Family Thang Read online

  Victor turned, face red. “I’m not someone you picked up off the street. Why didn’t you ask before we got into bed?”

  “Please! Just forget it. I regret I asked you.”

  Victor grabbed his pants from the floor and put them on, forgetting his underwear. “Maybe I should go back to Chicago.” He pulled the zipper so hard Leonard was surprised it didn’t rip off. “Back to my mother.”

  “Don’t you think you’re overreacting? Okay, to be honest, I asked you to go because I’m afraid to go alone. I can see how you think I was using you. Wasn’t my intention. Honest.” Victor ignored him, put on a white Oxford shirt and buttoned it up. “If I’d known you’d throw a hissy fit, I most definitely would not have asked you.”

  Victor stopped and stared at him. “It’s the money, isn’t it?”

  “What money?”

  “You know what money.”

  “Don’t be childish.”

  “Childish! I’m childish? The five years we’ve been together you’ve rarely mentioned the boondocks and your family. Now, suddenly, your family can’t continue life without you.”

  Leonard tried to embrace him, but Victor pulled away. “My not calling you last night, isn’t that the real issue here? I apologize.”

  “Why haven’t we discussed the money?”

  “Excuse me?”

  “You heard me. The money, Leonard! The money you’re inheriting from your father. Why haven’t we talked about it?”

  Leonard sat down in the chair. “What’s there to talk about?”

  “How much we’re going to invest, how much we’re going to spend?”

  Leonard stared at a cockroach navigating its way through the green shag carpet, then looked him in the eye.

  “Victor…” He cleared his throat. “Victor, my dear, you’ve mistaken the possessive pronoun here. My father! My father, not your father, worked to get this money. If I choose to give you some of it, well, you know, that’s on me. You can’t speak in terms of we because we don’t share the same father. For you to think otherwise is demonstrably…” He searched in vain for a strong adjective. “…childish!”

  Victor stared at him a long moment, mouth agape. Without a word he stepped into his loafers… and walked out.

  An hour later, Leonard parked his car in Count Pulaski State Park. He studied the map his mother had drawn for him and wondered if she’d been out here herself.

  Three trails led into the woods dense with oak, pine, poplar, spruce and dogwood trees. Leonard got out of the car and entered through Maumelle Trail, as his mother had instructed.

  A canopy of branches blocked direct sunlight on the four-foot wide rocky rut someone foolishly labeled a trail. A slight breeze tingled the leaves, though did very little to reduce the humidity. Two squirrels chased each other from tree to tree. A turtle labored in the opposite direction.

  Leonard didn’t notice any of this; his thoughts were on Victor. Is he gone forever?

  He wished he’d phrased his words differently. Certainly he intended to share the money with Victor, but he didn’t need Victor or anyone else telling him what to do with his money. The trail inclined, and Leonard stopped to catch his breath. A crow cawed and he remembered his purpose for coming here.

  To deliver a message to a psycho with a crossbow.

  He pushed onward. At the end of the trail he came to a clearing. The temperature a tad cooler here. Amber knee-high grass bowed to the wind.

  Two identical cabins constructed of hewed logs stood side by side in the middle of the clearing. A felled oak tree, obviously struck by lightning, split one of the cabins in half. Several buzzards circled below a clear blue sky.

  “Shane?” Leonard shouted. His mother had said the boy wouldn’t shoot a relative, but Leonard wasn’t convinced. “Shane? It’s me, your uncle, a blood relative!” No response. “Kinfolk!”

  Leonard stepped toward the intact cabin, wondering if the boy had him sighted in crosshairs, waiting for the perfect moment.

  Wekeeeeee! Wekeeeeee!

  Leonard whirled, looking for the origin of the sound. “What the hell was that? Shane?”

  What the hell am I doing out here?

  Well, one, sweating profusely, despite the cooler temperature. And two, needing only another strange noise to prompt a mad dash back to his car.

  “Shane?”

  He’d give it a few more minutes and then go home and tell his mother the boy couldn’t be found—and he wouldn’t come back.

  “Shane?”

  Nearing the cabin door, three boards nailed in a Z to eight two-by-fours, he caught whiff of an atrocious odor. Rotten meat? Or something dying? What if the boy lay inside hurt, moments from death? Would explain the buzzards hovering above. He knocked lightly on the door.

  “Shane?” He pushed the door open. “Shane?” Silence.

  He stuck his head inside. There was a wooden bed frame absent a mattress at the far wall, a worn-out orange-colored couch near the door, and a large stone fireplace to the left. A fey odor tickled his nostrils. No windows, no back door.

  What a waste of time. He should’ve gone to the nearest bus stop and intercepted Victor, and told him he was sorry, told him—

  Wekeeeeee! Wekeeeeeee!

  The noise sounded directly behind him. He spun around and saw the arrow. Nothing but the arrow. Aimed at his chest. “Sh-sh-sh-shane!”

  “What you want?” Shane asked.

  Leonard stared into the boy’s dirty freckled face, slowly raised both hands and wondered why Shane was squinting, for they were standing in the shade of the cabin.

  “I want you to stop aiming that thing at me. I’m your uncle, remember? Uncle Leonard? Your mother’s brother?”

  Shane in desperate need of a haircut: light-brown hair extremely long, a super afro, speckled with green bits, grass or leaves. Besides that and the dirt on his face, he was handsome. A young Harry Belafonte: sculpted features, freckles, bushy eyebrows above hazel-colored eyes.

  “Yeah,” the boy said, tilting his head.

  “Shane, remember when you were little and I took you and Paul to the fair in Little Rock? You remember?” The boy shook his head. “You gotta remember. You and I rode the Ferris wheel, it stopped while we were at top, I threw up. It doesn’t matter. Shane, it’s not polite to point an arrow at your uncle.”

  The boy responded by raising the crossbow, aiming it at Leonard’s head.

  Shielding his face with his hands: “Hey! Hey! Hey! Stop it! You might put my eye out!”

  “It’ll do more than that.”

  “Stop playing, Shane! Stop it! Dammit, I’m your uncle!”

  “Why you kill my dog?”

  “What! I didn’t kill your dog!”

  Shane shook his head to rid a fly from his face. “Yeah, you did. You killed him and you killed pa-pa.”

  I’m dead, Leonard thought. He’s going to kill me with a crossbow… I’ll be left out here to rot… Flies… Buzzards…

  “Shane, I didn’t. I swear I didn’t do it! I didn’t arrive in time. What makes you think I did it?”

  “’Cause you’re unnatural.”

  “What?”

  “You like bootie instead of women.”

  “What! Who told you that?”

  “Pa-pa.”

  “He shouldn’t have told you that. Not a nice thing to say.”

  “Is it true?”

  Leonard’s mind raced. If he admitted being gay, Shane might misconstrue it as an admission of guilt and shoot him.

  “No, it’s not true.”

  “Liar!” Shane snapped.

  In his entire life, thirty-three years, Leonard had never heard an African American use the word liar. Not important now, he thought, closing his eyes. Only two things were significant now: pain and decomposition.

  “Open your eyes!” Shane demanded.

  “Huh?” Leonard said, opening one eye… There wasn’t an arrow protruding from his forehead.

  “Look,” pointing the arrow at Leonard’s
leg. “You peed yourself.”

  Leonard looked… his blue jeans sported a wet spot down to his shoes.

  Shane laughed, a high-pitch giggle. “You scared, ain’t ya?”

  “No! No, I’m not. This is usually the time of day I wet myself. An arrow aimed at my head has nothing to do with it.”

  Shane laughed again, as though the funniest thing he’d ever heard. Leonard feigned a chuckle, noticing Shane was shirtless, shoeless, wearing only black dress slacks.

  Maybe, Leonard thought, just maybe. “Knock, knock?”

  Shane frowned. “I’m not no damn kid! I’m seventeen-years-old. Be eighteen in two months. Don’t talk to me like I’m a kid.”

  “I didn’t mean anything by it, Shane. Just a joke. You like jokes, don’t you?”

  “No, I don’t. I want to know… you know what I’m talking about?”

  “No, I’m sorry, I don’t.”

  “You know? What’s it like to be with a… you know?”

  “Shane, listen to me, I didn’t kill your dog.” He dropped his hands. “If you want to shoot your uncle, then shoot your uncle. I’m not going to discuss my personal life with a minor.” He stepped off the porch. “I came out here because my mother, your grandmother, told me to give you a message.” He started walking and fought the urge to look back. “She’s worried about you and wants you to know you can come home and bring the dog with you.”

  Nearing the entrance to the trail: “She’s really concerned about you being out here by your—”

  Twaanng!… the sound of a rubber band snapping, only louder… Shiiiiiiip!… something whipped past his right ear… Thud!… an arrow struck a tree only a few feet ahead of him.

  “Why you stupid, simple-minded bastard!” Leonard said. He turned and charged… He would kick his ass… he would beat the shit out of him, teach him not to shoot arrows at his uncle… He stopped in his tracks… The boy had another arrow already locked and loaded in the crossbow…

  That’s not a toy!

  The tip of the arrow pointed at him looked like three rectangular razor blades melded to a needlepoint. The shaft made of some kind of metal, aluminum or steel.

  A wire looped through two small wheels on either side of the crossbow and crisscrossed to an X in the middle. All rested on a green camouflaged rifle stock. No, this was not a toy.

  “Call me stupid again,” Shane said. “Say it again, I dare you.”

  Leonard gulped.

  “Always,” Shane said. “Always come down to me stupid, crazy, simple. ’Cause I’m not too smart makes you better than me?”

  Leonard didn’t respond.

  “Why I live out here. Nobody calls me stupid out here.” Pause. “Until you came.”

  Leonard swallowed, and then found his voice. “Damn, Shane, you shot an arrow at me! Scared the shit out of me. I didn’t mean what I said—you scared me.”

  Shane lowered the crossbow and let it slip from his fingers. It fell to the porch floor with a soft thud.

  Another lump formed in Leonard’s throat, this one coated with guilt. “Hey… look… I didn’t mean… I’m sorry, okay? Okay, Shane?”

  Shane started crying, tears leaving dirty streaks down his face.

  “Shane, I apologize. You know, when I was your age people called me bad names, made me cry.”

  “Yeah,” Shane sniffed. “Names like what?”

  “Sissy, homo, weirdo—silly stuff.”

  Shane stopped crying. “What you do?”

  Leonard stepped closer. “Nothing, really. Mostly cried a lot and tried to avoid them. Shane, some people fear anything they know may very well exist in them. So they call people bad names.”

  “Then what’s your excuse?”

  Leonard almost laughed. “I don’t have one. I, of all people, should know better.”

  “Did Pa-pa call you names?”

  “He was the main one.”

  “He called me names, too.”

  “He did?” Leonard was shocked. He’d thought his father had gotten past that nonsense.

  “Yup, he sure did. Ignoramus. Nut case. Airhead. Schizzy was his favorite. I looked for it in the dictionary, couldn’t find it. When he really got mad at me, he’d say, ‘Shane,’” raising his voice, sounding remarkably similar to Leonard’s father, “if brains were tissue, you wouldn’t have enough to wipe a mosquito’s ass.’”

  “Mother, your grandmother, treated you nice, didn’t she?”

  “Oh, she’s the best. She treats me better than my real mother.”

  “She’s worried about you, Shane. She doesn’t like the idea of you out here alone.”

  Shane shrugged. “I’m all right.”

  “Let’s head back home. I had some hot food Mother cooked for you. I left it at the motel. Come on, we’ll get her to scrape up a good home-cooked meal. Mmmm-uh, I can smell her cooking now.” He started walking away.

  “I’m not going back.”

  “Shane, what happens when the scouts come back? They’ll run you off, call the police.”

  Shane gestured at the damaged cabin. “The scouts don’t come up here no more since the tree fell. I’m not going back.”

  “Shane, surely you’d like a good meal and a hot… a hot cup of coffee.” He’d almost slipped and said hot bath.

  Shane shook his head.

  Leonard looked up and saw more buzzards circling above. “Shane… Shane, you can’t stay here. Come home with me.”

  “I’m not going. I’m waiting for Kenny G to become one with nature. For some reason it’s taking a lot longer than usual.”

  Leonard had a bad feeling what that entailed. “Are you sure you don’t want to come home with me?”

  Shane answered by picking up the crossbow.

  “Guess you are,” backing up. “Before I go back to Chicago, I’ll try to get back up here and see you.” By plane. “You take care of yourself. See ya.”

  “Tell Grandma I…” He stopped… and waved.

  “Sure,” backing his way to the trail. “I’ll tell her. I sure will.”

  Chapter 15

  Sheriff Bledsoe popped four Pepsid AC tablets into his mouth and washed them down with a swig of Pepto Bismol. “Ah!” smacking his lips. “Hits the spot.”

  The phone rang. “Sheriff Bledsoe.”

  A woman’s voice: “Ruth Ann did it.”

  “Did what?”

  “Poisoned her daddy. Check her back.”

  “Her what? Who is this?”

  “Not important.”

  “Okay. What kind of poison was in the chili?”

  Silence on the other end. Then: “You wanna play games, go buy yourself a PlayStation. You wanna solve a murder, go arrest Ruth Ann.”

  “Ma’am, what’s your name? I’ll keep it anonymous.” The voice sounded familiar, but he couldn’t quite place it. “Who is this?”

  “A concerned citizen,” and the line went dead.

  “Darn it!” He took another swig of Pepto Bismol.

  This case had his stomach twisted in knots. At first he thought Leonard was the culprit, but his alibi checked clean—unless he brought a box of Juggernaut Gopher Bait on the plane with him. Highly unlikely. Or he had someone in town buy it for him. Possible, but also highly unlikely.

  Next grandma waltzed in and confessed, rekindling the fantasy the case might be solved soon; yet she didn’t offer a single shred of evidence to corroborate her story.

  And now this!

  Maybe, if he were lucky, he thought as he holstered his .357 Magnum, Ruth Ann would confess and then he could return to the business of serving the good people of Dawson, all five thousand of them, by taking long, uninterrupted naps, which saved the city a tremendous amount of revenue.

  Murder was a rare bird to land in Dawson. He couldn’t remember a single one occurring here. Now he was mired in a murder investigation straight out of a made-for-television mystery. Arsenic, money and enough suspects to organize a softball team.

  If this case went unsolved, he would not wi
n the next election. Any yahoo with a loud mouth could run against him and win by reminding the good people of Dawson of the one murder in decades that, thanks to Sheriff Bledsoe, did not get solved.

  He got into his cruiser… and then jogged back inside and retrieved the Pepto Bismol. Just in case.

  Upon turning down Whisperwood Drive, Sheriff Bledsoe spotted a man walking down the sidewalk. The blue shirt, khaki shorts and sandals the man wore made him conspicuous in this modest neighborhood. Like a large bag of pork rinds in a Black Muslim Mosque.

  At the end of the block the man hesitated before turning the corner. Sheriff Bledsoe drove past the Hawkins’ residence, where Lester Hawkins was sitting on a porch swing. Lester waved.

  Sheriff Bledsoe kept going, not noticing. He was in pursuit. Not a whiz solving murder cases, but he could do burglars and peeping Toms. Easily. He turned the corner… and, as he expected, the man was nowhere in sight. He parked and got out, trusty Magnum held to his side.

  He moved stealthily, his two-hundred-fifty-pound frame low to the ground, eyes scanning the area like a surveillance camera. What’s that smell? The perp? Was he getting so good he could track perps by smell?… Yes!… God, he loved his job. He spotted the man standing on the Hawkins’ patio deck, and crept up on his quarry.

  “Freeze!” The man jumped and jerked both hands up, a box in one hand. “Eric?”

  Staring at the gun, buck-eyed: “Hey, Sheriff.”

  Sheriff Bledsoe holstered the Magnum. “What you doing back here?”

  “I was… I came to see Ruth Ann.”

  “Why didn’t you go to the front door? I saw you walk right past the house. What you got there?”

  Eric stared at the box as if noticing it for the first time. “This? This is nothing.”

  Sheriff Bledsoe took it from him and glanced at the back of the box. “What you doing with this?”

  “It was here when I got here, Sheriff. Honest. You didn’t see me carrying nothing, did ya?”

  “You could’ve hidden it under your shirt. What’s that I’m smelling?”

  “Neck bones.”

  “You know what I think, Eric? I think you’re up to no good back here.” He turned the box and read the front label. “Either you were peeking—” He stopped, eyes blinking, going from Eric to the box, to the neck bones, then back to Eric.