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Authors: Mark Richard Zubro

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BOOK: Rust On the Razor
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“I admit nothing,” he said. “But to stop you from making these false accusations, I will say that I did see the sheriff two nights ago.”
“What time?”
“Just after midnight. I'd been to see a member of the congregation late. We'd prayed for her son, who is a drug addict. Earlier in the day the sheriff told me to meet him at
midnight at Magnolia's in Filmore County.”
Scott said, “That's the next county south. I know Magnolia's. It's got a worse reputation than Rebel Hell.”
Hollis said, “He told me he knew what you said you know. Again, I wanted to avoid a scandal.”
“What did he make you promise?”
“That I would support him in every election and oppose Clara. That I had to get behind all his projects.”
We left with the nugget of knowledge of where the sheriff had started out his evening.
 
“Are we really not going to tell?” Scott asked as we got in the car.
“Let's stop at the hospital, dodge some reporters, and check on your dad. Then we'll call Todd, get him working on getting me out of town, and let him decide how to handle the preacher scandal. I have no qualms about breaking my word and ratting on him. Using a power position to destroy the lives of little kids is the most disgusting thing I can think of. Todd'll know if they have to get the state police in here or the FBI. They'll have to investigate and find someone to talk.”
Half an hour later we were on the road south to Filmore County and Magnolia's.
“How do you know about all these places?” I asked. “I thought you were the saintly athlete, too busy practicing or working out or being a star to have heard about these dens of iniquity.”
“I used to hang out in the parking lot of the Piggly Wiggly on Saturday nights with the other kids. On hot summer evenings we'd sneak off and go places. Popular athletes get taken everywhere. We have a secret society that lets us in on all the hidden knowledge—a sort of fraternity of with-it kids who know about sex and booze and the secrets of adult life before everyone else.”
“Bullshit.”
“Sounded good to me.”
“I played sports in high school and college. We just pretty much hung out and drank.”
“Sort of the same here. I went to Magnolia's once. Me and Peter and a few guys—I think Hiram was with us. We figured we could get in. Didn't think they'd say no to teenage stud athletes. During the trip down we bragged about how often we'd been laid, and how we were going to get laid that night.”
“All true?”
“Mostly lies.”
“What happened?”
“They threw us out.”
We passed through numerous small towns. There wasn't much traffic on the road. It was late on a Thursday night, and it had been raining. We drove around large puddles of standing water on the road.
“Where is this place?” I asked.
“A mile or two into Thomas Jefferson Forest, going in from the south entrance. No direct way from here—we'll have to go around.”
We turned off the main road ten feet past a sign that read, “Grandma's Launderette—Free Dry on Thursdays.” It looked like the sign had been there since the Civil War, but I didn't see any building to correspond.
“Where's Grandma's?” I asked.
“Sign's been there since I was a kid. Used to be able to see a foundation for a building about thirty feet into the woods.”
We drove down a road that must not have been used since Sherman marched through these parts. We plopped into water-filled potholes and banged over and into lumps and bumps. The expensive car did its best to ease our
path, but a new set of shocks would probably be in order when we turned it back in. Time and again water sluiced up the side of the car, caking it with mud that was quickly washed off by the rain.
We topped a small rise. Down the other side, I saw a ten-foot-wide expanse of rushing water racing directly across our path.
“You're not going through that?” I asked.
“I don't remember any deep ravines on this road. It's just a bitty crick most of the time. Can't be that deep.”
“Yes it can.”
“Conventional wisdom at times like this is, If the car starts to float downstream, abandon it.”
“Nobody's going to be at the bar tonight. I vote we turn around.”
“Will you calm down? Everything is going to be fine. Plus the next step in the trail leads down this road. You want to wait until morning?”
Our headlights illuminated the pouring rain and the swollen creek. I put my hand on the door handle.
“Do I shut or open my eyes?”
“We'll be fine.”
I kept the door open a crack as we crossed. I figured this way we could jump out of the car if it started to float away. The water barely got up to our hubcaps.
I hate it when he's right.
A few minutes later we pulled up in front of a shack that made the Rebel Hell look like a palace. A feeble light shone over the door. A yellow neon sign in one window said “Magnolia's.” Those and our car lights were it as far as evidence of rural electrification were concerned. The roof of the place sagged, gutters hung half off the two sides of the building I could see, and the wooden walls seemed to bulge outward. In one flash of lightning I thought I caught
sight of an outhouse. Three pickup trucks nuzzled up to the walls, and at the far end of the lot was a van that seemed to be sinking into the mud.
We pulled as close to the building as we could and dashed through the rain to the door. Inside, directly across from us, was a bar that ran the length of that side of the room. It seemed to have been made of the same warped wood as the walls. Black-and-white photos of cowboys at rodeos were crammed around all the edges of a smoke-begrimed mirror, which reflected the interior. A thin strand of Christmas lights lined the ceiling on three sides. Two revolving beer ads provided the only other brightness in this part of the bar. To the right were three Formica-topped tables, each of which had enough grime encrusted on top to qualify as an individual toxic dump. A warped linoleum dance floor was just beyond them. To the left was a beautiful pool table: dark green felt encased by dark mahogany. A hanging Tiffany lamp above the table gave off the most light in the whole bar.
Three guys holding pool cues and smoking cigars looked up at us. Their glare was unfriendly. Picture three guys too ugly for even an MTV video: tight tank-top T-shirts emphasizing scrawny bodies; scruffy, unshaven, pockmarked faces; unwashed hair hanging in strands to below their shoulders; and random streaks of unwashed grime on their shoulders, necks, and faces.
Behind the bar was a tall, attractive African-American woman. She wore a starched white blouse and tight blue jeans that emphasized her sensuous figure.
We approached the bar and sat down on black-vinyl-topped stools.
The woman strolled over to us and asked, “What can I get for you boys?” Her voice was beautifully melodious and sensuous. She could sing for any opera company or drive a client wild in a scented boudoir.
We ordered two beers. She served them, then said, “Hell of a night to be outdoors.”
“We need information,” I said.
I looked in the mirror behind her. Through the murk I could see the three men who'd been playing pool, arrayed in a semicircle behind us.
Scott jerked around on his stool and grabbed the nearest man's pool cue. Scott leapt right and I jumped left so we would be able to come at them from both sides. Scott bashed the pool cue against the bar. Half broke off, twirled through the air, crashed through the window, and broke the neon “Magnolia” sign. The other portion Scott brandished under the nose of the nearest menacing figure.
One of them grabbed a beer bottle by the top and smashed off the bottom against a table. The one with the world's ugliest goatee held on to his pool cue as if it were a baseball bat. Unfortunately for my sense of prejudice, none of them wore bib overalls. Nor did any of them grin and reveal a snaggletooth.
A voice behind us said, “That's going to cost you, son.”
Out of the corner of my eye I saw the African-American woman holding a sawed-off shotgun aimed at Scott's back. She swung it slowly toward the three attackers. The woman said, “Go.”
Seconds later, they were gone.
“Thank you,” I said.
“You owe me two hundred bucks for the window, the neon, and the pool cue,” she said. “This is my place. You bust it up, you got to pay up.”
“You're Magnolia?”
“Yep. I'll take plastic for payment.”
I gave her my Visa card. As she wrote up the bill, I asked, “Why were they so hostile?”
“Sheriff Woodall's death is big news all over this part of the state,” she said. “Mr. Carpenter's been famous since forever.” She pointed at me. “Since the sheriff died, your face has been all over everywhere. Wouldn't be a baby in a hundred miles didn't know if you walked into a room. Sheriff was a big customer out here. People liked him. News about y'all as a couple is all over these parts. Folks are not happy about gay people in general, and you two are remarkably specific. Focuses their anger.”
“How come you helped us?”
“This here is my place. It is not easy for an African-American woman to keep it running. I sympathize with you some, and not everyone in the South is a redneck bigot.”
“We're trying to find out who really killed the sheriff. It's the only way I'm going to get out of here. We haven't had a lot of luck asking questions or getting help.”
“I'll do what I can for y'all.”
Lightning flashed through the broken window.
“Our last lead told us the sheriff came out here the night he was killed.”
“Yep. He was here.” She gave me my credit card back, leaned over the bar, and rested her elbows on the top. “Stayed for close on to an hour.”
“Why haven't you told anyone this?”
“You're the first ones to come and ask. He was found in Brinard early in the morning. Far as I know his being here had no connection.”
“Who'd he talk to? Did he do anything suspicious? Do you know where he went after? Did he leave with anybody?”
Her laughter rang out low and comfortable. “No wonder
everybody gets hostile at you. Too many questions coming too fast.”
“I'm sorry,” I said.
“That's all right—there's lotsa pressure on you. Let me see now. He talked to about everybody, and he did nothing suspicious. He didn't tell me where he was going. He left with …” She thought a minute. “I'm not sure I saw him when he left.”
While we asked the next few questions, she plucked a hammer from under the bar, took some tacks and aluminum foil out of a drawer. When she was done tacking over the broken window, the rain ceased coming in. It also cut off any illumination from the lightning.
“We were told the sheriff often decided not to arrest women and took it out in trade instead. Maybe an angry husband or boyfriend, or a furious woman, decided to get even or put a stop to it.”
She tapped her fingertips on the bar. “Rumors about that keep goin' round.”
“Are they true?”
“A few of the women around here get together once in a while. We aren't radicals or anything. We're black and white women who meet to talk. It's very quiet and very secret. We haven't been able to do anything about the sheriff. We hear the same vague rumors. The only way to stop him is for somebody to be willing to stand up and accuse the bastard.”
“No one will?”
“No one would. It isn't possible. The sheriff was very powerful. A woman would be admitting to being unfaithful to her husband. Still too many people around here who believe the woman is asking for it when she cries rape. Plus, word is he only does it to women who have committed a crime. He has that to hold over their heads as well. We've talked to several lawyers. Their hands were tied
unless someone was willing to step forward.”
“I'd like to be able to talk to some of those women,” I said.
“I'm sorry. Even if I knew any names directly, I couldn't give them to you. We keep everybody's story confidential. We are sworn to secrecy. That helps make our group strong. Everybody knows that no one will tell. Opening up to you might help you, but it wouldn't help the women involved. I'm sorry.”
I digested this refusal.
“How about husbands or boyfriends?” Scott asked. “Any of the men find out and try to get back at the sheriff?”
“I don't know of any.”
“Preacher Hollis is the one who told us the sheriff was out here that night. We have information that Hollis was molesting little girls. We've got our lawyer in Chicago working on an investigation.”
“Hollis? Far as I know he's simply a small-town fire-and-brimstone preacher. You sure about this? I can't picture him working up the nerve to touch his own prick. He's nothin' if not useless. None of the women have mentioned him, ever. Are you sure your information is right?”
“I don't know. Hollis was scared enough of us telling to admit he and the sheriff were here.”
“He could have legitimately been afraid of that kind of scandal. Guilty or not, his career would be ruined.”
“Was he here the other night?”
“Yes. And it wasn't the first time the preacher has come around. He's not supposed to be here. According to him, any place that serves liquor is an establishment straight from hell. He stays half an hour once in a while. He was here talking to the sheriff that night.”
“If he wasn't afraid of blackmail, why would he come to meet the sheriff?”
“I don't know if they planned on meeting. When Hollis
shows up, he talks to a few people. Wasn't odd that he talked to the sheriff. They didn't seem to spend a lot of time together.”
“If he's been molesting kids, I'd like to ruin his career.”
“I do know that it won't take a lawyer from up north to get his ass if he's been molesting kids. If he's guilty, we'll bring him down, if I have to do the draggin' myself. Who told you this?”
I admitted it was Jasper Williams.
“That man is crazy. No reason on earth for a man to be that mean. He's the most evil person I have ever met. The only time I had to ask for help in the bar was to keep him away from here. Afterwards, he threatened to burn me out. Several times late at night, he followed me home in that old ragged Jeep he owns. Thing doesn't have any windows.”
“How'd you get him to stop harassing you?”
She smiled. “Only way to deal with an insane man is to scare him more than he scares you. Ever hear of Hangin' Billy Joe Jones?”
Scott said, “Didn't he play nose tackle for a couple years in the pros? Made lots of neck tackles when he could, lot of late hits. Played for a bunch of teams. Too dirty even for the NFL.”
“He lives in these parts. We're sort of friends.”
“He paid a visit to Jasper's cabin?”
“Nobody is crazy enough to go there.”
I admitted my foray earlier that day.
“And you lived to tell the tale? You always hear about people getting lost in the swamp and not coming out. Nobody knows anybody it happened to, but everybody has a cousin who has a friend who knows somebody who never came back.”
Briefly I told the story.
“You were lucky,” she said. “Even Hangin' Billy Joe Jones don't chance the swamp. He ‘invited' Jasper over for
a little visit to his house down in the woods. I don't know how he got him there or what he did when he got him there. I never asked. All I know is Jasper never came back here.”
For a minute I listened to the thunder rumble around us. “Jasper also told us that Al Holcomb had an African-American mistress.”
“Mister KKK dipping his wick in the forbidden fruit?”
“Do you know who the woman was?”
She hesitated an instant before she said no.
Her hesitation aroused my suspicions. Magnolia making it with the KKK? Didn't fit right, and I didn't think pressing her would do much good. If she wasn't going to tell, I had no way of making her.
She glanced around the bar. “It's not closing time, but I think I'm going to call it a night. Nobody's comin' out here anymore in this storm.”
Scott and I proceeded to the door. Rain pelted down. One look at our car and I knew we weren't leaving in it. All four tires had been flattened. I looked back at Magnolia flipping switches and turning out the lights.
She walked over, saw the problem, and said, “Let's hope they left my van alone.”
We dashed through the downpour. She flung herself into the driver's side. I sprang into the passenger seat and Scott leapt into the back. He closed the sliding door with a thud.
“You sure this thing runs?” I asked.
“Been through a couple of hurricanes down on the coast. We'll be fine.” The motor gasped to life. The windshield wiper on my side barely cleared the water off the glass. She had to rock the van back and forth to ease it out of the rain-swollen ruts it was in. Magnolia may have gone as fast as five miles an hour on our way out. When we got to the crick, it looked a lot wider than it had when we crossed it the first time.
“Are we going to make it?” I asked.
She peered into the darkness left and right. “Lots of deaths in floods caused when people assume the road is still there. The water may not look high, but the road is totally gone.”
“We made it through on the way in,” Scott said.
“You were very foolish and very lucky,” Magnolia said. She hitched the gearshift lever into reverse. “I know more than one way out of this forest.”
For an hour we rattled through deep woods and pouring rain. Finally, we pulled onto the highway.
She drove us to Brinard. A hundred yards from the first lights of town, she slowed down and pulled to the side of the road.
“You boys will have to get out here.”
“In the rain?” I asked.
“Why?” Scott asked.
“I have a reputation to keep. Saving your butts in my own place is one thing. Being seen driving you around is another. Folks still aren't too fond of black and white people hanging around together, as your buddy Al could tell you. I can only help you so far. I'll lend you an umbrella.”
Scott and I trod down the side of the road, sharing the umbrella. The rain sluiced off the black covering. The wind was down at the moment, and the thunder and lightning seemed far off.
“This should be romantic,” I said. “Hunched together in a pouring rain. We could do a little dance and sing and smile.”
“All the world's a song cue.”
“We can use the phone up ahead.” I nodded toward the lights of the twenty-four-hour gas station in front of us.
The phone was outside but under an overhang. While Scott phoned, I decided to go inside and pick up something to eat.
Six pairs of eyes watched me approach the counter. A possible seventh pair belonged to an older man who, even from the back, looked like a reject from a Gabby Hayes look-alike contest. This guy was more shabbily dressed than any homeless person. He didn't turn around to look at me but kept growling at the clerk about his arthritis and the rain falling, the creek rising, and the gully washing.
When I stepped to the counter, pseudo-Gabby turned to look at me. He didn't wear a patch over one eye. This was good. Unfortunately, he had one glass eye. This was disconcerting. Then I realized I was being mean. The poor man had probably been maimed horribly in some accident and gone through life this way. I pictured Dennis being in the same position.
The old guy raised a beer can he was holding in his right hand. The top of the can had been removed, leaving jagged edges around the top. He blinked the one good eye at me, then spat a wad of tobacco juice into the can. He didn't miss a drop. Then he asked, “You the faggot we gonna lynch?”
BOOK: Rust On the Razor
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