neil? Help me get her home?”
“Why not talk to the police? Don’t know what I can do for you.”
“I don’t want her in trouble Neil. I want her home, with me, where she belongs.”
“She’s grown now isn’t she? Might be hard to convince her she needs to be at home with her daddy. Unless you’re just hoping I’ll work over that boy of hers.”
“I thought of that, but it ain’t all of it. Hell, I don’t care if you shoot the son of a bitch, but can you maybe just bring her in so I can talk to her? If she won’t come home on her own, I mean.”
“What about Hoon? He going to give me grief?”
“Like I said, shoot that son of a bitch he tries to stop you! I don’t give a rat turd what happens to that trash.” Jenkins sat hard on the single wooden chair placed at the small mismatched table of the kitchenette. He scraped at a gouge in the wood, picked at it lovingly, like it was all that was wrong with his world. “Hell I don’t know. I always thought him a bit touched, but not mean. Not like tonight. A mean, crazy son of a bitch, tonight.” He looked up, into Neil’s eyes. “Help me, Neil. Please. Get my Helen home to me. She belongs with her daddy, not some no account pill head.” Jenkins began to weep, hard. Mean and crazy. Neil hadn’t interacted with Hoon in years, but mean and crazy weren’t words one applied to boys like him. Happy-go-lucky, a bit aloof, the Hoon boy was either really in deep or Jenkins had reason to misrepresent him. Neil took a deep breath and wished it was with his face buried in his glue rag.
“I don’t know, Jenkins. This isn’t my usual kind of gig.”
Jenkins looked up, wrestled his emotions and smiled. He pulled a bank-banded bundle of crisp twenties from his jacket and suddenly it became the us
ual gig.
Neil took the cash. “I’ll do what I can. I’ll call you if she doesn’t come along peacefully. And the boy, I’ll see about him too.”
Jenkins lost it again and choked out something akin to “thank you.”
When Jenkins had left, Neil leaned over the rickety railing and lit a home-rolled cigarette as he watched the man cross the street and round the corner by the Porky Pig. The few patrons through the glass turned to watch the bleeding man pass, then went back to their coffee and $2.99 catfish plates.
Neil pondered the ins and outs. Helen was part owner of the pharmacy, willed to her by her dead mama, so Helen hadn’t exactly stolen anything. And Neil doubted he’d find the pills when he found her, if he found her.
Neil threw on a light jacket to hide his piece, locked up and went down the stairs. He got into the seat of the ’65 Cutlass and pulled a bottle of rubber cement from the glove box, cracked the plastic seal cap and took a long pull from the bottle before he started the engine. He let the engine rumble in park, foot pressing the pedal to the floor and shaking him loose from everything. He threw the shifter hard into gear without letting up, pealed out, tearing up the strip of city turf between the lot and the sidewalk, dropped off the curb and hit the road with an explosion of chassis sparks, tires screaming through three gears as he tore ass to wherever this was going.
CHAPTER TWO
The thing Neil remembered most about his mama was the coming and going of men. Daddy would sit perched in the arm chair in front of the TV with his beer and shotgun, playing sentry while the men pulled up to the house, one after another in turn. It was Neil’s job to see to the door, let the men in and point them to the back room. His daddy never said anything, just sat still with the shotgun laid over the arms of the chair. The new men always hesitated, just for a beat when they saw Daddy sitting there. But Neil would pull on their shirt sleeves with his small hands and get them going again, lead them to the door he was never allowed to open himself while Mama was entertaining.
The flow of men always came the same way, started with a slow patter, like the rain, a few at first, the time between guests shrinking as the storm moved in, bodies lining up on the porch, waiting for their turn, blocking the sunlight from the windows like clouds. Every day Neil stationed himself at the door, sat on the hard, aged, and stained carpet with a picture book or a pair of trucks. He sat there till dark, flipping pages or witnessing fiery crashes, lifting himself from the floor when it was time to answer the door. Some of the men, the new ones, eyed him warily, like the boy was some little physical piece of their conscience manifested in flesh, but there was one man who always scruffed the hair on his head with his rough hand and gave him a handful of Atomic Fireballs or a Twix bar.
“Lester,” the man would say as he passed behind Daddy’s chair, not waiting for Neil to lead him to the back room.
“Lou,” Lester would say. And that was the most he said all day, until the procession of men had distanced itself for the day, like orbiting bodies, off to the other side of the world until it was time for their return, no choice in the matter, caught upon the same inescapable path as everything else.
On a particular occasion, not memorable save for the gift, Lou handed Neil a book instead of the candy or cards. “Your mama told me you like to read,” Lou said. Neil turned the book in his hands and read the dark cover, looked at the picture of the two boys entering a wide mouthed cave. “I liked that one when I was about your age. ‘Bout a trip to find a body, another boy went missing in the woods.”
“You ain’t here to jaw at my boy, Lou,” Daddy said. Lou looked at the man, the stone-still bird perched in the chair, eyes on the TV. Lou smiled lightly, winked at Neil and then headed toward the back room. Neil watched him until he was nearly lost in the shadow of the hall, the boy’s eyes never leaving the grown man’s toys dangling from the county issue belt, the holstered pistol, a shining .45.
Neil opened the book, noticed it didn’t have any pictures. He sounded out the first sentence, speaking out loud.
“Neily. Quiet,” Daddy said. Then he turned up the volume of the TV as the giggling began in the back room.
CHAPTER THREE
Neil killed the headlights and put it in neutral, coasted down the decline just beyond the overpass, gravel popping under the tires and silencing the crickets. Through the thin cedars Neil saw the glow of Hoon’s place, the old farmhouse was the only thing left of the boy’s parents.
Neil walked into the ditch and back up the rise, using his feet like antennae in front of him, high stepping over cat briar and tangles of rusted barbed wire. Hands in front of him, he kept the light of the small house in sight, pushing away spider webs and keeping the twigs from gouging his eyes. He stopped at the edge of the thin wood at the property line. It was reasonably well kept considering the owner, but then, dead soil isn’t too hard to keep. Children’s toys were strewn about, there since the last weekend Hoon’s kids had visited. Neil listened to the muffled sound of swamp rock coming from the house, low voices and coughs, laughter. TV? Real life? Neil stepped into the perimeter, to the nearest window where the light was brightest. It was an empty bathroom, toilet seat not up but missing completely, beard trimmings stuck in dried toothpaste around the sink. Neil moved around the side of the house looking for sign of the girl. He looked in windows but was met on all counts by thick burlap drapery or darkness.
“Ye know peeping into windows is a good way to get yer head blown off.”
Neil jumped, but no one could have told you so.
“Don’t I know it? And pointing a gun at the back of my head is good way to get your face caved in.”
“Now Neil, how ye supposin’,” and that was as far as Hoon got before the butt of the .45 smashed the bridge of his nose with a warm, wet spray and a crunch that rumbled all the way up Neil’s arm to his shoulder and made his ears itch. Neil kicked the shotgun away and watched the injured man, until finally helping Hoon to his feet.
“I warned you.”
“Oh, fuck me! Neil, ye broke my nose!”
“I apologize for that, unavoidable. You realize even if you weren’t planning on shooting, accidents happen.” Neil wiped the blood spray from his gun with a corner of Hoon’s open flannel shirt. Hoon pulled the shirt off, balled it up, and put it to his nose.
“I could probably sue you, you know?” Hoon said through the fabric.
“I’ll be waiting to hear from your lawyer,” Neil said. “So tell me something. Where you been tonight?”
“Been right here. Got my babies inside. My weekend.” He pulled the shirt from his nose; it flowed like a leaky faucet. “Jesus, Neil!”
“You forget about that sniffer for a minute. You seen Helen Jenkins lately?”
“Not in a few days. Say now, this about her daddy?”
“What about him?” Neil said.
“He told me if I came around the house anymore he was gonna fetch someone on me. That’s why you’re here, huh? I’ve been staying away.”
“You scared of Jenkins? He got you scared off? Little dog quit sniffing?”
“To hell with that noise. I ain’t scared of shit, specially no old fart like Jenkins.”
“So why stay away?”
“Helen asked me to. I told her okay. She said she’d work on him some and that since she was grown now there wasn’t nothin’ he could do. She just needed to make him see it that way.” Hoon pulled the shirt from his nose and poked at his nose with his fingers, checking the skin for fresh blood. “Think it stopped. Is it fucked?”
“Oh, not so bad,” Neil lied. “Best not evaluate until the swelling goes down.”
“I guess not. I really wouldn’t have shot you.”
“Well I appreciate that. And I sure am sorry I hit you in the nose. But someone puts a gun to me, matter of principle.”
Hoon smiled, teeth full of blood, but happy, happier than he would have been without a broken nose maybe. And anybody but Jenkins would tell you that was the boy’s way, lik
e a lonely, kind-hearted dog, happy for the company.
CHAPTER FOUR
When money got tight, which was often, Neil’s daddy fought him like a man fights his dog or game cock. Full of Maker’s Mark he’d grab Neil by the scruff and throw him into the Cutlass.
“Ye gonna win, Neily?” his daddy would say. Neil would nod, thinking about the bleeding and the swelling and the recovery. If they’d managed to scrape any change together, they’d hit the drive thru for a breakfast sandwich or a hamburger. When they pulled into the restaurant, Neil would think about jumping out of the car in protest, running, or at least refusing to eat the food. But the smell of the meal would make his mouth water and he couldn’t stop himself ripping away the wrapping and eating the food in a few choking bites, then with his belly full, it was hard to deny his daddy anything. Neil’s daddy would watch him out the corner of his eye, bottle to lips, smiling, drops of brown whiskey running down his chin.
“If ye win, we’ll be back on track and we won’t have to do this no more.”
Neil had lived that sentiment many times, through wins and losses they always ended up at the same place eventually, his daddy broke financially, and Neil just broke. It was a cycle as regular as the Kentucky seasons.
On one of these particulars, way out on Cave Creek Road, they pulled into a small gas station tucked back behind a stand of white and black oaks. Daddy parked and began filling the tank, told Neil to get himself some water. The boy went around the back of the dry-rotted building and drank from the spigot. He gorged himself on the water, filling up like a fleshy canteen, washing away the flavor of his breakfast, drinking until he was full and sloshing and then drinking more. Neil heard a rustle of leaves behind him and gave a little start as the dog emerged from the underbrush. The canine limped on a crooked leg that had healed the way it wanted in the woods, but the dog moved with an optimistic confidence. It approached at a trot, tongue out, eyes big and friendly, set buggy in a head decorated with scars from scraps with animals and thorny cat briar. Neil held out a hand and the dog sniffed and licked away the traces of grease from Neil’s nicked mitts.
