4.
It turns out Nancy wasn’t as appealing as I’d hoped. She was the mill’s broom, Darren offering me a slight grin as he handed it to me. There were around a dozen men working the mill’s machinery, my ears straining to hear anything other than the constant whirring of saws.
There was so much sawdust littered around the floor that by the time the final whistle hooted its shrill call of “tools down”, I hadn’t cleared half of it. Darren found me a few minutes after the machines were switched off, sweeping behind the central area where the bulk of the logs were fed in through the main chute and cut up into boards.
I’m sorry if I’m vague with my description of the mill. It was never something that overly interested me. Especially that day. My mind kept going back to the previous night, Loui’s handywork playing in my mind on permanent repeat.
“Hey, kid. Day’s over. Come on, I’ll give you a ride home.”
5.
There were 2 others in the car with us. They both kept eyeing me off as Darren drove, but they weren’t mean about it. Darren was telling them about a whore that had been found dead in one of the houses behind Rita’s.
“They caught a bloke this morning. He was with Sade and tried to bite her nipple off. He was pissed as a fart and trying to feast on her fuckin tit.” I figured they all knew who Sade was because none of them asked about her.
Bill, the guy sitting next to me lived in the house almost directly behind my own, although it was almost a mile between us. The thick trees that separated our properties acted like a curtain and there was a creek that represented the boundary. He had a young son, Clancy, that I saw a few times, but we hadn’t spoken at that point.
“Anyone we know?” Bill asked.
“Who, the guy with Sade? Nah, just some drifter.”
“Guess his drifting days are over,” Newton, the guy riding shotgun said as he fired up a cigarette.
They’d pinned the whore’s murder on some poor sap who just happened to be passing through town. Can you believe that, James? The trial never actually happened because the guy topped himself a few days beforehand. There was a rumour that the cops had strung him up in his cell, but of course it was never proven.
What’s even funnier, for me anyway, was the reason behind the cops supposedly murdering this innocent citizen. The drifter, I wish I could remember his name but unfortunately it wasn’t one that stuck in my mind, had been in possession of a distinctive pocket watch at the time of his arrest.
The initials RP were engraved into its rear casing, the gold watch having belonged to a certain policeman who was now busy pushing up daisies from his final resting place. I don’t know how he happened to come into possession of Royce’s pocket watch, but what I can tell you with a high level of confidence, is that said drifter had nothing to do with Royce Packard’s death. Of that killing, I hereby take full responsibility.
6.
It didn’t surprise many people that my father had finally shot through. According to several local businesses, he’d racked up enough credit “to purchase half of main street”. At least that’s how the newspaper put it. He was never seen again and as the old homestead had passed from my grandfather to my father, it now passed to me.
During the following days and weeks, I did everything I could to rid myself of any memory of the Lightman history. I burned what I could, not even considering selling any of it. I destroyed photos, heirlooms, paintings, anything that had held any sort of meaning. I needed to cleanse the world of the Lightmans, a piece at a time.
7.
But it was the taste that refused to leave my mind. And I’m not talking about the physical taste of flesh and blood. I’m talking about the taste of the fear that I sensed whenever I, or Loui, sank our teeth into an arm or leg. It was the overwhelming taste of control that took charge, running through my own veins the way liquor took my father. Yes, it gave my non-existent dick a bit of a tickle, but the urge went much deeper than that. I can’t describe it, other than feeling like an insatiable thirst I couldn’t quench until I tasted blood again.
8.
Life turned around quite quickly with the house now completely mine. I managed to hang onto the job at the mill for a while, Darren picking me up each morning and dropping me back home in the late afternoon. Sometimes we were alone, other times joined by workers who were offered rides.
I had an uncle, my mother’s brother, who once showed up out of the blue. I’d been at work that day and when Darren dropped me at the foot of the drive, saw him sitting on the front porch.
“Who’s that?” Darren asked.
“Not sure,” I replied, but when my chauffeur offered to stick around, I said I was fine. I’d almost reached the ripe old age of 19 by then and was handling things much better. The shy exterior I had portrayed for so long was finally starting to give way to a confidence I actually enjoyed.
I hopped out of the car, gave Darren a final wave and watched as he swung the car back onto the road. Once he disappeared in a cloud of dust over the crest of the hill, I turned back towards the house and the man still sitting on the steps.
As I neared, he stood, removed his hat and held it in front of himself, looking sheepishly at me. He looked about 50,
