Austin I

I needed to get ready for my trip to San Antonio. To make sure if I was attacked on the way I can put Mr. Lucien co-worker’s tail between his legs again. I stopped at the first sign for guns and bullets I could find. Which in all honestly was the third or forth sign along the highway. I was in Texas after all. More Ammo and Pawn was what it was called and it had a caricature of a long haired man with tinted glasses flashing the peace sign and in the other hand he clutched an AR-15 looking rifle. 

It was a seamless purchase but slightly painful in the fact that I had to spend a good chunk of my cash. The long haired, camo bandana wearing clerk was happy enough to sell me .32 caliber short shells. And he wasn’t as sad as I was that after the purchase I only had 29 dollars left to my name. 29 dollars plus whatever change was in the car. I started walking out as the clerk named “Stew” (from his name tag) (under said nametag listed his favorite handgun was a Beretta) turned up the volume on the radio. I caught extra static and a woman's voice. 

Over the airways she called out different numbers, names, and street locations. 

Odd. I didn’t realize he was a radio-play kind of man. Maybe a talk radio channel on the AM. All that information fell to the wayside as I was on my way out, going so far as to open the door to the humid summer air, a board to the right caught my attention. The door ringer electronically played behind me as I closed the door once more. 

I stopped. 

To my left was a bulletin board. It hung on the only part of the walls that wasn’t covered in rifles and pistols and cheap t-shirts of a man with actual bear arms. Like that pun isn’t overplayed. I did smile though. 

It was a regular cork board full of pamphlets and take-a-numbers for activities to do in the city. Something lingered in my glance. Sending alarms through the back of my brain. I scanned over the pamphlets. There was a river tour, a local brewery, coupons for a barbecue joint up the street. Info on tours of the capitol building, discounted tickets to a bar with live music and the artists that were coming up the next month, details on a movie theater with special cocktails. There was even a listing for a roommate with a tenant named Josea. 

He seems like a lovely guy but he has a cat and I'm allergic. 

I ran my hand along the movie theater’s pamphlet. It was called The Alamo. I pulled it off the board. 

“The Alamo,” I said out loud. 

The man behind me saw me take it. He turned down his radio.”You like movies? Huh? The Alamo is great.”

“It’s a movie theater?” I asked, knowing full well it was. The ad was in my hand.  

“Yeah man, a pretty sweet one. Very funny commercials before the show. I mean that’s like half the fun of a movie experience am I right?” 

I walked back to his counter enthralled.“And it’s called The Alamo?” 

“Yes sir. I mean it…” He outstretched his hand and tapped the title along the smooth print of the pamphlet I held. “It says right there. The Alamo.” He repeated.

“Do they have good drinks?” I said too enthusiastically for Stew. He peeled back a bit.

“Yeah sure. Fun ones. Like I had uh… I had a drink called the replicant when I saw Blade Runner there. It was tasty, for sure.” 

“He could be here! In Austin! That’s why I'm here!” I chortled and slapped him on the shoulder. 

A perplexing look washed over him. “Hey my man. You are all banged up, are you alright?”

“I’m great. Real good. Better now than 5 hours ago when who knows where I was and what I was doing.”

“You don’t remember what you were doing?” He asked.

I realized my crazy was showing too much. “No it’s not that,” Now calming myself. “I just have been told about this place!” I waved the piece of paper. “Now I know what I'm gonna be doing while I visit!”

He smiled at that. A big goofy grin. “Well I'm glad we could have helped.” He looked back down to the paper in front of him. He had a white sheet with a grid on it. I scanned over the words in each little box. The ones I saw read Burglary, Sixth Street, Robbery. Robbery was crossed off. My eyes passed over Free Space in the middle crossed off and I realized it was a Bingo board. 

“What kind of?” I started to ask, eyes narrowed, trying to read it upside down.

Stew smiled timidly. “Oh this.” He turned it my way and I saw it clearly. “This is police scanner Bingo. We play each day.” He turned up the radio device and all I heard was static. Then a ladies voice came over the radio requesting car 73 to go to 18th ave and Church street. He smiled and pointed at one empty space next to a line of red crossed out ones. “I just need someone to say the words excretions and I win today. Aint that right? EXCRETIONS!” He called out to the back room. Behind him a metal door jingled and a panel opened up. It was only a foot wide and eye height. Like you see in old detective movies when the cop tries to get into the backroom where bozos and bastards shoot pool. But only if you had the password. I could guess that the password here was ‘The Fifth Amendment’. 

A mouth came from the open panel. “You wish Stew! It’s too damn muggy for someone to be shitting in the streets! They all in their moorhouse homes or sleeping in bushes.” The mouth pulled back and the man's eye peered out. Muffled, he then said. “Oh we have a customer…” He slid the panel back and was gone.

“Shut it!” Stew shouted back. “It’s happening! Even if I have to do it myself” He smiled at the thought. 

“What about this…” I tapped on a crossed out word on the bingo square. It was O3. Read Homicide.

“Oh yeah that was what got me most of the ones today. Big call that went out this morning. First thing when we came in. Got me this one too which I needed.” He tapped the words Double.

“Double Homicide?” I asked.

“Yeah that’s what we deciphered. I mean they mostly use phrases and codes but we got the book around here somewhere…” He looked under the counter and shrugged.

“Nasty thing a double homicide. That’s big news.” I said smiling.

“Yeah I’ll say. News has been going on about it, especially because it happened downtown.”

“Near here?” I held out the pamphlet. 

“Eh, kinda I suppose.” He thought for a moment but decided that was a sufficient answer. 

“Can you show me where exactly?” I asked. 

~

This place was right off the main highway that jutted through downtown. Outside of the crowded one way streets where high rises swallowed up your view of squat stores like this one. It had a few grassy berms framing it. The highway on-ramp sandwiching it with a liquor store on the other side. Paper signs littered the pumps of the 7/11; Temporarily Closed. Sorry for the inconvenience. I could tell by the way they were not tattered or wrinkled dried from rain they were put up recently. The door to the glass convenience store was locked. The same sign hung sideways, half-heartedly taped up. But the Do Not Cross, yellow police tape warded off most visitors and was more firmly placed across the entrance.

I stupidly tugged on the locked door I pondered how glass gas stations had littered my trip so far. It seemed like I was following them and not this Tim. They connected the dots behind me and in front of me, maybe making a connect-a-picture of something morbid. I hoped something would come of this grand gas station tour. At least I could start a hell of a blog before I kill myself. 

“I give a rating of 5/10 begging patrons to this one, or maybe 4/5 single mothers that just need enough money for a bus ticket. The bathroom was only really dirty, not filthy dirty and they have a solid glory hole in the center stall.” 

Maybe people would enjoy it as a sad novelty. 

‘Look at this man’ they’d say. ‘Hiding grief with an obsession of gas stations.’

But gas stations are way stations for wandering souls. In this city and the rest. A place where crossing of paths occurs between the rich and poor alike. Especially at night when the fluorescent lights act like flames for moths, but the moths are the destitute and sleep deprived and high and drunk citizens of this great country. Working the overnight shift at any one of these places will give the best idea of its local constituents. It reveals people's true colors when hunger approaches and when slumber is a daydream, and fuel is low while home seems so very very far away. 

I peered through the windows seeing a mess of store inside. Two of the four partitions were knocked over spilling their packaged sweets across the floor. Next to the wall with the hot dog rollers and slurpee machine was a stain of red. It was either a faint slurpee spill or something… Less savory. Or in this case less sweet…

Blood. 

I’m saying it was blood. Blood that looked like it was attempted to be cleaned up but really that just spread it around and spread it thin. Now it was a five foot in diameter, bean shaped smear. Hell it could, in all actuality, be slurpee but I had a hunch it wasn’t. Afterall, I wasn’t following around a slurpee thief across the country. I wasn’t, by destiny, happening on sugar spills that shut down stores. That would be a less interesting tale. And this tale, my last one, would be many things, god damned I hope it will at least be entertaining. 

I paced around the parking lot doing my best Sherlock Holmes impression. Looking for clues on the ground in uncomfortable squats. After picking up three cigarette butts and a condom wrapper I gave up. My best bet was getting the security footage inside. Then I could watch what exactly occured at this now haunted place. Find out who died and how Tim was involved? If he was at all. But the police were working on those questions I'm sure, with the footage firmly in their hands. Maybe I should let them do the investigation, not me… I can find a different way. 

Like how I found my way here.

How I've been doing all of this…

That familiar prickly sensation swept up on me from behind. Carried on a breeze. That electric taste that I was following. Tim had been here I knew. Because whoever this man with the feather in his hat was, I knew he ushered in evils; Either brought them himself or followed them. Invoking them or uncovering them. 

How strange he is. How alien.

How connected he is…

What happened here? 

 I watched cars pass by on the lifted highway above it. Zooming past. Causing the noisy birds behind me to be drowned out. It would be a popular place, I assumed. Based on thousands that surely passed it every day. They’d look down off the highway at the crooked numbers under Unleaded and frown to themselves or scoff or worry or not notice at all, nor care if they did. But all of them shared a certain ignorance. Today they wouldn’t know what had happened here, not even if they stopped and gandered like me. We are unable to tap into the memory of a place because walls don't, in actuality, talk. Thank god. Once the doors are closed and the signs are posted our brains don’t register the phantoms locked within. 

But maybe I could. Something had happened in that desert. Something unblocked. I had seen my dead wife only hours ago and she led me here… Hadn’t she? She said I was unstuck. If I could see her then maybe I could see what happened here. 

Focus. 

Focus on that taste, that buzz. 

Slowly above the noise of the city I could hear something else. I could hear this place screaming. As soon as I tuned my ear, it hit me all at once. Something horrible had happened here. Al those moving cars, moving people, were lucky they couldn’t hear it. The sound of it, the feel, almost made me vomit. I snapped from my queasiness. Coming back to reality. I had to sit and let the lightheadedness pass. It was hard work being tapped into the underside of things. 

The surface level image was that this place was deserted. Only my car in the parking lot, Chewy hanging out the window, we were the only breathing things in this lot it seemed, not even mosquitoes buzzed by. Except I noticed trails of smoke coming from the wooden porch of the store next to this place. I brushed myself off and tip-toed to the sidewalk now scoping out the old crooked liquor store. On the other side of the statue of a native american in a headdress was a man seated on a sky blue bench splintering and in need of new paint. I could say the same for the man. 

The old black man had a cigar dangling from his lips, burnt so low it almost nipped at his tongue. The smoke wafted up and around his brown fedora. The same ruddy brown that matched his pants. And in between the swathes of brown clothing he wore a bohemian styled button up shirt tucked into his belt line. He swayed with music that wasn’t there. His eyes hidden behind dark sunglasses. 

From the way he swayed I figured the brown paper bag he took a swig out of wasn’t a juice box. 

“Morning,” I said walking up the rickety steps, my right leg perched on the top step mimicking the captain morgan ad in the window. His head turned sideways. He spat out the butt of the cigar and spoke between clearing the tobacco from his lips.

“Is it?” He asked. “Still morning?”

He didn’t look at me when he talked. He just stared down the barrel of the drink in his bag and took another swig. 

“Well I guess not. My mistake. Good afternoon, how about that?” I smiled then I stopped realizing I probably looked like a cheshire cat who had been mugged.

He didn’t seem to mind. Just grunted and lit up another thin cigar. He had a bandage taped to his right temple. Bits of blood spotting through, most of the wound was hidden under the brim of his hat.

“I don’t suppose you’re closed because of the incident next door?” I pointed to the closed sign hanging from inside the door. 

“You a cop or something?” He asked.

I laughed a bit at that. “Do I look like a cop?” My hands splayed out to my side to give him the best view of my pathetic self.

“Boy!” He said while pulling down his glasses to reveal milky eyes. “What I look like to you? You think I care bout how you look?” He snorted and lit another skinny cigar, pointing it at me. “But i’ll tell you what you look like anyways. Cause I can tell. Just cause I'm blind don't mean I can’t see! You look like some whitey. And if you’re white you probably a cop.” 

“Oh fuck I’m sorry.” I said after realizing my mistake. I asked a blind man what I looked like. I blurted out snickering, trying and failing to hold it back. “I asked a blind man what I look like! I’m sorry! I’m sorry. I fucking would, wouldn’t I? I’m so goddamn stupid I’m sorry.” I was still giggling to myself and getting ready to return to my car with my tails between my legs. But as I was turning I saw the man crack a smile. 

“Come sit down at least.” He said. “I could do to share my drink with someone.” 

“Let me get my dog,” I replied

~

Chewy was running back and forth along the porch glad to be away from the heat. He looked out into the street and had one quick short bark at nothing in particular. He looked back at me waiting for me to praise him for being a good boy. I just shook my head and placed the leash under my foot as I sat.

“Who are you?” The black man asked. “Don’t sit there. That’s my bad ear. It’s all fucked up. Come around me boy.” 

I did as he asked, coming around to his left where there was no bandage along his head. “Well. My name is Hughie Tribecki,” I lied to him. Cause... well, I don’t know why I lied about my name. Mainly I suppose, because playing someone else was easier than being me.

“You ain’t no cop?” He raised an eyebrow at me. 

“If you could see me you wouldn't even have to ask that question.” I laughed again.

“Hmm. You a reporter or something?”

“No sir.”

“You some ambulance chaser then? They did a special on a couple fellows who were one of those. I listened to it on A and E. They’d follow ambulances looking for pictures or some new story to sell. I ain’t interested in telling you my piece. Already got questioned fierce by those cops.”

“I am not one of those guys.” I shook my head. “I’m just an interested neighbor and saw all the commotion.”

“Hmm.” He took another drag of his cigar. 

He didn’t seem to buy it. 

“So. Who are you?” I asked. “Do you own this shop?”

He took a second to think, drank from the bottle and offered it to me. I complied. The whiskey stung my throat. I stifled a cough and handed it back. Feeling the effects warm my belly and start to numb it. Numb lots of things.  

“You know how I know you aren’t from here?” He said. “You don’t know who owns this shop. And you don’t know that it’s always closed on Sundays. For the Lord's day. This is Texas don’t you know?” He continued miming a cross across his chest.

“This shop has been here since I grew up here. Before…” He waved his hand like he was waving away flying pests. “Before it got all fancy. Old Chic saw me, sat me down and told me I deserve a drink. Old Chic knew. He knows my family. Even the unruly ones. He said ‘I ain’t selling it so it’s perfectly legal’.” He scoffed. “Like I give a shit.” He sighed. “But he’s a good man. He even brought me some this.” 

From under his seat he pulled out a tinfoil plate. I could smell the sweet tang of barbecue sauce almost immediately. He opened it then handed it to me. 

“I ain’t hungry. Just thirsty.” He drank from the bottle again. “Kerlin.” He said. “Damn fine ribs.”

My mouth watered almost immediately. I thanked him profusely and dug in. The barbecue sauce I poured over the crumbling beef was rangy and had that sweet vinegar base Just the right amount of twang and not too sweet or spicy. It tasted like the hug you get from your mom after a bad day at school. 

God damn this man was a saint for giving me something like this.

I washed it down with some jack whatever it was, from the brown bag. Immediately regretting washing that brisket taste out of my mouth and replacing it with the smokey flavor of hand sanitizer. 

“You right.” In between bites. “I ain’t from here. But I am interested in what happened at this station over there. Whatever it was pulled me in. I’m looking for someone. Someone from out of town and I think he has been going around doing bad things all over this country.”

The man I had learned was Henry Jordan nodded at that. The drink was catching up to him. A twinge of sadness had too. It made the man lines along his face deeper. Like folds of fabric too long neglected in the dryer. 

“This country.” He snorted. “What is this country? My nephew he’s soft... He was soft. Saying all the time about how he gets a fair shake of things. People don’t see him as a Negro! People see him for a man.” He paused, swaying like he did when I first saw him. “He always thought he was some hot shit man!” He bounced back to his original thought. Holding a finger up like he discovered it and found it new and all on his own. 

“This country is still old country! It wasn’t too long ago where the police. Them police were setting dogs on us for marching. For listening to the king. I remember it. I ain’t dead yet. I’d tell him. Look boy, I’m still kicking and I was spat on. Spat on! They’d shout at me from across the street. You know what they would call me.” He nodded to me. “I could only go to Tam’s laundry and grocer. Not the big store that the whites went to. Couldn’t get my canned beans there. And the laundry I had to pick up round the back... Lucky we even had laundry.” He took a deep breath. 

“I said, I’m still kicking and lots of those folks that made those rules are too. Lots of folks that spat on us still kicking. Still making rules for folks. You think they change? Hate doesn't just disappear. And if it does, or they die, the rules they made last longer than them anyway.” 

He paused thinking some more. 

“But your boy didn’t think that way?” I asked.

“Yeah, he couldn’t see in between the lines. He thought he could have it made. And he was right. Cause he could nowadays. He could’ve made a little life for himself. But he was a sinner. You know what his sins were. Pride! Pride and... Greed.” He said the word like a dog growling. “He thought he could have his cake and eat it too, is that what they say?” He asked and I shrugged, realized he couldn’t see my shrug and told him that it was indeed a saying.

He nodded, “I told him to be careful, but he wouldn’t listen. Told him all my stories and he waved them off. Didn’t think it mattered to him. That… that was all long ago. I said if you’re black it matters! But maybe I'm rambling…” he cocked his head towards me. I was silent. 

“Anyways enough about him. He’s a stupid bastard is what he is. And it was his sinning that got him in trouble not his ignorance. Well that’s not the reason he…” He couldn’t say the word but I imagine it was a short one. 

Died. 

“People tend to disappoint don’t they?” I said with a huff.

“Hmm” 

We were silent for a while. Both staring out into the summer swelter. 

I was gonna ask him what happened next door before he sighed and blurted out. “I swear there was so much hate back then.” He said. “So much hate sometimes I think it’s the reason I went blind. Yeah. Now it simmers. It ain’t forgotten just hides a little deeper. They ain't’ spitting on us but there’s still something there. Something… I don’t know. Just something. Something you can faintly smell. You sniff and say there is something rotten but you can’t tell where it’s coming from.” He took his thumb and pointed over his shoulder. “It’s the dead bodies that they buried those years ago, come to light, finally. Rain washed them up. Yup.” He glugged more liquor. 

“I can’t imagine,” Was what I said. And to be truthful I couldn’t. Not the slightest idea of what a time like that looked like. But words are clumsy little things and the inflection and letters can fall flat. Henry didn’t mind my stupid words. My attempt to let him know I was still here and listening. 

“That’s why I don’t talk to cops. Still don’t. They stink the worse still. So I'm glad you aren’t one.” He licked his lips and gave a deep nod. 

“I get that.”

 He turned to me. Somehow finding my eyes with his own, hidden behind those stained lenses. I felt them on me. And they saw me. He could look through my fake name and loose story. I felt his pain and I knew he knew mine. We sat on the same wavelength, this bench our shared hurt.  “It wasn’t long ago they set dogs on us.” He said. 

I nodded. When I did so I was sure that he could see it this time because he looked away and drank a sip of his whiskey and I followed suit. 

Some cars drove by lazily. As they are prone to do on a Sunday (This conversation had actually informed me that it was Sunday) Chewy nuzzled up to Henry’s hand and whined. I went to pull him back but he took notice and petted him on the snout. Chewy slid under the man’s fingers and gave that open mouth smile of his. His whole body shimmying with his tail. The touch settled him. Henry moved his hand behind Chewy’s ears changing rhythm into a good-natured scratch. He sat under his hand happily as they both looked off the porch. I watched his weathered hands lined with cracks of white steady as the blue-gray fur cut around his fingers. Like gray waves on a stormy day. 

“I told him to be careful, but he wouldn’t listen.” He said and sighed. 

“What did happen to your son? Can I ask that? Is that okay?” 

He held his jaw tight, pursing his lips. “I never had kids myself.” He shook his head “I had four brothers and one half sister. She was much much younger than me. Yes.” He said, patting his pants legs. Cigar now dwindling. Chewy whined and scooped his left hand off his leg and scooted under it once more. “My brothers slipped away one by one.” He scoffed. “I was the oldest yet I saw them all go. Aint that fair? Moved to wherever time takes them. Just… Away from here. I was close with my sister. She was such a spark plug, but she died bout fourteen years back. Cancer.” He dragged his cigar then put it out in an ashtray that sat next to him. “Left a boy. A child, he was around. Ehhhh. Say under ten. He was ust like her. Was.”

“He got swept up in things. He liked gambling he did. Would go to Louisiana, that was his favorite. I warned him that it was addictive as drugs. He said he didn’t lose much. Never played with what he couldn’t afford to part with. He even said he was making money. It was a living. Why make a life along the roll of the dice? Why risk something that should be stable?”

“I don’t know,” I responded. But I knew. It was fun and life is hard.

“I knew he was borrowing money. Knew my bills weren’t adding up. Knew he was taking loans from some unsavory folk. They visited us a day ago.”

“Who did?”

“A Cajun by the sound of it. He was a… Well he was a long man I knew that much.”

“A long man?”

“You know a man that ain’t right!” He said in frustration. “Some shaker. Some cleaner. Some hired muscle to get pennies out of my boy! Cause he was dumb and took out loans from a snake in New Orleans! Goddamn fool!” He tried lighting another cigar but his hands shook so bad. It made Chewy nervous. I helped him light it.

“I heard them speak. Said he better get money or else. Said he better do a Lick or we were both gonna die. He was threatening me too, you see? Threatening me so he had to do what they said. He wouldn’t listen to me, I told him we would go. Get out of Texas if we had too. But he said he could handle it. He left... You know what a Lick is huh?”

“What is it?”

He flicked his head to the gas station. Put his finger into a makeshift gun. “A stickup.” He said.

“It didn’t go as planned did it?”

“No it didn’t. But Ol’ Chic here recognized the body and called me. Let me drink on his stoop like we were young again. I thank him for that.” He cheersed to no one. Before a soft sob came from him. He tried to put down the bottle but it hit the edge of the bench and clunked over. Juts of whiskey poured through the loose wood boards. The bottle was almost empty already. He disregarded it and held his face. 

“Stupid bastard!” He cried out. Tears wetting his cheeks. Painting them with wet butterfly wings on either side of his nose. “He died, which I could take! But the stupid bastard had to shoot someone! Had to kill someone!” He fully broke down as I caught him in my arms. I clutched him to my chest. Felt his hands grab tight my shirt. Like he was trying to wring out a towel. Chewy tried to part us. To worm his cold nose between us to make us stop this madness. To dry those tears.

In between gasps I heard him say “An… Inno… Innocent... Person! Gone! Dead! I don’t even know where he got a gun? God damn why?”

I didn’t know exactly what to say so I gave him a moment. Then two. The moments stacked on top of each other as I looked around. Trying to find anything to look at instead of this man breaking down.

“Hey!” I shook him. “That’s enough.” My skin pringled and I felt my blood go cold. “Let’s get you home! Pull yourself together! Come on, let's get you out of here.” I pulled him to his feet. He relented and followed me down the steps. I loaded him up between hysterics, buckling him in the passenger seat of my car. He fought just a bit saying he could take the bus. But quickly realized I wouldn’t have it or hear it. He was too emotional or too drunk to think better of it, either way, he decided to trust me. It was a good thing too. I didn’t want to stay here a second longer. We’d both be safer together.

 I looked back to the street. The black SUV with its windows tinted like black holes had passed us and had turned around. It came the other direction out of highway underpass. The behemoth of a car was still dusty along the wheel wells. The shadowy paint job in the daylight looked like it was covered in swathes of flies. And the car itself buzzed with a horrible high motor or loose belt or something. I didn’t wait for a window to creep down or a door to slide open. I hopped in with Chewy in my lap and gassed it. My car screamed alive and scraped off the curb as I jumped the berm to the highway on-ramp. 

Mr Jordan’s sobs turned into a different kind of hysterics.