Ford County (2 page)

“His daddy said he’s not.”

“His daddy lies, too.”

Sure enough, Roger emerged minutes later with a six-pack of beer.

“Oh boy,” Aggie said.

When they were situated again, the truck left the gravel lot and sped away.

Roger pulled off a can and offered it to Aggie, who declined. “No, thanks, I’m drivin’.”

“You can’t drink and drive?”

“Not tonight.”

“How ’bout you?” he said, offering the can to Calvin.

“No, thanks.”

“You boys in rehab or something?” Roger asked as he popped the top, then gulped down half the can.

“I thought you’d quit,” Aggie said.

“I did. I quit all the time. Quittin’s easy.”

Calvin was now holding the box of food and out of boredom began munching on a large oatmeal cookie. Roger drained the first can, then handed it to Calvin and said, “Toss it, would you?”

Calvin lowered the window and flung the empty can back into the bed of the pickup. By the time he raised the window,
Roger was popping the top of another. Aggie and Calvin exchanged nervous glances.

“Can you give blood if you’ve been drinkin’?” Aggie asked.

“Of course you can,” Roger said. “I’ve done it many times. You boys ever give blood?”

Aggie and Calvin reluctantly admitted that they had never done so, and this inspired Roger to describe the procedure. “They make you lay down because most people pass out. The damned needle is so big that a lot of folks faint when they see it. They tie a thick rubber cord around your bicep, then the nurse’ll poke around your upper forearm looking for a big, fat blood vein. It’s best to look the other way. Nine times out of ten, she’ll jab the needle in and miss the vein—hurts like hell—then she’ll apologize while you cuss her under your breath. If you’re lucky, she’ll hit the vein the second time, and when she does, the blood spurts out through a tube that runs to a little bag. Everything’s clear, so you can see your own blood. It’s amazing how dark it is, sort of a dark maroon color. It takes forever for a pint to flow out, and the whole time she’s holdin’ the needle in your vein.” He chugged the beer, satisfied with his terrifying account of what awaited them.

They rode in silence for several miles.

When the second can was empty, Calvin tossed it back, and Roger popped the third top. “Beer actually helps,” Roger said as he smacked his lips. “It thins the blood and makes the whole thing go faster.”

It was becoming apparent that he planned to demolish the entire six-pack as quickly as possible. Aggie was thinking that it
might be wise to dilute some of the alcohol. He’d heard stories of Roger’s horrific binges.

“I’ll take one of those,” he said, and Roger quickly handed him a beer.

“Me too, I guess,” Calvin said.

“Now we’re talkin’,” Roger said. “I never like to drink alone. That’s the first sign of a true drunk.”

Aggie and Calvin drank responsibly while Roger continued to gulp away. When the first six-pack was gone, he announced, with perfect timing, “I need to take a leak. Pull over up there at Cully’s Barbecue.” They were on the edge of the small town of New Grove, and Aggie was beginning to wonder how long the trip might take. Roger disappeared behind the store and relieved himself, then ducked inside and bought two more six-packs. When New Grove was behind them, they popped the tops and sped along a dark, narrow highway.

“Ya’ll ever been to the strip clubs in Memphis?” Roger asked.

“Never been to Memphis,” Calvin admitted.

“You gotta be kiddin’.”

“Nope.”

“How ’bout you?”

“Yeah, I’ve been to a strip club,” Aggie said proudly.

“Which one?”

“Can’t remember the name. They’re all the same.”

“You’re wrong about that,” Roger corrected him sharply, then practically gargled on another slosh of beer. “Some have these gorgeous babes with great bodies; others got regular road whores who can’t dance a lick.”

And this led to a long discussion of the history of legalized stripping in Memphis, or at least Roger’s version of it. Back in the early days the girls could peel off everything, every stitch, then hop on your table for a pulsating, gyrating, thrusting dance to loud music and strobe lights and raucous applause from the boys. Then the laws were changed and G-strings were mandated, but they were ignored by certain clubs. Table dancing had given way to lap dancing, which created a new set of laws about physical contact with the girls. When he was finished with the history, Roger rattled off the names of a half-dozen clubs he claimed to know well, then offered an impressive summary of their strippers. His language was detailed and quite descriptive, and when he finally finished, the other two needed fresh beers.

Calvin, who’d touched precious little female flesh, was captivated by the conversation. He was also counting the cans of beer Roger was draining, and when the number reached six—in about an hour—Calvin wanted to say something. Instead, he listened to his far more worldly sidekick, a man who seemed to have an inexhaustible appetite for beer and could gulp it while describing naked girls with astonishing detail.

Eventually, the conversation returned to where it was originally headed. Roger said, “We’ll probably have time to run by the Desperado after we get finished at the hospital, you know, just for a couple of drinks and maybe a table dance or two.”

Aggie drove with his limp right wrist draped over the steering wheel and a beer in his left hand. He studied the road ahead and didn’t respond to the suggestion. His girlfriend would scream and throw things if she heard he’d spent money in a club gawking
at strippers. Calvin, though, was suddenly nervous with anticipation. “Sounds good to me,” he said.

“Sure,” added Aggie, but only because he had to.

A car approached from the other direction, and just before it passed them, Aggie inadvertently allowed the truck’s left front wheel to touch the yellow center line. Then he yanked it back. The other car swerved sharply.

“That was a cop!” Aggie yelled. He and Roger snapped their heads around for a fleeting look. The other car was stopping abruptly, its brake lights fully applied.

“Damned sure is,” Roger said. “A county boy. Go!”

“He’s comin’ after us,” Calvin said in a panic.

“Blue lights! Blue lights!” Roger squawked. “Oh shit!”

Aggie instinctively gunned his engine, and the big Dodge roared over a hill. “Are you sure this is a good idea?” he said.

“Just go, dammit,” Roger yelled.

“We got beer cans ever’where,” Calvin added.

“But I’m not drunk,” Aggie insisted. “Runnin’ just makes things worse.”

“We’re already runnin’,” Roger said. “Now the important thing is to not get caught.” And with that, he drained another can as if it might be his last.

The pickup hit eighty miles per hour, then ninety, as it flew over a long stretch of flat highway. “He’s comin’ fast,” Aggie said, glancing at the mirror, then back at the highway ahead. “Blue lights to hell and back.”

Calvin rolled down his window and said, “Let’s toss the beer!”

“No!” Roger squawked. “Are you crazy? He can’t catch us. Faster, faster!”

The pickup flew over a small hill and almost left the pavement, then it screeched around a tight curve and fishtailed slightly, enough for Calvin to say, “We’re gonna kill ourselves.”

“Shut up,” Roger barked. “Look for a driveway. We’ll duck in.”

“There’s a mailbox,” Aggie said and hit the brakes. The deputy was seconds behind them, but out of sight. They turned sharply to the right, and the truck’s lights swept across a small farmhouse tucked low under huge oak trees.

“Cut your lights,” Roger snapped, as if he’d been in this situation many times. Aggie killed the engine, switched off the lights, and the truck rolled quietly along the short dirt drive and came to rest next to a Ford pickup owned by Mr. Buford M. Gates, of Route 5, Owensville, Mississippi.

The patrol car flew by them without slowing, its blue lights ablaze but its siren still off. The three donors sat low in the seat, and when the blue lights were long gone, they slowly raised their heads.

The house they had chosen was dark and silent. Evidently, it was not protected by dogs. Even the front porch light was off.

“Nice work,” Roger said softly as they began to breathe again.

“We got lucky,” Aggie whispered.

They watched the house and listened to the highway, and after a few minutes of wonderful silence agreed that they had indeed been very lucky.

“How long we gonna sit here?” Calvin finally asked.

“Not long,” Aggie said as he stared at the windows of the house.

“I hear a car,” Calvin said, and the three heads ducked again. Seconds passed, and the deputy flew by from the other direction, lights flashing but still no siren. “Sumbitch is lookin’ for us,” Roger mumbled.

“Of course he is,” Aggie said.

When the sound of the patrol car faded in the distance, the three heads slowly rose in the Dodge, then Roger said, “I need to pee.”

“Not here,” Calvin said.

“Open the door,” Roger insisted.

“Can’t you wait?”

“No.”

Calvin slowly opened the passenger’s door, stepped out, then watched as Roger tiptoed to the side of Mr. Gates’s Ford truck and began urinating on the right front wheel.

Unlike her husband, Mrs. Gates was a light sleeper. She was certain she had heard something out there, and when she was fully awake, she became even more convinced of it. Buford had been snoring for an hour, but she finally managed to interrupt his slumber. He reached under the bed and grabbed his shotgun.

Roger was still urinating when a small light came on in the kitchen. All three saw it immediately. “Run!” Aggie hissed through his window, then grabbed the key and turned the ignition. Calvin jumped back into the truck while grunting, “Go, go, go!” as Aggie slammed the transmission in reverse and hit the gas. Roger yanked his pants up while scrambling toward the Dodge.
He flung himself over the side and landed hard in the bed, among the empty beer cans, then held on as the truck flew back down the driveway toward the road. It was at the mailbox when the front porch light popped on. It slid to a stop on the asphalt as the front door slowly opened and an old man pushed back the screen. “He’s got a gun!” Calvin said.

“Too bad,” said Aggie as he slammed the stick into drive and peeled rubber for fifty feet as they made a clean escape. A mile down the highway, Aggie turned onto a narrow country lane and stopped the engine. All three got out and stretched their muscles and had a good laugh at the close call. They laughed nervously and worked hard to believe that they had not been frightened at all. They speculated about where the deputy might be at that moment. They cleaned out the bed of the truck and left their empty cans in a ditch. Ten minutes passed and there was no sign of the deputy.

Aggie finally addressed the obvious. “We gotta get to Memphis, fellas.”

Calvin, more intrigued by the Desperado than by the hospital, added, “You bet. It’s gettin’ late.”

Roger froze in the center of the road and said, “I dropped my wallet.”

“You what?”

“I dropped my wallet.”

“Where?”

“Back there. Must’ve fell out when I was takin’ a leak.”

There was an excellent chance that Roger’s wallet contained nothing of value—no money, driver’s license, credit cards, membership
cards of any kind, nothing more useful than perhaps an old condom. And Aggie almost asked, “What’s in it?” But he did not, because he knew that Roger would claim that his wallet was loaded with valuables.

“I gotta go get it,” he said.

“Are you sure?” Calvin asked.

“It’s got my money, license, credit cards, everything.”

“But the old man had a gun.”

“And when the sun comes up, the old man will find my wallet, call the sheriff, who’ll call the sheriff in Ford County, and we’ll be screwed. You’re pretty stupid, you know.”

“At least I didn’t lose my wallet.”

“He’s right,” Aggie said. “He’s gotta go get it.” It was noted by the other two that Aggie emphasized the “he” and said nothing about “we.”

“You’re not scared, are you, big boy?” Roger said to Calvin.

“I ain’t scared,’cause I ain’t goin’ back.”

“I think you’re scared.”

“Knock it off,” Aggie said. “Here’s what we’ll do. We’ll wait until the old man has time to get back in bed, then we’ll ease down the road, get close to the house but not too close, stop the truck, then you can sneak down the driveway, find the wallet, and we’ll haul ass.”

“I’ll bet there’s nothin’ in the wallet,” Calvin said.

“And I’ll bet it’s got more cash than your wallet,” Roger shot back as he reached into the truck for another beer.

“Knock it off,” Aggie said again.

They stood beside the truck, sipping beer and watching the
deserted highway in the distance, and after fifteen minutes that seemed like an hour they loaded up, with Roger in the back. A quarter of a mile from the house, Aggie stopped the truck on a flat section of highway. He killed the engine so they could hear any approaching vehicle.

“Can’t you get closer?” Roger asked as he stood by the driver’s door.

“It’s just around that bend up there,” Aggie said. “Any closer, and he might hear us.”

The three stared at the dark highway. A half-moon came and went with the clouds. “You gotta gun?” Roger asked.

“I gotta gun,” Aggie said, “But you ain’t gettin’ it. Just sneak up to the house, and sneak back. No big deal. The old man’s asleep already.”

“You’re not scared, are you?” Calvin added helpfully.

“Hell no.” And with that, Roger disappeared into the darkness. Aggie restarted the truck and, with the lights off, quietly turned it around so that it was headed in the general direction of Memphis. He killed the engine again, and with both windows down they began their waiting.

“He’s had eight beers,” Calvin said softly. “Drunk as a skunk.”

“But he can hold his booze.”

“He’s had a lot of practice. Maybe the old man’ll get him this time.”

“That wouldn’t really bother me, but then we’d get caught.”

“Why, exactly, was he invited in the first place?”