The Bully of Order

by Brian Hart

  Perhaps the sun will show its face today, and we’ll all look up and know that Charlie Boyerton is dead and that we, meaning me, Oliver Morris Boyerton III—there is no we here—is alive and, if you haven’t been informed yet, has just inherited the post of Most Powerful Man in the Harbor. The Head Slint. King Buggo. I’ll keep an eye on you.

  Yes, it was fear I felt. And true sadness, and loneliness. I was alone now. I would project these emotions today and part of the day tomorrow, and then carve them off at the joint. I would’ve liked to be better prepared. Not that I could’ve practiced. I slithered as far out from the shadow as I dared just working in the mill, supervising the payroll. Maybe I could’ve learned a song to sing at the graveside, a sad, very sad song, but this coward of a murderer, assassin, ureter of death, had left me no time, no choice. But then again, if I were to shoot someone, I would shoot them in the back as well. Father, did you hear the shot? I don’t fault the murderer for the angle. The murdered won’t care one way or the other. Father, did you feel the bite? I wouldn’t have wanted to see his face. Thinking this, a sick feeling washed over me, warm as piss.

  I thought of how I preferred to cover Mabel’s eyes with my hand when I was near ejaculation, only to reveal myself to her at the very zenith. Surprise! Give me a million little deaths, at ten dollars a pop. My father is rumbling around in my balls today. No, but of course he’s in a casket. Of course he’s dead. I’m not saying he’s actually in my scrotum, standing like a man between two boulders. No, it’s the essence of him, the lingering mist and rage. I’m ready for a ruckus time, a big almighty drunk. Bring cash and plenty of it. Mabel might have some toot to share.

  From the dresser I gathered a stack of bills and folded them in half and crammed them into my front pocket. My watch looked up at me from the drawer; Father’s was stolen. I lifted it and gasped. The time. Christ, the time. I won’t be late, not so late at least. I could hear my sister banging around in the hallway. Like the goddamn harridan she is. It was her fault, anyway. That was the rumor, and like most rumors it would probably be proved true. At least it’s not my fault. Father told her when she came home never to see him again. Her winky little arm.

  “You’re my little bird. My dove.” Father’s hair was loose and flopped over his brow.

  “I told him, Daddy. I told him I couldn’t see him again.”

  “And he did that to your arm?”

  “I slipped. It wasn’t him. He wouldn’t hurt me.”

  Then Father took her hand gently and studied the bruises spreading like ink and then of course not like ink. There was a thumbprint. I saw it. Father saw it. But no, he wouldn’t hurt you. Poked out my fucking eye. And now to truly beat the horse and the band and everything else, he’s shot and killed my father. What exactly is a Duncan Ellstrom, and how can it be so destructive? Someone should put him down, and they will. The hunt has already started. I won’t have mercy, but I will not press because, quiet now, he’s done me a favor. It pokes its ugly head from the muddy pond. Yes, in his way, he’s repaid the eye.

  I could see beginning to enjoy all of this, from gunshot to grave, manhunt to murder. For a murder, mind you. We murder the murderer, and it’s justice. We’re not animals. People delight in vengeance like cake. Suck it from their fat fingers. If I ride along with the hunters, the lawmen, people will see me once and for as long as they can bear as an implement of righteousness, a deadly blade singing a very sad song, an old song where everybody knows the words, more of a moan, really.

  I absently touched the wad of cash in my pocket.

  More of a moan. I could fuck a knothole, and might if the funeral took too long. I squeezed my father-filled balls until they hurt. I had to stop thinking about the dirtiness. I’d been crossing all sorts of lines as of late, filthy deviant. If Father knew, he’d kill me. Sorry, no, won’t happen. Is it patricide if it’s not the son that kills the father? Well, son, the father is still dead. My father. The mirror was also there, and it told me that my teeth are my best feature. It told me to quit smiling; it’s a day of mourning. Stone face. I couldn’t manage it, not any of it.

  Cover your face with your hands. Wait.

  And they’ll want to see what’s under the eye patch, just like they’ll want to see what’s in the coffin. It’s my decision if I want an open casket. Rain against the window, but I’m hoping for sun. I’ll pop the hatch and give him one last look. Give the people a peep. A picture of success. Maybe I’ll go patchless. I’d rather go naked. I really would. I’d like to show them all my shriveled twaddle, shake it at them like a dead pink mouse. I pushed myself against the basin stand and the water sloshed and some spilled out onto my razor. Now I’ve made a mess. I wiped the razor on my shirt against the money, and then instead of putting it back where it belonged, I folded it shut and slipped it into my jacket pocket, like a comb.

  At least people had mostly quit talking about my eye. How’d you lose it? Lose it? I didn’t lose anything. It was snatched out like an olive on a toothpick. Actually, it wasn’t stabbed or snatched, it was whipped. Frankly, it was an accident. You should see my sister, or take a quick glance graveside to my father, dead and cued up for a speedy drop into the big, burny brimstone. Would the old man be naked in hell? Wasn’t everybody? Not unless their clothes were unburnable. All things burn. The mathematics of hell didn’t add up, but neither did heaven or God either. Steel pants and shirt, copper shoes. Dressed like a faller, tin pants and caulk boots. You make your own hell. I hope he goes to heaven. I’ll pray for it. He wasn’t all bad. He could fix with money or threats whatever I broke.

  The last thing I saw with my gone eye was a stick. First thing, maybe my mother. No, some doctor in Portland. Weird to think of it, all the things the eye sees in between. Doctor Stick. If it could still see now, it would be like I was at two places at once. Maybe Dr. Haslett had it in a jar. I could look around his office, the examining table. Naked patient, two words that went swell together.

  Who would be at the funeral? That was the question. New people. Old people. They’d want to see what’s under the patch, what’s in the cellar. They all want to know who I am and what I’m hiding, and I am hiding; I’m hiding who I am, just like everyone else. Let’s have whiskey and get the girls naked and pinch their tits. Lick their toes. Slap and dangle. Mabel, lend me your thumb.

  I straightened my tie and shrugged my slumpy, narrow shoulders. The razor didn’t bulge at all; it was completely unnoticeable until I touched it. Maybe I’d cut Duncan Ellstrom’s throat from ear to ear, hang him up like a pig. Feeling truly diabolical, I thought I’d let Ellstrom marry my sister, be gracious, pay for the wedding, then barge in on their matrimonial rutting and shoot him in the face. I whistled at the evil my mind was capable of, no limit but what you can imagine, and I could imagine anything.

  The thin black string of the eyepatch always messed up my hair. I looked like a wet rooster, comb and cowlick. You look like a fool. Don’t touch it. You’ll make it worse. Then I was touching it, making it worse. I’d spent so much time earlier combing and oiling, thirty minutes at least. It had been perfect. Why can’t I have my sister’s beauty? Why do I have to be this beasty little turd? No one can imagine what this is like. I flicked myself in the eyepatch and then pulled my own hair wildly and stomped my feet like a child.

  Tantrum finished, I went to my hat rack and picked out a smart derby and put it on, snapped the brim and hoped I’d get to do it again later when people were watching. No one can tell me I can’t wear a hat in the house anymore; it’s my house now. I can do whatever I like. I can crap on the kitchen counter. I can raise puppies in Father’s room and kill them in the hall. I can be as wrong as the devil’s foreskin.

  I’ll keep my hat on at the funeral, even if the sun does come out. I’ll keep it low and sinister, flash them the eye if they stare. Split as Solomon, at least I know where I stand.

  My first big idea came to me, and it was to fire Miss Dalgleish. She could be replaced with some young, delectable little piece.
Mabel’s sister, Maude, perhaps. I’d be bathed everyday, anointed and tugged. But again, it could take years to straighten them out. Whores are so often damaged and dumb. Didn’t the Egyptians keep eunuchs? The mill needed to be my focus. The house would take care of itself. Good generals—keep good generals, and a king can slouch through the day. Two kingdoms are better than one. But what if my father was not David but Solomon? What of my wealth and my wives?

  My sister was yelling at me to hurry. We’d be late. And so we would.

  Tartan

  Joseph McCandliss slipped the flask into his pocket and then whistled the dog out of the street. The tabby cat it’d been chasing was safe now, stretching and clawing the porch rail in front of the rebuilt Eagle Dance Hall. Seconds ago it had made a forced charge and slashed the dog’s face and fled to the safety of the road. The dog gave chase but without much spirit. A few months back someone had doused the animal in kerosene and lit it on fire. Fifteen, maybe twenty seconds it burned before it ran blindly off the pier. Bernice Travois found it and nursed it back to health. She let the McCandliss brothers take it out sometimes. The animal was scarred and hairless except on its rear legs, which from a distance made it appear that it was wearing trousers and might stand up and walk. It came leaping back to Joseph with three neat beaded slashes on its slick and gooey-looking face, tongue lolling. Joseph caught it by the ear and gave it a caring tug, and the dog tilted over against his legs and then slid down until it was resting happily on his boots.

  Tartan squatted down and sniffed at the dog. “What d’you call it?”

  “Flapjack.”

  “He still smells burned.”

  “I think it’s a trick of the mind. He’s had about a million baths, but I smell it too. Bernice named him Gristle, and I thought it was the name that produced the smell, but Flapjack has made for little improvement.”

  “Who did it to him?”

  “No tellin. I heard there were several involved. Coulda been Lindo or maybe Slod Williams that tossed the match.”

  “Slod’s dead, drowned drunk in the Wishkah.”

  “So he did.

  “And didn’t Lindo’s teeth get bashed out?”

  Joseph grinned. He had three new silver teeth and one gold, stitches in his lip like a deformity. “It was too wet to get a fire goin.”

  The dog looked up at them; its eyes were bloodshot and sky blue, murdered and at the same moment somehow enameled, cloisonné.

  “He blind?” Tartan asked of the dog.

  “Not sure. He seems to find what he’s after.” Joseph set to rolling a cigarette. “What’s the story? You got somethin to say, or we talkin dogs?”

  Tartan stood up. The cat continued to watch them, as motionless as a pelt. It was ten in the morning, and the street was filling up with women and children on errands. Drunks were teetering upright and heading for a bottle. Noon at Dolan’s they gave you a free shot if you had shoes. The upper windows of the Eagle were still closed. Too cold to advertise the strude.

  “The boy apparently done it,” Tartan said. “Shot Boyerton down. Hank says he’s a hero of the revolution.”

  “Me and my brother seen him.”

  “Who?”

  “The dead man. We came upon his corpse before Chacartegui got there, say we just missed Duncan. Blood hadn’t even skinned yet. Ben’s been sackin the Luarks’ housekeeper, and she snuck us into the kitchen to cook us a meal, ham steaks big as yer hand. When we were walkin out the door we heard the shot and went to see at the noise.”

  Tartan leaned toward McCandliss. “I heard rumors Boyerton had a week’s payroll with him. How much did you get?”

  “No payroll when we got there. His wallet had been picked clean, but what gold we got we rendered unto Caesar.”

  “Gold, huh? Hank didn’t say nothin to me about that, about you bein there.”

  “Why would he? It’s not like we had anything to do with the killin, but if someone seen us there or said they did, we’d have trouble.” Joseph lifted the contented dog’s head with his boot and sucked his teeth at it, then let it gently down again. “As far as Duncan bein a hero of the revolution goes, I’d say that’s a bit of stretch. It wasn’t labor that drove him, but love.”

  Tartan turned his head and spit into the street. No one dared raise their eyes to him. “You’ve heard that Boyerton’s spawn has announced a bounty, and Chacartegui is callin for volunteers?”

  Joseph wagged the cigarette at the dog. “What kind of slint doesn’t see the crosswise nature of a bounty bein offered and volunteerin?”

  “Nobody’s doin nothin in the name of civic duty.”

  “I’m sure some asshole is.”

  “You interested in huntin him up?”

  “I ain’t chasin anyone down for fuckin Boyerton, and you know how I feel about Chacartegui.”

  “It’s a thousand dollars.”

  “Nah.”

  “Boyerton had it printed in the fuckin paper. I seen it.”

  “I’d stab a nun in the face for a thousand dollars.”

  An old woman walking by, carrying a bucket of ashes in one hand and a bucket of cranberries in the other, heard this and dropped her jaw and gasped. Joseph winked at her. The dog growled, and the woman hurried on.

  “Yer a sweet little cookie, that’s what you are,” Tartan said to Joseph.

  “Understand that I’m no turncoat, but is it our fault they’re offerin the money? No, it is not. I say it might as well be us that gets it.”

  “Good, cuz Hank sent me out to find you, to see if you wanted in.”

  “He’s goin against Chacartegui?”

  “It does look that way, Joseph.”

  “I ain’t stupid. You don’t have to give me the dummy nod.”

  “Apologies. What about your brother? What about Ben?”

  “I couldn’t say. He’s closer to Duncan than I am. They’re pals.”

  “I’d side with the boy too,” Tartan said. “I have nothin against him.”

  “But yer still goin?’

  “He’ll get grabbed by somebody. He’s done.”

  “Ben might listen to that kind of logic. If he’s slint enough to get caught, then he deserves what he gets.” Joseph puffed on his cigarette, licked the tobacco from his stitches.

  “Chacartegui’s no priss,” Tartan said. “He probably will catch him.”

  “Duncan’s sly, though.”

  “Sly doesn’t last.”

  “Shit, people’re callin me sly all the time.”

  “Yep.” Tartan wore a smug face.

  “They say worse about you.”

  “Who dares?”

  “Hank, for one.”

  “What’s he say?”

  Joseph smiled and touched the corner of his eye. “Whatever he likes.”

  “Hank might not be around forever. Somebody grabs this thousand for Ellstrom, they’d be leveraged. You know what I’m sayin?”

  “Balls just speakin that nonsense.”

  “Just between us, right?”

  “Of course, big fella. Just words among friends.”

  “Good. I’ll tell Hank yer in for the hunt.”

  “I’m in. I guess we’ll see about Ben.” Joseph whistled, and the dog came to its feet. The animal spotted the cat on the rail and was off, furry-assed and bald-headed, dodging through horses and under a wagon, split a mother from her child and nearly caught a kick for it.

  “So he ain’t blind at all.”

  “Nope, got good eyes.”

  Teresa

  The graveyard looked openly on the wharfage and the ships, the mill and the expansive log yard that surrounded it, the booming grounds that seemed to go on for miles, ringed in varying shades of mud. Her father had once remarked on the tidal boundaries, called it pewter and slag. She hadn’t known what he meant then, and still didn’t. Low clouds had settled on the hilltops and blocked the trees and the logged sections from view. She saw the clouds as a courtesy to her father. A widow’s veil. Mourners stood like rotten
pilings around the grave. She felt horrible; this was her fault and her fault alone. She couldn’t have known what Duncan would do. Nobody had told her that independence could double for lonely, for dislike. Someone had delivered a neatly wrapped package of still-warm horseshit to the house with her name on the card. Inside it read: “The Hungry Families of the Harbor Thank You.”

  Beside her was her brother in a coal-black suit and a ridiculous derby hat. He’d been itching his nose all morning, and it was shiny and red. The acne on his cheeks and neck was inflamed, and in places it was bleeding and oozing clear liquid. She suspected he was drunk. While Dawson the mill foreman was saying his piece, she shoved her brother to make him stop leaning on her. He turned and glared furiously from under the low-pulled brim. She didn’t care if he was angry or what he wanted. The nasty little beast. She wouldn’t mind if Duncan had killed him. But that wasn’t true. She worried about him and what would become of him now that their father wasn’t there to keep him from trouble. Their mother wasn’t going to make it back until next week, and even then, she’d only want to leave again. Teresa had the feeling that this would all be over soon, her whole family, this place, the mill and the town. She wanted to go home so she could cry. Aside from the gift of shit, people had come calling: friends and colleagues of her father, conspirators and competitors. She gave them coffee and let them stay as long as they wished. Left them alone and cowered in the kitchen with Miss Dalgleish. She’d been crying, or trying not to, since Duncan ran away from her scream. She’d spent three long nights, crying over her father while at the same time hoping to see Duncan appear from the shadows. At the sound of hoofbeats she’d climb out of bed to see if he was there. She might leave with him.