I can't remember when I wrote this short story but I know why I wrote it. I grew up with a mean, red-headed older brother, and a father that had returned from the Second World War with an anger problem he never resolved until the day he developed Alzheimer's. It all came to me when I heard the Bob Dylan song Brownsville Girl that resonated all the way to my soul. Like so many of Dylan's songs, it told a story. I chopped out this short story about brotherly love and fatherly control. It's crude and unapologetic. Hope you love it.
Amarillo
We crossed the Panhandle at sundown,
heading south toward Amarillo. Jim hadn't moved in over an hour. He just stared
out the window at crimson light bleeding up from the horizon. Finally, he
fidgeted in his seat and folded his arms.
He just stared out the window at crimson light bleeding
up from the horizon. Finally, he fidgeted in his seat and folded his arms.
"You
know, little brother, this reminds me of a movie I seen once."
Hoping to free him of the blue funk weighing
on him since we left Wichita, I said, "Tell me about it."
Jim
leaned back against the seat, closed his eyes, and took a long, dreamy breath.
"Don't remember much. A kid trying to
make a name for his self shot an old gunfighter in the back. Left him for dead
on the edge of the town."
"What happened?” I asked.
"Sheriff waylaid the kid and beat him
senseless. By then folks from town had gathered, wanting to string the boy up
on the spot. The dying gunfighter wouldn't have none of it. Turn him loose, he
said. Let him feel what it's like to live life in the sight of a gun."
"What's it mean?"
Jim offered no answer. His eyes had closed
and stayed that way until I braked the Ford on the outskirts of town. Not
knowing where to go from there, I nudged him, waiting until he shook away his
bad dream.
"Teddy Jackson's place. Down the road a
ways," he mumbled. "Next to a used car lot."
We passed miles of used cars, cattle pens,
and wrecking yards, finally finding Teddy Jackson's trailer house behind a
twelve-foot fence topped with concertina. The sign on the gate said Teddy's
Junk House. When I stopped the old Ford Jim reached across the seat, leaning on
the horn until a woman with a thatch of thick red hair came out of the trailer
and shined a flashlight through the windshield.
"Closed up. What the hell you want this
time of night?"
"Here to see Teddy," Jim said.
"Well, he ain't here. Come back
tomorrow."
"I'm Jim Droon and this is my brother. Teddy's
expecting us."
The red-haired woman must have known we were
coming because the muscles in her face relaxed, and she said, "We won't
see Teddy till the bars close down."
Swinging back the gate, she let us drive
into the lot, smiling when Jim winked at her. Flushing visibly red even beneath
dim fluorescent light flooding the junk lot, she straightened her yellow hair
bow.
Darla was her name. She took to Jim right
off and him to her. The trailer was a mess, Teddy's junk occupying every inch
of floor space. It did not bother Jim. Without asking permission, he sprawled
out on a faded sofa older than both of us were. Darla didn't seem to mind and
before long they were sharing tequila straight from a bottle. I passed when
they offered me a swig. We had not eaten all day and I didn't think hard liquor
would help the dull ache in the pit of my gut.
Darla and Jim were in a world of their own
so I walked down the hall to the bathroom. When I finished my business, I
rummaged through the kitchen, looking for something to eat. All I found was a
single can of Lone Star, its top already popped. With nothing better to eat or
drink, I sipped flat beer till it got too hot.
"How do you like our little corner of
the world?” Darla asked when I returned to the couch.
"It's so -"
"God forsaken?"
"You got it." Jim grinned when I
said, "But it reminds me of Kansas, all big and open. We had a tree once,
you know?"
Darla rubbed a dark bruise, shaped like a
buffalo's head, on her calf. "Only one tree?"
"Yeah and it didn't last long. When
Mama was working and Daddy off playing pool, Jim siphoned gas from the tractor,
poured it on that tree and set it on fire. Said it bugged him the way wind
caused it to brush against the screen door."
Leaning forward on the couch, Darla said,
"Hey, Jim, what did your Daddy do when he found out?"
By now, Jim was all grins. "Let little
brother tell you. He's better at it than me."
Glancing away from Darla's expectant eyes, I
said, "Jim didn't want a whipping so he sneaked off to town, but not until
he left the half-empty gas can beside my bed. Daddy come home all sotted up. Found
the burned-up tree and can of gas. I didn't know what hit me when he yanked me
out of bed by the hair, beating me with the buckle of his belt till I begged
him to stop."
"You survived," Jim said. "Besides,
that's why you're the little brother, little brother."
Just before midnight, Darla said,
"Amarillo's a hell hole. Ain't enough life here worth embalming. Been
thinking of hitchhiking back to Dallas. Where you boys headed?"
"South," Jim said.
"How far south?"
"Till the wheels burn off that ol'
Galaxie."
"San Antone," I said. "Jim
says it's like paradise. Jobs for everybody. Beautiful weather."
I did not miss the glance Darla shot Jim. "Well,
don't take everything you hear too seriously, kid. San Antone's okay, but for
my money the place to be is Dallas, any time."
Shaking my head, I said, "We're going
there for sure. Jim says they pave the streets with gold."
Darla laughed and she and Jim kept right on
drinking till the bottle was empty. About two-thirty we heard brakes screeching
outside the fence and I sensed it was Teddy, coming home from an all-day drunk.
We watched him stagger out of his dented blue Biscayne. When he saw Jim,
recognition flooded his ratty eyes.
"Jimmy," he said, latching his
arms around Jim's neck. When he kissed him on the mouth Jim didn't flinch, but
I saw a strange look flicker and die in Darla's green eyes.
"Get in this house," Teddy said,
steering Jim back toward the trailer door. "Who's this you brung with
you?"
"Little brother," Jim said.
"Looks bigger than you," Teddy
said. "Darla, I'm starved. What's to eat in this place?"
Darla stalked off to the kitchen, returning
with a bowl of stale rice soaked in red sauce I had somehow missed. She didn't
bother heating it up and Teddy didn't seem to mind, eating it straight from the
bowl without offering any to me or Jim.
"Jim and me spent time in
McAlester," Teddy said. "Hard time. Jim kicked the shit out of a
guard." A wicked grin spread over his skinny face. "What a man your
brother is. What a man."
"Shit, Teddy. You're the one," Jim
said. "You always had a plan. The rest of us were just doing time."
"A plan is what I got right now,"
Teddy said, edging closer on the sofa.
Teddy had finished the red rice. Now he
filled a shot glass with tequila. Darla had passed out on the couch and Teddy
sipped his drink, staring at Jim. "There's a bank in town, ready for the
breaking. You boys interested?"
Jim said, "Maybe. At least in hearing
what you got to say about it."
"End of the month payroll," Teddy
said. "Probably forty thousand dollars, or so. Twenty each."
Teddy paused as Jim reflected on the amount
he had mentioned. Leaning closer, he said, "I drive. You walk in, hand
them the note, collect the money and walk out. I'll pick you up on the corner. Nothing
to it."
Not believing what I was hearing, I waited
for Jim to laugh, or at least change the subject. He did neither.
Instead, he said, "How many
guards?"
"Just one," Teddy said. "That's
the beauty. They got all the money in the world and no security. We'll waltz
right in, take what they got and hit the road without a hitch."
I tried to catch Jim's eye but he glanced
away. Considering Teddy's scheme, I guessed.
"When?” Jim finally said.
"Tomorrow. Right after they open
up."
"Won't give us much time to case the
place."
"That I already done," Teddy said.
"You think about it," he said,
patting Jim's cheek before sauntering off to bed in the next room. Darla rubbed
her eyes, blinked herself awake, and followed him. Jim kicked me off the sofa,
wrapped his hands behind his head, and grinned.
"You wouldn't rob another bank, would
you Jim?" I asked.
"Not me, little brother, us."
"If Teddy wants to rob a bank, let him
do it alone. He don't need you."
"Teddy's just a driver. He can't pull
this job alone. Besides, Teddy and me shared a cell in McAlester. He's smart
and knows how to make things work. If he says this is a good bank to rob, then
I believe him."
"If he's so smart, why did he wind up
in McAlester in the first place?"
Jim ignored my question and said, "We
need Teddy to drive and I need you to back me up."
"But what about San Antone?"
Jim stared at the ceiling, smiling his crazy
smile, and said, "This is San Antone."
"No way. You promised Mama and you
promised me. I won't let you screw your life up again."
Jim's eyes had closed but I knew he was
listening because of that grin on his face I had seen all my life.
Quit your belly-aching, little
brother," he finally said. "Neither of us is going to rob anything. I
was just kidding."
"You sure?"
Jim passed out on the couch, the only answer
to my question a coyote, somewhere down the road, howling at the moon. Propping
my shoulders against a wall, I closed my eyes but mental meandering prevented
sleep until almost dawn when Jim nudged me awake with his foot.
"Get up, little brother. We're going
into town and get something to eat."
My gut ached. So did my head, but during the
long night, I had somehow convinced myself it was all a joke. When my stomach
growled I remembered my hunger and the bacon and eggs Jim was promising.
Teddy, Darla, and Jim were not quite ready
to go so I chewed on a piece of cardboard until they killed the last of the
tequila. Temperatures had dropped below freezing during the night and we had to
push the Ford to start it. The ride to town seemed endless and we found the
streets deserted when we got there - like winter on Mars.
Jim and I sat in the back seat of the
Galaxie, Darla riding shotgun, as Teddy circled the block. They both looked
strung out and it worried me. Maybe it was just last night's Lone Star but the
atmosphere in the car made my gut feel like slag lead. Finally, Teddy stopped
and let us out.
"I'll park this heap around the
corner," he said. "Just come running."
Darla reached through the window, giving Jim
a hug and frantic kiss and waving as Teddy pulled away. Drawing me like a
magnet, Jim drew a deep breath, patted his chest and started down the street,
"Why aren't they coming with us?"
"Cause Teddy's lazy and looking for a
closer place to park. Cafe's just down the street and I ain't waiting."
When we rounded the corner, I looked in both
directions for the pancake house but did not see it. Instead, a bank door
beckoned and I realized Jim had suckered me. Grabbing the front of my pea-jacket, he shoved a big revolver under my belt and pushed me through the front
door.
"Don't do this," I said.
Jim grabbed my shoulder, cupped my ear and
whispered into it. "All you have to do is stand right here and wait on me.
I'll do the dirty work and no one will even know you're involved."
"I'd follow you to hell. But robbing a
bank -"
"You never robbed a bank before?"
"Jim, you know I ain't"
Jim's eyes began to glaze. "It's pure
sex, kid. Pure sex."
Now my knees were shaking, my heart thumping
against my ribs. Across the room, one fat guard propped up the wall, drinking
coffee from a plastic cup. Jim strolled past him, straight to the nearest
cashier where he pulled out his pistol and stuck it in the woman's chest. Outside
the bank, I had felt like I was about to puke. Now, time began passing like a
slow-motion Technicolor pan across the room. As if I weren't really there, but
knew I was.
"You're too young to die,
beautiful," Jim said to the scared woman. "Put your money in this
sack and signal your boss over here, now."
The young woman's body stiffened like a
chopped stump. Color drained from her face and saliva drooled from the corner
of her mouth. Looking at her, it made me wonder if she would piss her pants
before I did.
Don't shoot me," she said. "Please!"
"Put the money in the sack," Jim
said, his words growing progressively louder. "Then call your boss over
here."
The woman's voice was also growing louder
and had become noticeably shaky when she called to a well-dressed man beside
the open vault.
"Jeremy, over here."
With a glance of disapproval, the young
banker in a blue suit approached the booth. He had no chance to comment on the
cashier's disrespect before Jim stuck the pistol in his face and eased the two
of them down the row. Jim followed Jeremy and the woman into the vault.
I glanced at the big clock on the wall and
waited. Although it seemed like forever, less than five minutes passed before
Jim strolled out of the vault. He was alone. Slung over his shoulder was a
heavy-looking bag and I thought we were home free. Instead, fate suddenly dealt
us aces and eights.
Jeremy or the cashier must have tripped an
alarm from inside the vault. A siren began wailing and people started screaming
and throwing themselves to the floor. The fat guard pulled his pistol and
dropped to his knees, fanning the bank. Jim was almost to the front door when
the man yelled for him to halt. Without waiting for a response, he began
shooting. His pistol erupted, my heart counting three explosions.
The first bullet caught Jim in the shoulder,
spinning him around. The second took off a chunk of his right ear and the third
struck him square in the belly. I watched helplessly as he staggered back
against the wall, pluming blood painting a crushed rose across the front of his
jacket.
It was not over. The fat guard rushed
forward, jamming his pistol in Jim's face. Amid screams of the people in the
bank and sirens wailing outside, he prepared to pull the trigger. I had already
started for the door, but I could not leave, knowing I had to save Jim. Use the
gun he give me. Yanking it from my belt, I pointed it, closed my eyes and
pulled the trigger.
All my luck had ebbed sometime the day
before. Catching sight of the weapon in my hand, the fat guard squeezed off a
round from his pistol at the exact instant. His bullet burned a hole through my
leg, igniting sharp pain just below my right knee. My bullet lifted him off his
feet, crushed him against the wall, robbing his breath until no life remained
in his eyes. He was dead and it was me that had killed him.
Somehow, reality fazed me less than intense
pain surging through my leg. Steadyng Jim before he collapsed to the floor, I
fought back my nausea, wondering what weird anomaly of life caused blood to
gurgle from my brother's mouth while letting his eyes remain clear as
Amarillo's cold December sky.
"Get us out of here, little
brother."
Trembling bodies lay sprawled on the floor,
blocking our path to the door. I stepped over, through and between them,
hauling Jim to the front door, the bank's alarm still screaming bloody murder,
distant sirens blaring as we stepped outside.
Down the street, Teddy and Darla waited in
Jim's Galaxie. Teddy saw us first, slamming the car into reverse, burning
rubber all the way down the road until he reached us. Amid all the confusion a
crow cawed, somewhere overhead. For a moment, I thought we was back home in
Kansas.
"Teddy, Jim's shot. Help us."
The front door opened and Darla bolted out,
rushing toward us like an excited chicken, wrenching the moneybag off Jim's
shoulder instead of helping me with him. The car door slammed behind her, old
tires screaming as they burned rubber around the corner and disappeared.
"Bastard," Jim said, weak from
loss of blood. "Get me out of here. I swear I ain't doing no more hard
time."
The crowd gathered on the sidewalk scurried
out of our way as I moved us along with no idea where to go. Then it appeared
before us - a cross topping a church steeple and red brick fencing a
churchyard. I dragged Jim through the gates.
"Inside," I said. "The priest
will give us asylum."
"Dumb shit," Jim said. "We're
bank robbers. There's no asylum for us."
I pulled him forward anyway. By now, my
right leg was numb from the knee down and my head felt as if I had taken two
dozen fast circuits on a broken tilt-a-whirl. Fighting the urge to throw up, I
pushed through the heavy oak doors, into the main chapel of the church. We made
it to the third pew before I collapsed.
"They're coming," I said.
Jim's laugh surprised me. When he spoke, I
had to lean closer to hear him.
"You know, little brother, last night I
dreamed about that movie again - the one where the kid shot the old
gunfighter."
Blood had soaked my jeans and I felt faint
and sick but Jim's throaty voice swam inside my head like a trapped goldfish. In
response to his question, I could only nod.
"The gunfighter just lay there in the
dirt," he said. "Half dead, but staring at me as if I was a cockroach
he wanted to stomp. So were the sheriff and all the town folk."
"Just stay quiet and the priest will
get you a doctor. You'll be fine."
Ignoring me, he said, "It was me, the
dirty bastard who shot the gunfighter in the back." He laughed and coughed
up blood that foamed down his chin and neck. "This morning when I woke up,
I could still feel the noose around my neck."
Jim slowly massaged his neck as more blood
gurgled from his lips and a cold glaze crept over his blue eyes.
"Hang on. They're coming for us
now."
"Too late. I'm gutshot, little
brother. Maybe I'll see you back in Kansas sometime, and maybe that old
gunfighter again, somewhere along the way. Gotta go now. Daddy's coming. Take
care of him for me, will you?"
Jim's body went slack in my arms as the
church's heavy oak doors swung open and I gazed up helplessly at the dozen men
pointing angry pistols and rifles at me, and through the portal, I could see
hazy clouds dulling the pink winter sky.
A chill breeze, leaving a pall in my heart,
gusted down the aisle. It whistled like Daddy's belt, causing me to remember
the sting of its buckle. Hard and cold as it flailed long red whelps across my
back.
###
Born near Black Bayou in the little Louisiana town of Vivian, Eric Wilder grew up listening to his grandmother’s tales of politics, corruption, and ghosts that haunt the night. He now lives in Oklahoma, where he continues to pen mysteries and short stories with a southern accent. He authored the French Quarter Mystery Series set in New Orleans, the Paranormal Cowboy Series, and the Oyster Bay Mystery Series. Please check it out on his Amazon author page. You might also like checking out his Facebook page.
