The Early Crap: Selected Short Stories, 1997-2005 Read online

  Maybe I imagined it, and she didn’t want me that way at all. It could have been me, what I wanted to happen. I was an idiot, embarrassed, and I got to work on the hook. The line was reeled in, so I held the rod between my knees and threaded the blue line through the loops to the top, pulled it down and wondered how to tie the knot. Then the phone rang—could I let the machine—no, I needed to, but the line would unravel—

  The rod fell and I grabbed the phone at bedside, pulled a muscle in my back stretching for it. “What?”

  “You’re up?” Linda said. “You feel okay?”

  “I hurt my back. I’ll be fine.”

  “Didn’t you get my messages?”

  “Yeah,” I said. I began to make an excuse, but figured it wasn’t worth it. “I’m going fishing.”

  “How?” She said, laughing. “Let me go with you.”

  I looked at my rod on the floor. “No, I’m good.”

  “Where are you going? The pier? I’ll meet you—”

  “I want to be alone.”

  “Why are you doing this?” she shouted. “Why are you shutting me out?”

  “Bye, Linda.” I pressed the switch under the numbers. The receiver buzzed and then I flung it at the table. It hit the edge and bounced onto the floor, the cord vibrating in tiny circles before going still.

  The rod didn’t take as long to thread the second time, and I was able to tie the hook and tighten the knot with my teeth. I put on a purple worm, found an old Navy cap, and went out to my truck. It had been a while since I’d driven anywhere.

  *

  The sky was gray in the afternoon, damp warm air and murmuring thunder making threats. I walked the length of the pier, boards squeezing under me, to the rectangle at the end, open on all sides and covered by a wooden roof, with benches built on the rails.

  Two teenage girls in sunglasses were in a corner, one with her knees on the bench, elbows on the rail. The other was flat on her back, in denim overalls and sandals, and was singing, “I’m alive…I’m alive,” low and easy in a flat voice, almost tuneless. She turned her head to me.

  “I’m alive,” she sang.

  “Obviously,” I said, and they laughed.

  I leaned my stomach against the rail that faced south into the Gulf, breathed in a mouthful of salty air. The girls were behind me, still singing and giggling and acting high when they should have been in school. If I had been on duty, I would’ve said something to them about it. Not anymore. I didn’t care.

  I lifted the rod, set my hook loose and waved it around. The ridges on the handle felt weird in my left hand. I pulled back to cast, held the release button until halfway through the arc on the way forward, and watched the worm plop into the water right in front of me. Too short. I needed to practice.

  After a few tries I got it out far enough to satisfy me, and I didn’t expect to catch anything, maybe a croaker or a hardhead catfish, nothing to keep. I put the handle under my right arm so that the pole rested on the sling. I should have reeled it bit by bit, jerked the line so the worm would look real to a fish, but I let it sit. I watched the horizon and remembered the shooting again.

  Slow motion. I saw Benny acting arrogantly. Looked closer and saw that the gun was so real and obvious, I wondered how I could have thrown away my arm and dreams so my best buddy could play cowboy.

  Were we really so wrong? If we go in with full body armor and guns blazing, we’re overdoing it, but act casual and try to talk to people, they call us careless. The kids walk around and taunt us, push us, then sue when they get what they deserve.

  This kid should not have died, or shot Benny and me, or had a gun, or looked like a punk. We should not have even been looking for a burglar in the middle of the day in the suburbs in a cruiser armed for war. We carried as much firepower as an infantry grunt in Vietnam or the Persian Gulf, and we needed it. God help me, I wish we didn’t. Everybody should fish for their supper and share what they catch and help each other, forget about the VCRs and designer clothes and expensive cars. Just fish and love.

  I heard the reel spin before I saw the rod bend with a snap and jerk. I grabbed for it with my left hand, but the rod and reel lurched away from me and flew into the Gulf, following whatever hit my worm like that, a big one, flounder or a red. The rod splashed down, and I cried. The girls stopped singing when I started bawling, tears pouring out against my will, dry heave caught in my throat. I held the back of my neck, clenched my teeth and breathed hard, calming down.

  There was no use in rebuilding my old life or looking for answers in the maybes I’d tortured myself over. I was sure Linda would have taken care of me, and I could have found another job eventually, just part-time. I could have helped raise James, teach him like Benny wanted. To love his mother but not take any shit from anyone else. To be a man. But I’d teach him to fish instead of golf, and steer him towards college instead of the police.

  But then, I would never have a moment’s peace to forget the mistakes; I’d be living with the reminders. I’d have a woman who finally turned to me only after her first choice died. That wasn’t the life I wanted, even if it was the one I deserved.

  *

  I knocked on Linda’s door after sunset. She opened it and stood there with a look of pity and disgust, waiting for me to talk. She was beautiful, in a bathrobe and sweatpants, hair in her face and hands in her pockets.

  “Here,” I said. I handed her an envelope.

  She opened it and pulled out the check. “Three thousand dollars?”

  “Not enough for the boat I wanted.”

  “I can’t take this,” she said. She had already folded it.

  “Yeah, you can. Put it away for James, for college. I don’t know.”

  Linda was quiet, kept her eyes turned down.

  “I’m leaving,” I said.

  “But you just got here. You can come in.”

  I looked out into her yard, tall grass and James’ plastic golf clubs. “I mean, I’m leaving town. I’m putting the house up and getting out.”

  She nodded. “Where will you go?”

  “North, east, west. I’ll find somewhere, work in a bait shop, a boat dealer, something like that.”

  “Look, come in and talk.”

  “I’ll drop you a line one day.” I stepped back a couple steps.

  “I’ll give you a call in the morning. Or maybe tonight, like we used to.” She grinned at me and held a corner of the envelope to her front teeth.

  I grinned back. She didn’t believe me. I waved and turned around, walked to my truck parked on the curb. It was already packed, half the bed filled with the TV, grocery bags full of clothes, fishing rods and my tackle box. Whoever bought the house could have the rest, except for the beta fish, which was in a beer mug full of water on the passenger seat.

  Linda shut her door when I opened mine. She could call and leave a hundred messages, but I’d be driving west until I ran out of gas, hopefully near a lake. I could deal with casting off a boat launch, eating a lot of Cornnuts, listening to fish stories all day. Yeah, my worst days doing that would still be better than this.

  A GOOD SUMMER JOB

  Ray drove the minivan down Highway 98, carrying the killer’s body from the prison in Leakesville to a funeral home in Hattiesburg. The trip took an hour, so Ray tried to tune in a decent rock station on the radio. He settled for a little static overlapping the music. Better than nothing. Anything to take his mind off the dead man covered up on the stretcher behind him.

  It was a good summer job, driving bodies between Hattiesburg and other cities in south Mississippi, dropping off, picking up. Ray got to see nice scenery: Hills and pine trees, worn down farm houses, churches of all types, some with hand painted signs and really long names.

  He took his mind off the past year in college, the grade troubles, the problems with that Christina girl, his parents pressuring him to drop out of the frat and concentrate
on the studies. He wasn’t floating through like he planned, and Ray was beginning to think law school wasn’t in his future anymore. He changed his major again. He didn’t care.

  Ray stayed in Hattiesburg over the summer in order to take a Chemistry course, one he’d failed twice and desperately needed a credit for in order to graduate eventually. His parents insisted he find a part time job. But what could he do? A store, maybe? Waste of time. Mow some lawns? Not with his allergies. Then he saw the ad in the paper, paraphrased to: Driver’s needed. Must have strong stomach.

  Hauling dead people. Ray was nervous at first, but he thought, How bad could it be? Not much could go wrong, except zombies, maybe. He remembered how to pray, which he had stopped doing mostly except holidays with the folks and that one night last semester when Christina told him she was pregnant. He tossed and turned, kept from crying so the frat brothers wouldn’t see, and prayed that he would wake up dead. Or that Christina would wake up dead. But he was alive the next morning, called Christina, and told her he’d pay for an abortion. Told her he never wanted to see her again after that. Last he heard she’d dropped out of school and moved back to Alabama.

  The road made a wide curve ahead, and Ray sang along with The Who: “See me, hear me, touch me, feel me.” Turned it up loud, shifted in his seat, glanced in the rearview, and thought he saw the cover over the dead man move.

  No, just nerves. An illusion. A bump in the road, he thought. Ray had been driving for eight weeks, and not one body had ever been alive. Well, there had been that heart attack victim who released some air from his lungs, and it came out as a moan. Scared Ray to death, and he pulled over quickly, jumped out running to the closest pay phone, where his supervisor assured him it was normal. The guy was still dead.

  “What, you think he’s come back to life or something? A vampire?” The boss asked.

  “It could be demons, possession maybe. I’ve seen that before with live folks.”

  “Then get back there and cast it out of him. You’re already late.”

  That’s what Ray did, praying as best he knew how on the way back to the van, and he found the man just as dead. One of the morticians later told him what caused the noise. It hadn’t happened since, but Ray still tried to distract his mind from whoever he was carrying.

  It couldn’t have moved, he thought, and he looked ahead to see a semi passing on the left. Ray had drifted too close to the center line and yanked the wheel right, hugged the edge of the road. He looked into the side mirror, saw only a few cars far behind, an old brown Chrysler holding up traffic.

  There was a rustling, and Ray turned to the rearview in time to see the body definitely moving.

  Eyes ahead. Nightmare, coming true. Try to concentrate on the road. He felt it move, felt it sit up. A hand gripped the back of Ray’s seat, and out of the corner of his eye, he saw another hand on the passenger seat. Then the dead man in the white prison jumpsuit climbed into the seat beside Ray and stared at him. The van swerved as Ray’s grip on the wheel tightened.

  “Easy, boy, you’re going to kill us. I didn’t get this far to die in a car wreck,” the dead man said.

  Ray blinked and looked the man over. Wet hair, half a mustache, dirty skin. There was a stale odor Ray hadn’t noticed until the guy got close. Terrible.

  “It’s not a car. It’s a van.”

  “Whatever.”

  “I thought you were already dead, right?” Ray said.

  The man laughed. “Sure was. It worked out great. I think the worst part was convincing the doctor, but I had practiced holding my breath all week. It was three in the morning, doctor was half asleep when he took my pulse, didn’t find it. Almost like he wasn’t trying. But hey, I’m a free man!” He shook his head. “I wonder what that stuff was the guard gave me. Amazing.”

  Ray watched the road ahead and saw that they had just passed New Augusta, only twenty miles from Hattiesburg. No more gas stations, only woods and houses and hills. Smashing Pumpkins was on the radio: “In you I look so pretty, In you I crash cars, We must never be apart.” The criminal reached to his bare feet and untwisted the wire on his toe tag.

  “They tell you about me?” he said.

  “A little, that you died from an overdose or something.” Ray didn’t say he knew the guy had killed a teenage girl. Sliced her throat after raping her and left her behind a burger joint.

  “Name’s Walt, like my dad.” Walt held the tag out for Ray to read. Ray kept looking ahead. “And turn that noise off. Unless you can find a country station.”

  Walt was too loud. Ray kept his hands on the wheel and said, “We’re not far now. Another half hour.”

  Walt reached for the volume knob and spun it down until the click. Silence in the van for a mile.

  Then, Walt said, “What size are you? Your shoes. What size do you wear?”

  Ray shifted in his seat, glanced in all the mirrors. The brown car was still holding up traffic. It was keeping pace. Ray thought, Friends of Walt?

  “Eleven,” Ray said.

  “Big, but I can do big. Better than too small. You’re a little skinny, but it’ll work for a while. I’ve got some money waiting. I’ll go shopping.”

  “They let you keep money?”

  “Old bank account, different name. Got five years interest built up by now, ought to keep me for a week or two.” Walt coughed, loud and wet. “So, this guard, I started talking to him sometimes, got friendly. He tells me he wants some good cocaine, and I give him some names. I promise him a slice if he thinks he can get me out. Couple of weeks later, he comes back with a plan.

  “He gave me some drug to slow my pulse down, and told me if I played dead good enough, I was free to go. He had it all set up to get around the doctors and the warden. It happened pretty fast, man.” He laughed, closed his eyes and rubbed his nose.

  Ray wanted to go faster, but figured he didn’t have a destination anymore. Walt wasn’t armed, but neither was Ray. And this was a big weightlifting murderer who did not want to get caught again. What made Ray sick was the part about a guard helping Walt out. The road was straight there, and cars passed on the left. The brown one was still hanging back, though.

  Walt pointed to his right out the windshield. “See that road, the paved one? Pull off there.”

  “Why? You know, I could just drop you somewhere, and, uh, then…

  “Exactly. How could you explain showing up at the funeral home without me?” Walt laughed, clapped his hands, then tapped Ray on the shoulder with his knuckles. Ray pulled back against his door.

  “What are you going to do? I mean, now that you’re out, you don’t want another murder hanging over you.”

  Walt stared at Ray, said, “You do know what I did. Okay. I killed that girl because I had to. Because there wasn’t any way to let her go after what I did to her and what she knew about me. Now that I’ve been in prison, in hell, I will kill, maim, rob, lie, cheat, and anything else to keep from going back. I will sell enough dope to buy loyalty, buy friends and protection, and I’d kill them, too, if one even looked like they’d rat me out.” Walt eased back in his seat. “It’s your bad luck you got this trip. You’re going to die, because I need your clothes.

  Ray turned off and followed the road, which was rough, the edges crumbling away, growing slimmer with each passing car. They passed houses on one side, train tracks running with them on the other. Walt looked out the window, shaking his head like an adrenaline rush: Pumped, pumped. Patted his hands on his lap.

  Ray thought about jumping out, but would have to undo the seatbelt, wouldn’t have time before Walt would grab him. If he could break loose, he might be able to outrun the guy. But then Ray couldn’t think straight for too long, and he prayed for one of those lightning strike miracles that he’d heard about but never seen. He remembered in the Bible, Jesus raised Lazarus from the dead, and Ray thought that was a funny way for God to work because right then he wished the dead would
have just stayed dead. If it was your time to go, what could you do?

  “You scared to die, Ray?” Walt said.

  “Not scared of actually being dead, I guess. But no one wants to die, no one wants to see it coming.”

  “What’s it for you, heaven or hell?”

  “Heaven,” Ray said, but didn’t believe it, which scared him even more. He was sweating and trying to stop his whole life from flashing in his mind.

  The road curved to the right and they were passing an abandoned gas station; two rusted chrome pumps out front under the skeleton of an awning, and a small building with a large front window that had FOR RENT painted across it with a phone number underneath.

  “Pull in here, behind the store,” Walt said.

  Ray turned into the parking lot and stirred a cloud of orange dust as he eased the van to a stop at the back of the store. The bathroom door was open, nothing but an old toilet, sink, and leaves inside.

  “Great,” Walt said as he looked around. They couldn’t see the nearest house from there. Trees. A worn path, probably used by kids who came here to play. Ray thought, That’s who will find me, too.

  Walt reached over, turned off the ignition and took the keys. “You did fine. I could barely tell how scared you were, but I knew. When I was a boy and my parents told me to be good or I’d go to Hell, I watched how they lived and wondered what good was. First time I drank a beer, I waited for something bad to happen. Same with the first time I stole and smoked grass and beat a guy to a bloody mess. And the first time I shot up, I prayed for God to stop me, or make me feel guilty, anything. But nothing ever happened. After that, selling dope to kids was nothing.”