Lone Star Noir

Hit me again. You can’t. You a dead man.

Six times over, you a dead man.

Lying by the side of the road, you a dead man.

Slumped in the seat of your car, you a dead man.

How do you like your blue-eyed boy now,

Mister Death?

Hit me again. Slice.

“What are you doing here?” Sherry asked.

It was the Christmas holidays. Spurred by morbid curiosity, I drove over to Sherry’s house in Sunset Valley, five miles south of Gulfgate. I and Velma ain’t stupid.

Yeah, right.

“What are you doing here?” Sherry stood with her hands on her hips, and she more hissed than spoke. She looked pretty, angry like she was.

“Charles called me, said he was getting off work at five. He said maybe you’d wanna go have a beer with us.”

“Charles knows better than that. Why are you lying to me?”

“Hey,” I said, crossing my wrists in front of me, “arrest me, okay? Guilty as charged. Maybe I just came to see a friend from the base.”

Sherry said nothing, but something about her tone, her body’s tone, the way she stood, the look in her eyes, told me for once in my life to shut up and listen. I lowered my hands.

“Sorry,” I whispered.

Sherry nodded her head to the right, so slightly that if her eyes hadn’t done the same I’d have missed the gesture. I moved where she instructed, around the corner of the house to a clump of shrubs, hiding us from the street.

“Did you see Denny on your way over, ’cause he’s on his way here now. Did he see you?”

“I don’t think so. I didn’t see him.”

“You better hope not. Look, kid, you maybe think you know something, that’s why you came here today. To tell somebody what you think you know. He doesn’t know it yet, but Denny is gonna fry for what he did. Nothing’s gonna change that. He is a sick and vicious man. You listening to me?”

“Yes. I hear you.”

“I am trying to keep you from getting hurt. He knows where you go to school. He mentioned a lake near Kemah, a lake so deep they’d never find a body. That’s what he told me. As long as Denny is out free, you are not safe, nobody who knows him is. You need to turn around and drive your car back home, enjoy your Christmastime with your folks, then get your butt back to high school and forget you ever knew anything about Ellington Air Force Base.”

I did as I was told.

Six years and several fruitless appeals later, Denny had his date with Old Sparky, the electric chair in Huntsville Federal Prison, and Sherry married a chef from the base. And still as I write, encouraged by zealous defenders of the people, the Texas treadmill creeps in its petty pace from day to day, lighting fools the way to dusty death.

Back in Pasadena, my old teachers have long-ago retired or died and the schools are integrated. I don’t get home that often anymore. My mother moved to San Antonio and only my sister lives near the coast. She married a former SoHo football player and they moved to Lake Jackson, where he starred for the post office till he retired.

The coastal town of Kemah, a few miles east of Ellington, is once again gutted houses and smelly seaweed, just as it was after Hurricane Carla in 1961. Hurricanes have a way of equalizing things, and in 2008, Ike fulfilled its purpose. I did attend my thirtieth high school reunion, and my fortieth as well. Charles was there, and we had a drink for old times. We didn’t speak of Denny. Late that evening, probably around three a.m., I drove by the gate to Ellington, but I didn’t linger there. Sometimes it’s better just to drive away.

PART II. BACK ROADS TEXAS

Jump in the river, stay drunk all the time…

– Henry Thomas

LUCK by JAMES CRUMLEY

Crumley, Texas

JASMINE

13th June, Slippery Rock

Little sister,

I fear that I waited too long to respond to your missive of early December. I hoped and prayed that I could find the time to write a short and sweet, perfectly reasonable explanation for the financial morass that seems to be dividing our true and deep sisterly love. (You understand.) So please forgive me if I rattle on in a dozen different directions before I discover the truth dancing in front of me, lost and fluttering like one of those monarch butterflies on his endless migrations.

The folks here in Slippery Rock seem to have recently arrived from some other time zone-the slow drip of molasses time zone, slow hands and deep pockets. But they have other advantages. They have no idea how the marble breaks down. Silver Slip had to twice physically restrain farmers who wanted to wager their bottom land against the illusive numbers. They went home, small slices of skin missing. They refused to believe a dwarf could be so quick. But, Lord, the women are so tight they won’t even spit on the ground or step into the honey-bucket flop. You know the kind of women I mean-like Momma-cat glasses, hair so tight in buns that their noses are pointed like the bills of the snapping turtles Daddy brought out of the Black River, hard, stingy eyes over skinny, pale mouths. They probably think a blow job is when you blow smoke in a guy’s ear. The things we could teach them, huh? (HA! Remember those two drummers at the Pow Wow Motel in Tucumcari? They should have been diamond miners.) But Jesus, they eat like lost hogs. Mounds of popcorn, miles of cotton candy, and enough Cokes to launch a ship, but they never shit. The whirlaround ride is shot, and this here’s a town that keeps little kids on the soft rides, these Slippery Rockers. Shit, the games are down 200 percent. Even the penny pits are losing money to the fucking rug rats. Which is why I’ve missed the last two payments. I’m sorry. We’re living on macaroni and welfare cheese. Maybe we need to put the shows back together. Maybe.

Speaking of rug rats-how’s little Harney doing? Same sort of straight dude his dad is? What is he now? Eighteen months? I hear little Pearl looks just like you. I know Harney would love to send you some money, but he’s still got those Kentucky peckerwoods on his back. It wasn’t Harn’s fault that the still caught fire. Hell, he nearly lost two fingers trying to put it out.

Well, baby sis, I gotta run. More soon.

Your loving sister,