Smonk

free whoring and a knife and a beefsteak ever day for the rest of my life and the steeple off they church. But it was near four in the morning fore finally I won the bird. And on threes! When I left that parrot was setting right cheer. He tapped his shoulder.

They was waiting for me in the alley, them coon-asses. I shot them I could and stobbed one or two and was about to kick the last one to death fore Ike pulled me off. And the whole time the bird never flew off my shoulder. When I finished it said Bust.

Overhead, Ike made a sound with his lips. A whistle of air.

I know, I know. Smonk winked and ashed his cigar. Brother Isaac here, he whispered to the boy, never did cater to that bird. Used to say don’t trust it. Say Let’s eat it ever time we got hongry. But I’d always concealed me a weakness for things of the air. I cherish a damn hoot owl. The ravens out west. Even yer common finches and spares. Bats, too. Always contained me a soft feeling towards a bat.

The boy wished he had a pet bat. It could fly and fetch things. Nothing big, just bat-size things. Ladies’ earrings. A pocketwatch. Flitter of wings and the tiny shiny objects of the world at your command.

Smonk waited till he was paying attention again.

So I come to enjoy this particular bird’s company and let him ride my shoulder ever minute of the day. I remember it could say fart and sang Clementine and it could do any birdcall it ever heard. Squirrels barking. A bobcat. Opera. It was jest a treasure. Then one night I was drunk on some vile potato splo a goddamn Irish foisted on me and without a speck of warning that cunning bird reaches over and takes out my goddamn eye with his beak, jest like that. Smonk snapped his fingers. Swallered it like a pill.

The boy slapped his own forehead. Dad gum! What ye do?

First thing I done I sobered up right quick, case he meant to go for the other one. Then I plucked him of his feathers and twisted off his little yaller legs and his beak and et him alive.

Dang, said the boy. How’d he taste? Had ye give him a name?

I had. Stan. Such was the name I give him. He jest looked like a Stan to me. And good. He tasted real good to be such a traitor. Somehow he was still tender.

Ike’s eyes shrank in their wrinkles, which was how you knew he was smiling, as he studied the horizon for pursuers, and Smonk rubbed his goiter thoughtfully. During all this excitement the mule had wandered up and was pushing its snout against his shoulder, the saddle off center from its run and sweat tracks down its gray sides. Burrs in its tail. Smonk ignored the mule for the whore it was, off with the first little shit to put ass to it, and studied the boy.

Didn’t I use to hold congress with ye momma?

Sir?

Fuck her, ye twit.

Yessir. I were six year old and a half that last time ye got some. I’m near bout twelve now and this much taller. He held his hand to his throat as a measure. But I remember it real good.

She like it when I nailed her?

Seemed to, yessir. The boy paused and peered into Smonk’s eye. Daddy says you a coldblooded killer. He says you ain’t like normal folks. Says you of the devil. You gone kill me, too, Mister Smonk?

Smonk glanced at Ike.

Well, he said. I reckon ye daddy would know plenty about the devil. But I done met my quota today, so naw, I ain’t gone kill ye. But get the hell out of here lest I change my mind.

The boy disappeared into the sugarcane.

Smonk let Ike haul him to his feet where he drank more whiskey, easing the pressure of his goiter with a series of crisp belches. He tossed the jug back and chewed his cigar.

You called it, I, he said. Trap, sure as sin. I’ll concede ye that one.

Ike puffed his pipe and his gaze swept the horizon.

Smonk followed where he looked and saw the road he’d just blistered with speed. The red dust still settling. The sugarcane had been baked by the unremitting sun and the stalks if you touched one would crumble in your hand. The sky beyond glaring white while every leaf of every tree or bush had been coated red, the far-reaching sugarcane itself crimson in the distance.

Ike said nothing. He looked behind him where a hawk dropped from the sky into the cane and rose back up, the fieldmouse in its grip still clutching sprigs of straw in its tiny fingers. The lessons the world taught were everywhere.

Mister Smonk?

The boy. Tapping his elbow.

Junior, Smonk said not looking down, if I want any more shit outta you, I’ll squeeze ye head.

I wondered might I get my balloon back’s all. You can keep that dern mule. It kicked me one time.

Smonk looked at the balloon over his shoulder, gray-blue and traced with veins and linked by a string to the mule’s ear. He looked at the boy’s dirty face, its skewed grin and missing front teeth and dimples and glittering blue eyes.

He reached in his bootleg with a grimace and withdrew a gleam of light that when turned in the air became a pearl-handled Mississippi Gambler stiletto with a groove in the blade for bloodletting.

Eugene, Ike said.

Smonk winked and flipped the knife in his palm and presented the handle. Here.

The boy snatched it away.

Now git.

But—

Smonk took his cigar out of his mouth and touched its fire to the balloon.

Dad gum, the boy said when it popped. How bout the string, then?

Running west into the dying sun, the boy knew better than to go back to Old Texas. All the men were dead there, including William R. McKissick Junior’s daddy, the bailiff. First William R. McKissick Junior’s momma taking off after Mister E. O. Smonk and now his daddy the bailiff shot dead by Mister E. O. Smonk.

The boy ran, holding the knife Mister E. O. Smonk had given him. He pretended it was a birthday present from his momma.

His daddy—before he was a bailiff and before Mister E. O. Smonk had shot him dead in Old Texas—had been a paid employee for Mister E. O. Smonk. In Oklahoma or someplace. Whenever Mister E. O. Smonk used to come to see Daddy once or twice a year, it meant him and Daddy would get drunk on Mister E. O. Smonk’s licker. Mister E. O. Smonk’s giant head would loll and he would slide gold coins over the table at Daddy bribing Daddy to let him go on have a piece of Momma. Sometimes it took a hundred dollars or more but Smonk seemed to think everything had its price. Momma would of been acting peculiar all night anyway, how she bent over pretending to look for dustballs under the table where the dustballs had been growing like a beloved crop the entirety of William R. McKissick Junior’s life. And her with no drawers on. William R. McKissick Junior used to hide under the table trying to see her nethers, taking out his devil’s tool and disobeying the Bible. Then, as coins rasped across the table, Daddy would say Ah hell, go ahead to Mister E. O. Smonk and Mister E. O. Smonk would grunt up off the chair unbuttoning his britches with coins falling out of his pockets thumping like hail on the floor and his suspenders falling down one then the other. Momma always chose that moment to pretend not to want none and make a fuss of being dragged in, getting her dress all tore, thigh-leg for all to see and her bottom too. Daddy would grab up the coins and stalk outside in a fury and start kicking the dog across the yard, or William R. McKissick Junior if he caught him under the table. From behind the sheet hung to divide the shack in half, the only thing louder than the bed creaking was Momma squealing.

And ever dern time, after Mister E. O. Smonk come out from behind the sheet, pulling on his suspenders and smelling his fingers, Momma would follow him, all slinky like. Wearing nothing but a shred of undergarment. In a good mood. Tired-looking. All smiley, a certain sweat about her.

Not noticing the menfolk at the table talking about murder, she’d scoop William R. McKissick Junior in her lap and hug and kiss him and smell behind his ear. Her cheeks flushed. Her bosom too. You could see most of em. Just not the nipple parts. William R. McKissick Junior would try to peek down her collar to see the nipple parts and he’d get him a devil’s tool in his britches and Momma would feel it on her leg and pop the imprint of her hand into his bottom and say, You stop that. You bad boy! You stop that right this second!

He ran fast, now, the devil stirring in his pants at the memory. He waved his new knife, accelerating to a