The following is the first chapter of my
novel, Devils Walk Through Galveston. The prologue was posted on August 11.
I hope you enjoy it. Other portions of the book will be posted
from time to time on Fridays, along with my other work, and the work of other
writers. I hope you enjoy. If you like it, share it, and buy the book. I’ll sign it and love to talk about it.
1. John Doddy, morning
She had red hair and patches of red skin
beginning to bruise. Each had started
another color. Each had looked better
before. The sun rose red, foretelling a blazing
heat. John’s eyes were bloodshot,
opening slowly. She lay quiet and
damp.
John Doddy was slapped fully awake
to Clarksdale, Mississippi. Slapped hard
and heard the words, “Get up man. Look
around. What are you doing sleeping?”
John
groggy, clutching his face, careful not to move, replied, “It’s Friday, no
one’s going to stir for a while after the first wave of folks go to work.”
Judas
leaned against the wall, one foot raised and resting on the beige paint,
rolling a cigarette out of a pack of Drum.
Asked: “You looked around yet?
You look around last night when you came in? You see the truck across the street with the
fire department plates? The one with cop
plates? Or how ‘bout the one with nurses
scrubs in the back seat at the front of the driveway, the front of this duplex?”
“No,
missed those.”
Judas’
voice hard now: “You notice the windows are open? You’re getting sloppy. I thought I taught you better.”
John
scared now, saying “You taught me plenty.”
Judas
licked the cigarette paper, saying quietly, “Guess I didn’t teach you enough to
not make messes before checking if you could clean ‘em up.”
The
open windows. John couldn’t remember
when they’d been opened. Couldn’t
remember much and decided to look for a coffee pot and a pack of cigarettes.
John
rolled over to see the girl and covered his eyes. No coffee this morning, just bleach or fire
or both.
Blood
saturated the sheets below the waist and the pillow under her ears. He couldn’t remember her name. John saw blood on himself. He couldn’t tell if any was his. His clothes, neatly folded over the footboard,
were clean and dry. He got out of bed
and closed the windows. Pulled down the
shades and started the window-unit air conditioner in the living room, ten feet
away. Old and loud. He nodded to himself, thinking that was good. John found the two smoke alarms and took the
batteries out.
Other
than the bedroom, the house was spotless.
Cheap but well kept. Everything
meticulously in its place. In the small
living room, there was a twin bed set low with pillows propped up against the
wall as a couch, a spare bed. The TV on
an extra dresser. Pictures of her with
family, what looked like her sister or brother’s kids.
Judas
had moved from the bedroom and sat at the little kitchen table, rolling the
cigarette between his fingers, over his knuckles, waiting. John found cleaning products under the
kitchen sink like he thought he would.
He filled up a mop bucket with a cup of bleach and filled the rest with
water. He found a rag and brought it
back to the bathroom. He got in the tub
and washed the blood off his skin. Next,
he washed out the tub, toilet, and sink.
Then he washed the kitchen sink and found all the empty glasses, put
them in the dishwasher and ran it on the hot cycle.
John
came back to the bedroom and looked her over.
He closed her eyelids. He moved
the sheet down below her feet and began to wash the blood off her skin. He upended the bucket of bleach-water over
her vagina and made sure it hit the blood below her that had soaked into the
mattress. He did the same to the blood
behind her ears. Then he checked for
stray hairs. He got dressed, put on his
boots and went looking in the kitchen for alcohol.
John
found some vodka and eased himself down in the one chair in the living room and
waited for 9:30 when folks on the morning shift would have gone in to
work. Folks on the night shift would be
asleep. He hoped she didn’t start work
at eight and have nosy co-workers or a boss who’d call.
§§
The
Sunflower Lounge sat on a narrow ledge of land on the ridge of the muddy Sunflower
River that crept silently through Clarksdale, Mississippi. Crept by the bare trees that held hawks in the
day, bats as big as crows at night. Cinderblock walls didn’t try to contain the
noise from inside. The lights were low
or broken out. The carpet red and worn
through in patches. The DJ was taking a
break and had set an Ipod to play for a spell.
John Doddy sat in jeans and boots, a Wal-Mart plaid shirt, hair cut down
to his scalp and a John Deere cap he set on the bar. One he found the week before, nicely
seasoned.
He
saw her across the bar as she sat watching him.
He could see the red negligee top.
Could see tight jeans in the mirror on the wall behind her. She smiled and looked down at her drink,
glanced up quick then back down. John
raised his eyebrows at the bartender.
Picked up his half-empty glass and circled the bar.
He
asked, “May I sit down?”
“Course.”
“What’s
your name?”
“That’s
your line?”
“I’m
too old for lines.”
Smiling,
she said, “You’re not that old.”
§§
John
heard cars leaving. Heard the nurse
through the kitchen wall. Smelled her
coffee. Didn’t hear any kids. When she left the front unit and he heard her
car go down the street, John doused the redhead with the vodka and emptied the
bottle on the mattress making sure to get the sheets that hit the floor.
John
got a lighter out of his jeans pocket. “You
lost your mind, boy?” He stopped, turned
around and saw Judas sitting in the living room chair he had left. “No fires.
She’s in town. You feel like giving everyone in this county a reason to
come over here in ten minutes? You
notice how much country there is starting about a mile from here. You notice how much low cotton there is? How do you propose to walk out of all that
with a massive fire behind you any direction we go?”
A
deep exhale, then: “Alright. I’m ready.”
So
they walked out the back door and over the fence. Down the alley and South.
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