by Tom Epperson
A couple of hundred feet from the car, Dick looked around and said: “Guess this place is as good as any.”
The ground was hard and dry. We’d already shed our coats in the car, and now we rolled up our shirt sleeves. The sweat was pouring off us, and I was unbearably thirsty. The wind blew over us, and dust stung our eyes. This was the second burial job I’d done with Dick. I remembered holding Doc’s hand. The way he’d looked up at me so trustingly as I led him out into the garden.
“Poor Doc,” I said.
“Quit talking about him. I mean it. You’re always bringing him up. Just knock it off.”
“Sorry.”
“I guess that’s deep enough,” said Dick after a while.
It didn’t look very deep, but I didn’t argue with him. We went back to the car, and opened up the rumble seat. While he’d been getting murdered, Tommy had emptied his bladder and bowels. Add to that an hour or two in a hot car, and the smell was like a punch in the face.
Dick cursed as we took Tommy out. He wasn’t a big guy, but we struggled to carry him. He seemed all slack and looseygoosey inside the tube of the rug and I was afraid he’d slither out one end or the other.
“They’re a lot easier to carry when they’re stiff,” said Dick, red-faced and gasping. “He ain’t been dead long enough to get stiff yet.”
We plopped him down in the hole and quickly began to cover him up. When we finished, we leaned on our shovels and surveyed our handiwork.
“Adios, you rotten bastard,” said Dick.
“Was he right?”
“About what?”
“About that bouncer’s name. Was it Cairo Mary?”
Dick smiled. “Yeah. Yeah, he was right about that.”
Suddenly a gust of wind blew his hat off. It rolled and tumbled along the ground as Dick chased after it. It finally came to rest near the base of one of the weird-looking trees. Dick bent over to get it, but then he yelled: “HOLY SHIT!” and came running back my way.
“Dick, what’s the matter?”
“Snake! One of them rattle snakes!”
“Where?”
“Right there! By the tree!”
I looked toward where he was pointing, but didn’t see anything. I was willing to take his word for it though.
“Come on, let’s get outa here.”
“I can’t leave without my hat! It cost me eight bucks!”
Dick pulled his gun out and began blazing away in the direction of the tree. The bullets kicked up the dirt. I still couldn’t see the snake. Now the hat somersaulted as one of the bullets hit it.
“Dick, you just shot your hat! It’s no good anymore! Now let’s get outa here!”
Dick was staring toward the tree, his eyes wide and wild and his lower lip trembling.
“You seen it, didn’t you, Danny? You seen the snake?”
“Yeah, I saw it. Now let’s go.”
We walked quickly back to the car with a mounting sense of panic, as if we were being chased by the snake, or maybe the wrathful ghosts of Emperatriz and Flumentino. We threw our shovels in the coupe and jumped in and Dick got it turned around and headed back toward the highway. Then we gave each other relieved we-made-it looks.
“Fuck,” said Dick.
“Yeah.”
Pretty soon we saw feathers blowing across the road again.
“I’m thirsty as hell,” I said. “You think maybe the chicken farmers would give us some water?”
“Good idea, kid. I’m pretty dry myself.”
We stopped the car in front of the shack and the chicken coop. There were chickens everywhere, some alive, some dead, some somewhere in between. The smell was awful, and the air was full of flies. Now we saw a little kid sitting in the doorway of the shack with a rifle across his knees.
The dust had turned the sun red, and the horizon had cut it in half, and we walked warily through the bloody light toward the kid, who never took his eyes off us.
“What you fellers want?” he said.
He looked about nine or ten. All he was wearing was a filthy pair of shorts. At first I’d thought he must be a Mexican he was so brown, but now I saw the brown was a mixture of suntan and dirt.
“Just some water,” said Dick. “That okay?”
The kid looked us over. “It’ll cost ya.”
“How much?” I said.
“Two bits. Apiece.”
“That’s fine.” I went in my pocket and pulled out a shiny new half-dollar. I walked over and dropped it in the kid’s grubby palm. He had extraordinary light-green eyes, the color of an empty Coke bottle.
“Water’s over yunder,” he said, nodding toward a rusting pump.
A bucket sat under the spout of the pump, and there was a tin cup next to the bucket. Dick and I looked into the bucket: it was half full of water, with a layer of feathers and dead flies floating on it. We looked at each other, then Dick grabbed the pump handle and began working it.
“I guess this is how you do it,” he said.
At first the pump just made hoarse wheezing noises, but then water began to well up and flow. I filled up the cup and drank it. The water was very cool, with a mineral taste. I had another cup, then pumped for Dick.
Now I saw a floppy-eared brown and white hound lying on its stomach at the side of the shack. It was chomping on a live chicken that it was holding down with it paws. The chicken feebly beat its wings as the wind blew its feathers away.
The kid raised his rifle, pointed it at another chicken, and shot. Except it wasn’t a rifle after all but a BB gun. The BB made a snapping noise as it hit the chicken, which jumped and squawked and flapped and staggered off.
The kid guffawed, and slapped his knee. “Right in the dang butt!”
Dick looked at me. “Want any more water?”
“Nah.”
“Let’s get outa here then.”
The kid cocked his BB gun then shot another chicken.
“Why are you doing that?” I said. “Why are you shooting your chickens?”
The kid leveled his green gaze at me.
“It’s just something to do, mister. You got any better ideas?”
“But you need your chickens, don’t you? To make a living?”
“Ain’t no living to be made. The bottom’s plumb fell out of the fucking chicken market. We ain’t even making enough money to buy chicken feed. They’s all starving to death. Can’t you see that?” The kid eyed us suspiciously. “What you fellers doing out cheer anyways? How come you’re asking all these questions? Y’all ain’t G-men, are ya? Daddy told me to keep a look-out for G-men.”
“Naw, kid, we ain’t G-men,” said Dick. “We’re just passing through. Come on, Danny.”
But then a little girl came walking around the side of the shack. She was maybe six or seven, and was as filthy, and had the same bottle-green eyes, as her brother. She was holding by one arm a pinkish plastic baby doll missing a leg.
“Zeke, I seen a rabbit,” she said. “A bunny rabbit. A-hopping around.”
“Looky here, Ruby, at what I got!” said Zeke. “A fifty-cent piece!”
Ruby looked wonderingly at the bright coin. Green snot was oozing out of her nostrils, and she had a harsh, croupy cough.
“Golly, Zeke. Is that morn a nickel?”
“Damn right it is.”
“Zeke, you better hurry up.”
“Hurry up and what?”
“Shoot the bunny rabbit. ’Fore it goes a-hopping off. Hippity hop.”
“Where’s your daddy?” I said.
“Around,” said Zeke, suspicious again. “What you wanna know fer?”
“I just want to make sure there’s somebody to take care of you guys. Do you have enough to eat?”
“Sure, mister. We eat chickens.”
“And aigs,” said Ruby.
“But we ain’t been eating aigs lately. They don’t lay aigs lessun you feed ’em.”
“I hate chickens,” said Ruby. “They’re mean. I had a pet bug once and th
e chicken et it.”
Zeke shot another chicken. Through the neck this time. It went down in the dirt in a flurry of feathers and squawks.
“Kid, you’re a hell of a shot,” said Dick. “Let’s go, Danny.”
We turned and walked toward the road. I felt the luminous green eyes of the siblings on our backs. I braced myself for a BB popping me in the butt.
We passed by a handsome red rooster. He was stalking around arrogantly, like he wasn’t aware of the unfolding catastrophe, didn’t know or care all his wives were starving and being shot.
“What you limping fer, mister,” Zeke called out, “you some kinda cripple?”
“Some kinda cripple!” Ruby shouted, then I heard her giggle and cough.
We walked through the dusty red feather-filled light, away from the stench of dead chickens and chicken shit. Got in the car and got to the highway and headed south toward the city, lickety split.
“I don’t think I’ll be eating chicken for a while,” said Dick.
“Me neither.”
Chapter 13
IT WAS THE middle of July, and it was hot. I sat on the black davenport wearing only my undershorts. The sun was shining through the shrubbery outside my window, and throwing shadows on the hardwood floor.
I imagined taking my new yellow broom and briskly sweeping up all the shadows. They ended up in a tidy little heap of darkness in the corner, while the floor was filled with nothing but light.
Chapter 14
“I DON’T GET it,” I said.
“Don’t get what?” said Darla.
“Why you’re moving in with him. I thought you wanted to get away from him.”
“This doesn’t have anything to do with what I want. I don’t pay for my apartment, he does. And he doesn’t want to pay for it anymore.”
We were on our way to her apartment. She wanted me to help her pack a few things. She took out a Lucky Strike, leaned toward the dashboard, and pushed in the electric lighter.
“But that doesn’t mean you have to move in with him,” I said.
“Oh, it doesn’t? Tell him that.”
The lighter popped back out, and she applied it to her cigarette.
“What’s up with Tommy?” she asked.
“What do you mean?”
“I heard Teddy and Nucky talking about him, but they clammed up when I walked in the room. Then I asked Bud about him, and he said he’d gone off to take care of his sick aunt in San Francisco.”
“Yeah. That’s what I heard.”
“Hey, Danny? It’d be nice to have one person in my life I knew would never lie to me.”
I thought about it a minute.
“Okay. I know where he’s at. And it’s not San Francisco.”
She sighed out some smoke, said: “I get the picture,” then stayed silent the rest of the way to her apartment house.
We took the elevator to the top floor.
When we got in her apartment, Darla said: “Whew! It’s like an oven in here. Danny, would you be a darling and open some windows? I’m going to make a drink. Like one?”
“No thanks.”
She went in the kitchen, as I spread out the curtains and lifted the front window. I had a pretty good view up and down the street. The red Buick was parked not too far off. I couldn’t see inside, but I could see some smoke drifting up from the driver’s-side window.
I’d never been in Darla’s apartment before. I looked around the living room. Everything was nice enough, but except for a stack of unopened mail on a side table, there were no indications a particular person lived here. It was kind of a high-class version of where I lived.
I went in her bedroom and opened the window there.
Out of the corner of my eye I caught some movement, but then saw the movement was me: my reflection in a mirror over a bureau. A few weeks ago I’d gone out to Venice Beach with Dick, and we went to one of those places where you try to knock over wooden milk bottles with a baseball. There was this guy whose job it was to scurry around and re-set the milk bottles after they’d been knocked over. He looked like a monster. His skin wasn’t anything but slick pink scars. I asked the guy that ran the game what had happened to him, and he said he’d been burned up in an oil-well fire in Signal Hill a few years back. So then I started wondering what he used to look like, and who he really was under the scars. And now, as I looked at myself in the mirror, I started wondering who I really was under Danny Landon.
Darla’s reflection joined mine. She was holding a stubby tumbler full of ice and vodka. She looked at me, smiling a little.
“In love with your own reflection?”
“No.”
Now her eyes moved to herself.
“I stand in front of the mirror sometimes. I take off all my clothes, and I look at every inch of myself, and I wonder how long it’s going to last. ’Cause that’s all I’ve got, is what I look like.”
She took a gulp of her drink, and walked over to a closet. She started taking out pairs of shoes and putting them in a cardboard box.
“Need any help?” I said.
“No. Just relax.”
I saw a stuffed lamb sitting on the bed. It had blue glass eyes and a simpering smile and a red bow around its neck.
“Where’d you get the lamb?”
“Mr. Bruff gave it to me. For Christmas.” And then, after a moment: “He wants to marry me.”
“Bud?”
“Yeah.”
“But he’s already married.”
“He says that situation will be taken care of very soon.”
“Just tell him no.”
“You just tell him no.”
“I heard a rumor. That there’s some important people that aren’t happy with him, and his future in this town is limited.”
“What do you mean? They’re gonna send him to visit his sick aunt in San Francisco?”
“I guess so. So maybe if you can just hold out a little longer, your problem will be solved for you.”
“Just my luck, somebody’ll plant a bomb in his car, and I’ll be with him when it blows up.”
“That’s not gonna happen.”
She finished off the vodka, then held out the glass to me.
“Danny, would you be a dear and get me some water?”
I was glad she wasn’t asking for more vodka. In the kitchen, as I held the glass under the tap, I thought about her standing in front of the mirror without any clothes on. I thought about every inch of her.
When I went back in the bedroom, she was standing by the bureau, taking a medicine bottle out of her purse. She unscrewed the cap and tipped out three tablets into her palm.
“What’s that?” I said.
“Veronal.”
She took the glass from me and popped the tablets in her mouth.
“What’s it for?”
“It’s just a calmative. And don’t give me that look. My doctor gives them to me. It’s medicine. I’m not a dope fiend.”
“Didn’t say you were.”
She started taking stuff out of the bureau drawers. Frilly, silky, filmy, fascinating stuff.
“Damn,” she said. “I left my cigarettes in the car. Would you be a dear?”
Of course I would. I took the elevator down. The street was lined with palm trees, and a hot, dry wind rattled above me through the fronds.
The red Buick was still waiting, still spying. I suddenly felt mad. Like I’d had enough. I started walking toward it. I was behind it. Smoke was floating out of both sides. A shirt-sleeved elbow was sticking out of the passenger window. When I got to within about twenty feet, the engine started up, and the car took off, its tires making a brief screech.
I was surprised to find myself chasing it down the street and yelling: “Fuck you, you fucking bastards! Quit spying on me, goddamn it!”
The Buick sped away and was gone. Sweating and panting, I headed back toward my Packard. On the other side of the street, a woman and her two kids were looking at me fearfully; now they avert
ed their eyes and hurried on.
I fetched the Lucky Strikes and went back up.
Darla was curled up on the bed, hugging the lamb, her eyes closed.
“I got your cigarettes.”
“Oh thanks, honey,” she said, not opening her eyes, and then: “Vodka and Veronal are wo-o-onderful together.”
I stood above her, holding the pack of cigarettes she didn’t seem to want now, not knowing what to do next.
“Did I hear you yelling at somebody?” she asked.
“No.”
“I thought I heard you.”
“No.”
“You wanna lay down with me?”
Yes. I took off my hat and shoes. Her back was to me. I laid my head on the pillow right next to hers.
I breathed in her scent.
“Mitsouko?”
“Yeah. You still like it?”
“Uh huh.”
I eased my nose tentatively into her golden hair.
“Jean Harlow hasn’t got anything on you.”
She laughed. “Oh, stop it.”
“I mean it. You’re ten times more beautiful than she is. No. Twenty times.”
I lifted my head and with a finger pushed some damp locks of hair away from her neck and put my mouth there. Her flesh was very warm and was moist with perspiration. I slid my lips slowly back and forth.
She made a gentle, negative noise in her throat, and murmured: “Not now, Danny.”
My head sagged back onto the pillow, and I sighed. She reached back and gave my knee an understanding pat.
“Imagine what he’d do to us if we did it and he found out.”
“How would he find out?”
“Maybe I talk in my sleep.”
So I lay there in the perfumy heat within inches of Darla. We were both quiet for a moment; and then Darla said: “I had a dream. About you and him.”
“What happened?”
“We were on a ship. This big ocean liner, like the Queen Mary. We were on deck playing shuffleboard. We were all dressed in white, and we were all laughing, and having a good time, especially Bud, because he was winning. But then he turned his back on you, and you started hitting him with the shuffleboard stick. You hit him over the head, and he started staggering away, and there was blood everywhere, all over our white clothes, and you followed him and kept hitting him and hitting him. Bud was pleading with you, but your face, it was like a mask; it had no feeling in it.”