by Frank Bill
Able tried to stand but hit the bedroom’s hardwood in shock. Stumbled to his feet. Josephine fired a round into his shoulder. Then his chest. Able fell into the dresser, screaming. “Crazy ol’ bitch!” He turned away with his hand pressed into the wet heat of his belly, the other steadying him into the next room.
Josephine’s feet found her unlaced boots, disregarded the folding wheelchair leaned against the wall. She wheeled her oxygen tank into the next room, where Able’s body fell into the living room wall. She lined the pistol up with his chest, her grip unsteady as her vision. She pulled the trigger. “Shit!” he squealed. Another circle of red pressed through his white T-shirt, with the wall guiding him into another room.
Now she balanced herself on the silver oxygen tank’s wheeled frame. Inhaled air from the clear tube that forked into her nostrils from the fire-extinguisher-size tank and asked herself how Able could sell their fourteen-year-old granddaughter to the Hill Clan like livestock. Sell Knee High to the likes of those two cutthroats, Pitchfork and Darnel Crase.
Able and she had just lost their two sons, Dodo and Uhl, Knee High’s daddy. They’d run off, always up to no good. Left the house late one evening months ago. Never returned. Neglecting responsibility. Leaving Able and her to raise Audry, who would now be forced to offer her teenage self with womanlike curves to wasted feed sacks of broken-down men for dirty wads of paper.
Josephine steadied her sunken yellow eyes, squeezing the handgrip of the Ruger in her right hand, knowing in the back of her mind she needed to get out that damn door and end Able’s sickness before it ended her.
One of the shots bounced around inside Able till it severed a nerve, caused his legs to lose their flow.
Behind him he heard the creak of the screen door. Lungs clawing for air. Wheels and boots scraping the ground. Josephine’s voice. “Hope you find the good Lord’s soil comfortin’, ’cause that’s the only comfort you gonna get.”
Trying to contract his leg muscles, Able’s body throbbed cold. He gritted his teeth. Blinked tears from his eyes, “Dammit, Jo, hold on. We need that money. Once she’s worked it off we’d get her back.”
Josephine’s movements grew in pitch till her syllables towered over Able. “Get her back? She’s our grandchild. A human bein’. Unlike yourself.” Able dug at the soil, twisted his neck, made out Josephine’s outline, and he begged, “Help me, Jo, can’t even feel—”
Tiny flashes of fire erupted around what Able believed to be Josephine. His mouth moved but his words were unheard within his head. Cramps bounced up his back, into his neck just like the black that replaced feeling inside his body. Josephine stood with the gun empty, tiny brass scattered around her. Seeing no movement from Able, knowing he was dead, that she’d ended the sickness she’d ignored far too long, she’d no idea how to get Knee High back home.
All the Awful
One of the man’s hands gripped Audry’s wrists above her head. Forced them to the ground. She bucked her pelvis up. Wanted him off of her. The other hand groped the rounded shapes beneath her soiled wifebeater. Her eyes clasped. Held tears. The man’s tobacco-stained lips and bourbon breath dragged against her neck.
“Like that…don’t you?”
The man’s name was Melvin. He’d the scent of coagulated chicken swelled in three days of hundred-degree heat. He’d paid four hundred crumpled bills to the Hill Clan for three hours with Knee High Audry.
Knee High lay between the rows of corn that shadowed her goat-milk complexion. Unwashed shoulder-length hair the hue of burned tires fanned out in matted clumps. Melvin grunted. Knee High’s thoughts darted to how her ride with Able to run an errand had been detoured to seeing men about money in another county. Where a man named Darnel laughed, told Able, “Ain’t you a taste of treason. Sell out your two boys, this girl’s daddy and uncle, to Sheriff Sig. Now you’s swindlin’ your granddaughter to us. Shit, you’ve pretty much snitched out half the county for Sig.”
Able nodded, said, “Need money, cancer meds ain’t cheap for the wife.”
Darnel passed a sack to Able and told him, “Nor is your taste for the booze.”
Knee High watched Able thumb through the brown sack of bills. Trying to decipher Darnel’s words, not realizing what was transpiring, her brain ignited with confusion and anger. Her daddy and Uncle Dodo had run off. The only speech she could muster wasn’t to Able, it was to Darnel, and she shouted, “Where’s my daddy and my uncle?”
Darnel chuckled, his sight boring into her like two hollow points, and he said, “Dead and buried.”
She looked to Able to correct this. He stood silently holding the sack of money, digging his hand into it, and she demanded, “What’d you do, Granddad, what’d you do?”
It was Darnel who responded. “He did the same to them that he’s done to you.” Knee High reached for Able, wanting to shake answers from his hide. He stepped back, still counting the money as she questioned him. “What’s he saying, Granddad?” And before she could wrap her mind around what was transpiring, Darnel’s talcum grip restrained her. She twisted away from him and he backhanded her and said, “He sold you to me and my brother to satisfy the men of our county.”
She tongued blood from her lip as he drew her to a room where wallpaper was smeared by tea stains and soured skin. The last thing she saw before the door slammed and bolted shut was Able turning his back, walking out the same way they’d entered.
She beat on the pine door, trying to fathom these things Able had done, trying to understand what Darnel meant, saying Able had sold out her daddy and uncle to Sheriff Sig. And why Able had traded her for a sack of money to pay for her grandmother’s cancer medications. The man named Darnel told her it was “to satisfy men.” She understood she’d been sold for sex. But her grandmother Jo would never have agreed to such a thing.
Her arms and fists swelled and hardened as she sat barefoot on the floor, crying, a broken-down mattress quilted by a sheet once white lying gray and sticky behind her. She held her knees and rocked back and forth for what seemed like hours, realizing her daddy and uncle were dead because of Able. Then came the roar of a vehicle’s engine outside. The slamming of a door. Men speaking, saying, “Four hundred. She’s in yonder. Take your time. We got people to tend.” Feet trampled out of the house, an engine fired up and became distant. The sound of metal unlatched on the bedroom door’s opposite side. A towering stranger entered. Kneeled down in his cutoff red flannel, smiled with teeth caked by tobacco, and ran a finger tainted by motor oil down her cheek, told her, “Call me Melvin.”
He grasped her firm arms, lifted her to her feet, guided her backwards toward the bedding. In his eyes she made out the same sick lust she’d tried to ignore in her grandfather over the months as she did chores around the house, and she pleaded, “No.” He slapped her. She turned with the strike, dodged his reach, and ran out of the room to the entrance and then out of the house.
Melvin followed, tackled her down in the field between the rows of feed corn. Punched her, tore her shorts and panties from her. Unbuckled his pants, made the grainy earth their bedding.
Now all she wanted was to survive, but he was bigger than she was, stronger. She had to pretend, to be a chameleon. Thought of men and women. Affection and a neighbor boy who’d kissed her, brushed his tongue into her ear. Remembered the spark and chill that ran down her spine and dimpled her body from this gesture. She wiggled her ton gue into Melvin’s ear, tasted the disgusting flavor of a toad floured in fresh manure. His lips forced into hers, busted and bloody. “That a girl.” He released her hands. She crimped her eyes closed, groped Melvin’s bare bushy ass. Wanted to vomit as his heated breath in her ear moaned, “Oh pretty.” She tickled a path with her left hand down over the hump of his bareness. Felt the waistline of his pants, followed the leather belt to the hard handle he wore on his side. Thumbed the snap loose. Unsheathed a wicked curve of steel.
Knee High’s mouth engulfed Melvin’s ear on one side. She dug the blade into his neck on th
e other. Pulled it out as her teeth ripped tissue and cartilage from skull. He jerked into his shoulder, shouted, “Little fuckin’—” She didn’t allow him to finish, drove the knife into his throat. He gargled. Collapsed atop her like warm molasses. His breathing slowed to a stop. Her fingers pulled at the earth. Dragging herself from beneath the degenerate beast, she stood, spat out Melvin’s ear. Her chest and legs blood-covered and vibrating. Bottomless, she ran down the row of corn toward the house she’d escaped from. Hoping Darnel and Pitchfork were still gone, hoping their business wasn’t finished.
She wanted to go home. Tell her grandmother Jo all the awful Granddad Able had done. How he’d sold out her daddy and uncle to Sheriff Sig, gotten them killed. Do the same awful to Able that she’d done to Melvin.
Corn leaves like miniature razors cut her face and arms. Her bare feet pounded the row’s soil. Met the green grass. Yellowed heat from the sun led her to the house’s fly-decorated screen door. Karl, one of the Hill Clan’s boys, stood on the other side, surprised Knee High—she’d not seen him when she’d arrived earlier—and he screamed, “The shit?”
Karl pushed the door open. Got his left leg out. Knee High dropped the weight of her body against it. Trapped him in between jamb and door. He hollered, “You bitch!” Fell backwards into the house.
Knee High turned in a panic. Ran toward a weathered corncrib where wood was split and piled. Heard the screen door slam behind her. Felt boots on her bare heels. Nearing the split wood, Knee High was grabbing for a piece when she saw the handle. Both hands met it just as Karl’s words struck the rear of her head. “Gonna beat and fuck your ass all in the same—” Knee High heft ed, whirled around with the double-sided axe that was almost as long as she was tall. Finding the left side of Karl’s rib cage. Cutting off his words. The sound the axe made going in was godawful, but when she pulled it out to finish him, the sound he made was damning. Like a dog chasing and biting at a passing car’s tires only to have its bark replaced by the crunch of its skull between rubber and pavement. He dropped to his knees in shock. Knee High stepped back. Swung. Karl fell wordless to the warm earth.
In the house she trembled. Irvine, the other son of the Hill Clan, was gone. Knee High was blood and stink from head to toe. The bones of her crusted hands jumped as she fought the moisture that bubbled in her eyes and shock that rifled through her mind. In a panic she searched for clothing to cover herself with. Discovered an old dress scented with mothballs in a closet, worked it over her battered body.
Outside she found Melvin’s keys in the ignition of his red Dodge truck. Magazines lined the floor with photos of young girls. Wadded rags and paper. Crunched cans of Miller and empty pints of Wild Turkey. Knee High turned the key. The engine coughed to life. She shifted into drive. Stomped the gas.
What the Hill Clan found at the house was Melvin between rows of corn. A mess about his neck, knife protruding from it. Karl out by the pile of wood next to the corncrib. A bloody axe. His head an unrecognized shade of dead. To them it looked as though they’d paid for the Wisconsin serial murderer Ed Gein’s daughter.
Now, pulling down Able Kirby’s long gravel drive, Pitchfork chewed on rage. His brother Darnel wanted to watch Knee High bleed and beg. They rounded the curve, saw Melvin’s red truck.
“Told you the cunt got nowheres to go.”
“We kill her we out of thirty grand.”
“Able still got it.”
On the creek-rock steps, flies shared the bloated corpse of Able Kirby. Several buzzards circled overhead.
“So much for Able.”
“Must’ve pissed off Jo.”
“He’s plenty dead.”
The inside of the house sat silent as a child in sleep. Pitchfork’s and Darnel’s tones echoed from vinyl-papered walls and ceiling. Nothing in the kitchen, or the dining room. The upstairs was devoid of sound or body. Knee High’s room, untouched. Just framed black-and-white family photos of times past. Men, women, and children. Able, Jo. The two Pitchfork had murdered. They walked through the living room. Pitchfork carried a .45, Darnel a blackjack. Darnel stepped toward two wooden doors that connected in the center. Reached to divide them, slide both doors open. Called out, “You in there, Knee High, you gonna pay us back double in front of Jo. One after the next.”
The doors parted. Josephine sat in a tarnished chrome wheelchair. A clear hose wishboned into her nares, offering air from a nickel-colored cylinder on the floor beside her. The barrel of a Remington 11 semiautomatic was leveled not even ten feet from Darnel’s chest. Her one eye closed, the other open, the two men in shooting view.
Knee High stood beside Josephine, trying to steady the 4-10 she’d locked, cocked, and readied to fire while the horror of what had happened rattled her nerves.
Darnel raised the scarred flesh of both hands, palms facing the females, the blackjack held by his thumb. “Hold on, you two—”
Josephine skipped not a syllable. “You hold on, Darnel. What you done is devilry.”
Darnel said, “Wasn’t just us—”
The next sound deafened even God himself. Jo’s bones splintered from the .12-gauge’s kick. Darnel’s right knee segmented into red-white jelly chunks slung about the hardwood. Pitchfork dropped his .45 and caught Darnel, who dropped the blackjack.
Josephine rasped, “You’s right, it was the whole Hill Clan.”
Darnel slobbered and gritted his teeth. “Your Knee High killed my boy.”
Knee High leveled the 4-10 down to Darnel’s face with a slight jerk. “That’d make us almost even.” She paused. Shifted her eyes toward Jo. Swallowed. Continued, “Seeing as you all killed my daddy and my uncle Dodo.”
Hearing Knee High’s words, Jo’s finger pulsed against the .12-gauge’s trigger. Her vision blacked everything around the men who’d killed her two boys that she’d believed to have run off. Bringing all their awful to fruition.
Not knowing if she would, Knee High said, “Let it be, Grandma Jo, let it be.”
The Penance of Scoot McCutchen
Wire springs poked through the worn vinyl front seat like he imagined the mattress of a jail cell’s bed would, pricking his conscience as he sat within his personal purgatory. His memories from that last day and every day since. Fingering the keys dangling from the ignition, so tired of the searching, of the running, he’d come to terms with his decision. His only task now was waiting for the man. Glancing out his driver’s side into the window of the Mauckport town marshal’s office, he watched some woman carry on a conversation with what must have been Dispatch. But Deets didn’t need Dispatch. Glancing down at the head shots, a shadow of a wanted man, rolled up and tied by twine in the passenger’s seat, he needed the marshal, so he sat and waited and let his mind wander.
It seemed long ago, but still so clear in his mind, the scene from that last day. That even with a pillow covering her waxy face, it didn’t make it any easier. Not seeing her face. Not hearing her jumbled tones, which scratched his conscience like the rake of fingernails down a chalkboard. The pressure of her touch. He closed his eyes, still feeling the buckle of the seat as he imagined her final expression. So permanent, so final.
Like a jolt of pick-me-up kettle coffee, it was the first thought Deets acknowledged every morning and pondered all day, till it tucked him into bed. Haunting his dreams with the tossing and turning of “How could I not have known?”
He must have driven for days afterward. Finding that first town in Tennessee that wasn’t on the map. So small the town paper was a single page, front and back with an obituaries column no bigger than a Bazooka Joe bubble gum comic strip. And it was here that Deets Merritt would try to begin anew, searching for his self, an identity. But even after finding a job, trying to start over, he discovered he couldn’t outrun the shadow and guilt that haunted him. A decision that was nothing more than a two-sided coin with fate on each side of the flip. A piece of his existence gone. Something he could never get back, only carry on his conscience. Life would never be easy again
. The only time life is easy is childhood, but by the time a person realizes this, it’s too damn late.
But still, he never gave up. Kept searching. And every new town meant another trade. Another new job. He’d worked construction, framing and building houses. Flipped burgers at greasy-spoon diners in towns whose populations were less than the price of an oil change, towns so small if you blinked between the post office and the police station, you thought you’d made a wrong turn because of the town’s sudden disappearance in the side mirror.
There wasn’t a day that passed by that he didn’t miss her. But he didn’t want to go back. He’d do it all over again even if the outcome would be the same.
Now, as he sat waiting in his ’61 International Scout four-wheel drive, the sun lowered at the breech of the town’s street. Dust was a Van Gogh landscape etched across his windshield, adding to the crawl of the oncoming evening. Discovering the darkness that was night.
He remembered how it all began. How he’d bought the Scout its first year of production. His father had driven him into Indianapolis, from their small town of Corydon. He’d bought it with money he’d saved from his childhood, working his father’s hog farm, then the money earned in his job at Keller’s, the local furniture factory, manning the band saw to rip the wood that was honed into furniture. He’d seen more than his fair share of fingers removed by that saw, never replaced.
So proud of his purchase, he’d cruised through town, and that’s when he saw her walking along the town square that first time. He slowed down, pulled up beside her. Asked if she needed a lift. As she turned to him, her smile was misleading; her lips told him to eat shit. She’d not need another useless shade of man catering to her. She’d been married once already, to a boozing pugilist who eventually ran off with a younger woman and several warrants. He’d left her not only paying for the divorce but several dozen or so debts, and the last mistake she wanted was a ride home from a strange man. Aft er that he’d framed her in his mind not by images but by her words, her simple yet harsh construction of language that she’d offered to him.