Chapter 31
The old man rocked back and forth slowly. He took a swig from the jug of moonshine that he and his two boys, Clem and Jimbo had just brewed. He coughed as it burned going down. He had been drinking this rot gut for as many years as he could remember, and it still had the same effect upon him. In his mind, it was a sign of class A stuff. Nothing was too good for him and his two sons.
He stopped rocking and horked a big greasy wad of chewing tobacco into a spittoon beside him. Some dribbled down the corner of his mouth and onto his shirt, but he didn’t seem to notice. He just wiped it away onto his sleeve, darkened by repeating the same action over and over again.
He sat there for a moment, picking absently at the open sore on his face and then cackled. It sounded like a cross between a laugh and a wheeze. His lungs were rotting from the inside out from years of heavy smoking and “chewin’ the tobaccy” as he used to like to say. He coughed and spit up some flem the colour of muddy water.
“Well boys” he said.
“Yeah pappy.” It was Clem, the older of the two boys who answered his dad.
Of his two sons, Jimbo was the more dim-witted, having gotten to grade two before the school system kicked him out because they couldn’t teach him any thing. He had the mentality of a six year old. His brother Clem wasn’t much brighter. He had managed to get to the fourth grade.
After a couple of moments Jimbo spoke. “Uh huh pa.”
The old man loved both his sons dearly. He waited patiently until his younger son had answered him and then he continued.
“It looks like we got us another of them revenue fellas out back in the wood shed. Those shit heads come sniffing around here too often. I’m gettin’ some pissed havin’ to deal with ‘em all the time. They don’t know enough to leave us alone. All’s we’re doin’ is makin’ some moon shine, not botherin’ anybody. But they have to go and keep pokin’ their big noses where they ain’t wanted.
“They say that what we’re doin’ is illegal and we’ve got to stop. Well I says fuck ‘em. It’s our land and we’ll do what we please.” He stopped for a moment, wheezed and spat again, this time missing the spittoon completely.
“Yeah pappy. You’s right”
After a couple of moments Jimbo agreed. “Uh huh pa, you’realways right.”
The old man sat there thinking for a couple of moments before speaking again. He wasn’t playing with a full deck either, but after a few minutes, he usually could think about what to do with these intruders that always kept coming around bothering them.
On more than one occasion, agents would come knocking on their door, trying to teach them the error of their ways. It’s strange, but these agents would only come once and not bother them any more. The fact of the matter is, no one ever heard from them again. They seemed to vanish without a trace, but if someone searched the property, they would find a few shallow graves out in the back forty somewhere. Pappy and his sons had buried most of them but if you asked them about it, they would deny it, saying that no one had come to visit them. Most were buried, but a few had been ground up, and their remains had been strewn over the potatopatch. They felt that that added a certain nice taste to the mash that they made into their moon shine.
Even one time, a preacher had come around, trying to save them from the devil. As far as pappy was concerned, they didn’t need saving. They were doing just fine without help from any one, and so they taught him the error of his ways as well. As a matter of fact, he added a certain wholesome taste to the most recent batch of screech that they were now drinking.
It was Jake’s misfortune to have knocked on their door. All he wanted was some help with his car, so that he could get on his way to his new life. As far as the old man and his two dim-witted off spring were concerned, he was just another intruder that needed to be taught their form of justice, and he was about to experience it.
Pappy, or old man Taylor, as the locals called him, started rocking again for a moment. When he stopped, he looked at Clem with his good eye. He’d gotten a cataract in the other one, which had advanced to the stage of making his eye useless. It was completely clouded over. He never had it looked at, because he didn’t trust doctors. Anyways, he was too busy raising his boys, and keeping outsiders in line to worry about something that probably couldn’t be fixed. He still had one eye that he could see out of, and that was just fine with him.
“Boy, go git me my knife.”
“Okay, pappy.”
Clem got up, went to the wooden cupboard, and got what his dad had asked for. It was an old, rusted hunting knife, with about a twelve inch blade. There was some gore on it that didn’t look like food. Hard chunks were stuck to it, and the smell coming from it would have knocked most people over. Clem didn’t even seem to notice. One of the pieces fell, hit the counter and dropped to the floor.
There was a skittering sound. A rat, probably the same one that had attacked Jake, seemed to appear out of nowhere. It grabbed the piece and as it bit down, it made a snapping sound, as if bone breaking. It was in fact a piece of the preacher’s skull, the preacher who recently had added to the flavor of pappy’s latest brew that he was now enjoying.
Clem saw the rat and tried to step on it with his boot, but the vermin was too quick for him. It scurried away, glared at him with menace in his eyes, and then disappeared into a hole in the wall. Not many things bothered him, but rats were one thing that he couldn’t stand.
“Get the fuck out of here, you little shit.” He cursed and shuddered.
Ever since he was small, when his mammy was still alive, he hated and feared them. One night, when he was in bed asleep, he awoke to find a rat resting on his chest looking at him. It just sat there and stared. Clemscreamed and struck out at it. The rat bit him on the hand and then jumped down and disappeared into the night.
The image was still clear to him for a moment and then faded. He shuddered again. The next thing he knew, pappy was yelling at him.
“Clem, bring me that fuckin’ knife. I’m not gettin’ any younger and we got work to do.”
“I’m comin’ pappy.”
He took another look around to see if the rat was still about, but it wasn’t there. He walked slowly back to his dad, the knife in his hand. He would take care of the pest later. Right now, they had more pressing matters to attend to. With this, he forgot about the rat and started to get excited thinking about how they were going to make the stranger suffer. This time, pappy said, they were going to make an example of this one. Others would think twice before bothering them again.
He reached his dad and helped him out of his chair. They started towards the shed, with Jimbo tailing behind like a lap dog. The thought of carving up the visitor, cutting him up piece by piece, seemed to calm Clem. He started to whistle as the three of them slowly approached the back door, to begin their night of entertainment.
Life was good. It didn’t get much better than this. He was getting so excited that he felt a swelling in his man-joint. He started smiling to himself as he opened the door to the shed. Soon, very soon, the fun was about to begin. Life didn’t get any better than this.
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