Edward Lee: Selected Stories

by Edward Lee

  “You can’t smuggle coke into the States in cadavers,” Hull objected. “Customs inspects all air freight, including coffins, including bodies tagged for transport. Any idiot knows that. The girl said you were muling the stuff.”

  “That’s correct, Mr. Hull. My mules walk right past your customs agents.”

  Wha—, Hull thought. Walk?

  Janice raised her nightgown. Hull’s eyes, in dreadful assessment, roved up her legs, over the patch of pubic hair, and stopped. Across her belly was a long black-stitched seam.

  “Janice has been muling for me for quite some time.”

  My God, was about all Hull could think.

  Raka began muttering something, heavy incomprehensible words like a chant. The words seemed palpable, they seemed to thicken amid the air as fog—they seemed alive. Then he placed a makak about the corpse’s neck.

  The corpse sat up and climbed off the gurney.

  My God, my God, my—

  Raka led the corpse out.

  Casparza held out his fat hands, his face, for the first time, placid in some solemn knowledge. “So you see, amigo, we still have a deal. And you’ll get to be your own mule.”

  Aw, Jesus, Jesus—

  The scalpel flashed splotchily in Janice’s hand. Hull began to scream as she began to cut.

  A HEADER TALE

  “It were horribler than what all ya heard,” Dory Ann Slate says to you, pouring just a touch of corn liquor into a cup. You’d merely come over to her tar-paper shack to express your condolences but now…this.

  You had no idea.

  “Alls I heard were that yer sister Lucie got kilt by someone who broke inta her house.”

  Dory Ann’s bloodshot eyes look larger than they should be, but sunken; in a sense, her entire life looks sunken. She’s forty-five but seemed to age ten years in the last week, the once-robust breasts that all the men would hoot and holler over sagged now in the faded-yellow tube top. She’d always been a part-time mother figure to you, larger than life, brimming with vitality and wisdom. Now she looked dilapidated, the blondish hair lusterless, disarrayed. She sits at the rickety table with her legs crossed, and you can see traceries of thin blue veins.

  “Ya wanna hear, Marla?” she asks.

  The question shocks you. You shouldn’t want to hear but…

  You do. For some reason, you do.

  “Oh, Miss Dory, I wouldn’t want ya to pain yerself by talkin’ ’bout it…”

  Suddenly, the half-dead eyes momentarily lighten. She pats your hand on the table. “But, see, it make me feel good to talk about it, hon. And God knows I need ta feel good about somethin’.”

  “Good?” you gasp without thinking. “But, Miss Dory, how can ya feel good ’bout yer sister gettin’ kilt?”

  A mirthless laugh, then another sip. “A’course, ya’d think that, dear. What are ya now, twennie, twennie-one?”

  “Naw, I just turnt eighteen.”

  “My!” your elder exclaims a bit too loudly. “You are blossomin’, girl! In a way, it’s a shame—pretty as ya are. You’ll learn that that’s a curse, hon, just as I learnt way back when. It’d be best if God just made us all fat’n ugly. My sister Lucie learnt, she learnt the hard way.”

  The question harasses you, from some black cranny from the bottom of your soul. Why do you want to know? How can she feel good ’bout talkin’ of her sister’s murder?

  “You knowed Lucie a little, right? She was a pretty one too, twennie years younger’n me. My. Our maw had me first. But it was on account’a her looks that got poor Lucie inta such trouble. Fellas wouldn’t leave her alone and the worst part was, she liked that. Rednecks been knockin’ her up since she was fifteen, sixteen, but she had somethin’ wrong inside, so’s she’s lost ’em all. Weren’t until ’bout a year’n a half ago that one took, li’l Cade, she named him. She never tolt who the father was…”

  You can’t imagine why Dory Ann pauses but now you notice that you’re all tensed up sitting in the chair opposite her. Your heart is racing.

  Outside, the sun is going down. You can hear the crickets and peepers starting up.

  “They ain’t shore what night it was, Friday, Saturday, thereabouts. Fella from the sheriff’s department said so. Someone come in and raped her right’n front of the baby in his crib. Raped her a couple’a times, they said, once in her rear, too. Just used her fer a place to git his nut. Young gal like you, Marla? Ya needs ta be aware’a that. Most fellas out there ain’t no good. They talk all sweet’n look good, but at the end’a the day, you ain’t nothin’ but a warm place fer them ta come. And that’s all Lucie was ta this guy. After he was done fuckin’ her, he cut her throat. And then he took a shit on the floor’n pissed on li’l Cade in his crib, they said. Then he left.”

  Your stomach lurches at the words, but what bothers you deeper is what she’d said before: You ain’t nothin’ but a warm place fer them ta come. Is that what you are in the eyes of men?

  All you can do is gulp.

  “But, see, he left the door open—on purpose. Lucie, she lived way on back up the old road past the deadfall, where the ole cobbler Jake Martin used ta live. No one go up there much; no mail delivery neither cos Lucie were squattin’ in ole Marm Lewis’s cos Marm said she could now that she’s at that ghastly nursin’ home.”

  Your heart seems to beat with your stammer. “What-what-what…happened to the baby?”

  “What’cha think? Three, four days went by ’fore anyone thought to check the house. By then, a’course, varmints got in and got to the baby. Skunk, possum, wild dog. Who knows? They found the poor thing’s body outside, what was left’a it.”

  The words make you dizzy.

  “And he done all’a that ta my sister, just to git his nut.” But it’s odd how Dory relates the tragedy. Don’t seem much upset, you observe. But you’re upset, that’s for sure.

  “See, Marla. It ain’t just that men ain’t no good. It’s that most of ’em are evil. Somethin’ ’bout fuckin’ gals just makes ’em evil.”

  Evil, you think.

  She looks at you with narrowed eyes. “You know what I’m talkin’ about.”

  You stare. Yes, you do know. It had been your mother’s boyfriend who’d done it to you first. You were eleven, twelve? It hurt so much, and there was so much blood. Your mother pretended it was you going from girl to woman, getting your “Curse of Eve,” she said, you she knew what it really was. Come to think of it, she wasn’t much good, either, but at least she never hurt you. There were some teachers, too, before you’d dropped out, then those couple of times your own brother, Floyd, he did it to you, too, and to this day the son of a bitch won’t look you full in the face but he always kind of smiles when he turns away. And to top all that off, one night last winter you were flat-out raped taking the short-cut home from Hull’s General Store where you work. Some creeker hidin’ in the woods who stunk to high heaven.

  Yes, it seemed that all men had to offer were pain and sperm. You were determined to having nothing to do with them, ever.

  “I thought so,” Dory Ann says of the look on your face. She sipped some more of the harsh, clear liquor. “But, see, I know more’n anyone else cos Lucie, she told me.”

  “Told ya what?” you ask in the driest voice.

  “She were pregnant again, from the same man who got her pregnant with li’l Cade, and like I said, she never told who, but I know anyway—”

  “Who?” the question nearly pulls you from your seat.

  “Just you wait,” she says with the thinnest smile. “It were that man who kilt her cos she told him to marry her or she’d go to the county courthouse’n report him, make him get somethin’ called a DNA test. See? Men, they just want their nut’n nothin’ else. Anyway, you know Rhonda Conner up the Crossroads? No, I guess not on account you ain’t old enough to drink and if’n yer smart you’ll never take up the habit,” and then Dory Ann’s soiled eyes flick to her cup. “She tend bar up there, even though she live in Crick City with her paw,
and when she were comin’ inta work last night? She hears voices in the parking lot in back, two fellas sittin’ in a pickup. Rhonda figgered they were just smokin’ a joint but she stop ’round the back entrance when she heard one of ’em say, ‘Kilt the cunt, yes sir.’ So Rhonda listened in instead’a goin’ inside. Next, one of ’em says, ‘—cut the knocked-up bitch’s throat, I did. Said she was gonna sue me fer child support.’ That’s what this hosebag said.” Dory Ann’s eyes look miles away now. “That’s how I knowed it was the same guy, and then he said, ‘Shit, I hated that bitch so much, ’fore I kilt her, I suck all the milk out her tits cos, see, she was still lactatin’ from that first one I put in her belly,’ and then he laughed’n said, ‘Tastes sweet, it does.’ So you know what Rhonda did then?”

  “What?” you whisper.

  “She up’n tolt her paw, Wynchell Conner. See, Wynchell Conner’s the son’a Sisal Conner. You ever hear’a him?”

  You reach back in your mind, squinting. “Name might be a little bit familiar but I’se cain’t be shore.”

  “It’s familiar, hon. Conners one’a the few decent families from these parts. Bunch’a Conners ’round here but these folks came from Kentucky, I think. Now lemme ask you this…”

  You wait and wait, tensing, fidgeting.

  Then Dory Ann asks, “You ever heard of a header?”

  You stare back at her. Then there’s silence.

  Dory Ann nods. “Ever-body’s heard of it, but no one talks ’bout it. S’no wonder. Not somethin’ folks like ta admit they know.”

  “But it ain’t real, Miss Dory,” you plead more than state. “Just somethin’ hillfolk make up ’bout how their kin’d get the last say in a feud,” but the look in Dory Ann’s eyes say otherwise.

  She pats your hand on the table again. “Headers is real, hon, I hate ta say, and they been goin’ on since the Civil War. It were the Tucktons and the Martins invented it way back when. It was the only way to get someone back proper who done ya a wrong that’s worse than anythin’ ya can imagine. If’n a man kill you wife or rape your child, you snatch his wife, and then, then…”

  You don’t need to be told the rest. You don’t even want to think about it. “Dory Ann, what this got ta do with this man Conner?”

  Outside grows darker, the crickets louder. Glass clinks as Dory Ann pours more corn liquor.

  She seems dreamy. “It were Sisal Conner. He were a good man even if he drank too much. Used to slaughter pigs fer William’s Meat Company but then there came one’a these recessions like what’s goin’ on now, so’s Sisal get laid off when the plant closed. This were like in the seventies, hon. I weren’t but ten myself. But Sisal, he get severance pay from the William’s plant and he buy himself a tractor on account the gover-mitt’d pay folks to cut wheat for somethin’ called a subsidy, and Sisal had some land he hung on to fer years which growed wheat on it. He had a sick wife—Judy May, her name was—so Sisal needed that gover-mitt work to pay the ’lectric bill cos Judy May had some kind’a lung problem where she hadda sleep with this breathin’ machine. A nebber-lizer I think it was called. But, see, there was a family been fuedin’ with the Conners since God knows when, the Crolls, and Horace Croll, he worked fer the gover-mitt subsidy too but he get fired fer bein’ drunk all the time’n stealin’ gas. Well, Horace Croll’s oldest boy—cain’t remember his name—he was in such a swivet ’bout his daddy gettin’ fired while Sisal Conner were makin’ extra money with that tractor he buyed…that Croll boy, he busted inta Sisal’s barn and put somethin’ in the tractor’s gas tank that ruined the engine. Would’a cost a thousand dollars ta git it fixed, so’s Sisal, he go to the bank and get a loan but it took two weeks ta git approved.” Dory Ann’s voice darkens. “He was late on his ’lectric payment so’s the power company cut him off fer a week, and…well, you can guess. Judy May died from some resper-tory attack on account the nebber-lizer turnt off.”

  There seems to be a drone in your head now…

  Was it some kind of relief that seemed blended into Dory Ann’s despairing face? You ask her, “So…what happened then?” but you think you have a pretty good idea.

  “Sisal snatch Croll’s youngest boy first, then, couple nights later, Croll’s ten-year-old daughter, then Horace hisself, and finally, that older boy who ruined his tractor. Each’n ever time Sisal and his closest friends—Jake Martin’n Tuff’n Helton Tuckton, they had theirselfs a header. They knock a hole in each’a their skulls’n then fuck the head.”

  The silence after Dory Ann spoke seemed to collapse now, as if a gust had flattened the shack.

  “Sisal, he died long time ago but his boy Wynchel’s carryin’ on the family name—Rhonda up the Crossroads is his daughter—”

  “And Rhonda told him,” you say to clarify, “told him what she heard that man in the pickup say— ”

  Dory Ann nods, then leans over to whisper, “Wynchel, he’s snatchin’ that man tonight, Marla. They’s gonna throw a header…,” and when Dory Ann says header, her eyes suddenly look like those of a young girl.

  You open your mouth to speak but words don’t form. You know what you want to ask, but you can’t.

  “You wanna go?” Dory Ann asks next.

  You answer in the most tenuous breath: “Yes…”

  “They’s havin’ it at Wynchel’s place,” she goes on but you notice immediately that Dory Ann’s nipples have erected beneath the drab tube top. You can see them sticking out like bottle caps.

  Your own nipples do the same.

  You’re going to get to watch a header. You’re going to watch a man fuck another man…in the head.

  Or so you think.

  Something difficult, now, seems to be on Dory Ann’s mind. She seems tentative, and you can only wonder why. But then the most obvious question occurs to you, like a glass rod snapping in your brain.

  “Miss Dory—you ain’t told me yet. Who is the man that kilt Lucie so horrible?”

  Dory Ann takes another sip, then looks you dead in the eye. “It’s why youse invited too, Marla. The man kilt my sister is your brother Floyd.”

  You stare. You go all over with gooseflesh. Your thoughts smash into each other, and you feel like you’re standing atop a mile-high cliff, looking down.

  “So’s I get my proper revenge and so do you, hon, cos sometimes you can tell by the way a man looks through his face that he been doin’ evil things fer a long time. Right, Marla?”

  You nod.

  “So’s ya shouldn’t care it’s yer own kin—”

  “I don’t!” you jump up and squeal, and you’re laughing and crying at the same time and you feel like you’re spinning around like a child’s top, and just the thought of it, the very thought makes you prickly and joyous and damp between the legs, and you practically fall onto Dory Ann and you hug her and kiss her and blubber like a baby.

  The clock is ticking. It’s full dark now in the window. The crickets and peepers are almost deafening.

  Dory Ann is crying too—in joy. She settles you down, then takes your hand and say, “Come on, hon. It’s time to go…”

  A HEADER TALE

  PART II

  Miss Dory’s warm hand grasps your own. The older woman’s eyes are dull with all the hardships and heartbreaks of life, yet deep beneath that dullness there is a sparkle unlike any you’ve seen.

  It’s anticipation.

  You suspect that same sparkle might be found in your own eyes now. I’m on my way to see a header, a darker version of your voice reminds you. Yes. A header.

  Something you’ve always thought to be a myth, until Miss Dory assured you it was true. The realization should be sickening, yet it’s not, it’s nothing like that at all. Instead, it’s breathlessly thrilling, and when more words finalize that truth, you begin to feel woozy: They’re gonna cut a hole in my brother’s head and then—and then…

  The wooziness makes you reel, it fills your nipples with blood and brings out gooseflesh, and you can tell by Miss Dory’s flushed face that she’s fe
eling the same way. This confuses you, of course. Why?

  Is it out of your own sense of revenge?

  It must be!

  “Hon,” says Miss Dory, walking through brambles, “I’se can tell you got a storm brewin’ in yer head right now, thinkin’ there must be somethin’ wrong with you fer gettin’ all hot ’bout what’s gonna happen to that swamp-scum brother’a yers. I feel it too, but ya know what?”

  Your eyes beseech her.

  “There ain’t nothin’ wrong with us. It’s so many’a the folks out there! They’re the ones with somethin’ wrong with ’em…”

  You let the idea rest and simply move on, wending your way through the darkening forest. Yellow moonlight filters down through the trees; soon it occurs to you that you’re not so much walking through the woods as the woods are swallowing you. Each twisted tree you pass seems like a grotesque figure, a grimacing man frozen, petrified. Are the trees growing more dense now? Thicker, more gnarled and contorted?

  Finally, Miss Dory’s hand squeezes yours tighter, and she says, “That there’s Wynchel’s shack.”

  Through low branches you see the tiny widows lit. It’s a sizeable, wood-slat shack with a sloped roof. It looks peaceful…

  They’s gonna be fuckin’ my brother in the head in there, you realize, and, and…

  You can’t wait.

  Miss Dory leads you to the porch. “I can tell you’re hurtin’, honey, more’n me probably. What your brother Floyd done ta you, you been holdin’ back in yer heart fer so long, and when I heard it was him that kilt my sister’n li’l Cade? I hurt so bad I dang near jumped off’a the top of Boone’s Gap Cliff.”

  You know exactly what she’s talking about—the pain that never goes away, the pain that just stays there stuck in your heart and makes you feel like a great big chunk has been cut out of your soul. More tears well in your eyes…