by R.M. Haig
FORTY-ONE
Debt Collector
April 5th, 1996. 3:50PM
Burlwood, Indiana
The Hughes family trailer at eight zero seven Arkwood was full of the scent of country ribs, a bounty purchased from Butcher's Lane, as they slow cooked in the crockpot of Elle Hughes, the family matriarch. She stood in the kitchen fixing biscuits and greens for sides, sweat dripping from her brow as she slaved away with dinner time quickly approaching.
"About twenty minutes, y'all!" She shouted to her son and husband, who were seated just outside the window on the front porch. "You don't wanna be late, 'cuz I'm hungry enough I might just eat all this up by myself!"
Evander and Donnell heard her well enough as they lounged in the rickety wicker patio furniture of their porch, which had barely survived the last winter, but they were engaged in a profound conversation of their own, so they paid her little mind. The smell of the barbecue sauce and the made from scratch biscuits had their mouths watering, so being late was never a concern for either of them. They would find a way to wrap the talk up before the dinner bell rang.
"What I'm tryin' to instill in you, son," Evander said in his raspy fatherly tone as he imagined how tender the ribs would be, "is that a man always pays his debts! Now, it don't matter if it's a debt of money, a favor to a friend, or a debt of pure sweat off his back! When a man gets somethin' from someone on credit, no matter what it is, it's on his shoulders to repay it by any means that happen to be necessary! Until he repays that debt, in whatever manner is required, he is a slave to the person he owes that debt to! It's like a chain around his neck, even if nobody is pullin' on it in the moment! He wears it all the while, and he's subject to be called upon to meet his obligation at any time! Does that make sense to you, son?"
"Yeah," Donnell replied, a bit perplexed, "but I don't understand why we're talkin' about it, I don't owe nobody nothing!"
"Oh, now there is where you're mistaken!" Evander insisted in reply. "All this that you've got, all this your mother and I have given you, that is your debt! The roof that's over your head, the clothes that's on your back, the food you smell your momma cookin' up as we speak, these are things that we have provided for you are not free of charge! You owe us a debt, you've got a chain around your neck that somebody can pull on at any time, just like I said!"
Donnell thought this over for a moment and wondered how it could possibly be. All of his friends had homes, they all had clothes, and they all had food to eat. He'd never heard any of their parents presenting their childhood care as something that was expected to be paid back, at least not in the short term. When it came to his food, so far as he knew the meal his mother was cooking had been paid for with food stamps given to them by the government because neither of his parents were working. Based on that fact, it seemed more reasonable to him that his debt would actually be to whomever it was that provided the food stamps. Either way, he didn't understand why his father was having this talk with him, and he wasn't sure how he was expected to respond.
"But nobody is pullin' on that chain, pops!" he answered. "Even if they did, how could I repay those debts? I don't have no job, I don't have no money!"
"Well when you don't have any money, how do you go about payin' a debt?"
"I don't know," Donell said, shrugging his shoulders, "I mean, I guess you have to get a job to get some money. I don't know any way other than that."
"That's one way, but sometimes you can substitute sweat in the place of money! So even if you don't really get a job, you can pay debts off through just simply workin'!"
Frustrated with the conversation, Donnell sighed and longed for it to be dinner time so it would just be over. "Why are we talking about this, pops?" He asked in his annoyance. "What's it got to do with anything?"
Evander sighed as well, apparently just as weary of this talk as his son was. "You see, son," he began, "right now I owe a debt. This isn't any kind of little silly debt I'm talkin' about either, this is a true life larger than large debt! As it happens, the man I owe this debt to is pullin' on my chain, and he's pullin' real hard, ya' hear?"
"What does that have to do with me?" Donnell wondered.
"We're a family, boy," Evander said, "when someone starts to pull on my chain for a debt I owe, I can turn and pull on your chain for the debt you owe me to help cover my own! So, in a way, you payin' the debt you owe me is applied to the debt I owe this other man! In the end, we're both relieved of our debts, and we're both free of those chains!"
Again Donnell thought this over, but he still couldn't figure exactly what his father was getting at. The concepts he was describing were too abstract, he didn't understand how they applied to life as he knew it at all. He was already in charge of mowing the lawn, taking out the trash and helping his mother with the shopping, what more could he do that would pay off his debt to his father and therefore his father's debt to another man? What was his pops brewing, and what was it going to mean for him?
"Aw shit!" Evander exclaimed as he popped himself out of his wicker chair. "He's coming now!"
Donnell looked down Arkwood towards Oakwood and saw a familiar vehicle approaching. It was a Burlwood PD cruiser, and it belonged to Deputy Ron Boudreaux. As it rocked on its soft suspension down the road, Evander took several deep breaths and seemed to be in a state of panic. He was pacing back and forth in a circle on their small porch before long, his shoulders rising and falling rapidly as he ran his fingers through his tangled black tufts of hair.
"What's goin' on, pops?" Donnell asked him, having never seen his father in this condition. "Did you do something wrong?"
"Just stay calm, son! Okay?" Evander said between his quick and heavy breaths. "Just stay cool! I need you to be cool for me, okay boy?"
Donnell nodded, still watching Deputy Ron's car as it pulled up in front of their trailer and stopped with two wheels on their front lawn. Boudreaux looked to them through dark aviator glasses, staring them down for a moment before eventually opening his door and stepping into their yard. He paused to reach across to the passenger seat to retrieve his hat, the khaki color of which nearly mirrored his olive complexion. Placing it on his bald head completed his uniform, and in full police gear, gloves and all, he strolled slowly across their lawn until he stood and the bottom of the three stairs that led up to the Hughes' porch.
He paused there to look over Evander and his son, calculating or considering something in his mind without sharing his thoughts by speaking them aloud. The process was unsettling as he would stare at Evander for a few seconds, then slowly rotate his head and look Donnell over. After several seconds studying Donnell, he would look back to the father... then the son... the father... the son... Evander... Donnell... Evander... Donnell...
Finally, after what seemed like forever, he opened his mouth and spoke to the elder Hughes. "Are we all set with this?" He asked simply and mysteriously.
Evander took a few more deep breaths, then steadied himself enough to offer a reply. "If it works for you, it works for me," he said.
The progression of back and forth examination started again as though it was never done at all, the deputy still stone-faced and silent. Eventually, his stare settled on Donnell this time and he spoke again. "Are you sure he's ready for it?"
Donnell's father drew another incredibly deep breath, nearly coughing when his lungs reached capacity. "I think he is," he said.
Boudreaux squinted one eye and cocked his head to the side, as though he was dissatisfied with what he'd heard. "You think he is?" He asked Evander, his mouth settling in a frown once he'd said the words. "You THINK he is?" Turning his glare back to Donnell, he likely saw the confusion that was on his face. This seemed to enrage him, and he raised his voice to shout in response. "Sweet Santa Muerta, man! Have you even told him about it?"
"I was workin' on it, sir, I swear I was!" Evander explained in what sounded like a plea for forgiveness. "When you pulled up, I was tellin' him about when
a man owes a debt he --"
Boudreaux broke the retort with a snicker and the shaking of his head, he was clearly moving beyond the level of being pissed at what he was hearing. "A debt?" He chuckled, pulling down his glasses to show the anger in his eyes. "You were telling him about when a man owes a debt? Is that what you think this is about? A debt?" The deputy's anger seemed to double again, and his voice was almost booming when he launched his next verbal response. "You owe me a goddamned FORTUNE, boy!"
"Please, Mister Boudreaux," Evander begged with his hands out, "please, we can make this okay!"
Likely summoned by the shout, Elle Hughes came storming out the front door still wearing her soiled cooking apron and sweat all over her brow. Her dark face was pulled down in a terrible scowl, the type that would've sent Donnell running for his life in the past had it been directed at him. As it happened, it was pointed in the direction of the deputy on this afternoon as she wiped sweat and prepared to blow. Even Ron Boudreaux seemed to stand at attention at her presence, and his countenance morphed from one of disgust to simply his typical resting prick face.
Setting him ablaze where he stood with her eyes, she opened her mouth and spoke her mind without hesitation or apprehension. "Now you listen here!" She began, pointing her bony finger at the man. "You got a lot of nerve showing up here talkin' about my husband owing you a fortune! He wouldn't owe you a fuckin' dime if you didn't keep feedin' him that shit like it was momma's milk flowin' from your tit!"
Boudreaux lifted his gaze to the sky at her words, as though half of him appreciated and had no defense for what she said while the other half wanted to tear into her but lacked the nerve to pull the trigger.
"Now I personally think somebody needs to talk to the feds about you," she continued, "but my spineless, junkyard husband doesn't have the balls to blow the whistle on your mud-colored ass!"
"Oh, that would be a very bad idea!" Boudreaux broke his silence to warn her. "And when I say all three of y'all would regret it, I mean that all three of y'all would really regret it!"
"Yeah, that's what you got this junkie here convinced of!" Elle admonished with a dismissive waive at Evander. "So now you think you're gonna have my boy out pushin' your poison to pay you off?"
"That is the deal we've come to," the deputy replied. "He sells for me until I've recouped all that I'm owed, then we part ways. That's the deal, and it's the whole deal. Probably take a couple of months, then we're all square and everything is forgotten."
Elle looked at Evander with ire, then at Donnell with something that resembled regret, though he'd never seen that emotion on her face so he couldn't place it exactly. Finally, she turned her hot brown eyes back to the officer and issued a warning of her own. "If there was any way out of this, if there was any way to see your punk ass up on a cross with no repercussions on us, that's the way it would go! I want you to know that and understand that, you low-life punk! But believe you me, when you say that the three of us would regret hangin' you up, our regret would be nothing compared to what your ass will feel if anything happens to my boy! As God as my witness, I will peel that filthy skin off your body if any of this comes back on my boy!"
Boudreaux nodded once, and just once, to acknowledge what she'd said. She never broke eye contact with him, and her eyes were bubbling with scorn. When she was confident that her message had been communicated, she spoke again with the same ire.
"When do you expect he's supposed to start?" She asked.
"Right -- now," Boudreaux said slowly, but certainly.
Donnell was confused, so he looked to his father and found him with his head down in shame and fear. Turning to his mother, he found her looking at him with strength and support in her eyes.
"Honey," she said, "I need you to go with Officer Boudreaux. He's gonna show you what he expects of you, and then he's gonna bring you back home. He knows better than to let you come to any harm. I'll save a plate for you, okay sweetheart?"
At a loss and still not quite sure what was happening, he simply nodded silently at her.
"That's my boy!" She praised him. "Everything is gonna be just fine, I promise," she said before looking back to Boudreaux. "And I promise you too, Mister Boudreaux. I promise you just what I said!"
FORTY-TWO