by Bob McGough
Everything had gone to shit. I hurt pretty bad, I felt like ass, and the van was all sorts of wrecked. But doing that one little thing, that didn’t really cost me anything but five minutes of time, well, it made me feel pretty good. Like I’d done just the tiniest little bit to get some good karma rolling my way. Straightening, I rolled my neck to try and work it loose. “Well, let's get this over with then.”
The peeling white walls of Granny’s home reflected the moonlight slightly, giving the place a spectral feel. It loomed in front of me like a bulging ghost, waiting to swallow me whole. I wouldn’t be the first to disappear after visiting family, legend held.
It was late, or early, but I felt eyes on me. There was no reason to think that Granny was waiting for me, expecting me, but I had a sinking feeling that she was peering out one of the dozen windows, watching me approach. A small lamp was on in the parlor, I could see it faintly through the rotting curtains that covered the window. It cast a dingy orange square of light, and I thought I caught a glimpse of a shadow moving.
The yard gate screeched as I opened it, and again as I pulled it closed behind me. The yard was overgrown, with weeds growing up to knee height in most places. It was thick enough that I had a hard time finding the stepping stones, so I ended up just traipsing along without looking.
My heart pounded as I set foot onto the first step. The grey, weathered board creaked beneath my boot, as did the next, and the next. The whole porch, like the rest of the house, had seen better days, and in places nails jutted up as they worked their way out of the boards they’d been driven in. More than once over the years I’d tripped over one, catching a shoelace or bit of jeans on them.
I stopped, my gaze falling on the small object before the door. I could see it was an old mason jar, its lid rusty with age. Inside was a slip or two of paper, with some kind of liquid in the bottom. It was a spell jar. My eyes went from it to the windows and back again. It seemed Granny had been expecting me, and had me a readymade receptacle for her little Pooka pal. All I had to do was pop it in there for her.
I don’t know why it made me as angry as it did, but I was pure boiling with spite in a heartbeat. If that old hag wanted me to do her every little bidding, the least she could do was have the decency to tell me to my face. After the night I’d had, I was owed that fucking much, I knew that.
With a snarl, I tossed the tub down on the porch beside the jar. She had the power to break it open, and I would be damned if I would make it easy for her. I spat, then turned and stalked off through the yard, heading for the yard gate once again.
I swear, from behind me, I heard a cackle.
Interior Design
When the red glow of the taillights had rounded the corner, I finally walked over to my shed and after unlocking it, rolled it open. It was hard to tell if it was just how I had left it, considering how generally junked up it was, but at a glance I figured it was. Stepping inside, I set my box of oblivion, recovered from the van on my broken recliner.
Pulling the string, I turned on the light and carried my prize to the back of the shed. I’d kept the totem, figuring it would look mighty fine hung up on my wall. Nice and creepy, and generally fitting in with the ambience I tried to keep up.
“I see you made it back okay,” came a voice from the door.
I glanced back, recognizing the voice. “I did. Thanks for closing up the shed for me.”
The man shrugged. “Anytime, you know that.” He nodded to the deer skull in my hand. “Go hunting?”
I snorted. “Something like that. Figured it’d look good hanging up here.” I sat the skull on the bed then started rummaging around for a hammer and nail. With as much junk as I had inside here, there was a safe bet I had almost anything useful. Finding it was the hard part.
“Was that your Uncle Mike I saw pulling out of here?” Corey asked, settling on the edge a stack of totes.
“It was.” Mike is my least favorite uncle by far. “H.D., he’s uh...he’s a little mad at me at the moment.”
That actually had me worried. I’d gotten H.D. riled up a time or two over the years, sure. Hell, there wasn’t a body alive who’d spent more than five minutes with me who I hadn’t like as not. But I’d never seen Hubert Dale react like this. When he saw the state of his van, he looked at me one time, then without saying a word, he just turned and stalked off back in the house. You could feel the anger coming off him in cold waves.
That’s when Mike had offered to run me home. And proceeded to lecture me at length as he always did, the only variation on his usual sermon being about how you had to worry when H.D. got quiet angry like that .
At this point in my life, I really only had two folks that I would truly call a friend, and he was one of them. I’d be lying if it didn’t worry me, him acting that way. All there was to do though was give the man some space, I reckoned.
In the meantime, I had found a hammer and a screw. It would have to do for now. It took some pounding, but with a few hard blows, I had the screw buried deep enough through the plywood that lined the walls of these sheds to hold up the skull.
Stepping back, I admired my work. It was a little off-center, but it was too late to do anything about that now. But the way the charms and crystals and such hung down from the antlers, I knew when I had the fan going, and they’d look right pretty swaying around. With all that black and gold paint, I was of half a mind to see if I could track down some black spray paint, do up the whole back wall. But that sounded suspiciously like work, and I was crashing hard. Corey had been chatting at the back of my head, something about his divorce or some such bullshit. The man was really just giving me a sobstory in order to get him high. Which, to be fair, was a move I had pulled a number of times over the years. So who was I to really begrudge him, even if it did strike a nerve just then?
“I was thinking I’d smoke a joint, then get to bed.” It was midmorning, but then I hadn’t slept in a couple days at least. It was time. “Care to join me?”
Corey hemmed and hawwed, but in the end, of course he did.
I was dead asleep within ten minutes.
Like Christmas Morning
When I woke up, it was dawn again. Using the power like that usually left me in a damn near-dead slumber, if I ever let myself sleep. This was one of those times, and I could already tell I was going to have a wicked headache from too much sleep.
Forcing that busted recliner into a more upright position, I spotted something unusual. There, on top of my stack of totes, was a golden cup. Rising to my feet, I walked over, stretching deeply as I did so.
It was small, about like a coffee cup really, but gold-colored. It might have actually been gold for all I could tell at that moment. Looking inside, I could see dark liquid, like some sort of red wine. Without being touched, it swirled gently inside, spinning in a gentle spiral.
Fairy stuff.
Leaning in, I took a deep sniff.
Blackberries.
I smiled. Someone, or something was happy with how I treated that Pooka. Odds were, it wasn’t even poison. And if my history with fairy folk had taught me anything, it was that their liquor was rarely just that. Without a second thought, I downed the drink.
It was sweet on my tongue, and the flavors swirled and eddied all through my body. Smiling like a possum eating briars, I fell back into my chair and waited for the high - or the poison - to set in. It was a win/win either way, I figured.
And if I lived, that cup might be worth pawning, I reckoned.
Dancing With Your Demons
Being the second tale in the Redemption of Howard Marsh.
It’s Not So Much The Heat… (Summer)
For what felt like the hundredth time, I slapped at the buzzing of a deer fly. I missed the damn thing by a good six inches, slapping my stomach instead with a wet ‘thwack.’ It was far too hot to even think about wearing a shirt, so my hand hit bare flesh that was soaked with sweat.
It was barely seven in the morning, but it was already h
ot enough to leave me feeling absolutely miserable. Add in the flies, which were damn near swarming me, and my temper was none too pleasant. I cursed myself a fool for ever leaving the comfort of my shed that morning.
Around me the city of Elk Grove was waking up. I was walking past the Hardees, the busiest restaurant in town on any given morning, and there was a line twenty cars deep in the drive through all trying to get their orders in. Otherwise all there was of note were a half dozen other buildings that had seen better days. That was Elk Grove to a T: a place that had seen better days, and showed it.
I glanced down at the bag I was carrying though, and decided that it had probably been worth the trouble. It was an old messenger bag with a broken shoulder strap, and at that moment it was filled to overflowing with all manner of treasure. The kind worth rousing myself up outta my shed for.
Folks would leave all manner of goodies on the porch behind the Christian Mission, donations of things they didn’t want or need anymore. I’d learned years ago that if you got down there early enough, before the employees would show up, you could get first pick, and as a bonus not even have to go to the trouble of trying to shoplift it from inside, or worse, actually pay for it.
Today I’d scored a few good shirts - not that I would be wearing them anytime soon - to augment my somewhat raggedy wardrobe. There had also been a box of books, so I had scored myself a few good reads; a John Grisham, a Glen Cook, and a couple of pulpy sci-fi novels. Good time wasters for when the heat of the day was in full bloom and it wasn’t quite time for a nap yet.
There had been a stack of old vinyl that I would have loved to scoop up, but I didn’t have a record player. I thought about maybe trying to get one, but I knew me, and figured they would sit in a stack somewhere in my shed gathering dust. Besides, I was pretty sure they’d just end up warped from the heat. It could get a good 100 degrees in there.
CDs though, there had been a small selection of them, and some tape cassettes. I had shit that would play both of them, so I had gathered up anything that even sorta caught my eye. Music was something of a passion of mine, even if I could no longer play an instrument, or carry a tune, than the man in the moon. But I was now richer by a few Genesis CDs and a rather eclectic mix of southern rock tapes. That would help pass the time.
Smacking my neck, my palm came with a smear of blood. I was too late on that one, and the stinging bite was already welting up I was sure. At least I had gotten the little bastard. One down, another thirty or so to go.
If I’d had the money I would have walked into the Hardees and gotten myself a biscuit and a cup of coffee. I hadn’t slept a bit last night, and had no plans to do so anytime soon, so some nice dark coffee would have helped that process right along. But I had maybe fifty cents to my name, if that, and it would probably require digging through the cushion of my recliner to get.
Times were a little harder than normal if I was being honest with myself. I’d gotten fat paid from Rutherford last fall, enough that should have held me in good stead for months to come. But damned if I didn’t end up using every red cent to fix my Uncle Hubert Dale’s van. Sure it might have been my fault it took some of the damage, but hell, the damn thing hadn’t even been worth three grand I’d have thought.
He still wasn’t really talking to me much, though he was starting to slowly come around. Figuring I needed punishing I suppose, he hadn’t visited me at my shed since it had all went down, whereas before I was used to seeing him at least once a week, if not more. It made for some lonelier than normal times, that was for sure.
Which, leave a body lonely too long, he’s gonna get himself into trouble. Which I did a bit. Without much in the way of company, or a way to get around consistently, it ended up meaning I was spending more than usual on drugs to keep my mind occupied, but simultaneously earning less money. So now I was a good three months behind on shed rent, and really only had enough drugs for a couple more days.
I live low, but not typically this low. It was almost enough to make a body think about changing his ways.
Almost.
Last time I had been out that way H.D. had actually stopped and talked to me though. So he was coming around. I just had to be patient, and things would go back to their usual state of normal. Which for me was not typically really very normal at all, but it was what I was used to.
I was so lost in my pity party that I hadn’t heard the truck coming up behind me. It wasn’t until it honked, and I shouted like someone who just caught the holy spirit, that I realized I wasn’t alone.
Water You Doing?
Heart pounding fit to bust I turned and saw the source of the honk. It was a small, two door truck, what looked to be an s10 or something similar. It was that kind of green that made you think of the ocean - not the forest - though the paint job was flaking in a few spots, with a bit of rust showing in places. There was nary a dent on it however, which was somewhat of an oddity in Jubal County.
“Sorry about that,” said the young man sitting there behind the wheel. He was leaning against the open window frame, his hat kicked way back on his head. “I hollered atcha, but I don’t reckon you heard me.”
I was more pissed that he saw me get spooked than the fact that he had spooked me. “Well you got my attention now,” I snapped, angrier than I had intended. “Can I help you?”
The youth, who looked to be about sixteen grinned broadly, his lip fat with some sort of dip. “You’re Howard Marsh aintcha?”
I frowned. I certainly didn’t recognize this youngun, but that didn’t mean he wouldn’t know me. I have a certain notoriety in these parts I suppose. “Depends on who’s asking.”
The boy spat a dark stream of phlegm from his mouth, which landed on the asphalt with a little hiss. “I’m Anthony Forrest, Inez Richmond’s boy. You was…”
“You’re Thomas’s little brother?” I asked, looking closer. He did look sort of familiar, though with the mangy stubble of a beard the boy was trying to grow it was hard to tell.
Looking uncomfortable Anthony shifted uneasily in his seat. “Yeah,” he said.
Thomas Richmond was in prison for burning down a church. A church with a bunch of folks in it at the time. A few of which it seemed happened to be federal agents. I could see why the boy wouldn’t put that knowledge out there all willy nilly. He didn’t know I was under the firm suspicion that there was more to that particular story than the government was letting on.
A deer fly bit my shoulder blade, and swearing I slapped at it. “Well we just chit chatting, or you stop me with a purpose?” I slapped fruitlessly at the swarming flies, none of which seemed to have any interest whatsoever in Anthony. “Cause I’d just as soon be up out this heat.”
“My grandpa, he said you could water witch. That true?”
I nodded. “Yup, I’ve been known to find a pipe or two over the years. Learned it from my grandad.”
The youth smiled broadly. “Well I got twenty bucks for ya, iffen you’ll come by the house and dowse where some pipes are.”
A pair of deer flies smacked me in the face, trying to land and thus feast on my blood. “Tell you what, I got time now if you’ll just get me out these fucking flies.”
Working Hard For The Money
The little truck didn’t have working A/C, but with the windows down it made the heat rather tolerable. It was clean inside though, far cleaner than I would have thought it would be. When I’d been the boy’s age, any vehicle I ever rode in had a floorboard full of trash. Hell, even grown up, most of the cars did, which was a comfort.
Some sort of country music was playing over the speakers, but not being a country fan at all, I couldn’t have told you who it was. It was all just noise to me, whiny redneck music. You know what happens when you play it backwards? You get your house back, your wife back, your truck back, and your dog back.
That was what H.D. always joked at least. That got me thinking about the man again, which threatened to send me back into my little fit of melancholy. I tried th
inking about something else, anything else, but you know how that goes. Try and not think about a thing and that’s all you can think about.
I was saved from myself by Anthony piping up. “So I got plans to put a garden in the back. But I need help finding some lines so’s as I can do it right, and not have to spend half my check on hoses the dogs will just chew up.”
“Sounds like a plan. You got any welding rods?” That was the easiest way I had learned to water witch. Every other way involved hunting through the woods to find the right kinda tree with the right kinda branch. Or, in a real pinch I could use a coat hanger, but I always got mixed results with them.
Anthony nodded over his shoulder. “I got a pair in the bed. Grandpa said you’d need ‘em.”
Grandpa would be Inez’s father. I remembered him; he was old and ornery, the kind of guy who got up before dawn every day to start chores. I always thought it was a miserable way to live. What he had to think of Inez...or Thomas for that matter. I knew what he thought of me at least, he’d made that a lot clearer when he ran me off the property with a few blasts of rocksalt fired from his shotgun.
It’s not my fault he had a watermelon patch that was fairly accessible from the road.
From the looks of things Anthony was taking after him, and not his mother. Not too surprising I reckoned. It’s not like any man stayed in Inez’s life long enough to actually be a parent to the kid he spawned off of her, so grandpappy was likely not doing most of the raising.
Soon enough we were rattling down a hard packed dirt road that led to the Richmond Farm. It was a pretty country, dark green forest split up by the odd cow pasture or peanut farm. That was Jubal county for you, some of the prettiest country a body could ever hope to see, the kind of place city folk would damn near kill each other to live in.