IT’S WELL AFTER DUSK NOW. Show time. I’ve been sitting in the bushes outside my dad’s house for the last three hours. The house looks even smaller than I remembered it. It was a wreck back then, barely more than a shack. Now the homestead looks dilapidated enough to be condemned by even a blind, crippled and senile building inspector. There are still a few flakes of white paint on the mostly gray and rotted lap siding but the porch has almost completely been reclaimed by the ground beneath it. In fact the whole place looks as if it’s less than a year from vanishing into the forest forever. As I climb what remains of the porch steps and walk to the wreck of a screen door I expect the boards to creek announcing my approach. Apparently they are too old, worn and tired to manage even that.
The screen door swings open without a sound, proof positive in my mind that fate is with me in this case and that my visit is supposed to be a complete surprise. Further cementing this idea in my mind I find the front door ajar. Looking at the severely out of plumb frame I suspect that it hasn’t been able to close in quite some time. I push the door open and see a shadeless garage sale lamp on a makeshift wooden end table in the corner, its dusty bulb casting a pallid yellow glow over the depressing scene.
The carpet is worn down to the backing and in places missing altogether. Where there are any fibers left at all it’s scarred with years of cigarette burns and stains from spilled alcohol. The room smells like stale smoke, body odor, bong water and vomit. It smells like home. A black and white TV with a tin foil and clothes hanger antennae sits on top of a cinder block against one yellowed wall. Against the other wall is a couch as threadbare and stained as the carpet. I swear if I was a movie serial killer this is exactly where I would live. All that’s missing is a bunch of cryptic writing on the walls and maybe a bible verse or two.
The squalor borders on dark divinity and reeks of man-made hell. My dear old dad is asleep on the sofa, snoring loudly, a dog eared copy of a self help book in his hand with the grinning face of Dr. Phil on the back cover, complete with his bald pate and village people mustache. Christ. He’s wearing a white tank top with what looks like watered down mustard stains in the armpits, my dad not Dr Phil. Other than an impressive beer-gut his arms and legs and neck are alarmingly skinny. I remembered him a lot bigger.
His hair is gray and dirty and so is his long unkempt beard. An empty bottle of whiskey and an overflowing ashtray sit beneath the lamp. I almost turn around and leave. For a moment I can’t think of anything worse that I can do. I can think of nothing that would hurt him more than leaving him alone to die tomorrow or a decade from now in this self imposed hell. But then I remember, I already have a plan for that.
I’d brought the cooler in from the jeep and now I drop it on the floor, hard. It vibrates angrily for a moment before settling down.
“Hey asshole!” I holler with more vigor than I actually feel. With a satisfying lurch he nearly falls off the couch but he stops moving and his eyes go wide as he sees the big barrel of Derry’s .44 revolver pointed at him.
“Who the hell are you?” He rasps breathlessly.
“Why it’s Billy Ray, dad. You don’t remember your own son? Of course you wouldn’t. Guess it’s been what, twenty-six years?”
“Billy?”
“That’s right pop. It’s me. Your bouncin’ baby boy.”
“What the hell? I thought you was dead?”
“Lots of people thought that.”
“Always knew you’d turn out bad.”
“Yeah, well you made damn sure of that didn’t you?”
“So you gonna act like all those whiney little twits on Jerry Springer and blame your parents for what you done is that it? I may have been a son-of-a-bitch but I wasn’t no killer.”
“I ain’t blamin’ you for that.” I reply honestly. “In fact I take full credit for that. I am damn proud of what I’ve become.”
“What are you doin’ here boy?” He says as he sits up slowly keeping his eye on the gun.
“I don’t blame you for the things I’ve done pa. But I do blame you for the things you did. I’m here to settle up. You didn’t treat me very good that’s for sure. Man you had a temper. You sure did. Get to drinkin’ and you and mom fighting, hell, you’d both turn meaner than rabid dogs.”
“I was proud of you boy.” He says in his defense. “I took you with me all the time when I left that bitch.”
I can’t help but laugh, “Pretty sad when your idea of a father son outing was taking me over to your fuckin redneck friends house to watch y’all get high and then beat the shit out of me when you ran out of things to amuse yourself with. Pretty sad when the nicest thing I can say about you is that you had the decency to stay gone most of the time.”
“What are you doing here boy.” He says again. But the fear is gone now replaced by the growling menace I remember so clearly from my youth.
“Damn it’s good to see you daddy.” I say this without sarcasm or pretense. It really is good to see him.
“You think I’m scared of you ya little piss-ant? Just cause you got bigger don’t mean nothin’. I’ll still whip yer ass.”
I stick the gun in the back of my pants and say, “Who you trying to kid pops. It’s just me and you here. Ain’t nobody to impress. If you think that you can take me then all you gotta do is get up off that couch and step over here. See what happens.”
He doesn’t move.
After a short stare down I let my pasted smile melt away, “I’m here to offer you something, pops. A chance maybe to redeem yourself. To come clean, to prove that you’ve matured and learned how to be a man. All you have to do is control your emotions and you’ll survive the night. Now I know you had trouble with that when I was a kid. I got scars inside and out to remind me. But I do hope, for your sake, that you’ve learned some self control.”
“You ain’t gonna kill me.” He says.
“Hell pop, I killed three people today before noon. Would’ve been four but someone beat me to the last fella. Still, brings my grand total up to around forty or so I think. Anyway, believe me when I say that I would have no problem at all killin’ you. But in a way you’re right. I don’t have any intention of taking you out. You live or die tonight based on three things. The first is your ability to control yourself. The second is the whim of Mother Nature and the third is fate.”
He just stares at me perplexed and before he can react I step forward and land a resounding right hook on his jaw-line that puts him immediately to sleep.
I drag his sorry ass into the bathroom and dunk his head repeatedly in his filthy toilet. Finally he comes up awake, spluttering and spitting and reeking like the holding tank of an outhouse. I spin him around and sit him down on the toilet. He’s still dazed and confused about what’s going on. The bathroom has only one door and no windows and I have already removed anything he could possibly use as a weapon including the mirrored medicine cabinet and the porcelain cover of the toilet tank. He abruptly leans forward and starts vomiting while holding his head in his hands. While he’s busy I retrieve the cooler from the living room.
“What the hell are you doin’ boy?” He barely manages to say when I walk back in the bathroom.
Without a word I open the cooler and dump the pissed-off five foot long cottonmouth into the old fashioned claw foot bathtub.
“Jesus Christ!” He screams and tries to get up. I shove him down and he slides gracelessly between the toilet and the wall.
“Shhhh!” I say with my finger over my lips. “Here’s the deal pop. That snake will calm down. If you remain calm he probably won’t do anything. You get angry or panic and start acting like a fool that fucker is going to bite you, at least once, probably more than once. Dawn is in six hours. You make it until I see daylight and you live. I’ll let you out and we’ll have a beer and BS a little before I get on my way. You got it?”
He says nothing and just stares at me.
“I’ll be right outside the door.” I say with as much reassurance as I can muster. I leave the bathroom and shut the door and then slide his refrigerator in front of it before sitting down to wait. I don’t have to wait long.
“You sadistic little motherfucker!!!” He screams through the door. “You sick little shit!!!”
A few brief moments of blessed silence and then, “Let me outta here boy! The fuckin thing is outta the tub!!!” I hear him climbing onto the toilet.
“I’d sit still and shut the fuck up if I was you!” I shout back.
I hear him fall off the toilet and hit the floor with a thump scrambling immediately to his feet and then he slams into the door. It shudders but holds up just fine. Just in case though I get off the couch and sit on the floor pressing my back into the fridge. He rams it again screaming “Let me out!!!”
Then, “Ow, god-damnit that hurts. It hurts oh fuck I’m bit, ah shit, he got me again! C’mon boy I need a doctor. You ungrateful little…aghhh.” Three strikes at my count. He lays off banging on the door.
“Aw shit!” He screams again and I can hear him thrashing around the bathroom. Four strikes. That has to hurt.
“Billy, I’m dyin’ in here!” He screams again but now his breathing is labored, I can hear the venom polluting his voice.
He throws up and now I can almost hear the involuntary muscle spasms as the poison attacks his capillaries and tissues. The cottonmouth is a pit viper, the venom a hemotoxin. He screams again. Fifth strike. Jesus that’s an ornery snake.
“My god this hurts.” His voice is constricted now and he is no longer screaming. His heart must be pumping like a jackhammer.
Suddenly he’s still, and very quiet. I think he’s dead until I hear a whisper from the other side of the door.
“Yer mom wanted to name you after that silent movie actor, Charlie Chaplin. Bet you didn’t know that?”
“No pa.” I answer through the door.
“Your mom loved the movies. Especially the old ones. She said that those were the pictures that always showed the world the way it should be, instead of the way it is.”
“I wouldn’t like being named Charlie.” I say. He laughs weakly and it ends with a hitching cough. Then he says,
“Well I won that fight for ya. Named you after William H. Bonny. Didn’t know then how right I was to do that.”
“Yeah, I reckon that fits. Least you got one thing right, huh?” I reply. For some reason a wave of nostalgia, not entirely bitter, is washing over me. But he’s lying about the William H Bonny thing. I was really named after my grandfather on my dad’s side. Mean Willy Dean everyone called him.
“I never meant you no harm.” He says weakly. I don’t respond.
“Hell, I guess you know that ain’t true.” He adds. “I think that god-damn snake is tired. Fucker’s under the tub now. All curled up, innocent like.”
I am still waiting but getting impatient. The motherfucker must have the constitution of an elephant.
“Billy I’m dyin’.” He says again. But this time he adds, “We both know I deserve it. I won’t ask for god’s forgiveness but I will ask for yours.”
I swallow hard fighting emotion I had not expected to feel. “I’ll see you in hell pop. Maybe then.”
“Fair enough.” He says. “Turned out to be a right son-of-a-bitch didn’t ya boy? Nope, the apple didn’t fall far from the tree.”
“Get thee gone and fill thy space in hell.” I say quietly.
“What?” He replies.
“It’s Shakespeare. From Richard the second. Act five. Pretty sure I misquoted it though.”
“What does it mean?” He asks.
“It means would you please fuckin’ die already old man?”
“Sure Billy. Alright.” And I think he did, right then. Even if he didn’t though he will soon enough. I wait until daylight anyway, just in case.
I WAKE UP AND REALIZE that I’d fallen asleep with my back to the refrigerator. Its light outside but judging by the orange glow and the songbirds it’s still early morning. I get up stiffly from the floor and move the fridge out of the way. Decision time. The old man has been dead in that bathroom for over five hours now, maybe more. It stunk in there before. Now it smells so bad that the plethora of nightmare inducing odors are seeping into and around the door. And let’s not forget the live five-foot cottonmouth still lurking in there.
Fuck it. I don’t really want my last memory of the old man to be his bloated venom soaked corpse. I’ll leave that to whoever discovers the body.
I pick up Derry’s stolen .44 magnum off the floor and the cooler and leave through the front door. As I toss the cooler in the back of the Jeep it occurs to me that they might not even peg this as a murder. The Ouachita Mountains, especially the really wet river valleys like this one, are full of venomous snakes. It really wouldn’t surprise me at all if they called this an accidental death. If I was a cop walking up on this scene I wouldn’t see much that would indicate a murder.
Yeah, the mirrored medicine cabinet and the toilet back are both on the kitchen floor, but the place is trashed. That might not even raise an eyebrow. Piecing this together they are going to think the old man went to take a shit and found a cottonmouth in his bathroom. A few things will look a little suspicious if the cops or the coroner are sharp enough but nothing will point to murder.
Does that bother me? Yup. It sure as hell does. But I’m not going to do anything about it because I want to see how smart the fuckers are that are chasing me. There is one little thing that might make them think twice about calling this an accidental death. The man is my father. Me, Billy Ray Dean. Let’s see if they put two and two together.
I slide into the driver’s seat of the jeep and freeze. Something is in the woods. I mean someone. Now why the hell would I think something? Under the trees the valley gloom is persistent. It isn’t raining anymore. In fact I can see few clouds in the early morning light but because of the gathering heat a humid mist is rising from the soaked undergrowth of the forest floor. There are shapes out there that anyone with an imagination could easily think were monsters. But I trust my imagination. Something I once heard comes to mind, ‘just because you’re paranoid, don’t mean they’re not after you.’ Yup, it’s better to believe in your imagination and laugh at yourself later then dismiss what you see and get gutted when you least expect it.
And anyway, I am a monster and I know one when I see one. I get back out of the jeep and slide the nine inch bone handled knife out of the sheath on my thigh. There is a shadowy form that stands out from the rest of them. This one is shaped more like a hunched over man than a bush. Like a man creeping up on the house. Not a cop or there would be a bunch of them and they’d be all over me. It’s gotta be just a guy.
Just a guy out here in the dark Oklahoma morning crawling through wet undergrowth to my father’s house in the middle of fucking nowhere. Just a guy wearing a dark colored rain coat or duster braving mosquitoes, gnats and poisonous water snakes. Just a guy.
And someone killed Derry Parks. Until now I had pretty much convinced myself that it was a professional contract carried out by one of his drug connections. It had seemed like too much of a coincidence me going up there to kill him and finding him already dead, but there was no better explanation. Now I wonder. Could his killer be this man? This monster? The one that appears to be stalking me? And of course my next question is, who in the hell has the balls to stalk me? How much of a bad-ass would you have to be to want to take me out on my own turf with my rules?
I’m Billy Ray Dean right? Such a bad-ass that I make my grandfather, Mean Willy Dean, look like a kindergarten teacher. Then why am I not dashing into the undergrowth with my customary ‘devil-may-care’ attitude and tearing this stalker apart? Because I believe…drum roll please…that for the first time in my life I am scared shitless.
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