The Fallen

by Ace Atkins

  “Not to mention she’s going to turn my boy into a damn pussy,” he said. “With all her artsy-fartsy nonsense. Black nail polish and magic spells. I told that woman a long time ago that she can have ice cream or steak. But she can’t have both. What did you say about Ope?”

  “Come on,” Cord said. “You got to let that shit go. Listen, can we do this whole thing with Opie?”

  “Huh,” Wilcox said. “What? What are you saying? Ope’s my chicken-wing man. He’s taking down the cash register and everyone in the restaurant while we hit the car wash. Cool?”

  “I don’t like this,” Cord said. “I don’t like any of it. It all smells like dog shit.”

  “Maybe we should see a counselor?” Wilcox said. “Talk it out. Make some changes. There’s still a chance, right?”

  • • •

  The bullshit might’ve been easier to take without the forty-minute discussion on pest control at the courthouse, the supervisors genuinely perplexed by whether bids should include indoor and outdoor spraying or just be limited to the confines of the building. But, damn, if things didn’t really get serious, Fannie knowing that Skinner was just fucking with her now, moving the pussy debate until last, when the county road manager, a slow-talking pud son of a bitch named Danny Corbitt, asked the county to approve a purchase of a shit ton of a gravel for unsatisfactory roads. After serious consideration, Skinner finally opened up the meeting to the public for comments.

  “I understand one of our constituents would like to speak on enforcement of existing laws,” Skinner said. “There’s been some confusion about nude dancing on premises where alcohol is served.”

  Fannie stood up and approached the lectern, feeling all those eyes on her Jezebel ass, packed tight in a black pencil skirt. She nodded at Skinner and the two porky men sandwiching him, in identical blue suits and dark mortician ties. On the far end was a black man named Dupuy, a frequent customer of Vienna’s, and on the other was a man named Sam Bishop, Jr., who she only knew from the newspaper as some kind of local do-gooder, Boy Scout troop leader and the like.

  Fannie introduced herself as the proprietor of the Rebel Truck Stop, the Golden Cherry Motel, and Vienna’s Place, to which she added, “I recognize many of my best customers in this room,” but not specifying which business. She turned to scan the crowd, several heads dropped behind hands or ball caps tugged down into eyes. A few contractors in dirty boots snickered, not giving a good goddamn.

  “Miss Hathcock,” Skinner said, fluorescent light shining hard off his bald head, pearl-gray Stetson turned crown down on the dais. “While we recognize your right to speak here in public, I hope you know this is a county law we’ve had on the books since 1953 when a predecessor of yours, a spot called the Bamboo Club, offered whiskey and female companionship on the county line.”

  “Maybe it’s unclear exactly what you’re enforcing,” Fannie said.

  Skinner looked down onto some paper, flipping through a few pages, half-glasses down on his bulbous nose. “The law states a few things,” he said. “First and foremost, your entertainers must be at least five feet from customers at all times. The other is that your performers must cover their lower extremities if alcohol is being served.”

  “Excuse me if I don’t have a law degree,” Fannie said, placing her hands on each side of the lectern and bringing her mouth close to the microphone. “You want us to cover the cooch or cork the bottle?”

  Several folks in the meeting room started to laugh, Fannie spotting Betty Jo Mize from the Tibbehah Monitor scribbling down some notes she could never publish. Skinner’s face turned a bright shade of red, still pretending to read the ordinance. But the old man didn’t waver, just answered back. “Yes, ma’am,” he said. “That’s the way the law reads. And it will be enforced starting now. I guess I had been under the impression you had legal counsel with you. And might I remind you, you’re under the clock for public comment. This isn’t up for debate.”

  “I was under the impression you were about to tack on a few more laws.”

  “The current law is under discussion,” Skinner said. “We’ll let you know when the board has made a decision about further action.”

  “That’s damn kind of you, Mr. Skinner,” Fannie said. “But if you want to shuffle the deck, you need to do it right here. There are public meeting laws even in a sorry-ass state like Mississippi. You want to discuss updating that county ordinance, let’s do it now.”

  “There’s a lot to consider,” Skinner said, turning his head and listening to one of the porky men, stuffed into his navy blue suit, whisper into his ear. “We are studying the problem. You are welcome to bring it up at the next meeting.”

  Skinner quickly announced the end to Fannie’s time and she vacated the dais, which was turned over to a black woman from Sugar Ditch who said she had drainage backing up into her front yard. As Fannie hit the back door out of the room, she heard the woman talking about the smell being worse than a truckload of mule farts. Fannie pushed out in the hall, getting a little water from the fountain and waiting for the good ole boys to wrap up so she could brace Skinner.

  Twenty minutes later, the two doors busted open and Skinner waddled out with the two porky little men in tow, both of them also wearing American flag lapel pins.

  “Me and you need to talk,” she said.

  “No, ma’am,” Skinner said. “Not tonight. You have a problem and you can set up a meeting with the county secretary.”

  “Don’t bullshit me,” she said. “Just when are y’all planning to take out my knees?”

  “There’s the consideration of granting a license for your club,” Skinner said. “And issuing licenses for your girls by the health department.”

  “Don’t you think I know if my girls have crotch crickets or the clap?” Fannie said. “I run a class establishment, Mr. Skinner. Haven’t you seen the billboards? ‘The Finest Southern Belles and the Coldest Beer’? I know what I got and what I sell.”

  “They will still need to be tested,” Skinner said, looking both ways down the hall, his two little toads in tight suits heading on out the front door without him. “And licensed. Our goal is to protect the safety and health of the people of Jericho.”

  “Except for when one of you runs the establishment,” Fannie said. “It sounds like you boys want to slap a ban on nude dancing now that a woman is in town. Might want to check with your lawyer first. That’s a violation of a girl’s free speech.”

  “If you don’t like Tibbehah County values,” Skinner said, “no one is forcing you to stay. You can leave town as easily as you arrived from down with the Indians, Miss Hathcock. This is a town of schools and churches. You want to practice your type of business, you might be relegated somewhere farther out in the county and away from children and places of worship.”

  “That sounds an awful lot like a ban to me,” Fannie said. “Extorting money from me and my girls, telling us how we can express ourselves. Telling me that I may need to relocate or be run from town. Have you discussed all this with the sheriff? Because you’re dropping a whole truckload of cow shit on my head at the moment. Don’t you know my heaviest hour of business starts in twenty minutes?”

  “We know the type of people you attract,” Skinner said, looking at Fannie over his half-glasses. “College boys and chicken haulers. I think our county is just fine without their support.”

  “And you might remember a time when the Rebel and what used to be the Booby Trap were the only reason anyone would ever come to visit this backwoods shithole.”

  Skinner stared at her, placing a couple of fingers to his withered mouth, trying to control himself and keep down that anger that Fannie knew was there. “I will ask you not to speak to me with such filth,” Skinner said. “And I will be the first to say Tibbehah County and the town of Jericho did fine before the days of the repugnant Bamboo Club or Johnny Stagg’s barnyard establishments. We are
quite serious about this, Miss Hathcock. You’ve been advised. Look for the sheriff to start enforcing our laws immediately.”

  Fannie ran a hand over her red silk blouse to make sure her black bra wasn’t showing and giving a free show. “I’ve dealt with better men,” Fannie said. “And so has my high-dollar lawyer up in Memphis. He doesn’t make five hundred dollars an hour just to jack his thumb up his ass and cry to Momma.”

  “I like a woman with spunk,” Skinner said, grinning with his yellowed teeth. “Always a pleasure, Miss Hathcock.”

  Fannie collected her Birkin bag from the hallway bench, snatching a cigar from her little case and plucking it into her mouth, walking out of the building and into the parking lot. She hit the UNLOCK button on her Mercedes as that newswoman, Betty Jo Mize, trotted up behind her like a little dog.

  “You think you might be able to repeat some of those same things in English?” Miss Mize asked.

  “Just what didn’t you hear?”

  “Nothing,” Miss Mize said. “Eavesdropping is one of my true talents.”

  Fannie liked the old woman, smiling at her as she lit her cigarillo and leaned against her open car door. “Wish I could I could tell you mine, Miss Mize. But I don’t think you’d print such trash in a family newspaper.”

  “I’ve known Skinner his whole life,” Miss Mize said.

  “Is he who he says he is?”

  Miss Mize thought about it, watching Fannie smoke there in the parking lot. She shook her head. “No, Miss Hathcock,” she said. “He’s something far worse.”

  • • •

  The old man lived at the edge of the Skid Bucket, a gathering of busted-ass trailers not far off the Big Black in east Tibbehah. Most of the trailers were empty, since sweet potato picking time had come and gone, pickers heading into central Florida for strawberry season. Caddy found the ramshackle trailer at the front of the park. The old man named Manuel had been there for years. She heard he was a pretty good bricklayer when he wasn’t drunk.

  Caddy got out of her truck and walked over to the old man. He was cooking a whole chicken over a split oil drum held up by concrete blocks, a mess of other chickens pecking around in the dark. None of them seemed worried their friend was dinner.

  “Manuel?”

  He looked up from the spit, knowing someone had driven up but so damn drunk that he didn’t seem to give a crap. A woman at The River had told her that Manuel knew something about Ana Maria’s father but to make sure to bring tequila. “He talks when he drinks,” the woman had said.

  When Caddy pulled out the tequila bottle from the paper sack, the old man looked up and licked his lips. “My name’s Caddy Colson,” she said. “We’ve met before. I brought you some blankets and a heater last winter.”

  He nodded, bloodshot eyes trained on the bottle. Pepe Lopez in a screw-top bottle.

  “I’m looking for someone,” she said. “A girl named Ana Maria. Her father was a man named José. He did odd jobs, like you. He was a roofer, sometimes hung Sheetrock. He had a tattoo of the Virgin on the back of his neck.”

  “Is that your bottle?” he said. The man was small, dark, and shriveled up. He wore a threadbare pair of overalls with a worn-out green flannel shirt and an orange trucker cap that read WALLS FLOORING.

  “It’s yours, if you help me,” she said. “Do you know José?”

  “José?” He laughed. “I know fifty men named José. Say, open the bottle. Let’s drink, pretty lady. Did anyone tell you you’re so pretty? Even with that short hair like a boy. I’ll feed you some chicken, lady. I just killed it. I wrung its little neck and boiled it today.”

  It had gotten cold, a hard wind shooting through the maze of trailers. White feathers swirled under the single bulb by the trailer door. Caddy had on a mackinaw coat Boom had left down at The River. She thanked Manuel but said she’d already eaten.

  “I know just as many Ana Marias,” he said. “My mother was Ana Maria. Who did you say you were again? I know you. I know your face.”

  “Caddy Colson,” she said. “I’ve brought you blankets. And meals sometimes.”

  “Oh, yes,” he said. “Oh, yes. You are a nice lady. So very nice. Sweet and kind. A true saint. God bless you. God bless you. Would you like some chicken to go with that tequila? Fine bottle. And it’s such a cold night for an old man.”

  “You don’t look so old.”

  He smiled, lots of teeth missing. And those that remained looked brown and loose. “Not more than sixty,” he said. “But I’ve lived a very long and hard life. I’m a bricklayer. Do you know anyone who would hire me? I’m the best in north Mississippi. A man just fired me for being drunk. But I lay the bricks better drunk. It helps me see the patterns and shapes.”

  “This girl,” Caddy said, pulling a picture of Ana Maria from her pocket. “She’s fifteen. She’s with a girl about the same age. A black girl named Tamika.”

  Manuel nodded, taking the photograph, really staring at it a while, before handing it back. “I know her,” he said. “She’s a nice little girl. She lived with her father. Sometimes her father would come here and get drunk with the other men. She would help get him home. Nice girl. Very nice. Like you, my friend. Are you a nice lady?”

  “Where is she?”

  “The girl?” he said. “Oh, she’s gone. They’re all gone. It’s the end of the season. And I’m too old to travel with them. I live here. I’ve lived here for fifteen years. I’m from Nuevo Laredo. Do you know that place? This town is much nicer. This home I have is a mansion to me.”

  “Do you think she’s with her father?”

  “May we open the tequila?”

  “Do you have answers?”

  “I have answers,” he said, shaky hands reaching for the bottle. Not looking up. “But you won’t like what I have to say. Is this girl your friend?”

  “Yes.”

  He cracked the seal and poured the tequila into a red Solo cup. Lifting the cup to his lips, he drained the tequila and poured another. “I’m sorry,” he said. “So sorry. Would you like some? Such a pretty lady needs a drink. Where are my manners? I can be more forward as an old man. You don’t have to be afraid of me.”

  Caddy looked at the bottle, shiny in the firelight, and swallowed. She shook her head and waited while the man drank some more.

  “Her father came back for her two weeks ago,” he said.

  “Did you see her?”

  “No,” Manuel said. “He owed some men a lot of money. He left the girl and then came back.”

  “But he left with her?”

  “The girl was gone,” he said, face flushing with the tequila. “When he demanded his daughter be returned, two men with lead pipes came for him. They beat him very badly. I had to help him stop the bleeding and wrapped his ribs with duct tape. The next day, his truck was gone.”

  “Where?”

  “Back to wherever they go.”

  “Do you know his name?”

  “Like you said,” Manuel said, “José.”

  “A last name?”

  The old man laughed, sticking a fork in the chicken and turning it over onto the spit. The meat sizzled as he poured more tequila into the red cup and savored it a long while. “Will you take the bottle when you leave?”

  Caddy shook her head.

  “These people here,” he said, “they don’t have names or addresses. This man was illegal. So was his daughter. The men who beat him reminded him that he was less important than some stray dog.”

  “Who were the men?”

  “Anglos,” he said. “In a new white truck. I pretended not to see them.”

  “Who had his daughter?”

  “I don’t know,” he said. “I’m very sorry. He only complained and cried. José told me he’d done a terrible, awful thing.”

  “He should have gone to the sheriff.”

&nbs
p; “The police would do nothing but arrest him,” Manuel said. “Who is this man? Who is the girl? Who am I? We don’t really exist. Not here. Not now. In this time . . . Are you sure you’ll leave the bottle?”

  “Where’s their trailer?”

  “Over there,” Manuel said, pointing into the darkness. “It’s a green trailer without a door. A small truck has been parked outside without wheels.”

  Caddy thanked the man and walked toward the dark gravel road lined with empty trailers. She turned to see Manuel sitting in the ragged easy chair, lifting the tequila and smiling into the smoke.

  18

  Early the next morning, Skinner barged into the sheriff’s office, walking by Mary Alice and the Coca-Cola machine to stand right before Quinn’s desk. Quinn was on the phone, talking to a police chief down in Ridgeland about transporting a fella named Herrin J. Arnold back to Tibbehah after he’d been pulled over for speeding. Quinn wanted Herrin back in his jail after he’d ditched Jericho and broke into two more houses up in Yalobusha County. The police chief said Arnold smelled like a gosh dang rancid goat and would be more than happy to FedEx his ass, if possible.

  Quinn hung up and looked up at Skinner. The man stood before him, plaid shirt with a pocket full of pens, khakis, and the Stetson. His face red and breathing labored.

  “Don’t y’all speak English?” Skinner said. “I said I wanted Vienna’s shut down and locked up tight.”

  Quinn didn’t answer the old man. He leaned back in his leather chair and crossed his arms over his chest. His ball cap up on the hat rack, .45 locked and loaded on his desk. He figured he could shoot Skinner, but Lillie always reminded him about the damn paperwork to follow. Quinn hated that paperwork.

  “Before we shut it down, we’ve got to make a case.”

  “What kind of case do y’all boys need?” he said. “They got live cooch shows going on twenty-four/seven down there. Doesn’t take Dick Tracy to see decency laws are being broken.”

  “We sent a deputy by last night,” Quinn said. “Girls had on their G-strings, keeping five feet away from customers. Isn’t that the law?”