A Swollen Red Sun

by Matthew McBride

  Butch Pogue soaked chemicals in coffee filters during the production of crank. When the batch was complete, he immersed the potent filters in fruit punch, then drank the punch over ice in a plastic shaker. He called it Jehovah’s Blood, and it propelled them into the night like rocket fuel—though the conversations it brought forth both mesmerized and terrified Jerry Dean.

  The Reverend proclaimed himself a prophet. Said he’d taken a new wife. She was a young and beautiful soul who filled them with hope and enriched their lives with promise. The prophet said they kept her in the basement.

  Jerry Dean was aghast when he looked at the old house, and his mind was invaded with unimaginable horrors at the thought of what might be in that basement.

  Jerry Dean had only seen one of the Reverend’s wives. The big wife with the dirt face. She hadn’t left the hill in twenty years, not even when Butch did his stretch.

  But Mama was a big-boned stocky bulk of a woman who knew how to work a knife. Jerry Dean was convinced she could take care of herself. She could live off the land in the Reverend’s absence as well as any man.

  The cultivator and the preacher had smoked speed all night. Until the Jehovah’s Blood got the best of the Reverend, and he began to rant. It was a spiritual awakening that washed over him and cleansed Butch Pogue in a wave of Holy Gratitude.

  Jerry Dean was getting out there about as far as he cared to go. His mind was warping and bending. But he was trapped. His place was on the hill until the Reverend said it wasn’t.

  Butch stood on his soapbox and beckoned his family as he pounded his chest and gave thanks to the sun. He cast out the demons that slept in his mind and admonished the devils that swam in his heart. Screamed, “We have all been forgiven,” over and over again.

  Jerry Dean turned and saw them stumble from the farmhouse. The big woman and her slow son and her husband’s new wife—her long brown hair combed to look straight, curls semi-restrained but ungovernable.

  Butch Pogue tore off his shirt and flung it to the ground. “We do this for you, Oh Great One,” he screamed, voice dry and breaking. “I offer you this sacrifice.”

  He yelled for Junior to bring him a pig.

  Butch Pogue Junior was a man in body, but his mind was dawdling and unhurried. He’d never seen a movie or been to school. Jerry Dean wasn’t sure if he’d ever been down the mountain, and it would not surprise him to any degree if he hadn’t.

  “C’mon, boy. Bring me a pig,” the Prophet demanded.

  Junior did as he was told. He nodded his head and shuffled his feet and disappeared into the woods for a longer period of time than Jerry Dean was able to account for—yet he was in awe of the strange ritual he found himself a part of. A bizarre ceremony with a perverted lunatic, a retarded son, and a stolen bride.

  Junior returned. Pulled a swine with a rope onto the mound of elevated earth where his father stood and tied the pig to a stump.

  Butch held his arms to the sky, and his eyes rolled back in his head until the razor-sharp cobalt was a memory and they showed solid white.

  The preacher began preaching and appealing to the highest of callings.

  Jerry Dean felt chills, and the sun hid behind clouds and the sky turned gray. Butch Pogue preached in the shadows, the sound of his voice hoarse and failing.

  When Jerry Dean looked at the girl, he felt a stir under his belt buckle. Her skin was fresh and new, the color of eggshells. Like it had not felt the sun’s heat in months.

  She begged for help with every shiver.

  Butch kicked his sermon into overdrive and pulled a machete from his makeshift pulpit. He looked at his son and his wives and nodded with approval.

  He looked at Jerry Dean and his mouth was moving, but Jerry Dean did not know the words. The Reverend spoke in tongues. In a language of gibberish squalling and cackles.

  His new wife squinted when the sun reappeared. Jerry Dean was drawn to her. Wondered how she would look without that ball gag in her mouth. Lips stretched thin and pink. Eyes hollow and gray and dead. Like the sky above them. Like everything inside her heart had been destroyed and replaced by cardboard.

  But somewhere inside was a spark of life. If only he could find it.

  “Brother,” the Reverend commanded.

  Butch handed Jerry Dean the knife and began a rant that was heard by all and understood by none.

  Butch squeezed Jerry Dean’s palm around the handle. Held his head with his free hand. Their eyes locked onto each other and their foreheads touched. The Reverend said, “Kill that swine, Brother Jerry.”

  Brother Jerry took the machete.

  As he walked to the mound, Jerry Dean looked into Mama’s soulless face and her eyes grew impossibly wide, her facial bones twisted and contorted. She chomped her sharp teeth, but they weren’t teeth, they were elongated ivory razors.

  Mama whispered, “I’m gonna eat you soon.”

  Jerry Dean swung the blade into the pig’s neck, and blood sprayed the yard in a fine mist. The pig jumped and bucked and squealed, and Jerry Dean pounded that swine with the blade until it was dead and Butch had fresh blood across his face.

  “Can you feel that?” he asked Jerry Dean. “Can you feel that, Brother?”

  Jerry Dean watched the pig fall to the ground, and its short fat legs kicked and its hooves pushed up grass and it bled out in the dirt.

  Butch took Jerry Dean by the arms and whispered in his ear, “Can you feel that, Jerry Dean?”

  Jerry Dean said he could, and Butch said, “Praise the Lord.”

  The air smelled like death as Butch and his wives danced without music.

  Banks watched the sun creep over the forest of oak trees and a crack of light broke through the night and grew longer and wider and ate the black like a fungus until the darkness was gone and there was light and it was day.

  He dumped a cup of cold coffee in the grass. Banks had spent another restless night thinking of the money. He thought about Olen, too. About Jackson Brandt, and all the new problems taking the money had created. Banks thought about his options and remembered the conversation they’d had. Maybe somehow, someway, Banks could use him.

  If there was a cop collecting money, Jerry Dean would tell him—and whoever that cop was would know Banks was dirty. Though Banks did not think of it that way. Banks was a family man. He knew he should give the money back. They would survive without it. Giving it back was the right thing to do.

  But now he couldn’t. Or if he could, he didn’t know how. He did not want to involve Hastings. Banks could not have that hanging over his head. The kid had enough to worry about. Ten years back, his old man had driven his patrol car into a minivan full of carolers. It was Christmas. They were going to see the lights.

  Bill Hastings was drunk and everyone else died.

  A week later, he got in a bar fight, then jumped off a bridge into the Missouri River. He drowned before his case went to trial.

  Banks knew that was a lot for a young man to swallow. He’d do his best to protect Bo.

  Banks spent the better part of the morning with the Lake Area Narcotics Enforcement Group. Helped them serve a search warrant at a property on Highway P.

  It was a ranch-style home made of rock and tan brick with a big spread of land and a manicured yard. Banks could not believe how bad things had gotten. It wasn’t just the shit bums who got addicted to the pipe. It was blue-collar people who rolled their sleeves up and went to work every day. It was a white-collar banker, like this guy. Caught up in a world he did not understand.

  Banks sat on the hood of his patrol car and studied a ripened cornfield. Watched the pale sky with thick patches of broken cloud drift above the rows of brawny stalks.

  The banker had a meth lab in his barn, but he said it wasn’t his. He let a guy cook on the weekends, and he kept some of the product. Thought he’d never get caught.

  “Nobody does, asshole,” Banks said. He shook his head while another deputy took the banker into custody.

  Banks was tired
of seeing his town fall apart. The banker was a member of the chamber of commerce, a pillar of the community. Every damn day someone new went to jail for crank, and it gnawed at Banks like a splinter under his toenail.

  Winkler walked up and asked him what he knew.

  Banks pointed to the cornfield. “I know some sumbitch needs to combine that corn.”

  “Sure ’nuff,” Winkler said. “It is late in the season.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  The wind swirled dust, and Winkler looked up at the clouds. “Sure could use rain.”

  “Ain’t that the truth,” Banks said. “It’s drier than a popcorn fart.”

  Winkler shrugged. Chewed on his lip. Banks contemplated a fresh pinch of Skoal.

  “Hell of a thing right there, Dale. That’s the same sumbitch turned me down on a loan for that Gator Boat I wanted.”

  Banks laughed and spit. “That right?”

  “Oh, it sure is.”

  Banks bent over and dug the spent wad of chew from the bottom of his mouth with his tongue and let it fall in the dirt. “I reckon you don’t feel too sorry for him, then.”

  “Not at all.”

  “Well, I don’t blame you none there, Winky. I remember you’s madder’n hell.”

  Winkler shook his head. “I’m still mad.”

  Around noon, Banks put in a call to Olen Brandt and got nervous when he didn’t answer. He decided he’d pay the old man a visit, but a car wreck happened first and he got sidetracked. A history teacher had rear-ended an eighteen-wheeler in front of the local Walmart.

  It didn’t sound good.

  Banks responded quickly to the scene. Only to be beaten by Dan Marnier, the editor of the town newspaper.

  “You must have a police scanner jammed up your ass, Marnier,” Banks said.

  Marnier was always first on every scene and never missed an opportunity to film dead bodies. A teacher, grandparents, kids. It didn’t matter. Marnier took their pictures, and people hated him for it.

  “One of these days, that’ll be you in a wrecked car and I’ll be takin’ your picture.”

  Marnier smirked but kept his mouth shut. He was a small-town boy with big-city dreams who had never left the county. Taking pictures of dead bodies was his way of contributing.

  The teacher—Jim Hanson—was huge in the gut, bigger than Banks. The steering wheel of the Ford Ranger had crushed him. Smashed his rib cage into his heart and shoved his guts out through his asshole.

  Banks checked for a pulse, but it was over for Mr. Hanson.

  Banks thought about Bo.

  Jim Hanson had been his football coach and mentor. He’d spent a lot of time with the kid in school. Did his best to fill the void created by Bill Hastings’s departure.

  Banks cringed at the thought of Bo pulling up at the scene, which, any minute, he would surely do.

  A few minutes later, first responders arrived. Followed by the volunteer fire department. Earl Lee sprang from his Mustang in khaki pants and a fireman’s hat and started barking orders.

  Banks stepped back to direct traffic while Marnier got in for the close-ups.

  Deputy Winkler pulled up and climbed out of his car and walked toward Banks. “That ain’t Mr. Hanson, is it, Dale?”

  “Was.”

  “Oh, gosh dammit. Shit. Fuck.”

  Winky threw the bottle of Dr Pepper he’d been holding on the ground.

  “Sorry ’bout that, Wink. I know y’all was close.”

  “Yeah, Dale, but not as close as him ’n’ Bo.”

  When Winkler saw Marnier snapping pictures, he blew a gasket—but Banks had anticipated such a reaction. Grabbed his arm. “You don’t wanna do this.”

  But Winkler said he did and made his move. Banks let him go and did his best to direct traffic.

  “You put that camera away right now, Marnier, you son of a bitch.”

  “I’m just doin’ my job.”

  “Well, you gonna be doin’ it with a broken jaw you don’t put that camera down.”

  They argued and Winkler yelled, and finally, after much swearing and spitting and threatening, Marnier limped away. Like a dog that just had its teeth kicked in by a steel-toed boot.

  Winkler, red-faced and sweating, walked back to Banks and nodded.

  “Feel better?”

  Winkler said he did.

  Then Hastings pulled up and sat in his car. He stepped into the sun with his head hung low. Walked toward the both of them. Winkler walked toward him.

  “Is that … ?”

  “Yeah, I’m afraid so, Bo. Poor Mr. Hanson.”

  Hastings stopped. Lowered his head.

  Winkler said, “Bo, you go on back to the ranch. We got this.”

  Banks agreed. Told him, “Get.”

  “Go on, now,” Winkler said. He grabbed Hastings by the shoulders. Spun him around, pointed him toward his car. “We’re on this, bud.”

  Hastings nodded. Walked back to the cruiser. He climbed in and put on his seat belt and started the car and pulled onto the road.

  When Fish got out of jail, he was alone. His family had abandoned him. And since the bank had repossessed their trailer, he had nothing left to show for his miserable life but a handful of cinder blocks and a twelve-by-sixty outline on a patch of hot dirt. But at least he had his shed, and then they came and took that, too. Took his tools and his supplies and a half-ounce of crank that was hidden in his Igloo cooler—a half-ounce of crank he had to get back if he wanted to save his trailer. It was not too late. Long as there was air in his lungs, he would fight.

  His wife took the boys and moved in with her mom, then left the kids with her mom and moved in with his cousin. Turns out she’d been seeing him for a year, and Fish should have seen that coming. But he was too busy making crank, which was his way of providing.

  After he’d accused her of fucking his cousin, an accusation she’d denied, Fish had kicked her and punched her and loosened her teeth from the gums.

  On the floor, bleeding and crying, she’d called 911. Begged him to stop—but he’d driven his fists into her stomach anyway. Then the kid had shown up, they’d fought, and Fish had been falsely arrested. Unjustly imprisoned.

  And that was the last time he’d seen Raylene.

  Now his wife and kids were gone. And, looking back toward previous days, the warning signs had been there all along. If only he’d taken the time to see them.

  But all of it was his fault, to hear her speak. Because he’d never had a good job or been to college or got a degree, though she did not complain when he gave her the money he earned from the crank he made—crank she claimed not to know about. But she knew. Women in her position always did but pretended not to.

  And so Fish found himself lost and homeless and broke. Living in his pickup truck, trying to survive. He drove by the Bay Bank, slowly. Second gear at an idle. The old truck pushing smoke through a rusted exhaust pipe.

  He’d watched the bank for years. Planning for the day when he’d have just enough balls to rob it. Now, after everything in his life was gone, he had found them.

  It would not be hard. The bank had two rooms, and the town of Bay was small. A few dozen people on a two-lane road—half of them beyond their golden years. The building itself was as old as the people, built in the 1800s and owned by a woman who should have retired but chose to hang on.

  Hanging on was all she knew. Taking people’s money was what she did. Taking mobile homes from family men gave her a reason to go on living.

  But taking the shed that served as his meth lab had been the final straw.

  He could see it in the parking lot, beside his family’s trailer. The back had been damaged during transport, and a window was missing. Old and broken and sad. Pink insulation hung from its belly like the guts of a wounded beast.

  Fish would come back late that night with bolt cutters and clip her lock off the door, retake what was rightfully his. He would snort line after line till the sun came up—and then it was her time to pay. He would char
ge inside the bank with his shotgun and reclaim what belonged to him.

  Or maybe he wouldn’t, though he ought to. But his main focus was the crank and what he knew he could do with it. There were a handful of people on standby who would take it off his hands. Give him back everything he’d lost a hundred dollars at a time.

  He shifted gears and nudged the gas. The truck rumbled up the small hill and down the other side and disappeared past Fowler’s creek.

  Fish took back roads to a clearing in Olen Brandt’s field. He limped his pickup through a shallow ditch and drove to the river. Parked beneath a sycamore tree and twisted a doobie and lit it. Watched the sun bake golden ripples where the water hit the shallow spots.

  There was a 12-gauge beside him and a handgun behind the seat.

  Fish pulled a hit from the joint. He coughed and thought. There were a pair of gloves on the floorboard and a ski mask. Fourteen rounds of buckshot and a clip for the .45.

  He hung his head out the window and spat. Saw his face in the side mirror and froze. Looked at himself. When did he get so old? There was a scar across his chin that curved at the end and was made by a two-by-four. They’d been leveling their trailer when he’d stomped it in half with his boot to make a shim. When he did, the wood broke and jumped up and drove a nail in his jaw. Split him open.

  Fish bled for a day and thought he’d never recover. But that was because he would pick. He would pull the scab off while it was fresh and caress the pink scar with his finger.

  His entire life was one long scar.

  Fish sat back in the cab and drew another hit from the joint and watched a family float down the river. There was a man and two kids in a johnboat with a 35-horsepower Merc. He saw a beer cooler and some fishing poles. Memories being made they would never forget.

  In a different life, that was him and his two kids, before he had failed them. Or him with his sister and dad, before his sister was cut to shreds and his old man turned to drink. Before his mom worked two jobs until the cancer ate her bones to powder and she died a pile of skin.

  Fish watched them float and cast and talk. Watched them love one another in a way he had not been loved. It was a love that you read about in books or saw on TV—Dad baited Junior’s hook, and he laughed when it hit the bank. He didn’t drag his knuckles across Junior’s cheek like Big Fish would have done.