The Fighter
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WHEN JACK CAME TO, THE TRUCK RESTED ON ITS SIDE AND the headlights shot out across the rows of cotton. The engine still running and the front wheels spinning and static from the radio. His back was against the passenger side door and his feet were straight up and touched the steering wheel. His shirt was wet and he thought blood but he touched his fingers to the dampness and then to his nose and smelled only whiskey and coffee.
He twisted and turned and managed to get his feet below him and he turned off the ignition. A searing pain shot behind his eyes and he doubled over and went back down, grabbing at the sides of his head. He held his head until the pain let off enough to open his eyes. He felt a knot on his forehead and then he touched the pocket of his jeans. The lighter was there and he pulled it out and flicked it and in the faint light of the flame he looked around his feet for the bag of pills. Or any pill. He reached down with frantic fingertips and then he touched plastic and lifted the bag and a handful of pills remained. A hissing sound came from the engine and he pushed himself up and climbed out of the open driver’s side window. He sat with his ass on top of the door and he lifted his legs out, swung them around and jumped off and then he fell facedown into the black earth and the pain shot through his head and eyes again like an electrical storm. He screamed into the dirt, his eyes watering and a little blood dribbling from his nose and his body wrenching with the pain.
And then he felt the hand on his shoulder and the gentle voice saying lie still.
So he listened and he lay still. Closed his eyes and face in the dirt and his hands again holding the sides of his head and his mind twisting and turning frantically, trying to situate himself in the right now. Where am I and how did I get here and what the hell am I doing and what is this hand on my shoulder and my God stop this pain and my God my eyes are on fire and calm down calm down calm down and my God stop this pain. He then began to writhe in the dirt as if burrowing into a safer place and again he felt the hand and heard the voice. Lie still, Jack. It will ease if you lie still.
He breathed. Straightened his body and tried to calm. The hand on his shoulder. He breathed and didn’t move and the night held him and the pain gradually subsided. The burning diminished. Enough for him to lift his face from the earth and slowly shift to a sitting position. He lifted his shirt and wiped the spit and blood and dirt from his face. The world came into focus and he followed the trail of light across the cottonfilled acres, bugs jetting across the white beams, perfectly planted rows running on and on and on as if an extension into eternity. The truck on its side and a lazy cloud of smoke hovering around the sideways engine.
Come on, she said and she put her hands under his arms and helped to lift him to his feet.
She asked if he could walk and he mumbled and nodded and brushed the dirt from his shirt and jeans. He then looked at her and she was almost as tall as him and her hair was long and white and it seemed to gather the moonlight. She wore a sleeveless dress that bared pale shoulders and arms. He wiped his nose again and doubled over and when he raised there was the scent of mint in the breeze and he could only guess that it somehow came with her. She held out her hand and he took it and they began to move along gingerly.
“The truck,” he said.
“It’ll be here,” she answered.
“Where are we going?”
“Up ahead. Another mile or so there’s a place that’s always open. I will get you there and sit you down. The light of day will be here in a few hours and then you’ll be able to see what to do.”
His breaths were offbeat, small huffs and catches, and he seemed on the verge of crumbling and crying. Don’t worry, she said. I have you.
They ambled along the side of the straight, worn road. He crept and she held his arm and talked of the night and the stars and the clumps of cotton that seemed like tiny pieces of moon that had flaked away and fallen to the earth. Nothing moved in the night but for them. Nothing but the two stragglers and their black shapes shuffling through the vacancy.
She whispered to him now, so low that he couldn’t make out what she was saying but only that she was whispering and the gentle touches of her voice helped him push on. He hurt all over but he was accustomed to hurting all over and he only wanted to capture her whispers and keep them somewhere inside and he wanted to talk but didn’t know what to say and he gathered his strength and fought the pain and he wanted to turn to her and hold her still and get close and see her face and her eyes and tell her of the power of her whispers.
He paused and said hold on. He bent over with his hands on his knees and he tried to vomit but nothing came out and he dropped to a knee and said I’m sorry. I’m sorry.
She leaned close to his ear and said it’s all right and she stroked the back of his head with her hand like a mother tending a sick and sleepy child.
You’ll be okay, she whispered.
He put his hands out and caught himself falling and he rested on all fours. He closed his eyes. Didn’t know how to answer but he felt the comfort in her being there.
But when he opened his eyes again he was not on the side of the road. And she was not there. He was sitting on a barstool, his weight forward against the bar. A beer can in front of him and a bloody wad of paper towels in his hand and the neon beer sign behind the bar throwing hot red darts into the tender corners of his eyes.
5
THE CARAVAN DROVE ACROSS THE NIGHT IN A STRETCHING trail of trucks and trailers and campers. Some towed carnival tents that housed the games and merchandise and others towed carnival rides that spun screaming children around and around in fast and rickety circles. Missing headlights and taillights gave the line a gaptoothed stare into the Delta dark and carnival workers drove and smoked while others slept with their heads propped on folded pillows that pushed against door windows. For the last month it had been shooed by Louisiana lawmen from one abandoned parking lot to the next in towns like Shreveport and Monroe, the long list of citations disappearing in exchange for cash and the promise to pack up and move on. The same story everywhere. The caravan finding empty asphalt in a forgotten part of town and unhooking and having the carnival up and running in a matter of hours. The magic of something having appeared where there had been nothing the day before enough to seduce mommas and children and bored teenagers who approached tentatively, wary of the rough look of the carnival workers and the bang and clack of the rides but who always took out their money and played along.
A twenty-year-old Suburban led the caravan and towed the red and white striped ticket stand strapped to a flatbed trailer. And the man who led the carnival drove the Suburban with the headlights on bright and he traced his eyes across the emptiness as if expecting some type of ambush or maybe a glimpse of the supernatural. He wore a bandana tied around his neck and a long gray goatee reached to the base of the bandana. An ageless ponytail he wore in a braid fell in front of his shoulder and stretched across his round belly. Rough hands tapped each side of the steering wheel as he hummed a song he could not name and he knew from many years and many miles that Clarksdale was coming soon.
In the distance he spotted the taillights of a truck off to the side of the road against the backdrop of black. Taillights up and down and not side to side. He let off the gas and picked the CB receiver from its hook. Clicked a button and said I’m slowing down. There’s something up here. Closer and closer and then he spoke into the receiver again and said everybody pull over and stay right where you are. Don’t nobody get out. He eased the Suburban to the roadside a dozen yards away from the wrecked truck and the caravan did as instructed. The vehicles covered a quarter mile and sat still with rough idling engines.
He got out of the Suburban. Hiked his pants up. Opened the door to the backseat and took out a flashlight. He was broad with thick shoulders that time had slowly brought forward and as he lurched toward the truck the headlights of the Suburban gave him a menacing shadow. He looked down at the burrowed earth where the truck had slid. At the back end of the pick
up the tailgate had fallen open and was bent and dug into the ground and then he moved to the engine. Drips and a hissing and he sniffed for gas but didn’t smell any.
At the front of the truck he saw the splintered windshield. Shined the flashlight into the cab and looked for the body or bodies but there weren’t any. He turned from the truck and looked off into the night as if to readjust his eyes and then looked into the truck cab again. Scattered clothes and a whiskey bottle and a knife. But no body. He pulled at his goatee and thought a minute and then he heard the moan.
He backed away from the truck. Listened. It came again. A long moan and then a gurgle. He followed the sound which led him back in the direction of the caravan. A hollow and painful calling in the night and then in the beam of the flashlight he saw the twisted body lying at the bottom of the slope from the asphalt to the cotton. Out of his headlights. Right about where the truck began its slide.
In his nomadic life he had come upon many car wrecks and seen many bodies but this was the first time that he had seen something so skinny and broken. But still the voice called and made incoherent pleas for what he thought could only be death and he untied the bandana from his neck. The arms snapped and legs bent behind and hips shifted and the bloodied face calling for what had to be mercy or forgiveness and he knelt in the dirt and his great shadow fell over the crippled body. And then with his coarse and callused hand he covered the face with the bandana and pinched the bloody nose and covered the open and pleading mouth and only an instant of life remained. Only one more sound came from the man. Not of anguish and pain but instead a falling exhaustion of revelation that there would be no more to this world and soon the breath was gone and the body fell silent.
Baron stood. Folded the bandana and tucked it in his pocket. Hoped that he had given peace. He stared and wondered if there may be another and he shined the light around but only saw earth and crops and then he was interrupted when she crossed in front of the headlights of the Suburban and walked in his direction. He looked up and said I told you to stay where you were.
“I can’t help it,” she said. “I saw him laying there before you did.”
“Then why didn’t you warn me?”
“Because you told me to stay where I was.”
“Go get me something to wipe my hands with. I don’t think the bandana did it.”
She pulled a handful of napkins from the pocket of her cutoffs and said I figured you might say that.
A door opened and closed from somewhere along the caravan and Baron yelled for everybody to stay your damn ass where I told you to and then he told Annette to get on the walkie and repeat what he just said.
He wiped his hands and stuck the wad of napkins into his pocket with the bandana. Then he meandered the scene again. Looking and listening for anyone else who might be there and he wandered out of the lights and down into the edge of the crop and then to where the skid began but there was nothing to find. Nothing to hear but the hum of engines. Annette returned and leaned on the Suburban with her arms folded. Her body was covered in tattoos and in the shine of the headlights she stood like some black and blue statue.
He stood next to her and shined the light on the truck again. “I used to have an old gray Chevy right about like that one,” he said. “And I wrecked it. Like that one.”
“Is he dead, Baron?” she asked.
“Yeah,” he said and he lowered the flashlight.
“What are you gonna do?”
“I already done it. There wasn’t no choice. Don’t go look.”
“I don’t want to. I saw all I ever needed to see from back there. Are you okay?”
He nodded and she touched his big arm.
“We better call somebody,” she said. “You want me to grab your phone?”
Baron stroked his goatee. His cheeks grew round as he let out a heavy and thoughtful sigh and gazed toward the lights of the caravan.
“You know I can’t do that,” he said. “Not with the rap sheet of this crew. They’d probably haul half of us away when they started asking questions.”
“We can drive on down the road and call it.”
“I don’t think so. I put my hands on him and I probably shouldn’t have but it’s over. And I ain’t interested in talking to anybody in a uniform about it. You know somebody will come along soon enough and call it in.”
“I guess so. He’s not hurting anymore.”
He tossed the flashlight into the open window of the Suburban and reached out and took the cigarette she was smoking. He sucked on it and looked up and down the highway and then as he walked a small circle of contemplation in front of the Suburban his foot kicked a full envelope that had been hiding in the dark. He flicked the cigarette away and bent down and picked it up and there was no doubt what was inside. Only a matter of how much.
“What is it?” Annette asked when she saw that he was holding something.
“Come here,” he said. She joined him in front of the hood and he opened the envelope. Fluttered the stacks with his thumb. Then they exchanged the unsteady look of two people standing at a crossroads.
“Damn,” she said.
From down the line someone blew the horn and he knew curiosity would soon have others standing there with him.
“Walk it with me one more time,” he said. “Make sure there’s nobody else laying out here.”
He shoved the envelope into his belt line and draped his shirt over it. He and Annette walked around the truck and toward the crop and then again toward the caravan when they made the lap without further discovery.
“You want to do it again?” she asked.
But he said no. Probably shouldn’t haven’t done it a second time. He scanned the scene once more and was reassured there were no footprints on the dry ground. And then he said we need to get out of here before somebody comes along. I don’t think I need to tell you all of this stays between you and me.
6
THE WALLS OF THE JUKEJOINT WERE LINED WITH SHEETS OF TIN and random, ageless signs strung by fishing line onto giant steel bolts. Dixie Beer. RC Cola. Sunbeam Bread. Fluorescent lights hung from the beams of an exposed ceiling by coat hangers. A jukebox that had never played a song sat in the corner, covered in layers of grime and dust that cloaked its antique features.
Jack sat up straight. Wiped sweat from the beer can in front of him and ran his wet hand across his face and then he picked up the beer and killed it. An empty shot glass was beside the can and Jack held it and looked for somebody to fill it.
Sitting on a makeshift stage in a folding chair was a black man in overalls. A cigarette dangled from his mouth and he picked an unplugged Fender. With him on the crowded plywood stage were two more folding chairs, a couple of mic stands, a stripped down drum kit consisting of only a kickdrum, a snare, two cymbals. No chairs or tables across the concrete floor. Jack watched him in silence for a moment, the quiet bend and hammer of the electric strings like faint echoes in the brokedown barroom. He and the man onstage were the only two there.
The man paused and took the cigarette from his mouth and saw Jack. “You want something?” he asked.
He reached into his pocket and found the plastic bag. He opened it and took out a pill and dropped it in his mouth. “Something to chase that with,” he said.
The man moved behind the bar and took a bottle of Old Crow from the wooden shelf on the wall. He filled the shot glass. Reached into the cooler and took out two cans and slid one to Jack and opened one for himself. Jack took the shot. Stared at the empty glass. Tried to think.
“Who brought me in here?” he asked.
“Nobody.”
Jack rubbed at his eyes. Held them closed and searched the dark behind them.
“A woman,” he said. “Some woman came with me.”
The man shook his head. Shirtless under his overalls. Baggy, wrinkled eyes. Long fingers and big knuckles and dryskinned shoulders. “Ain’t seen no woman.”
“White hair, maybe. Lots of it.”
“Why the hell didn’t you call somebody?”
“I ain’t got no phone.”
Jack put his head down on the bar. The whitehaired woman and her hand on his arm and her whispers adrift in his mind. He couldn’t hold on to her so he let it go and then he asked about his truck.
“Must be down the road,” the man said. He leaned his back against the wall. Arms folded.
Jack laid his head down again. Wanted the booze to come on and work. Wanted the pain pill to come on and work.
“You ain’t going to sleep again. We both leaving. Night’s gone.”
“I ain’t going to sleep.”
“Then pick your head up. I got to go. And you owe me twenty dollars.”
Jack stood from the barstool. There was no money in his front pockets. A fold of bills in his back pocket and a note. He laid twenty dollars on the bar and then he read the note. 12K straight to Big Momma Sweet.
“Shit,” he said.
“What is it?”
“Only all I needed to know,” he said and he laid another ten on the bar. “Here’s a little extra if you’ll get me to my truck.”
They came outside and the early dawn gave blue in the east and purple to the west. A long-eared dog sniffed around the gravel parking lot and the man reached into his pocket and tossed a dog biscuit on the ground. The dog picked it up and held it in its mouth and disappeared around the side of the building. The only vehicle in the parking lot was a flatbed work truck and he and Jack got in and they headed along the highway in the direction that Jack guessed he had come from.