Read A Tree Born Crooked Online
Authors: Steph Post
Tags: #Action, #Adventure, #Organized Crime, #Thriller, #Suspense, #Mystery, #Crime
A Tree Born Crooked
A Tree Born Crooked
By Steph Post
© 2014 by Steph Post
All rights reserved. Published in the United States by Pandamoon Publishing. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means—for example, electronic, photocopy, recording—without the prior written permission of the publisher. The only exception is brief quotations in printed reviews.
Jacket design and illustrations by Marc Sokolay and Zara Kramer © Pandamoon Publishing.
Pandamoon Publishing and the portrayal of a panda and a moon are registered trademarks of Pandamoon Publishing.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is on file at the Library of Congress, Washington, DC.
ISBN-10: 0990338967
ISBN-13: 978-0-9903389-6-3
For Ryan and Janet,
and for Hoss
ONE
Welcome to Sunny Florida!
A sunburnt man in a Crocodile Dundee hat poses in front of the Citrus Travel Shop. With one hand on his waist, the other raised and dangling a shellacked baby gator, the man in the postcard grins unnaturally and beckons the hapless tourist to come and visit beautiful Crystal Springs.
James turned the postcard over.
Your daddy’s dead.
You might want to
Come on home now.
There was a red smear on the bottom corner of the card that could either have been tomato sauce or blood. James figured it was most likely the sauce. There was no signature, but from the slanting and rounded letters, James knew who had sent it. Birdie Mae loved her Chef Boyardee.
The sun was low in the hazy sky and struck James directly in the eyes as it skimmed over the top of the bank of mailboxes. He squinted, then folded the postcard before shoving it into his pants pocket and reaching back into the narrow box to drag out the rest of his mail. He pulled out a flyer from the local Baptist church advertising their annual Presidents’ Day cookout, another overdue-bill notice addressed to the previous tenant, and a glossy circular with a buy-one-get-one-free hot dog coupon for 7-Eleven. James threw the flyer into the trashcan next to the mailboxes, where it joined a pile of identical pale green sheets of paper, and stuck the coupon onto the cork notice board next to ads for lawnmower repair and massage services. Someone would use it. He swung the little door to his mailbox shut and turned the key, pulling twice to yank it out. Taking the bill notice with him, he headed across the White Oleander trailer park to his singlewide.
James had only been living in the park for six months, but already he’d seen so many tenants come and go, he didn’t bother to learn their names or make acquaintances. He just waved back if they did first. A heavy man in tight jogging shorts and nothing else nodded to James from the plastic lawn chair he had set up in front of his trailer door. The man raised his beer can as he passed by, but James shook his head and kept walking. He could see the outline of a woman standing at the ripped screen door, and he had been assaulted by her ear piercing condemnations before. He did not want to be part of it this time.
Outside of James’ trailer, two boys were fighting over a yellow plastic tricycle. The younger one looked as if he had been socked in the face by the older one. James raised an eyebrow at the children and they quickly took off, dragging the tricycle between them. When James got to the steps, his neighbor’s Pomeranian rushed out from underneath the trailer and jumped between him and the door, yipping furiously. The dog’s fur was darkly matted all along one side of its tiny body. James knew better than to just step over it. He already had a rip in one pair of pants from trying that approach. Instead, James kicked one of the many nearby beer cans and the dog leapt off the steps to chase after it. He could hear the little dog’s teeth trying to puncture the aluminum as he closed the front door behind him.
James tossed the bill on the orange Formica counter next to the microwave and pulled the postcard out of his pocket. He bent it backwards to straighten it out and set it up against the coffee pot. He stared at it and then turned around and pulled a Budweiser out of the fridge. He twisted the cap off, flipped it into the brown plastic ashtray, sat down on the couch, and drank. Nothing in the trailer really belonged to James. The coffee table, the appliances in the coffin-sized kitchen, the sagging bed with the mattress still wrapped in plastic; all of it had been here when he moved in and would stay when he moved out. There was a television, but no cable, and over the stove hung framed prints of mushrooms, onions, and peppers all painted in browns and oranges and labeled in curling script, as if the viewer might forget what he was seeing if not reminded. The only real rooms in the trailer were the bedroom in the back and the bathroom with a stand-up shower stall: a place to eat, a place to sleep, a place to sit, and a place to piss. James didn’t need much more.
He finished the beer and went back into the kitchen. The postcard was still sitting there. James poked at the base of it and it fell over. He set it back up and straightened the angle it was leaning at before dumping his empty bottle into the sink and getting another. He walked the short length of the singlewide and sat down on the edge of the bed. He leaned over to pull off his boots, then stopped and took a swig of beer. James went back into the kitchen and looked at the postcard. It hadn’t moved. He tapped the bottom of the brown glass bottle against the edge of the countertop and took another drink. The postcard was still there. He turned around and rubbed his forehead back and forth with the palm of his callused hand. The last glimmer of evening sun was coming in through the smeared window over the sink, and in the fading light James could see the Pomeranian’s owner out in the street. She was talking to the guy with the motorcycle who had just moved in across the lane. She kept pulling at the hem of her red vinyl miniskirt as if trying to pull it down, but really just inching it up. The dog circled around her scuffed high heels and yapped. James pulled the blinds down on the window. He dropped the second bottle into the sink and turned around. Welcome to Sunny Florida! James opened the refrigerator again and then shut it. He glared at the card one last time before snatching it up and slipping it back in his pocket.
“Goddammit.”
The screen door slammed behind him.
~ ~ ~
“Well, I know. And you ain’t gonna believe what she called me after that. Uh, huh. She did, I swear it. I know, right there in front of everybody.”
James crossed his arms and leaned against the warped doorframe. Shireen kept holding up her finger, motioning for him to hang on a second, but whatever lie she was telling must have been pretty good. Twice James had tried to walk out and twice she had pursed her lips together in a pout and then told whoever was on the other end of the line that she had to go. But she kept talking.
“Alright, but I really gotta go. No, somebody from the park. No, not like that. Are you seriously gonna ask me that again? Seriously? Well, if you don’t believe me, why don’t you just ride on over here and ask him? Oh really?”
James pushed himself away from the door and tossed the bill on the desk amidst a stack of
Star
magazines, two open containers of hot-pink nail polish, and a scattering of mini candy bar wrappers. He smiled and turned to go. Shireen reached out and grabbed his wrist.
“Whatever. You do what you want. I’m hanging up. Yeah, if I feel like answering. Alright. Bye.”
She let go of James.
“Whew, honey. I am so sorry ‘bout that. I swear, sometimes I think God made men only for one thing. And half the time, that ain’t even good.”
“Well, God probably did his best with what he had to work with.”
Shireen leaned back in her rolling desk chair and lit a Capri cigarette. Only half of the nails on her left hand were painted. The others were an uneven, sickly yellow. She pulled a piece of dead skin from her bottom lip and studied it for a moment. Suddenly, she lifted her eyes up at James and grinned.
“Say, speaking of. Rent’s not due for another two weeks. There something else I can maybe help you with?”
“No thanks, Shireen. I’m not really in the mood.”
Shireen uncrossed, and then slowly re-crossed, her legs. James caught a flash of purple zebra print.
“I’ll give you a discount. Come on, first timers always get a discount. Why don’t you sit down and make yourself comfortable and we can have a little fun?”
James smiled, but did not sit down. Shireen sighed.
“Oh alright, fine.”
She sat up straight and began pushing around the mess on her desk. She screwed the cap back on one of the containers of nail polish and tapped it against the palm of her hand.
“That it? You come in here and got me all the way off the phone just to give me another piece of mail? Do you really think I forward these things on?”
James shrugged.
“I don’t know. And no, I didn’t get you off the phone just for that. I came to tell you I’m leaving.”
Shireen had been about to open the nail polish again, but stopped. She set it down and cocked her head at him.
“You serious?”
“I am. Got some place I gotta go to for a little while.”
“Want me to hold the place for you? I don’t mind, if you pay in advance.”
James poked at a run in the thin, industrial carpet with the toe of his boot.
“No. I don’t know when exactly I’ll be back.”
“You quitting over at Roy’s?”
“Yeah, I’ll tell ‘em tomorrow. They’ll be fine. Mechanics are a dime a dozen ‘round here. I plan on taking off Saturday.”
Shireen frowned.
“You sure you ain’t want me to hold your place? If you just give me the money, I don’t mind.”
“I know. But think, this way you can keep my security deposit and get someone in there before the first of the month.”
Shireen considered this for a moment. She ran an unpainted fingernail through her brittle, bleached hair and pulled out a snag.
“Alright. This is mighty inconvenient, but if you gotta go, you gotta go.”
“Yep.”
Shireen gave him one last sly look.
“Sure you don’t want to hang out a little while? I think I got some beer in the mini fridge. We could party a little.”
