“No,” I said, “it sure isn’t.”
“Now let’s go get him.”
Callie had mentioned she was taking the kids for a long weekend stay at a theme park which was why we’d decided on tonight.
Neely didn’t hear us coming. We walked through patches of shadow then moonlight, shadow then moonlight while he tried to get out of his truck. I say tried because he was so drunk he almost came out headfirst and would have if he hadn’t grabbed the edge of the truck door in time. Then he sat turned around on the edge of the seat and puked straight down. He went three times and he made me almost as sick as he was. Then of course being as drunk as he was he stepped down with his cowboy boots into the puddle of puke he’d made. He kept wiping the back of his right hand across his mouth. He started sloshing through the puke then stopped and went back to the truck. He opened the door and grabbed something. In the moonlight I could see it was a pint of whiskey. He gunned a long drink then took six steps and puked it all right back up. He stepped into this puke as well and headed more or less in the direction of the stairs that would take him to his apartment. All of this was setting things up perfectly. Nobody was going to question the fact that Neely had been so drunk it was no surprise that he’d fallen off those stairs and died.
We moved fast. I took the position behind him with my ball cap, shades and ball bat and Ralph got in front of him with his Glock.
Neely must’ve been toting a 2.8 level of alcohol because he didn’t seem to be aware of Ralph until he ran straight into him. And straight into the Glock. Even then all he could say was, “Huh? I jush wan’ sleep.”
“Good evening, Mr. Neely. You shouldn’t drink so much. You need to be alert when you’re beating the shit out of women half your size. You never know when they’re going to hit back, do you?”
“Hey, dude, ish tha' a gun?”
“Sure looks like it, doesn’t it?”
He reeled back on the heels of his cowboy boots. I poked the bat into his back. I was careful. When he went down the stairs it had to look accidental. We couldn’t bruise him or use any more force than it took to give him a slight shove. If he didn’t die the first time down he would the second time we shoved him.
“Hey.”
“You need some sleep, Neely.”
“—need no fuckin’ sleep, ’n don’t try’n make me. Hey, an’ you got a fuckin’ gun.”
“What if I told you that I’ve got a pizza in the car?”
“Pizza?”
“Yeah. Pizza.”
“How come pizza?”
“So we can sit down in your apartment and talk things over.”
“Huh?”
“How—does—pizza—sound?”
Ralph was enunciating because Neely was about two minutes away from unconsciousness. We had to get him up those stairs without leaving any marks on him.
“Pizza, Neely. Sausage and beef and pepperoni.”
I allowed myself the pleasure of taking in the summer night. The first time I’d ever made love to Karen had been on a night like this near a boat dock. Summer of our senior year in college. We went back to that spot many times over the years. Not long before she died we went there, too. I almost believed in ghosts; I thought I saw our younger selves out on the night river in one of those old rented aluminum canoes, our lives all ahead of us, so young and exuberant and naive. I wanted to get in one of those old canoes and take my wife down river so she could die in my arms and maybe I’d be lucky and die in hers as well. But it hadn’t worked out that way All too soon I’d been flying solo.
Neely started puking again. This time it was a lot more dramatic because after he finished he fell facedown in it.
“This fucking asshole. When he’s done you take one arm and I’ll take the other one.”
“I thought we weren’t going to touch him.”
“That’s why you shoved those latex gloves in your back pocket same as I did. You gotta plan for contingencies. That’s why cops carry guns they can plant on perps. Otherwise we’ll be here all night. Clint Eastwood would know about that.”
“Yes, planting guns on people. Another admirable Eastwood quality.”
“Right. I forgot. Tender ears. You don’t want to hear about real life. You just want to bitch and moan like Garner. Now let’s pick up this vile piece of shit and get it over with.”
He’d worked up a pretty good sweat with all his puking. It was a hot and humid night. His body was soggy like something that would soon mildew. Once I pulled him out of his puke I held my breath.
“We don’t want to drag him. They’ll look at his boots. Stand him upright and we’ll sort of escort him to the steps.”
“I just hope he doesn’t start puking again.”
“I saw a black perp puke like this once. I wish I had it on tape.”
“Yeah, be fun for the grandkids to watch at Christmastime.”
“I like that, Tom. Smart-ass remarks in the course of committing murder one. Shows you’re getting a lot tougher.”
We took our time. He didn’t puke again but from the tangy odor I think he did piss his pants.
When we were close to the bottom step, he broke. I guess both of us had assumed he was unconscious and therefore wouldn’t be any problem. But he broke and he got a three or four second lead while we just stood there and watched him scramble up those stairs like a wild animal that had just escaped its cage. He was five steps ahead of us before Ralph started after him. I pounded up the steps right behind him. Ralph was shouting. I’m sure he had to restrain himself from just shooting Neely and getting it over with.
Neely was conscious enough to run but not conscious enough to think clearly because when he got to the top of the stairs he stopped and dug a set of keys from his pocket. As he leaned in to try and find the lock his head jerked up suddenly and he stared at us as if he was seeing us for the very first time. Confusion turned to terror in his eyes and he started backing away from us. “Hey, who the hell’re you?”
“Who do you think we are, Neely?”
“I don’ like thish.”
“Yeah, well we don’t like it, either.”
“He got a ball bat.” He nodded in my direction. He weaved wide as he did so, so wide I thought he was going to tip over sideways. Then his hand searched the right pocket of his Levi’s. It looked like he’d trapped an angry ferret in there.
Ralph materialized Neely’s nine-inch switchblade. “This what you’re looking for?”
“Hey,” Neely said. And when he went to grab for it he started falling to the floor. Ralph grabbed him in time. Stood him straight up.
But Neely wasn’t done yet. And he was able to move faster than I would have given him credit for. Ralph glanced back at me, nodded for me to come forward. And in that second Neely made his sloppy, drunken move. He grabbed the switchblade from Ralph’s hand and immediately went into a crouch.
He would have been more impressive if he hadn’t swayed side to side so often. And if he hadn’t tried to sound tough. “Who’sh gotta knife now, huh?”
“You gonna cut us up are you, Neely?”
All the time advancing on Neely, backing him up. “C’mon, Neely. Cut me. Right here.” Ralph held his arm out. “Right there, Neely. You can’t miss it.”
Neely swaying, half-stumbling backward as Ralph moved closer, closer. “You’re pretty pathetic, you know that Neely? You beat up your wife all the time and even when you’ve got the knife you’re still scared of me. You’re not much of a man but then you know that, don’t you? You look in the mirror every morning and you see yourself for what you really are, don’t you?”
I doubt Neely understood what Ralph was saying to him. This was complex stuff to comprehend when you were as wasted as Neely was. All he seemed to understand was that Ralph meant to do him harm. And if Ralph didn’t do it there was always the guy in the ball cap and the shades. You know, with the bat.
Neely stumbled backward, his arms circling in a desperate attempt to keep himself upright. He hit t
he two-by-four that was the upper part of the porch enclosure just at the lower part of his back and he went right over, the two-by-four splintering as he did so. He didn’t scream. My guess is he was still confused about what was happening. By the time he hit the ground I was standing next to Ralph, looking down into the shadows beneath us.
There was silence. Ralph got his flashlight going and we got our first look at him. If he wasn’t dead he was pretty good at faking it. He didn’t land in any of those positions we associate with people who died crashing from great heights. He was flat on his back with his arms flung wide. His right leg was twisted inward a few inches but nothing dramatic. The eyes were open and looked straight up. No expression of horror, something else we’ve picked up from books and movies. And as we watched the blood started pooling from the back of his head.
“Let’s go make sure,” Ralph said.
It was like somebody had turned on the soundtrack. In the moments it had taken Neely to fall all other sound had disappeared. But now the night was back and turned up high. Night birds, dogs, horses and cows bedded down for the evening, distant trucks and trains all turned so high I wanted to clap my hands to my ears.
“You all right, Tom?”
“Why wouldn’t I be all right?”
“See. I knew you weren’t all right.”
“But you’re all right I suppose. I mean we just killed a guy.”
“You want me to get all touchy-feely and say I regretted it?”
“Fuck yourself.”
“He was a piece of shit and one of these nights he was gonna kill a friend of ours. Maybe he wouldn’t even have done it on purpose. He’d just be beating on her some night and he’d do it by accident. But one way or another he’d kill her. And we’d have to admit to ourselves that we could’ve stopped it.”
I walked away from the edge of the porch and started down the stairs.
“You doin’ better now?” Ralph called.
“Yeah; yeah, I guess I am.”
“Clint Eastwood, I tell ya. Clint Eastwood every time.”
Turned out Neely wasn’t dead after all. We had to stand there for quite awhile watching him bleed to death.
I was visiting my oldest son in Phoenix (way too hot for me) when I learned Ralph had died. I’d logged on to the hometown paper website and there was his name at the top of the obituaries. The photo must have been taken when he was in his early twenties. I barely recognized him. Heart attack. Hed been dead for a day before a neighbor of his got suspicious and asked the apartment house manager to open Ralph’s door. I thought of what hed said about flying solo that time.
Ralph had experienced the ultimate in flying solo, death. I hoped that whatever he thought was on the other side came true for him. I still hadn’t figured out what I hoped would be there. If anything would be there at all.
The doc told me they’d be putting me back on chemo again. The lab reports were getting bad fast. The nurses in chemo commiserated with me as if Ralph had been a family member. There’d been a number of things I hadn’t liked about him and he hadn’t liked about me. Those things never got resolved and maybe they didn’t need to. Maybe flying solo was all we needed for a bond. One thing for sure. The chemo room hours seemed a lot longer with him gone. I even got sentimental once and put a Clint Eastwood DVD in the machine, film called Tightrope. Surprised myself by liking it more than not liking it.
I was sitting in my recliner one day when one of the newer nurses sat down and started talking in a very low voice. “There’s this guy we each gave five hundred dollars to. You know, a down payment. He said he was setting up this group trip to the Grand Canyon. You know, through this group therapy thing I go to. Then we found out that he scams a lot of people this way. Groups, I mean. We called the Better Business Bureau and the police. But I guess he covers his tracks pretty well. Actually takes some of the groups on the trips. Five hundred is a lot of money if you’re a single mother.”
The chemo was taking its toll. But I figured I owed it to Ralph to help her out. And besides, I wanted to see how I did on my own.
So here I am tonight. I’ve followed him from his small house to his round of singles bars and finally to the apartment complex where the woman lives. The one he picked up in the last bar. He’s got to come out sometime.
I’ve got the Louisville Slugger laid across my lap and the Cubs cap cinched in place. I won’t put the shades on till I see him. No sense straining my eyes. Not at my age.
I miss Ralph. About now he’d be working himself up doing his best Clint Eastwood and trying to dazzle me with all his bad cop stories.
I’m pretty sure I can handle this but even if it works out all right, it’s still flying solo. And let me tell you, flying solo can get to be pretty damned lonely.
“COME ON, GUYS. THIS IS GONNA BE GREAT!”
Frank Bennett and Bubba Cole looked at one another, their faces like pale masks in the October moonlight. They had no idea why they had let Mike Stinson talk them into coming way out there on the south end of Green Creek. Maybe they had just gotten downright bored with the way that Halloween night had progressed: kicking back a few beers that Mike had liberated from the little fridge in his dad’s den, then rolling the yards of the high school principal and egging a few windshields from the overpass of Interstate 24.
The three trudged up an embankment, pulling themselves along by fistfuls of kudzu and the twisted trunks of small saplings, until they reached the top. They rested for a moment, winded by the climb, which seemed unlikely since they were the quarterback, running back, and linebacker for the Bedloe County Bears, state champions for three seasons straight. They figured it was the alcohol more than anything else that was slowing them down and Mike had gotten a head start on them before he had even picked them up in his Chevy S-10 pickup around seven-thirty that night.
Their fearless leader flashed that handsome, smart-ass grin of his—the one that had gotten him in a dozen fights and laid by a dozen girls during his junior year—and pointed across the rural stream to the top of an adjacent ridge of trees and bramble. “There she is, boys.”
Frank clung to a sapling to steady himself and peered across the narrow hollow to a narrow, wooden structure that stood perched on the opposite side. “It’s an outhouse,” he said, unimpressed.
“Hell, yeah!” Mike took the last long sip from a tall boy in his hand, then flung the can into the creek bed. “Tonight’s crowning glory.”
“Pushing some old outhouse into the creek is your idea of fun?” Bubba asked. His big moon-pie face frowned, puzzled.
“That’s right.”
Frank shook his head in disgust. “That’s lame, man. Why would you get a kick out of doing that?”
“Because that’s what country boys like us do,” Mike told him. “It’s, you know, a tradition. My daddy pushed over outhouses on Halloween and so did my granddaddy. And, as far as I know, this is the last one there is here in Bedloe County.”
Bubba looked around. “Hey, ain’t this Old Man Chamber’s property?”
Mike nodded. “It sure is.”
“Un uh,” protested Frank. “You can just drive me home. I ain’t messing with that old fart. Everybody knows since his wife ran off and left him, he’s turned meaner than a rattler with a belly rash. Keeps that Remington 1100 loaded with double-aught buck and lead slugs, and he ain’t shy about using it on trespassers, either.”
“Quit being such a pussy,” said Mike. “We’ll push his crapper into the creek and be on our way before he can even hop out of bed and pull his britches on.”
“I don’t know, Mike...” Bubba grumbled, doubtfully.
“Oh, so you have my back on the gridiron, but you go chicken shit on me when it comes to this?” Mike brushed his blond hair out of his eyes and looked wounded. “That hurts me. Deeply.”
Frank and Bubba looked at one another. They didn’t much like Mike questioning their loyalty, on or off the football field.
“Okay, okay!” Frank finally said. “Le
t’s get it over with and get outta here.”
“Knew you boys would see it my way” With a triumphant grin, Mike led them down the slope of the embankment, across the creek, and up the opposite bank. By the time they made the steep grade, they were nearly out of breath.
The three stood and regarded the outhouse. It was about six and a half feet tall and five feet wide, constructed of weathered lumber and a roof of rusty corrugated tin. The hinged door had the traditional crescent moon carved in the upper panel. It was completely unremarkable, except for one thing. There was a heavy length of rusty logging chain wrapped four times around the circumference of the structure, secured by a big Yale padlock.
As they stood there, something inside moved. “Damn!” Bubba jumped back a couple of steps. “Somebody’s in there!”
Mike rolled his eyes. “Right...with all those chains wrapped around it? I know frigging Harry Houdini ain’t in there, taking his nightly sit-down.”
The big linebacker’s eyes narrowed. “Who?”
“Never mind. Probably just a possum or a raccoon. Let’s push it off into the creek and head out.”
The three placed the palms of their hands against the eastern wall of the privy and gave it a shove. Nothing happened. It didn’t budge. “Again,” said Mike. They tried a second time. The boards creaked a little, but, still, it failed to move an inch.
“This old toilet is built like a brick shithouse,” said Frank. “What’d Old Man Chambers do? Put a concrete foundation underneath it or something?”
“Bubba alone ought to be able to push this thing over,” Mike said in irritation. He eyed Bubba. “Put your back into it, hoss. Just pretend it’s Calhoun County’s pretty-boy quarterback and tackle the hell out of it.”
“Okay.” Mike had known exactly which button to push; he knew Bubba hated Troy Andrews of the Calhoun Silver Tigers, who was an even bigger asshole than Mike, if that was humanly possible. Bubba put his beefy shoulder against the corner of the outhouse, dug into the mossy ground with his feet, and pushed with all his might, his giant face grown red with the strain.
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