by Lila Beckham
“Ain’t no thanking to it, Bubba, just try me and see.”
Bubba looked as though he was about to say something. Joshua stared him down. Bubba must have thought better of it and decided to keep quiet. If looks could kill, Bubba would have been a dead dope pusher from the daggers Joshua’s eyes shot through him.
“I thought so,” Joshua said as he turned and walked back to his patrol car. He lit a cigarette, took a long draw, inhaled it deeply, and then released it slowly. He then reached under the seat for the bottle; he took a swig of whiskey, started the car, and drove out of the yard. I am going to have to quit getting so damn pissed off on the job, Joshua thought to himself as he turned onto Lott Road. Besides making me want to whup someone’s ass, it’s making me want to drink more. All I need is for some smartass to push the wrong button and I will have done something I might regret. He shoved the Steppenwolf tape back into the 8-track and tried to cool down as he drove home.
When Joshua pulled into his driveway, James Fortner’s work truck was parked behind his pickup. He wondered what had brought Hook out to visit. When he got out of his car, he knew why. In the back of Hook’s truck was a dog-box. It contained half a dozen good-sized mixed hound pups. Hook came from the back of the house as Joshua was gazing into the back of the truck.
“I knew I’d play hell getting you by the house to pick out which pup you wanted, so I figured I’d bring ‘em up here so you can get the pick of the litter before they’re all gone. My grandbaby done got real attached to one, I had to leave it at the house, but there’s five more to choose from.”
Joshua leaned over the tailgate of the truck and propped his foot on the bumper as Hook took the pups out of the dog box and handed them one by one to Joshua who set them in the bed of the truck. One of them immediately caught his notice. It looked like a cross between a Bluetick and a Bassett hound.
“How long before they’ll be weaned from the teat?”
“Aw, I’ll probably give them another two weeks, maybe three.”
“All right, when they’re ready, I’ll take this little feller right here,” said Joshua, reaching and picking up the smallest of the pups. “I’m going to call him Jack.”
“Jack! Damn man, don’t you have any imagination at all. Every dog you have ever had, you have called Jack. Why not get a fresh start; give him a different name. You ain’t never gonna replace your first Jack, so you might as well,” James said, and Joshua’s mind immediately went back to his first pup. A little firecracker terrier that he found dead in his backyard the day after his mother had gone missing.
“It makes it easier to remember, no confusion when I talk to them,” he answered.
“Speaking of confusion-why is Emma living here with you?” James asked.
“It’s just a temporary arrangement while she is giving the place a good cleaning.”
“Temporary huh, I wouldn’t bet on it, Hoss. That girl is looking for a father figure. Her old man ran off to Louisiana several years ago and from what Aunt Bea says, those young’uns have not heard a word from his sorry ass. You had better watch out. Those feelings she has for you rescuing her will get confused and the next thing you know, she’ll be hanging on your every word and in love with you.”
“Nah, I don’t think so, Hook. She’s a lot tougher than you give her credit to be. Besides, she’s just a child.”
“Child, I don’t think so. Have you taken a good look at her? And, I know she’s tough, Hoss, but she is human, and humans need love; even-”
“Don’t go there. I know what I need and don’t need. And that girl in there is not what this old man needs; this old man needs a woman full-growed. Just once in a while, though. I don’t need-”
“You ain’t that old, Hoss; and, you don’t know what you’re missing,” James grinned up at him. “Having that warm body to snuggle up to every night and that nookie anytime you want it, means a lot.”
Joshua grinned back and asked. “You got time to sit a spell and sip a little whiskey?”
“I always got time for that,” James chuckled as he began placing the pups back into the dog-box for the trip home. When he finished, he and Joshua walked to the back porch; Emma was sitting in the swing painting her toenails. James gave Joshua an ‘I told you so’ look. Joshua ignored him, walked inside to get a bottle of whiskey and two glasses, and then walked back out.
James had sat down in one of the cowhide rockers and was doing a good imitation of Joshua with his booted feet propped on the railing; he was rolling a joint. When he finished, he hit it several times, and then handed it to Joshua.
“You look like you could use this,” he said.
Joshua took several tokes and then passed it back. He poured whiskey into each of the glasses and handed one to Hook.
“Can I have a puff of that?” Emma asked, as James was about to hand the joint back to Joshua. James looked into Joshua’s eyes for approval; Joshua nodded, remembering what he had told Emma the night before about smoking a joint instead of shooting heroin.
Emma took a puff of the joint. James told her to hold it in as long as she could before she blew it out.
“Do you remember Josie McBride?” James asked Joshua as they were waiting on Emma to finish.
“She was that girl you had a crush on in ninth grade, wasn’t she. If I remember right, she was a cold-blooded heifer. She rubbed it all in your face and then wouldn’t give you the time of day when it came time to put up or shut up.”
“Yep, and I learned that you can’t trust a cold-blooded woman. Cuz, that woman chewed me up and spit me out! Well, guess who that cold-hearted bitch ended up with?”
“Don’t have any idea,” Joshua replied, and then took a swig of whiskey.
“I saw her at the tag office in 8 Mile the other day. She weighs about three hundred pounds now. I knew who she was right away though. She still has those damn eyes that drove me crazy back then-anyhow, she was with a little skinny fella that looked like a grub worm with the shit slung out of him. At first, I didn’t know who he was, but I figured it out after watching them for a few minutes. He was that new boy we played football with our senior year, the short fella that transferred from Pensacola. He was short, about five foot ten, but stout… damn, I still can’t remember his name. I thought that maybe you would remember him. He was after your girlfriend when he first came there. You slugged him at practice that day and almost got suspended from playing that week’s game because of it.”
Joshua remembered the boy, he could see him as plain as day in his mind; however, he could not put a name with his face either.
“That was a long time ago, Hook. I don’t remember many things from back then. After I slugged him, I never had a problem with him,” Joshua replied, watching Emma who had gone back to painting her nails. She appeared to be moving in slow motion.
Joshua remembered the first two or three times, he smoked marijuana. It made it seem as if everything, including him was moving at a snail’s pace. Emma looked up from her toes, smiled at him and nodded her head. She got up and walked inside. She turned the radio to a different station before coming back out with a bottle of co-cola and glass of ice. She stopped in front of Joshua and asked if she could have just a little bit of whiskey. She said she wanted just enough to taste, but not too strong.
He poured a little whiskey into her glass and watched it flow slowly down through the ice cubes. She poured co-cola into the glass and then stirred it with her finger.
“Now, you’re contributing to a minor,” James joked.
“I’m nineteen, Hook. That’s supposed to be grown. I’ll be twenty in a couple of weeks,” Emma retorted.
“Just remember what that stuff does to some folks, honey, and don’t get dependant on it,” James advised. “It can be rough on the body, just look at our kinfolks. That right there will let you know what it does to folks.”
The ‘Time in a bottle’ song Joshua heard on the radio several days earlier began playing just as Emma sat down. They all became quiet
as each listened to the song.
“If I could save time in a bottle
The first thing that I’d like to do
Is to save every day
Till Eternity passes away
Just to spend them with you”
“You know who sings that don’t you?” James said when the song ended.
Joshua shook his head that he did not know. He liked the song and was curious.
“The same fella that sings that, ‘You Don’t Mess Around with Jim’ and the ‘Bad, Bad Leroy Brown’ song; he sings it.”
“Nah, that’s not the same man, couldn’t be” Joshua said, unbelieving. “His voice is soft and gentle sounding in that song, and in the other two, it’s rough and peppy.”
“He must’ve had a premonition,” Emma said softly. Both James and Joshua looked at her wondering to whom she was referring.
“I heard he wrote that song for his wife when she told him she was expecting their first child. He died in a plane crash two or three years after writing it. Maybe he knew he would not live to raise his child.”
“He has several of them love songs,” James said thoughtfully. “I’ll have to Say I Love You in a Song,’ and one called ‘Operator.”
Joshua did not know the songs Hook was referring to; he rarely listened to the radio anymore. Occasionally, he would hear something new on a jukebox somewhere when he was out.
“When did he die?” Joshua asked out of curiosity.
“He’s been dead about three years now, Sheriff. I think the crash was in September of ‘73,” Emma said softly. She then asked for one of his cigarettes. He obliged her.
“I’ve heard people say smoking calms your nerves. I figured I would try it.”
“It’s just a bad habit you don’t need to start if you haven’t already,” said Hook.
“Yeah, they do calm your nerves,” Joshua said, lighting Emma’s cigarette for her. “And James is right. It’s a bad habit.” He lit one for himself too. It was getting late in the afternoon and the sun was getting low in the western sky.
James sighed heavily and dropped his feet from the railing. “I reckon I should get up from here and head to the house. The wife will be on my ass about leaving the feeding on her. She hates feeding the dogs, and hates worse, feeding the goats.”
Emma stood up and announced that she was going inside to start supper. James cut Joshua another ‘I told you so’ look, before he stood to leave. Emma hugged James and told him that she enjoyed the visit. Once she was inside, James told Joshua that he had better watch out.
“You’re crazy, Hook; that girl is not after me.”
James grinned and stepped off the porch and headed for his truck. “Just wait and see,” he said over his shoulder.
Joshua repositioned himself in his chair and propped his feet on the railing. He set his eyes across the river, sipped his whiskey and watched the last glimmering, yellow rays of the sun as it lazily nestled the treetops before dropping through the trees and disappearing over the western horizon.
15
Photographs and Memories
Joshua sat watching it get darker and darker. He smelt the aroma of bacon frying and it smelt good, but he was still full from his lunch at Mary’s in the Bayou. He knew he needed to eat more regularly. He had already had to take up a notch in his belt since the ordeal over the Dixon brother’s killing spree began, but it was hard for him to eat when he was working a case. He had so much on his mind that he simply forgot to eat until his stomach reminded him that he needed to fill it with something. And although the Train Track Killer case was in the hands of the federal boys, he was still concerned and it occupied a section of his brain. The body that washed ashore that morning was most likely a drowning. It too, occupied a small portion.
The cases that consumed the rest of his brain were the unsolved cases in the box sitting on his kitchen table; his mother’s case, occupied the largest portion. It was driving him to explore parts of his mind, heart, and soul that had been sealed shut for years. Opening doors he never knew existed until after his conversation with Vivian and looking through the photographs in her photo album.
An invisible door to some concealed space in his brain that contained memories he thought he had safely filed into a space marked, ‘Do Not Remember or They Will Hurt You’ opened. Those memories were coming to him now, sneaking into his conscious mind at times as gentle and easy as the clouds that drifted across the skies, and then other times, they hit him like a sledgehammer.
Another memory from his childhood had snuck up on him as he sat there contemplating what to do next in his quest to find answers. He was probably seven or eight years old and was in a bathtub bathing, when his mother came into the room. She carried a clean pair of pajamas draped over her arm. She said, “It’s time to get out and dry off, honey, you have school in the morning.”
“Do I have to go? I want to stay here with you,” he replied as he stood up. She wrapped a towel around him, lifted him out of the water, and then began to dry him off. “Aren’t you excited about getting to see your friends again?” -
A shrill exclamation pierced Joshua’s conscious mind; he jumped upright. He heard Emma call his name. At first, he thought hot grease might have splattered onto Emma’s hand or that she had burned herself on the stove. When he made it into the kitchen, she stood with her arms spread wide and her mouth open in disbelief. Broken shards of glass lay scattered at her feet.
“What’s wrong?” Joshua asked, and then turned to look where Emma was looking. After he saw that she was okay, he thought maybe she had seen a mouse or a cockroach in the kitchen and it had frightened her; however, from the look on her face, he knew none of those was the cause of her alarm.
It took Emma a moment to find her voice again, and when she did, she exclaimed, “She walked right through me!”
Joshua did not see anyone or anything, but knew instantly that she had seen the ghost of the old woman that usually manifested in the kitchen about mealtime. At least, that was when he usually saw her. Emma looked as if she could not believe that he did not see what she saw and said to him in an almost scolding tone:
“You mean to tell me that you do not see that old woman standing there at the stove? Actually, she’s floating; I can see right through her. She is not touching a thing, not even the floor! She looks like she just took over cooking the bacon.”
“I’m sorry, Emma. I have seen her before, usually about this time of day. I’ve lived here nearly thirty years; I don’t pay attention to her any anymore.”
“Don’t pay attention,” Emma repeated. “If she walked through you like that, you’d pay attention; that was some weird shit! You could have at least warned me about her!”
“I forgot; I apologize.” Joshua turned and walked back out to the porch. He sat down, poured himself some whiskey, and then propped his boot heels on the railing. His mind was weary. He knew he had slept a couple of hours in the rocker the night before but he was tired and his eyes were getting heavy. He debated going inside to bed, but was comfortable where he was.
He tried to get back to the recollection he was having of his mother dressing him for bed and asking if he would be happy to see his friends the next day at school, but the memory had gone as quickly as it came. He took a swig of whiskey and then lit a smoke. He blew a smoke ring and watched it float out into the encroaching darkness.
Just as the last light of the day was disappearing, he saw through the trees to the other side of the river. The shadow of a rider on horseback stood on the high bank of the river staring his way. Before he could focus on them, they were gone. He immediately thought of the nightrider; the ghost warrior that had laughed at him the night before they found Joe Dyas stabbed to death in Roy McGregor’s house. He wondered if the rider was notifying him of the impending death of someone he knew… his eyes drooped heavily.
Joshua felt her in his arms and opened his eyes. It was dark as night but he knew he was in his bed. Her naked body felt as smooth as sil
k against his hand that cupped the soft roundness of her hip. He felt his manhood become firm; his entire body stiffened.
His mind told him he needed to stop her, his body demanded otherwise.
Her tongue traced the curve of his ear as she whispered, “make love to me.” Her hot breath radiated and echoed through his being. He felt fingertips and then lips trace the scar on his ribcage. They traveled to his stomach before easing themselves lower. Her firm grip sent waves of pleasure deep into his body. There was no turning back. Her hands and lips explored his body before they made their way to his mouth.
She took his mouth with hers in a deep, passionate kiss as she climbed atop him and placed his hands on her small firm breasts. His thumbs pressed against nipples, hard and swollen with the need to be suckled. He returned her kiss as wantonly as she gave, and when she released his lips, he drew her breasts to his mouth and suckled gently. He felt a shiver run through her as he left one breast for the other.
Joshua tried to turn her over to be free to make love to her; she refused by clamping her thighs tighter to his body, but raised herself higher so that he could explore her body. His hands gripped her firm buttocks, then raised her higher; he brought her to his mouth. His tongue explored and then gently forced its way into her soft, moist flesh. He kissed her slowly and deeply until she moaned aloud in ecstasy.
He then lowered her onto his chest, slid her lower, and then suckled her breasts as he lowered her onto his manhood. This time, he was the one that moaned in pleasure as he gradually buried himself as deeply as possible into her moist, womanly softness. Slowly and deliberately, his hands controlled her motions. His lips and tongue lit a fuse from her nipples that rushed sensually through her body and detonated a clitoral spasm that neither could control; they both succumbed to one final explosion of pleasure.
The next time Joshua woke, he was alone, but the scent of their lovemaking lingered in the vast, empty space that surrounded him. He rose and made his way to the bathroom. He brushed his teeth, shaved, and then showered, washing the remains of their coupling down the drain. He did not even remember going to bed, much less removing his clothes beforehand… the last he remembered was sitting in his rocker wondering about the rider he saw across the river.