Pistol Fanny's Hank & Delilah (4 page)

Hank shook his head and smirked. His eyes roamed around the small space, stalling on Fat Squirrel, who they had found dead one day inside Wild Thang. They had him stuffed. He sat on one of the shelves, a ceramic Moon Pie glued to his frozen paws.

Hank took a big shot of the tequila. He swished it in his mouth a bit, trying to drown the thoughts swimming around in his head like bloodthirsty sharks. He didn’t want to think about them tonight. Somehow over the years he and his friends had learned to cope with what had happened together. But when you’re drunk and your choice of poison is laid at your feet, anything can come to mind. Being here was bothering him too for some unknown reason.

The ghosts from the unmarked graves were shouting at him, louder than he had ever heard them before. Maybe it was because he had been away from home for so long, gone to get his degree at Ole Miss, and being back brought back sudden memories. Or maybe it was just the tequila—tequila and Hank mixed, but they were the same as fire and gasoline. Too much and it could cause an explosion.

Jesse slapped him on the knee. “What’s wrong with you, Toots? You’re acting like you lost your best friend or something. I’m here, no need to be sad.” He took a sip of his RC Cola. He was still allergic to alcohol after all those years.

Hank laughed and took another shot. The mint in his mouth made the burn even stronger. Nobody had called him Toots since he left Tupelo, even though he talked to the guys on a regular basis. Not even June-bug called him that anymore, and she was the one who had given the name to him.

Curly laughed and messed up Dylan’s hair. “Hank always looks like he’s lost his best friend. It’s his eye. He can’t help it. He always looks like he’s contemplating something serious. It’ll sure help when he’s up against those soul suckers in the courtroom. His
tell
actually turned out
well
!”

“Imagine th-this,” Tommy said, still stuttering. “An entire bunch of drunken adult males wh-who have serious jobs in the world—s-sitting around in an old-old tree house, d-d-drunk as skunk sh-sh-shit.”

Dylan pointed at Tommy. “That’s exactly why we’re drunk, drunk, drunk as skunk shit! I don’t know about you guys, but since I’m the only one married in the group, I’m going to party as hard as I can. Nights like these are rare these days.” Dylan lifted his left hand in the air, the small kerosene lamp reflecting against the gold of his ring. “A wife and baby, not much room for actin’ a fool anymore, especially with all of the special brands of stupid breathing in this room. If you’re wondering if I’m talking about you—yes, I am.”

“The sheriff isn’t supposed to party,” Jesse said. “He’s supposed to uphold the law.”

“The sheriff is off duty tonight.” Dylan guzzled the rest of his beer and rolled it in the corner. It collapsed against the tower they’d been building. He grabbed another from their cooler and flipped the cap off with a small bottle opener. He crawled to the radio on his knees and switched the tapes. REO Speedwagon started playing.

Hank shook his head and sighed. More damn memories being dug up. Those old ghosts were hooting and hollering and shaking chains, not giving up.

Hank had outrun those ghosts for so long. He weighed himself down with school, with books and papers, with keeping a firm grip on his purpose. The law. And although he was fairly new to the world, it buzzed with his name. He was known for
this feeling
he had. He was one of the most promising attorneys anyone had seen in a very long time. Extremely fierce, smart and smooth, he could work a courtroom as well as a highly trained brain surgeon works an operating room.

Everyone wanted him. He had offers coming from miles away. More than anyone else, those on the defense craved him the most. They were willing to pay a pretty penny for him too. He was known as
the feeling
, and he hadn’t even gotten started yet. He’d been working for a year in Memphis at the D.A.’s office. But he had his sights on home, so he took a position underneath his stepfather, who was the district attorney.

This is why he had worked so hard. This is the only reason he had followed in his stepfather’s footsteps. He was sick and tired of evil always winning over good. He would always use his own voice to speak for those who couldn’t anymore. He would be the victim’s gun in the courtroom. And that’s what he admired most about his friends. They had all grown up to become men who could be proud of what they did.

Dylan was sheriff, just as he had always planned on. Even though he looked like one of those asinine cops who would plant something on you or confiscate your stuff just because they could, he wasn’t. His eyes were hard but his heart was soft.

Jesse had opened his own panic-attack company and was one of the largest carriers of the system in the south. He had perfected it, and thanks to him, people could feel safe when they were all alone.

And Tommy, Tommy had run off to New York and was working at one of the largest newspapers in the world. Although he had set off hoping to break rules and push barriers, he ended up doing something none of them saw coming.

Tommy was the writer of Mrs. Thomasina Beeswaxes’s Southern Fried Food Column.
She puts the money on her honey!
was the column’s slogan. There was a picture of Tommy on the side of the page, except this side of Tommy was old with gray hair and dressed in drag.

Everyone believed Tommy was an old woman. It was all right by him. It was all just a part of his plan to become a serious journalist one day. The only problem was that he sometimes added two of the same ingredient and it would ruin the readers’ dishes.

It wasn’t really his fault, though, bless his heart.

Curly Cootie, well, Curly was just a special kind of special. He never kept steady work and he would work anyplace available. He was working as the dough guy at the local pizza place, and he couldn’t have been happier. His life plan was to live until he was seventy-one, and somehow between then and the end, he hoped to find his rightful place in the world. If he accomplished that he could die a happy man.

Hank wasn’t as free-wheeling with his life plans as Curly. He wouldn’t hide like Tommy. Or want to run a beast of a corporate operation like Jesse, or break the rules like Dylan, even though he was supposed to uphold them. Hank was a planner, and the one thing he had always planned on was justice. That day in the woods, something had changed Hank.

There was the bridge that Hank had always thought of, the one between fear and hate. Hank had left the fear side a long time ago. Hank was on the verge of hate, somehow just nearly escaping the one footstep that would lead him there.

“Come on, Hank,” Dylan said, interrupting Hank’s thoughts. “We never get to hang out like we used to. Thanks to your new job, this is the most I’ve seen you in years. Now you’re moving back, but you’re going to start work soon. Jesse is always traveling and Curly always has dough in his hair. And Tommy—”

They all looked at Tommy, who held both of his hands up.

“Has moved to
New York City
!” they all slurred, except for Jesse.

Hank laughed and got up on his knees. He stretched his arms a bit, while the room seemed to spin. He knew he was going to have hell to pay tomorrow for his sins, but tonight he was going to drink some more. He grabbed a beer from the ice chest and chugged it down.

“That’s my boy!” Dylan patted him on the shoulder.

Hank looked out the small window, and all those thoughts, along with the sharks, came rushing back to him again. He couldn’t seem to escape that day, even with the toxic amounts of alcohol he consumed. If anything, the alcohol seemed to be holding the shovel, creating a gaping hole in his mind, burying him under massive amounts of regret.

Hank cleared his throat, pointed out the window at nothing. “Do you think our lives would’ve been different if we would have turned Booty in?”

They all got quiet. REO sang a sad song in the background. The guys knew Hank well, and Hank wasn’t dealing. The tequila, they knew, was making it worse, more gas added to the already raging flames.

“Hank, I know how hard this is, padnah, but you have to let it go.” Dylan paused. “Or not let it go, always remember, but move forward, ya know?”

“He would have killed us, Hank,” Curly said.

“Maybe.” Hank thought it would have been worth it to see justice served.

“Few years back, I looked Boo-Boo-Booty up. He’s in Ch-Charlotte, North Carolina. He’s g-gotta lot of pull there and ai-ai-ain’t nobody talking.”

“They’re too afraid to talk,” Hank said with more bite than he intended.

“After all these years, people are still afraid of him.” Curly took a pull of his beer.

“I’m just glad he left town. I couldn’t stand looking at him,” Dylan piped up. “I wanted to punch him in the mouth many times, trust me, but Perkie always reminded me that I had her to think of. I didn’t want him going after her because of me.”

“There’s only one person, that we know of, who Booty is too afraid to cross.” Hank closed his eyes for a moment, imagining the blood-streaked forehead, the voices…

“Cr-Cray Lusianno,” Tommy said before releasing a monstrous belch.

“Yeah, he ran him out of town. Boy, would I have loved to be a fly on that wall.” Dylan waved a hand at Tommy, causing the smell of regurgitated finger foods and alcohol to waft around the small place.

Curly looked at both of them, his nose scrunched up, his mouth tight, before he released the breath he was holding. “You need vitamins, Tommy. Damn.” He shook his head, plugged his nose with his long fingers. “I didn’t know whether to find Cray Lusianno and shake his hand or spit in his pizza too. That’s one mean sum bitch, and ain’t nobody got time for that.”

“One killer replacing another.” Hank’s back was still turned to his friends, and they knew it was just a matter of time before he left the tree and went looking for REO. He sometimes did when he was drunker than skunk shit. “I have no tolerance for anyone who walks on the wrong side of the fence.”

Dylan nodded to the rest of the guys and then crawled next to Hank. He wrapped his arm around his stomach and squeezed, looking up at him, batting his lashes and smiling pretty. “Come on, let’s get moonshine-faced and act like we used to. Let’s pretend for one damn minute that day didn’t happen. Let’s just have a good time.”

Hank pushed him away and laughed. He lowered his beer and they clanked.

“Hell yeah!” Curly screeched. “Hank is back on the attack! What sorts of things are we going to do to Jesse tonight? And no pressing your panic button either, you weenie!”

“You guys ain’t doing nothing to Jesse tonight ’cause Jesse has to go take a whiz,” Jesse said.

They all watched as Jesse made it safely down the rope ladder. Easily done, since he was the only sober one. Once he made it down and toward the woods, the guys all hovered around his RC Cola and spiked it with vodka. Something they would always do to him. He never even knew he was getting drunk. And if one thing was true, Jesse was the funniest drunk in all of Tupelo. The things Wheezy wouldn’t do when he was loaded.

Hank decided he was going to have fun tonight. You just never know what tomorrow could bring. Those ghosts clambering for his attention would have to stay buried for just a little while longer.

THE next morning, Hank felt like a freight train was bursting through his dreams and ripping the inside of his head to shreds. Jesse’s daddy had always said, “beer before liquor, never sicker; liquor before beer, in the clear.” Hank thought that Jesse’s daddy might have said this while he was drunk. He followed instructions and was awfully sorry that he had. He should have never drunk so much. He was sicker than a dog and stiffer than Fat Squirrel, and his head was just a pounding something terrible.

Hank rolled over, painfully aware of every muscle, bone, and cell in his body. It took him a moment to realize that he was alive and not in some hellish nightmare. Collecting what bearings he had left to collect, he rolled over, right into a beam of hot sunlight, but thought better of it as he suddenly felt feverish. He hastily rolled the other way in a motion that disrespected his upset stomach. He groaned a little as the beast of belly settled back down.

What the hell did they do last night?

Hank looked around the room at all the bodies spread out. Legs were where arms should be and vice versa. Jesse was in the fetal position, giving Fat Squirrel a bear hug in his sleep. Hank cursed under his breath. It was true what the old folk said—
every man has a poison.
His was assuredly tequila. What had possessed him to drink it in the first place? Hank turned his head slightly and looked out that window. Oh yeah, ghosts.

A foot kicked him in the back. “Finally, one of you ladies awakes.”

Hank rolled toward the foot and directly into the sunlight again. He put his hand up to his eyes, attempting to shield some of the glare. Dylan was sitting in the beanbag chair, light shining behind him, a big smile on his face. Hank took a deep breath. The smell of coffee and donuts hung heavily in the early morning air.

“What in the hell are you doing?” Hank croaked.

“This is my guy time. I’m not letting ya’ll sleep it away. We’re going to the cages today, just like we used to do.”

“Heaven Almighty, Dylan, how are you talking so clearly? And so much?”

“When you have kids, you’ll understand. They’re indestructible with their late nights and early mornings, and you pusses are just like ’em. Except I don’t have to change any stinky diapers.” Dylan glanced at Jesse. “He’s big enough to change his own. Just like his ole man.”

Hank sat up slowly and winced when the light hit his eyes again. The small room spun for a minute before he could focus. Dylan had a donut and coffee in hand, waiting to hand them over. Hank took the coffee but refused the food. It reeked.

Dylan pulled the newspaper from the little round table, reading it over, while Hank blew into his coffee cup. He took a tentative sip, gauging its temperature. It glided like hot silk down his scratchy throat.

“Now, what’s going on again?” Hank said, his mind slowly starting to turn on.

“A bunch of women robbers. They’re taking over the country with their stealthy and hot ways.” Dylan laughed.