The Road Out of Hell (14 page)

“I don’t know.”

“Guess,
God damn it! Don’t get on my raw side today, Sanford Clark.”

“Did you drop him down a mine shaft?”

“No!
God!!
Hell no! Are you calling me a fucking idiot? Who would do that? Would
you?
Oh, would you really? Because people go down in those things all the time, Sanford! Think about it for one half of a second, will you? It does not count if you simply leave the body where it gets found in two weeks. You know what it means if you do that?”

“I don’t have any idea about that.”

“It means that you spend two weeks walking around like a man with cow shit for brains because you think you have gotten away with something, when in fact all you are doing is biding time until the cops come for you and you swing for it! Ha!” Uncle Stewart made the face of a dead man swinging from a noose, just for fun, sticking out his tongue and holding his breath until his skin turned reddish blue.

Sanford was surprised by how realistic it looked. It was just like watching him die on a rope. He felt a huge nervous laugh that needed to explode out of him, but he did not dare to show any sign of amusement or Uncle Stewart could take it wrong. He released a forceful belch, then coughed and farted at the same time, and it was a little better after that.

Uncle Stewart loved it. “Ha-ha-ha! You are disgusting! What woman would ever marry a pig like you? Anyway, the thing to understand about the human head is that nothing is harder to destroy. And that, my friend, is the answer to your question.”

“Which one?”

“Your question about
why I have the head with me.
Actually, two answers. One: take away the head, a body is harder to identify, especially if you mess up the fingers. This helps to make sure that you do not waste civic resources on pointless trials that the state cannot win. Two: the head comes out better if you give it special treatment. Depends on how you get rid of the body. In today’s case, we do the head on its own, and no, I did not and would not ever throw a dead body down a mine shaft. Why wouldn’t I just lug it over to the county sheriff’s house and dump it on his lawn? That story ends the same either way you tell it.”

“Uncle Stewart?”

“I’m
getting
there. Jesus Christ! So even though it is so tiring to hold this bucket out to you, I am still holding it out to you because I am waiting for you to accept my gift.” But he broke out laughing and fell stumbling over that one for a moment before he could gather himself up and continue. “No, no. It is. It is a gift, sort of, in a certain way. This is part of your continuing education then, yes? You learn how to burn up a human head in a hot bonfire that you keep stoked up all afternoon until I say it’s done.”

He sat the bucket at Sanford’s feet and gave him a friendly pat on the back. “Come on, we’ll use the dry duck pond. I’ll help you get a good blaze going.” He walked away toward the dry duck pond out in back of the ranch house.

“What, you want me to burn up that head?”

“Don’t worry.” He kept on walking. “I’ll get you started. Then I need a nap. Bring the bucket.” He kept going and did not look back. Sanford moved sideways toward the bucket. He leaned over just far enough to get his fingertips around the thick canvas strap that served as its handle, then tensed his arm muscles, his shoulders, his back, his waist … and slowly stood, picking it up.

It was not heavy at all. Maybe ten pounds or something like that. He could carry it with his arm straight out, which is how he got it from the front yard around back to the pit. The fire there, as Uncle Stewart predicted, burned hot all afternoon with Sanford doing the stoking.

By the time darkness set in for the night, Sanford was sitting half-paralyzed in the passenger seat of the big Buick while they roared down the highway to Los Angeles. He tried to listen to Uncle Stewart, who was doing his old trick of talking just barely louder than the sound of the wind so that you had to strain to hear him. Something about popular music and young people today. Sanford couldn’t stay with it. His mind’s eye was flooded with the day’s images.

The horror of the burning face quickly gave way to the unifying realities of heat and flame. The day was spent keeping the fire going underneath a black chunk of something or other that could have been a hundred different things besides a person. Uncle Stewart woke up late in the afternoon and came out to have a look. He told him that any more fire was a waste of time. The bones were burned down as far as they would go.

Sanford stared out at the road ahead and tried to blink the images out of his eyes—Uncle Stewart sitting on the back porch drinking a bottle of Coca-Cola, watching Sanford carry out his order to drop the roasted skull back into the tar bucket and then pound at it with a fence post. Blow after blow after blow until it was a shattered pile of black and white bits. By the time he was finished, his arm and shoulder muscles were burning under the exertion and Uncle Stewart was satisfied that there was nothing left to recognize. He ordered Sanford to get washed up and into clean clothing while he took the bucket of skull bits away somewhere. He was back again by the time Sanford was cleaned up and ready to go. Minutes later, they were in the car heading west.

Now his uncle was talking to him. He knew that it was important to listen and not get caught with his attention drifting, which was a form of personal insult—as Uncle Stewart had stringently reminded him on so many occasions. The images, however, would not leave him.

“Hey, bonehead! Anybody in there?”

“What? Sure I am. What.”

“Time for rehearsal! Remember the importance of an alibi? We are now putting that to work for us. We shall give a much better story to Mother and Father, just in case any police de
fect
ives ever ask them anything about it.”

“Why would they?”

“Who knows? Don’t change the subject.”

Sanford found a certain degree of comfort in stupidity around his uncle and played dumb as much as he could get away with, but Uncle Stewart seldom put up with it, so he had to dish it out a little at a time. He decided to try some. “Why do I have to rehearse anything?”

“The story, Sanford. The
alibi.
Hell. Shit. I’m talking to myself here, aren’t I?”

“No. No you’re not, Uncle Stewart.”

“We rehearse because
you
are going to be the one to tell them. You’re only fifteen! You haven’t grown at all since you got here, so you still look like a boy. They’re going to just naturally want to believe you! Why can’t you appreciate the power that you have? I could beat them until they scream for mercy, and believe me, I’d do it if I had to, but that still won’t make them look believable if a cop starts asking questions. You, on the other hand, can hand-feed them your own shit and tell them it’s an ice cream sundae—and they are going to believe you. And this story, oh man, when you give them this story, they are going to swallow you up whole because they could never imagine that you would come up with this. Understand? We reinforce each other here! Keep each other out of jail!”

“Why would I go to jail?”

“I’m not sure that grinding up some guy’s head is completely legal, moron.”

“He was already dead when you brought him here! And you killed that guy in self-defense! We were saving them from wasting money on an investigation.”

Uncle Stewart stared at him for a good three seconds before he threw back his head, placed the flat of his palm over his chest, and screamed with delight. He screamed a complete lungful of air and then took a deep breath and screamed a second time. After that he dissolved into his steamiest Nasty Little Girl laugh. He steered the car with one hand and leaned over to Sanford and fondly struck him broad-handed across the temple. But he was feeling so good at the moment that he didn’t strike him all that hard.

Though the blow was not as bad as others, Sanford made sure to slump against the side of the seat and did a few of those twitches that happen when you start to go unconscious after getting hit. Uncle Stewart loved those. He didn’t like to knock you out, because then you were no more fun than a dead person. The amusement was in taking you right to the edge and keeping you there, knowing that there was nothing you could do, no matter how hard you wished you could stop it.

The twitching stopped the assault right away while Uncle Stewart pulled back to admire his handiwork. “Listening now? Good. That’s all you have to do. Because I am going to give you a story that we can all live with. They think they can’t spare me any more money right now; but
I
think that by the time we come back home, I’m going to have a pocket full of cash for our extra operating expenses.”

“What expenses?” Sanford asked, concerned that this might mean that he was supposed to cut the level of the feed rations that the hens needed to continue producing eggs.

“Private ones. You’re too young to concern yourself over it. All you do is repeat what I’m going to tell you. And do it like it’s coming from you. You want to be in the movies? This is your first acting job. Now say it exactly the way I’m going to tell it to you.”

“He did what?” George Cyrus Northcott asked, squinting at Sanford in concentration. Sanford and Uncle Stewart sat across from him in high-backed guest chairs while they unwound their story. Grandma Louise sat next to Grandpa George on the old horsehair sofa. She balanced the porcelain saucer on her knee while she held the tea cup in one hand and sopped at the saucer with her handkerchief with the other. She did not appear to be listening.

Sanford swallowed and kept his eyes on the floor, feeling the wisdom in his habit of keeping his eyes down. They expected that from him, so it was not likely to be obvious that he was afraid to look Grandpa George in the eye while he tried to stick to the script. Uncle Stewart was sitting so close that Sanford could smell that hellish body odor and hear his breath whistling in and out of his nose. To have his uncle listen to every word he said felt the same as if Satan had showed up at school to personally give him a test.
Chicken Ranch High, private school.

“He just kept on coming for Uncle Stewart.”

Grandpa George turned to his son. “He kept on coming at you even though you showed him your pistol?”

“Yep. Plain as day. I held it straight out so he could see it, too. Thirty-eight caliber, five-shot revolver.” Grandpa George grunted, turned back to Sanford and told him to go on, but Stewart continued for him. “Sanford picked up the .22 rifle and cocked it.”

“Let the boy tell me.”

“Well,” Sanford began, “Uncle Stewart said to him, ‘So you are a damned greaser thief as well as being lazy.’”

“They warned me he was lazy when I picked him up for work.”

“I said let Sanford tell it.”

“All right.”

Sanford went on. “The guy grabbed a knife off of the table and went straight for Uncle Stewart.”

“Putting my life in jeopardy.”

“Stewart!”
Grandpa George’s voice was surprisingly loud when he wanted it to be.

“Shit! You tell it then, Sanford. I’ll shut up.”

“Okay then. So. The guy threw the knife at Uncle Stewart.”

“He could have been trying to knock the pistol out of my hand.”

There was a charged silence. Grandpa George took a deep breath. He didn’t even glance at Uncle Stewart. He just kept looking straight at Sanford and waited for him to continue.

“Okay. The knife missed and went into the wall, but the plastering isn’t finished so it fell between the cracks and down into the wall part. It got stuck.”

“This knife—are you saying it’s still there?”

“Well. Yes.”

“So it would be there if I drove straight out to the ranch right now and went in there to hunt for it?”

Sanford hesitated a split second, then said, “Yes.”

“Of course it would!” Uncle Stewart added. Grandpa George ignored him again.

“Anyway, when the guy threw the knife, Uncle Stewart fired the gun and shot him right in the forehead.”

“I’m a good shot and knew I would not miss. Oops. Sorry.”

“The Mexican guy fell back by the bed. I was standing by the door with the .22 while Uncle Stewart went out the front door and around toward the back.”

“Wait,” Grandpa George stopped him. “You say Stewart left the room? Right after this man attacked him with a knife and he shot him in the head?”

“I went out to pray under the open sky! My thoughts were turned to this boy’s immortal soul, God damn it! I’m not ashamed of that. You can’t make me be ashamed for caring that much!”

“Let the boy talk, Stewart.”

“Oh, all right then.”

“So Uncle Stewart came back in and saw that the guy was still alive.”

“And what did you do in the meantime?”

“When Uncle Stewart was gone?”

“Right. What were you doing inside there?”

“Well … standing there. You know.”

Grandpa George sighed and shook his head. “All right then. What next?”