Midnight Rain

by Newman,James

  Sheriff Baker turned back to me.

  “I’m sorry, son,” he said. He resembled a father about to discipline a misbehaved toddler, his face cast in a sad this-is-gonna-hurt-me-more-than-it-hurts-you expression. The rain dripped off his hat like a miniature waterfall, trickled down his chubby, pockmarked cheeks like a flood of tears. I could smell his sweat, stronger than ever. “You were just in the wrong place at the wrong time. You understand that, don’t you?”

  I said nothing. Just glared at him, and waited for what was to come.

  “I’ll take good care of your mama. I promise. All she needs is a good strong man, and she’ll make it through this. Her and Dan both will learn to love me just like they loved your father. I know they will.”

  “Go to hell,” I said.

  And then I hawked up the fattest, greenest, prize-winning loogie in the history of fat green loogies…and I spat that sucker right in Burt Baker’s ugly brown face.

  My slimy gift to him was instantly gone, washed away by the rain into the leaves at our feet, but it had produced the desired effect. Baker’s gentle expression turned into a mask of unbridled rage.

  His enormous hands went around my throat. And began to squeeze…

  “Why, you little piece of shit…”

  I fought for air. Tried to pry his hands away. But his arms were like stone. His fingers were like steel.

  “Little fucker…”

  Henry took a tentative step forward, reached out to his father. “Dad, wait—”

  “Shut up, Henry,” Baker said. His teeth were bared, his nostrils flared. His breaths burst in and out of him, explosive, like steam against my forehead. “This is it. This is it!”

  Explosions of color flashed before my eyes. The night grew darker. Blacker. The rain seemed to turn orange and white, like scalding hot embers falling from the heavens.

  I felt my life ebbing away.

  “Daddy, no!” Henry shouted.

  Baker continued to squeeze. I grabbed a handful of his shirt, heard something rip, and his badge clattered down into the Well.

  “Dad! No! Stop!”

  Suddenly Henry Baker was between us. His hands were on his father’s shoulders, pushing the sheriff off of me.

  The sheriff growled, tried to squeeze even harder, but finally let go of me.

  He stumbled back, slid in the mud. Caught himself. Looked surprised, as if he’d just been shot.

  I collapsed against the jagged rock walls of the Well, breathed again. Sweet, delicious oxygen. My chest rose and fell, rose and fell. I rubbed at my raw, red throat. Coughing. Wheezing. I could still feel the phantom sensation of his hands choking the life out of me…squeezing…crushing my windpipe…

  Burt Baker glared at his son. For those next few minutes, at least, it was as if he had forgotten about me entirely.

  “Why, you unappreciative little prick.”

  “N-no, Daddy, it’s not that…I just…I don’t know if this is right…”

  “Don’t know if it’s right?”

  “He’s…h-he’s j-just a kid…”

  “Everything I do,” the sheriff said, “Everything I’ve always done…has been for you. You, Henry! I put my career—my life—on the line for you, boy. How dare you fucking disrespect me like this.”

  “N-no,” Henry said. “I didn’t mean to…Daddy, look—”

  “You shut your fuckin’ mouth. You’re the one who got us into this mess. Now I have to fuckin’ deal with it.”

  “I just…I’m so confused…I don’t know if I want to go on like this anymore…maybe we should just—”

  “Maybe we should what? Turn ourselves in? We’ve been through this already, Henry! They all think Mooney killed that girl. You wanna jerk the rug out from under the whole town, see them turn on us like they turned on that nigger?”

  “I don’t know!” Henry cried, clenching and unclenching his fists again and again and again. “I…I’m confused, Dad. I don’t know what I want anymore. B-But I don’t…I d-don’t think I want this. He’s just a k-kid.”

  “Well, you don’t have a fucking choice,” the sheriff shouted. His voice echoed through the forest grove. Spittle flew from his mouth into the rain. “I was there for you when you had nowhere else to turn. When you let that fuckin’ stumpy-ass dick of yours get you in trouble again. I made everything okay for you. Now you’re gonna question my decisions? You’re gonna walk away from me when I need you the most?”

  “Maybe we were wrong,” said Henry. “Maybe I should have just…taken my punishment like a man. First Mike, then the nigger. Now a little kid? It was never supposed to go this far, Dad.”

  “This isn’t the time or place for second thoughts.”

  “M-maybe it’s not too late to m-make it all right, Dad. Now. For once.”

  “Get over here.”

  “No,” Henry said.

  “What did you just say to me?”

  “No, Dad. I can’t do this.”

  Sheriff Burt Baker’s bellow filled the night, echoed through the grove like the voice of Satan himself: “By God, boy, you will do as I say or I’ll throw you down in that goddamn well with him!”

  Henry shook his head, started biting at his nails again.

  “Fuck you, then. Pussy. I always knew you were a whiny little faggot. I’m doing this. You just stay the fuck out of my way.”

  The sheriff lumbered toward me. His boots made soft farting noises in the mud.

  He pushed Henry aside.

  “Come here, you.”

  I gasped, scrambled away from him. Putting the Well between us.

  “Kyle.” He snarled at me, unsnapped his holster and went for his gun. “Don’t make me have to tell you twice…”

  And that’s when Henry slammed his Coca-Cola bottle, hard, across the right side of his father’s skull.

  It didn’t break. Just made a sound like someone hitting an old hollow tree with a baseball bat.

  “Ungbakgh?” said Sheriff Baker, and he fell face-first into the mud and wet leaves beside the Well.

  “I’m sorry, Daddy!” Henry bawled over the sounds of the wind and the rain.

  Then he said the same thing to me: “I’m sorry.”

  I could only stare at him, speechless.

  “I never meant for all of this to happen,” Henry said. His long black hair hung in his eyes, and he trembled all over like a man in the throes of hypothermia. “I want t-to get help. I want to make everything r-right.”

  I said nothing, just stared at the prone form of Sheriff Burt Baker before me.

  “B-but he would never let me.”

  I rubbed at my throat again, nodded slowly, understanding so much more than he could ever know.

  “Go home,” Henry said. “Get out of here—”

  I do not know how I did not see him getting up. But he did. Suddenly Burt Baker was on his feet—staggering, wobbling like a man who has had too much to drink, but on his feet nonetheless. The side of his head was bleeding. He lunged for his son, growling like a wild animal, his enormous brown hands hooked into claws…

  “You fucking piece of shit!” the sheriff roared. Thunder boomed in the sky overhead, and the sounds commingled like an explosion in the deep, dark heart of Midnight. “After everything I did for you! You turn on me!”

  He fell upon Henry, and his hands gripped the young man’s skinny throat.

  “I’ll…kill…you…”

  “Please,” Henry fought for air, “Dad-deee…nuh-ooo…”

  His eyes pleaded with me.

  I pounced upon that Coca-Cola bottle on the ground.

  Picked it up.

  Swung it at the sheriff, as hard as I could.

  It bounced off his jaw, spun away into the darkness like a skinny green bird felled by a hunter’s bullet. Landed with a soft rustle-thud in a bed of dead leaves somewhere off to my right.

  The sheriff let go of Henry, turned to me.

  “Oh, no,” I said.

  Sheriff Baker said, “You…”

&n
bsp; And Henry rushed his father from behind.

  The urgency in Henry’s eyes told me what I needed to do. This was our only chance. As Henry shoved his father up against the shiny rock walls of the Well, trying to tip him over, I grabbed a handful of the sheriff’s crotch. Burt Baker howled like a wolf, fighting us with every ounce of strength he had left. His fist collided with my left temple—once, twice, like a freight train. I heard a crunch as he punched his son in the face, and bright red blood began to stream from Henry’s nose like rusty water from an ancient faucet. Somehow the sheriff’s hand made it down to his holster. He got out his gun, but dropped it. And finally he lost his balance. He floundered, waving his arms like a big kid trying to teach us smaller children how to make snow angels, as the top half of his body teetered precariously over the edge. His hand slid down the sleeve of Henry’s wet leather jacket with a short, audible squeak as he made one last grasp for something—anything—to hold onto. And then…

  “Sweet Jesus,” said the sheriff.

  Headfirst he went, into the Well.

  His girlish scream seemed to last forever as he plunged to what might have been the very center of the Earth.

  The sound he made when he hit the bottom reminded me of a sack full of wet clothes colliding into a brick wall.

  “Jesus,” Henry said. “Oh, Jesus, what have I done…”

  I watched him stumble to a patch of mud halfway between the Well and the Old Shack. He threw up. Wiped his mouth with the back of one hand. Threw up again.

  I peered down into the Well, my heartbeat slowly returning to normal, but I could see nothing in there but the deepest, most impenetrable blackness I had ever known.

  I rubbed at my throat, wondered if I would feel Burt Baker’s grip there forever. If I would have ugly, purple, hand-shaped bruises around my neck for the rest of my life.

  I realized it had finally stopped raining, though I still imagined I could hear the roar of the storm inside my head after everything that had happened.

  “I’m sorry.” Henry said, behind me.

  I turned to him. Froze when I saw his father’s gun in his hand.

  “Henry, no—”

  “Don’t worry,” he said. “It’s not for you.”

  He brought it up, pointed it at his own temple.

  I gnashed my teeth, looked away toward town.

  There was a sound like a muscle car backfiring behind me, and Henry Baker slumped to the cold wet ground in my peripheral vision.

  I stood there, not moving, for a very long time.

  I could still hear the echo of the gunshot, reverberating against the Blue Ridge Mountains on the other side of Midnight. Like distant explosions every few seconds.

  And then I heard him. Down in the Well.

  I gasped.

  “Help me,” Burt Baker called out, his voice swirling round and round down in there, echoing up from the subterranean depths of the Well like the pleas of a hundred phantoms all sharing his deep Southern accent. “Please…s-somebody…get me the fuck out of here…”

  My heart skipped a beat. Maybe even two or three.

  I couldn’t believe it.

  He was still alive.

  “Hey!!” Sheriff Burt Baker called out, his voice so distant and unreal. “Somebody…anybody…please! I think my legs are broken!”

  Slowly, then, I began to walk toward home, searching inside myself for the sense of closure that I knew should have come by now but probably never would.

  The night smelled of earthworms and pine trees. Somewhere in the distance, perhaps as far as several counties away, lightning glowed and dimmed sporadically, like dying fluorescents. Thunder rumbled in the east. But it was a harmless, pitiful sound. So far away.

  “Help me!” Baker’s voice grew fainter down in the Well. “Please…my legs are broken…can anybody hear me? Oh, God, somebody, please, for Chrissake fuckin’ help me!”

  I shivered as I walked. My teeth chattered like castanets.

  But not because of the cold.

  AUGUST 20

  CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

  POLK COUNTY SHERIFF ARRESTED FOR MURDER

  STATE POLICE: “MAY FACE ADDITIONAL CHARGES”

  Early Monday morning State Police Captain Andrew Maher arrested Polk County Sheriff Burt L. Baker for the murder of 17-year-old Cassandra Belle Rourke, whose body was found floating in Midnight’s Snake River on August 6.

  Captain Maher also speculated that Baker could face additional murder charges by the end of the week, though he declined to comment further.

  While acting as sheriff of Polk County, Baker arrested Calvin Tremaine Mooney, 19, for the murder of Cassandra “Cassie” Rourke. Mooney was killed several days later by a vigilante gang after escaping from the sheriff’s custody. An investigation into that murder is also pending.

  According to Captain Maher, there “is no doubt” that Baker will face indictment for his alleged crime, as there is one eyewitness—an unidentified Polk County minor—who has agreed to testify when the case goes to trial.

  Fred “Tex” Irvine has agreed to act as temporary Sheriff at Mayor Hiram Bentley’s request until further notice. Irvine was Sheriff of Polk County from 1937 until 1975.

  EPILOGUE

  Hardly a day goes by when I don’t reminisce on the things that happened in Midnight, North Carolina during those two dark, wet weeks in 1977. Especially when the thunder rumbles outside my modest home, and the rain lashes at my windows like the memories of those times batting at the corners of my mind.

  I still think about Cassandra Belle Rourke.

  I think about Deputy Mike Linder. And Calvin Mooney, the man we all called “Rooster.”

  And of course I think about my unborn niece or nephew. The baby who died inside Cassie Rourke that night in the Snake River Woods. I mourn for a life no one knew existed save for the dead girl, my mother, my brother, and me.

  I think about Burt Baker, too. I think about him a lot.

  For a while Baker was my own personal boogeyman. The khaki-clad monster in my closet. The devil in my dreams.

  I am glad to say, however, that he did stop visiting my nightmares. Eventually.

  ****

  On December 12, 1977, at approximately three o’ clock in the afternoon, a jury of five men and seven women found former Polk County Sheriff Burt Baker guilty on two counts of second-degree murder and one count of aggravated assault on a minor. The trial lasted nearly eight weeks, but in the case of The State of North Carolina vs. Burt Leroy Baker the jury deliberated all of twenty minutes before making its decision.

  According to those in the know, it was the testimony of one twelve-year-old boy that proved Burt Baker guilty beyond all reasonable doubt.

  That’d be me.

  For his crimes, Baker was sentenced to forty-seven years in prison.

  He barely served a third of that, however.

  On New Year’s Day, 1993, about six months before his first parole hearing, Burt Baker was killed in a fight with another inmate. A man twice his size, from what I heard. Baker’s neck was broken in the scuffle, as the story went, and he died instantly.

  In some twisted, vindictive way, I suppose I should have been elated when I learned of my old enemy’s demise—it could certainly be argued that he got what was coming to him, albeit a decade-and-a-half too late. But when I heard the news I only felt a dull sort of hollowness inside. A numb sense of tardy resolution that depressed me more than anything. It did not matter by then anyway…

  Cassie Rourke was still dead, even after her murderer was gone. As was her unborn baby.

  Deputy Mike Linder did not magically arise from the grave the second his old friend ceased to exist.

  As for Calvin Mooney, he still lies buried in a weedy, unmarked plot somewhere in the old black cemetery out near Jefferson Circle.

  Speaking of the man-child we called Rooster, I should mention what happened to the person who took his life in a misguided attempt at vigilante justice. Several days after Burt Baker’s ar
rest, Cassie Rourke’s father confessed that he had been the one who shot Calvin Mooney on the night of August 19. When several eyewitnesses came forward to corroborate his story (not through any moral obligation, mind you, but to protect their own sorry skins—said eyewitnesses had been part of the very redneck mob that prowled the streets of Midnight along with Mr. Rourke, searching for Calvin Mooney with mouths full of tobacco, rotgut whiskey, and an endless repertoire of racial slurs), Cassie Rourke’s father was charged with murder. Ultimately he pled guilty to voluntary manslaughter, received a sentence of four years in prison, but served only eleven months for his crime.

  Shortly after Clinton Rourke’s release from the Polk County Correctional Facility in the fall of ‘78, his wife Bonnie left him for another man. At least, that is the story I got from my hometown’s eager gossipmongers. Supposedly Rourke owns a construction company somewhere in West Virginia now, and he has also since remarried.

  Brian Rourke, Cassie’s little brother, still lives in Midnight. In fact, he teaches Sixth Grade Remedial English at Midnight Middle School, and is a soccer coach at the local 4-H Camp.

  ****

  My big brother Dan and I eventually grew apart, as siblings will do as time passes. I never thought that could happen—would have cried for hours on end when I was young if I’d thought such a thing was possible—but I should have known it was inevitable. By the time Dan began his third year at FSU, and I started high school, I had long ago accepted the fact that we would never share the things we had once shared.

  We were both different people. We had been for quite some time. We were traveling our own separate ways. And there is no going back.

  When I was twenty years old and a sophomore in college myself, Dan moved to Seattle, Washington, where he got a job working for Microsoft. He played a little basketball in college, as everyone had expected, but he never had much of a desire to take it to the professional level. By the time he graduated, he was sick of it. Wanted to expand his mind, he said, because athletes cannot stay young and athletic forever.

  I don’t fault him for it. Dan is currently bringing home somewhere in the vicinity of a hundred thousand dollars a year, and that’s after taxes. He married a beautiful Hawaiian lady named Renee about ten years ago, and they have one son, Daniel Emmett Mackey III. I would say my brother has done well for himself, even if he chose not to go on and play for the Lakers or the Bulls.