The Ravaged, page 12
“Get old, you move to the heat, keep the circulation flowing. I hate to hear that. Your daddy was a good guy. Hell, we drank together quite a few times.”
“Appreciate that.”
“Well, we best be getting over here. Good seeing you, Archie,” Sid tells him.
“Nice meeting you,” Hunter says.
“Take care of yourself, Hunter. Keep safe on your travels, and try to keep Sid here in line.”
“I’ll do my best.”
Hunter and Sid cross the marred tiles to their table and slide into their chairs. Felicia brings everyone’s drinks out. Her denim cutoffs brush up against Hunter as she tells Sid, “Orville’s heating up the fryer now, so your orders should be out in less than an hour.”
“Sounds good, hon. Thanks.”
“You’re welcome. Need anything, give me a shout.” As she says this, Felicia is still giving Hunter interested eyes. She walks back to the bar.
“Think you got an admirer there, boss man,” Itch tells Hunter.
“That ain’t happening. I got a girl. ’Sides, that there’s jailbait.”
“She’s around twenty-five,” Sid replies. “Serving drinks in a bar.”
“Not interested.”
Nugget takes a sip of his Maker’s and asks Sid, “Who’s the guy was mowing the lawn over at your place?”
“Dodd. Some call him the Lawnmower Man; others call him the local Sling Blade.”
“See?” Nugget says, chuckling now. “Told you guys. What’s it he says in the movie? ‘Some folks call it a Sling Blade; I call it a Kaiser Blade.’”
Itch gives a theatrical “Um-hmm.”
“He’s a little slow in the head.” Sid says. “Mows just about everyone’s lawn in Milltown. Does a damn good job. Keeps to himself. But everyone keeps an eye on him.”
Itch asks, “What’s up with the ball cap he wears? Says ‘free mustache rides.’”
“It ain’t what you think. Damn horrible thing happened years ago. His sister went missing. He lived with her. She took care of him after their parents passed away. Neither of them was in too good of health. He’s on the government’s tit, drawing disability. But any rate, she was a whore. Slept with damn near the whole county. Useta be in here hanging around every night. She had her dives. She’d hit the bowling alley and Lisa’s in Corydon. Then one day, she just up and disappeared. Eventually, she turned up down on Blue River, washed up on the bank next to a really good fishing hole. Coroner concludes she’d been strangled. Autopsy confirmed that, so I heard. Some said she was dumped in the river; others said she was dragged through the woods to the bank where she’s found. When Dodd went through all her stuff, he found that hat. It was hers. It’s all he has from when his sister was killed. Wasn’t like she accumulated much over the years—hocked or sold most of her shit for dope money. But she had disappeared for better than a week. Rumor was she was raped—was bruising around her wrists and her neck, some said from a struggle. Regardless, it was just a horrible situation.”
Hunter says, “That is pretty damn awful.”
“It is. Never found out who done it, neither.”
“That’s some real BTK shit,” Itch says.
Sid says, “BTK?” Fidgeting. He rubs his index fingers over his thumb.
“You know, ‘Bind, Torture, Kill.’ Serial killer from Kansas.” Itch says.
Hunter says, “Dennis Rader.”
Nugget says, “Guy did that shit for years. Traced one of his letters back to a computer where he attended church, busted his ass.”
“Damn.” Sid says, taking his hat off, running a hand through his wiry locks. “Imagine that. Been sitting with that same guy all those years every Sunday. Fucking creepy. I remember hearing about that in the news. Didn’t keep up with any of it. But whoever killed Dodd’s sister had folks worked up for a while, thinking there’s a killer amongst us. But most believe it was someone just passing through. Others believe it was Goat.”
Itch coughs. “Wait a minute. She fucked a goat?”
“No, no. There’s a guy in town who peddles pills, meth, and heroin. They call him Goat. Has a farm full of ’em. Some said she was into him for quite a bit on credit. He and her daddy was good friends. He grew impatient knowing she’d never pay him. She was tricking her hide to buy drugs, and then sometimes to get drugs from Goat. But that hat Dodd wears was hers. Her name was Shannon. He’s worn that hat since she was found. Never takes it off.”
“Fucking horrible,” Hunter says, “Definitely gonna need another Maker’s once this one’s gone.”
“Crazy damn world we live in,” Sid says. Sips his whiskey. “Used to see all them mama-sans overseas doing that, selling themselves to us soldiers. Crazy times.”
“Got that right,” Nugget says.
“How about a toast?” Sid asks. Bouncing his heel up and down on the floor. There’s a nervous energy about him.
Hunter says, “I’m game.”
Everyone grabs their glass, and they rattle them together above the table. Hunter tells Sid, “To old times and camping.”
“Amen to that,” Sid says, and the glasses clink.
Each man takes a sip, and Sid asks, “What’ve you been up to out in the Carolinas?”
“Fixing and building bikes. Had my own shop for a while, working out of my garage. Then had a guy approach me about a new shop he’s opening. Worked for him about five years. But it was wearing on me. He was no-account. Started taking me and the other gearheads working there for granted. Then I walked in on him abusing his hound dog. So I handed him some knuckles and boot leather. Took the dog, got home and got the news about Dad, and here I am.”
Sid slaps the table, rattles everyone’s glass. “Be damn, you don’t take no shit, Hunter. Turned out to be a real cowboy!”
“Things had been headed toward me leaving for a while, maybe six months or better. Guy had turned into a real prick. I’d already done the same work from my home and made good money doing it.”
“Then why’d you start working for this other guy?” Sid asks, wriggling in his chair as if he’d stepped on a hill of fire ants.
“Thought maybe he’d have a bigger reach. And he did. It got my name out there. Built a good number of new clients who kept spreading my name, so I should be good to start back up at my home again.”
“That’s good,” Sid says. “What about a female? You ever tie the knot?”
“No, but I got a girl that lives with me. We been together three, almost four, years. She’s a real piece of work.”
Looking at Itch and Nugget. Puckering his lips after emptying his glass of Maker’s, he asks, “How about you two citizens?”
Waving a hand through the air, Nugget tells Sid, “Hell no. Women are too much trouble. I just work, ride, lift, and run around with Hunter. Ol’ Itch here, he’s got a live wire.”
“That right?”
“Not really. She just don’t take no shit.”
Sid nods. Gets up, tells Hunter and his buddies, “Gonna have to excuse me. Got a meeting with a man about a mule. I’ll get us another round of drinks after the meeting.”
Hunter watches Sid. Something seems off, but he can’t put a finger on it.
“Everything cool?” Itch asks Hunter.
“Not sure. Something’s not right with Sid. The shaking. Wandering eyes. Fidgeting in his seat. Reminds me of someone.”
Reflecting back, it reminds Hunter of his grandfather—the early stages of dementia.
Walking back toward the table, Sid begins cursing, loud and obnoxious. He has a catatonic gaze about him. “Look, I done told you, I ain’t putting up with your bullshit tonight. No. Get the hell outta my face. The boy can stay with my parents or yours, makes me no difference. You made the choice. Live with it.”
Other patrons eye Sid, but that’s as far as it goes. They just glance up, then go back to their conversations and their booze.
Hunter recognizes the look. The acting out. Remembering when he would be with his grandfather. Losing track of time. Staring at Hunter. Believing that Hunter was Hunter’s father, Hank. Questioning him. Wondering when he was going to give him a grandson. Those times killed Hunter. Not being recognized. But not recognizing his grandfather, either. It was as if he had passed from one room to the next in a house—one room decorative and bright, the next room dark and shadowed. A shift of perspective and mood. During those times near the end, Hank was home, caring for his father. Sid’s wife, Annie, who had been a nurse forever, helped Hank, giving advice and bringing food to help out.
Standing up, Hunter approaches Sid, who is yelling, “Now look at what you gone and done. Irritating and insulting my friends. They’re all seated here looking at us.” Looking at Hunter, he says, “I got it under control. It’s all good. Just don’t pay her no damn mind, Hunter.”
Hunter looks at Sid, glances to Felicia at the bar. She presses her lips together and nods vigorously, as if to say this is the norm. “Pay who no mind, Sid?” Hunter asks.
Looking around, Sid all of a sudden snaps out of his trance, just as Hunter’s grandfather used to do, and says, “The drinks. Aw, shit, I forgot about the drinks. I’ll be right back.”
Hunter touches Sid’s arm and says, “I got it. Let’s get you back to the table, get you seated.”
At the bar, Hunter asks Felicia, “How long’s this been going on with Sid?”
“Months. He has these spells. I’ve driven him home many nights. He starts talking and arguing with his wife.”
“She’s dead. I get it. My grandfather did something similar.”
“Yeah, he apparently argues with her over something she did to him.”
“Anyone ever reach out to his son?” Hunter asks.
“Blake?”
Confused, Hunter squints one eye small and asks, “Blake? Who the hell is Blake? I’m talking about Travis.”
“Travis never comes around. I’ve called him before, but he’s too busy. Blake’s the younger son. He’s come to pick Sid up several times. Pretty good guy.”
Hunter didn’t know anything about a Blake. Didn’t know that Sid had a younger son. And he’s never heard Sid mention him. He tells Felicia, “I’ve known Sid a long time. Never heard him mention a Blake.”
“From what I know, his grandparents raised him. Annie’s parents. Not sure what the story is.” Felicia looks at Hunter. Bites her lip. She wants to say something but won’t spit it out. She’s holding back. Hunter can read it in her body language.
“What’s going on? You act like you wanna say something. What’s on your tongue that you can’t spit out?”
“I don’t know how to say this. You know how I questioned you when you first came in, about being related to Sid?”
“Yeah?”
“You and Blake . . . could pass for brothers. He looks like a younger version of you.”
At a loss for words, Hunter feels suddenly trapped in an Alfred Hitchcock moment. “That’s just a coincidence. Hell, I’ve known Sid since I was fourteen. He’s never mentioned Blake. I only know of Travis. I’m forty-six. This is news to me.”
Changing the subject, Felicia clears her throat and says, “You want another round?”
“Yeah. One more round for the road,” Hunter says, digging money from his wallet. “Does this Blake live close by?”
“I think he lives over in Marengo.”
“And you—what’s your story?”
After setting four glasses on the bar, Felicia drops ice into each glass, then grabs the bottle of Maker’s. Turns it upside down and starts filling each glass. “My story . . . Well, I’m from here, went to University of Kentucky for five years. My father got sick. I came home to help my mother look after him.”
“Sorry to hear that. What’s wrong with your dad?”
“Something similar to Sid. Alzheimer’s disease. He got to be a handful for my mother.”
“That’s tough. I can only imagine. My grandfather suffered with dementia just before he passed and I left for the service.”
“Yeah, tough, but then, that’s why I’ve helped Sid. I don’t mind it. He can’t help whatever it is he’s got going on. In my mind, he’s recalling someone he loved and lost, who did something none of us know about. His mind won’t let what she did pass.”
“Hence why he’s arguing with her.”
“Love is tough,” she says. “It can drive us crazy.”
“You’re right about that.”
She cocked an eyebrow. “Any tough love driving you crazy?”
Laughing, Hunter tells her, “No. There’s love, but it’s not tough by any means.”
“That’s too bad,” Felicia says, “you already having someone.” She chuckles.
Grabbing the drinks, Hunter tells her, “Maybe in another life.”
And Felicia tells him, “Definitely in another life.”
Taking the drinks back to the table. Hunter approaches everyone, wondering why he’s never heard about Blake.
JACK
Every footstep over the sunbaked hardpan road hurts Jack’s feet. Like electric splinters traveling up his shins, knees, thighs, and into his hips and lower back. Sweat burns his eyes like strong soap as he approaches the dull yellow semi’s red brake lights on the side of the road. He reaches for the pitted chrome door handle, pulling it open. The artic breeze of cabin air feels like heaven itself. Looking up into the interior, he sees a man with close-cropped black hair. Bent over the steering wheel, smiling, he asks in accented English, “Where you going?”
Jack tells him, “I am headed anywhere north of here.”
“Sure. Get in.” The man waves Jack aboard.
With one hand already gripping the door’s handle, the other latches on to the vertical grab handle, and Jack steps up and swings himself inside. Pink-faced and groaning, limbs shaking, he realizes once he’s in the seat that he should have taken off his pack first. To lessen his weight.
Thumbing the plastic latch across his upper chest, sliding his arms out of the straps, he shrugs off the pack and holds it on his lap. Twisting around in the seat, he pulls the door shut. Breathing hard. Cold air dries his sticky skin, forming a glaze of body and road grunge.
“You can lay your pack on the floor or throw it behind you—plenty of space back there.” Jack lays his pack on the black rubber floor mat, pulls on his seat belt, and clicks it into place, and the driver puts out his hand. “Matías.”
They shake. “My name is Jack. I appreciate your kindness. You’re the first person I’ve seen all day.”
Matías looks to his side mirror, the truck jerks into motion, and he starts working up through the gears as they gain speed. They are moving forward, and Jack is sitting in air-conditioned bliss.
“You’re lucky,” the driver says. “From the direction you’re leaving, there are riots—people protesting back in Santiago.”
“What are they protesting?”
“The high transit costs, and defending human rights.”
“It’s sad. In the United States, protests are usually about guns and school shootings and police violence against minorities. The world we live in has grown full of madness.”
“It has, my friend.” Matías looks over at him and says, “You look worn. How long have you been walking?”
“I am very tired. I have been walking in the heat for what seems like many, many hours. Again, I cannot thank you enough for stopping.” Jack bends forward, pulls a bottle of water from his pack. Unclips it. Twists the cap and lifts it to his lips. Coating the dryness in his mouth, replenishing and hydrating his insides.
“It’s no problem. I travel this stretch of road often. You say you’re headed north. What draws you up there?”
Swallowing, Jack lowers the bottle, rests it on the seat between his legs. His brain feels sluggish, and he’s slow to answer, letting the cool air blast over his flesh. Mini soccer balls hang like dice from the center mirror, and the dash is lined with bobble-head dolls of what Jack supposes are soccer players, all attired in numbered jerseys.
“Yes,” he tells Matías, “I’d like to see Bolivia and then cross over to Peru and up into Colombia. I’m in no rush. I’ve nothing but time. I just want to see as much of South America as possible while I’m figuring some things out.”
A red, white, and blue flag with a single white star covers the cab’s headliner. It is the flag of Chile. And Matías tells Jack, “I can get you to the border. But first I have a delivery, to a local mine just outside Calama.”
“Whatever you can do, I greatly appreciate. And I’ll pay you if I can manage to find a Western Union. I was robbed in San Pedro, so unfortunately, I have no money to compensate you for helping me out.”
“Robbed—that’s horrible, my friend.”
Waving a hand, Jack tells him, “I deserved it. I should have paid better attention to people. But then, I figure, they needed it more than I did.”
Pursing his lips, Matías says, “You’re American, no?”
“I am, yes.”
“When I was a younger, I spent summers in America with my aunt and uncle.”
“That’s where your English comes from?”
“Yes, I learn from them when I was younger. So, what brings you to Chile? You don’t really seem the hitchhiking type. What are you, sixty?”
“I am sixty-five,” Jack says, smiling.
Laughing, Matías seems happy with himself. He tells Jack, “I usually pick up younger folks—hikers and alpinistas.”
When he thinks about it, Jack has many reasons to be in Chile. In South America. He is in search of something. Of himself. Of meaning. The meaning of what, exactly, he can’t really say. All he knew when he came was that he wanted to see something other than the things he had already seen—something other than expensive suits and manicured buildings, boardrooms, yield reports, and balance sheets. Experience something entirely new to him, perhaps. And he tells Matías, “My wife recently passed away from cancer, and I have worked all these years and accumulated all this money. Working and saving, and of all the things I’ve bought—a big house, cars—none of it matters. I found myself alone and did a lot of thinking, and I recalled something my mother had told me. Just before she died, she told me to run away and never look back. At the time, I never understood what she was talking about. For the most part, I’d forgotten all about it. But there I sat in that house, with the flowers from the funeral all wilted, brown, and dropping all their petals on our sun porch. My wife was dead, and my mother’s memory—her words hit me like a head-on collision. I realized I needed to heed my mother’s words.”
