by Aaron Saylor
Besides, there were much bigger items on the agenda than Elmer Canifax. The latest tractor–trailer from New York was due in at midnight that evening.
Life for Walt Slone had gotten much better since the trucks started rolling in from the Northeast corridor. They carried their precious cargo of both heavy and light ammunitions, pain pills, and counterfeit consumer goods (fake Nike and Ralph Lauren were especially big sellers in Walt’s market). Elmer Canifax had taken a bite out of the Slone family’s numbers, but the trucks from Boston and New York ensured that the cash still flowed.
The original agreement with the East Coast people held that there would be one truck a month. Business boomed, though, and soon the shipments rolled in three times more often that. It was usually some nondescript truck with a plain white trailer. Down the trucks came, on the parkways and interstates of the Northeast and through the Appalachian mountains, blowing past weight stations and bribing officials from the Department of Transportation. For camouflage, the drivers loaded a few pallets of children’s toys or steel nuts and bolts on the end of their trucks, just in case the bribes didn’t land where they were supposed to and the truck had to actually make a stop at one of the weigh stations en route.
Once arrived in Seward County, each truck would come off the East Kentucky Parkway and roll out Highway 213 until it came to the boarded up old Methodist Church. There, the driver could pull into a large gravel parking lot in back and wait until Deputy Rogers showed up, and with him a couple of men with U–Haul trucks. It would take them an hour or so to unload all the wooden crates and duffle bags and transfer them into the U–Hauls. The men would whine about all the weight they lifted, but when they were done, Rogers would hand the New York driver a manila envelope stuffed with cash. They’d make jokes about each other’s home states
What has twelve nipples, three teeth, and smells like dog shit? A Kentucky whorehouse.
And then they’d all be on their separate ways. By the time the empty tractor–trailer hit the Parkway, headed back up the East Coast, Walt’s men were already unloading their goods to the lower–level dealers who would put them out on the street in a few short hours. Chinese assault rifles, faux Ralph Lauren jeans, 9mm handguns, tennis shoes, Coach purses that looked almost like the real deal. People in Seward County and those counties surrounding couldn’t get enough. When the next truck came around two weeks later, half of it was already committed to backorders. The market showed signs that it might be bottomless.
“Truck’s comin’ in tonight,” said Walt.
“I know,” said Sheriff Slone. “Rogers said one of the guys that usually helps him is down in Florida on a pill run, so he asked if I could drive one of the U–Hauls and help unload.”
Walt closed his eyes and slowly shook his head in dismay, as though he felt a sudden, deep distress. “Motherfuck,” he said, low, almost to himself. “Like you got time for that. What did you tell him?”
“I said it wouldn’t hurt him to get his ass up and do some real work for a change,” shrugged John.
Walt smiled, a broad grin that showed all his teeth. They sat there a moment longer.
As they sat there, John noticed for the first time the old man outside with the tricycle trailing behind him. But just as Walt had done, the sheriff didn’t mention it.
Finally, Walt got up from the chair and headed for the door, tapping the sheriff on the top of the head as he went by. “I ever tell you how glad this town is to have you back at work, John?” he said.
“Every day,” said the sheriff, rising from the chair to follow him. “Now how about we get some lunch?”
“Yeah, we can do that,” Walt replied. “After that, I promised Karen we’d come out to the city park and help ‘em decorate for the Orchid Festival.”
Slone grimaced. “We?”
“Of course ‘we.’”
The sheriff’s heart dropped somewhere around his kneecaps. Walt was always signing him up for shit like that. Community appearances, kissing babies, smiling at strangers, the sorts of things that were expected of any smalltown sheriff and community leader. He quickly flicked through several excuses in his brain that might allow him an exit out of going, then realized that no way was Walt going to let him beg out and so there wasn’t any point in even trying.
Walt motioned again. “Come on now, I got to give out some election cards. You can make yourself useful.”
“I hate that election shit,” said John. “You know I hate that shit. Shakin’ hands. Kissin’ asses. I can’t stand it. Who else are they gonna vote for, anyway, besides you?”
“Nobody. So what?” asked Walt.
He had a point.
“Raise on up. Let’s git,” Walt said. “The printer just dropped off a stack of election signs in my office. Go grab ’em, and I’ll meet you at your cruiser.” He ambled out of the room.
John stood next to his chair a bit longer, not at all anxious to follow, or go to the park, or kiss babies, or shake hands, or be in the communal spirit. He glanced out the window, again trying to come up with an excuse he could feed Walt that would get him out of that damn chore. Outside, the old man with the tricycle had circled back towards the courthouse, and no longer pulled the three–wheeler behind him. Now, he just rode it.
BOONE
Boone sat on the bed, in the room where he spent so many nights, in the house he hated more than any other. Walt Slone’s house. He looked towards the bathroom door, just beyond it. His eyebrows arched as he bit his lower lip. Bored, waiting. He saw Karen as she stood in front of the sink and leaned in towards the mirror, applying makeup to her face.
Every morning he woke up in one of his father–in–law’s extra bedrooms meant a morning filled with bitter, cold resentment, and this morning was no different. Up to that point, the day had passed quiet and surly between husband and wife. He didn’t want to be there, she knew he didn’t want to be there, and he knew she knew that he didn’t want to be there.
Still, he was there.
Boone made no secret that he preferred sleeping in his own house, in his own bed. This preference had been the source of many a long, loud argument with Karen. How could she stand it, spending so many nights under her father’s roof, never straying far from the hallways where she grew up, never able to take more than the smallest step beyond the shadow of Walt Slone? How could she manage only half of a life? He couldn’t stand it. How could she stand it?
But he knew Karen didn’t think of this as half a life. For her, this was whole, the life she wanted.
Boone felt like he spent too much of his time looking into the Sewardville valley, thinking of smoke and fire and dead people. He denied the truth the best he could, but still that truth remained, lurking in the shadows, never far away. That truth was: he lived half a life. Maybe Karen didn’t, but he did. He spent his days and nights going from point to point, doing what he was told to do. He belonged to the whims of others, and whatever scraps of his soul they left behind, he claimed as his own. In the rarest moments of honesty – the deep down moments, the hard moments he did not often allow – the worst reality hit home: his was not even half a life. It was far less.
You’re such a dumb boy, Boone.
He grew impatient. He felt like he’d been waiting a millennium for Karen to finish in the bathroom. He picked up the television remote and flipped on the TV that sat on the dresser. Nothing interesting came on.
“You about ready yet?” he called towards his wife.
“Nope,” Karen answered.
Of course not. Boone stood up and walked into the bathroom. When he went in, Karen didn’t even acknowledge he was there. Rather than force the issue any further he headed downstairs.
In the living room, he found Samantha on the couch, watching SpongeBob cartoons. He sat down beside her and they watched together.
“Where’s Mommy?” his daughter asked after a few minutes.
Boone stared at the cartoons. “She’s upstairs.”
“Is she ready to go?�
�
“Not yet.”
They were supposed to be headed to the Sewardville Park that afternoon, at least, Karen and Samantha were, so they could help set up for the Orchid Festival festivities. The festival commenced tomorrow, the last Saturday of April, just as it commenced every year. Samantha had looked forward to this since the moment her mother said she could help with decorations, and she’d insisted her Daddy be there, too.
After two weeks’ worth of his daughter’s begging, Boone had finally relented. He had no intention of sticking around long – banners and bunting were not in his field of expertise – but still he promised he’d go with them for a little while, anyway.
When it came right down to it, he really couldn’t give a great fuck about anything related to the Orchid Festival. For Boone it was just another shabby community festival like all the other shabby community festivals of rural America. He could get his fill of Americana on his own with a mason jar of apple moonshine and a bag of hand–rolled cigarettes, thank you very much.
Still, regardless of his own apathy towards the festival, Boone knew that he couldn’t shirk his duty completely. So he promised Karen and Samantha a ride to the Sewardville city park, where he would help hang the red and white “SEWARD COUNTY ORCHID FESTIVAL” sign over the park’s main gate. But that was all; after that, he would slip away. He could pick them up later, or maybe catch them back at Walt’s if either John or Walt decided they would take the girls home, which would likely be the case.
Samantha didn’t like that plan. She wanted her Daddy there with her all day. But Boone got by with a “Daddy has to work, honey,” and a promise that they would be together all weekend.
That wasn’t good enough for Karen. Of course it wasn’t good enough for Karen. In her mind Boone had broken his word to their daughter, regardless of whether the daughter felt that way or not. His little plan had caused an argument with Karen. Of course it had caused an argument with Karen. What didn’t these days?
Boone thought back through the last few hours.
This morning, just as he opened his eyes to the sunlight, she hijacked him while they still lay in bed.
“That’s pretty bad,” she said. “I can’t believe you won’t even spend one entire day with your own daughter.”
He’d barely felt awake and had no idea what he should say. He hated when she did that, when she took him by surprise in his slowest moments. And she did it a lot.
Karen was a master at holding in her anger for days or weeks or sometimes months at a time, letting it boil inside her until it burnt her up and finally poured out in Boone’s direction. This time, he refused to answer. If he’d learned one lesson from all the times they’d lit into each other over topics both significant and not, he felt secure in the knowledge that as far as Karen believed, no matter existed in the universe on which Boone could be right, and she could be wrong.
So when she woke him with that particular loaded statement – “I can’t believe you won’t even spend one entire day with your own daughter” – he knew where the discussion was headed: absolutely nowhere.
So, he ignored her. “Mmmm–hmmm.”
“I know you heard me,” she said.
“Mmmm–hmmm.”
“You’re an asshole, Boone. You know that?”
Her words bounced off him and evaporated, like raindrops on summer concrete.
She sensed that he was blocking her out, having grown finely attuned to the mmmm–hmmm nature of it all.
“I know you heard me,” she said.
Boone raised his eyes towards Karen and took a deep, long breath. He knew he couldn’t ignore her forever. She would never allow that. He’d learned that there were times when Karen would let things drop, and then there were times where she would most certainly not let things drop.
This was the latter. He could tell by the way she propped herself up on one elbow, holding the side of her head in the palm of her hand, steel eyes drilling into him as though she stared down the barrel of a high–powered rifle. Boone felt the only thing he could do was flip the situation around and throw it right in her face.
“Yes. I heard you,” he finally said.
Her glare narrowed.
Boone turned and looked straight at her. “Tell you what,” he said, with more than a hint of sarcasm. “Why don’t you go ask your Daddy why I can’t spend an entire day with my own daughter? ‘Cause he’s the goddamn reason why. It’s his damn business, that’s why I can’t get some real time with Samantha, because your Daddy’s got me runnin’ all over God’s Earth emptyin’ quarter machines and taking care of his shitty laundry. What about that?”
Karen didn’t say anything.
She closed her eyes. Blood flushed into her cheeks and he could almost feel the anger radiate from her face. A solid little bump formed in both her jaws as she clenched down on her teeth and tried not to scream.
“So, what about that, huh, Karen?” he hissed.
She drew back, opened her mouth a little, a copperhead snake about to strike. But instead of saying anything, she jumped out of the bed, stormed into the bathroom, and slammed the door shut behind her.
Boone sat up in bed and stared at the closed door. He wondered if he should follow her, which no doubt would have turned the morning into a ten–round, knockdown drag–out heavyweight fight. After pondering that for all of one half second, Boone decided that he had zero interest in such a fight.
He crawled out from under the covers and sat up at the edge of the bed, in his silver jogging shorts and white University of Kentucky t–shirt. And there he waited, knowing that sooner or later his wife was bound to come out and smack him right in the face.
An hour and a half later, Karen still hadn’t come out of the bathroom. She’d taken a shower, dried her hair, gotten dressed in some clothes from the bathroom’s walk–in closet, but she hadn’t come back out to the face him again. She’d cracked the door and peeked out, then left the door open just enough so he could see that she’d turned her back on him.
And that’s how things stood now.
Boone sat there and waited, not impressed. This particular back had been turned on him many times before. So, he waited.
He held his ground and he waited, like a soldier hunkered down in the foxhole, hearing mortar rounds exploding in the distance and anticipating the moment when one rained down on his own head.
Finally, after he’d waited long enough, Boone went into the bathroom to give it one more shot with Karen. He pushed the door open and stood behind her, looking at her reflection. She ignored him and just kept brushing her makeup on. Briefly she made eye contact, just to let him know that she recognized he was behind her and chose not to pay him any attention.
“Perfect,” he sighed. With his belief affirmed that this encounter led nowhere, he left the bathroom and went downstairs.
The telephone rang, behind him.
Boone ignored it at first, content with things as they were. But it rang again, and again, and again, and midway through the fifth ring, he picked up the cordless black handset that sat on the end table.
“Hello?”
The male voice on the other end sounded desperate, hurried, their words whirled together in a rush of wind and spit.
“Boone? Is that you?”
“Who is this?” Boone asked.
The caller paused. Boone heard him snort back hard and knew there was a crushed painkiller involved. That particular sound was unmistakable.
“Boone. Fuck. I knew you’d be there,” the voice on the phone said, ramping up the anxious tone even more. “You got to help me, man.”
Boone recognized the frantic voice now.
He glanced at Samantha, saw she was immersed in the SpongeBob cartoon, then walked into the kitchen. There, he dropped his voice so she couldn’t hear.
“Elmer?” he whispered into the phone. “Are you out of your mind, calling me here?”
“I’m at the house. The sheriff just left. I need you to come up here right f
uckin’ now.”
“I can’t come up there,” said Boone.
“COME UP HERE RIGHT FUCKING NOW!” Elmer screamed into the phone, so loud that Boone yanked the receiver away from his ear and could still clearly hear every word that came through.
“They’re gonna kill me, Boone.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Come up here. You gotta come up here, to the house. They’re gonna kill me. I’m fucked.”
Boone didn’t know what to say. Sheriff Slone must have paid the man a visit and delivered a message. Elmer Canifax sounded like he’d just faced a vision of his last moments on the mortal coil.
He just couldn’t figure what the fuck Elmer thought he could do about that. If Walt or the sheriff (perhaps Walt and the sheriff) decided that they wanted somebody dead, nobody could stand in the way of that. Not Boone, not Batman, not sweet Jesus himself.
He turned around to check Samantha again. When he did, he saw Karen standing there, in the entrance to the living room. The conversation with Elmer was over. “I’ll call you back,” he said, and hung up the phone.
“Who was that?” asked Karen. She pressed her hands hard on her hips, enough to turn all the tips of her fingers white.
“Nobody,” said Boone.
“Nobody. Sure.” She did little to hide her suspicion.
Boone didn’t care about Karen’s suspicions. He glanced past her, and saw his daughter still engaged in the cartoon.
He walked over to the kitchen counter and set the phone down. Before he could turn back around, Karen loomed in his face. He stared at her; she stared at him. He tried walking around but she sidestepped and blocked his path.
“I have to go,” he said. He went back into the living room, kissed Samantha on the cheek. “Daddy will be back soon. Daddy will be back and we’ll go to the park all day today.”
Samantha’s face lit up. “Really?”
“Yes, really.” He kissed her one more time, then headed for the front door, leaving his wife on full steam in the kitchen.