Ron Rash - Chemistry and Other Stories

“Leonard’s got beer. His is cheaper and it ain’t piss-warm like what we got at Dink’s last time.”

They drove out of Marshall, following 221 toward Mars Hill. The carburetor knocked and popped as the pickup struggled up Jenkins Mountain. Soon enough Lanny figured he’d have money for a kit, maybe even enough to buy a whole new carburetor.

“You in for a treat, meeting Leonard,” Shank said. “They ain’t another like him, leastways in this county.”

“I heard tell he was a lawyer once.”

“Naw, he just went to law school a few months. They kicked his ass out because he was stoned all the time.”

After a mile they turned off the blacktop and onto a dirt road. On both sides what had once been pasture was now thick with blackjack oak and briars. They passed a deserted farmhouse and turned onto another road no better than a logging trail.

The woods opened into a small meadow, at the center a battered green and white trailer, its windows painted black. On one side of the trailer a satellite dish sprouted like an enormous mushroom, on the other side a Jeep Cherokee, its back fender crumpled. Two Dobermans scrambled out from under the trailer, barking as they raced toward the truck. They leaped at Lanny’s window, their claws raking the door as he quickly rolled up the window.

The trailer door opened and a man with a gray ponytail and wearing only a pair of khaki shorts stepped onto the cinder-block steps. He yelled at the dogs and when that did no good he came out to the truck and kicked at them until they slunk back from where they had emerged.

Lanny looked at a man who wasn’t any taller than himself and looked to outweigh him only because of a stomach that sagged over the front of his shorts like a half-deflated balloon.

“That’s Leonard?”

“Yeah. The one and only.”

Leonard walked over to Shank’s window.

“I got nothing but beer and a few nickel bags. Supplies are going to be low until people start to harvest.”

“Well, we likely come at a good time then.” Shank turned to Lanny. “Let’s show Leonard what you brought him.”

Lanny got out and pulled back the branches and potato sacks.

“Where’d you get that from?” Leonard asked.

“Found it,” Lanny said.

“Found it, did you. And you figured finders keepers.”

“Yeah,” said Lanny.

Leonard let his fingers brush some of the leaves.

“Looks like you dragged it through every briar patch and laurel slick between here and the county line.”

“There’s plenty of buds left on it,” Shank said.

“What you give me for it?” Lanny asked.

Leonard lifted each stalk, looking at it the same way Lanny had seen buyers look at tobacco.

“Fifty dollars.”

“You trying to cheat me,” Lanny said. “I’ll find somebody else to buy it.”

As soon as he spoke Lanny wished he hadn’t, because he’d heard from more than one person that Leonard Hamby was a man you didn’t want to get on the wrong side of. He was about to say that he reckoned fifty dollars would be fine but Leonard spoke first.

“You may have an exalted view of your entrepreneurial abilities,” Leonard said.

Lanny didn’t understand all the words but he understood the tone. It was smart-ass but it wasn’t angry.

“I’ll give you sixty dollars, and I’ll double that if you bring me some that doesn’t look like it’s been run through a hay baler. Plus I got some cold beers inside. My treat.”

“Okay,” Lanny said, surprised at Leonard but more surprised at himself, how tough he’d sounded. He tried not to smile as he thought how when he got back to Marshall he’d be able to tell his friends he’d called Leonard Hamby a cheater to his face and Leonard hadn’t done a damn thing about it but offer more money and free beer.

Leonard took a money clip from his front pocket and peeled off three twenties and handed them to Lanny. Leonard nodded toward the meadow’s far corner.

“Put them over there next to my tomatoes. Then come inside if you got a notion to.”

Lanny and Shank carried the plants through the knee-high grass and laid them next to the tomatoes. As they approached the trailer, Lanny watched where the Dobermans had vanished under it. He didn’t lift his eyes until he reached the steps.

Inside, Lanny’s vision took a few moments to adjust because the only light came from a TV screen. Strings of unlit Christmas lights ran across the walls and over door eaves like bad wiring. A dusty couch slouched against the back wall. In the corner Leonard sat in a fake-leather recliner patched with black electrician’s tape. Except for a stereo system, the rest of the room was shelves filled with books and CDs. Music was playing, music that didn’t have any guitars or words.

“Have a seat,” Leonard said and nodded at the couch.

A woman stood in the foyer between the living room and kitchen. She was a tall, bony woman, and the cutoff jeans and halter top she wore had little flesh to hold them up. She’d gotten a bad sunburn and there were pink patches on her skin where she’d peeled. To Lanny she mostly looked wormy and mangy, like some stray dog around a garbage dump. Except for her eyes. They were a deep blue, like a jaybird’s feathers. If you could just keep looking into her eyes, she’d be a pretty woman, Lanny told himself.

“How about getting these boys a couple of beers, Wendy,” Leonard said.

“Get them your ownself,” the woman said and disappeared into the back of the trailer.

Leonard shook his head but said nothing as he got up. He brought back two longneck Budweisers and a sandwich bag filled with pot and some rolling papers.

He handed the beers to Shank and Lanny and sat down. Lanny was thirsty, and he drank quickly as he watched Leonard carefully shake some pot out of the Baggie and onto the paper. Leonard licked the paper and twisted both ends, then lit it.

The orange tip brightened as Leonard drew the smoke in. He handed the joint to Shank, who drew on it as well and handed it back.

“What about your buddy?”

“He don’t smoke pot. Scared his daddy would find out and beat the tar out of him.”

“That ain’t so,” Lanny said. “I just like a beer buzz better.”

Lanny lifted the bottle to his lips and drank until the bottle was empty.

“I’d like me another one.”

“Quite the drinker, aren’t you,” Leonard said. “Just make sure you don’t overdo it. I don’t want you passed out and pissing on my couch.”

“I ain’t gonna piss on your couch.”

Leonard took another drag off the joint and passed it back to Shank.

“They’re in the refrigerator,” Leonard said. “You can get one easy as I can.”

Lanny stood up and for a moment felt off plumb, maybe because he’d drunk the beer so fast. When the world steadied he got the beer and sat back down on the couch. He looked at the TV, some kind of western but without the sound on he couldn’t tell what was happening. He drank the second beer quick as the first while Shank and Leonard finished smoking the pot.

Shank had his eyes closed.

“Man, I’m feeling good,” he said.

Lanny studied Leonard who sat in the recliner, trying to figure out what it was that made Leonard Hamby a man you didn’t want to mess with. Leonard looked soft, Lanny thought, white and soft like bread dough. Just because a man had a couple of mean dogs didn’t make him such a badass, he told himself. He thought about his own daddy and Linwood Toomey, big men you could look at and tell right away you’d not want to cross them. Lanny wondered if anyone would ever call him a badass and wished again that he didn’t take after his mother, who was short and thin-boned.

“What’s this shit you’re listening to, Leonard?” Lanny said.