Blacktop Wasteland

by S. A. Cosby

  “Well, fuck.”

  Darren collapsed into giggles.

  “What?”

  “You know they gonna think you had something to do with it, right?”

  The thought had crossed his mind, but he hadn’t so he didn’t expend any energy worrying about it.

  “Yeah, but I didn’t.”

  “I know you didn’t, but they still gonna say it.”

  He walked back into the living room.

  “So? You gonna peel these potatoes?”

  * * *

  They had dinner then sat on the couch watching a movie until Darren fell asleep. Kia picked him up and he snuggled against her neck.

  “I’m going to put him down. Then I’m gonna be right behind him. You coming to bed?”

  “In a few. Gonna check out the news.” Kia cradled Darren to her chest. Beauregard thought she was going to ask him a question. He waited for it, but the moment passed. “Tell your daddy goodnight,” she whispered to Darren.

  In response to her request Darren gave him a lazy goodbye wave.

  “Night, Stink.”

  The two of them went down the hall and left Beauregard alone in the living room. The news was the usual collection of local political stories blown up to Watergate proportions. Human interest stories that weren’t all that interesting. A report about a fire at an apartment complex in Newport News. Beauregard was just about to cut off the television and head to bed when the talking head mentioned Cutter County.

  “And new at eleven, authorities have released the name of the man killed in last Monday’s attempted jewelry store robbery. Eric Gay, nineteen, of Cutter County was killed in the botched robbery. He leaves behind a wife and a young son. Our Ellen Williams spoke with Mr. Gay’s widow Caitlin as she struggles to find the words to one day explain to her son what happened to his father,” the talking head said. The screen jumped from the studio to a cramped trailer. A young white woman was holding a picture in one arm and a baby with an ecru complexion in the other.

  “Attempted?” Beauregard said out loud.

  As the camera zoomed in on the picture, it showed a young man smiling in his high school basketball uniform. He was kneeling with one hand on a basketball and the other hand on the floor. He hadn’t had the time or the money to take any new photos that could be used on the air. When you were that age, you thought you had plenty of time for everything. There would be time later for a professional portrait with your wife and your new baby. Except later had been stopped in its tracks by a bullet.

  “That’s right, Frank. Caitlin cried as she told me how she is struggling with the idea of explaining to her son Anthony how his father died.”

  The segment went on for another five minutes, but Beauregard didn’t pay attention. He gripped the arm of the couch so tight his hand began to ache. All he could see was Eric Gay’s smiling face. The same face that had stared at him pleading for help on the side of the road.

  He got up and went into the kitchen. He grabbed one of the beers he had bought earlier. He checked the sink for a bottle opener. When he didn’t find it, he started looking through the drawers.

  Why had the news reported the robbery as an attempt? He’d seen the box. Seen the way Ronnie held on to it like it was a life preserver in the middle of the North Atlantic. He might be running game about the amount of the cut, but he had gotten paid. So why was somebody lying to the cops?

  Beauregard rifled through the forks and spoons. Nothing.

  Why had Eric Gay been in the store? He had told him he was broke. Maybe someone had given them some money. Slipped $500 in a card for the baby. Maybe Eric had gone to get his wife a gift. A thank you for bringing his son into the world. He had wanted to do that for Janice when she had Ariel. He’d thought about doing it for Kia when she had given birth to Javon. By the time Darren entered the picture, other things seemed more important.

  He opened the catch-all drawer. There were rolls of duct tape, a ruler, a device to open jars, and other miscellaneous items that tend to accumulate during the life of a household. A bottle opener was not among their number.

  Eric and Caitlin had named their baby Anthony. In the book of baby names Janice had dog-eared while carrying Ariel, it said Anthony meant praiseworthy. When they found out it was a girl, they settled on Ariel because Janice liked a cartoon character with the same name. When he and Kia had the boys, she picked the names. He had suggested “Anthony” both times. A subtle tribute to his Daddy’s memory. Kia had shot him down both times.

  Now there was a boy who would never have memories of his daddy. He would grow up without a father just like Beauregard.

  He hadn’t really thought they would actually do it. Why the fuck had they named the baby Anthony?

  Beauregard hurled the bottle to the floor. It shattered. Shards of glass flew across the kitchen. The beer followed the uneven curve of the floor and pooled under the table.

  SEVENTEEN

  Ronnie pulled into Jenny’s apartment complex with the radio blaring and an empty pint bottle of Jack on the floor. The smile on his face became wider the closer he got to her door. He knocked three times, paused, and then knocked twice more. She opened the door a crack. Ronnie saw she hadn’t unlatched the chain.

  “You got the money?”

  He could barely see her face through the opening in the door. “Well, hello to you too. You gonna let me in?”

  “Can’t you just pass it to me?”

  “No, not really. I got it in these boxes,” he said, taking the cereal boxes from under his arm.

  “Cereal boxes?”

  Ronnie grinned again. “If the cops stop me with nearly a hundred grand in cash, they gonna ask questions. If they see a back seat full of cereal boxes, they just gonna think I’m a big fan of breakfast.”

  “Whatever. Just slide the box through the door.”

  A scowl rippled across Ronnie’s face.

  “You got somebody in there?”

  “Ronnie, just give me my money.”

  “Hey, it ain’t like we married or nothing, I’m just asking. I mean, I was hoping I could spend the night, but if you got some dude in there, I’ll go on down the road. Can’t say I ain’t disappointed.”

  He handed her one box then the other. Jenny snatched them out of his hand with startling quickness.

  “You alright? You don’t seem like yourself.”

  “I just got a lot going on right now. I’ll talk to you later.”

  “If I was you, I’d keep an eye on them. You don’t need to let your new friend know you holding something magically delicious.”

  She shut the door and locked it.

  “Ain’t that bout a bitch,” he said under his breath. He whistled a low short tune and headed back to his car. Maybe the time to upgrade was now. Jenny was beginning to look rode hard and hung up wet anyway.

  Jenny opened the boxes. They were both stuffed to the gills with cash. She sat them on the couch and went to the bedroom. She grabbed a few shirts and pants and threw them in an overnight bag. She went back into the kitchen and took her sugar bowl out of the cabinet. She’d hidden twenty or so Percocets in the bowl. A gift from Ronnie. She shook all the Percs into her hand and put them in a pocket on the side of the overnight bag. A wet lock of hair fell into her face, but she didn’t bother moving it. The wail of an electric guitar made her jump like a long-tailed cat in a room full of rocking chairs. She looked down at the kitchen floor.

  The man had finally stopped bleeding. The handle of an eight-inch butcher knife stuck out of his neck like the crank on a jack in the box. The guitar sound was accompanied by a low vibration coming from the pocket of his jeans. That was the tenth or fifteenth time his phone had gone off since 3:00. Jenny stepped over him, careful to avoid the puddle of blood that was surrounding his body, and opened her freezer. She pulled out the ice tray and placed three cubes of ice in a small freezer bag. The ice felt good against her right eye.

  Her daddy had been a mean son of a bitch but the one good thing he
had done was teach her how to fight. That bastard never pulled any punches with his mouth or his fists. Those hard lessons had proved lucky for her but bad news for the guy lying on the floor. She stepped over him again and went back to the living room. It took some elbow grease, but she got both boxes in the overnight bag.

  Jenny went to the window and peeped through the drapes. She didn’t see Ronnie anywhere. She grabbed her keys from the hook by the door. She went back to the window. Her apartment complex was laid out like a motel. A series of units with one big front window and a front door that faced the parking lot. She only saw one strange car and that was parked right next to hers. The car looked empty. Still, she decided to wait a few more minutes. She didn’t want to pass Ronnie on the road. He’d follow her and pretend he didn’t care if she had a guy at her place, then he’d try sweet-talking her. She couldn’t have that. She might just tell him everything. No, she had to run. Running might make her look guilty to the cops but staying would get her killed. She’d seen the news. Lou Ellen was lying. Whoever owned the shop didn’t want the police in their business. They were sending guys like the dead guy on the floor of her apartment with a mouthful of rotten teeth to handle it for them. Once she got down south, she’d call Ronnie and warn him. She did owe him that.

  Jenny checked her phone. The guy had knocked on her door around noon. He’d punched her in the face at 12:15. He was dead by 12:30. It was now nearly 7:00. Six hours of sitting with his rapidly cooling corpse waiting to see who would show up first. Ronnie or Yuckmouth’s buddies.

  Almost as if on cue, his phone rang again.

  “Fuck this,” she said. She grabbed her overnight bag and left the apartment. She hopped in her car and started the engine.

  “Breathe. Just breathe and drive. That’s all you gotta do,” she said out loud to herself. She tossed the bag in the passenger seat.

  Checked the rearview mirror. Nothing. As she backed out of her parking spot the fuel light started to blink. That was fine. She had more than enough gas money. She’d stop somewhere in North Carolina and score some Adderall or something. Drive all night to Florida. Getting to the Bahamas shouldn’t be hard after that. Money talks and everything else walks. She pulled out of the parking lot and turned onto Bethel Road. A fine mist of rain began to fall. Jenny thought that was symbolic. It was like the rain was baptizing her. She’d come out of this a new creature. She didn’t have any AC in the car, so she was going to leave the window down until it started raining harder.

  A black Cadillac Seville passed her on the two-lane highway as she headed for the nearest gas station. It was the only car on the road. No cops. No gangsters with butter yellow teeth. No Ronnie. Just the old Jenny on her way to a new life.

  She was almost to the interstate when she noticed the Cadillac had turned around and was following her.

  EIGHTEEN

  “Wake up, sleepy head,” Kia said. Beauregard opened his eyes. “Can you pick Darren and Javon up this evening? I’m gonna pick up another office job tonight.”

  “Yeah. Where does that Cook boy live?”

  “On Falmouth Road.”

  Beauregard sat up in the bed.

  “Falmouth?”

  “Yeah. They in that subdivision,” Kia said. She clipped on some earrings and closed her Rottweiler-shaped jewelry box. Beauregard thought that box was one of the ugliest things in existence. You had to lift the head to open it at the throat. You basically had to decapitate it every time you wanted an adornment.

  “Okay,” he said.

  “We gonna be alright, ain’t we?” she asked.

  Beauregard spun until he felt his feet hit the floor. He grabbed her hand and brought it to his lips. He gave it a brief peck. “Yeah.”

  She turned and hugged him against her belly. He felt her hand on the back of his neck. He breathed her in and smelled the scent of her body mixed with her perfume and the remnants of the dryer sheets she used in the laundry. Even if they weren’t going to be alright, he would never let her know.

  Kelvin was already at the shop when Beauregard arrived. There were two vehicles in the air on the lifts. Kelvin was under one, a black pickup truck, working on the oil filter.

  “Hey.”

  “Hey. You just in time. Doing an oil change on this one and the car keeps making a funny noise that’s not a rattle or a clank or a clang or a ping,” Kelvin said.

  “Then ain’t a funny noise, it’s just the engine,” Beauregard said.

  Kelvin laughed. “I’m just telling you what the lady said. And we got a call from the Cedars Septic Service. Wanted to know if we could look at one of their trucks today. I told them we didn’t take no crap.”

  Beauregard frowned.

  “Fuck you, that was funny. I suspect we gonna be real busy this week,” Kelvin said.

  “Yeah. Precision caught on fire last night,” Beauregard said.

  “Oh, I didn’t know if you knew. Sucks for them, but good for us.”

  “I guess,” Beauregard said.

  They did twelve oil changes, replaced eight sets of brake pads and started on the septic truck. By four, they were both soaking wet with sweat and loving every minute of it.

  “Nice being busy, huh?” Kelvin asked. He had just driven a two-seat sports car into the back lot after adjusting its fuel injector. Beauregard was using an impact wrench to take off the back tire of an old Caprice. Before he could answer, they heard two vehicles pull up and the sounds of multiple car doors slamming shut. Beauregard stopped trying to remove the tire’s lug nuts and turned to face whoever was coming into the shop. It wasn’t the cops. If they had come for him, they would have announced themselves as soon as they got out.

  Patrick Thompson and his father Butch entered the shop through the first roll-up door. Patrick was a thin wiry figure with a shock of bright blond hair cut into a shaggy surfer-boy style. Butch was a square block of a man. All hard angles and broad shoulders. He was bald but had a prodigious blond and gray beard.

  “Pat,” Beauregard said. He had known Pat Thompson before he’d become the competition. He’d seen him at Danny’s a few times. Pat had a ’69 Camaro that he liked to run on the back roads sometimes. They had never gone head to head, but Beauregard knew the Camaro had legs. His daddy used to be a truck driver for a long-haul company out of Richmond. A year and a half ago, Butch Thompson had stopped at a gas station to fill up his rig. While he was in line to pay for his fuel, he’d purchased a one-dollar scratch-off ticket. He’d done the same thing a hundred times in the past. The most he’d ever won was $700. That day he received a huge return on his investment. He hit for $400,000. He called up his boss and told him to send someone to pick up his load because he had just quit. He and Patrick had opened their garage a few months later.

  “Beau. You heard about my place?” Patrick asked. His blue eyes bore a hole into Beauregard.

  “Yeah.”

  “That’s all you got to say? Yeah?” Butch asked. He was clenching and unclenching his hands. They looked like bear traps.

  “What you want me to say, Butch?”

  “Somebody say they saw a black guy running from the scene, Beau. I thought maybe you might know something about that,” Patrick said.

  Kelvin picked up a torque wrench.

  “Why would you think I’d know something about that?” Beauregard said.

  “Cuz you the only black guy who owns a garage that’s been getting its ass kicked,” Butch said. He took a step forward.

  “You think I set fire to your place? Really?” Beauregard asked.

  “I think you might know who did. The cops say it was deliberate. My dad told them to come talk to you, but I guess they didn’t take us serious,” Patrick said.

  “Pat, I didn’t have nothing to do with what happened to your place. I’m sorry for you, but I don’t know nothing about it.”

  “You a lying black bastard,” Butch said. His face was mottled with splotches of red just above his beard.

  “What you say?” Beauregard asked. He
let the impact wrench slip from his hand and held it by the air hose. It hung loosely by his side.

  “You heard me. You know who did it. You sent them. Couldn’t compete with us anymore. Then we got that contract. In three months there was gonna be a CLOSED sign on your door and we all know it,” Butch said.

  “The cops say they need proof to arrest you. I just wanted to ask you to your face,” Patrick said. His eyes were red. He’d probably been up all night. Beauregard knew he would have been.

  “I told him it was a waste of time. All you people do is lie and steal. And make babies you can’t take care of. Bunch of fucking nig—”

  Beauregard whipped the impact wrench up and out by its air hose. It flew through the air and smashed into Butch’s mouth. The bigger man stumbled backwards, his hands covering the lower half of his face. His blond and gray beard was stained with streaks of red.

  Beauregard snapped the wrench back and caught it in midair. He ran at Butch and clocked him in the forehead with the wrench. Butch fell onto his ass. He raised his hands and grabbed at Beauregard’s shirt. Beauregard hit him on the top of the head. The impact wrench split Butch’s scalp open like an orange peel. Beauregard raised the impact wrench above his head.

  Patrick tackled him. They tumbled to the floor. A thin arm snaked around his neck and gripped him like a python. Kelvin came running over. He swung the four-foot-long torque wrench like a golf club. The head struck Patrick in the small of the back. Beauregard heard him cry out like a wounded fox. Beauregard shrugged him off and got to his feet. He kicked Patrick in the gut. Then he kicked him again.

  “Please…,” Patrick gasped.

  Beauregard got down on one knee and shoved the socket of the impact wrench in Patrick’s mouth.

  “I should break all your teeth. Make you eat soup for a year. Give you time to think. If I had wanted to put you out of business, I would have just caught you outside of Danny’s one night and broken both your hands. Not burn down your shop,” he said.

  Patrick’s eyes were wild. Saliva dripped down his chin. Beauregard took the wrench out of his mouth and stood.