Joe Lansdale: Cold in July

“Mack over at the newspaper told me. Said you shot that sonofabitch right in the eye, killed him deader than an anvil. Was it a nigger? Wetback?”

Valerie and James stopped working and came over to the desk.

“What’s all this?” James asked.

“Dick got him one last night,” Jack said.

First of all, I hated being called Dick. It’s the nickname for a man’s sexual equipment, and as far as I’m concerned you might as well call me Prick. And I sure didn’t like Jack calling me that; I wouldn’t want that bastard to call me to dinner.

“He shot the bastard right through the head,” Jack said, not waiting for me to answer. “Killed his ass.”

“That’s enough,” I said.

“No need to be modest, Dicky.” Dicky? “Hell, I’d be proud. Sonofabitch breaks into my house he better sure be ready to pick his teeth out of his asshole. I keep a pump 12-gauge right under the bed, and if-”

“Drop it, Jack,” I said. “Just drop it.”

“It’s nothing to be ashamed of,” Jack said. “If it were me-”

“It wasn’t you. It was me. And I’m not ashamed of it, just not proud of it either. You got some mail for me, leave it. If not, get out.”

Jack’s face turned red and his mouth went slack. “You kill some asshole, and you get to talking pretty damn tough. Think you’re fucking Clint Eastwood.”

“Just leave,” I said.

“All right, cowboy.” Jack reached into his bag and tossed a handful of letters on the counter. They slid off and fell on the floor. “Enjoy your fucking mail, Dicky.”

He gave me a parting glare and stomped out, holding the door open long enough to let in some of July. “Hope your fucking air conditioner goes out,” he said.

“And I hope a rabid dog chews off your nuts,” Valerie said.

James and I both jerked our heads toward her. Valerie?

Jack stood in the doorway, shocked. “That’s not very ladylike,” he managed.

“You got it,” Valerie said.

Jack swallowed, let go of the door, and walked away. He looked back through the showcase window just before he was out of sight, and Valerie shot him the finger.

Valerie looked at us and blushed redder than her dress. “Well,” she said, “I just don’t like him.”

I told James and Valerie the whole story and they were good about it. They didn’t ask for any gory details. I finally left things in their hands and drove over to Kelly’s. I just didn’t want to talk about it anymore or be around anyone that knew about it for a while. I needed, as they say in California, some space. Or as we say in Texas, I wanted to be left the hell alone.

I passed Jack on the sidewalk on the way over there. He was still making his rounds. He had his head down and was walking furiously. I thought about how Valerie had put him down, and I almost honked at him so I could remind him, but I didn’t. My sense of humor wasn’t up to it.

Kelly’s is an old-fashioned cafe on the west side of town, and I eat there often. I like it because it reminds me of my high school days. I’m not the type that lives in the past, but I don’t mind thinking about it some. I used to take dates to Kelly’s and we’d drink malts and eat hamburgers there. It was actually owned by a man named Kelly then. But that was quite a few years back. He was out at the LaBorde Cemetery now, holding up a plastic flower arrangement.

I couldn’t go into Kelly’s without thinking about Stud Franklin who went in there one Saturday and shot himself through the head with a. 22 pistol. I didn’t see it, but I heard about it from plenty who did. He just walked in there and, said, “Fuck him and his pig too,” and put the gun to his head. He was upset because he didn’t win the FHA contest. He’d raised a pig for it, worked all year on that pig and put all his money into it, bought fancy food and medical supplies. He was beat out by some backwoods farmer who raised his pig on stale bread and cakes and fed him chewing tobacco to kill worms. Later, they found Stud’s pig hung up in the fancy concrete pen Stud had built for him. No one suspected the pig of suicide. Stud had seemed stable up until then.

And the back booth, the one with the rip in the leather that had been badly taped over and over for years, was where my first real romance ended. I had put my hand on Kathy Counsel’s knee and tried to slide it up under her dress for a better prize and she had slapped me, the sound of that slap went through the place like a mortar shot. I went out of there with her yelling at me and the other lads laughing, and I didn’t go back in there for a month. Kathy Counsel got knocked up about six months later by our star quarterback, Herschel Roman, and they had to quit school and Herschel threw his last ball and started throwing nozzles into gas tanks down at the Fina on Main. He was still there. He owned the place now and he watched lots of football on the TV next to the Coke machine. Kathy had gotten fat and had a tongue sharp as a meat fork. Their kid played football and was bad at it and hated it, or so the rumor went. Occasionally, I had the urge to call up Cathy and thank her for that slap.

Out back of Kelly’s was where I had my only two fights. Lost both of them. I couldn’t even remember what they were over. They had both been with my best high school friend, Jerry Quail. He got drafted after graduation because he wasn’t college material. He never saw action in Nam. The week before he went over there he fell out of a helicopter on maneuvers and was killed. I attended the funeral.

I didn’t take one of the booth seats. I sat down at the counter and Kay came over. She was the only waitress in the place that time of day, and I liked her. She was pretty in a peroxide, too-much-makeup sort of way, and happily married or not, I couldn’t help but enjoy the way her hips worked beneath that starched white outfit she wore. She had some of what Valerie had; an element women wished they could buy bottled and so did their men.

I smiled best I could and ordered coffee. She poured it up and said, “I heard what happened.”

“Christ,” I said. “People in this town are goddamn telepathic.”

“They just have big mouths,” she said. “Anyway, I’m sorry. I’m sure it’s tough.”

“That was just the right thing to say, Kay. Thanks.”

She smiled and I moved over to a booth. I sat with my head back against the old, red, leather cushion and closed my eyes. Immediately last night jumped through my head.

I opened my eyes and drank half of my coffee in one gulp. It was bitter. I called to Kay to bring me a Coke. I sipped it. It wasn’t any better.

“Use your phone?”

Kay was behind the bar wiping up a water spot “Have at it. You know where it is.”

I went through the back door, into the stockroom. The phone was sitting on the directory on a shelf next to an economy-sized can of tomatoes. That would be for the chili they served [i t said,. Good stuff, but hot as a potbellied stove.

I leaned on the shelf and used the directory to look up a number. It was on the first page in big letters. I dialed.

“LaBorde Police Department”

“I’d like to speak to Lieutenant Price.”

“Just a moment.”

When Price came on the line, I said, “This is Dane. I just wanted to know what happened to Russel’s body.”

“He’ll be buried day after tomorrow. Would have been today, but they did an autopsy.”

“Why?”

“Fairly standard procedure. Why do you want to know about burial?”

“This Russel, he got any family besides his old man?”

“I don’t think so. None that we know of. The county is paying for it. A pauper’s funeral we call it.”

“Where’s he going to be buried?”

“Greenley’s Cemetery. You’re not planning on coming, are you?”