Boon

Sandy Cricket owned the closest market to the house in town. What a name – I know. But she was the epitome of Boon. More salt than pepper strands of hair braided back, and a weathered outline of a heart tattooed along her chest. Sandy always made sure she wore a shirt cut low enough to expose it even though her skin was as tough as leather. Tawny with wrinkles as deep as a crevice.

Nonetheless, she still had a bit of sparkle to her. Sandy always wore mascara and enough lipstick to leave residue on the filter of her half-smoked Lucky she left on the windowsill of her shop. If she wasn’t inside ringing out customers, she’d be sitting right outside the door with a folded paperback and a lighter.

Sandy came to know me quiet well over these past few weeks. I made a comment once about the book she was reading, asked her if it was any good. The next time I went in for some milk and a pack of smokes for daddy, she handed it over. It was a good read. We didn’t get to talking about much else other than books after that. Books or how much my daddy owed on his tab and when I’d start to pay it off for him.

Usually, there wasn’t anybody else in her shop other than a few passerby’s pumping a gallon or two of gasoline. Only enough to get them to where they had to go which was usually the next town over, because let’s face it, if you stop in Boon you might die here too. There wasn’t much around other than long leaf pines, southern oaks and old men with a shotgun in their shotgun.

I walked in for my usual handful, straight to the back cooler for a handle of milk and a sixer for daddy, then I heard the bell on the door ring. And I know what you’re probably thinking – it’s a small town, everybody stops to stare at the newcomer. Like one of those movies where every local in the shop freezes to see whose coming or going. But as far as I was concerned, I was the freshest face in town. Until I saw him.

Sandy looked less than amused, and I didn’t so much as hear him speak one word to her, but she pulled down a pack of smokes and rang him out anyway. I was thankful for that, considering she’d seen me on my way to the register and usually ended up checking me out before anybody else in that store. It usually sent those passerby’s right over the edge, enough so they wouldn’t make the mistake to stop here again.

But this time, she didn’t. So, I was able to get a good look at the guy, as much as I could from behind. He stood a decent chunk of change over six foot, I was certain of that. Before daddy’s cane he stood six two, so I had a real good idea of what that looked like compared to me.

This guy’s hair was cut short, buzzed on the sides and the top was slicked back like he was some sort of greaser. Thing was, greasers weren’t much of a thing anymore, but he sported it well enough. There was a tattoo on his neck, I couldn’t make out of what from the angle I was at, but the ink was contrasted enough against his skin. It was olive, like most of the folks around here – including me, but it wasn’t tan as it would be if he’d been a working man.

When he reached around to his back pocket, I noted the dirt under his fingernails. The symbols embedded in his skin, but not as bold as the one on his neck. They were faded and worn, like all he did was work with his hands.

Sandy didn’t take her time with the ring out. She slid the pack of smokes across the counter with the change and he didn’t waste any time packing them down and tearing the cellophane off as he walked toward the door. I took to my place at the counter and just as he was about to push on the handle, Sandy opened her mouth.

“What they letcha out for this time, Rueger?” Her words were less than friendly, sour even. Bitter and hard like I’d heard her speak to somebody trying to get away without paying.

I turned over my shoulder and got a decent look at him then. I’d be lying if I said he wasn’t handsome, which was an unusual sight here in Boon. It could’ve been his height or the stoic way he carried himself, but regardless of his stoney features there was an aura of danger floating around him like a ghost.

“Oh, you know,” he turned his head slightly with a wry smile. “Good behavior.”

“Hmph,” Sandy grunted as he finally pushed open the door. The bell sounded as it closed behind him and I sunk my teeth into my bottom lip instead of asking her what that was all about. Like I said, Sandy and I rarely spoke about anything other than words on pages or debt.

“Ain’t nothin’ good gunna come from that…” Sandy muttered under her breath, under the beeping and chiming of the register as she mindlessly pulled out my change.

I followed her gaze through the dirty glass windows and out to the lot where he was lighting a cigarette next to a black square body. He didn’t seem to be any more at ease out in the open than he was inside. Shoulders so squared that they wrinkled the white shirt on his back. If I looked close enough his hands might’ve even had a tremble, but it was hard to tell, and I don’t think men like that fear much of anything other than god when the time comes.

Daddy wasn’t much of a god-fearing man himself. After losing momma to another man, he lost himself to the whiskey. I was too young to understand then, having to go out and live with my Auntie Laine in the sticks, up north a’ways. I’d come to visit time from time, then Auntie Laine passed and I found myself right back here in Boon.

“Got a letter here,” my daddy said. He was leaning over the coffee table where I dropped his smokes and the pile of mail. I ran through it on my walk up the drive like I always did, so I already knew it was there. “From your brother. My boy.”

The locals called my daddy Big Trap. My brother inherited the name and they called him Trapper or Trap junior; depending on who it was you were talking to. He wasn’t lucky enough to go to Auntie Laine’s like I was. Daddy said he didn’t have the luxury of letting him go. But in the end, he let him go anyway. All the way to federal prison.

The sudden tear of the envelope in unison with the flick of a lighter turned my stomach. Daddy had a bottle of rotgut beside the sixer and I knew the next sound I’d hear is the crack of the tab of the lid. I turned away, not that out of sight was out of mind much around here. Being the daughter of a hunter, you learn that sound is your most powerful sense.

I ran the faucet over the dishes in the sink. Daddy wasn’t much for doing them and I wasn’t much for letting them collect the horse flies they’d draw in through the holes in the screens. Our trailer tucked in the woods wasn’t anything like Auntie Laine’s. Her’s was a double wide with more than enough space for the two of us. She kept things orderly, mostly everything had its place.

Outside our trailer, the lot as daddy called it, wasn’t much more done up than the inside. The only thing pretty about it was the spanish moss that overhung the drive. It wasn’t gravel or paved or anything like that. It was two worn strips of dirt and if you asked for directions, daddy would tell you to take the head of the trail off Paugasset. But nobody ever did.

Boon didn’t have much of a population. That meant was a lot more game than most places and sometimes that drew in some ambitious hunters. What usually drew them out was when they made the wrong move on the wrong one at the local hole. I never seen grown men run from a bar so fast in my life. Let’s just say Boon might’ve been a small town, but we sure as all hell weren’t quiet.

Sure as hell weren’t the straight and narrow type either. Most of them down here in Boon were as crooked as my daddy’s left leg. Below the knee was all bent up in ways I didn’t care to see and I winced almost every time that man wore cutoffs. He said it was a hunting accident, and don’t they all got the same story after going in the woods enough times. But it wasn’t long after that accident when those federal agents came in and took Trapper right off our front porch.

“Mhm,” Daddy was talking to himself. He must’ve finished reading that letter. “Ain’t that boy as tough as nails?”

The bare metal bottom of his cane scratched the floor and the trailer creaked as he stood up. Since he couldn’t walk much anymore, daddy put on a few extra pounds. I wasn’t sure it was weight he could carry considering he was already such a large man but he made his way.

“Yeah, that boy,” he slurred. “Best get out soon, I’ll tell ya…goddamn them bastards, comin’ into Boon. Up here! Up in here like they did!”

Daddy had a real temper on him. Trapper inherited that too. Daddy slammed his cane down with every one of those last few words, the same way Trapper got carried out. Kicking and screaming like no other. Took almost four of them to even get the cuffs on him. They had to get him onto the ground, each of them with a knee on his back. It was a real sight.

For some reason, daddy and the men that been around as long as he was, they think Boon’s a real gem. Salt of the earth or something of the sort, but it was hardly anything like that. Trapper, daddy and the rest of them, I was sure I’d see them die defending the shriveled piece of land this place was. And maybe it was because Boon was more forrest than houses – more trailers than picket fences. Maybe it was because nobody sold to the corporate monopolies like the other counties had. It was strange, really.

I considered myself lucky for being able to get out when I did, but there was always a pang of guilt that Trapper wasn’t able to and probably never would. And his only escapade out of Boon was in a barred-up bus. He didn’t even finish high school, not that many of from Boon ever did. We made it to about the eighth grade before fathers pulled us out to teach them the ropes, even though they’d already been doing it all their lives.

“Ya hear me, girl?” Daddy’s echo stole me from my thoughts. I’d been aimlessly washing the same dish for nearly twenty minutes. He shoved the paper – the letter, in my direction. “Read this.”

I took it from him because I’d known there was no point in arguing with the man. He was as stubborn as they came and even I couldn’t tell him no. I wasn’t sure if he ever cared enough to know my feelings on the matter, about Trapper, but he’d known my heart wasn’t as broken as his when I only stood on the porch and watched.

It was nothing short of a typical letter from Trapper. Always mulling about how he should’ve been getting out sooner than he was. How he got himself a little extra time for acting up. Truth be told, I don’t think he was ever getting out. Whatever it was he and my daddy were into, it went far beyond Boon’s country sheriff. It wasn’t a slap on the wrist like the rest of his offenses had been. Trapper got time and time was the only way out.

One thing about Trapper, maybe the best thing about him was you always knew where his loyalty lied. Whether it be on or off the stand, I’d seen my brother take a beating for keeping his lips as tight as he did. He took after daddy in more ways than one as far as looks went, he was no weak link, but I’d seen a group of men nearly kill him dead for telling them to go to hell instead of whatever it was they wanted to know. Trapper was real good with secrets.

He signed off on that letter how he usually did, a large and mangled T with chicken scratch to follow. Except on this letter he followed with, take care of pops, Indi. And the whole five letters made my stomach ache.