Joe Lansdale - Cold in July

We walked down behind the compost pile and out into Jim Bob’s garden. We went between rows of corn with stalks nine feet high and bright green. There were mounds giving birth to squash plants with white pattie squash on them big as the crown in a cowboy hat. There were thick tomato vines staked on six-foot poles, and the strong, fine smell of the tomatoes was enough to make your nose hairs twitch. The tomatoes were firm as hardballs and red as a wound. Jim Bob picked us each one and we walked along the rows eating the warm, juicy tomatoes and marveling at the cucumber vines that ran renegade throughout the garden with cucumbers on them that Jim Bob said were “as big as Big Tex Dildoes.”

When we got to the far end of the garden, we turned left and walked around the edge of it, then started back between a row of turnip greens. The greens were thick and green and looked more like Venus flytraps than turnip greens. By the time we were out of the garden and heading back toward the house, I felt as if we had been expelled from the Garden of Eden.

“That’s Freddy’s house right there,” Jim Bob said.

It was late afternoon and the bottom of the sky had turned the color of a burst tomato and the gray was pushing it down and away. But we could still see where Jim Bob was pointing. We were across the street and about a half a block down from Freddy’s house. It was just a house. Light pink brick on a street full of houses built just like it, but some with gray and some with red brick. The lawn was mowed and I could see the knob of a sprinkler out in the yard. Freddy watered his grass. I wondered if he had a barbecue grill out back, and maybe a dog called Boscoe that had his own house with his name painted over the door.

“It could be another Fred Miller,” Russel said. “We don’t know this is Freddy.” There was something almost hopeful in Russet’s tone. I didn’t know if it was the years that were bothering him or what his son had become, or what he himself had become. Maybe all those things.

He shook out another cigarette and lipped it, lit it with his Bic lighter and inhaled, and about a quarter of the cigarette glowed and went to ash.

“You’re supposed to smoke those, not suck them,” Jim Bob said. “What you need’s a straw and something to drink. And this is Freddy’s house. I'll bet my left nut on that.”

“I don’t want your left nut,” Russel said.

“How about my right? I keep it a little cleaner.”

“Ha, ha,” Russel said, and sucked up another chunk of the cigarette and the ash fell off in his lap.

“Hey, watch the upholstery, and open a goddamn window,” Jim Bob said. “I feel like I’m in the fucking gas chamber.”

Russel brushed himself and the seat and rolled down his window and blew a mouthful of smoke out of it. Just watching him do that made me feel hotter than I was. The air-conditioned air in the car had died immediately when Jim Bob shut off the engine, and the air outside was only slightly less stale. At least it wasn’t full of smoke. I rolled down my window and stuck my head out and took a deep breath. It warmed my throat and lungs and made me thirsty. When I was finished with that, I pulled my sweaty shirt away from my back and leaned forward and said, “Now what?”

“Yeah, Ben,” Jim Bob said. “Now what?”

“I don’t know,” Russel said.

“You’re costing Dane money here,” Jim Bob said. “He’s footing the bill.”

“Nah,” I said, “that’s not the problem. I just want to do something. I’m getting itchy.”

“I just can’t do it yet,” Russel said.

Jim Bob sighed and rolled down his window. “Maybe you’d like to drive down to the other end, turn around, see the house from that angle.”

Jim Bob meant the comment sarcastically, but Russel, who wasn’t fully tuned in, said, “Okay.”

Jim Bob looked back at me and rolled his eyes. “All righty,” he said, and he rolled up his window and Russel and I did the same. Then he cranked the car and the air-conditioning panted through it and we went coasting down the street.

When we reached the dead end, Jim Bob backed the Bitch around as slowly and carefully as if it were made of eggs, and started back up the street.

Russel hadn’t even looked at the house when we passed it, and he didn’t act as if he were going to look this time. He had his eyes glued straight ahead.

“If we can get the colors of the house coordinated with the sprinkler knob,” Jim Bob said, “maybe we can buy Freddy some nice lawn furniture or something. A pink flamingo maybe.”

Jim Bob was going so slow and was so busy giving Russel a hard time, he didn’t notice the garage door at Freddy’s house going up or the blue Chevy Nova backing out of it down the short drive at top speed. I barely saw it, and by the time I yelled, the car was on us. The back of it hit the Red Bitch on the right-hand rear door, and sent my nonseatbelted self flying across the car.

I put my hands on the seat in front of me and straightened to a sitting position. Jim Bob had killed the engine and was cussing “Goddamn idiot, I’ll kick, his motherfucking ass.”

“It might be Freddy,” Russel said.

“I don’t give a damn if it’s God,” Jim Bob said, opened his door and got out.

Russel turned around and looked at me. “You okay, Dane?”

I rubbed my neck. “I think so. But maybe I should yell whiplash.”

I looked at the car that had backed into us and saw the driver’s door open and the driver get out. And get out. And get out. He was as big as King Kong, Mexican, and had a look on his face like he’d eat shit and sugar before taking a beating from anyone. Jim Bob included.

Jim Bob was almost to the Mexican, but his steps were a little slower. He stopped about four feet away and cocked his hat back.

Russel rolled down his window, said softly to me, “I’ve been waiting to see this. I even thought about this in prison. I’ve wanted to see Jim Bob get his ass kicked all my life. He never has that I know of.”

“Hey, Frito,” Jim Bob said, “ain’t they got no fucking mirrors in cars where you come from, huh? What the dog-shit is wrong with you, man?”

The Mexican just looked at him. He was wearing a tight-fitting, blue Hawaiian shirt with yellow and red palm trees on it He had on yellow slacks and big, black wing tips with olive explosions on the toes. He was nearly seven feet tall and his chest was like a beer barrel.

“You talk to me?” he asked.

“No, fucking Chili lips, I’m talking to the goddamn Nova. It looks the smarter of you two. Did you see what you done to my car there? Fucked the paint job. Look at that”

Jim Bob turned to point and the big Mexican (a.k.a. Frito and Chili Lips) stepped forward and grabbed the brim of Jim Bob’s hat and pulled it down so hard Jim Bob went to his knees. Then the Mexican kneed Jim Bob in the face sharply.

“We ought to help him,” help hi I said.

“Shit,” Russel said. “Look at the size of that guy.”

The Mexican had Jim Bob by the back of the neck now and the seat of the pants and was using him to punch the door on the Nova.

“Too far,” I said, and got out of the car. On the street side, I stood and yelled over the top of it. “Hey. Quit that.”

The Mexican looked at me like I was crazy, then went back to jamming Jim Bob’s head into the Nova.

I went around the car, not real fast. “Now that’s enough of that,” I said. “Quit.”

The Mexican dropped Jim Bob on the drive and said, “Okay. You do.” Then he said something in Spanish. It was brief and as menacing as his English.

I didn’t run. I stood there.

Had too. My feet were glued to the ground. Seeing him come toward me was akin to watching some natural phenomenon, like an eclipse. He was almost on me. I put up my fists. Not that I thought I’d get to use them much. I just hoped it was short and painless.