Barry Hannah - Long, Last, Happy - New and Collected Stories

Wilkes Bell is a common drunkard except he wears Armani and other Italian suits, aristocratic shoes of a deep grained shine so you know it. And subtle thick-weave ties. Has thick light hair, you know, tossed this way and that and curled back from his forehead. Rich delta daddy in chemical fertilizers and rice. And while he was at the university thirteen or so years ago he was an art student and even now had paint on his skin when he was in the store sweating through his suit. You could smell the liquor coming out of those pores. My nose is trained for your lush. Half of those sleepy women who bed down in the cars of Used Auto are lushes, of course, and some of their boyfriends. One day Wilkes Bell staggers into the liquor store and whispers, that is mildly screams, a secret he had about his person in a big Ziploc bag. Lord help me if it wasn’t forty or fifty thousand dollars of his uncle Anse Burden’s money. He wasn’t certain himself, since he’d scrambled around in it for a few night’s drunks. His uncle had left it with him for safekeeping, what a made fool this uncle was, and he was thinking to catch up on his tab here, $6500 with interest, and let the money hide with me in my freezer. When he described his uncle as a down-at-the-heels lay minister I feared nothing. So the damned fool leaves it with me and starts staggering around replenishing his thirsty liquor cabinet with the blurred math he always had, meaning a 20 percent markup on every bottle for me, and I do this stupid playacting as I delicately lift the money bag and take it to the kitchen. Funny part is, the boy had such an attitude about himself he thought I was being used by him, I mean this unbreakable attitude. Hair tossed back and forth like some genius conductor and sweat popping out on his forehead like fury. Well, when they walk right into the vault with money for you, you take it. He asked this sum minus his tab be refrigerated against the IRS or other long noses and I said you have it, I’m like an eagle on it.

He said it was the last of his uncle’s preacher money. Maybe he didn’t hear me say, “Indeed it is.” He couldn’t understand anything anyhow, you know that stretched careful way the very drunk have when they think nobody suspects but they are sober. My god, this boy lived in that outfit, always in a play doing sobriety over and over, the fool. So you know what a colossal gift he was to anybody needing an edge. You didn’t need much but to fake complete assurance it was business us usual.

Soon enough he flat out told me he was burning things. The church fires up and down the river were all over the papers and television. I doubted he was fit to take off from his labors at the bottle, this kid could do two a day, but he kept talking, in that god-awful shrieking whisper he thought was most confidential. Sure it was, all the way to Louise’s ears and the ears of Tico and Rez on the back loading dock in this large whiskey palace, working the airport and the filthy alumni who can’t get rid of their lucre fast enough when they’re here buying memories, all of them in some form of Colonel Rebel, the mascot, who looks like he could put away more than his rightful serving. If you want to know, I might not look it, but I could be half these sporting fools in button-downs and penny loafers and executive jets.

Not to get off my story, I listened to him about burning and it began to ring true. Because when he isn’t lying he takes a long time combing a part in his sweated-up hair, like he wants nothing to impede his veracity.

Still, how could he manage to do all that climbing and heaving of his demolitions and accelerants and stay out of suspicion all by his drunk self? Then it snuck out that he didn’t. I spotted somebody in the parking lot preparing to enter the shop and quieted him. The man wanted a golf cart to buy or rent and I kept a fleet of Harley-Davidson carts just next to the entrance to College Hill Road where lies the golf course. I don’t have a trade that doesn’t prosper.

But all through his histrionics I was in a state of delight because I do hate a church. I’ve been cast into darkness by many a preacher for the booze and the Used Auto. Isn’t it funny I get along fine with Dr. Quarles the Fourth at Pickwick in the condos and chicken-wing joint, although his massive church was also exploded. No dead, as with the big Roman Catholic cathedral. I say I was delighted, I was in fine fettle, anxious to get back to hear Bell’s whispery screaming and believing it.

Our good buddies the firebugs had a wonderful supply of napalm from some loosely guarded armory, I’d say the National Guard at any of a dozen bases. They’re even more prone to accidental leakage than our fine army, which is a laugh when you say security . You can’t imagine the waste in our services. There’s not a lost and found office big enough. I should know it, I worked this lostness personally for five years. Before they caught on to me. A small nation could whip California with just the crap that rolls off a convoy or an army railroad caravan. I know an old boy took home a fully operating.50 cal and ammo for a souvenir when his time was up. Now that is class.

But back to ready delight. I gave the man after the golf cart a good buy. If you keep a part of your trade fair then they’ll stand in line to be cheated next time. Et cetera with the drunk Bell boy.

He had got all mysterious but had two half gallons in front of him on the counter. He was hinting at something but was too drunk to get the right hint in, so I got immoderate. What in hell are you trying to say, just say it, you overdressed sputtering fool! So thick drunk he didn’t even take this insult in, although he knew I wanted the secret from him. Thing is, he didn’t give it to me promptly, and swore this business was very tight and dangerous. So next day I had my car curbside across the street just to watch what unfolded out of his grand apartment on the square. Soon enough, Wilkes Bell came down the stairs followed by a gent of middle age but holding it well and with that unmistakable rigor in the back you get from serious military time. They can’t help it. They don’t even know how to slouch anymore. A suit on them looks like a costume from a foreign nation. I guess it’s us lowly sergeants that get familiar with our slouches. Yes he stepped along in something rich, Brit, bespoke . I learned that term from Mrs. Ferguson in Cape Girardeau, Missouri. You could hear his heels click across the street, a man in a clicking contest when all they were up to was eating at the Bottle Tree Bakery on West Van Buren, bagel, lox, cream cheese. Big deal. Or you would’ve supposed it was because heel-clicker was deeply studious, and drunk (yes, eight in the morning) Bell was trying to ape his manner like an earnest monk. I knew our older fellow was the other fireman. He had hard eyes and that sort of dismissal of everybody in front of him so as soon as they quit helping him they ceased to exist. A major hate engine in him set on fast idle when it wasn’t wholly engaged.

Well I eased off to my much lesser acres without being seen, of course. If I play the better-looking half of my face right folks simply forget me, and I don’t mind, I work in the murk just fine. The other side makes people drop their dinner fork. I don’t mind, I just hate my parents for not having the drive to get me better treatment. They didn’t have the drive to learn their own language. I got my decent English from a middle-aged blonde woman with good legs who took pity on me and my temporary passion for books. I was so depressed I had no passion that lasted long. But she lasted long, Mrs. Ferguson. I wanted a style and she came near giving it to me. Another life. I’d been a harmless drudge at everything. Just lucky, I guess, best of both worlds even though my freedoms came late. I have finer points due to Mrs. Ferguson. You will see them, along with brotherhood, compassion, mercy. But I do hate church and loved the broken hearts all warming themselves by blackened rafters, warm stone, and melted glass.