Donnybrook: A Novel (3 page)

“Hey, two-inches-a-love, quit staring at her tits,” Angus interrupted. “Say we get you three grand, you done got pills for another batch or we gonna have to wait like last time?”

Heat from the whiskey pushed Eldon’s complexion to match his thin, carrot-colored hair. He stared into Angus’s one blue eye, his other a gray pearl engulfed by a split-glass tint. Told him, “Look here, Terminator, you’re not dealing with an amateur or you’d still be cooking cough syrup. I got enough pills right here in my backroom den for plenty more batches.”

Liz ran an index finger over Angus’s gray work pant leg. Stepped forward. Bent over the bar. Knowing a peek of her sugar-cookie-pale breasts would shackle the rest of Eldon’s attention to her. She said, “Can I use your john? Gotta take a mean piss.” She batted her thick, carved, mascaraed eyelashes in a way that seemed to say out loud,
Maybe you wanna come watch?

Eldon tilted his mixed drink, taking in the split of pale flesh in her shirt. Imagined the sound of Liz unzipping her pants. Her powdered-donut-colored flesh meeting his toilet seat. Her warm piss splashing into the toilet. He felt the heat leave his face, travel to and harden his crotch. He tasted the smooth bourbon mixed with Coke coat his throat. Lowered the sweaty glass. Jutted his orange brows up into wrinkles on his forehead. Smiled. “Sure, sweetness, you know where it is.”

He set the glass in the sink. Stepped from behind the kitchen’s cherry-stained bar. His cologne-bathed body followed the side-to-side shift of Liz’s ass from the kitchen’s ivory tile to the hall’s chocolate-stained hardwood. Felt as though he might explode wondering if she had on panties. What color they were. If they had pink elephants or blue dolphins printed on the crotch. Those were his favorites. Knowing she shaved her nether region. Then the light inside his daydream went out.

*   *   *

The man held scars. One side of his complexion had been hazed by flame. His hair raked back into a ponytail that twisted down his spine. Dye-engraved names were about his flesh like newspaper headings. He was a fighter, or had been a fighter. He was a man who’d tried to salvage what he could from life. He was hard and merciless. Then his image faded. Purcell lay in his hammock of woven rope. He’d a cigarette dangling in his right hand. Trees above offering shade. “Ballad of the Crimson Kings,” a tune by Ray Wylie Hubbard, rustled in the warm breeze from a CD player on Purcell’s screened-in porch. Guitar strings and banjo were being picked. Images of Jarhead ran like adrenaline in his veins. Then came the face of another man who went by Knox, Miles Knox. He and the boy Jarhead could’ve been twins except for age. Purcell hadn’t realized until now how much they favored each other. He didn’t know the man on a personal note. But he’d crossed paths with him at social gatherings where booze and talk were being passed.

Clasping his eyes, he saw a female, in her grasp was a pistol, she stared at it. In her other hand was a picture of a man she’d left, ran from—it was Knox, only younger, and he was a dead ringer for the young man that Purcell had visions of, Jarhead Earl. She lifted the pistol, tasted the metal barrel, and then the wall behind her was salted with brain and scalp. Every muscle in Purcell’s body tightened, then bucked. He knew the female was Jarhead’s mother.

Sitting up from the hammock, his feet smashed the grass beneath him, he reached for a sweating glass, ice rattled the liquid that was the shade of molasses. He finished the drink. Wanted the thoughts, the visions to rest. But they did not. Jarhead was traveling. It was night. There was trouble around him, Purcell could feel it. Then came the strobes of colored light and the pictures in Purcell’s mind cleared. Where Jarhead was, Purcell didn’t know. But he was getting closer.

*   *   *

They stood out by Ned Newton’s ’78 Chevy truck with a crumbling orange bed, two-tone blue-and-white front. Ned didn’t want to bring the cop into his dented sheet-metal house with its damn slanted roof. Dripping AC unit hanging from a window coughing freon into what passed for the living room, where empty baggies with trace amounts of crystal lay scattered about the floor and coffee table.

Sheriff Whalen stood behind dark aviator glasses, his lips as dry as his fake words. “I’s sorry having to tell you that, Ned. Know you used to run with them two. Was hoping maybe you knew who them two been running with.”

Ned’s pasty tongue ran over calico teeth. Wiggled them back and forth. Swollen tissue above his eyes made them appear spooned out as he met his reflection in Whalen’s glassed vision.

“Nah, them two was stray of enlightenment. Was bound to happen sooner or later.”

Whalen cleared his throat, knowing Ned was a lying, backstabbing piece of shit. Had yet to earn his time in a Coldcrete cell. But it was bound to happen sooner or later. “No one deserves to go out like that. Skin burnt to a crisp. With a bullet in they head.”

Saturday-evening humidity pushed Ned’s thinning, spider-legged hair from his buttery crown. He asked, “You talk to anyone else?”

“Poe over at Leavenworth Tavern, where they’s know’d to drink. He ain’t saying shit. Nor is any of the regulars. Why, you seen or spoke with them as of late?”

Ned’s joints felt as though they were being chiseled. He shook his head, needing something he was out of, a bump of crank to subside this ache from within. He’d be paying Poe a visit, he thought. Told Whalen, “Been six month or better.”

Whalen nodded. Knew he was being lied to. Changed the subject before he lost his temper. “Still fighting? Or you just training fighters these days?”

Ned’s face lit up with a five-tooth grin. “Can’t lie, Ross. I still fight from time to time to support myself.”

Support your habit, Whalen thought.

Ned had been a backwoods brawler since he could place one foot in front of the other. Story was, the first time his daddy opened the backs of his thighs with a piece of leather for talking back, Ned doubled up on him. Took the belt away, punched his dad till he spit the shade of roses. Broke his jawbone. Mashed his eyes and lips. Was still hitting his father when he was pulled off him by his uncle. Who convinced his brother to take Ned twice a week to a boxing gym some thirty minutes down the river in Portland, Kentucky.

Whalen waved a hand before turning to leave, said, “You always was a mean son of a bitch. Even with this badge, I’m glad we never crossed.” He thought, I’d like to cuff you. Take you out in a field of tall grass. Put one between your bug eyes. Leave you for the buzzards and opossum to chew.

Whalen opened the cruiser’s squeaking door, said, “You hear anything, you know where I’m at.”

*   *   *

Wet dripped from the parted cartilage of his nose. Blotted and crusted onto flared lips. Ran down his butt-crack chin. Fertilized his crop of curled chest hair. A few teeth stuck to and stained his pink Izod shirt. Eldon’s tough talk had disappeared when the swelled slits of his eyes blinked back open.

His hands were twisted behind him with lamp cord, attached to the legs of the wooden chair in which he sat. A blurred outline swayed her hips in front of him. He focused. A pair of hands were pushing goose-feather-soft mounds of female flesh before him. Hank Williams blared “My Bucket’s Got a Hole in It” from the radio on the kitchen counter behind her.

Angus sat next to the radio, wiping the blood from his knuckles onto a white dish towel. He’d beat Eldon pretty fair, he thought. Laid the towel down beside the three large bottles of Allegra-D. Shook his head. Said, “Two-inches-a-love, didn’t your daddy never tell you not to think with your pecker? Even with all that schooling, you’re still a dumb shit.” Angus pointed down at the three bottles, said, “Had to be sure you had these.”

Eldon’s eyes darted from Angus to Liz, who was running a hand down the front of her pants. Tonguing her lips. Giggling psychotic-like.

Eldon looked back at Angus. Slobbered, “You can’t do this!”

Angus gave a Charles Manson stare. Threw both hands into the air, palms facing up, said, “Who’s gonna stop me? You?” His laughter bounced into the high white plastered ceiling. Liz began to unzip her painted-on jeans. Revealing no panties, just cadaver-white flesh.

Eldon closed his eyes. Tried to fight the rush of blood. Getting hard. Shook his aching head and realized he’d no pants on. Was bare ass and balls to the wooden chair. He opened his eyes. Looked around Liz to Angus, yelled, “Untie me, dammit! We’re partners!”

Angus quipped, “Two-inches, you should’ve been more partner-like when you had the chance, given the pills over. All you got going for you now is right in front of you.”

Red drooled from the corners of Eldon’s mouth. Liz’s jeans slid down tight thighs pocked with slug-sized bruises. She stepped out of them. Approached Eldon. Straddled him. Pulled her worn black T-shirt over her head. Wrapped it across Eldon’s face. Pressed her firm mounds up against the shirt covering Eldon’s head. Behind Liz, Angus’s voice said, “I’m gonna get. Let you get your two inches of fun on.”

Liz smarted. “More man than you’ll live to be.”

Angus eyed her from behind. Clenched his fist. Swallowed his words. Not here. Not yet.

Eldon felt Liz’s hand reach down into his lap. Her ass raised, she guided him into her wet. He wanted to rupture but fought it. He heard Angus’s voice. “Here, take this ’fore I forget.” Liz took the tool for killing.

Boots trailed away. A door opened. Closed.

Liz started to bounce with a violent rhythm. Looked at the indentations of eyes and wavering lips hidden beneath her shirt. Eldon moaned. Liz imagined the scarred face with a raven mane beneath her shirt. She couldn’t forget Flat. Beatle. Or the humiliation.

Eldon felt a hard, cold poke through the T-shirt and into his temple. Liz panted, “You … gonna—”

Eldon panted back, “Alllmost—”

“You gonna—”

“Just about—”

“You gonna—”

“Yeah, I’m gonna—”

Eldon felt Liz lean back, intensifying the feeling. Her bare feet smacked the floor. Her weight disappeared. The poke in Eldon’s temple moved to his forehead. Liz needed to know if she could do this.

Eldon whined. His legs tensed and jerked. Her finger squeezed the trigger. The jerking stopped. A mess erupted beneath her shirt.

She could do it, Liz told herself. She would do it.

4

Red and blue lights lit up the rear window of the primered Ford Galaxy. Next to Jarhead sat the Walmart sack of cash. Socks. Underwear. Cutoff jeans and a T-shirt rolled up inside also. Across the passenger’s seat lay the map a fighter who went by the name Combine Elder had detailed for Jarhead. Directions to the Donnybrook in Orange County, Indiana, a five-hour drive from Hazard, Kentucky.

Jarhead’d learned about Donnybrook two nights ago, after he’d beaten Combine Elder into twelve unknown shades of purple. Afterward, Combine had smirked at the unblemished rawhide outline and wheat-tinted hair of Jarhead Earl, his razor-tight arms clawed by black and red amateur tattoos hanging by his sides. Combine told him, “Son, you oughta enter Donnybrook. You could be the next Ali Squires.”

Ali Squires: Bare. Knuckle. God.

Squires was beaten only once, by a man went by Chainsaw Angus.

Combine told Jarhead that Donnybrook was a three-day bare-knuckles tournament, held once a year every August. Run by the sadistic and rich-as-fuck Bellmont McGill on a thousand-acre plot out in the sticks. Twenty fighters entered a fence-wire ring. Fought till one man was left standing. Hordes of onlookers—men and women who used drugs and booze, wagered and grilled food—watched the fighting. Two fights Friday. Four Saturday. The six winners fought Sunday for one hundred grand.

The two jobs Jarhead worked, towing for a junkyard during the day, then flipping burgers and waffles two or three nights a week, hardly provided enough cash to feed and clothe his two smiling-eyed progeny. Boys created with the comeliest female in the Kentucky hills, Tammy Charles.

In between his jobs he jogged through the Kentucky mining hills that gave his stepfather black lung and his mother gun-powder suicide. He pounded the homemade heavy bag that hung from a tree in front of his trailer till his hands burned red. Training for his next bare-knuckle payday out in an abandoned barn or tavern parking lot. Farmers. Miners. Loggers. Drunks. Wagering on another man’s will.

Altogether, the money he was making came nowhere close to one hundred grand.

Donnybrook would be Jarhead’s escape from the poverty that had whittled his family down to names in the town obituaries. He just needed the thousand-dollar fighter’s fee to enter.

Jarhead pulled to a stop off the side of a back road somewhere outside of Frankfort, Kentucky, worry from the robbery tensing his hands damp on the steering wheel.

“Shit! Shit! Shit! Don’t need this.”

The cruiser’s door opened. The outline of the county cop approached. Jarhead had his window rolled down. Watched the shadow trail toward his car in the rearview. The officer stopped at his window.

Should I open the door, punch him in his throat, his temple? Can’t get caught if I’m going to help my babies and my girl, thought Jarhead.

And the officer said, “Evening. Know you got a busted taillight?”

Shit! rang through Jarhead’s bones. All that worry for nothing.

Smiling, sweating, Jarhead said, “Why, no, sir. I sure didn’t. Which side might it be?”

Pointing, the officer said, “Right back on your passenger’s side.”

“Well, I’ll be having to get that fixed shortly.”

“Can I see your license and registration?”

“Sure, sure.”

Jarhead pulled his license from his wallet. Registration from his glove compartment. Handed them over.

Officer took them. Read over the name. Address. Said, “Long ways from home, ain’t you, Johnny. Taking a trip?”

“Yeah. Going to visit friends and family up in Indiana.”

“What part of Indiana?”

Nosy prick. “Down over in Orange County.”

“The southern part. I got kin down in that neck of the woods myself. Who’s your people? Might be some acquaintance.”

This is how they catch sons a bitches, Jarhead thought. Hare-brained coincidences. He told the only name he could think, one that Combine Elder told him. “McGill. Bellmont McGill.”