Sewerville

by Aaron Saylor

  BEARS DEN

  When Boone arrived at the Bears Den later that evening, he found the place two–thirds full and cloaked in a cigarette haze. The usual rednecks and coal miners and loud country music kept the place at a constant buzz.

  He silently passed through the carcinogen fog, waved hello to Lorna behind the bar, and found his way to the gambling contraptions in the back room.

  Moments later, he took a hundred and twelve dollars from the first quarter machine, eighty–nine from the second, and one fifty–six from the last. The video poker game produced another good haul, two hundred and fifteen bucks. One thing was sure: no matter how lean the times got, no matter how far downhill the economy slid, the miners and the farmers and the scraps and the rabble–rousers would always have money for whiskey, and beer, and cigarettes, and the gambling machines – and Walt Slone would happily take the last coin from their pockets.

  Once he was finished, Boone left the back room and closed the door behind him. He went to the bar, sat down near the end, three seats away from anybody else. He took out twenty dollars of Walt’s Slone’s money and set it on the bar.

  “How much whiskey can a man get for twenty dollars?” he asked Lorna.

  “About five shots of the rot gut,” she said.

  “Bring ‘em to me, then,” he said. “All at once.”

  Lorna reached onto the shelf behind her and got five shot glasses and a bottle of Maker’s Mark. She sat the glasses up on the bar in front of Boone and poured his drinks. Boone grabbed the first glass and tossed the brown liquor down his throat before she finished filling the next. Then he did the same with the second one, slamming it back before Lorna poured the one after.

  “Long day?” asked Lorna.

  “Long day,” said Boone.

  An AC/DC tune rumbled up from the jukebox, late seventies era Bon Scott AC/DC, subterranean and dangerous. Boone didn’t know the exact song, but he knew Sheriff Slone loved AC/DC. Boone hated the goddamn band, which was not a coincidence.

  He swished the taste of bourbon around his tongue until the burn settled in the back of his mouth.

  “Anybody sitting here?” A familiar woman’s voice, behind him. Not pleasant, but familiar.

  He turned around and saw Carla Haney, WTVL Live On Your Side. He didn’t immediately recognize her. She’d discarded her normal department–store reporter’s outfit and now wore dark jeans, a University of Kentucky sweatshirt, had her hair pulled back casual and tied with a narrow black elastic band.

  The sight of her elicited no reaction in his gut, certainly not the fireball disgust that ran him down the last time they’d been in the Bears Den together. This time, instead of that quick anger, Boone felt an underwhelming shrug of emotion. He spun back around on his stool and downed another shot of Maker’s Mark.

  “I didn’t see your news van parked outside,” he sneered.

  “I didn’t drive it,” she said.

  Boone swiveled his head on his shoulders, popped his neck. “That’s too bad. ‘Cause I really would have liked to take a piss on it.”

  Carla Haney WTVL Live On Your Side didn’t let Boone’s manner bother her. She stepped forward and claimed the barstool beside him. At first he ignored her, but before long it became clear that she wasn’t going anywhere. It became especially clear after she took one of his remaining whiskey shots and swallowed it in a quick motion.

  They sat quietly after that. Boone simmered. After a minute, he said quietly, “I paid for that you know.”

  “I know.” She grabbed another shot, the last one, and downed it. “I guess you paid for that, too.”

  “Aren’t you supposed to be getting’ ready for the news or something?”

  “The news is on at eleven. It’s not even six yet.”

  “The news comes on at six, too.”

  “I’m not on the six o’clock. I’m on the eleven o’clock.”

  “I know that.”

  “You know what?”

  “I know the news comes on at six and eleven, and you are usually on the eleven. I hate the news but I’ve seen it enough times to know a few things.”

  “Such as?”

  “Such as I hate it.”

  He thought about the news van, the fat cameraman, the never–ending stream of stories about Sewerville. He said, “Surely there’s a dead cow or a runaway fire truck somewhere that needs your attention,” and he really meant, how about you just go straight to hell?

  The reporter pressed her chin into her right shoulder and rocked in her seat until she figured out what to say next. Boone raised one hand, motioning for Lorna to bring four more shots. When the glasses arrived, Boone pulled them a few feet away from Carla, just in case she thought about taking any more of his bourbon.

  Carla Haney WTVL Live On Your Side decided to come clean. “The eleven o’clock. You’re right,” she said. “I have to be back for the eleven o’clock. But I thought I’d come here and see if I could find you first.”

  “What the hell for?” Boone couldn’t help but chuckle. “I wasn’t friendly enough the last time we met?”

  She laughed. “No, you were fine. But that was several months ago, and there was a lot going on around here.”

  Boone rolled his eyes. “And now you’ve got a few questions.”

  “Mmmm–hmmm. And now I’ve got a few questions.”

  He slumped on his seat, looked at the bar. He wondered what he should do next. Get up and leave? Stay and answer her questions? Stay and say nothing? Stay and tell her to stick everything up her Lexington reporter’s ass? Whatever it was she wanted, it couldn’t be good. There was an angle. There had to be an angle. Carla Haney, WTVL Live On Your Side did not come to Sewardville unless she smelled a story. She considered herself a hot shit reporter, and Boone felt sure she would be trying to do hot shit reporter things, bird dogging the big news story that would get her on the big TV news map.

  He threw back another shot of bourbon. The smoky brown liquid burned a trail down his throat and lit his stomach on fire. He decided that he would play. If she was looking for a story, he could give her a story. The story he wanted her to hear.

  “Ask away,” he said.

  “You want to talk here, in front of everyone?”

  “Shit yeah. Don’t you?” he smiled.

  Carla passed a wan grin, not sure what to make of Boone’s sudden willingness to talk. This was the guy who’d tossed her and her cameraman out of this same bar, threatened bodily harm, called each of them everything but a damn milk cow, and now he was willing to talk.

  “Sure. Let’s talk, then,” Carla said. “And just so there’s no confusion, I’ve got a digital recorder in my purse and I’m gonna turn it on now, if that’s okay with you.”

  Boone laughed. Of course she had a digital recorder in her purse. Everybody hot shit reporter carried one. “Go right ahead,” he said through a wide grin.

  She reached into her purse, pulled out a little black apparatus that was about the size of a pack of chewing gum, and set it on the edge of the bar.

  Boone looked at it. “Is it on?”

  “Not yet,” she said, then with her fingernail, pressed a tiny button on the recorder’s side. “Now it is.”

  “What do you want to hear?”

  “Well, I did some research,” she said, “after everything went down with your brother. That must have been hard for you.”

  “It was,” said Boone.

  “You know, even after all this months, I still can’t find anybody who can think of a reason why he’d do that. Why he would shoot that deputy, and the sheriff.”

  Boone smirked, half heartedly. “You didn’t know Jimmy.”

  The reporter continued, “I want to hear more about what happened six months ago. I want to hear about the sheriff. And Jimmy. And Walt Slone.”

  Boone inhaled deeply. He motioned for Lorna to bring more shots of Maker’s Mark, which she did.

  When the drinks arrived, he handed one to Carla. She took the drink, they clanked
their glasses together, and then threw back their liquor simultaneously. By the time his empty shot glass hit the counter, Boone was already staring at the recorder again. A red LED light blinked on the side, a hypnotic off and on that could go forever if left unattended. Around them, cigarette smoke and the hard music of AC/DC swirled together in the Bears Den atmosphere, broiling into that special Sewardville haze, the haze Boone knew so well, the haze that typified everything his life had become.

  He pulled his eyes away from the flashing LED and looked at the reporter. “You better be careful,” he offered, smiling.

  “Why is that?”

  “’Cause if you go askin’ questions, you’re liable to get some answers. Sometimes answers can be a lot more trouble than their worth. Least, that’s my experience.”

  Boone pushed the recorder towards her, but she stopped him and gently edged it back in his direction. I want the answers, that gesture meant. The red light flashed on and off, on and off, interminable.

  “Let’s take a ride,” he said.

  ROGERS

  The time logs of the Seward County sheriff’s department showed only one deputy on duty that night. This was hardly uncommon; the small town of Sewardville just didn’t have the necessary tax base to fund a larger force. They could afford several officers, they just couldn’t afford having too many working at one time on a weeknight, when the area’s rowdier elements stayed mostly quiet. Weekends, though, were a different story. On weekends, the liquor and the drugs flowed most freely across town, and on those nights more than one officer patrolled the streets.

  But this was only Thursday. The weekend didn’t start for another day, and so only one deputy was on duty tonight – J.T. Rogers, who sat in his cruiser, occupying the parking lot of the Sewardville Rx, faced towards the street. Eyes closed, brain waves slow and steady. Asleep.

  The cell phone of Deputy Rogers rang –– not really rang, just broke into a tinny recording of Conway Twitty’s “Hello Darlin’.” At first, the sound didn’t awaken him. The song rounded through a chorus and looped across another verse before Rogers finally opened his eyes. He picked up the handset to see CALLER UNAVAILABLE on his digital screen.

  Rogers answered immediately. He’d been expecting to hear from this Caller Unavailable.

  “Wake your ass up,” shouted the caller.

  It was Elmer again.

  Rogers recognized the voice immediately, despite the fact that Elmer was talking over loud music and several voices in the background. He pictured Elmer standing in the midst of a party, surrounded by writhing young bodies, smiling behind sunglasses that he would no doubt be wearing for protection against blinding strobe lights.

  Again came Elmer’s voice, shouting through the phone,

  “We’re rockin’ here. Come on up!”

  “I told you not call me on my cell again, you dumb son of a bitch!” Rogers yelled into the phone, hoping he could overcome the noise in the background.

  “We’re fuckin’ rockin’ up here, man!” Elmer repeated. “You coming?”

  “I can’t hear shit, Elmer.”

  “Don’t worry about it. Just get up here. You’re still comin’, right?”

  “I told you, I can’t hear shit, Elmer. It sounds like fuckin’ Chinese New Year up there.”

  Through the electronic din, Deputy Rogers thought he heard Elmer say, “Hang on a second.” Then the music and the party noise faded, followed seconds later by the unmistakable sound of a door slammed shut.

  “Is that better?” said Elmer. He’d locked himself in the bathroom, and his words bounced off the tile.

  “Much better,” the deputy said. “I can hear you now. I told you not to call me but here you are, callin’ me. What’s wrong with you? I told you about those old ladies and their scanners. If they hear us, we’re in a shit heap. Don’t that mean nothin’ to you?”

  “Chill,” said Elmer. “Fuck them old ladies. So are you comin’ up here or what?”

  J.T. shook his head. It was hard to talk basic sense with Elmer Canifax. “Yeah, I’m comin’. When I get off duty.”

  “What time is that?”

  “Eleven thirty.”

  “Who takes over for you?”

  “The sheriff.”

  A pause.

  “Call me when you’re on your way,” Elmer finally said. “I gotta get a few things ready. Like we talked about. We might have some problems with the competition, but we’re still gonna do us some business, right?”

  “Sure. Right.”

  “Then get on up here so we can take care of it.”

  Rogers opened his mouth to say “no problem,” but before he could get the words out, the call ended. The deputy looked at his phone, confirmed that indeed Elmer had cut off the conversation, then put his phone away and waited for eleven thirty.

  At eleven–thirty on the button, in the very same Sewardville Rx parking lot, J.T. Rogers handed his shift over to Sheriff Slone. The deputy reported nothing in the way of action for the night, much to the disappointment of the sheriff, though really not a surprise. Folks usually did their dirty deeds behind closed doors, up in the hollows and on the hilltops. The famous smalltown Saturday nights with high schoolers cruising bumper–to–bumper on a loop through town, and all the trouble they might bring with them, were mostly relics of the twentieth century. This was a slow evening. It wasn’t Saturday anyway.

  The two police cruisers sat beside each other. The sheriff’s faced the back of the parking lot, while Rogers looked forward, across the road. They rolled down their driver’s side windows and talked to each other from there.

  “You headed home now?” asked John.

  “Yeah, prob’ly,” sighed the deputy, doing his best to sound tired when he was anything but. “Anything comes up, though, you just give me a call.”

  John Slone put his car back into gear. “Will do,” he said, knowing full well that there was nothing that could come up that the sheriff couldn’t handle just fine by himself.

  QUESTIONS

  While Deputy Rogers left the sheriff, Boone and Carla drove Boone’s truck through the opposite end of Seward County, rolling along the rough road that took them away from the Bears Den and back into town.

  Boone could think of about three thousand other people he’d rather share a vehicle with besides the reporter from Lexington, the reporter that WTVL kept on call at all times, just in case something newsworthy happened in Sewardville. Boone hated that about her, how she was always prepared to broadcast every last scrap of drama she could find. Folks in town got the general impression that she particularly enjoyed sharing the bad news from Sewardville. They took it personally. So did Boone.

  But here they were, together in his truck, riding down the road.

  You want to know about Walt Slone? Go ahead. I’ll tell you a few things about Walt Slone.

  Carla turned the recorder on and set it down on the seat between them.

  “Tell me about your brother,” she said in her reporter’s voice. “Tell me about Jimmy.”

  Boone tightened down on the steering wheel. “What is it that you want to know about my brother?”

  She let her silence answer for her.

  “My brother. What about it,” Boone answered, eventually. “My brother shot the sheriff. You know that old song? He did it one better. He shot the sheriff, and he shot the deputy. Sure as shit.”

  Carla nodded. “I was hoping you might tell me a little more than that.” She looked away from him, out the passenger’s side window.

  Boone turned off the data recorder and stuck it inside his jacket pocket.

  “Hey!” she protested.

  “You want to hear something or not?” he said.

  She shrugged, willing to wait it out. They drove on in silence. The tree–lined rural highway became Main Street, running between the faltering midget buildings of Sewerville. Through the truck window, Carla observed that the town looked worse under streetlights and shadow; where darkness usually covered imperfection,
in Sewerville the darkness only emphasized the squalor and decay.

  The truck slowed to thirty miles per, below the speed limit.

  Boone let out half a chuckle, as though he’d started to laugh and then decided against it. “Fine,” he said. “With you bein’ quiet like that, maybe you don’t want to hear anything after all.”

  “I still want to hear about your brother.”

  Boone nodded, barely. He pursed his lips and held them that way for almost a full minute, not saying anything. The vehicle came to a stop at the first of the three red lights in town. His expression changed only when the light changed; when the light went green, it was like a switch flipped inside Boone.

  “I’ll tell you about my brother,” he said, easing the truck back up to thirty. “He was older than me, but I took care of him. Best I could, anyway. He drank and gambled away every nickel he ever had. He hit every pothole in the road coming and going. He took pills and swallered whiskey like they were bread and water. He had a talent for crossin’ the wrong people at the wrong time but he didn’t really give a shit because he always figured that any man he couldn’t out–talk, he could at least out–run. At least until he found one he couldn’t.

  “He’s dead now, but you already know that. He had a funeral and three people showed up, including me and the preacher. Of course that was two more than I expected, so I guess you could say he was an overachiever in that regard.”

  He paused, took a breath. She shifted in her seat. He went on. “What else? He liked AC/DC, that’s one thing. Another thing, Mama always liked me more than him, but that ain’t really sayin’ much because she’d just as soon spit as say hello for most of our grown up lives. Course you’re from the news so you probably already know that too, right?”