Ahab dozes. Jezebel at the wheel.
Something about the car’s movement unsettles him. Too many stops and starts. Slowing. Turning. Accelerating. This is a town they’re driving in.
He opens his eyes. Panics.
Out the windshield, the City’s skyscrapers loom overhead like guillotine scaffolds.
“Shhhhhh. Shh. Shh,” she soothes him, reaching out to rub his chest and stomach with her palm like he is a toddler. “Don’t worry, baby. We’re almost there.”
Do something, part of him screams. The part of him that still cares.
The part that wants to live.
He could fight. Grab the wheel. Grab her hair to smash her face into it.
He could do that.
But he won’t. He doesn’t.
Better to finish it. There is no other choice.
“You got a smoke?” he asks her.
She smiles at him. Evil.
“Even better, baby. I got smoke.”
She goes into that strappy little purse of hers. Pulls out a joint. It is big and beautiful. Real craftsmanship.
She grabs it by the pretty little paper twist at its end and puts it in her mouth to wet it. No tongue show for him this time. They are long past that.
Click, goes Betti. Scrape.
The second he smells it, he knows just what it is.
“Hash and tobacco, baby. Only the best for you,” she says, handing it over.
No doubt. How did she know?
Back in grade ten. Getting into smoke. There was no weed anywhere. Just hash. And it was hard to come by.
Earl. What a hero. His older sister, grade twelve, was dating a thirty-something year-old biker. She took Earl to one of those parties. They took a shine to him and adopted him. And in no time at all, Earl and him were the hash guys at school. Smoking tobacco hash joints all over the school when most older kids were scraping by and begging for drags of cigarettes.
What a hero.
The squares had one thing right. Cannabis: the gateway drug. It sure was. It was the hash that got him into tobacco. It was tobacco that led to booze.
And those bikers, they led to other introductions. Boosting cars. Then driving hijacked trucks.
After a few years of that, some real work.
Fucking Earl.
Some people shouldn’t play with guns.
“I’m over it,” he says, exhaling with a racking cough.
“I guess you are. The question is: is it over you?” she says, twinkle in her eye
She drives him to the rail yards just outside of town. The ones by the slaughterhouses. Right into the yards, where they unload the livestock into the huge holding pens. Going through, they have to drive across about six parallel railway tracks in unmarked crossings.
Going over the tracks, he realizes he’s been this way before. A few times.
These same tracks. Cattle cars full of cows heading to the slaughterhouse, peeking out through the slats, enjoying the ride, oblivious of their destination.
Not so different from some people he’s known, those cows. He eyeballs that bullet hole in the dash.
The tape is gone.
The thing living behind winks at him.
They finally get over all the tracks. There were no cattle cars today. This time there are pigs in some pens not so far off. Outside the slaughterhouse still, but close enough that the pigs can smell it. They are squealing a racket. And not the normal, happy swine banter, neither. They know the score.
Over the tracks there’s a little residential neighborhood tucked between the slaughterhouses and the railyard.
But he knows this already.
These days, most of the house lots are empty and overgrown, the homes long since knocked down. There are still some houses in the area, though. Little more than cottages, really. Must have been company housing for workers with families back in the day. The houses that remain are boarded up. Vacant. All except one.
She parks just a little down the street from it. Shuts the engine off. Takes the keys out of the ignition and disappears them someplace.
The place is in pretty good nick. It’s got a tall chain-link fence around the backyard, connecting up to the sides of the house. An early-1960s Chevy pickup parked in front of the garage to the side. All black. Original finish. Pristine.
The house is a bit bigger than the others. Has a small covered porch at its front. It’s the only one that does. This must have been a foreman’s abode, back in the day. Out on the main road. Shortest walk to and from work. Get to sit on that porch and watch all the underlings come and go.
An old man in an old-man hat and three-piece suit is sitting on the porch in a rocking chair, smoking a cigarette. Staring at them in the car. The old man is rocking his chair, just a little.
Has Ahab been to that house? Or did he dream it?
It is hard for him to know. His memories are all mixed up with dreams and nightmares. Blurring together like watercolors in the rain.
Dream or memory. What’s the difference? Either way, none of it exists anymore outside of his head.
Jezebel lights two cigarettes. Hands him one.
When she speaks, she’s got on her storytelling voice:
“He sits right there on his porch every day, so he can see everybody coming. See that old ammo crate next to him? He keeps his coffee cup on it. Tucked behind, he’s got an old jungle carbine. He’s a dead shot. He sits there and waits for men to bring him envelopes of money. Sometimes there’s a note inside, too. Telling him to call in one of my cousins for a job. And sometimes the note says the guy bringing that envelope has to go inside with him. Downstairs. To the Center of All Evil. And you know the fucked-up thing? They always go down there with him. To help him move something heavy, or the like. Once he’s done with them, he bleeds them out down the floor drain. Chops them up and feeds the choicest bits to his dogs. The rest, bones and all, he takes over to the slaughterhouse at night and dumps into the pig pens. They take care of that. Eat it all up. No one there pays it any mind. The bosses see to that. Do you understand?”
It comes back to him, then. The dream. The memory. He was the driver for one of those envelope deliverymen.
Yeah, he’s been there. And he’s dreamed about it. More than once, both cases. Parked down the block next to the tracks, waiting. Watching those cows roll by.
But he’s never been up to that house.
“You done wrong, Ahab. You fucked up. You kept the car. This car. Driving around in it and spinning out into your schizo bullshit. People got worried. Do you understand? You’re a loose end.”
They each turn to look each other in the eye. Her eyes are normal. Kind, even.
“They are not over it,” she says. Gentle.
She lets that sit with him for a nice long moment before continuing:
“So now it’s time for you to take your envelope to Grandpa. You can set things right. He’s been waiting for you.”
She reaches under her seat. Hands him the envelope.
It’s not sealed. And there’s no stack of money inside. Something clunky.
“Go ahead. Have a look,” she says.
It is her grandfather’s war medal.
“I went back for it. It didn’t sit right with me, leaving it there. This journey we’re on; I thought it would only be right having you return it to him.”
He closes his eyes and lets his mind drift. Over all her storytelling. Like a hawk on the wing, his mind’s eye drifts over, looking for something to present itself.
“Wait, now,” he says. “You said your grandfather is a devil. You said he wasn’t The Devil. And before that, you said The Devil is an old man sitting in a rocking chair on his porch in town here. Doing what you just talked about. That doesn’t line up.”
She chuckles.
“Yeah, I guess I did lie about that. Or, maybe not. Depends on how you look at it, right? For me, him here is The Devil. I never knew him at work, see. He was just grandpa, around the house. And he was a devil. Don’t get me wrong there. But that man over there is a whole other thing.”
They sit and finish their cigarettes.
“Okay, it’s time,” she says. Still kind. “Don’t be a punk about it. I told you: he’s a dead shot with that pommy carbine of his. You’ve been delivered. It’s just a question of how you carry it now.”
Looking through the windshield at the old man, Ahab sees that he has his left hand behind the wooden crate beside him.
The old man flicks his cigarette into the dirt in front of his porch. Slides his feet under his chair and squares himself over them. His left hand behind that crate is now bearing weight.
“He’s a patient man, but we don’t have all day here,” Jezebel says. “How do you want to be remembered? Carry it. Make it right. I’ll remember you.”
Hearing this breaks the last bit of himself that he didn’t even know he had.
Shattered.
She slides out of the driver’s seat to him. They kiss. It’s their first.
“It’s been a slice, baby,” she breathes into him as their lips separate. “A real trip. And I want you to know something. To quote a luminary of the dark arts: ‘I never killed anybody. Believe me: if I started killing, there’d be none of ya left.’”
He gets out of the car and walks to the porch. Envelope in hand.
The pigs are squealing. Louder than before. They must be getting moved along, too.
Beside the house, two big dogs are snarling at the chain-link fence.
When Ahab gets to the front path, Grandpa stands up.
“Shut up!” Grandpa barks at the dogs, just loud enough to be heard.
They shut up. Lay down drooling to stare with hungry eyes at Ahab as he walks up the front path to the porch.
Grandpa has an old revolver in his right hand now. Held loose. Lots of patina.
“You have something for me there,” he says, when Ahab has stopped in front of the three porch steps.
“I do.”
Ahab holds the envelope out to him.
Grandpa slides the revolver into the front of his trousers, handle just to the right of his belt buckle. Takes the envelope with his right. In his left, there is now a Fairbairn-Sykes fighting knife. Old too. Lots of patina.
Grandpa looks in the envelope. Grunts.
“And there it is. Scamp. You know what’s in here, right? I taxed her mother hard over it. She just sat there and watched me do it, with those big, black eyes of hers. That’s my girl.”
Grandpa puts the envelope away in his suit jacket’s inside pocket. Over his heart.
“Take a seat,” he says, pointing to the old wooden kitchen chair to the left of the ammo crate.
Grandpa steps aside so that Ahab can do as he’s been told. The old man is tall. Straight backed. Hands look like they’ve been carved out of wood.
Once Ahab’s seated, Grandpa twirls the knife in his left hand into a stabbing grip. Pushes his jacket back off his left hip with his thumb. Slides the blade home into a beautiful old leather sheath. Fine Native American beadwork.
Grandpa pulls his rocking chair around to Face Ahab. Sets his revolver down on his side of the crate between them as he sits down.
Ahab glances down behind the crate. There’s a short, bolt-action rifle in a wooden cradle on the wall. Angled so the butt of the rifle presents itself to the man in the rocking chair.
“You want a drink?” Grandpa asks Ahab. His old man voice is strong and full of character. Like his hands.
“Yes, please.”
Grandpa picks up the revolver and flips open the crate with the front sight. Inside the crate there’s boxes of ammo. Webbing belt with four clip pouches for the carbine. Whiskey bottle and four cut crystal tumblers. Open carton of Pall Mall filterless cigarettes. Can of lighter fluid. Short, sawed-off double-barreled shotgun with hand-carved pistol grip. Snub-nosed 38 revolver. Meat cleaver.
All the tools have the heavy patina of long use and loving care.
Except the 38. That’s brand new. Right out of the box.
Grandpa pulls out the whiskey bottle and two tumblers together with his left. Drops the crate lid with a bang. Sets the revolver down and pours them each a stiff one.
Grandpa drains his whiskey, so Ahab does the same.
Grandpa pulls a pack of cigarettes and a Zippo lighter out of his left jacket pocket.
“Smoke?” he asks Ahab.
“Yes, please.”
Grandpa hands one over. Lights it for him. Lights one for himself. Pours them each another two fingers.
“Can I ask you something, sir?” Ahab asks, finally meeting Grandpa’s eye.
“Go ahead.”
“That Zippo looks old. Is it from a war?”
“It is. World War Two.”
“And the woman in the car back there. Is she your granddaughter?”
“She is.”
“Okay. So, she has a Zippo, too. One with Betti Page on it. And she told me it was her grandfather’s. From World War Two, I think she said. But that didn’t make sense to me. Betti Page wasn’t around back then, was she?”
Grandpa chuckles.
“No. She wasn’t. This here is my World War Two lighter.”
Clink. Scrape. Snap.
Exactly how Jezebel does it. She has him exact.
Grandpa continues, his storytelling voice just the same as hers:
“She never was too good at keeping my stories straight. But, I think maybe when I gave that lighter to her, I did tell her it was from the second one. Caught her smoking when she was about twelve. Thought she should be doing it right. That lighter of hers, I do believe I got off an Air Force man in the Vietnam War. Killed him in an alley behind a go-go bar in Bangkok over a disagreement over a whore. Cut his throat and took the lighter. And the woman.”
Ahab nods. Thinks carefully before he continues:
“That explains it, sir. I guess. But, Vietnam? I’m sorry, sir, but you’d have been too old for that one, wouldn’t you?”
“I didn’t serve in that one. I was in Bangkok doing other work in those days.”
“Okay. Understood, sir. Thank you. And you just said that Zippo’s your World War Two lighter. You served in that one, sir?”
“I did. That one I did with the Aussies and the Gurkhas. For the Poms. In Burma. And then North Africa. Burma: now that was some fuckin fighting. In the jungles. Up close and personal with the Nips. Proper throat-cutters, them Gurkhas. Actually taught me a thing or two.”
“Okay. Thank you, sir. That clears things up. She’s talked a lot about you, your granddaughter. She even told me you were in the First World War. So she was mixed up there. Or spinning yarns,” Ahab says.
Grandpa clucks his tongue and gives his head a little shake.
“No. She has that right. I served in the Great War, too. I just don’t really talk about those days anymore, since folks will think I’m just making it up. Or going senile. But I was in it. When it kicked off, I went up to Canada, on account of it was obvious that they were going to get going with it a few years before we did. Joined Princess Patricia’s Light Infantry out of Edmonton. Lot of Cree and Blackfoot with us. We developed the nighttime trench raids. Sneak in and hit command bunkers with small squads. Bags of grenades and melee weapons. Beautiful. And them prairie good ol’ boys sure could take some scalps, too.”
Ahab has to sit with this a while.
Grandpa pulls out another two smokes. Hands one across and lights it for him before getting his own with the same flame.
Snap.
Grandpa takes a long drag of his Pall Mall. Drains his whiskey. Exhales his smoke.
Ahab downs his whiskey.
“Okay… I believe you, sir. But, how? There’s no way you’re that old.”
“Isn’t there? Didn’t she tell you about our family?”
“She did. I just thought…”
“Don’t do too much of that. I can tell it aint your strong suit. See, I only age when I’m up here. Down below, time works different, on account of it being eternal, and all. But, I don’t really enjoy the work down there, you know? On account of there being no hope. People up here, they still have hope. To live to see a better day. Taking that away has meaning. You understand?”
Ahab doesn’t answer. He sits watching his cigarette burn its way closer to the skin of his fingers.
Grandpa continues:
“I’ve put my work in down there. I can come and go as I please. So, I prefer to be up here as much as I can. It suits me.”
The pigs are really squealing now.
Grandpa tilts his ear their way and smiles. Flicks his cigarette away. Lights another for himself.
“Pigs are the same kind of deal, right?” Grandpa says. “Nice thing about pigs is, of all the animals we deal with over there, they are the smartest. Smarter than most kids, the average pig. Did you know that? It’s true. And they have a real sharp nose. So that means they really understand what’s going to happen to them. You can look in their eyes and see the fear. Watch their hope die.”
They sit in silence for a bit. Finally, Ahab lifts his cigarette to his lips and takes one last drag. Flicks the butt away.
“Look at me,” Grandpa tells him.
Ahab takes a deep breath and does.
The old man’s eyes are full black, like Jezebel’s. But worse. His eyelids are gone. Decomposed. Sharp bone with little spurs like rose thorns poking through the decaying flesh around his eye sockets.
Grandpa smiles. His teeth are sharp. Like a piranha.
“What is it they say? Do what you love, and you never work a day in your life,” Grandpa chuckles.
Ahab drops his gaze to the crate between them. Waiting. It’s an eternity.
“But I do understand your situation, you know,” Grandpa says, his voice almost kind. Almost.
Ahab looks up. The devil is gone. The old man in front of him is just that. Still a hard man, no doubt. Still a killer. But his eyes are merciful when he continues:
“I know this thing we do; it can really take its toll on men. I understand. And it was no small thing they asked of you. It was fuckin heavy. That was the point. That’s the test.”
They are quiet for a while.
“But you got it done. You did it. You’re just having some trouble carrying it, is all. I understand that. Even so, normally I wouldn’t intervene in something like this. But, my granddaughter has taken a shine to you. So I’m going to help you out.”
Another long pause. Grandpa gives him a smile and a nod.
“It’s good you came in by yourself. They are going to like that. It’ll go a long way. So we are going to make this right. You and me. We’ll get in my truck and drive downtown and talk to the man himself. I’ll explain that you’re a good boy. You did what was asked of you. You’ve just had a little bit of trouble carrying it, is all. But, you’ve put that behind you and you’ll be stable as the Rock of Gibraltar moving forward. That’s right, isn’t it? You can tell him that. Right?”
“Yes, sir. I’ll tell him that,” Ahab rasps.
“Okay, then. Let’s go.”
Grandpa stands up, picking up the revolver. That goes around behind to the small of his back. Puts his right hand into his trouser pocket. Truck keys jingle when it comes back out.
Grandpa turns his back to Ahab and goes down the porch steps, heading to the truck in the gravel driveway. They are almost there when he pulls up. Snaps his fingers in irritation and turns back to Ahab.
“Fuck me. I am getting old. Forgetful. Never go to these people empty-handed. Especially not when you’re seeking favor. We’ll be seeing the man in his restaurant. I’ve got a half side of prime beef in my deepfreeze in the basement. We’ll wrap that up and throw it in the bed of the truck. He’s gonna love it. I’ll need you to do the heavy lifting, though. My back aint what it used to be.”
Grandpa goes back up the porch steps. Pulls open the screen door. Pushes open the front door. Steps aside, holding the screen door open for Ahab.
“Stairs to the basement are just on the left there. Watch your step.”
Ahab meets his eye. The old man is kindly. Almost frail, even.
Ahab nods. Goes inside. As he does, the car out on the street starts up with a roar. Tires scream as she burns out of there by the front of the house.
Looking down the stairs into the basement. Pitch black down there.
“Light switch is just at the bottom of the stairs. On your left.”
Ahab nods again. Grabs the old wooden handrail, polished smooth by decades of hands such as his.
He walks downstairs.
Into the dark.
THE END
Muse Vassal 