MISERY GUTS

Cory Zimmerman

It was the year 1915. The Great War was looming on the eastern front. People ate about as much lard as they did hog. Friday nights were for listening to player pianos. And many Americans were still meandering along on foot as slow as molasses, while up in Detroit, Old Henry Ford had one hell of a flame under his ass. Lying midway between Saint Louie and Chicago, snug in the arms of the Mighty Mississippi and Illinois Rivers, the Spoon River Valley is where our story took place. Amongst a land beautiful and pastoral, where yawning pastures of cattle grazed, the skies stretched out endless, all a man needed was a good dog and a shotgun, and more oft than not, down-to-earth folk remained just that, salt.

Amongst the sunflowers, lilies, buzzing insects, butterflies, birds, and leaves in a radiant glow, the three-story, five-bedroom, Victorian stood behind the broad sugar maple on East Elm was painted pearly white, elegant, yet moral and sentimental. The house was charmed with a rocking chair veranda wrapped tightly around the house like a belt about a bloated man’s gut, providing shade and lemonade on long summer days—giving off the pretense, “Someone’s bringin’ home the whole damn hog.” Getting your foot in the door, one would have felt right at home amongst peacock feathers and paisley, old gold, terra-cotta, olive drab or khaki, red and yellow embellishments, and threads of Japanese gold that accent the times. The walls, pasted with warm patterned hues of purple and sage, rose sixteen feet at the foot of an open staircase, oak floors—bordered in cherry with a Greek-key pattern—reflected the colorful rays that poured through the stained-glass transom on sunny days. In the sitting room, old photographs of bygone folks hung straight on their nails—wet colloidal plates of shadowed figures with shifty eyes unable to stay focused for the twenty-second exposure on some distant, and desolate prairie. The shelves were full of collectables, vases, and figurines, and the fireplace mantle was lined with 1915’s bestsellers, such as:

The Valley of Fear

The Good Soldier

Of Human Bondage

The sun rose upon a tranquil world and beamed down upon the peaceful village like a benediction—and so on, was by now long modernized, deconstructed, and destructed, for a new nihilistic approach, as we approached that looming war curdling on the horizon: “fill your pockets by any means necessary,” said my father as he shook his head at riffraff scuffing by in worn-out shoes. About the matching dining room set—heavy, carved, and overstuffed—fresh flowers gave off a lovely fragrance before large floor-to-ceiling windows that allow in a cool breeze. Above, crystal chandeliers sparkle, and a Tiffany lamp stands in one corner of the study, a mahogany grandfather clock in the other, hands chasing the ever-fleeting moment.

Gracing the kitchen with beautiful the waves of chestnut hair—worn in a prominent side-part, fringe nearly touching the brow, lobes exposed—my mother with flesh is warm ivory.

My mother, a contemporary woman: Dazzling. Easy on the eyes. Foxy, one might say. Flared skirt creeping up the calf progressively further each year.

Dutifully, she beat orange juice into a bowl of eggs with a fork and sawed carefully through a loaf of bread, mindful not to slice open her finger, before dropping two slices of life into an electric toaster:

1200 watts

Bacon fat sizzled, the scent absorbing into the golden threads of morning. The clock on the Hot Point Automatic Range reading:

7:28 am

“Better get a move on, dear,” she said, as I pull out my chair.

“‘500 Mexican Nationals Returned During Rounded Up!’” read my father from the front page. “Well, that’s some good news for a change! ‘Dog Killings Baffle Police!’”

My father: A sandy-skinned man, slender, clean-cut man, with dark-brown hair slicked back to the left, blue serge suit, with thin legs allowing him to easily cross one over the other.

“The world, I tell ya,” scorning, reviling as he did, deriding through a pair of round wire-rim glasses. “‘Federal Reserve Act signed into law by President Wilson,’ just who the hell does he think he is? He’s going to get an egg to the face!”

“You’re working against the clock, dear,” said my mother.

“I hate school,” I say, pouting, cheek full of bacon. “Why do we have to go to school, anyhow?”

“The way it’s always been, dear,” she said.

“I wouldn’t go so far as to say that, dear,” said my father.

A little toe-head, there I sat.

Oscar Clyde Olsen: Age twelve. A little gentleman wrapped in robin’s-egg blue, knee-high socks, knickers, wheat skin, rosy cheeks, hazel eyes, with a cheek full of soggy, undercooked bacon before a sorry excuse of a carbon-rimmed egg.

“Anyhow, you love to read!” she said, slicing a banana right down the middle.

“No one likes me at school,” I reminded her.

It’s true. I’d cried when Jimmy slugged me in the eye.

Jimmy: Fourteen, living on a fixed income of violence.

And I’d cried in front of the whole damn’d lot, and everyone laughed and threw apples at me. Even called me a bookworm—which I suppose is no surprise to anyone.

And Andy— “Handsy-Andy,” he tripped me. And hell, if I didn’t fall flat on my face right in front of Susan of all people.

Oh, Sweet Susie—I couldn’t bear the thought of his grimy hands all over her.

And during that late spring snow, Tim-Tim the Cop’s Kid stole my jacket, and I came down with a fever. But hell, I didn’t mind. I got to stay home from school, sipping on chicken soup all day. My father even brought me a sherbet in bed. “Ice cream never asks questions,” he said, “ice cream understands!”

“Well, make some friends, dear,” said my mother.

“Boy, will he be a hard act to follow. Nincompoop’s going off the deep end this time. Hell, we’re already hanging in a balancing act.” Unable to come to terms with the day’s news as always, his pant legs bristled as they always did, tingling with the electricity of irritation, “It’s just not on, I tell ya! A damn central bank will serve only a handful of financiers at the expense of small banks. The fool’s going to wreck the economy with inflation. Boy, if I could give him an earful, he’s throwing the baby out with the bathwater, I tell ya!”

“What’s inflation?” I asked.

“Who’s going select the board after all, himself? Hell, we’re handing it all over to the feds. They’re going to run us right into the ground. It’s a goddamn kakistocracy!”

“What’s a kakisory?” I asked, unable to wrap my tongue around the tongue twister of a word.

One of my father’s favorite hobbies was throwing his vocabulary around small-town folks who were unable to wrap their minds about his ivy-choked education. See, my father studied at Knox College, along with the likes of John Buford, Edgar Lee Masters, and Eugene Field, the “Poet of Childhood.”

Bullfrogs and bellyaches if you asked me.

“A government run by idiots and dimwits is what it is. Damn thieves!”

I cocked my neck to the left and watched his flamboyant gestures like a curious little dog growing too big for my britches right there in the chair next to him.

I dare say there was something about his hands, manicured, graceful, even woman-like. On the other hand, my mother’s hands were scarred and blistered from her ongoing experimentation with housewifery.

“No better than crooks,” he said. “Out for blood, I tell ya. Hell, the mob is more organized than Uncle Sam and no less honest!!” Paper crinkling—exclamations—another rhetorical question, “Did you know bank robbers stole an equal amount the government took last year in taxes—to the dollar?” —Expletive— “Incompetent idiots can’t even pave the goddamn roads with all that Goddamn cash!!”

Sliding an orange omelet from a heavily smoking pan to his plate, “Quit your cursing, Mr. Olsen,” said my mother, fiddling sticks of her own. “Such is life. Besides, you should cheer up— you got yourself a brand-new car, mister!”

“Easy for you to say,” he said, dropping the paper to examine the blackened under-skirt of the beat-up jalopy it had come to be.

“Oscar, why don’t you go play ball with the boys after school?” she asked me.

I thought to remind her.

“You’ve been lying around with your nose in Grandpa’s books all week. You must stay fit as a fiddle— typhoid is going around.”

(Typhoid was always going around.)

Sawing down the middle of his rubber omelet, “You know, honey, we can afford to hire help— we do have maid’s quarters after all, why not put it to good use?”

(Butler’s quarters too.)

“They hate me,” I said—again—poking my egg—again—the poor victim it was.

“Why not join the scouts,” she said, as I scrunched my nose. “I hear they—”

“Reading is good for the boy,” my father interrupted. “You don’t want to be a nincompoop, do ya, son?”

“No, sir,” I said.

“And besides, you certainly are one to talk, Mrs. Olsen. You have your own snout in a book every time I turn the corner,” reaching for the maple syrup, and looking down at me, “I’ll tell ya what, when I get home from work, we can toss a few,” but leaned in with a whisper, “get a’ sherbet!”

Hands pressed to her hips, “That’s right, you could use some fresh air yourself, Mr. Olsen!”

“Nonsense, feeling finer than frog hair!” he said, “Right as rain,” sweetening his fatty

bacon with glistening syrup.

Scraping char from the skillet before dropping the whole crime scene into the trash bin,

“Lord knows you spend too much time in that dusty vault, anyhow.”

“Laughingstock, he’s off his trolley, I tell ya!” he shouted, losing his lid. And then with long look at the smoking trash, “Honey, you’re going to burn down the damn house! Then, hell, we’ll be living over there on the other side of the tracks with all the riffraff!”

Meanwhile, in the public square, on the curb before Frank Write & Brothers Newsdealer, a newsboy in a newsboy cap waiting for the town to buzz to life carried the day’s headline on the tip of his tongue:

FORD’S PROMISE OF TOMORROW—

One-millionth Tin Lizzy rolls off assembly line!

The public square: furrowed buildings of limestone block, red-brick, and candy-striped awnings—all-American storefronts at the heart of an all-American town. At the crest of each façade—etched in granite—the character each structure is intended to portray, such as:

H. H. Orendorff Randolph

Churchill

Emmerson

And above all, upon a rusty water tower in the distance, in bold white letters:

CANTONVILLE

Cantonville: In 1825, settler Isaac Swan, believing his new town to be the antipode to Cantonville, China, named it rightly so.

The oval oasis of maple and poplar trees sitting snug in the arms of the town square, Jones Park, where a brick pathway runs down its center, circling about a liberty pole for an octagonal bandstand. Each morning, strolling, hobbling, trotting, and riding, early rising folks make their ways to sit crossed-legged on a few benches, deep in shallow conversation, drawing a fine line between one thing and another in the twilight of their lives. And if one was to spin around on their heels and look directly south from the bandstand, they’d have spotted that newsboy in the newsboy cap, waiting for the town to buzz to life.

AHOOGA!

Strays flee with their tail between their legs as the most popular horseless carriage in America, the Ford Model T, puttered around they square. Heading east down Elm, just past Holly’s flower shop, was the beerhouse, where a man in a top hat advertised:

Budweiser is a friend of mine!

And a lone drunkard washed his face in a water trough out front. And taking a left, rumblin’ and bobblin’ on over the brickwork, East Side Square and:

Kimball’s Hardware

Schatzki & Sklark Clothiers

Mrs. Willard Milleny’s Dress Shop

And finally:

The Opera House

Having not seen a Broadway show come through in some years, a poster in the window displayed:

The World’s Greatest Photo Player, CHARLIE CHAPLIN, 6¢.

Another left on Chestnut, the Tin Lizzy headed west, passing Anderson the Grocer sweeping the sidewalk before his elaborate window display as a streetcar jangles south down Main, for:

Mason’s

Gamble’s

Durham Tobacco

The Bean Dean Company

And just across Elm, coming to a brief stop before the pillar of the community:

The First National Bank

The corner building stood stern and proud, its face aiming directly for the park from a forty-five-degree angle—sure to keep the business district in its periphery. The ledges of its second-story windows, grumpy brows, shading downward-peering eyes—scowling down its nose upon the humble townsfolk.

The bank: Always on guard, protecting its paper heart behind 10-gauge steel.

That morning, my father’s brand-new 1915 Paige Fleetwood zoomed up Elm and came skidding to a stop out front of the bank. The car, a luxurious and roomy five-seater, with four-door touring body in Richelieu-blue, straw-colored wheels, and nickel trimmings—a sight to be seen. Mr. Olsen—my father—stepped out in a bowler hat and shut the door with velvet gloves, so to speak, just as the bank’s guard—armed with a .45-caliber revolver on his side—strolled up with a holler, “Woo-wee,” and a long but quick country drawl, “was wonderin’ how ya dern near beat me this mornin’, Mr. Olsen!”

“Good morning, Edward,” said Mr. Olsen, keys jangling. “Yes, the Fleetwood is second to none. Had her brought down from Chicago this weekend.”

Edward: Tall and lanky with bushy sideburns, rolling on his heels, hands in his pockets, elbows locked, field-tanned, dusty old top hat inherited from his pop—adding a good foot of fortune to his 6-foot-6—clicked his check, and clicked his heels.

“Welp,” said Edward.

“Welp,” said Mr. Olsen.

Inside, they tossed their hats, and Mr. Olsen locked the door behind them before readying the drawers, before the steady stream of check cashers—steady trickling come Friday when it’s all pissed away at the beerhouse, anyhow—arrive. So, Mr. Olsen made his way to the vault and spun the dial. Above, electric chandeliers buzzed—the dull yellow hue slow to chase away any lingering ghosts—as Edward took his station by the door. “How’s Bess?” asked Mr. Olsen. “Oh, ankle’s doin’ fine,” said Edward, hopping out of position to open the heavy drapes, allowing brilliant blue light to flood in, as Mr. Olsen pulls open the vault door and walks in. Edward continued in a half-shout, raising his wobbly chin to note, “Up and walkin’ again!”

Now, there was no doubting amongst the 10,000 residents of Cantonville, if Edward ain’t a people person, he ain’t nothin’. Still, city life suited Edward about as awkward as his trousers hung on his hips, starched, high tide to the ankle. And Edward was a good guard. Assuming so, to say the least, seeing his job chiefly amounted to that of doorman—fingers crossed, and they were. You see, not long after moving to town, Edward got his footing in as a clerk at Anderson’s Grocer and was quick to show off his mathin’ skills: adding and subtracting on his fingers. Everyone knew Edward was a farm boy at heart and hearth. Specializing in muck, dirt, and animal detritus, but it was Edward mastery of cornfield math—a particular gift inherited from his pop, or so he claims, that got him in the door of society. But when that “dern number clunker,” as he called it, shows up on the counter of Anderson’s one day, its keys confound his knuckle joints in no time, not to speak of his thinker. And as his ticker sped up, his mouth dried, and bittered with the metallic taste of panic, and his finger-counting days were numbered. So, it came time for the greenhorn-slicker to move along and find employment elsewhere, and what better place than the house of numbers, his wife Bess told him— the First National Bank.

Edward counted nine times out of ten—rushing off his dern feet—he dern near beat Mr. Olsen to the door each morning, desiring to show incitive I suppose. But seeing my father was one competitive S.O.B., today, by God, they Fleetwood left Edward no choice but to determine it was a country drawl, however, refusing to clutch his tenth finger into his fist—rather curling into a stubborn hook.

So sure, Edward was popular enough adding and subtracting each customer as they came and went, remembering each patron, counting the letters in their names, and greeting them so, by number rather than name, and so on.

“It’s too bad Bess was rushed off her feet like that. Goddamn potholes,” said Mr. Olsen, exiting the vault and shutting it but leaving the door unlocked. “Hell, I’m considering paving the roads with my own damn money.”

“Do that, and heck, Bess might even have ya over for meat loaf,” said Edward, rocking anxiously on his feet, fingers counting as they did.

“Lord knows I could use a good meal—Roxy burnt my omelet again. I offered to hire help, but hell, I’m starting to think she’s trying to tell me something, Edward.”

“Women, mysterious creatures, they sure is!”

“How’s Friday?” asked Mr. Olsen.

“Sir...?” Asked Edward.

“Meat loaf—” said Mr. Olsen, making his way to unlock the front door.

“I’ll have her gets right to it, sir,” said Edward as a young brunette, cradling a Fontana Milano handbag entered.

“You don’t have to do that, Edward. I’m just joshing ya—good morning, Rose—but the damn mayor has dug into my pockets deep enough, I tell ya!”

“Mornin’ number four,” said Edward as Rose rolled her eyes with a harmless grin.

“You have an appointment with the mayor at nine,” said Rose.

“Hell, Rose, it’s 8:58,” said Mr. Olsen, looking at his father’s pocket watch. “And here I thought you were on my good books!”

“Mr. President!” A full baritone boomed from behind, and as Mr. Olsen spun around on his heels, he feigned surprise for the mayor.

The mayor: short, squatty man. Red in the face, suit well beyond his means, larger-than-life mustache, bulbous nose, combover atop a round pair of shoulders.

The two shake hands vigorously, and they mayor’s knuckles sink well into the pulp of his hand. “Mayor, nice to see you. How’s Mabel?”

“Oh, finer than frog hair,” said the mayor, asking, “And how’s that darlin’ a’ mine?”

“Burnt my omelet again.”

“Bodacious! Break open that checkbook, Mr. President, and hire some help already, ya damn flummadiddle!! Hell, I wouldn’t let Mabel within ten feet of a stove—”

“Did you get a chance to read the Register this morning?” asked Mr. Olsen. “I did, I did—over strong coffee, I might add!”

One hell of a long hour later, exiting Mr. Olsen’s office, beads of sweat collected on the mayor’s brow, dabbing at them with a silk handkerchief monogrammed with his initials:

For Frank Underwood.

Mr. Olsen gives Rose the look.

Let us get this out there: The mayor won his seat through an extensive network of friends and family who helped him commit voter fraud; acquired his wealth through ill-gotten gains; had a gambling and alcohol addiction; married Betty Snyder in 1898 (with whom he has three children, two boys suffering inherited obesity, and a daughter none too much the looker—and hell, he’s tryin’ to auction her off at lodge meetings to men three or four times her age); is a member of the Knights of Columbus; has a divine hatred for Truman, and is madly in love with a Mrs. Roxy Olsen.

If only both men had something that the other wants.

“Hogwash! The icicle’s gonna get an egg to the face,” said the mayor in a hog tail.

“Told Roxy the same this morning,” said Mr. Olsen.

“Hell, if I had my druthers, I’d give that scoundrel a piece of my mind. Anyhow, say hello to Roxy for me—” The mayor, pausing to rub his chin. “Your know, my wife could sure use a zing to her name like—” and in an off-Scottish accent and a Spanish roll of the tongue, the mayor called out, “Rox-see!”

“Coffee a bit strong this morning?” asked Mr. Olsen, as the mayor leaned in close. “Brandy!”

“Thought my office smelled mighty sweet—mighty early, Mayor, mighty early.”

“Care to swap jobs for a day?” asked they mayor.

“Sure thing, you’ve gotta meeting in five with the board of directors, and all of their interests will be in attendance,” said Mr. Olsen.

“In that case, I think I’ll get back to my brandy.”

“Wise decision, Mayor.”

“I’ll bring a bottle of scotch by for ya, single malt, won it in a hand of poker off that scoundrel Randolph, I tell ya, anyhow, I’ll drop in on my old darling—”

“I'm sure she’d love to see Mabel—we can make a dinner of it,” said Mr. Olsen.

“Sounds like an evening.”

“Sure does! Okay then, mayor, take care now, and watch that loose brick,”

And the mayor stepped out onto the sidewalk in full baritone, caroling on, “You’re the flower of my heart, sweet Rox-see!” He paused to fire up a finely rolled Gordo just as an old Jeffery Rambler rumbled up, and he seemed startled. He hurried off, head in a cloud of smoke, straight for the loose brick, singing in a muffled tone, “I trust that I will find your love still mine, sweet—OUCH—Son of a bitch,’” limping away, “Mabel, what kind a’ name is Mabel anyhow?” He asked, taking a wide-eyed look back at the jalopy.

Mr. Olsen turned to Edward, “Don’t know who he's calling an arfarfan’ arf’? Sure, Wilson likes his brandy—but, hell, so do I, doesn’t mean I’m snookered by 10 am. What a position the man has carved out for himself.”

Edward standing stiff with his revolver on his hip, asked, “The board comin’ in today?” with wide, bulging eyes, chin tucked back into his neck like a bullfrog choking down a fly.

“No, no, I just couldn’t take any more of his nonsense. For goodness sakes, man thinks I’m his personal checkbook—at his beck and call. And hell, he wants to deputize the townspeople instead of adding more officers to the payroll, yet he’s raising taxes. For what? Surely not the roads! I tell ya, he’s got all the markings of a man with an agenda—the nerve to ask me to pay for two dozen Krag carbine rifles. Trying to twist my arm until it breaks, I tell ya—man spends money like water!”

“So what ya tell him, Mr. Olsen?”

“Oh, we went ‘rounds. But in the end, I told him no thanks—that’s why we have

Edward.”

Edward takes a hard-swaller of the Adam’s apple and shifts nervously.

“Hell, I didn't tell him that, Edward—I’m joshin’ ya,” with a slap to Edward’s shoulder. “But as it turns out, Illinois did account for 40% of the nation’s bank robberies last year.”

Edward eyeballed a buzzing fly, fingers twitching behind his back.

“Mayor suggests, to be on the safe side, I initiate a $6 premium to cover any losses. It’s a bit over the top, I do believe. And I’m mighty certain he’s got his eye on that premium anyhow.

Man makes a killing off me, I tell ya what.”

Mr. Olsen rubbed his dog-tired eyes just as a man named R. C. Saunders, with narrow, beady eyes, focused firmly on the teller, strolls in unnoticed.

Rose: at just 22 years old, she is the first female bank teller in the state of Illinois. Just two months on the job, when the man in the Kroger cap arrived at her window. She greets him with a warm smile, “Good afternoon, sir,” as a gentleman places a carpetbag on the counter.

Two weeks prior.

Joliet, Penitentiary.

A barking tree squirrel flutters its tail

A gate opens with a screech—iron-on-iron.

A startled starling abandons its perch to see which way the wind is blowin’.

And R. C. Saunders, inmate no. 9320, paroled, steps out upon a stone that reads:

It’s never too late to mend.

A guard in the tower—not one to cut things fine—stuck to his guns. As below, a great-American jackrabbit scurried, dandelions, freed little white puffs of cloud to the breeze; and pink and yellow tulips lined a meandering path in full swing of late July. Behind, claustrophobic sounds of imprisonment went in one ear and come out the other, as a towering wall of limestone block casted its dark shadow onto the ground—swallowing up the innocence of the prairie.

Ahead, opportunity in unknown quantity awaits.

Saunders: Lips pursed, weary lines furrowed across a forehead lathered in sienna skin—a hand-me-down from a Cherokee grandmother—threadbare chore coat swung over the shoulder, Kroger cap slapped on the back of the skull like a cockeyed crown.

As the old crook kept his beady eyes—as tiny as a mustard seed—focused firmly on the horizon, holding the key to this grievous institution, Boss—

Boss: a short, squat man, lock-kneed, rocking on his heels like a boy about to piss himself.

Boss, adjusting his officer’s cap a top his balding head with one hand, baton in the other, a man who has become the law unto himself. With restless, shifting eyes—unable to find a thing of worth to settle upon—ticking nostril, voice lingering deep inside.

Voice: scratching at the inside of the skull, like a rat trapped inside a maze, a father’s resentment simmers, “Ain’t never gonna account for nothin’.”

Boss, accounting for something, glared daggers at his lesser, asking, “Sad you’re leavin’ so soon, Saunders. Took a mighty fine shine to ya, boy!”

And in a gravelly tone, eyes unmoved, Saunders, “Can’t say the same, Boss.”

“Well, we’ll be seein’ ya,” with a hack, spit, and swivel on the ball of the foot—the loggerhead had grown rather stale in eight long years—Boss turned for the doniker.

“Don’t wait supper on me,” said Saunders, stepping forth, letting the man piss already.

Taking the bait: a smack of the baton to the hand and a clench of the bladder, dribbling, “I’ll keep a plate warm in the oven for ya.”

“Wouldn’t hold your breath, Boss.”

Iron-on-iron—the gate screeches shut.

And the startled starling, circled around once more.

It’s early days yet—Whistlin’ Rufus—Saunders feels on top of the world. The country road, rough and dusty, rutted from the spring rains—19.2” so far this year—rolls on endless.

Sunflowers and daisies. A hovering bumblebee keeps him on his toes, as he dug his heels determinedly under the blistering sun. Uncertain of his chosen direction, Saunders carried forth nonetheless—fate mapped out on the palm of his hand. Cloudless sky. A’ breeze a-blowin’ and with a putt-putterin’ swoosh, knowing better than to stop, a toffee-nosed driver glared back at the rough diamond he’d left in the dust.

Paying no mind, Saunders jumped the fence of a humble farm he’d came along and slipped into a cow barn. He considered making himself right at home under a swollen udder until a wayward chicken cluckin’ about made his mouth water. So, he deciding to make a go of it as a chicken thief. But that poultry dish had got one hell of a chip on its shoulder, scratching at his arms, sounding the air raid siren—letting the cat out of the bag, so to speak. And what followed was that all too familiar creak and slap of a screen door. And with a curse, Saunders threw the flustered fowl to the ground to scurry off—leaving old Saunders in a bit of a lurch. And in a sudden gruff bark—one all too familiar to the land—a cold fish of an old man hardwearing for the barn hollered, “Alright, come on out now— know yer in there,” making himself loud and clear with the COCK of a shotgun. Saunders makes like a banana and splits. The blast of the 12-gauge taking the paint off the rail and nearly the hide off his ass—the old crook just barely getting away by the skin of his teeth.

“Fill ‘er up,” said Saunders under his breath.

Surely this cannot be real, questioned Rose. But when a .30-caliber Luger making a presence, adrenaline surged straight for the artery in a long sexy neck Saunders cannot overlook, even in the heat of a bank job.

Oh my, this is real, honest to God, life is real, death is actual, her young mind spiraling out of control.

Rose’s biggest regret in life: saying yes to John Jameson behind the barn when she was sixteen. What a horrible mistake! Being pretty is a double-edged sword, and she knew, “Everyone wants to give you something until they want to take something away,” and she warned her sister Jen, “Sis, to cut things fine, everyone is nice, until they ain't, until you don't give ‘em what they came for, ‘cause then, hell, they’ll just take it anyhow.”

So, upon seeing the shine in the crook’s eye, she’d done figured out just what they man had come for and opted to give him what he wants before he takes it anyhow—the way Frank Dithers did behind the school when she was fourteen. Coolly stuffing the bag with bills, Rose quickly catches the eye of the teller to her right, Henry, caught up in a banking interaction with Ms. Smith.

Ms. Smith: Rose’s eighth-grade schoolteacher.

Ms. Smith rolls a glare of shame down her long roman nose toward Rose’s perky breasts, the very breasts Tim Simmons slurped away on outside her own classroom window.

Tim Simmons: his peach fuzz inflamed young Rose’s skin, causing a rather severe case of contact dermatitis, and Dr. Gustine prescribed Rose a miracle drug he called Cocaine.

Cocaine: can cure anything from moral weakness—to headaches, to, in Rose’s case, inflammation of the skin.

Cocaine sped up Rose's heart and mind and she blushed her cheeks at the crook as he grinned her way, raisin’ that eyebrow in that way he did.

Back in Potsville, Fizzlin’ an’ poppin’, the tangerine sun was caught red-handed, hot in the act of cooling off in an ocean of prairie grass. So, cool, calm, and collected, Saunders veered off the country road for a goat trail—a slight disturbance in the rows of corn where just beyond knee-high tassels, a dark mound loomed in a distant tree line. Approaching curiously, the mass covered in brush turned out to be nothing but a Ford Model T—the car of the century—long lost and forgotten. Old rusty cans—lids sawed off by wandering tramps—heaped about, and Saunders kicked a tire with a dull thud, trying to remove the stubborn Midwestern mud from his boot. Though the top was dry rot, there wasn’t a cloud in the sky, and he figured the Tin Lizzie would make as good a place to hunker down for the night as any. So, he plopped down on the squeaky seat, kicked up his legs, fashioned a pillow out of his chore coat, shaded his eyes with his cap from the setting sun, and let his mind wander:

Henry—an uptight, pale young man with an imperial mustache, self-imposed master of accurately handling and processing routine transactions at the customer’s request—

Hardly containing his disgust for the frayed edges of the man behind the trigger that eyeballed Rose’s breasts with glee, Henry stood firm between two rather serious eyes of his own, peering down his own nose—his collection of finely tuned facial tics madly out of control, when Saunders snaps, “Get on it, Nancy,” getting back to business, cocking the hammer towards

Henry’s twitching brow. Henry smirks, forgets all about Rose, and opens his drawer. And in the same gravelly tone, Saunders turned and shouted, “Hands up!”

Now, nothing sets alarm bells a’ ringin’ like an iron barrel to the ribs—all but these words, “Hands up!” spoken in a bank.

Mr. Olsen jumped in his shoes and turned to stare down the barrel of the man who had arrived to rob his bank, as Edward raised his lanky arms. But with a whack to the head, Edward collapsed to the floor like a dead hound, counting fingers twitching momentarily and, suddenly, still for the first time in as long as anyone could count.

“Hey,” shouted Saunders. “This is a robbery, wake the hell up, everybody,” as Ms. Smith let out a nasal breath and deep creases formed around her mouth. The long black feather protruding from her dark hat—a bird long extinct—quivered back to life in utter disbelief. She puckered and huffed in contempt at the slight disturbance to her morning routine—tea for two was on the tray—but in the end it made little difference once she had a barrel to her head. “Ott, ott, ott,” uttered Saunders as Mr. Olsen attempted to tend to Edward. Removing Edward’s .45 from his holster, he caressed the barrel of the ten-shot on Mr. Olsen’s label, saying, “Judgin’ by the suit, boss, I’d say you the president of this here bank. Now, wouldn’t ya be a gentleman and escort me to the safe, how ‘bout it?” just as Gale Tout, the manager of the lumberyard, entered with $95 cash to be deposited.

Now, it took Gale Tout a twinkling or two to notice the drawn pistol pointed directly at his face, but in due time the old-timer rose his hands over his head, cash still in one of them, fluttering about like a squirrel tail.

“Mornin’,” Saunders greets him. “Now, as you can see, this here is a robbery,” as Tout observed Edward snoring on the floor, as Mr. Smith glared up at the crook with hate from the floor, as Saunders shook off her glare, flinching at they thought of swatting rulers on his bosom.

before turning back to Mr. Olsen, saying, “Now, go on, boss, let’s go an’ give that dial a good spin,” and turning back to Ms. Smith, “don’t move an inch, lady, or I’ll take that fine hat right off your head.” What the hell is goin’ on, he wonders, with a shake of his noggin. Small towns—hate ‘em. “For heaven’s sake, can we just open they goddamn vault, already,” the slicker running his barrel across the brim of his own Kroger cap, beady eyes ticking.

“I don’t know who you think you are, mister,” askes Mr. Olsen, breaking his silence.

“Ain’t nothin’ but a good for nothin’ crook!” Maybe it had been eight long years since Saunder’s old lady last spoke those words, but they never left his mind for any good stretch of time. “What about the kids? Ain’t you ever think of the kids?” Sure, she liked to give her old man hell for everything, from drinking too much, to not taking out the trash. And the way she saw things, it was right by her, offering up a piece of her mind, just as her ma had given her pa—though Ma had put an eight-inch railroad spike in Pa’s eye socket one night after a gallon of Moon Beam. But Pa was tough as nails and stuffed it with a wad of cotton and went to work the next day.

And one day a knock on the door, sent Saunders into a panic, grabbing the wads of cash his old lady found hidden under the mattress—money she hollered over. Greenbacks she’d already spent on that silver bracelet sitting behind glass down at Berringer’s Department Store—figuring there’d be plenty left over for a new pair of silk shoes, a dress—hell, maybe even a new ribbon. And when they cops get fed up with knocking, and kick in the door, the kids cry. And Johnny Law takes their pa away. And that silver bracelet? Well, it remains behind glass as old Saunders spends an eight-year stint behind bars up at Joliet Penn.

A grievous institution: Where it’s never too late to mend!

Hell, if I hadn’t been hounded by bad luck, he wondered, I’d made sergeant by God, he believes. After all, it wasn’t my fault that bastard corporal stepped on my toe. An’ the lieutenant, well, hell, he didn’t have to cut my buttons off after all. He deserved that knuckle sandwich, if ya ask me. But I ‘spose I didn’t have to bash his head into the door frame like I did. But hell, what was I to do? Couldn’t see any other way about it, holdin’ up them trains—why can’t she see I was jus’ lookin’ out for the kids?

Hell, I’ll show her. Lay some pavers. Save up some brass and open my own store—running his fingers proudly across his name painted high on a sign above the bustling street:

Saunders Mercantile

Back at the First National, “Don’t you worry who I am, but hell, mind my manners,” said Saunders, “seems I’ve forgot proper introductions in all the excitement.” Smooshing the barrel of his 10-shot into Mr. Olsen’s cheek. “This here is Godspell. Now, Godspell, he gets a little riled up from time to time, but ya know what keeps him calm? Poetry, of all things, can you believe it? Now, I can try an’ calm ‘im before he gets flustered, but I might add one tiny detail about our schedule—if we ain’t out of here in two minutes flat, ol’ Godspell here, well he might-gonna lose his patience. And hell, he might just go on an’ sing a gospel real loud, bringin’ all y’all closer to God.”

Ms. Smith grabbed her cross.

The barrel swiveled on in Mr. Olsen’s cheek.

Mr. Olsen doesn’t budge an inch.

Ms. Smith, nonetheless, decided she was rather unimpressed by the path this young man had chosen in life. If only she had her trusty ruler, she’d set him on the straight and narrow by God as her witness.

Saunders went on, “He does not wear the epaul—” but stops to clear his throat. “He does not wear the epaul—”

“Oh, for heaven’s sake,” scoffed Ms. Smith, “Epaulettes! He does not wear the epaulettes!” she shouted, dropping her forehead to the cold marble floor.

Saunders continued, “...the epaulettes / nor the corporal’s coat of grey / Yet sickly grey is on the flesh of this monster man of prey / Who, like some misshaped Martian toad / unfurled the flag of fray / He sits upon the latest throne—imperially commands / our fighting lads to maim and kill the brave of other lands / His fat heart knows one craven wish—the greed of misterhands.”

Saunders and Mr. Olsen lock eyes, failing to see eye-to-eye.

“It’s in your hands, boss.” Grabbing the watch out of Mr. Olsen’s vest, Saunders yanked on its golden chain with a snap and a click of his cheek. “Now, give up the ghost!” The lights buzzed and Mr. Olsen glared back at they good for nothin’ crook in silence, took a deep audible breath, grasped the handle of the 24-bolt diebolt door, and opened the unlocked vault. “Golly,” said Saunders, shaking his head in astonishment, “ya didn’t take me as the type, Mr. President—now get on in there and fill it to the brim!” And Mr. Olsen clenched his teeth and snatched the carpetbag from the crook’s hand. “Now, I know what you’re thinkin’. I'm just some lowlife, good for nothin’ crook.”

“Matter of fact I was,” said Mr. Olsen as he places each bundle of cash into the bag.

“But ya know, the only difference between you and me is you ain’t honest! In fact, you’re a victim of your own success, stealin’ from the common man. You can’t even see it when ya look in the mirror in the mornin’, C-R-O-O-K, written right across your forehead!” He runs the barrel of the ten-shot across his own brow. “There’s honor in a man knowin’ what color his blood runs. Hell, if it ain’t a downright virtue! See, boss, my blood runs green—green as aMartian toad.” Casting an eye over at Rose—trembling in her ankle boots—Saunders lost his train of thought. “Come to think of it,” he said, “ya get that sweet little thing out of this predicament alive—well, hell, truth is, ladies tend to get a little looser after the excitement of a bank job, if ya know what I mean.” He stops to think, scratching his temple with the barrel. “More profli—”

“Profligate,” said Mr. Olsen, shutting his eyes and dropping his head in nausea.

“Don’t be getting’ all squeamish on me now, boss. Come on out of there!” And Mr. Olsen lugged the stuffed carpetbag overflowing with cash out of the vault. “Now, be a darlin’ wouln’t ya, and carry it to the door for me, would ya?” Saunders stuffed his shirt with leftover banknotes from Henry’s feet, who stood pigeon-toed, tweaking his left eyebrow as he turns his head away in repulsion. Gale Tout handed forth his $95 cash from his position face-down on the floor. But, preoccupied with Rose’s S-shape silhouette, Saunders’s menacing eyes softened. And with an ornery grin, he said, “Aw hell, let the poor devil keep his money—it ain’t insured.” And, with a whisper, he lied into Rose, “What’s your name, darlin’?”

“Yeah, well mine ain’t either,” said Mr. Olsen setting they money by they door.

“Rose,” she said, lip quivering.

“The queen of all the flowers / And loathsome canker lives in the sweetest bud—” Saunders quotes.

“I thought you and Godspell had somewhere to be?” said Mr. Olsen, interrupting.

Rose dropped her eyes and lowered her eyes.

“Alright, move it,” said Saunders, “all but you sweetheart,” leading Mr. Olsen, Henry, Gale Tout, Ms. Smith, and his $95 cash for the vault. He gave the dial a good spin, gave Rose a smooch on the lips, Stepped over Edward, and dashed out the door, joining his cousin Hank waiting in the old dusty Rambler outfront.

Hank: a greasy-haired man in overalls.

Hank ground the gears, and they fled as fast as a one cylinder might, as the newsboy looked on in wonderment—the headline having arrived right at his curb.

Putterin’ east down Elm, Hank maked a sharp right and jumps the curb on Fourth, passing:

P&O Plow Factory

Topping out at 14 mph flat, the Rambler was outpaced by a pack of yelping strays racing south for the railyard in the low part of town.

On back yonder days, early rising, Saunders lumbered to his feet into the damp grass. Birds singing. Eyeballs afloat, he was Whistlin’ Dixie, wetting the lettuce and his Vici Kid Welts. “Son of a bitch,” he cursed, checking the tires to get any piss off he might. Hungry as a horse, he circled about the empty cans. Empty belly grumbling, throwing up his hands in disbelief. “Hell, some hobo is eatin’ better than me,” he scowls, looking about for a stone to throw—seeing he’s got a hankering for quail—blowing a raspberry, huffing, and hollering in a hornpout. But hearing a sharp snap, he ducked behind the Lizzy, unable to shake the knife’s edge—knowing liberty was ever fleeting for a man like him.

A man like him: Uncle Sam, having had the good belief good criminals made even better soldiers, ordered Saunders to rank and file—behest time served. But old Saunders had one hell of a temper on him, a devil inherited from his pa. A devil Pa switched into him every night and back out of him every morning until Saunders’s rage took on a persona of its own. Called itself Godspell. And once in uniform, Saunders took old Godspell along on the train for Fort Sheridan, all tucked up tight in a carpetbag slung over his shoulder. And, of course, it wasn’t long before Saunders got caught stealing twenty pounds of beef shank from the slop, and Godspell cracked the lieutenant’s skull on the doorframe. Saunders found himself in court once more, only this time, before a federal magistrate. After a good stint in the brig, Levinworth spat him right back out on the sidewalk like the soggy sunflower seed. And a man like him, well, he resorted to holding up not one but two Southern Illinois trains, with the help of his cousin Hank—getting himself all tangled with the law once again. And after eight long years in Joliet, the old crook found his tongue stuck to the roof of his mouth.

Wandering about, parched, Saunders found only a ditch as dry as a bone. “Son of a gun biscuit eater!” he shouts and resorts to searching the old Ford for a loose cigarette, finding only a red scrap of paper under the seat that read:

$1,000 will be paid for the capture or taking of any robber, Dead or Alive!

He plopped down on they cracked leather. Gave the steering wheel a good shake and surrendering in a miserable slouch. But out the corner of the eye, something peculiar on that poster asked for another look-see. He snagged it, and a grin spread from ear to ear. Seeing green, “Well, I’ll be doggone, the lord is my shepherd, I shall not want!” He proclaimed. Seeing against all odds, on the back of that poster, was a sketch of a small town, its business district, two “gets” and the “ins and outs” of a bank, so to speak.

The number of guards on duty:

One The possible sum to be stolen:

$85,000 cash

“One heck of a money-spinner,” if he did say so himself.

And then he took a closer look.

Contact FU

Now, “a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush,” but old Saunders had himself a case of itchy palm. So, the seasoned crook did what any bird of his feather might. He got his act together. Straightened his spine. Tucked in his round collared shirt. Lifted his suspenders back where the belonged. Threw his chore coat over his shoulder. Situated his cap like a cockeyed crown and put himself back on the map. And with a skip in his step, Saunders was back in action—the rusty old crook oiling his joints—Whistlin’ Rufus—strolling down the country lane in high form, eyes on the horizon, making his way for greener pastures, well-heeled and oiled, the foregone conclusion on his mind, divine intervention—a bet worth chancin’ the arm, and the initials:

But truth be told, old Saunders needed not touch the old scout map with a twenty-foot barge pole, seeing he needed that one-way ticket about as much as a hole in the head. The bottom line: When you’re on this path, you’ve hit rock bottom and ought soon enough to see the shape of things to come.

Fact is, when you’re left holding the baby, it’s only a matter of time: Misery guts.

The lacquer barely dry on the Japan Black Patrol Car—souped-up to 20-horsepower—Chef Roy sped east past the pointing, jaw dropped newsboy, in quick pursuit.

At the wheel: Chomping at the bit, a greying Chief Roy— waiting all his days to see action like this—thin-lipped, brow crinkled with rage, not in my town, stomping the pedal to the metal, engine roaring to forty-two, flat.

Passenger: Officer O’Brian, a sturdy man, tough as game and gristle, first-generation redhead, who spun the cylinder of his sixshooter like an all-American.

The officers spotted the getaway car at the corner of Oak and Fourth, running parallel to the railyard. So, Chief Roy cranked the wheel and flew around the corner, catching the 8-horsepower Jeffery in a snap. And with escape suddenly narrowed, Saunders took a defensive position, shooting from the back of the Rambler and—bills trickling from his collar—a gun battle ensued. The strays fled. Roy, speeding up alongside the getaway car, nudged O’Brian to lean out the window and fire across the hood. And as he did, he shot out the front tire of the Jeffery, sending it Hank swerving to the right, nearly crashing into a tree before overcorrecting to the left, jumping the tracks, and jarring the Rambler’s rim into a scissor crossover. The axel snapped, and the crooks came to a mighty rough halt atop the sleepers—steam rising from the engine. Chief Roy stomped on the brakes, leaving twenty-foot skid marks through the intersection of 4th and Cherry Lane. Then, both officers both jumped out and proceeded to fire—POP! POP! POP! Out of ammo, Saunders took cover on the floorboard, as Hank pulled a Winchester lever-action from behind his seat, firing nine shots in return—Crack, crack, crack, crack, crack, crack, crack, crack, crack—punching two holes in Chief Roy’s chest, rage-filled face descending into agony as he slid down the side of the patrol car, blood pooling up around him. And a final crack threw lead right into O’Brian’s gut, and he collapses to his knees with a gasp as he too began to bleed out into the palm of his hand. With head bobbing, vision fading, something inside O’Brian suddenly gathered as he clenched his eyes tight. He nurtured that lump of hot lead in his guts like a man at the dawn of time, nursing the light, nursing will, staying off the darkness with a spring of his eyelids. He raised his sidearm, peered down the quivering iron, and with the tiniest of possible breaths, steadied, and summoned the last of his gathered strength, and squeezed the trigger with a single POP. And the round flashed out of the barrel, peeling back with mad velocity as it screamed through the air and whacked into Hank’s chest, landing him squarely on his back with a thud—blood projecting from his mouth and splattering on the brick.

Saunders rolled out of the car—cash fluttering—loot in hand, and fled on foot, unscathed, scurrying between two ramshackle houses on Cherry Lane. As he ran around back, he ran squarely into a long barrel pointed directly at his face, a Winchester Model 1915, wood stock, blue chromed.

“Oh, thank god, you scared they day lights out of me,” said Saunders. “What the hell? Your late!”

“And you were early,” said they man yielding the rifle.

With a deafening BANG that rang out in they already startled neighborhood a sudden look of surprise arrived in Saunders’s eyes. They widened and then crossed as he fell to his knees. And with a plop face down in the grass, smoke curled out from the long, chromed barrel of the Winchester. The man picked up the carpet bag, grabbed a shiny watch from Saunders pocket, and as blood spurts out in pulses from the hole in the back of his head, they man walked away.

Having called the game, the neighborhood boys inspected two patrol cars parked outside my house as I walked past them like a ghost. Inside, I found my father hunched over in a kitchen chair. My mother stood behind him, rubbing his shoulders. In one hand, the glass of bourbon he was trying to get to the bottom of. In the other hand, the head he was trying to get a grip of. A far cry from the height he’d been at breakfast—a sight for sore eyes, to say the least, deeply etching to my young mind. “Dear,” said my mother, walking toward me as I stood with my head cocked in confusion. She pulled me by the arm to the sitting room, explained nothing other than that they bank had been robbed and to wait there or go up to my room, before she returned to the kitchen. I choose to stay as she poured coffee for the officers, and I listened from around the corner, a fly on the wall—ears abuzz.

“And Edward?” said my father to an officer named Taylor, seated just across the table—young and handsome.

“Oh, he’s fine, just a bump on the old noggin’, nothin’ a serving of Bess’s old meat loaf ain’t gonna fix right up.”

“And Chief Roy?” asked my father.

“Roy took two slugs, but that son of a bitch is tough as nails—death is scared of ’im,” said Officer Taylor, as my mother cleared her throat, grabbing for a saucer from the cabinet with a shaky hand. Taylor squirmed in his chair as he took a quick look at her calves, saying, “Pardon the language, ma’ama” as two other officers talk shop a few feet off, custodian helmets under their arms like pumpkins they’d snagged off a porch. While Sergeant White—

Sergeant White: a short, squirrely man with no chin to speak of, and a wiry mustache.

Silent in the corner, stiff as a broom, his own helmet strapped atop his tiny, round head—as others waited patiently for coffee—White, brewed. A bead of sweat ran down his temple as he impatiently awaited his moment to shine.

“Sugar, cream?” asked my mother.

“Why, thank ya, ma’am,” said Officer Taylor, as she set a steaming cup before him and poured in the swirling cream. “Sure smells good!” he said with a crooked grin and sparkling eyes that shone, lightening up her own, I noticed, turning up the corners of her mouth, erasing the wrinkles that had formed in that past hour or so.

To say the least, the thought of aging was not easy on my mother. But she was certainly the last to realize time had been gracious on her, seeing how woman aged in these parts and all—toughening up like smoked leather. My mother cut quite a dash at thirty-two.

The charming Officer Taylor was dressed to the nines in his pressed uniform. And he made sure to eat a raw egg for breakfast to make sure it fit snug. And he was sure letting his tooth shine across the table for my mother that day.

Anyhow, “Oh, please call me Roxy,” she said, with her own shame-laden smile that continued to spread across her face as she diverted her eyes from his gorgeous grin, chiseled jaw, and so on. Then, she returned faithfully behind her husband, my father, who sat threadlike in the spine, head in his petite hand, bourbon dwindling in the other.

“And O’Brian, was death scared of him as well?” he asked causing Officer Taylor to lose his grin and peer down at his coffee, finally matching the moment in terms. Spying from around the corner, I watch as my father covered his moistening eyes, saying in a cracked voice, “That makes all the difference, now, doesn’t it? Forty years old—” he said, shaking his head in disbelief. “A goddamn travesty!” My stomach turned, and my knees quivered, and I wondered, what about the sherbet? Realizing, so much for the sherbet! “And that riffraff who shot him?” he asked.

Finally, Sergeant White took his cue, cleared his throat, and before our eyes, his small round face brightened. In the spotlight, his eyebrows perked, and in a high tenor, one gnawing at the ears, he said through the wiry threads of his mustache, “Hank Lytle, getaway driver. Cousin of the perp. O’Brian mamaned to get off one last shot, killing Lytle—a real hero, if ya ask me!”

“And the perp—the crook who locked me in the vault?” asked my father; perked up for a minuscule of hope to fill his cup.

Slowly and methodically, pacing back and forth, tapping the tips of his fingers together, eyes to the stage—stage left, stage right, White said, “R. C. Saunders, dishonorable discharge from the Army. Got word on the wire—released from Joliet just two weeks ago. Real highflyer, train robbery charges throughout the state. Why the hell they let an animal like that out of his cage? Hell, if I know. Shoulda’ put him down like the dog he is when they had the chance.”

My father, returned look of dread, asked, “So, the son of a bitch got away scot-free, you’re telling me that good for nothin’ lowlife crook, got away with the money?”

“Affirmative,” said Officer White.

“My god,” said my father, dropping his head onto his fists.

“Now don’t you worry, ma’am,” said Officer Taylor, “his name is out across the wire, and he’s bound to be picked up in no time. No time at all!” as he just begged to grab her by the hand, but she squandered it on my father’s boney shoulder.

“So, they riffraff is still out there...?” said my father, looking around with due paranoia. And with a full-body quiver, tail between my legs, a sudden zap evicted me from my body, throwing me hovering in some ambient state about the ceiling, glancing back down toward life. A wayward fish on some invisible string, observing my father's growing bald spot, and my own frightened puppy dog eyes desperately trying to catch my mother’s attention. Face as white as a ghost, my father slams his fist down on the table, and suddenly I’m sucked just like that back into my own skull like that fish whiplashed into a boat. I clenched my bladder with crossed legs as coffee bled into the white tablecloth, and my mother ran for the dishrag draped over the edge of the sink. “That bastard—stole my father’s pocket watch!” He shouted.

But Officer White again clears his throat, again steps forward, and holds out his hand. And with a spring open of his fingers, a golden shimmer dropped by its chain, with a tick, tick, ticking that stopped my father’s heart.

Water drizzled out of the back of the Bennet Ice wagon as a horse dropped a load on the brickwork out front of the beerhouse as the straw-colored wheels of the Fleetwood came skidding to a stop. The drunkard squatting on his box peered out at the shiny chrome that glistened through squinted eyes in the midday sun.

They drunkard: his mind is quiet; he thinks only of drink.

My father greeted him politely—the first time he had spoken to the likes of his kind. The drunkard Held out his palm for a nickel, but my father scoffed and maked his way down the few steps to the half-subterranean darkness into a smokey rumble, a murmur, a grumble and growl, and bursts of startling laughter. Folding in at the bar between two overalled men—

Short one: to the right.

Tall one: to the left.

Mr. Olsen, my father, leaned one elbow as did them all, attempting to blend in.

And with a hard slap to the shoulder, the tall man, popped my father’s delicate bubble, “Hey, ain’t you the president of the bank?”

Mr. Olsen held out his hand and the squeeze rearranged his bones.

“What the hell ya doin’ here? Shouldn’t ya be at they bistra’ eatin’ oysters, Rockefeller, ‘r sumpin’?”

“A Lady Bal-ta-more,” said the short man, as my father massaged his hand.

And with a far-off rasp that carried through the smoke-choked air, “Who let you out’ the vault?”

“What can I get ya’?” asked they bartender.

They bartender: vest and tie, bar cloth over his arm, bringing a sense of civility back to my father.

The president of the bank ordered a beer and took a deep sigh of relief in the small oasis of civilization extracted from such austere posture, until the tender walked away, and then amongst men whose checks do bounce, to the jangling music of the player piano in the back corner, the tall man said, “Hell, I’d settle for some pigs in a blanket, right ‘bout now!”

“An’ some poor man’s cake,” said the short man with a chuckle and cough and slap to his own swollen gut.

The good ol’ boys laugh.

Call him “Mr. V” for short.

Mr. Vault for long.

Hovering curiously about, askin’ about the robbery, the boys—

The boys: rough about the neck, hands like rope, were irregular about the edges, with sharp tongues that whip, slicing open flesh like a straight razor.

Slurred syllables.

Fumbled over pronunciations.

Possessed an utter lack of enunciation.

They pondered Mr. V aloud and in silence from dark corners.

Mr. V orders a round for the boys, and they cheer.

They boys: lower class, sitting well below the salt—farmers, blacksmiths, plowmakers, and plowers alike,drinking their drink straight up, no chaser. Men, the like, with whom my father had never familiarly socialized.

“Whiskey,” ordered the tall man.

“Make it two,” said the short.

Amongst men who stood mightier than himself, my father knew at the end of the day, they were men only as robust as their checks that do not bounce. And for that reason, he held court that day. Yet, Mr. V was naïve that many of these fellas were, quite indeed, whispering on revenge. And hell, a mighty few were done ready to rough ’im up a little, if not with words, with fists—fists clench in the corner below rumbling, sore lips that quivered. Soggy, swollen, wet with whiskey lips, and trembling with rage through a missin’ tooth. While others flew lose under false flags—seeing the opportunity to sail with the captain, for as far as they could see, befriending the power player was a winning move. And seeing the gentleman shaken on his pedestal—what the hell, why not, they asked themselves in only so many words. The knew downright things happen ‘round this man, they could see it in each other’s eyes— envy, why they hell can’t I be locked in a vault? And mutiny—when my father looked away. They could see it in his eyes when he glared back with due paranoia—fear. But with each swill, concerns dwindle, fists unclench, jaws soften, shadowed gazes lightened, and attention spans turned away as fellas are soon to distracted by rambling means and tangents—meaningless dribbles that collect on the lip of life: Disputes amongst friends and enemies kept closer. Still, as mentioned, those few, believing Mr. Olsen’s company just might accompany certain things—or rather, a lack thereof, such as evictions, bankruptcy, and bounced checks—cozy up to the president, buying Mr. V two fingers at a time—making a full-knuckled fist of it. Nickels they couldn’t afford to lose, let alone piss away. But as far as they could see, it was an investment, they couldn’t afford to pass up on, even they couldn't see but an arm’s length away. So, amongst the drunken chatter, my father—two sheets to the wind— leaned back another and ordered one more round for the boys, and the boys cheered.

“Ain’t gotta twist my arm,” said the short man, shouting over the player piano.

“Do you know—what the last dinner—served on the Titanic—was?” asked my father in a bibulous tone and rhythm, well whitened up with the boys, mimicking their speak. “Roast duckling—with apple sauce!”

With a hiccup and a side grin, they short man asked, “So, ya gonna put yer money where yer mouth is, an’ buy those goddamn carbine rifles or what?”

“Yeah,” said a jaundiced old man with a missing tooth leaning in on the conversation. “Keep dem low-life son’s bitches outta town!”

The short man followed up, spit from his lips, “Dem niggers and spics too!”

“Cheers to that!” said the old man with a gummy salute. “Goddamned darkies—” losing his train of thought, vision dim with drink, down a gulping drain. The door opens, and light pours in, waking my father to his dread, and his eyes widened. He lifted his dropped head in anger, and the room spun in rage, and his ears rang in hate, and he sighed and slammed down his mug, saying, “You’re goddamn right!”

“Hell, my wife can roast a duck!” said the tall man.

The sun set daily on our hamlet as it does them all. Cantonville dying down for the night, the old drunkard hobbling his way down the alley in the darkness, past a veiled face in a shadowed nook—blade shimmering in a sliver of pale moonlight. Well-bent at the elbow, the drunkard, failing to notice his own dice with death, carried on. With a hack, and a spit, he labored on for his honest, yet homely nest of straw and wool blankets snagged from a clothesline. Plopping down, he rubbed his swollen knees and yawned, scratched his beard, passed gas, and laid his weight back into the damp brick wall with a deep sigh, knowing it was another successful day. But a quick YELP widened his tired eyes and sent his weary heart into a short sprint, rising to his throat raw with drink. The yelp labored him back to his swollen feet, and wearily he stumbled back up the alleyway in concern—the night suddenly as silent as the grave once more. But just as he thought to turn back, just a stone’s throw ahead, he spotted in a sliver of moonlight a brown mutt lying on its side. Slow to pant, laborious to catch one more breathing moment on this earth, the drunkard kneeled beside her. She looked up at him with all she had left, and then her sad, teary eyes gleamed one last time as blood oozed from a deep wound in her neck, and after one last pant, the mutt dropped its head to the cool brick and died. The drunkard stroked her behind the ear when abruptly, another faint cry grabbed his attention from behind a nearby trash bin. He expected to find nothing but a rat, but discovered a wee puppy in shivers, and he gently picked it up as it pawed helplessly at the air. Trembling in his palm, the little creature nuzzled up in his nook, as he said, “Well, ain’t you a sight for sore eyes,” as a shadowed figure streaked past his periphery and into the darkness of night.

Lying motionless in bed, I listened as my father double-checked the locks, again, click-click, click-click. And I tensed as he climbed the stairs. I held my breath as he was on the piss and made his way to bed, fingers crossed he’d be snoring in no time. A weight off my mind, I released my breath and let the springs squeak as I bounced to my feet in my one-piece and took a look out the window. Below, I spotted a dark silhouette crossing the lawn, thinking, surely that old raccoon making its way for the trash bin, again. I heard paper crinkle, knowing it was my mother reading a letter, yearning for the social circles she’d left behind in the candlelight:

Dear Roxy,

Seeing how you have become provincial, I simply cannot fathom how you are faring without the proper necessities of life, such as the theater!

She lets out a breath of her own just as a commotion outside startled my father from his slumber. And with a curse, he stood from bed and rummaged through the closet, “Goddamn, son of a—”

“What are you lookin’ for?” asked my mother.

“Something to bash that crook’s head in! That’s what I’m looking for, Roxy!”

“It’s only that silly raccoon again. Honey, you’re drunk—come back to bed!”

“Son of a—good for nothin’—” and he made his way to my room, where I’d jumped back under the covers, lying stiff as a board, afraid to swallow—quilt pulled up to my eyes, as he now dug through my closet.

“Shh, you’re going to wake Oscar,” said my mother from the hall.

“I’ll kill him,” he said, grabbing my bat.

Trampling down the stairs, he unlocked the front door twice, click-click, click-click, and I watch from my window above, as my father stumbled belligerently about the front lawn, shouting angry slurs, venting his spleen, lashing out at ghosts—having it out with his own shadow, as bats scared from the attic, neighbors from their own beds, as one window after they next lit. Curtains flung open. Dogs yelped and howled. And I tiptoed out of my room to spy on my mother, who had retreated to, “Let him be a madman,” she mumbled, “I’ll have nothing of it,” and she again picked up her letter and read:

Dear Roxy, I pity you!

In the candlelight, those words danced about in the madness. A madness that had become those last few weeks. They floor squeaked and she dropped the letter and sat up on the edge of her bed, face dropped in her hands, at her wit’s end, living on raw nerves, asking, “Oh, honey, did he frighten you?”

“No,” I lie, and go back to bed.

By the time the police arrived, my father had sobered up some. And I spied from the top step as he explained he’d heard someone outside. I watched as the officers bobbed their heads; after all, my father was, in fact, an essential pillar of the community. And yes, they assured him—his thick checkbook was in good graces, even if his money wasn’t insured. But not precisely in these words, “Due to your past generous patronage to the department, it goes without saying, we’ll be sure to continue our tours of inspection.”

My mother, reading between the lines, took her own devices, and quietly invited Officer Taylor—with chiseled jaw and sky-blue eyes that sparkle even at night—into the sitting room. He anxiously sipped on the coffee she’d brewed just for him, as she told him, she doesn’t know what’s wrong with him, “Ever since the robbery,” but I now knew, we were broke.

“Never can be too safe, ma’am—lotta bad guys out there,” he said oblivious.

“In a tiny little town such as this?” she asked.

“Ma’am, you’d be surprised.” She suddenly looked afraid—or feigned to be. “Now, don’t you worry, ma’am—”

“Oh, please call me Roxy,” she said.

“I’ll keep an eye on things for you—R-oxy.”

“That’d be mighty kind of you, Officer Taylor,” grabbing him by the arm, just as Sergeant White falls back on his own device and motions my father to the parlor with a slight nod.

“Next time,” White said, placing a blued .38 special into my father’s hand, “put a hole the size of a turnip in that son of a’ bitch’s head.”

My father took hold of the gun unnaturally and asked, “Officer White, is that blood on your sleeve...?”

“Hmm, it appears so,” said Officer White, scraping at they blood with his thumbnail, “Damn strays—had to put one down!”

Tring-tring, tring-tring, rang the telephone as my mother jumped onto a kickplate of an old shovel in an old-weathered pair of ankle boots. Digging the spade into the ground, she turned the black midwestern soil—earthworms getting their wiggle on in full swing of an Indian summer. She fashioned a small hole with her forearm gloves, and sprinkling a handful of marigold seeds and covering them with dirt, hoping to keep they summer alive. Tring-tring, tring-tring, again, she jumped on the kickplate, jabbing every ounce of her 110 pounds into the soil—giving hell to the earth, the tring-tring giving her hell, as steam was pouring out of her ears. Finally, she dropped the shovel and, throwing her gloves to the ground, stomped up the back steps, huffing, “Now, for heaven’s sake, is everyone deaf as a doornail around here?”

Receiver to ear, “Good afternoon, Mayor. Yes, I’m doing just fine, thank you. Oh yes, yes, well—yes. Thank you! Yes, I’m sure he is around here somewhere, let me holler for him—oh, that’s mighty kind of you, Mayor, yes, yes, thank you, Mayor—Mayor, just one moment, please—oh, yes, I’ll be sure to do that. Oh, thank you, Mayor, you as well, Mayor. Just one moment, please—oh, yes, of course, and tell Mabel hello for me. Yes, we’d love to—sounds lovely. One moment please.” She covered the receiver, shut her eyes, and shook her head back and forth in thwarting irritation, skirting the man, “That mayor can talk the leg off a donkey!” I listened through the floorboards as she shouted through the roof, “Honey—the house is on fire!”

“I’m right here,” said my father from behind his paper, just around the corner from the phone, “no need to shout, dear!”

“Let’s take a ride, boy!” my shouted up the stairs, and I dropped my book, bounce off my bed, and in two shakes of a lamb’s tail and the drop of a hat, I was the Fleetwood flying my palm through the breeze like old Orville Wright.

Walking into the City Building, my eyes lit up before two-dozen Krag carbine rifles spread out on a long wooden table. The mayor holding a gun in his hands and greeted my father with delight spread across his jolly face, dern near tossing him the weapon.

“Why hey there, Sam.”

“Oscar,” said my father, correcting him as he adjusted his new .38 special in his belt in a way I’d never seen him, nor anyone do.

“Why hey there, Oscar!” said the mayor.

Inspecting the rifle unnaturally, I could see that look in my father’s eye that he was doing math in his head, and I knew he was ready and waiting to ask the mayor for the receipt. “Sergeant White,” he said, and Sergeant White gave a squirrely nod before the impressive, and rather costly, display of firepower—a shit-eating grin hidden under his bushy mustache, a look of dread in my father’s.

Sergeant White: At Five-foot-two, White was not so rough but ready. As mentioned, he wore his custodian helmet indoors over his small round head to make him look a good foot taller. He was a bachelor living with his cigar-chewing Mee-maw.

Mee-maw: Slowly dying of pulmonary emphysema.

Sergeant White has fire in his belly, takes a tablet twice a day. Mee-maw cuts the crust from his bologna sandwich. He has a phobia of needles and a passion for the theatre arts—a particular taste for Shakespeare. Believes Chaplin to be a buffoon, a hack. Sings tenor in the church choir. Sees a whore down in Bernadotte once a month. Tears up when he reads Mr. Rochester is gone from the house for a week, and it’s rumored...he may not be back for over a year—words tuggin’ on his heart strings every night as Mee-maw hacks her way through the pages as he drifts off to slumber. Sergeant White owns three cats named Ethel, Minnie, and Horace and has a somewhat exaggerated disliking for Canis lupus familiaris Linnaeus.

In layman’s terms, the domesticated dog, and strays alike.

Most significantly, Sergeant White is due to train the new civilian police force to load, fire, and clean the brand spanking new Krag carbine rifles, purchased on my father’s dime—a dime spinning about my father’s head in circles, as he worries his check may bounce.

“Receipt? Doggone! Must’a left it on my desk,” said the mayor with a pat of his empty pockets and a good shrug. “Hell, last time I saw you, Sam—”

“Oscar,” my father corrects him, again.

“Oscar! You were knee-high to a grasshopper. And let me tell ya, you got one hell of a mother there! Oscar, you ever held a gun before?”

“No, sir,” I said.

“Better not have,” said my father, as my eyes widened looking up at him for permission.

“They’re not loaded, are they?” he asks.

Sergeant White opened the bolt on one of the long guns, checked the barrel, and placed it right in my hands, and I’m mighty surprised by its weight. Sergeant White, “8.5 pounds; 49 inches in length; 22-inch barrel; bolt-action; 5-round magazine; shoots a .30-40 cartridge; 30-40 rounds a minute at 2000 feet per second, with a range of 900 meters—approximately 3000 feet. Heavy, ain’t it?”

Town dump: marmalade jars, tiny glass medicine bottles, liquor bottles, broken ceramic pots, chipped and broken China, rusty peach cans, cocoa cans, soap wrappers, bullet casings, animal bones, and food scrap heaped amongst blackened, smoking rot that stinks to high heaven.

BANG!!!

Crows and strays fled from and to the distant tree line as my father—rather shook—handed the rifle back to Sergeant White, and I removed my fingers from my ears.

“Ah, hell, let the boy fire one off!” said the mayor, repositioning his expensive, yet ill-fitting trousers. My father massaging his bony shoulder, seemed unsure as Sergeant White pulled the bolt handle up and back toward him, placing one round in the magazine, closing the bolt, moving it forward and down, feeding and locking the cartridge into the chamber, and before I knew it, he dropped it, again, in my arms.

“Ready to fire,” he said. “Now, go on and point ‘er downrange and hold ‘er steady right between that Mexican’s eyes.”

Peering down the V-sight, the barrel circles around the head of a mustached man in a sombrero, two bandoleers crisscrossing his chest, pointing straight back at me, saying in bold letters:

I WANT YOU, GRINGO!

Fight in the Mexican Revolution and be proud to ride with PANCHO VILLA!

“Now, take a deep breath,” said Sergeant White, “and on the exhale, gently squeeze the trigger.” But I can’t center the heavy barrel between the Mexican’s eyes for the life of me.

“Hold on tight, son,” said my father, “it’s got one hell of a kick!”

BANG!

A deafening explosion knocked my socks off and blew out my left eardrum as a ray of sunshine bolted through the Mexican’s left eye. I shoot my eyes over my left shoulder to see the mayor with smoke rolling out of his barrel. A box of birds in his eye—his lips bubbled, but I heard not a word, only a tring-tring, tring-tring.

My father cursed as the Fleetwood kicked up mud, but I couldn't hear nothing. And he let it loose as we raced away, throwing up gravel and scat, but once the Fleetwood was on solid ground, he looked over at me and said, “Hotdog, what do ya say boy?”

Meanwhile, back at the dump, Sergeant White was leding the mayor to the tree line. “You sure you got rid of the body?” he asked.

“Affirmative,” said Sergeant White. “Not a thing to worry about.”

The mayor stopped to kick scat off his shoe on a tree, “Goddamn it!” he cursed.

Down a ravine, white lifted a shed of oak bark leaning on a fallen log and grabbed a large carpet bag hidden underneath. He lugged it over to the very location the mayor downright refused to move a muscle beyond. With labored panting, he dabbed sweat off his brow with his handkerchief, asking, “Is it all there?” pulling up his trousers with a cough.

“Affirmative,” said Officer White, plopping the bag at his feet.

The mayor bent forward and dug his hands into the bag elatedly. But quickly, his shit-eating grin turned to a smirk of confusion, as he jetted his head to the side facing White with a scowl of disgust. He slowly raised two handfuls of soaking wet bill notes, takes a deep breath, and shouts, “You idiot!” as White looked about the echoing ravine with due paranoia. “Buffoon, couldn’t you find a better place to hide it? Goddamn it!” flinging the sog from his fingers back into the bag. “Hell, under your goddamn bed?”

“Mee-maw is awfully nosey!” said Sergeant White, chin drawled back into his throat.

“Mee-maw...? Mee-maw! Why you little twerp,” he cried out, lunging forth toward Sergeant White, who jumped back, sending the mayor face-first into the poisonous ivy.

“Mayor, let me help you,” said White.

The mayor swatted him away, “Good-for-nothin’ mutt—get your filthy paws off me!”

“Sir...?”

“Fix this, I don’t care what you have to do, but fix this or I’ll have your ass you idiot! Mee-maw, Mee-maw, have Mee-maw iron it if you have to! I want it dry and flat as a bedsheet, every bill, hear me?”

Cruising east down Chestnut in the Fleetwood, “Sure,” I said as my father took a sharp left on Main, circling about East Side Square, skidding to a stop in front of the Opera House where a new poster in the window was of a hooded man on a reared-up stallion that read:

D. W. Griffith’s: The BIRTH of a NATION— The supreme picture of all time!

“Two dogs with mustard,” said my father to the vendor.

“That’ll be one shiny dime, Mr. President!”

Father and son leaned back against the Fleetwood munching on dogs, looking out over Jones Park, where a half dozen boys played ball. In particularly, Jimmy.

Jimmy: loved to swing for the fence, but always missed, taking it out on the base of a tree.

I’m relieved to be with my father and his .38 special. Try and slug me now, bastard! I thought, as a giant white-footed Clydesdale trotted by between us, but I froze as I spotted a boy I knew, Clarence dressed like a dog’s dinner, clarence from the wrong side of the tracks.

Clarence: Holes in the knees, hair a shaggy mess.

Clarence waved, and my father asked in disgust, “You don’t know that boy, do ya, son—Riffraff!”

I looked down at my dog and said nothing until Clarence scuffed away with a frown.

“Appease you mother, will ya, son? Go on and play a round with the boys. But be home by supper.” Then he got in the Fleetwood and sped off, leaving me standing on the curb but fifty yards from Jimmy. And I wondered if my number was up, and I watched as the Fleetwood circled around the square and took a right on Elm, disappearing behind Baldwin Piano.

CRACK, RUMBBBLE—it thunders as I walked in the door soaking wet, as my mother from the kitchen, said, “Oh my, you’re soaking wet. Go get yourself dried off— typhoid is going around! And put on your best—the mayor and his wife are coming over for dinner!”

I plopped down in my bed and listened as leaves freed from the maple tree slapped the glass, as blots of rain trickled and bleed, as sudden knock rapped at the door.

“Mayor—”

“Mr. President—”

“Come in, come in out of that weather!” Footsteps and creaks.

“There’s my favorite gal! Roxy, how you doin’, sweetheart?”

“Mabel, can I take your coat?”

“This weather is atrocious!”

“Oh, it smells wonderful.”

“Roxy made her famous pork chops. They’re delicious if you don’t mind a bit of char!” Clomping heels on hardwood floors.

“Can I get you a Mint Jubilee, Mabel?”

“Sounds wonderful.”

“Mr. President—brought you a little something!”

“A whole case of single malt...? Well, mayor, you shouldn’t have! This must have cost you a pretty penny—”

“Darling, you are looking as gorgeous as ever! Now, let me give ya a smooch!!” “Oh, Mayor—and that coat, is that mink?”

“It is my dear, got her this afternoon up at Schatzki & Sklark Clothiers, only they finest—”

“Especially on a rainy day like this!”

“Let me get your coat Mable. Oh, and what is this?”

“Fox!”

“Oscar, get down here!” Yells my father.

“Oh, deviled eggs, my favorite!”

“I know they are, Mayor!”

“Roxy, you little devil you. You shouldn’t have.”

“Oscar, NOW!” Yells my father.

“On the rocks, mayor?”

“Straight up, neat and clean, only they best!”

“Little early, isn’t it, Frank...?”

“It’s five o’clock somewhere—It’s 5:15, right on time!”

“A Hot Point Automatic...? Oh, how do you like it, Roxy?”

“She’s still trying to get the hang of it, isn’t that right, honey?”

“Well, I—”

“OSCAR!!” Yells my father.

Clink-clink—clinks the ice.

“Here’s to the next crook who thinks twice about locking you up in a vault!” “Cheers to that!”

“I keep asking Frank for a new stove, but he’s as tight as a drum—”

“Is that right, Mayor...?”

“Well—”

“Olive, Mable?”

“Please, dear. Make it two!”

“Mr. President, you mind if we have a quick word in your study, I’ve got a proposition you might find—”

“No business, dear, we are here to have a nice dinner—”

Thunder CRACKED!

A branch walloped against the window.

And I sat there wondering if thyroid was really going around.