Futile Efforts

by Piccirilli, Tom

Thief of Golgotha

  Mills got word that his daughter was dead about three months after she was already in the ground. It had taken his cousin Floyd that long to track him down.

  Floyd found him in a bar on West 71st, in the back sitting with a gorgeous Latino prostitute named Candida Barr. She only had one tit, the left, and some men were consumed and obsessed with the heavy layers of scar tissue where she'd lost the other one. Her junkie mother had taken it with an electric knife back when Candi was thirteen, threw it in a frying pan and burned it down to gristle. Said there was evil in there, a black knot that would bring despair on every man and child that suckled it. Mills knew it was true.

  He and Candi were nearly friends and discussing the possibility of going to bed together without ruining a good thing and somebody getting pissed off. Mills understood there was a little more to it. Candi kept smoothing herself against his chest, hoping that Mills would help her kill a pimp called Fresco, who was roughing up girls in the trade working too close to his side of the block. It was pretty cut and dry and Mills was considering the benefits and possible drawbacks of doing it. The tit was gone but there was always a vein of evil that remained behind, too deep to completely dig out.

  Floyd had succumbed to the wide-eyed terror you might expect to find in a cockfighter from Georgia suddenly finding himself in the middle of Manhattan for the first time. Mills was impressed. He never thought he'd see any of his family again, and Floyd proved he had some guts coming all this way and facing the trials an ignorant middle-aged swamp folk might find in New York City. Floyd was staring at Candi's beguiling smile and trying to remember a hymn to help him get over this powerful temptation. His hands quivered and Mills got him a triple shot of bourbon before he passed out.

  It helped a lot. Floyd unhooked one of the straps of his overalls, sat in the booth and drew back into himself until his eyes had hardened up again. He set his squat, massive arms on top of the table and said, "I got real bad news." His breath still smelled of gator meat.

  Candi perked up and leaned in towards Floyd, pressing her tit against his arm and letting the wild rivulets of black hair wind their way around his flesh. She smelled of sex, hash, and some exotic fruity shampoo, and gave him the little girl pout that just about nobody could resist. She sensed the weakness in his soul and the strength of his hands and had homed in on him as somebody who could strangle Fresco in about thirty seconds, crush his windpipe, and then disappear back into the swamps and leave the cops without anything to go on.

  Mills wanted to delay the bad news for as long as he could and, anyway, he was interested in seeing how Floyd might handle this. He sat back and watched the entwining shadows on the ceiling of a couple of kids dancing in the corner. He tried to quiet his mind and let the tension flow from him because he knew he was going to need what little resolve and determination he had left for whatever evil his cousin had brought to lay in his lap.

  All that he'd once loved he had left back at home. The dread would have to stem from there.

  Floyd laid it out with the terse flatness of a preacher's oldest son. He was doomed to the responsibility of always telling his younger siblings and cousins the horrors of the world. He spoke in the simplest terms he could. It brooked no argument or left room for discussion. The kittens were too much so we took 'em to the river. Mama's dead and so's the baby. Pa's cut his drinking arm off on the chopping block, we're all gonna have to finish fixing the porch roof ourselves. After so long, Floyd had gotten good at it.

  "Jorie's been killed," he said. "Back in the spring. It was done out on Sweetgum Hill. The Seraph had their fun, lynched her in the cypress, and burned her alive. Some of the river families heard her screams down at the bottoms, but by the time I got there it was too late. I figured you'd want to know."

  Nodding slightly, Mills pushed his beer away. He needed to be dry now. Floyd met his eyes and they shared a moment of suffering and then it was gone.

  "How's Mariel?"

  "'Bout what you'd expect."

  "Anybody else hurt since I've been away?"

  "Oh yeah. Lots. Tug is dead, they drowned him in Seeter pond. Aunt Dolly got hit in the head with a rock while she hanging laundry back of her shack. One of the little ones done it. She was blind for about a year but now she can see okay out her right eye. A piece of her skull bone about yay long eventually come out. She got the hole covered with a folded up pie plate she keeps under her hair net. And Erskine-you know Erskine…?"

  "No."

  "He's Luella and Joe Tump's boy. About twelve now. He got chased into the swamp, three four years back, and they took his arms off at the elbows. Joe built him some new ones out of ash and leather straps. The rig looks fair unto strange, but it lets Erskine play his guitar, which is all the boy ever wanted to do anyway."

  Candi hasn't really been listening but caught enough to say, "Burning? What's this? Who's these people? Elbows?"

  "Nothing," Mills told her.

  "Who's this Jorie girl?"

  "No one."

  "Don't give me that--"

  "Let it go."

  "Sure, but no need to lie."

  Floyd kept licking his lips and started picking at his dirty fingernails. He'd done what he'd come all that way to do, but he didn't want to go yet. Candi sensed his backwoods embarrassment and got the giggles, same way she had when she first met Mills, and began to gently play with the thick black hair on Floyd's arms. There was damn near enough to braid.

  Fresco walked in, a lumbering brute with a bodybuilder's gait and a little man's swagger. He liked to hurl himself into a room and cover all the ground, get everybody's attention turned to him. His heavily muscled massive arms swung with a gorilla's efficiency. Bearded crimson face knotted with black veins. Balding forehead with scraggly long hair down the back. Sweaty but not dripping, just enough to give him a sheen in the dim lighting.

  Candi had already seen him, but there was no tension in her features, the dark eyes glittering with excitement. Mills told her, "Take my cousin around back. Don't go too far. And don't give him any hash to smoke."

  "The hell's hash?" Floyd asked.

  "I want to watch," Candi said, and her voice was furred with near arousal.

  That stopped him. "What makes you think there'll be anything to see?"

  "You smell like blood."

  It was true. Mills often smelled of blood, and the stink grew worse with his moods. Just another part of his life he couldn't control.

  Fresco kept the saccharine persona up, letting his calm and cool work over the area. He even smiled at Mills, gave him a wink and nod of the head that said maybe they should talk. Fresco must've thought Mills was Candida's pimp. Things would happen quickly from here on out. Candi stood but Floyd hesitated, unsure of what was happening, what needed to occur next. "You comin' home with me?"

  "Yes. We'll leave in a bit."

  "Can I get a bottle of that bourbon to go?"

  Mills had forgotten that his cousin had never taken a drink of any sort of liquor besides back hill mash shine. "We'll stop at a store on our way out of town. You can load up for the ride back. I'll drive."

  Bending close, as if he might be about to whisper something that should never be forgotten, Floyd grimaced as the blood scent wafted into his face. Candi tugged on his wrist and drew him out the back door.

  Still smiling, so wonderfully self-assured, Fresco sauntered over, those tremendous arms swaying, taut and heaving as if he was tugging at boulders. The tendons in his neck looked as if they had been petrified and polished. The beard was filtering some of the sweat and a dusting of dried salt hung off his jaw line.

  A jovial but bitter laughter surrounded his voice. "Hey there, how you doing?"

  "Howdy."

  The grin shifted into a sneer of sorts, showing a little edge. "You work your ladies a touch harder than you should."

  "That right?"

  "You need to wrangle them in some, treat them with a proper modicum of respect. Show them right from wrong. So th
ey'll learn the ways of the world. Otherwise it could lead to problems with your neighbors. A breach of civility. An infringement upon the amiability of your associates."

  Mills had met a few preachers in his time who talked about as honey-coated as this. Pretty words that didn't mean anything, hiding the rage beneath. He looked away from Fresco and thought about the Seraph, and what he would do to them first when he got back.

  "Are you listening to me, friend?" Fresco asked. He set his giant fists on his slim hips, hitting a pose he probably thought was imposing and sexy.

  "I hear you."

  "Do you take my words to heart?"

  "The words? Yes."

  He had studied hard upon the significance behind certain sentences and fragments. A man's statements always meant something, even if he did not know himself what purpose or intent they might have. Now or ever after, for his neighbors, family, and the rest of the world.

  It took a few more seconds of them staring at each other before Mills felt the tension begin to grow worse. He slid out of his seat and walked down the rear corridor heading past the rest rooms and out the back door. He kept his hands loose at his sides, waiting for Fresco to come up behind him. There were times you could feel the fist of God tightening around you, and you could shut your eyes and almost allow the will of Heaven to guide your every movement.

  Almost, but not quite. Fresco came out the door growling, fast and heavy and bellicose as a bear. Mills turned and stepped forward to meet him as the dim lamplight on the corner reflected off the polished .22 in the pimp's hand. He let out a chuckle--all those hours in the gym pressing incredible amounts of weight up and down, the dieting, the intake of massive amounts of carbohydrates, the endless practice of posturing in front of the mirror to get his threatening expression down just right, and not only does he pull a gun in the end, but he pulls the smallest gun there is.

  A breeze swelled around them, carrying the stink. Mills stared into the man's eyes and imagined them to be the golden-green of the Seraph, brimming with light and laughter, incessant happiness and love. He wondered if God had finally come to some decision and decided to wait it out.

  At the other end of the alley, Floyd had his overalls down to his knees and was inside Candi, pressing her hard against the brick wall. He rammed his way between her legs, grunting with his mouth sealed over her left nipple, caressing the mottled scar tissue.

  Fresco didn't notice them and suddenly decided he wanted to talk some more. "This is where it ends, friend, you should've heeded my advice."

  "Kill me if you can," Mills said.

  "You want to die, you idiot?"

  They used to ask him that all the time when he was a boy, and even then he wasn't sure how to answer. Gramma Callie would stand over him quivering with her hand wreathed with catclaw briars, angry that he didn't want to go and do his duty against the Seraph. "I have a big question I want answered. I haven't asked it in a long time and this is my way of getting around to it again. So, give it a whirl."

  "You crazy son of a bitch. You're dead."

  "Let's see."

  Fresco reached out, pressed the barrel to Mills' forehead, and pulled the trigger. The .22 clicked softly in the darkness, as if whispering secrets to a lover. And then again. And twice more.

  "See, your kind can't kill my clan. We get special dispensation. God's got a more hands-on approach to that purpose."

  "You motherless humper!"

  Staring over Floyd's shoulder at Mills, Candi let out a moan of fear, not quite smiling but maybe just about to, because the blood had become so much heavier on the wind. Mills welcomed it and felt the dust of history parting to let something forward. She watched and saw the shadow of his rage rising behind. He could feel it growing until it took the shape of a man. Candi started to raise a finger to point but Floyd slammed her so hard that her hand was flung away. She broke a nail against the brick wall. She couldn't tell from that far off that the naked man now moved to stand at Mills' side, sagging forward on broken legs.

  If you spoke your mind at the wrong time you could damn your children forever.

  "Go away," he told Fresco, and the pimp gave a bleat of awful dismay and trundled back into the bar.

  When Mills glanced over again he saw Floyd wiping his mouth, gagging and spitting into the street. Floyd pulled his drawers up, reached into the deep pocket of his overalls. Candi said, "Hey, what…?" just as Floyd started taking her other tit off. He was so good with the eight inch guthook blade that she didn't even scream, just looked down with an expression of fascination and horror as he removed her flesh with devoted purpose. There wasn't much bleeding at all, considering. She began gasping, sucking in tiny gulps of air. Floyd took out a dirty handkerchief and held it to the wound. Then he turned and walked to Mills, and together they left the alley before the crazed shrieking began.

  It took twenty-two hours of driving Floyd's truck straight through to get home to Cobb County. Floyd sat the entire time staring out the window with a goofy smile on his face, sipping the bourbon and occasionally sighing pleasantly. Mills was sorry he hadn't taken Candida up on her offer while it was still on the table.

  When they stopped for gas he scrounged around the back of the truck until he found Floyd's five gallon can. He filled that too and stuffed a rag in the top since there wasn't any cap.

  The highway ran out and after twenty minutes of gravel and dirt track they were back in bog country. The humidity had risen by fifty percent in the past hundred miles. Vine-draped crescent rows of shanties began to appear along the rim of the swamplands. Bull gators roared in the bog. The lush maiden cane Slopes of Spanish moss and slough remained untouched, emerald and endless. They held a majestic power that was as ancient and awesome as the burning deserts of the earth.

  He drove until the last shred of road narrowed and abruptly ended in a morass of willows and loblolly pine, with the river water seeping up around the wild roots. Floyd had drawn his skiff up onto a tussock of bull grass. Mills got the gas can out, went through the back of the truck again and found a hatchet.

  "You gonna see anybody 'fore you start?" Floyd asked. The bourbon had done a good job on him. He looked good-natured and content. "Mariel?"

  "No."

  "Gonna hunt the bottoms first?"

  "You know every answer, so why do you bother to ask."

  Floyd opened another bottle and took a long pull, wiped his mouth with the wide back of his hand. "Sorry, it's a habit I ain't been able to break. You remember the way?"

  Mills held even more tightly to his frustration and fury, letting all the hate throb within him, and he didn't want to waste any of it slapping the shit out of his cousin. "Give me your knife."

  Floyd took out the guthook and handed it over.

  "Good luck," Floyd said. He tittered and hummed, opened his mouth to hiss something more. "God bless."

  Mills almost killed him for that. The skinning blade felt so comfortable in his fist, designed to open arteries, clean carcasses. His back teeth ground together and the guthook started to come up, weaving as if seeking a throat. Mills stopped himself and clambered into the skiff, threw down the can, knife and the hatchet like they disgusted him. He stobpoled the boat through the slimy waters towards Sweetgum Hill, where they'd had their fun and lynched Jorie in the cypress.

  Settling on a hillock of moss and orchids, hidden in the green, Mills waited in the river bottoms through the night. He didn't sleep, and the shadow of his ancestor whimpered to him in the moonlight, begging forgiveness for his greatest transgression. Minutes before dawn, Mills heard the first Seraph.

  The lyrical rhythm of their pleasant voices snapped gently through the overgrowth. It put him in the mind for his banjo. He wondered if he could still play.

  A boy and a girl, looking about eleven or twelve years old, tramped past where Mills crouched.

  Their beauty blinded him for an instant. He'd forgotten what true, overwhelming perfection was like. He had to shield his eyes with his arm until the te
ars stopped flowing, and then he slunk off after them.

  Both in blue overalls, wearing wide-brimmed straw hats, barefoot, carrying fishing poles, they walked about fifty feet ahead. Mills felt God in the swamp. He cut into the morass and moved quickly through the slough, his instincts intact and once again guiding him. His feet touched the ground in all the proper places, and he was drawing strength from being home. The blood scent enveloped him until he couldn't even smell the gasoline sloshing in the rag-stuffed can.

  A moment of anguish filled his chest, loosened and left him. Mills let out a chortle that almost sickened him.

  The children were in the midst of conversation, speaking quietly but animatedly in their own language. The girl laughed and an abrupt weakness filled Mills, until he staggered and his knees nearly fell out from under him. She reminded him so much of Jorie that he had the insane urge to scream his dead daughter's name. The swamp would swallow his words, his intent, and his wavering resolve, the way it always had.

  They found a comfortable place on the river bank and sat side by side. The boy had a nice easy way of tossing his line out beyond the morass into the water. The girl tried doing the same but didn't quite have the knack for it yet. They each drew white bread sandwiches from their overall pockets and started chewing.

  Mills stepped out from behind the tree and said, "Did either of you have anything to do with the burning of Jorie Mills?"

  The Seraph never lied. They didn't need to. Nothing they ever did broke any law of God. The boy grinned politely, his teeth full of pork and cheese, and said, "Yes, sir. We both did. You're her daddy, ain't you?"

  "I was her father."

  "You're an ugly soul."

  "No more than most, I reckon."

  "That's not for you to judge."

  Perhaps it was true, but that didn't matter now. A man stood his ground when he had no corners left to crawl into. "Maybe not. I know my own evil."

  "You're cruel," the girl said with a tone so tender and caring, Mills wanted to jab the guthook into his own throat and just be done with it. Her perfect golden beauty was almost more than he could take. He'd felt the same when Lottie Mae, the midwife, had handed Jorie to him that first time.