Stories (2011) (51 page)

“We all thought that it’s what you wanted,” Billy said, and
Ralph turned and kicked Billy in the balls. Billy went to his knees.

“I didn’t say kill nobody.”

“You know he seen that gun in the car,” Emory said, backing
up. “We all knowed it. We was twenty feet down the road, he was gonna go
somewhere and find a phone.”

Ralph looked at John. John held both hands up. “Hey, I
didn’t say to do nothing. It was over before I knew it was happening.”

Emory picked up his hat. Billy lay on the floor with his
hands between his legs. John didn’t move. Ralph took a deep breath, said, “You
think nobody noticed a gun shot? You think that little nigger ain’t gonna
remember you, ’cause I know you run him out. Grab that shit and let’s go. And
help that retard Billy up.”

—————

John drove and Ralph set up front on the passenger side.
Billy was behind him, and across from Billy was Emory, his hands still tucked
between his legs, holding what made him a gentleman.

“I thought you meant kill him, Ralph,” Emory said. “I
figured on account of what you said, him like your father and all, and
considering what you—”

“Shut up! Shut the hell up!”

Emory shut up.

Ralph said to John: “You better find some back roads. I know
some out this way, but it’s been awhile. There’s one that a car can travel on
down by the river.”

They took the road when Ralph pointed it out. It wound down
amongst some ragged cottonwood trees. The trees had few leaves and what leaves
it had were brown with sand stripping and the limbs were covered in sand the
color of cigarette ash. The car dipped over a rise and there were some rare
green trees below that hadn’t been stripped. The trees stood by the river where
it was low down and the wind was cut by the hills. The river was thin on water
and there were drifts of sand all around it. They drove down there and turned
along the edge of the river and went that way awhile till Ralph told John to
stop.

They got out and Ralph went over by the bank and looked at
the remains of the river. Emory came over. He said, “I didn’t mean to make you
mad.” “I thought you wanted me to do what I did.”

Ralph didn’t say anything. Emory unbuttoned his fly and
started peeing in the water. “I just thought it was one way and it was
another,” he said while he peed. “I didn’t understand.”

Ralph reached inside his coat. He didn’t do it fast, just
with certainty. He turned and had a .45 in his hand. He shot Emory in the mouth
when he turned his head toward him, while he was trying to explain something.
Emory’s head went back so hard it seemed as if it would fly off his neck and
parts of it went down the bank and a piece slid into the chalky-colored water
and the water turned rusty. Emory lay on his side, still holding his pecker
with his right hand. He was still peeing, but in a dribble, and he had clenched
himself so hard between thumb and forefinger it looked like he was trying to pinch
it off.

“Goddamn!” Billy said. “Goddamn.”

He came over and went down the bank and bent over Emory and
looked at what was left of his head and saw pieces of Emory’s skull on the
ground and in the dark water. “Goddamn. You killed him.”

“I should think so,” Ralph said.

Billy stood up straight and looked at Ralph, who had the gun
down by his side. “Wasn’t no cause for that. He did what he thought you wanted
on account of you saying he looked like your old man. God-damn it, Ralph.”

Ralph lifted the .45 a little and John came over and put his
hand on Ralph’s arm, said, “It’s all right, Ralph. You done done it. Billy
ain’t thinking. He and Emory were cousins. He don’t know how things are. He’s
grieving. You understand that. We all been there.”

“Double cousins,” Billy said. “Goddamn it.”

“Shut up, Billy,” John said, and he kept his hand on Ralph’s
arm.

Billy looked at Ralph’s face, and some of his spirit drained
away. Billy said, “All right. All right.”

“Why don’t you put the gun up?” John asked Ralph.

Ralph slowly put the gun in the shoulder holster under his
coat. “That fellow looked so much like my old man.”

“I know,” John said.

“He had the same hands.”

“I know.”

“Emory shouldn’t have done that. Now the town will turn out.
They’ll have the law all over us. That little nigger will remember Emory’s
face.”

“That won’t be a problem. He ain’t got a face no more. I
don’t think he seen the rest of us that good.”

“It don’t matter,” Ralph said, taking off his hat. “They’ll
know who we are.”

“They got to catch us first,” John said.

Ralph took off his hat and ran his hand through his oily
hair. There was dust on his fingers and some of it came off in his hair. He put
the hat back on. “Goddamn, Emory. Goddamn him.” He looked over at Billy.

Billy was sitting on the bank looking at Emory’s body. Flies
had already collected on it.

Ralph started over that way. John touched his arm, but Ralph
gently pulled it away. Ralph stood over Billy. “You get to thinking what you
ought not, it could go bad for you.”

Billy turned his head and looked up at Ralph. “Only thing
I’m thinking is my cousin’s dead.”

“And he ain’t comin’ back. No matter how much you look at
him or shake him, he ain’t gonna come around and his head ain’t gonna go back
together. And I want you to know, I don’t feel bad for doin’ it. I tell you to
do somethin’, you don’t figure what I mean, you got to know what I mean, not
guess. I run this outfit.”

Billy ran his hands over his knees, lifting his fingers so
that they stood up like white tarantulas. “Yeah. Yeah.”

“Give me your gun,” Ralph said.

Billy looked at him so hard his eyes teared up. “I’m over
it,” he said.

“Give me your gun.”

Billy reached inside his coat and took hold of a .38
revolver and pulled it out and when he did, Ralph pulled out his .45. “I’ll
just hold it for you,” Ralph said. “While you grieve.”

Billy gave Ralph the .38. It was small enough Ralph put it
in his coat pocket. “Sometimes, we’re upset, we do things we shouldn’t.”

“That’s what you did,” Billy said.

“It wasn’t something I shouldn’t have done. I don’t feel bad
at all. Ain’t no one kills no one unless I say so.”

Billy seemed about to say something, but didn’t.

Ralph said, “Build up a fire. I don’t think anyone will see
the smoke much down here, and we’ll just have it for a while.”

“Why?” Billy said.

“We’ll get right on it,” John said, came over and took hold
of Billy’s arm and pulled him up and pushed him toward the woods. He called
back to Ralph. “We’ll get some wood right away.”

—————

 While they were gathering wood, Billy said, “He killed him
for nothing. He killed him while he was holding his dick in his hand. He didn’t
have to do that, didn’t have to kill him that way.”

“He killed him because the old man reminded him of his old
man. He’d be just as dead if he hadn’t been holding his dick.”

“His old man . . . That can’t be it. You know what he done.”

“I know, but there ain’t no way to figure it straight,
because what he did wasn’t straight. It’s just his way.”

“Just his way? Jesus. That was my cousin.”

“Yeah, and he ain’t gonna get no deader, and he ain’t gonna
get alive not even a little bit, so you got to let it go. I’ve had to let a lot
of things go. Drop it.”

“I don’t know I want to keep doing this.”

“We split up the money, then we can go the ways we want. But
you don’t want to make Ralph nervous. You make him nervous, only so much I’m
gonna do. Me, I plan to make Thanksgiving at home this year. I don’t want to
end up on the creek bank with part of me in the water and flies all over me. So
I’m doin’ the last of what I’m doin’ for you, you savvy, because I’m more
worried about me and I want my share of money. Look at it this way, more money
split three ways than four. That’s a thing to think about. You savvy?”

“More split two ways than three,” Billy said.

“I wouldn’t think that. You think that, you’ll think
yourself into the dirt with your head blown off.”

—————

They stacked up the wood like Ralph said and then they sat
on a hill above the bank for a while and then Ralph said, “John, you go look in
the turtle hull and get out the hose and the jug there, siphon out a bit of
gas. Maybe about half a jug full. And bring me back a can of them peaches.”

“Sure,” John said, and got up to go do it.

Billy made to get up too, but Ralph said, “You stay here and
keep me company.”

Billy sat back down. Ralph said: “Listen here, now, boy.
Your cousin talked too much and didn’t listen to me good. John should have
stopped him. He should have known better. You’re just a dumb kid. But you ain’t
gonna get to be any older or any smarter you don’t start payin’ attention. You
get me?”

“Yeah,” Billy said.

“I don’t think you get me.”

“I do.”

“Not really.”

“No. I do.”

“We’ll see. You go down there and get your cousin, don’t
have to bring up his brains and stuff, just drag his body up here and you put
him face down on that pile of sticks you got together, and then you fold his
hands up so that they’re under his face.”

“Why would I do that?”

“See there, boy, you don’t get me. You don’t understand a
thing I tell you and you always got a question. Now, I told you to go down
there and get him.”

Billy got up and went down the bank. Ralph didn’t move. He
lipped out a cigarette and lit it with one of his kitchen matches. After a
while, Billy come up the hill tugging at Emory by the heels. He got the body
over by the sticks about the time John come back with the clear jug half full
of gasoline and the can of peaches. He gave Ralph the peaches.

“Take that gasoline,” Ralph said, “and put about half on
that pile of sticks, sprinkle it around, and pour the rest on Emory’s hands and
face. That way, ain’t nobody gonna recognize him and he ain’t gonna have no
fingerprints. Take off his clothes first.”

Billy had quit pulling on Emory. He said, “They’ll know who
we are anyway. You said yourself that little nigger seen us. And Emory hasn’t
got much of a face left.”

“We’re just making it harder for them,” Ralph said.

“I think you’re just making it meaner,” Billy said. “I think
you’re teaching me a lesson.”

Ralph turned his head to one side curiously. “That what you
think? You think you ain’t already got a hole God’s gonna put you in? A slot.”

“That ain’t your call?” Billy said.

“It sure was with Emory. I helped God fit him to his slot. I
sent him where he was goin’ and I didn’t choose his place, just his time, and
that there, it was preordained, my old man taught me that. And the place Emory
went, I don’t figure him nor any of us is going to a place we’d like to go, do
you?”

“Ain’t mine to think about.”

“Oh, Billy, sure it is.”

“Not if it’s done planned.”

“Billy,” John said. “I’ll help you.”

“I ain’t gonna put him on that fire.”

“You don’t, it’ll still get done,” Ralph said, “and maybe I
get John to siphon out some more gas, get some more sticks. You get where the
wind is ablowin’ on that?”

Billy was breathing heavy. John said, “Billy, let’s just do
it. Okay?”

Billy looked at John. John’s face was pleading. “All right,”
Billy said.

Billy and John got hold of Emory and rolled him over. They
took off his clothes except for his shorts, which were full of shit. Billy got
a stick and worked Emory’s dick back into the slit in his underwear. John
started to pour gasoline on Emory’s open-eyed face. The top of Emory’s head
looked like it had been worked open with a dull can opener.

“No,” Ralph said. “Have Billy do that.” John handed Billy
the jug. Billy looked at John, but there was no help there. He took the jug and
poured gas on Emory’s head.

“Now put him face down on the sticks and put his hands under
his head,” Ralph said. He had used his pocketknife to open the can of peaches
and he was poking them with the knife and gobbling them down, some of the peach
juice running down his chin.

Billy and John did as they were asked and then Ralph gave
John a kitchen match. John set the sticks on fire. The stench of Emory’s
burning body filled the air.

“Let’s go,” Billy said. “I don’t want to see this, smell it
neither.”

“No,” Ralph said, eating more peaches, “you just find you a
seat. We’ll kinder pretend we’re at the movies.”

The three of them sat on the hill but Billy sat with his
face away from the fire. The fire licked at Emory and pretty soon the head and
hands were burned up and so were the feet and parts of the rest of his body.

“Close enough,” Ralph said. He had long finished the peaches
and had tossed the can down the bank toward the water, but it didn’t go that
far. “Spread them sticks out and kill the fire so we don’t burn half the county
down. What’s left of him won’t matter. Dogs and such will have them a cooked
meal tonight.”

When they went out to the car, Ralph fell back and said to
John, “Any kind of noise goes off, you just hold steady, you hear?”

“Yeah,” John said, and then he walked briskly away from
Ralph toward the driver’s side. Billy was about to get in the backseat when
Ralph said, “You sit up front, Billy.”

Billy turned and looked at Ralph. He studied him for a long
hard moment. He said, “That’s okay. I don’t mind the back.”

“You sit up front,” Ralph said.

“You always ride up front,” Billy said.

“Not today.”

“I don’t mind.”

“You sit in my seat.”

Ralph sat behind Billy in the back, and John drove. They
drove out of the trail and out of the woods and onto the main road. It was
starting to get dark. John pulled on the lights.