The Pallbearer, page 4
“What the fuck are you doing in here?” the pale man asked.
The woman on the stage stopped her dancing, and for a moment, Terry believed she might cover her bare legs, but she just waited as grinding blues wailed from the speakers.
“I came to see Mr. Gilbert,” Terry said.
The words came as involuntarily as vomit, but they stopped the pale man coming towards him. The bearded man placed a finger between the pages of his newspaper to mark his place.
“Go get him, Jeff,” the man with the newspaper said.
The pale man seemed ready to protest, but turned and opened a door behind the stage.
“What’s that thing called?” Terry asked the dancing woman.
“What thing?” she asked. Her voice sounded soft against the
music.
“That thing ‘round your stomach. Ladies in old movies wear them.”
“A corset,” she said. “It makes your waist smaller.”
“Does it hurt?”
“Not too bad.” She seemed to weight her answer.
Terry was about to ask more when the man called him over. Inside the back room, Ferris Gilbert sat behind a desk covered in newspapers. Several craters filled the wall behind him where someone had ripped free hunks of plaster trying to extract some nails. A single bare bulb lit the room and cast long shadows that made Gilbert look different in the low light. His previous beard, long and coarse like porcupine quills, had been trimmed down. His fingertips, smeared with ink that converged with his tattoos, struggled with the knot in his red necktie.
“I’ll give you a minute to get yourself together,” Ferris said. “But I’ve gotta be at court soon. You can’t just sit there and shake all morning.”
Terry sat in front of Ferris’ desk and smoothed the wrinkles of his dirty shirt. He could smell himself in the small room, a reek hidden under the baby powder he doused his body with before going to work. Aside from applying a wet washcloth to his armpits and genitals, he hadn’t washed in three days. Ferris didn’t seem to notice. He barely breathed as he waited on Terry to stop fidgeting in the uncomfortable wooden chair. Something about his patience implied time only affected others.
“I can tell you don’t have it,” Ferris said. “But I also know you’ve been trying to get it. That right?”
“Yes.”
“What were you doing for it?”
“Some construction.”
“And what else?” Ferris asked.
“I robbed a house over on Fuller Street.”
Ferris nodded. “Make out okay?” It was the first time he didn’t seem bored.
“Not enough.”
“Might have, though. Might have gotten close anyway, but something sidetracked you.”
Heat flushed Terry’s chest and the skin at the nap of his neck tightened. Rumors hadn’t prepared him for this. Sitting alone in the back room, it occurred to Terry how calm Ferris seemed, as if Ferris could throttle him as easy as wringing a chicken’s neck and just get back to whatever business had stained his hands.
“I guess so,” Terry said.
“Ain’t nothing to guess,” Ferris said. “Them pills got the better of you.”
Even without meth teeth and the scratching of B-movie junkies, Terry was embarrassed that Ferris could look at him and know how weak he was against the ache to use.
“I’ve got two hundred on me.” Terry said. “It’s every cent I can manage now. You give me some time to get back to hitting the houses, and I’ll have more.”
“More that you’ll spend,” Ferris said. “You can’t walk on two hundred.”
Ferris retrieved a small revolver from the top drawer and placed it on the desk. Terry’s father owned countless guns over the years. As a boy, Terry had carried, cleaned, and shot most of them, but the gun in front of him seemed different from the rest. Firearms in his father’s house were always preserved behind the locked glass of their cabinet and unloaded. He could see the dull brass of bullets filling the cylinder of this weapon. No doubt its barrel had been stuck to at least one man’s cheek. Terry imagined feeling it’s barrel pressed against his lips like a silencing finger.
“Are you seventeen yet?” Ferris asked.
“Not till December.”
“I know a bit about your situation,” Ferris said. “Your dad kicked you out, and now you’re living up in the hills. Personally, I think it’s a shame, but that doesn’t mean I’m not about to use it to my advantage.”
Terry didn’t reply. He wasn’t surprised Ferris knew as much as he did, but waited to see if Davey or his father would be brought into their negotiations. With Gilbert, nothing would be off limits.
“What I mean is, you and I are about to enter into an agreement. No, that’s not the word I’m looking for.” Ferris chewed his lower lip as he searched his vocabulary. “An obligation.” He tapped the gun with a tattooed finger. “You do this one thing, and all debts are forgiven. I give you a bag of pills and Willis out there drives you to Pittsburgh, Lexington, Knoxville. Hell, anywhere within three hundred miles where you can have pavement underfoot and plenty of lights at night.”
“What do I have to do?” Terry asked.
Ferris slid the gun forward. “I want you to kill Sheriff Thompson.”
Just that easy. A man asking him to murder as simply as asking to borrow something from a toolshed.
Terry shook his head. “I’d be better off letting you shoot me.”
“I know it ain’t much of a choice, but you’ll do it. You’ve got no other options except a certainty you don’t wanna meet. Afterwards, we’re square. Nothing more owed. By you or any of your kin.”
Gilbert pushed the gun closer. Two of his fingers lingered on the handle and traced slow circles in the wood grain until Terry picked it up. The grip felt warm and solid in his hand.
“Anywhere I wanna go afterward?” he asked.
“Anywhere within three hundred miles.”
Terry closed his eyes and pictured the sort of tall buildings he’d seen on television, tried to conjure the sound of a city, the constant nature of something that sustained such a mass of life. He’d never been fifteen miles outside of Lynch and couldn’t comprehend what it would be like to look up at a building the size of one of his mountains. Not something solid and from the earth, but crafted by men and populated by more than deer and raccoons. Perhaps he could send word to Davey and they could have a real place together, the sort of home that didn’t have to be hidden. Terry rested the gun against his knee, then stood and left without Gilbert dismissing him.
He crossed the floor of the club aware of eyes on him, but refused to turn and look despite the urge to see the woman in her corset one last time, perhaps a quick glimpse of her popping the front snaps open to reveal the way its snug grip left deep imprints on her flesh, marking her the way bootheels mark the soil.
CHAPTER FOUR
BEFORE LEAVING FOR court, Huddles tried to fortify his mind. In the old days, the meditation techniques were only a way to connect with his brother. They lost so much time to Ferris’ incarceration that Huddles enjoyed just sitting quietly with him, synchronizing their breathing and clearing his mind until only the precision of the two bodies in unison mattered. The times he experienced anything remotely close to transcendence were seldom, and his memory of those occasions were indescribable. Huddles always opened his eyes knowing something had transpired, but it would be gone seconds later, leaving him thinking it was more Ferris’ influence than any real epiphany. Still, he hoped to find the displacement Ferris always mentioned, a sort of psychological sweet spot where all fears might expire.
Ferris told him when trying to overcome panic that it was important to visualize the worst possible scenario and let it become reality for a moment. Huddles closed his eyes and considered constant confinement in one of the cells. Rather than hold on to the things he loved, he wiped his memory of everything from home. He felled the trees on the mountains before they changed colors in the fall, removed the buzz in his head always left by good herb and the lingering warmth of another’s touch on his skin. Everything had to be exorcised. If Huddles were to ever endure lifelong incarceration, even Ferris would need to be lost.
After he erased the outside world, Huddles checked his pale reflection in the glass of the holding cell. Even if nothing else were tangible, if these cement walls were the only things left, Huddles knew he could survive. The knowledge gave him solace as he waited.
SIR HENDRICKS MADE Huddles change into an orange jumpsuit before shackling him. The handcuffs attached to a chain that squeezed across his belly, then trailed down and connected to similar bracelets secured on his ankles. Walking was difficult, reduced to more of an unsteady shuffle as the terrain underfoot changed from The Shell’s smooth linoleum to the parking lot’s gravel. Huddles couldn’t step up into the transport van, so Sir Hendricks helped him with a push. Already, another’s touch seemed foreign. Everything normal had begun to change. They were only in the morning light for a moment, but the sun burned Huddles’ eyes and the air felt too full in his lungs after days of the recycled breath in his cell. He wondered if freedom would ever feel normal again.
Officer Fitzgerald, a giant black man with arms like country hams, locked him in behind the steel screen that separated prisoners from the van’s cab and they rode down the hill, merging onto the interstate towards Lynch. The highway unwound around mountains that had been blasted back to make room for the road. Their jagged rock faces carved away in levels that resembled great stone staircases. Higher up on the rolling peaks, Huddles could see the trees had been cut back. The mining companies were supposed to reclaim the land by planting saplings and grass, but he couldn’t see any sign of renewal. The Eco boys from the university would come soon to take pictures for their pamphlets and blogs.
They took the Lynch exit and came down off the incline of the highway, speeding past the larger homes built on the outskirts, the little bit of money in the county trying to move as far from town as possible. Huddles looked at the mock plantation houses with gazebos in their manicured yards, big wooden front porches with pergolas behind wrought iron gates. He didn’t envy them their counterfeit southern charm. It made him proud that he and Ferris lived above the trashiest club in town even though they’d squirreled away more cash than anyone in this hick suburbia. Out the window, wealth petered away as they approached downtown.
The Lynch County court house looked as if it were hued out of granite. The steps polished stone and the front archway adorned with beautiful sculptures of pioneer men dipping their hands into wild streams, women by log cabins and animals peering through a deep thicket of trees. Huddles didn’t get the chance to observe them closely. The van drove past, pulled down an alley and they took him inside through a basement that smelled of old floodwaters. They rode the rickety elevator to the fifth floor where a bailiff waited. He was an old man, the corners of his mouth covered by an overgrown mustache. A long-barreled revolver rode high on his left hip as he ran a handheld metal detector over Huddles despite the chains.
“That necessary?” Huddles asked.
The bailiff just stared. Huddles looked past him and saw Mitchum. He’d changed even though his visit was only hours ago. A fresh charcoal suit, his shirt a bright white with a bowtie that hadn’t wilted against his collar despite the humidity. A briefcase rested between his oxblood wingtips.
“Just like we discussed,” Mitchum whispered to him.
The courtroom was nearly empty inside. Just rows of bare benches, two tables up front with only the prosecutor sitting as he flipped through a pad of notes. Ferris sat hidden in the far corner of the final row, his arms hung over the back of the bench in front of him and his chin resting on the wood. Sheriff Thompson sat up front in his uniform, hat on his knee as if he were in church.
Mitchum left Huddles alone at the table while he spoke to the prosecutor. The old man gripped the other lawyer’s padded shoulder, and leaned in close to make sure no one else heard their conversation. Huddles glanced behind him to where Sheriff Thompson sat fiddling with his hat. Once he was caught looking, the sheriff offered a wink that made Huddles avert his eyes.
Mitchum jabbed Huddles hard in his ribs. “Fuck him. I want you to focus.”
“What did the prosecutor say?” Huddles asked.
“That you wouldn’t be going home. Not even with a bracelet.”
The bailiff made the introduction for Judge Wallace and everyone stood as he entered the court. Huddle expected robes, but the judge wore only a blue blazer and a striped tie. His hair was an elaborate comb-over, the thinning wave matted down with hair spray until it resembled a collapsed orca fin. Mitchum started in on the judge before he could take his seat.
“Your Honor, I request these shackles be removed from my client. No reason he should be treated like a criminal at this proceeding.”
“It’s just me, Counselor,” Judge Wallace said. “There isn’t any jury to influence.”
Huddles imagined a smirk must be growing across Thompson’s face.
“Your client has been charged with possession of a controlled substance with intent to deliver, resisting arrest, and carrying an unlicensed concealed weapon. How does the defendant plead?”
“Not guilty, your Honor.”
Judge Wallace rubbed his temples. “Very well.”
“Your Honor, we request that my client be remanded to the custody of his brother until the time of the trial. He has no prior criminal record and is not a flight risk.”
The prosecutor stood, hands smoothing his pinstripe slacks as he began to speak. Each word came out succinct and clear in a way Huddles rarely heard from a mountain vernacular. The man probably won most arguments solely with elocution.
“I have to object, Judge Wallace. These are very serious charges, and I think we are all aware of the reputation of the accused’s brother in our community. The man is a known felon and is suspected in several unsolved cases. Sending this boy home with him is a true disservice. Both to the community and the boy himself.”
Mitchum started to speak, but Judge Wallace pronounced over him. “The accused will be remanded to the custody of The Shelby Youth Correctional Facility until the time of trial. He will be safe in state custody, but accessible to both family and council. We’re dismissed.”
No gavel cracked. Judge Wallace just walked out as Sir Hendricks took Huddles by the arm.
“What’s that mean?” Huddles asked.
“It means ‘stay hard.’”
WHEN THEY RETURNED to the alley, Sir Hendricks loaded Huddles into the back of the van and checked his chains. That morning, Hendricks carried a book under his arm titled The Art of Medieval Combat. The book, along with the scars, were enough to finally pin down where the name came from. Huddles imagined Sir Hendricks clad in chain mail, a helm with an open visor under his arm as he stepped onto some renaissance fairground, ready to duel with other men still wallowing in the past. It even made sense why Hendricks allowed the nickname. He didn’t understand they were mocking him.
Hendricks loosened the chains a bit until they jostled. The double doors were just closing as a voice rang out.
“Wait a minute,” Sheriff Thompson said. Sir Hendricks stepped aside as Thompson filled the van’s opening with his girth. This close, he smelled of damp polyester and oiled patented leather.
“I told you how this would go,” Sheriff Thompson said. He reached inside the van and rubbed his palms over the steel cage. “I’d like to think this would be an eye opener.”
“I told you I haven’t got anything to say,” Huddles said.
Thompson raised his hand in a gesture of dismissal. “That brother of yours must be pretty goddamned scary. Keep in mind, Shane will have more to say every day.”
HUDDLES MADE IT back to The Shell in time to attend Counselor Beverly’s group. Woods, a redneck boy from Pocahontas County, was discussing his recent breakup. It seemed like boring stuff to Huddles, but a smaller black boy resting against a pair of crutches assured him it was better than the typical stuff on the dangers of cigarettes and childcare. Huddles almost thought he must be joking about these therapeutic topics. He counted at least three junkies in the circle.
Aside from his brief freedom during Recreation, Huddles hadn’t spent any time with the B-Unit boys. They all knew him by reputation, but his isolation had kept him from any interactions. They weren’t what he expected. Aside from OUTLAUW tattooed across the side of Woods’ neck, the boys were clean cut. Most were scrawny, baby-faced with ears not yet grown into, shaved heads or frizzy cowlicks. A few had high voices as if their balls were still dropping. The only common factor Huddles noticed were their eyes. Every set whether green, brown, blue or hazel had the same rheumy vacancy only interrupted by each blink. A bloodshot stare as if their brains had atrophied and only the reptilian portions remained. It was the defeated look common to boys raised in the system.
Group therapy didn’t seem to be working, but Counselor Beverly looked the part. Middle aged and attractive. The only soft-hearted woman in the place. It was the other counselor Huddles couldn’t figure. Counselor Felts was a shrunken dwarf in a black cashmere overcoat that looked a hundred years old. According to the rumors Huddles heard, Counselor Felts was never without the coat, its double-breasted front usually buttoned to the neck like a priest’s cassock. Such a holy role would have been a better fit for Counselor Felts. He looked out of place surrounded by taller men in uniforms, their arms ropes of muscle used to intimidate the delinquents. Counselor Felts looked too delicate, his long pianist’s fingers often shaped like a steeple as he sat and listened, brow furrowed while Woods continued with his romantic woes.
