“What the hell is going on?” she asks.
“I’m Sheriff Madsen, and this man is wanted for multiple murders. I was appointed by US Marshals this morning to curb the violence in this town, so I’m taking him in. Put the cuffs on, sir.”
“Or what?” I ask.
He draws his other gun and points it at me as well. “You’re wanted dead or alive. It’s your choice.”
“All right. I choose your death.”
I look up at Daniel, who has a street howitzer aimed at the sheriff. The sheriff’s eyes grow wide with fear at the sight of a young boy in a full-body cast holding a shotgun. Although you can barely see his face from inside the cast, you can make out his smile. Boom! He pulls the trigger, blasting the sheriff square in the chest. The entire reception retreats in horror as he hits the ground bleeding. I kneel down next to him.
“Don’t ever try to arrest someone at their son’s funeral. Ever. On the positive side, though, you won’t be able to tell my wife that I was fucking that weird girl on top of his casket. Rest in peace, spidercock.”
As the sheriff takes his last breath, he holds out his hand for me to hold, and I casually spit in it. This isn’t a fucking cotillion, holmes. His head falls back on the ground, and he dies. I then kick his dead body, because why the fuck not?
“Everyone, please continue to grieve. Ron, come dig a grave for this bastard. There’s a shovel out in the barn.”
Ron shakes his head and says, “You know the marshals will come looking for you after this.”
“You can wake up tomorrow in your bed or in a ditch, Ron; it’s your choice. So shut the fuck up and go dig a grave for this asshole. Oh, and fill in the dirt on Totally Fucking Mexico’s grave too, while you’re at it. That will make up for your casket failure earlier, and we’ll call it evesies.”
Walking up to the house, I wink at Daniel up in the window, and he winks back as he puts down the shotgun. The kid is quickly becoming my favorite son. Not only did he take sixty-three shots like a boss, but now he’s icing other people who threaten me. Louretta stops me on the porch on my way in.
“When is the killing going to stop, Saint James?”
“I don’t know. I don’t have anyone on tap for tonight, so I guess now? There’s always the off chance Ron gets out of line and decides to grow a pair, so maybe him, but that’s probably it.”
“Do you want more of your family to get killed? Is that it?”
“Everything I do is to protect this family. I’m gonna go upstairs and check on our son who was shot sixty-three times.” I grab the remaining tray of deviled eggs and head up the stairs.
With the sun setting, I pull up a chair and sit next to Daniel. Both sets of our legs dangle out the upstairs window, his obviously set in a body cast. We drink laudanum together and watch the sun go down. From up here, I can tell that he was definitely watching me fuck that weird girl in the grave. He offers me any part of his cast to wipe her blood off my face from the roses. I oblige with his right arm.
Whenever people tell me that I’m not a good father, I often tell them of this moment. This is way better than teaching him to ride one of those bicycles with the huge tire in the front and a tiny one in the back. I put my arm around his body cast, and we quietly nod off together in a drug-fueled haze.
Chapter Nine
THERE ARE LAWS NOW? WHAT THE FUCK?
The following morning I wake up to the vibrant sounds of birds chirping and a warm summer breeze blowing across my face. I have my arm around my son, and there’s urine all over the hardwood floor from both of us blacking out on laudanum last night. This tranquil moment is suddenly interrupted by two sets of shotgun blasts.
Out in the yard, I see thirty US Marshals on horseback with their guns pointed at the house. I hear the click of Daniel’s shotgun as he wakes up too.
“Saint James Street James, we have a warrant for your arrest for the murder of a sheriff and nineteen Schläger brothers! Come out with your hands up, or we will burn the house down,” one of the marshals yells out.
“We can take them, Dad,” Daniel says with a slight opium slur.
“Probably, but they would kill the rest of our family.”
“I’m willing to take that risk if you are.”
Louretta comes running in holding our youngest son. “Saint James, there’s a bunch of US Marshals outside, and they say they’re going to burn the house down if you don’t come out! Jesus, did you two piss yourselves?”
“It appears so. Can you mop this up after I leave? I’m going to let them take me in after I take a bath.”
“Dad, no!” Daniel says.
“I have to, Daniel. I don’t want anything else to happen to you guys. Don’t worry, it will probably be a slap on the dick, and then they’ll let me go. Here, take this.” With pride, I hand him my bottle of laudanum and stand up.
“Are you coming out or not, Saint James?” another marshal yells.
I stick my head out of the window and yell down, “Yeah, I’m coming out. Just give me a quick forty-five to wash off my privates.”
The marshals all look at each other, confused.
“As a show of good faith, I’m going to throw down my guns, okay?”
The marshals nod as I unbuckle my holster and hold my guns up. When I toss the holster out the window, it takes a weird hop off the roof and the guns hit the ground. They both fire simultaneously, killing two more marshals. Their two bodies slump over, falling off their horses and onto the dirt.
“You just killed fraternal twins, Saint James!” another marshal screams.
“Shit. Sorry. Total accident. I’m gonna wash up now.”
“We’re adding them to your murder count!”
“What-the-fuck-ever.”
Before I take off my clothes and head for the bath, I kiss Louretta on the cheek and instruct her to paint the crotch area on Daniel’s cast from yellow back to white. A parent’s job is never done, you know?
An hour later, after a good cock soak, I depart the house with my hands in the air. The marshals approach me with their guns drawn and place the handcuffs on me. They pull one of their horses over and instruct me to get on it so they can lead me into town.
“Fuck that. I ride my own steed into town, or you’re going to have more blood on your hands, you hear?”
Daniel whistles from above, his shotgun trained at them. With half his face now frozen from taking so much laudanum, he looks kind of crazy, so they decide to let me ride my steed. I give him a two-finger whistle, and on cue, he slow-trots out of the barn.
Looking back at the house, I see Lou standing out on the porch waving at me, surrounded by the rest of my kids. She mouths the words “Thank you.” Daniel holds up the bottle of laudanum and pours out a sip in respect. It finally sets in that I’m really going to jail.
As we make our way through town, everyone stops and gawks at me surrounded by the marshals. I take it all in, knowing that this image of me riding to jail wearing handcuffs will only cause more people to fear me. The marshals’ horses hit the end of Main Street and slowly come to a halt. Curiously, I’ve never been to this part of town before.
By “this part of town” I mean any building or structure past the whorehouse. This is a newly built jail at the end of the street, a block down from the whorehouse, so I haven’t been here yet. A guy on a ladder is finishing painting the word “JAIL” on the building in black letters when the marshals ask me to get down from my steed.
“You want us to take your horse back to your house for you? You’re going to be here for a while,” one of the marshals says to me.
“No. He can find his way home if he chooses. Maybe he has a date in town tonight. I try not to put any limits on him.”
“That’s real funny. We’ll see how funny you are from inside a jail cell.”
“Do you guys need more time to paint the word ‘cell’ above it first?”
One of the marshals grabs me and leads me through the front door. On the way in, I shake my
leg twice, and an apple rolls down my pant leg, resting on my boot. I kick it up in the air to my horse, who catches it midair in his mouth.
“You keep an apple tucked inside your jeans?” a marshal asks.
“I didn’t know it was there until I stood up. My cock is like an elephant trunk; sometimes it just reaches up and grabs fruit unbeknownst to me.”
“Come on, asshole,” he says, leading me in.
Looking at the decor, you can tell that it was probably an old blacksmith shop before this. They throw me inside an old wrought-iron ten-by-fourteen-foot jail cell and slam the door. A janky bed, a bucket of water to wash up in, and a hole in the ground to piss and shit in are all that await me.
In the cell next to me, I see a fat Mexican man taking a grump in his hole while eating a half-open can of beans at the same time. A few flies swarm around him, and the smell is making a mural of the Virgin Mary that he has painted above his bed cry. One of the marshals sees me shake my head in disgust.
“It’s a miracle, isn’t it, Saint James?” he says as he laughs and points at the painting.
“You ain’t in that log mansion out in the woods anymore, are you, boy?” another one says.
I quickly pull out my Buck knife from the back of my jeans and whip it through the jail cell bars, pinning a marshal’s shirt to the wall.
“Let me make one thing clear to you: if I wanted you dead, you’d be dead by now.”
With that little reminder, I walk over to the bed and lie down.
“Keep an eye on him, Deputy. If he so much as shits wrong, shoot him,” the marshal I pinned says.
“How does someone shit wrong?” I think to myself as the marshals leave. Suddenly the fat Mexican dude farts, and it sounds like a phone book is being ripped in half. The wall behind his makeshift toilet inside his cell is suddenly splattered like a can of chocolate syrup exploded in a campfire. I guess my question has been answered.
“How long am I going to be in here, Deputy?”
“There will be a trial in about a week or so,” he says.
“What? I will be wearing your skin and pretending to be you if I’m in here that long.”
“Nothing I can do about speeding up your trial.”
“One word: ‘conjugal.’ Them shits better be allowed, then.”
“I might be able to let that slide.”
“Good. I’m sure I’ll have a lot of visitors.”
My steed peeks his snout through the bars of my window. I look up and see his sad eyes and stand up on my bed, leaning into him, nose-to-nose. When he exhales, I inhale. That’s how fucking close we are.
“It’s been a real fuckery of a last couple days, hasn’t it? Why don’t you go home and get some rest.”
He shakes his head no. “Sshhhhhhh, I’m going to be fine. The children need you. Plus I smuggled a full bottle of this in,” I say, pulling a bottle of laudanum out of my boot and waving it in front of his face. He neighs with excitement.
“Now go on and get your big beautiful dick out of here.”
He nods and slowly trots off. As I watch him ride away, he stops and lifts his front legs in the air and neighs as loud as possible up toward the heavens. I swear to God, I’d rather lose another kid than lose my steed.
The following morning I am awakened by the deputy, telling me that I have a visitor. As my eyes adjust to the sun, I see the Mexican shitting. Again.
“Hey, Chubs, you shit in that hole one more time today, and I’m going to bury you in it. Comprende?” I say to him sternly.
“What am I supposed to do if I have to go to the bathroom?”
I reach into my jeans pocket, pull out a small sewing kit, and toss it to him. “You better start sewing your asshole shut. Cheek to cheek. A classic backstitch should work.”
He looks at me defeated as the deputy walks back with my first visitor. To my surprise, it’s Sheila, and she’s carrying a picnic basket. She is definitely not the first woman I was expecting to come visit me, but she’ll do. I haven’t had sex in almost twelve hours, so obviously my jeans can barely contain my cock right now.
To her credit, Sheila looks prettier than usual, and a lot more done up than the last time I saw her. She squeezes the bars of the jail cell with her free hand and softly cries. I get up out of bed and walk over to comfort her.
“Why are you crying? Does seeing me behind bars make you sad?”
“No, it’s not that. The smell in here is so horrific, I feel like my eyes are melting.”
I look over at the fat Mexican and shake my head. “What? I’m doing it!” He screams as he lies down on his small bed and begins sewing his ass cheeks together with the sewing kit I gave him.
“Hopefully this stink will clear out soon, Sheila.”
“I’m just worried about my tear ducts returning to normal,” she says, as she wipes her eyes.
“I’m not a doctor, so I can’t promise you anything. What are you doing here?”
“Well, I was just on my way into town to bring Ron a turkey sandwich, and I thought I’d check on you. I brought you some food in case you were hungry too.”
She opens up the picnic basket to reveal blackened, stuffed flounder, fresh cornbread served in a hollowed-out gourd, and three different freshly baked pies: pumpkin, blueberry, and apple. I grab her face and gently stroke her cheek with my thumb, wiping away her tears. She presses her head up against the bars.
“Sheila.”
“I know, Saint James, I shouldn’t have—”
“Stop. Yes, you should have brought me all this food.” I lean my head against the bars too. “Is that the only reason you came here? To give me a delicious meal that you would never cook for your own husband?”
She shakes her head no. Through her tears she whispers, “I need it. Please.”
“You need what, Sheila? I want to hear you say it.”
“I need that pork sword,” she whispers as she points down to my cock. Of course, I know damn well that’s what she needs, but it’s nice to hear it out loud sometimes. I grab a tin coffee mug and run it against the bars as loud as I can.
“Hey, boss man, can you let the lady in?”
“Is she your wife?” the deputy screams back.
“Nope.”
“Then no, she can’t come inside your cell. Anything you want to do outside of it is your business.”
Sheila and I look at each other, realizing this probably isn’t a good idea. So instead, we decide to go with doggy style and forgo any attempt at missionary. She turns and hikes up her dress, pressing her ass into me while gripping the cell bars. This gives her great leverage. After the first few thrusts, I let out a piercing shrill like something out of Greek mythology as I orgasm. Sheila turns and looks at me, confused.
“Oh my God, what just happened?”
“Sorry, it’s just, you’re the first woman I’ve been with since I’ve been in jail. You get it, right?”
She pushes her dress back down and turns to kiss me. “Of course. I’m so sorry. I didn’t know I was the first. You’ve been in here almost half a day.”
“Don’t fucking tell anybody about this. Come back in a few days, and we can have a longer sesh, all right?”
She kisses my forehead and leaves. I’m so famished that I immediately start grabbing food out of the picnic basket and stuffing it into my face. The fat Mexican is staring at the food like a homeless man’s dog. After mouthing to himself practice sentences of what he is going to say, he musters up the courage to ask if he can have some.
“Do you think I can have your leftovers?”
“Not a fucking prayer, my man. I can still smell you. Keep sewing.”
“Please, I’m so hungry.”
“Tell you what. If you can go the entire week without taking a shit until I go to trial, maybe I’ll give you some food, okay?”
“Okay.”
“Look, I’m really fucking full right now and I just need a nap, so I’m going to need you to shut the fuck up for the rest of the day.”
The second I close my eyes and drift off I hear the deputy scream out, “Saint James! You have another visitor!”
I look up and see the batshit gypsy woman from the funeral. She’s also carrying a large picnic basket on one arm, while staring at me as if she’s known me for years. Oddly, she suddenly begins weeping too. I put my hand through the bars and stroke her cheek, exactly the same way I did with Sheila.
“Are you crying because of the smell?” I ask.
“No. My tears are from seeing you confined to this cell. I overheard your wife explaining to your kids why you were in prison when I was hiding outside of your window today.”
“I’m sorry, did you say you were outside my home?”
“It was an accident. I dozed off in the bushes while I watched your kids sleep last night. Here, I brought you some pies and some freshly made authentic burritos hand-rolled in Mexico.”
“Thanks, but I’m super-full. Just throw those out in the street. I don’t have any use for them.”
The fat Mexican starts breathing heavily, trying to suck his tears back into his mouth while biting his lower lip like a baby. He bashes his head into the wall over and over again as I rest my forehead against the gypsy’s through the cell door. I look deep into her eyes, still trying to place who the fuck she is.
“By the way, who are you? Are you friends with my wife?”
“Never met her. Truthfully, I’m just a gypsy who travels from town to town, reading obituaries and attending funerals. Usually I fuck the husband, brother, or father of the deceased. Occasionally I’ll hang around outside their house for a few days afterward; that way I feel like I really know them.”
“Why?”
“I get off on it. It’s like I have my own secret throughout the day.”
“That’s pure fucking insanity. Look, I appreciate the food and whatnot, but the deputy won’t let you in because you’re not my wife.”
“That’s cool. I just wanted to take you in my mouth through the bars.”
At Night She Cries, While He Rides His Steed Page 9