Sewerville Read online

  The cheerleader sarcastically rolled her eyes back in her head, but said nothing. She glanced around the room and finally found her panties in the corner. Elmer noted with surprise that the lavender pair was hers; he’d already pegged those as belonging to the blonde in the bathtub. He had a longstanding theory that blondes always preferred lavender–colored panties. Actually that was not so much a theory as an oft–observed tendency.

  Tile Girl slid her panties on. She tied the towel around her side, then began the tough task of rousing her blonde friend out of the bathtub.

  “Don’t you guys have school today or something?” Elmer asked.

  “I think so,” Tile Girl answered.

  “You think so?”

  “Yeah. I’m not sure. What is today?”

  “Oh. Right,” said Elmer. The calendar. An inconvenience. “I think it’s Sunday,” he offered, not sure at all if it was Sunday or if it wasn’t.

  Tile Girl stood up. “I gotta go to church,” she said.

  Now the blonde zombie stirred in the bathtub, moaning in anger at being awakened. “It ain’t Sunday. It’s Friday, goddammit,” she said.

  Elmer stood up and looked at himself in the mirror. He raked his fingers across the length of his clean–shaven head, front to back; he had a handsome symmetrical dome that he’d been shaving since he was twenty–four. Three days’ worth of black stubble dotted his angular, ratchet face. He thought he might grow his beard out longer, see how that looked, try the whole Jesus look of which all the Brit rockers in Q magazine seemed so fond those days.

  He had a thin body, but muscular and well–defined. He couldn’t really explain why he looked in such good shape, of course. He never exercised and didn’t give half a shit about what he ate. Probably ten years from now his body would fall apart and he’d look like every other middle–aged guy in Sewerville, but until then he’d go with what he had.

  There was also a tattoo, maybe six inches wide, screaming out from the right side of his arm – a demonic skull, with vampire fangs, and two Viking battle axes crossed behind that skull that fanned around to touch on the underside of his bicep. Bright scarlet blood dripped from the fangs. Underneath it all, in barbed–wire letters, the words “GET SOME” clearly stated Elmer’s life philosophy. He was proud of the artwork. He’d designed it himself, in tenth–grade art class.

  He turned to one side, pushed his chest out, admired the tattoo.

  Behind him, one of the girls gagged.

  Elmer looked just as Bathtub Girl leaned her head over the edge of the tub and threw up a prodigious amount of chunky orange stuff all over his nice expensive tile.

  “Aw, shit, baby!” Elmer howled. “Not on the damn tile! Fuckin’ hell!” The bathroom tile. Not the bathroom tile. It cost eight thousand dollars. Nobody else in Sewardville had bathroom tile like that, not even Walt Slone.

  Elmer jumped to push Bathtub Girl away before she could do any more damage to his nice eight–thousand dollar tile. His hands landed against her shoulders and he shoved her backward, against the wall and down into the tub, where his ample experience in such matters taught him that it would be easier to clean up the puke from there because he could just turn the shower on and wash the stuff down the drain.

  In the tub, the girl continued vomiting, purplish orange chunks, beer, chili, vodka and cranberry, equally across herself and the ceramic around her. A geyser. She would not stop. Her puke spread out like an alien blob, putrid, massive, more puke than Elmer had ever seen in one place.

  Tile Girl slouched against the wall, staring at her sick friend, who was still throwing up all over herself.

  “I got your name,” Elmer said, doing his best to change the subject.

  “Sure you do,” said Tile Girl.

  “Nah, I do. I got it. I was just fuckin’ with ya earlier.”

  “Sure you were.”

  Elmer thought to himself, little girls try to act like they don’t care, but they do. They care. “Emily, right?” he said.

  Tile Girl shrugged. Better. Not the best, but better. “Yeah,” she said. “Look at you, mister fucking brilliant.”

  “I told you,” said Elmer with a gleam. “I was just kidding earlier. I knew your name.” But he hadn’t been kidding; the only way he knew it now was because he’d just looked in the corner of the bathroom and noticed the name on her cheerleader uniform.

  “You think you’re friend’s gonna be all right?” he asked.

  “She oughtta be okay, I guess.”

  “All right then, Emily,” he said. “You guys go ahead and get out of here once she’s finished. I’ll see you tonight, right?”

  “What’s tonight?” Emily asked.

  Elmer chuckled. “There’s always something going on around these parts,” he said.

  SHERIFF

  Sheriff John Slone sat in his police cruiser, with the sun shining through the windshield, already warm on his face even though it was only a mid–spring morning. The car idled at the edge of the Seward County Bank parking lot, facing the street so he could watch the traffic. There wasn’t much in the early afternoon.

  Here, he felt peace. Jimmy Sumner’s bullet put him in the hospital, but not in the grave, and he was back where he felt most comfortable. The agony, the physical therapy, the long moments spent deep in doubt wondering if he would ever walk normally, much less get back behind the badge again – all this vanished in the distance of memory. He belonged here. He needed to be here.

  John checked himself in the rearview mirror, tucked some stray black hairs back underneath the front of his police hat, and winked at himself. Women liked him. He could see why. He had a strong jaw line that he couldn’t keep clean shaven, and he filled out his Seward County Sheriff’s Department uniform completely, broad and full at the shoulders and chest. There were no problems getting Sewardville’s finest tramps and Bears Den ladies to head home with him before the shooting, and there were no problems with that after, either.

  The sheriff had rigged an MP3 player through the cruiser’s stereo. He’d filled it with all of his favorites, the soothing sounds of AC/DC, Molly Hatchet, Zeppelin, Black Sabbath, and all the other hard rock bands that he loved so much. Now he pushed a button, and Nazareth’s “Hair of the Dog” burst forth with clarity.

  He drummed on the dashboard, in perfect time with the song, and watched cars pass on the highway.

  Now you’re messin’ with

  A SONOFABEEYITCH

  Now you’re messin’ with a sonofabitch

  Then, behind the song, the police radio crackled to life. “Seward County one twinny eight?” said dispatcher Lou Clark, in his unmistakable country voice. “One twinny eight, come back?”

  Slone stopped his drumming, turned down the Nazareth and picked up his radio. “This is Seward County one twenty–eight.”

  “One twinny–eight, the cawler advises that we got a ten thirty–nine in progress at four oh two Brush Creek Road. Four oh two Brush Creek Road, one twinny–eight, we have a ten thirty– nine in progress.”

  “It’s awful early for a ten thirty nine don’t you think?” asked the sheriff.

  “Maybe so, one twinny–eight. But we got one.”

  John Slone clicked off the radio for a moment. He didn’t like this at all.

  The cascade of numbers was a means of disguise, an attempt to hide the nature of the call from any common citizen who might be listening in on their handy dandy police from the comfort of their own recliner. This of course never worked. All the scanner disciples were more than familiar with the different numbers and their actual meaning, having spent way more than a sufficient number of hours to have deciphered the code. As soon as word went out over the scanner that something unlawful might be going down in Seward County, telephones lit up around the area. Neighbors rushed to spread the latest gossip about the dastardly robbery/assault/car accident/drug overdose that just occurred.

  Ten thirty–nine. The number gave John Slone pause, even after all his years with the sheriff’s d
epartment, even after the hundreds, thousands of calls he’d taken. Ten thirty–nine was the code for a domestic violence incident. He considered that the worst sort of call. Domestic calls could go in any of several different directions, but none of those directions were any good. Emotions ran high in those cases and when emotions ran high, people often wound up hurt, or worse than hurt.

  “One twinny–eight, you there?” said Lou Clark.

  “I heard you the first time,” said the sheriff.

  “Sorry, sheriff,” said Lou. “I was just tryin’ to be clear. You know how that is.”

  The sheriff said, “I’m sitting out by Highway 213 now, but I can be on Brush Creek Road in ten minutes, Seward County,” he sighed. Then he thought about it some more. “Four oh two. That Elmer’s place?”

  “Yeah, Sheriff, it has been indicated that there very well is somethin’ of a high likelihood of that address being Elmer Canifax’s address.”

  Of course it was Elmer Canifax. “He’s probably got them cheerleaders out there again,” said John.

  “Caller does advise there was a suspicion of there bein’ multiple females in the vuhcinty, yes. Would you like to request back up officers be en route to the scene of the altercation, Sheriff?”

  “No backup needed, Seward County,” the sheriff said.

  He started the engine and pulled out onto the highway. As the car accelerated, Slone clicked off the police radio and raised Nazareth’s volume. He lay heavy on the gas pedal and continued south, towards Elmer Canifax’s place.

  John Slone knew Elmer’s place well, much better than he really preferred. The Slone family had seen more than their fair share of run–ins with Elmer over the years. Now would be another. The two sides didn’t share many warm feelings for each other.

  Twenty minutes later, the sheriff pulled into Elmer’s driveway.

  ELMER’S PLACE

  The farmhouse of Elmer Canifax sat safely out of sight and sound from any other residence in that remote part of the county (remote even for Seward County, Kentucky). It loomed half a mile back from the highway, at the end of a pothole–ridden gravel drive that was curvy as a rattlesnake’s back. Thick trees lined the road on both sides, their limbs hanging over the road like sagging, elderly appendages.

  A hundred yards from the house, the trees broke into an open field. At the center of that field stood the old house itself. It was a blanched two–story beast, and had passed to Elmer when his mother died three months after his nineteenth birthday.

  Globs of white paint blotched on the structure’s every side, and some of the boards near the ground showed signs of rot. Elmer paid those defects little mind. He concerned himself mainly with two things: one, his business of choice – the retail of meth, marijuana, and pain pills – and two, the constant schedule of parties which kept a stream of customers pouring through his front door practically three hundred and sixty–five days a year. Kids thought he was cool as hell.

  Sheriff Slone didn’t think Elmer was so cool, though. To him and the rest of the Slone family, Elmer Canifax was a rat, nipping at their business. His pain pill distribution cut into their profits, no question about it. After all, the numbers were down.

  The sheriff drove his cruiser up the driveway. This morning, like most mornings at Elmer’s, was accompanied by the pulsating techno music that thumped at top volume from two five–foot tall loudspeakers positioned on each corner of the front porch, and John felt the bass in his own chest. As he rolled up the drive, he found himself driving through a group of forty kids, who were standing still in the yard. Just standing there, with the morning wind skitting in their dirty hair. Blank looks hovered around their faces. They were all on the big come–down, fresh out of fuel, having burned off all the drugs they ingested the night before.

  They reminded him of birds: tall, thin crows, hovering, telling fortunes of sorrow. Crows with styled hair, pale sharp faces, tattoos from a cheap strip–mall tattoo parlor, sweat–soaked t–shirts that said things like THIS IS LOVE. Dark and beautiful and ugly and alive and dead all at once, they stood there. Often, Elmer sat on the porch right behind them, in his grandfather’s high–backed wooden rocking chair, between the two big speakers.

  This time, though, the crows were alone. Lost in themselves. Not one of them looked up or moved as the sheriff parked his car by the house.

  Then, Tile Girl/Emily came running out of the house in her cheerleader uniform, screaming.

  Slone stepped up onto the porch just in time to catch the girl in his arms. The first thing he noticed was that she was incredibly fucked up, on what he didn’t know.

  The second thing he noticed was the blood seeping into the wool of her cheerleader’s uniform, from a deep slash just below her collar.

  “Whoa now. Whoa,” the sheriff said in his deep, strong sheriff’s voice. He put his hands on the girl’s shoulders. “What’s your name honey?”

  “Emily,” said the girl in the cheerleader uniform, as she tried to suck back her tears, at least enough to talk.

  “What the hell’s going on here, Emily?” the sheriff asked. “Did Elmer do this to you?” He might just have another reason to smack ol’ Elmer Canifax around. Perfect.

  “No, no, not Elmer,” said the girl. She started sobbing again, heaving for breath, exhausting herself, making sense, not making sense. “It was my friend. My friend Lisa. She’s in there. She got a knife and went after me, she went after Elmer, she was fine. She was fine when she woke up, but then she got sick and then after she got sick she just went crazy sheriff you’ve got to do something please sheriff do something she’s got Elmer he ain’t bad he ain’t done nothing but she got a knife a knife on him please sheriff YOU GOTTA HELP!”

  Slone opened the car door again, grabbed his police radio, called an ambulance. Then he turned back to Emily.

  “You think you can wait here in the car for the ambulance?” he asked.

  “You gotta go in there sheriff, you gotta go in and get her out!”

  “I will,” said John. “You just wait here in the car. I’ll be back.”

  He held the car door open for the girl. Emily looked at him, then looked at the house, then back at him again. She blinked twice, wiped the tears from her face. Finally she climbed in the cruiser.

  The sheriff closed the car door behind her, and walked towards the front door of the house. He creaked up the porch’s old wooden steps, unfastening his gun holster as he went.

  Through the screen door, he could see two blurry figures on the living room, locked in struggle. One was astride the other. Though the figures were mostly silhouette, backlit by the sunlight streaming through the house, John Slone could identify Elmer Canifax, and sensed that the other figure had to be this girl Lisa.

  Lisa was the one on top. She held a butcher knife in her hand high above her head, poised for murder.

  SHERIFF

  “Get off me bitch!”

  “Give ‘em to me!”

  “I ain’t doing no such thing!”

  “The hell you ain’t!”

  “The hell I ain’t! You got that right you crazy cunt! I ain’t giving you nothing!”

  “Fuck you Elmer! Give me those pills!”

  “Fuck you bitch!”

  “Fuck you!”

  “Fuck you!”

  The sheriff pulled the screen door open. What he saw there, on the dark hardwood of the living room floor, made him laugh; he couldn’t help it.

  Elmer lay on his back, with his plain white t–shirt ripped at the collar and a bloody gash jagging across his forehead. He was scared white as Christmas morning. His eyes looked like they’d been inflated with a bicycle pump, and the veins on his neck were banjo–string tight.

  Lisa, one of the cheerleaders, was on top of him, all ninety pounds of her, her ass planted in the middle of his chest, her feet hooked underneath his armpits. She breathed in psychotic heaves, chunking white spit between her teeth on every ragged exhale. In her right hand, she had a death grip on the black rubber h
andle of a well–honed butcher knife, the nasty end of which pointed straight at the dimple in Elmer’s chin.

  The unease that Sheriff Slone felt at being called to this domestic incident dissipated as he stepped into the house. This wasn’t so bad – he could take care of a knife. And a little girl.

  “Get this bitch offa me!” Elmer screamed.

  “Hold on there, Elmer,” said the sheriff. “Lisa, honey. Put the knife down, careful like.”

  “See, Lisa, I told you,” Elmer said, “I told you that somebody’d call the law on your stupid ass!”

  “Shut up, Elmer,” Lisa said. Spit flew.

  “No, you shut up!” said Elmer. “You shut the hell up, and you get the hell off of me, before the sheriff has to take care of you himself!”

  “Sheriff ain’t doing anything,” she said. “Are you, Sheriff?”

  Slone just shrugged.

  “Are you, sheriff?” Elmer said.

  The sheriff stood there. He smiled, and wondered whether he should intervene or just let this scene play out to its rightful end. Either way suited him just fine, as long as Elmer Canifax got what he had coming. And he had a hell of a lot coming, as far as John Slone was concerned.

  Elmer waited. Lisa waited. Nobody said anything for what felt like six years. But it was only thirteen seconds.

  Finally, the sheriff stepped toward Lisa. “Come on, now. Get off of him,” he said. “Throw the knife across the room. This doesn’t have to be ugly. Just get on up.”

  “Fuck no it ain’t going to be ugly!” said Elmer. “Fuck no it ain’t, you wild ass crazy fuck cunt whore!”

  “Shut up, Elmer!” the girl yelled.

  “Shut up, Elmer!” Sheriff Slone yelled.

  In response, the girl sliced the knife into Elmer’s chin. A flap of skin opened across his chin. Blood flicked into the air, straight up, paint from a brush.

  Elmer screamed. God, how he screamed, long and loud, like he’d just seen his own bloody ghost.