Max Collins - Butcher's dozen

Several fires were going, with men clustered near them, but not huddling close to the flames; while it was cool, it wasn't cold, and the fires were presumably to keep the bugs away. And the Butcher perhaps. In fact, many of the men here were not sleeping in their shacks; they were stretched out under the stars, using their shoes for a pillow, and now and then a raggedy-ass pet dog slept near its raggedy-ass master. It was a lifeless scene, frozen, like something in a mural. Even when the streetcar-like Rapid Transit trains went roaring by on the nearby tracks, spitting sparks, nothing stirred. The gulley floor might have been a battlefield where corpses were strewn.

Curry approached one of the fires where three men sprawled, leaning back on bedrolls, enjoying the quiet night-quiet but for the rattle and roar of the periodic Rapid Transit trains.

"Mind if I join you, gents?" Curry asked. He smiled mildly, not wanting to come on too strong.

Two of the men shrugged casually, while their eyes studied him. The other man, a heavyset, white-bearded hobo in his late fifties or early sixties, said, "Sit yourself down, son."

Curry placed his bedroll on the ground and sat with his back braced against it.

"There's a couple shacks standing empty," the old man said, pointing. "You can claim one if you like."

"What happened to the former tenants?" Curry asked.

"Spooked by the Butcher," said one of the other men, a tall, thin man in his late thirties maybe, who'd shaved within the last several days. He wore a plaid shirt and his hair was light.

"Lot of that going around?" Curry said.

"Some."

The old man said, "I'm not afraid of this goddamn Butcher. Killings nothing new to this ol' life."

"How do you mean?" Curry asked.

The old man snorted a laugh; he plucked a corncob pipe out of his shirt pocket and stuffed a couple cigarette butts in and lighted it up, "Shootings, stabbings," he said. "I seen 'em all-over nothing, over some wisecrack, or at most a hijack…"

Curry had learned that "hijacking" down here meant robbing a fellow 'bo while he was sleeping. He had also learned that life on the road included frequent irrational, violent outbursts over insults, real or imagined.

"Guys who been pickin' somewhere come in with a pocketful of cash, start flashing it around, pretty soon there's trouble. They get to drinking, then to fighting, and before long somebody's got a knife. A lot of people die in this ol' life, and nobody even keeps track of it. You're on your own here, son."

It seemed death was commonplace in these parts.

"So the Butcher doesn't frighten you," Curry said, "any more than anything else around here does."

"Not many are all that spooked by this spook. Long as a person ain't a fool and goes walking alone in the Run-like you was doing."

"I just hopped off a freight," Curry said.

"I think he kills faggots and whores," said the third man, another gaunt individual, but a younger, not so well-shaven one. His eyes were bright, catching the reflection of the fire. "I think a real man's got nothing to fear."

"That one guy was a sailor, they say," said the clean-shaven hobo.

The bright-eyed one laughed derisively and said, "I never knew a sailor who didn't take it up the poop deck."

"Gets lonely out at sea," the old man said philosophically. Then he looked at Curry carefully, saying, "Where you in from?"

"Down Florida way," Curry said. "Picking fruit."

"Long as there's fruit, there'll be 'bos to harvest it." The old man smiled; he didn't have all his teeth, and what he did have he wouldn't have forever. "You ain't been on the road long, have you, son?"

"No," Curry said, smiling a little. "Does it show?"

"A mite."

Curry knew it showed more than a "mite," though he didn't know what to do about it. These men had earned the road-weary look they carried: eyes bloodshot from the dirt and cinders of riding the rails; leather-dry, sun-brown faces; callused hands.

"You don't look like you been in Florida," said the younger one. "You're pale, like a baby's butt." There was no suspicion in his voice. It seemed merely an observation. He took a small waxed-paper bundle out of his breast pocket; it contained a sack of Bull Durham, rolling papers, and a book of matches.

"The railroad dicks pulled me off a train in Georgia," Curry said smoothly. He'd used this story at the other shantytown and was starting to believe it himself. "Turned me over to the locals and they vagged me. I didn't see the sun in two weeks."

"Cops get your grubstake?" the younger one asked, eyes narrowing.

"No," Curry said, feeling a little wave of panic. Nobody had asked him that before.

"The cops didn't take your dough?" the old man said, astounded. "What kind of cops was these?"

"Well," Curry said, gesturing, improvising, "I had a hundred bucks, and I didn't want to travel with it. So I mailed it to a girlfriend of mine in West Virginia. I seen her the other day and picked it up."

"And she didn't spend it?" the young one asked, eyes widening, as he rolled his cigarette.

"She knew I'd beat the bejesus out of her if she did," Curry said with a wicked smile, proud of himself for coming up with this line of malarkey on such short notice.

"Better be careful," the old man said, gesturing with his corncob pipe. "Moneys dangerous now, 'cause it's so short. You go flashing a roll around, round here, the jackrollers'll get ya, sure as I gotta take a shit."

And with that, the old man got up and wandered off into the darkness to the designated spot, and Curry turned to the other two and said, "Now, it seems to me a guy wandering off to take a piss or a dump or what have you, in the middle of the night like this, is asking for trouble."

"From that Butcher, you mean?" the clean-shaven one asked. He laughed shortly and waved the notion off. "Not tonight, anyway."

"Why do you say that?"

"Got my reasons."

"Such as?"

"Maybe I know who he is."

"You know who the Butcher is?"

"Maybe."

Curry tried not to let his anxiety show. "There's a big cash reward, you know."

"Not for the likes of me," he said. He reached behind him and withdrew an unmarked bottle of clear fluid; rubbing alcohol, most likely. He swigged at it. Then he offered some to Curry and the young bright-eyed 'bo. Curry declined, but the other did not.

"That burns," the bright-eyed one said, grinning, wiping off his mouth with the back of one hand.

"I live for it," the clean-shaven one said. "Army did it to me. You drink or you go bughouse."

"Were you in the war?' Curry asked.

"Yes," he said, taking his bottle back from the kid. "They made a tramp outa me. Learned to live off what I could carry on my back. Learned I could live anywheres."

Curry couldn't tell whether the man was spiteful or grateful, and he wasn't sure the man knew, either.

Soon the old guy came back and sat back down against his bedroll. A Rapid Transit train went screeching by, sparking up the night.

"Look at 'em," the old man said, "going to their fancy houses. Goin' nowhere!"

"I'd like to be going there," said the bright-eyed one. "I had a good job once." He didn't say what it was.

"They got no independence," said the old man, as if he felt sorry for the commuters heading out to ritzy Shaker Heights. "They own too much. It comes to own them. When the stock market crashed, my life didn't change. Long as I keep moving, something will turn up-another flop, another ride, another handout, another cigarette butt, another odd job."

The bright-eyed kid studied the old man, his expression sober-perhaps he was contemplating the life ahead of him.

The thought of one of his companions knowing the Butchers identity was gnawing at Curry.

So he said to the old man, "This fella here says he knows who the Butcher is," and he gestured to the clean-shaven war vet.