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S p o r t s m a n ’ s by "The Jimmy Wynn Ensemble" Dale Barrigar, Michael Antonucci, & Garin Cycholl “What
the fuck were you doing?” “Shut
your goddamn mouth.” “What
the fuck were you doing?” “Shut
your goddamn mouth.” “I
said what the fuck were you doing?” “I
said shut your goddamn mouth.” “But
what the flick were you doing?” “Shut.
. .Your goddamn mouth.” They
were driving away from the town now.
The Doc’s face was red and sweating and he was wiping at his
forehead with a handkerchief. He balled the handkerchief up and threw it on the floor at
Kat’s feet. He hunkered
over the steering wheel like a chimpanzee, both hands hanging onto it. He was driving fast. They
were burning up the Nebraska road, as if the sun were going down, which
it wasn’t—it was rising. “They
might could have killed you. You
got to understand that. Somebody
had got to pay the fucking piper around here.
Someone had got to fucking pay.” “I
guess you ain’t got to worry about that now.” “They
might could have killed you.” “You
got there first, you crazy motherfucker.” “Yes,
but what the fuck am I gonna do now?” Then
the old man was crying. Tears
were coming down his cheeks. The
tears made his foot go harder on the accelerator and the truck went even
faster. Then he let up and
the truck slowed some. He pointed at the handkerchief.
“Give me that back,” he said. Kat
did. The Doc stopped crying
and wiped his face. “What the fuck am I gonna do now?” he asked.
“Them poor bastards.” Katsimbalis
was considering this. “What
the fuck am I gonna do now? My old man—my father in his grave would
really be proud of me now. I lost it. What
the fuck am I gonna do now? Them
poor bastards. I know all
about how you screwed me. You
never fooled me, my son. Not once.” The
old man was crying again, both hands on the wheel, the handkerchief
crumpled in one. The skin
across the bones of his hands looked thin and white as paper.
Blue veins snaked through it. “I
really butt-fucked myself, this time, finally, didn’t I?
What the fuck am I gonna do now?” Kat
was still considering this. He
was tired of hearing the question, sick unto the grave with it.
Kat was still considering. He
was tired, sick unto the grave. He
had done something similar before, out of hatred, back in Chicago, a
long time ago, and Lord knew how it was they’d taken the horses out
when it came to that; Lord knew how it was how they’d taken the
horses; so he could do it now, again, this time not merely out of profit
but for mercy and love. The
sawed-off gun was at his feet. He
got it. He moved faster
than he ever had. He took a
shell from the glove compartment and broke the gun, put the shell home
and closed the gun. Cocked
the hammer. Put finger on
trigger. My son, not
once inside his head. He
put the end of the stubbed barrel, sawed-off just right so long ago,
where it had to be. And
sent the hammer home. Good
night, child. This is just a damn shame. $ “Good
night, child. This is a
damn shame.” “You
can say that again.” Rupp
did. Then he asked what the
Doc had given the Greek’s horse, how drunk the old man was when he did
it. I told him that I
honestly didn’t know. Rupp
then said that we’d have to haul the horse’s dead body downstate,
that they hadn’t been able to locate Katsimbalis yet. Alone
in the car on the way to Peoria, one rotten fucking town.
I’d fallen asleep on the couch at the stables.
A couple of the boys had loaded the dead horse up.
Usually, we’d just bury the head, but not this time.
The boys’d let me snooze there past sundown. No one still around. Nothing
but bad dreams about the Doc. Then,
outside P—town, prayers under my breath, approaching the farmhouse.
White, big-bloomed flowers sucked up the moonlight.
Tire tracks spun on the driveway’s edge.
The Greek had been here and gone.
Katsimbalis come and hauled away his woman in a flaming chariot,
off to some roadside place that the Greek favored. “You
here, Doc?” No
answer. The grass and
broadleaves over my feet, scratching my ankles.
Someone was always threatening someone around the track. Someone was always threatening to put a torch to that fucking
stable in Peoria. This,
though, seemed worth killing for. I
walked around the back of the house, imagined finding the Doc impaled on
a piece of farm machinery. In
the kitchen, rancid vegetables; the stench of wet dogs.
Just what you deserve, you old, fat fuck.
One of the Greek’s men in the shadows along the house.
Maybe even Rupp. The
cars lining up for the Doc’s funeral along Elston Avenue. “My
head feels like it’s been severed at the roots.” I
followed the Doc’s voice to a line of pine trees and volunteer elms
along a ditch about a hundred or so feet behind the house. As dark as the house was, there was less light at the bottom
of the ditch. “Help
me up out of this ditch, Big Tim,” the Doc said from the mud. “Who
put you down there, old man?” I asked. But
he wasn’t answering, just started to scramble against the bank with
all fours like some trapped rodent.
So I grabbed a pine limb and planted my right foot a couple feet
down in the mud along the bank, balancing myself with my left leg
extended into the pine needles and cricket sounds.
He grabbed with his fat, square, mud-sullied hand.
The old son of a bitch still had a strong grip.
He pulled hard and my left leg started sliding toward the
ditch’s edge, our hands locked in a wrestling match.
I let go, feeling his fingers slip one by one and sending him
backfirst into the quagmire. He
splashed into the water gathered there. “Goddamn
it, Big Tim. Are you
serious about getting me out of here or not?
The Greek isn’t going to be gone all night.” “You
got a death wish or something?” “I’ve
heard of death,” he said, breathing hard down there out of my sight. “This
going to once and for all cure your love sickness? We can stay here all night—me up here, you down there in
that ditch.” He
was panting. “Look,”
he said. “I can walk this
fucking ditch all the way back home.” “Go
ahead.” I turned back
towards the car. “Wait!” With
a flurry of movement, he tried to scramble up the side, but only
succeeded in muddying the bank. His
hands tore at the roots that came loose in tufts. “Does
Katsimbalis know about the horse yet?” he asked. “Maybe
you should tell me.”
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