Joe Lansdale - A Fine Dark Line

Behind the house, above all this, between railway and structure, rose an old billboard that had probably not been changed since World War II. It was a happy white woman holding a Coke, a smile as bright and wide as an idiot’s hopes.

At the corner of her smile was a rip. The wind and rain had caught the rip, torn it back a piece. Crows gathered atop the billboard, and just above the woman’s head they had done what they had done to Robert E. Lee.

The crows looked down on us as if we might be something to eat. I leaned my bicycle against the porch. Buster took out a key, pulled back the screen, unlocked the door.

“Welcome to nigger heaven,” he said.

Inside, the place was dark and smelled like stale paper. As Buster turned on the one weak overhead light, it became evident the smell was due to much of the walls being covered in shelves filled with books and magazines.

There was a closet and a little table near the wall that held a hot plate, dishes, and eating utensils. In the middle of the room was a large plank table with chairs. Against one wall, next to a bookshelf, was a narrow bed. Off center of the room was a heating stove made from an oil drum. A crooked pipe ran from it, exited through the ceiling. There was a pile of split wood lying beside it, ready for winter.

I said, “You read all these books?”

“What kind of question is that, boy? ’Course. Do you read?”

“Yes, sir.”

“You got this many books?”

“No, sir.”

“Well, you get you a collection of books. Read them, or at least try to read them. I’d offer you some cake but I don’t have any.”

“That’s all right.”

“I got coffee.”

“I don’t drink coffee much.”

“Me neither. Except every morning, during the day, and in the afternoon. I think I got a warm RC though, you want it.”

“Sure. Thanks.”

Buster put the box on the plank table, gave me the RC, started coffee. He sat at the table, removed a number of folded newspapers and clippings from the box.

“Sit down, boy. Grab a chair.”

I did, said, “What is this?”

“I told you Jukes was the janitor at the newspaper. Also the janitor at the police station and the high school. Just does the police station on the weekends. At the high school, he don’t have to do anything in the summer. When school starts up, he’s got a crew works for him. Old Jukes does all right.”

“How do these clippings help us?”

“You aren’t thinkin’, boy . . . And quit lookin’ out that back window. That girl on the billboard there, you ain’t gonna see no titties fall out or nothin’. She’s just paper.”

I blushed. Buster said, “Now don’t get upset or mad. I’m just kiddin’ with you. A man’s got to learn to joke and he’s got to learn to laugh at his own self and know it’s okay to think about titties. You don’t do that, you ain’t gonna be worth the powder it would take to blow your ass up. Thinkin’ on titties too much is preoccupation, not thinkin’ on them is sign of some kind of anemia. You listenin’?”

“Yes, sir.”

“One of the things you better learn to laugh at is the women you can’t have, ’cause they’re gonna be plenty. Now, think. Why would we want clippin’s that go back all these years?”

“I guess to read about the murder.”

“All right. Now you’re startin’ to fan the fire. But we got clippin’s here before that murder, and after it. Why is that?”

“I don’t know.”

“Things like this, sometimes they just happen. Man does the murder don’t even know why he does it. When I was in Oklahoma, time I was tellin’ you about, there was an Indian went off one morning and beat his wife to death with a stick of stove wood and set fire to the house, burned up their baby girl in her crib. He went out then and shot their dog and shot himself in the head. He wasn’t as good a shot when it come to shootin’ himself. He lived, but without his jaw. Asked why he done it. He didn’t know. Said they hadn’t been arguin’, and in fact, she was quite lovin’, and he really loved the baby, and the dog was second to none. But one mornin’ he got up and seen his wife bent over the stove, tryin’ to make his breakfast, and it just come on him. He took the stove wood and went to work. Said it seemed like a good idea at the time.”

“Did they shoot him in the heart too?”

“Didn’t execute him. Was considered made mad by the gods, or some kind of Indian evil. He was set free. Besides, he had to live with that face of his, and the bullet had punched a hole in his head and hit his brain and he wasn’t good for nothin’ after that. Limped, drank liquor, shit on himself when he wasn’t falling down. Maybe he’d have been better with a shot through the heart.

“Just because he didn’t have no pattern, rhyme, or reason, don’t mean most of this murderin’ business don’t. It usually has. Money. Love. Or more often than not, just some kind of pride gone wild. Pride makes you want money, or lack of pride does, and it makes you want love and not want to take insults. Pride is at the bottom of everything, boy, except stone crazy.”

“Does the murder of Margret and Jewel have a pattern?”

“Can’t rightly say yet, but I figure it did. What we got to figure is are these two murders linked up, or did they happen separate-like. You know, a coincidence.

“If they’re tied together, there was some reason behind it. You can figure that, you can kind of work backwards, or forwards, dependin’ on the situation. You followin’ me, boy?”

“Sort of . . . Well, not completely.”

“You see, they got what they call a morgue at the newspaper, but not for dead folks. For dead papers. Things happened long ago. These start before the murder, and after the murder. This is just the first box. Juke’s gonna get me others. But this one, it’ll take some time to look through.”

“What are we lookin’ for?”

“There’s some things we know we’re lookin’ for, and some things we don’t know about yet.”

“How will we know the things we don’t know?”

“That depends on us.”

“What do we know we’re looking for?”

“We know we’re lookin’ for any mention of the Stilwind family and this Wood family that Margret belonged to. Don’t care if it’s just somethin’ about them goin’ some place, we want to study it.”

“Goin’ some place?”

“Stilwinds. They have money, boy. They did travelin’. Society section might have somethin’ on that.”

“Why do we care where they went?”

“Maybe we don’t. But we’re gonna look at it. Gonna look at anything has to do with them. We’re gonna look for any kind of crime resembles the crimes we’re interested in, before or after. Railway killin’s, people burned up in fires, even if it’s an accident. Then, we got maybe some police files to look at.”

“Really?”

“I’m gonna trust you, Stanley. You got to be quiet about that. And you don’t want to mention the papers either, hear?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Find out I got Jukes takin’ out old police files, well, he’ll not only lose his job, he got a good chance of bein’ hurt. Or worse. I’m askin’ him a big thing just to figure on some dead white folks some years back just so you and me got somethin’ to do.”

“Why is Jukes doing it?”

“ ’Cause I once helped him out. In a big way.”

“What kind of way?”

“That’s between me and him.”

“Why are you doing it?”

“I’m bored. I wanted to keep bein’ a lawman, Stan. But after them old days, wasn’t no place for me as a colored to do nothin’ like that. I didn’t want to move up North where I might do it, ’cause it’s cold up there. Besides, they ain’t no better than here. Just say they are.”