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eBooks
Banjo Lane: Chapter One
Banjo Lane: ChaptersTwo and Three
Banjo Lane: Chapter Four, An Honest Meth Cook
Chapter Five, A Dark Day for Busy Farmers
"I like your idea of a security camera," said Ken putting down his glass on a cork coaster advertising Acme Beer. "I could have one installed at the beginning of the road and we could put up some of those Neighborhood Watch signs you see around.I don't know how much good it will do, but if we get ripped off, we will hopefully be able to give the cops a list of license plates. It's somewhere to start."
?That makes sense,? ?Agreed Bruce. ??Maybe we can get a group discount.?
Scary Larry was counting the money from the day?s take of nickel and dime meth dealing. ?He had piles of worn bills stacked by denomination--ones and fives and tens with a few twenties--as well as pounds of chump change and a worn Smith and Wesson revolver. ?There was little doubt that the .38 was stolen and Larry had driven a hard bargain in trading meth for the old six shooter. ?
The tweaker who had traded the pistol for crank had no ammunition for it. ?Larry pointed it at the fuzzy cops on TV and dry fired the old gun. ?The trigger pull was light and the hammer dropped clean. ?The fixed sights lined up easily on the pigs on Top Cop. ?He would have to buy a box of hollow points. ?Hayes would be green with envy. ???
Larry was somewhat concerned. ?A lot of hard people knew meth was for sale at the Loveless house at the end of Banjo Lane. ?He had a considerable amount of cash on hand and half an ounce of meth that he planned to keep for household use. ?Hayes was off laying pipe with Brandy and making her car operational with new tires and the battery out of the pickup. ?He had taken a few grams of ?product with him to make Brandy?s day.
He arose and locked the front door and turned off the lights and TV. ?A dim glow from the smudged glass front of the wood stove provided enough illumination to get around if you were familiar with the layout of the house. ?He locked the back door and got out the old shotgun and a handful of shells.
Larry had done meth long enough to realize that one of its side effects is paranoia. ?He also knew that paranoia is generally defined as an ?unreasonable fear.? ?While he undoubtedly might be feeling some paranoia, it was also clear in his mind that sitting alone in a house with drugs and money with a lot of people out there wanting both, was a reasonable fear.
The bikeless biker moved in his stocking feet and stuffed the rumpled money in his big wallet, leaving the mound of coins on the table with the revolver. ?
He was pleasantly wired and sat in a rocking chair in a far corner where he would be hard to spot if somebody broke in the front door. ?He cracked open a bottle of Tokay and lit a store bought smoke, rocking with the grain, the shotgun handy over the arms of the chair. ?There was a round in the chamber, two in the magazine, and the safety was off. ?He turned the polychoke at the end of the barrel for maximum spread.
Life was good. ?He had enough money now to buy old George?s motorcycle and still get out there and score more cold caplets for the next batch. ?The little reefer plants in the closet were shaping up nicely. ?It was going to be a great harvest in the fall. ?The hot blonde at the beginning of the road wanted him. ?That much was plain. ?She ran by the house like clockwork every day just to check him out. ?She always smiled and waved. ?When he bought his new Road King she would tell her old man to take a hike and she and Larry would ride off into the sunset.
The end of Banjo Lane wasn?t a bad place to be. ?No rent hassles. ?The electricity stayed on. ?The neighbors stayed away. ?Free telephone even. ?Cletus Loveless would come home someday but he would leave again and everything would go back to normal. The bus stayed dry and fairly warm in the barn. ?He got out of bed when he was good and ready to. ?Big Barbara wasn?t around to carp and bitch and every day was Saturday. ???
Scary Larry thought about how things might have been different if he had fallen into the job grind when he left the merry military. ?So many people did that and became slave to the clock. ?They didn?t get out of bed when they were good and ready. ?Seemed like no matter how much money you might make working a job, you always spent exactly as much or more, keeping pace with the bills and mortgage and other people?s agendas.
No taxes when he sold a little meth to make ends meet. ?When you own a house, the government has your ass. ?You might be able to move and hide most things, but once your name was associated with a home in the files of Lane County?s Department of Assessment and Taxation, you would be fleeced until the day you died. ?You didn?t really own stuff anyway, stuff owned you. There were always food stamps and free clothing so you could focus your money on important things. ?He would go and pay cash for old George?s motorcycle tomorrow and then he would be profiling this summer instead of driving the old white car with the Harley logo in the back window. ?He wouldn?t make the cover of Easy Rider but he could keep the little BSA shined up and pretend he has riding a hog.
The cigarette tasted like shit as the tobacco burned against the filter. ?He slammed some warm Tokay to freshen his mouth. ?Maybe he ought to smoke a little bud with some crank. ?The Santa can was on the table. ?He?d get to it in a minute. ?What color Road King should he buy? ?It was hard to beat a basic black hog. ?Perhaps with some red trim. ?And a 21 inch front wheel. ?He would need to spring for some after market exhaust pipes as the new stock ones were so quiet--what was the point? ?The fags next door had some nice sounding bikes. ?Maybe--
What was that? ?Larry froze in mid-rock. ?Something wasn?t right. ?He hadn?t heard anybody drive up or seen headlights but somebody was out there. ?Could it be pure paranoia? ?He didn?t think so. ?At least two people were circling the house. ?Could it be the cops? ?That would truly suck. ?If it were tweakers hoping to rob him, he felt he could deal with it. ?But cops? ?What was he going to do? ?Or was it all just galloping paranoia?
No, there was definitely somebody on the back porch. ?If it were people intent on ripping him off, they were going to discover the cardboard taped over the broken window and make their entrance there.
Larry?s mind raced. ?Was he dealing with cops or tweakers hoping to score crank and money? ?He guessed it must be tweakers. ?Cops would probably just break down the door and be done with it. ?
What to do? ?He assumed that the housebreakers would be armed. ?If he shot them he was going to have to deal with some ?cold meat? lying around. ?If he killed one and there was another who got away, that could be a serious problem in a number of ways. ?He had no doubt that he could kill the first intruder at close range with the shotgun. ?The follow up shot might take as long as two or three seconds as he would have to take the piece from his shoulder and manually crank the unfamiliar shotgun?s turn bolt action. ?He wished he had an M-16. ?Point and pull for 18 rounds. ?Oh well.
What if the neighbors reported gunshots? ?The cops didn?t come when Hayes shot the old TV in the front yard during the wee hours, but that didn?t mean they wouldn?t this time. ?
He didn?t need the complications of shooting somebody. ?It would be nice to know who was out there but if he fired a round out the window facing the BLM timber, whoever it was would undoubtedly leave most ricky tick. ?That was the best plan. ?
He stood in his stocking feet and glided in the darkness to a window facing away from the Seautons? house. ?Holding the gun in his right hand, he turned the old brass catch at the top of the window and stealthily slid the bottom pane up. ?the warped frame stuck after two inches of travel but that was plenty.
Someone was definitely messing with the cardboard he had put over the broken back window. ?The back porch light bulb was still unscrewed so it wouldn?t work if they discovered the outside switch.
A twinge of doubt assailed him. ?Could it be Ronnie? ?She had never shown the slightest desire to enter the house, or so much as leave the fifth wheel. ?This would be a hell of a time for her to start. ?A warning shot out the window was clearly the best choice of the possible alternatives.
Larry stuck the barrel of the old shotgun out the window gap, closed his eyes to the muzzle flash, and pulled the trigger. ?There was a healthy report and he opened his eyes and worked the bolt of the gun as he ran for the front door. ?
Whoever was trying to break in the back door would most likely have parked a vehicle down Banjo Lane. ?Larry hoped to get a visual on the car so he could keep an eye out for it in future. ?
He turned back the locks and threw open the front door. ?The night was dark and it was going to rain again soon. ?Larry could not see the old spring chair in the full darkness so he shut the door and groped his ass into the cold stamped metal, ?being careful not to make it squeak. ?
Larry took a couple of deep breaths through his mouth to quiet his pounding heart. ?He took a spare shell out of his shirt pocket and listened hard for movement in the blackness. ?Dogs barked at the shot in the distance but he heard nothing around the house so he decided to top off the old Mossberg.
The bolt opened easily and Larry caught the plastic cartridge in the extractor before it ejected. ?He stuffed it back on top of the last yellow plastic shell in the two round magazine and chambered the third shell while holding down the others with a finger. ?The bolt slid home and turned down and the bikeless biker?s weapon was loaded to capacity with the safety off.
His right was protected by a heavy lilac bush. ?It wasn?t possible that anybody coming around the corner of the house could see or approach him through it. The shotgun?s muzzle was pointed to his left. ?The rotten porch rail barricaded his front.
The dogs were settling down and he could hear a car in the distance cruising east on wet pavement over the Cottage Grove-Lorane Highway, but that was all. ?
It wasn?t cops. ?The police would have opened up immediately or at least screamed at him to surrender. ?That left either tweakers or paranoia.
He strained to see people slipping down the road towards the Seautons? house, fleeing the scene. ?His night vision was good from sitting in the dark and remembering to close his eyes to the violet flame of the 20 gauge discharge. ?There was a young moon above the heavy cloud but it was tough to see.
Larry remained motionless in the cold metal chair. ?His thin socks had holes in them and his feet chilled rapidly . ?He held his breath and listened with all his might. ?He should be able to hear someone forcing their way in through the back door. ?He really doubted that anybody would continue breaking and entering after his warning shot. ?Whoever it was would be exfiltrating the area if they had any smarts at all.
He heard nothing. ?The last dog quit barking and there was no wind. The invaders had to leave via Banjo Lane unless they had hiked through the BLM land.
The old wire fence squawked rustily to his right. ?Someone had bumped into it in the darkness. ?He knew exactly where the fence was in his mind. ?The only question was where in the fence line the noise had come from. ?He had a good idea within five yards. ?
The fence squawked again. ?Most likely a second party was negotiating the low field wire. ?They had walked in through the BLM land. ?Probably down the old dirt road and through the front gate. ?Larry was tempted to bust another cap to hurry them on their way but he chose not to reveal his position. ?They might shoot back and then the fags would probably call the police. ?The cops might actually come if they believed some sort of gun battle had taken place.
Now that he had a fix on the intruders? location, it was easy to follow their progress. ?He turned his head to the left and stared towards the Seautons? house. ?Nobody seemed to be creeping around from that side. ?His gun was pointing that way and it would be hard to sneak up on the porch. ?Even the Bi-Mart skeet loads in the Mossberg would strike like a sledgehammer at a few meters. ?
Bushes rustled away from the old blue house as the would be robbers moved diagonally away, angling for the BLM road. ?A foot scraped on gravel and Larry could hear two sets of foot steps on the decomposed basalt, headed up the road.
He was pretty sure that everybody had left but there could still be a lurker gone to ground close by, waiting for him to stand down. ?He wanted a smoke but wasn?t going to light up. The footsteps faded up the hill until he couldn?t hear them any more. ?
It began to rain. ?Lightly at first and then with vigor. ?Five minutes passed. ?Ten. ?And then a motorcycle started up a quarter mile from the house in the woods. ?Sounded like a big single cylinder. ?A dirt bike. Two people could conceivably ride on a diatribe but not three.
The show was over. ?Larry stood up in the shadows and quietly slipped through the door, locking it behind him. ?The wood heat felt good after sitting outside. ?He drifted to the stove for a minute before moving stealthily to the back door. ?The cardboard had been tampered with. ?Somebody had pushed the Olde English box side in despite the generous duct tape Larry had used to secure it. ?
Scary Larry unlocked the flimsy back door and stepped out on the back porch to check Ronnie?s trailer. ?The lights were out and the TV was off. ?She must have shut everything down before her nightly alcohol induced crash. ?
An owl spoke in the wet darkness and Larry found his boots and pulled them on to check on Veronica. ?
He didn?t like packing the shotgun in the close quarters from the back door to the trailer. ?If somebody jumped him it would be hard to maneuver the long arm like you could the empty .38 on the dining room table. ?He would buy bullets for the Smith the next time he went to town.
His boots did not move with the silence of stocking feet and the porch creaked as he passed Ronnie?s Schwinn. ?The rotted wood steps to the mud below were slick and likely to break unexpectedly. ?Larry eased down them with the stock of the gun clamped under his right armpit to shorten it up for close combat. ?
The rain sluiced off the gutterless roof and reminded him that he had forgotten his HD cap. ?He squelched quietly around to the trailer door and tried the knob. ?It was locked. ?He thought about it. ?Most likely Ronnie had locked it. ?Whoever was slipping around tonight was clearly after the meth and or money that was in the house. ?That meant it was most likely someone who had been there to score earlier the past day or two. ?When he returned through the kitchen door, he leaned a wooden chair under the door knob to bolster the chintzy lock.
Larry returned to his rocking chair and kept a firm grip on his shooting iron. Things weren?t so very different than a hundred and thirty years before when the old sergeant sat up at night with a gun, listening for marauding animals slinking around the homestead.
The same same heavy rain beat down on the Section Eight Housing complex where Brandy lived. ?There was little activity in the group of run-down apartments. ?Going to work was not part of the scene in this hood and every daybreak was Sunday morning. ?The cold downpour floated rainbow oil slicks out from under the junk cars in the parking lot.
She lay awake in her bed with Hayes snoring obliviously at her side. ?He wasn?t anything like the glamorous men on TV, but he passed through her trammeled life at random intervals and usually left her better off from his presence. ? This time he had restored her worn out automobile to operational status. ?He doubled its value with four new tires. ?Then he produced a newer Die Hard from the Buick?s trunk and replaced the utterly dead battery in the Civic. ?He added one quart of oil to the worn out motor and part of another. ?The one ?bald tire that didn?t show steel belts went in back for a spare and the ?flats and maypops went in the dumpster along with the old battery.
The neighbors viewed Hayes work in the parking lot as a free live soap opera. ?It was nice that somebody was upgrading Brandy?s ride. ?She drove the crappiest car in the entire 100 unit complex and competition was stiff in that event. ?
The children had been awake for hours and were fired up on sugared cereal eaten raw out of the box. ?They took turns beating on the locked bedroom door and loudly denouncing each others? sins to Mom. ?"Scooby Doo" blared on the TV.
?Maaah-um! Billy opened a beer and he won?t share!? ?Pamela kicked and pounded on the hollow door for emphasis. ?The day was not far off when the children would discover that a pen-filler pushed through the little hole in the middle of the door knob, would defeat the lock.
Brandy looked at the ceiling and the lumpy rain striking the bedroom window. ?It was another day. ?Same as yesterday, same as tomorrow, same as 20 years from now. ?Her brood would learn to steal and smoke and screw. ?She would be a grandmother before she was forty. It was cold enough that the hopeless rain could turn to snow and stick to the valley floor. ?She smiled at the thought.
When Brandy was about 10, she had yet again been ejected from one foster home. ?She remembered riding in a car with a sullen social worker who was taking her to the next stop in the chain of temporary families that would tolerate her briefly and then throw her back on the system. ?
It was a cold night out and the car was warm and Brandy wished the ride would never end. ?The lights got farther apart and she could tell they were leaving Eugene or Springfield, whichever it was. ?
Finally the social worker turned the publicly owned Taurus down a long drive and little Brandy was dragged cowering into the light to meet the Flynns. ?The public servant unceremoniously dropped the two black garbage bags containing her ragged clothes and few other pathetic worldly goods on the tile floor of the foyer as Doctor Flynn closed the door on the cold.
Dr and Edith Flynn were closer to sixty than fifty. ?They had raised three children into adulthood and moved only once to their completed dream home. ?Their kids stayed in the same school district from kindergarten to high school graduation.
Brandy looked at the floor and backed up to the door feeling cast off, unwanted, unloaded and useless. ?Nobody wanted her under-foot. ?The case worker was mad because she was relocating Brandy on last minute notice before a week off. ?She didn?t say anything, but it was easy to see.
Edith knew all this in a glance and captured Brandy in strong arms and carried her away from Grant Flynn and the social worker who moved to the kitchen to talk. ?She carried Brandy past a huge living room with a ten-foot Christmas tree decked with dozens of fine old ornaments, and upstairs for a hot bath and bed.
Nothing was broken or threadbare under this roof. ?The blankets were thick and there was a spare across the foot of Christine Flynn?s bed. ?Brandy even had her very own bathroom here. ?Lonely dolls sat in mute testimony to a normal childhood outgrown in one place with two parents. ?
Brandy instinctively knew that she wouldn?t be beaten or required to play ?kiss the wee wee? as a condition of staying here. ?Edith had left the bedroom door ajar so there was enough light from the hall to keep monsters from stealing out of the closet or from under the bed.
Christine?s old cat, Boots, sensed that the deserted room was no longer empty and wedged the door open with her head and leaped up on the bed and kneaded a nest beside Brandy, purring, purring, purring. ?The big house was quiet and no ?anger vibrated in its walls. ?
The next morning, Brandy got out of bed without disturbing Boots and went to the window to look out. ?A foot of snow had fallen in the night and everything was calm and beautiful. ?The oaks and firs behind the house were now a faeryland of white. ?It was as if all the sad ugliness of her life had been buried forever beneath the snow. ?From that one perfect moment in time, Brandy was always happy when she saw snow.
?Maaaa-um! ?Jacob has your lighter!? ?Pamela knew that this would almost ?would motivate Brandy out of bed. ?Sometimes she had to give the toddler the lighter--sometimes not. ?She hammered the flimsy door with her little fist to preclude any possibility of drifting off.
?Oh-All right!? Brandy gave up on the idea of sleeping in and flounced into her new terry robe bought with Evelyn Joneser?s Visa card. ?Hayes snored on. ?Nobody ever accused him of being a light sleeper.
Her children swarmed around her as she opened the bedroom door. ?She snatched ?her lighter from Jacob and looked for a cigarette. ?The pack of generics on the kitchen counter was empty, but she was able to find a long butt in an ash tray and puffed it to life.
Part of a Country Western song played in her head. ?Something about: ?...one needs a spankin? and one needs a huggin?--one?s on the way!? ?She sincerely hoped not. ?Another child she did not need. ?She tried to enjoy her first smoke of the morning as she pulled Jacob onto her lap. ?Billy and Pamela attempted to crowd on as well but they were just too big now and Brandy had always been a sylph.
It was noon and Hayes padded from the cramped bathroom in socks and an old robe. ?He sat at the kitchen table with a mug of coffee and dismantled cigarette butts to roll jailhouse smokes. ?Billy was passed out on his bed from the beer he had stolen. ??Pamela played quietly with Jacob.
He critically examined a lumpy cigarette he had rolled. ?It was nothing like the perfect cylinders Larry produced. ?Larry rolled expert smokes out of Top tobacco or snipes or even cigar butts and pipe dottle if that was all there was available. ?
He lit the reclaimed tobacco. ?The first drag tasted like a trash fire. ?The second was a little better after the taste buds were stunned.
Life was too damned short to not have factory cigarettes. ?The police state doled out just enough food stamps and welfare money to keep the little people from rioting. ?It kept you running around and around in a hamster wheel. ?You could run as fast as you wanted but you were still in the same place when you stopped.
When he harvested the crop in the fall, there would be no more smoking "used" tobacco. ?Smoked butts were going in the wood stove and there would always be fresh cartons of cigarettes on top of the fridge. You should be able to enjoy life instead of wasting it working a slave. ?Lots of people drove fancy cars and did whatever they wanted to when they wanted to do it without the time wasting drudgery of a hated job. ?
?You got any money, Honey?? Brandy wheedled. ??We need some real smokes. ?I don?t know why they have to be so expensive.?
Hayes did have some money. ?Larry had given him a handful of grimy ones and fives from the first sales of his product when he had left to lay pipe with Brandy.
?Yeah, Babe, I got some dough. ?I?ll take a walk down to the beer store on the corner and get us some smokes. ?Rolling butts is for losers.?
It was actually more like four blocks to the old convenience market on the corner. ?It wasn?t quite as run down as Tweaker Mart but it was working on it. ?The parking lot harbored soggy trash and used needles. ?The windows were grimy and nobody made a career out of working there. ?It mainly sold beer, cigarettes and lottery tickets.
Hayes walked through the icy rain. ?He was wearing a warm coat from Cletus? closet to match his Wellingtons. ?Like the boots, it was somewhat big but the price was right. ?He could have driven the car but it was low on gas. ?Driving in town could be a bad scene. ?If stopped by the police for any little thing, it would become readily apparent that he had no driver?s license and that would swiftly balloon into big problems.
He had done very well so far as to flying below the radar since his release from jail. ?He was determined to not screw it up. ?He had even restrained himself from smacking Brandy around for whining last night. ?In the crowded apartment complex, somebody might call the cops even though most of the residents did not enjoy close legal scrutiny themselves.
The street-side hardwood trees were leafing out. ?Hayes remembered living with his mother in Eugene after the divorce. ?He always enjoyed watching the squirrels moving through the maples or hiding nuts in flower beds. ?
Apparently the big silver gray ?tree rats? were country squirrels although you did sometimes see them in town. ?Smaller brown Douglas squirrels dominated the urban landscape. ?Eugene had lots of trees and the Dougs thrived here.
The lunch crowd was surging through the tired convenience store. ?The harried clerk was selling wilted wienies from under a sun lamp and deep fried potato jo-joes. ?Some people were buying 16 ounce beers to slam in the parking lot before returning to their jobs. ?Hayes counted his blessings that he wasn?t sucked into this life style.
He waited his turn and bought four packs of the cheapest generic cigarettes on sale for a little over ten dollars. ?He shrugged and paid top dollar for a pack of name brands too. ?He remembered to score a packet of cold caps while he was at it. ?The clerk sported facial piercings and bad tattoos.
The Section Eight Housing complex was coming alive when Hayes returned. ?People were getting up when they were good and ready to. ?Some were preparing to take on the day by further defrauding the government out of more benefits while others were going to lay around watching TV waiting on their welfare checks. ?It seemed to Hayes that everybody was scamming how they were going to meet their alcohol and tobacco requirements. ?Pounding the pavement looking for gainful employment wasn?t part of anybody?s program.
Hayes trotted up the steel and concrete steps and walked into apartment 220. ?Brandy was marshaling laundry. ?There wasn?t much in the way of clothing in the place that didn?t need ?washing. ?She would load it all into the resurrected Civic and haul it and the kids over to Mom?s trailer park and use her washer and drier on the plywood back porch.
She gratefully opened the pack of name brand smokes and lit up with her blue plastic lighter. ?The first drag tasted a hundred times better than twice smoked rollies.
?Thanks, Hon. ?Real cigarettes make life worth living.?
?No shit Bro, there were people here trying to break in and rip us off last night.? ?
Hayes looked around. ?He was shocked. ?Him stealing when he needed something was one thing but people coming here to break into the house he grew up in was something quite else. ?It was undoubtedly somebody who had come earlier to score some crank.
?I?ll be damned. ?We gotta keep an eye on things. ?When the crop gets going good, we?ll have to make sure somebody is always here so we don?t get ripped off. ?I hate to ask the butt bandits next door to watch out for us but it might come to that.?
The sun defeated the last wispy clouds of the soggy storm system that had drenched the southern end of the Willamette Valley the past few days. ?There was heat to its rays now in the the May afternoon. ?
Bruce and Keith admired the clarity of the new security camera system on the television in the kitchen. ?If they were watching the big screen TV in the living room, a click of the remote would shift the programming to live camera action of the Loveless place. ?They could even watch their regular programs with a little view of 1234 Banjo Lane in the corner of the screen. ?If something appeared to be happening next door, a touch of a button would fill the screen with the trashy yard and parking area. ?The camera could sweep too. ?? They had watched Hayes drive up in the old Buick and neatly logged his arrival in a little notebook on the kitchen counter. You could easily read license plates on the screen. ?It was apparent the Buick needed washing and that Hayes was attempting to disguise himself by wearing an old man?s hat behind the wheel.
Keith sipped his coffee in a Noche Tropicana mug while he perused the morning Register-Guard. ? ?The weather forecast says it should be dry for a week, Bruce. ?Maybe we can get Jesus Maria to till up the garden if it holds. ?It is time to begin planting.?
The Seautons enjoyed gardening and had a fine deer fenced plot in direct sun behind the house. ?A dump truck load of sand leavened the heavy clay and they forked tons of dairy washings on the garden every year. ?A big red ?rototiller stood on the concrete floor of the spacious garden shed. ?Like everything else, these gay Californians had only the best garden equipment money could buy. ?They looked forward to a productive garden with lots of tomatoes every summer.
Hayes walked slowly around the house looking for footprints from the night before. ?The rain had pretty well obliterated the tracks but he could read some blurry sign on the floor in front of the covered back door.
It looked like two distinct shoe sizes. ?One quite small and the other about size nine--like his own feet. ?Looked like both were wearing worn running shoes. ?You could routinely throw worn out shoes away after committing a felony if you thought that far ahead. ?You could even wear worn out shoes a few sizes too big to cast doubt on a prosecutor?s story. ?A lot could be learned in Lane County?s Crossbar College. ?A little prevention could work wonders when it came to a life of crime. ?He shrugged.
The toilet flushed in the fifth wheel trailer. ?Ronnie was up and beginning her day. ?He glanced at her old Schwinn on the back porch. ?She would be wheeling off to the beer store on the edge of the Grove soon for her daily fix of tweaker brew. ?Ronnie was an odd duck. ?
Cushioned footsteps trotted on the pavement in front of the old Loveless house. ?Must be the hot blonde from the beginning of the road. ?Scary Larry was sure queer for her gear. ?He was under the hallucination that she wanted him too. ?Maybe there was something to the concept that drugs clouded mental processes.
He glimpsed the mail carrier?s white minivan and heard it stop in front of the Loveless mailbox followed by the sound of the little door opening and closing. ?That was good. ?The house was out of paper and the US Mail usually brought generous handfuls of unsolicited advertisements that served just fine to get a fire going. ?The minivan pulled away and did a U turn in the wide spot at the end of the road and accelerated back towards the highway.
Hayes walked around the house to collect the newsprint and slick fliers that populated the mailbox. ?He hadn?t checked the box in a few days and it was quite full. He grabbed a couple pounds of junk mail out of the box and headed up the walk to the front porch.
The News Shopper was on top. ?It made good tinder. ?There were some little colored paper announcements of this or that. ?He idly ruffled the floppy handful of paper. ?What was that? ?There was a real letter embedded between some slick color brochures. ?It had strange stamps on the envelope and the handwriting was familiar. ?It was addressed to Hayes Loveless.
Hayes sat on the metal spring chair by the front door and tore open the heavy envelope. ?Inside was a single sheet of paper with the words:
?"Be home in June. ?Dad"
Oh crap. ?Well it had to happen sooner or later. ?He had hoped Cletus would stay gone until after the crop was harvested in the fall. ?Better yet, maybe dear old Dad would just never come home at all.
Larry had crashed heavily on the smelly mattress in his bus. ?He clutched the empty .38 in his right hand and snored dryly through his mouth as he dreamed about the Sullivan County fair in Missouri he had attended as a child. ?He was about six years old and he and his cousins were wearing red felt cowboy hats and eating cotton candy.
He opened his eyes and looked at the ceiling of the old Bluebird. ?The original aqua paint was covered by dozens of hard core porno mag centerfolds. ?Two hot Swedish babes wearing dark tans and stiletto heels swapped spit directly above his head. ?Morning, Girls.? yawned Larry as he rubbed the grit out of his eyes. ?
His back ached, his teeth hurt and he had to piss in the worst way. ?He rose to his knees and his head pounded with warm tokay from the night before. ?The ceiling was an inch or two too low for Larry to stand upright so he shuffled at a stoop through the squalor of his bus. ?He sat briefly in the easy chair on the plank floor and pulled on his boots before moving to the barn door and urinating in the mud. ?It was cold enough out so that the piss steamed.
Greatly relieved, Larry sank back in his easy chair. ?The morning pains all subsided back into the tolerable range after he moved around for a few minutes. ?He pulled the .38 out of his jacket pocket and idly spun the cylinder. ?Today he would buy old George?s motorcycle and ride into town and score some bullets for the worn Smith and Wesson. ?There wasn?t much that was more useless than a gun without ammunition.
The old chair was comfortable and he was warm enough in his jacket so that he slumped and dozed off as he was thinking about where he had left his cigarettes. ?The rain pattered pleasantly on the barn?s old shake roof and a steady drip, drip, drip sounded on the rusty hood of the bus.
?Hey Dawg.? ?Hayes had entered the old barn.
?What it is, Bro?? Larry sat up and covered a powerful yawn.
?Got a letter from Dad in the mail. ?He says he?ll be home next month. ?Doesn?t say for how long or what. ?He usually comes home for a month or two and then goes back to Iraq or where ever.?
Larry woke up fast. ??This could be a real problem with the crop and all, Bro. ?I don?t see how we can grow dope without your dad figuring it out. ?Don?t imagine he will be happy with our cash crop on the back forty.?
Hayes contemplated the fir planks of the barn floor. ??It might not be as bad as it sounds.? ?Dad hasn?t gone out back for years and the berries are pretty big now. ?If we keep a low profile and only go back there when Dad?s off in town, we might still pull it off. ?I don?t think he?d call the cops even if he did figure it out.?
The rain intensified and Larry looked out the barn door with disgust. ??I was gunna go buy old man Brand?s BSA today but I guess it will keep until tomorrow.?
?Let me save you a trip, Dawg. ?I saw Blondie?s sugar daddy shining it up in his driveway when I drove past to hang with Brandy the other day. ?No doubt he bought it to fill up some space in his big garage.?
?Oh, hell.? ?Larry slumped way down in his seat. ?So much for his intermediate ride until he could spring for a Road King. ?Maybe it was for the best anyway. ?The little bike?s license plate was not only grossly expired, it was not the current color and it would get him pulled over and hauled off to jail in record time. ?Speaking of which...
?Damn, Bro. ?I was really pumped up to ride that little bike this summer. ?That reminds me, the tags on the white car are going to expire the end of next month. ?I?m going to have to deal with that or be seriously hassled by the police.?
?No problamo. ?We?ll just peel some new tags off the plates of some heap in the Grove the next time we steal gas. ?I?m sure we can just glue them on over the old ones. ?If you?re stopped by the pigs, it?s hard times anyway. ?We gotta boost a new battery for the pickup while we?re at it.?
?You look down, Dawg. ?This?ll cheer you up!? ?Hayes handed Larry a little Bi-Mart coupon book that came in the mail. ??See, gallons of Gallo for seven dollars!?
?Cool! ?I gotta go to B-Mart to buy bullets for my new roscoe here anyway.? ?Larry pulled the old .38 from his jacket pocket and handed it to Hayes with the cylinder open.
?Wow!? ?Hayes was impressed. ??We can rob 7-11 stores or even banks with this!?
?No, no, no.? Larry shook his head. ?There ain?t no money in robbing beer stores and they will make room for you in jail for that shit. ?But a pistol is a good thing to have for the next time the Midnight Skulker comes around hoping to rip us off.?
?Oh. ?Yeah. ?You right, Dawg.? ?Hayes awoke from his brief dream of glory under the cold water of Larry?s reality. ?It would be so cool to take over a bank and recite all the heavy lines in the bank robbing movies he had seen. ?This is a stickup! ?Everybody face down on the floor! ?Now! ?Don?t look at me! ?You?ll never take me alive, Pig!
Larry was right. ?The FBI would spend as much money as they felt like in order to apprehend bank robbers. ?Still, you gotta have dreams.
It was cold and wet out and very dark. ?Hayes and Larry had ripped off a full load of gasoline jugs and a battery and were driving from the Grove to Banjo Lane. ?They were smoking cigarettes and enjoying the glow of a job well done while warming up with the car heater as the windshield wipers worked in high gear.
?We showed ?em!? chortled Hayes. ??That battery must be brand new!? ?He had stolen a big car battery out of a restored Bubba truck that was too old to have an inside hood latch. ?He somehow associated stealing from chump citizens as the same as getting over on the police state. ?It was all the same in his mind. ?Everybody owed him.
?Lookout!? shouted Larry, wine spraying from his lips. ?But it was too late. ?The front of the Buick crashed into something in the wet blackness and a dark form banged off the hood and crunched over the windshield as something metallic ground noisily under the car.
?Jesus Christ!? exclaimed Hayes. ??What in hell was that?? ?He brought the Buick to a halt in the middle of the road and both he and Larry jumped out of the car. ?In the excitement Larry forgot to cap his wine and the full bottle fell over and tokay poured into Buick?s carpet.
?My God! ?It?s a man!? ?Larry was fifty feet behind the car examining a crumpled body lying on the pavement. ??I don?t think he?s gunna make it!? ?The body didn?t move and Larry couldn?t tell if it was breathing or not. ?He didn?t think so.
?What in hell are we gunna do?? moaned Hayes. ??This is really bad.? ?
Larry had received basic first aid training in the Army decades ago and he remembered that you should never move somebody after a traumatic injury such as this. ?On the other hand, the victim was lying in the pouring rain and was most likely dead anyway. ?He and Hayes certainly had no desire to involve the police. ?The man they had struck was wearing a black rain coat and had been riding a lightless bicycle.
?Oh God.? Larry looked east and west and saw no traffic coming. ?The nearest house was a couple hundred meters away with all lights out. ??Shit! Open the back door. ?We?ll take him with us.? ?
The dying man was at least as big as Scary Larry and clearly suffered broken bones. ?His head didn?t look right in the dome light of the Buick as the thieves crammed him onto the back seat and slammed the door.
Hayes put the car in gear and there was a horrible grinding noise from underneath as they moved forward. ?
?It?s a god damned bicycle!? ?He threw the transmission into reverse and backed up, hoping to leave the mangled bicycle behind. ?The grinding noise continued. ?Larry got out and felt under the front of the car. ?He got a grip on the twisted bike frame but couldn?t drag it loose.
He jumped back in the car. ??Go for it, Bro. ?We can?t hang around for somebody to come along and see us.?
That was clear to Hayes as well and he put the car in drive and stepped on it for the last couple miles to Banjo Lane. ?As the car reached fifty miles an hour, there was a sudden couple of thumps and the grinding noise was gone.
?Stop!? commanded Larry. ??We can?t leave the bike in the road for somebody to find!? ?Hayes halted the Buick and backed it up rapidly a hundred feet. ?Their luck was holding. ?No cars were approaching and nearby houses remained lights out.
Larry grabbed the remains of the bicycle and ran to the car. ?He thought about throwing it on its owner in the back seat but didn?t want to. ?He rolled down the car window and held the ruined 10 speed with one hand as he shut the door.
?Hit it!? ?Hayes patched out and with Larry holding onto the bicycle externally, they covered the the last distance to the beginning of Banjo Lane in record time with rain splashing in through the passenger side. ?It was obvious that the passenger side headlight had been broken in the collision as the road was darker now. ?
?Drive slow like nothing happened!? hissed Larry. ?Hayes slowed down and idled down Banjo Lane like it was just another successful gas stealing job in the Grove. ?The engine temperature light was on and the motor began to make some strange noises. ?
?Park out behind the barn.? said Larry ?The car was not sounding well at all as Hayes drove through the mud and swerved behind the barn. ?He turned off the remaining head light and the motor and covered his face with his hands. ?
Larry dropped the bicycle in the mud and whirled to look at the man in black in the back seat. ?He opened the car door so the dome light came on and he could tell that the man was dead or very close to it.
Blood was everywhere and the victim was staring at nothing. ?Larry felt for a carotid pulse. ?If there was one, he couldn?t feel it. ?
?He?s gone.? said Larry, sounding way calmer than he felt. ?The dash clock read 2:37. ??What a miserable thing to have to deal with. ?What on earth was this moron doing riding a bicycle with no lights in the pitch black? ?Wearing black clothes, no less.? ?
?Who the fuck is he?? said Hayes, not wanting to look behind him. ?
?I think he might be one of those recovering heroin addicts who live out past Lorane. ?Maybe he came to the Grove to score and was heading back. ?I don?t know. ?Jeez. ?This just sucks. ?We gotta make a plan. ?Hopefully nobody will miss him for a while. ?Wow. ?The car has to go. ?There?s no way you can get the blood out of it and it only takes a tiny, tiny amount to bust your ass."
They had driven Cletus? Buick to steal gas as ?Larry?s Fairmont had refused to start earlier in the evening. ?The old white car was the ultimate disposable automobile as the plate was about to expire and it was registered to a dead man but fate had dealt a twisted hand.
A sucker hole appeared and the rain stopped. ?The gas thieves ?got out of the car and stood in front of it, trying to examine the damage in the darkness.
?We?ll need to cut up the bicycle in little pieces with a hacksaw.? said Larry. ?And ?we need to bury the body--deep--up on BLM land. ?I think we should start that process this morning while it?s still dark. ?Then we need to burn the car. ?You?ll just have to tell your dad that somebody must have stole it.? ?????????????????????????
Larry was right. ?Cletus was going to be unhappy that his Buick was gone but perhaps he could be convinced that it had been stolen while Hayes was still in jail. ?
It was light out and Larry and Hayes were digging a deep hole in the wet clay in the pre-commercial thinning stand where Hayes and Zach played Indians when the trees were smaller. ?They had walked up the rock road in the darkness carrying two shovels and a pick so that nobody would see a car up here and remember it. ?The gravity of the situation wasn?t lost on either of them. ?Being associated with the death of the man in black would make driving drunk without a license very small change indeed.
?Isn?t that deep enough?? Hayes whined.
?No, it isn?t.? wheezed Larry as he leaned on his shovel. ??We want it deep. We don?t need dogs digging it up or elk hunters finding it like happened a few years back over by Veneta.?
They were a good hundred meters off the road and Larry had tied back some fir limbs so that they could plant ?Johnny Cash? next to the tree and then release the limbs to cover the fresh dirt. ?Neither of them was in peak digging shape and it was going on nine AM. ?At least the soil was rock free and damp for relatively easy digging.
Hayes wrestled with his shovel while Larry caught his breath. ?The hole was approaching waist deep and the bikeless biker wanted at least four solid feet of earth over the body. ?
Larry froze. ?he could hear gravel crunching under tires as a rig labored up the rutted logging road. ?They did not need this. ?Hayes heard it too and stopped digging. ?
?You stay here,? Larry directed. ??I?ll go see what the hell is going on. ?I swear nobody ever comes up this damned road unless you don?t want them too.?
He followed a deer trail between the big firs and got close enough to the road to catch sight of a black Ford Expedition towing a long flatbed trailer on the beat up road. ?The man in the yellow hard hat was driving alone and the rig?s black paint was scratched and muddy. ?The trailer clanked loudly over some especially big rock heads emerging from the road. ?Larry could hear Dr Laura carping on the car radio.
As the man in the yellow hard hat rolled past his concealed position, Larry could see that the trailer was equipped with a rear facing electric winch. ?The outfit rounded the corner out of sight and paused for a moment before turning down the little spur where the shot and burned Fairlane squatted at the end of the road.
Larry walked back to the hole. ??You ain?t gunna believe this Bro, but the BLM has decided that today is the day to remove that crappy old Ford we burned in place a while back. ?I think we can continue to dig but we need to make sure the wrecker operator is out of here before we hike out. ?Luke, what is your dirt doing in Boss Smith?s hole??
45 minutes later, the man in the yellow hard hat had the remains of the Fairlane loaded on the tiltbed trailer and was moving down the road. ?Larry decided the hole was deep enough and the two grave diggers waited until the rig was out of hearing before emerging from cover and following the Expedition down the hill. ?Larry carried the pick. ?They left the two shovels by the hole. ??
Hayes and Larry ?were tired and their feet hurt. ?Digging and walking were not part of their normal routine. ?The man in black needed to be put in the ground and the car burned immediately. ?The mangled bicycle needed to cease to exist too. ?A simple gas stealing mission had gone horribly wrong. ?
?We?d better smoke some crank,? decided Larry as they descended the last of the rock road and approached the little blue house from the paved end of Banjo Lane.
Larry?s powder revived their flagging enthusiasm for completing the disposal of the man in black and Cletus? Buick. ?After a few deep drags, Hayes felt a vague dread that the cops were going to come crashing through the door and arrest them both for manslaughter or worse. ?They lit up store bought cigarettes. ?Hayes thought about a cup of coffee but the jar of Western Family instant was empty.
?Let?s get this over with, Bro.? ?Larry arose wearily and headed out the back door. ?It was Thursday--almost noon and the two approached the ruined Buick warily. ?
All doubt was gone that Johnny Cash was dead. ?The interior of the car smelled bad. ?The blood was largely dried. ?Larry was right. ?There was no way in hell you could possibly remove every trace of the blood. ?The front of the car was messed up in a big way. ?The passenger side of the windshield was caved in where Johnny had struck it on his way over.
Hayes popped the Buick?s hood and looked to see why the engine had started making bad noises on the final approach to the end of Banjo Lane. ?Oh yeah. The bottom hose to the radiator had been pulled off and all the coolant had poured out onto the road. ?Johnny?s bicycle handlebar must have snagged the hose and done that. ?
?This is truly number ten thousand, Bro--but I think we can pull it off. ?I remember a few years ago where somebody hit a little girl on a bicycle with a mini van. ?He fled the scene and tried to put deer hair on the damage on the van and have it fixed at an auto body shop. ?It didn?t work and he got busted big time. ?We ain?t even going to try anything like that.?
Hayes shrugged. ?He did not relish the idea of continually lying to his father about the car when Cletus returned home. ?Still, he couldn?t think of a better plan and there were years of jail time at stake here. ?Somebody stole the car while he was in jail. ?That was it. ?End of story. ?He worked at reconnecting the radiator hose for the last drive up the hill. ?Larry unlocked the trunk and unloaded the full plastic gas jugs and the Bubba truck battery. ?
?We got to remove the license plates and the dashboard VIN number Bro. Maybe we can peel the tags off the plate and stick them on my car so it will look legal. ?We should siphon most of the gas out of the car and put it in my heap or the truck. ?It ought to burn OK with five gallons in the tank. ?We?ll take half a jug to really torch the interior too.?
Hayes fetched a bucket of water and filled the Buick?s radiator. ?You had to step carefully behind the barn as Larry frequently crapped there when he didn?t feel like going all the way to the house in the middle of the night.
Larry had a paranoid flash. ?What would the man in the yellow hard hat do with the burnt Fairlane he hauled away? ?It still had its embossed license plates and could perhaps be traced to 1234 Banjo Lane. ?The plates had been expired close to twenty years. ?It was just an old junk car. Would he recycle it and trouble his mind no further about it? ?He imagined a scenario where cops came knocking to inquire about the old Ford. ?That would be bad on many levels.
?Bro, we got to get this car and Johnny Cash here, out of our lives.? ?I think we should just take off and drive up the hill. ?Make sure anything that can be traced is gone from the car. ?When we get close to the hole, I?ll drag Johnny through the woods and bury him while you go torch the car where we did the Fairlane. ?We can?t even afford to get busted with this mess on the home front.?
?You right, Dawg.? ?Hayes nodded. ?He had already tried to remove the metal VIN tag from the dash but it was designed so that it could not be accessed with the windshield in place. ??I?m gunna have to bust some glass to get at the VIN number but it shouldn?t matter none.? ?
Half an hour later, the old Buick started up the hill with Hayes at the wheel. The motor sounded much better cold but you could hear deep clanking noises from driving without coolant. ?The car wasn?t really designed for rugged back roads like this but it would make it and after immolation nothing like that ?would matter.
?That?s odd,? Bruce reached for the spiral notebook and logged the time. ??The dynamic duo are driving up the old logging road in Cletus? car. ?They?ve never done that before that I?ve noticed. ?Looks like the rear license plate is missing too.?
The Seautons enjoyed the new security camera system. ?It was easy to keep an eye on the neighbors without appearing to be nosey. ?The stream of losers in old crappy cars seemed to have died down for now but it was just a matter of time before that resumed.
Hayes stopped the Special by the deer trail that led to Johnny Cash?s new grave. ?Larry got out of the car and opened the back driver?s side door. ?Hayes looked woodenly ahead. ?He did not want to watch. ?
Larry grabbed the body by the collar of its black raincoat and dragged Johnny out onto the ground and a couple yards into the brush. ??Torch the car and come give me a hand, Bro,? said Larry as he wasted no time in hauling the corpse deeper into the woods.
Hayes shuddered at the utter deadness of the man in black. ?He had driven by a few bodies alongside the road in the process of being bagged and tagged by the police and EMTs. ?Hayes remembered Gramps? body being laid out for viewing at the funeral. ??But he had never been personally involved with a trauma killed, rapidly decomposing stiff before.
The smell in the car caught him sideways suddenly and he dry heaved against clenched jaws. ?He stepped on the gas and the Buick crunched over the big cobbles on its final journey. ?Dad was gunna shit.
The Special clattered to a stop on the black spot left by the Fairlane. ?Hayes dismounted and looked at the car. ?Well, Hell, he?d take the battery out and hide it in the bushes. ?The Buick?s tires were close to new. ?Might as well take them too.
Hayes got out the factory car jack and tire tool and swiftly removed the four tires and rolled them a few meters into the brush. ?They?d just have to drive Larry?s car up here tonight and retrieve them. ?
At last it was time to light up the Buick. ?He had no gun so he took the tire iron and lay down on the hard rock. ?He could see melted glass from the previous burning inches in front of his face. ?Grunting, Hayes drove the chisel tip of the tool into the corner of the gas tank. ?Gasoline trickled onto the ground. ?He got some on his hand as he rolled out of the way.
The gas jug in the trunk soaked the interior and made a nice trail thirty feet away from Cletus? pride and joy. ?
?Fire in the hole.? said Hayes to himself as he flicked his Bic and ignited a wick of newspaper. ?The gas fumes on his left hand caught also and he dropped the wick and slapped out his hand. ?Fire raced up the train of gas to the car and it took off with a whoosh and a roar. ?Black smoke billowed. ?Hayes watched with fascination as the car Dad had bought new in Portland so long ago brewed up furiously. ?He hid the gas jug in the bushed with the tires.
The ground was wet and the vegetation damp so it wasn?t likely he would start a forest fire. ?That?s right, he needed to help Larry bury the stiff. ?Hayes turned reluctantly and trudged up the rough road. ?He was just about to turn the first corner when shots rang out. ?He froze, then whirled and looked back to the flaming Buick. ?More shots. ?Perhaps a dozen in all. ?Damn it all! ?Cletus must have hidden his pistols in the car. ?Shit! ?Son of a Bitch!
Thoroughly depressed, Hayes walked the quarter mile of road and followed the deer trail to where Larry was putting the finishing touches on Johnny?s grave.
?Where you been, Bro? ?I was starting to wonder what happened to you.?
?I stripped the tires off the car before I lit it up. ?They were almost new. ?We can drive your car up there tonight and get them.?
?I guess we better. ?I was planning to stay completely away from that car forever but we don?t want to leave the tires there. ?It might attract some attention. ?Hand me some of that moss over there. ?Don?t take too much.?
Larry was putting a lot of effort into camouflaging the hole in the ground that contained the evidence of of their latest crime. ?He had gone through the dead man?s pockets and found about seventy five cents in nickels and pennies but no wallet or ID of any kind. ?There was broken glass from two Night Train bottles in the pockets of the black rain coat. ?
?I guess that does it.? ?Larry untied the branches of the fir tree so they sprang closed to cover the grave. ?He wound up the nylon line and put it in his pocket. ?He handed Hayes a shovel and they stood and gave a final look to verify that no one would find Johnny Cash through some carelessness on their part.
Larry felt moved to speak. ??We don?t know who you are Bro, and we didn?t mean to kill you. ?We sure wish we could put it back the way it was, but it?s done. ?Maybe you wanted to die. ?Riding a bicycle on a rainy night with no lights is a good way to commit suicide. ?We?re sorry and I hope you?re better off.? ?He shouldered his spade, turned and strode off down the deer trail. ?
Hayes reflected on the last twelve hours of upheaval in his life, all in trying to avoid the legal consequences of a stupid accident that wasn?t really his fault.
?Asshole.? he muttered, and followed Larry trailing Zach?s fire fighting shovel.
Copyright 2006 by Norm Maxwell
Norm Maxwell writes fiction and non-fiction for WxNW.org and The Eugene Weekly. He is a regular columnist in these web pages (see Voices of Spencer Creek) and writes about rural issues and county politics. He lives in Lorane, Oregon.
© Copyright 2000-2004 by West By Northwest.org
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