Mindy returned, toting a plate of scrambled eggs, bacon, and hash browns and a sack breakfast for Sokowski.
“Leave him be, Mike. He doesn’t need your shit filling his head.”
“Me and Danny here were just having some guy talk. Isn’t that right?”
Danny just plowed into his breakfast.
“Shit. Would you look at this boy pack it away? Fucker can eat.”
“Honestly, why do you have to go and be so damned mean? Danny here is nothing but sweet. Twice the man you are. You know that?” Mindy said while giving Sokowski a cold look.
“Shit o’mighty. He can have you for all I care.” Sokowski took another sip of his coffee and put his deputy hat back on. He tossed a five-dollar bill on the counter and gave Mindy a wink.
“Well, I’ll be seeing you around, Little Miss Sunshine.” Sokowski stood and popped Danny hard on the back. “Remember what I said. Take care of your little man, Danny-Boy.”
Sokowski made his way out of the diner, turning on the charm, smiling and nodding to folks as he went. He stopped at the table by the door and clapped one of the farmers on the back.
“Them coons still giving you fits, Merle?” Sokowski asked the older of the two.
Merle shook his head at the thought. “Hell. Caught two of ’em in the chicken coop yesterday morning. Killed three of my hens and ate near a dozen eggs.”
Sokowski tugged on his beard for a second, then gave Merle another pat on the back. “Tell you what. I’ll stop by in the next day or two with my thirty-aught six and take care of the problem for you. How’s that sound?”
Merle chuckled a little. “Sounds like a thirty-aught six is more than enough rifle to take care of them coons. A four-ten would do the trick.”
“Four-tens are for women and kids, Merle.”
Merle chuckled again. “Appreciate the help, Deputy. My eyes ain’t worth a damn no more.”
“Happy to do it, Merle. Happy to do it.”
Sokowski tipped his hat over at Dotty, one of the other waitresses, and she smiled back at him. He held the door open for an elderly couple coming inside, then slipped out of the diner.
“Some things never change,” Mindy said, mostly to herself, before turning back to Danny and noticing how quickly he was scooping the eggs into his mouth. She gave him a little pat on the shoulder. “Don’t listen to him. You understand me?”
Danny kept his head pulled between his shoulders and sopped up some egg yolk with a piece of toast.
“He’s just mean to some folks. You know? Always has been and always will be.” Mindy could tell that Danny wasn’t really listening. “Danny.” She spoke firmly, like a big sister talking to her little brother who got pushed around on the playground. “Don’t let him get to you. Okay? I don’t want you to ever change a bit. I like you just the way you are.”
Danny finally nodded. “Okay, Mindy.”
She smiled wide for him, but it felt more forced than usual. She knew she should take her own advice. Mike always got to her.
Sokowski
Sokowski guided his 1981 Chevy C10 pickup down the long driveway, the big twenty-inch tires taking the potholes like it was nothing. Even though it was barely two years old, Sokowski had dropped a 383 stroker engine with 450 horsepower, a cast-iron crankshaft, high-performance pistons, and main bearings into the truck, and it was worth every penny. Sokowski liked his Chevy truck. It was his baby and beat the shit out of any Ford or Dodge on the road—and don’t even get him started on any of that foreign crap. The Chevy’s eight cylinders revved high as he pulled beside the weather-beaten barn that once upon a time used to be a proud shade of red. His old man—dead twenty-five years now—would shit, then spin in his grave if he saw the condition of the neglected barn, but Sokowski had his reasons for keeping it unpainted. He didn’t want to give it any unnecessary attention. A dilapidated piece-of-shit barn didn’t turn any heads. It looked like a barn that was unused and vacant, just the way he wanted it.
Besides, Sokowski didn’t really give a rat’s ass what his old man would think. The old man had been nothing but soft and weak, and not much of a farmer to boot. His old man sure as hell hadn’t cared about Sokowski when he took the coward’s way out of life. He’d never be his old man. Never be a gutless piece of shit.
Sokowski tapped a Marlboro Red from its pack and returned the box to his breast pocket. He lit up the smoke and took a deep draw. With the cigarette tucked into the corner of his mouth, he grabbed a pint of Wild Turkey from the glove compartment and then alternated the places of the bottle and the cigarette. He took a long tug on the bottle. The slow burn felt good. So good he decided to follow it with another.
Fucking breakfast of champions.
He looked over at his sacked egg sandwich, and the corners of his mouth turned up at the thought of Mindy. Feisty little bitch. Had a smart mouth, but he’d be goddamned if she didn’t have a rocking little body. Nice tits. Her ass might be getting a bit wide, but not bad nonetheless. Helluva lay, too. She got a few drinks in her and all bets were off. She liked being ridden hard, just the way he liked to dish it out. And once she got those fingernails digging in his back, she’d leave some pretty deep scratches.
Mindy had broken off their on-again, off-again relationship yet again, but she would come crawling back like she always did. You satisfy a woman in the sack and she always comes back, begging for more. And he would take her back. Why not? He had fucked a couple dozen women over the years, but she was by far the best, hands down. He would pile on the sweetness for a while, and they would be back in between the sheets in no time.
As he stepped out of the truck, a contented little whistle slipped from his thin lips. “Camptown Races” was a tune that always stuck in his head. Camptown was a piece-of-crap town ten miles outside of Wyalusing. He hated the town and the shitheads that lived there—a bunch of old retired buzzards that thought that they were better than everybody else with their stupid yard gnomes and bird-baths out on the front lawn—but he liked the song. He kept whistling as he headed toward the barn with the purposeful stride of a man with life by the tail. Before he opened the barn doors, he noticed the green Pinto parked off to the side of the building.
“Goddamn moron.” He flicked his cigarette into the snow, then stepped inside.
All the windows in the barn were tented with thick black plastic tarp, making it nice and warm inside. Probably around seventy degrees or so. A dozen bright fluorescents hung from the ceiling, and in place of a herd of cattle a large crop of marijuana plants basked in the regulated light. Sokowski took off his jacket, dropped it to the floor but kept his deputy hat cocked back on his head.
“Hey, asswipe, I told you to park your piece of shit behind the barn, not in plain view from the road. Jesus. How many times I got to tell you? And what the hell did I say about locking the fucking door? Christ, you’re thick as a stump.”
A short fireplug of a man, soft and fat, nearly bald, and much younger than he appeared, looked up from watering the marijuana plants at the opposite end of the barn. The man’s small face narrowed and pinched forward at the nose, two big ears stuck out on either side of his head, and his eyes appeared to be too big for their sockets. He looked like a possum.
“Thought I did. Shit.”
“Carl, thinking and doing for you is a wide fucking gap.”
Carl smiled and nodded, not sure exactly what Sokowski meant by it. “Get me any breakfast? I’m about near starved.”
“Shit, Carl. With all that fat around your waist, it’d take a goddamned month for you to starve to death.”
Carl glanced down at his gut and chuckled. His big eyes as red as beets.
“Christ. You been smoking already this morning?” Sokowski asked as he moved through and inspected his crop.
Carl shrugged and kept watering. “Just a hit or two.”
Sokowski uncapped the bottle
of Wild Turkey and took another tug. He admired a lush plant. Smiled fondly as he caressed one of the large crystalline buds. “Northern Lights are looking mighty fine.”
Carl laughed another dumb laugh. “Smokes mighty fine, too.”
Sokowski gave him a withering look. “We’re supposed to be selling the shit, not smoking it, assfuck.”
Carl was stoned and found this very pretty damn funny. “Hell, Mike. It’s called quality control. Just wanted to make sure that our stuff is good. We gotta stand by our product.” He chuckled at himself a little more.
“My ass, motherfucker.”
Carl found this funny, too.
Sokowski went to a long wooden worktable lined with carefully weighed and wrapped plastic bags of pot. A couple dozen of them at least. “We’re gonna take a run up to Towanda tonight. Teddie Comstock is buying twenty ounces.”
Carl turned off the water and pulled a half-smoked joint from his breast pocket. Fired it up, took a hit, then held it out to Sokowski. Sokowski accepted without hesitation, took a drag, and they passed it back and forth.
“You ain’t overwatering, are you?” Sokowski asked as he looked around at his plants.
“Naw. I know what the hell I’m doing.”
“Fuck. That’ll be the day.” Sokowski took another hit.
“Teddie got anything going on tonight?” Carl asked.
Sokowski released a cloud of smoke and nodded. “Having a party, I guess. Might as well stick around. Probably just gonna be a bunch of skanks, but I need to get me some pussy.”
“Think DePoto’s gonna be there? Man, she’s got a nice rack.”
“What the fuck is it to you anyways? You got an old lady.”
Carl took the last hit from the joint and pinched it out between his fingers. “Tired of fucking that shit. The woman’s getting fat.”
“You look at your fat ass recently? You really think she wants to be crawling on top of that?”
Carl grinned and grabbed his crotch with a dumb sneer. “Not the only thing that’s fat.”
“Shit,” Sokowski muttered.
“What’s up with you and Mindy anyways? She not giving you any anymore?”
Sokowski took a sip of Wild Turkey and handed it to Carl. “That, shithead, is none of your fucking business.” Carl took the bottle and drank from it. “Besides, I need me some strange.” Sokowski smiled, high as shit now. “Mindy’s a last resort.”
Carl nodded like that made perfect sense, and then something occurred to him. His face grew serious, and he scratched at the top of his head, careful not to disrupt the comb-over he had going. He glanced at Sokowski, big bulging eyes darting left to right. “So look, I was wondering. I got some bills piling up to my ass, and my clutch is slipping in the Pinto, and the old lady is riding my case, so I was wondering if I could get a little advance. Nothing much. Just till I get caught up, you know?”
Sokowski lost his smile and glowered at Carl with bloodshot eyes. “Advance?”
Carl still couldn’t look Sokowski dead-on. “A few bucks. Nothing major.”
Sokowski kept staring at Carl, stroking his beard like he was giving it serious consideration. “I ain’t a bank, douchebag. I pay you what I pay you.”
Carl nodded and knew better than to argue with him. His shoulders dipped a bit, and he shuffled on his feet like a bashful child. He stuck his hands in his front pockets and let out a small sigh.
It was quiet for a few moments until Sokowski dug his hand into his pocket and pulled out a fat roll of bills. “Christ. Don’t go crying like a damn baby.” He peeled off a few twenties and held them out in front of Carl’s face. “I’m keeping track of all this shit I’m loaning you.”
“Thanks,” Carl barely mumbled. He reached for the money, but Sokowski held the bills a little higher, right out of his reach.
“Jump for it.”
Carl sighed again. “Come on, Mike.”
“You want the money? Jump for it, dickhead.”
Carl reached higher. Still couldn’t grab the money.
“Jump, fat-ass.”
Carl finally jumped, his white belly poking out from under his shirt, and grabbed for the money. He missed. Tried again. Missed again.
“Jump, little monkey.”
Carl jumped as high as he could manage and finally snapped the money from Sokowski’s hand. All the jumping had him out of breath. “Damn, Mike. You don’t make nothing easy.”
As Carl stuffed the bills into his pocket, Sokowski grabbed him by the back of the neck and squeezed hard. “You’re my bitch. You know that, Carl?”
Carl just stared at him with his big possum eyes.
“Say it. Say ‘I’m your bitch.’” He applied some more pressure to the folds of fat on Carl’s neck.
“I ain’t saying that shit.” Carl winced in discomfort.
Sokowski kept squeezing. “Say it.”
Carl tried to pull away, but Sokowski held him tight.
“You my bitch, Carl?”
“Fine. Jesus. I’m your bitch.”
Sokowski broke out into a wide grin and released him. “Shit. I had you going, didn’t I? You sorry piece of shit.” Sokowski laughed hard. Carl, not so much.
Sokowski kept laughing as he walked toward the front of the barn. “Remember what I said. Don’t overwater this shit.”
“Where you going?” Carl asked, rubbing at his neck.
Sokowski finished the last of the Wild Turkey and tossed the bottle at Carl, who had to duck to avoid being hit on the side of the head. Sokowski grinned and gave him a salute off his deputy hat. “Protect and serve, motherfucker. Protect and serve.”
Carl forced a weak smile as Sokowski slipped out of the barn, then picked up the watering hose and squeezed the nozzle.
Danny
Danny had to keep his eyes nearly closed from the sheer white intensity. He kept his chin tucked against his chest and wore a heavy coat, sweat trickling down his back despite the bitter-cold temperature. He didn’t know how far out of town he was, but the road’s sharp incline was taking its toll. His frosted breath billowed out in large, colorless clouds, drifting up and into the gray Pennsylvania country sky. Thick, gnarled limbs of birch trees hung low and heavy with snow over the road, creating a blinding white landscape.
A few inches of fresh powder covered most of Turkey Path Road, which wasn’t much more than an old dirt path that wound its way up Lime Hill. Other than a few hunting cabins, no one actually lived along the ridge. Rocky terrain ran steep, making it hard to build on. Snowplows didn’t get out this way much, so the snow piled up high all around him. A truck passed him earlier, big four-wheel-drive tires covered with chains, clanking up a storm.
Danny’s boots squeaked against the snow and ice. It was nice and peaceful. Real quiet. He could hear a hawk cawing from up in the sky. He looked for the bird, but the clouds were too thick. His toes were getting cold, his socks felt wet. Must be a hole in the bottom of his boot. He’d have to save some money before he could go and buy a brand-new pair. He tried not to think about the cold and kept plodding forward.
He heard the sound of children’s laughter up ahead of him and over the crest of the hill. He wasn’t far now. A few more minutes. His stomach rumbled, complaining of hunger. Danny figured he should have eaten lunch before coming out all this way, but after breakfast his stomach hurt real bad, as if someone punched him in the belly.
He didn’t like the deputy one bit. He knew he wasn’t supposed to think bad of other folks, but the deputy had always picked on him ever since he was a kid. He still remembered the first time Mike Sokowski had beaten him up. It was over at Pickett’s Bowling Alley.
• • •
Danny had just turned eight. He was in the arcade with a couple of nickels clutched in his palm, watching the lights blink yellow and red on the Gottlieb Spot Bowler woodrail pinbal
l game. Mr. Pickett had just bought the pinball game and placed it between the Shuffle Alley and the jukebox. Danny played Shuffle Alley a few times but didn’t like getting sawdust all over his hands. He stood mesmerized by the newness of the Spot Bowler game. Everything about the pinball game drew him closer, like a kid to a candy counter. The flashing bumpers, the flippers, the miniature bowling pins lit up like candles, and five steel balls about the size of walnuts ready to knock down all the little bowling pins. Danny put one hand on the panel of glass that covered the game and shook the nickels in the other.
“Hey, retard, what are you doing? Laying a turd in your pants?” Danny looked behind him. Two older boys with crew cuts smiled at him with grins that weren’t so friendly or kind. One was big-boned, tall for his age, and had a cauliflower ear on the left side of his head. Mike Sokowski, only a few years older than Danny but already the meanest bully in Wyalusing. The other kid was fat and wore clothes a size or two too small for him. Carl’s gut hung out from under a stained T-shirt that pulled tight over his belly.
“You deaf, too, retard?” Sokowski asked.
Danny still didn’t answer. He looked past the two boys toward Uncle Brett out on bowling lane four. Uncle Brett held a beer in one hand, a cigarette in the other, and talked with a few of his drinking buddies.
Sokowski and Carl stepped a little closer to Danny, boxing him up against the Spot Bowler game.
“Whatcha got in your hand?” Sokowski sneered.
Danny’s hand gripped the nickels tighter. “Nothing.”
“Doesn’t look like nothing,” Sokowski said. “Check his hand, Carl.”
Carl did as instructed. He grabbed Danny by the wrist and shoved it hard behind his back. Sokowski took Danny’s face and shoved it flat against the panel of glass. Danny could smell the licorice on their breath.
“Just give us the nickels, shithead. You’re too stupid to play arcade games,” Sokowski mocked while Carl twisted Danny’s arm up higher behind his back, forcing him onto his tiptoes.
Deep Winter Page 3