Knuckledragger

by Rusty Barnes

  Like this: “Mom, I’m pregnant.”

  No, like this: “Okay—good news, mom. I’m pregnant.”

  Or, like this: “Guess what, mom? I’m fucked.”

  Yeah, that last one had a nice rhythm to it. Jennie looked into the rearview mirror and said it again, louder than the first time. “Guess what, Mom?” she said. “I’m fucked.” Jennie poked a finger at the corner of her right eye. She had a twitch there. Started a few weeks ago and wouldn’t stop. She tried to catch sight of it in the mirror, but there was nothing. It was invisible, below the surface where Jennie could feel it but not a damn soul could see.

  She pulled her hair back into a ponytail. Well, here goes.

  She locked the car and hurried across the yard, littered with engine parts and old tires, toward the closest house. Her mom’s place. The other two points in the little prefab home triangle were occupied by renters. Her mom kept the pool clean—kind of—and the two houses in semi-working condition. She’d bought the land after winning a civil lawsuit in the eighties. Jennie wasn’t born then, but it seemed like all her mom ever had came from that lawsuit—Jennie didn’t even know what it was about.

  She stepped over two black plastic bags filled with aluminum beer cans and pounded on the front door. “Mom, it’s me!”

  No answer.

  She pounded on the door again.

  Still, nothing. Her mom’s car, an old Dodge Caravan with one hubcap, was out front. So, she wasn’t at Walmart and it was too early for her shift at the diner. Where the hell was she?

  Jennie pounded on the door again, but nobody answered. She stepped over the trash bags and walked around back. All the windows were covered with aluminum foil or thick blankets. Her mom wasn’t a tweaker, not that Jennie knew, but she did prefer a dark little house. “What the fuck, Mom?” Jennie tried the sliding glass door. It was locked. “I swear, lady. You better wake the fuck up.” Jennie started to pound on the door.

  “You okay?” It was the neighbor guy, a jarhead—that’s what Jennie called Marines—who owned two pit bulls. He was standing there in his boots and camouflage pants. He was shirtless. “I heard you screaming all the way over at my place.”

  “Just mind your own business, okay?” What she thought, though, was Not bad. The jarhead worked out from what Jennie could tell, and he had some hot tattoos on his arms and stomach. How old was he? Maybe in his early thirties…A little too old for Jennie.

  “Shit, you don’t have to be such a bitch about it,” he said. He turned around and started to walk back around front.

  “Hey, wait. Have you seen my mom around?”

  The jarhead shook his head and kept walking.

  Prick.

  Jennie tried the sliding glass door again. Wouldn’t budge. She was going to have to call downtown. Maybe the jarhead prick would let her use his phone.

  Marl hadn’t slept after Ronnie left. He spent his night playing old school Legend of Zelda and drinking beer. Now, though, Marl needed to make some money. He switched off his television and walked into the kitchen. The prefab wasn’t too bad. His grandma had left it to him in her will. Sort of a jackpot for Marl, unemployed with no high school diploma and only a few years working construction for job experience. Marl’s expenses were few. Property taxes, the payment on his new pickup and drugs. Lots and lots of drugs. Marl liked to have parties at his place. But he found that nobody would come unless he had beer, booze, and cocaine. And not exactly in that order.

  So, to work.

  He sat at the table with a phone book—yes, Marl still used it—and a pay-per-minute cell phone. He opened to a random page and chose the first name that caught his attention.

  Marliss Spaulding.

  Sounded nice and regal to Marl. He dialed the number.

  “Hello, Spaulding residence.” A woman’s voice. She sounded a little shaky to Marl—she wasn’t young, he was sure of that.

  “Miss Spaulding, is that really you?”

  “It is, may I ask who’s calling, please?”

  Marl smiled. People would trust, trust, trust until they gave everything. It was funny to Marl. Dummies. “Miss Spaulding, I’m an account manager here at your bank—”

  “You work for Wells Fargo?”

  “I do, ma’am. My name is Sidney.” Marl paused for a moment. Let the lady gather herself. “Ma’m, I’m embarrassed to say this, but we’ve had a data breach here in-house.”

  “You have?”

  “Yes ma’m, we have.”

  “Somebody got my account information?”

  “Well, we aren’t quite sure about that. We just know there’s been a breach. It seems, right now, like it’s mostly personal information, but that’s what I’m calling to confirm.”

  “Oh hell. Did you just call to tell me this?”

  “No, ma’m. Not at all. What I have to do is confirm your account, make sure that, well, you’re you. I need to confirm all your personal information. Once I do that, we can cross reference you with the breached accounts. To be honest with you, I’m just doing some basic data entry here for the cyber-security department.”

  “Well,” the woman said. “Tell me what you need.”

  “Thanks for your patience, Miss Spaulding. I’ll make this as fast and painless as possible. Why don’t you begin by confirming your home address for me?”

  There is nothing like the smell of processed meat in the morning.

  That’s what Ronnie thought to himself as he sliced ham behind the Cheap Subs counter. The morning shift was slow, but morning bled into the lunch rush. Ronnie would have shredded lettuce in his shoes and mustard under his fingernails in a couple hours. Minimum wage, this same old shit. Out the front window, Ronnie could see his dusty white Plymouth Road Runner. The slow leak in the driver’s side front tire was getting bigger. He’d have to use the air compressor before he headed home. Cheap Subs was in a Chevron station, one of those weird fast-food and deli combinations. You’ve seen them at truck stops between here and El Paso, the ones that make your stomach turn like melted rubber. Still, the place got busy at lunch time.

  Man, Ronnie would love a new car.

  Well, not a new car, but a car that was new to him. Something that started every day and wouldn’t get him pulled over for fix-it tickets. He just hoped Marl was right about stealing the Bronco. There was a lot about Marl that Ronnie didn’t like—like how he’d looked at Jennie’s tits the one time the three of them hung out together, but Ronnie always had beer in the fridge, gas in his truck and he was always getting girls. Dumb as rocks, but they were hot.

  Ronnie finished slicing the ham and put it into one of the low coolers, a backup for later. When he stood and looked back out the window he saw a Harley Davidson motorcycle coming down the highway like a banshee. It was only a moment until he heard the engine roar into the Chevron parking lot. The rider, with long hair and a white beard, wore a leather vest with a reaper on the back. Middle-aged guy, maybe early forties. Young enough that his white beard was a trip.

  Sweet. God, he’d love a bike too.

  The guy killed the engine and climbed off the bike, a solid black hog with chrome pipes. He reached into a saddlebag for something and tucked it into the waistband of his Levis. “Holy shit,” Ronnie said.

  Across the convenience mart, Revis, the morning clerk, stopped thumbing through Playboy. “What’s up, Ronnie?” he said.

  “Dude has a gun.”

  Revis came around the counter then and tried to look out the window, but the guy was already opening the glass doors and stepping inside the Chevron station. The digital bell sounded its sing-song declaration—customer inside.

  “What’s up, fellas?”

  The guy kept the gun between his waistband and rock-hard abs. He only wore the vest, nothing beneath, like a character from a comic book. He was younger up close than Ronnie first thought. The beard was long and white, but the color was premature. Maybe late thirties. Revis put his hands up right away—like a damn soldier who’d been overrun. “Tak
e whatever, man.”

  The guy raised his chin at Revis—get behind the counter—and stared hard at Ronnie. “You stay right there,” he said. “I don’t want to touch this piece while I’m in here, but I promise I will if that’s what it takes.”

  Ronnie nodded. So, this is what it looks like? To be on the other side of it, to feel like the edge is right there, like it’s waiting for you to step over it, like you’re about to fall into nothing and come out the other side?

  “Put all the money in the register inside a plastic bag,” the guy said to Revis. “Then, I want you to go into that safe behind you and pull out the petty cash. You’re gonna put that into my plastic bag, too. You’ll bring it to me right here—like I’m going shopping.”

  Revis went to work. The guy watched him with no expression. After a moment, he reached out and plucked a Butterfinger candy bar from a rack and slid it into his vest pocket.

  Ronnie watched the guy.

  Tattoos on both wrists, but his arms were bare and tan. The guy worked out or spent time doing hard labor—one or the other. The way he spoke though, that was something to think about. Not with the same lazy lilt most people from around here used. He spoke like a professor down at the community college. Ronnie had taken a few prerequisites there. The professors had that same surety in their instruction, that self-assurance—the I’m-in-charge voice. This guy didn’t talk like he was high, or drunk, or trying to get to either of those things. Just cool, like he was doing a job the same as any other day.

  “Turn your head.”

  Ronnie snapped out of it. He felt the guy’s eyes on him. “What?”

  “I said, turn your head.”

  Ronnie did what he was told. He stared out the window at the still-empty Chevron lot, his Plymouth there next to the guy’s Harley. No cops. No customers.

  Revis brought the bag to the guy and put his hands up again. The guy took the bag and walked toward Ronnie. He stopped in front of the Cheap Subs counter and tapped on the glass. “I’ll take a foot-long meatball,” he said. “Provolone cheese and jalapeños.”

  Ronnie turned to look at the guy. “White bread okay?”

  “I’ll take multi-grain, if you have it.”

  Ronnie made the sandwich. Revis stood in the center of the convenience mart and watched. He kept his hands up around his shoulders the entire time, like he was in a freeze-frame.

  When Ronnie looked up, a gun barrel was in his face. That’s one long dark tunnel into night. Ronnie said, “This one’s on the house.” Behind the gun the guy’s blue eyes centered on him.

  “You’ll wait twenty minutes before you call the cops,” the guy said. “I’ll be gone by then and we’ll have no problems. You won’t mention that I pointed this gun at you—that’s what’ll keep you alive after this, do you understand?”

  Ronnie nodded again.

  “You’re a Mesa Boy, right?”

  “I am,” Ronnie said.

  “Then I can find you. If you do what I say, this ends when I walk out that door.” He shoved the gun back into his waistband and walked outside. He climbed onto his bike and revved the engine. Then, he was gone. Ronnie looked at the digital clock on his register. Twenty minutes, the guy said.

  Just enough time for him to eat his lunch.

  Mesa Boy—the term meant punk, troublemaker, lowlife.

  All those things.

  But it also meant any kid who grew up and still lived on The Mesa, just outside town. A weird place, two miles up a treacherous curved road, The Mesa had its own legends and history. The kids there—and the other residents—depended on town for school, work, groceries, cigarettes and beer. But they were in a world that seemed all their own. Windswept and quasi-lawless, The Mesa had its share of America’s meth labs and pot growers and holed-up crooks. But there were artists there too, and old-timers and young families with five-acre plots.

  The Mesa and the town, their differences came down like this:

  There were the bosses; people in charge of other people and who owned businesses in town and in other towns stretching east and west along the highway. There were The Mesa folks; so much white trash and second or third-generation Latinos and a few, mostly middle-class black families living in self-imposed urban exile.

  Didn’t matter how big the Walmart was or how many fast-food joints sprouted up like weeds in town. Didn’t matter that the car dealerships thrived or that the census kept showing progress—this was a small town. And it always would be a small town. An outlaw stench hung everywhere alongside the dust; in the saloons, the diners, the tattoo parlors. That stench hung like air over The Mesa.

  And some of these Mesa people were descended from goddamned outlaws and homesteaders and gold miners. A great many of them, carried a lineage that stretched back to Manifest Destiny, to a still-ongoing, brutal conquest of a land unforgiving. Freedom, they thought, had something to do with semi-automatic weapons and four-wheel drive and beer and pit bulls. Mean streaks were forgiven, parlayed, understood.

  That’s just how he is, they said. Deal with it.

  There’s a similar history everywhere you look in all the small towns of the Southwest, along the smooth, agricultural contours of Middle America, in the humid South. In the North, too.

  Mesa Boy: Punk. Troublemaker. Lowlife. Even, some might say, outlaw.

  Ronnie turned left into Marl’s dirt driveway. He could see Marl outside, shirtless in the sun. He was putting down rabbits with a pellet gun. Marl being a bastard to the little desert creatures again, though he did make a decent rabbit stew. Ronnie parked the Plymouth in the line of fire. That might piss Marl off, but it was worth the laugh.

  “You son of a bitch,” Marl said. “I was shooting your dinner.”

  “Shit.” Ronnie slammed his door and leaned against the car. “You ain’t going to believe what fucking happened to me at work this morning.”

  “Revis finally give you that BJ?” Marl smirked. He lit a cigarette and fell back into the pleather couch.

  “We got robbed,” Ronnie said. “At gunpoint, too, point-blank.” That sounded kind of funny. But it was what happened. “Dude took down Revis for the money in the register and the safe. Had me make him a meatball sandwich for the road.”

  Marl laughed at that. “No shit? White or wheat bread?”

  “Multi-grain.”

  “Health nut, huh? You know the guy?”

  “Never seen him before. He knew I lived on The Mesa though. Told me I’d regret giving the police enough description to catch him. Told me to play dumb.”

  “Well, did you?”

  “Do I look stupid to you?”

  Marl rocked his head from side to side.

  “Don’t answer that. I said I didn’t get a good look at the guy, told the cops I was too scared to tell if the bike was a Harley or a Honda.”

  “I thought the guy asked you to play dumb—not ignorant.”

  “Rode in on a Harley,” Ronnie said. “He was like a Hell’s Angel or something…had a vest with a reaper on the back.”

  “Probably one of those meth cooks hard up for cash. Good for him, how much was the take?”

  Ronnie squinted at Marl. Sometimes he was such a punk. There he was, lounging like a king on his cheap patio furniture, talking like he was tied in with the mob. “Fuck if I know. He maybe got a thousand total. I didn’t ask Revis.”

  “How much you make today?”

  “Fifty bucks or so, why?”

  “I bet that guy made more in ten minutes than you make in a month.”

  “Yeah,” Ronnie said. “I bet.” The previous evening’s conversation entered Ronnie’s head. That was what Ronnie wanted to talk about. If they were going to steal the restored Bronco from Saylor—Ronnie’s uncle—they needed a plan, and they needed a plan that wouldn’t get them caught.

  “It’s what we’re going to do,” Marl said.

  “What?”

  “Up our hourly wage, that’s what.”

  “You don’t even have a job,” Ronnie said
.

  “You’re damn right about that.” Marl lit another cigarette and smiled. He had straight teeth, not like some of the other Mesa folks. Part-Indian, Marl had free health care on the reservation. Ronnie doubted that heritage, he figured it was something Marl put together with fancy paperwork. The smile disappeared into Marl’s stiff pull on the cigarette.

  “Dude, when you want to do this?” Ronnie said. “You know, the thing.”

  “The thing?” Marl stood and walked across the yard. He stepped over piles of crushed beer cans and cigarette butts, leftovers from his parties. He leaned against the Plymouth, took another drag from his cigarette and tilted his head. “I’m ready when you are.” Then, to imitate Ronnie, he added, “Dude.”

  That damn twitch.

  Jennie felt it just below her skin, a phantom needle inside her face.

  She tried to ignore it while the fat cop explained everything to her, but still the twitch was there. She stood outside her mom’s prefab. Mid-afternoon and the sun was hard and hot on Jennie’s shoulders. Yellow crime scene tape wrapped the house. The neighbors were out for a look—the jarhead lounged in a lawn chair and the family across the way gathered like a posse. Mom, dad, and three spit-mouthed toddlers watched the cops move in and out of the house. Two detectives—in ill-fitting Sears suits—pulled onto the scene and marched inside with legal pads. An ambulance and the volunteer fire department and a state trooper showed before them, a real big show for all the neighbors.

  The fat cop—not a trooper, but a local cop with the county sheriff—waved his hand in front of Jennie’s face. “Hey there,” he said. “You’re still with me, right, Jennie?”

  Jennie nodded and crossed her arms over her chest. “Yeah.”

  “We won’t know cause of death for forty-eight hours,” he said. “When we know, homicide will give you a call.”

  “Cause of death? Someone fucking beat her to death.”