Yardbird

by Mark Slade

  Chester screamed, wailed, and bawled all the way to the town square. He mumbled prayers, apologized to his mother, and cursed the devil for making him kill his woman and the man she was cheating with. In reality, Celeste was a prostitute and the murdered man was just a traveling salesman, his first time at a house of ill repute.

  Scratch gathered himself and he and Dobro trotted after Culky and his men to stop them. When they got to the town square, Culky already started the proceedings and everyone who had been in the club gathered around folks who woke up and came out of their houses to see the ruckus.

  “It don't matter what color you are,” Culky said to all witnesses. “Whether you're a man, a woman… God expects you to act in a certain way in polite society. He don't want us to run around…” He looked at a weeping Chester, who kept falling to his knees and at Saul, who kept picking him up. “…killing each other.”

  A rope was tossed around the post office sign. It had been pre-tied into a noose at the end. So it was true. Culky drove around with nooses in his trunk looking for an execution. The noose swung as Hoke tied it around the sign. Saul grabbed Chester by his collar and made him stand, but Chester kept falling to his knees, unable to stop sobbing, apologizing to God and his mother.

  Saul reached for him again and Culky shook his head. Saul took a few steps back, and Culky stepped forward.

  “Aw hell,” Culky said. “You're a waste of good rope, any damn ways!”

  Culky took his .45 from his belt and shot Chester twice on the left side of the temple. Chester fell to the side in a pool of his own blood and brain tissue. There was a gasp from the crowd. A long silence fell on the night. Even the night creatures were silent, horrified by what they'd witnessed.

  Several houses down, Scratch saw the young black man who had vacated his car a few hours before. He was standing outside a white shack with moss growing on the roof. He was in a black T-shirt and underwear. An elderly woman came out, looked at what happened, then ushered him inside. Before he closed the door, Dobro got a good look at the man.

  “Dobro.” Scratch pointed. “You know him?”

  Dobro snickered. “Oh, yeah. Felix Crump. That's the twist that shot at you?”

  “Yep,” Scratch answered.

  “Hmm. Well,” Dobro started to walk. “Let's talk to him.”

  Scratch put a hand on his arm. “No.” Scratch shook his head. “We go over there, he sees us, Dobro, and that punk will turn and run. I need to watch him.”

  “Maybe so, yeah,” Dobro said.

  “I'm betting that's his grandmother,” Scratch said.

  “Unless he's doing old ladies again.”

  “Do what?” Scratch was shocked.

  “Boy was hustlin' old ladies a year or so ago. Get 'em to feel sorry for his ass, take him in. Live in their house for a week or so, then take off with money, jewelry… Fucker moved on to guys. That shit didn't work too well. He got his ass beat too many times.”

  “Damn,” Scratch said in disgust. “You manage him?”

  “Hell naw!” Dobro was offended by the question. “I don't manage trash like that. Even my sissies are prime! You know that, Scratch.”

  Scratch smiled, put a hand on Dobro's shoulder to let him know he did know that.

  “Now I know where his base of operations is,” Scratch said.

  “What? Now you pullin' some army shit out,” Dobro laughed. “Come to my place, brother. Tina will fix us some steaks and greens. Get you some much-needed shuteye before your big meeting.”

  “Thanks, Dobro, but no thanks. I'm going to watch Felix.”

  “Suit yourself,” Dobro said. 'Tina's gonna be sick she ain't seen you.”

  Tina was Dobro's common-law wife. They had four kids together. All under 12. Tina liked men as much as Dobro liked women. Both jealous as all get out, both crazy as hell, nearly killing each other more than once. Both still together. Both needed to be a thousand miles away from each other.

  'I'll pop in and say hi when all this is over with.”

  Dobro knew better. His brother wasn't going to see Tina, not after the blowout last year when Scratch caught her messing with one of the oil rig workers. She messed that poor man's head up. Ruined his marriage. The wife left, took the kids, and the oil rig worker killed himself in front of Scratch. Shotgun to the face.

  “OK, brother.” Dobro walked away. “You know where to find me.”

  14

  Nothing happened the rest of the night. Scratch sat in his Dodge, watching the house Felix lived in. At around six am, a light in the living room came on. A yellow hue glowed behind a thin white curtain. A short skinny shadow appeared. The curtain moved and an enlarged eyeball briefly appeared.

  Way out in the distance, Marty Robbins's Singin' the Blues echoed. A few seconds, the music grew louder as a red Plymouth Fury roared down the cul-de-sac and came to a screeching halt at Felix's house. The same red Fury that had been driving around when the Klan was chasing Felix. The curtain moved again. Thirty seconds later, the front door to the shack opened up and Felix ran out, slamming the door behind him. He jumped in the car and it sped away.

  Scratch started the Dodge and sped off behind the Fury. Two Cadillacs, one brown, one white, came out of nowhere and blocked the Dodge. Scratch hit the brakes, the car and he jerked forward, stopped just a hair from colliding with the brown Cadillac. Scratch smacked the steering wheel, watched the Fury drive off into the rising sun, Marty Robbins's voice echoing.

  Two lean black men in zoot suits got out of the brown Cadillac and a six-foot-eight, 300-pound white man with a jigsaw scar that ran from the left side of his face to the right side, stepped out of the white Cadillac. The three of them hurried to the Dodge, opened the door and dragged Scratch out. Scratch belted the lighter-skinned black man, the darker-skinned one drove a punch hard into Scratch's midsection. Scratch fell to his knees, wheezing.

  Pita-Paul was the big white guy's name. The underlings didn't have names. They were replaced almost weekly, either by haphazard deaths or jail. Pita-Paul had been Uncle Homer's bodyguard since World War II ended. A refugee along with his mother and a very beautiful red-haired sister called Heilke, they came to Darktown by accident, thinking they were in California. They ran out of money and the bus dropped them off thinking it was a funny joke to put Germans in the black part of Odarko, Oklahoma. The joke was on the bus driver. Uncle Homer offered the man a job right away. In spite of his lack of English, Pita-Paul and Uncle Homer understood each other from the jump. Mama and Heilke also lived in Homer's house, the only mansion in Darktown and almost as big besides Oliver Spiff's. As anyone could guess, Heilke was Homer's third wife, and his prized possession. The main wife, Delilah, lived in the big black house on Hubbard with the two boys, just before the line into Odarko, while the second wife, Alma, lived alone in a yellow shack not 100 yards from the chicken factory.

  It was Dozen Grant who stepped out of the white Cadillac, not Uncle Homer. Dozen was called that for two reasons. 1: He was the 12th and last child of Mimi and Garret Morris. 2: He was just an inch from being considered a dwarf. He had the features and his arms that were the same as those of a normal-sized man. The white suit he wore had to be specially made by a tailor in Tulsa, but the fedora was bought from a five-and-dime with money from his first bank job, which turned out to be his last. Dozen spent five years on a state farm before he broke from a chain gang and had been a wanted man for the last 15 years.

  Dozen got out of the white Cadillac and scuttled over to Scratch and the others as quickly as his little legs could carry him. The lighter-skinned black man kneed Scratch in the face.

  “Whoa!” Dozen called out. “Hey stop, you fools!” By the time he'd gotten over there, the two zoot suits had roughed Scratch up some more. “The hell are you two doin'?”

  “Doin' what you said, boss,” the darker-skinned one said.

  “Yeah… you said…”

  “I ain't said no such thing, you dumb motherfuckers! You think I would tell you rough up my
employer's fuckin' nephew?”

  “What?” The lighter skinned man was stunned. His nose wrinkled in disgust.

  “You tellin' me this white jack-off…”

  “He ain't all the way white, you dumb assholes!” Dozen sighed. He touched the bridge of his nose and closed his eyes for a moment, trying to calm down a raging migraine.

  “You said to rough up the white guy…”

  “Stop talking, please. Damn it to hell! You were supposed to stop the red Fury, you lamebrain,” Dozen said. He walked over to Scratch and helped him to his feet. “Man, I'm sorry, Scratch.”

  “That's OK, Dozen,” Scratch said, breathless. He stood, woozy, and steadied himself by leaning on the little man.

  “You fools bring Scratch to the white Cadillac.”

  “I ride in that!” The lighter-skinned guy said.

  “You ride in the brown Caddy or you fuckin' walk!” Dozen said.

  The zoot suits didn't like what they were told, but were powerless to do anything about it. They helped Scratch inside the white Cadillac. Zeke was driving. At one time Zeke hung out with Scratch and Dobro, until he and Dobro had a fight over a girl. He let those zoot suits beat up on Scratch because of that. Scratch was sure of it.

  “Scratch, my man. How's it going?” Zeke asked with a laugh.

  “All peaches and cream, Zeke,” Scratch mumbled.

  “Zeke, shut the hell up and drive!” Dozen slammed the car door.

  “Yes, sir.” Zeke continued to laugh as he put the Cadillac in gear.

  15

  Uncle Homer was sitting by the fireplace, lost in thought. He was still in his silk tiger-print pajamas. Heilke was on the sofa in her slip, sliding a stocking on to her right leg. A dead black man laid on the floor. His trousers were round his ankles and there were two gunshot wounds in his back.

  Dozen pushed his way through everyone. He walked around the room, surveying the situation. Dozen threw his hands up in the air. “What the hell happened? Why is Delmont dead?”

  Without looking at Dozen, Uncle Homer said: “Babycakes was fuckin' this guy.”

  “And?” Dozen said sarcastically. “She fucks a lot of your guys, boss! It's what she does! You know this, you approve.”

  “Naw, Dozen,” Uncle Homer shook his head slowly. “This is different.”

  “Well? Explain,” Dozen said, placed his hands on his hips and bounced his head up and down like an angry hen.

  “He was planning to cut me,” Uncle Homer said. There was a sadness in his voice. Disappointment. “You never expect your own people to try and take you out like that. I've known Delmont since he was three years old. His daddy used to work in a rock quarry with my cousins. I took Delmont under my wing. You never expect your own people to gather around and rip you apart – to feast on you. It didn't used to be that way.”

  “I'm trying to understand this,” Dozen said. “Delmont was fucking Heilke?”

  “Making love is natural!” Heilke said, as she slipped the other stocking over her left leg.

  “Shut the hell up! Ain't nobody talking to you, little Miss Hun!”

  Uncle Homer still didn't look at anyone. He raised his hand and waived dismissively at Dozen. “Dozen, don't, please. I'm hurting enough as it is. I don't need to witness you and Babycakes disliking each other.”

  Dozen noticed Uncle Homer had slipped into his other personality. He had many faces, all of them a left turn from the actual Homer, the real Homer, who was Boss of Darktown. The real Homer was the dangerous one. The one Dozen liked the most.

  “Son of a bitch!” Dozen exclaimed. “The boss has got the blues! OK, OK. Everybody out! Get Delmont and put him in freezer until we can get Ferdie for a funeral.”

  “I don't have to leave,” Heilke stood, stomped her feet. “I am his wife!” she said, her accent growing stronger. “I hate you all! Pig-fuckers!”

  “Bitch, get the hell out of here and go to your damn room!” Dozen screamed and trotted to Heilke. She held out her hands, her long red fingernails ready to claw his skin off, take an eyeball out if need be. Pita-Paul stood between the two of them, sighing deeply. Dozen stopped short of running into Pita-Paul's thigh.

  “Everyone leave!” Uncle Homer yelled.

  The light-skinned black man grabbed Heilke by the arm and jerked her toward the door. She cursed and spat at everyone. Pita-Paul and the dark skinned black man picked up Delmont and carried him out the room. Dozen shrugged at Scratch and motioned for him to go out ahead of him.

  “Wait. Scratch, you stay,” Uncle Homer called out.

  Dozen shrugged and turned to walk back in after Scratch.

  “Just Scratch,” Uncle Homer said with enough attitude that if anyone lit a match, the house would catch fire.

  Dozen left the room, cursing under his breath. He slammed the door behind him.

  Uncle Homer glared at Scratch, fuming.

  “Where's your eye, boy?” he asked.

  “I was at the right place at the wrong time,” Scratch said. “Somebody jumped me. I think it fell out. They took it.”

  “Pokin' your nose where it don't belong again,” Uncle Homer said. “You were in the right place at the wrong time because of your employer?”

  “Why do you want to see me, Uncle Homer?”

  “Scratch, I love you – you are my dead sister's son and I love Immy. But you two…” Uncle Homer laughed. “You two are a handful. I promised your mama I'd look out for you both.” Homer pointed a finger at Scratch. “Look how you brats repay me! Working for the white devil! The one man who wants what I have!”

  Homer produced the same .38 that killed his bodyguard Delmont. Anger rose up in Scratch. Not from having a gun aimed at him. Not because his own flesh and blood was thinking of killing him. But because the statement that he loved Scratch and Immy was a complete lie. So was promising their mother Uncle Homer would look out for them. Scratch wasn't deterred. He sat there stone faced. He wasn't going to feed into Homer's psychosis.

  Homer laid the .38 on the arm of his chair. He laughed wildly.

  “You are Mr Scratch,” he said. “Nothing gets to you.”

  “Why do you say Spiff wants the one thing you have? He already has Odarko,” Scratch said.

  “Exactly,” Uncle Homer said. “I have Darktown. Why would he want this piece of shit? He doesn't.”

  “You just said…”

  “I didn't say he wants Darktown, boy! I said the one thing I have, he don't have!”

  OK, Scratch thought. Now he's not making any sense.

  “Why was Immy at that party?” Uncle Homer asked.

  “You were there?”

  Uncle Homer shook his head. “No. I don't need to go to that dumb shit. I have my own parties. One of my boys was there.” Homer looked away. Sadness seemed to come over him. He lifted a slow, uneasy hand to his head. “I can't keep doing this, Allan.”

  That was the first time Uncle Homer had called Scratch by his real name.

  “Do what, Uncle Homer?”

  Homer sighed. “All this,” he waved his hand wearily. “Y'all don't know what it's like to be the man. The one who has everything – the whole damn world sittin' on your shoulders. Spiff… Spiff knows. But he channels it a different way. He don't spread love – that motherfucker is evil, I'm telling you, Allan.”

  Tears welled up in the man's wide, dark eyes. He sobbed for a moment, caught himself, and quickly found his composure, although his expression went through several personality changes.

  But sad Homer won out.

  “I want you to leave Spiff's employment,” Homer said. “I'll groom you to have all this, Allan.”

  Scratch thought about it. He shook his head no.

  “Thank you. But I can't anytime soon,” he told Uncle Homer. “There's things I need to do before I can leave Spiff's company.”

  Homer snarled. He was fuming.

  “Same old Mr Scratch, huh? Come to my house, bringing bad luck?”

  “You sent for me,” Scratch said.

&
nbsp; “If you hadn't meddled, Delmont wouldn't have tried to kill me… and I wouldn't have killed him!” Homer stopped. Emotions were taking over again. Homer got choked up. He waited for the emotions to pass, and chose his words carefully. “I sent for you, for a reason, Mr Scratch. Funny…I was just tellin' Heilke about how your daddy tried to drown you in the sink because he believed you were the devil incarnate,” he breathed in deeply, exhaled. “More and more I think about it,” Homer grasped the .38 and aimed it at Scratch again. “That German motherfucker was right. You are the devil!” Homer screamed.

  Homer went quiet. He fell forward in his mahogany chair and covered his face with both hands. It was quick, and the tender frail moment went faster than an Alfred Hitchcock whip pan. Homer straightened up, sniffled, and sighed. He glared at Scratch.

  “Believe it or not, I love you boy.” He shook his head and his lips curled up. “It's tough love. Not that bullshit love I give to my kids or Heilke. I let her do whatever she pleases, and look at the fucked-up shit I'm in.” Homer laughed wildly, threw his hands up in the air. “Eh? You see it? You see the fucked up shit I'm in? You do. The more I think about this, Allan,” he said, licking his lips, “the more I'm sure there ain't no heaven. There's only Earth…” Homer pointed to the floor. “And there's only hell. One and the same. The Bible is bullshit we made up to use for various reasons. Mostly for control.”

  “You still believe in voodoo and bad luck, though?” Scratch asked.

  “I must,” Homer laughed again. “You're still here.”

  Both of them fell silent, their eyes still locked on each other.

  Homer pointed to a shelf with where a hatbox sat with a black stocking lying on top. Scratch stiffened.

  “There it is,” Uncle Homer said. “There's the hatbox your employer wants. Go ahead, boy. Take it. Ain't doin' me no good.”

  Scratch practically leaped out of his chair. He trotted over to shelf, pushed the black stocking off the hatbox. This was the hatbox in Ray Gardner's room. Scratch ran a finger across the gold initials, seductively across one S, then roughly across the other S.