Joe Lansdale - A Fine Dark Line

“Old Man Stilwind starts to give you trouble, it might come in handy. Guess you could say it’s a kind of insurance. You might want to make a copy of it and show it to the old man, tell him the real copy is put away and you got another copy written out and with a friend. That would be me. Here’s the address where he’s stayin’. I had Jukes get it for me.”

“Is there anything Jukes can’t find out?”

“My exact age, and that’s about it. You do this thing, I think your problems with that old Stilwind cracker will be over.”

———

NEXT MORNING, I awoke to find Richard lying on the floor of my room, twisted up in a blanket, clutching his pillow. Nub had taken his spot on the bed, and was lying on his back with his feet in the air, his tongue hanging out.

I got up, grabbed some clothes, went to the bathroom, brushed my teeth, combed my hair and got dressed. I came back to he room to find Richard sitting up, looking bewildered.

“Don’t like sharin’ a bed?” I said.

“Nub kept licking me.”

I got the piece of paper Buster had given me out of the sock drawer and took a pencil and paper and copied down word for word the police report. I put the original back in my sock drawer.

“I got to go into town today,” I said, folding the copy, poking it into my pants pocket. “I’m going to go before Daddy or Mom asks about me. I’ll be back soon as I can.”

“I’ll go with you . . . If that’s okay?”

“I guess . . . Listen, maybe I ought not tell you this, but if you go with me, you ought to know. I need to have someone else who knows anyway, as a kind of backup.”

I took the folded piece of paper Buster had given me out of my sock drawer, gave it to Richard to read.

When he finished, he said, “I don’t get it.”

I explained it to him. I told him a lot of stuff. One thing that can be said about me, I’m a regular blabbermouth. But I didn’t tell him about Buster and Bubba Joe. I didn’t even remind him of the night we had been chased together.

“So, you’re gonna give him this, way Buster told you?”

“I’m going to give him a copy of it. That’s what I was writing.”

I took the paper from Richard, folded it, and returned it to the sock drawer.

“Well, let’s get to doin’.”

“First, you go wash your face, brush your teeth, and comb your hair. I’ve got a toothbrush and a comb for you. Rest is in the bathroom downstairs.”

———

AS USUAL on a Saturday, the town was bustling. Since Richard didn’t have a bike, we walked. We went by the picture show, and I walked fast as we went, tried not to look through the glass doors to see if I could see James, but I couldn’t help myself.

I didn’t see him.

We walked over to the hotel where Mr. Stilwind lived. In the lobby, we looked around and wondered what to do. A young man behind a counter smiled at us and beckoned us over. He wore a black suit and white shirt and his hair was slicked down flat against his head. He looked like the kind of guy Callie might find attractive.

He said, “May I help you boys?”

“I need to see Mr. Stilwind.”

“Are you kin?”

“No.”

“I believe I should call him. May I tell him what this is about?”

“Tell him Susan and her baby.”

“Susan and her baby?”

“Yes.”

“Should I elaborate on that?”

“No. He’ll know.”

“Very well.”

He called up, spoke what I had told him over the phone. When he put down the receiver, he said, “He’ll be right down. Would you like to make yourself comfortable.”

We went over and sat in some big soft chairs. After a moment, the elevator dropped, opened, and out stepped Stilwind, all dressed in black, looking as if he were about to go to a funeral. The only thing missing was his hat.

He saw me, startled, then came over. “You,” he said.

I hadn’t really noticed before, and maybe it was the harsh sunlight slipping between the great hotel curtains, but up close his face was as marked with wrinkles as a henhouse floor with chicken scratches. He looked ten years older than I had first thought him to be, and I hadn’t thought him to be a spring chicken then.

“I got something for you,” I said.

“An apology from your father . . . He decide to take my offer? It’s still open, you know.”

“No, sir. He would want me to tell you to cram your offer where the sun doesn’t shine. I have a copy of something. This was written by Chief Rowan. It has to do with you and your daughter Susan. We have the original put away in a safe place. This is a copy I made.”

I gave it to him. He read it. His face turned pale. He held the paper in his hand as if he had suddenly discovered a snake there.

“That’s your copy,” I said.

“I assume this young man knows about it?”

“As well as others.”

“If everyone knows, why should it matter to me?”

“Not everyone knows. Me and a few others.”

“Adults?”

“Yes. I told enough people so I’d have backup. I want my family left alone.”

“Your father put you up to this?”

“No. If my father wanted to do something about this, he’d come over and beat you and throw you down the stairs and drag you through the street and set you on fire. He doesn’t know about it.”

Stilwind’s face moved, tried to find an expression, settled on a sneer.

“How do I know you have the original?”

“How do you think I made this copy? Think I’d give you the only copy?”

“How did you come by it?”

“That’s my business.”

“You know the chief?”

“Never met him, never heard of him until recently.”

“He isn’t in on this?”

“No.”

“You want money, of course. Money for your silence.”

“No. I want you to leave my family alone. No made-up safety problems for the police or the fire department to inspect out at our drive-in. No problems from you of any kind.”

“I can’t be responsible for anything you think might be my fault.”

“That’s your problem.”

“You sound awfully grown-up for a kid. Awful mean.”

I did sound grown-up, and I was proud of it.

“I’m not mean. You made a threat to my family. This is a way of keeping things where they belong. The only thing left is your son, James. He better never come within fifty feet of any of my family.”

“And what about this boy?”

“You don’t need to know who he is, but he counts too. You stay away from him.”

“Gladly. Is that all, you little worm?”

“Yes, sir. That’s it. The Worm has spoken.”

———

OUT ON THE STREET, in the hot sunshine, I was ecstatic. What I had done had been Buster’s idea, not mine, of course, but I was proud of myself. I liked the way I had talked, the sound of my voice. Richard was very impressed, and told me so.

“Man, you had him by the short hairs.”

“The short hairs? What’s that mean?”

“I don’t know exactly, but I’ve heard it. You were really good in there.”

“Thanks.”

As we walked past Harriman’s Feed and Seed, Mr. Chapman came out. He was wearing a sweat-stained brown hat and was carrying a large bag of fertilizer. He didn’t see us at first. We froze. He eased down the steps to the curb and dumped the bag into the back of his old rickety black pickup, made it companion to a half dozen other bags there.

When he looked up, he saw us. There was something about his face that I can’t describe. A kind of blankness as far as his features went, but his eyes, they were as dark and nasty-looking as a dying animal’s.

“You,” he said to Richard. “You had a punishment.”

“I ain’t gonna take no more of that,” Richard said.