by Steph Post
Jack O’ Lantern dug the toe of his boot into the baked ashes of the fire pit he had constructed in one corner of the gravel lot. After drinking a quart of tomato juice that he found in the club’s refrigerator, he had stumbled outside, puked a stream of red vomit onto the tire of one of the prospect’s bikes and collapsed into a canvas lawn chair next to the pit. It had been too hot the last month to have any kind of fire and the remains of the charred wood had been beaten down by the rain until they were only smudged lumps of charcoal. Jack rested his forehead on the palm of his hand and stared into the black mess.
He had encouraged the guys to get lit after Slim Jim, Legs and Shelia had returned from Silas with the news that the deed had been done. Jack O’ Lantern had decided they should celebrate, hoping that no one would dwell on the fact that all they had done so far to get their money back was drag an innocent man almost to his death. He had seen the look in Slim Jim’s eyes over a shot of tequila, not of remorse, but of uncertainty. The Cannon boy was a message, but hardly a solution. They had lit a match and thrown it into the haystack, hoping to drive the Cannons out into the open, but they could just as easily be setting their own field on fire. Jack adjusted himself in the chair and pulled his cellphone out. It was just after noon. He was sure that someone would have found the kid by now. He needed his men up and ready, primed for retaliation, out on the road and on their phones, checking for smoke signals. Instead, even he was having trouble standing up for more than five minutes at a time. This was not a good sign.
He heard the clubhouse door slam and turned around, hoping that Slim Jim had managed to peel himself off the pool table and was ready to get to work. He needed him to head down to Silas and scout around, see what the news on the street was. But it wasn’t Slim Jim walking unsteadily across the gravel lot toward him. It was Shelia, trying to smooth her disheveled hair and twist her miniskirt the right way around. Jack O’ Lantern mumbled under his breath.
“Christ.”
Shelia walked up and stood awkwardly next to him, waiting for him to say something. He didn’t raise his head to look up at her. She tapped her foot impatiently and then huffed and plopped down in the lawn chair next to him. With his head still down, Jack O’ Lantern watched her pull a pack of Capris out of her bag. She put a slim cigarette between her lips and continued to dig around in her purse.
“Hey, Jack, you got a light?”
He kept his head down.
“No.”
“Come on, I know you do. Oh wait, I got it.”
She pulled a hot pink lighter from the bag and lit her cigarette. Jack O’ Lantern smelled the smoke as Shelia exhaled and immediately began craving a cigarette, but there was no way he was going to ask for one of those pussy sticks. They sat together in uncomfortable silence until Jack realized that she was not going to go away on her own. He finally grunted, raised his head and stretched his back out. She was sitting with her legs crossed, skirt hiked up too high, staring at him. Jack O’ Lantern rubbed his face with his callused hands and then smacked the tops of his thighs.
“What’d you want, Shelia?”
“Good morning to you, too.”
She twisted her lips in a sour expression and Jack O’ Lantern had the urge to slap her. She wasn’t his old lady, but she’d still give him just as much grief as if she was. At this moment, he could not bear to hear her shrill voice screeching at him. It was easier to just placate her and hustle her out of there.
“I’m serious, Shelia. I ain’t got time for this. What’re you after?”
Shelia uncrossed her legs and took another drag from her cigarette.
“I know what you did to that boy last night.”
“You don’t know shit.”
Shelia pulled at the hem of her skirt. She looked over at Jack O’ Lantern and then through the chain link fence beyond. The long, sandy driveway was glaring in the noon sun.
“I was there. I know what you did to him.”
“You don’t know nothing, girl.”
Shelia continued to look off down the drive.
“I don’t know what he did to you, but he seemed like a real nice guy. Just a sweet kid. I can’t imagine what he coulda done to deserve that.”
Jack O’ Lantern suddenly reached over to Shelia, grabbed her leg and jerked her closer. With his other hand he reached behind her head and yanked a handful of hair so that she was forced to look straight up at him. Her eyes were wide with fear and the tendons in her neck bulged out from the way he was holding her. She had dropped her cigarette.
“I ain’t gonna say it again. You don’t know nothing. Do you understand?”
Shelia couldn’t nod her head, but she whispered. Her lips were trembling.
“Yes.”
“Good.”
Jack O’ Lantern released her and sat back down in the lawn chair. Shelia edged up in her seat and rubbed the back of her head. She stared into the muddled ashes of the fire pit. Jack O’ Lantern waited for her to leave, but she just sat there, not looking at him, but not moving either.
“Now what?”
Shelia sat up straighter and tossed her matted hair over her shoulder, bracing herself, but determined.
“Slim Jim said you’d give me two hundred dollars for helping you guys last night.”
Jack O’ Lantern burst out laughing.
“He said what?”
Shelia kept her head facing forward but let her eyes drift over toward him.
“That’s what he said. I promise.”
Jack O’ Lantern couldn’t believe he was even having this conversation. He reached over and gripped Shelia’s arm, not forcefully like before, but firmly. She turned to him now, doing her best to look helpless, to look pitiful. Jack grit his teeth.
“Listen, Shelia. I don’t know who the hell you think you are this morning, but let me remind you. You’re a damn mama round here. You got it?”
Shelia nodded and cast her eyes down.
“And you don’t like it? You can stop coming round. There’s a line of whores behind you looking for a piece of this action. It’s your call. Now get outta my sight.”
Shelia pulled her purse higher up on her shoulder and stood up. Jack O’ Lantern didn’t watch her leave. He waited for about five minutes more and then hoisted himself up. He kicked over the flimsy chair and headed toward the clubhouse. It was time for everybody to wake their asses up and get down to business.
FELTON WATCHED the shadow of trees move across the dirt clearing in front of his camper. He had been sitting on the metal steps since mid-morning. Watching the sparse clouds meander across the blazing sky. Watching small lizards edge their way out into the sun, the males, prideful and parochial, raising their heads and blowing out their scarlet throats, desperate to attract a mate. Watching time draw out and elongate the puddles of shade created by the scraggly pines and sprawling oaks, woven together to create a dense barrier between his little island of sandy dirt, blistering heat and his only friends, his snakes and lizards and turtles and dinner mice, and the rest of the harsh, cruel world.
Felton had not been allowed inside either the church or the house since he had confessed to Sister Tulah. He had been afraid of her anger, afraid of her lashing wrath, but now he knew that she was taking a different approach with him. The one she took with people she no longer felt were useful. He had tried to steal the money from the Scorpions for the purpose of proving to Sister Tulah that he was capable and worthy of her trust. Instead, he was now even further distanced from her. Though he was sitting only acres away from Sister Tulah’s tall, white house, he knew that he had been cast into exile. Tulah would not confide in him, would not make him privy to her ideas, and certainly would no longer even consider listening to him. Until she was ready. For now, he would have to sit in his stifling camper, eating pimento cheese sandwiches and drinking warm diet soda, sleeping in the sweltering heat next to the brightly lit terrariums, and waiting out on the blistering steps until Tulah decided she needed him for something. At least he stil
l he had his snakes. At least he still had his angel turtles.
Felton was about to get up and go inside the camper to see if he still had any barbeque potato chips left, when he heard the sound of twigs cracking and branches popping and he knew somebody was coming down the narrow trail into the clearing. It had to be either Sister Tulah or one of the elders with a message. He was only halfway relieved when the forbidding form of his aunt stepped out into the sunlit clearing and strode toward him, arms swinging at her sides, huffing from the walk through the woods. He stood up and came down the steps, but waited for her to approach him. She stopped a few feet away and crossed her arms. Sweat was beading across her forehead and upper lip, but she didn’t wipe it away. She glared at Felton, her pale eyes squinted to near slits against the brilliant sunlight, and caught her breath. Felton reached into his pocket and pulled out a white handkerchief, crusty with salt from his own dried sweat. He extended it out to her.
“Sister Tulah, I’m sorry. I’m still sorry.”
She ignored the handkerchief and snapped at him.
“I don’t care.”
Felton slowly withdrew his arm and mopped his face with the handkerchief. He stuffed it back into his polyester pants and rocked back and forth on the soles of his shoes, waiting. He knew that if she hadn’t come out here to forgive him, she must need something from him instead.
“I need something from you.”
Felton nodded slightly. She handed him a small slip of folded paper. He took it and started to open it before she sharply reprimanded him.
“Don’t.”
“What do you need then?”
Sister Tulah uncrossed her arms and put her hands on her hips.
“A snake.”
Felton nodded again.
“What kind?”
“Rattler. Or something. It just needs to be dangerous and I don’t want to see it. Just put it in one of your boxes and put that piece of paper in with it. Bring it up to the church and leave it out front. One of the elders will be by to pick it up.”
Felton looked down at the folded piece of paper in his palm and then back up at Sister Tulah. Her mouth was twisted in a grimace of disgust. Felton knew she didn’t like to even talk about snakes. Then he realized that whatever the snake was for, she might want it bad enough to bargain. It was worth a shot anyway.
“Okay.”
She turned to leave and was halfway across the clearing before Felton called out.
“I’ll get you your snake, but what do I get out of it?”
Sister Tulah turned around. Felton thought for a moment that he had gone too far, but she only narrowed her eyes at him.
“You can come back inside the church. Not the house. But I’ve got the fans running in the church right now. I suspect it’s a mite cooler in there than in that serpent den you’re staying in now.”
Felton bobbed his head emphatically.
“Thank you. Thank you, Sister Tulah.”
She ignored him and walked away. Felton stood alone in the white hot sunlight and contemplated which of his snakes was worth sacrificing for a little cool air. It didn’t take him long. At least she wasn’t asking for a turtle.
“Skip the beer. I ain’t got time for that watered down horse piss. Just give me a whiskey.”
“Don’t you think maybe you should slow down, son?”
“No. I don’t. And I ain’t your son. I ain’t nobody’s son. God, I wish to Christ I weren’t nobody’s son.”
“That’s a pretty tall order.”
“Just pour the whiskey.”
Judah had gotten the call early that afternoon. He had been wandering aimlessly through the hardware store, dipping his hands into bins of bolts and washers, fingering paint strips, halfway dreaming about possibilities, halfway fighting the urge to run out to the Bronco parked on the street and drive as fast as he could for the Florida-Georgia border without daring to look back over his shoulder. The past five days had been a whirlwind. After the stagnate confinement, the daily routine of boredom and survival, the predictability of every moment, every key turn, every food tray slid down the line, the hard cement ceiling meeting his eyes every morning, his return to Silas was overwhelming. He had moved through the past few days as if bobbing along in the ocean, a piece of Sargassum tossed about by the waves or warmed by the sun, but always at the direction of an element outside of himself.
He had assured Ramey, when she left him sitting alone at her kitchen table to return to her mundane job of stocking bait worms and flipping sandwiches at Buddy’s, that he was fine. He was great, in fact. He had kissed her and mumbled something about needing time by himself to figure a few things out, get a few things in order. He had believed it when he said it, and become desperately terrified as he sat at the table and watched the digital red numbers on the stove clock change every sixty seconds. Too many decisions with too many outcomes had begun to whip through his head as he sipped his cold coffee and suddenly Ramey’s kitchen had become claustrophobic and unbearable. He had grabbed the Bronco keys and set about aimlessly driving through town, not looking for answers, but rather, for distractions. His cellphone had buzzed in his pocket as he was staring at a selection of weed eaters.
When Judah had shown up at Buddy’s, Ramey had been taking a customer’s order, but she nodded her head toward one of the bright red plastic booths set against the windows. Judah had slid into the hard seat across from a man who seemed vaguely familiar. When the man introduced himself as Rooter, the bartender at Limey’s across town, a fist had gripped Judah’s heart and begun to squeeze. The only person who mattered to him that ever went anywhere near Limey’s was Benji. He had been halfway out of his seat, heading toward the door, as soon as he heard the words alive and First Memorial Hospital, but Rooter had gripped his wrist and held him fast. When Judah twisted around in anger and met the man’s eyes he realized that Rooter was scared. He said something about promising Sherwood that he wouldn’t tell nobody, and the situation instantly jumped into focus. Ramey had called after him as he pushed through the glass doors, but he had ignored her.
Burke, the bartender at The Ace, shrugged.
“Fine, you’re in a bar after all.”
“Damn straight.”
“You just seem pretty hell bent on tying one on as fast as you can.”
“That’s the idea.”
The hospital had been a nightmare and now, after four beers and three shots of house whiskey, not much more than a blur in Judah’s memory. He remembered that a security guard had yelled at him for parking in the red zone, but he had refused to move the Bronco and continued stomping toward the emergency room entrance. He remembered an overweight receptionist in a tight white blouse repeatedly telling him that she didn’t know anything and to sit down and wait. He remembered nurses and doctors walking past the waiting room, laughing about something they had all seen on TV the night before, while he sat with his hands gripping the edges of a pale pink vinyl chair. And he remembered the pasty doctor with the slick haircut who had finally had the time to stop in the hallway long enough to explain to Judah what had happened. He only recalled pieces of the conversation now: Benjamin, Cannon, ICU, vehicle, critical, cerebral, bones, skin, coma, trauma, internal, immediate, no, no, he couldn’t see him, no. And then he had stood alone in the septic white hallway with the calming beach scene paintings and the shining tile floor and realized that he was helpless. The doctors would save Benji, or they wouldn’t. That was all.
Burke set the whiskey bottle back on the bar and eyed Judah.
“You want to talk about it? Tell me what’s going on?”
“No.”
“Maybe has something to do with getting outta prison? I remember when your brother Levi got out the first time he went on a bender that lasted for three weeks. His wife had to pick him up from where I dumped him in the parking lot every night. Every single night. It ain’t nothing to be ashamed of.”
“I’m not ashamed. And this has nothing to do with me getting outta prison.
So why don’t you shut your mouth and quit trying to be Dr. Phil. Can’t a bartender just pour drinks instead of trying to be a therapist?”
He had sat in his illegally parked Bronco in the hospital parking lot and considered his options while he twisted his hands along the steering wheel and gripped a shaky cigarette between his lips. He could continue to sit in the waiting room and stare at the abstract industrial carpet and the grubby toys in the corner and wait for someone to tell him whether his brother was going to live or die. He could call Ramey and attempt to half-heartedly explain the bottomless well of his feelings. He could find Sherwood or Levi and try to kick the ever-living shit out of them. He could drive out to the Santa Fe River and throw himself in. Or he could go to The Ace in the Hole and try to make sense of everything with the aid of dim lights, smoky air, meaningless conversation and the best pain killer of them all: booze. By the time he had put the Bronco in reverse and squealed out of the parking lot, he knew where he was headed.
He had escaped into the safety of a darkly lit bar, his bar, with Flatt and Scruggs on the jukebox and a cold Budweiser pressed between the grip of his palms. It had been light out when he had walked through the door, jaw set, determined for a memory-obliterating binge, and now, though The Ace was a windowless tomb, he figured the sun must have already gone down. He wasn’t exactly sure how many hours he had been sitting on the same stool and stewing in the same thoughts, but he knew that it had been a while. He had stumbled to the bathroom at the back of the bar at least three times and his ashtray had been emptied twice. At one point he had hoped that Pellman and his cousin would show up, maybe argue about whales and space travel or something, but no such luck. Judah had picked up his cellphone from the bar half a dozen times, stared at the screen, even flipped it open and stared at the list of missed calls, but he always snapped it shut and set it back down next to his lighter and cigarettes. He knew it must be dark outside and he wondered if the stars were out. He wondered if Benji was still alive.