Joe Lansdale - Sunset and Sawdust

Sunset noted that it was more of a house than Marilyn had and she owned a chunk of the mill. But here Henry’s house was, bold as a tick on a patrician’s ass, not caring if the look of it made you wonder where the money came from.

Sunset, Clyde with her, parked her car in front of the place, sat and looked.

Clyde said, “That bottom porch is big enough to live on.”

Sunset got out of the car and went across the lawn, Clyde hustling to catch up. They went up to the door and she knocked. The door was opened by a big fat colored woman with a bandanna on her head and enough pattern in her floor-length dress to confuse and make you dizzy. There was a noise inside, a kind of snapping sound. It came and went, but it was pretty steady.

“Yes, ma’am, what you be wanting?” the colored woman said.

“Henry,” Sunset said. “I want to see Henry.”

“I go ask him.”

“No,” Sunset said. “That’s all right. We’ll just come in.”

“I got to have you invited,” the maid said. “I just got this job.”

“It may not be a job long,” Sunset said. “Sorry.”

“She’s the constable,” Clyde said.

The maid studied the badge on Sunset’s shirt. “She sure is. I ain’t gonna be stopping no law.”

The maid stepped aside and Sunset and Clyde went in.

“Where is he?” Sunset said. The maid pointed, and at the same time Sunset saw him. He was in front of a large fireplace mantel, a couch between them and himself, taking ceramic knickknacks off of the mantel, throwing them down as hard as he could. He had hold of a pink cat when they came up. He threw it down and smashed it and its pieces mixed with the stuff already there.

Henry looked up as they came into view.

“Hate these things,” he said. “Wife had them all over.”

“Nice way to treasure her memory,” Clyde said, “smashing her knickknacks.”

Henry smirked. “What you want, girl? Think over what I told you the other day?”

“I did.”

“I take it, him here, you decided not to go with what I suggested.”

Sunset nodded.

“That’s your choice, girl. Now, thanks for coming to tell me. Leave.”

“We’re leaving all right,” Sunset said. “Leaving with you.”

Henry’s mouth opened slightly. “You ain’t gonna arrest me?”

“I am.”

“What for?”

“All the things you told me the other day.”

“I didn’t tell you nothing. I was just talking. It’s just my word against yours.”

“I’m the law. You shouldn’t have told the law.”

Henry’s face looked as if he had just been given a mouthful of alum.

“Thought I could talk to you,” he said, “reason with you. I said some things that were tough, but I thought you’d listen. Thought you were smart.”

“Guess you were wrong,” Sunset said. “Clyde. Bring him along. He resists, knock the hell out of him.”

Clyde went over, said, “Resist, Henry. Make me a happy man.”

As they went out the door, Clyde holding Henry by the arm, the maid said to Henry, “Want me to sweep up that mess you made back there?”

Henry didn’t answer.

“You gonna pay me?”

He still didn’t answer.

“Then you gonna clean it up yourself, that’s what you’re gonna do. I ain’t got nothing against them knackers.”

“… and I can be of help,” Hillbilly said, finishing off a kind of diatribe, and when he said it, he tried not to let his voice crack, hoped he wasn’t sweating too bad. It was hot in the apartment, but he was sweating more than the man in front of him, McBride. McBride was sitting in a chair that he had drawn up right in front of Hillbilly, whom he had asked to sit on a low couch by the wall.

Hillbilly sat there with his hands in his lap, for once not thinking about how bad he hurt, because this McBride, his eyes made Hillbilly queasy, and he was wearing a funny wig and a goddamn apron. A frilly thing that went from chest to knees, had red splatters on it. But he didn’t look sissy and it didn’t seem funny. Not this fella.

Maybe he was just getting soft, getting his ass whipped like that by an old man, and it was making him less confident about everything and everybody. He hadn’t had an ass whipping since he was a boy and his daddy beat him with a razor strop, beat him unconscious a couple of times. But since leaving home he hadn’t lost a fight, and now he had lost one to an old man, and here was another old man, and he was scared of him. More scared of him than of Sunset’s father. This fella, something had fallen away from him that ought to be there, that was for damn sure. You could see it in his eyes.

That wasn’t bad enough, there was the big nigger too, and he was called Two, and he had been talking to himself, asking questions like someone was with him, not questions directed at him or McBride, but questions in the air, questions he answered himself. And now, goddamn it, the big nigger was sitting on the couch beside him, and he had one hand on Hillbilly’s knee, and Hillbilly, he couldn’t figure that, didn’t know what that was about, but the hand lay there like a big black crab, heavy and warm and firm as a log grapple.

The blonde had been made to leave the room, and he wished she was there, wished he had been nicer to her. He needed a friendly face right now. These fellas, he found it hard to charm them. Men were like that a lot of the time, saw through him, maybe not all the way, but deep enough to get bothered. Women, that was another matter. He liked to talk to women. He liked to move around women, and they liked to watch him move, but these two, or was it three, they weren’t impressed.

“So, you want to get even with this guy you had a fight with?” McBride said, lighting his cigar. He was sitting there in his frilly white apron and his nigger-black wig, and the big coon, he was wearing a jacket like you might expect to see on one of those guys had a wand, waved it around in front of a band, an orchestra. He had on a bowler hat too.

“That’s one thing, yeah,” Hillbilly said. “Another is, I thought maybe I could make some money.”

“You know all about the oil deal, to hear you tell it,” McBride said. “You know everything.”

Hillbilly nodded.

“Knowing everything, that could get you in some shit, couldn’t it, Two?”

“It could,” Two said. And then, in another voice. “That’s the facts, my friend.”

“Show him just a little bit of shit, Two,” McBride said. Two squeezed Hillbilly’s kneecap so hard, Hillbilly thought it would pop off. He reached down with both hands and got hold of Two’s wrist.

Two said, “Let go.” And his other voice said, “Yes, do.”

Hillbilly let go, and Two, he kept squeezing, and Hillbilly, without even realizing it, put the side of his hand in his mouth and bit down on the flesh to keep from screaming. Just when he thought he was going to bite through his own hand or his kneecap was going to come off, Two let go, gave Hillbilly’s thigh a pat.

“That’s a little shit,” McBride said. “I don’t like someone knowing my business, and me not telling it to them. I don’t like you getting it from Rooster, cause I don’t like Rooster. He ran off, you know. Smarter than he looked. I didn’t have much more use for him and I guess he knew it, figured what was coming. You, maybe I got some use for. That face of yours, it heals up, bet it looks pretty good. It look good?”

“Yes,” Hillbilly said. “It does. But my nose, it ain’t never gonna be straight again.”

McBride burst out laughing, and Two, he grinned, big and wide and white.

“I fought Jack Johnson once, before he was anybody,” McBride said. “He broke my nose. I didn’t even know it till later. It hadn’t been for a hurricane coming, messing up our fight, I think I’d have won. Never got to find out. We had to stop it before it got started good. A nose, it’s a funny thing. It’ll break easy. Let me show you.”