CHAPTER ONE
Pap
walked along the edge of the road dragging a burlap tow sack half full of
aluminum cans. The combination of cans colliding and burlap scooting across the
coarse chip-and-seal surface made a noise not unlike a flat bastard file being
pulled across a dull lawnmower blade. In his right hand he carried a wooden mop
handle with a 16 penny nail sticking from one end like the point of a spear. He
spied a beer can at the bottom of the shallow ditch and stooped forward to stab
it. The nail pierced the soft metal and came out the other side as the can
collapsed. Beer dripped from the point of the nail as he swung his catch around
and raked it off into the sack at his feet. Sometimes he pretended he was
spearfishing along some stream in Alaska instead of supplementing his social
security on a dead-end road in Johnson County, Mississippi.
Television made Alaska look
like a paradise, but he hadn’t trusted TV since Walter Cronkite retired.
The sack followed him across
the rough surface of the road as he walked back toward home. Up the slight
grade he trod, until the road leveled off and he could see his Radio Flyer
wagon on the shoulder. Dragging the sack was easier than pulling the wagon
because the sack would follow him down into the ditch and up the bank on the
other side if need be. When the sack was full he would empty it into the wagon
and start again. The trick was in coordinating wagon location with sack
filling, and that varied depending on what day of the week it happened to be.
Monday mornings were usually his heavy haul days, but Friday mornings ran a
close second because the factory handed out checks on Thursdays. Most days he
parked the wagon where it needed to be. He had been at this for a long time.
When he stopped for another
can he heard the monotone buzz of the factory, like a swarm of locust that
never stops devouring the landscape. He removed his straw hat, looked up at the
blue sky, and wiped a bead of sweat from his forehead with the sleeve of his
shirt. It shouldn’t be so hot in May, but Pap didn’t believe all the talk about
the earth burning itself up. A breeze kicked up and felt good against his
sweat-soaked shirt. Cans awaited, so he trudged onward.
Halfway to the wagon he heard
a pickup approaching from behind. It was still a ways off, but he knew by the
roar of its tires against the pavement it would be a 4x4. Probably some teenager
who didn’t know the road petered out just past his driveway. Deek Norton had
lived just long enough to get the road named after him when Johnson County
adopted the E-911 system years ago. By all rights the county should have named
it Jones Road, after Pap, because everybody knew Deek Norton was in bad health
and had no kin to speak of when the renaming commenced. But Deek probably
hadn’t called the supervisor a son-of-a-bitch for not dragging the ditches so
the water wouldn’t flood over the road every time it rained.
Had the road been named after
him, Pap might be inclined to stab up some of the fast food sacks and cups the
workers tossed out their windows. They were a dirty bunch and he wondered if
they littered their own roads the way they littered his. Sometimes it seemed
they brought their trash from home just to throw it out as they marched to and
from the factory like worker ants in service to their queen.
Pap snickered at the thought
of Davis Khane as a queen. Queen Khane, furniture magnate. He stabbed a Pepsi
can and swung it into his sack.
The roar of the approaching
truck intensified until it overtook him and sped past with a whoosh of wind.
Something solid hit Pap in the left shoulder and sent him tripping to the
ground, more from surprise than from the force of the impact. He landed on his
hands and knees. A Bud Light can tumbled through the air and landed against the
ditch bank with a thunk. Pap scrambled to his feet in time to see the muddy red
Dodge disappear over the hill.
“Up your butt Bobby John!” He
jabbed at the sky with the mop handle as he yelled. He knew the truck because
he had climbed into the bed of it and pissed down the driver’s door one Tuesday
afternoon in the student parking lot at the high school after he discovered it
belonged to the young thug who had thrown the brick at him while he was mowing
beside the Ag building. High school kids have no respect for janitors. Nor do
principals and teachers, considering the lack of fanfare his retirement had
generated.
But what did he care?
Somebody else had to clean up after them now.
He crossed the ditch and
scooped up the can, knowing by the wallop to his shoulder it was near full. He
put the can to his lips and drained it dry. If he’d had a cell phone he
would’ve called the sheriff and told him he had a drunk running the roads, but
the only phone he owned was attached to his living room wall by a black wire,
and that was almost a mile away. He picked up his sack and dropped the can
inside with the others. At least the young hooligan had quenched his thirst.
Pap walked on toward the
wagon with a dent in his pride and a fire in his gut. It occurred to him that
Bobby John had but one way out and that was past him. His eyes searched the
ground until he found a nice fat rock he could ball his fist around. He bounced
it in the palm of his hand a couple times to test its weight, then slipped it
into the side pocket of his overalls. Once when he was a boy he had killed a
squirrel with a rock, so he supposed he could hit a red Dodge.
Half a dozen feet from the
wagon he heard the distant roar of mud tires again, like a swarm of honeybees
coming back to the hive. He slipped his hand into his pocket and closed it
around the rock. When the truck topped the hill he withdrew his hand and cocked
his arm. Bobby John punched the accelerator as Pap hurled the rock with every
ounce of his hundred and fifty pounds behind it. The truck dropped into passing
gear and lurched forward, but it was too little too late. The rock hit the
windshield just above the inspection sticker and shot so high up into the air
Pap lost sight of it. Bobby John yelled something that got lost in the noise of
his aftermarket pipes.
Pap’s lips slipped back from
his toothless gums and he snickered so hard his body trembled. Even Stevens, as
his wife used to say.
* * *
Bodie
Craig pulled up a chair and sat down at the table with the sheriff and chief
deputy. They were a matched pair, those two. Like a married couple always
agreeing and consulting. He hated them both. Hated answering to them. Hated
taking commands from men who in a fair world would be sweeping up the jail
instead of running it. Sam Gant was soft. Too soft to be sheriff. Lincoln
Norris was over the hill and should have been put out to pasture years ago. In
a few short days he would rock their world, but not today. There were still a
few I’s to dot and T’s to cross.
“Wanted to see me, Boss?”
The sheriff stared at the
Styrofoam cup cradled between his thick hands. “I’ve had another complaint, Bodie.”
Bodie figured as much. Seemed
every other day somebody was complaining because he hurt their feelings, or
bumped their head putting them into the back seat of his patrol car, or didn’t
smile as he wrote out their citation. He offered no reply. None of it would
matter in a few days.
“Howie Krenshaw says his
daughter was in your car yesterday.”
Bodie twisted his face into a
concentrated effort of remembering and looked up at the ceiling. No way Marissa
Krenshaw told her father about their romp in the back of his patrol car. She
was too enamored with him to do something that stupid. “No, that name don’t
ring a bell. I can check my arrest log if you want.”
“I already know you didn’t
arrest her,” the sheriff said. “One of the Bell boys said he saw ya’ll parked
in the woods at the edge of their soybean field.”
There were four Bell boys, as
Bodie recalled, but the oldest was in Afghanistan and the youngest was too
young to be out in the woods by himself. That left two. “Wasn’t me.” He drummed
his fingers on the table.
“Good thing,” Lincoln said, “her
being only sixteen and all.”
“Sixteen?” Bodie caught
himself and forced a laugh. “Rumors like that could send a man to prison. Which
Bell was it said he saw me?”
“Never you mind which one,”
Gant said. “I’m giving you fair warning, Bodie: if I find out that boy’s
telling the truth I’ll see to it you never wear a badge again.”
“I swear on my mother’s grave
I never touched that girl.”
“Last I heard your momma was
alive down in Florida,” Lincoln said.
“Just see to it you behave
yourself,” Gant said. “You know I’m up for re-election. A thing like this could
cost me the primary.”
Bodie pushed back his chair.
The smell of coffee had him needing a jolt of caffeine. “I may chase a few
skirts every now and then, but I make sure they’re legal.” He stood and walked
over to the counter and pulled a cup from the upside down stack beside the
coffee pot. Sixteen. On top of being easy she was a liar, and a good
one. The sheriff was right about it taking down a campaign, but it wasn’t
Gant’s political future he was worried about.
“This election’s in the bag,”
Lincoln said. “Only two qualifiers this late in the game and nobody ever heard
of either of them. A farmer and a school bus driver. Not a day’s worth of law
enforcement between them.”
“Three,” the sheriff said. “Don’t
forget there’s a republican this time. Ex Highway Patrol.”
The chief deputy snorted. “Highway
Patrol my foot. You know good and well he worked at the Driver’s License
office. He won’t get fifty votes. Besides, people don’t elect republicans to
local office. It just don’t happen.”
Bodie leaned against the
counter and sipped his coffee, pretending not to listen. It was true what they
said about republicans in local office. He didn’t know why, considering Mississippi
had only one elected democrat in all its statewide offices. Local politics
belonged to the democrats, though, and to run as anything else was like
conceding before the race starts.
“They’ll split a few hundred
votes tops and you’ll win the primary outright,” Lincoln said. “You’ll see.”
“I don’t know,” Gant said,
pushing himself away from the table. The legs of his chair screeched against
the tile floor. “That little gal at the paper’s had it in for me these last
couple weeks. She’s right about one thing, though: it’s been three pretty
unspectacular years.”
“Low crime rates don’t sell
newspapers,” Lincoln said. “ Just wait until we bring in —” The chief deputy
stopped short. Both he and the sheriff glanced in Bodie’s direction then back
at each other.
Gant rubbed his right knee
and grimaced.
“Knees again? I’d hate to be
your knees, Sam. Damned if I could tote that belly around all day.”
“We got a lead on somebody,”
Bodie asked, knowing the chief deputy had almost divulged information they
didn’t want him to know.
“Losing weight ain’t easy at
my age,” Gant said, ignoring Bodie’s question.
“Not the way you eat donuts.”
The sheriff belched into his
fist. “If I didn’t need two more years to get my pension I’d drop out and back
you.”
Bodie had to bite his tongue
to keep from telling Gant why he wouldn’t get that pension, especially now that
he knew they were leaving him out of something big. Big to them probably meant
throwing out a net to collect on unpaid fines, not that it mattered. That
little gal at the paper was on his team.
Debbie Purvis stuck her head
in the door and waited for a break in the conversation. Debbie wore many hats
at the sheriff’s office but her primary duty was day shift dispatcher. She
fielded calls at the switchboard and kept track of the deputies in the field.
Hers was the face behind the glass when one entered the front door.
“Old man Jones is at it
again,” she said.
Gant sighed. “What’s he
complaining about this time?”
“He’s not the one
complaining,” she said. “There’s a kid out front says Jones threw a rock and
busted his windshield.”
Gant sighed. “Bring him back
and I’ll see what he’s got to say.”
Lincoln glanced at Bodie and
frowned. “Don’t you have somewhere to be?”
“Just finishing up,” Bodie
said, raising the coffee cup. Before the sheriff could chime in, the dispatcher
reappeared with a scrapping young man who looked to be seventeen or eighteen.
He wore a Hank Jr. Cap and held a Coke bottle in his hand. His bottom lip
bulged with tobacco.
“Go to the bathroom and get
that stuff out of your mouth,” the sheriff said. The dispatcher pointed toward
the bathroom down the hall, then told the sheriff she would be at her desk if
he needed her. Half a minute later the young man returned, empty-lipped and
without the bottle. The sheriff pointed toward an empty chair and told him to
sit.
“We have a minimum age for
buying tobacco products, son. You don’t look to be quite there yet. What’s your
name?”
“Bobby John, sir.”
Bodie recognized the boy as
soon as he opened his mouth, and knew the sir tacked onto the end of his
answer came hard for him. Bobby John was a hell raiser that ran with a group of
boys he’d taken beer off of a few times. Bodie rarely had to buy his own beer
anymore.
“Bobby John what?”
“Just Bobby John. John’s my
last name.” He glanced at Bodie like he was wondering if he was going to tell
the sheriff about the beer.
“Terrel John’s boy,” Bodie
said. “Fights dogs with that Ramey bunch.”
Bobby John looked at Bodie
like he’d been slapped. “That ain’t so. Terrel’s my uncle. My daddy’s Jerry. He
works--”
“Khane Manufacturing,”
Lincoln interrupted. “I know him.”
Bodie felt the heat in his
cheeks as his face turned red. Bobby John wouldn’t get off so easy next time he
and his buddies circled their tailgates.
“My dispatcher tells me you
got your windshield busted,” Gant said.
“Yes sir. I drove out to the
plant to put my old man’s lunch in his truck and was on my way back when that
crazy old janitor threw a rock and busted my windshield. He was dragging a sack
behind him. Probably fetching a possum for supper.” The boy grinned big,
flashing his tobacco-stained teeth, and looked around for the chuckles that
didn’t come. He dropped the corners of his mouth and drooped a bit at the
shoulders as the sheriff stared him down.
“Do you know his name?”
“He’s a janitor at school.
Everybody calls him Pap. People say he’s touched in the head.”
“People say a lot of things,”
Gant said. “I don’t suppose you did anything to provoke him?”
“No, sir.” Bobby John shuffled
his feet. Bodie knew he was lying.
“Didn’t ease over a little
close just to scare him?”
The boy shook his head.
“Yell anything at him?”
“No sir.”
“He just up and busted your
windshield for no reason?”
The boy nodded. “My dad just
had that windshield put in last month. Cost him almost four hundred dollars.”
Bodie tossed his coffee cup
into the trash and straightened himself. “Want me to take a ride out there,
Sheriff?”
“No, I’ll go out there
myself,” Gant said. He looked hard at Bobby John. “You bring your daddy by when
he gets off work and we’ll go from there.”
“You’re gonna make him pay
for it, ain’t you?”
“That’ll be up to the judge,
son.”
“You mean I gotta go to
court?”
“Justice court,” the sheriff
said. “You both tell your side to the judge and he’ll decide who he believes.”
“But it happened just like I
told you.”
“If Oscar Jones tells it the
same way then you got nothing to worry about. Now you run on home and come back
this evening with your daddy like I told you.”
Bobby John rose to leave,
hesitated, then said, “There’s no telling what that crazy old man might say.”
“No telling,” Gant said.
When the boy was out of sight
Lincoln slapped the table with the flat of his hand. “Betcha ten bucks he don’t
come back.”
“That old man’s crazy as a
duck,” Bodie said.
Gant looked over at him and
frowned. “Go patrol something, Bodie. And stay out of the soybean fields.”
* * *
The
furniture factory wasn’t just an eyesore to Pap. It was a noisy, dirty,
sawdust-belching invasion of his privacy. Davis Khane had planted a single
steel building in the pasture adjoining his two acres and nursed it into the
county’s largest industrial complex in less than five years. At any given time
Pap could sit on his porch and count two dozen trucks and trailers waiting to
ship cheap sofas and love seats all over the world. Every time a truck moved it
raised a cloud of dust that, more often than not, drifted over the chain link
fence and into Pap’s yard. The wind always seemed to blow in his direction.
Like smoke follows you no matter which side of the fire you stand on.
Sam Gant’s white Crown Vic
shot the gap between the factory and Pap’s driveway like a cork popping from a
bottle. He hadn’t heard it coming over the drone of saws and diesel engines.
One minute he was alone with his thoughts and the next minute he had company.
Sam was friendly enough, but his visits were never social. Pap watched him turn
into his driveway and roll toward him like he had no place else to be.
His driveway was long and
straight. In spots it needed gravel, but a lifetime of coming and going had
left it packed solid. A casual observer might mistake it for a dirt path.
Grassy down the middle. It was exactly five hundred and thirteen feet from his
culvert to the stump in his front yard where he smashed cans. He had measured
it with a fifty foot length of chain, though he couldn’t remember why. Perhaps
because he had measured the chain. It was fifty feet and change from the stump
to the corner post of the chain link fence Khane had thrown up after his second
expansion. The fence ran south along Pap’s driveway, then east for farther than
he could see from the porch.
The sheriff’s brakes squealed
as he stopped behind Pap’s rust-speckled Ford pickup. Dust washed over the
trunk of the car then dissipated from lack of momentum. Pap dug at the plank
floor with the yellowed nail of his big toe as the sheriff wrestled his squat
body out the door and spat into the dirt. A turnip with legs, he thought, as he
watched the sheriff hitch up his britches and start toward him.
“Wondered when you’d show up,
Sam,” Pap called from his rocker beside the screen door. He crossed his foot up
onto his knee and picked at some dirt under the nail of his big toe.
The sheriff walked past the
wagon and the smashing stump and stopped at the foot of the steps. He hitched
up his pants again and eyed the three-step climb like it was a mountain. “I
came to get your side, Oscar.”
Pap raised an
arthritis-crooked finger to the point of his chin and frowned. Sam never called
him Oscar unless he was irritated. “What’d I do now, Mister Sheriff Gant?”
“I’ve been out here three
times already this week.”
“Two. Yesterday you sent that
big galoot with the cowboy boots. He threatened to smash my fingers in the
screen door. Next he’ll be wanting to load a boat with cement blocks and sink
me in the swamp.”
“Sometimes I’d like to sink
you myself,” the sheriff said, “but the department only has the one boat and
we’re a little short on swamps around here.”
Pap opened his mouth, slapped
his leg, and snickered without making a sound. He knew the sheriff’s threat had
no meat to it. Sam Gant wouldn’t hurt a fly. He couldn’t say the same for the
deputy, though.
“Why keep a man like that
working for you, Sam?”
“Bodie ain’t all bad, Pap.
He’ll be a good cop once he settles down a bit.”
“Phooey! After he kills
somebody.”
The sheriff set his jaw. “I
had another complaint against you this morning. A kid by the name of Bobby John
claims you busted his windshield with a rock.”
“I don’t suppose he told you
he had it coming.”
“No, according to him he was
just idling along, minding his own business. That’s why I drove out — to hear
your side of things.”
“You really interested in my
side, Sam?”
“I always listen to your
side, Pap.”
Pap had to agree Sam gave him
a fair shake more often than not. “He knocked me down with a beer can.”
“Knocked you down with a beer
can?”
“Full. Would’ve run me over,
too, if I hadn’t fell in the ditch.”
“Was that before or after you
threw the rock?”
“I didn’t throw the rock
until he came back through.” Pap grinned. “Busted his windshield, did I? Good.
I was afraid it had too much of a glance to it.”
“You’re lucky he didn’t stop
and settle things himself, Pap. You ever thought of that?”
“Phooey! I’d a’put that boy
on the ground, Sam. Faster’n a cat can lick its ass.” He slapped his palms
together and snickered at his profanity.
“Or maybe he’d put you on the
ground,” the sheriff said. “And maybe you wouldn’t be getting back up by
yourself. You’re too old for this stuff, Pap.”
Pap folded his hands across
his lap and rocked. “There was a time, Sam. How about a glass of cold milk?”
“No thanks.” Pap saw him cut
his eyes toward the end of the porch. Rosemary had wandered up and started
munching on a weed sticking out from between two boards.
“Fresh squeezed.”
The sheriff pulled against
the railing and started up the steps with a grimace. “They sell perfectly good
milk a the Piggly Wiggly in case you don’t know.”
Pap raised his finger to his
lips and shushed him. “You’ll hurt her feelings.”
Sam conquered the second
step. “My grandmother had a milk goat. Awfullest stuff you ever had in your
mouth.” He put his foot on the final step and twisted his face into a
determined scowl. “Made us kids drink it every Sunday after church.” He stepped
onto the porch and made for the swing that hung by chains from the overhead
rafters.
“Rosemary’s milk is sweet as
cream,” Pap said. “She mows the yard and keeps me in milk. If I could teach her
to lay eggs I’d never have to drive into town.”
Sam chuckled as he eased part
way into the swing then let his weight drop. The chains jerked tight and the
roof of the porch shuddered. Rosemary jumped and trotted away.
“When you gonna lose that
belly, Sam?”
“Easier said than done, Pap.”
“Phooey! I bet you eat more
for breakfast than I eat all day. What’d you have this morning?”
“We’re supposed to be talking
about a busted windshield. You got any proof he hit you with a beer can? If it
knocked you down it must’ve left a mark.”
Pap unsnapped the galluses of
his overalls and let the bib fall down into his lap, then worked at the buttons
of his shirt until he could slip his collar down over his shoulder. The sheriff
leaned forward and studied his shoulder blade. “Looks like the makings of a
bruise. About the right size for a beer can. Mind if I take a picture?”
“Why?”
“Evidence, if it comes to
that. I think if I show that boy’s daddy something to back up your story
they’ll think twice about swearing out a complaint against you.”
“Complaint against me? I’m the
one oughta be swearing and complaining.”
“You do enough complaining as
it is,” Sam said. “I’d say a busted windshield is a fair trade for a bruised
shoulder.” Sam aimed his cell phone at Pap and snapped a couple of pictures. “There
now. If he shows up with his daddy today I’ll show him these pictures and see
how fast he crawfishes.”
“They can’t make me pay for
that windshield can they?”
“That’s what the boy wants,
but I wouldn’t worry too much about it. If he insists on pressing charges I’ll
write up an assault charge against him. He’ll drop it pretty quick.”
“Suppose he don’t?”
“I wouldn’t worry about that.
He won’t risk jail time just to make you pay for a busted windshield.”
“You saying you’d have to
throw him in jail if I pressed charges?”
“Long enough for his daddy to
bail him out,” Sam said. “It’d be up to the judge after that. He’s a minor,
though, and I don’t recall him being in trouble before, so I doubt he’d do more
than a few days if that.”
“Let’s file ‘em, Sam.”
“How about we call it even
and I tell Bobby John if he comes near you again he’ll answer to me?”
Pap studied it for a minute
then nodded. He couldn’t argue that he’d come out ahead with just the bruise.
Last windshield he’d bought set him back three hundred dollars. When Sam rose
to leave Pap saw the agony in his eyes as he pushed his weight up out of the
swing.
“I hear tell they make knees
out of plastic these days.”
“Something like that. I went
to an orthopedic surgeon over in Tupelo last month. He wants to replace the
right one now and give the left one another year or two. Maybe after this
election’s over with.”
“Know what I saw last night,
Sam?”
The sheriff sighed. “No, but
I suppose you’re gonna tell me.”
“Headlights.”
“I see headlights every
night, Pap.”
“About midnight.” Pap pointed
beyond the chain link fence at the edge of his yard, toward the rear of the
furniture factory, intending to finish his story whether the sheriff liked it
or not. “They pulled right up to that back dock and stayed there for four
minutes and thirty two seconds. I timed it.”
“Midnight’s kind of late for
you ain’t it?”
“I bet that whole place is
full of drugs. Probably that methanol they’re making nowadays. If that place
blows it’ll knock my house clean off its blocks.”
“Crystal methamphetamine, and
I don’t think they’re cooking it in Davis Khane’s factory, Pap. Somebody would
notice.”
“Maybe they don’t wanna
notice. I bet that deputy of yours is in on it, too. I’ve seen him over there
with Davis Khane’s boy. They run together you know.”
“Marcus Khane’s in law school
at Ole Miss. Davis buys the boy anything he wants from what I hear. He don’t
need to sell drugs. Besides, you can smell that stuff cooking a block away. No
way they hide that in a factory with five hundred people working.”
“Cocaine then,” Pap said. “Rich
people bring that stuff in from Mexico all the time.”
“Love thy neighbor, Pap.
Can’t argue with the Good Book.”
“Neighbor! You call THAT a
neighbor? Hear them saws? The trucks? The constant yelling? It goes on five
days a week. Sometimes six.” Pap raked his finger across the arm of the porch
swing and jabbed it toward the sheriff. “Dust on everything! Inside and out.
Sawdust and dirt dust. Get sawdust in the crack of my butt some days.”
“We need rain,” Sam said. “You
can’t blame the draught on Davis Khane.”
“Tell him to pave his parking
lot. He’s got plenty of money.”
“I can’t make him pave his
parking lot. Even if he did it’d just be something else. Like that sawdust
pile. You complain about the pile but when he burns it you call the fire department
to come put it out.”
“You should try sleeping with
all that smoke blowing in your windows. I turned him in to the EPA but all they
did was fine him. What good’s a fine to Davis Khane? Might as well piss on his
tires and bark.”
“He employs a lot of people
around here. Good honest people that need the work.”
“My Janey was good and
honest, Sam.” Pap felt that familiar anger well up in his gut as he thought
about his wife’s constant dusting until she took to bed and never got back up.
“I’m sure she was,” the
sheriff said.
“She was beating it, you
know. Getting stronger every day, until,” he pointed at the monster in the lot
next door. “Until that!”
>>> End of excerpt
NORTON ROAD is my second novel. I think it's better than my first, but my opinion might be biased. The newest child always seems to be the favorite until it's out of diapers.
