Wonder what… sorta… earth movin’…
Lookin’ past the shoulder I spot a Caterpillar D6 bulldozer, what with the diesel engine you start with the gasoline engine runnin’ first.
That Caterpillar’s a tracked vehicle and when a man need to make an impression, any sorta tracked vehicle’s real nice.
No one loiterin’ ’bout the construction site — sure seem like a sign to me.
’Tween here and Church’s mortician service is a grove of thin trees and grass. A double track runs the middle and I swing the Eldorado on it and park. Anyone on the 82 lookin’ this way’ll see, but I come to believe I could soak Godzilla in gas and light his ass in the Walmart parking lot and not one in ten thousand folk’d notice on account they was seekin’ truth in the cell phone ’stead of what they can kick and punch in front of ’em.
Eldorado’s safe, is the point.
Grab the jug of Turkey in back the seat and enjoy a snurgle the size of two. Return the jug and nudge Stinky Joe on the shoulder.
“Wanna tag along? C’mon, Puppydog.”
I think I’m going to rest my eyes.
“What? Your eyes? What the hell work your eyes done?”
They were out the window.
“Ahhh — bullshit. I’m callin’ bullshit.”
Leave Stinky Joe with the vehicle and head thirty yards deeper in the rough. It ain’t field and it ain’t woods. Way up ahead is a fold of Rocky Mountain, wooded and low like a mountain youngun. Can’t look more’n a second or two but I hear the call.
I cut parallel the road and at the funeral home steal quick to the back wall.
Left or right?
Fuckit.
Right. Come ’round the corner and ease up low to the first window. Room’s dark. Next window I slink up and find the same. Third is lit but it’s a room with chairs and flowers and no people yet. Next corner, turn ’round and shit, this side’s visible from the road. Any number of folk might see, but they won’t know if I’m suppose to be here or not, so long as I don’t tell ’em by lookin’ the crook.
Around the corner, dosey doe. Pass the viewin’ room, keep goin’ and stop at the next window. Look up the road and no cars so slow and cautious I look inside.
Abraham Church sittin’ with his back to the window at a big ass wood desk. I guess with the chairs out front that’s so he can sell to folks when they need a casket. I turn ’round and it’s a straight shot across the grass to the paved entrance.
Must be a while ’til the next body showin’, as I can hear the guitar and drums off the radio through the wall.
Doobie Brothers.
Some tunes is writ to play loud. I dig the Doobies too and try to square the music with the man listenin’, and can’t. I look at Church a long minute, shape of his back. In another world he’d be a sailor hoistin’ ropes, a farmer chuckin’ bales. He’s a big somebody up top. Sits with the knees splayed like his nuts is six inches wide. He works at the desk and just like his body don’t look too comfortable, I bet his mind got the same issue. He’s a brute force man, I see now. He’ll use the paper and pencil — he taught himself the tools of the world he chose — but his natural habitat prefer the most basic instrument a man can wield.
Force.
And the whole time I was so taken with his lack of deceit and pretend give-a-shit, I miss the omitted lies and his general life lived in the pursuit of evil.
They’s no way to add up what I know about Abe Church without him deservin’ a couple questions. And if I know a fella got the ability to lie and me not see it, and the propensity to cause harm to get his way, and a past of animosity despite my best and most accommodatin’ good nature, well fuck him. I’ll ask the questions my way, in the manner I see fit.
With good fortune that’ll be assisted by a Caterpillar D6.
Head back and if I walked any faster they’d think I was trainin’ up for the Olympics now that walkin’s a sport.
I’d like to check in on Joe, but I won’t.
That gimme the thought I ain’t had a swaller of Wild Turkey in longer’n I’ve been countin’ by at least thirteen minute. Cut to the car and under the front seat pull a flask, as I’ll take it along. But the flask is a pain in the ass to fill and if I want a swaller right now I’d best, for simplicity, take it from the jug.
“I’m back, Sir Joseph. Last chance. After I git a pull a Turkey I’m a tear some shit down. Wanna come?”
Joe shake his head.
Open the back seat and swipe the jug. Spin the cap and with the first splash past the teeth I’m jazzed agin and tinglin’. Another couple swallers for good measure and other nonsense and I tuck the jug back safe in the Eldorado.
“I’ll be back. Don’t go and get nice on me.”
I’m in snakeskin boots and a suit bottom with a shirt suitable for ironin’ if I was the type. That and a jacket looks real smooth. All total I’m a man no one’s like to expect to see runnin’ through the scrub havin’ a giggle fit so I temper the enthusiasm. But as of spottin’ that Caterpillar I’m feelin’ positively righteous about my life and station. Sure, back of my mind I’m about to weep and brood on two girls I wish was still in the world. But they’s work to be done and I’ll visit memories in the privacy of a campfire tonight and the next two hundred.
Construction people left the Caterpillar near edge of the site, next the only big tree on five acres where some other folk left a few trucks and a couple porta potties.
“Hey.”
Kick the porta door. Nothin’.
Take a leak and shake thrice.
Outside I ease up to that Caterpillar slow. She’s real purty but she’ll be less so if she know it. Meanin’ if whoever owns her left a chain and lock I only know two ways to bust a lock open and one require tin snips and a soda can I ain’t got, and the other — Smith — is too noisy for applications this close to the road.
Slip out a hand and drag it easy ’cross her track.
“Hey, girl. Like your lines.”
She got a fresh coat of yellow paint but nobody sanded smooth what was chipped out beneath. From the road she’s all bright and shiny but up close I see the scars of fifty years’ work movin’ earth on account of men’s ambitions. Somethin’ noble in a old machine, what’s been beat and used and still got a soul for toil.
Though I bet she’s less susceptible to flattery’n she was in 1960.
Some of these D6’s got the roof front to back and some got none at all. This one’s got a roof over the driver, though it ain’t but wire mesh that wouldn’t cast a shadow edgewise. The way these D6’s is situated you got the main diesel, and right behind on the drivers’ left is the gasoline starter engine. I climb up her track careful not to muss the suit, and squat.
Check the cockpit for chains…
Looks like I got me a Caterpillar.
Let’s see... Been a lotta years.
Decompressor point at me, throttle halfway, choke out, bam… Power button down.
Gas engine fires right up.
This switch and that, one two three and the big diesel engine smoke-farts herself awake too. I kill the gas and the diesel grumbles low and moody about how I like. If she was a singer she’d be hunched on a stool and each word’d come with a half lung of Marlboro smoke, and though she maybe don’t got another sixty years in her, she’s rootin’ and tootin’ for the night she’s on the stage.
Smack the seat clean and drop a load of Baer in it. Throttle’s the short lever on the right. Clutch is on the left. It all comes back natural.
Brake on each side, stop the track. This one lifts the blade. I give it a foot.
Time to ride, and hope them Doobies still sing at Church.
That diesel don’t lug nor chug but keeps the same grumble no matter what I do. Pull this lever and that. Maybe if I was pushin’ ten tons. Reverse and brake left, that points the nose right. Figger I’ll run parallel ’long the road and drop straight in on the driveway, afore it swings to the main entrance for those that come to view their
dead.
Wave at Stinky Joe, crossed over to the driver seat to watch the commotion. Caterpillar don’t move but ten twelve mile an hour but on tracks and knockin’ over scrub it feels a heady fifteen, easy.
Out of abundant caution I look back and see no one’s yet at the construction site and no one on the 82’s payin’ me no mind neither.
Look forward agin and someone put a tree right in front, tall and skinny like a birch.
The blade shears the stump at the earth and the top drop back on the cage with a snare-rattle boom. A branch stripped white of bark and jagged at the end shoves through the metal mesh. If I was lookin’ I’d a lost a eye. Instead I brake right then left and though the tree wobbles, it’s stuck on the Caterpillar like a small cannon tube. I lift the blade with the hydraulics and the tube rides up. Someday when I’m a grown man I’ll see ’bout buildin’ a howitzer on top a Cat D6. For now, this birch log’s in my line of sight and I’m a stickler for safety. Nearin’ the funeral home entrance I brake the left track and the right keep grinding.
Release the brake. The turn stops and the sideways motion jolts into forward and dislodges the tree over the side. I’d like to throttle up but time’s short so I boresight the D6 along the hood and draw the bead on Church’s office window. While the Caterpillar grunts after the bulwark I know in the heart this man ain’t innocent.
He ain’t a friend.
Deep down I’d like to see Abe Church is a good man. I’d like to know other people got the curse and figured out how to live regular. But that ain’t Abe Church.
I’m on the window. Church is still in his chair. The blade smash through aluminum siding, glass and two by fours. Metal scrunches. Wood snaps. Glass shatters and dust blow out every crevice so the air’s thick as the guts of a grain silo.
The building give so easy it don’t even bounce me in the seat.
Church spin on his chair then bounce like a cat saw a cucumber.
A little brake on the left track…
Church jumps to his feet but a section of wall takes out his legs while I drop the blade to the concrete pad and drive him back. He get a hand over the top and I keep chuggin’ at the wall. He get the other hand up, and just in time his noggin too, and I stomp both brakes and pin Abraham Church to the wall with his head above the blade and his belly pressed agin.
That’s fuckin’ dandy work there.
Blood spill out a hole on Church’s head and his eyes ain’t leveled yet but by and by he spot me and his brows pucker.
Hands go below the blade.
Somewhere under the tracks is a radio. “Howdy, Abraham. You turn off the music for me?”
He look at me so blank I bet he ain’t got the words he’d need to cry mercy. He stares and I stare back.
Through all the dust I see Corazon like she was in the garage, lookin’ at me across Jubal White’s Mustang, disappointment in her face on account I was drunk and half out my mind. Her likely rememberin’ sweet innocence and wonderin’ why so much of the world can choose somethin’ else. I hate how things is ordered so I’ll never see her agin ’til I’m dead, and I hate how she’ll never see me live to a better standard. Lookin’ at Abe Church’s beaded eyes I ache for Tat’s broken heart, now her sister’s gone. And I ache for Chicago Mags. Sometimes loss comes so quick and heavy it’s like fat raindrops from a clear sky, and every which way you go, zig or zag, it don’t matter you just get hit more. Death and loss and destruction. And deep down like Mags say, it’s all connected in the nonlocal, and they call it that ’cause they’s no such thing as space or time, and it’s a big ass place — big as everywhere else — and each and every point is both the center, the edge and all in between.
And here in the middle is Abraham Church.
“HHHHGggggggt.”
“Too much blade?”
He’s pinned at the neck ’tween steel and sheet rock.
“Was you carryin’ a pistol, Abraham? I’d hate to come aside and have you fire a bullet in me.”
“No. Hhggghhtt.”
“Lotta dust in the air. I didn’t anticipate that and I’m sorry. Tell me the truth about the gun.”
“No gun.”
“You swear?”
“I swear. Hhghgtt.”
No red nor juice but with this feller that don’t mean squat.
“You should let the spit build up in your mouth a couple minute. Save it for one good swallow, clear the throat. You do that while I talk a minute. On the one hand I bet you wonder how it come about I wreck your joint with a Caterpillar. That’s the D6 — you maybe don’t got the best view up front behind the blade. I think this’s a sixties model. And on the other hand, you know what all this’s about more’n I do, and part of you’s thinkin’ how do I say what I need to say to keep me alive, and not say enough to get me killed. Right?”
“Ugh.”
“Just say right.”
“Hhhght.”
“Or don’t say nothin’. Just save up your spit like I said. I come from Frank Lloyd’s motorcycle garage.”
“I … can’t… ”
“You can breathe if you don’t talk so much. Now listen, Frank Lloyd didn’t want to say your name, but he did tell me I shoulda been in the car. I know it was him and his dipshit boy shot Maggie in Chicago. He musta knew I was parked just a couple spaces down. But it don’t make sense he’d want to kill me in my car, see? Open your fuckin’ eyes! Now listen! Frank and his boy killed Chicago Mags — ”
“No…”
“I know that for a fact it was them.”
“Nhhgggghttt de — ”
“And I’ll tell you another thing. That woman at the motel’s under my protection, and told the truth. You kill her daughter and her friends so you could part ’em out. Ship ’em UPS.”
Ghhhtt.
“I thought as much. Church, I heard enough. I’m here to kill you. That’ll be the end and I got more to say on that, like to make you feel better. But afore I do, they’s things I want to know.”
Cghghttt.
“You don’t tell the truth, I’ll fill your nuts with 44 slugs and watch you bleed to death. That’s the proposition. Keep the answers coming. Or don’t. What’s your truth sense tell ya?”
Ghhhttt.
“Ah, dammit.”
This prick can’t say shit. Exhaust is buildin’ up quick, but if I back out this Cat I got to figure another way to secure Church while I extract some answers. So I tilt the blade; give to his neck and take from his knees, as he don’t need ’em for talkin’.
Church’s head drop down and it’s just Kilroy and me. I kill the diesel and look about the smoky office. He got one wall made of window and I didn’t even see but they’s a woman out there steppin’ back slow and cautious like she spot a grizzly.
No one else.
Church’s too fat to get his belly out the bucket so even though his neck is loose he ain’t a risk. But that woman is.
She see me lookin’ and turn and bolt.
I swing Smith and fire two through the glass and past her head. She halts with her hands up and head tucked low.
“Stop, lady.” Point Smith at Church’s head. “Abe, what’s her name?”
“Delma.”
“DELMA! You listen, woman. I’m here ’bout Church and his illegalities. You’ll be free to go once I kill him. But you got to wait, understand?”
She’s shakin’.
“Delma, listen, Dear. This is justice, and since you ain’t done anything wrong — ” Wait. “Abraham, what’s Delma’s role in all this? What she do here?”
“Telephone.”
“Delma, listen. Once Abe’s dead you can go. Well, a couple minute after. They’s always things a fella wants to do, you know? Police his brass. So you go back to that desk there like you was, and pull that seat ’round so you’re on this side the partition, where I can keep an eye out. Sit a minute and I’ll give you the all clear. That fair?”
She’s shakin’ agin. Women.
“Delma, I got to pay at
tention to Abe here, ’fore the police come. You do as I said and if you don’t I’ll shoot you.”
She backsteps and nods, hands out front like to swat a bullet.
“Now Abraham, Lloyd says I shoulda been in the car. Why?”
He clear his throat.
“You do that thing with the spit?”
Church nod.
“So why he say that ’bout the car?”
“So you would have died.”
Uh.
Brain just shrunk twelve ounce.
“What? What car?”
“The girls in the hospital.”
“What girls in the hospital? Chicago?”
He close his eyes. Open ’em.
“What girls in the hospital, Abraham?”
“The day we met.”
I kept the thought tucked as far back in the brain as I could, but when I realized it was Frank Lloyd and his sluts in the truck… I knew they done Corazon too.
“What the hell you got to do with that? You was what? You knew Corazon afore I was in the hospital and got to see her? You and me never talk ’bout Corazon. You was there at the accident…”
And I see sixteen worlds spin backwards and suck up together in a single piece outta what was broke. Chester A DeChurch. Corazon went to kill Chester Abraham DeChurch. Church was there at the accident, watchin’. He owns the motorcycle place so he had the people with the knowledge of nuts and bolts and dirty tricks. He was there at the bar when Frank Lloyd and the girls lure me in with titties and sin. Beautiful titties and sin. And he was there when Frank come back for me at the motel laundry. And in the hospital parkin’ lot he was real interested in where I was headed… Chicago University to see a woman named Mags.
I see it.
And same time I see it I see the sweep of… Me… the lay of my life’s peaks and valleys. How I got the Eldorado on account of my instinct to be on my own — and it accidentally save my life. And how I went to Chicago to learn the depths of the universe while lookin’ at Mags’s rack — and that accidentally save my life too. The whole dance set up so I both see the jewel and the misery, always enough of the one to keep me chasin’ the other. Always enough motivation for the sin to keep me agitatin’ for the virtue.
The Men I Sent Forward (Baer Creighton Book 6) Page 21