Weaponize
FICTION FRIDAY (Short provocative originals.)
[Note: While Cullman, Alabama is a real city its only factual component in this depiction is its geography. Same for The Cullman County Sheriff’s Office. The characters and circumstances portrayed here are the product of the writer’s imagination and not meant to be interpreted any other way. Violence and addiction are all part of the narrative. Not a story meant for children.]
“The scars and ink had taken months to spell out what he wanted to say, but now reflected his life’s purpose: These hands doled out justice.”
. . .
Cullman County Sheriff “Mean” Gene McAvoy harbored no delicate sensibilities about the potential boot sitting across from him. In fact, the deputy candidate’s obvious tolerance for pain and messaging boldness intrigued the six-term lawman. Mac, a proud ‘bama redneck, most believed would exit the office only through death or indictment, would gladly tell you himself after a few beers and a shot a Jim Beam on a Saturday afternoon fishing for striped bass at Dismal Creek that Bull Connor had been both his inspiration and career role model. Kept his grandaddy’s battered, yellow hardhat on a shelf behind his desk in case the rest of his demeanor played too subtle.
“A’ight son, just make sure you got your sleeves down, when ya’on the clock,” he chuckled. “Hey Donny,” McAvoy shouted to his number two, Don Miller, was a cross between Ed McMahon and Machiavelli, the sidekick consigliere who was always posting up just outside the Sheriff’s office for occasions like this.
“Take a look at here what our newest deputy-to-be done to hisself.”
McAvoy had discovered Heller’s body art after asking him about potentially ‘compromising ink’ he might be sporting. A routine question for new badge hires. Though pleasantly surprised when the boy hadn’t been tatted up in swastikas or black SS lightning bolts, the Sheriff wasn’t expecting this.
Miller’s eyes widened too when Heller pushed back the sleeves on his maroon, bone-button cowboy shirt. While he hadn’t done it for attention Heller was now feeling like the center attraction in a carnival side show. He’d just wanted a reminder. Palpated the comforting swell so often it became like a ritual sign of the cross or finger kiss to a mezuza.
“Y’all Joad Heller’s boy, right?, Miller had asked at the time, eyes still locked on the design.
“Sir,” Heller confirmed, breaking Miller’s gaze only when he re-sheathed his log-sized forearms.
“Shame about you mamma,” Miller offered, looking into the giant’s face for the first time. Expecting to see some deadness or cruelty there considering where the boy’d been and what he’d seen. But Heller, at least at this moment, had the soft, alert eyes of a pleaser. Incongruous, Miller thought, giving what he’d carved onto his body. Shook his head as he watched him walk out the door.
Heller had started it one searing, sleepless summer night at COP Tillman after getting the news his unit had been extended, indefinitely. Sitting in one of the plastic port-a-shitters, he’d dragged a boxcutter from the crease of his left wrist to his elbow. Then, added two slashes, careful not to nick veins, turned the line into an arrow pointing to his hand. Did exactly the same to his right. Later, post-deployment, after allowing the scars to rise and keloid over into perfect, pink earthworms, he had the word “Front” tattooed in a black, military stencil above the scars and “Toward Enemy” in the same, below. The scars and ink had taken months to spell out what he wanted to say, but now reflected his life’s purpose: These hands doled out justice.
. . .
Following six-weeks at the police academy in Birmingham, Lance Heller spent the two years, on the prescribed first rung of the sheriff deputy career trajectory, guarding cons at the Cullman County Correctional Facility. Most there, CO’s and inmates alike, gave him wide berth, his size and solitary bearing early conversation crushers. But he got to know a few of the older inmates, black, brown and white alike. Men so hollowed out they gave traditional boundaries no truck at all. Talked to anyone they motherfuckingfeltlike, including a monster-sized screw like Heller. And Heller had surprised them, if that was still possible, that such a quiet, placid giant existed in there with them. Someone who treated you with respect if you proffered the same, who avoided verbal and physical violence unless provoked and whose countenance seemed to reflect no pleasure in the task of penning men up like animals. By the time he left, a handful of them were quite sorry to see him go. Told him so to his face.
. . .
He spent his next two years solo, just how he liked it, cruising the county from Battleground in the north to Black Bottom in the south and from Holly Pond in the east to Crane Hill in the west. Endless nights of Alabama blacktop, long drives in delicious solitude. What he’d dreamed of during those 16-months in the sandbox and 24 on the cellblock. For the most part he’d acquitted himself fine, responding to domestics, break-ins, bar fights and such. Applied peaceful means when he could or violence when he must, content to do his real work in the dark and out of uniform. A shadow inspiring fear or reassurance depending on where you stood. But happy to stay out of the sightline of Mean Gene MacAvoy and Donny Miller with the exception of brief exposure during the morning shift changes. The two always just shaking their heads in disbelief when they saw him, as if Bigfoot himself had just passed them in the hallway.
It wasn’t until near the end of his fourth year with the Sheriff’s Office that Heller drew some unwanted attention. Happened on a late Friday night early Saturday morning when he stopped to help what he figured were stranded motorists on County Road 31, few miles north of Colony. At first, Heller had passed the royal blue Escort pulled off on the side of the road in the southbound lane with no lights. He’d thought it was abandoned, but checked his rearview, noticed movement inside and crossed over the median to go back. He coasted to a stop behind the vehicle, no radio or flashers until he knew what he was dealing with. Liked it better without a circus anyway. Only his headlights illuminating two figures in the car. A woman in the driver’s seat and a man sitting next to her. They were both frozen as if the patrol car beams turned them into ice sculptures. Heller had learned in his nighttime cruising of the county roads that people reacted three ways when stopped by the popo. Folks either, 1. Exploded in a flurry of activities searching for licenses and registrations in gloveboxes, 2. Frantically tried to toss joints, baggies or bottles out of sight, or 3. Just locked in place. This was definitely a 3. These individuals, he speculated, were frightened. And not without good reason, he knew. Being black during a cop encounter in the middle of the night anywhere in America the odds were rarely in your favor. He also knew their fears would grow exponentially when they spied him through their rearview mirrors. Saw the silhouette of his battleship frame eclipse the headlights on his ‘long’ short walk to them. The stop did not go as Heller planned.
He tapped on the driver’s side window of the Escort, rolled up tight, despite the warm spring evening. The young woman at the wheel glanced over to the young man in the passenger’s seat looking for guidance. He just bowed his head. Heller tapped again. She indicated she would need to turn the key in the ignition to power down the window. Heller nodded and when she did, realized immediately why she’d been reluctant to break that barrier between them. A powerful waft of acrid pot smoke emanated from inside. He didn’t say anything for a beat. His face inscrutable.
Finally, waved his hand in front of him like he was dusting smoke from a burning frying pan. Broke into smile. “Was worried y’all might be having some car trouble,” he said, trying to calm them. But seems like you’re okay. I’m Deputy Lance Heller he said, in friendly tone. And y’all are? The driver already had her license out, handed it to the deputy. Heller took it in his bear paw.
Reading it, “Regina C. Talmadge,” He paused, after glancing the date. “Well happy belated birthday Regina. Eighteen this week—so I take you’re just out celebrating a bit?” Regina nodded nervously as Heller handed her back the license.
“Yes,” she said, tentative.
“And you, sir, what’ll they call you?” The passenger didn’t answer, just continued to hang his head as if contemplating what to do. Finally, Regina spoke up.
“That’s Marcus.”
But no sooner had she gotten the words when he yanked the door handle back and bolted from the vehicle, sprinting toward the road. Heller did not give chase, but tapped Regina gently on her arm, urged her to stay put, while he shouted to the fleeing figure.
“Marcus,” a bemused annoyance in his voice. “C’mon back son.” Heller said. “A lil weed ain’t no reason to go rabbit, ‘specially these days.”
Marcus seemed unconvinced, was now across the road when Heller continued. “Some birthday present Marcus. Just leaving Regina here all by herself. Let’s get this all sorted, so we can get you two home,” he continued. “Your folks gonna be worried.”
At that Marcus stopped, resigned. The whole thing not particularly well thought out, he knew. Ashamed, he turned around and began walking back to the Escort. He’d just reached the berm on the nearside, when headlights appeared from out of the moonless night. Marcus froze. An early model blue and gray F-150 streaked past clipping the young man and spinning him sideways. He collapsed on the black top silently, as if felled by a poison dart. Truck kept going like it never saw him. Maybe didn’t. But Heller got the plate. Was weirdly blessed with the ability to remember random letters and numbers. Had served him well in the army. And now.
“Marcus!” Regina screamed. Both she and Heller ran to him. Heller calling dispatch for an ambulance and backup on the sprint. Marcus was lying on his back, his left leg pretzeled under him, conscious and alive, taking short, shallow, gasping breaths. His eyes wide, the pain of his crumpled limb and the inability to fill his lungs with a proper breath flooded him with terror.
“Get down here,” Heller said to Regina patting the ground beside Marcus. She did as she was told. He instructed her further in a calm and deliberate voice. “Hold his hand, talk to him. Tell’m a joke. Tell’m it’s all gonna be fine. Tell’m you love him—if you do. Never hurts to hear that,” he winked at her.
Heller pulled his heavy mag light from his patrol belt, twisted to its wide beam and scanned Marcus’s body. It was what he heard, rather than what he saw that got his attention. A whistling, seeping sound with every inhalation. He ripped open Marcus’s short sleaved button shirt, examined his chest, saw what he was looking for. Cotton candy, what Doc Petroski had called it in Afghanistan. A bubbling, bloody, pink froth on the right lower quadrant of his chest. Heller used his uniform sleeve to wipe it away, saw that it built up with the next breath. He pulled a handful of chem lights from another pouch on his belt, snapped them all in one wring of a chicken’s neck and spread them in a perimeter of glowing green around Marcus’s body. He went back to his patrol car, hit his blue and red flashers, popped the trunk and retrieved a large, waterproof, molded plastic case, bright green with a white circle at its center imprinted with a red cross. Back at the young man’s side he worked quickly, Marcus’s skin already tinging pale with signs of hypoxia. Heller pulled an oxygen cannister, the size of a kitchen fire extinguisher from where it nested in the black precut foam at the bottom of the first aid case. He attached plastic tubing, one end threaded onto the cannister’s gas nipple and the other to a conical mask. He turned the valve on the oxygen cannister, setting the flow to 15 liters per minute and placed it over Marcus’s nose and mouth, gently lifting his head and securing the elastic band behind it. He handed Regina the mag light and told her to keep the beam over Marcus’s torso. Her hands were shaking so badly, Heller had to steady them in his own.
“Marcus needs us,” Heller said looking into her eyes. Only after she nodded, did he resume his work. Next, he wiped the chest clear with an antibacterial cloth then dug around in the kit for a few seconds and found what he was looking for—a thin, sterile 8x10 sheet of clear plastic. He removed it from its paper backing and placed it across the young man’s chest where he’d seen the bloody froth. He used white medical tape to secure it on the top and both sides, leaving the bottom open as a kind of exhaust valve. It was called an occlusive dressing. Something he also learned from Petroski. Watched him do one on Afghan Army soldier pierced by a round through a gap in his body armor. Once Heller had the dressing in place, Marcus’s breathing evened out. The plastic pulled in against the puncture on his chest during his inhalations and expanded slightly as some air exited through the bottom on his exhalation. Heller was relieved as his color began to return. Regina saw the fear in Marcus’s face subside and he settled. She looked at Heller, grateful. Also, a little surprised by the big man’s medical knowledge and ease in applying it on a dark road in the middle of nowhere. She was more surprised by what he did next. Once Marcus stabilized, Heller patted down the young man’s pants pockets, located a dime bag of weed. He quickly pulled it open, scattered its contents into the sink of the berm, tossed the empty bag into the breeze watched it tumble like a gray dust ball to the tree line and then disappear. He looked again at Regina.
“Go to you car, roll down all the windows. Dump out everythin in the ashtrays or anything else we shouldn’t be finding on you tonight,” he said.
“It was just, that,” she gestured in the direction of the bag. “Marcus got into MSU… and my birthday she nodded, nervous. “Just wanted to kick it a little before everything changes, know?”
He did, but now there were sirens in the distance.
. . .
When they finally sat him down after the Colony incident, Sheriff MacAvoy and Chief Deputy Miller told Heller, “this wan’t no reprimand.”
“You done good son,” MacAvoy told him, pushing back in his chair until the back wall impeded any further progress, he then stepped the sole of his boot against the desk’s edge holding at a 45-degree sweet spot, then tilted a plastic water bottle to his lips and let a dark, brown stream of Wintergreen Skoal dribble down its side.
“Prolly saved the boy’s life too, right Donny?” he said, so expectant of Miller’s support he didn’t even bother to look at him anymore.
“Damn right, Sheriff. Girl said you was like some giant guardian angel, feedin’ him 02 and patching up that sucking chest wound like you was back in the ‘stan.”
“But here’s the thang, Lance,” the sheriff interrupted, surprised Heller by using his first name. “You gotta call that shit in right away. I mean, a vehicle on the side of the road in the dark a mile outside Colony? Who knows what you coulda been up against, dealers, gangbangers. Ya’ big son, but your size ain’t gonna stop a well-placed round. Ya know that from what you seen over there.”
Heller nodded, if nothing more than to put the sheriff on pause for a second, which was all it bought him. “Good thing for you it was just a couple potheads. Young knappy ones at that.” The sheriff laughed and on cue, Miller joined in. “Now we glad you did activate your body cam, shows you doing some A1 hero shit, fully befitting a Cullman County Sheriff’s Deputy. But ain’t sure what you were thinking before that – things ya said to them about the weed ain’t being no big deal. Now it might be recreational legal for those hippie faeries in California, Colorado and Oregon – but still against the law right here in the Yellowhammer. Right Donny.”
“God’s truth, Sheriff,” Miller agreed.
MacAvoy continued, “And I guess we can understand it cutting out before the amblance and Junior, uh Deputy Crawford, arrived. So, if y’all crystal clear on how we operate,” the sheriff unleashed another stream in his bottle, “me and Donny thought we’d reward ya, by moving you off nights couple months early before you scheduled to rotate. Next Monday you starting first shift. How’s that sound?” Like shit, Heller thought, but worked up a blank smile. “Thanks, Sheriff,” and then to Miller, “Chief Deputy.”
“Well deserved,” Miller nodded. “But just one more thing and we all be square. We got the tox reports came back from that boy. Had enough THC in his system to make Snoop Dog proud. Heller tilted his head surprised, but then realized the man did little else besides surf the net all day when not straight-manning for Mean Gene. “Medical Center released him yesterday.” Miller unbuttoned his left shirt pocket, shook out a folded piece of paper. “Got a warrant. We need to you bring him in.”
The sheriff pushed backed with his foot letting his chair settle back into position bringing him closer to Heller. “And that video, well some idiot in IT musta hit the wrong button or somethin,” the Sheriff said, smiling, cause ain’t nothing on it now but you rendering life savin’ assistance to that boy, right Donny?”
“A real mystery, Sheriff,” Miller said. Heller knew what the trade was. Protection for him and the Sheriff’s Office from a potential lawsuit. They probably figured a case could be made that Heller had scared young Marcus into that mortal danger. Short it by going on the offensive. He imagined MacAvoy saying it aloud, which he never would, in between squirts to his bottle.
We just need ta make surtain no slimy, amblance chaser defense liar type tempted to take up his case. Know’d that the boy was crispier than homemade pork rinds. Arrest’l signal they wan’t be no payday against the county. No sir! Not on this one. We talk with the boy on hometurf and if he through with it all, we cut him loose. If not we call in Jonesy from the DA and he have the cometojesus with him.
How Mean Gene and Donny did business, he thought. Cockroaches after a nuke. Through his uniform shirt, Heller rubbed the raised edges of his forearms, thanked them both again and left the office.
. . .
Geordie Rhodes’ house out near the county line was about as sorry as his life. Lance discovered the 54-year-old man had once been a Cullman County deputy, but with performance reviews so bad he’d never made it out of corrections. Eventually got bounced from the Sheriff’s completely and spent most of his days with a low rent private security outfit, checking in cars at a guard gate on the perimeter of molded fiberglass plant. Heller was surprised he’d kept guard card at all, considering that he’d already had two DUI’s on his record. And those were just the ones he’d found. Probably more that already washed off his record from earlier days. Rhodes home was a single-wide in an overgrown dog-patch of weeds, garbage and twisted mystery metals cluttering its lonesome country parcel. The F-150 that had clipped the kid was sitting in the yard, sitting at 45-degree angle to the mobile home as if Rhodes had just hot parked from the liquor store, aiming for the quickest way inside the front door with his bottles and beer.
Heller took it all in. Breathed in the quiet before the violence, as he’d done before a night raid on the mud-brick qalats that were the architectural cornerstones of rural Afghanistan. He flipped on the Bronco’s high beams and the box shadow of the trailer, appeared on a little rise behind it. After kicking in the tin-weight front door, he stood in the frame, let his silhouette sink in. He wore a green and black checked keffiyeh wrapped around his face and head and a pair of dark blue coveralls tucked into his old desert boots. Rhodes startled awake from his sprawl on the living room recliner, half handle of Old Crow on a TV tray and filthy jelly jar glass beside it. The threadbare carpet covered with empty Bud cans and fast-food wrappers licked clean. A movement out of the corner caught Heller’s eye. A tiny, Dachshund bitch, overweight from eating whatever Rhodes dropped on the floor, which by the looks of both the trailer and the dog, was plenty. It didn’t bark, didn’t make a sound, was just twitching and shivering trying to wedge itself into a stained corner, where, Heller figured, it had spent most of its miserable days and nights.
“Whathafuuu,” Rhodes mumbles, puffy-faced with eyelids heavy as kettlebells and the ugly disorientation from a few short hours of alcohol-ravaged, rem-less sleep. This called Heller’s attention back to him and the fact that he was shoeless with the recliner up quickly confirmed his target package. With a wrist-flick, he both extended the metal baton and brought it down in a vicious slice over the top of Rhodes’ right foot. The impact crushed several metatarsals and the lateral cuneiform. Rhodes screamed clear of his sodden state, a sobering, eternal pain, that was just as quickly, absorbed in the surroundings of nothingness He reached toward it, but instead found himself face to face with the keffiyeh and from it a voice so deep it sounded like it was coming from the netherworld, but smelling of Pepsodent and a disciplined regimen of oral hygiene.
“That foot’l heal.” Heller gestured to the misshapen right club, a dirty white athletic sock absorbing a growing stain of crimson underneath. “But you’ll be letting somebody else do the driving from now on.”
“I didn’t do nothing, ” Rhodes said, coming out as a sob. Sucked back tears and snot, immediately after.
“We both know that’s just not the truth, Geordie. You been a menace on the road. But that part of your life is done. Best you stay in here until the fires out.”
“Fire? What fire?”
“The one about to take your old 150 out there.”
“Not my truck,” he whined.
Heller, stood up, touched his chin. “Well maybe you’re right, ain’t much left to it anyway—and being way out here you’re gonna need wheels to get you groceries, take you to AA meetings and such. I might know an ol’ boy needs some work. Good driver. So happens he’s in the program too.”
Rhodes reached toward his calf, choked it trying to stop the pain from moving up his leg. Silent tears finding pathways down the ingrained crevices of his face. Heller looked over to the corner again.
“The pup. What’s her name?”
“Huh?” Rhodes said, his disorientation dissolving with the pain.
Heller nodded to the brown bundle still quiet, but shaking so bad it looked to him like a roll of salami having a seizure.
“Wha—uh?,” Rhodes followed Heller’s eyes to the corner. “Dolly. Her names’ Dolly.” Rhodes said, hoping information might liberate him from the white-hot ache, the surging of pins and needles throughout his limbs and spine.
Heller, nodded approvingly, collapsed the baton by jutting it down into the recliner’s armrest. Rhodes flinched, became still. Saw some relief on the tray in front of him, uncapped the Old Crow and took a long, fish-gulping pull that nearly emptied it.
Heller squatted, held out his hand to the dog. She looked like she was about to rear back in fear, but then sniffed it. His scent calmed her. Then he scooped her up and tucked her under his arm. A football with a snout and tail.
“Aight, Geordie,” Heller said, agreeable tone, coming into his voice. “I won’t do the truck, but I’m unna take Dolly.” He chickened-winged his arm to emphasize the dog, in case Rhodes wasn’t following. Then Heller eyed Rhodes’ old beige landline on the kitchen counter.
“Call yourself an ambulance. It’s gonna take them about 40-minutes to get out here. That’ll give you time to think back how all this happened. You being so drunk you got your foot all caught up in those rickety trailer steps. Twisted it and such. Hurt so bad all you could do was crawl into your recliner. Square?”
Rhodes nodded.
“I hear otherwise, I’ll be back for the truck. And,” he paused, staring down at Rhodes through the slits in his scarf. “if I hear that you out driving again I’ll torch it with you inside.” Rhodes dropped his head into his chest. When he looked up again, man and dog were gone.
. . .
Heller unwound the keffiyeh as he drove his Bronco down the empty country road toward town. He breathed in deeply then pushed up the sleeves of his coveralls and, without taking his eyes off the road, palpated the keloid welts. First the left then the right. Once he finished, he glanced over at Dolly in the passenger seat. He began singing to her, softly at first and then with growing confidence, ‘I am a seeker a poor sinful creature there is none weaker than I am.”
She sniffed him, then climbed forward, paws on the dashboard, strained to poke her head out of the half-cracked window trying to take in the crisp air outside as the dark transformed itself into dawn.
-END-
If you liked what you just read and want more, order Kevin Sites’s award-winning, debut novel The Ocean Above Me, available at the link below.
