"Bumblebees" sneak peek

[Rusty Slocum]

Hi all, this is the first chapter of my looong novel in progress, "Bumblebees".  The story concerns three brothers who grow up victims of their father's abuse.  The two oldest manage to escape but when the father is killed and the youngest brother suspected of his murder, they must return home to confront not only the present but also the past.  I'm close to finishing, only a couple chapters to go, so (hopefully) soon I'll be looking for beta readers.  In the meantime, let me know what you think.  Thanks.  Rusty

trigger warning--two brief and passing mentions of past abuse

Bumblebees by Rusty Slocum

Chapter 1 -- Landline (3/18-19/2019)

            In the middle of the fight, the phone rang.  My wife cut her tirade mid-screech, and both of us glared in annoyed surprise at the thing.  Who'd be calling an all-but-defunct landline scant minutes before midnight?  Either a wrong number or trouble, that’s who.  I predicted it wasn't a wrong number.

            The phone rang again, a harsh burr in the startled quiet.  Belinda transferred her glare to me, like my magic brought the call about to interrupt her screaming.  "You gonna get it?  Or are you morally opposed to answering telephones too?"

            Sky, such a bitch.  I considered not answering, just to spite her, but I knew she wouldn't either, just to spite me, so after a third plaintive ring I snatched up the receiver.  "Yeah?"

            "Jon?"  One word after ten years and I recognized the voice.  One word, and the past crept up from behind to kick me square in my ass.  All my anger drained out in a long gurgle, left me feeling nothing but a tired apprehension.  The thought occurred to me I should hang up, but I didn’t.  "Jon, that you?"

            "It's me, Gareth, yeah."  Hearing the name, Belinda swapped her glare for an eyeroll and lit a cigarette.  Ignoring her, I asked my baby brother, "How'd you get this number?"  Not asking why he'd called, because I already knew.  Only one reason in the world he'd call me now.

            Gareth disregarded my feeble attempt to delay hearing the news.  "Jon, oh Jon, he's dead, he's really dead!"

            Sometimes being right sucks.  Motioning to Belinda for a smoke, I mouthed, "Pa's dead," and all the anger went out of her posture.  Not for long, I figured, but I accepted a lit cigarette and her grudging sympathy gratefully.  "What happened, Gareth?  Heart attack?"

            "Nuh, nuh, no, he, he," and my baby brother broke into sobs, unable to contain himself any longer.

            I took a couple deep drags of golden tobacco, tried to tamp down my irritation with his hysterics the same way I tried to tamp down my instinctive urge to run to his aid, to try and fix whatever wound our father had inflicted now.  A fucking decade, and I still hadn't managed to knife out my heart.

            "Gareth," I ordered.  "Gareth, listen to me, calm down—"

            "How can I calm down when Pa’s dead, Jon?"  He babbled something else I missed before his voice faded as someone nearby soothed him and pulled the phone away.

            "Jon?" a new voice inquired.  "Jon, this is Perry Crandall, your father’s old friend, do you remember me?"

            "I remember you," I stated, and left it there.  Not opening that can of worms, not tonight.  "How did you get this number?  It’s a landline we barely use."

            "From an internet database," Crandall apologized, as if he were the one responsible for putting the information out there in the first place.  "I tried to dig up Frank's number as well, but he’s unlisted.  Doesn’t even have a Facebook profile I could find."

            Neither of us did, for this exact reason.  "I can get ahold of Frank.  Tell me why you called and I'll decide if I need to."

            A shocked pause.  If I closed my eyes I could see Crandall’s loose purse of a mouth dropping open.  I didn't close my eyes.  After a moment, he scolded, "Jon, your father, Frank’s father, is dead."

            "Yeah, so I gathered.  Now explain why either Frank or I should care."

            Another pause, this one less shocked than thoughtful.  "Gareth, I'm going to step outside to talk to your brother.  You sit right there on the couch and watch tv and try to rest.  That pill will knock you on your butt."

            Gareth's voice, faint but clear.  "Okay, Mr Crandall."  He still sounded sad, but calmer too, and the unwelcome protective clench of my heart eased.  Some.  "May I have more tea?"

            "As much as you want, Gareth."  The muffled crash of a storm door swinging shut.  "This is so very upsetting for him.  You can't imagine."

            “I don't have to imagine.  I know my brother.  Now.  Give me the details, Crandall.  Tell me how big bad Tommy Moon finally shook off the mortal coil.  Stroke?  Bus accident?”

            “Trailer fire.”

            “Oh.”  The bald statement set me aback, but only for a moment.  “Pa’s old deathtrap finally went up?  I’m surprised it lasted this long.”

            “Dammit, Jon Moon, will you dial it in a notch?  This is serious.”

            I grimaced, ground out my cigarette, motioned to Belinda for another.  After lighting one for me she went into the bedroom and closed the door.  “Fine.  Tell me.”

            “Gareth came over this afternoon to pick up some stew I’d put aside for them, and by the time he made it home the trailer was already ablaze.  He tried to get to your father, even has some minor burns on his hands where he tried to yank the door open, but it was locked.”

            “Locked?  Nobody’s locked the front door in my lifetime, the key’s been lost for years, yeah?” 

            “It gets worse.  When the fire department quenched the blaze and got inside, they found Tommy on the floor.  He . . . there’s no tactful way to say this.  His ankle had been cuffed to a metal leg on the footrest of his recliner, and he’d somehow managed to drag the heavy thing halfway across the room before he, ah, succumbed.”

            I sank down on the couch, put my elbow on my knee and my forehead in my hand, almost setting my shaggy hair alight.  Seemed the night for it, at least.  “So I suppose it wasn’t an electrical short or unattended cigarette caused the fire.”  My voice flat.

            “Nobody knows how it started, not yet,” Crandall said, “but no, it’s not like to have been accidental.”

            Deep drag on my smoke.  Another.  “Did Gareth do it?”  Sky knew he had reason enough.  All three of us Moon boys had reason enough.

            If my bluntness surprised Crandall, his reply failed to show it.  “No.  I don’t see how he could have done.  Fifteen minutes on foot through the woods to my place, a half hour or more here with me, another fifteen back.  The trailer went up too fast for him to have started it before he came, and by the time he got home the fire had been reported.”

            I felt a stab of relief.  Crandall was a smart man, and observant, I’d give him that.  “Then who?”

            “That’s the question right now.  The police, ah, don’t seem to share my optimism regarding Gareth’s innocence.”

            “Sheriff Pauline wouldn’t rush to accuse anybody, not without an investigation.”  Pauline Putnam was one of the few Chisaw County folk I respected.  Didn’t like her overmuch, but I respected her.

            “She’s not sheriff anymore, Jon, she passed of a massive heart attack, what, three or four years ago now.”

            “Shame.  Who is sheriff these days?”  Please, please, please, anybody but—

            “Royal Simmons.”

            “Wonderful.”

            “He named his boy Charlie chief deputy, too.”

            “Oh, this just gets better and better, doesn’t it?”

            “They’ve had it out for your family ever since the blowup between Frank and Charlie in high school.”

            “Yeah.  Have they made any direct accusations yet?”

            “No, not yet.  After his hands had been treated at the hospital they wanted to drag Gareth straight down to the station for questioning, but the ER doctor told them he was in shock and they’d get nothing useful out of him.”

            “That worked?”

            “I may also have suggested the very public business with Frank all those years ago might make any hasty actions on their part appear biased, or prejudicial.”

            “Good thinking.  It won’t hold them off long, though.”

            “No, it won’t.  They want Gareth at the station first thing in the morning.”

            I crushed out my cigarette, looked around for the pack, didn’t see it.  I wished, oh how I wished we’d had this landline shut off months ago, as Belinda had suggested.  Let’s keep it, I told her, it’s cheap enough and might be needful in an emergency.  Talk about your pretty ironies.

            Crandall asked the question I’d hesitated to ask myself.  “Are you coming home, Jon?”

            “I wrote the two of them out of my life years ago, when Pa did the whole ‘never darken my doorway again’ bit and Gareth stood with him,” I hedged.  “Swore I’d leave Normal Crick Alabama in the rearview where it belongs.  It’s not my home anymore.  Sometimes I even manage to go entire days without thinking of the place.”  A big fat lie, it was never so far from my thoughts, but screw Crandall.

            “Gareth needs his brother, Jon.  He needs both his brothers, really.”

            “Ha.  Frank will be an even harder sell than me.”

            “Jon, those Simmons jackasses are going to eat Gareth alive over this, you know they will.  Even if they don’t pin the fire on him, without Tommy around he’ll be lost.”

            I took one more shot.  “Gareth can look after himself, Crandall.  He's thirty-one, he’s been a grown-up for a long time, yeah?”

            “No, he’s not a grown-up, not really,” Crandall replied.  “And you know this.”

            Fuck the sky.  I did know this.  I also knew a portion of the blame lay on me.  Frank too, but mostly me.  “Hang on.”  I dropped the phone receiver on the couch, knocked at the bedroom door.  Belinda opened up long enough to pass me the cigarettes and lighter.

            “What time do they want Gareth at the station?” I asked when I had my coping mechanism smoldering between my fingers.

            “Eight-thirty, not a minute later.”

            So, nine-thirty eastern.  I checked the clock, calculated travel time from Daytona Beach to Normal Crick.  “I can’t be there by then.  Will you drive him?”

            “I will.”

            “Thanks.  But tell Gareth to keep his mouth shut, to not answer a single question until we can get a lawyer up there.  And not a court-appointed one, either.”

            “Frank?”

            “Frank’s not a criminal defense attorney, he’s a corporate putz.”  Or at least he was, last I talked to him.  “But maybe he can recommend someone.”

            “Do you think he’ll come home too?”

            “Frank is a wild card.”  Even to himself, sometimes.

            “True.  I knew Gareth could count on you, though.”

            Yeah.  Gareth could count on Jon.  Ain’t it a bitch?  “I’d better deal with Frank and get ready to head your way.  It’ll be lunchtime or later before I hit the bridge into town.  And . . . uh, thank you for looking after my brother until I can get there.”  My last sentence spoken through gritted teeth.  I despised Perry Crandall, making my sincere gratitude more difficult to express.

            “It’s the least I could do for Gareth.  And for Tommy, too, God rest him.  He’d want you to come back to look after your own, no matter how y’all parted.”  Perhaps sensing I could give two flying fucks at a sky-damned doughnut what Tommy Moon might want, Crandall changed the subject.  “I’ll tell Gareth you’re on the way, and what you said about answering questions.  I’ll even tell Royal to back off until the lawyer arrives myself.”  A grim satisfaction in Crandall’s voice.  No love in his heart for the Simmons clan either.  “Let me give you my number in case there’s a hitch.”

            “Ready.”  I punched the digits into my cell, ignored the pause where I was supposed to reply with my own, and asked, “Will Gareth be okay with you overnight?”

            “He’ll be fine, Jon.  His burns weren’t severe enough for prescription pain meds, just a topical cream.  He was terribly upset, and who could blame him, but I gave him half a nerve pill and some sleepy-time tea.”

            I snorted.  “He didn’t want to smoke out?”

            “He did, but I haven’t partaken in years, and whatever he had burned up in the fire, along with everything else.”

            “What’s he doing now?”

            “Lying on the couch.  Looks like he’s asleep.  Did you want me to wake him?”

            “No.”  Trying to mask my relief.  I wasn’t ready to communicate directly with Gareth yet.  Just the couple of sentences he’d spoken at the beginning of the phone call had been enough to devastate me.  “I imagine he needs the rest.”

            “He does.  Poor boy.  He’d be more comfortable in one of the guest rooms, but I haven’t the heart to disturb him.  Which reminds me, there’s no point paying for a motel, especially when you don’t have any idea how long you’ll need to be in town.  I have plenty of space here for you and Gareth both, if you’d like.”

            Oh hell no.  “That’s kind of you.  I’m not sure what we’ll do yet.”

            We exchanged a couple more meaningless pleasantries and rang off.  I put the phone down with a gentle touch, because if I wasn’t careful I’d smash the ancient Slimline against the wall.  I crushed out my cigarette, tapped another from the rapidly diminishing pack.  I’d smoked five, maybe six in the last week.  Tonight, I’d already been through four.

            So much for trying to quit, yeah?

            I pulled up Frank’s contact info, paused before I hit the call icon.  We’d not spoken in years.  A quick text message on occasion, maybe.  “Merry Christmas.”  Or, “You still alive?”  “I am, you?”  Or, “This is my new number.”  Sometimes I wondered why we bothered.

            Now, I got it.

            Two bars of Vivaldi’s Rites of Spring screeched in my ear, then, “Please leave a message for 423—”  Good.  Hitting the screw-you button meant he was awake.  I redialed.

            Three bars.  “Please leave—”  Redial.

            Almost a full measure.  “What’s wrong, Jon?”

            “He’s dead, Frank.”

            No reaction for several breathless seconds until, finally, a heavy sigh.  “Good.  Now maybe all the young teen boys in Chisaw County can sleep on their bellies again.”

            Click.

            I dropped my phone to my lap, leaned back against the couch cushions.  The bedroom door opened and Belinda stepped out with two suitcases.  I couldn’t but notice the battered, bumper sticker-decorated luggage belonged to me, relics of my dead-before-its-time baseball career, and I wondered if she’d packed to be helpful or to kick me to the curb; probably both.  She sat down beside me, fished a cigarette from the pack and put it to her lips, waited.  I struck a flame for her, she lit up and, after taking a long drag, opened her mouth to say something, but before she did my cellphone vibrated.  She snapped her jaw closed, glared at the phone, glared at me, stalked back into the bedroom.  Slammed the door.

            “It’s bad, Frank,” I said in lieu of a greeting.  “Real bad.”

            “It’s always been bad,” he replied.  “Lay it on me.”

            I laid it on him with a relief I’d not experienced since childhood, when I could take a problem to my big brother and he’d help solve it.  I saw him in my mind’s eye, biting his lower lip in concentration, squinting as he wrote notes in a cramped scrawl only he might decipher.  I wondered if he wore glasses now.  If his hairline had started to recede like mine.  If he’d plumped up in his mid-thirties the way Pa did.  Our natural aversion to photos of ourselves had left us blind to each other.

            “Wow,” Frank said when I finished.  “You’re correct, real bad.  Funny how even dead the bastard can fuck our lives.”

            “Ha.  I get what you’re saying, but I hardly think being restrained while his trailer burned down around him was Pa’s fault.”

            “It was his fault all right.  Bet on it.  Are we positive Gareth didn’t strike the match?”

            “Crandall seems to think, given how fast the trailer burned, Gareth wouldn’t have had time.”

            “Maybe he used a timer to delay ignition.”

            “Frank, can you see Gareth figuring out how to make what would essentially be a bomb?  Not only that, can you see him deceiving Crandall, telling bold-faced lies to arrange an alibi for himself?”

            “No, Jon, I can’t.  But people change, and if ten years is a long time, thirty is even longer.  Especially when you’re a slave to the every whim of an abusive pervert like Tommy Moon.  If I hadn’t escaped, if I’d had to live in his back pocket for my entire fucking life, I’d slit the man’s throat on the courthouse steps at noon for the mere sliver of a chance to be free.”

            "You're not Gareth.  He devoted his whole existence to Pa, mostly because we asked him to, yeah?  If he wanted to kill the bastard he’d do it whenever and wherever the notion occurred to him, courthouse steps at noon or not.  I can't see him being sneaky and sly."

            "I suppose.  Whether he did it or he didn’t, we owe him what protection we can give.  I'll make a few calls in the morning, see who I can find to represent him."

            "Or," I pointed out, "you could go down there yourself."

            "I'm not a criminal defense attorney, Jon, I'm a corporate putz," Frank pointed out in return, rehashing the argument I'd given Crandall.  "I persuade victims of bad falls in chain supermarkets to accept chump change in settlement instead of the big bucks they usually deserve.  I haven't seen the inside of a police station or courtroom in years.  Besides, me representing my brother would be not only unethical but also a clear conflict of interest."

            "He could use your support.  We both could.  You're in Chattanooga, only two-and-a-half hours away, yeah?"

            "No, Jon, I'm not two-and-a-half hours away.  I'm a lifetime gone.  So are you.  Neither of us need Normal Crick’s toxic air in our lungs again.  Tell you what, I'll find an attorney, even pay the legal fees, no matter how astronomical.  You keep in touch with Crandall, make sure Gareth doesn't need anything.  When all’s said and done, if our baby bro manages to avoid prison we'll suss out what to do with him then."

            I didn't bother to tell Frank my opinion of his idea.

            "I can't get any more involved in this, Jon.  I won't."

            "I understand," I said, and I did.  Which just made it worse.  "I also understand Gareth needs help and he has nobody else, not even Crandall.  Especially not Crandall.  I'm going back."

            “I can't, Jon," he said again.  "I won't.  I'll meet you somewhere other than Normal Crick for lunch though, if you want.”

            I tapped at the phone casing.  “Who are you and what have you done with my brother?”

            “I would like to catch up with you,” he insisted, actually sounding sincere.  “Are you still married to Melinda and living in Florida?"

            I glanced at the suitcases Belinda had set by the couch, didn’t bother to correct him; no point.  "For now, yeah, but not sure how much longer.  Think I'm about to be divorced."

            “Been there done that," Frank said dryly.  "It gets better."

            "What about you?" I inquired.  "Seeing anyone?  Doing anything special?"

            He huffed out a laugh.  "I work and I sleep and I sleep and I work.  Livin’ the dream, baby.  So what say?  Lunch halfway between Chattanooga and Normal Crick?  Just me and you?"

            "Yeah, I'd like to do that," I admitted, surprised to find myself speaking the truth, unsurprised to find myself hoping the visit went better than the last time we’d seen each other in person.

            "Good.  Let's plan on it."  He hesitated.  "Are you doing okay, you know, financially?  Will taking the time off hurt?"

            "I’m not playing ball anymore, but I'm fine.  Long as I'm frugal and don't consume more than a peppermint at any one meal I've still got enough of my own settlement to survive a long time."

            "Settlement?"

            “Two seasons ago I crushed my right foot on a slide into home.  Bad enough, and a career killer in itself, but then the surgeon botched the nerve repair.  Turns out he’d been up for three days and using stimulants to stay awake.  I’ll be rockin’ a cane for the rest of my life.”

            Frank whistled but offered me no pity.  He knows my strength.  “Why did I not hear about this, on the sports networks at least?”

            “No news value in perennial farm league players.  It barely made the news in Pensacola.”

            “Did you sue the bitch for every penny he hadn’t spent on meth?”

            “No meth, just some o-t-c truck driver and college student shit.”

            “Same difference.”

            “I sued him, then settled out of court.  Probably could have gotten more, but by then I was sick of the whole business.”

            “Lawyers constantly in your face, telling you how much it’ll end up costing in the long run, and wouldn’t it be better to take the easy money and go home.”

            “Yeah.”

            “An excellent tactic, one I’ve used myself.”

            “It worked.  Although I wasn’t stoned at the game I had THC in my system and the club refused to cover the medical bills, so the hospital lawyers took care of those, paid all the legal fees, and awarded me slightly more than half again what I would have made over an entire career in the minors.  The injury was my clumsy-ass fault, there’s no doubt, and my own insurance was crap, so if the surgeon hadn’t screwed the pooch I’d be a night manager at Chili’s or Applebee’s while upwards of a hundred grand in debt.  I got lucky, in a gruesome sort of way.”

            “I’m still sorry you lost your career.  I know how much it meant to you.”

            “The main thing it meant was it got me out from under Pa.”

            “Like when I went to college.”

            “Yeah.”

            “So what are you doing these days?”

            I thought about the half-completed novel hidden on the hard drive of my laptop.  “Not much of anything.  Driving the wife crazy, mostly.”

            “Hence the divorce.”

            “Between that and my refusal to give in on another issue, I expect to be a single man by autumn.”

            “Another issue?  Would I be able to guess said issue, if I thought hard?”

            “You might,” I acknowledged, my tone as light as his.  “Considering you warned me it might become an issue years ago.”  I figured it best to cop to it now, before he had a chance to get off a snide ‘told you so’.

            But he didn’t gloat, to my amazement.  “Sometimes I wish I’d never given in on the issue myself.  Stick to your guns.”

            “I will.  I do.  It’s impossible now, anyway.”

            “Good man,” Frank said, startling me by how much he sounded like Pa.

            An awkward pause, broken by me.  “I should hit the road.  Ten-hour trip to Normal Crick, at the least, and I need to get there before your buddy Charlie and his sheriff daddy hustle Gareth into a ride on Yellow Mama.”

            I’d expected Frank to bristle at my reference to Charlie Simmons as his buddy, but he only retaliated with the mild salvo, “They don’t use the electric chair by default in Alabama anymore, Jon, they do lethal injection like most everybody else,” because he knew it drove me bugshit to be corrected over an obvious joke.  Ah, brothers, even estranged ones.  “Good call on making sure Gareth knows to say nothing until his attorney arrives, by the way.”

            The praise warmed even as it left me uncomfortable.  “Only common sense, Frank.  I’m sure he didn’t need reminding.”

            “You may not have noticed, but our baby brother is sadly lacking in common sense.  You did the right thing.  Accept the fact your head isn’t stuck up your ass all of the time.”       

            “Well, fun as this conversation has been.”

            “Be careful, Jon.  It’s a long drive, and traffic is as awful in Birmingham as ever.  And watch yourself in Normal Crick.  That hellhole isn’t safe.”

            “Yeah, traffic’s a bitch there too.”

            “You know what I mean.”

            “Yeah.”

            “Keep me informed, and give Gareth—”  He hesitated, changed what he was going to say.  “Give a holler if y’all need anything.  Anything at all.”

            How about our big brother?  I refused to ask again.  “I will.”

            “Shoot me a text when you can get free, we’ll set up lunch, okay?”

            “Yeah.”

            I tossed the phone to the coffee-table, sighed, dry-scrubbed my face with the palms of my hands.  Checked the cigarette pack.  Only two left, dammit.  I glanced up at the bedroom door, wondering if Belinda were about to come flying through to resume the fight, or to commiserate with me over my latest family disaster, but I guess by packing my bags she’d said all she had to say.  I considered knocking, offer to talk as opposed to argue, decided against it.  I considered asking her as my wife and therefore my contracted emotional support system to come back with me to Normal Crick, decided against that too.  Partly because I didn’t want her to realize the full extent of my abused and abusive past, partly because she didn’t deserve to have her nose rubbed in small-town nastiness, but mostly because I had no right to ask anymore.  I’d lost the privilege when I dropped my pants in a doctor’s office six weeks previous.

            I shook one of the remaining smokes from the pack, stuck it behind my ear, and pulled on my shoes.  Disdaining my cane, I lugged the suitcases out to the Toyota, taking careful steps and watching my feet.  I couldn’t feel much in my right, and more than once I’d misjudged terrain or surface level and fallen hard.  After loading the trunk, I limped around to the side and leaned against the fender, lighted the cigarette, looked out over the star-dappled water, listened to the waves rolling into the shore.  My gut told me I wouldn’t see or hear the ocean again anytime soon.

            Stepping back inside the condo, the first thing I noticed was the glow under the bottom of the bedroom door had been extinguished.  The second thing I noticed was, while I’d been gone, Belinda had come out, placed my laptop and Kindle and various chargers on the coffee table, and taken the last cigarette from the pack, now only so much crumpled cellophane on the floor.  The sight broke my heart, and I felt a wild urge to forget Normal Crick and slide into bed with my wife, to grab her and kiss her and hold her and figure out how to mend what we’d broken, because I did love her, always would, but our time together had reached an end.  We’d been fraying for awhile now, at least a year, and the letter addressed to me she’d opened today snapped any remaining threads of hope for our marriage.  The phone call I’d received not an hour ago on an all-but-forgotten landline merely meant I’d be leaving tonight instead of tomorrow.

            I grabbed my faithful backpack from the coat closet and slid into it my electronics, glanced around for anything else to take.  My old baseball glove, for sure, my first purchase with my first paycheck from my first club.  I didn’t use it anymore, hadn’t for years even before the injury, but I’d always been superstitious about not having it with me.  The picture of my biological mother, a school portrait of her as a teen I’d found in my suitcase my first night away from home and carried with me ever since, now stuck in the corner of one of Belinda’s many decorative mirrors and studied way more than was healthy.  A framed still of Belinda and I on our wedding day six years ago, young and gorgeous and happy, secure in our vows and our decision to be together, just the two of us, for all the days in our lives.  Nothing else.  Nothing in the bedroom or the tiny bathroom either, I figured; anything forgotten might be replaced at any dollar store along the way.

            When the landline rang again, I wasn’t startled.  Seems I’d been expecting a call.  I let the phone burr a couple times, wondering if I should pretend to be already gone, but in the end I steeled myself and answered.

            “Yeah?”

            My baby brother’s voice, breathy and quiet, murmured down the wire.  “Jon?  Are you coming home?”  He sounded half-asleep, looped out of his mind by Crandall’s “nerve pill”.

            “I’m coming back, Gareth,” I reassured him, wondering if I were making the right decision while knowing I could make no other.  “I’ll be there tomorrow.”

            “Promise?”

            Sigh.  “I promise.”

            “What about Frank?  Is he coming too?”

            “We’ll see,” I said.  “I’m not convinced even Frank knows what he’s doing yet.”

            “Oh.  Do you think he will?”

            “We’ll see,” I said again, not wanting to commit either way.  “Right now you need to go back to sleep.  Then in the morning listen to Mr Crandall, do what he tells you.”  Recalling Frank’s lack of trust in Gareth’s common sense, I continued, “When you see Sheriff Simmons and Charlie, don’t say anything, don’t do anything, just sit and be quiet until either I get there or a lawyer hired by Frank does.  Will you do that?”

            “I don’t understand what they want, Jon.  Don’t they get Pa is dead and he’s not here to explain it to me?”

            “That’s why you mustn’t say anything to them, Gareth.  Even if they threaten to torture you and put you under the jail, which they won’t,” I stressed, remembering to whom I spoke, “even if they tell you they already know everything, which they probably will, you keep your mouth shut until your lawyer gets there.  It’s important, Gareth, very important.”

            “Would Pa want me to keep my mouth shut too?”

            “Pa would beat your ass bloody and plant you in the closet for a week if you so much as offered them your name.”  Harsh, maybe, but he needed to understand the significance of his silence.

            “Okay, Jon, I won’t say a word.  I promise.”

            “Good man,” I said, startling myself by how much I sounded like Frank.  “Now you get yourself back to sleep.  Tomorrow is gonna be a tough day, yeah?”

            “Okay, Jon.  May I have some more sleepy-time tea before I lay down?”

            Shit.  Tommy Moon, oh Tommy Moon, you sure pulled a number on your youngest son.  I hope there’s a Hell for no other reason than you.  “No, not a good idea, Gareth, you’ll be up peeing all night.”

            “But my hands hurt, and I don’t have any pot.”

            I closed my eyes, counted.  “Did you take some aspirin?”

            “Uh-huh.  Mr Crandall gave me some before he went to bed.  And he rubbed some of the prescription cream on my burns too.”

            “Then you’ll just have to do your best to shine it on.  I bet if you lay back and close your eyes you’ll drift right off to sleep and your hands won’t hurt anymore tonight.”

            “Okay, Jon,” he said doubtfully.  “I’ll try.”

            “All I can ask, Gareth.  But I’ve got to let you go now, yeah?  I need to hit the road so I can be there by lunchtime tomorrow.”

            He said them again, those words I already knew I’d hear a thousand times or more in the coming days.  “Okay, Jon.”

            “Goodnight, Gareth.”

            “Jon?”

            “Yeah?”

            So low I almost didn’t hear him.  “Love you.”

            I said it back, sky help me.  “I love you too, bro.”

            I held the phone to my ear until the connection closed.  As I dropped the receiver onto the cradle I spotted the envelope propped there on the end table, the same letter which had triggered the final argument with my wife.  I’d heard the contents several times over but not actually seen them, so I unfolded and scanned the bill.  “We regret” and “insurance company has deemed the procedure elective so” and “please remit payment in full – for your convenience online, over the phone, or in the provided prepaid envelope.”  I picked up the landline again, dialed the 888 number at the bottom of the invoice, and pulled my debit card from my wallet.  At the automated menu, I punched buttons until I found the proper department, where I followed the instructions of a happy and helpful recorded voice to pay out of pocket for my vasectomy.

            I replaced the phone in its cradle, unplugged the wire from the base so any further stray calls from Gareth wouldn’t disturb Belinda, glanced around the room again, because surely my life amounted to more than three sentimental items, a couple suitcases of clothing and a laptop, yeah?

            Maybe not.

            Grabbing my generic ball cap and old team jacket, I hoisted the backpack on my shoulder and grasped my cane firmly in my hand.  I turned off the lights and locked the front door, then, secure in my footing now I had a third support, stepped lively to the Toyota.  I’d bought the car brand-new with hand acceleration and braking when my settlement dropped, and I was confident in its ability to bear me to Normal Crick quickly and safely.  As if in confirmation, the Toyota growled to life with the barest of touches to its ignition, and I switched on the headlights and backed out of my assigned parking space.  The curtain in the bedroom window may or may not have twitched, I couldn’t be sure.

            My phone vibrated and lit up with a text alert as I shifted into drive.

            Belinda:  “You’re not your pa”

            Whenever someone says that to me, and over the years a couple people have, I never know what to answer.  So I darkened and tossed the phone into the passenger seat and pulled out into the never-quite-empty streets of Daytona Beach.  After a quick stop at a convenience store for a tank of gas and a carton of cigarettes, I pointed the car’s nose north by northwest and drove off into the night.

 

 

[lawfulneutralmage]

       Wow. I think this is very good. The characters and their motivations are clear. The mood is created very well, I can feel with all of them.  It is a gripping story which I would look forward to read. Some people are dealt s#### cards in life. 

[chris191070]

That is really good. I look forward to reading the full story.

[Daddydavek]

On 12/7/2024 at 10:02 PM, Rusty Slocum said:

You're not Gareth.  He devoted his whole existence to Pa, mostly because we asked him to, yeah?  If he wanted to kill the bastard he’d do it....

The older two brothers got away and left the baby bro to take care of papa, the abuser.   But they never really escaped as they carry the baggage and resentment. It will be interesting to see how this plays out, with a past feud with the current sheriff and apparent murder.

 

 

 

 

[Rusty Slocum]

I will say there is more to it than them just leaving Gareth to care for their abuser...

7 minutes ago, Daddydavek said:

The older two brothers got away and left the baby bro to take care of papa, the abuser.   But they never really escaped as they carry the baggage and resentment. It will be interesting to see how this plays out, with a past feud with the current sheriff and apparent murder.

 

 

 

 

 

[Rusty Slocum]

I've decided to sneak peek one more (and only one more lol) chapter, but I'm going with the third chapter, as I believe the second chapter, which is an account of Jon's thirteenth birthday, is not appropriate for this venue, for various reasons.  Three has a couple callbacks, which you should be able to deduce based on context, but here are a few things to know:  1-- "Jackhole" is Jon's usual insult to Frank, 2--Emily was Jon's first crush, and 3--Jon's bday ended with an unwelcome gift from Pa.  So here we go:

            3 – Reception (3/19/2019)

            Frank was correct about the traffic in Birmingham.  I remembered more locker room swear words in the hour it took me to traverse the metropolitan area than I’d have ever believed forgotten, and this from someone who daily suffered Florida tourist drivers.  But despite the gridlock and frequent stops to smoke and to exercise my aching ankle I somehow made good time, turning off the interstate and onto the state road (now known as “Sheriff Pauline Putnam Memorial Highway”) leading to Chisaw County shortly after noon.  Part of the reason the trip seemed so short, I suppose, was because for most of it I was lost in the past.  In memories of my thirteenth birthday, to be more specific.  I’d been thinking about the birthday not because of what happened then, more because of what happened the next morning, when I laid out for Pa what I meant to do next time he fucked me.

            “Savvy, Pa?”

            As I’d predicted, his response was quick and brutal, and the next several days were torture.  But he laid off me afterward, anally at least.  Oh, he still used my mouth, and he still twisted my brothers and me into fleshy stageshows for his amusement, but he left my backside alone.  The consequences of my victory had been harsh, but completely worth it.

            Or so I thought at the time.  My defiance had an unforeseen result, as it wised him up concerning his methods.  Dropping Frank and me as lost causes, Pa employed new tactics with Gareth, sinking his hooks ever deeper and transforming our baby brother from an amiable and self-reliant boy into a mess of need and submission.  It was, in a genuine if convoluted sense, ultimately my fault Gareth hurt today in a town he should’ve left behind years past.

            Bah, I decided, tired of the guilt and what-ifs.  A hundred years ago, can’t change the past now.  So I pushed real and imagined recriminations back and concentrated on the present, on the waterway ahead of me and the bridge across it.  “Normal Crick Creek,” the sign read, like crick wasn’t a bastardization of the word creek in the first place.  Then another sign on the far side, “Normal Crick Town Limits.”  Around the time I was an older teenager there’d been a concerted movement to have the name changed to the more formal “Normal Creek”, but when the council found out the price tag to alter all the signs and the road-maps and post office designations they opted to suffer in peace.  You can always tell a newcomer to the area, they say “crick” with such relish, while a native usually takes pains to say “creek”.

            Knowing the impulse to be an exercise in gloom but surrendering anyhow, I turned off the main highway and onto Tanners Hill Road, skirting the town itself and following the crick as far as the waterfall, where I veered left onto Jackie Duggan Lane and so back out into the county.  The gravel driveway had been blocked off by police barricades but several yards beyond them I spotted the blackened husk of my family’s trailer, twisted and ugly against the spring-green backdrop of the woods.  A yellow school bus, Hoss number four or five I supposed, waited in the side lot next to a newish pickup truck I’d never seen before.  Several indistinct figures grouped around a red fire department staff car looked over as I rubbernecked and although one of them appeared to be a large black man I doubted him to be either deputy Charlie or his sheriff daddy.  No, they’d likely be at the station, trying to crack Gareth.  My morbid curiosity appeased, I thumbed the accelerator and drove past, taking a left onto Old Mill Road and crossing the town line from the north, passing the subdivision where lived Crandall (and Emily, once).

            Not much had changed in ten years.  The ancient K-mart had been replaced by a Walmart Supercenter, and several modern fast-food franchises had set up nearby, along with a couple of dollar stores, a Mexican grocery and a factory seconds outlet, but they all looked faded, as if they’d been there the whole time and I’d just never noticed.  New wing and new gym on the high school.  Same old two-lane streets in the heart of downtown, but somebody with a lick of sense had removed all the red-lights and installed roundabouts at the intersections, so traffic rolled smoothly instead of in fits and starts as in the past.  A fresh coat of paint on Normal Diner, fresh black asphalt too, what you could see beneath the cars parked willy-nilly in the lot; lunch rush, of course.  Hunger grumbled in my belly at the smell of grease and onions wafting in through the Toyota’s air vents, and I needed to stop by there anyway to check on an idea about a place to stay, but first I needed to see Gareth, reassure myself he was okay.

            Municipal Square looked just the way I remembered, a swell spot of greenery in the middle of town, with picnic tables and carefully spaced trees, red-brick paths and a wooden bridge crossing over a human-constructed branch of the crick that terminated in a small duckpond.  I circled twice until I found a non-handicapped spot in front of the Sheriff’s Department.  Before shutting off the engine and therefore the air conditioning, I grabbed my phone, checked for missed messages from Frank.  Still nothing.  Dammit.

            Jon:  “Just hit NC.  B’ham a bitch but made good time.  Anything on a lawyer yet?”

            A brief pause.

            Frank:  “re: lawyer – gimme an hour.  re: b’ham – told ya.  re: nc – sucks to be you”

            Jackhole, I thought with a snort of amusement.  Losing my smile, I deliberated for a moment, then tapped another text.

            Jon:  “Made it, no problems”

            A slow pause, as if even the seconds passed reluctantly, then:

            Belinda:  “Ok, tyflmk”

            Almost immediately:

            Belinda:  “Stay safe”

            Jon:  “You too”

            I hesitated.

            Jon:  “I love you”

            No answer.  I pocketed my phone, shut off the engine, grabbed my cane.  Stepped out of the car and into a gorgeous Alabama spring afternoon.  When I’d last stopped for gas, in Bessemer, the air still held enough chill for me to be happy I’d carted along my jacket, but now the sun had burned away the morning cool and settled the temperature in the mid-seventies, with low humidity and pollen levels, the kind of day made you disremember how stilted and muggy the weather turned in summer.  I stretched, wiggled the worst of the aching stiffness from my ankle and leg.  As I plugged coins into the parking meter a mischievous breeze stirred the hair on the nape of my neck, so I bound the mop into a knot with the band I carried on my wrist then resettled my cap firmly on my head.  I considered a cigarette, as I didn’t smoke in the car and hadn’t had one since, yes, Bessemer, but now I was here I figured I’d best get down to business.  I could and would smoke myself foolish later.

            A marbled, two-story bulk of 1960’s civic architecture appearing exactly like you’d imagine, Chisaw County Sheriff’s Department featured wide, shallow steps leading up to a covered portico with plate-glass double doors, and my cane and I navigated our way inside with little difficulty.  The lobby had been expanded and remodeled since the last time I’d been here, with carpeting and potted plants and interlaced vinyl seats doing their damnedest to mask the lawful impersonality of the room.  A polished oak desk with a computer and a telephone and a pretty blonde I vaguely recognized sitting behind guarded a bluff, buzz-in frosted glass door leading into the bowels of the building.  Close to the front a group of distressed Latinas whispered in Spanish while wondering bambinos of various ages huddled on a row of chairs nearby.  Further back, by the window, Perry Crandall sat reading a cellophane-covered Harold Robbins hardback and sipping diet soda from a can.  He glanced up at my approach.

            “Jon,” he said as if he hadn’t quite believed I’d show.  He looked much the same as last time I’d seen him, although his hair had gone stone gray and was cut shorter than my own shoulder-length mess.  Plumper than I remembered though, and smaller in stature.  “Good to see you, I just wish we could have reconnected under more pleasant circumstances.”

            “Crandall,” I acknowledged, shaking his hand.  “You look fit.”

            “You do too,” he replied, and although he glanced at my cane he made no comment.  “Florida must agree with you.  And please, call me Perry.”

            No fucking way.  Still, unwilling to rub his nose in my dislike after he’d stepped up to babysit Gareth, I aimed for the middle road and called him nothing at all.  “Florida agrees with everyone.”

            “So they tell me.  How was the drive up?”

            “Long.”  Social niceties complete, I asked point-blank, “Is he inside?”

            Crandall said nothing about my brusqueness, just rolled along.  “Yes.  Since eight-thirty.  Charlie took him right back even though I suggested he wait until your lawyer arrived.  You do have one on the way?”

            “Frank is securing representation as we speak,” I said, hoping it was true.  “Have you heard anything since?”

            “Charlie came out once but before I could ask anything he scowled and shook his head.”

            “Typical,” I commented.  “How was Gareth this morning?”

            “Nervous.  No, terrified.  He wished you’d given him your cell number so he could find out how close you were to home, though.”  Crandall glared at me on Gareth’s behalf.

            I shrugged, as unrepentant as Frank.  I’d needed those last hours before Normal Crick to put to rest my freedom from my family, as I knew it was now gone forever.  “How is he handling Pa being dead?  Has he had even a minute to grieve?”

            Crandall pursed his lips.  “I don’t think it’s quite hit him yet.  Just like it hasn’t hit him he’s suspected of the murder.”

            Murder, the word I’d been avoiding.  “Unless one of the Simmonses has said or done something to make it hit while they’ve got him alone back there.”

            “Surely they know better than to attempt to question him when he’s requested a lawyer.”

            “I imagine they’ve got all sorts of neat tricks falling just within the rules.”

            “Wouldn’t put it past them,” Crandall agreed darkly.  “Wouldn’t put it past them to wind Gareth up to see what dropped out, either.”

            “Yeah.  So if you’ll excuse me . . .”  I nodded at the vaguely familiar receptionist and the buzz-in door she guarded.

            “They won’t let you see him, or even tell you what’s happening,” Crandall warned.

            “Bet I can rattle a cage or two anyway.”

            “Jon.  Don’t make things worse.”

            “Who, me?  I just want to ask after my poor brother.  I haven’t seen him in a decade, after all, and I’m really very worried, yeah?”

            Crandall sighed and pursed his lips.  I skirted the crowd of Latinas, almost beaned a bambino on the head with my cane when he crawled out from under a chair.  He smiled at me, waved a chubby hand.  I smiled back, and he promptly burst into tears.  Gotcha.  As I approached the desk the front plate-glass doors swung open and two deputies bearing several Normal Diner to-go bags staggered inside, playing up their burden for the amusement of the receptionist I’d almost but not quite placed in my memory.  They set the bags down, rummaged through them while I waited patiently to the side.  At last the taller of them crowed and held one high.  "Here go!  Chef salad, no tomato, low-cal thousand island.  Change in the bag."

            "Did you remember my extra crackers?"

            "Like I'd forget after the last time," he retorted, loading himself back up.  "I still got a bruise the size of your thumb on my ego."

            "Be glad it was only on your ego," she remarked, causing the other deputy to burst into laughter.  She set her lunch aside and reached under her desk to buzz open the door.  "Thanks again, guys."

            "Always a pleasure, Shelly."

            Oh, right, Shelly.  Shelly Moss.  A year ahead of Frank in school, and the subject of one of his secret-to-everyone-but-me-and-Charlie crushes.  Remembering how he'd teased over Emily Bishop, my thirteen-year-old self snickered and thought, at least I landed my crush.  For a little while, anyway.

            The buzz-in door closed behind the deputies and Shelly, after a longing glance at her lunch, turned her attention to me.  "Yes?"

            I smiled.  "Hi Shelly.  Long time no see."

            "Jon."  No inflection, a completely neutral tone, with a smile impassive enough to scream Dead On Arrival.  "What can I do for you?"

            "I'd like to see my brother, please.  I understand he's inside, yeah?"

            She hesitated.  "Is this an emergency?"

            "Maybe not an emergency per se, but I haven't seen him in a decade, and last night when I talked to him he was terribly upset.  Losing our father, being hounded by the police, I'm sure you understand."  Shelly blinked.  "I'm worried about him."

            "Gareth is in conference with the sheriff right now," she informed me.  "He'll be out when they're finished."

            "I just don't understand what they have to be in conference about," I confided, leaning on my cane.  "I mean, I'm sure the sheriff has questions, given my father's nasty murder, and Gareth has every legal and moral responsibility to answer them truthfully, but since my brother's lawyer has yet to arrive no one is interrogating him at the moment, yeah?  So I figured while he wasn't being interrogated no one would begrudge me a tiny minute to let him know I'm here and to see he's okay with my own eyes."  I almost added Savvy? but caught myself.

            Working the reception desk for a law-enforcement agency must require patience and restraint, and Shelly possessed an excess of both.  "I'll pass your message along."

            "Thanks.  While you’re passing along I'm going to step outside for a cigarette.  Haven't had one since Bessemer."

            "Maybe you should quit."  Impassive snark.  Nice.

            "Nah, I've never been a quitter.  So I'll go have my smoke, and when I come back in perhaps the good sheriff will have considered my request, yeah?"

            "I'll make sure he does."

            "Excellent."  As I turned to go, a spark of remorse burned my insides.  I hadn't known her well back then but she'd always seemed nice and was only doing her job today.  "Look, Shelly," I began, intending to apologize and blame my rudeness on the tiring drive here, but she interrupted.

            "It's okay, Jon," she said, "it's fine.  I understand.  You're exhausted and stressed and worried about your brother.  I get it."

            "Yes to all three," I admitted.  "But still—"

            "No offense taken, I promise."  Right as I began to believe she meant her words, she added, "By the way, my condolences on your loss."

            Ah, the joys of a small town.  I missed the calculated anonymity of big city interpersonal exchanges, where I could be rude to a receptionist and she'd be rude in return and neither of us took it personal.  "Thank you," I replied, pretending to accept her words at face value.  "He's left a big hole in our lives, for sure."

            Tired of such soft and indistinct sparring, Shelly fixed me with her impassive smile (how does she do that?) and, after a long and pointed glance at her chef salad container, laid a manicured hand on the phone.  Taking the hint, I nodded and caught Crandall's eye over the mass of Latinas, tapped the universal smokers’ signal of two fingers at my lips.  As I pushed open the door, Shelly's voice carried to my ears.  "Jon Moon is here.  And acting every bit the butt you predicted."  Grinning, I stepped outside and lit up.

            Crandall followed me out.  Noting my cigarette, he frowned, nodded at the "No Smoking Within 20 Feet of Entrance" sign and tilted his head, indicating for me to follow.  I thought about resisting and staying right there to wait on Charlie but decided forcing him to track me down would be more fun.  What's the old joke?  See how far you can lead a jackass without a rope?

            Several yards from the front door a small gazebo had been set aside for those of us who yet indulged in such a passe sin as nicotine addiction.  Crandall sank down on a bench and pulled out an e-cig while I remained standing, still too stiff to sit.  After a couple puffs and an impressive cloud of vapor exhale he fixed me with a glare.

            "Did you have to be an ass to Shelly?  She's actually a nice lady."

            "I figured putting a flea in the receptionist's ear was the quickest way to snag Charlie's attention."

            Crandall snorted vape mist, an almost-elderly dragon mildly amused.  "You figured right.  You know who she is, don't you?"

            I shrugged.  "Shelly Moss.  She was a year ahead of Frank, I think."

            "Not Moss anymore," Crandall said.  "Shelly Simmons now, or was before the divorce and her remarriage.  She’s Charlie's ex-wife, his, what's the quaint saying these days?  His baby mama."

            I threw back my head and roared, the first real laugh I'd indulged in quite a while.  I remembered hearing Pa bitch about Charlie's nerve in marrying a white woman but if he mentioned any names I'd either not been paying attention or forgotten.  I wondered if Charlie pulled her to spite Frank, put the notion away to share with my big brother later.  "You're kidding, right?  Do they have any old uncles swabbing out the drunk tank too?"

            Crandall outdid himself with the vapor, chuckled.  "I'm not kidding, and probably.  You know small towns, especially this one.  Rampant nepotism."

            "Speaking of nepotism," I said, nodding at the front doors.  "That was fast."  Charlie stood on the portico, glaring a scan over the nearby area.  Tall and dark-skinned with hound-dog eyes and wide, expressive lips, he'd once been handsome, but too many beers had thickened his middle and too few years embarrassed his hairline.  He spotted me, straightened his brown-on-brown uniform and strode over with the gait of a nettled goober.

            "Goddammit, Jon, a simple 'I'd like to speak with Charlie about my brother' would’ve worked.  Did you have to fire up my receptionist with crap-talk about us hounding Gareth and interrogating him illegally too?"

            I took a last drag from my smoke, butted it in the ashcan, lit another before I answered.  "I tried to apologize for taking my frustration out on her but she cut me off and made a smartass comment about condolences for my loss.  Far as I'm concerned we're square, me and your ex-wife."

            Charlie glowered at Crandall for spilling this particular bean, like I wouldn't have found out otherwise, then grimaced.  "I can believe that too," he admitted.  "She's got a mouth on her."  He glanced around, probably for his daddy, and fished a cigarette from his pocket.  Looking down at my feet, he said, "She mentioned you were on a cane.  What happened?"

            I sighed.  Better get the gossip out there, so any other old (and more polite) acquaintances I met would already know and spare me the curious peeks and delicate non-questions.  "Baseball injury," I said briefly, aiming my words mostly at Crandall.  "Crushed my foot.  I'll be rockin’ the cane the rest of my life." 

            "I'm sorry to hear it," Charlie said, sounding sincere.  "Tough break.  Weren't you pro?"

            "Farm league, yeah.  But you know what?  Life goes on and I'm fine now.  I'm more interested in police houndings and illegal interrogations than shattered careers."

            Charlie spluttered.  "There is no fucking hounding or illegal interrogating going on here!  As a matter of fact—"  He caught himself, paused.

            "As a matter of fact what?" I probed.

            He took several peevish drags off his cigarette, squinted at me through the smoke.  "As a matter of fact nothin’!  Gareth hasn't said a single word all morning, to me or the sheriff or anyone else.  If Perry here hadn't told us your brother was waiting for a lawyer we wouldn't even know that!"

            “No shit!”  I threw back my head and indulged in another belly-laugh; this keeps up, I thought, I might get to chuckle my way to madness.  "I'd forgotten how literal Gareth can be," I explained to Charlie when I could speak again.  "I cautioned him against answering your questions without a lawyer present.  Guess he took me at my word."

            "Why would you do such a thing, Jon?" Charlie demanded.  "Unless you’re trying to impede our investigation."

            "Oh, wipe off your belly and go to sleep, Charlie," I said irritably, making him sputter some more.  "Common sense, nothing more."

            "I'll tell you like Sheriff Simmons told Gareth," Charlie said.  “There's no need for a lawyer, especially at this stage of the investigation.  We're just asking a few questions right now, establishing timelines, asking if your pa had enemies Gareth knew of, preliminary stuff.  For God’s sake, we don’t know how the fire started or even performed an autopsy.  Nobody is accusing Gareth of anything.”

            “Not yet.”

            “Jon.”

            “Frank and I think it best Gareth have an attorney present, given the history between our families.  Or, to be more specific, the history between you and my big brother.  By the by, did you ever tell your sheriff daddy what provoked y'all's little spat?”

            I swear Charlie’s dark complexion paled and I could almost hear the pring! of Crandall’s ears perking up.  Far as I knew only four people in this world understood why Frank beat the snot out of Charlie in twelfth grade: the Moon brothers and Charlie himself.  “That was a long time ago,” he muttered, taking the last drags of his cigarette and shooting pointed glances at Crandall.  “A fistfight between two dumbass high school kids has no bearing on this investigation now.”  He dropped the butt and stomped it, then, glancing around, sighed and disposed of it properly.  Determined to move on, he hijacked the conversation with more not-quite-accusations, and, amused, I let him.  “You gotta admit warning Gareth to keep his mouth shut until a lawyer arrives looks suspicious, not to mention dragging me out here to badger me about an official investigation.  Maybe I should ask your whereabouts yesterday around five.  You wanna call in a lawyer too?”

            “Don’t need a lawyer.”  Having anticipated this situation, I reached into my pocket and pulled out a thin sheaf of papers.  “Receipts from every gas pump and drive-thru I used on the way up from Daytona Beach Florida,” I explained, flashing them in his face.  “I also smiled and waved at every security camera I passed.”  I hadn’t, but I would have if I’d thought of it.  “And you’re more than welcome to subpoena my phone records, my wife’s, our landline.  Before last night I’ve had no contact with anyone in Chisaw County for a decade.  Since the last time I saw you, come to think, at Quincy’s funeral.”  A lie, I admit, though a tiny one, with no relevance to the subject at hand.  “Ask Crandall, he needed to find my number online for Gareth.”

            Crandall nodded, e-smoking and enjoying the show.  I wondered how long it would take for the gossip about this encounter to flower.  Likely not long.

            “Still suspicious,” Charlie murmured, but his heart wasn’t in it.  “When is this lawyer gonna show?  Half a day we’ve wasted here already.”

            “Frank is supposed to get back to me within the hour,” I replied.  “You’ll know the minute I do.”

            He nodded like he didn’t believe me before asking the question he’d sworn to himself not to ask.  “Where is Frank, anyway?  I figured he’d be here by now.”

            “You remember Frank,” I drawled.  “Sometimes he doesn’t know what he’s gonna do until he does it.”

            “Ain’t it the truth,” Charlie agreed, unconsciously rubbing his jaw.  I snickered and, realizing, he snatched his hand away and glowered.  “You fucking Moons are turning what should be a straightforward investigation into a major pain in the ass, Jon.”

            “Simply trying to protect Gareth,” I replied.  “Speaking of my brother, where have you got him now?  Not in a cell, I hope.”

            “Not in a cell,” Charlie assured me.  “He’s sitting calmly and quietly in one of our conference rooms, waiting for the lawyer to arrive.”

            Sitting calmly and quietly, huh?  Yeah, I could imagine.  I could also imagine the emotions roiling underneath his placid outward surface.  Nobody beat Gareth at masking storms with stillness.  Looking Charlie dead in the eye, I said, “I.  Would like.  To see my brother.  Please.”  I paused long enough for irony to sink in.  “Chief Deputy, sir.”

            “Mr Moon, sir,” he threw back with, in my opinion, a soupcon too much sarcastic emphasis, “your brother, the other Mr Moon, is currently involved in official Sheriff’s Department business, and until such a time as we are satisfied with his responses to our inquiries he will be unavailable for personal communication with any family member or friend.”

            “Nice, Charlie, you speak stellar Bureaucratic Asshat.  Did you have to study hard or did it come natural?”

            He scowled.  “All of this is your own fault, Jon.  If Gareth had answered our simple questions this morning you’d be in the throes of a tearful family reunion right now.”

            “Has Gareth been charged with a crime?”

            “What?  Fuck no, you know he hasn’t.”

            “Then why are you detaining him?”

            “We’re not detaining him, beyond a brief and cursory sense.  We’re merely asking him to stay put until he answers our simple questions.”

            “Which isn’t detaining him.”

            “No sir, Mr Moon, it sure isn’t.”  Smug smile on his face, Charlie reached into his pocket to fish out another cigarette.

            “If he’s sitting very calmly and quietly and staying put without being detained, I fail to understand why I can’t see him for a minute.”

            “Because Sheriff Simmons said so, is why.”

            “Gentlemen,” came a deep-south chicory-syrup voice from behind us.  “If I may interrupt?”

            Charlie yanked the unlit cigarette from his mouth and I paused to smirk before turning to face an older man, tall and dark-skinned and wide-shouldered like his son but without the belly.  Without the wrinkles in his uniform, either.  “Sheriff Simmons,” I acknowledged.  “The next stop on my list.”

            “Jon.  Nice to see you again, son.  Shame it’s under these tragic circumstances.”

            I didn’t think the word tragic quite hit the mark but let it slide.  “I requested a brief visit with my brother from your chief deputy here, and he—”

            “I denied Mr Moon’s request, Sheriff,” Charlie broke in, rushing like a child to get his side of the story told first, “as the other Mr Moon—”

            “Yes, yes, I heard what you said, Chief Deputy,” Sheriff Simmons interrupted, and Charlie’s eyes widened in an expression I recognized all too well.  Poor sucker.  “You were quite correct in your response to the request,” Simmons hastened to assure his son, who visibly sagged in relief, “but standing here listening to Jon’s arguments I do believe I’ve had a change of heart.”  Charlie’s eyes widened again as he wondered how much of his unprofessional conversation had been overheard—props to the sheriff for some of the smoothest passive-aggressive shit-slinging I’d ever witnessed.  To me, he said, “If I let y’all see each other, talk to each other, perhaps it might go a far step towards assuring you of our, ah, purely routine and professional intentions in this investigation.”

            Wow.  Politic Asshat, one notch up from the Bureaucratic dialect.  “It would indeed go a far step,” I allowed.  “I only need a moment with him, Sheriff.”

            Simmons’s mild gaze studied me, asking the question Charlie never thought of:  Why?  Why did I need to see Gareth so badly I’d risk hostility from law enforcement to insist?  By all rights I should wait with meek respect in the lobby for them to finish.  So why didn’t I?  The sheriff didn’t ask though, which was good, because I didn’t have an answer, just a flaming need in my gut to lay eyes on my baby brother, to make sure he lived and breathed despite whatever hurts he’d suffered.  And the same place in my gut burned with the certainty Gareth needed to see me too, needed to know he had somewhere to fall and someone to catch him.

            “I’ll allow the visit,” Sheriff Simmons said after a long moment.  “On the condition you refrain from personal contact.  Purely a safety concern, you understand.”

            Huh.  I’d expected him to forbid us discussing the fire, but when he didn’t I caught on.  “I understand,” I replied blithely.  “And thank you.”

            Simmons smiled, warm, open, not at all lethal.  “Chief Deputy, will you escort Jon to see his brother?”

            Charlie nodded.  “Sure will, Sheriff.”

            “Thank you.  Now if you gentlemen will excuse me, I have a lunch date with my grandson.  Spring break this week,” he confided, as if I cared.

            “Don’t let Jaden order anything with caffeine, Dad,” Charlie cautioned.  “Or gluten.  Shelly’s on a rampage.”

            “If JJ wants a co-cola with wheat syrup he’ll have one,” Simmons stated.  “Shelly doesn’t approve, advise her to bring her concerns to me.”  Nodding his head at each of us in turn, including Crandall, whom I’d forgotten, Sheriff Simmons strolled off across the street, the very model of relaxed authoritarian deportment.

            “You heard the sheriff,” Charlie said, resuming his officiousness now the bigger dog had left the stage.  “Let’s get you reunited with Gareth.”  He sounded as if he thought it a bad idea, but then again he didn’t have his daddy’s guile.  I thought about remarking on that, or on how frustrating it must be for a grandparent to override a father’s express wish for his child, but I was a good boy and didn’t, only held up a finger and turned to Crandall.

            “I can’t thank you enough for your help with Gareth,” I said, not even having to grit my teeth.  “Did any of this keep you from work at the library, or anything else important?”

            Crandall acknowledged my thanks with a nod, my question with a shake of his head.  “I used a personal day, which I rarely do anyway.  I wanted to make sure to be there should either you or your brother need me.”

            In other words, skipped work to make sure he didn’t miss any good gossip.  But perhaps I was being too harsh; Crandall had after all stepped up when damn near anyone else in Normal Crick would’ve let the weird Moon boy drown.  “Maybe you’d allow me to buy you lunch at the diner as thanks?”

            He jumped at the offer.  “That’d be right kind of you.  I accept.”

            “Good.  I’ll come find you after I see Gareth.”  Because once I assured myself of my brother’s relative safety I needed to examine and figure the best way to dispose of this peck o’ trouble, and Crandall was the obvious place to start.  Turning back to an impatient Charlie, “Lead on, Chief Deputy, what are you waiting for, an engraved invitation?”

            Charlie huffed and rolled his eyes but started for the portico, moving at a glacier’s pace for the benefit of the poor cripple.  I huffed and rolled my eyes right back and moved around him, sped up the risers, forced him to step lively to catch me.  Held the door for him.  Smiled at his impressed disgruntlement.

            As we entered a teenage girl detached herself from the Latina horde and timidly approached.  “Excuse me, Deputy Charlie?”

            Charlie stopped, gave her a small professional smile.  “Yes?”

            She started off slow but gained courage and speed as she went along.  “I was wondering, I mean, my mother and I were wondering, sir, what’s going on with my father, Eduardo Perez?  We’ve been here for hours and no one has told us a thing.”  Her English perfect, down to the Alabama twang.

            “I’m afraid I’m not the officer in charge of your father’s case, and honestly I’m not familiar with it,” he told her, gently patient.  My estimate of him improved a notch.

            “Oh,” the girl replied, her face falling.

            “Tell you what, though, I’ll send someone out who is familiar to explain what’s going on.  Best I can do.  That help?”

            “Someone who speaks Spanish?”

            “I’ll try,” he assured her, and, relieved, she returned back to the horde and, after much shushing, launched into a translation of “Deputy Charlie’s” words.

            Nodding at Shelly, who nodded back at him but ignored me in favor of her half-finished salad, Charlie pulled open the frosted door, held it for me to pass into a long, carpeted hallway featuring a metal detector gate right at the front and an older, uniformed female guard eating her own lunch at a neighboring desk.  The Chief Deputy strode through, causing a buzz and flashing light alert, then beckoned me forward.  As I signed the visitor’s log and handed over my ID, Charlie asked the guard, “What’s with the tacos in the lobby, any idea?”  My estimate of him dropped two notches.  Ass.

            The deputy and I exchanged glances, but she merely answered, “Several Hispanic men were brought in on drunk and disorderly late last night.  One of them had a firearm, I believe.”

            “Typical,” Charlie commented.  “Those people are always drunk and brawling.”

            Unable to stop the words, I said, “Yeah, good thing getting drunk and beating the crap out of your friends isn’t something white people ever do.  Or black people either, for that matter.”  The deputy bit back a smile as she handed me an adhesive visitor’s pass and a basket for any metals.

            Charlie huffed, pinched the bridge of his nose with his fingers.  “You’re right, you’re right,” he muttered.  One thing about Charlie, he always admits his mistakes; too bad he never seems to learn from them.  “I shouldn’t have said or even thought it.  You Moons are driving me buggy today.”  To the deputy, “Find somebody to go talk to them, would you, Sandra?  Melvin speaks Spanish, give him a try.”

            “Will do, Charlie,” she affirmed, checking my cane for a hidden blade heel before setting it aside and motioning me towards the detector.

            “I have metal rods in my right foot,” I warned and, sure enough, the instant I limped across the threshold the buzz and flash blew up.  The female deputy waved a wand over my body, nodded in satisfaction when only my foot triggered a warning, then handed me my cane and basket of possessions.  Charlie jerked his head and led me off down the hallway, setting a rapid pace now he knew I needed no special compensation.  We passed an elevator and set of stairs leading up to the second floor, which I knew to contain offices and, in the back corner of the building, four small holding cells, likely full of hungover Latinos now.  Charlie turned a corner and, so suddenly I almost set my cane down on the back of his foot, stopped in front of a smooth wooden door with no sign or decoration, just a deep finish as impassive as Shelly’s smile.  As Charlie reached out a hand to open it, my heart jumped into my throat, and I felt a sudden wild urge to stop him, to hobble my handicapped ass out to the Toyota and flee Normal Crick and Chisaw County and Alabama as a whole.  I couldn’t go southeast to Daytona Beach, and I wouldn’t go northeast to Chattanooga, but anywhere else in the world would be fine.  Alaska, maybe.  Never been there.

            “You okay?” Charlie asked, having noticed the sudden hitch in my breath.  His hand hovered inches above the doorknob.  Something in his hound-dog eyes seemed to say he understood, and my irritation at his presumption pulled me back to reality.  I’d never make it to Alaska.

            “I’m fine, Charlie.  Now let me see my brother.”

[lawfulneutralmage]

Again, this is captivating.

I just have an issue getting certain references. What does the question "savvy?" mean? How does the question get the father to not molest the boy anymore, and what would it have meant if Jon had added it in his exchange with Shelly?

What are you looking for when posting the preview? Anything specific or general reaction?

Edited December 13, 2024 by lawfulneutralmage
question

[Rusty Slocum]

Thanks, LNJ, so glad you're enjoying. PA was a dedicated fan of Westerns, especially the old show Bonanza (the reason his bus is named Hoss) and used "Savvy?" as a way to punct

uate his sentences. "I ain't buyin' no overpriced concession stand hot dogs because you're starvin' to death, savvy?" Jon uses it sarcastically, not realizing his own " yeah?" is the same kind of punctuation. The point is John told his pa what would happen if he ever did that again and then threw in the savvy as sarcastic emphasis. The big takeaway from that is John just didn't lay there and take it, he fought back. 

And yes, general reactions, as well as anything that doesn't make sense. So you got it right 👍 

Edited December 13, 2024 by Rusty Slocum

[Rusty Slocum]

3 hours ago, lawfulneutralmage said:

What does the question "savvy?" mean?

It just occurred to me I never really answered your question.  It can have several meanings, depending on usage and tone of voice, but "Savvy?" in this case means "Got it, Pa?" To be savvy is to comprehend something, and the phrase "a savvy person" means someone who isn't easily fooled.  In the "golden age" of western movies laconic or terse characters, usually gunslingers, used it, to the point it has become something of a cliche.  Pa's fascination with old westerns gave him only the habit of using savvy but is also the reason he taught his kids to call him "pa".

[lawfulneutralmage]

Thx!

I would consider hinting at this in the story for all those not familiar with Westerns. If you want to broaden the appeal, you can't assume the reads know what you know. Not a criticism, just a thought.

[Talo Segura]

I haven't read chapter 3 yet (the new 2, I suppose?) The thing which carries the story, evident from the start, is the dialect, once you get to grips with it, because it's English, but not quite as I know it. That said, don't change a thing because it really makes the ambiance, fixes the story in its setting and is worth a little effort. 

The story, characters, and scenarios are great. I was immersed from the beginning.

As an aside I saw you had to explain savvy. To add a bit more explanation, savvy is a bastardisation of the French verb savoir, meaning know or understand. My granddad who was from a poor family in east London used it all the time!

[Rusty Slocum]

@Talo Segura Hey Talo, thanks for your thoughts, I truly appreciate them, especially regarding the dialect.  Most of it is plain ol' 'bama down-home vernacular, so much so it sounds normal to me lol, but the specific jargon is intentional.  Jon is a die-hard atheist and refuses to even swear or curse by using the word god, figuring you might as well pray to the sky as to any deity, especially one who'd let children suffer, for whatever reason.  Jackhole, savvy, and corporate putz are family or character-specific, much like the in-jargon of any close group of people.  The really cool part, at least for me, was how naturally it rolled out, without much thought on my part.  Gotta love when the characters speak for themselves, yeah? LOL.  (His "yeah?" is a middle-child, peacemaker thing at heart, I think.)

Re: savvy.  I had no idea the word came from savoir, like savoir faire, as I was coming in from the western-movie viewpoint, but it makes sense.  I also had no idea people in London might use it, either, but again, it makes sense.  Love learning new things!

[Ron]

@Rusty Slocum I suggest you keep the 'down home' language intact. That sort of thing makes a story authentic; you can't escape the reality of the telling. I enjoyed what you've offered here to read but maybe save some for the release. 

[Rusty Slocum]

On 12/20/2024 at 9:49 AM, Ron said:

@Rusty Slocum I suggest you keep the 'down home' language intact. That sort of thing makes a story authentic; you can't escape the reality of the telling. I enjoyed what you've offered here to read but maybe save some for the release. 

Thanks, Ron, the language is (hopefully) consistent, all the way through, I don't know any other way to write.  And don't worry, most of what I spilled is mentioned in chapter two, there are 27 other chapters with lots and lots of plot lol 🙂

[LJCC]

You better save the rest of the story to be later published, because once it's finished, I'm reading this.

Your writing is reminiscent of Cormac McCarthy. It felt like a grandma recounting the family history in front of the fire to a captive audience of several ages.