"This next deal is a big one, Chuckie," Smirnoff said.
"Yeah," my brother responded.
"It needs to go down quick, Chuck. What happened to your brother, all due respect, wasted some time. Time we didn't have. You'll understand if we can't stay here talking."
"Well, I need to talk," Chuck said.
Smirnoff sighed. "Ok buddy. Five minutes. Let's talk."
"I ain't your fucking buddy."
Smirnoff smiled like he thought it was charming.
"Chuckie, buddy, relax. Have you taken your medication? Please, you want to talk. We can talk. I'm sorry for rushing you. I understand if you need time."
I tensed up. You could almost hear the ticking in Chuck's head.
"Things is gonna change," Chuck said. "You think I'm stupid, I'm not. You think I can't handle my shit, I can."
"Nobody thinks anything, Chuckie. What do you want to change? You want to sit this one out? I understand. Maybe your brother Joseph here..."
"His name is Jack."
"Jack! Yes, of course. Maybe Jack could..."
"Jack's gonna stay right here. I mean things are going to change between you and me."
"Sure, Chuckie, sure. Whatever you need."
Chuck pulled a Glock out of his oversized coat, which people always assumed had something to do with the disability. He pointed it at Smirnoff's stomach. Dumbass Darrell had been watching from the kitchen, but now he stepped out and told the elderly couple they needed to leave now. The man could not understand him.
"I said get your shit and get the fuck out of here, gramps!" Darrell said.
The old woman gasped and gave her "Well, I never!" Darrell ushered them to the door and watched them drive away and then he locked up.
"Chuckie, I think you'd better go home," Smirnoff said.
"I think you'd better do exactly what I say." Chuck nodded at me. I took out a piece of my own and directed my attention at Putin and Dostoevsky behind Smirnoff. They began shouting in Russian and Smirnoff barked a command which shut them up.
"Just what's going on here, Chuckie boy?" he said.
"I'm tired of being your fucking monkey, that's what."
This was all part of the con. Chuck didn't feel offended about being an errand boy. He was never going to be a star player, least not without cheating. He knew that, talked about it. This had shit to do with being disabled and everything to do with being a poor desperate kid in a poor desperate world clawing at any piece of any pie that he could get. The Russians wandered onto his hook and he struck and he struck hard, made sure they couldn't shake away.
"Of course. You're very special, Chuck. I would never make you a monkey. Please, what can I do?"
"You can bend over and get ready for what's coming. It's the end of the line, least as far as the delivery business is concerned. I'm not gonna be the middle man anymore. Time to be top fucking dog."
Smirnoff laughed. "But Chuckie, you can't run the business. You don't know..."
"I know more than you think and this piece pointed at you means that I'm not asking."
My eyes surveyed the room, nothing out of the ordinary now that the couple was gone. Dumbass Darrell was smiling that shit-eating grin of his.
"You just gonna shoot me here in public, Chuck? What'll the cops say?"
"The cops will say that one of the other ones must have done it. They'll apologize for me having to witness it, maybe offer to buy me a drink. Worst case scenario they think I went retard and they send me to a place where somebody wipes my ass for a while and talks to me about my feelings."
Smirnoff laughed. "This is fucking..."
Chuck turned and shot Putin in the shoulder. I stood up and told everyone to stay right the fuck where they were.
"You are not such a good shot as you thought maybe, Chuckie boy," Smirnoff said.
"I did what I meant to."
"You hit his shoulder."
"I know. I don't want to kill him. Just sometimes you got to shoot a motherfucker so they know what's up." He pointed the gun back at Smirnoff. "Now you know."
Smirnoff stood up.
"Listen here, you crippled son of a bitch—"
Chuck shot him in his left knee.
"I'm disabled, not crippled. To be crippled is to go from abled to not. To experience something that is crippling. You, for instance, are crippled now." Chuck shot his other knee. "Can I please use your cell, Brother Jack?"
He didn't tell me about this part of the plan. Can't say I liked the sound of it.
"Sure, Chuckie." I pulled the phone from my pocket and tossed it on the table in front of him.
Chuck picked it up and dialed 911 and waited.
"Y-yeah, I'm in a wheelchair at Mandy Mae's and it's my birthday and there are men and they've got guns and I'm so scared!" A reassuring tone could be heard on the other end. "Thank you. Please hurry."
Click.
Chuck looked back at Dostoevsky—who so far, had got out of this pretty good. "I'd say this gives you five, maybe ten. I'd get going. I'll give them a false ID. Leave all of your money with Brother Jack here. We'll go our separate ways. Make any more of it than that down the line and I won't shoot your knees. I'll aim a good deal higher than that."
Dostoevsky didn't say anything, just stood up and did as Chuck said. I doubt the cash they handed to me was everything, but that wasn't really the point. He and Putin held onto Smirnoff and they made their way out the door.
"What the fuck was that?" I said.
"It was success, that's what," Chuck said.
Some time later on, the cops showed and Chuck did just what he said. Told them about the meth heads that came in with their guns, looking for money. Gave them all the details he could remember, which wasn't much and honestly sounded like every male aged 21-30 in every town within a fifty-mile radius. Dumbass Darrell confirmed his story. Chuck said he hoped he did good, but had to stop now because he was so very tired.
I'd underestimated my brother. I always knew that he knew how to work it. He figured it out from an early age. He was always getting free things from folks or pretending to not understand when he got caught doing something he shouldn't. People would always smile and ruffle his hair, tell him how brave or strong he was.
Smart thing would be to ride on that wave. Whoever was with Chuck always got the same perks he did. Thing is, I wasn't made to be somebody's bitch and one day Chuck wouldn't be so with it. One day all the medical miracles propping him up would fall away.
Chuck was snoring on the couch in the living room while I thought about what to do. I put all the cash together in a bag with Chuckie's Glock and tossed it on the bed. I had friends I could stay with, friends that would maybe even be interested in this business. The Russians already got themselves whooped by my brother, and all that Tiny Tim shit wouldn't work on me. My mind was racing and I didn't notice that the snoring had ceased.
"The fuck you doing?" Chuck said.
"Look here, brother. I'm leaving."
"Not with my goddamn money and gun, you're not."
I went for the door as fast as I could until I felt a bullet rip through my shoulder. The shock made me fall and I sat against the bed. I don't know if I was mad at him for shooting me or mad at myself for letting the guy on crutches pull one over on me. Either way, I laughed.
"Sometimes you just got to shoot a motherfucker," I said.
"Sometimes you do," he agreed and he moved over. The crutches weren't silent this time.
"Things can be real nice, brother," he said as he emptied the bag on the bed. "I don't know what's so hard about that, why the idea of me being in charge is so repulsive that people would rather do the dumbest shit as long as they didn't have to admit that I could have power."
"It ain't like that, Chuckie," I lied.
"I'll tell you what it's like. You already know how things are now. It's you and me and that ain't bad. Point in fact, that's pretty fucking good. That's how it's gonna be 'til I say it ain't. Anything else this stupid from you
and I'll put one in your head and two in your chest. That make sense?"
I nodded. He smiled.
"Good. Now get your ass up. It's time for my bath." He crutched away toward the bathroom. I laid my head back and set about getting the bullet out.
Looking back on it now, I think I know why Johnny had a closed casket.
Shooting Creek
by Scott Loring Sanders
Lila
I remember the incident like it was yesterday, back when Winston had been a perfectly normal child. Just another boy growing up in the Virginia mountains. A country boy like any other, running around in the woods, helping Dale with chores, hunting and fishing from the time he could walk pretty much. But that all ended one summer evening shortly after his tenth birthday.
He sat in the other rocking chair on the front porch, snapping beans with me. The sun had fallen behind the trees, but the light hadn't faded away entirely. It was one of those nice evenings, cool and pleasant after a blistering day. Better being out on the porch than inside where the heat was still trapped. That was one thing about living in the Blue Ridge. In July it might get hot as blue blazes, but when night came, that mountain air would brush down the ridges and sweep into the hollow like cool water over river rocks.
The ting of metal on metal, followed by the occasional laugh, sounded from around the corner as Dale and Granddaddy Davis pitched shoes near the chicken coop. The sweet smell of pipe tobacco wafted onto the porch as Winston and I snapped the ends off the beans, both of us rocking in our chairs. He seemed to get right much pleasure in tossing the spent ends over the railing and high into the air. As the dusk settled in, bats swept down and attacked the bean tips in hopes of snatching a mosquito. He'd laugh when he tricked them, and I'd smile now and again as I continued working. We had a pile that needed to be finished before I started canning in the morning, but I wasn't in such a hurry that my boy couldn't get a little enjoyment from the chore.
When dusk had made itself snug and comfortable over the hollow, lightning bugs began flashing their yellow-green signal around the property. Out in the hay fields; along the tree line on the far side of Shooting Creek; in the void of the tire swing; above the boxwoods. They seemed to be just about everywhere. Winston spoke excitedly when the lightshow began. "Mama, can I go get some?"
Shadows now hid his face from view, so it only seemed logical that he, in turn, couldn't see my smile. But he probably heard it in my voice. "You go on ahead."
Winston jumped off the porch and reached for his Mason jar hidden underneath the bottom stair. He unscrewed the top and immediately gagged from the overpowering stench of yesterday's dead grasshoppers. I even smelled it up on the porch. Like pond muck dredged up from the bottoms. He dumped the old bugs and took off around the side of the house.
Now I don't know exactly what happened next, so I'm just speculating. Of course Dale and I went over it a thousand times afterwards. Him painfully replaying it back to me like a broken record until I finally told him enough was enough. So like I said, I'm speculating on this little piece of time between Winston running off and the screams I heard a few minutes later from Dale. High-pitched screams that bubbled my skin worse than fork tines against a china plate.
"Lila! Oh Jesus! Lila, get over here quick."
But this is what I figure. Winston had managed to trap a few bugs in his jar and was in hot pursuit of another, paying attention to nothing else, when the horseshoe slammed into the soft, delicate spot on the side of his head. He never saw it coming. He dropped to the ground like a heavy sack of flour and snap, just like that, my entire world changed.
Sheriff Sutphin
The little community of Shooting Creek is a good fifteen miles from town, way out in the hills. Nothing there but Dehart's Grocery and an old bridge that spans Shooting Creek Gorge. Get some tourists from the Parkway who like to go to that bridge and take pictures. Pretty magnificent sight, really, that bridge hovering a hundred feet above the water.
I was a brand new sheriff then, back around 1980 or '81, just a young buck cutting my teeth. I'd seen plenty of crazy stuff when I'd worked for the city of Samford, but going out to the Quesenberry place was one of the sadder things I'd ever been a part of. It's always tough when there's little ones involved.
I'd been patrolling near the Parkway when the call came in over the radio, so I arrived only ten minutes after everything happened. When I reached the end of the Quesenberry's driveway and pulled up to the farmhouse, the evening was just going from can-see to can't-see. I made out a few figures milling about, so I spotlighted them and immediately saw they were hovering over a body. Before I even got out of the patrol car, I radioed for an ambulance.
Dale and Lila were both a mess. Shaking, lips quivering, tears streaming down his face but none down hers. She seemed to be in shock, eyes wide and panicked when I shone my flashlight. Her hair tucked away under a kerchief, her hands forming a ball beneath her chin. The graybeard—Lila's granddaddy—was the one hunched over and attending to the boy. Frail man, his overalls hanging off like he'd borrowed them. His old, skinny hands curled as he smoothed the boy's hair back from the wound. Blood streaming and pooling in the boy's ear, his hair matted like wet dog fur. Eyes closed. Skin pale. Ghostly to be sure, but he was still breathing, that I could see. And he was a big boy, too, especially for only ten years old. Nearly as big as his daddy already. You could tell that boy was going to be a horse. Probably would've been able to bale a whole field of hay on his own once he got older if things hadn't turned out the way they did.
When I approached, both Dale and Lila started hollering at me so as I couldn't hardly catch a word. But I got the gist. Horseshoe conked the boy, Winston, right in the head. As I moved the light around in the grass, a U-shaped glint of metal caught the beam and flashed back at me. I think that's what unnerved me more than anything else, seeing that shoe so close to Winston's head.
To the right of him, turned on its side, was a Ball Mason jar, a couple of pale yellow flashes blinking inside of it. Seeing those firefly lights, already fading in the glass, gave a gloomy picture of things to come. Like purple storm clouds stacked and rolling up over the mountains.
Ambulance arrived not too long after, and they packed him up and shipped him off. Had to drive him over an hour to the hospital in Roanoke, and I expect that might have had something to do with Winston's outcome. That delay.
Six months later I was right back on that property, but that's the nature of the business. Gets a man down every now and again, dealing with other people's sorrow all the time.
Lila
It didn't take me long to figure out that Winston wasn't ever going to be the same. Deep down, it's every mother's hope that their baby won't ever grow up, so in that respect I guess I got my wish. They say to be careful what you wish for because you just might get it. I suppose that's true.
He was in the hospital for two weeks, and I lived in that room the entire time. Dale made it over once or twice, but he had to keep the farm up—that's what he said anyway—and I understood. The poor man felt awful, blamed himself for everything, and wasn't dealing with it all that well. On the few occasions he did stop by, he had liquor on his breath, which really got me concerned. I didn't blame him one iota for what had happened, and I'd told him as much, but it didn't seem to do a thing for his conscience.
The good news was, Winston didn't remember anything. And other than some headaches early on, he wasn't in pain. As far as he knew, he'd gone out to catch lightning bugs, then fallen asleep. When he'd woken up, it was like he'd lost a few years, but overall he was happy. And innocent. That was the big thing. Doctor said he would essentially be a ten year old for the rest of his life. He'd keep growing, would look like an adult, but his mind would never advance.
But he wasn't stupid. I realized that right quick. I could teach him things and mostly he'd remember. And he still had reason, only it happened to be the reason of a ten year old.
On Fridays, it had always been my habit to wa
lk the two miles down to Dehart's Grocery to do my shopping. I could've taken the pickup, and sometimes I did if it was raining or snowing, but mostly I walked. Enjoyed my walks, getting my air. Breathing in the scents of farmhouse lilac in the spring, honeysuckle in summer, fox grapes in fall, wood smoke in winter. Watching the redbuds bloom along the mountainside, telling me another cold winter was behind us, then several months later watch the color slip from the leaves like a bleeding photograph.
Before the accident, Winston had always accompanied me to the store, so I didn't see any reason why things should change afterwards. He'd always loved getting an RC and a sleeve of peanuts before he'd been hurt, and interestingly, the first time we walked into Dehart's after the accident, he went right to the cooler and pulled out a bottle. So some things he still had, but others not so much.
Of course Robert was kind and gentle, with the both of us really. Always had been. That first day when we walked into his store, I saw Robert's eyes moisten up a bit from where he stood behind the counter. And it touched me. Felt my own eyes get a little wet when they met his. Seeing that big, powerful man standing there, knowing that his heart was reaching out to me without saying so much as a word. Robert and I had gone steady back in our school days, and I guess sometimes you can think you've doused a fire, but often there's a few embers that don't quite get put out. But we didn't talk about things like that. He had Ellsabeth, I had Dale, and that was that. But still, seeing him there, the way he reacted, it touched me.
"What do you say there, Winston?" said Robert.
Winston looked at him and said hello right back, just as he always had. But Robert and I shared a quick glance because there was no question that Winston hadn't recognized him. Had no idea at all. And then the eyes really filled up. For both me and Robert. Like I said, some things Winston still had, other things had been wiped out completely. That was the hard part, me having to figure out that fine line.
THUGLIT Issue Fourteen Page 10