The Two-Bear Mambo cap-3

by Joe R. Lansdale

  Gray Suit said, "Way you tame a nigger . . . way you make em good, is just like you do a rambunctious stallion. You got to severely lower their testosterone level. All that ball juice just leads a nigger to trouble."

  The men in the crowd laughed. One came forward, got hold of Leonard's zipper and pulled it down, reached in his pants and pulled out Leonard's equipment.

  "No," I said. "Don't," but my words sounded like coughs.

  Gray Suit turned, looked at me. He showed me that pretty dimple. It looked so deep now you'd have thought it ought to have a winch and bucket perched over it. He said, "Well, the nigger lover's come around. I cut this nigger's boo-doodles off, I'm gonna put 'em in your pocket, boy."

  Gray Suit came forward and grabbed Leonard's testicles and lifted them and reached with the knife, and a gunshot split the air.

  It was Maude. She had a pistol in one hand, a Winchester in the other, tucked under her armpit.

  "You ain't gonna do this. Not in my place. Not out back of my place." Maude fired a shot with the revolver and made a trash can jump. She pointed the revolver and the rifle at Gray Suit, who still held Leonard's balls and the knife. She said, "Jackson Brown, you cut that nigger, you touch one of my boys, you come for me or that fella on the ground over there, any of you make a move to do that kinda business, I'm gonna blow what little brains you got out of the back of your head. And I'll do it too. Don't think I won't. Now all you cretins get on your horses and ride."

  Gray Suit said, "You're gonna bring yourself some serious grief, Maude."

  "You don't own my place yet, Jackson. You don't threaten me. You hear? Let go of that nigger's rocks."

  So this was Tim's father. Jackson Truman Brown, the Lord of Grovetown. Standing in a wet alley with a pocketknife in one hand, Leonard's balls in the other.

  Gently, the Lord unhanded Leonard's gonads, folded up his knife and put it away. Way he did it, you'd have thought he just used it to clean his fingernails. The two fatties dropped Leonard on his face. He hit so hard he cut a fart, then lay still.

  A siren whooped once, went quiet. I turned to see the Chief's car at the mouth of the alley. Officer Reynolds was driving. He got out of the car and strolled up the alley, sucking his last Toot-see Roll Pop. "That's enough," he said. "All y'all go home."

  "Draighten and Ray are on the floor in the restaurant," one of the fatties said. "These fellas hurt 'em bad."

  "Yeah," Reynolds said. "Well, haul 'em off. Get 'em a doctor, they need it. I want all y'all out of here. Now."

  "Officer," Jackson Brown said, "you don't want to get too carried away."

  Officer Reynolds studied Brown for a few seconds. His face took on a pleasant look. "You know how it is, Mr. Brown. Think about it a minute. The position I'm in."

  Brown took the minute offered and considered. "There'll be another time," he said.

  "That may be," Officer Reynolds said. "Maude, put them guns up before you shoot yourself or wound that nigger. We wouldn't want something to happen to that nigger. Niggers are special, you ought to know that. Government protects 'em, like some kind of goddamn endangered species." He looked at me. "And nigger lovers are special too. Damn precious, in fact."

  Maude lowered the guns. Caliber limped over and took the Winchester from her, then the revolver. Billy turned so he could use the wall to get up, clawed his way to his feet. He and Caliber looked rough. But not as rough as Leonard. I figured I didn't look too pretty myself.

  The crowd began to break up. Brown looked at me, creased his dimple, said, "You boys weren't tough as you thought, were you?"

  It took me a couple of deep breaths to say it: "Could be. But all I can say for you is, you certainly handled Leonard's nuts like a natural."

  Brown glared, turned, paused long enough to look Maude over good, nodded at her, then went through the back door of the cafe and out of sight. The others had already gone, and now there was only Maude, her sons, me, Leonard, and good ole Officer Reynolds.

  "That nigger don't look so smart now," Reynolds said. "Neither do you. You want to say something smart?" I was on my knees, using my hands for support. Officer Reynolds came and stood over me. "I said, you want to say something smart?"

  "No," I said.

  "Good. Now, get your nigger. Put his dick back in his drawers, zip him up, then you and him get out of Grovetown, and when you get home, find you some pretty stationery, purple or pink would be nice, and write me a thank-you card for not letting them folks kill you. Write Maude one too. And you keep your nigger and your nigger-lovin' ass out of Grovetown, Texas. Only thing I regret in all this is not gettin' to try your nigger. I think he might have thought he could take me. I'd like to have shown him he couldn't."

  Officer Reynolds went down the alley, opened his car door and turned. "Billy. Caliber. Y'all see them guns get put up."

  "Yes sir," Caliber said.

  I lay down, slowly, the side of my face resting against the freezing, wet alley floor. My face was so hot from injury, it actually felt good. The rain felt good. My eyes, heavy as stones, began to close.

  I heard Officer Reynolds drive away.

  Chapter 18

  The oaks and pines and hickory trees that grew close to the road were dark with rain. Visible through the boughs, when there was any visibility at all, was a grim, gray sky. The sound of windshield wipers beating back and forth, the vibration of tires on cement, seemed at first to be the rhythm of striking fists and feet on flesh.

  For an instant, I thought I was in the midst of another beating. I hurt so bad, I figured I couldn't distinguish the pain of the old beating from the new.

  It took me a moment to realize I was in a car, an old blue Ford Fairlane, and that it was not night but late morning, and that the beating was over, and not long over. My face was turned toward the door and my forehead was resting on the rain-beaded passenger glass of the front seat. I could feel cold air leaking in around the window and hitting my feverish face, and it felt good. I smelled like dried urine.

  I had no idea who was driving and for an instant I didn't care. I sort of thought I was on my way to the river bottoms where a rusty transmission would be tied around my feet, and I would be sent down to inspect the river mud for about three minutes, then it would all be over. A year from now, maybe two, some fisherman would snag his line on what was left of me, pull up my rotting head, call in the law, and dental records would reveal I had six cavities, was dead, and that I was Hap Collins.

  When I felt strong enough to flip a whole loaf of bread over by myself without verbal encouragement, I turned my head and saw the driver.

  It was the cook from the cafe. He wasn't wearing his white hat, but he still had on his stained white shirt. He said, "You might as well go on and sleep. You took a hell of a beating."

  "Yeah," I said. "You should have seen the other guy."

  "I seen them other guys, and compared to you two, they look pretty good."

  "That's what I was afraid of."

  "Then again, Draighten and Ray don't look so good. You gave them two a righteous ass-whuppin'. Bopped some eyes and mouths and noses on them others too. Hadn't been so many of 'em, so crowded, I think you and your friend might have done some serious whup-ass. 'Course, I only sort of saw it in passin'. I went out the back when things got goin' good, went over to the antique shop, told 'em to call the Chief, say there was a ruckus. That's how come ole Officer showed up."

  "Thanks."

  " 'Course, Officer might not be who you want to show up. He got connections with the Klan."

  "As does Jackson Brown?"

  "Yep. They tied at the hip. Mr. Jackson, he's the Grand Cyclops or some such shit for that bunch. They don't call themselves Klan exactly, but that's what they are. Ole Officer, he kinda in a spot. Even for Grovetown, he got to play by some rules. You best be glad all this didn't happen out in the woods somewhere."

  "I hear that."

  "Did, ants be eatin' your ass right now. In town, Officer got to keep the Chief happy some. Chief n
ot someone gonna invite me over to his house to supper, but I reckon he's good enough, it come down to business. He ain't gonna stand by let something like that happen on purpose."

  "That's good to hear. Thanks again."

  "Don't give too big a thanks. Tore the cafe up too bad, I'd have lost my job. There by the skin of my teeth anyway. Cafe ain't like a McDonald's chain, you know? It loses money couple, three weeks in a row, it's gone. Damages could make it gone quicker."

  "What about Leonard? Man that was with me?"

  "Back seat. Now, you talk about a beatin', he took it. You boys lucky you in pretty good shape."

  "Rose field work. Cheap food. No sex. Makes you strong."

  "My name's Bacon, by the way."

  "Bacon?"

  "Yeah, like in slices of."

  "Your mama named you Bacon?"

  "My daddy. He always liked bacon, so he named me Bacon. I don't think he liked me near good as bacon, though. Least not the way I remember it."

  I managed to turn and look in the back seat. Leonard was stretched out there, lying on his back, and he looked awful. His face appeared to be the end result of a radiation experiment. Had I not expected him, I don't know I would have recognized him. His smashed straw hat lay over his crotch.

  "He needs a doctor," I said. !

  "Gonna get one. Wouldn't no white town doctor gonna look at him. Not after they find out Mr. Jackson Brown was the one wanted y'all beat. Reason he got that hat with him like that, wasn't no one wanted to put his dick in his pants."

  "That'll slay him. He thinks his dick is his best feature."

  "Caliber, he got him two sticks and tried to do it, but he couldn't do nothing but pick it up and move it left and right. Couldn't get it to go inside the pants, and he wasn't gonna touch it. Me neither. So we put that hat over him."

  "Very innovative. He's lucky he's still got a dick. That Brown fella didn't mind touching it. Or cutting it."

  "I don't think he really gonna cut it off. He knows how far he can push, and he can't push that far. Not in town. Not all them witnesses, even if most of them deny they saw anything happen. They know someone got to pay. And if it's somethin' that bad, a ball-cuttin' downtown, they only gonna lie so far."

  "In other words, they won't go to the pen for Jackson Brown?"

  "That's right. But way it stands now, Chief ain't gonna do nothin' to that Mr. Jackson, even he wants to. Mrs. Rainforth—"

  "Is that Maude?"

  "Uh huh. She gonna say what happened, and her boys gonna say, but all them other people, they ain't gonna say, 'cause they was in on it. Them two y'all whupped up bad. They'll take the fall for all that ruckus. 'Cause that's what they're paid for."

  "Where are we going, and how come?"

  "You goin' to my place, least for a bit. And the reason how come is Mrs. Rainforth done paid me to do it. Said I should take you home and take care of you awhile. She's paying me some extra."

  "So this isn't out of the kindness of your heart?"

  "I ain't got nothing against you. I think what happened was a shame, but I wasn't gettin' paid, and wasn't gettin' Mrs. Rainforth's blessing on this, you'd still be out there in that alley. ‘Sides, my place only a little better than the alley."

  “And how come Mrs. Rainforth is doin' this?"

  “White ladies are hard to figure. She don't like Mr. Jackson, for one. He owns most everything in town, wants to own the cafe, and she won't sell, and on top of that, him and her husband, Bud, they hated each other. He's dead now, but Mr. Jackson, he ain't one to forget, and Mrs. Rainforth, she ain't neither. It's not she's suddenly grown to like niggers, but then she don't exactly hate nobody neither. She don't like that kinda business come down on you two."

  "What about you? She like you?"

  "Shit, boy. I'm the cook. I been there so long she don't think about me one way or the other. I'm like furniture and . . . Wheeee! I tell you, mister . . . Who are you anyway?"

  "Hap. Hap Collins."

  "I tell you, Mister Hap. We got to get you out of them piss-pants. You makin' my eyes burn."

  Chapter 19

  There's no other way to describe Bacon's home other than to say it was a real shithole. It was down in a wash and the yard was full of water. Decorating the place like yard art was a worn-out washing machine, the lid up, the drum overflowing with beer cans. Near that, like a dead companion, a refrigerator lay on its side with the door off; its interior was nasty black with moss and grime and an abandoned bird's nest.

  Out to the side of the house I could see some kind of heavy machinery and a truck under a weathered tarp. There was just enough visible that I could tell that, but not enough to identify the machinery or the make of the truck.

  Bacon coasted slowly through the water, drove right up to the front porch, which sagged a little and dripped water. Worse yet, it looked like the porch was holding the house up. The house looked to have been made mostly of plywood and suspicious two-by-fours pried off a burned-out building. The roof was primarily tin and the rest was tar paper and the water ran off it in great gushes.

  Bacon got out, waded to the front porch, which drooped beneath his steps, and opened the front door. He went inside for a moment, came back, opened my door, said, "You gonna have to help me with watermelon head here, Mr. Hap."

  "I'm an injured man," I said. "Couldn't you carry me in and leave him here?"

  Bacon grinned. "You sore. You banged, but you're all right enough. They spent their steam on your buddy."

  "Thank God," I said. "They could have hurt me."

  I eased out of the car into ankle-deep water. I felt as if someone had wrapped me in razor wire and set me on fire with a blowtorch. I found I couldn't completely straighten up. Bacon opened the back door, got Leonard under the arms and pulled him forward, out of the car. "Get his feet," Bacon said.

  "I just hope that damn hat don't fall off his dick," I said.

  It was painful, but we got Leonard inside, carried him into one of the three small rooms—a bedroom. It was actually pretty cozy in there, considering there was no heat, and it looked a hell of a lot better than the exterior. One corner of the room sported a commode and a bathtub right out in the open. Half the room had carpet in it that might have once been beige, but was now greasy brown with a flecking of black spots that wasn't design.

  "The decor," Bacon said, "is late slave or early nigger."

  I saw what Bacon had done when he went inside. He'd gotten a paint-splattered drop cloth and put it over the bed, and we put Leonard on top of that. There was a little heater in the corner of the room, and Bacon lit that while I took off Leonard's shoes. Bacon got a couple of army blankets out from under the bed and laid them over Leonard without removing the hat from Leonard's crotch.

  We went back to the living room. It was small with a shelf of dust-covered knickknacks, a well-worn couch, a large space heater, and a coffee table bearing an ancient television set festooned with foil-covered rabbit ears. Bacon saw me looking at it. He said, "I didn't have to eat regular, I'd get me a satellite dish."

  "Quit running yourself down," I said. "I hurt too much to feel sorry for you."

  "You think I'm running myself down, then you full of shit. Don't sit on the couch there till you get out of them piss-clothes."

  "What am I gonna do, sit around in the nude?"

  Bacon disappeared into the bedroom, came out with a pair of khaki pants, some dry black socks, and a plaid shirt.

  "You gonna have to let it all hang. I ain't got no clean underwear."

  I went to the bedroom, moving slow, bent over like Quasimodo, and took off my clothes. There was a full-length mirror leaning against the wall, and I looked at myself in that. My face was swollen, there was dried blood on my upper lip and over my eyes, knots the size of Ping-Pong balls swelled out of my forehead, and there were great black-and-blue bumps and bruises all over my body. Even my balls were swollen and blue. I had to hold them with the palm of my hand to keep them from hurting as I stepped into the tub and
cleaned myself. It was a painful ordeal. The hot water was slow to come and cooled quickly.

  I put my pants and shirt in the tub with me, ran water over them, twisted the water out best I could, draped them over the faucets. The water that ran out of the tub didn't go down a drain, it went straight to the ground. I could feel the cool air whistling up under the house, blowing through the tub's drain. It was a simple approach to plumbing. Easy. Efficient. And a bad idea.

  I got out and dried on a suspicious-looking towel and put on the clothes Bacon had given me. The pants were too long, so I cuffed them. The shirt was big and loose and felt good on my damaged body.

  I went over to the commode to take a leak. The pot's interior was dark with urine stains. It looked as if the last time it was clean was when it came out of the box. I pissed, and the piss was full of blood.

  I'd had it happen before. It does that, you take good shots to the kidneys, but it was always scary to see.

  I flushed, wondered if the contents of the toilet went straight to the dirt below the house along with that of the tub, then picked up my socks and shoes, stopped by the bed and looked at Leonard.

  It was all I could do not to cry, he looked so bad. I touched him gently on the shoulder, went to the living room. I sat on the couch, put the socks and shoes beside it. I said, "What about this doctor?"

  "He gonna be here," Bacon said. "Mrs. Rainforth called him. Told him we was comin'. He live on the far side of here. Probably be a few minutes. If the rain's worse on his side, he's flooded out, who knows?"

  The third room was a kitchen, but it was a room only by definition of containing a butane stove, a refrigerator, a sink, a table with chairs, and a large lard bucket that collected water dripping from a hole in the ceiling. There was a window over the sink, but a big square of warped plyboard had been nailed over that. Bacon lit the greasy cook stove and the space heater, and the house, small as it was, began to warm.

  Bacon said, "You gonna be here just a little bit, then I'm gonna run you off. I don't want no trouble with them Ku Kluxers. You want some coffee?"

  "Might as well. Jesus, I don't know when I been hurt this bad id was still able to stand. I mean, I been hurt worse, but not in this way. "