Bradley Denton - Blackburn

Leo didn't like Blackburn. For one thing, he thought Blackburn's hair was too long, and called him a hippie. Blackburn replied that he couldn't be a hippie, because it was 1978 and all the hippies had been declared dead in 1967. Leo grimaced and spat on the floor of the stockroom. Leo was about fifty, and he wore a black toupee. He had lines around his eyes, and liver-colored lips. He looked pissed off all the time, and he sneered at any customer who paid using a lot of pennies.

It was because of Leo that Blackburn lost his job. Leo had only been the department manager for a week and a half when he accused Blackburn of stealing a case of Quaker State 10W-30 Multi-Viscosity Motor Oil.

"I'm sorry, sir," Blackburn told him in the stockroom. It was early on Thursday morning. Leo had just accused him. They were the only ones there. "I didn't steal any Quaker State. I didn't steal anything."

Leo's face twitched. "I saw you take it out of the store last night," he said. "Then I stayed late to count the sales slips, and I came in early this morning and did it again. It's short. You're a goddamn liar and a thief."

Blackburn became irritated. He was a lot of things, but a liar was not one of them. He took a breath and closed his eyes. There was no point in getting upset. All he had to do was tell the truth. Then he could get to work and think about other things.

He opened his eyes. "May I explain, please?"

Leo's eyebrows rose. They were thin and gray. They were how Blackburn knew that Leo wore a toupee. The toupee was thick and black.

"May you?" Leo said, mocking. "May you? Listen, punk, you can 'explain' by paying for that case of oil and then getting your ass out of here before I call the cops."

"That hardly seems fair."

"I could care less," Leo said.

"Couldn't."

"Huh?"

"Couldn't. Saying that you could care less means that you actually do care. Saying that you couldn't care less means that you don't really give a shit."

Leo sneered. "Listen to the college boy. You sound like my wife. Thinks she's Albert fuckin' Einstein 'cause she had a year of juco. Maybe I should straighten you out like I do her." Leo raised his right hand in a fist.

"Your wife's name is Lorraine, isn't it?" Blackburn asked.

"How'd you know that?" Leo's voice was low.

"I heard you talking to her on the phone."

Leo shook his head. His toupee moved. "A liar, a thief, and an eavesdropper. Pay for the oil and get out."

"But I was carrying the oil for a customer, sir."

"Bullshit. You didn't ring it up-"

"I'm not allowed to use the register."

"-and nobody paid no money for it. You're lucky I didn't just call the cops right off the bat. This way I'm giving you a chance to get out with your ass intact."

Blackburn became more irritated. "There wasn't any money because it wasn't a cash transaction," he said. "I gave him credit."

"What?" Leo's Adam's apple bobbed. "Who? On what card?"

Blackburn stepped closer to Leo. He could smell stale cigarette smoke. "I'm getting upset, sir," he said. "You have to let me explain."

Leo bared his teeth. They were gray stumps. "So explain. Explain all you damn well please."

"A man came in last night needing oil," Blackburn said. "He had to change the oil in his truck so he could drive to Oregon to take care of his dying aunt. He needed at least five quarts for the change, and his truck bums a lot, so there's no telling how much he might need for the drive. We figured a case would do it for sure, so that's what I sold him. He gave me an IOU." Blackburn took the folded slip from his shirt pocket. Red stitching above his pocket said OK-DARREL. Darrel was the name he had given the store when he'd hired on. A man in a bar had sold him a birth certificate and Social Security card with that name.

Leo took the IOU slip and opened it. Then he crumpled it and threw it on the floor. He spit after it. "It's a goddamn worthless scrap," he said. "Can't even read the goddamn writing."

Blackburn squatted to pick it up. "He promised he'll send the money from Oregon as soon as he gets a job."

Leo put his foot on Blackburn's shoulder and pushed. Blackburn fell back on his rump. He sat on the floor and looked up at Leo.

"Christ Almighty Jesus God," Leo said. "I suppose you'd believe it if I told you I needed a free case of oil for my health, huh?" He started toward the swinging doors to the retail area. "Get out. I'll mail your last check, minus the price of a case of oil. Won't leave much." He glanced back. "Go on. I'm sick of looking at you."

Blackburn stood up. "I'm sorry to hear about your health, sir," he said.

"Huh?"

Blackburn lunged forward and grabbed Leo around the waist. He squeezed hard. Leo tried to yell, but it came out as a wheeze. Blackburn wasn't any bigger than Leo, but his arms were strong. He had been lifting cases of automotive equipment for eight and a half weeks. He lifted Leo and carried him across the stockroom to where the cases of oil were stacked. Leo pounded at Blackburn's head and back, but he couldn't pound hard. He couldn't breathe.

Blackburn dropped him and ripped open a case of Quaker State 10W-30. He removed a quart and punched two holes in the top of the can with his pocketknife. He had bought the pocketknife over in the Sporting Goods Department. The folks there had given him a few dollars off.

Leo was on the floor. His face was purplish. His mouth was open, gasping. He seemed almost able to move again when Blackburn squatted and poured the amber stream into his mouth. Leo choked and turned his head to spit it out. Blackburn clamped a hand over Leo's mouth and turned his face upward again.

"Swallow," Blackburn said.

Leo's face was changing colors. It went from purplish to a pale shade like dough, and then to a strange, veiled blue, like veins under skin.

"Swallow," Blackburn said again.

Leo swallowed, and Blackburn gave him more.

"Goood boy," Blackburn said. "Make-ums alll better."

Leo threw up after the first quart and lay in the puddle, his arms and legs working feebly. Blackburn stood up and poked around the stockroom for an oil can spout. He had spilled too much pouring free.

He found a spout and came back to Leo, who was crawling toward the swinging doors. Blackburn turned him onto his back again, sat on him, and plunged the spout into another quart. He put the spout to Leo's lips, but found that Leo's teeth were clamped together.

"It's for your own good," Blackburn said. "You're not at all well."

Leo shook his head.

"Come on," Blackburn said. "Open up for the good medicine."

Leo kept shaking his head.

"Open up," Blackburn said, "or I'll shove the spout through your teeth."

Leo relented. Blackburn finished that quart and started another. And then another. Leo threw up three more times. Blackburn had to jump out of the way. It took awhile before it was over.

Blackburn wrote a note on the back of the IOU to leave with Leo, then headed for the door to the loading dock. He paused there and looked back. The green-and-white cans gleamed in the slime on the floor.

"Hope you're feeling better," Blackburn said, and went out.

The police found the note in Leo's pocket. It read:

Dear Lorraine. I am no good, as well you may have imagined. I have been jealous because you are smart and I am stupid as a stump. I have no hemlock and don't even know what hemlock is anyway on account of I am so damn dumb, so will make do with motor oil. Goodbye. Leo.

The Oklahoma County Coroner ruled it a suicide.

No one was home at the house beside the Nazarene church. Jimmy knocked again to be sure, then sat on the porch step to wait. It was his seventeenth birthday. He had time. Wantoda was green and quiet, and the air smelled of new grass. The 4 SALE sign in the window of the black Ford Falcon had an exclamation point. Mr. Dunbar would be home soon, and Jimmy would get a good deal. The six-hundred-dollar wad of cash in his jeans pocket was most of the money he had earned working after school at the turnpike Stuckey's. He would spend no more than four hundred on the Falcon. It had been sitting in the Dunbars' yard for weeks. Jimmy had the afternoon off from Stuckey's because Ernie was sick with asthma and couldn't give him a ride. Jimmy had wanted to take the time off anyway, it being his birthday. The car would be his present to himself. It was a safe bet that it would be the only present he got. Dad had been laid off from the machine shop again, so Mom didn't have money to spend on things like birthdays. And Jasmine wouldn't even speak to him without shrieking, much less give him a present. Mom might manage to throw a cake together, but that would be it.