Bad Chili (18 page)

“Wow!” she said. “I’ve never really known any black people, you know, close up. Friend-like. Way you say you guys are.”

“Is that a problem?”

“You know, I was one of them kind always thought that line about ‘some of my best friends are niggers’ made a certain sense. I didn’t mean nothing by it, I was just ignorant as a fuckin’ post. Later on, I was all for civil rights, and I went out of my way to treat the blacks in school like they were my friends. Condescending is what I was. In other words, I was actually a blue-collar redneck trying to come across like a middle-class stiff ass trying to show those poor niggers what a liberal I was. So I haven’t really hung around that many blacks.”

“You didn’t mention the gay part.”

“Yeah, there’s that, too. I always kind of thought of gays as perverts growing up. I never hung around any. Maybe it’s high time I gave it a try. This Leonard, he’s your brother, I reckon he ought to be mine too.”

“You couldn’t have said anything better.”

“Great,” she said. “I get to be the first in my family to hang around with niggers and queers.”

I laughed at her.

“’Course,” she said, “my family background was the kind of folks thought you touched a black person’s hand you could get cut, like sharkskin can cut you. I grew up thinking all blacks did was fuck, which seems like a fairly legitimate pursuit, actually.”

“I like it.”

“Yeah. It passes the time. My daddy, he was the kind of guy thought miniature golf ought to be Olympic sports, called blacks darkies when he wasn’t calling them ‘shines’ or ‘niggers.’ My mother, who was a kind of liberal for where we lived, called them ‘nigras’ or ‘coloreds’ and thought they ought to have the right to vote but should have their own toilets and water fountains. Later on, after civil rights, she never did like the idea of going into a filling station and thinking a black ass had been on the crapper ahead of her. So, you see, I’ve had some hurdles to overcome.”

“Well, your old man might have been a racist, but I’ll tell you, when it comes to miniature golf as an Olympic sport, he might have been on to something. It’s a hell of a lot more entertaining than skating.”

Brett grinned. “Give us a kiss.”

I did. And another.

“Now,” she said, “make love to me and try to have it last longer this time.”

“Thanks for considering my ego.”

“Not at all,” she said, shifting herself under the covers to accommodate me. “You know where the hole is, don’t you?”

“I’m a little bit limp right now,” I said.

“Hey, baby, it’s not the meat, it’s the motion. We’ll make it happen if we have to poke it in there with a stick.”

“Oh, that’s stimulating.”

We didn’t have to resort to the stick.

And Brett was right.

It wasn’t the meat. It was the motion.

Along nightfall, when Brett was off to work, I drove home happy and satisfied. Feeling that, in spite of things, life was coming together. I went inside, and as I reached for the light switch the ceiling fell on me and the floor jumped up and hit me in the face. Next thing I knew there was pain in my side and I was rolling into more pain, then hands had me and I was pulled up and a big shadow came out of the greater shadows of the house and kneed me in the groin, dropped me to the ground. Then the knee found my chin and gave me a little merry-go-round trip. Someone behind me put his forearm around my neck and squeezed and lifted. I was as good as hung.

“Howdy,” said the big shadow.

All three shadows dragged me outside. They were not shadows in the pale moonlight, but men, and one of them was a very big man, the man in the video, the man who belonged to the feet that had made the tracks around Leonard’s back door. Had to be. Guy like that, you could take his shoe and a boat paddle and shoot the Colorado rapids. He was the man Leonard called Big Man Mountain, the professional wrestler.

The other two were economy-sized enough. They were not easy to see there in the moonlight, but one had a pale face that appeared to have exploded from the inside. The acne scars on his skin held the shadow, made the grooves in his flesh look like whiplashes.

The other was a stocky black man with close-cropped hair and a forehead that shone brightly in the light of the moon. He had breath as sweet as a bean fart.

Big Man Mountain pushed me down on my face, and the other two helped pull my arms behind me. They tied my wrists together with something that felt like wire, hauled me up and pulled me out back of my house.

There was a ’64 Chevy Impala parked there, probably black, but it was hard to tell in the dark. It might have been blue or green or any dark color.

I felt like a goddamn idiot. I had walked right into it. I hadn’t expected a thing. I had been too euphoric. They had driven over and parked their car behind my place, gone in through the back or broken out a window, and they had waited on either side of the door for me. The big guy, he had probably waited in the kitchen. I had walked straight into bad business, stupid as a duck flying over a blind.

The two smaller thugs put me in the backseat between them. The giant forced his frame behind the wheel, fired up the Chevy. A car passed us as we headed out of my driveway; its lights were bright and Big Man cussed them. We drove on down my little road, on out to a full-fledged four-lane, and away we rolled. Down the dark highway, away from town, out into deeper darkness where the highway lost its lanes and narrowed, where the trees hung thick like tar-baby fingers over the road.

Way on out we drove, heading toward Louisiana, which lay sixty miles away. I sat there and thought about what I could do, but it didn’t add up to much. My hands were behind my back and I was between two guys who looked as if the last sentimental thought they’d had was watching a puppy go under their car wheel and hoping the little motherfucker didn’t pop their expensive tires.

We rode on, the windows down, the wind blowing in cool and wet with the smell of swampy water. It ruffled our hair, dampened our faces. Cars passed us. Cars came up behind us. I wanted to stick my head out the window and yell, but I figured I did that, I was a goner for sure. I tried to stay alert, looking for possibilities. I had a feeling possibilities were somewhere other than Texas that night.

We went halfway to Louisiana, veered to the right down a red-clay byway, cruised into deeper darkness where the land turned swampy and the shadows grew great, and the head beams were the only light you could see.

Way out we drove. Way out.

“I don’t guess this is a surprise party?” I said.

“Oh,” said the black man on my left, “don’t know. Might call it that.”

“You surprised so far, ain’t you?” said the man with the pocks. He put a cigarette in his mouth and lit it and tossed the match out the window.

“We kinda good at surprises,” said the black guy. “Fact is, I thought you ’bout as surprised as anybody I ever surprised. And I surprised me a few.”

“Shut up,” Big Man Mountain said.

I wasn’t sure who he was talking to, me or the other guys, but we all went silent and the car cruised on and the wind was choked thick with the smell of damp earth. Sort that fills a grave.

Car lights swung in behind us, and for an instant they gave me an unreasonable hope. Then the lights moved to the side and the dark shape of the car passed us.

On we drove, into an even deeper wooded blackness where the trees dipped low and the vines hung loose, dripping down and scraping across the car like the wet hair of a drowned corpse, and finally there was just this little dirt driveway in a small clearing, and in the clearing was a shack. I reckoned it was some old hunting shack, probably abandoned, or owned by an out-of-towner, and Big Man and his buddies had taken it over. We parked and the two guys in the back helped me get out by encouraging me with a couple of sharp blows to the ribs.

I stood out there in the night, the moon leaking weak light through the trees like spoiled cheese dripping through a grater, and took in the smell of everything: rich earth, the rankness of swampy water, the stench of dead fish. Frogs bleated. A night bird cried. I could hear my heartbeat.

I figured these were to be the last things I would ever smell or hear, so I did my best to enjoy them. In an odd way I felt extremely alive.

I wondered if my body would ever be found. I wondered how long Brett would miss me. I wondered if animals would gnaw my bones. I wondered if Leonard would discover who did it, and if so I wondered how horribly they would die. I sort of hoped Leonard didn’t find out. The idea of him spending the rest of his life in prison did not appeal to me.

Pock Face took the key from Big Man Mountain, opened the trunk of the car, took out a foam ice chest, and carried it toward the shack. Big Man Mountain pointed the beam of his flashlight at the door, and the black guy opened the door with a key and we went inside.

There was an old gas-powered generator in one corner of the room, and Big Man Mountain gave the flashlight to Pock Face and he held it while Big Man fired up the generator and turned on the light.

The light was a low-wattage bare bulb dangling on a frayed black wire, and in the light, dust motes rode about the starkness of the room like frenzied insects. Near the generator was a table, and on the table was a car battery, some cables, a stained brown pillow, and a large metal bowl. The windows were boarded over. The back door had a flap lock on it with a padlock through it.

Beneath the bulb was a wooden chair. They sat me in that and produced some cord and tied my ankles to the chair. From that position I could see there was a ball bat by the door, leaning against the frame. It was stained all over. I had an idea what with.

Big Man came over, squatted down in front of the chair, and took a long look at me. His beard was jet-black and well groomed. His brown eyes were almost friendly, reminded me of a puppy that wanted a pat on the head. His voice turned soft, almost feminine. He carefully unwrapped a breath mint and placed it gently on his tongue. “You got scared eyes,” he said.

“You bet,” I said. In fact, they were starting to water.

“You and your nigger, you got stuff stirred up,” he said.

I glanced at the black guy. No help there. He wasn’t outraged and ready to change sides.
Nigger
was just a word to him. Fact was, he seemed kind of bored, like this was a job he did a lot and didn’t have feelings about one way or another, long as the paycheck showed up.

I glanced at Pock Face. He had his finger in his nostril, chasing a wily snot ball.

“You shouldn’t go around askin’ questions like you’re askin’,” Big Man said. “It could make some people look bad, know what I’m sayin’?”

“King Arthur?” I said.

“Well, let’s just say it could make some people look bad,” he said.

“Could I just apologize?” I asked.

“I don’t think so,” Big Man said. “Know what’s in the ice chest?”

“Ice?”

“Right. But no beer. No soda pop. No fish. Just ice. Ever had your balls packed in ice, Collins?”

“No. It sounds kinky, but I’d really rather not. Especially if you’re doing the packing.”

Big Man turned to the black guy. “Get the chest over here, Booger.”

“I ain’t handling his bobs,” said Booger. “You want his meat packed, you pack it.”

“Get the ice chest, shithead,” Big Man said.

Shithead didn’t look happy about it, but he went over and got the ice chest and set it by the chair. He opened the lid. I glanced inside. Crushed ice.

Big Man said, “What I do here is I take the ice, put some in a metal bowl, and we drop your pants, and we set the bowl in the chair, and put your ass on that pillow over there, and we drop your oranges in that bowl, and guess what?”

“My balls get cold?”

“Real cold. That normally might even numb the pain. But the thing is, they also get wet. You take a little electricity, hit on them wet spots, and let me tell you — there ain’t nothing like it. Know where I learned this little trick?”

“Your mom?” I said.

He grinned at me. “Guess.”

“I don’t want to guess.”

“Yeah, but I want you to,” Big Man said. “Unless you’re ready to get started.”

“Charm school,” I said. “You learned it in charm school.”

Big Man shook his head. “Professional wrestling.”

“No shit?”

“No shit.”

“Listen,” I said, “I haven’t got anything against you. I don’t even know you, or these other gentlemen. You don’t even have to drive me home. Just let me go.”

“I’d like to,” Big Man said. “I don’t like my work, but it is my work, and I’m good at it, and I made a vow a long time ago, once I start a job I finish it, and I do what I’m going to do as well as I can, even if I don’t like it.”

“Is this going to be like a warning?” I asked.

Big Man shook his head. “Not to you. To the nigger, yes. We’d have got him first, it would have been like a warning to you. Know what I’m sayin’?”

“Maybe you could get someone me and Leonard don’t even know and make it like a warning to the both of us,” I said.

“Very funny,” Big Man said. “It could be that woman you been bangin’.”

“You sonofabitch.”

“You want we should trade you for her?”

“Do your worst, asshole.”

“Oh, you don’t know my worst, gallant little man. Let me tell you, they put me out of professional wrestling ’cause I didn’t like to lose, even when I was supposed to. I liked to give people permanent injuries. Wrenched neck. Dislocated elbow. Knee. Rupture. Little mementoes. Got so no one wanted to wrestle Big Man Mountain.”

“It was probably the odor.”

“Trying to provoke me, aren’t you? You’re thinking maybe I’ll just finish you off. But no. You got to go the distance, you don’t tell me what I want to know. Back when I wrestled, had a little thing I did where I took a battery with a crank into the ring with me, hooked cables to my ears and pretended to fire myself up a bit. You know, crank it while it was hooked to my ears. One time, I fucked up. Battery was charged and I did it for real. Knocked me on my ass. I sort of liked it. A little jolt, it perks you up, you get used to it. Sort of like shock therapy. Which, by the way, I’ve had.”