Limbs were hitting Reese in the face, but he didn’t care. He walked with purpose-he was on a mission. All his life, his cousin Johnny Lee had been his best friend. Together they weren’t afraid of anything. Individually, they always tried to outdo each other. Johnny Lee, one year older, was always looking out for Reese. In fact, Reese always thought that Johnny Lee had failed the sixth grade on purpose so they could be in the same class. They played football together until Johnny Lee punched the defensive back coach in the eye for yelling at him. The coaches told Johnny Lee to leave the team. That was the eleventh grade and the beginning of his spiral downward. Two weeks after punching out the coach, Johnny Lee attacked his English teacher. So, rather than be suspended, Johnny Lee walked out of Booker T. Washington High School…but not before he shat in the principal’s desk drawer.
Reese somehow managed to stay in school another year. In the following football season, on a cool October Friday night, he chased a running back out of bounds and ran helmet first into the defensive back coach, knocking him out cold. Reese pointed into the stands after the vicious hit. Rumor was that Reese hadn’t actually passed the eleventh grade, but none of the teachers wanted another year of him, so they pushed him through. He was a smart kid; he just wasn’t the least bit interested in school, so he quit. He recognized that getting a GED would be the best deal for his career aspirations.
Johnny Lee had earned his GED and his commercial driver’s license the year he dropped out of high school and had started hauling chickens to the slaughterhouse. At night, he collected for a bookie and did whatever he could to make money.
Reese eventually went to work at a tire store and became quite efficient at stealing valuables out of customers’ cars. It became clear who the thief was, so the manager fired him. Before Reese left, however, he stole a key and made a copy. Later that week, in the middle of the night, he let himself into the shop and stole a set of rims and $367 in cash. That was the turning point in his career. He made $220 more that night than he had working the entire previous week, and he didn’t have to pay taxes or get greasy. Reese explained all this to Johnny Lee, and they decided right then and there that their fortunes were to be made as criminals.
Johnny Lee and Reese experimented with several different schemes but always came back to stealing. Their little enterprise made progress and at times had an impressive cash flow. This allowed them to branch out. The two were always together unless one of them was incarcerated, which was never for long. Johnny Lee and Reese appeared to be Teflon coated. With no mentor, they had to figure out the crime business the hard way. They were productive even in jail. They would listen to the other cons talk about their crimes. They paid close attention.
Reese figured he’d catch up with Johnny Lee’s killer on the Dummy Line, or Tiny and Sweat would. Either way, if he kept walking he would eventually get to extract his revenge. Then he would clean up this mess. But right now, he just wanted some one-on-one time with Johnny Lee’s killer. The rifle felt right at home on his back. Occasionally, he thought he heard a truck’s engine rev, and that just fueled his fire. The night was cool, and he was dressed for it, except for the pointed-toed cowboy boots he always wore. The boots were all show, and he could feel the water leaking through. He had a long walk, but he didn’t care. He thought about Johnny Lee. His cold body lying in the back of a truck. He got a tear in his eye.
Reese pulled the radiophone out and scrolled to Tiny’s name.
Beep-beep. No response.
Beep-beep. Again no response.
Reese, pissed off, folded his phone, jammed it in his jacket pocket, and walked on.
R.C. headed west from the camp and turned onto the first gravel road. It had been a couple of years since he had driven this part of the county at night, but he was pretty familiar with it. The hunting was great-just too many pine trees for him. The AM station he was listening to began to fade, so he hit Play on the cassette player. Barry Manilow roared to life singing “I Write the Songs,” and it just soothed R.C.’s soul. He secretly loved Barry Manilow. Once another deputy had gotten in the car and seen the tapes. R.C. was forced to think fast. He told him it was evidence. The deputy shook his head, saying, “We shore got some weird folks ‘round here.” R.C. reluctantly nodded in agreement.
Tonight, R.C. was relaxing and riding the roads at the taxpayers’ expense. Spitting into the green bottle, he tried to act official, slowing down occasionally to shine his spotlight down dim roads and paths that went off into the trees. He wasn’t really looking for anything. He didn’t radio Martha to tell her what he was doing, that he hadn’t headed home-a serious breach of protocol. But he did it all the time. He passed several roads before coming to the abandoned railroad line. He slowed but didn’t turn. I’ll catch it on the way back.
May was approaching fast, and R.C. was daydreaming about his upcoming annual redfish trip to Gulf Shores. He’d saved a week of vacation for the trip. I might even ask Chastity to go this year. It might do her good to get some sun and fresh seafood, and to be away from her worthless, piece-of-shit, crackhead husband. R.C. had a lot to get ready. Somebody had stolen all his gear from his family’s fish camp down on the river. They’d even stolen his $3.97 minnow bucket. He had scoured the county for his gear, but so far, he hadn’t come up with anything. A group of black guys that was always fishing near the camp finally bought him a new minnow bucket just so he would quit asking about theirs. He never noticed that they didn’t have a tag on their old, beat-up car.
R.C. kept driving west until he reached the end of the county road-the Mississippi state line. You couldn’t tell any difference in the road but the state line was right there, so he turned around and headed back. Barry broke into “Mandy,” and R.C. was singing at the top of his lungs when he approached the Dummy Line again. The old road had shooting houses at the tops of each ridge. During deer season, no one would dream of driving down it in the daylight. There would be a hunter with a high-powered rifle in every one of them. R.C. slowly turned the cruiser down the road and continued singing, “Oh, Mandy…” Occasionally, he turned on the blue lights. He liked the way they reflected off the trees.
Suddenly the radio crackled. It scared him so badly that he spilled his spit bottle. He turned off Barry and picked up the microphone, braking to a stop.
“Base to Unit Three. Come in, R.C.,” Martha said in her husky old voice.
“Unit Three here,” R.C. replied.
“Where are you, R.C.?” she asked, skipping the formal jargon.
“I’m headed back to the house. I was just checkin’ a few things out.” He hoped that would satisfy her.
“Are you sure?”
“Where else would I be?”
“With you there’s no tellin’. Go home. The county can’t afford to pay you overtime.”
“Yes ma’am.”
“And quit dippin’ in the car. The other guys are complainin’ ‘bout the mess.”
He wasn’t going to answer that one. R.C. hung up the microphone and started looking for a spot to turn around. That old battle-ax thinks she runs the place. She smokes like a chimney and has the gall to complain about my dippin’.
R.C. had two unfailing habits. He dipped whenever he was awake, and he constantly applied Rogaine, hoping to prevent further balding. He believed that if he ever stopped, the rest of his hair would fall out. Consequently, the seats and cupholders in the car were nasty, and the headrest was greasy and stained.
There wasn’t a safe place to turn around, so he kept driving, searching. After another mile or so, he turned Barry back on, but Martha had successfully killed the mood. R.C. reached up and punched off the tape player with an aggravated jab. Women, even old women, drive me insane.