Bad Chili

24

Jim Bob drove my truck with the three of us crowded in it. We had Jim Bob’s shiny black twelve-gauge pump on the floorboard. I could smell the gun oil as we drove. I kept pushing my hand against my shirt, so I could feel the. 38 beneath it in my waistband. Leonard was fumbling with the radio, trying to pick up a country station.

I had been in a lot of encounters, more than anyone had a right to believe. I had grown up in a rough town and fought dozens of fights until I graduated high school. Most of them were simple, not life-or-death battles, but a couple or three had been heavy-duty. During the sixties I had grown my hair long, and there was plenty of redneck opposition to that, so I was on the line daily, arguing or fighting with someone.

I had worked a number of blue-collar jobs, and the length of my hair had been an issue. More fights. I didn’t pick fights, and tried diplomacy first, but I was still too quick to use my fists, and though I don’t like to admit it, there was a time when I had enjoyed it. I didn’t lose my temper easy, but once I did, it was savage, and afterwards I felt a strange hollowness that made me feel dirty and inferior to people around me.

Once, late at night, Leonard and I discussed our physical encounters. Not only those that had happened to us together, but individual events. It was a strange moment, a mix of brag and fact, shame and pride, remorse mixed with euphoria.

And here I was again, on my way to what would most likely turn into a confrontation, and perhaps more than a couple of punches. We weren’t carrying our guns to plunk at cans. My stomach boiled. My head throbbed. Yet, at the same time, I felt disconnected from my body; seized by a combination of fear and anticipation.

We parked behind a closed-up fireworks shack down the road from King Arthur’s red clay nightmare, got out of the car and sat on the hood so we could watch when he drove by.

Jim Bob said he knew the car, so his eyes were the ones on the highway. While we waited, he told us some funny stories and some bad jokes, then said, “All right, get in the truck.”

We looked and saw a big silver Lincoln with dark windows cruising down the highway. A moment later we were behind it, hauling as fast as my little pickup would go.

“Driver usually turns here,” Jim Bob said.

Jim Bob was right. The car veered to the right, headed down a blacktop road that I knew would meet Old Pine Road, and finally onto the highway that would lead to King Arthur’s chili works.

Jim Bob gunned the truck and started around. The Lincoln tried to be helpful, pulled hard right, but Jim Bob pulled hard right too. Next thing I knew, he was nosing my truck into the side of the Lincoln. Sparks flew up. Paint flecks flicked by the window.

“Hey,” I said.

Jim Bob paid no attention. He rammed hard with the pickup and the Lincoln began to veer. I realized it was starting to veer near the great oak where Horse Dick and Raul’s bodies had been found.

Irony or accident? I had to remember to ask Jim Bob, provided I didn’t end up with the dashboard in my teeth, the motor sticking out of my chest.

The Lincoln sailed onto the grass beside the road. The driver fought the wheel, missed the tree, but went over the edge of the incline, down the hill, clattered and bumped and slid into the weeds and slid again, this time sideways into the trees at the bottom. The Lincoln hit the trees with a solid whack and a crunch, and the sunlight caught taillight fragments flying into the air.

I could see all this because Jim Bob had driven the pickup after them. He hadn’t let off a bit. We bumped and bopped, striking our heads on the roof, lurching toward the dash, and finally we skidded sideways to a stop just before the hill got really steep and dropped off toward the trees where our road partners had collided with a patch of wilderness.

Jim Bob jerked the door open, grabbed the shotgun, and yelled, “Showtime!”

Leonard and I got out quick. I slid in the grass but managed to keep my footing and get my gun drawn without shooting myself. We hurried down the hill toward the Lincoln.

The driver, a fat man in a black suit, and two other water buffaloes in black suits were staggering out of the car. One of them, the guy from the backseat, had his gun, a nine millimeter, drawn. The car door was open behind him, and I could see King Arthur sitting in the backseat, or at least I assumed it was King Arthur. I had seen his likeness on cans of his chili. Way he was sitting there, you would have thought he was waiting on a bus.

The man with the drawn gun lifted it and Jim Bob fired the shotgun, sprayed dirt in front of the guy.

Jim Bob said, “Mine’s bigger than yours. Toss it!”

The man tossed the gun.

The other two – and one of them was on the far side of the car, having exited from the front passenger side – had their hands in their coats, and Leonard and I pointed our guns at them. Jim Bob said, “You guys lose the hardware before it gets you hurt.”

They looked at one another, eased their weapons out of their coats and dropped them.

Jim Bob said, “You, on the other side there, mosey on around here where I can see you good and make sure you ain’t got a bazooka in your sock.”

The man, who was large with hair so thin and gray on the sides he looked completely bald at first glance, came around slow-like, his teeth, wet from saliva, shining like greased piano keys in the sunlight.

King Arthur, wearing a white Stetson, a gray cowboy suit with gray boots decorated with red chili peppers, slid out of the Lincoln on our side, stood and looked at us. He was about five-ten, a solid one-eighty, had a lined brown face with a anteater nose. He had a cleft chin deep enough to hide a dried pea in, and shit-ass eyes.

King reached inside his jacket, slowly pulled out a pack of cigarettes, showed them to us, lipped one, put the pack back, and nodded toward one of the buffaloes.

The one that had been in the backseat with King looked at us, slowly reached in his pants pocket, produced a lighter, and lit King’s cigarette.

“Driver’s ed, boys?” King Arthur said.

“Let’s cut through the crap,” Leonard said. “You know who we are?”

“Yeah, I do,” King Arthur said, puffing on his cigarette. “Troublemakers. And look what you’ve done to my car.”

“I don’t think you’ll be reportin’ it,” Jim Bob said. “Might toss a little too much light on you.”

King Arthur smiled. “You thought that was the case, you’d have gone to the police. How come you didn’t? You been puttin’ your shitty noses in my business for a while now.”

“So you do know us?” I said.

“I know all kinds of shit,” King Arthur said. “You’re all connected to them queers got killed.”

“Here’s the deal,” I said. “We’re gonna put it to you straight. We’re out to cause you some grief. But right now, this is more personal. Three of your goons – and if you’re missing a couple you might check a cabin in the woods – broke into my house, sacked it, roughed me up, took me out to this shack, and a guy workin’ for you, one Big Man Mountain-”

“The wrestler?” King Arthur said.

“You know who,” I said. “This Mountain, he hooked a cable and battery and a little hand-cranked generator up to my balls, and gave me a few volts. Fortunately I’m still here, thanks to some help.”

“Don’t mention it,” Jim Bob said.

“What I’m here to tell you,” I said, “is very simple. We could kill you right now, and I think that would most likely be a good idea, but it’s not my style.”

“It’s my style, though,” Jim Bob said, “so keep in mind, King, things could change at a moment’s notice.”

I gave King Arthur a look hard enough to drive a nail. I said, “I’m going to tell you straight out we’re going to nab your ass. You can count on it. Legal-like, if possible. But let me make this clear, and I suggest you open your eyes wide and put on your glasses and use binoculars so you can see what the fuck I’m making clear. You screw around me or Jim Bob or my brother Leonard, my girlfriend – and you know who she is because Big Man Mountain did – I will kill you.”

“If I don’t do it first,” Leonard said.

“Don’t forget me,” Jim Bob said.

“This is your one and only warning,” I said.

“You boys got me wrong,” King said.

“Yeah,” I said. “You’re an innocent fella. That’s why you have three bodyguards.”

King nodded. “All right. I ain’t so innocent, but I got bodyguards mostly because I can. I like the looks of it. And now and then, I get a little trouble. I got some deals goin’ here and there outside the chili, but I ain’t never had to shoot nobody. Or have nobody shot. ’Course, with you boys, I might make an exception. I don’t get it. All this over some fuckin’ grease?” King Arthur dropped his cigarette in the grass, put a boot heel to it. “Over some faggot cop took a video of my grease operation? You boys takin’ over where he left off? That it, huh? How much you want?”

“We don’t want anything other than what I just said,” I told him, lowering my gun.

King Arthur said, “You think I killed those queers, don’t you? Over some grease they filmed? I tried to pay them off, but I didn’t kill them.”

“Tell it to a lie detector,” I said.

“I would,” King Arthur said. “Listen up, you three. You think you’re tough guys, but you ain’t so tough. You don’t know shit. I might have given those boys a rough time, but I wouldn’t have killed them over grease. Chance of a murder rap isn’t worth it. Not over two queers with a video of my boys stealing some grease.”

“Big Man was on that video,” I said. “You tryin’ to act like you don’t know him? And as for not killing, he was certainly in a killing mood the other night.”

“I know him,” King Arthur said, putting a fresh cigarette in his mouth. He turned to the buffalo beside him. “Dick Head, give me a light.” The same big man who had lit his cigarette before produced the lighter again and lit this one. King Arthur took a puff. “But he doesn’t work for me anymore. He went off on his own. As for those two guys you say were killed, I don’t know them. And that can get you in trouble, boys, authorities found out about it.”

“Go on and tell ’em,” Jim Bob said.

King Arthur shook his head. “Naw. I don’t give shit. They ain’t none of mine. Let me tell you goober-doodles something. This grease business, so I got caught with my shorts down and my dick in a pig. It don’t matter. It’s profitable enough if I get caught and pay some fines, I can go back and start doing it a week later. I was even willin’ to pay off the queers, even if they were a little greedy. I always kinda like to see a cop go bad. It justifies my belief in human nature, and that Horse, he was a real loser. The other faggot, I think he might have been the brains behind things. I don’t know. I don’t give a shit. They turned up dead and that didn’t hurt my feelin’s any. And yeah, I know who you three are. I got my contacts. You been nosin’ around a lot. I know the nigger here is a dick sucker and a pervert too.”

“Ixnay on the iggernay and the ervertpay,” I said.

“Yeah,” Leonard said, “I don’t like it.”

“Yeah,” King Arthur said, “well, sorry. But you dick-licks are barkin’ up the wrong tree. You got the video, I’ll slip you some serious bucks to have it back, way I was doin’ the queer boys, but to tell the truth, I don’t get it back, I don’t care. It don’t matter to me. I’ll deal with the consequences as they come along. I done played the game all I’m gonna play it.”

“Thing is,” Jim Bob said, “it ain’t the grease we’re talkin’ about.”

For the first time since he had crawled out of the Lincoln, I saw a look of puzzlement on King’s face, or maybe it was concern, or perhaps a bowl of his chili had just backed up on him.

“Then what in hell is this all about?” King Arthur said.

“Another video,” Leonard said.

“Of what?” King Arthur said. “You got two videos of my men stealing grease, it’s no worse than one in my book. Look here, I do a little illegal business here and there, just to keep me in clean panties and corsages, but so what?”

“What about videos of LaBorde Park?” I asked.

“Say what?” King Arthur asked.

“What about a coded notebook with alphabetically hidden phone numbers of video stores?” I asked.

King Arthur blinked. “I don’t know what the fuck you boys been drinkin’, but it’s fucked up what brains you might have. I don’t know nothin’ about no other videos or notebooks or video stores. That’s what Bissinggame was sayin’ y’all said. I figured he’d misunderstood you.”

“What about a notebook from your plant?” I asked. “A King Arthur notebook?”

“Those things are everywhere,” King said. “Listen here, boys. I got to get this car out of the ditch.” King turned to the man beside him. “Get me the phone?”

Just as the man started to move, Jim Bob said, “Let’s hold the phone.”

The big man looked at King. King nodded. King said, “You got something to say, say it clear, or get on with it. Shoot us or let me get this car out of the ditch. I got a full day ahead of me. What’s it gonna be?”

“All right,” I said. “Get the phone. But before I go, King, let me come back to what I said in the first place. Stay away from me and my friends.”

“Gladly,” King said.

The big man got the phone out of the car and gave it to King. King started to dial as if we weren’t there.

Jim Bob said, “You boys take it easy till we’re gone. Just leave your guns on the ground.”

We went up the hill backwards, our guns pointing at them. Jim Bob eased the truck back onto Old Pine Road.

As we cruised along, I said, “Well, we sure scared him.”

“Yeah,” Jim Bob said. “King was so nervous, he’d had a cot and a pillow, he might have taken him a little nap.”