by Leah Weiss
Just then, I bang on the truck roof and shout, “Stop! Stop! STOP!”
The truck fishtails and comes to rest within inches of Roy and the hog. The boar has Roy’s hunting knife sunk to the hilt in one eye and the rifle stock broke in half cross its head. Roy kicks at the hog with little steam left. Lester pulls his pistol outta the glove box and does the rest, then looks back at the crazy trail his truck made across his field of prime corn and says, “Well, hot damn, I guess I got me a crop circle. Wonder what this looks like from the air?”
That starts us to laughing, and the laughing turns to girlie giggles. When Roy stands and dusts his self off, one of his boots is gone. We try to lift the hog into the truck bed but can’t do it, so we tie him to the bumper and drag him. Me and Roy sit on the tailgate, dangle our legs, and look for Roy’s boot while the pig plows through the dirt.
The lot of us strings them boars up by their hind legs and guts em. Then Roy and me drive off with the smell of blood drying on our clothes, wore out. We got our corn supplier, and that’s good. Roy drives with one arm out the window. His square hand grips the steering wheel, his flat belly caved in. The Possum sings “She Thinks I Still Care” on the radio, and Roy whistles off-key. He looks cool even with one boot on.
• • •
Roy Tupkin had him lots of women. One he paid for outta curiosity, but the rest he got for free. He’s the kinda sweaty danger women love. All of em he treats better than Sadie, and that galls the shit outta me. Still, I sit on horny widows’ porches and on back roads where the moss lays thick on the north side of white oaks.
And I wait for him.
Now and again, Roy says, “Don’t you get the itch, Billy?” tucking in his shirttail, hitching up his pants, sweeping back his thick hair, and putting on his hat. “Gotta get your hands on a woman’s skin? Dip your wick? No? Times I think you a fag, man.”
Roy tries to get under my skin. I don’t let him. I got me a poker face.
One time I say, “I’m saving myself,” and Roy laughed.
I been with a few women, but I don’t dream about em.
• • •
Then comes the night Roy meets Darlene.
She’s the new girl at the Midnight Club back in the woods at the end of Danner’s Cove. It’s a plain place with bare floor, loud music, and cheap likker. The regular girls got dull eyes, dull minds, dull skin bleached out under the glare of lights on the rough stage. Then Darlene appears with skin white as flour, hair as black as raven’s feathers, and a attitude wound tight. She don’t fool me for a second.
But Roy’s smitten. I never seen him act like this. He runs his tongue over his parched lips, dazed. You’d think she was his first. The girl’s pretty enough. Fresher than most, cause she’s new to the trade and seventeen. I can tell right off Darlene’s different from other girls who come to the Midnight Club and stay too long. Behind her dark eyes, she’s restless. Itchy. Selfish.
Darlene and me was alone once that I can recollect. Roy sent me ahead when he was gonna be late and told me to get Darlene to wait on him. He handed me a bunch a silly flowers to give her that made me look the fool. When she come out to the parking lot grinning and posing, she looked right through me like I won’t here.
“He be along shortly,” I say like Roy told me to, and I hold out the stupid flowers. She still acts like she don’t see me. She turns her skinny neck and looks round for Roy.
When her eyes decide to find me, she says, “Oh, it’s you—Millie.”
“What you call me?” I get a pinch in my neck and a twitch in my eye.
“Millie, Millie, quite the filly…”
Her lips are slippery and painted outside the lines.
“The way you suck up to Roy and wait in his shadows—Millie—you’d think you was his whore. Or a wannabe whore. That what you hope for—Millie?”
She come close. Pressed her high titties against my chest. Tried to get me to step back outta my spot. I stay put and blow stinky breath at her till she stepped back and give me my space.
When it’s me and him, I ask, “What is it bout that girl, Roy?”
“Don’t know” is what he says, being truthful.
I think Darlene sunk a fat hook in Roy’s puny heart, and he don’t wanna shake it out.
• • •
Before long, we stand outside the Midnight Club every night straight for a week, Roy waiting on Darlene. It costs to be inside, plus Roy don’t wanna see Darlene with another man. So he waits, runs his fingers through his hair, slouches his wiry body against the poplar tree with his cigarette danglin from full lips, the brim of his hat hidin his eyes. He checks his breath and rubs his front teeth with his stained fingernail to get the film off. He’s charged with electricity even standing still. When Darlene comes out the door, Roy says, “Be gone, Billy.”
“But we gotta make a run tonight. Get the car loaded. You forget?”
“You do it. You know the way. Git.”
I don’t know who this Roy is, leaving the business for me to do myself when he never done that before.
What I do know is that when I come by his trailer mornings, he’s not home but Sadie is. She comes quiet to the door and holds her round tummy. She says, “Roy ain’t here, Billy,” and bout takes my breath away. She don’t say a word to me since she was eight years old, shy, and traipsing home singing. I don’t know how to act when she say my name, so I do the usual. Spit a long stream of tobacky juice and look off into the woods before I walk away. I stand behind the oak tree and wanna go back to her door, step inside, and stay, but I can’t find a reason.
When, after a rainy spell, I come upon a mess of chanterelles by some ash trees, I pick em for Sadie. Leave em in a poke on her trailer step, knock, and run away. Don’t think she’d eat em if she knew they was from me, even if she loves chanterelles. I bring her ripe persimmons and a mess a black walnuts, too.
One time I knock and don’t run away. “Hey, Sadie. Let me know if you need something fixed. I’m kinda handy.”
She closed the door on me like I thought she would.
Another time I say, “Hey, Sadie. Can I wash my hands at your sink?” even though they won’t dirtier than usual.
She said, “Water tap on the side,” and closed the door.
I can tell we working up to a conversation, and that’s a good thing. Another good thing is Sadie’s bruises go away and her pretty comes back.
• • •
Roy’s crazy about Darlene. He’s under a spell like I never seen before. He works hard for this girl. Tries to do right things. The second week they together, he got her that gold flower necklace she asked for. And little slivers of underwear smaller than snot rags. And I don’t count the boxes of chocolate-covered cherries wrapped in gold paper he gets. I wonder if Darlene knows the rules. For his money, Roy wants it all.
Roy spends nights down an alley, up the stairs, at Darlene’s place. A place I don’t go. They stay all night and sometimes all day while I do double chores at the still. When I collect money for the shine, I hand over the roll a dough to Roy, him walkin Darlene to the Midnight Club. He don’t count it. Just stuffs it in his pocket. But Darlene’s eyes get big as quarters, watchin him stuff the wad in his pocket. She fools Roy, but she don’t fool me. I’m ashamed for him. Roy never settled for chickenshit before.
When Roy’s busy with Darlene for bout three weeks, the business hits a snag. The ATF snoop like they sometimes do, and sales slow. Suppliers get scared. Buyers back off. By myself, I can’t do right, and money stops for a bit. I tell Roy. Darlene hears. Nobody’s happy. That’s when danger joins trouble.
Darlene gets itchy to move on to somebody else now that her money pot dried up. She don’t run cross the parking lot and jump into Roy’s arms. She don’t wrap her freckled legs round his middle and squeal like a pig, him twirling her round and round like a fool gone loco. She don’t sta
nd close to him or put her elbows on the table to catch the words coming outta Roy’s mouth. Now, she makes him wait after the club closes. Finds more reasons to make him wait than the desert got sand.
I can tell he gets itchy, too. Keeps score. Counts Darlene’s sins. Plans her punishment.
The old Roy’s back. Sadie’s time off is done.
• • •
I find out on a foggy Sunday morning, the last one in September. I stand in my kitchen, drinkin coffee and lookin out the window. Here comes Roy, weaving cross my yard. His clothes are bloody and torn. He turns in circles in the clearing, arms wide, drunk. He falls to his knees, puts his head in his hands, and calls out my name.
I step down into the yard.
“Where that blood come from?” I say, calm-like.
Roy takes his time. Sucks air in deep and fills his chest. On the exhale, he whispers, “Darlene.”
At that one word, I shoulda bolted. Shoulda walked off into those foggy woods and left Roy by his sorry self. But truth is, I never bolt from any evil Roy lays at my feet.
I stay calm. Step closer. Watch Roy keen from side to side on his knees, eyes squeezed shut, pained face turned toward the blind sky.
“Where she at?”
He whimpers like a little boy.
“Her place?”
Roy nods, sucks in his bottom lip, closes his eyes tight.
A warm flutter come to my belly when the mighty Roy Tupkin gets on his knees. One of them special flutters cause Roy needs me.
“Where you wanna take her?”
Roy puts his hands flat on the spongy soil, fingers spread wide, and the weight of his body presses em into the wet ground. His spine arches, and his hair hangs limp round his pasty face. Cross the ten paces what separates us, he reeks of weakness. He retches between his hands.
“That shale holler?”
Roy struggles and stands, drained and broken.
“I get my hat.”
• • •
I get my hat and walk past Roy cause he’ll come when he’s able. I walk through the woods to his pickup parked on the shoulder of the road and check the truck bed for tarps and shovels. Two tarps are still in wrappers. There’s a used one, folded with shovels on top. A gallon jug a bleach and some rags are in a corner; a gas can and cinder blocks are stacked neat along the sides, in case.
I slide in the driver’s side, wait for Roy, then drive off. I don’t talk but give Roy space to process his situation. Words won’t do no good right now anyway. I drive slow in the fog, round the curves, and think about the plastic tarps in the back, the rope, the pointy shovels, and the bloody stories they could tell if anybody listened. Blood’s just blood to most folks up here. Roy and me count on that.
Roy only kilt one man on purpose what’s buried up where we go. Somebody nosy from clear over McDowell County way that snooped where he won’t welcome and paid the price. Roy and me was glad he was a lightweight we could haul pretty far. Another time, a killing was a accident that was only part Roy’s fault. Moonshine, knives, and betting don’t mix good late at night. There’s a bunch more that got hurt for good reasons but not kilt, and we dumped em on some back road so the long walk back gives em thinking time.
Roy and me got secrets.
• • •
Darlene’s street’s empty. The few do-gooders who live in these parts are at Still Water Baptist Church being saved, and the sinners likely sleep the sleep of the dead.
“Pull round to the alley.” Roy almost sounds normal. He sits up straighter, and his face is settled. I do like he says, but already know what to do.
I get out and lean the bench seat forward. We don’t slam our doors, but leave em open a crack for a quiet coming and quick going. I grab the used tarp from the bed, tuck it under my arm, and put the coiled rope over my shoulder. Roy carries the bleach and rags.
I walk up the steps first, careful that my boots don’t come down hard and get heard by somebody who’ll remember. Roy does the same. I stop at the top of the stoop and look him in the eye. “You okay?” I whisper.
He nods. A night like he had don’t make recovery easy.
“She the only one in there?” I think to ask, to cover my bases.
Roy nods, irritated, and whispers, “I pay for the place.”
Shit.
The kitchen table is littered with rib bones gnawed clean, Twinkie wrappers, and an empty bottle of hooch. I walk through the living room, and in three steps, I’m in the bedroom I’ve never been in before, and she’s there. On the bed where I thought she’d be. In a room done up in red and limp lace and that thick perfume smell Darlene wears. She’s naked, mostly covered with a sheet with washed-out roses printed on it, eyes open, head turned too far with gray smudges on the sides of her neck, and a blob a dried blood in her dark hair. The back of her head got a gash likely from banging the side table. Blood is pooled and dried on the pink carpet.
The color of her skin is the giveaway her trouble’s real. All that glow that filled Roy up for a while got dulled out, like cut-up peaches left in the air too long.
Darlene’s used up.
I spread the tarp open, careful not to make more noise than I have to, and whisper, “You ready?”
Roy stands there, and damn if he don’t look like he’s gonna cry. That pisses me. He can cry over a flighty, nobody girl, and not care what he done to Sadie with his mean fists and meaner words that I bear witness to and wish I had guts to stop. Times like this, I think bout coming between Roy and Sadie. She deserves a lot better than his sorry ass. But this morning won’t about Sadie and her heartache that’s come back home. This morning we got a dead girl to get rid of.
I don’t have time for Roy’s breakdown, so I flick back the sheets, take hold of Darlene’s tattooed ankles, and shift her to the edge, giving him a pretty big hint we need to move along. Her arms rise up and her long hair trails above like she’s cheering. Or fallin down a chute. Or surrendering.
“Roy—now!” I whisper sharp, and he moves and takes her by the wrists.
“Wait,” he says, and unhooks the gold flower necklace with a fake diamond he give her she never took off. He slips it in his pocket.
“Why you want that? You gonna give it to somebody else? I don’t think so.”
“Lay off, Billy. I do what I need to do.”
I shake my head to tell him he’s a fool.
We lay Darlene’s body down on the used tarp, put her hands by her sides, strip off the bloody sheets, and throw em on top. Use bleach to wipe blood off the side table and rug, and throw the rags on top of the sheets. Roll her up snug, and I tie the package neat at her head and feet, and make handle grips. Darlene’s light and easy to move through her three little rooms.
At the back door, we stop and I check outside for witnesses. The fog is lifting, and safe leaving time is running short. We know the drill. We done it a time or two. We go quiet down the steps to the passenger side of the truck. The bench seat’s already forward. Slide body in, pull the old blanket over the package against the curious, get in, hope the truck starts on the first try, hold the doors closed, but don’t slam em till we’re a ways away.
We’re lucky and don’t see a soul, sorry or otherwise, when we leave the alley. A dead body behind the seat being carried to its final resting place always feels funny. I think I closed Darlene’s eyes. If not, she stares through the tarp at the back of my head and wonders what went wrong. I could have told her she shouldn’t mess with Roy’s black heart, but I never liked Darlene. She won’t as smart as she thought she was. Won’t as pretty. She was Roy’s plaything for a spell.
What happens to Sadie now, I don’t know. It’ll be no good.
• • •
Roy and me found a new burying spot by accident when we look for a better place for our still. The spot clean over Antler’s Mountain way is so rocky and sharp even
settlers don’t lay claim to much of it. It’s got sour smells and shadows that shift and dankness that throws folks off from staying. Deep slits in the rocks likely drop into the fires of damnation, and that fits our doing this morning.
Good thing Darlene’s light cause we got a ways to go on foot, and Roy and me not getting any younger, if you call twenty-six and twenty-five old. Days like this, I feel old. I let him take the lead now that he’s come round, and he carries Darlene’s head. That’s the heavy end, you know.
We walk and climb, and Darlene grows heavier.
We muscle her up through the crotches of boulders, and slide her on dead leaves on the short slopes.
I’m proud to see the tarp stays neat and my knots tight.
Roy Tupkin
“Roy, lift up your end, man. You letting her drag,” Billy whines.
I lift up my end so she clears the rocks and stumps, and think on last night that brung us here with me at the head of the rolled tarp and Billy at the feet. We squeeze through a slit in the boulders, cross a tree felled over a stream turned wild after yesterday’s storm. We climb above the fog to this slippery shale and stunted trees and smelly sulfur that’ll be Darlene’s final resting place.
I hold up my hand, stop, and whisper, “You hear that, Billy?”
“What? I don’t hear nothing,” he says in his regular voice and irks me.
I whisper, “Shh… Somebody’s behind us.”
We stand still for a full minute, and my ears strain to catch another scattering of shale.
I say, “Be on the lookout. Can’t be too careful,” and we walk on.
I don’t feel right yet. My belly got emptied this morning in Billy’s yard, and sour puke coats my teeth. I smell ripe. Head’s full of slick thoughts all stuck together and feels lopsided. My skin don’t fit right neither. It’s stretched too thin. If I reach too far, it’ll likely split wide open, and my innards will spill out, and them damn crows sitting low through the branches, quiet as revenuers, will peck at my guts and take scraps of me to the tops of them dying trees.