HEADER
Edward Lee
He’d heard the term, in all its variations so many times, but he just couldn’t figure it.
Header.
What
The little boy’s eyes widened in the dark, blooming like night flowers. He hid in the closet, a crouched and frozen shadow; he cracked the door half an inch, but couldn’t quite see them. His curiosity burned.
He had to know, he
He’d heard them speak of it many times — only, though, in the least formed whispers, behind the slickest grins and eyes narrowed to forbidden slits. Yes, Daddy and his grandfather. Like just today, when Daddy had brought his tractor in from the graze field.
“That blamed Caudill up an’ cut my fence,” Daddy’d railed. Grandpap looked up from his work table. “Again?”
“Yeah, shore’s shit! Lost six more sheep! Gawd Almighty, we’se gonna have to
And that’s when Grandpap had smiled that feisty, whiskery smile of his. “What we’se gonna have to do, son, is have ourselves a header.”
“Dag straight! Fucker stole my sheep, third time this year. Tonight, we’se gonna have a header fer shore! Teach that cracker som-bitch ta steal
See, that’s what they’se always called it — whatever
Like one time he’d overheard his Daddy whispering to Granpap, whispering like creaky, tiny etchings. “McCraw burned down one’ a Meyer’s grain sheds, Pap. He’s havin’ a header tonight, wants us ta join in.” So later on, they’d corn-liquored up and left, and they didn’t return till almost dawn.
The little boy couldn’t imagine what a header could be, but he knew this: next day at school, Jannie McCraw wasn’t in class, and she was never seen again…
……..
“Sweetheart?” Cummings leaned over the bed, gently nudged his wife’s warm shoulder.
Special Agent Stewart Cummings smiled back.
But that wasn’t good enough.
She was always so pale, always sniffling. The dark circles under her eyes, like smudges of charcoal, only reinforced her turmoil.
But it was so…hard.
“Be careful at work, honey,” she peeped to him, so loving, so real.
“Where’s your prescription?” Cummings asked. “I’ll pick it up on the way home tonight.”
“No, no,” she insisted amid the sheets. “I’ll get it later. I just need a little time to get going, you know.”
“Sure, Kath.”
“And you work so hard, I’d feel terrible if you had to drive all the way into town just for my medicine.”
“Honey, it’s no troub—”
“Hush!” she insisted, sniffling once more. Some kind of walking pneumonia, the doctor’s slip had said. She’d been like this for months now. “You go on. You do enough for me, I’ll get my medicine later.”
Cummings kissed her full, pink lips. He wanted to cry.
He left the house, got into his unmarked car, and started it up. The light of dawn seemed like the color of misery.
And another question rose, with the same heat as the sun.
Her medication cost $450 per month. Not to mention the mortgage, the power bills, groceries.
And what would his father say, if he knew what he was doing?
……..
Header.
Travis figured this was Grandpap’s way of suggestin’ that he was too young to hear such things, an’ never mind that he already had a good plot of hair ‘tween his legs and could squirt a man-sized nut any ol’ time. But what miffed Travis most was this: if he were too young ta hear about headers, how come the blamed county prosser- cueter hadn’t felt he was too young to be tried as a ay-dult?
Longer? Chrast. That fancified queer-loving judge had dropped
But, shore enough, Grandpap had been right. Those five years he’d gotten fer the candyass GTA had turned ta eleven a might quick. Russell County Detent weren’t no picnic, and havin’ ta beat the livin’ shit outa fellas piled those extra years on faster ‘n shit through one ‘a Dumar McGern’s chickens. Travis ain’t had no choice, ‘less he wanted to get butt-fucked ever night and have a bunch of big, dirty fells callin’ him “baby.” He’d