The O. Henry Prize Stories 2005

by Laura Furman

  “How about we go over to Dink's first and get some beer.”

  “Leonard's got beer. His is cheaper and it ain’t piss-warm like what we got at Dink's last time.”

  They drove out of Marshall, following 221 toward Mars Hill.

  “You in for a treat, meeting Leonard,” Travis said. “They ain’t another like him, leastways in this county.”

  “I heard tell he was a lawyer once.”

  “Naw, he just went to law school a few months. They kicked his ass out because he was stoned all the time.”

  After a mile they turned off the blacktop and onto a dirt road. On both sides of the road what had once been pasture was now thick with blackjack oak and broomsedge. They passed a deserted farmhouse and turned onto another road no better than a logging trail, trees on both sides now.

  The woods opened into a small meadow, at the center a battered green-and-white trailer, its windows painted black. On one side of the trailer a satellite dish sprouted like an enormous mushroom, on the other side a Jeep Cherokee, its back fender crumpled. Two Dobermans scrambled out from under the trailer, barking as they ran toward the truck. They leaped at Lanny's window, their claws raking the passenger door as he quickly rolled up the window.

  The trailer door opened and a man with a gray ponytail and wearing only a pair of khaki shorts stepped onto the cinder-block steps. He yelled at the dogs and when that did no good he came out to the truck and kicked at them until they slunk back from where they had emerged.

  Lanny looked at a man who wasn’t any taller than himself and looked to outweigh him only because of a stomach that sagged over the front of his shorts like a half-deflated balloon.

  “That's Leonard?”

  “Yeh. The one and only.”

  Leonard walked over to Travis's window.

  “I got nothing but beer and a few nickel bags. Supplies are going to be low until people start to harvest.”

  “Well, we likely come at a good time then.” Travis turned to Lanny. “Let's show Leonard what you done brought him.”

  Lanny got out and pulled back the branches and potato sacks.

  “Where’d you get that from?” Leonard said.

  “Found it,” Lanny said.

  “Found it, did you? And you figured finders keepers.”

  “Yeh,” said Lanny

  Leonard let his fingers brush some of the leaves.

  “Looks like you dragged it through every briar patch and laurel slick between here and the county line.”

  “There's plenty of leaves left on it,” Travis said.

  “What you give me for it?” Lanny said.

  Leonard lifted each stalk, looking at it the same way Lanny had seen buyers look at tobacco.

  “Fifty dollars.”

  “You trying to cheat me,” Lanny said. “I’ll find somebody else to buy it.”

  As soon as he spoke Lanny wished he hadn’t, because he’d heard from more than one person that Leonard Hamby was a man you didn’t want to get on the wrong side of. He was about to say that he reckoned fifty dollars would be fine but Leonard spoke first.

  “You may have an exalted view of your entrepreneurial abilities,” Leonard said.

  Lanny didn’t understand all the words but he understood the tone. It was smart-ass but it wasn’t angry.

  “I’ll give you sixty dollars, and I’ll double that if you bring me some that doesn’t look like it's been run through a hay baler. Plus I got some cold beers inside. My treat.”

  “OK,” Lanny said, surprised at Leonard but more surprised at himself, how tough he’d sounded. He tried not to smile as he thought how when he got back to Marshall he’d be able to tell his friends he’d called Leonard Hamby a cheater to his face and Leonard hadn’t done a damn thing about it but offer more money and free beer.

  Leonard took a money clip from his front pocket and peeled off three twenties and handed them to Lanny. Leonard nodded toward the meadow's far corner.

  “Put them over there next to my tomatoes. Then come inside if you got a notion to.”

  Lanny and Travis carried the plants through the knee-high grass and laid them next to the tomatoes. As they approached the trailer Lanny watched where the Dobermans had vanished under the trailer. He didn’t lift his eyes until he reached the steps.

  Inside, it took Lanny's vision a few moments to adjust, because the only light came from a TV screen. Strings of unlit Christmas lights ran across the walls and over door eaves like bad wiring. A dusty-looking couch slouched against the back wall. In the corner Leonard sat in a fake-leather recliner patched with black electrician's tape. Except for a stereo system, the rest of the room was shelves filled with books and CDs. Music was playing, music that didn’t have any guitars or words.

  “Have a seat,” Leonard said, and nodded at the couch.

  A woman stood in the foyer between the living room and kitchen. She was a tall, bony woman and the cutoff jeans and halter top she wore had little flesh to hold them up. She’d gotten a bad sunburn and there were pink patches on her skin where she’d peeled. To Lanny she mostly looked wormy and mangy, like some stray dog around a garbage dump. Except for her eyes. They were a deep blue, like a jaybird's feathers. If you could just keep looking into her eyes, she’d be a pretty woman, Lanny told himself.

  “How about getting these boys a couple of beers, Wendy,” Leonard said.

  “Get them your ownself” the woman said, and disappeared into the back of the trailer.

  Leonard shook his head but said nothing as he got up. He brought back two longneck Budweisers and a sandwich bag filled with pot and some wrapping papers.

  He handed the beers to Travis and Lanny and sat down. Lanny was thirsty and he drank quickly as he watched Leonard carefully shake some pot out of the bag and onto the paper. Leonard licked the cigarette paper and twisted it at both ends, then lit it.

  The orange tip brightened as Leonard drew the smoke in. He handed the joint to Travis, who drew on it as well and handed it back.

  “What about your buddy?”

  “He don’t smoke pot. Scared his daddy would find out and beat the tar out of him.”

  “That ain’t so,” Lanny said. “I just like a beer buzz better.”

  Lanny lifted the bottle to his lips and drank until the bottle was empty.

  “I’d like me another one.”

  “Quite the drinker, aren’t you,” Leonard said. “Just make sure you don’t overdo it. I don’t want you passed out and pissing on my couch.”

  “I ain’t gonna piss on your couch.”

  Leonard took another drag of the joint and passed it back to Travis.

  “They’re in the refrigerator,” Leonard said. “You can get one easy as I can.”

  Lanny stood up and for a moment he felt off plumb, maybe because he’d drunk the beer so fast. When the world steadied he got the beer and sat back down on the couch. He looked at the TV, some kind of western but without the sound on he couldn’t tell what was happening. He drank the second beer quick as the first as Travis and Leonard finished smoking the pot.

  Travis had his eyes closed.

  “Man, I’m feeling good,” Travis said.

  Lanny studied the man who sat in the recliner, trying to figure out what it was that made Leonard Hamby a man you didn’t want to mess with. Leonard looked soft, Lanny thought, white and soft like bread dough. Just because a man had a couple of mean dogs didn’t make him such a badass, he told himself. He thought about his own daddy and Lin-wood Toomey big men you could look at and tell right away were badasses, or, like his daddy, once had been. Lanny wondered if anyone would ever call him a badass and wished again that he didn’t take after his mother, who was short and thin-boned.

  “What's this shit you’re listening to, Leonard,” Lanny said.

  “It's called ‘Appalachian Spring.’ It's by Copland.”

  “Ain’t never heard of them.”

  Leonard looked amused.

  “Are you sure? They used to be the warm-up act
for Lynyrd Skynyrd.”

  “I don’t believe that.”

  “No matter. Copland is an acquired taste, and I don’t anticipate your listening to a classical music station anytime in the future.”

  Lanny knew Leonard was putting him down, talking over him like he was stupid, and it made him think of his teachers at the high school, teachers that used smart-ass words against him when he gave them trouble because they were too old and scared to try anything else. He got up and made his way to the refrigerator, damned if he was going to ask permission. He got the beer out and opened the top but didn’t go back to the couch. He went down the hallway to find the bathroom.

  The bedroom door was open, and he could see the woman sitting up in the bed reading a magazine. He pissed and then walked into the bedroom and sat down on the bed.

  The woman laid down the magazine.

  “What do you want?”

  Lanny grinned.

  “What you offering?”

  Even buzzed up with beer he knew it was a stupid thing to say. It seemed to him that ever since he’d got to Leonard's his mouth had been a faucet he couldn’t shut off.

  The woman's blue eyes stared at him like he was nothing more than a sack of shit somebody had dumped on her bed.

  “I ain’t offering you anything,” she said. “Even if I was, a little pecker-head like you wouldn’t know what to do with it.”

  The woman looked toward the door.

  “Leonard,” she shouted.

  Leonard appeared at the doorway.

  “It's past time to get your Cub Scout meeting over.”

  Leonard nodded at Lanny.

  “I believe you boys have overstayed your welcome.”

  “I was getting ready to leave anyhow,” Lanny said. As he got up, the beer slipped from his hand and spilled on the bed.

  “Nothing but a little peckerhead,” the woman said.

  In a few moments he and Travis were outside. The evening sun glowed in the treetop like a snagged orange balloon. The first lightning bugs rode over the grass as though carried on an invisible current.

  “You get more plants, come again,” Leonard said and closed the trailer door.

  Lanny went back the next Saturday, two burlap sacks stuffed into his belt. After he’d been fired from the Pay-Lo, he’d about given up hope on earning enough money for his own truck, but now things had changed. Now he had what was pretty damn near a money tree and all he had to do was get its leaves to Leonard Hamby. He climbed up the waterfall, the trip up easier without a creel and rod. Once he passed the No Trespassing sign, he moved slower, quieter. I bet Linwood Toomey didn’t even plant it, Lanny told himself. I bet it was somebody who figured the Toomeys were too sorry to notice pot was growing on their land.

  When he came close to where the plants were, he crawled up the bank, slowly raising his head like a soldier in a trench. He scanned the tree line across the field and saw no one. He told himself even if someone hid in the trees, they could never get across the field to catch him before he was long gone down the creek.

  Lanny cut the stalks just below the last leaves. Six plants filled the sacks. He thought about cutting more, taking what he had to the truck and coming back to get the rest, but he figured that was too risky. He made his way back down the creek. He didn’t see anyone on the river trail, but if he had he’d have said it was poke shoots in the sacks if they’d asked.

  When he drove up to the trailer, Leonard was watering the tomatoes with a hose. Leonard cut off the water and herded the Dobermans away from the truck. Lanny got out of the truck and walked around to the truck bed.

  “How come you grow your own tomatoes but not your own pot?”

  “Because I’m a low-risk kind of guy. Since they’ve started using the planes and helicopters, it's gotten too chancy unless you have a place way back in some hollow.”

  One of the Dobermans growled from beneath the trailer but did not show its face.

  “Where's your partner?”

  “I don’t need no partner,” Lanny said. He lifted the sacks from the truck bed and emptied them onto the ground between him and Leonard.

  “That's one hundred and twenty dollars’ worth,” Lanny said.

  Leonard stepped closer and studied the plants.

  “Fair is fair,” Leonard said, and pulled a money clip from his pocket. He handed Lanny five twenty-dollar bills and four fives.

  Lanny crumpled the bills in his fist and stuffed them into his pocket, but he did not get back in the truck.

  “What?” Leonard finally said.

  “I figured you to ask me in for a beer.”

  “I don’t think so. I don’t much want to play host this afternoon.”

  “You don’t think I’m good enough to set foot in that roachy old trailer of yours.”

  Leonard looked at Lanny and smiled.

  “Boy, you remind me of a banty rooster, strutting around not afraid of anything, puffing your feathers out anytime anyone looks at you wrong. You think you’re a genuine, hardcore badass, don’t you?”

  “I ain’t afraid of you, if that's what you’re getting at. If your own woman ain’t scared of you, why should I be.”

  Leonard looked at the money clip in his hand. He tilted it in his hand until the sun caught the metal and a bright flash hit Lanny in the face. Lanny jerked his head away from the glare.

  Leonard laughed and put the money clip back in his pocket.

  “After the world has its way with you a few years, it’ll knock some of the strut out of you. If you live that long.”

  “I ain’t wanting your advice,” Lanny said. “I just want some beer.”

  Leonard went into the trailer and brought out a six-pack of cans.

  “Here,” he said. “A farewell present. Don’t bother to come around here anymore.”

  “What if I get you some more plants?”

  “I don’t think you better try to do that. Whoever's pot that is will be harvesting in the next few days. You best not be anywhere near when they’re doing it either.”

  “What if I do get more?”

  “Same price, but if you want any beer you best be willing to pay bootleg price like your buddies.”

  The next day soon as Sunday lunch was finished, he put on jeans and a T-shirt and tennis shoes and headed toward the French Broad. The day was hot and humid, and the only people on the river were a man and two boys swimming near the far bank. By the time he reached the creek his T-shirt was sweat-soaked and sweat stung his eyes.

  Upstream the trees blocked out most of the sun and the cold water he splashed on his face and waded through cooled him. At the waterfall, an otter slid into the pool. Lanny watched its body surge through the water, straight and sleek as a torpedo, before disappearing under the far bank. He wondered how much an otter pelt was worth and figured come winter it might be worth finding out. He knelt and cupped his hand, the pool's water so cold it hurt his teeth.

  He climbed the left side of the falls, then made his way upstream until he got to the No Trespassing sign. If someone waited for him, Lanny believed that by now the person would have figured out he’d come up the creek, so he stepped up on the right bank and climbed the ridge into the woods. He followed the sound of water until he figured he’d gone far enough and came down the slope slow and quiet, stopping every few yards to listen. When he got to the creek, he looked upstream and down before crossing.

  The plants were still there. He pulled the sacks from his belt and walked toward the first plant, his eyes on the trees across the field.

  The ground gave slightly beneath his right foot. He did not hear the spring click. What he heard was the sound of bone shattering. Pain raced like a flame up his leg to consume his whole body.

  When he came to, he was on the ground, his face inches from a pot plant. This ain’t nothing but a bad dream, he told himself, thinking that if he believed it hard enough it might become true. He used his forearm to lift his head enough to look at the leg and the leg twisted slightly and
the pain hit him like a fist. The world turned deep blue and he thought he was going to pass out again, but in a few moments the pain eased a little.

  He looked at his foot and immediately wished he hadn’t. The trap's jaws clenched around his leg just above the ankle. Blood soaked the tennis shoe red, and the leg angled back on itself in a way that made bile surge up from his stomach. Don’t look at it anymore until you have to, he told himself and laid his head back on the ground.

  His face looked toward the sun now, and he guessed it was still early afternoon. Maybe it ain’t that bad, he told himself. Maybe if I just lay here a while it’ll ease up some, and I can get the trap off. He lay still as possible, breathing long shallow breaths, trying to think about something else. He remembered what Old Man Jenkins had said about how one man could pretty much fish out a stream of speckle trout by himself if he took a notion to. Lanny wondered how many speckle trout he’d be able to catch out of Caney Creek before they were all gone. He wondered if after he did he’d be able to find another way-back trickle of water that held them.

  He must have passed out again, because when he opened his eyes the sun hovered just above the tree line. When he tested the leg, pain flamed up every bit as fierce as before. He wondered how late it would be tonight before his parents would get worried and how long it would take after that before someone found his truck and got people searching. Tomorrow at the earliest, he told himself, and even then they’d search the river before looking anywhere else.

  He lifted his head a few inches and shouted toward the woods. No one called back, and he imagined Linwood Toomey and his son passed-out drunk in their farmhouse. Being so close to the ground muffled his voice, so he used a forearm to raise himself a little higher and called again.

  I’m going to have to sit up, he told himself, and just the thought of doing so made the bile rise again in his throat. He took deep breaths and used both arms to lift himself into a sitting position. The pain smashed against his body again but just as quickly eased. The world began draining itself of color until everything around him seemed shaded with gray. He leaned back on the ground, sweat popping out on his face and arms like blisters.