Near To The Knuckle presents Rogue: The second anthology

by Keith Nixon

  Now, don’t get me wrong. The pictures sounds good, but fuck me, Tom fucking Cruise? I could happily go the rest of my life without seeing that prick’s face again. There’s also the matter of a little work I need to do.

  “Oh yeah?” I say, already working on my out, “what’s it about?”

  “A man with no legs goes to space, but the engines cut out and his crew die, and he has to figure out how to get back to Earth,” he says, “do you want to see the trailer?” he asks, holding the phone out. No, I do fucking not want to see the trailer.

  “Look, I’ll be honest, I’ve got a bit of work I need to do, so what if I drop you off there, get the ticket, and then I’ll pick you up after and we’ll go for a Pizza Hut?”

  He looks back to his phone, all crestfallen and that, but he knows that’s what’s happening, he’s not gonna argue with his old man. Plus, it gives me one over on that cunt, Mandy. He’ll go home full as fuck from all the pizza, and not want any of that takeaway shite she’s planning on sticking down his neck.

  “Okay,” he mumbles, and goes back to his phone.

  By the time we’re at the pictures and I’m waving him off for his birthday treat, Nova Baby has come onto the stereo, and I’ll be honest, it’s my favourite off the whole album. That chorus, it gets me going like a good one. All your enemies, smile when you fall. Take it ‘cause you don’t know what you want. It’s that first bit that gets me, because it’s true as fuck innit? Your enemies are all waiting for you to fall. You wait for your own enemies to fall, and when they do, you’re smiling like a fucking goon. Like that Mandy cunt. She’ll get hers before long, you mark my words. I turn the volume up and I’m singing away as the car rolls out of Meadowhall carpark, and my hands are smashing into the steering wheel along with those irresistible drums. Fuck me, I’m almost nursing a hard on as I take the exit towards Rotherham. That’s my boy entertained for about three hours, since it’s one of those Tom fucking Cruise films designed to win awards. That gives me time and more to get my work done and take the boy for some dinner, designed to fuck his old mum’s plans up. Rotherham passes me by and I’m rolling along toward a country park in a place called Thrybergh. It’s one of those standard affairs. A bit of greenery, a lake, a play area. Plenty of trees. The El Camino album ended and started again a while ago, and I’m back on Dead and Gone and although the lyrics don’t mean much, the title is quite apt. I pull off the main road and trundle up an old farm path, the car jerking from side to side as it traverses the series of dirty big pot holes in the pathway. Poor old Dean’ll be bruised as fuck. Like I give a fuck.

  I probably ought to tell you about Dean. He was the cunt that showed my boy his cock back when he was a wee nipper. He used to babysit for him on weekends, when Mandy was out at the bingo, or taking it seven ways from Sunday off some Kendray wanker. Every Friday and Saturday night he’d look after my boy. He’d play on the Xbox with him, he’d watch films with him, and he’d show him his cock. If you think there’s anything right with that then you’re as big a dirty cunt as the dirty cunt Dean. He never made him touch or nowt like that, but he’d wave it at him, tell him he’d have one like that one day. He’d say he was going to Mandy’s bedroom for a wank, that kind of business. What the fuck kind of twisted cunt says that to an eight year old? I hoped I’d never have to meet one like him, but meet him I did, and we find ourselves here. Where here is, is where I’ve had this cunt Dean tied up in one of my lock ups for the last month, ever since the boy told me what happened. We’d gone swimming, and the boy’s looking all sheepish. I said to him that there’s nowt to be worried about or owt like that. I’m his dad, and it’s nowt I haven’t seen before. He says he’s seen one before, and then he tells me about Dean. I dropped the boy off at home and dragged that sick cunt from his sofa, dropped him in the boot, drove him to one of my lock ups, and left him there for a few weeks. The lock up’s stinking a bit now, and Terry Collins has got some new stock he’ll be looking at moving soon, so I figure it’s time to cut loose.

  “Alright, you paedo cunt?” I smile as I look down at the twitching fucksticks in my boot. His eyes all wide, like they do when they know they’re fucked. The boot stinks of shit, and I never put any shit in there, so I figure this prick’s shit himself. Dirty cunt. I drag him up by his greasy hair which reminds me of that slag Mandy, so I’m getting my mad right up. Two birds with one stone, in the psychological sense. This Dean cunt’s bawling behind the gaffer tape, like it’s gonna make a difference. I rip it harshly from his face and he starts straight up.

  “I haven’t done owt, I promise, on my mum’s life, all I did was babysit,” he’s sobbing. I ram a heavy fist into his nose, which shuts the fucker up for a short while. His squawking starts up again as I grab a fist full of his hair and drag him through the mud and trees. It startles some birds in the trees, so I drop him and smack a boot into his teary face. It does the trick in shutting him up, but now he’s got me started. I crush another one into his face, Then another. He’s fucked. My shoes are fucked. I drag his lifeless body to where I’ve already dug his grave, and toss it in. I’m gasping for a drink, but I left my can of pop in the car, so I’m working as quick as I can to throw the mud back over Dean’s body. Fuck knows if he’s still alive, but he’s not getting out of this shit. Halfway through covering him up I chuck a couple of rocks onto the mud, before going again. It takes a good half an hour to finish the job, and I’m wheezing like fuck by now.

  Back at the car I’ve tossed the shovel and other business into the boot, and my shoes are fucked. There’s the sticky rich brown of the mud and blood all over them, and I’m not sure the boy will swallow some bullshit about having been for a jog. I figure he needs to know the truth. He needs to know that his old man stood up for him. His old man removed that dirty paedo prick Dean from existence, so that my boy can live a rich life without the fear that he’ll be seeing that cock end waved at him ever again. He’ll know that we stick together, us lads. He’ll know that when his mum’s not here anymore, that he’ll have a solid figure to look up to. That’s what I’m gonna do, I’ll tell the kid the truth, he deserves that much.

  ***

  He comes wandering out an hour or so later, a look of wonderment on his face. I figure he enjoyed it.

  “Any good?” I ask as he clambers back into the car.

  “It were brilliant, dad, Tom Cruise was really good.”

  That, I doubt, but it’s the least of my worries. I start the car up, and I drop my hand onto his knee. He looks at me, and I tell him everything. I tell him about the kidnapping, about the month of Dean locked up, about what I’ve just done, about how he’s got a dad who’ll look after him at every step of his life, and while I’m telling him, I see the colour disappear from his face. I see his mouth drop open, I see his eyes bulge out, and I hear him speak..

  “Dad, I made that up,” he says, “he was just a dickhead, he made me go to bed at six o’clock so he could bring girls round and get drunk with them, he’s never showed me his dick. I just made it up so people would think he was a paedo. You didn’t have to do that.”

  I feel my world empty of oxygen. I feel my heart slow. I feel my eyes flicker and my hands tighten once again around the wheel. I feel those hands pull hard to the right, driving me and the only witness to my crime into the front of an oncoming petrol wagon.

  I CAN’T JUST LET YOU GO

  Liam Sweeny

  The light bit into Jeremy’s eyes through slits in the half–drawn blinds of Maddie’s Place, the bastion of Fultonville’s anemic artery, Route 30A. Roger had on a pair of aviator shades, as he should have had — he’d drank a hell of a lot more ‘shine last night. He had a still in an old horse barn out in a field on his land. The Sheriff knew, but didn’t bother Roger about it, so long as he got the top of the batch every weekend. Nobody bothered Roger about much, not for very long, anyways. Roger met the slings and arrows of misfortune with grenades and cruise missiles.

  Barney Simpson and Earl Stanwiecz were reading
the Times Union in camouflaged overalls. Jeremy supposed that was their work clothes, never seen them dressed different. A half–bald cherub in a sweat–stained, polyester shirt was making chat with Maddie, the only person in Montgomery County that everybody knew. She smiled, chuckled like she was serving a cute child, and glanced over. Jeremy shook the concrete off his arm and waved.

  Roger stirred his coffee, swirling the spoon clockwise and counter–clockwise to the scratches the second hand made against the plastic face of the clock between the menu–boards. He was muttering, and Jeremy glugged his OJ, resigned to the fact that their one–hundred–and–fifty proof heart–to–heart last night didn’t get the venom out of his buddy’s system.

  Maddie, who also happened to be the wisest woman in the town, walked over, her order pad hanging from her apron’s drawstring.

  “Y’all gonna’ mix some food with that ‘shine or what?” She said.

  Roger laid his head down. I looked through the menu, like I didn’t know what was good on the griddle. “Yeah, Maddie. Some grub will work. The usual, both of us.” Jeremy said.

  “Coming up, and don’t call it ‘grub’, boy. Been feedin’ you for thirty years.”

  “Sorry, Maddie.”

  “I ain’t hungry,” Roger said.

  “Gotta’ eat, man.” Jeremy slid the local paper over. “Can’t live off ‘shine.”

  “Fuck I can’t.”

  “Watch your mouth ‘round here, Roger Conroy,” came Maddie’s voice from the kitchen.

  Roger lifted his head and took off his shades. His eyes were red–rooted and glassy. His thirty–two years looked a hard forty–five, tortured wrinkles stretched to broken streams of creases on his taut, burnt–Irish skin.

  “Hope he gives her AIDS.” He slammed the little cup of coffee in front of him.

  “Freddie Wilkes? AIDS? I think the kid’s a virgin.”

  “Ain’t a virgin no more,” Roger said. “Ain’t gonna’ have a face much longer.”

  Jeremy sighed. “You gotta let it go, Rog’,” he said. “She wasn’t no good. Wasn’t it you that told me that? I mean, as in, ‘every weekend’ told me that?”

  “She wasn’t no good. But she was mine.”

  “And she was Bobby McNeil’s when she started messin’ with you.”

  Roger glared into his empty cup. “So you sayin’ I got what was comin’ to me?”

  “I’m sayin’ she’s gonna do to Freddie what she did to you, and to Bobby. Just let it go, man.”

  “I can’t do that,” Roger said. “You ever known me to roll over like some puss?”

  Maddie came by with two plates. Eggs and bacon with toast for Jeremy, pancakes and links with hash–browns for Roger. Despite his protestations, he hooked a link in his fork and started chewing.

  “And what about when this goes all ‘scorched–earth’, like every other time something pisses you off. What happens when Lorraine finds out about Jess?” Jeremy picked up his cup and took a cautious sip. “You’ve had close calls before, Rog’, I’m just sayin’…”

  “Lorraine won’t leave me, you kidding? All she cares about is I bring home a paycheck every Friday.” Roger belched, wiped his face with a napkin. “Take care of them kids ain’t even mine…

  Jer’, I know you’re looking out, and you’re pretty laid back and all, ‘easy–come, easy–go’, but everything I ever had, I had to fight to keep. And I’ll be damned if I’m gonna’ let that little silver–spoon cow–cake take anything from me.”

  “Just don’t do something un–reversible, you know what I mean? You wanna’ fight Freddie? Call Jess names? Fine. Beyond that though, you’re burning bridges. Old Man Wilkes will only tolerate so much of your fury.”

  “I ain’t afraid of Old Man Wilkes.” Roger turned away as he said it.

  If there were any silver spoons in Montgomery County, the Wilkes family had them, and they were antiques. There wasn’t new money for miles, and any old money came from generations of raw hands and farmer tans. The Wilkes family, the Old Man, Freddie too, were that kind of old money.

  They ate quiet, and Jeremy picked up the check, with an extra ten in the tip for Maddie. Jeremy, being the most sober, hopped into the drivers’ seat of Roger’s F150 and they headed out for the saw mill.

  ***

  Word got around the mill. It was a big place, for that section of the county, maybe the biggest employer. The place was an ever–revolving tornado of sawdust and jocular barbs that passed for camaraderie. Old Man Wilkes would pace the floor at regular intervals, well known and well timed, and everybody kept it to ‘work–talk’. But Roger’s glares, his mutterings as he planed the rough edges off of two–by–sixes, spread faster than the dry breeze coming in from the monstrous fans that kept the sawdust in check. Everybody knew Jess was fucking Freddie behind the ball park in one of the Wilkes vans. A couple of the assholes joked on Roger, but not many. Roger had the same reputation at work that Jeremy well knew him for everywhere else.

  They met up in the F150 for lunch. Normally, they’d eat in the shade on the side of the mill, but the day was hot, even in the shade. They hopped in and cranked the A/C. Jeremy and Roger got their lunches from the store across from the mill.

  Roger lit up a smoke and unrolled the tin–foil wrapper. He cursed when the steam escaped the burrito through the foil.

  “Freddie tried to apologize to me. You believe that shit?”

  “Actually, yeah. I do,” Jeremy said through his chews. He put a hand over his mouth and swallowed. “You accept it?”

  “Fuck no.”

  “Of course not. You know, that kid ain’t a fighter.”

  “He’s gonna have to learn quick.”

  “Aw, c’mon. What are ya gonna do, beat him up? You know, as big as he is, he couldn’t kill a hen if it meant dinner. I mean that. I grew up next door to him. He couldn’t do it. He’s just a big, loveable guy. He probably meant the apology.”

  Roger bit the corner off the burrito. “The next day, I might have took it. But it’s been three months now. And I don’t give a shit how nice he is.” Roger leaned over to open the glove–box and pulled out something in a paper bag. Inside was a nickel–plated .38 Colt.

  “Jesus, Rog, don’t fucking kill the guy!”

  “I’m not that dumb, asshole,” Roger said. “I am gonna go out to the ball–field tonight and surprise him. Her too.”

  “You’re gonna wind up dead or in jail.” Jeremy said. “Who’s gonna work the still then, huh?”

  “Will you chill out? I got this.” Roger grinned, and tucked the gun back in the glove–box. They continued their lunch the way they ate their breakfast — not a word between them.

  ***

  At the end of the day, Bill Keller told Jeremy to head up to the office. Old Man Wilkes was at his desk, throwing darts from a bucket into a dartboard. Old Man Wilkes had a grey–white moustache that crept down his face to meet his thick, well–trimmed beard. He was short, but a barrel of a man. He wore glasses that made him look like Teddy Roosevelt with rougher edges. He straightened up and had Jeremy sit in old of the old leather chairs in front of his hand–crafted desk, made entirely at the saw mill.

  “Jeremy,” he said. “I know about Freddie and that girl, and I’m hearin’ talk of Roger and hard feelings. You’re Roger’s friend, probably his only friend here. Should I be worried?”

  Jeremy’s mind flashed to the .38 and to a young Freddie blubbering because he couldn’t bring himself to kill a chicken. Roger would go after him if he ratted about the gun, but Jeremy couldn’t escape the anger building in him over his friend’s bullshit wrath. Someone was going to get killed.

  Jeremy brought his voice to a whisper. “Mr. Wilkes, I don’t want to get involved, but I know Freddie ain’t never done no one no harm, and Roger’s going about this all kinds of wrong. Just… I know Freddie and Jess are, you know…”

  “…fucking…”

  “Yeah, well, they do it behind the ball–field in one of the company vans. Roger kn
ows it too, and…”

  “And what? What are you trying to tell me?”

  Jeremy swallowed. His mouth became a desert with an asphalt tongue and tumble–plaque.

  “He’s got a gun, Mr. Wilkes,” Jeremy spit out. “He says he’s not gonna use it, but I think it would be best not to—”

  “That cocksucker,” said Old Man Wilkes, his eyes narrowing to give more of his face to the blood rushing up. He damn near snapped his collar buttons rolling up his sleeves.

  “Mr. Wilkes, please,” Jeremy said. “I don’t want to see no one hurt, myself included. If you go confront him, he’ll know it was me who said something.”

  “Jeremy, trust me, I have this handled. He’ll never know you said a thing. I promise you that.”

  The old man got up, walked out from his desk and plopped down in the chair next to Jeremy. He wiped his face with one of those third–generation beaten hands.

  “You didn’t have to come forward, and I owe ya that. And I pay my debts.” He got up and went over to the dartboard, his fingers hooked as he pulled out three at a time.

  “I called you in here about that last truck that came in. I was just asking you to go through the past deliveries to see if it’s our scales or that logger that’s screwin’ us. Got it?”

  “Yeah. It went like that,” Jeremy said. “So, I take it the logger screwed us?”

  Old Man Wilkes grinned through gritted teeth. “Yeah. Just a little, though.”

  ***

  Jeremy spent the night at home. He would have been to Roger’s, but he couldn’t sit there and look at him, or drink his ‘shine, knowing he ratted him out to Old Man Wilkes. Roger didn’t call, which made it easier, the avoidance, not the night. Roger could’ve been knee–deep in mash, or creeping through the bushes of the ball field with that .38. How exactly was Old Man Wilkes going to handle it? He could have Roger fired, but that wouldn’t stop anything. He could maybe have him arrested for possessing the gun, sure wasn’t legal for him to have it. But Roger, oddly enough, had a clean record. He’d be out soon enough, and knowing him, he’d just use a sledgehammer and actually kill the pair of them.