Pack

by Mike Bockoven

  “The answer is kind of,” Dave said. “You want me to tell you about when I wolfed out on your mom, where she was and what she was doing?”

  “God, no!” Dilly said. Back on defense.

  “I’m not going to lie. Kenny Kirk, Ron and maybe Carl, that’s how they first started with the process. When they were with girls like that. I don’t know, kid, it brings something out in us guys. But it’s different for everyone so we didn’t know for sure.”

  Dilly opened his mouth but Dave cut him off.

  “I know it seems like a risk, but it was a pretty good bet you weren’t going to hurt anyone too bad, Dilly. You’re not that kind of kid.”

  His coffee cup empty, Dilly traced the rim of the cup with his index finger.

  “I wish you’d have warned me,” he said. “I could have been on the lookout. Maybe not ruined Allie’s shirt.”

  “Allie’s mom can fix the shirt and scratches heal, hon,” Josie said. “But here’s the big thing you need to be thinking about. Do you think it’s time to go out with the boys?”

  All of a sudden, a rush of nostalgia hit Dave so hard it threatened to consume him. He remembered the sheer, heart-pounding terror of walking out to the woods and seeing his dad and all his friends. He remembered how they greeted him, how they embraced and welcomed him to the fold, prompting Willie to say “this ain’t so special. Leave him be.” He remembered how odd the men looked when they took off their shirts. Then their pants. How all these old men and their old wrinkled bodies weren’t that scary, and how it actually calmed him down. Then it started and it wasn’t as bad as he’d built it up to be and before he knew it, he was flying through the woods, the fastest among the pack, navigating trees and foliage faster and faster.

  The rest of it, the first scent, the first trail, the first blood, the first kill, the noise that came out of his chest like fire and into the cold Nebraska air on a clear Nebraska night where the sky stretched out for eternity. The high he would never capture again. The high his son was now on the path toward. The realization that he would protect this life, that he would work for this life and all the abstractions that came with it all piled into his head so fast he couldn’t stop it.

  Dave stood up. He needed some air.

  “It doesn’t need to be this time. Come when you’re ready,” he told his son. “We’re not going anywhere.”

  Dilly and Josie sat at the table and talked for an hour, carefully avoiding land mines like torn shirts and oral sex. Dilly got all the information fresh, even though he had known of his special situation since he was eight years old. Dave left them, mother and son, with something to talk about. He loaded up some old tires into the back of his pickup as an excuse and headed into town.

  •••

  “Town,” such as it was, consisted of a bar, a church, a small business district with a grocery store, a hardware store, and a repair shop among a few streets dotted with houses in various states of upkeep. One house, damaged by a tornado several years ago, had never been repaired and was now so much a part of the landscape folks were surprised when out-of-towners brought it up. It’s not hard to ignore something peculiar when you see it every day.

  The shop, known as “Rathman Repair and Service,” was owned by Kenneth Rathman, who made a fairly good living because he knew how to repair most tractors. He had grown from “tractor repairman” to general repair of all sorts and now had three men working at the shop full time. There were a few men in town with that much business acumen or his particular skill set, but Kenny Kirk to his friends was easily the fastest, the fairest, and the best in a fifty-mile radius, which is why he got away with being the way he was.

  “Where you at, dickface?” Kenny half sang as Dave got out of his truck.

  “I was at twenty percent this morning, but it’s gotten significantly higher since then. You?”

  “Man, I’ll tell you, I’ve been itchy,” Kenny said. “A rabbit was in my yard this morning and I swear to God I started at that thing for ten minutes, munching on dandelions, wanting to get at it. Without thinkin’ to I had taken my pants off. Gave JoAnn a little bit of a treat.”

  “So where you at?”

  “Let’s call it seventy,” Kenny said. “I know Ron’s up there too, so maybe we start putting it together.”

  “It’s going to be the first time since we had to do that thing.”

  They both kicked at the dirt, careful not to look at each other.

  “Doesn’t change nothing,” Kenny Kirk said, kicking a rock hard enough to where it flew into the street next to his shop. “And have some decorum, man. Don’t just bust that out there. Ask how I’m doing or if JoAnn’s OK or about that travesty in Lincoln last week. Don’t just jump to that thing. Besides, it’s over. Doesn’t change a damn thing about how we conduct ourselves.”

  “I don’t think that’s right,” Dave sighed, mostly to himself.

  “That’s cause you think too goddamn much, man,” Kenny said. “You put it all in, like, this historical context when that ain’t what you should be doing. This is a clear-cut case of forward, not back. It’s like we all agreed on. It had to happen and it happened. You’d have more luck teaching Josie to barbecue than you would changing what’s already been done.”

  “She made a brisket once. Wasn’t too bad.”

  “Yeah, I’ll believe that when I taste it. Last time we let her near the grill half of that chicken she made was burnt to shit and the other half was raw enough to complain about it.”

  The two men stood in silence, which was exactly what Dave had hoped to avoid. Normally Kenny’s mouth was a constant source of focus as he was the kind who talked just to talk. He could be belligerent, he was often crass, he could sometimes come up with a cutting insight but one thing the man was not was quiet. If there was a silence more than a couple of seconds it meant something was wrong.

  Dave decided to see if he’d go for ten seconds, counting silently in his head. When he got to twelve, he finally took the bait.

  “Something on your mind, Ken?”

  “Yeah … um … look, I was talking before about how you overthink things and that is the truth, you ain’t changing my mind on that, but maybe you want to call Dilly off for another few weeks, man.”

  Etiquette was again breached as the silence returned. Dave only gave it five seconds this time.

  “You gonna make me guess why you’d say something like that?”

  “Well, no, I’m not. But you clearly ain’t heard.”

  “Heard what?”

  “Look, I hate to be the guy to tell you, what with Byron and your kid … I mean, those are both more than enough to get that brain of yours working and then there’s that thing at your school that’s causing all the ruckus …”

  Dan furrowed his brow and bugged his eyes at Kenny, who promptly remembered the law he had put down a few nights before.

  “Tell me what’s going on, Kenny.”

  “Grey Allen’s retiring.”

  “Wait … the sheriff is stepping down?”

  The news out and the hard part done, Kenny’s mouth started running again.

  “Yeah, man, he did it right there on the scene where they all found Byron in front of the State Patrol and investigators and shit. He stood up on his car, of all the stupid things, and was like ‘I’m done. Grey Allen out.’ So they’re looking for a new guy and they’re looking quick.”

  This was bad on several fronts, but for some reason Dave had started doing math in his head. How long had Grey Allen been the sheriff? How long had he been old? Grey was one of those guys who “has been old forever,” as his mother used to say, and picturing Grey Allen as a young man was an endeavor sure to end in laughs if done in a group of friends. But he was a bedrock, a gentleman and, ultimately, a trusted force when trust is in short supply. Plus, his absence complicated things enormously.

  “Why the hell didn’t I hear about this?”

  “Well, we’re all dealing in our own way, man. It’s not like I’m going to
come over to your house and have a beer after Byron. I wanted to be by myself and since this is the first time we’ve talked since then, I’m guessing you did too. We all kind of … I don’t know, went back into our houses and tried to do our own things, I guess. You forget sometimes, man, you’re the only one of the boys with a kid to worry about and that means you’ve got a few distractions that we don’t have.”

  “So because I don’t go to the Bar all the damn time I’m out of touch,” Dave shot back.

  “That’s not what I’m saying,” Kenny said, drawing the words out for emphasis and maximum redneck drawl. “What I’m saying is we’ve all got our own shit to deal with and that means your ear ain’t as close to the ground as mine or Ron’s or Carl’s or even Willie’s. You get what I’m saying?”

  “Yeah, I get what you’re saying,” Dave said. “Anything else I need to know since my ear is so high up in the air?”

  “Don’t be like that, you asshole,” Kenny said. “And quit taking all this shit personal. Yeah, we’re in kind of a tight spot right now but it’s not like we’re looking at a change in leadership. Carl would piss himself and Willie would run us all off a cliff, man, if he could make it that far. Figured you’d find out sooner or later. Now you know.”

  Dave had to catch himself from falling into another memory, this one involving his father, specifically his face, twisted and angry. All of a sudden the smells of lunch came wafting from the house down from Kenny’s shop—the sandwiches were turkey, the chips sour cream and onion. The wind had kicked up as well, the sound it made through the trees suddenly almost deafening.

  “You all right?” Kenny asked.

  “Yeah, yeah. I’m at seven or eight now. Let’s get the boys together. It’s already been too long.”

  “That sounds about right,” Kenny said. “We meeting at your place?”

  “Nope,” Dave said, sidling up to his truck. “By the creek, please. And tell everyone I’m bringing the meat, the rest of y’all can bring side dishes or chips or something.”

  “I’m bringing shots.”

  “If you still need ’em.”

  “Not for me,” Kenny said. “Your boy might need a nip before.”

  “Let me handle my boy,” Dave said, starting the car and kicking up dust that colored the air.

  “You’re the boss,” Kenny muttered.

  •••

  That night, a black town car pulled up outside of Rathman Repair and Service. The occupant, a tall, lean man dressed for the fall weather in northern Nebraska dress pants and a long-sleeved dress shirt covered by a light windbreaker, saw the windows were dark, got out of the car, and knocked anyway. Then he knocked harder. The man was not accustomed to these sorts of sparsely populated towns, where a long road might have a business, a few houses and nothing else, familiar enough that when a second round of knocking produced nothing, he started pounding.

  Before long, a light came on in the yellow house next door. The man continued pounding. The yellow house’s owner, Mr. Sidney Layton, retired, came out tying his flannel robe around his gaunt waist.

  “Hey, hey, nobody’s in there.”

  The old man made his way down his front steps in a way that was both hurried due to circumstance and slow due to age. The tall man pounded a few more times and turned to face the man he had disturbed.

  “Kenny Kirk closes up at six or so,” Sidney said. “You’re making a racket for no reason.”

  The man was considerably taller that Mr. Sidney, so much so that he could see the top of his head. When he spoke, the man’s voice was calm, deep and smooth, a stark contrast to the old man’s.

  “Will Mr. Kirk be in tomorrow?”

  Sidney took a second, marveling at the way the man drew the last word into the lower register of his voice. It was very slick and not something he was used to.

  “Nah, his last name ain’t Kirk, it’s Rathman. We just call him Kenny Kirk because when he was a kid he …”

  “Sir,” the man interrupted. “Will this store be open tomorrow?”

  “No, it won’t,” Sidney said. “You need a tow or something?”

  “I don’t need a tow, thank you,” the man said. “What I need to do is speak with the owner. Can you tell me where I can find him?”

  Sidney didn’t betray anything to the stranger, but he now acutely felt the power shift. At first, he was the disturbed one, ready to help but also to shame this guy for making all the noise. Between the demeanor of the man and the questions he was asking, the justified anger had evaporated.

  “Nah,” Sidney said. “I don’t think Kenny’s interested in having visitors tonight. They may open in the morning but they … they don’t do a lot of business on the weekends. Not before noon anyways.”

  The man said nothing.

  “If I was you, I’d try maybe after lunch. Kenny’ll be in at some point tomorrow.”

  “Tell me,” the man said. “I noticed a good number of storage structures on my way into town, the ones with the white roofs on them, when you’re coming in off Highway 21. Do those belong to Mr. Rathman?”

  “Yeah, yeah. He’s got a few cars in there and a few parts of cars. That sort of thing.”

  The man reached into his pocket and peeled a fresh, unworn $20 bill from a roll held in place by a rubber band. With a big hand that possessed surprising strength, he grabbed the old man’s hand and pressed the bill into it.

  “Thank you for your help,” the man said in a calm voice.

  “I … I don’t need your money, mister,” Sidney said. The bill was so new he could feel the subtle texture of the bill on his weathered hands.

  “You’ve given me information I need,” the man said, not breaking gaze with Sidney. The man’s eyes were dark as was his hair. “That’s worth paying for. Now, if you were to give me more information, like where Mr. Kirk might be tonight, that would also be worth paying for.”

  “I … I don’t …” Sidney stuttered. He had not anticipated having his scruples questioned while standing outside in his bathrobe.

  “I understand,” the man said. “That’s a bridge too far.”

  The man turned to get back in his car.

  “Mister,” Sidney yelled. “If I see Kenny Kir … Mr. Rathman before then, who should I tell was banging on his door?”

  “Tell him Mr. Stander came by,” the man yelled back. “Tell him to be in his shop. I’ll be along.”

  The tail lights of the town car were very bright, almost fluorescent, Sidney thought. Extremely bright. They stayed bright all the way down the street and the old man clocked them two blocks north after he made the turn that would take him to the highway. After tossing the $20 on the table his wife used for keys and such, he dialed Kenny’s cell phone and got his voicemail.

  “This is Kenny. If you’ve got my voicemail I’m probably shit faced somewhere so I’ll get to yer call when I sober up.”

  The voicemail ended with a huge belch, then the beep.

  “Kenny, this is Sidney, down by your shop. Look, I know you and the boys are probably out somewhere but you need to give me a call when you get this. There’s a weird guy looking for you and I’m thinking you’re really going to want to get in front of this. He was asking all sorts of weird stuff about your shop and … give me call, would ya?”

  He hung up, went back over and held up the $20.

  “Where the hell do you get money like that?” he said, putting the bill up under his bushy grey mustache. “Even smells new.”

  Sidney did not sleep well that night between his thoughts and the howls off in the distance.

  •••

  By now, they all knew how this worked. Step one. You break bread.

  Most of the time, the boys alternated between backyards and cooked up a giant mess of ribs, burgers, or Nebraska-raised steaks, but this time they’d loaded up Dave’s portable grill and gone out to a spot not far from the Beaver Creek that was particularly good for fishing. There were also picnic tables there. No one was sure where they had co
me from or who they belonged to, but they were frequently used, with paint peeling and grooves carved and by sunset, the smoke was rolling off the grill, like usual.

  One time Ron Smith, the guy in the group who had adopted the “biker” look but had a heart of gold, had brought a deer in the back of his truck that he had shot earlier that day and they took turns butchering and grilling. Grilled deer might seem odd but the wood smoke of the grill often overtook the gaminess of the meat, making for a perfectly acceptable meal that left everyone leaning back in their chairs and picking their teeth.

  This was also the step where you messed around and joked, but under no circumstances did you raise hackles. If there were sore spots, you didn’t apply pressure. If there were land mines, you steered as clear as you could and this evening, there were land mines. Bunches of them. But there would be time for that after, and … well, at this point they knew how this worked. This tradition had been passed down for generations in great detail and with great purpose.

  “Did you marinate these at all, Josie? Not that they taste bad …” Carl Eakes asked Josie, who was pulling out plates from the back of the truck while her husband slung the spatula not far away. Carl wasn’t much of a talker and was also the youngest of the group, so Josie made sure to answer him. It hit her Carl was the youngest of the group until tonight. Then he would graduate to second youngest.

  “Yeah, we used this brown sugar recipe of my mom’s,” Josie said. “It’s got brown sugar, soy sauce, ketchup and a bunch of other stuff.”

  “Smells good,” Carl said and let that sit.

  Aside from Dave and Josie, Kenny brought his girlfriend JoAnn with them. Ron’s wife, Karen, was on call at the local hospital and couldn’t make it out, though there were whisperings that she was avoiding this particular scratch for emotional reasons, which was strictly against the rules. While the group could have easily been mistaken for a group of weekend campers, what was happening was a ritual hundreds of years old. For the people gathered in the clearing, this was church.