By Thursday night I couldn’t stand it anymore. “Dad,” I said, grabbing the remote and turning off the TV. “We’re going out.”
“Mack, I don’t feel—”
“I don’t give a goddamn monkey how you feel. We’re going out, and we’re going to have fun.”
“What about your sister? We can’t just leave her home alone.”
“She left twenty minutes ago. She’s sleeping over at Staci’s house.”
“What? On a school night?”
“You said she could. Like, at dinner.”
“Oh. I did?”
“Jesus, man. Shave that crappy beard and let’s go.”
“Are you sure—”
“Rise, O Ancient One! Rise!”
Dad spruced himself up, I put Chompy in his kennel, and we hit the highway in the van. I drove and Dad sat in the passenger seat, peering out his window. I turned left off Main Street and onto the four-lane highway, headed south. The sun had already set and creatures of the night were emerging.
Dad glanced at me. “We’re not going to Thorndale?”
“No sir. That town’s got too many haunts in it.”
“So … Dylan?”
“That’s right, buddy.”
Dad grunted and turned back to his window. We turned onto a winding two-lane that led to Dylan. Trees crept toward the road and remained thick all the way into town, another fifteen miles of classic rock radio, slow moving pickup trucks, and the occasional bat fluttering across the road.
The road dipped and we descended into a wooded valley. Dylan, home to twelve thousand and change, lay spread out on the valley floor, brightly lit amid the dense, woodsy darkness. Night or day, Dylan was a surprisingly pretty and well-organized burg, especially by Balrog County standards. A sawmill was set on its northern edge, right off the highway, so the lumber trucks servicing the mill didn’t need to drive through town. South of the mill sat two gas stations and three fast food joints, followed by a handful of bars and restaurants, with a few stores and a grocery outlet bringing up the rear. Residential homes, a K-12 school, and a town park covered the rest of the valley floor. The town’s nicest homes, and some of the oldest, sat perched along the wooded valley ridge so their owners could look down on the commoners below. Mom had often joked that she’d move us to the Dylan hillside someday so she could send us off in the morning dressed like lumberjack royalty.
“Which glorious tavern shall it be, Father?”
“I don’t care, Mack. You pick.”
“Ah, come on. Don’t be like that.”
“All right. How about the Log Jam?”
“An excellent choice, sir.”
We pulled into the Log Jam’s parking lot, which was crowded for a Thursday night, and parked between two mud-spattered pickup trucks. Smokers stood huddled in clumps of twos and threes outside the bar’s entrance. I stood tall and fell into step beside my father, who was walking like a condemned man across the parking lot, eyes fixed on the ground. I could feel the smokers watching us as we approached, scanning us for familiar features and finding us lacking, outsiders on their Dylan turf, men not to be trusted. A sad middle-aged man and his goofy string-bean son.
The smokers parted for us, nodding politely enough as we passed. I nodded back, unable to decide if I should smile or if they’d see that as a sign of weakness. Dad opened the bar’s front door and I followed him inside.
The Log Jam was warm, loud, and filled with a surprisingly large amount of youngish, attractive-ish ladies.
“Fuck yeah,” I said, slapping Dad on the back. “Watch out, Dylan. The motherfucking Druneswalds are in town.”
“Please, Mack,” Dad said. “We’re in public.”
The best thing about Dylan was the bars in town never carded you, at least not if you were as tall as I was and accompanied by an adult. Dad and I sat at the bar like true drinking men. Like sailors on shore leave, or cassocks at happy hour. Looking around, it was clear that the Log Jam’s rugged décor made the Hickson Legion look like Pussyville, USA. The walls were covered by a delightful collection of circular saw blades, some as big as hay bales, and framed black-and-white photos of old-timey loggers doing their thing: bare-chested muscle men with curling mustaches chopping down trees, standing on top of fallen trees, and hauling trees with teams of horses. Life in Dylan had apparently involved an epic multigenerational war against the area forests.
“You know, I think Katrina would love this place.”
Dad turned on his stool. “Who’s Katrina?”
“Ah … she’s this girl I’ve been seeing.”
“Dating?”
I scratched my head. “Not exactly. I just see her from time to time, around town. When that happens, we hang out. Usually.”
“Well, wear a condom.”
“Dad—”
“Your mother had the sex talk with you, right? She said she did.”
I laughed and took a sip of my whiskey neat. Dad was nursing one sad little bottle of lite beer.
“Yeah, Dad. We got that all settled, like, ten years ago.”
“Good. I’ve got my hands full enough with your sister right now without adding some unexpected teen pregnancy to the mix.”
“You got it, Pops. I’ll lay off the baby-making.”
A lady shrieked loudly at the back of the bar, having a good time. The room had grown louder in the short time we’d been sitting at the bar. It was only seven o’clock, but I figured Dylan was the sort of burg where the weekday carousing peaked by ten. You didn’t want to show up to work at a sawmill too hung over, not if you valued your fingers and limbs.
The waitress swooped by with two beers and two shots of whiskey, though we hadn’t ordered another round yet. “Thanks,” I said, cutting Dad off before he could protest the extra drinks. I nudged a whiskey into his hand and held up my own.
“I’d like to propose a toast.”
Dad eyed the whiskey.
“C’mon, man. Don’t leave me hanging.”
Dad picked up the shot and held it tentatively in the air.
“To Haylee standing up for herself,” I said.
Dad frowned. “No, Mack. To Haylee finding peace.”
We clinked glasses. Dad threw his whiskey back like an old pro and I choked on mine in a rather uncool fashion.
“That’s good,” I said, sputtering. “That must be the good stuff.”
“That was shit,” Dad said. “Well whiskey.”
“Really? I liked it.”
Dad sipped his second beer and looked up at the ceiling. “Well, Mack. If your mother only saw us now.”
I looked around the room, as if my mother could be hiding behind one of the burly locals. Stowed away in their shaggy beards, perhaps, made small and pocket-sized by death.
“This isn’t so bad, is it?”
“I don’t know, kid. You tell me.”
“We’re all still together. She’d like that. And Haylee’s going to be fine. We’ll get her all therapied up and she’ll be as good as new. And we’ve got a dog now, too. Good ol’ Chompy.”
“I thought you hated that dog.”
I drummed on the bar. “Just sort of. He can fucking hunt some pheasants, anyway. You should have seen that beast out with us, running hither and yon. Even Grandpa Hedley was impressed.”
Dad took another sip of his beer. He’d begun to hunch over the bar, like a pill bug curling inward.
“The old codger blames me, you know.”
“For what?”
“For her dying.”
“What?”
“I was supposed to take care of her. His baby girl.”
“But it was cancer—”
“Doesn’t matter. It’s not a rational thing, Mack. I married his daughter and she died on my watch. That’s all he cares about.”
I
drank my beer and tried to summon a counter argument.
“We had an unspoken contract,” Dad said, taking a long sip of his beer. “A gentleman’s agreement.”
The evening softened as we settled into some serious drinking. Time passed in waves, speeding up and slowing down for no apparent reason. Locals joined us at the bar, their outsider-related shyness melting with each passing round. I found myself saying, “You know, I think Hickson is actually a town on the rise,” and ridiculous shit like that while the Dylanites told us stories about union strikes, horrific chainsaw accidents, and rogue logs breaking free and crushing men from the waist down—it was as if we’d stumbled into an old Bruce Springsteen song.
Then it was two a.m. and I was driving the van down a foggy highway. Dad was in the passenger seat, conked out. “We’re going home,” I announced to no one in particular. The highway had two lanes and was lined with trees. It would … connect us to the four-lane, which would … lead us back to Hickson.
Dad started to snore.
A Rush song came on the radio and I sang along, feeling fine.
A blur shot onto the highway, twenty yards distant. I screamed like a girl and slammed on the brakes, throwing the minivan into a hard spin. Something thumped off the van, I screamed some more, and the van came to a rocking stop.
Dad stared out the windshield in dazed shock. I turned down the radio.
“You okay?”
Dad grunted and fumbled with his seat belt, his arms T-Rex clumsy.
“Deer,” I said. “Came out of nowhere.”
More fumbling and Dad finally got himself unbuckled. He opened his passenger door and flung himself out, landing hard on the road.
“Jesus,” I said, unbuckling myself. My entire body was vibrating. I opened my door and stumbled out of the van, using the door to steady myself. The van itself didn’t look so bad—some crumpling along the hood. A big dent.
“Dad?”
My father was standing on the edge of the highway ditch, looking down. He was lit up by the van’s headlights like an actor on stage. I commanded my legs not to buckle and staggered to his side. A brown, furred creature lay at the bottom of the ditch, partially obscured beneath a screen of fog. It looked unbloodied, yet was twisted at an unnatural angle.
“Shit, Mack,” Dad said. “It was a doe.”
I stumbled into the foggy ditch and knelt beside the deer. It had four white spots on its side and two more on its flank. I touched its side. It wasn’t breathing, but it was still warm.
I heard my father’s footsteps crunching up on the road.
“All right,” he shouted. “I’m driving.”
The Mayor’s Corner
Dear Residents of Hickson,
Fall is in full swing and with the changing of the seasons our streets and gutters are filled with dead leaves and twigs. Please make sure you get that lawn raked before the snow falls. I happened to drive around last week on yard waste collection day and noticed many lawns still covered with fallen leaves. I have to say, I was a bit disappointed. Whatever happened to the get-up-and-go that made this country great?
For those of you still mowing your lawn, please remember to NOT blow grass into the city streets. Our hard-working municipal workers already have their hands full with seasonal street cleaning without dead grass adding to the mess.
Finally, Halloween is approaching fast and I know the kiddies are busy working on their Halloween costumes. To celebrate the season, the Hickson City Council has decided to hold a special celebration in Robinson Park. The Hickson American Legion is sponsoring a haunted house and boy, it’s going to be a doozy, so make sure you bring the kids by for frights and fun.
The haunted house opens on Friday and runs through Sunday from 5-10 p.m. each night. We are still looking for “ghoulish” volunteers, so please contact city hall if you’re interested in helping out.
Have a safe and happy Halloween, everyone. If you see vandalism of any shape or form, please call the police immediately. Remember: where there’s smoke, there could be an arrest.
Sincerely,
Mayor George Hedley
The Graveyard Party
Every year Sam threw a party for his parents on the anniversary of their passing.
Usually the party consisted of only Sam and I, setting off fireworks and guzzling a filched bottle of his grandmother’s apple schnapps, but this year Sam invited Haylee and Katrina to join us and, surprisingly, both females accepted the invitation. On Friday I called in sick to both the hardware store and the Legion and picked everybody up in the Olds, driving slow while recalling the deer I’d hit the night before. I drove us to the peninsula graveyard that jutted out onto Baker Lake and we parked near the entrance, the four of us piling out of the car like it was a day at the zoo.
It was already dusk and night was coming on fast. Haylee and Katrina started on ahead while I got the bag of fireworks out of the trunk and Sam fucked around with something in his backpack. As I shut the trunk, Sam appeared at my elbow holding a liquor bottle.
“Whoa, sailor. That’s not schnapps.”
“Somebody gave my grandma vodka last Christmas. I don’t think she even remembers getting it anymore.”
“I should have brought some mix.”
Sam grinned and pulled a second bottle from his backpack. “I hope you like generic citrus soda. I’ve even got ice and plastic cups.”
“Well shit. You’re pulling out all the stops this year, my friend.”
The ladies had walked ahead of us and looked pretty intensely involved in conversation. Sam and I made a beeline across the peninsula for his parents’ graves, which were set beside each other in the graveyard’s newish front section. The graveyard’s lawn was short and brown from the prolonged drought and a ring of dead leaves had piled around each gravestone like a leafy halo. Sam unpacked the cups and drinking materials as Haylee and Katrina slowly made their way over to us. Katrina said something, waving her hand in the air like she was shooing away a bee, and Haylee actually laughed.
Sam poured ice into four plastic cups. “This is the life,” I said. “Out drinking in nature.”
“A fancy man’s picnic,” Sam said. “We’re like a Monet painting.”
“We should be wearing white.”
“Yes. White everything. And I wouldn’t mind a monocle right now.”
“And a long-stemmed pipe carved from the finest briar. I would smoke it expertly and rings of smoke would rise around me in the classiest fashion.”
“Shit. That would be classy.”
The ladies joined us and sat down in the grass. We were all wearing jeans and warm jackets and had prepared for the cool October evening. A fisherman in a little boat buzzed around on Baker Lake, heading home as the sky darkened.
“Welcome everyone,” Sam said, raising the bottle of vodka. “Welcome to the seventh annual Jim and Penny Chervenik Memorial Party.”
Sam bowed and we clapped politely. The breeze picked up and you could smell Baker Lake in all its algaeic glory.
“As is tradition,” Sam said, “we shall begin with a pour out for my homies.”
Sam broke the seal on the vodka, unscrewed the cap, and gave the grass above each of his parent’s graves a three second pour. We all clapped again.
“They were good people,” Sam said, growing damp-eyed as he stared at the ground. “They weren’t rich, good looking, or good at sports, but they’d help a dude out. My dad liked to whittle gnomes and trolls and grilled steak and hamburgers every night, even in the winter. My mom liked reality television and enormous jigsaw puzzles.”
Sam took a pull from the bottle and wiped his mouth. I glanced at Haylee and Katrina and noted they were both watching Sam with a hundred percent of their attention, their feet tucked beneath them cross-legged style.
“My parents didn’t deserve to die, but they died anyway. They
died because an overworked trucker fell asleep and swerved into their lane and smashed them to Kingdom Come. And you know what? That’s life, my friends. That’s life. Shit happens.”
Sam wiped his eyes and handed me the bottle. He puffed out his cheeks and exhaled loudly.
“Okay, Mack. Why don’t you prepare the celebratory libations for our guests.”
“Yes sir.”
I poured three vodka/lemon-lime cocktails, adhering to a ratio of two-thirds mix to one-third vodka, and made a fourth with just soda in it, which I handed to my sister.
“Hey. I want vodka.”
“Sorry, Haystack. You’re a minor.”
“We’re all minors.”
“Yes, but you are even more minor. Also, Dad would cut off my head if he found out I gave you hard booze.”
Haylee scowled, her jaw setting as she stared into her cup. I could feel a smacking rage building up behind her eyes.
“Here,” Katrina said, holding out her own cup. “You can share with me.”
Haylee raised her head and took the cup. She stared me down as she took a gulp, handed the cup back to Katrina, and swished the cocktail around inside her mouth. Then her green-flecked eyes widened, locking on to a new thought, and she sprayed the drink into the air, coughing and sputtering as she grabbed her throat.
“It burns!”
The rest of us laughed as she writhed on the ground, making a real scene of it. We drank our libations and watched the bats come out.
The Firebug of Balrog County Page 15