Bad Juju & Other Tales of Madness and Mayhem

by Jonathan Woods

  A bar runs the length of the long narrow room. There are no tables. A stuffed chihuahua with a sneer on his lips sits on top of the cash register near the front door. The chihuahua’s name is Carl. John, the owner, nods.

  “Shiner,” says Zeke.

  “No way, José. Barrel’s empty. It’s either Budweiser or Bud Light. And I guess I know the answer to that one.”

  John draws a pint of Budweiser and sets it in front of Zeke. There’re four other guys drinking in the Tap at three in the afternoon on a Thursday. Zeke knows all of them.

  Defoeville, it goes without saying, is a small pond.

  “Hey, Wendell.” Zeke nods to the man standing next to him. “How’s it goin’?”

  Wendell nods back. “Doin’ okay.”

  “Got a cigarette.”

  Wendell pulls a pack of generic smokes from his shirt pocket and shakes one loose. John provides a match. Zeke blows a cloud of tobacco smoke toward the ceiling. It tastes like burning shit. He read somewhere they use dried shit in India for cooking fires. He stubs the cigarette in an ashtray bearing the likeness of Arnold Schwarzenegger.

  “Give me a shot of Jameson,” Zeke says.

  “If you weren’t gonna smoke it, what’dja take it for?”

  “Wendell, you’re an asshole.”

  Wendell roils forward like a tsunami, an out-of-work nobody who’s been looking for an excuse for a fight all afternoon.

  Zeke hits him straight in the stomach and twice across the jaw. Wendell shakes his head, trying to break free of the blows. His hand goes for the pocket of his pants.

  “Look out!” yells John. “The SOB’s got a razor.”

  Zeke knees Wendell in the nads. He crumples like an old wrinkled shirt. On the way down his chin meets Zeke’s upwardly mobile steel-toed boot, and his head nearly flies in the other direction. A tooth comes loose and rattles like a sex-crazed June bug against the cheap wood paneling.

  “Sombitch been lookin’ for trouble since he got here,” John says.

  “I’m in the same boat,” Zeke says.

  A fellow drinker with a clerical collar pipes up: “Is he dead?”

  “Not even close,” John says.

  “Then he won’t be needing absolution.”

  Hands under Wendell’s shoulders, John starts to drag him toward the back of the bar. He glances up at the patrons: “Well, don’t just stand there...”

  The priest and another man each take a leg and in no time Wendell is history. Zeke throws a five on the bar and goes out the way he came in.

  11.

  A day earlier, down the road a piece at the Piney Woods State Facility for the Criminally Insane, an in-patient named Maurice A. Vende hides in the false bottom of a laundry cart and is pushed to freedom. His escape isn’t discovered for twelve hours. By then it’s too late.

  “Shouldn’t we notify Austin?” Dr. Jatarji, the Assistant Director, asks.

  “No way, José,” the Director replies. “M. A. Vende killed and ate his parents, three siblings, four neighbors and a cat before he was caught. I’m not going to ruin the golden years of my career trying to explain to a bunch of Austin bureaucrats how he got loose. Maurice never existed.”

  The Director picks up M. A. Vende’s file and starts feeding the pages into a heavy-duty paper shredder. Dr. Jatarji, suddenly afflicted with a massive headache, flees back to his office where, drawing the blinds, he sits in semi-darkness doing deep breathing exercises.

  12.

  Gravel crunches like granola beneath Sheriff Sonny Troop’s boot soles, as he rocks back and forth, like a Jew at the Wailing Wall, on the narrow shoulder of the road. He’s six-five, with a face as stiff as a gale-force wind.

  “What’cha got, chico?”

  Deputy Ned Ritter taps his hand nervously against his trouser leg. His eyes are blue and hardboiled. His nose bulbous and misshapen. His sunken cheeks pocked with old acne scars.

  “Le Baron in the ditch with a broken axel.”

  “I can see that. Tell me somethin’ I don’t know.”

  A smirk plays across Ritter’s face like a late night rerun.

  “License number’s the same as that APB out of Dallas. Murder suspects, armed and dangerous.”

  “Damn, boy! You know how to get the blood goin’.” The Sheriff purses his lips. “Where do ya think they’re at?”

  “No blood in the car. Engine’s cold. Hard to say how far they’ve gone. Mighta even caught a ride. I thank we oughta call the state troopers.”

  “No fuckin way, José, am I lettin’ some buzz-cut state boys in mirrored shades take the photo op for bringin’ in these asswipes. Are we on the same page, Ritter!?”

  “Seems like a high risk situation, sir.” Ritter picks up a handful of gravel and starts pinging it off the Le Baron’s fender.

  “Ritter! Don’t go turnin’ into some pissant pansy on me, now.”

  Sheriff Troop pulls out his .357 pistol and fires off a single shot, shattering the front window of the Le Baron. Ritter, his face bright red, looks up at the endless blue sky.

  “We’ll play it however you want, Sonny,” he says without conviction.

  “Okay then. Let’s assume these bad guys went toward Defoeville. We’ll start lookin’ in that direction.”

  They head back to their respective vehicles.

  “Hey, Ritter. Better take the safety off your weapon,” the Sheriff calls out. He slams the door of his Crown Vic and runs the wipers to clean the dust off the windshield. A dashboard indicator tells him he’s low on washer fluid.

  As the Sheriff peels out, Ritter, sitting in his Impala with the door open and one booted foot still on the ground, flips open his cell and dials. At least I can get some Dallas cops in on this, he thinks. He knows Dietz from a police workshop two years before.

  After some bleeps and sizzle noises, a voice breaks through the static:

  “Dietz here.”

  13.

  Maud Floodway runs her fingers up and down Bates’ black-trousered thigh. The outline of his circumcised thingamajig throbs against the cheap fabric. His forehead and armpits are awash in sweat. He can hardly breathe, let alone drive the car. But he keeps going.

  This is crazy, he thinks. Looney-tunes.

  On the main streets he tells her to slump down in her seat, so she’s invisible from the sidewalk. Soon enough they cut through a riprap of back streets in the black section of town, past rattrap cottages and shotgun shacks.

  Passing a gas station with rap music blaring from a pair of speakers, Maud says:

  “Let’s get some potato chips and beer.”

  “No way, José” is Bates’ reply.

  She pouts and gives him the finger. He guns the engine. The car spins, almost, but not quite, out of control.

  They turn down a narrow blacktop road. Maud’s is the last house before the road meanders off into the countryside. It’s a rambling two-story job, with a Dutch colonial feel and a porte cochere. Her father’s inheritance. The stucco is gray and weathered, the wood trim rife with dry rot. The windows are blind eyes.

  “My mom doesn’t get home before 4:30,” volunteers Maud.

  “Risky,” Bates says. His watch says 2:45. Somehow he knows that today Lydia Floodway will come home at three.

  Then Maud puts her hand on his penis and all is lost.

  He parks his Chevy Malibu on the verge; they hurry up the driveway like a pair of burglars. Maud finds the key under the backdoor doormat.

  Inside, Bates surveys the kitchen, as if expecting a plague of paparazzi to burst from all sides, cameras flashing. But it’s just a worn old kitchen, linoleum curling at the edges, cabinets painted so many times it’s like another dimension.

  Maud comes up behind him.

  “Boo!”

  Bates: “I don’t think I should…” Maud fiercely smooshes her lips against his, forestalling further laments. Her tongue in his mouth recalls the fingers of the dental hygienist he goes to twice a year. Déjà vu.

  Maud: “Let’s g
o up to my parent’s room.”

  Bates wants to scream: Are you out of your fucking mind!? Instead he lets her lead him through a dark mold-smelling hallway and up a steep stairway that squeaks at each step like a riot of rats.

  Maud’s parents’ bedroom is about half an acre big. There’s a stone fireplace at one end and a vast white-sheeted, maple four-poster. Maud slips behind Bates and closes the door, the ancient latch making a loud metallic click like a gunshot.

  14.

  A stand of bamboo lines one side of the road. From within it comes a sudden rustling, snapping and swaying. Warren Jolene goes into attack mode, legs apart in a front to back V, chest slightly forward. He holds the old lady’s .22 caliber Saturday night special in front of him like a dousing wand.

  “Who the fuck’s there!”

  A gaunt gray-skinned man in hospital scrubs emerges from the bamboo thicket and commences dancing to some internal tune. He’s barefoot. Rivulets of blood run from hand and foot wounds, where he’s scrambled through brambles and hedgerows.

  “Stop that and answer my question. Who the fuck are you?” demands Warren.

  “Looks like a nut case,” Ray says. “Somebody around here keeps him in the attic. They musta forgot to turn the latch.”

  “Maybe I should put him out of his misery.”

  “No way, José. It’s bad luck.”

  “And we already got enough a that, right?” For a moment Warren thinks about shooting Ray right between the eyes. Instead he says:

  “But he might tell someone he saw us.”

  “Who’s gonna believe a Goddamn goofball?”

  “You mean screwball.”

  “Whatever.”

  Ray scratches his chin.

  “Let’s go,” he says, and starts trudging up the road.

  Warren turns back to the nut case: “You never saw us. Got that?”

  M. A. Vende rolls his eyes up into his head until only the whites show. “I can be very discreet,” he says.

  “Yeah, right.”

  Warren hurries after his brother who’s disappearing around a curve in the road. Through the trees he can see a water tower in the distance. That must be Defoeville.

  After a few strides Warren catches movement in the corner of his eye and whirls around. M. A. Vende, a half dozen steps behind, teeters along the edge of the tarmac, carefully placing one foot in front the other like a tightrope walker. His wide-flung arms flap up and down for balance.

  “Don’t be following us, now,” Warren says in a stern voice.

  M. A. Vende’s flipped-out eyes glide up to meet Warren’s. “Yes sir, no sir. I won’t get any closer,” he singsongs.

  Warren, though he’s a murderer several times over, can’t look into those eyes for more than a few seconds. He turns away and starts moving in a light jog to catch up with Ray.

  Maurice drops back, following them like an anorexic coyote hoping for scraps. Or a Lecter lite looking for a wet work opportunity.

  15.

  “Wadaya mean, the house is on fire! No fuckin’ way, José.” Mason Barrow screams into his cell phone. He glances over at Alberto. “Hold on a second,” he says into the phone.

  He swerves his truck into a gas station and shimmies to a stop.

  “Sorry buddy,” he says. “I’ve got to drop ya here. My old lady’s burnin’ down the house. I gotta get back home.”

  He leans across Alberto to unlatch the passenger door. It sways open and Mason urges the hitchhiker to climb out. Vamonos.

  Alberto stands in one of the gas portals watching the disappearing license plate of the pick-up amid a blast of burning oil. Behind him the pounding rant of gangsta rap explodes from loudspeakers mounted over the door of the cashier shack and mini-mart. Its hypnotic beat is not that distant from the imam’s chanting of the daily prayers.

  He enters the premises, where a young black man with suspicious eyes and a Rasta do stands with hands below the counter. A loaded sawed off is just a grab away.

  Alberto smiles. His stomach churns with hunger.

  “Which way Dallas?” he asks.

  “Whadja say, man?” scowls the attendant.

  “Dallas. Which direction, por favor?”

  “You talk funny, man. This here’s Defoeville where you at.”

  “Only which way Dallas, please.”

  “If ya want directions, ya need ta buy somethin’. Ain’t no free lunch, if you get my message, bro.”

  “Buy food?”

  “Whatever whacks your wick, man.”

  Alberto walks up and down the aisles, grabbing Twinkies, Doritos, beef jerky, a Kit-Kat bar and more. He sets the armful of junk food on the counter. The attendant runs each item past the scanner.

  “Twelve dollars and 84 cents.”

  Alberto fumbles in his sports bag and comes up with two fives and two ones.

  “Ya still owe me 84 cents.”

  Alberto gives him a blank look.

  “Gimme another dollar, peckerwood.” He makes change. “Now listen up.” He turns and points through the flyblown window. “See that road over there? That gets ya to the Interstate. From there, Dallas be about an hour an a half.”

  The attendant puts Alberto’s cornucopia of junk food in a plastic sack and pushes it across the counter. Alberto nods and smiles. It’s all coming together. Soon I will be in paradise, he thinks.

  16.

  At 10 minutes past three o’clock Lydia Floodway grovels before her supervisor, Tom de Silva. His sallow complexion reminds her of a drainage ditch, his eyes are scaly. She could never sleep with him.

  “This headache’s about drilled to the center of my brain,” she says, hand resting on the doorframe of Tom’s office. Her sleeveless blouse reveals wisps of wiry underarm hair, bearing witness to Lydia’s slacker bohemianism. She’s the banker’s wild daughter, before he shot himself on the eve of his indictment for grand theft and embezzlement.

  Tom folds his hands on the desktop and studies her with an intense lacertian gaze. He’d just as soon fire her as look at her. He knows she won’t ever fuck him.

  “You’ve used up all you sick days,” he says.

  “It’s after three, for Christ’s sake.”

  “There’s no fuckin’ way, José, that Jesus needs to be a participant in this discussion.”

  “What I mean is, the day’s shot.”

  “You took a two-hour lunch.”

  She gives Tom a shitass smile.

  “I had to run home, check on Zeke, Jr.,” she lies through her choppers. “He’s running a fever. In fact, I’m probably gettin’ what he has. Could be one a those tropical fevers movin’ north cause a global warming. Like in that movie…” For the life of her, Lydia can’t remember the name of the movie. “The one where everybody dies at the end.”

  The words DENGUE FEVER flash on and off at the back of Tom’s eyeballs. He has the urge to jump up and slam the door in her face. Rush to the men’s room and wash his hands.

  “Get your ass outa here, Lydia. You can work extra hours tomorrow.”

  Lydia grabs her purse, slams her desk drawer, and is out of there.

  At three-thirty traffic is light, except for the gravel trucks passing through to some new construction by the Interstate. An outlet mall according to the Cottonwood County Times Herald.

  She stops at Malone’s for a dozen cold Shiner longnecks, spaghetti, Paul Newman’s spaghetti sauce, hamburger, the fixin’s for garlic toast and a bottle of vin rouge from Lubbock. Her headache is gone.

  Back in the Bronco she twists open one of the Shiners and drinks half of it in one swallow. It’s funny how boffing at lunchtime always makes me thirsty, she thinks. The longneck ends up in the ditch. She opens the glove compartment to get a Kool and finds Brian Beetle’s business card. Crumpled, it arcs after the beer bottle.

  A Lyle Lovett tune twangs on the radio.

  After her father killed himself, her mother took to bed and was eventually institutionalized. Not a great gene pool. But men find Lydia enormous
ly attractive. Skin buttery as aged white cheddar. Heavy milk-and-honey breasts. Hairy crotch. Trim but not boney.

  The fact of men’s unquenchable hunger for the rut both pleases her and pisses her off. Sorting through these emotions, she drives too fast through the black neighborhood, past children walking home from school and the Gas and Go, with its rap rhapsodies blaring. A grizzled black man with a Day-Glo yellow vest and handheld stop sign motions for her to slow down. She doesn’t see him.

  In her head Lydia makes a list of the 69 things she can do on her Tuesday and Thursday lunch hours after she dumps Brian. Maybe Zeke’ll buy her a bowl of chili.

  Next Tuesday she’ll tell Brian it’s fini, as her grandmother used to say. I hope to hell he doesn’t throw a hissy fit, she thinks, grinding her teeth.

  Suddenly she’s aware of a man walking down the road in front of her. The Bronco’s moving way too fast. She swerves, runs through a shallow culvert and up a slope to the edge of a cotton field, then back down again to the blacktop, where the Bronco jerks to a stop. Sitting, head bent, hands grasping the wheel, she drinks in goblets of air. She’s afraid to turn her head or even glance in the rearview, imagining a blood-spattered corpse splayed across the macadam.

  When she finally looks behind, the man is standing at the edge of the road starring at her. An athletic bag hangs by a strap from his shoulder. Slim, nut-colored, conservative in black pants and a peach-colored dress shirt. Hispanic? There’s something different about him, she thinks.

  “Sorry,” she calls too loudly through the already open front passenger window. “Lo siento.”

  He makes no response.

  “Where ya headed, streak?”

  He steps toward the Bronco. “Going to Interstate. To Dallas.”

  Funny accent, she thinks. Not Latino. Looking into his eyes, she finds nothing there. No fear of dying. No anger at nearly being run down on some two-bit Texas byway. No expectations or recriminations. Nada.

  “Interstate’s a couple a miles. Jump in an I’ll give ya a lift.” It’s the least she can do.

  Seconds later they pass Lydia’s house. She glances at its distinctive and reassuring profile. A curtain moves aside and Maud, naked, stands in one of the windows of Lydia’s and Zeke’s bedroom.