Stories (2011) (89 page)

I suppose because that's what a four-year-old would have
been interested in at the time.

We couldn't hear the drive-in, but my mother would make up
stories to go with the cartoons.

It was pretty neat. Every night we could sit at these big
tall windows and watch the cartoons and mom would tell me a story. Those are
really good memories.

Maybe because my parents thought I was bored, and because I
didn't have anyone to play with, my dad got me a dog. A cute black puppy that
was part cocker spaniel. I adored that dog and he and I became the best of
friends. More like brothers, really.

One day, out playing, my dog crossed the creek behind our
house and went into a yard where he shouldn't have been. I called him, and a
man came out of the house and saw Blackie (alias Honkeytonk) digging in his
flowerbeds. Blackie and the man were a good distance from me, but I remember
that man looking at me and seeing I was calling my dog, and the next thing I
knew he had a stick or pipe, I really don't remember, and he beat my dog over
the head with it and picked up its still body and tossed it into the creek.

My world collapsed. My best friend had just been murdered. I
went screaming to my mother.

I don't remember exactly what happened, I don't know if dad
came home then, or if my mother went to a neighbor's house to call him at work,
because to the best of my memory we didn't have a phone.

All I know is my dad seemed to appear. He got the dog out of
the creek. The dog was alive.

(Died at the ripe old age of 13, I might add, and his death
was traumatic to me even then.)

My dad took the dog in the house, crumbled up aspirin in
water and encouraged it to drink, then, without a word, he started across the
creek.

I followed him, but he sent me back to our property, and
from there I watched as he knocked on the back door of the man who had beaned a
child's puppy because it was rooting in his flowerbed.

When the man answered the door my father hit him a sharp
blow, grabbed him, dragged him out of his house and somehow ended up getting
hold of this guy's legs. (Remember, my dad had been a wrestler.) He dragged
that fellow face first through his own flowerbed, then pulled him out to the
creek and threw him in.

Dad came home then.

The man never bothered me or my dog again.

Nobody sued. Nobody complained. It was over. That all
happened about 1955.

This memory, the one about the drive-in, and one about a
tornado that I won't discuss here, all go along with the memory about the
junkyard because they all happened in such a close proximity of time, and I was
at that age when everything was crystal clear, magical, and not completely
understood. I didn't even realize until I was a grown man that what my dad had
done was ironic. He had treated the man as the man had treated my dog. One day,
in my mid-twenties, I thought about this incident for about the millionth time,
and suddenly it dawned on me what he had done, and I laughed out loud.

Another short true story before I get back to "The
Junkyard." Once, when I was in my teens, my father, who was a mechanic and
owned his own garage, finished working on a car, and the lady who had left it
with him wouldn't pay. My dad had seen this trick before. From her. He refused
to let her have it without payment. The lady sent over her boyfriend.

Now, at the time I was in my late teens and had been in
martial arts since I was in my mid-teens, so I was slightly knowledgeable of
self-defense. My dad, who looked a bit like Ernest Borgnine crossed over with
the older John Wayne with a bit of pit bull and axle grease tossed in, was
right at sixty. The young man who had assumed the role of Sir Galahad was
probably in his late twenties, possibly mid-thirties. A stout-looking guy
looking for trouble.

He pulled up outside our shop, which was in what was then
called a bad part of town, and he got out on the edge of the street and called
for my dad. He called to him like he was calling up an obstreperous dog.

Dad was in the garage, and it was a warm day, and the doors
were wide open, so it was easy for my dad to stroll out to meet the fella, who
then went about telling my dad how he was going to release his girlfriend's car
and he had no right to hold it, and so on and so on, and how if he didn't do it
he was going to beat my dad like a red-headed stepchild,
etc.

My dad listened to him, said, "You got money for the
work?"

The guy looked at my dad as if he had suddenly sky dived
onto the scene, said something smartass. I don't remember what, but smartass.

This guy was leaning on the fender of his car, and when he
said his smart remark he pushed off the fender like he was about to come at my
old man with his fist, and I thought, I'm going to take care of this shit head,
but before I could pounce, my dad turned his shoulder and his fist came up from
somewhere below his belt, maybe from as far down as hell, and he connected with
said shit head's chin, and I swear to all that is truthful, I had never seen
anyone hit that hard before in my life. My dad's fist making contact with this
guy's chin sounded like someone had filled a balloon about the size of a beach
ball with water and dropped it off a four-story building. I mean a noise like
that could make pond water jump.

My dad's blow hit this guy under the chin and lifted him off
the ground and onto the hood of the car. Mr. Tough Guy slammed on the hood and
rolled off on the ground and stopped rolling face up, one leg jerking like he
was trying to start a motor bike, his eyes open, sightless and twitching as if
they were those little designs in a slot machine. Panicked, I said, "Oh,
my God, Daddy, you've killed him." And, since the guy had stopped kicking,
or moving in any way, it certainly seemed that way.

My dad looked over at the guy, watched him for a moment, as
if mildly curious, reached in his shirt pocket, took out a stub of a cigar (he
saved half-smoked, half-chewed stubs all over the place: pockets, ashtrays, car
motors he was working on, you name it), poked it in his mouth. He took out a
box of kitchen matches, removed a match, and in no particular hurry, struck the
match on the side of the box and lit his cigar, said, "Naw, he'll come
around."

Dad went in the garage and went to work, and as was his
custom, it wasn't long before he was whistling at his job.

Dad was right, by the way. The fellow did come around.

About fifteen minutes later he rolled over and got to his
knees, then his feet, and wobbled off down the street, leaving his car, as well
as that of his girlfriend. I don't think the guy remembered how to drive after
that blow. He barely remembered how to walk.

Never saw him again.

I asked Daddy about a follow-up later. He said the lady paid
off her car and sent some other man, who was very polite, over to get it.

I don't want to give violence too much of a due, but you
know what? I think my dad was right.

I never saw him start a fight or pick on anyone in any way,
but if you tried to hurt him, threaten him, bother his family, he went
immediately to the source. This was not an unusual way then. It made for
greater politeness amongst your fellow men. No lawsuits, because nobody would
have thought of suing over such a thing in Texas back then, and they damn sure
wouldn't have expected to win. It was part of the old adage that a man totes
his own water.

Okay. One more. One time at a filling station we stopped for
gas, and a guy who owed my Daddy money came out of the filling station. He came
out right after a fella whose name I won't mention, but he had EAT PUSSY
tattooed on his chest (I've used this in books of mine), and he was
bare-chested, of course, and he had a reputation for being so bad the sun
didn't shine where he walked, and this guy with him, who's dressed up, was
supposed to be badder than him.

So this second guy, he's the guy owes my dad money and has
lied about when he's going to pay for some time. My dad looks at him, and this
guy who was about six two and two hundred and twenty pounds of solid meat,
wearing white pants and white shoes and a white belt and this paisley shirt
(this was the rage then) looks at my dad, and I'll tell you, his fucking shoes
weren't any paler than his face.

My dad said something like, "Where you been?"

"I been meaning to get by, Bud."

"Yeah," said my dad, who had a plug of Beech Nut
chewing tobacco in his jaw about the size of a bale of hay. "Need to see
you."

"I'm going to come by."

"You been owing me for months, and you're always going
to come by."

"I'm coming by."

My dad spat a stream of tobacco on the guy's white shoes,
and this guy didn't move, and the guy with him, he's looking off like he's
found an interesting shape in the clouds.

"I think you ought to come by today," Dad said.
"Now would be good."

"I can't today."

Another stream of tobacco, down the pants legs this time.

"Come by."

"I got to go to the house and get money."

"Good. You come by. Don't keep me waiting."
Another stream of tobacco down the pants legs.

"I'll be there."

And he was, too.

Sorry, I've gotten away from "The Junkyard," but
this gives you some idea of the times and where I grew up. That town, for its
betterment, I think, is no longer a tough ex-oil town. It's now an ex-oil town
that specializes in antiques and crafts.

I could tell you other stories about my dad. Ones about his
kindness, his generosity, and one about the time he set the Lindale jail on
fire, but those are for another time. The kind of stories I've chosen here
somehow fit in with the atmosphere of the junkyards I remember from my
childhood, the one I used as inspiration for this story.

All right, let's actually talk about "The
Junkyard." I look back on this story with a feeling of warmth. It may not
be the first story where I began to find my voice, but I think it was a story
that told me clearly that I had turned a corner. And it was the story that made
me realize that the basic horror plot, though well loved by me, was apparently
not for me as a writer. It was a similar revelation to when I discovered that
though I loved science fiction I wasn't a writer of it.

Not true science fiction, anyway.

What was really different here is not that I'm finding my
voice, but that I am controlling it better. I'm fighting it less. Letting it
flow, though, not entirely unobstructed.

I hope the results are entertaining pulp.

Five thirty-eight a.m. Less than an hour before light. Out
there in the back-country darkness, great pines on either side, the red clay
road winding like a reptile in the headlights, a man couldn't help but feel
that he had fallen out of everyday life into a surreal land.

That time of night had an eerie quality the same as
twilight, when brilliance slid slowly off the edge of the world and darkness,
like some crawling beast, inched gray then black, over the rim.

But now there was a jigger of rose-and-gold morning mixed
with the night; and perhaps that, with the heady brew of darkness whipped thick
about it, was what gave the air its unnatural look and feel.

Yes, feel,
 thought Lieutenant Maynard. It was as if
one could reach out, hold the air, and work it between the thumb and forefinger
like fine gossamer.

The three of them had come out of sleep to the fire bell's
ring. The dispatcher, a strawberry blond woman nicknamed Red, had sent them on
call.

In the depths of the pines lay a cow pasture where,
according to the coon-hunter who had called it in, a small grass fire was
burning. After crossing the pasture and threading through woods, he had found
his pickup and driven to the nearest phone, in the town of Nacogdoches, Texas,
just three miles away.

It wasn't much of a fire, the coon-hunter had said, and
perhaps it would die out on its own, but it should be checked. He had given
directions. Now they were checking.

Finally they stopped by the side of the road. The lieutenant
got out first, went around the truck, and leaned on the top wire of a
four-strand barbed wire fence. The other two firemen climbed out of the truck
and leaned on either side of him.

"This seems about right," said the lieutenant.
"Best as I can tell from the directions."

"Mileage would indicate," said Martin, and he spat
a brown stream of snuff over the fence and against a tree.

Ted, the other fireman, said, "I don't see a
fire."

"Doesn't mean it's not out there," said the
lieutenant.

"How we gonna get a truck in there?" said Martin.
"We could spend all night looking for a road."

"We won't worry with the truck for now," said the
lieutenant. "Maybe nothing to it. Get me a pump can, would ya, Ted?"

Ted trotted to the truck and returned with the pump can. The
lieutenant strapped it on his back. "If it isn't much of a fire this will
take care of it. If it is, well, guess the sonofabitch'll burn the whole
pasture up before we can get in."

"We could cut the wire," said Ted.

"Uh huh," said Martin, "and then we could
squeeze our little red rubber fire truck through the trees and out into the
pasture there."

"All right, all right, don't be a smartmouth,"
said Ted. "Just trying to make a suggestion."

Martin spat on another tree.

"It's sort of wide over there," said the
lieutenant, pointing to a gap between the trees. "I think I can get
through. I'll go in and head right first. Follow me through the trees with the
spot. That way I can tell where you are out here, and I'll keep in touch with
the walkie-talkie."

"All right," said Martin. "Find something,
then maybe we can snake a hose through."

"Maybe," said the lieutenant. "Well, before
the world burns away...." Ted and Martin pushed down the bottom two
strands of wire with their booted feet, held the top strands high with gloved
hands. The lieutenant, pump can and all, worked his way through, found the
opening, and wriggled his way into the pasture.