Wicked City

9

REUBEN WALKED BACK through the kitchen screen door carrying a sack of groceries, a carton of Lucky Strikes, and a bottle of Miller beer. His eyes were bloodshot, and his skin glowed with a pasty whiteness, slick from the alcohol, as he slipped by Billy and landed everything on the old wooden counter. Billy had some trinkets he’d found out by the creek laid out on the table, some arrowheads, pieces of old china, a rusted horse bridle, and when the beer landed they all rattled on the planks.

“Where the hell you been?” he asked.

“I’ve been here.”

“Since when?”

“Since two days ago.”

“Where were you before that?”

Billy shrugged. “With Mario.”

“You know that kid’s Italian.”

“I do.”

He nodded and leaned back against the stove. He reached for a box of kitchen matches and lit a cigarette. “Mario, huh?” He squinted those droopy, sad eyes at Billy and said: “I heard you’d shacked up with some whore.”

The words sank like a knife in the gut, and Billy stood and scraped the trinkets he’d collected back into a Hav-a-Tampa cigar box filled with more arrowheads, old bullets, and cracked pieces of china. Last year, he’d found an old bayonet from the Civil War out by the well.

“I don’t want you going around her again. Bert Fuller is one mean sonofabitch. He’d just soon kill you as look at you.”

Billy walked by him and went to his room, locking the door. He had an old baseball mitt under his bed, and as he sat down on his bunk he fired the ball into the sweet pocket over and over until he heard Reuben try the handle. Then Reuben started to bang hard and tell him to open up or he was going to whip his ass, which Billy knew was a goddamn lie.

He stood and unlatched the door and sat back down on the metal bed. The wallpaper was pink and flowered, and drooped and peeled from the summer heat. He looked at his father and waved a fly away from his face.

“Who’s the girl?”

He didn’t say anything.

Billy could smell his breath. It was sharp and smelled like gin and cigarettes, and as he took another sip of beer he tousled his son’s hair – like he did when he didn’t want to talk but only to let him know he was still a kid – and left his room with the door wide open.

Billy stayed there for a while, dropping the mitt and examining the arrowheads and rusted old bits. He studied their grooves and points and thought about them being buried down in the mud for so damn long, and wondered what else was hidden by the creek.

He fell asleep like that until the shadows crept up on the walls and it became a late-summer night and he could hear the whistles and cracks from the back field. At first, he thought Reuben was firing his gun, or someone had come for him. He thought a lot about Johnnie Benefield coming over, and knew if he saw him that he wanted to kill that bastard. Billy thought of the ways. With a rusty knife and with a gun. He thought a lot about knocking Johnnie in the head and old crotch with a Louisville Slugger.

But as he pulled away the sad, yellowed curtains of their old house, he spotted Reuben deep in a cornfield that he hadn’t planted since his father died. He sat on his ass, a hunched figure like a sullen statue, and Billy walked outside, catching some fresh air from the boxed heat.

There was a sizzle and some sparks and a loud whistle and boom. He saw Reuben smoke and stumble from where he sat and affix another bottle rocket into the empty Miller beer.

“Where you get those?” Billy asked behind him.

“Some lady give ’em to me.”

He stood behind his father, looking at his back, the two-tone blue-and-black shirt and wide stance of his legs and cowboy boots. His hair was oiled and pomaded like boys in high school, and although Billy couldn’t see his face he watched as smoke leaked up above Reuben’s head. Then Reuben reached over and touched his cigarette to another bottle rocket.

One started to fizz and smoke without ever leaving the beer bottle, and Reuben laughed and tripped on one knee before pushing Billy a good three feet away as it hissed and burned out. A dud.

“Well, goddamn.”

“I didn’t mean nothin’ about being gone,” Billy said.

“That’s all right,” he said. “I ain’t gonna beat you or nothin’. I ever lay one hand on you? Hell, no, I haven’t. I’ve had enough goddamn beatings from my daddy for ten generations. I ever tell you about this strop he had called the licorice stick?”

“Yes, sir.” Billy had seen the rotting, hard piece of leather hanging from a rusted nail in the smokehouse. He’d never understood why his father kept it there like some kind of trophy.

“I think the sonofabitch enjoyed it. Use to take me and my brother to the shed out yonder.”

“What’d you get at the store?”

“Be careful with those whores,” he said, ignoring the question and getting to his feet, dusting the dirt off his legs. “You know when I was your age, I was so horny I would’ve screwed a snake.”

Billy didn’t say anything.

“Pussy is good, son,” Reuben said. “But it can just about eat a man alive.”

His father reached into his pocket and pulled out a thick Case folding knife and handed it to him. “This was your granddaddy’s. Stick that in your cigar box.”

Billy opened the blade, the unoiled metal hard to pry with a thumbnail but finally coming loose and gleaming back the reflection of his eyes.

Reuben stayed there in the field for a while, and Billy walked back past the empty laundry line and dead peach trees and a rusting, tireless car. And he checked in the grocery bag, placing the bacon and eggs in the icebox and turning on their radio to listen to the late-night radio show out of Birmingham that played “Louisiana Hayride,” featuring Hank Snow and some kid from Memphis named Elvis.

Before he went to bed, the boy looked back out the kitchen window for Reuben but instead saw a massive, crackling fire from one of the old sheds. It was his grandfather’s smokehouse, and the fire inside had grown so hot the red paint crackled and flaked like a snake’s scales. He sprinted down and found Reuben, who didn’t seem fazed at all. He just stood there drinking, two-tone shirt open, with his face and chest shiny from the summertime fire.

He stepped back and wiped his face, black smudges crossed under his eyes and his chin. He laughed at himself.

Billy’s hands and voice shook as he screamed at him, telling him it was gonna burn down if they didn’t get some water. But he was invisible to his father.

“I always hated that fucking place,” Reuben said and threw his beer bottle at the building.

And he tripped and wandered back to the house, grabbed the keys to his baby blue Buick, and sped off into the Alabama night.

THAT SAME NIGHT, JOHN PATTERSON AND I CLOSED DOWN the Elite Café. We drank coffee down to the dregs and ate lemon icebox pie, having met right after dinner with our families. We smoked cigarettes and talked little except when joined by the cook, Ross Gibson, who’d just scraped off the grill and shut down. Gibson was an old, wiry man with gray hair in his ears and a grease-splattered apron and white T-shirt. He smoked a lot, tired after a long day’s work, and took a cup of coffee while I asked him about the night Albert Patterson had been shot in the alley beside the kitchen.

“I saw just one man,” Gibson said. “I went outside to get some air and I seen that one fella in the tan suit at the back of the alley.”

“And you didn’t recognize him?”

“No, sir.”

“You never saw him before?” I asked.

“No, sir.”

“What kind of tan suit? A uniform?”

“Naw, just a suit. You know. A Sunday suit.”

“How long until you heard the shots?”

“Couple minutes.”

“Would you recognize the man’s picture?”

“No, sir.”

“How come?”

“I didn’t get a good look at his face.”

“Was he a white man?”

“I couldn’t say.”

Gibson excused himself, and John Patterson pulled a notebook from his suit jacket and made a notation. He started to take another bite of pie but instead mashed the crust with his fork and pushed away the plate with a grunt. He just stared into space for a while and breathed.

“You know your mother gave Anne a kitten,” I said, just reaching for something in the silence. He leaned into the table and watched his hands. “Would you tell her thank you for us?”

Patterson nodded. “That old cat is always having kittens.”

“How’s your mother?”

Patterson shrugged and blew out a long breath. Ross Gibson walked to the front of the Elite and clicked off the neon OPEN sign.

“You know, there was a long black car parked just across the street,” Gibson said. “Now, that fella sittin’ at the wheel had to have seen somethin’.”

“You know the make?” I asked.

“It was dark.”

I laid down a couple dollars under the smoldering ashtray, and we left through the front door, passing by the long, vacuous stretch of alley in between the Elite and the Coulter Building.

The alley was quiet and warm, almost absorbing the sounds from the passing cars and our dress shoes. I stopped as Patterson walked into the alley. I didn’t feel it was my place, and knew there was little for John to do but to play back the killing of his father over and over like a broken projector.

A long mural advertising Coca-Cola had been painted on the side of the café. The sky above was broad and open and black, a ceiling lightly shining from a soft moon.

I stayed on the sidewalk and watched as Patterson found the spot where his father was shot and kneeled. He touched the warm asphalt and stood, turning his head slowly in each direction.

A patrol car roamed slow on Fifth and shone a spotlight down into the alley – we were frozen in its swath. The black-and-white looked as if it hadn’t been washed in ages, and craggy faces peered out from where windshield wipers had cleared away red dust.

Patterson looked into the light, blinded. I waved the men on. But the car stayed, the two cops conversed, and then it finally moved on down Fifth.

“Did you know about that car Gibson mentioned?” he asked.

“Lots of folks saw it. I think it was one of those long cars they made before the war. No one seems to know the make. Britton and I’ve been checking around, but we’re not getting too far.”

John and I walked together in the stretch of alley behind the Coulter Building – a long embankment filled with mulberry trees and scrub oak and long, twisted stretches of kudzu. We moved up and around the post office, just across the street from the county courthouse, and Patterson took off his jacket and held it in the crook of his arm.

He placed his right hand in his pocket. Even at night, the summer heat was tremendous.

“I make bad decisions when I’m mad.”

“Don’t doubt yourself.”

“Attorney general? I don’t have any business holding office.”

“And Si Garrett does?”

At Fourteenth Street, Patterson looked past the Confederate monument and up to the second floor; all the lights were dimmed. He then twisted his head back to the alley and bit into his cheek.

He nodded to himself.

“You’re sure, aren’t you?” I asked.

“I don’t have a doubt in my mind that Arch Ferrell is shielding the man who killed my father. He helped plan it and probably stood at that window in the courthouse, watching this very alley, probably took a drink after he knew it was done, and then rang off a long-distance connection with the attorney general for this state.”

I nodded. I opened and closed the fingers of my swelling hand.

“But knowing doesn’t give us much,” John said. “Fuller must’ve been invisible on a Friday night in Phenix City. Didn’t anyone see that sonofabitch run from that alley and back to his sheriff’s office or into a getaway car? He has this entire town scared shitless. They saw him. That cook saw him. I know there are others, but we can’t do a thing but sit and wait. I just hope the pressure works on that man’s rotten soul.”

ARCH FERRELL TOOK A SEAT AT BERT FULLER’S BEDSIDE AND waited for a chunky woman with blond hair to leave the room. The woman kept baby talking to Fuller as she finished shaving the left side of his face with a straight razor. She cooed and rubbed the fresh red skin – half his face still covered in lather – while he stared at the ceiling and spoke to Arch.

“You can speak freely,” Fuller said.

“I’d rather wait,” Arch said.

“You need a shave. Come on, let Georgia take care of you.”

“I’m fine.”

“Arch, you look terrible. Look like you haven’t bathed in a week.”

“I said I don’t want a fuckin’ shave. Now, get your snatch out of here and let’s talk.”

The woman’s head snapped back as if Arch had slapped her and she dabbed off the last bit of shaving cream from Fuller’s face and briskly walked out of the room.

“Arch, there was no need for that.”

“Did you break your goddamn head, too?”

“No.”

Arch leaned in and whispered, “I need to know what you did with that gun.”

“It’s taken care of.”

“What did you do with it?”

“It’s gone. Ain’t nobody gonna find it.”

Arch nodded and leaned back into his seat. He looked around Fuller’s huge garage apartment and four racks of guns by the front door. Western movie posters were tacked to the walls, along with wanted posters and mug shots, maps of Russell County and Columbus. A framed picture of Fuller with Big Jim Folsom and another with Lash LaRue.

“I have news,” Arch said.

Fuller raised up with a groan and placed another pillow behind his back.

“Si is coming back. He plans on resuming his duties as attorney general.”

“What about… you know,” Fuller said and made a circular motion with his index finger around his ear.

“He said he’s well. I spoke to his brother about an hour back.”

Fuller nodded. “I pray for him.”

Arch snorted. “You pulling my leg?”

“No, sir,” Fuller said. “I pray for his soul. I pray for you, too, Arch.”

“Jesus H. Christ, you’ve gone off your rocker.”

“I think those rocks set me straight. When I came to, I saw everything so much clearer. It was like being at the movies when the picture ain’t in focus and someone up in the booth sets it right. That’s the way I feel. I didn’t tell anyone about it till I told Georgia on Sunday. And she had me talk to the preacher. He brought me up front and placed his hands upon my head. All I can say is that I felt a change in me. I don’t see things like I used to. I’ve been washed in the blood of the lamb.”

“Goddamn.”

“Not in here.”

“What?”

“Don’t speak like that in my home.”

“You live in a garage, Bert.”

“I pray for you.”

“I don’t need prayer. I need you to pull your head out of your ass. I need for the goddamn Guard to leave town. Hell, I need a goddamn drink.”

“Georgia?” Fuller called out. And the woman came to him, giving a sour, skeptical look at Arch before sitting in a small chair by Bert Fuller’s side. “Get your Bible, darling. Mr. Ferrell is in some pain.”

“There is nothing wrong with me. You’ve lost your mind.”

“Mr. Arch,” Fuller said. “I’ve never been better in my life. Would you pray with us?”

Arch shook his head, and, as he reached the door, he heard Fuller and his whore girlfriend singing the first verses of “The Old Rugged Cross.”

IT WAS MIDNIGHT, AND JOHNNIE BENEFIELD RAN HIS HUDSON to the redline, taking hard turns on country roads for the hell of it, kicking up dust and grit and spinning tires. You couldn’t see far ahead, clouds covered up the moon that night and out in the country, the headlights sliced across the countryside like knives.

“That’s twin H-power under the hood, buddy. That 308 can press the sonofabitch to 170 horses. This little Hornet can fuckin’ fly. Listen to that buzz. Listen to that.”

Reuben sat in the front seat with his two-tone cowboy boot on the dash, nursing along a bottle of Jack Daniel’s, as he liked to do most nights. Moon sat in the backseat, a sullen child taking up most of the bench.

The fat man ate an ice-cream cone, working his leviathan tongue around the pink mass and slurping on the milk dripping down his hands, wiping his chin on his fatty arms.

Johnnie looked back in the rearview, taking the turns now with one hand on the wheel. “Jesus Christ, Moon. I believe you’d eat till you bust at the seams.”

Reuben took a hit of Jack. He passed it back to Moon, who washed down a big bite of ice cream with the whiskey. He handed it back, and Reuben wiped the mouth with the flat of his hand.

“I ever tell you about the night Big Nigger died?” Johnnie asked. “See, me and him was supposed to crack this safe in Newnan. It was a big job, one of those walk-in Wells Fargo numbers. We got word that this sonofabitch kept all his money in the back of his hardware store. We figured maybe a hundred grand in cash and guns and jewelry and all. But before we could get to it, a couple niggers robbed it on Halloween night. I mean real niggers, not Big Nigger. I don’t know how they knew, but they knew, and we think it may have been one of the stickmen at the Bamboo who told. Anyway, Big Nigger was mad as hell. We had the job all lined up. I could’ve cracked that sonofabitch in five minutes with a stethoscope and a drill. But those goddamn thieves went to it with crowbars and blowtorches. I shit you not. I heard the safe was rigged with tear gas, and one of those boys got it in the eyes real good. I would’ve paid to seen that.”

Reuben jostled a bit as Johnnie fishtailed out onto the paved road and went up and down some small hills on the outskirts of Phenix. He took another hit of Jack. He could smell Moon’s animal stench behind him, and that and the goddamn jitters made him want to puke.

“So ole Jim, Big Nigger, went over to where those boys lived and hopped on one and started choking the ever-living shit out of one of ’em, but he didn’t know the other was there hiding in the kitchen and, when he stood up, the sonofabitch jumped up behind him and blew the back of his head off.”

Reuben nodded, lulled by the long ribbon of blacktop.

“We took both those boys out to the river, shot them just like ole James was shot and kicked ’em right into the river.”

Reuben nodded again.

“Say, what’s the matter with you?” he asked.

“This ain’t my idea.”

Johnnie laughed and drove with one hand while he punched the lighter on the Hudson’s dash. “No, it ain’t your idea, but you’ll sure as shit spend the money we’re about to get paid. Just sit tight and I’ll do all the work. We ain’t paid to think.”

“What if we get stopped?”

“Quit pissin’ your britches. Everything is copacetic.”

He turned down Summerville Road, and they coasted and twisted down the hill past a couple white-clapboard churches and little cottages strung along the road. Most of the lights were out, and they didn’t see a single jeep or roadblock. They soon turned into a little neighborhood on Twenty-eighth Street, and Johnnie took the big engine down to a little purr and killed the lights as they wound their way around the little ranch houses and cottages. Little postage-stamp pieces of lawns with nice mailboxes and short little driveways. Folks who worked in Columbus but lived in Phenix City because it was cheaper.

Soon Johnnie stopped and killed the big jet engine. The windows were down, and Reuben wiped his face with his hand. Moon had worked the ice-cream cone down to a nub and chomped in the backseat until Reuben looked back at him and he stopped.

The air smelled of the pink-and-red box roses planted outside the little houses and gardenias, all heated and freshly watered. They sat there until there was a light flecking on the windshield, the short patter of rain, and then more rain, and Johnnie sat there and smiled and smiled. And Reuben asked: “What’s so goddamn great?”

“This is good. This is better.”

“Will it still go in the rain?”

“It would work at the bottom of a fucking lake.”

Johnnie looked down at his wristwatch and wound the stem. Reuben took a deep, long breath and followed Johnnie out of the car. He popped the trunk and pulled out some paint cans packed with dynamite sticks and mud. They called them slug bombs.

He tossed Moon the keys and Moon moved up to the front seat, squeezing behind the steering wheel. He looked like a rat trying to escape into a small hole.

“We shouldn’t have taken your car,” Reuben said. “I coulda stole us something.”

“My car is the fastest car in the state of Alabama and ain’t no way nobody can catch us. My God, it’s got a jet engine, Reuben.”

Another car slowed at the end of Twenty-eighth Street and soon coasted to a stop behind them. Reuben’s heart was up in his throat as he shielded his eyes with his hand and watched as two large shadows stepped into the headlights.

It was the Youngblood brothers. Glenn and Ernest.

“Jesus,” Reuben said. “You didn’t say nothin’ ’bout this.”

Glenn, a big, buck-toothed boy with a wide squirrel’s nest of a pompadour, pulled the Jack from his hands and took a drink. He passed it to his slightly shorter, slightly fatter brother, who did the same, and passed it back to Reuben. The brothers worked a couple clubs out on Opelika Highway, the Hillbilly and the Bamboo, with B-girls and whores. They made some money on the side as muscle for Miss Fannie Belle, and two years ago had made the papers for beating some RBA members bloody on election day right in front of news cameras.

The RBA boys had complained that the Youngbloods were changing the ballots. And they had, on the direction of Bert Fuller, who spent the good part of the day casting votes for dead men and herding his whores up to the ballot box.

Ernest took a big swallow and then grinned a rotten row of upper teeth. He handed the bottle back to Reuben and Reuben turned it upside down, a single drop rolling out.

“Thanks,” he said.

Johnnie handed out masks to Reuben, the brothers, and another one to Moon, before slipping one over his face. All identical, all rubber pullovers of the sad Emmett Kelly clown face. Big red nose, black shadowy beard, and droopy white mouth. The rain sounded muffled to Reuben with his ears covered.

He pulled the.38 from a clip on his belt. The others carried a variety of pistols.

“I seen him once,” Johnnie said behind the Kelly mask. “Ringling Brothers in Atlanta. That rascal tried to smash a peanut with a sledgehammer. My kind of guy.”