Ghosts of Yesterday

by Jack Cady

  Mary had the counter. The North American driver sat next to Jimbo on one side, Luke on the other. The guy flogging the Ford sat two stools down. Nobody sat at tables, not even that shaded table over in the corner of the room. Or maybe not. There was a little touch of mist over there, like tobacco smoke had collected.

  “You’re of a marrying age,” the North American guy said to Mary, “But are you of a marrying disposition?”

  “I think of it not a little,” she said, “and a man could do a world full of worse.” She glanced toward Luke. Luke blushed. Out there in the parking lot Luke’s truck sat registered for fifty-six thousand gross, a truck that could pull the top off a mountain. It was a truck that ran through every kind of weather and every kind of trouble. It was a truck that could only be touched by a full-grown man who was no fool. And, yet, Luke, who was surely full-grown, blushed. Okay. Something going on between them. Maybe Luke spent Saturday nights here, not Knoxville. More than a case of the hots. More like a case of the quivers.

  The North American guy picked up. “In which case,” he said, “I’m a mite too late.” He stood, paid for pie and coffee. He didn’t ask Mary for his gun which meant he didn’t have one. Furniture guys didn’t really need them.

  “Keep the rubber side down,” Jimbo told him. Jimbo still stared into his coffee cup. He didn’t make a move until he heard the North American roar into life and pull away. The dark feeling still covered the room. Windows across the front of the building let in light, but the light seemed defeated.

  “Something,” Jimbo said, “somethin’s going on. Somebody’s trying to sandbag this poor dago.” He looked toward the guy with the Ford convertible.

  “Could be,” the guy said, “that it’s none of your gaddam bidness.” The guy was one of those turning-to-fat heavyweights. He had piggy eyes, and tried to dress city. Checkered pants, narrow suspenders. He looked like a chubby pimp or a used car salesman.

  “Could be,” Luke said quietly, “that it’s some of mine.” Luke might look like a hardware store owner, but didn’t sound like one. In the south you don’t worry when a guy starts yelling. You worry when a voice goes quiet and calm.

  “Could be,” Mary told the local guy, “that one claim-jumping deputy is in over his frowzy head.” To Luke, she said, “Take it easy.” She turned and headed quick for the kitchen. When she came back she was followed by May who took the counter. May looked onto the parking lot. “Furniture haulers,” she said about the North American guy. “Gypsies. You hardly ever see them twice.” She sounded almost wistful.

  “Bring your coffee,” Mary told Luke. “We’ll sit in your truck and talk.”

  I watched them walk outside, both shy as teenagers on a first date. Waves of heat rose from the road, but was nothing compared to the heat between them. Mary could not have been more than twenty-two and Luke maybe five years older. And both of them virgins, most likely. I wanted to tsk, thought better of it; wanted to laugh, thought better of it.

  “Start any bullshit,” May told Jimbo, “and I turn you into wop soup.” She grinned as she said it. “You could, I reckon, spread just a little.”

  Jimbo turned to look out the windows. Luke and Mary were still walking to Luke’s truck, but now they were holding hands. “What’s she want with Luke? Preachers ain’t no fun.”

  “He’s smart,” May said. “And she’s smart. I got the looks, she got the brains. She’ll marry a preacher or a teacher, or something. I’ll end up with somebody like you.” She was right about the looks. May had hair nearly to her waist, but done up high. She had full lips, blue eyes, a smile that could soften rocks. Her figure was like in Esquire magazine, and her sass like Sophie Tucker.

  The heavyweight stood up. Looked at May. Looked at me and Jimbo. Made a decision. “I’ll be back,” he said. “Tell your ma.” He headed for the door.

  “Coffee’s on the house, you cheap bastard.” May sounded just a little hysteric.

  The guy turned, reached in his pocket for change, thought better of it when he looked at Jimbo, and left.

  “Don’t go nowhere,” May told us. She reached behind the punchboards. “Keep ’em hid. Ma’s got a rule and I’m breakin’ it.”

  My .38 was a snub nose. Not hard to conceal.

  “Don’t go nowhere until another truck comes in. We got no man around this house. Not always.” She looked toward the dark corner of the room. Looked through the window toward Luke’s truck. “Our daddy was a preacher, and we miss him,” she said about Mary. “I expect that’s why she’s attracted.” She turned toward the kitchen. “Fatso is gone.”

  Movement in the kitchen. Molly showed up, little and cute like a colleen. Lots of Scots-Irish people in these hills. I kept watching the clock and wondered just how far off schedule this would take us.

  “Get ma?” Molly sounded like she didn’t know whether to be afraid, or get so mad she’d stomp her foot.

  “Not now,” May told her. “Bully-boys are cowards. He’ll wait.”

  “We’re losing minutes,” I mentioned. “At least let us know what’s up.” Through the windows, where dusk already lay across the lot, I could see Luke and Mary walking back from the truck. They walked slow and somewhat pretty.

  “We had some drunks run out of here,” May told Jimbo while ignoring me. “One got a little bit cut and bleedy. He’s the brother of a deputy. The fat boy is another brother, only in construction. He fills potholes for the state. Quite a family.” She didn’t say more because Luke and Mary came through the doorway.

  “Brush your hair, missy,” Molly told Mary. Molly couldn’t be more than eighteen, but bossy. Mary looked rumpled, Luke looked flustered. Maybe a good bit had happened in that truck, but it was clear everybody kept their pants on.

  Luke blushed, Jimbo chuckled, Molly fussed, May winked, Mary brushed, and I turned to the windows when I heard a downshift coming off the hill. A new Mack pulling propane eased onto the lot.

  “Pete,” May said about the propane driver. She turned to me. “Thanks, guys. Keep it out of the ditches.”

  Luke was whispering to Mary. “Get rollin’,” I told him. We passed the propane driver on our way out.

  I figured we were free and clear and not too far off schedule, but figured wrong. The ghost appeared at the top of the hill which surely meant something wasn’t right. He’d never appeared all the way at top. This time he gave the road sign for “trouble ahead,” the hi-sign; right hand stretched forward, palm out, fingers spread. We took him serious since there was a deputy in the neighborhood.

  Sheriffs didn’t bother truckers. Sheriffs were elected and needed friends. Truckers spent a lot of money in poor areas. Sheriffs didn’t want to get a bad name for running away business.

  State cops didn’t bother truckers, unless the guy was weaving. They always allowed at least fifteen percent over the limit. State cops were trained.

  It was deputies that caused trouble. They were usually young punks who worked cheap, because a red flasher and a badge made them feel like their ding-dong was longer.

  This red flasher showed up right away. Sunlight had decayed to twilight, and shadows lay long across the road. The punk came wailing past me in a ’50 Mercury, siren yelling high and thin against those forested hills. He pulled in between Luke and Jimbo.

  Jimbo flipped his marker lights four or five times, which, knowing Jimbo, told me he was ready to start something; if I was. He eased to the shoulder which was none too wide. The deputy pulled in behind him. Luke pulled in behind the deputy.

  I admit to some impatience. Instead of pulling in behind Luke, I stopped right in the roadway beside the Merc. The Merc sat boxed between three trucks, and three drivers who weren’t expressin’ a hell of a lot of charity.

  I didn’t even climb down. Just waited for the punk. He came around the front of Luke’s rig, already losing his nerve. If he’d been in control he wouldn’t yell. He looked to be late 20s, but already had bad teeth. His hat must be minus a sweat band because it was sopping. He had greasy
hair hanging out below the hat, the hair all straggly around his ears. He vaguely resembled the Fatso guy who’d been flogging the new Ford. He started yelling at me to clear the roadway.

  I spoke low and slow and pleasant enough. I told him that if I moved my rig it would be to push that frickin’ Mercury off the berm and down the mountain.

  His pistol was in his holster. He touched it, looked around, saw Jimbo out of his truck. The guy considered the odds, thought better of it.

  “Stopped you ’cause there’s construction,” he muttered. “Road’s busted up at the county line.”

  “Appreciate it,” I told him. “Nice to know a man who takes care of working guys.” No sense pushing it.

  He turned and stomped away. We pulled out, rolling Knoxville.

  ……

  Pull the rig over, shut it down, let the warehouse guys have it, and sleep. It wasn’t until day after, waking up for another Louisville turn, that we heard of a dead Fatso, though at first we couldn’t be sure. All we were sure of was that August had turned to September, and there’d be more ground mist in the hills.

  Jimbo and I sat in the ready-room with our rigs on the ready-line. We waited for Luke. Eleven at night. The road would be good for the first hour, get knotty in the second, and by two a.m. the drunks would all be off the road. The best hours are two to five when the only trouble is a deer or a razorback hog. Hogs are just short enough to get under the front axle, and tall enough to roll the truck. Rather hit a deer. Rather hit a bull. Rather not hit nothin’.

  A driver came into the ready-room looking for coffee. His shirt was dark with sweat. His eyes were somewhat benzedrined but not too eggy. Just a tired guy after a long haul.

  “Anything worth knowing?” Jimbo asked it, but either of us might. You could only get road information from other drivers. This guy looked like a thousand tired guys I’ve seen. He poured coffee and sat on a ratty couch with peeling imitation leather. The walls of the ready-room were institution-green, and his complexion about the same.

  “One-a these days,” he said, “I’m gonna buy a little store. I’m gonna sit on my sweet behind and sell all kinds of shit to truck drivers. I might even get married.” He stretched, yawned. “Naw, that could maybe be pushing it.” He licked away at the cup of coffee he surely didn’t need. Habit.

  “Helluva wreck,” he said, “up by London. Ford ragtop tumbling down the mountain like Jacky and his girlfriend Jill.”

  “That Fatso guy?” Jimbo looked at me.

  “Don’t know who it was,” the driver said. “Last I heard, they were still trying to figure a way of prying it off of him.”

  “One a week….” It was a road saying. It meant that if you drove for a living, you’d see at least one fatal accident every week. Cars were not well suspended. Roads were narrow, speed limits high.

  “Woe betide.” Jimbo couldn’t help spreading b.s. He looked to the doorway where Luke had just entered. Luke looked like a guy who had been up half the night listening to a complaining wife. He wasn’t bleary-eyed, but if it had been anybody except Luke I wouldn’t have trusted him. He looked worn to a nub.

  “If you wasn’t drinkin’ and smokin’ and speakin’ bad words and runnin’ around with trollops….” Jimbo saw that flippin’ it wasn’t going to work. “What’s happening?”

  “I’ve been up to Bessie’s,” Luke said, real quiet. “I’ve got to get her out of there.”

  “Bessie?” Jimbo grinned.

  “You know who.”

  “This is getting serious?” I pretended to take his news casual. “There’s lots of girls in lots of truck stops.”

  “The Lord’s work,” Jimbo suggested. “Like predigested?”

  “Maybe,” Luke told him, “All I know is she’s the right one. But there’s a dead man now. Fatso’s gone. You know what comes next.”

  …the Hatfields and the Coys. Feuds in the Kentucky hills lasted well into the 20th century… “You kick my dog, I shoot your dog, you shoot my cousin, I shoot your brother, you shoot my pa….” and on and on and on. Revenge. Dark. Deadly. Over in Bloody Breathitt county they’d shot a whole family, plus five sheriffs in six months, or six sheriffs in five months… I forget which.

  “People are going to die, and all over fifteen bucks and stiff-necked pride.” Luke poured half a cup of coffee and looked guilty for doing it. We were supposed to be rolling. “The drunk who got cut went to a doctor who charged fifteen dollars, so the cut must have amounted to something. The deputy tried to collect the money from Bessie. Then Fatso tried. Bessie told them to stick their gearshifts up their tailpipes….” Luke almost smiled. “Who would have ever thought that Bessie….” Then he sounded sad. “Now Fatso is dead….”

  “Proves nothing,” I said. “Let’s roll.”

  “You know it,” Luke told me, “and I know it. But tell it to the drunk. Tell it to that speed-trapping deputy. How many others in that family?”

  “If you guys got any brains,” the tired and bennied driver said, “you’ll keep your sweet fannies t’hell out of it. Them hillbillies ain’t responsible types.” He stretched again. “…got a woman both ends of the line, but think I’ll rent a room and try to sleep.” He trudged away.

  “Sin of pride,” Luke muttered. “The deadliest of the seven deadlies.”

  The road in early September is generally clear. Trees are tired and ragged from summer, but leaves only droop. Few blow. In the hills the moon is often hazy because mist rolls off the tops of hills. The road can get hazy as well. Ground mist rises. Summer fogs turn the road into a mist-smoking path between trees. On downhills you let her roll, because you have to have something for that next grade. When it is late at night on smoking two-lane, trucking is better than best. Your senses are so sharp they actually cut the night. Falling down a hard grade at seventy, you have to be smarter than God, and twice as alert.

  And it is on such nights that visions, apparitions, and ghosts appear. Giant moths flicker pure white as they drift high above the road, and an occasional night-flyer, dark and invisible, splats against the windshield. Headlights bore into the mist, and if a man is not a fool he slows. But, he doesn’t slow much, because half of what he sees probably isn’t there.

  The ghost appeared at the top of Dive Bomber Hill, off to the right on the berm. I saw brake lights before I saw him. Jimbo’s rig slowed, rolled past the ghost, and stopped. Luke’s rig pulled in behind Jimbo. I pulled it over, climbed down.

  Did I believe in ghosts? Hell no. Did I believe in this one? Hell, yes. Would I let my guys flail that turn at the bottom of the hill. Not a chance. Not with what had been goin’ on.

  The ghost wasn’t doing anything. He’s standing there like a luminescent glow against the black backdrop of the hills. He stood, just waiting, and he wasn’t waiting for me, or Jimbo. We three walked up, and stood like stooges in a little circle before the ghost. Our rigs rumbled at our backs.

  “The evening’s entertainment….” Jimbo tried to flip it, but the words died in his mouth.

  What we saw depended on who we were. Jimbo says he saw almost nothing but mist, at first. Then he saw a sidewalk preacher, the kind that used to come to town on Saturdays to bang their Bibles at street corners. I saw the figure of a man who raised his hand like a Cardinal, ready to sprinkle holy water while calling for money; pennies for the poor, dollars for the Pope.

  Luke saw a father giving him a blessing. Luke saw a father’s permission to marry a daughter. It could even be that a bit of scripture passed between them.

  Then the ghost looked a little apologetic. Nobody could figure that out at the time. We climbed back up and coasted down to Bessie’s. Five-thirty a.m., mist on the mountains, moon already down, dawn threatening. The only truck on the lot was a sixteen-foot van being flogged by a route driver. The sheriff’s car stood near the doorway. One window of the restaurant was boarded up. Rock or bullet. Window gone. What with news about Fatso spreading up and down the road, and what with the sheriff’s car, it was no wonder the par
king lot sat deserted.

  When we got inside the route guy was just leaving and it was family day at Bessie’s. Bessie stood behind the counter looking cool as the morning dawn. She wore a plain housedress, light green and with a red flower pinned to it. Bessie was usually happy, but this time she was not smiling. The jukebox sat silent.

  May, being the oldest of the girls, stood beside Bessie. Mary and Molly hovered down to one end of the counter. The sheriff sat real quiet and thoughtful. He was a perfect picture of a country sheriff, middle-aged, brown from the sun, muscular and capable. If he hadn’t been a cop, he looked like somebody you’d like to know.

  Finally, he said, “I’ll handle Jerry, and tell him to handle Ellis.” He sighed, like this was more trouble than it was worth. “A’course, Ellis and his sidekickers are drunks, and you can’t ever be sure what a drunk is gonna do. ’Cause even the drunk don’t know what he’s gonna do.”

  “Arrest him,” May said.

  “And let him go,” the sheriff said. “Just because we know he did it don’t mean much. Best I can do is threaten him.” He stood, rubbed his hand through his hair like he was trying to chase a thought. “I’ll keep as close to it as I can.”

  “Tell those boys,” Bessie said, “that’s it’s time to call it even. One cut, one window. I’ll cough up the fifteen bucks, and let it go.” Out there on the road a downshift cracked, a tanker slowed, then the guy must have seen the sheriff’s car. He revved a shift and pushed it on down Dive Bomber Hill.

  “… little late, and Ellis would have blown up even if you’d paid up, right off.” The sheriff stood. “I can’t tell you what to do, but it would be smart to hire a man to stay on the place… so Ellis don’t make more mistakes.” He looked kindly toward Bessie, and then left.

  Luke watched him go, while Jimbo and I watched Bessie. Luke whispered something to Mary that I didn’t catch. He had taken a seat nearest Mary, Jimbo beside him, and me beside Jimbo. Luke kind of scooched around in his seat. He put his hand on the counter. Mary touched his hand. I knew right then, that was the moment we lost him.