by Jay Jackson
Kero’s dad owned a block of buildings in Gratis and after his death the block was divided among his children. Kero’s share was an old four story brick building nestled by the downtown in front and the river in back. Over the years the building served as a hotel, a tavern, and a boarding house for Christian women.
Kero loved the immensity of the building and knew when he inherited it what the main floor would be. After working on it for a year he opened Daddy Jack’s, a juke joint “with class,” as Kero would point out.
Customers had to go down a side alley to enter. Kero turned it into a dark path with faint gas lights leading to the door. Even at the height of day this passage, with the building overhangs and dense plants on both sides, was dark and cool. It led to the entrance, a huge wooden door with a sign hanging over it that read “Where Angels Fear to Tread.” Kero thought it was hilarious.
The first thing one saw upon entering was a long wooden bar in the back.
It was decorated with innumerable stickers, road signs, license plates, tacked up dollar bills, and other totems Kero picked up along the way. Dominating it was a large mural of James Brown in concert directly behind the taps. The whole thing said “sit and have a drink or two.” In the back corner was an ancient jukebox that Kero babied and stocked to suit him. Being the owner had its benefits.
On the main floor were tables where patrons dined from a menu of ribs, chopped pork and a few sides. Kero usually had some fresh shrimp available, too. He believed in sticking to a few things and doing them well.
Off the main room was a steep flight of steps leading down to Daddy Jack’s “Rendezvous.” It was a large open room with another bar and a porch dangling over the river. There was no eating down there unless you counted the free self-serve popcorn, just tables for drinking and watching the Bird float by. On the weekend there was always a blues or shag band, and then the Rendezvous filled up. All types would come, young and old, drinking and dancing and carrying on.
As a child, Kero spent most weekends with his father going on his rent collection rounds. At the end of each day they went to Junior’s on the outskirts of town. It was a hot joint with pealing linoleum, grease in the air, and red vinyl covering the booths. The owner, Junior, usually sat with his father and they would laugh, drink, and have a high time. In the red vinyl booth his father looked like a king. When they tore Junior’s down after his death, Kero bought every one of those booths. They were the first thing he put in Daddy Jack’s. Some nights he thought that, for a little while, he made everyone look like a king.
Newt worked the night before as he usually did. It started out well. He tended bar and made sure everyone was taken care of. Toward the end of the evening, though, he got sloppy and gave away free drinks. Doing shots with the customers had that effect.
Kero shouted again, “Newt, get off your ass and see how much of my money you gave away last night!”
Kero knew that Newt had a habit of giving away free drinks on some nights. He also knew that a lot of folks came because they were hoping for those drinks. They drank and paid quite a bit while waiting for the free ones. Newt’s generosity was a drink special Kero didn’t have to guarantee.
Like Kero, Newt grew up in Gratis. He played linebacker at Gratis High School, home of the “Purple Hurricanes,” and stayed there after graduation. He tried junior college for a couple of semesters, but Newt was never made for going to class.
The truth was that Newt wasn’t made for much of anything. He could joke around with anyone and had the luck of being very good looking. Basically, those were his only two life skills. Even so, most of the men in town, including his friends, envied him for his ease with everyone, especially women. He appreciated women, and was quick to show that appreciation, whether they had boyfriends, fiancées, or even husbands. His appreciation didn’t stop at a woman’s looks, either. When those he spent time with were generous, Newt was more attuned to their inner beauty.
Generous women, however, weren’t enough to pay all the bills. Newt was a regular customer at Daddy Jack’s and finally convinced Kero to give him a job. He was as sorry as a person could be, but being upright wasn’t a prerequisite in the juke joint business. Kero grew to trust him, if just barely, and Newt was discrete when taking extras. He limited himself to giving out free drinks and taking a few dollars out of the till on special occasions. Newt was fun to have about and just seemed to fit. He was the old dog on Kero’s porch.
On this Saturday morning, Newt was an extremely hung over old dog. “I’m working on the numbers,” he yelled up to Kero, “but it’s gonna be later.” With Newt, everything in life was going to be later.
Kero yelled back down the steps.
“As long as later is in the next fifteen minutes, that’s fine. I’m counting and you got about fourteen left.” Kero chuckled after saying this. They had a give and take consisting of Kero giving shit and Newt taking it.
Newt was having a hard time focusing. He looked at every receipt four or five times, never registering a single figure. Knowing he wouldn’t be worth anything until he got more sleep, he stumbled to his hiding place for a nap. He went into the downstairs beer cooler, moved a creaking board behind the cases of Pabst, and crawled into the tunnel under Daddy Jack’s.
Gratis was underscored by a vein of limestone sitting a few feet higher than the soft sedimentary stone surrounding it. Ages ago the Bird flowed into the depression between the stones and Gratis was eventually founded on the high side. This same vein of limestone rose up, slightly, down river and caused the blockage where water backed up to form the Neck.
Over the years locals carved small tunnels into this soft stone for various reasons, but most were dug in the 1920s. Gratis was dry in those days, but those who wanted to drink never had a problem until federal agents showed up to enforce prohibition. The townsfolk responded by sneaking liquor in by way of the Bird, getting it into town through tunnels coming from the river’s bank. After Prohibition was repealed some of the tunnels caved in from neglect (these were locally known as “drinkholes”) and some were purposely filled in, but many remained.
Newt found the tunnel under Daddy Jack’s one day while moving a balky freezer. He dug out the parts filled with dirt and braced the shakier ones. Not far from the back of Daddy Jack’s beer cooler he found a section just big enough to keep a cot and the occasional companion.
There he hid from Kero that morning, taking a nap before looking at another number. Kero will have to wait on those numbers, and can yell all he wants to. Closing his eyes, he was soon chasing women in his dreams. He didn’t wake up until he caught one.
5.
The Turtle Palace
Before Delroy left for the jail that morning he got a call from Anna. She was hysterical and he had a hard time making out a word she said. He heard the words “Peck” and “Meg” and “damn swamp” through her crying.
Anna wasn’t one to get upset and it unnerved Delroy as he jumped into his old, pre-soccer mom, Suburban to go to her house. He had no idea whether the children had gotten into more trouble or had gotten hurt going off in that boat. Either way he knew he was in the middle of it. It, whatever it was, sounded worse than usual.
When he pulled into the drive, Anna was outside with Meg beside her. They were crying and calling for Peck.
“Anna, what’s going on?”
“I don’t know,” she croaked, and kept yelling for her son.
Delroy turned to his neice. “Meg, tell me what’s going on, now.”
Meg looked up at her uncle, took his hand, and led him to the back of the house. Once there she pointed at an empty bird bath. On top of it was a package wrapped in a rag.
“There,” she said, “it’s in there.”
This was something new to Delroy. Not the package on top of the birdbath so much as the fear in Meg’s eyes. She was not a fearful child. Delroy realized he was watching her get hit, really hit, by life for the first time. His own fear amped up, he asked again, “What’s going on?
What is that?”
“It’s in there,” was all Meg could say. He decided not to ask again.
Delroy hated this. He blustered or consoled people on a daily basis about the horrors affecting their lives. If a parent was dying, Delroy made sure their children got the details of the funeral ready. If a child was looking at jail time, he sat with the parents and told them what they needed to hear. He let them know they weren’t alone.
The thing about giving counsel was that Delroy could erect a wall between himself and his clients. He watched from the outside looking in, an invisible screen shielding him from caring too much. This was different. This was family. He knew them too well and loved them too much.
When Anna or the children went on long trips he worried about them until they arrived. He had to fight off daydream terrors about the pain they would experience before they died in some violent car wreck. The first time Peck went to a sleepover was even worse. Delroy imagined he was being invited over so some of the crueler boys could hurt him in some way. His mania was such that he drove over to the boy’s house that night.
He walked around the house, making sure there were no strange noises or cries coming from inside. As he was leaving the porch light came on and he jumped into bushes at the back of the house. Looking up he saw the mother come out and look around. She was in curlers and had a frumpy look Delroy approved of. This woman doesn’t look like a child hurter. Comforted, Delroy crept out of the bushes and went home after she went inside. I might be a ridiculous but at least everything’s okay.
Still, he feared the mundane turning horrific. He imagined holes opening up everywhere and the children falling into them. His hole opened up that day he went home and found his wife cheating. That hole came from nowhere. It almost killed him when he wasn’t looking.
He walked up to the rag Meg showed him. It looked newly greased, like someone used it to change their oil. But that’s not oil. It was heavy and soaked reddish black. He opened it, slowly pulling the ends back until he saw what Meg was crying about.
There, sitting ragged and bruised, was an ear. It looked as if it had been torn from the head of its former owner, not sliced. Long, thick pieces of skin were still attached to it. In the lobe was a single earring set with three green stones.
Emeralds. That was all he could think until he realized it must have been a woman’s ear, an earring this nice. His next thought almost made him sick. Someone is tearing off women’s ears in Gratis. Quickly he closed the rag and again said to Meg, this time louder, “where is Peck, tell me now.”
“After we got home he ran down the river bank, past the boat,” she managed to whisper.
Delroy took her by the arm and dragged her back to Anna.
“You and Meg go into the house and lock the doors.”
Anna’s voice was raw by now, and her face blotched red by tears. “Where’s Peck?”
“I’m getting him now, Anna. Just lock the doors.”
With that Delroy ran around the back of the house to the river bank and started calling for Peck. He made his way through the mud and rocks for a half mile before he saw him. The boy was sitting at the base of a large oak staring out at the Bird. Delroy ran up to him but slowed once he came to within a few feet. Panic exploded inside of him. His mind raced with a thousand scenarios of what he would find once he looked Peck over.
Maybe Peck killed some poor woman and tore her ear off. She would have to be very small, but Delroy’s imagination could get around that. What would he do if Peck wasn’t benignly odd like they believed him to be? What if he was a shy killer who went around tearing small women’s ears off with his teeth?
What if the ear was Peck’s? What if he bled to death from his torn ear while waiting for his uncle to save him? Never mind that Peck couldn’t afford, much less wear, the emerald earring. In the seconds before approaching Peck, anything was possible.
He walked up to the child. Peck was tear-streaked and staring at the Bird with eyes older than Delroy remembered. The first thing Delroy did was look him over to make sure he was whole and had two ears. Satisfied, he hugged him, holding him so close that he felt one with the child.
Delroy looked down at Peck. “Where did it come from?”
He said nothing. Delroy asked again, and louder. Peck only stared at his uncle, looking at him with his newly aged eyes.
“Peck, you have to tell me where it came from.” He couldn’t make himself say ear. “It” was less gruesome.
“Where did you find it, buddy?” Delroy used his calming voice. With this same tone he made cautious people say things in court they usually wouldn’t admit in private. “Just tell me where you found it.”
Peck closed his eyes and finally answered, “The turtle palace.”
Delroy had no idea what the turtle palace was but at least got an answer. It was time to stop questioning his nephew and make sure the rest of his family was safe. They walked back to the house. While Anna was hugging Peck, Delroy took Meg outside and asked her about the turtle palace.
“I don’t know,” she answered, looking down. He knew she was lying but couldn’t get too mad at her. She was covering for her brother more than herself. He appreciated that she would lie for her brother, even to him.
“Look Meg, Peck isn’t in trouble, neither are you, but I know he found it at the turtle palace. I have to know where that is. I’m going to have to talk to the sheriff. I need to know as much as I can before I do.”
“We didn’t do anything bad,” Meg replied. “We went down the river past the old town dock and tied up near the shipwreck.” Delroy knew where that was.
“The shipwreck” was the grand term for the shrimper that ran aground years ago after coming upriver to escape a hurricane. It escaped the storm but her captain had no idea a cotton barge was sunk in that part of the river years earlier. He tore the hull of the shrimper on the barge and it sank up to the deck. Because it was so near the bank and didn’t impede normal traffic, it was never moved. It just sat there, leering at Gratis like an alligator floating just under the surface.
It bothered Delroy that the children had been so close to that boat. It was a spooky place where black water sucked in the sunlight like the old barge sucked in the shrimper. Mentally he put “the shipwreck” on his list of places to tell the children to stay away from.
“On the bank there’s a bunch of big rocks and a cave you can get to there. It’s always nice and cool, even when it’s hot outside. Peck calls it the turtle palace because there are always turtles in there. They rest there after sunning on the rocks.”
Delroy knew the cave she was talking about. He explored the river as a child, too, although not as much as Meg and Peck. It was where an old tunnel from under Gratis came out to meet the Bird.
“We went in because it was so hot outside, Uncle Delroy. There were a bunch of turtles in the corner and Peck went over to see what they were doing, all together like that. That’s where he found the ear. The turtles were fighting over it. I snatched it away from them and brought it back here.”
Delroy winced when he heard that Peck found the turtles fighting over a woman’s ear. No child needed to see that but he would worry about it later. First he had to get the sheriff and they had to go to the turtle palace together.
This was not at all what Delroy had envisioned for his day. An upset sister in law, two shaken children, a disembodied ear, and one hell of a hangover made for a real mess. He didn’t need any of it. He needed a drink but didn’t get a chance to look for the Stoli at the office. For now he would have to settle for some of Anna’s sweet tea. He loved her tea, but it was a poor, poor substitute.
6.
Tommy
Sheriff Tommy Adcock just turned forty-five but felt older. He was a slender man, kept thin by the stress of being the elected high sheriff for the last twenty years. In a place like Gratis that was forever. A sheriff had to arrest too many people related to too many others. It was a tricky thing, not having too many voters mad at you come
election time.
Tommy, however, came from a large family of twelve siblings and had exponentially more cousins besides that. At election time his name was on the hundreds of signs set out by his brothers, cousins, and others. The signs reminded everyone that Tommy was a hero. His brother had previously been the sheriff, shot in the line of duty by a drunk with a pistol. Tommy found the drunk while his brother was still on the operating table. He marched him through town in leg chains, dragging him when he fell down. The man was a bloody pulp by the time they reached the jail.
Tommy was named acting sheriff the next day. He was only twenty-five at the time and really had no way to turn the job down. It was a coronation. His brother recovered, but Tommy kept the job.
On this morning he was sitting in his office, drinking coffee and reading the Proclaimer, when his secretary buzzed that Delroy was asking to see him. Tommy had his own opinion about Delroy. He was a local, which went a long way with Tommy, and also seemed to care about his clients. He was also, however, a self-righteous prick.
Tommy still burned about a case where Delroy defended Bo Thompson a year earlier. Bo owned a car detailing business in town and used it to distribute meth all over the county. Tommy’s deputies found pounds of the drug at Bo’s house, arrested him, and for months it was a lot harder to buy meth in Gratis.
Bo’s mother Mayline hired Delroy to defend her son. Somehow he got the deputies who arrested Bo to admit they had no reason to search his house. The case got thrown out and soon Bo was back in business. It angered Tommy that Delroy, being local, didn’t think twice about setting a big drug dealer free. Children got hooked on meth but all Delroy cared about was freeing the supplier. It never sat well with Tommy.