by Colby Cox
“Sit down, Thunder. I got a proposition for the five of you.”
Electricity crackled off of Teasley and the Stranger’s wild hair and beard stood straight up. The Stranger defiantly held his ground and smirked.
Nap Hill broke the tension.
“Art. Sit down. We should listen to this man.”
Thunder shot a puzzled look Nap’s way.
“Art. Please. Sit down. Hear him out.”
It took a few seconds, but Thunder finally calmed himself to the point where he yanked his chair back to its usual spot and plopped down into it. The Stranger turned his attention from Teasley and spoke.
“Your pal Volt here was used by Mr. Scratch. The short and the skinny of it is that Scratch is known as the Devil’s Right Hand. He is what you would call a lieutenant for Satan. He runs a business and that business is collecting souls.”
Siddle rolled his eyes and interrupted.
“You expect us to believe that such nonsense exists?”
The Stranger continued to slowly loop the table.
“That’s pretty rich coming from a man that can shoot lightning bolts down from the sky. If you don’t believe me, maybe you will listen to the most revered among you. Volt Jones is not the only one that has been having visions lately, is he, Mr. Hill?”
Now all eyes were on Nap Hill who stared at the center of the table. They could see that his lips silently moved. He was praying. Thunder softly spoke to his oldest and dearest friend.
“Nap, what is this mope talking about?”
Hill spoke so quietly that the other four huddled in closer to hear his words.
“It’s true. I had visions of this Mr. Scratch as well. Sometimes when I pray, I see a baseball field where a mighty battle between good and evil takes place. I hear whispers tell me that we five have a role to play. I was told we must follow the man who is branded by hate.”
The Stranger continued his pitch and as he spoke, Sparky Siddle placed the man’s accent. Sparky’s cousins came north to visit the family in Virginia from time to time and they spoke with an identical drawl as the Stranger. They were from the backwoods of Louisiana.
“August the first, gentlemen. That is the day this will all go down. I will be in touch and much will be required of you over the next few weeks. If its any consolation, know that you are throwing in with the good guys.”
The man turned and walked for the door. Hoot Foot Clayton yelled for him to stop.
“Wait a minute. Who are you? Who do you work for?”
The Stranger stopped in the doorway. The shoulders of his cable-knit wool sweater almost touched either side. He was massive. There was probably only one other man that they knew of who was as big and that was Sarge Safran. The man turned. He seemed to think for a moment and then when he found the words he was looking for, he spoke.
“Let’s just say that the devil ain’t the only high roller in town that has hired muscle.”
With that, the Stranger raised his two fists in front of him so they met together. The five teammates could easily read the word on his knuckles. It was printed twice in bold, black letters.
HATE.
Intermission
The Whispers train pulled into Culpeper, Virginia, for a scheduled exhibition game with the home town Crusaders. Meetings with other ball clubs outside of the League Divisions was a requirement for all Carny Ball teams, but it was one that Sarge enjoyed. It gave him an opportunity to try out different plays or ideas that ran in his head and he did not have to worry about wins or losses. The towns where they stopped got a big kick out of true professional baseball teams coming to play as well.
Culpeper was no different. There were plenty of folks gathered at the train station to greet them and Sarge gave an interview to the owner of the local newspaper. Word had already traveled about Gary South’s home run against the the legendary Nap Shocker HIll so Gary and Sarge begrudgingly posed for a photograph together holding baseball bats. Sarge stood with a cigar in his mouth on the right while Gary was on the left, all smiles and tattoos (The photograph can still be viewed on the second floor of the Carnival Baseball Hall of Fame as part of the Tristan Safran display).
Just before the first inning of play, the Crusader’s much hyped slugger, Helgif Brockenworth, yelled over to the Whispers bench. His hair was the color of fire and he wore a long, braided beard. His shoulders bulged like cannon balls underneath his uniform. He looked more like a viking than a second baseman.
“Hear me, men of Wilmington! I am Helgif, son of Valdaff! My bloodline is a proud one that can be directly linked to Beowulf, the mighty slayer of Grendel! Tales of Sarge Safran and his men from the north have touched upon my ears on many occasions. You honor my village of Culpeper on this day with your presence and I will give you no less than all of my athletic abilities! Be forewarned, however, you army of Whispers, and know this. I can run like the elk. None in the Commonwealth can surpass my throwing arm. No pitch hurled is too fast for Helgif to strike a mighty blow!”
All of that might have been true, but Helgif could not hit a knuckleball for shit. Lil Boner struck him out four times that afternoon and The Whispers hopped back on the train after a thirteen to nothing rout. Mickey the Midget kept the entire team in stitches all the way to the WIlmington train station with his new Brockenworth impersonation he performed with a mop attached to his chin. Simon Says shared a seat in the back with the wooden cigar indian. He whispered in the thing’s carved ear while the lifeless hunk of wood stared straight ahead.
The team arrived back in Wilmington just in time for the start of the Saint Anthony’s Festival downtown in Little Italy. Paper lanterns were strewn across the streets and games of chance lined the avenues as the air filled with the mouth-watering aromas of the Old Country dishes. Mink was surprised to see Sarge amongst the crowd, strolling arm-in-arm with Delilah. Mink chose not to say anything. He leaned up against a street post and watched the couple walk past, both of them oblivious to his presence or the presence of anyone else but each other. Sarge never looked happier or more at peace. He would never admit it to Mink, but it was written on his face as plain as day. He was in love. Mink raised the glass of grappa he carried and silently toasted the couple. After all, thought Mink, if there was anyone roaming God’s green earth that deserved some love, it was his pal Sarge.
16. Sarge’s Past
Later that night, Delilah awoke to find she was alone in bed. She pulled a sheet around her naked body and found Sarge on the back porch swing. He wore a pair of boxer briefs and a pork pie hat. His arm hung on the back of the seat and his fanged skull tattoo glistened in the moonlight. She eased herself next to him and rested her head on his chest. She reached up in front of his face and plucked the brim of his hat.
“You planning on going somewhere? Because if you do, I suggest you put on some pants.”
Sarge grinned as he realized he had thrown on his trusty hat before coming outside.
“I guess I put it on out of habit.”
The two swung lightly back and forth as they listened to the night surround them. There were three things that Delilah always asked him about during those still moments. Her questions pertained to his father, his brother, and the war. She was never able to get her man to budge on any of the three topics, but she persisted anyway.
“Tell me about your father.”
“No.”
“Tell me about your brother.”
“No.”
Delilah then threw him a curve ball.
“Tell me you love me.”
She saw the silhouette of his head turn her way at the unexpected request. She felt his eyes upon her in the dark and she could not see whether he was angry or embarrassed or both. Just when Delilah was ready to let him off the hook, Sarge inhaled a long deep breath and spoke.
“My father’s name was Jochaved Safran. Everyone back in Edenboro, Louisiana called him ‘Jock’ to his face and the ‘Bayou Jew’ behind his back. Please don’t ask me how an Israelite ended up in
Louisiana, especially around LaFourche, because I haven’t the foggiest. I do know that my old man was a good guy and he did what he could to raise me and my brother. Dad was a widower. My mother died during childbirth. Mycroft and I were twins.
Anyway, my father was a grave digger - I take that back. The water table was so high down in Edenboro that not much digging was done. Most bodies were placed on top of the ground and covered in those mausoleums, so it’s probably better to say Dad was a grave preparer. He didn’t make much, but he kept food on the table. He sold animal pelts on the side and traded for necessities.”
Delilah could hear more and more Louisiana drawl creep into Sarge’s words as he continued. She normally would have teased him about it, but she feared that would stop the man from continuing. She had no idea why he had decided to open up to her, but she did not want to look a gift horse in the mouth.
“The three of us kept to ourselves for the most part. We lived plain. We hunted and trapped. We fished. On Saturdays, Dad read from the Torah and any other spare moment we had from those priorities, Dad took Mycroft and me out in the clearing to practice baseball. Dad made us our very own mitts from possum hide and me and Mycroft would wear them down to nothing.
Life was grand back then. We had a friend who lived not too far from us, Thibault. We called him T-Bone. He, Mycroft, and I all went to school together, one of those one-room throwaways you could find in all the stick towns. We ditched when we could and we built rafts, fished, hunted gators - kid stuff. We were thick as thieves.
It didn’t take my brother and me long to realize we were different than everyone else. By the time we were thirteen, we stood a foot taller than our classmates. T-Bone was the only one close to our size, but he lacked the freakish strength Mycroft and I had. When we walked through town, the locals stared at our bulging arms built from helping Dad move marble slabs and bodies. Everyone gave us a wide berth. It always made me uncomfortable, the way we made people afraid of us, but Mycroft looked at it differently. I could see it in his eyes. In his smirk. He craved it.
It was soon after our sixteenth birthday when the lives we knew fell apart. Mycroft and T-Bone left me behind. The two became inseparable. So much so that people got to thinking T-Bone was me.
Mycroft left home and set out on his own. It tore Dad up something fierce. He didn’t even say goodbye. Word was getting back to my ears of the many adventures of Mycroft and Tristan Safran and their criminal exploits in Donaldsonville. I was busy playing games with the local ball club in the DIxie League at the time, so I could have cared less. I could see my future and it was playing in the big leagues. I figured if Mycroft wanted to waste his time playing thug around Ascension Parish, that was his business.”
Without warning, Sarge abruptly stood and stepped inside the house. Delilah was left alone in the stillness of the night. She could feel her heart pound against her ribs. She was torn between knowing more about the man she loved and the fear of knowing too much.
When he returned, it was with a lit Rocky Ford stogie clenched between his teeth. He tossed the remnants of a used wooden match over the side of the porch. He sat back down on the swing and Delilah was relieved to hear him continue his story.
“The next spring, Dad got a visit from the mayor. Turned out Sheriff Boucher fell face down dead in a bowl of gumbo. Real good guy. Fat as a hog, though. They said it was heart attack, but suspicions ran high that James Beauregard Moriarty placed the root on him.”
Delilah was wrapped up in Sarge’s words so deeply that she slipped and fired off a question. As soon as it popped out of her mouth, she prayed it would not shut the man up.
“What the heck is the root?”
Sarge chuckled.
“The root, my dear, is a curse. Voodoo. Black magic.
James Beauregard Moriarty was the closest thing around us to a crime boss. Hell, everyone was somehow on some sort of take back then, and all corruption and crime eventually led back to JBM. We called him Jim Bo Mo.
Anyway, as I was saying, before I was so rudely interrupted,” Sarge nudged a playful elbow into Delilah’s side.
“Everyone in the area said that Jim Bo killed the sheriff with black magic. The rumor was Sheriff didn’t like the take he was getting to keep heat off of Jim Bo’s back. He wanted more. So Moriarty killed him. It was business as usual.
The problem was though, that nobody wanted the dead man’s job. The mayor went hunting for a replacement and after a few hundred refusals, he ended up at Dad’s door step. Unfortunately, Dad was a good man that could never say no, so by the end of the day, he received a couple of dollars, keys to the jail, and a worn-out badge. By the end of the month, he received his own funeral paid in full by the town.
My Dad did not have a dishonest bone in his body. He broke up gambling rackets, moonshine stills - he even locked guys up for dog fighting. Of course, this was not taken well by the man who lost money, so early one morning, while Dad was out checking his muskrat traps, they shotgunned him down.”
Sarge’s words hung in the air for what seemed an hour. Delilah felt hot tears run down her face and she gripped his bare bicep tightly. The moon clouded over and every few minutes the only visible light was the red hot ash at the end of his cigar. She watched as he finally inspected the nub that was left and tossed it across the split rail fence into the horse pasture where its sparks somersaulted on the ground and faded away.
“Delilah, my father was everything to me. I could get along fine without Mycroft, but I was lost without Dad. And the worst part was, I had to stand there in that cemetery at his funeral and watch Jim Bo Mo and his men yuk it up. They wore their damn fancy suits and drank from flasks and laughed at me. The rabbi stopped the service because of them. I walked home that day to an empty place with nothing but evil in my heart.
It was about two days later when my brother and T-Bone showed up. They had been busy making names for themselves in the extortion racket. They had stakes all over Louisiana, including Baton Rouge and New Orleans. You could see it on them. Tailored suits. Cufflinks. Hell, their shoes alone cost more than all of my possessions combined. I was still the hayseed from Ascension Parish and here they were, seventeen-year-old criminal masterminds.
Mycroft and I now towered over the average man and we both looked ten years older than our age. We looked identical, me and Mycroft, but the past year left us worlds apart. He was a crook and I was an aspiring ball player. We barely even spoke. There was only two topics of conversation left for us. The first was baseball. The second was the fact that Jim Bo Mo had to die.
Everyone knew that Jim Bo and his men spent Sunday nights at the whorehouse he owned just outside of town. They would play cards, hang out with the women, that sort of thing. It was an old abandoned southern estate that had been consumed by the swamp and thirty years of time. It was a miracle the thing hadn’t fallen down. T-Bone, Mycroft, and I crawled up to the place and watched from the darkness. We watched for hours as we could hear them inside having the time of their lives.
The sky showed a little light from the east when I kicked the front door of the place in. There were passed-out drunks sprawled out everywhere. A few were still awake, though, and they turned their heads to see what was causing the ruckus. There we stood, the Safran twins, shoulder to shoulder. We both held brand-spanking new axes that we spent all afternoon on, sharpening them like razors.
I remember Fingers Morton was seated right next to the door. There was a cigarette dangling from his mouth with this impossibly long ash. His tie was undone. He was in one of those old wing back chairs, the kind with claws for feet. He looked up at me with a pair of drunk, sleepy eyes. He didn’t know what to make of us. So I raised my axe high and I brought it straight down on the top of his skull. I nearly cleaved the son of a bitch in two.
A couple of them tried to take us on, but most made a run for it. Two or three of them even were able to pull guns, but fear and drink had such a grip on them that their aims were wild. Six of Jim Bo’s men were t
here that night. Six met their end. We killed them all.
We finally found Jim Bo upstairs hiding under a whore’s bed. He was butt naked. Mycroft grabbed him by the ankles and dragged his fat ass down the steps. Jim Bo cried like a three year old. He bawled his eyes out. Mycroft threw him off of the front porch to T-Bone, who fitted a noose around his neck. My brother grabbed the other end of the rope and slung it over the high branch of a cypress. Jim Bo promised us the world if we let him go. The man who killed my father, the man that had the audacity to come to his funeral and laugh about it, begged us for his life.
We never said a word. Mycroft grabbed the rope high and pulled hard. We watched Jim Bo Mo hang, twitch, and then die.
Mycroft and T-Bone soon filled the criminal void that the death of James Beauregard Moriarty left. I signed up to fight in the war, packed my bags, and never looked back.”
When Sarge finished, Delilah grabbed his hand and led him inside. She hung his hat on the bed post and laid next to him until she heard the familiar sounds of his sleep. She then placed her head on his chest and listened to the slow pound of his heart. She whispered.
“I love you, too, Sarge Safran.”
17. Mark DuCane
Delilah said her goodbyes to Sarge late the next morning. He watched as her sportster disappeared down the country lane away from his cottage, followed by a trail of dust. After she left, he went inside to cut up apples and carrots for the horses that gathered behind the house. Poco, the red quarter horse that seemed to run the show, kicked the split rail fence with his front hoof impatiently.