Country Hardball

by Steve Weddle

“I wonder who names them all.”

  “Hell if I know,” Jake said, shaking his head. “Imagine they’re all named by now. Hey, remember when Boone Crawford said his daddy went to the moon, came back with a moon rock?”

  Rusty laughed. “Oh, yeah. What was that? Second grade?”

  “No. I didn’t move over until third, so it had to be third or fourth, I guess.”

  “Man, that was some funny shit. He was so damn proud of that. Remember when he brought it to school?”

  “And Robbie and Moe and those guys busted it into tiny pieces and Boone goes crying to Coach Womack?”

  Rusty laughed along with Jake, but it all seemed less funny than it had at the time. Rusty hadn’t thought about that in years. Now he felt a little guilty for laughing. “Still can’t believe about him and his mom.”

  “Who?”

  “Boone.”

  “Oh,” Jake said, stopped laughing. “Yeah. Well his daddy was always a crazy fucker, you know?”

  “Yeah.”

  “I mean, what are you gonna(s that. do, right?”

  Right, Rusty thought. What are you gonna do?

  • • •

  When they got back to the house, Jake said he was going to look for some beer. Rusty said fine.

  The house had a screened-in porch. Your basic four-room farmhouse, emptied when the Campbells left a couple of months before. Behind the four rooms, a mud porch and the bathroom, which didn’t work. On the door, Rusty had seen before, someone had written “out of order” in marker on the door. Added below, in pen, “so’s your momma.”

  Jake was probably in the mud porch now, where the kegs were. Living room to the right. Dining to the left. Behind those rooms, kitchen and bedroom. Your basic four-room farmhouse. Only the farm gone, fields given over to weeds and hay and scrub pines and, a half mile from the house, near the road, a couple of roadkill deer he’d noticed when he and Jake had driven up an hour before. Then he’d walked around, wondering when they could leave. Then he saw Staci walking out the back door and he waited for some idiot to follow after her.

  After a minute, he told himself he was just worried about her. Nothing weird about that. He wanted to make sure she was all right. She was his friend, after all. They’d grown up together. Same school. Same church. They’d talked a thousand times. Maybe they could be more than friends. Not now, of course. But some day. After the awkward stage. He and his mom were watching one of those “Before They Were Stars” shows the other day. He saw how they were when they were his age. He knew. Like his mom said whenever something went wrong, “This too shall pass.”

  Jake came back with a red plastic cup of foamy beer in each hand. “You just going to stand around here all night?” He handed Rusty a beer, then elbowed him. “We gotta mingle with the chickies.”

  • • •

  Rusty was standing in the doorway, watching Staci McMahen look out the window as though she were waiting for something.

  “Nice night,” he thought about saying.

  Then what would she say? “Yes, it is.” Then he’d be stuck, again.

  What if he just walked up to her and said something real. Something like, “Don’t you ever get tired of all this fake stuff?”

  And maybe she’d say “What fake stuff?” and he’d be able to tell her. Or maybe he wouldn’t.

  Or maybe she’d say she was tired of it, too. Of everyone trying to act like everyone else. Copying the pack leader. He’d seen a movie at school about that. Mimicking behavior. And maybe they could talk about that. How wouldn’t it be better just to go out, lie down under the stars, and talk about, well, what? What did he have to talk about with her? He couldn’t stand the music she listened to, but maybe she couldn’t, either. Maybe if she would just walk out to the field with him again, he could tell her about the songs he liked. About the words. About how real they were. About how real everything could be if they could just have that moment back, let it carry on, staring at the stars until they blurred across the darkness, edging into each other.

  He took a deep breath, then a step forward. Then he moved back to the doorway. He took another breath and was waiting to move when Loriella walked across the room, grabbed Staci by the arm, and pulled. “C’mon, we’re heading out to the spooklight.”s. In this box.” ming out

  • • •

  The story had been there before any of them. Long ago, on a night just like this one, the Georgia Southern bound for Texarkana had stopped near the Walkerville Cemetery to let another train pass. The young brakeman, about to be married, walked around the cars, checking the couplings and reading a letter from his sweetheart. The wind kicked up a little, just the thought of a breeze, and blew one of the sheets under the back car. He looked under, but couldn’t find it. The day was getting dark quickly, much like today, and he lit a lantern, then looked back under the car for the letter. He found it between the tracks, wedged under part of a tie. He reached across and the car rolled back, slicing through his neck, sending his body down the hill, the letter into the wind. When the night comes up quickly, like tonight, you can see the brakeman, lighting his lantern and walking along the train line down near Walkerville, looking for the lost page of the letter.

  When Rusty finished telling the story, Jake cocked an eyebrow. “Shouldn’t he be looking for his head? Shit, how’s he looking for anything?”

  “I think maybe he got his head back,” Rusty said.

  “You mean like he found it under the train? Or like when he died and shit, like it magically reappeared like in spirit form?”

  “Yeah, I guess. Something like that.” Rusty looked down the road to where all the taillights had gone as he and Jake and a handful of others stayed at the house.

  “It’s just a light, then. Just floating out in the darkness?”

  “Yeah.”

  “And what? People get all scared of it? Like a ghost?”

  “Yeah. Like it’s just sitting there, then it’s moving. And you’re just watching the light there at the other end of the tracks.”

  “I bet it scares the shit outta the chicks, right?”

  “I guess,” Rusty said. “I don’t know.”

  “So, you want to go or what? We can follow them or whaon=“1.0” encod

  GOOD TIMES GONE

  Clint Womack sat on an upturned milk crate, back against the open door, looking out across the creek that ran through town, from the bayou out east, through ravine and under bridges, until it drained away, forgotten in someone else’s fields.

  He folded the letter from the court clerk into his shirt pocket. He’d gone through three cigarettes already and was about to start the fourth when Bethann Roberson cleared her throat and stepped outside.

  He’d closed her eyes, should have been been avoiding talking to her all morning, ever since the store manager had told him to fire “one of the new ones.” Bethann, he’d meant. Or Tyler Crawford. They’d both started on the same day in March. “Last in, first out” was as good a policy as any he’d figured when he’d gotten the news of the cutbacks. Then he got to thinking about how they did the opposite with the milk. With the cheese. With pretty much everything else in the store. The more recent to come in gets put to the back, so the customer would always pull out the oldest first. The July 19 milk was in front, six cartons ahead of the July 24 milk. All the way through the store, he thought, except for the people.

  Truth be told, he’d nearly fired Bethann that morning. They’d already let go Jimmy from meats, as well as a few cashiers, on Monday. They all had family insurance, so getting them off the books was a significant savings, his boss, Ron, had said, adding how that didn’t play into the decision, you understand. Clint said that he did.

  “You got a minute?” Bethann asked. “I got something to ask you.”

  Clint said “Yeah,” knowing that nothing good ever follows that. What people mean is that they have something important to ask you and want you to pay attention. Something important to them, is what they mean. And they want you to set
the beer down, turn the game off, and pay attention to them. To their needs. Because you don’t have any needs.

  Bethann started to say something, then drew her breath back in. “Well, me and Tyler and Rhonda were back here yesterday and we were talking about the mound back there.” Bethann pointed to a hill behind the store, near where the bowling alley used to be. “It true what they say about Dumbo Mountain?”

  “What do they say?”

  “They buried an elephant there?”

  Clint broke the filter off another cigarette, put the flush end in his mouth, spun the wheel of his lighter until it caught. “Yeah. We sure as hell did.” He flicked the filter along the outside wall.

  “You did?”

  “Yeah,” Clint said. “We all did. Huge damn thing. Hardly see it now. Shit, that was a long time ago.” He pulled the cigarette out, lifted the bottom of his apron, and wiped the sweat from under his chin.

  “So what? He just dropped dead? In the circus?”

  “Something like that.”

  “Wow. No shit,” she said. “I thought they were just making it up, you know.”

  Clint nodded, leaned his head back onto the door. Looked up at the “Not An Exit” sign bent crooked above his head. “Weighed two tons. Had to dig a hole fifteen, twenty feet deep.”

  “Damn. So what happened? Somebody feed him from the discount meat bin?”

  Clint grinned, leaned forward on the milk crate. “He was putting up the tent. Or she. Whatever. The trainer was riding her, pulling up this big metal pole for the middle of the tent. The pole hits a wire and zap, fried elephant. Then the elephant falls over, crushes the guy riding her. Dead trainer. Think it fried some other guy, too.”

  “Holy crap. When was this?”

  “In the ’80s, I guess. ’84. ’85.”

  “Before my time. We didn’t move to Springhill ‘tild never gives you more than you can handle. ming out I was ten. Around ’98? ’99.”

  “Yeah, it was definitely mid-’80s. Late teens for me.” Young and summer careless, riding up and down Main just like the kids still did. From a parking lot at one end of town to a parking lot at the other. Grab an Icee, “enhance” with cheap vodka, drive around until it’s time to fight or screw. He closed his eyes, leaned back again. “Took us all day to bury her. They had to get a big wrecker, pull the elephant off the trainer.” He tightened his neck, shuddered. “Damn mess.”

  “Yeah, I imagine. Not like a mountain or nothing anymore. But it is weird.”

  “Was about ten feet tall, I guess, once we did it. Had to put all this lime on there too, cover the elephant. Health department said it would help eat away at the thing.”

  Clint thought about telling her how after that day, he’d climb to the top of the hill while everyone else was in front of the buildings, driving around the parking lots. How he’d sit there and watch cars go up and down the roads, seeing people jump from one truck to the other, stand in the truck beds wailing down Main Street while someone played a tape of AC/DC or Van Halen. How once he’d been waiting under the awning of the Dairy Freeze after Georgie Porterfield kicked him out so Georgie could hook up with Jolene Campbell. Remembering how when she’d come over to Georgie’s car, Clint had thought she was coming to talk to him. How she opened the door on his side and how Georgie had said just wait there, that he and Jolene would be back. And how they’d driven out to the Little League field, then cruised back by twenty minutes later, honking and flashing their lights. And how he’d had to get a ride home from Mrs. Dalton, who was on her way back from working at the mill.

  Now Georgie was dead. Car wreck. And Jolene was married now. And so was Clint, at least until the final paperwork was done. Then he’d be single, again. And then what? Join a reading club? Online dating? Damn, how much would all that cost?

  “So what happened? They do the circus without the elephant?”

  “What?” Clint blinked his way back. “Yeah. Didn’t want to disappoint the kids. They couldn’t get the tent up, so we just had it outside. Seems like not many people showed up for it, though.”

  For the past week, Clint had been trying to count the number of single women he knew. He hadn’t been to church in more than a year, but he’d have to start back there. He tried to remember when the singles’ Bible study was at Macedonia. Maybe it was Thursdays, after choir practice. Maybe there was someone he could ask. Maybe he could look at schedules online at the library, visit a couple churches each week.

  “I wanted to ask you something else,” Bethann said.

  Or maybe the answer was here. Maybe someone he worked with. Bethann. Or Monica in the front office. They didn’t get rid of Monica, did they? Maybe after he fired Bethann or Tyler, he’d see about talking to Monica.

  “Ron said I should talk to you since you’re the department manager. It’s just that, I mean, I know there’ve been a bunch of changes and I was just hoping that, well, I mean, I was just wondering if maybe Tyler and I could keep working on the same shift like we’ve been doing?”

  “Same shift? With Tyler?” Clint picked up his cigarette from the ground.

  “Right. I mean, we’ve sorta start closed his eyes hed to go out and all. I guess everybody knows by now. But it’s like, if he’s working early and I’m working late and all, then, I mean, we just want to be able to see each other, you know, like socially.” She took a breath and waited. She’d practiced the speech, probably in the bathroom mirror in the stock room.

  One of them had to go. Clint didn’t make that part of the decision. The only choice he had was which one it would be. “Shouldn’t you be going back on shift?”

  “Oh,” she said. “I thought I’d go back in when you finished your break.”

  “This is my lunch.”

  “Oh, sorry about that. Yeah. Okay.”

  When she turned to go, Clint told her to send Tyler back to see him.

  • • •

  The keys clinked in the bowl by his front door as Clint hit the remote in stride to the refrigerator. He pulled out his last beer, grabbed a couple pieces of cheese, and sat down on his couch to watch whatever was on TV.

  He was drifting in and out after another fifteen-hour shift, hearing the infomercial, the second bottle of skin cream at no extra cost, simply for trying. Just pay separate shipping and handling. He was sitting on top of Dumbo Mountain, talking to Bethann Roberson, who turned into Jolene Campbell, then back. They were pouring tubs of white cream onto the hill to make it go away, to make everything okay. Below them, in the parking lot, someone was putting up a tent. He walked down and saw a revival going on, with people he recognized. He knew he was late for the revival. He should have been there that morning. In the dream, he looked around for help, then realized no one there knew him. A man at the front banged a gavel to call the meeting to order. And banged. And banged.

  Clint woke to a voice. A woman’s voice. “Hello.” Then more knocking.

  “Oh, hi, Mrs. Richardson. I was just—” he started saying as he opened the front door.

  “Clint, I’m sorry to bother you, but I’m selling tickets for the fundraiser and I was hoping I could count on you and Eileen showing up.”

  “Sure. I’d invite you in, but it’s kind of a mess right now.” He looked back and noticed the magazines, blankets, fried chicken boxes spread around.

  “Oh, that’s not a problem,” she said, walking past him.

  He closed the door behind her. “Me and Eileen, we aren’t together anymore.”

  “Oh, I’m sorry to hear that. I hope everything is okay?” she said like a question.

  “She just … ” he said, then stopped. “I don’t know. We’re just not together.”

  “Well, maybe it’s for the best. The Lord works in mysterious ways.”

  “Yes, ma’am. You were saying something about tickets?”

  “Oh, yes.” She reached into her purse and pulled out her glasses. “Lose my head if it weren’t screwed on. Let’s see. The tickets. For the fundraiser. How many should I put y
ou down for?”

  “What fundraiser?”

  “For the McMahen girl. Walt and Flo’s daughter. You know, the one what went missing.”

  “F closed his eyes hundraiser?”

  “The concert. The Dorcheat Dirt Band? It’s been on the radio. To raise money for the reward.”

  “To find the girl?”

  “Yes, to find the girl.” June Richardson sighed, put her glasses back in her purse, saw the bottle of beer on the coffee table, and shook her head. “Should I come back by when you’re sober?”

  “I’m fine, Mrs. Richardson. It’s just been a long day.”

  “Well it’s been a long day for Staci McMahen’s family, too. A long three days.”

  “I’m sure it has. I’m sorry.”

  “I knew that Pribble boy was trouble, all that drug dealing with Clay Sawyer and the lot of them. You know, I told Flo that last year, but I’m not one to say ‘I told you so.’ Could be the Alison boy, I suppose. His grandma lives up there, you know.”

  “Pribble?”

  “That whole family is bad news. Isn’t your sister dating one of them?”

  “MeChell? To be honest with you, I don’t know. I haven’t, I mean …”

  “You just tell her to watch herself. It’s like the Bible says, ‘The devil comes like a thief in the night.’ We have to do what we can or we’ll have another Bobo Shinn and no one wants that.”

  “Bobo Shinn? That Magnolia woman, got kidnapped back in the ’80s?”

  “Summer of ’78. Never found her. And we’ll not have that happen this time. Those poor Shinns. We have to offer a big reward. And investigators. And advertisements on the TV. And that costs money. And that’s why we’re back to the fundraiser. Now, how many tickets can I put you down for?”

  Clint reached into his front pocket, felt the fifty cents he had left over from the Coke machine. Reached onto the coffee table for his wallet and opened it up. “How much are the tickets?”

  “They’re $20 each or two for $35. Tickets will not be available at the door,” she recited, “so you’d best buy now.”

  Clint looked at the edge of the ATM receipt he’d gotten when he tried to pull $50 out of his account and found out he had all of $38 in the bank. “I’m afraid I don’t have any cash on me.”