Family Thang Read online

  “Gunfire,” Shirley said, and released Leonard. He slid to the floor holding his chest.

  “A pellet gun?” Ruth Ann said.

  “I don’t think so,” Robert Earl said. “It sounded like a thirty-eight.”

  “Robert Earl,” Leonard wheezed, clutching his chest if he’d been shot, “would you grant me one small favor?” Robert Earl didn’t answer. “The next time I threaten Shirley, no matter how slight, would you…” He paused and coughed into his hand. “Would you be so kind as to kill me? Would you do that for me, Robert Earl?”

  Robert Earl didn’t respond.

  The next thirty minutes or so they waited in silence. The room slowly faded into darkness.

  Robert Earl said, “I can’t deal with this. It’s possible it was a hunter, or someone shooting a can. I’m getting out of here. I can’t take it. Anybody wanna go with me?”

  “Hello,” Ruth Ann said. “I’m with you. You go first and don’t run off and leave me.”

  “What? It was my idea. I’m not going first!”

  “Okay, Robert Earl. Whatever. Don’t run off and leave me.”

  “You better keep up, I’ll be moving pretty fast.”

  “Robert Earl, if you’re leading the way, shouldn’t you go out the door first? It’s dark out there—you go first and I’ll hold onto your belt.”

  “I’m not wearing a belt. I have on overalls.”

  “Well, I’ll hold onto it.”

  There was a silence.

  Robert Earl said, “You’re complicating this thing, Ruth Ann. You go out the door first—I’ll be right behind you. Then you can hold onto my overalls and follow me. It’s that simple.”

  “It makes more sense, Robert Earl, if we started out the door in the same position we’re going down the hill. It doesn’t make any sense at all for us to get out there in the dark and start fumbling around for each other, now does it?”

  Silence again.

  “I got a better idea,” Robert Earl said. “We’ll back out, you going first. Once we get outside we take off.”

  “Robert Earl, that’s crazy. We might trip.”

  “I won’t trip.”

  “What if I trip?”

  “You get left.”

  “No, Robert Earl. I got a better idea. We’ll—”

  “Get out!” Shirley shouted. “Get the hell out! Two overgrown chickens! Y’all be here in the morning debating who should go first! Both of you go at the same damn time!”

  Leonard heard the door open. The same picture inside showed outside. A pure black screen.

  “Where are you, Ruth Ann?” Robert Earl said. “You ready?”

  “I’m right here behind you and I’m ready.”

  “Naw! You trying to be slick. Shirley said at the same time.”

  “Okayokay. Let my hand go! You don’t have to hold my hand.”

  “I can hold your hand if you holding my overalls.”

  “Why?”

  “Because!”

  Shirley said, “Y’all damn lucky I don’t have a real gun.”

  Just then a voice outside called, “Ruth Ann?”

  “I changed my mind,” Robert Earl said, and closed the door.

  Chapter 36

  “GERD, what we call it,” Doctor Cobb said over the phone. “Otherwise known as gastroesophageal reflux disease. Basically, it’s the recurrent regurgitation of food and acid from the stomach into the esophagus.”

  “Yeah,” Sheriff Bledsoe said. “It hurts like the dickens, too. Doc, I need something for this. I’m dying over here. Pain in my stomach, back, chest, neck, throat.”

  “Mr. Bledsoe, if you’re in pain I strongly suggest you go to the hospital. Laymen often mistake angina for GERD.”

  “Doc, I just got back from the hospital. They determined I wasn’t having a heart attack and sent me on my way, still hurting. No prescription, no have-a-good-day. Nothing! Look, Doc, all I need is the purple pill, the one on the commercial.”

  “Nexium esomeprazole, one of several proton inhibitors.”

  “Yeah, exactly, on the tip of my tongue. If you could write me a prescription, I think it’ll do the trick.”

  “Over-the-counter products, Mr. Bledsoe, are also effective reducing acid production in the stomach. Tagamet HB, Zantac 75, Pepsid AC. If one of those doesn’t work come see me Monday morning. Good-bye, Mr. Bledsoe.”

  “Wait, wait, wait! Doc, I tried all those. In fact I mixed up a batch of stuff this morning—didn’t work. I know it’s Sunday and I shouldn’t have called your house. I’m in pain here!”

  “All right, Mr. Bledsoe, I’ll give you a prescription. I shouldn’t do this without first examining you. If it doesn’t alleviate your discomfort come see me in the morning.”

  “Doc, I can’t thank you enough. How do I get to your house? I’m on my way.”

  “Hold your horses, Mr. Bledsoe. I’ll call Tim Hudson at the Wal-Mart pharmacy. He’ll fix you up. You may need to hurry, he closes at seven.”

  Sheriff Bledsoe thanked him ten times, hung up the phone and looked at his watch. A quarter till seven. He didn’t need to hurry; Wal-Mart was a five-minute drive away. He got into the cruiser and just as he was reaching to turn off the dual band radio, it called his name.

  “Ennis? You there, Ennis? Pick up.”

  He stared at the radio as if it were a bomb. He wasn’t aware his eyes filled with tears.

  “Ennis? Pick up if you’re there.”

  He grabbed the mike, put it to his mouth, put it down and picked it up again. “Ennis, here,” he said, voice cracking.

  The city of Dawson couldn’t afford its own dispatcher, so Tracy Walls, the dispatcher in Ashley County, provided the service for a nominal fee. She rarely radioed Sheriff Bledsoe except in emergencies.

  From his stomach came a loud rumbling noise, similar to stampeding cattle. Excruciating pain would soon follow. He leaned to his right and massaged his chest, a futile attempt to head off the oncoming agony.

  “Ennis, a man just called, said there’s a family disturbance next door. Shots fired. A shotgun, he said. Ten-Fifteen Dixie Drive. You want me to call the state police for backup?”

  After the pain subsided a bit, he sat up and stared out the window, up at the sky, wondering if he had somehow been cursed. Maybe his misery was for the time he posted his ex-wife’s boyfriend’s car as a stolen vehicle.

  “No,” he said into the mike. “Ten-four, I’m on it. I’ll let you know if I need backup.”

  On average there were two or three shootings a year in Dawson. Just his luck, a few minutes from the purple pill, which he was certain would end his misery, a dang shooting occurred. It was enough to make a man swear.

  Ten minutes later he knocked on a door and a man appeared in a side window and said, “Next door.”

  He crossed the yard to where Walter and Colleen Riley were standing on the porch. “How you doing, Walter?” Neighbors were looking on.

  “Not good,” Walter said.

  “What’s going on? I heard someone out here shooting.”

  “I was.”

  “What for?” looking for a weapon.

  “A pervert broke into our home,” Colleen said. She wore a blue uniform, a Hillard Catfish Farm patch on the right arm. “We almost got him.”

  “How you know he was a pervert?”

  She and Walter exchanged looks. “We know,” she said.

  “Why don’t we go into the house and discuss this,” and saw the shotgun propped behind a plastic lawn chair on the porch. “Bring it in with you, Walter.”

  “We can’t get in, Sheriff,” Colleen said.

  “Why not? He’s not inside, is he?”

  “No,” Walter said. “Our daughter pushed something against the door and locked us out.”

  “Why she do that?”

  “I don’t know. She needs her ass whooped, for one thing.”

  Sheriff Bledsoe knocked on the door. “How old is she?”

  “Twenty-one.”

  “What’s
her name?”

  “Linda.”

  “Linda, this is Sheriff Bledsoe. Open the door, sweetheart.” He waited. “Linda, if you don’t open the door, I’ll have to break it down. You don’t want me to break your parent’s door, do you?”

  He heard something scrape across the floor and then the door opened. One look at her and another herd stampeded inside his stomach.

  “I’ma beat your ass!” Walter said to Linda. “When I start working on your ass, I’m beating you for old and new. Mostly new!”

  “Hold the threats, Walter,” Sheriff Bledsoe said. “C’mon, let’s go inside and figure out what’s going on here.”

  “Ain’t no threat,” Walter said, staring at his daughter.

  Inside, after Walter put the shotgun behind the door, Sheriff Bledsoe requested everyone take a seat. Colleen and Walter sat on the couch while Linda remained standing. Sheriff Bledsoe said, “Did someone break into your house?”

  “Yes,” Colleen and Walter said.

  “No, he didn’t!” Linda said. “I let him in. He didn’t break in. I let him in. We didn’t do nothing.”

  “Dammit!” Walter shouted. “Go to your room!”

  “Wait a minute, Walter,” Sheriff Bledsoe said. “Let her talk.” To Linda: “Who did you let in?”

  She looked at her father and stuck her thumb into her mouth. “Erbic.”

  “Who?”

  She took her thumb out. “Eric.”

  “What’s his last name?”

  “I don’t know his last name.”

  “Tall, lanky, bushy eyebrows?”

  Linda returned her thumb to her mouth, rubbed her nose with the index finger and nodded.

  “Eric Barnes?” Sheriff Bledsoe said.

  Walter said, “He’ll have to change his name to dead meat when I get through with him.”

  “Why did you let him in?” Sheriff Bledsoe asked.

  She shrugged.

  “What did he do when he was here?”

  Linda, one eye staring at her father and the other at Sheriff Bledsoe, garbled, “We dint doo nuffin!”

  “She’s not helping you, Sheriff Bledsoe,” Colleen said. “Can she be excused?”

  “I guess so,” avoiding looking at her. What the hell was Eric thinking? “I may need to talk to her again.”

  “What you waiting on?” Walter shouted at his daughter. Linda ran out of the room and seconds later Sheriff Bledsoe heard a door slam. He thought to tell Walter to lighten up on the girl, but didn’t think it would help matters.

  Walter said, “I’ve been trying to get his name for a while. I’m glad you told me.”

  “Walter, you may already be looking at a weapon discharge violation, so hold the vigilante talk. This is what I’m paid to do, so let me handle it, okay?”

  “Hell, Sheriff,” Walter said. “You saw her. You can tell she’s Super Glued on silly. Can’t even talk without sucking on her damn thumb. It ain’t right! A rusty butt man! In my house! You know it ain’t right, Sheriff. What if she were your daughter?”

  “She said nothing happened.”

  “Maybe nothing happened today,” Colleen said. “We know for a fact he’s been fooling around with her.”

  Walter said, “Hell yes, Sheriff. It ain’t right! Ain’t none of it right! Here I am sleeping on the couch and I hear Colleen screaming, and this fool ran out and started attacking her. Scared me so bad I didn’t know what to do first, beat him with my bare hands or shoot him?”

  Colleen said, “He didn’t attack me. I grabbed him.”

  Walter pointed to the shotgun behind the door. “I had him—sight alignment, sight picture, right between the eyes. Damned Linda jumped on my back.” Shaking his head: “I had him!”

  “Walter, you’re lucky,” Sheriff Bledsoe said. “If you’d shot him, you’d be on your way to jail now.”

  “Linda’s the one who’s lucky,” Walter said. “She’s damn lucky that woman didn’t hurt her.”

  “What woman?”

  “His wife, or girlfriend,” Colleen said. “She’s a big woman. Last year she caught Linda and that man inside her house and she walked Linda home. Told me to keep an eye on my daughter ’cause the next time, she said, Linda wouldn’t be able to crawl back. She told me this to my face, about my own daughter. Anyone else I would’ve raised hell, but she had this look in her eye—it scared me. She was serious than diabetes.”

  “Shirley Harris,” Sheriff Bledsoe said, rubbing his chest. “I’m surprised you don’t know her.”

  “No, I don’t know her. Is she any kin to Larry Harris?”

  “Yes, he’s her father.”

  “Oh,” Colleen said. “Explains why she’s keeping house with a pervert.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Larry worked at Hillard Catfish Farm. We used to call him Loony Larry. He was mad all the time, always telling the supervisor what he would or wouldn’t do. I’m surprised he kept his job as long as he did. Somebody told me he ate spoiled pig feet, got sick and died.”

  “You think someone at his job was angry enough to do something to him?”

  “Sheriff,” Walter said, “what’s this got to do with the situation here? We want to know what you’re doing about Eric Barnes.”

  Colleen said, “Everybody who worked there, including myself, wanted to do something to him one time or another. He had a bad habit of name-calling. You ask him to stop, he’d keep at it, say it more often. He really got to tripping right before he retired. For years he’d been telling everybody how much money he’d invested in the company’s stock plan. A million plus, the way he told it. Come to find out he’d never signed up for the stock plan. He thought it was automatic. All those years and he—”

  “What!” Sheriff Bledsoe shouted. “You mean he never had a million dollars? Are you sure?”

  “Yes, I’m sure. Everybody—everybody at Hillard knows about it. Ask anyone there, they’ll tell you.”

  Sheriff Bledsoe stared at her.

  “Sad news,” Walter said. “Sheriff, are you gonna arrest this scumbag? If you don’t do something to him, I will.” Sheriff Bledsoe kept staring at Colleen, his mind obviously elsewhere.

  “Sheriff? Sheriff?”

  Sheriff Bledsoe rubbed his chest and squeezed his stomach. “What?”

  “Are you listening to me?” Walter said.

  “I hear you. I hear you loud and clear,” and got up and walked out the door without saying another word.

  Chapter 37

  “Reap what you sow. Reap what you sow.”

  Eric talked to himself as he walked to Count Pulaski State Park. “Reap what you sow.” His mother had told him that a thousand times. Man, was she right! He’d sowed bullshit and he’d definitely reaped bullshit. Big time!

  Now a worldly lifestyle was behind him, in his past. He’d seen the light. He’d had an out-of-body experience. No, he’d experienced something grander than a floating sensation. He’d experienced a… What did the white folks call it?

  He walked farther and then it struck him: an epiphany! Yes! An epiphany! He’d stared into the grim reaper’s eyes, two black holes, and—Kabooom!—an epiphany!

  Now he had to find Shirley, beg her forgiveness and, if she was willing, marry her. The right thing to do, the epiphany had told him, shortly after the shotgun blast had stopped ringing in his ears. “Marry Shirley!” Loud and clear.

  Of course, he realized, Shirley might still be pissed. No matter. Once he told her about his epiphany—though not the part what led up to it—she would just have to forgive him.

  He loved her. She was the only woman he needed, the only person who had stuck by him in good times and bad. Why hadn’t he realized this a long time ago? Amazing how an epiphany can clear the fog shrouding true love.

  The sun was a reddish-orange sliver above the horizon when he came up to Robert Earl’s Datsun and a gray Lumina. Three trails, less than a half block apart, led into the woods. Which one?

  Pick the wrong one and he might be lost in
the woods a long time. Was he pushing his luck? Eventually Shirley would come home. Wouldn’t it be more romantic if he begged her forgiveness and hand in marriage in a public place? Yes. A lot safer, too.

  Darlene had said Shirley planned to camp in the woods a couple of days, which didn’t make sense because Shirley wasn’t the outdoor type.

  He had to make a choice. Go up or go home? “I’m a man,” he said to bolster his confidence. “A man who just experienced an epiphany.” Then he started up Hot Springs Trail.

  The canopy of branches above the trail extinguished the light. Total darkness. A tad cooler. He tried to remember what he’d learned in his brief stint in the Cub Scouts some twenty-three-years ago. Be ready, was it? Don’t go if you don’t have to, more than likely.

  Mosquitoes attacked his hands, neck and face. One contented itself with simply buzzing around his ear.

  He kept walking, hands held out in front to avoid walking into a tree. Suddenly he stopped, certain he’d heard something… something moving, something heavy.

  Two nights ago Shirley told him about a raccoon she’d seen in the backyard rummaging through trash. A raccoon, she’d explained, didn’t come out in daylight and bare its teeth unless it was rabid. A raccoon can easily rip open an aluminum can with its claws. In an attack, a raccoon goes straight for the eyes.

  Why the hell did she tell me all that?

  She could have simply said, “I think the raccoon in the backyard has rabies,” and left it there. No, she had to provide an encyclopedia of information on raccoon behavior.

  He slapped at the mosquito buzzing around his ear. His right leg started shaking. A long time he stood there thinking about that damned rabid raccoon.

  I’m spooking my own ass, and took a step forward. The noise sounded again. He stopped… What the hell is it?

  Squinting, he looked right to left and saw nothing but darkness. A mosquito bit him on the exposed flesh where his silk shirt had been torn.

  Another noise, like claws sharpened against a rock, sounded directly behind him. He whirled around and the noise stopped.

  Something’s out here with me.

  He could feel it watching him, waiting for him to move again so it could match his footsteps… and then it would jump on his back and sink its rabid fangs into his neck and scratch his eyes out with its aluminum-can-ripping claws.