Dirtbags (20 page)

“Well, I reckon we can work something out,” Bubba Greene said. He rubbed his hand up and down her knee, then removed it. “It’s the least I can do for Brutal.”

Back in the early days of the 809, a regular customer known by Prissy Pierce developed a bit of a habit of taking off her top and dancing for the tobacco farmers when she got good and drunk and, despite Bubba’s best efforts to stop her, an industry was born. Over the years, very few improvements were made on the converted doublewide trailer, but the club’s reputation blossomed nonetheless.

Prissy Pierce was long gone by the time Rhonda McCloster came along. Some say she was hit by a car down on Broad Street a few years back, others say she passed out during a bender and never woke up. Most likely, she left when the mill closed and money dried up and, like most other folks, moved off to better things. In her place was a crew of girls dispatched from the heavens or someplace similar to strip, dance, and for a few hours, help the men of Lawles County forget just how tough things could be.

Rhonda pinned a picture of her daddy to the corner of the mirror in her dressing room, underneath the lights. The dressing room had once been a bedroom in the doublewide, but now the girls slipped into their skivvies and put on makeup and did all sorts of things to get ready for dancing. Some nights were harder than others, but when she stepped into the dressing room, the first thing she laid eyes on was her daddy, and that made it all the better.

The day they put her daddy in the ground, Bubba made sure to be by her side. Only other folks standing before that hole was the preacher man and two ladies from church. Bubba slipped an arm around her shoulders, and she held back tears, because if they started, they might never stop.

“He would be mighty proud of you,” Bubba said.

“I don’t know about that.” She wore a black dress and a black top she borrowed from one of the girls at the club. Most of all, she was grateful for the sunglasses.

One of the women from the church looked at them and didn’t look away.

“That’s a mighty fine box you picked out,” Bubba said.

“I didn’t pick it,” she said. “You did. The one I picked weren’t so fancy. Daddy wasn’t a fancy man.”

“A man like Brutal lived frugal enough in this world,” Bubba explained. “It’s good of us to send him out with a touch of class and style.”

Rhonda wanted to remind him it was her paying for the box and not him, but didn't. Such was things in the burial business: You pay for the box, the hole, the preacher, and all the stuff done to ready a man for Glory. Folks like the McClosters reckoned them just fine dug into the side of a creek bed or a ridge somewhere, but there was a mess of laws preventing people from doing just that. Some of the money went toward people writing those laws. Rhonda figured all of life was a racket, so why not death as well.

The preacher finished his business and went on his way, taking with him the two ladies from the church. Bubba stayed a while, then gave her a friendly nudge.

“You see them men out on the ridge there?” He pointed to a pair of Mexicans with shovels. “They’re going to want us to be on our way. They got work to tend after.”

“Tell them they can tend after it, for all I care.”

“They prefer to do their job when no one’s looking,” he said.

“Who doesn’t?”

Bubba smiled. Normally folks didn’t offer him any sass, but he kept his mouth shut this time. He put a hand to her back and rubbed it softly. He stepped over to the ridge to have a word with the Mexicans. He gave them some money, and Rhonda wondered to herself if she would be working that off as well. After a bit, he joined her again at the hole.

“They’ll come back in an hour,” he said. “Stay as long as you like, but come four o’clock, they’re filling in that hole whether you’re here or not.”

“I understand,” she said.

“Good,” he said. “Because you got to be at the club by five.”

He left her there at the hole. That night, she got into the liquor. The 809 didn’t stock quite the supply it used to back in the day when people came just to drink. Most folks brought their own. Rhonda made it a point to make friends with those with a bottle and let some get a bit grabbier during the private dances in exchange for a shot here and there. This made her one of the more popular dancers until Bubba caught wind. The next guy she pulled into the back room for a dance brought gin and they had just tapped into it when Bubba interrupted them.

“I catch you getting one of my girls liquored up again, and I’ll take you out back, you hear?”

Branch Gilmer didn’t need any more convincing. He grabbed his bottle and hightailed it out of the private room and, for good measure, on out of the club and down the 809 to somewhere safe. Rhonda wasn’t as lucky.

“Come with me,” he grunted. He took her by the arm and led her to the back room. The folks who built the trailer intended for it to be the master bedroom, but Bubba used it for his office. Big desk, bed behind some Oriental curtains, half-empty liquor cabinet. Guns. Bubba could hole up in the 809 for a week in case of a standoff. He sat her down on the chair in front of his desk. He lighted a cigar and stood next to his chair as if he intended to sit, but had thought otherwise for the time being.

“I’m real sorry, Bubba,” Rhonda said. “I thought you was—”

He held up a hand. It was all he had to do. His wrist was like a twisted mess of steel and pipe, all coming together in a hand as wretched and timeworn and leathery . . . and mean. She’d heard stories. What demise had those hands wrought?

“Tell me you don’t think that now, with Brutal in the ground, you don’t owe me nothing.”

She opened her mouth, but divined nothing worth saying.

He didn’t wait for the answer. “Tell me you don’t think that money you owe me still has got to be paid back torreckly.”

She closed her mouth. It was the best decision she could make, she reckoned.

“I understand you being a little upset and all, especially after you just put your daddy in the hole this afternoon. But let’s be perfectly clear: Brutal is gone, you hear me? He’s gone, and he ain’t coming back. Do you know what that means?”

She slowly shook her head. Outside, the music bumped and thumped. The girl named Sinnamon would be dancing. Normally, Rhonda would be up next. She didn’t think it wise to mention that now. She thought it smarter rather to let Bubba do all the talking.

“That means I’m your daddy now, you hear me?” He puffed on the cigar, then gently laid it onto the edge of the ashtray. “Tell me you understand.”

Rhonda nodded slowly.

“Good.” Bubba stepped away from his chair. Rounded the desk. He took Rhonda by the arm and, almost as if by intuition or instinct, she rose slowly as his gentle arm seemed to impel her to do. She stood and awaited further instruction. Bubba came around behind her and put both his hands on her shoulders. He leaned close to her ear. “I want you to say it.”

“Say what?” Her voice quivered and barely managed above a whisper.

His grip on her shoulders tightened. “I’m your daddy now.”

Something inside her throat cracked. She reached a hand behind her. It found his thigh. She felt him through his coarse, rough blue jeans. At that moment, she realized something. After getting her daddy in the ground, she could be anything she wanted—anything at all—except alone. That warmed her insides and froze them solid, all at the same time. She pulled him by the thigh closer into her back.

“You’re my daddy now.”

They hadn’t been finished for longer than a couple of minutes when Sinnamon came knocking on the door. She knocked, hollered, then knocked some more while Bubba gave Rhonda time to compose herself. He returned to his seat and picked up his cigar as if none of it had ever happened. He put his feet, dirty boots and all, up on the desk. He hollered for Sinnamon to come on in, door’s open.

“We need her out here,” Sinnamon said. “There’s a birthday boy, and us girls got to do a train. We can’t do a train with just two girls.”

“I reckon you’re right about that,” Bubba said. He looked to Rhonda, still keeping it together. “You up for it?”

Rhonda nodded. She feared if she said anything, everything would come rushing forth in such a storm that neither she nor Bubba nor all the winds of God and Heaven could stop. She stared at the carpet.

“Then get on out there,” he said. She didn’t wait. She was up and out the door, feeling every bit of Bubba’s come dripping out of her and down her leg as she went. She cursed and hated herself and went to the dressing room to fix herself up for the birthday boy. First thing she saw, as always, was her daddy. Her daddy, Brutal McCloster, staring at her and smiling. She ripped the picture from the mirror and dropped it in the wastebasket.

“Let’s hurry,” said the other girl, one who called herself Passion. “These boys have been spending some money.”

“Are they handsome?” Rhonda asked as she hurried a new coat of rouge across her cheeks. She didn’t need to ask, she knew Passion liked to answer.

“One of them is,” she said. “The rest of them are like . . . how do you call them . . . 
dorks
.”

“Dorks?”

“You’ll see,” Passion said. “Come on, you look great.”

A train usually got reserved for a birthday boy. His buddies threw in some cash, and he sat on a chair in the middle of the stage while all the dancers lined up and took turns rutting on his lap. Sometimes, depending on the customer’s demeanor, restraints were involved. Rhonda found herself relieved to find the man on stage unbound. He seemed harmless, only partially enthused by the evening’s events. He looked this way and that, mostly at some of the other boys who stood at the side and hooted and hollered.

First went Sinnamon, who had a flair for that kind of thing. The birthday boy’s hands came up as if he were going to place them on her hips, but he seemed to remember the rules at the last second and kept them at his side. Sinnamon gyrated and humped and, just when things threatened to crescendo, hopped off him and made room for Passion.

Def Lepperd played on the juke. If Passion could pour sugar on anything, it would be her own sweet self. She liked to play it dainty and diminutive, and the boy never seemed interested at all. When she was done, Rhonda took her position. Passion whispered a word of advice as they passed on the steps to the stage.

“Whiskey dick, sugar,” she said. “It will take something special to get this boy’s attention.”

Rhonda smiled and perched herself atop the boy’s lap. She credited Passion with great intuition, as the boy’s breath reeked of bourbon. She leaned in and inhaled vanilla fumes from his breath, her mouth just inches from his. She knew immediately that the boy suffered not from disinterest.

“How old are you today?” she asked.

“Do what?”

“It’s your birthday, right?”

“Oh . . . yeah . . . sure. I’m twenty-two.”

She used her sexiest voice. “Hello, Mister Twenty-two.”

She never knew love. The thing she knew in its place was something completely different. Or maybe it wasn’t. Maybe what she knew was love all along and there were just too many preachers and TV sets and ladies from church who stood in her way and told her it was wrong. No, what she knew was when it was time to put her daddy in the hole, there were very little folk helping her except for Bubba Greene, and this may very well be the lot she faced unless she found herself another one.

She leaned into his ear. “You’re quite the big boy, Mister Twenty-Two.”

For a moment, he appeared lost. His chin quivered. He looked this way and that.

“Aileen Wuornos,” he said to himself in a weak voice. “Aileen . . . Lavinia Fisher.” He swallowed. “Delfina and Maria Gonzales.”

She put a hand to his cheek. “What are you saying, darling?” Her voice, like molasses. Something she did was working. “Are those your girlfriends? Is that getting you hot?”

“Nannie . . . Nannie . . . ” His entire body tensed and convulsed. The world, for a moment, stopped rotating. “Nannie . . . 
Doss
.” His face contorted horribly and, in an instant, it was over. His eyes rose to her, weakly. Spent.

She smiled and put a finger to his lips. “Shhhh.”

“Oh . . . oh . . . ”

“Shhhh.”

She stood, still hovering just above his lap. “Happy birthday, Mister Twenty-Two.”

He smiled back at her. “My name is Calvin,” he panted. “Calvin Cantrell.”

“Hi Calvin,” she purred. “My name is Rhonda.”

She reckoned she would see to it many more times in life. She reckoned she would have her share of loving, perhaps more often than most. After that night, she reckoned the reasons she would see to it would span well beyond her own comprehension, but that first time, she done it to bury her daddy.

Every time after that, she promised, it would be for something altogether different.

17

A girl like Rhonda knew to take what she could get. All her life she’d been the same: wire thin, built like a boy, her long red hair sometimes being the only thing setting her apart. Most folk in that part of the world knew who they would marry by junior high. Rhonda dropped out of school in junior high, so she’d fancied her chances limited from the get-go. She held firm and practiced this belief through all of them. Through the cop, the cotton-gin parts dealer, the steakhouse owner. Even through her husband, Calvin Cantrell, who stood at the riverbed over the bodies into which he carved first the number
nine
into the chest of the woman, and later a
ten
through that of her boyfriend.

Rhonda intended to outlast them all.

She waited patiently as Calvin tore into their bodies. “This is my first double digit,” he said thoughtfully. He would first scratch out the number with the tip of his knife, as if the blade were little more than a red felt pen. Then, he would follow up by driving the knife deeper into the body and tracing his work. A
zero
, being such a round figure, caused great consternation for Calvin as he had to straddle his victim and put his full weight into the knife as he worked.

The couple was young, the youngest yet. Rhonda had stumbled across them here at the river behind some mountain laurel, rutting away like spring. They hadn’t heard her approach, so when she called out, she’d put the fear of God into them. The woman screamed, crammed her shirt across her bare chest, and backed away on all fours like a crab.