“Leonard's got beer. His is cheaper and it ain’t piss-warm like what we got at Dink's last time.”
They drove out of Marshall, following 221 toward Mars Hill.
“You in for a treat, meeting Leonard,” Travis said. “They ain’t another like him, leastways in this county.”
“I heard tell he was a lawyer once.”
“Naw, he just went to law school a few months. They kicked his ass out because he was stoned all the time.”
After a mile they turned off the blacktop and onto a dirt road. On both sides of the road what had once been pasture was now thick with blackjack oak and broomsedge. They passed a deserted farmhouse and turned onto another road no better than a logging trail, trees on both sides now.
The woods opened into a small meadow, at the center a battered green-and-white trailer, its windows painted black. On one side of the trailer a satellite dish sprouted like an enormous mushroom, on the other side a Jeep Cherokee, its back fender crumpled. Two Dobermans scrambled out from under the trailer, barking as they ran toward the truck. They leaped at Lanny's window, their claws raking the passenger door as he quickly rolled up the window.
The trailer door opened and a man with a gray ponytail and wearing only a pair of khaki shorts stepped onto the cinder-block steps. He yelled at the dogs and when that did no good he came out to the truck and kicked at them until they slunk back from where they had emerged.
Lanny looked at a man who wasn’t any taller than himself and looked to outweigh him only because of a stomach that sagged over the front of his shorts like a half-deflated balloon.
“That's Leonard?”
“Yeh. The one and only.”
Leonard walked over to Travis's window.
“I got nothing but beer and a few nickel bags. Supplies are going to be low until people start to harvest.”
“Well, we likely come at a good time then.” Travis turned to Lanny. “Let's show Leonard what you done brought him.”
Lanny got out and pulled back the branches and potato sacks.
“Where’d you get that from?” Leonard said.
“Found it,” Lanny said.
“Found it, did you? And you figured finders keepers.”
“Yeh,” said Lanny
Leonard let his fingers brush some of the leaves.
“Looks like you dragged it through every briar patch and laurel slick between here and the county line.”
“There's plenty of leaves left on it,” Travis said.
“What you give me for it?” Lanny said.
Leonard lifted each stalk, looking at it the same way Lanny had seen buyers look at tobacco.
“Fifty dollars.”
“You trying to cheat me,” Lanny said. “I’ll find somebody else to buy it.”
As soon as he spoke Lanny wished he hadn’t, because he’d heard from more than one person that Leonard Hamby was a man you didn’t want to get on the wrong side of. He was about to say that he reckoned fifty dollars would be fine but Leonard spoke first.
“You may have an exalted view of your entrepreneurial abilities,” Leonard said.
Lanny didn’t understand all the words but he understood the tone. It was smart-ass but it wasn’t angry.
“I’ll give you sixty dollars, and I’ll double that if you bring me some that doesn’t look like it's been run through a hay baler. Plus I got some cold beers inside. My treat.”
“OK,” Lanny said, surprised at Leonard but more surprised at himself, how tough he’d sounded. He tried not to smile as he thought how when he got back to Marshall he’d be able to tell his friends he’d called Leonard Hamby a cheater to his face and Leonard hadn’t done a damn thing about it but offer more money and free beer.
Leonard took a money clip from his front pocket and peeled off three twenties and handed them to Lanny. Leonard nodded toward the meadow's far corner.
“Put them over there next to my tomatoes. Then come inside if you got a notion to.”
Lanny and Travis carried the plants through the knee-high grass and laid them next to the tomatoes. As they approached the trailer Lanny watched where the Dobermans had vanished under the trailer. He didn’t lift his eyes until he reached the steps.
Inside, it took Lanny's vision a few moments to adjust, because the only light came from a TV screen. Strings of unlit Christmas lights ran across the walls and over door eaves like bad wiring. A dusty-looking couch slouched against the back wall. In the corner Leonard sat in a fake-leather recliner patched with black electrician's tape. Except for a stereo system, the rest of the room was shelves filled with books and CDs. Music was playing, music that didn’t have any guitars or words.
“Have a seat,” Leonard said, and nodded at the couch.
A woman stood in the foyer between the living room and kitchen. She was a tall, bony woman and the cutoff jeans and halter top she wore had little flesh to hold them up. She’d gotten a bad sunburn and there were pink patches on her skin where she’d peeled. To Lanny she mostly looked wormy and mangy, like some stray dog around a garbage dump. Except for her eyes. They were a deep blue, like a jaybird's feathers. If you could just keep looking into her eyes, she’d be a pretty woman, Lanny told himself.
“How about getting these boys a couple of beers, Wendy,” Leonard said.
“Get them your ownself” the woman said, and disappeared into the back of the trailer.
Leonard shook his head but said nothing as he got up. He brought back two longneck Budweisers and a sandwich bag filled with pot and some wrapping papers.
He handed the beers to Travis and Lanny and sat down. Lanny was thirsty and he drank quickly as he watched Leonard carefully shake some pot out of the bag and onto the paper. Leonard licked the cigarette paper and twisted it at both ends, then lit it.
The orange tip brightened as Leonard drew the smoke in. He handed the joint to Travis, who drew on it as well and handed it back.
“What about your buddy?”
“He don’t smoke pot. Scared his daddy would find out and beat the tar out of him.”
“That ain’t so,” Lanny said. “I just like a beer buzz better.”
Lanny lifted the bottle to his lips and drank until the bottle was empty.
“I’d like me another one.”
“Quite the drinker, aren’t you,” Leonard said. “Just make sure you don’t overdo it. I don’t want you passed out and pissing on my couch.”
“I ain’t gonna piss on your couch.”
Leonard took another drag of the joint and passed it back to Travis.
“They’re in the refrigerator,” Leonard said. “You can get one easy as I can.”
Lanny stood up and for a moment he felt off plumb, maybe because he’d drunk the beer so fast. When the world steadied he got the beer and sat back down on the couch. He looked at the TV, some kind of western but without the sound on he couldn’t tell what was happening. He drank the second beer quick as the first as Travis and Leonard finished smoking the pot.
Travis had his eyes closed.
“Man, I’m feeling good,” Travis said.
Lanny studied the man who sat in the recliner, trying to figure out what it was that made Leonard Hamby a man you didn’t want to mess with. Leonard looked soft, Lanny thought, white and soft like bread dough. Just because a man had a couple of mean dogs didn’t make him such a badass, he told himself. He thought about his own daddy and Lin-wood Toomey big men you could look at and tell right away were badasses, or, like his daddy, once had been. Lanny wondered if anyone would ever call him a badass and wished again that he didn’t take after his mother, who was short and thin-boned.
“What's this shit you’re listening to, Leonard,” Lanny said.
“It's called ‘Appalachian Spring.’ It's by Copland.”
“Ain’t never heard of them.”
Leonard looked amused.
