Joe Lansdale - The Bottoms

We drove to Groon’s store. Out back of it, under a huge pecan tree, his black Ford was parked. Grandma eased up behind it and stopped. She leaned toward the windshield, squinted her eyes for a look.

“He’s got both taillights,” she said. “Could have fixed it. Wouldn’t take much. I’ve fixed a taillight myself. Where would he get parts for a taillight around here, Harry?”

“There ain’t a garage here,” I said.

“Who mechanics?”

“Everyone ’round here pretty much does his own work,” I said. “It’s something serious, they take it to Tyler. That’s where he’d have to get parts.”

“Less he had some spares,” Grandma said. “And he’s sure had plenty of time to fix it.”

“Yes ma’am. I guess so.”

“We ain’t gettin’ anywhere, are we, boy?”

“No ma’am.”

“You say this Doc Tinn had some ideas on this kind of killer?”

“He seemed real smart, Grandma. Lot smarter than Doc Stephenson.”

“Why don’t we go see him?”

“I don’t know, Grandma… I mean, you know, a white woman in colored town, talkin’ to a colored man.”

“I can take care of myself.”

“Yes ma’am… I mean, Doc Tinn. You and him talkin’, and him bein’ colored and thought to be uppity ’cause he’s smart and a doctor

… Bad words gets out… It could be like Mose.”

“You got a point, Harry. But I’m thinkin’ selfish. I want to help Jacob. And we ain’t gonna get Doc Tinn in no trouble… Pappy Treesome still there, runs the general store?”

“Yes ma’am.”

“Then there’s a way.”

Grandma turned the car around, and we headed for Pearl Creek.

We drove over to Pearl Creek, and as we neared Grandma said, “Here’s how we’ll do it, Harry. We’ll go to the general store. Say we’re low on gas, which we are, and we’ll buy some. We’ll go in the store and get soda pops, but before we do that, you run over to Doc Tinn’s place… Said it was close, right?”

“Yes ma’am.”

“You run over there, and you tell him I’d like to speak with him at the store. Bring his wife if he wants. That way ain’t nobody gonna blame him for messin’ with me. He comes to the store, I want to ask him some questions only I think he can answer. Tell him we’re tryin’ to clear Mose’s name and help Jacob. We’re tryin’ to get the real killer. Okay?”

We arrived in Pearl Creek just as black rain clouds were rolling in. Their shadows fell over the road and over the general store, moved on, were followed by even darker shadows that pooled over everything and hung there.

“That’s what I meant about East Texas,” Grandma said getting out of the car. “You don’t go long without rain.”

Only it wasn’t raining, just clouding. I went inside and talked to Pappy Treesome. He took me out back and filled me a can with gas. He walked with me around front, jerking his body this way and that. When he saw Grandma they hugged.

“How’re you doin’, you ole horse thief,” Grandma said.

He was wearing his store-bought teeth today, so I could understand him, even if there was an occasional click and pop from the teeth slipping.

“I was real young when I stole that horse,” Pappy said.

“When you was young is farther back than I can count,” Grandma said.

While they were talking, I eased off to Doc Tinn’s place, and Grandma went up the steps into the general store with Pappy. I heard Pappy’s plump wife, Camilla, yell out, “Ah, Miss June, you ain’t aged a day.”

“Uh huh,” I heard Grandma say, “and neither has no one else.”

I went over to Doc Tinn’s house and knocked on the door. His wife answered. She said, “Yes, sir.”

I explained who I was and asked if I might see Doc Tinn, if he wasn’t busy. He wasn’t. She let me in the house and Doc Tinn was sitting in a rocking chair in the living room, reading a book. He put the book in his lap, smiled at me.

“How’re you, little sir? How’s your Daddy?”

“That’s what I’ve come to see you about,” I said.

Doc Tinn and his wife, both dressed as if going to church, walked with me to the general store. Inside Grandma was chatting with Pappy and Camilla. Pappy was his usual jerky self, standing behind the counter, his upper body wagging off in one direction, only to be pulled in the other as if by unseen hands.

Camilla was on our side of the counter, wearing a dress made of enough potato sacks to have contained all the Irish potatoes in the county and a pretty good batch of the sweet potato crop. She was sitting on a stool laughing at something Grandma had just said.

The sacks her dress were made from had been bleached and dyed blue, but the bleach hadn’t done a good job and the dye hadn’t taken, or was washed out; her outfit had gone gray leaving the faint impression of a potato sack brand visible at the top of her butt; the words reminded me of bugs riding the rolling hocks of a pig on the run.

Camilla’s hair was highly greased and two long knitting needles were plunged through a knot at the top of it. When the light caught the tips of the needles, sparkles jumped, suggesting extreme sharpness. Rumor was, Camilla wore the knitting needles for self-defense.

Grandma was sitting on the stool next to Camilla, close enough they could exchange elbow jabs between funny remarks. All three were drinking Co’-Colas.

I introduced Grandma to Doc Tinn and his wife, and gradually Grandma eased away from her friends toward the Tinns, and we sat where Daddy and I had sat the day he had come to look at the body. I took a wooden chair with cloth wrapped on the arms to make it more comfortable, and left the stuffed chairs and a couch to the adults.

The little door that had been fixed into the stove was closed this time and a brown dog with a white spot on its nose lay in front of it. Since there was no heat, I assumed his lying there was out of habit. The dog saw us, got up, and wandered over to me with its head down. When it walked it limped. I noticed that part of its right front foot had been cut off in some kind of accident. I patted it and it lay its head in my lap for more attention. I stroked its nose.

Grandma gave a little background on Daddy to Doc Tinn, who listened intently, nodding his head now and then. I found it embarrassing, and wouldn’t have told about how lost Daddy was these days, but no one asked me. Grandma had her own methods.

When she was finished, Doc Tinn shook his head. “That’s a real shame. I like Jacob. I really do.”

“That’s one reason we’ve come to you. We’re trying to get a handle on who done these murders.”

“Ma’am, I knew, I’d have told somebody.”

“We know that,” Grandma said. “What we want to know is if you know what kind of person done these murders.”

“I heard you talkin’ to Daddy,” I said. “I was on the roof of the icehouse. Things you told him, seems to me you know a lot about this kind of thing.”

“I knew you was up there. So did your Daddy. Not right away. But we come to know it.”

“You should have called those boys down,” Mrs. Tinn said.

“They done seen what they seen,” Doc Tinn said. “Wasn’t any undoing that. As for these murders, nobody knows a lot about this kind of thing. You mind hearin’ all this, dear?”

“My heart and stomach is a little too delicate for it, but my curiosity is strong as steel. I’ll stay.”

“Well now,” Doc Tinn continued, “I don’t know anything at all. Not really. But I do some reading, and I’ve given it some thought. This kind of killer, he don’t kill ’cause he don’t want to pay his john bill, you know what I mean?”

Grandma nodded.

I thought on it. John Bill? I had no idea what he was talking about.