The Innocents

by Ace Atkins

  “Shit.”

  “You thinking what I’m thinking?”

  “Goddamn Nito Reece,” Lillie said, spinning the wheel into a hard U-turn and heading south to Jericho.

  28

  Yeah, he killed the bitch.

  But, god damn, she made him do it. She’d called him up right after that first home game and said, “Coach Mills, I need to square away something with you right here and now.”

  The familiar way she’d spoke to him in that quiet country twang of hers made his blood boil and his heart about jump out of his dang chest. He’d drove straight down to the old Big Black River to hear what the hell she knew and just what she’d been scheming. There had been so much confusion and downright lies coming from that road trash family of hers that you never knew what to expect. He rolled on down the hill in his new Dodge and saw her standing there by that little white Tic Tac of a car, arms crossed over her flat chest as if he was the one who needed a talking to.

  And the damn threats, outright lies, fantasy, and filth that flew out of her mouth was enough to make a Christian man want to vomit. Little Milly Jones, nothing but a hot-bed cheerleader, told him that if he didn’t want to step forward and be a man, that she’d do it for him. The threat on the manhood had about done it. He tried to calm her, put a hand on her shoulder, her shaking him off until he tried to talk some sense. Girl wouldn’t listen until he got a few licks in with that damn tire iron from his GMC. Didn’t mean to kill her. Just make her think straight. But her head wasn’t made for toughness and just kind of broke apart, her landing in a crumpled heap down by the boat landing. All that filth and lies she’d been spewing replaced by the sound of crickets and frogs. Quiet and peace.

  Animals making an obscene bit of noise while he tried to think, figure out just what he needed to do. This little girl didn’t mean nothing when it came to the town, the county, the tradition of all he’d done. Damn her soul. Damn her to hell.

  That’s when he called up his old trusted standby to help him shift things ’round a bit. Nito would know what to do.

  “And now you fucked me,” Nito said. Right here and now, standing direct in front of him, off the Natchez Trace by a little lookout over the Indian Mounds, little rounded heaps of dirt that had weathered wars, disease, and a whole lot of dancing around the ole fire. Lots more than what he’d been through. Coach would get through this. Bud Mills didn’t get knocked down without getting his ass right back up.

  “What do you mean, I fucked you?”

  “You fucked me then,” Nito said. “You fucking me now.”

  “Has everyone in this whole goddamn town gone crazy?” Coach said. “I thought you had me out here ’cause we needed to talk private. You ain’t no better than that little ole girl, wanting to ambush me and talk a lot of trash.”

  “I ain’t a kid.”

  “No,” Bud Mills said, spitting some Skoal into the dirt. “You ain’t. You’re a dang grown-ass man. So how about you hitch up your britches and let’s move on. If you ain’t heard, I got a game to coach tonight.”

  “You remember what you used to tell me?”

  “Aw, hell,” Coach said. “I gotta git.”

  “You told me you were toughening me up, doing things men do to help with that pressure,” Nito said. “I didn’t understand it. I tried to tell my momma and she wouldn’t listen. Said I was a liar.”

  “Come on now.”

  “I was eight years old,” he said. “And I’m still dealing with your sickness. I ain’t your boy no more. What we done to Milly ain’t right.”

  “I got no idea what you’re saying, boy,” he said. “All I know is, I bought y’all’s groceries and kept your momma from being a dang receptacle for truckers at twenty bucks a throw.”

  That’s when Nito hit him, hard and fast, across his mouth, knocking that dip from his lip and starting it bleeding. “Come on now, Nito,” he said, trying to laugh it off. “Don’t tell me you didn’t like it. You talk and then everyone will know’d what you did then. And now.”

  “All I remember is, your fat ass weighing on me,” he said. “I couldn’t breathe, your hands all over me, pulling off my pants.”

  “That’s enough.”

  “Damn right, it is,” Nito said. “Telling Sheriff Virgil that I killed Milly Jones, saying what happened to my Nova up in Memphis. What the fuck you thinking? She sweated my ass long and hard for that.”

  “You put that little girl in your fucking car, Nito,” Coach said. “Use your head. Use your fucking head. That’s why you never could make it. You couldn’t read a dang English book or a defense. All your teachers said you was a damn mental deficient.”

  Nito struck him again. And, this time, Coach had enough, gripping a good bit of Nito’s black tank top, taking some of them rapper’s gold chains in the mix, and standing up toe-to-toe, man-to-man. “I didn’t kill her,” Coach said. “Whose idea was it to burn up the car and pour that gasoline down her throat?”

  “You stuck yourself in my mouth,” Nito said, screaming. “You done it to me. You done things like that forever. I ain’t your friend. I ain’t your boy.”

  Coach pulled him closer, wanting to bite a big old plug from his black cheek, knock those gold teeth from his mouth. He’d taken the girl out. He sure couldn’t be stopped by a worthless black ass like ole Nito Reece. And, god damn, he was crying. Crying, for shit’s sake.

  “Let me tell you something,” Coach Mills said. “And I want you to listen up and listen good. I am Bud Mills. I am somebody. You? You’re worthless. You’re nothing. Ain’t nothing can be done about breeding. You ain’t nothing but a fucking mongrel dog eating roadkill stuck to the highway.”

  And then came the hard thwack, metal on meat and bone, and Coach Bud Mills falling sideways, flat to the ground. He couldn’t see right, but he could hear voices sounding almost like they’d come to him underwater. He’d been hit like that only one time before, when he’d been a sophomore at North Alabama, blindsided on a kickoff. A long, ragged wheeze came out of his mouth like a punctured football.

  “Shoot,” a country-ass peckerwood voice said. “I was about tired of hearing that fat SOB talking. You get his legs and I’ll get his arms. We can lock him in the trunk till we clean his place out.”

  “You hear that?” Nito said. “What that fucker said to me?”

  “No,” the peckerwood said, rough hands feeling around in his coaching shorts, sound of jangling keys being taken from him. “Why? He saying something about all them guns and that jumbo TV?”

  • • •

  You don’t need to be harassing me like that,” Ordeen said. “I’m just trying to watch the damn game.”

  Quinn and Boom had walked the stadium until they saw Ordeen Davis sitting up in the top row with a few other North Side Boys, smoking cigarettes and drinking moonshine out of a Gatorade bottle. They called him out and walked him down from the bleachers into the half darkness of the stands by a little concession booth. The game had already rolled over into the second quarter, with one of Coach Mills’s assistants taking over, folks saying Coach had come down with the flu. After the National Anthem, the stadium announcer had asked everyone to please pray for a quick recovery for their beloved Coach Bud.

  “Take the damn moonshine,” Ordeen said. “You really gonna bust my ass for that bullshit?”

  “Where’s Nito?” Quinn said.

  “How should I know?” Ordeen said.

  “He tell you about having trouble with Coach Mills?” Boom said.

  “And who the hell are you?” Ordeen said, looking Boom up and down, eyes lingering on the missing arm.

  “I’m fucking Boom Kimbrough, is who,” Boom said. “And your black ass better pray that your boy doesn’t touch Coach.”

  “Y’all crazy.”

  “When’d you see Nito last?” Quinn asked.

  “Shit, man,” he said. “I d
on’t know. It’s been a few days.”

  Boom stepped in, placing his one sizable hand on Ordeen’s shoulder. Ordeen having to lift his chin to look up into Boom’s unsmiling face. The Tibbehah marching band launched into “Seven Nation Army,” a favorite of Quinn’s when he’d been overseas with the Regiment. He’d had his old iPod loaded down with a lot of White Stripes, Reigning Sound, and Tyler Keith. Always good stuff before running and gunning.

  “Hold on,” Quinn said. “Ordeen’s a reasonable man. He’s got sense. And, besides, nobody wants to see Coach hurt.”

  “Hurt Coach?” Ordeen said. “Man, I don’t even know what y’all talking about. You got problems with Nito, go see Nito and leave me the hell alone. I just heard the Coach got the shits. Me and Nito don’t have nothing to do with that mess.”

  “Where’s Nito?” Boom said. “Where do we find him?”

  “Come on,” Ordeen said. “I’m missing the game. Tibbehah’s already up by a touchdown. Damn, if they ain’t playing better without old coach calling the plays.”

  “Did Nito tell you he’d been with the Jones girl?” Quinn asked.

  “Oh, I see,” Ordeen said. “That’s what this shit’s about. Coach done point his finger at Nito and now you think Nito wants some revenge? Y’all really reaching for it. Making everything a goddamn mess for that white girl. Why you give a shit about that white girl, Mr. Kimbrough?”

  “Coach is gone,” Boom said. “Nobody’s seen him. Last time I talked to him, he was scared Nito might kill him. Said Nito had been asking for money and threatening his ass.”

  “That’s some bullshit,” Ordeen said. “Nito don’t need to ask no one for money.”

  “Business that good?” Quinn said.

  Ordeen looked back and forth to Quinn and Boom. He tilted his head and scratched at his neck under the long braids. “Can I go?” Ordeen said.

  “Where’s he hang, man?” Boom asked.

  Ordeen shrugged. “He either at the pool hall or the house.”

  “We checked both,” Quinn said.

  “Then I can’t help y’all,” Ordeen said.

  “You need to find him,” Quinn said. “You can do it on the outside or with us bringing you in. Doesn’t make much difference to me.”

  Ordeen tried to look tough, hands in his pockets, flat-crowned ball cap high on his head. “I see him, I’ll tell him you been asking around.”

  “Nope,” Quinn said. “You see him and you’ll let us know where to find him. Or I’ll consider you an accomplice.”

  Ordeen shook his head as the band’s horn section heated up, drums pounding a steady pulse. Let’s go. Let’s go. Let’s go. Feet hammering on the aluminum stands, making it seem like there was an earthquake in Tibbehah County. “You gonna give me back my Gatorade or what?”

  Quinn handed him back the moonshine, the stuff smelling like kerosene when he’d unscrewed the top. “Knock yourself out.”

  Quinn and Boom stood there as Ordeen turned his back and walked back toward the bleachers. Someone scored a touchdown for the Wildcats and the fans went crazy, yelling and clapping, the announcer letting everyone know the home team was now up by thirteen points.

  “Seem that long ago?” Boom asked.

  “Nope.”

  “Yeah?” Boom said. “Now who’s lying?”

  • • •

  You know he got a new car?” said the girl, Shartesia Cousins. “Nito sold off that blue Nova he had. The one with those big rims? Can you believe that? He once told me he loved that car more than a woman. Said it smelled so goddamn nice.”

  “Y’all still together?” Lillie asked.

  “Sometimes,” the girl said. “Sometimes, we just drive around and shit. He got a baby with some girl down in Eupora. Why don’t you ask her?”

  “Because we know you,” Reggie Caruthers said. “Figured you might have seen him.”

  They found Shartesia down at the gas station in Sugar Ditch, hanging out with the boys who played spades on a Friday night. They ran a regular game under a prefab carport with a sign that read Only $599 Installed! Someone had made the effort to fill it up with a couple old church pews, some old easy chairs, and a long folding table. Now it was a nightclub of sorts on summer nights. A few folks scattering when the law drove up, Lillie not caring less.

  “I don’t want to see him,” Shartesia said, sitting on a weathered picnic table outside the carport. “That boy crazy.”

  “Crazy how?”

  “I only deal with his ass when he’s smoking weed,” she said. “Chills his ass out. He got someone kind of mental problems. Always believe someone out to get him.”

  “He ever say anything to you about Coach Mills?”

  Shartesia shook her head. “Nah,” she said. “I know he played football for Coach. They friends and shit.”

  “You know where he might be?” Reggie said.

  “He love to go down to the pool hall,” she said. “He do his business there. Or at that gas station up in Blackjack. You know the Gas & Go?”

  “Been both of those places,” Lillie said. “No one’s seen him.”

  “Where’d y’all go if you just hanging out?” Reggie said. “Drinking, partying a bit.”

  “We at his momma’s place when she at work,” she said. “Ride around a lot in his car. Smoke it up.”

  “What about when y’all tired of riding?” Reggie said.

  Shartesia caught his eye and smiled at him, a sly kind of devilish look. Reggie had a way with the ladies. Even a tough one like Shartesia Cousins, hard as hell at twenty-five, two kids with two different fathers, and an older brother who’d run the drugs in Tibbehah before Nito Reece. The brother now in lockdown at Parchman for a twenty-year stretch.

  “He like to shoot rats.”

  Lillie looked over at Reggie, Reggie nodding to Shartesia to tell him all she knew. She leaned forward on the picnic table, glancing down at her smartphone and back up at him. “I don’t smoke no more,” she said. “But when me and Nito got to smoking, he like to drink and shoot them rats. Sometimes, we fooled around a little there. But I didn’t like it. Nasty as hell, lots of broken glass and all that.”

  “Where’s that, Shartesia?” Lillie asked.

  “That old factory by the train station,” she said. “Y’all know what I’m talking about?”

  “The cotton compress?” Lillie said.

  She shrugged. “I don’t know what it is,” she said. “Place been closed down long as I been here. It’s the place you go when you don’t want folks seeing what you up to.”

  • • •

  D. J. Norwood decided to bring his brother, Larry, along since Larry had a little meth, a fresh bottle of Aristocrat vodka, and that pressure washer they needed. But, damn, if ole Nito was pissed, wanting to know just what fucked up his brain so much that he’d bring his dumb-ass brother with him. Norwood put up his hands, trying to calm his black ass down, saying only Larry knew how to get the thing started. It was an older engine and needed a little sweet talk and a lot of Gumout in the carburetor. “Besides, Larry ain’t gonna just leave it,” he said. “This damn piece of equipment keeps him employed.”

  “I’m a part-time painter,” Larry said, showing off his brown and rotted teeth. “And a full-time pussy hound.”

  “He better stand outside,” Nito said. “Keep watch and shit while we do our work.”

  They stood by their vehicles behind the old cotton compress, headlights on high beam, while Larry backed the washer down off his truck. “I don’t even think this place has a roof no more,” he said. “Heard it done blowed off in the tornado.”

  “We just trying to get some shit clean,” Nito said. “Figure no one will mind if we make a bunch of racket out here.”

  “Our daddy used to work here,” Larry said. “Ain’t that right, Norwood? Machine man. He could fix damn-near anything befo
re the strokes.”

  Larry called him Norwood, like everyone else, even though they both shared the same last name. Larry had on a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles T-shirt with the sleeves cut out. On second glance, Norwood was pretty sure the bastard had stolen it from his drawer. Norwood didn’t have on a shirt, just cutoff blue jeans and some shower shoes. Son of a bitch, Larry, stealing his clean shirt from the Walmart.

  “You change the intensity with the nozzles,” Larry said. “See right there?”

  “What’s the highest one?” Nito said.

  “Red,” he said. “Red will take the dang paint off. You start off with maybe green, just to test her out, and see how it works. But you better be careful and wear some gloves and boots. That water can near cut the whale out of you.”

  “What’d you do with that vodka?” Norwood asked.

  “It’s in the truck,” Larry said. “Why? You want a hit?”

  “Hell, yes,” Norwood said. “Maybe burn some shit, too.”

  “I know’d you didn’t bring me along just for my washer,” Larry said, grinning with those brown rotted teeth. “How about you, Nito? You like to party?”

  “Damn right,” he said, walking around to the open window of the Caprice Classic and turning up the radio. Yo Gotti, “Down In The DM,” talking that dirty talk to women on that Snapchat, asking them to show all their goodies.

  “Damn, Norwood,” Larry said, unscrewing the top of the vodka. “I like black people, but I can’t stand to hear no nigger music.”

  “Oh, yeah?” Nito said, taking the bottle from his hand and knocking back a good bit. “Y’all peckerwoods ain’t happy unless someone’s crying in their beer or fucking their best friend’s momma.”

  “How you gonna run the water?” Larry asked. “I got about two hundred I can pump from my truck. You reckon that’ll be enough?”

  “I guess it’s got to be,” he said. “Don’t see no spigots ’round here.” Nito leaned against the car and felt the heavy hands slapping at the trunk, Coach yelling like hell for someone to let him the hell out. The old fat man beating that trunk so hard, the whole body of the Caprice Classic shook. Nito grinned with excitement.