The Broken Places

by Ace Atkins

  • • •

  “You all right?” Quinn said to Luther Varner, who’d been thrown into the back of the cab.

  “The dirt people can’t claim my ass yet.”

  “Can you help me out?” Quinn said. “Seat won’t give.”

  Luther leaned through the seats of the sideways truck, finding purchase on the driver’s-side window, blown out and ragged with glass. He reached into the upper frame and started kicking at the passenger seat until it broke free and Quinn could crawl out. Varner got his wiry old frame out first and then stood atop his truck and reached a hand down for Quinn. A fallen tree lay prone across where there used to be a windshield. “My Lord,” Varner said. “You ever seen such a clusterfuck?”

  Quinn jumped down off the truck and onto the torn-up asphalt, taking in Jericho in all directions. Trees lay uprooted, skinned like animals of their bark. Paper and tin and pieces of wood had been scattered all across the road, and littered a field that was once a pine forest but now had been wiped down to mud. Quinn tried his phone. All circuits were jammed or the towers were down. Either way, it was useless. He went back to the truck and crawled inside, searching for his radio. He called for dispatch. Nothing.

  “We got to hump a mile to town,” Varner said. “I’m sure your people and my people found some shelter. You remember the last one?”

  “No, sir,” Quinn said. “I was only one.”

  “Your daddy was there,” Luther said. “Saved a bunch of folks.”

  Quinn shook his head.

  “Better believe it; Jason Colson was a man.”

  They followed the trash-strewn road, the tornado siren still going from near the water tower. People emerged from some houses; other houses lay in heaps; some had just been cleaned from their concrete foundations. Quinn would be back and help them all, but he needed to find his family and Anna Lee. He needed to find Lillie and his deputies. Quinn moved as fast as he could, Varner not slacking one bit at his side, bringing back memories of the last fight he’d been in with the old man. The ex-Marine going back to his training on Parris Island, coming back to an operational mind-set like a rubber band. Nothing familiar. Nothing stood. Everything was a mess, a pile of debris.

  “You got to think of them being OK,” Varner said. “You check on your people.”

  “What about you?”

  “Well,” the old man said. “My son is rightly in prison, and my wife is dead. Smartest thing little Darl did was move to Nashville.”

  They stopped only twice before reaching the Town Square. A woman and her two children had been trapped inside a toppled minivan. They had all been scared to death but were fine; Varner used his combat knife to cut them from their seat belts. Another time, they stopped to find a young girl, maybe six or seven, a little older than Jason, asking for her momma.

  The house behind him didn’t even make sense, a trash pile caught in the path of that thing; nothing familiar stretched out to Quinn for miles. Varner grabbed the little girl and hoisted her onto his shoulders, keeping her there as they walked on to the sheriff’s office, finding a section of the roof gone but most of it and the walls standing. Lillie Virgil stood outside with a group of people, some covered in blankets, all bruised and bloody, seeking some type of direction. Their eyes were wandering and glassy, the look of refugees he’d seen in the Afghan mountains, everything they’d known taken away in an instant. The mind not quite catching up with the eye.

  Varner helped the little girl off his shoulders. She ran to a woman standing by Lillie and wrapped her small arms around her neck.

  Quinn looked over the growing crowd to Lillie. Lillie just shook her head.

  Quinn started running for home.

  • • •

  After the silence was the crying and the screaming and the folks walking out into what used to be a street and asking, “You seen my daddy?” or kids asking, “You seen my dog?” People were confused and turned-around as they stood, frozen, trying to make some kind of sense of what just happened and where to go next. No homes, no cars. No roads. People who had survived hugged a lot. Caddy saw many people dropping to their knees and praying to the clearing skies, the first time Caddy had seen the sun in a week. She walked with Jason in her arms back through the backyard, Wade going to find his mother at the newspaper and check on the bank. The old people just remained in that shelter, trying to get enough courage to see what the hell was left. Caddy wanted to see it, had to see it. She felt full of courage and wonder. If a tornado couldn’t take out her and Jason, then there was more purpose to her life, more meaning, and God was indeed good. She kept on patting Jason’s little legs and squeezing his feet as they passed over the creek and saw what had been a neighborhood since after the Second World War nothing but a landfill. Their little home was just gone, her white Honda had been flipped upside down, and water shot up in the air from what had been their bathroom. Caddy thanked God once again for her not being so almighty stupid as to try to ride this son of a bitch out in a bathtub. She kissed Jason’s cheek. God was good. They had been spared.

  She had come back to Jericho with nothing. She’d come back from this.

  Everything else around her didn’t make sense. The hundred-year-old oaks that had lined the quiet street and cooled during the summer were gone. You could smell the oak and the pine in the air. People screaming and shouting, some in pain and some in joy.

  Down the street, or what had been a street but was now a river of clothes, busted wood, and garbage, she saw a man in a long white robe. There was a moment of foolishness, but her eyes cleared and she smiled, holding Jason up so he could see Jamey Dixon hobbling down the road in a hospital gown, scruffy and worn, silly in a pair of cowboy boots. His grin and open arms were everything.

  She rushed to him, Jason clinging to her neck.

  “You know I never much did like that damn kitchen table, anyway,” Jean Colson said, hands shaking while she lit a menthol with a match. “I hated those old knotty pine cabinets, too.”

  Most of the Colson house remained. The open back porch, the kitchen, and a stretch of magnolias and pines did not. Quinn had his arm around his mother as they walked up the hill where he and Caddy played as kids. The old tree house still sat perched oddly alone in four pine trees that were skinned up pretty good but still there. Jean saw Quinn staring. “Maybe I could live in that tree house?”

  “Sure.”

  “I ran down the hall to get in the linen closet, come to find the closet wasn’t even there.”

  “Where’d you go?”

  “Nowhere,” she said. “Duck and cover in the hallway. Like an atom bomb had landed.”

  “You see it?”

  His mother shook her head, blew a stream of smoke upwind. Folks walked up and down Ithaca Road, most of it a mess but a lot of houses still standing. A ton of trees were down, most coming down right in the middle of people’s houses. Quinn had been in touch with Lillie by radio, learning the supervisors had sent a team of bulldozers into downtown Jericho to clear the roads so emergency vehicles could get through. The deputies were going door-to-door looking for survivors, Quinn saying he’d join them as soon as he checked on his mother.

  Quinn had come up on the house at the same time as Caddy and Jason. Jamey Dixon, looking like a true convict, limped up behind them, his long hair and beard wild and his ass exposed in the hospital gown he wore with cowboy boots.

  Jason ran for Quinn, leaping three feet up and into his arms. He squeezed his neck tight, and Quinn told him that he loved him. Caddy walked up and hugged her brother. She cried for a moment but cleared her face as Jamey walked up and offered his hand to Quinn.

  “You know, I got some pants inside, Dixon. How about you put them on?”

  Dixon nodded and walked up past Quinn and over the lawn and into the house, Quinn not moving an inch. Jason was smiling with all the excitement, telling Uncle Quinn all about the ’nado that about knocked the whole earth on its ass.

  “Where’d that kid learn to talk like that?”
Quinn said.

  Caddy shrugged. They walked up to the steps to the house

  and sat.

  “The Stevens house is half gone,” she said. “Thank God they got a basement.”

  Quinn’s blood quickened. “You see her? You sure they’re all right?”

  “Had to walk right by their house to get here,” Caddy said, nodding. “It’s a mess, Quinn. Lots of people got to be dead.”

  Quinn radioed in to Lillie again. They had two dead in a house right off from the old rail depot. She wasn’t sure but thought it had been the Sayleses, man and woman in their seventies. When Quinn asked about an ID, Lillie said that would take some doing. The tornado had blown into Tibbehah right over Choctaw Lake and then cut up over the city and on up toward Carthage and the hills and out into Lee County, where things sounded just as bad.

  “You gonna put Jamey back under arrest?” Caddy said.

  Quinn shook his head.

  “We need the help,” Caddy said.

  “I just asked emergency management if we could get a gimpy leg preacher,” Quinn said. “Must be my day.”

  “He wants to go back to The River,” she said. “If it’s still there, it can be a place for folks to get washed and fed. We need that right now.”

  Quinn nodded.

  “Those men forced him with a gun,” Caddy said. “He can help.”

  Quinn nodded again, Jean walking around the corner of her house, crying a bit, arms around Miss Davis, whose house next door had been split in two like a birthday cake. Caddy let Jason to the ground, the boy running for his grandmother with excitement, pointing to all the carnage and destruction. Caddy stayed seated on the stoop, not taking her eyes off Quinn. “We nearly died.”

  Quinn nodded.

  “That means something.”

  “Sure.”

  Caddy ran her hand over her face and massaged her neck. “Just give him a chance,” she said. “This town doesn’t have much, but we need him today. Our ministry. His ministry. This is what we do.”

  “Hell, I gave him my pants, didn’t I?”

  Caddy looked at Quinn, shook her head, and then smiled. Just slightly. Quinn smiled back and ran, double-timing it all the way back to the sheriff’s office, where they were already bringing in the dead.

  • • •

  “Afternoon, Mr. Stagg,” Esau said, as soon as Johnny Stagg climbed into the driver’s seat of his Cadillac and stuck the key into the ignition. Esau came up from the backseat and told Stagg to just be cool and just drive. “Don’t study on things too much.”

  “In case you hadn’t fucking heard, son, we got ourselves an emergency situation.”

  “I saw the whole thing from the hills,” Esau said. “That twister must’ve been a half mile across. Sky turned black as midnight. Saw sparks of the power lines, whole cars being picked up and tossed like they was toys. When it come up on Jericho, I was sure the whole town would be gone.”

  “It just might be,” Stagg said. “So, you mind getting your ass out of my vehicle? I have official duties to perform and such.”

  “Start the car, old man, and drive,” Esau said. “This don’t mean nothin’ to our business.”

  Stagg just sat there until Esau placed the gun behind his right ear. Stagg turned halfway, staring out at the truck stop parking lot and a mess of ambulances and police cars and fire trucks. A bunch of folks scattering off every few minutes. All of north Mississippi coming on up to Tibbehah County.

  “My county doesn’t have no water, no power,” Stagg said, driving away from the Rebel Truck Stop. “Most of our county seat been wiped out. I got constituents with immediate needs.”

  “Same as me.”

  “Ain’t same as you,” Stagg said, turning onto the highway toward town. “All that business can wait, son. This is bigger.”

  “Says who?” Esau said. “You say that to the man who’s running for his life with the hellhounds sniffing for his asshole? ‘Hold on just a minute, partner. I’ll get right back to you.’ Bullshit, Mr. Stagg. My needs must be met. I ain’t got nowhere to sleep, no money, and I need some medical attention and clothes. My eye swolled up like that fella Quasimodo.”

  “Take a number,” Stagg said. “Do you know how many people died in this shitstorm?”

  “No, sir,” Esau said. “And don’t much care, neither.”

  “Just what the hell do you want of me?”

  “To let you know nothing has changed.”

  “You’re soiling my car,” Stagg said. “You smell like you been rolling in a cow field.”

  “Been living like an animal since your lawmen chased me into the woods this morning like I was a ten-point buck,” Esau said. “Caught my best friend. So excuse me if I might have shit my britches.”

  “This Cadillac is brand-new.”

  “Get an air freshener,” Esau said. “And turn down that side road.”

  “You gonna kill me?” Stagg said, peering up every few seconds into the rearview. “That it? You think I called the law on you? I told you we have a deal and we got a deal. I can’t help that the hand of God reached down and tried to shake this county off the map.”

  “Pull over there.”

  “You kill me and you don’t get nothin’,” Stagg said. “Jamey Dixon is a liar. A false prophet who ran over his old girlfriend and then sat by the roadside to watch her body be pulverized into nothing. You throwin’ in with a man like that?”

  Stagg stopped the car on the highway. A fire truck raced by. A hundred yards down the highway, it stopped dead cold. A tall old pine fallen over the road. Some firefighters hopped out of the truck and took to the pine with a chain saw, the tree splitting in half, four men grabbing one end of the tree and pulling it out of the road. They drove off, and an ambulance followed with lights and sirens. More police cars. A couple state troopers.

  “When?” Esau said.

  “When for what?”

  “When can you get me a lift out of here?”

  “I’m reaching into my glove box, son, but there’s a weapon there,” Stagg said. “Going for it nice and easy, don’t get jumpy. I just need to get some breath mints. The smell of everything is giving me a migraine.”

  “What kind of man needs a breath mint after his hometown is blown apart?”

  “A man who needs a minute,” Stagg said. He reached for a couple peppermints and offered one to Esau. Esau took it. Stagg crunched on his, eyes darting up to the rearview.

  “I got five hundred dollars in my wallet,” Stagg said. “I got a private shower in my office. It runs off a generator. You don’t make a mess and I’ll come back after I assess the situation in Jericho.”

  “This situation is that your little town is fucked to hell,” Esau said. “The trumpet has been sounded. I seen it. Looks like what happens after a dog gets after your trash. You better be thinking on the future, old man.”

  Stagg finished the breath mint, swallowed, and half turned back to Esau.

  “You mind if I start up my vehicle and turn back to the truck stop?” Stagg said. “You can clean yourself and help yourself to my refrigerator. I got ice cream and whiskey. I’ll find out about Dixon. And then you can finish it.”

  “Be easy for a man to get lost right about now.”

  “Yes, sir,” Stagg said. “It would.”

  “You threatenin’ me?” Esau said. “You want to do that, and I’ll blow your goddamn head all over your dashboard and these nice, clean leather seats. Ain’t no air freshener for that.”

  “Sit back, Mr. Davis,” Stagg said, turning off the shoulder and heading away from the stopped fire truck and the downed tree. “Let me take the wheel for a bit and find out exactly what we got left.”

  Quinn could see where the tornado had crossed the Jericho Square, up from the southwest and slamming into the town diagonally. It ripped a good section of the storefronts, a copy shop, a Laundromat, the Tibbehah Monitor’s office clean off their foundations. Cars and trucks had been turned on their backs, brick walls had been busted
through. The force of it had come on across Cotton Road, the county highway running over to 45, taking out the Hollywood Video, the Dollar General, and the roof of the Piggly Wiggly. To the east there was a broken and busted world; turn to the west and everything looked the same, the old movie theater, the Fillin’ Station diner, and the Jericho General Store. Even the Veterans’ monument stood straight and proud in the dead center of the Square. Junk and trash and busted pieces of Sheetrock littered the lawn, now surrounded with emergency vehicles. But some of the town had been spared, and there was a small miracle in that.

  He and Lillie searched for survivors in a neighborhood right off the Square where Caddy’s house had been, sending survivors back to the sheriff’s office, where Quinn had helped set up a command center. Not an hour since the storm and the Salvation Army was already there, feeding and clothing people. They put out tables and chairs in front of their trailer, hot meals and coffee. All seven of his deputies were working traffic, while Quinn and Lillie worked with volunteers, searching for people who may have been trapped or for the dead. Memphis was sending down rescue dogs to sniff for cadavers.

  The entire neighborhood was just gone. The little saltboxes had been built for GIs after the war, turning into slums during the seventies but recently becoming rediscovered by young families. Caddy had spent most of last year fixing and painting the house, planting flowers and a small garden. Quinn had helped screen in her back porch, where they’d spent hours talking things out. Caddy finding a lot of strength and pride in that old home.

  “Piggly Wiggly is giving out water and food,” Lillie said, wiping dirt and sweat from her face. She wore a gray T-shirt with her uniform pants and combat boots, gun on her hip. “People rushing over there like it’s Christmas Day. Free T-bone steaks and Coca-Cola.”

  The streets were not streets but heaps of Sheetrock, busted boards, and bricks. The old oaks that kept upright looked naked and obscene, as if they’d been whipped bare. Quinn had on his old Merrell boots and carried a flat-blade ax. There was quiet and stillness, dogs barking, sirens far off. Families gathering. They tried not to talk, but to listen for cries of pain or help. Quinn had worked three hours straight, his shirt soaked with sweat, bloody calluses on his hand from the ax handle. A gas crew had set up on Main Street, shutting off the entire system.