Donnybrook: A Novel (11 page)

Jarhead reached for small trees. They uprooted and he kept sliding. The decline was two or three hundred yards straight down. He rolled and tumbled but held on to the Walmart sack. He hit bottom and lay on his back, cut and bruised, catching his wind. Dried leaves down his shirt and pants. Soil about his hands and knees.

From back up the hill, he could hear the faint crack and pop of gunfire echoing.

Making it to his feet, wiping away the debris of nature, he heard water splashing in front of him. He inhaled, followed the scent and sound. His boots sank into the marshmallowed earth. Vegetation had been drowned out. Trees were all that remained, their bare roots above land.

As he stepped out of the woods, there it was—the warm fish-stink of the Ohio River, its brown water beating the shoreline of mud and silt. Then like the wind a man’s voice asked, “Shit happen to you, son? Get into a scrape with a sticker bush or was it Alonzo Conway?”

Back up the hill in the farmhouse, Alonzo aimed for the rear end of a police cruiser while Tig aimed for another. Kept pulling the trigger. Replacing a spent shell with a live one in succession. Till the plan took.

One ball of flame created another ball of flame. Bodies behind the cruisers disintegrated. The orange ball mushroomed wide and into the tin-sided barn, where flame found more fuel. Building into a large combustion. Shaking land and homes for miles.

Down on the Ohio, Jarhead and the man felt the tremor in their wobbling legs. Each glanced up the hill. “Sam hell was that?” the man asked.

Jarhead held a straight face of nicks and cuts. Tiny rips lined the weighted-down Walmart sack in his left hand. The .45 was tucked tight into his waistband. The man held a Quantum fishing rod in his right hand. Wore a brown T-shirt. Had a curved skinning knife attached to a pair of tan Carhartt carpenter pants tucked into black rubber wading boots. He was clean-shaven, his hair overcast-gray and long, banded into a ragged ponytail. Each ear was pierced. He’d eagles inked about his wadded-paper-sack arms. His eyes were bright green. Jarhead asked him, “You get me to the other side of the river?”

The man smiled, said, “Thought you’d never ask. Been waiting down here all morning.”

Jarhead said, “Waiting all morning? Look, old-timer, cut the shit. Can you get me across the river and to Orange County or not? I gotta—”

“I know.”

Sweat coated the ache that began to form on Jarhead’s body. He was losing patience, started to pull the pistol from his waist and asked, “Whaddaya you mean you know? You in hock with them two diaper-raping motherfuckers up over the hill?”

The man’s hand pressed against Jarhead’s, stopped him from pulling the gun, and the man told Jarhead, “None of the above, son. I’s strictly of the spirit. Now, put your ego back up. My boat’s down behind you a few.” He turned his hand into a handshake. “Name’s Purcell.”

Jarhead gripped Purcell’s hand. “People call me Jar—”

“Jarhead Johnny Earl.” Purcell squeezed his hand, said, “I know all about you. People call me Purcell, Purcell the Prophet sometimes. Let’s get going ’fore it gets dark.”

14

Cigarette smoke thick as the smoke from blazing tires wrapped around Angus at the door. Behind him, a rusted-exhaust-pipe voice laced with bourbon demanded, “Where you think you’re going?”

Angus’s mouth was devoid of moisture, dry as three Sundays without a drop of rain. He’d no pain. Just petrol in search of a spark. He fished a smoke from the pocket of his sleeveless gray T-shirt, lit it, and exhaled. “Fixing to get a drink chased with some answers.”

A man. Midforties. Black T-shirt wrinkled around the collar. Chicken-skin flesh. Jaws rough lumps of biscuits browned in the oven too long. With a sixteen-penny-nail stare driving into Angus, he told him, “You’re wrong. Ruined my boy with that shit you sell.”

From the jukebox, Bascom Lamar Lunsford wailed “I Wish I Was a Mole in the Ground.” A few men sat at a table behind the man, shaking their heads and sipping sweaty cans of Falls City. Angus let the cigarette dangle from his lip. His arms hung loose at his sides like an ape’s. He took in the man’s worn appearance, said, “You wanna bruise me up? Meet me outside when I’m done. But here’s a warning, you’re good as ash scattered in fresh loam when I finish with you.”

The man’s frame pulsed tight. “Why, why you gotta intrude here?”

Angus steadied himself, clenched a fist. Got the blood flowing, said, “’Cause I gotta find someone to earn my keep. Every man makes a living off another human being, that’s life.”

The man dribbled, “You mean ruin people. Cause them impurities of life.”

Angus inhaled deep. Drew the smoke into his lungs, blew it from his mouth while telling the man, “I get by on what’s been dealt to me.”

*   *   *

The man wouldn’t quit, said, “That ain’t God’s way.”

Angus laughed. Couldn’t help it. “And getting shit-faced in a tavern is? Look, if they’s a God, I’m doing right by his examples set upon man, woman, and child. Guess you are too.”

The man clenched his teeth. “Don’t say that.”

Angus had had his fill, said, “Whatever your damage is with me, take it outside to the shit-green Pinto. Be there in a few.”

Angus brushed the man’s shoulder. Felt the give, the unbalanced push of his frame. Inexperienced, Angus thought, knowing he’d take the bastard out in two licks.

He made his way through the noise of bodies. Late evening slurps. Hoots and howls. Sat at the bar. Poe met him with a slow push of words. “Ain’t seen you in a long while. Your girl was in here few nights back.”

Angus didn’t even smile, said, “Why I’m here.”

Poe told him, “You’s a few nights shy, friend.”

Unblinking, Angus ripped Poe’s eyes out with his own, said, “You ain’t my friend. But you can be friendly.”

Poe held the dead gaze of the pearl eye in Angus’s face and asked, “How’s that?”

“We can do this civil. Or I can dislocate your shoulder. Segregate your eyes. Then drag your ass over this bar. Make things real bad for you in the coming years. I need to know where the girl,
my sister
, went with a fella named Ned.”

Poe, cadaver-faced, channeled the noise of patrons in and out. The smell of smoke and booze lacquered his frame. The jukebox stopped. His heart rushed. A new song was coming. He took in Angus’s shoulder with the white bandage. Thought about digging it open with the fork that lay below his crotch behind the bar. Angus interrupted, “Don’t think that wound will slow me down none regardless of what you try. Just spit it to me straight. I’m out of your hair. No foul.”

“3 Dimes Down” by the Drive-By Truckers started on the jukebox. Guitars whined:
It was a straight shot. All it took was luck to not get caught. I laid three dimes down and the machine wanted twenty-five cents.

Poe knew Ned and this Liz were in the middle of something bad. Couldn’t be good. Poe knew Ned always burned his bridges. And Poe’d heard about Angus. Never lost a fight. That was the rumor. Apparently the dumb shit at the door hadn’t heard that one. Either way, it didn’t matter. If Poe told Angus what he wanted, Ned might be pissing blood by morning if it weren’t for several others wanting to make him do the same. Angus wouldn’t find Ned before the others found him. But Lang and the others might be willing to trade their prize for some cash. Then again, that’d be between them and Angus. Like he said, no foul.

Poe told him, “You ever hear of a place called Cur’s Watering Hole?”

Angus nodded.

Poe grinned. “How about the Donnybrook?”

*   *   *

Behind dark-tinted windows, Fu sat in a dusty navy blue Tahoe. He’d been staking out the tavern. Entrance in the front. Exit out the side. Was waiting till after midnight. Let the crowd get good and wobbled before he found the man named Poe. Didn’t need every backwoods brother, cousin, and father getting fiery with him if he had to bloody the man.

Fu watched a man exit the tavern as quick as he’d entered. Lean barbed-wire muscle beneath sleeveless cotton. Tattoos in gothic script and a braided cord of hair down his back. Another man exited after him, stood by a rusted car. Near the same age. Waited. Feet unsteady. No balance. Carried himself all wrong. Started to approach the man dressed in the T-shirt without sleeves. Whose left hand came like a blink. Raised from his side. Separated the night. Met the man who waited by the rusted car. Made his nose plywood-flat. Rocked his head back. Clenched his jaw, which cracked along with his teeth. Blood smeared the air. The rocking wasn’t from the left hand. The left hand hid the right uppercut that followed from the twist and dig of the right hip. The man who waited by the car fell to the gravel lot. The man who dropped him helped him to his feet. Escorted him back to the tavern’s entrance.

Fu glanced at the photos that sat on his dash. This was the man with the puzzle-pieced face. He could fight. Held a form of honor. But there was no woman. Fu didn’t need unwanted attention. Needed to question the man in solitude. Get Mr. Zhong’s money. Fu opened his glove box. Pulled out plastic twist ties. Popped the back door open. Clicked the interior dome light off. Opened his door.

Angus heard the distant squeak of a car door. Faint crunches across gravel. Felt a presence flare in his neck. He released his car door’s handle. Turned with his gun removed from his waistband. Raised it too late. Someone hit a nerve in Angus’s arm. It went limp. He released the gun. The same quick hand caught it. A fist straight-lined him, the index finger bent, thumb on top of it, caught him below his nose. Delivered a loss of motor function throughout his body.

Angus fell forward. Was broken at the waist over a small man’s shoulder. Carried and thrown facedown into the rear of a vehicle that smelled like leather seats and noodles with beef. Angus’s elbows were twisted and bent behind his back. The wound in his shoulder burned. Wrist laid over wrist. Then tightened. He couldn’t move them. A cloth sack slid over his head. The door slammed. The engine started.

Soon Angus sat with his head spinning. Cloth sack over his head. He’d been pulled from the back of the vehicle. Carried from the outdoor heat to the indoor cool of AC. His hands were still pulled behind him. Restrained. His back pressed into the cold wood of a chair. Wherever he was smelt of fresh-poured concrete. Basement, maybe. Footsteps were light. Near silent. He started to move when he felt the pierce of metal. Something needle-fine passed through his flesh, hit a nerve. His legs went limp. He felt another pierce of metal. His arms lost feeling.
Fuck!

The sack was removed from his head. Overhead lights burned bright. Angus sized up the small man. Saw flat-knuckled hands attached to arms bone-hard. The man wore glasses, his eyes snakelike behind the deep lenses. He stood by a small jade table. A stainless steel dish sat on top of it. Long needles lay inside it. The smell of rubbing alcohol.

Behind the man, two large leather sacks were suspended from the rafters by chains. Stuffed like punching bags. Shoulder level. Angus started to open his mouth, was cut off by the Asian man’s tongue.

“My name is Fu. I work for a man named Mr. Zhong. He has a client, Mr. Eldon, who owes a large gambling debt. Mr. Zhong tells me you and your sister have an agreement for the exchange of money to Mr. Eldon. Money that he needed to pay Mr. Zhong. As it now stands, Eldon is dead. So you and your sister must pay the said money to Mr. Zhong to make all parties involved happy.”

All Angus wanted was to find Liz and Ned, get his dope. Any money they had, he wasn’t sharing. But sitting here paralyzed with a needle in his neck wasn’t helping. He’d try his luck with the slant. “I don’t got your money. My sister and some swinging cock took all that pervert Eldon’s cash. And the drugs. Left me for dead. How I got the new shoulder decoration.”

Fu didn’t blink. “Why were you at the bar?”

Angus said, “Same as you. Looking for my sister and some guy goes by the name Ned. She hung out there. Sold our crank from time to time.”

Fu questioned, “Why did you have a feud with the man in the lot?”

Angus chuckled. “Misunderstanding.” He wanted to deal, laid a few cards on the table. “But I know where my sister’s headed.”

Fu’s face lightened from stone to violently sweet powdered sugar. “Where?”

Angus said, “Look, you pull these needles out of me, untie my hands, we can talk.”

Fu shook his head. “You tell me,” he lied, “then I’ll let you go.”

Angus clenched his teeth. Tried another set of cards, said, “You can have the money. I want my crank. Wanna watch Liz and this Ned guy swim in they own filth. Look, I ride shotgun, give directions while you drive.”

Fu stood, considering. Remembered Angus leading the man he’d dropped with two punches back to the bar. The way he’d carried himself. He’d some hint of reverence. Fu asked, “So, you will tell me where to drive? And we will get the money from your sister?”

Angus said, “Yeah, they’s a ways off the beaten path. No offense, I tell you where they is, you get lost in the sticks, the sticks people ain’t none too fond of giving your kind directions.”

Fu considered this. Didn’t need trouble. If he killed Angus now, Mr. Zhong might have to wait even longer than he already had. Mr. Zhong was twenty grand in the hole from Eldon. Wanted his money now. Fu nodded. Stepped to Angus. A grunt erupted from one of the suspended leather bags. Fu stopped and turned in one motion and said, “Quiet!”

His voice bounced in the concrete room. The grunt turned to panting. The leather bag started to flail and expand violently. Angus’s eyes bugged. His heart sped up. Fu approached the bag. Quick as the wind, he struck the bag with a right palm. A left elbow. The bag bent and jerked. The noise ceased. A spot formed on the bottom. Darkened the leather. Began to drip onto the gray tiled floor along with the faint sound of crying.

Fu laughed, explained to Angus, “Students.”

He grabbed another needle from the dish. Calm as a clear blue sky. Stepped toward Angus and slid behind him. Angus tried to tense his body but was devoid of feeling.

Fu thought about the obsidian butterfly knife in his pocket. Glanced at the braided scalp of Angus. Imagined the blade parting Angus’s throat halfway. Methodical and slow. Taking away his air. Watching the blood bubble and seep. Watching Angus cough, fight for air.