Held
Page 19
Taking a sip of my beer, I felt his eyes on me. I paid him no mind. When the bartender, a burly man named John with a full beard and mustache, thumped a beer down in front of him, I still ignored him. I didn’t come to the bar seeking social interaction. I came to stew in my dissonance and have my habitual three beers. Yet I had this feeling that this guy came for the conversation, and he wasn’t going to leave me alone until he got it.
Maybe I should just go home and make up with Molly. Make love to her and go to sleep, like always. But this was only the first beer, and habit dictated that I have three. No more, no less. I considered rushing through them, just downing all three beers. Or better yet, I could down this one and take the other two to go. I could park along the side of the road and drink them. Or maybe—
“You that guy?”
Shit. All the ignoring in the world hadn’t kept the old coot from talking to me. Normally, I wouldn’t have minded at all, but I hated talking to a drunk. In my experiences, drunks were loud, obnoxious people who either loved you too much, or would love to beat the shit out of you. They were way too eager to touch you and hang all over you. They reeked of alcohol and didn’t mind sharing by leaning in closer and spitting as they spoke. I wanted nothing to do with a drunken person, yet this one was hell-bent on striking up a conversation with me.
With as much reluctance as any one person has ever possessed, I turned my head and answered him.
“I’m a guy.” I just couldn’t hide the smart-ass tone in my voice. Of course, I didn’t try to.
“Yeah, but you’re that guy. The guy that bought the Smith farm.”
“My name’s Tim Martin, and I leased the Taylor farm.”
“Oh hell, that ain’t the Taylor farm,” he said with a wave of his calloused hand. “That’s the Smith farm. The Taylors may own it, and they may have leased it to you, but it’ll always be the Smith farm. Ain’t nothin’ ever gonna change that.”
“Well, I never met the Smiths, but I leased the farm.” I took a swallow of beer, longer than a sip this time. I was a little ashamed of myself for liking the old man’s thick southern accent, but damn it, I just couldn’t help it.
“Of course you never met the Smiths. It’d be downright weird if you did.”
“What do you mean?”
“Hell, they’ve been dead…oh, about a hundred years now, I reckon,” he said, scratching his head.
“Really? And you still refer to it as the Smith farm after all this time?”
“Yup. Any time there’s a tragedy somewhere, the name sticks. Goes right on down the line with the place the tragedy happened.” He scrutinized me for a second, eyebrows pulled together in a sea of forehead wrinkles. “You look like a smart fella. Surprised you didn’t know that.”
I opened my mouth to say something to the man, but closed it instead. I had a weekly limit of wise cracks and good comebacks, and I’d used them all in my argument with Molly earlier. I should’ve saved a couple, but who knew I’d need them? I’d planned to drink in silence before returning home. I didn’t think I’d be involved in a wisecrack slam with a drunk.
The old man tilted his head down toward his chest and his cheeks bulged, an obvious sign of a drunken man belching. When he was finished, he took a long drink.
“What’s the tragedy?” I wanted to end the conversation, I really did. I wanted to sit at the bar, drink my three beers peacefully, mope about my argument with Molly, and then go home. I’m a creature of habit, and I embrace it. But I was curious as to what had happened at my house. The house to which I’d brought my family only five months earlier.
“It was bad. Wasn’t it, John?” the old man asked the bartender when he came closer.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about, Burt,” John answered. I could tell from his tone that though he didn’t enjoy it, he was used to dealing with drunks and being pulled into their various conversations at random. He had far more patience than I did.
“I’m talkin’ ‘bout what happened at the Smith place that night. It was bad, wasn’t it?”
“I guess. I’m only forty-two, Burt. That was way before my time.”
“It was before my time too, but I remember. When I was young, it was still the talk of the town. Couldn’t go anywhere ‘round here without hearin’ people talk about it. Hell, people still talk about it today, just not as much. And most of what I hear folks sayin’ ain’t the truth anyway. They’ve embellished it, see. Added stuff to scare the younger folks, and left out parts that they either don’t remember or don’t want to tell.”
The old man, who I now knew to be Burt, drank the rest of his beer and told John to fetch him another, which John obediently did. He opened a new bottle, set it down in front of Burt, and took a good look at the old man. He appeared to be considering how many more he should allow the old man before cutting him off.
“Well? What happened?” I asked.
After a moment of silence, Burt turned to me and said, “It’s bad. You sure you want to know? I mean, you and your family have to sleep in that house at night. You can’t unknow somethin’ once you know it.”
I thought about what he said, but how bad could it be? A guy got killed in a farm accident? Some old lady died in the house? Really, how bad could it possibly be? When we lived in St. Louis, there were three separate occasions in which I drove past a dead body on the way to work. And one of them was on fire. Surely I could handle anything this guy threw my way.
“I want to know. Tell me,” I said.
Burt took a gulp of his beer and belched again. Then he began with, “It was bad.”
“Yeah, you’ve mentioned that,” I said sarcastically. I was unable to fight the eye roll this time, so I did it with flare.
“It was a hot summer. One of the hottest ever, they say. A lot like this one we just had, but that year, it was a good summer with lots of rain. There weren’t no drought muckin’ it all up.” Burt spat those words like they tasted bad. He said them as if the drought had sent him into financial ruin and starvation, and he was holding a grudge against it. And just as quickly as the bitterness came into his voice, it was gone. He continued his story in a regular tone, no longer angry at the weather. “No, that year, the crops were sproutin’ up like crazy. Everybody was hirin’ extra help because it was just too much for the farmers to handle. Remember, they didn’t have the fancy machinery we have now. Back then, it was done by hand.” Burt looked me in the eye. “Can you imagine takin’ in all your corn by hand?”
I tried to imagine it, but it seemed impossible. That was a lot of corn, and I just had the two hands, which were currently wrapped around the cold neck of a Budweiser bottle. I shook my head.
Burt nodded, and then continued. “Me neither. But that’s how they did it. People had a whole different set of work ethics back then. Put in a hard day’s work every single day. No whinin’. No complainin’. Just work, from sun up till sun down. That’s the way they did it, see.”
I sensed Burt was straying a little too far from the subject, so I decided to reel him back in. After all, nobody came to a bar for a history lesson. “And the Smiths were hard-working people?” I asked, with the hope of bringing Burt back from his adventure in yesteryear before he got lost in there and started talking about breadlines and horseless carriages.
“Oh yeah, they were. Damn fine hard-workin’ family. Least that’s what they say. I never met ‘em, of course, but they say the Smiths worked hard, attended services every Sunday, and minded their business and their manners.” Burt took a drink of his beer and rubbed his chin between the thumb and index finger of his right hand, as if he were concentrating on his words. “That summer, everybody hired extra help, like I said. The Smiths were no exception. They hired a few extra men to help bring in the corn, and they let these people stay in their barn, see. Made ‘em up a real nice place out there too. Least that’s what they say. I have no way of knowin’ that, of course, but I believe it to be true.” Burt paused for another drink, and took a glance around
the bar. Seeing nothing to detract his attention, he continued.
“They hired an older man, a widower. Quiet guy, didn’t talk much. Must’ve missed his wife somethin’ fierce. Kept to himself. Believe his name was Thomas.” Burt thought for a second, and then consulted John. “John, was that man’s name Thomas?”
“Hell, Burt, it’s your story. You tell it,” John replied from the other end of the bar.
Burt went on with his story as John suggested. “I believe that was it. Then there was another man they hired, who was in his late thirties. He had a wife and a few kids with him. Their kids got along fine with the Smith children. They had a ball together, as they say.” Burt smiled at the thought of a bunch of kids he’d never met running around, playing together. Then his face grew solemn. “But then there was another one. A young man, ‘bout 26 years old, name was Lucius Lull. He was single. Some say he wasn’t right in the head, but others say he was, and that he knew full well what he was doin’.”
“What was he doing?”
“Well they say he was a fine worker, but it was what he did when he wasn’t workin’ that got him into a whole heap of trouble.”
As Burt finished his beer and ordered another one, I wished I’d never engaged in a conversation with him. He was going around his asshole to get to his elbow in telling this story, and it was getting more than a little annoying. Plus, I couldn’t help but wonder how much of this story was coming from memory and how much was coming from the bottle.
I sighed. “And what was that?”
After picking up his new bottle of Bud and taking a drink, Burt continued. “The story is that one night at about midnight, James Smith headed to the outhouse to let loose with some business. When he walked around the house, he saw Lucius peekin’ into the sleepin’ porch out back. Now that wouldn’t have been a big deal, see, but that Smith girl was out there sleepin’ that night. This infuriated him, as you can imagine. Seein’ a grown man lookin’ in at your little girl like that is sure to set your blood a boilin’. Well,” he quickly added. “She wasn’t little. I believe she was a teenager, but girls are always little in the eyes of their daddies.” He looked at me. “You got kids?”
I nodded. “One. A girl.”
Burt nodded. “So you can imagine how upset you’d be if you caught a man peepin’ in at her. Especially if it was a man you were payin’ to work for you; a man you’d put up in your barn and trusted to be around your family.”
I nodded again. He was right. I would be beyond infuriated. I wasn’t even sure there was a word for what I would be. I drank the last of my beer, wondering if I could invent a new word that would cover such an emotion, and then I ordered the second of my three beers.
“He was angry, that’s for sure,” Burt continued. “He ran up to Lucius and didn’t even ask any questions, just started beatin’ him to a bloody pulp. His wife Sarah was inside the house. She was plagued with bad headaches that kept her up most nights, see. She was up with a bad one that night, knittin’ a blanket for the upcomin’ winter. She heard the commotion and came a runnin’ outside, still holding the knittin’ needles. She saw the two men fightin’ and ran over to them, demandin’ to know what was goin’ on.”
I could easily picture Molly doing this. I could see the oversized t-shirt she always slept in swishing around her thighs as she ran. I imagined her curly, brown hair flapping behind her as she rushed up to me and demanded to know what was happening. Though it was totally inappropriate to do so in the midst of Burt’s story, I couldn’t help but smile at the thought of my wife nearly naked. I was snapped out of my lustful thoughts when Burt went on with his tale.
“James told her what he’d caught Lucius doin’ while he had the boy down on the ground. James was on top of him, throwin’ punch after punch, and landin’ every one of ‘em on the boy’s face. Sarah stood there, rollin’ this over in her mind, I’m sure. Of course, I have no way of knowin’ for sure what she was thinkin’, see. But I can imagine.”
Burt paused for a drink and a cheek-inflating belch before continuing.
“When James grew tired of beatin’ Lucius, he stood, but Sarah was just getting’ started, see. I guess it had finally settled in on her that this man had been peepin’ on her daughter because that’s when she bent down and stabbed a knittin’ needle through each of his eyes.”
I cringed. “Jesus.”
“Lucius, he just lay there on the ground with those needles stickin’ out of his eyes, bleedin’ from the nose and mouth, and rollin’ around in agony. James took a step back and looked at Sarah in disbelief. While he stood there, shocked that his dainty little wife could do somethin’ so awful, Lucius got up and started swingin’. Before James could register what was happenin’, Lucius - blind now because of the needles, ya know- had managed to make one of those punches land square against Sarah’s face.” Burt made a fist and brought it up to his jaw to mime the event, just in case I had no idea what a thrown punch looked like.
“When James realized what had happened and he saw Sarah fall backwards, he lurched forward and grabbed Lucius. He took to beatin’ him again, worse now than the first time because not only had Lucius peeped in on the man’s daughter, but he had also hit his wife. That’ll make a feller real mad, see. Well, James threw a punch that drove one of those knittin’ needles farther into Lucius’s eye. James threw a few more punches before he realized that Lucius was just layin’ there twitchin’, not even fightin’ back. When the twitchin’ stopped and Lucius got still, they thought he was dead.”
“Jesus,” I muttered again.
“He got up off Lucius and looked down at him. When he caught his breath and calmed down, he noticed Sarah standin’ at his side. She told him he’d killed Lucius, but he didn’t believe her. He didn’t want to believe her. He didn’t want to kill the bastard, just beat the shit out of him and send him down the road. But it was too late, see. They’d already done it.”
Burt stopped to finish that beer and order another.
“Don’t you think you’ve had enough?” John asked.
“Hell no, I ain’t had enough,” Burt replied. “If I’m still sittin’ here an’ makin’ sense, I ain’t had enough.”
John shook his head and gave Burt another beer.
“Where was I? Oh yeah, yeah. So there they were, Sarah and James, standing over Lucius’s body. They wondered what they were gonna do with him. They didn’t want anyone to know what they’d done. After all, they were upstanding people, see. They didn’t want to tarnish their reputations. Back then, ya see, your reputation was a big deal.”
“So what’d they do with his body?”
“Well, they thought about it for a while. They thought about throwin’ it in the river. They thought about buryin’ it. They thought about a lot of things. But they finally decided that the quickest and easiest thing to do was drag him out into the corn field and put him up on the scarecrow post. Let the buzzards take care of the rest. And that’s what they did.” Burt shrugged and took a long drink of beer.
“My god, Burt. That’s a horrible story.”
“Told you it was.”
“True. You warned me.” I took a drink of my beer and rolled the story around in my mind. I wondered how people knew about this if the only people that knew were James and Sarah. How had word seeped out for the story to be passed around? I considered asking Burt, but decided against it. What I really thought was that he’d made it all up, probably to scare me. I was the new, out-of-town city boy who’d just leased that farm. Burt was probably just a bored local who got a kick out of scaring newcomers.
“Now this is where the story gets weird,” Burt said.
I looked at him, obviously confused. In my peripheral vision, I noticed John shaking his head while pouring someone a glass of something stiffer than a beer.
“You mean there’s more?”
“Oh there’s plenty more to this story. But if that first part rattled your cage, the rest of the story’s gonna knock your feathers off.”
I stood on the cool grass, looking through the railing of the porch at my rocking chair, the very chair in which I had been sitting only a minute earlier, which was now broken into a dozen pieces and scattered across the porch.
Quickly, I scanned the porch and yard around it, but saw no one. It had only taken me a few seconds to walk back across the yard, yet there was no one around. Whoever had broken the chair had left in a hurry, and I was certain that it was someone and not something. The only logical suspect was the man from the corn field.
That was unacceptable. He wasn’t going to get away with this. I loved that chair. And even if I didn’t, I wasn’t going to let him escape unpunished.
Angry now that this asshole had the nerve to come on my property and destroy my rocking chair, I walked around the house in search of him. Sure, I realized it was stupid. I should’ve gone in the house and grabbed a gun. I should’ve put on some pants and shoes. And I should’ve stopped pursing my lips like my mother, but I did none of those things. With pursed lips, naked legs, and bare feet, I walked around the house prepared for a confrontation.
I walked past the front porch and turned the corner. The clouds had covered the moon again, and in the darkness, I saw no one. I walked down the north side of the house, the side that was hidden in shadows even when the moon was bright, determined to find this guy. I was hell-bent on getting an answer as to why he was here and why he’d smashed my beloved rocking chair.
When I turned the corner at the back of the house and looked across the yard, the clouds slid off the moon and the world brightened once again. I saw no one, so I walked across the back yard, keeping close to the screened-in porch that ran the width of the house. When I got to the other corner of the house, my search finally ended. I found him. The bright light of the full moon cast his shadow on the ground and told me he was there, standing perfectly still just around the corner. He was waiting, knife in hand.
I froze mid-step. My breath caught at the sight of his large shadow stretched across the grass, but my heart hammered away in my chest. Common sense was starting to settle in now, and I realized that this was quite possibly the dumbest thing I’d ever done. Scenes from horror movies started popping into my mind again, and I decided that it was best for me to take my stubborn ass inside and wait for Tim. I was only a few feet from the chair-smashing asshole, but suddenly I didn’t want to be.