by Bob McGough
I rose to my feet. “Guard! Lemme get that phone call now, please!”
A Marsh On The Town
Six hours after that first trip outside my storage unit, I stepped back out into the light of day for the second time. It galled me to have to call Rutherford, but the man had been good as his word. Within a few minutes of my call, the cops started the release process.
Rutherford himself was not there to greet me as I exited. In truth, I had been a little surprised to see him make the trip out at all; usually, he either had me brought to him or sent an underling. My guess was that he suspected I would say no, and got sick satisfaction of personally getting me sent to jail. He was that sort of ass.
So while there was no devil in a suit himself, there was a minion of his in a black SUV. Wearing a suit identical to those I had seen Rutherford's men wearing earlier, it could have been one of the ones from before, but I couldn’t tell. They all appeared identical to me.
“Howard Marsh?”
He must not have been then. I barely resisted the urge to get snarky, and instead just nodded.
“Here.” He handed me a thin folder. A quick glance revealed a couple of maps and some assorted papers. I would look later.
I tucked the folder under my arm. “And my cash?”
The man pulled a plain white envelope from his jacket. “200 in tens, as requested. A further 800, plus expenses upon completion.”
The usual deal, one I could certainly live with. That 200 was over 3 months’ rent. Not that it would go to that most likely. Rent could come later and it usually did. “Yeah, yeah, I know the deal. But I hafta have receipts for it to count as an expense. And drugs are not a valid expense, says your accountants.”
The agent’s lip curled a little. “Correct. Now, I am authorized to take you someplace within a few miles of here, then I have to go back to the field office. Where would you like to go?”
A free ride…that was new. I figured that was Rutherford’s mea culpa for having me locked up. My first thought was a quick trip over to Jimmy’s, but I suspected taking some sort of federal agent to my drug dealer’s would not go over well. Seeing Jimmy go diving out the back of his camper could almost be worth it though…
“I got a place. Hop in, I’ll tell you how to get there.”
Other than cop cars, I did not often get to ride in a nice vehicle. The ones I found myself in had peeling interiors, missing headlights, non-functioning air conditioners, or all of the above. So it was a pleasant change to find myself in the front seat of a posh SUV with all the bells and whistles. Clearly whatever agency they worked for had not suffered the same declining fortunes that Jubal County had over the past eight years.
I looked over at the agent as he started down the drive from the jail. “You’re gonna swing me by my shed, then take me to my destination. Copacetic?”
I think he glowered at me, but from behind those cliché sunglasses, I couldn’t rightly tell. His tone helped my deduction however. “I am taking you one place. Not two.”
“Right. Swinging me by my shed on the way to Lidda’s.”
“Pick one. The shed or Lidda’s. Not both. I have things to do.”
I grinned over at the man as I produced a cigarette from behind my ear. “You know where Lidda’s is?”
He gave a curt shake of his head.
“Well to get there, what do ya know, you gotta go by my shed.”
Staring ahead at the road, he deadpanned. “I guess I’m just dropping you off at your shed then.”
I lit the cigarette and rolled the window down a crack. Before the first wisp of smoke could even reach the vented airway the agent was snaking his hand out to try and grab my smoke. “You can’t smoke in here!”
I easily dodged his grasping hand. “And yet I am. Funny how that works. What’s also gonna be funny is what happens if you just leave me at my shed, with no way to get to Lidda’s.”
The agent’s jaw worked soundlessly for a moment, and then subsided, and I knew that I had won. That’s the thing about me, as most folks come to learn. Most times, it’s easier to let me have my way. Save your time and energy fussing, do what I ask, and it’ll all work out for the best.
For me at least. Depending on your definition of “best.”
We rode in silence to my shed. Corey had closed up his home shed and opened up his work shed with its tiny sign that said “Davis Accounting” swinging idly in the breeze. Judging from the ratty mustang convertible out front, he had a client in there, so I decided against bugging him. Plus I didn’t want to test the agent’s patience too far.
Opening up my shed, I beelined for my chair and quickly dug out my black box of oblivion. Just holding it calmed the itch that was filling me up and threatening to make me crazy. Box in hand, I scooped up a honey bun from my food shelf, and with another half pack of cigarettes tucked in my back pocket, bopped my way back to the SUV.
Clambering back inside, I smiled. “To Lidda’s Jeeves, and don’t spare the horses!”
I gave him the directions, then set about sorting through my box. When the agent saw my pawing through my drugs, he had the good sense to stay quiet, but I could see his hands tighten on the wheel. I was getting a little short on needles, but I could remedy that easily enough. Out of courtesy, I decided to hold off until I reached Lidda’s. It was the least I could do, I supposed.
To pass the time, I pointed out some of the more interesting sights of the area. As we exited the nearer environs of Elk Grove, I pointed to a burned-out church. The Church of Signs Revealed had never been very large, but it had been pretty in a small, quaint way. The Spanish moss hanging from the surrounding trees, caught in a breeze like it was, seemed almost to be reaching for the charred husk. It was an eerily beautiful sight. “That’s the church they say Thomas Richmond burned down.”
“The church he did burn down,” corrected the agent.
I snorted. “I shared a glass pipe or two with Tom over the years. The boy ain’t no arsonist. I don’t care what the news reports say.”
I had never gotten all the details, but I knew there was more to the tale. The Richmond family was old around these parts, and stories had all sorts of strange occurrences tied to the line. They were kin to the Marshes - if not in blood, then in spirit.
The agent started prattling on about how Thomas was caught red-handed and whatnot. I just decided to keep my mouth shut and ignore him. Being caught doing a thing was not a good enough reason. I’d been caught doing things I had never done, or done for reasons anyone who wasn’t in my shoes would ever understand.
Something about seeing that church caused my good mood to vanish. Even my brief stint in jail, coupled with Rutherford’s bullshit had not managed to get me down. But seeing those charred white boards…I felt like a balloon someone had let all the air out of. I just gazed out the window, not seeing anything but the faint ghost of my reflection on the glass, and once, a purple car sitting out in a field.
By the time we reached Lidda’s, he had given up trying to convince me. As he slid into the rutted drive, I muttered a vague thanks I didn’t really feel, and made sure I had gathered up my things. With one final check, I stepped out into the yard, and gave a listless wave to the man to let him know I was clear.
Lidda’s
The yard was scattered with toys, most of them broken or covered in a layer of dirt and dust. The first falling leaves of the season were beginning to cluster around the edges of the yard, drifting in the afternoon breeze. There was the occasional sprout of grass struggling to grow up from the clay soil, but they were the exception. Rutted, eroded red clay was the order of the day - the sort that was occasionally filled in with sand, or road dirt, only to be washed away with the next long rain.
On the edge of the woods, a rusted-out Camaro slowly decayed to a shell of what it had been. Its dry rotted tires were flat on the ground, and its windshield had been shattered, no doubt by one of Lidda’s spawn. When we’d both been younger, we’d ridden many a mile in that car, b
ut then the transmission had worn out, and it’d been dumped there to die.
Lidda’s trailer had seen better days. This was the case with most of Jubal County of course, but with her trailer you had the sense that its better days were perhaps a few years farther back than most. It was fortunate in that it was brown, so the rust patches blended in almost, but that did little to hide the sheer number of dents in its thin tin sides. It looked as though some giant had left it in its pocket with the loose change too long.
The squawking of an infant was piercing out from within it somewhere and I cringed. I had forgotten about the latest little fuck trophy. With a sigh, I made my way across the toy and trash strewn yard and towards the rickety steps that would take me inside.
Lidda was an ex-girlfriend, one of three that would at least still give me the benefit of talking first before shooting. If I had been the type to have had a high school sweetheart, she might have even qualified. Of course we had both dropped out at the beginning of tenth grade, so maybe we didn’t quite fit the bill. I went on and got my GED. She went on and got pregnant. With some other dude’s kid.
That was the end of that.
A mix of guilt and my dogged persistence had convinced her that it would just be easiest to let me hang around on occasion. Over the years, we had hooked up a few dozen times, amongst the revolving door of boyfriends and baby daddies. It had proven fairly lucrative for us both in fact: she living off the child support, me finding some of my better drug connections through her exes.
The main thing was she would let me come grab a shower any time I needed - which was rare, but after a stint in jail I always wanted to wash the cop off me. I didn’t want to go into this job with the taint of a cell on me, which would most certainly be bad luck.
I decided not to knock, and just strode on in, stepping into a dingy living room with the only light coming from the late afternoon sunlight filtering through threadbare curtains that might have once been white. Whenever this little tin slice of paradise had been built, it was pretty clear that brown was the order of the day, which was for the best, as it did a halfway decent job of hiding decades of nicotine stains.
“Jesus Marsh, can’t you knock?” shouted Lidda Smith/Richmond/Stuart ne’ Hubbard. She had a red-faced kid tucked in one arm, a Virginia Slim clasped between her fingers, and a distinctive lack of pants coupled with a too-thin wife beater and no bra. The room was fairly sweltering, so I didn’t blame her for her lack of clothing. And had I been in a better mood, I might have taken a bit longer in staring, especially as she made no move to cover herself. But I just didn’t have it in me. I needed a shower.
Besides, it was certainly nothing I hadn’t seen before, and obviously seen in better days. Her blonde hair was pulled back in a loose ponytail, stray hairs framing her tired brown eyes. Her skin was tan, though the wife beater revealed stark lines of white where her swimsuit had covered her as she’d lay down out in the backyard that summer.
With my eyes closed, I could have picked out and drawn you each of the tattoos she had. The magnolia on her thigh she’d gotten for her granny when she’d died. The names of her kids on her arms. The angel wings she had on one shoulder that she’d gotten after she miscarried. The roses she’d gotten to try and cover her c-section scars.
“Power shut off again?” I called over my shoulder as I started down the dark, narrow hallway to her bedroom. I knew the answer, but I figured I would ask anyway.
A creeping note of shame entered her voice. “Just till Earl’s check clears. He said I could cash it tomorrow, just gotta make it till then.”
The rest of her kids were gone, it seemed. She had four others, by three different husbands, but she managed to arrange it that their custody weekends all fell at the same time. Had it not been for her latest trip down maternity lane, she would actually have been able to have a weekend or two off from kids.
She followed me down the hall. She was saying something, but with my shirt over my head, I missed most of it, and ignored the rest. My pants and boxers followed a second later. “I take it Jimmy’s at work?” Jimmy, the father of the child doing an admirable impersonation of a siren, was the latest beau. He worked for the county water company, and as far as her men went, he was by a landslide the pick of the litter.
“Yeah. For about another hour. He ain’t living here right now, but he comes by after work to see the kid for a bit before going to his mama’s.” She paused. “We uh, we’re working through some things right now.”
Jimmy wasn’t fond of me, surprisingly enough. So I decided I had a firm deadline of an hour. The shower would take five minutes, leaving me with a bit of time on my hands. I paused, and looked Lidda over once more, as I turned on the shower. Thin, too thin, but that was the drugs. And who was I to judge.
“Did Jimmy catch you with Keith again?” I asked while sticking my hand in the water, testing how warm it was.
She nodded sheepishly. I had a suspicion that pretty soon Jimmy would soon be just another check and Keith would be the next sucker. He’d come at a better time than most: she’d gotten her works tied up after the last one. Long time coming, if you asked me, but then folks typically didn’t.
I watched as she bent over to pick up the kid’s pacifier that it had dropped in its fit. “Well, how about you find a place to stow that kid and come join me?”
She eyed me warily. “You just got outta jail, right?”
“I’m here getting a shower, ain’t I?”
She nodded. “What for?”
I stopped and thought for a moment. “You know, I still don’t rightly know. Some Rutherford bullshit.”
She knew about the agent. She gave a gentle shrug, and carefully put out her half-smoked cig in an overflowing ashtray by the bed, clearly intending to save it for later. “Lemme put him in his playpen.”
I sat down on the toilet and opened my box of oblivion while I waited for the water to get warmer. That was the other reason why I opted to shower here: the power was off about as much as it was on, but the water heater was gas. It just took a long time to warm up.
By the time I had gotten the glass pipe lit and taken that first toe-curling, wind-blasting hit, she had gotten the kid down. It was still squawking, but quieter, and it was at least doing it off in the living room. I looked up to see her walking back in the room, pulling her shirt off and throwing it on the edge of the bed. Stepping out of her panties, she leaned in the bathroom doorway. Her ribs jutted out farther than her chest almost. Too skinny.
Well, any port in a storm.
“Lemme get some of that,” she said, reaching for the oblivion in my hand.
A Late Afternoon Stroll
The sound of a truck pulling into the yard caught me by surprise. Luckily, I was already putting on my shoes because Lidda and I had finished up our drugs/fun/shower about five minutes earlier. I had known I had to be cutting it pretty close, but this was closer than I had anticipated for sure.
“Shit!” Lidda swore as she hurriedly jumped from the bed and started tugging on her panties. She looked at me, her eyes wide. “What the hell, Marsh, you know where the window is, get moving!”
Rolling my eyes, I scooped up my things and eased them out the back bedroom window. This was not the first time we had perpetrated this particular little fire drill over the years, not by far. The thin metal of the frame was even slightly bent from my hands and feet pressing down on them as I scampered through. It made the window hard to close, which was why more often than not it sat open.
Leaning out, I glanced down to make sure there were no glass bottles or the like for me to land on. I had done that once, barefoot, when her second husband came home early one day. Had to run a quarter mile with blood squirting from my heel. I never intended to repeat that particular debacle.
I paused for a moment and contemplated dropping a twenty or two to help with the power. But I didn’t, as it would have most likely just led to some weird questions. Besides, Lidda would probably have been pissed. She was a l
ot of things, but she weren’t no hooker.
I hit the ground just in time to hear the front door open. Grinning, I gathered my odds and ends and began traipsing off into the woods. The other perk of Lidda’s was that her property abutted my grandmother’s. That was how we first came to know each other; in fact, we met playing in the woods when we were just little things. A few miles walk, and I would be back in business.
That interlude had worked wonders on my mood. That awful itch was gone, I had gotten a little, and I even had a shower. I felt as good as a man could, I reckoned. And even with a little bit of gravel dust on my shirt, it was still looking fine. Look good, feel good.
I was humming right along on a cocktail of illicit substances, which I will admit left me oscillating wildly between intensely focused and wildly scattered. I was full to the brim with energy, damn near skipping along, leaving my fingers all sorts of twitchy. If there had been some music, I suspect I’d have been dancing. Instead, I made due by humming and strutting along like the king rooster in the pen.
It was getting on towards evening time now, and I felt like I should have a bite to eat. I wasn’t hungry, but I recalled I hadn’t eaten today. I would need to remedy that at some point, maybe with the honeybun I had with me, but for now I just focused on making my way through the woods.
This was about as pristine an oak forest as you could find in the area; in fact, I only knew of one better, and that one folks knew better than to go to. Here though, it was all fine tall white oaks, with a smattering of other assorted trees. This late in the year, a goodly number of the leaves had died and were starting to fall off, leaving a large number of dead leaves to crunch and shuffle around my feet. It was a surprisingly soothing sound, one I didn’t get to hear as much in town. With everything in my system flowing along, the sounds were richer, deeper.