area man
by Michael Grant Smith
Darlington Raceway handed his youngest son Crowbar a boxcutter. “Take Beelzebub to the barn. Finish him. Make it quick and clean or you’re a bigger pussy than he is.”
Crowbar grabbed the ailing mouser by the scruff of its neck. He plopped Beelzebub onto the rusty seat of the unkillable Ford 8N tractor and slid open Darlington’s razor knife. There were witnesses . . . a wily gelding pony named Freezer Meat, a bored rooster everyone called Rooster, and two goats: Betsy the nanny, and Ross the billy who’d do handstands and pee on his own beard. Beelzebub stared with rheumy eyes and meowed silently. Seconds later, blood spurted from a deeply-clawed gash on Crowbar’s hand and the golden tomcat escaped into man-high switchgrass.
Afterwards, when Crowbar shuffled into the house, his papa reigned as king of the kitchen table. A quarter-pound bag of cannabis had spilled across yesterday’s newspaper. Darlington sucked on a joint. “Judging by the mess on your mitts, boy,” he said through the smoke, “seems ol’ Beelzebub’s done and gone. Now keep his damn blood offa my weed!”
Darlington never loved any person or critter, but he worshipped at the altar of his burn barrel every night. Paper, cardboard, junk mail, notices, evidence; he chucked it into the rusted-out, bullet-holed fifty-five gallon drum behind the house. When Darlington watched the flame-angels dance and flicker and spiral heavenward, he didn’t crack a smile. Was he lost in happy memories of childhood arsons he’d done? No one asked.
The salty old widower routinely cranked the volume on his front porch TV to drown out the caterwauls of grandkids playing in the road. Six days a week he aimed a pellet gun and plinked at the mailman’s jeep. On a certain Friday this past July, neighbors complained about the Raceway property’s stench. The stink wasn’t worse than usual, just funny. Two deputy sheriffs found Darlington’s corpse inside a rolled-up rug tucked underneath the porch. Coroner ruled the death a suicide.
Dagger, Darlington’s eldest son, was upstate doing a seven-to-ten stretch for felony assault & battery. Hearing the news about Raceway Sr.’s final inning didn’t bother Dagger until he realized his prior obligation to incarceration meant he couldn’t claim his papa’s water-hauling truck. Next in the line of succession, Dagger’s punk-ass shit-for-brains little brother Crowbar would take over the family’s gravel and non-potable water delivery monopoly. Such is the way of empires.
That very same night, because a prison’s gate lets bad news through but stops good luck cold, a hundred spiders bit Dagger’s foot, which puffed up like a tick. No one took him to the prison infirmary until he passed out from fever. Doctors removed a poisonous hunk of his bad hoof. When Dagger’s anesthesia wore off, one of the guards whipped out a piece of rebar, poked at the bloody bandages, and hollered shut the hell up and go back to sleep goddammit. Nurse told Dagger to sue the county and he said, “No, I already seen plenty of courtrooms, thanks very kindly.”
Dagger and Crowbar swore their baby sister Klamiddea (named after the Ancient Greek goddess of horniness) was the sweetest of all Raceways. The morning Darlington got busted for impersonating a spoiled burrito, she’d partied all night and drove five miles per hour to her shift cashiering at the Dollar General until she wrecked Dagger’s dually into a roadside fruit stand on account of falling asleep coming off her meth. The deputies took Klamiddea’s ass straight to lockup even though she hadn’t kicked and scratched or committed any other violences this time.
Crowbar semi-woke up at noon Monday and he’d missed half the day’s deliveries. Folks were mad as hell, particularly the ones waiting since Friday. He’d never taken the water gig seriously and now he was in charge. Suckers and chumps craved the corporate life . . . Crowbar didn’t. Long ago he’d hitched his future to Destiny’s Tractor Pull, his nickname for the lottery.
As dangly as a truck’s brass dognuts, Crowbar’s state of mind swung to and fro while he rifled through his dead papa’s drawers (the furniture type), searching for cash, weapons, and especially scratch-offs. Nothing useful jumped out—Ray-Ray, Klamiddea’s latest ex, had dropped by and tossed the place. Crowbar didn’t find anything except some of those vanilla folders full of the most boring shit he ever laid eyeballs on. Oh, how Crowbar hated to read words, especially the ones that left bruises. Book-learning was for eyeglasses-wearing losers.
He set down his travel mug of half-and-half (equal parts coffee and malt liquor) and cogitated. A decade after Mama quit life cold turkey, Papa still said he didn’t want to remarry. The old man seemed content to be alone with his hookers. What bound families together, anyway? Crowbar opined it was something akin to spider webs. Sticky, you bet. You’ll get trapped if you’re a teeny-tiny bug. Anyone big enough can blunder right through.
Into the burn barrel he pitched titles, deeds, bills o’ sale, insurance policies, savings bonds, last willin’ testament, and the sole love letter ever written to Darlington Raceway. Blah, blah, blah. The flames glowed beautiful and yes, hypnotical. Five-gallon dump can of diesel took care of the house. Arson, thought the newly-inspired youngest son, such a smart way to clear out trash, collect a big payout, and welcome life’s next pile of goodness! Papa’s effects crackled and popped inside the barrel.
Doubt—one of the lesser demons— unhinged its jaw and snuffled Crowbar. The Raceways’ ancestral home was toast, and hadn’t he burned the important papers? What would Dagger and Klamiddea say?
Crowbar’s inferno spared the barn and its tenants. He saddled up his pony and eased into the stirrups. Destiny’s Tractor Pull was on pause, like one of papa’s grainy, smutty videotapes. New vistas beckoned Crowbar Raceway. He’d ride past the horizon and escape to the Canadian or Mexican border, or one of the oceans, dependent upon which direction he pointed Freezer Meat.
Photo of Michael Grant Smith
BIO: Michael Grant Smith wears sleeveless T-shirts, weather permitting. His writing appears in elimae, The Airgonaut, Ellipsis Zine, Spelk, Bending Genres, MoonPark Review, Okay Donkey, trampset, New World Writing, Tiny Molecules, and elsewhere. Michael resides in Ohio. He has traveled to Hong Kong, Shanghai, and Cincinnati. For more Michael, please visit http://www.michaelgrantsmith.com and @MGSatMGScom