That’s How I Roll: A Novel (20 page)

When they found that man, his face was split all the way through. That can happen when the brake on your chainsaw fails—it can kick right back on you, still spinning all those killer steel teeth.

People just shook their heads. Had to happen sooner or later, they said. Everyone knew that man was an idiot with machinery. Probably been drinking, too.

fter a while, nobody tried to tell Tory-boy to eat dirt anymore. Maybe some did believe I had hexing power. But what stopped them dead in their tracks was that Tory-boy’s strength was just enormous. Nobody knew its limits, and that was something they damn sure didn’t want to find out for themselves.

ater on, instead of tormenting Tory-boy, different people would ask him about going along on some kind of crime with them. And he’d always say the same thing: “I got to ask my brother.”

Anyone with a drop of sense would leave it at that. But, one time, some fool just had to say, “What you got to ask that cripple for? Is he your momma?”

The very second those words came out of his mouth, the other men who’d been standing around
jumped
out of the way. And kept on running.

When the police came to see him in the hospital, the dumb-mouth joker proved he wasn’t a total fool. He told them he’d been so wasted on shine and pills that all he remembered was falling off that rock ledge.

I guess he realized that getting beat up, that’s something that can happen a lot of times in a man’s life. Getting killed, that only happens once.

hortly after that, I became a kind of permanent employee of certain people. From then on, all Tory-boy had to say was he had to ask his brother first. His brother, Esau.

Anyone who heard Tory-boy say my name, they knew that they were standing in a minefield. And that the only way out was to
back
out.

That was because the people I did various things for needed me for those things. That was my place in the world, doing those things. Murderous things.

The people I did work for knew they would lose my services if anything ever happened to Tory-boy. So they’d spread the word.
Spread it wide, deep, and thick. If you even
asked
Tory-boy to get involved in something that might get him locked up, that was the same as asking for very serious trouble from some very serious people.

Those people didn’t do that as a favor to me. They weren’t the kind to do favors for free, and I would never have allowed myself to be obligated by asking them.

The way they thought was always the same, and it always applied to every situation. They’d reason it out like this: if Tory-boy ever got himself arrested, who knew what he might tell the Law, a simpleminded boy like him?

So they kind of looked at people threatening Tory-boy the same way our dogs would. If anyone hurt Tory-boy, there was no guessing to be done—they knew what I’d do. And they didn’t want me doing it.

That wasn’t out of regard for me; they were just watching out for themselves. They knew I was a professional, and part of that is being extremely careful—it might take me weeks just to put a plan together. But killing someone who hurt my brother, they knew I couldn’t wait on that. Worse, they knew I wouldn’t care what it cost, or who got hurt in the bargain.

They’d seen that for themselves, the first time we ever met. The time I put in my job application.

y plan finally came true. That’s because it
was
a plan. Not some dream, not some prayer, some actual thing I made happen all on my own.

I knew this the same way I knew about my balance. If you wanted to think the spirits spoke to me, I wouldn’t call you a liar.

We had to get our own piece of ground. Bought and paid for, cash money. No landlord means no rent—no rent means no excuses to stop by.

Tory-boy didn’t really understand why our own land made us
safer. As far as he was concerned, as long as the Beast couldn’t get inside, a trailer was as good as a palace.

I didn’t have any real use for the library anymore, not with the Internet. But I still went over there at least once a week.

I could have asked myself why, but I was afraid of the answer I’d get.

A man has obligations. Some he asks for, some he gets put on him. Tory-boy, there never was any choice: if I didn’t raise him, he wouldn’t get raised.

I had to be honest with myself. Had to admit that, somehow, I always knew. When you’re birthed out of your own sister—when her father is your father, too—you know you’re not going to come out right.

Not you, not your life, not nothing.

So I just worked Tory-boy even harder. Sat him in front of our big-screen and made him watch the news with me, hear how people said things.

He always wanted to please me, and he never got bored, so he was coming along, little by little. It got to the point where I wasn’t worried about people knowing he wasn’t right the minute he opened his mouth.

One of the most valuable things I taught him was that he never had to say much—in any crowd, there’s always someone who wants to do most of the talking.

But no matter how much work I put into Tory-boy, I stayed worried over how he’d handle life on his own. And I knew the day was coming when he’d have to do that.

accepted the burden and vowed to shoulder it. I knew if I ever fell down Tory-boy would hit the ground right after me.

And I knew I couldn’t carry him the full distance. I didn’t know when the day would come, but the knowledge that it
was
coming drove me on. The closer I got to that day, the harder I drove.

No matter what, I had to get Tory-boy ready to live on his own. The doctors told me I wasn’t going to have a long life. Not even with the right diet, no smoking, the exercising Tory-boy loved helping me with. Under the best of circumstances, I shouldn’t count on ever seeing fifty.

But Tory-boy would. And he’d spend the rest of his life in this hard, hard place. Even the coal they dig out of the ground is hard: anthracite, not the soft bituminous kind that doesn’t fight the pickax for every chunk. Bituminous burns better, too. You’d think, the harder you have to work for something, the more valuable it would be. But that’s just not true. Not around here, anyway.

There’s a Klan, but it’s not much. Mostly old men who tell wild stories about the things they used to do.

Nobody really listens. Not because folks necessarily disagree with them, but because it doesn’t take long for the stories to get as old as the men telling them.

Hate comes easy … and it’s a lot easier than working. But you won’t hear any scare-stories about illegal immigrants in this part of the country. Who’d
want
to come here? This whole place is just one big prison. Some get sentenced to hard labor, some have it easier, but everyone serves the same term: life.

Even the church people don’t think about getting out, just about getting by. Like I said, that’s got a special meaning around here. And the church people, they do a lot of nice things for folks while they’re waiting for … whatever they believe is coming to them, I guess.

There’s a number of ways you can get respected in these parts. I don’t mean feared—that’s as easy as grabbing a red-hot weld with your bare hand. Holding on to it, that’s another story.

You make people scared enough of you, those same people will watch you get shot down in the street and swear on the Bible that they never saw a thing.

Some of them might even be the shooters.

Fear can make a man run home. But he might be running home to fetch his rifle.

Keeping your word, that’s how to get respect. But if you look
deep enough, you can see that’s not one bit different from being feared. A man known for always keeping his word, if he says he’s going to get you, you respect his word by being scared.

Everybody will claim they respect any woman who’s a regular at church, but they don’t mean a lying word of what comes out of their mouths when they say it.

A woman like Miss Jayne Dyson, nobody respects her out in public. But men who wouldn’t say “good morning” to her face are the same ones who knock on her door at night.

I never would act like that. I’d be the worst kind of hypocrite if I did. Who knows better than me that a person can’t always choose their own path? It’s how you walk that path that makes you worthy … or not.

So, when Tory-boy got to the right age—I didn’t need a calendar to tell me that; I could see it rising in him—I helped get him ready for that, too.

I could never be sure what Tory-boy had seen when he was just a small child, and I couldn’t have the Beast be his teacher. So I paid Miss Jayne Dyson to show him what to do, and how to do it right.

he first time I visited her house, I think she was kind of, I don’t know, shocked to see me.