Donald Pollock - The Devil All the Time

The Reds came up to bat, and Hank began thinking about Cincinnati. Sometime soon, he was going to drive down to the River City and see a doubleheader. His plan was to buy a good seat, drink beer, stuff himself with their hot dogs. He’d heard wieners tasted better in a ballpark, and he wanted to find out for himself. Cincinnati was just ninety miles or so on the other side of the Mitchell Flats, a straight shot down Route 50, but he’d never been there, hadn’t been any farther west than Hillsboro his entire twenty-two years. Hank had the feeling that his life would really begin once he made that trip. He didn’t have the details all figured out yet, but he also wanted to buy a whore after the games were over, some pretty girl who would treat him nice. He’d pay her extra to undress him, pull off his pants and shoes. He was going to buy a new shirt for the occasion, stop in at Bainbridge on his way down and get a decent haircut. He’d remove her clothes slowly, take his time with each little button or whatever it was that whores fastened their clothes with. He’d spill some whiskey on her titties and lick it off, like he heard some of the men talk about when they came in the store after having a few up at the Bull Pen. When he finally got inside her, she’d tell him to take it easy, that she wasn’t used to being with a man his size. She wouldn’t be anything like that loudmouth Mildred McDonald, the only woman he’d ever been with so far.

“One little pop,” Mildred had told everyone at the Bull Pen, “and then nothing but smoke.” That had been over three years ago, and people still razzed him about it. The whore in Cincinnati would insist that he keep his money after he finished with her, ask him for his phone number, maybe even beg him to take her away. He figured he’d probably come back home a different person, just like Slim Gleason had when he returned from the Korean War. Before he left Knockemstiff for good, Hank thought he might even stop in at the Bull Pen and buy some of the boys a farewell beer, just to show there weren’t any hard feelings about all the jokes. In a way, he supposed, Mildred had done him a favor; he’d put away a lot of money since he’d quit going up there.

He was half listening to the game and thinking about the dirty way Mildred had done him when he noticed someone with a flashlight walking up through Clarence’s pasture. He saw the small figure bend down and slip through the barbwire fence and head toward him. It was nearly dark now, but as the person got closer, Hank realized it was the Russell boy. He’d never seen the boy off the hill by himself before, heard his father wouldn’t allow it. But they’d buried his mother just this afternoon, and maybe that had changed things, softened the Russell man’s heart a little. The boy was wearing a white shirt and a pair of new overalls. “Hey there,” Hank said as Arvin got closer. The boy’s face was gaunt and sweaty and pale. He didn’t look good, not good at all. It looked like he had blood or something smeared on his face and clothes.

Arvin stopped a few feet from the storekeeper and turned off the flashlight. “The store’s closed,” Hank said, “but if you need something, I can open back up.”

“How would a person go about getting hold of the law?”

“Well, either cause some trouble or call them on the telephone, I reckon,” Hank said.

“Could you call ’em for me? I ain’t never used a telephone before.”

Hank reached in his pocket and turned the radio off. The Reds were getting clobbered anyway. “What do you want with the sheriff, son?”

“He’s dead,” the boy said.

“Who is?”

“My dad,” Arvin said.

“You mean your mom, don’t you?”

A confused look came over the boy’s face for a moment, then he shook his head. “No, my mom’s been dead three days. I’m talking about my dad.”

Hank stood up and reached in his pants for the keys to the back door of the store. He wondered if maybe the boy had gone simple with grief. Hank remembered the rough time he’d gone through when his own mother passed. It was something a person never really got over, he knew that. He still thought about her every day. “Come on inside. You look thirsty.”

“I ain’t got no money,” Arvin said.

“That’s all right,” Hank said. “You can owe me.”

They went inside and the storekeeper slid the top of the metal pop cooler open. “What kind you like?”

The boy shrugged.

“Here’s a root beer,” Hank said. “That’s the kind I used to drink.” He handed the boy the bottle of pop and scratched at his day-old beard. “Now your name’s Arvin, ain’t it?”

“Yes, sir,” the boy said. He set his flashlight down on the counter and took a long drink and then another.

“Okay, so what makes you think there’s something wrong with your daddy?”

“His neck,” Arvin said. “He cut himself.”

“That ain’t blood you got on you, is it?”

Arvin looked down at his shirt and his hands. “No,” he said. “It’s pie.”

“Where is your dad?”

“A little ways from the house,” the boy said. “In the woods.”

Hank reached under the counter for the phone book. “Now look,” he said, “I don’t mind calling the law for you, but don’t be fooling with me, okay? They don’t take kindly to wild-goose chases.” Just a couple of days ago, Marlene Williams had him call and report another window peeper. It was the fifth time in just two months. The dispatcher had hung up on him.

“Why would I do that?”

“No,” Hank said. “I guess you wouldn’t.”

After he made the call, he and Arvin went out the back door and Hank picked up his beers. They walked around and sat down on the bench in front of the store. A cloud of moths fluttered around the security light that stood over the gas pumps. Hank thought about the beating the boy’s daddy had given Lucas Hayburn last year. Not that he probably didn’t deserve it, but Lucas hadn’t been right since. Just yesterday, he had sat on this bench all morning bent over with a gob of spit hanging from his mouth. Hank opened another beer and lit a smoke. He hesitated a second, then offered the boy one from his pack.

Arvin shook his head and took another drink of the pop. “They ain’t pitching horseshoes tonight,” he said after a couple of minutes.

Hank looked up the holler, saw the lights on at the Bull Pen. Four or five cars were parked in the yard. “Must be taking a break,” the storekeeper said, leaning back against the wall of the store and stretching his legs out. He and Mildred had gone to the hog barn over at Platter’s Pasture. She said she liked the rich smell of the pig manure, liked to imagine things a little different than most girls.

“What is it you like to imagine?” Hank had asked her, a little worry in his voice. For years, he had listened to boys and men talk about getting laid, but not once had any of them said anything about hog shit.

“That ain’t none of your business what’s in my head,” she told him. Her chin was sharp as a hatchet, her eyes like lusterless gray marbles. Her only redeeming feature was the thing between her legs, which some had said reminded them of a snapping turtle.

“Okay,” Hank said.

“Let’s see what you got,” Mildred said, tugging at his zipper and pulling him down in the dirty straw.

After his miserable performance, she shoved him off and said, “Jesus Christ, I should have just played with myself.”

“I’m sorry,” he said. “You just had me worked up. It’ll be better next time.”

“Ha! I doubt very much they’ll be a next time, Bub,” she said.

“Well, don’t you at least want a ride home?” he’d asked as he was leaving. It was nearly midnight. The two-room shack she lived in with her parents over in Nipgen was a couple of hours away if she walked it.