Chapter 27
The March Of Dimes
Two miles away in his mobile home across the fence, Mr. Dimes was angry and plotting revenge. “I’ve lived on this land nigh thirty years,” he fumed. “If some city boy thinks he can move in here and start tellin’ me where to get off, he’s got another thing comin’. And callin’ the sheriff to try and scare me – that’s a hoot. He’s still gotta learn how it works in the county. We straighten out our own problems, man to man. You can’t hide behind somebody else’s badge. No sirree.”
Dimes’ only audience for this tirade was his son Dalton – the sole member of his family still within speaking range, and that only because the boy was born with mental limitations that kept him at home. He both loved and emulated his father, and might prove useful for what Dimes had planned for tonight.
“Before the snow gets in,” he announced, “we’re gonna put a little scare into that ‘Sergeant’ and his wimpy kids. We’ll teach them to mess with Dimes!”
“Okay,” Dalton grinned in excitement. “What we gonna do?”
“We’re gonna do a little July Fourth on their front porch,” replied Dimes with a filthy toothless grin of his own.
“Burn ‘em out?” Dalton looked doubtful.
“No, ya nitwit – do I look like I want to go back to jail with your brother? We’ll hit ‘em with about a half dozen double-load cherry bombs. Won’t burn anything down, but they’ll think there’s a howitzer shootin’ at ‘em!”
“And we can put a couple bricks through their windows, too!” Dalton enthused, then paused. “Uh, do we still have any cherry bombs left from last summer?”
“No,” the elder Dimes admitted, “but I still got plenty of flash powder and fuses to make more.”
Just then their conference was interrupted by the sound of a car pulling up outside. Dimes warily turned off the light and pulled back the window covering. Satisfied that the visitors were expected, he flipped back on a small table lamp. “I got business to do,” he said. “Keep your mouth shut while they’re here, like you always do.”
Before answering the sharp knock at the door, Dimes checked the antique Browning Hi-Power stuck prominently in his belt. Then he opened the door cautiously and admitted two men to the half-lit room. Knowing the drill, they stood patiently while Dimes wanded them with a handheld metal detector. It was a seller’s market right now, and only the seller was allowed to pack heat.
Dalton watched as his father and the two men made a deal. After a good bit of dickering, his dad gave them a plastic bag, and they gave him an envelope full of cash. With one eye on his customers, Dimes carefully counted the money. Then everyone seemed eager to get away from one another’s presence, and the men were gone more quickly than they arrived. To Dalton, it looked like a great deal. He didn’t understand exactly what was in the plastic bag, but he sure understood what was in the envelope. That was enough money to fix the truck, stock up all the food they needed for two weeks, and give them both several glorious nights in a bottle.
After making sure his visitors were off the property, Dimes carefully tucked the proceeds away in a lockbox under the kitchen counter. Then he got out the supplies he used in his secondary business – flash powder, sawdust, epoxy, and fuses. In their annual season, illegal fireworks brought Dimes almost as much money as drugs did. His specialty was the double-load cherry bomb, an oversized version of an enduring favorite that packed a whopping two grams of flash powder. This was the most forbidden of illegal fireworks, as its payload was roughly forty times the legal limit.
Dalton watched quietly for awhile, then suddenly asked a question that had never occurred to him before. “Dad, what business are you in? I mean besides the fireworks. Like tonight.”
“I sell ‘happy,’” Dimes responded. “And let me tell you, there ain’t near enough of it to go round.”
“Why can’t we tell anybody about it?”
“’Cause we can’t, that’s why.”
“Dad, is it bad? Is it ‘gainst the law?”
“Son, bad and ‘gainst the law is two different things. You like it when we shoot off these fireworks in the summer, don’t you?”
Dalton nodded enthusiastically.
“So do I, and we make good money at it. But the gov’ment say we can’t have ‘em. You gotta take what you can get outta life, Dalton, and don’t let nobody stand in your way or talk you bad. Remember that.”
Having imparted this profound life lesson, Dimes finished his bombs – six of them – and loaded them into a box in the Kawasaki Mule. They would take this rough-terrain vehicle to within a quarter mile of the target, then silently walk the rest of the way, creeping upon the enemy unawares. Dalton made sure to bring a couple of bricks, as he wanted nothing to do with lighting and launching the dangerous fireworks (even if his father would have let him touch them).
Going was harder than expected once they left the Mule. The snow was falling heavily, and the wind was against them. Both father and son were freezing, but this fact had opposite effects on each of them. Dalton wanted to turn back; Dimes was more determined than ever to press on. By the time they reached throwing distance from the Sparrow house, the two redneck commandos were slogging through four inches of very wet snow. They would leave tracks, Dimes knew – but hopefully those tracks would be covered by morning with more snow. There was no way he would give up now, even though he could see that there was a light on downstairs. Dimes fumbled in his pocket for matches.
On the other side of that brightly-lit window, Mrs. Sparrow was fixing tea for Moe, who had come awake a short while before complaining of chills and a sore throat.
Mr. Sparrow was up and around as well, after waking up with a strange feeling of uneasiness. Suddenly he walked into the kitchen. “I think we need to pray right now,” he said. “Something’s not right.” Mrs. Sparrow took his hand, and they prayed that the One whose eyes could see through the dark would watch over them, their children, and their house.
Outside, Dimes saw the second shadow against the window, but was undeterred. He lit the fuses of the first two cherry bombs and signaled Dalton to let loose with a well-aimed brick. As the three projectiles sailed through the air, the two throwers waited for the sound of splintering glass and exploding fireworks.
Silence.
Dimes swore at his son. “Can’t you even throw a brick straight?” But the old man’s tirade died away as he realized that the bombs weren’t exploding either. Something was definitely weird here. Maybe he threw too soon and the snow put out the fuses. Maybe they were duds. “Maybe we’d better get out of here,” Dimes decided.
As they hurried back toward the property line, the man who had come to scare others somehow felt strangely scared himself. But he would be back, he resolved. On a better night, with a better plan.
Back in the trailer, and far toward dawn by now, Dimes dismantled his bombs to make sure they would work next time. Dalton – tired, bored, and scared – had gone into the next room to get ready for a late bedtime.
“I found the problem,” he heard his father say. That statement was followed by a sudden popping noise from the workbench.
“Oh no.”
The Sparrow Found A House (Sparrow Stories #1) Page 27