[IC] The Pickett County War: A Rural Noir RP

[Byrd Man]

Pickett County, South Carolina

Scott Andrews rolled through Pickett in his unmarked car. Just after three in the morning and his twelve-hour day shift behind him. The small southern town was deserted this late at night. Even the Grab N' Go, open twenty-four hours a day, only had just the cashier's lone car in its parking lot. He followed the highway through the heart of town, pulling off and cruising through Norman.

He saw cars rolling through the narrow streets, people standing on porches and in yards still partying and unwinding on a Saturday night. Of course they were still up in the Jungle. Their kind seemed to be nocturnal. There was a bit of a stiffening among the black citizens of Pickett when they made Scott's car as a cop. He smiled in the dark. Goddamn right. You may not respect much, but you will fucking respect that badge.

Scott pulled into the gravel parking lot of Club 65 at fifteen minutes after three. He saw Wendell and Lisa's cars in the parking lot, along with that familiar old red pick-up truck. Club 65 closed at midnight on Saturdays because of the sabbath. That day still had power over the people here even if they were a lawless and godless. Pickett may be Pickett, but the South was still the South, and in the South, Sunday was sacred.

He spat tobacco juice on the ground as he got out and sauntered towards the club. It wasn't much to look at. A concrete building with a plain roof and a cheap sign that announced what it was. He walked through the door into the bar. Wendell stood behind the bar, cleaning glasses while Lisa wiped down tables and put overturned chairs on them. The one table she did not touch was the one Billy sat at.

The sight of Billy made Scott smile. He wore jeans, a flannel shirt, and reading glasses. In his lap was a biography on Napoleon. He was on the heavy side and had snowy white hair. To anyone not in the know, Billy Brown looked like just another Southern cracker. With the reading glasses he looked like an old Southern cracker. Not in one hundred years would you figure out this old man with his glasses was the crime lord of this county.

"Take a seat," Billy said with a broad smile.

Scott gave Wendell and Lisa polite nods before he sat across the table from Billy. He closed his book and placed it on the table, placing his glasses on top of the book.

"Just getting to the good part. Peace between Napoleon and Alexander I has broken down and Napoleon is marching into Russia." A soft chuckle from Billy.

"Oh, yeah?" John asked to be polite.

"Yep."

The soft smile from Billy started to fade away. He leaned back in his chair and considered Scott for a moment. His small, brown eyes had a way to cut through the bullshit and get to the heart of a man's soul. He had an eye for human weakness that Scott had only seen matched by Mark Echols in the interrogation room.

"That guy I told you to pop last week. That traffic stop bullshit."

Scott raised an eyebrow at that. While on the outside he looked curious, inside he was a bundle of nerves. He'd botched the thing up to hell and back. It was supposed to be simple. He'd been following the guy all day and he was moving in and... fucking Sherry had come up on him as backup before he had a chance to--

"Yeah," Scott said softly. "I remember."

"I know you did," Billy said with his face of stone. "You are goddamn right you remember fucking up. This guy, this Howard Beggs guy is in the fucking wind and I can't find no hide nor hair of 'em. So, Major, I want you to use all the power of your sheriff's department to find him. Find him and take care of him."

Billy didn't say what he meant. He did not have to. He also didn't mention pay. Scott also knew why. He still owed Billy for the last job. The old man laughed again, his harsh mood seemingly gone as quickly as it had arrived.

"I been reading history for nearly fifty years, Scott. You know what I find the most interesting? Kings, emperors, monarchs. What is it that makes an entire country of people fear one man, believe that that one man has been declared by God to be the ruler of these people? What keeps them in line?"

Billy's hard little eyes cut through Scott again. Unblinking and unyielding.

"Fear. One man can make an entire population fear him just by reputation alone. It's a hell of a thing. And when someone does step out of line?"

Billy ran a finger under his throat. He flashed a grin at Scott and winked.

"Now get out of here, and get to work."

******

At five in the morning they came for John.

A loud pounding woke John up from his slumber. He looked around his small bedroom for its source. Another round of pounding. John grabbed the gun he kept under his pillow and got out of bed, clad in only his boxers.

“Open up,” a voice said from outside. “Pickett County Sheriff’s!”

John grunted. Fucking cops. They always pulled chicken shit like this, thinking they were clever to after you this late at night. He padded through the small trailer, tucking the gun into one of the cabinets in the kitchen, and opened the door.

Clint Land stood on the porch, a pump-action shotgun in his hands. Behind him was sheriff Gene Parker in a suit and tie and chewing a toothpick and looking as smug as hell. His fat, ruddy face was coronary red even in the dim porch lighting. Somewhere nearby a dog barked in the night.

Land said, “Against the wall, shirtbird. Spread ‘em.”

John quietly complied. He leaned against the sheet metal of the trailer’s exterior and let Land pat him down. Fucking fool, trying to pat down a naked man. But that was Land in a nutshell. He used to be a big deal back when he was in school and thought that meant he could do anything. He left home for a few years and saw the world for what it was and came running back home with his tail between his legs. His pride wounded, he took the authority that came with a badge and gun and tried to overcompensate for the fact that he would never be anything but a has been.

“He’s clean.”

“Goddamn right,” said John. "Frisking a man in his boxers, the fuck is wrong with you?"

Parker spat. “Clint, go sit in the car while John and I talk.”

Land slowly acknowledge and went towards the sheriff's car that had boxed in John's beat up pickup truck. Parker wiped sweat from his head. Even though it was still the middle of the night, it was still plenty humid enough to make a man work up a sweat simply by just beating outside.

"For the past month, I've had Danny and Mark looking into you. They've tailed you to that property out on Trask Road where you're growing that pot. They took photos of you coming and going, taken photos of what's on the land, and got you meeting with Jeff Silvers and at least two more known drug dealers here in the county."

"So why ain't I already in county lock-up," John spat. "If you're gonna arrest me, arrest me you cocksucker."

Parker laughed. He grinned. He moved quickly, sucker-punching John in the chest. He fell to the ground and gasped for breath. Parker patiently waited for him to recover. A few minutes later, John was back on his feet and rubbing his sore chest. If not for the fact a man with a shotgun was nearby, the sheriff would be struggling to breath his ownself as John throttled the life from him.

The sheriff reached into his suit coat and brought something out. Inside was a mugshot of a man with long, stringy blond hair that was either dirty blond hair, or he actually had dirt in it. John couldn't tell. The man also had a blond goatee. His face, which was bony and looked emaciated, was marked by sores on the cheeks and around the mouth. His eyes were set back in the sockets, his blue eyes looking out at the camera with a wide stare that bordered on insane. Accompanying the photo was a three-page arrest record with Pickett County Sheriff's Department letterhead on it.

"Tweaker," John said with a rasp. "Don't fucking know who he is."

"Howard Beggs," Parker grunted. "He got run in last week for possession of meth. Made bail and then disappeared off the face of the earth. Find him and call me, I'll get some of my deputies to pick him up."

"I ain't a fucking bounty hunter."

"I know, Johnny," Parker said with a wide smile. "But you can find him or you can go to jail."

"Why me? You got deputies, you got detectives who can knock on doors and beat bushes."

"He's important," Parker said petulantly. "Because I fucking say so. And you need to stop asking questions before I change my mind and decide to have you locked up. Is that reason enough?"

John shrugged. He was getting annoyed and tired of Parker's schitck, but what the hell could he do?

"I had Mark and Danny going through his usual haunts and friends. Nothing. Plus, where Beggs is concerned, I can't use my men." Parker lowered his voice and leaned forward. "People tend to clam up when a man with a badge starts asking questions. But you're a Norman..."

"Well well well. The plot thins."

Parker furrowed his brow before shaking his head. "Call it whatever you want, son. I just need a man with a certain reputation. All I am offering is a simple choice: Do this, or you can go to jail for growing and dealing pot. Choice is yours."

John looked at the file Parker had given him and sighed. The fat man grinned wide. John tucked the folder under his arm and shook his head.

"Fuck it. I'll see what I can do."

[Morden Man]

Pickett County, South Carolina

Antwan Dixon had been preparing for this moment his entire life. Whilst the other children were out playing with their friends, Chew Lewis had been forcing Antwan to run suicides. Of course, Antwan had hated it at the time but with four seconds left on the clock, down two points, he was thankful for it. As he stood in the huddle and watched Coach Calhoun draw up a play he could see from his teammate’s demeanour that they were tired, that they needed one final piece of magic from him. Everyone in the arena knew where the ball was going. Antwan welcomed the pressure, he’d built up an immunity to it over the years. His hands didn’t shake, his palms weren’t sweaty, and his pulse was steady as he took to the court. He knew whether the shot went in or not he was destined for the NBA, but this win meant something to him, to his teammates, to Norman. So Antwan wouldn’t even entertain the thought of missing.

And he didn’t. He sprinted round a perfectly set pick and received the inbound pass with enough time to take a dribble, throw up a pump fake to get his defender off the ground, and let the shot leave his hand. The momentum of the shot took Antwan to the ground but he knew the second it had left it was in. The screams of joy from the crowd as the buzzer sounded only confirmed it.

Pickett wasn’t exactly a basketball town. As in most places in South Carolina, college football ruled the roost here with professional football and baseball competing for a distant second spot in the hearts of Pickett residents. Tonight? Basketball would be their religion and Antwan Dixon, the highest rated recruit to come out of South Carolina in a decade, would be their prophet. Antwan could barely hear over the cheering crowd, he felt his teammates arms wrapped tightly around him as they bundled him to the ground, and he felt euphoria wash over him. This was his moment, this was what he’d worked for all that time. But there was someone he needed to share it with.

Roland Spencer stood in the tunnel of the arena beaming with pride. He was below average height, balding slightly, with a black goatee peppered with grey hair and thick bushy eyebrows. His suit was expensive, even to the untrained eye it was clear he took a great deal of pride in his appearance, and he stood out amongst the swathes of casually dressed people. After battling through the crowd, enduring hug after hug from inebriated fans, Antwan made it to Roland and threw his arms around him.

“This wouldn’t have been possible without you, man.”

Roland smiled broadly, his pearly white teeth flashing through his goatee. “You were the one that took the shot, son, not me. A hell of a shot it was, at that.”

“Thanks,” Antwan said as he grinned like a star struck child. “I owe you, man, more than any of these people can understand. You might not have been out there with me but I wouldn’t have been out there without you watching my back.”

From the mouth of the tunnel a woman cleared her throat noisily to interject in Antwan and Roland’s conversation. Antwan’s mother Michelle stood with her hands on her hips and an unimpressed look on her face as she gazed at the pair of them impassively.

“What do you think you’re doing?”

He’d never quite understood why but his mother had always had it in for Roland. When Roland had given him food for money, for clothes, even let him borrow one of his cars, his mother had forced Antwan to give everything back. If she only knew how bad things had got before she’d shook the habit, how close they were to losing everything, and how Roland had helped them through that time, she’d feel differently about things. Antwan was sure of that.

Antwan smiled politely in his mother’s direction, “Gimme a minute.”

“Have you lost your mind? No, Antwan, I will not give you a minute,” Michelle said with a shake of her head. “Your teammates put their body’s on the line for you out there tonight. Don’t you think you should be thanking them instead of standing over here chatting?”

“Come on,” Antwan said with a sigh. “Don’t be like this, Ma.”

He knew there was no changing her mind. His mother was fierce, fiercer even than any woman he’d ever met, once her mind was made up there was no changing it. Was there any surprise though? She was Uncle Chew’s little sister and he was a legend in Norman. She had to be tough. She had no choice.

Roland placed a reassuring hand on Antwan’s shoulder and gestured towards the locker room, “No, no, mother knows best, Antwan. Go celebrate with your teammates. There’ll be plenty of time for us to catch up in the week.”

*****

It ate Michelle Lewis up inside to watch her son hanging on Roland Spencer’s ever word. This was Antwan’s moment and somehow Roland had found a way to make it about him again. Michelle had watched as her baby had ignored his teammates, fought through the crowd, all to seek the favour of that dime store pimp Roland. Antwan thought that because Roland stuffed his pocket with bills and let him drive fancy cars that Roland had his best interests at heart. She knew better than that, she’d seen Roland’s type before, and more importantly she knew where his money was coming from. He was a vulture, circling her baby boy like carrion, and with each step Antwan took closer to superstardom it seemed like Roland’s influence grew even more.

Antwan nodded at Roland’s instruction and shot her a polite smile before jogging off down the tunnel to be with his teammates. The affection he showed Roland cut her deeper than any words might ever have, she knew she’d not always been the best mother in the world to Antwan, but it was the little gestures that hurt the most. She gritted her teeth as she watched her baby disappear into the locker room and stood in silence before Roland.

“He’s an extraordinary boy, Michelle. You ought to be very proud of him.”

She could barely look at him.

“I’ve been proud of him since the day he was born.”

Roland’s sickly sweet smile appeared once more from within his goatee. Though this time it was tinged with a hint of malice, “And what of you, Michelle? Has Antwan been proud of you since he was born?”

It hurt. Michelle’s substance abuse problems after Antwan’s father passed were an open secret in Norman. For the best part of five years she’d put drugs before her son and she was more ashamed of that than anything else she’d ever done. Losing Marcus the way she did, Chew going to prison, it had all been too much for her to handle whilst clean. Antwan had never looked at her the same way after that. It was then that Roland had swept in to take advantage of her only son.

“Eventually he’ll see you for what you are, Roland.”

Roland shook his head dismissively.

“You just remember who it was putting food on that boy’s table when you were too busy chasing a high.”

Roland smiled one last time before disappearing off into the tunnel. He walked with his hands tucked into his pockets, without a care in the world, and it took everything for Michelle not to chase after him and lay her hands on him. She wasn’t strong enough to break Roland’s hold on her son, she didn’t have enough pull in Norman, but there was someone that might have enough of both. If he was willing to talk to her after the way they had left things.

*****

Another day, another memorial service in Norman. It was the part of his job that Deacon Augustus Harris enjoyed the least. It had never gotten any easier for Deacon Harris even with twenty years of experience. In fact it had got harder and harder as time passed to hold the hands of the bereaved and assure them that things would get better with time, that it was all a part of God’s plan for them. It wasn’t that his faith had grown weaker but that the memorial services seemed to be coming thicker and faster than ever before in Norman. It took a toll on even the godliest man. Especially when the young men in the caskets seemed to get younger and younger at each service.

How many times had Gus come close to being a father himself before he had found God? He had long since forgiven himself for the life he’d led before God came to him and he revoked his mistakes. Perhaps there was some young man out there bearing his face from one of the many women that Gus had lain with before he came to the church. Perhaps one of the young men at the countless memorial services he attended had been the product of some spurious sexual encounter he’d had decades ago. How could he ever know? All he did know was that he’d been to enough services to have come to the conclusion he was glad he never fathered a child. This world was not kind to African-American men, this county was not kind to them.

Once Gus had stood shoulder to shoulder with other men of colour and demanded for equal rights. The rent strikes, the riots, the social unrest had all been in the name of equality and the common good. Somewhere along the line the African-American man had been convinced that the enemy was not poverty or inequality but himself. Every year black-on-black crime got worse in Norman and every year the community swore that things would change. It never did.

The boy in the casket before Deacon Harris was a victim of that growing disconnect. Vontae Carter was twenty-three years of age, father to two children, and by all accounts a hard-working man intent on bettering his life and the life of his children. He had been gunned down in the street over an altercation about a pair of sneakers. It sickened Deacon Harris to think that someone might have such little regard for human life that they would put an end to one over something so trivial. They had taken everything Vontae ever was away and ever would be away from him, in the process altering the lives of his children, all without even a thought for the consequences. And for what? Accidentally scuffing someone’s Jordans?

It was madness. Vontae’s mother Janelle had cried into his shoulders for ten minutes straight the day after she had found out her only son had been murdered. His words had failed him then. What could you say to a woman that lost a child she carried to term, gave birth to, and spent her entire life loving? There were no words that could soften a loss that profound. Even at the service when asked to speak Gus had felt a twinge of reluctance to do so, he knew the community looked to him for some semblance of leadership, at least the Godly amongst them did, but this was a moment that even God had left him ill-prepared to handle. He had done his best, spoken at length of Vontae’s determination to escape Norman and provide his daughter’s with more than he’d had growing up, but he couldn’t help but feel it wasn’t enough. Of course it wasn’t enough. No words would ever be.

Gus took one last look around the room before he left the service. There were young boys in ill-fitting suits that they would likely only ever wear to court proceedings and funerals, the mothers frozen with fear that the same fate that had befallen Vontae might befall their children, and the absentee fathers struck with guilt at having lost a child they had never truly known. It was a sight he had seen many times before and sadly a sight he would see again soon.

As Gus made his way down the stairs he noticed a woman stood waiting for him. She was taller than the average woman and possessed a strength that seemed out of place combined with her wiry frame. Her features were youthful but her face was covered in the wrinkles one can only attain through having survived years of adversity and pain.

It was Michelle Lewis.

[Byrd Man]

John Norman smoked a cigarette and sat on his couch. His stomach still ached from Parker's suckerpunch. Just like the goddamn police to throw a cheapshot. He blew smoke and flipped through the PCSD's file on Howard Beggs. His one listed known associate was Jeff Silvers. Of course, if this guy was a tweaker he'd know Jeff pretty well. Jeff ran a cookhouse near the McCormick County line. He and John were cousins in some farback way, one of John's great-uncles fucked one of Jeff's grandmas or something. He couldn't remember, bloodlines in this county ran deep and ran confusing.

Bloodlines...

The Norman Family was once royal blood in this town. His great-grandaddy and his four brothers were hellacious hellraisers. They were a bunch of bad apples sired by an apple ten times as rotten as they could ever be. His name was Elijah or something. John didn't know for sure, he'd never asked and never really cared. He came to Pickett County around the turn of the twentieth century. Nobody knows where he came from. Talk over the years had him as everything from just a half-wit day laborer to a serial killer who roamed from town to town killing women. Whatever he was, he decided to put roots down in this tiny county just on the South Carolina/Georgia line. He was supposed to have been a real asshole, a drunk who beat on his wife and would start fights any chance he got. As bad as he was, though, it was the five kids he and his wife had that would put the stamp on the Norman name.

Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, and Peter Norman. Apostles who worshiped at the altar of violence and crime. In the twenties they ran all the liquor and 'shine through this part of the state. They partied, they fucked, they drank, and anybody who got in their way got killed. They married local women, bloodlines diffused. Subsequent generations were tough, but never as tough as the old breed. He shared his name with one of the old men. The first John Norman was a cop. He was a mean sumbitch that ran the Pickett town police with an iron fist. He killed three black men in the line of duty. He died of a massive coronary in the early seventies. It soon came out he'd sent six innocent black men to death row, those three other men he killed in the line of duty weren't so much of a threat as he made out like. Pickett town PD got shut down soon after.

Norman Family lore held that Billy Brown was the cost for their sinful ways. Divine retribution in the form of a sociopathic former millworker. In truth, it was the same story that had been told over and over since time immemorial. The Normans got sloppy and they got complacent. By the 80's, they'd been running things in Pickett County for three generations and close to sixty years. A hungry new rival challenged them and they lost, inch by inch and bit by bit. The Pickett County War, they called it. Daniel Norman was one of the casualties. John was just a baby when he died in 1987. Officially, the case remains unsolved but everybody sure as shit knows who did him.

And he was working for the son of a bitch that killed his daddy.

John sighed, stubbed his cigarette out. Those thoughts always brought him back to a bad place, a place where he just wanted to kill Billy and burn all that he had and all that he stood for. Instead of focusing on them, he went back to the file. It said Beggs had been bailed out by Carol Johnson. Of fucking course Carol would be involved in this shit. It was just too perfect.

Thoughts of Carol only made John angrier. He sighed and looked out his window. Light was beginning to peak through the trees. Overcast skies meant for a gray and rainy day. It was just after six on a Sunday. Way too damn early to start, especially on a Sunday here in Pickett. John left the file on his coffee table and padded back to his bedroom to get some sleep.

*****

DJ popped a Jolly Rancher. The clock on his dash said just after nine. Jim Brown dozed in the passenger seat. Or at least he seemed to be dozing. DJ knew that at a moment's notice he'd spring awake as if he'd never been sleeping at all. That little ability was just one of the many reasons DJ thought of Jim Brown as one of the scariest white men he knew. Yeah Billy could be mean, but he at least had human emotions. He could get mad or get happy. Jim Brown was always the same, like he was bored and detached and it didn't matter if he was asking about the weather or shoving a gun in a man's face, he always acted like he'd rather be somewhere else.

A slow drizzle came down through the clouds and scattered drops of rain on the windshield of DJ's car. They were parked down a narrow street in the Norman part of Pickett. The house they were watching sat in the middle of the block. Like the rest of the homes here, it was small and block concrete on the outside. A black escalade sat parked in the driveway. DJ stifled a yawn and shook his head. He'd been up late last night. There was the basketball game in the afternoon then a few late night parties. For once everyone was talking up the basketball team instead of football and only football. That little Antwan could ball. He might have a shot. But then again, they said the exact same shit about him and here he was, doing strongarm work on a Sunday morning.

Shitwork for Roland Spencer. Billy told both of them last night they'd be doing some collections for Spencer all day Sunday and into Monday. Fucking Roland, always talking that bullshit like he was doing the two of them a favor by letting them work collections. Like he had a choice in the matter, like he wouldn't have to start barking if Billy said speak. His business with Billy was loaning out money at insanely high interest rates, just one of the many community services they provided to the good black people of Pickett.

"There he is," Jim Brown said very suddenly.

Like DJ had figured, he was awake and sitting upright and watching Rayray Tatum waddle out of his house in his finest Sunday suit. DJ started up the car and sped down the block, skidding to a stop in front of his driveway and blocking his car. He and Jim Brown jumped out as Rayray came off the steps.

"Shit."

"Morning," Jim Brown said. "See you headed for church."

Rayray started to back up towards his porch. Before he could get too far, DJ was on him and had his hands on the lapel of his suit. Rayray was big, but it was all mushy and soft. DJ got in close, playing the bad cop.

"I always like the story of Saul and Paul," DJ said with a smirk. "Saul, that motherfucker was greedy. Like how you is greedy, taking and taking and taking from Mr. Spencer without paying him back."

"I can get the money," Rayray stammered. "It's just my momma's sick, and Wendell's Friday night game at the club I--"

DJ slapped him in the face with an open hand. Hard, but not hard enough to draw blood. It was just hard enough to shut him up and make him worry.

"You know what happened to Saul?"

DJ shoved hard. Rayray tottered backwards and slipped on the soggy grass, falling down flat on the ground with a loud umph.

"Motherfucker fell off his ass and saw the light. You hear me, Rayray? Do you see the light?"

"I'll get him his money."

"See that you do," said Jim Brown. "If you ain't paid back what you owe plus interest, some two thousand dollars, we'll be back and we'll make sure the last fucking light you see is the flash of our guns."

DJ winked at Rayray and smiled. "God bless you, Brother Tatum. Enjoy the preaching."

They walked back to DJ's car, leaving a dirty and stammering Rayray in the dirt that was quickly becoming mud. in the steadily increasing rain.

[Morden Man]

It had been four years ago that Michelle Lewis last came to Deacon Harris for help. He wasn’t exactly sure what she was on then, but she was on something, and she wanted to get clean. Her son Antwan was staying at a friend’s whilst she tried to sort her act out and she needed a safe space to do that. Gus had offered her his couch for a few days, told her he’d help her through it, and she had repaid him by cleaning out his drawers of everything of worth not a day afterwards. Last he’d heard she’d finally got her act together but he’d not seen or heard from her person since, at least not until this morning.

She looked in better shape than before, thicker and more full of life. Her long black hair looked soft to the touch and her clothes were immaculately clean and ironed. Most of all though she had a smile on her face and in all the years she had battled with addiction he’d not once seen that. She really had turned things around. Yet here she was, so something had to be wrong.

“You know, I thought I’d never see you again after what happened.”

Michelle smiled softly, “I kept my distance, Deacon, I was ashamed. I’m ashamed of a lot of things I did back then.”

“We all have things in our past we’d rather forget,” Gus said with a knowing nod. “From the looks of things you’ve turned your life around since, so let’s leave the past in the past, shall we? I don’t see much reason to dwell on it.”

To err is human, to forgive divine. Gus understood that better than most. He had erred time and time again before he had found God and only in His light had he found true forgiveness. It had felt like a weight being lifted free from his chest. All the self-destruction, all the anger, all the bitterness was drained from him in that moment and he hadn’t looked back since. The least he could do is extend that forgiveness to Michelle.

“Thank you, Deacon.”

He shook his head and placed his hand on Michelle’s opposite him, “Call me Gus.”

“Thank you, Gus.”

Gillian, the waitress at Hobie’s Diner, came over and set down two glasses and a jug of sweet tea between Gus and Michelle. The deacon loved sweet tea. He’d have a sweet tooth since birth and had never been quite able to shake it. Something told him the habit might come back to haunt him in later life but what was a man without his vices? He figured that of all the vices, a penchant for sweet things was one of the most acceptable ones.

He reached over, poured a glass for both he and Michelle, and then took a large mouthful, making sure to wipe his moustache dry with his sleeve before returning to the matter at hand.

“So what seems to be the problem? I assume there is a problem? I can’t imagine you sought me out to have old wounds reopened. You never struck me as a masochist.”

“It’s Antwan.”

Ah, Antwan Dixon. Six feet four, one hundred and eighty six pounds, and the most polished shooting stroke of any shooting guard in the United States of America. Deacon Harris knew all about him. He was an avid college hoops fan and kept an eye on every and any prospect that might be South Carolina-bound. The only thing he loved more than sweet things were his Gamecocks. God knows they could use the help.

But it was more than that, Gus had known Antwan’s father Marcus Dixon some. In truth, as small a town that Norman was, it was hard not to know most people. Not to mention that as a deacon he was almost always obliged to know everyone’s business. It was a shame what had happened to Marcus, nasty business that was, and it would be a much greater shame if Antwan had found himself on the wrong side of the tracks too.

“What about him? I thought he was doing well,” Gus said between a mouthful of sweet tea. “Heard he hit the game-winner last night.”

“I’m worried about him,” Michelle muttered. “He’s been spending more and more time with Roland Spencer, taking things from him, he doesn’t know any better, can’t see Roland for what he really is.”

Gus was no stranger to Roland Spencer either. He ran a tire business that had branches across almost the entirety of Pickett County and there was talking of expanding out into Georgia. There was also talk that Roland had got the capital for his business by doing backroom deals with some of Pickett County’s less than favourable characters. If Antwan had fallen in with him, that really was cause for concern.

“How many times has your boy passed through the church doors in his life, Michelle? Why would he listen to me? I’m no one to him.”

“It’s not him I want you to speak to.”

Gus shook his head incredulously, “Roland? Heck, I might as well try to convince the Devil himself to change his ways.”

“Please, Gus.”

The deacon thought of Vontae Carter’s lifeless body lain in that casket earlier with but a few inches of wood between him and his sobbing mother and gritted his teeth. How could he turn Michelle Lewis down after the morning he’d had? Years ago Marcus Dixon had fallen in with the wrong crowd and Gus had been powerless to stop it from happening. He’d be damned if he’d stand by and watch it happen to his son.

“I’ll speak to him, but I’m not promising anything.”

*****

Roland Spencer sat in his office in the Norman branch of Spencer’s Tires and Rims and thumbed his way through some paperwork. It had been a long day but business had been kind, his benefactor would be pleased to know that Roland would be handing over a package much larger than usual this month. From the plush leather seat behind his desk, Roland reached for his phone and glanced at the screen. There was an unopened message from Antwan that he opened, the contents of which brought a broad smile to his face. It was Antwan and his friend Jayson in the new Dodge Charger that Roland had given Antwan as a reward for that game-winning shot. It was nothing in the grand scheme of things, he’d made far more betting against the spread than the Dodge had cost him.

From the door to Roland’s office came a knock and he looked up to see a familiar if unexpected face looking back at him.

“To what do I owe the pleasure of this visit, Deacon? It’s been a while.”

Gus Harris was a tall man, dark-skinned, with short black hair and a well kept goatee peppered with grey hairs. There was a regality to him and his movements that Roland considered to be irritating and enviable at the same time. They had come up in Norman together in a much different time, long before Gus had decided he was better than everyone else and threw his lot in with God, but even before that they had never been anything remotely close to friends.

Gus smiled politely in his direction, “It has indeed, Roland, I hope you don’t mind my showing up uninvited. I know you’re a very busy man.”

“I’m sure I can spare the time to speak to an old friend,” Roland responded, gesturing to the seat in front of his desk.

“It’s about Antwan Dixon.”

In an instance Roland’s sickly sweet smile disappeared, “Ah, Michelle sent you.”

“She did,” Gus said with a nod. “She’s a little concerned.”

Of course she was concerned now, Roland thought. Where was the concern two years ago when he was driving Antwan across Pickett County looking for her? They had found her at a trailer park in Jardin shacked up with some redneck that had providing her with meth in exchange for God knows what.

Roland remembered the way Antwan had cried after they had taken her home and put her to bed, the way he’d promised himself that once he’d made it in the NBA he would take his mother out of Pickett and make sure they never had to live like that. It had broken his heart.

“I can assure you she has no reason to be concerned. All I’ve ever done is look out for that boy of hers.”

Before he’d even finished his sentence he could see that wouldn’t be enough for Gus. That was the problem with church folk, they were living in the past, they thought that prayer alone could lift you up out of poverty and make a place like Norman worth living in. It was nonsense, it always had been, Roland had known that from the very beginning. You wanted to change something? You wanted to better yourself? You had to be willing to plunge your hands in the filth and get dirty.

People like Gus Harris never had the stones for it.

“Still, she is the boy’s mother and I think even you would admit that some of her concerns are valid. We both know that Antwan is destined for big things and wherever he goes attention will follow him. The money? The jewelry? That type of thing is going to bring the wrong kind of attention around here. You know that.”

His tone grated on Roland. It was bad enough having that junkie look down on him and treat him like some sort of criminal, but at least she was the boy’s kin. She brought him into the world. Gus? The Dixons weren’t religious people and Roland wasn’t sure if he’d ever even met Antwan. Who was he to tell him what was sensible?

“You know, I can’t believe that woman of all people thinks she can send you here to lecture me. You know what she was like, Augustus, you know what kind of thing she was into. Who was it that sold the boy’s clothes for drugs? Who was it that sold their body to feed their habit whilst their son went to bed hungry? It sure as hell wasn’t me. No, I was the one picking up the pieces.”

Gus shook his head.

“She’s changed, Roland.”

“Don’t give me that,” Roland said, venom dripping from every word. “People like that, addicts, they don’t change.”

It would have been a lie to say that had Roland been aware of the deacon’s own past he would have been less likely to say something like that. In truth, he would have been every bit as likely to say it, if not more so were he privy to that information. The second the words left his lips he saw he’d struck a nerve with Gus for whatever reason and it didn’t take a rocket scientist to work out why.

He searched the deacon’s face for a sign of weakness, a pang of pain or regret, but instead all he found was calm. The brief look of shock his comment had elicited had disappeared as quickly as it had came, rather than lose his cool Gus simply shrugged his shoulders.

“I did.”

Roland smiled knowingly at Gus, “Yeah, well not everyone has your saintly disposition.”

The deacon leant forward in his seat and placed his hands atop the dark brown desk that Roland was sat behind. The tire salesman eyed him suspiciously as Gus leant towards him, speaking slightly softer than he had previously.

“Look, I can’t tell you not to speak to the boy and I can’t tell you to leave him alone, no one can. Not even Michelle can compel you not to contact him. You’ve done right by the boy, I understand that, but at the very least you need to tone things down a little. If he keeps waving money around the way he is? It’s going to put a target on that boy’s back. There are a lot of desperate folks around here.”

Roland sat impassively and offered little in the way of a response in his facial expressions.

“Are you finished, Deacon?”

Gus nodded and stood up from his seat, “I am.”

“Then I thank you for your visit but I must be getting back to work.”

Roland walked round his desk towards the door to his office and gestured outwards. As Deacon Harris passed him he reached out and placed a hand around his arm and gripped it tightly, pulling him closer to him, he stated as ominously as he could muster. “I shall take your words under advisement.”

He maintained eye contact with Gus for a few seconds before finally releasing his arm. Without a word, the deacon walked towards the parked Prius outside of the building and climbed inside. Once Roland was certain Gus had driven away he returned to his office, sat down at his desk, and let out a frustrated sigh. Who the hell did these people think he was that they could come to his place of work and talk to him like that? He was Roland Spencer, self-made millionaire, and once his investment in Antwan Dixon paid off he’d be the richest man in Pickett County by a country mile. Then no one, not Michelle Lewis, nor Augustus Harris, would tell him what he could and couldn’t do.

[Morden Man]

Jayson Aaron was Antwan Dixon’s best friend. He’d grow up a street away from Antwan’s house and played Center on every AAU team Antwan had been on since the age of seven. That was, until he’d begun to pack on the pounds a little and moving around the court started being a little troublesome for him. He loved basketball more than anything, to this day he swore he had the sickest handles of any Center in Pickett County, but food was his first love. It had been two years since he’d last set foot on a set of scales but he figured he was well on his way to three hundred pounds. Were he anyone else in Norman, he’d never hear the end of it, but luckily for Jayson being best friends with Antwan had plenty of benefits. Not being bullied for his weight was one of them.

So was getting to ride in the passenger seat of the brand new Charger Antwan had been given by Mr. Spencer for his performance the other night.

“I can’t believe Roland gave you this ride, man, this thang is tight.”

Antwan shrugged his shoulders casually, “Yeah, well, you know Roland and me are cool like that. The kind of paper he’s making? I reckon he could give ten of these babies away without it even making a dent in his pocketbook.”

Suddenly Jayson’s chubby brown face began to crumple up in the way it always did when he had an idea,“You think he’d give one to me?”

As loyal to Antwan as Jayson was, he wasn’t exactly the sharpest tool in the box. He knew that though and he figured that made him better than all the potheads in Norman that thought they were philosophers. He’d heard a saying once, something about known unknowns and unknown knowns or something like that. He wasn’t sure how exactly it applied to him but he had a feeling one of them did.

“Keep dreaming,” Antwan said with a chuckle.

“It’s not gonna matter once you’ve made it in the league,” Jayson said with a smile. “You’re going to be making so much paper that even Roland’s gonna seem broke in comparison.”

One more year of high school ball, one of college or even playing overseas if Antwan wanted to get that paycheck early, and then Antwan would be playing in the same league as LeBron James. It was unreal, Jayson couldn’t wait until he could tell the whole world he’d played on the same team as the Antwan Dixon. Heck, he’d even beaten him one-on-one a few times back when they were eight. It wasn’t much but it was more than anyone else would be able to say.

“Damn straight,” Antwan beamed. “But I’m gonna take care of my people first. Get my moms out of Pickett first, some big house in California for the two of us.”

Suddenly a flicker of nervousness flashed across Jayson’s face. He’d never envied Antwan, not once, but there was one thing he was worried about more than anything else. Once Antwan left Pickett, Jayson Aaron would no longer be Antwan Dixon’s best friend, he’d be fair game for the first time in a decade. They’d been together for so long that the thought of being on his own scared him more than he’d ever admit out loud. Luckily he didn’t need to.

Antwan spotted his friend’s apprehension and looked across at him in the passenger seat, “Don’t worry, I’ll make sure you and yours get a little something something too, Jayson. You think I’m about to forget about you? Come on, man. You know me better than that. You’ll be out in Cali with me.”

Instantly Jayson’s fears were put to bed. Antwan wasn’t without his faults. He had a temper, something he said he’d inherited from his dad, and could be a little self-regarding at times, but disloyalty was not something he could ever be accused of. When Antwan said he’d look after his people, he really would look after them, and it was that trait that Jayson appreciated in his friend more than his fame or his skill with a basketball. It was that which made him unique.

They drove around for a time through the long, winding roads of Norman, crossing Jardin, and even passing by Saloon City briefly before heading back. Jayson insisted, as he always did, that they bump Buddy Cuz throughout. He could talk for hours about how South Carolina rappers would shit all over rappers from Georgia and North Carolina if they were given the same amount of radio play.

Eventually they came to a stop outside of the old park where they’d come to play as kids. Jayson remembered playing tag here until he was red in the face and long the days used to seem then. He’d watch whilst Antwan worked on his free throws whilst he and the rest of kids would muck around and have water fights. He’d felt bad for him then, the look he used to get on his face whilst he did it, like he wanted to be doing anything but playing basketball.

Antwan looked over at his friend in the passenger seat, clearly lost in thought, before punching him in the leg to catch his attention, “You know Chew’s getting out this week.”

“For real?”

Chew Lewis. Every kind that grew up in Norman knew about Chew, they’d spread rumours about his exploits, the kind of things he was meant to have done.

“Yeah. Seems like a lifetime since he went away, man. It’s going to be good to have him back. All that nonsense with my moms, none of that would have happened if Chew were still around. Whole family’s about to be back together once he’s out.”

It was the first time Jayson had heard Antwan talk about that period in his mom’s life in a long time. Even Jayson felt bad thinking about the kind of things he’d heard she’d got up to after Antwan’s dad had died. Seeing her that way, hearing about the things she’d done, it was enough to scare him away from drugs for the rest of his life. Antwan rarely spoke about it and even less frequently acknowledged it had even happened. Jayson couldn’t say he blamed him for that. He’d probably do the same.

But with Chew back everything would be different. The man was the definition of an OG.

“Is it true what they say about him? He really walk all those guys out into The Bog and none of them come back?”

“I don’t know,” Antwan said with a shake of his head. “And I don’t wanna know, man, all I know is it’s going to be good to have him back.”

Jayson nodded as he reached for the dial on the radio and leant back in his seat, “I hear that.”

*****

Michelle Lewis sat opposite from Gus Harris and eyed him anxiously as he took a generous mouthful of sweet tea. He’d insisted they meet again at Hobie’s Diner despite liking very little on the menu outside of the sweet tea. She’d never seen a man gulp it down as greedily as Deacon Harris did, it was an endearing sight to see a man in his position to do something so unbecoming. Once he set down his empty glass he wiped his mouth with his sleeve and looked in Michelle’s direction.

“I spoke with Roland.”

That was it? Seriously? Michelle’s brow furrowed, “And?”

“Let’s just say that he wasn’t too receptive to taking a less active role in Antwan’s life and leave it at that.”

She wasn’t sure why she expecting anything other than that response. He had invested too much in Antwan already, both in terms of money and time, there was no way he’d walk away from it without getting some kind of return.

“Jesus,” Michelle muttered under her breath as it began to dawn on her how overmatched they were. “Oh, sorry about that,” she added sheepishly upon realising whose company she was in.

“It’s fine, I’ve heard much worse in my time, Michelle.”

His impish smile told Michelle that he’d said a lot worse too.

“You know he gave Antwan a Charger? He didn’t even ask my permission. Who thinks giving an eleventh-grader a brand new car is appropriate? I swear to God, he’s not going to be happy until he gets my baby killed.”

Antwan had always thought he was cleverer than his mother, ever since he was a young boy, but stealth certainly wasn’t his thing. He’d hidden the car a few blocks away from the house in an attempt to hide it from Michelle but had driven straight past it to pick Jayson up last night. He hadn’t even bothered to roll the windows up as he past the house. If she didn’t know her son better than that, Michelle would have thought it was an act of open defiance. That Jayson had attempted to duck as they drove past the house a second time all but confirmed that it wasn’t.

After a couple of seconds of deliberation Deacon Harris shrugged his shoulders, “You could always speak to the Sheriff’s Department if you’re serious about getting him to leave Antwan alone.”

“PCSD? You think a man as rich as Roland Spencer doesn’t have someone on the inside there? You think the people he fronts that tire company of his for don’t have people in there? Come on.”

“It was just a suggestion.”

Pickett County Sheriff’s Department might have had a good reputation amongst some of the other parts of the county but in Norman their name was as good as dirt. Eugene Parker had earned the respect of the African-American community over the years, most considered him an even-handed man and fair to boot, but the same couldn’t be said for the rest of the department. There had been rumblings for as long as Michelle could remember that some of them were dirty.

Helplessly, Michelle threw her hands in the air and let out a long, pained sigh. “There’s nothing I can do, is there? I have to stand by and watch whilst that smug bastard takes my son from me.”

“You’re his mother, Michelle, and I know it’s not always been easy between the two of you, but that’s always going to count more than whatever friendship he thinks he has with Roland. Give him some time, he’ll see it soon enough.”

She wanted to believe him. She wanted to think that given time her baby would come back to her and thank her for having tried to warn him about Roland from the start. But all the money? That new car of his? It wouldn’t be long before people started getting ideas.

“I’m not sure I have that kind of time.”

A few minutes passed and Deacon Harris poured himself another large glass of sweet tea whilst Michelle played every possible outcome her son’s friendship with Roland could have in her head. None of them were good.

After another large mouthful of sweet tea, Gus cleared his throat and then spoke, though this time in a voice less certain than he usually spoke, “A little birdie told me that Charles is going to be released soon. How do you feel about that?”

Chew. How on Earth had Gus found out he was getting out? Michelle had almost forgotten and he was her blood. She shouldn’t have been surprised he knew about Chew getting out, church folk always found these things out before anyone else.

“I came to you to speak about Antwan, Gus, not my piece of shit brother.”

“You know, the past few years will have been tough on Charles.”

Even the mention of her brother’s name made her blood boil. He’d been hero growing up, looked out for her when nobody else would, but she’d never be able to forgive him for what he’d done. She swore to herself five years ago that she’d never go back on that and she felt as strongly now as she did then that it was the right decision.

“Try bringing up a son on your own in Pickett County and then tell me what tough is,” Michelle said with a shake of her head. “I appreciate the concern, but as far as I’m concerned I don’t have a brother anymore.”

With that, Michelle stood up and walked out of Hobie’s leaving Deacon Harris sat alone. There was only man in Michelle’s life and that was Antwan. Once there had been another though, but her brother had seen to it that she’d live the rest of her life diminished by bringing an end to that. By bringing an end to him.

*****

Charles “Chew” Lewis strode out of the prison with a duffel bag sagging over his shoulders. He was a big man, standing all of six feet six tall, with the type of body that would make even the bravest of men think twice. Prison had saw to make him even more of a specimen, though his once curly black hair had been shorn away entirely.

“Look who it is,” Dante Fulsome said in a voice so loud it was as if he were oblivious to his being in public. “The Saloon City Ripper.”

Dante threw his hands around Chew and hugged him. Dante had been a friend of Chew’s before he went inside and since Marcus Dixon was gone he was probably the nearest thing Chew had left to a best friend. In truth, Dante got on Chew’s nerves at the best of times but he had always been handy in a fight despite being a small man and had a knack for finding things. In their old line of work those skills had come in particularly handy.

Fulsome placed his hands on Chew’s chin and titled it side to side, “You haven’t aged a day, motherfucker.”

Chew shrugged as he glanced Dante up and down, “I’d say the same of you but you know I’ve never been too hot on the whole lying thing.”

“Well fuck you, motherfucker, I’ll have you know I moisturize every fucking day.”

Well, that was definitely new. Before Chew had gone inside Dante had been as close to the stereotypical bean-eater as humanly possible. He’d cleaned up some, his short black hair was side-parted and he wore a buttoned down white shirt with trousers, it was almost enough to make Chew think that Dante had gone legit. At least he might do if he didn’t know otherwise.

“You’d better look into getting your money back then,” Chew said with a smile. “Whatever’s in that moisturizing you’re using ain’t worth a goddamn cent.”

Dante burst into laughter and slapped his friend on the back heartily before directing him to the pickup truck opposite the prison.

“It’s good to have you back, man.”

Chew glanced at Dante as he climbed inside the truck and smiled, “It’s good to be back.”

Where was back? He’d only ever known Norman but there was nothing for him there anymore. His sister had all but disowned him after what went down with Marcus and everyone else Chew knew except Dante were either dead or in prison. He wasn’t exactly expecting a surprise party when he got there. Where else could he go though? There was nowhere else. Norman was his life.

As they drove Dante regaled him with tales of varying degrees of interest. His sister had got married, moved to Florida with some Chinese man, and in doing so had broken his mother’s heart. John Norman had thrown in with Billy Brown after the Norman Crime Family had gone down, much to the surprise of everyone in the entire goddamned county, but outside of that it was practically business as usual.

“You get your GED whilst you were in there or should I put in a few calls and let some people know the nastiest motherfucker Norman ever produced is back in business?”

He knew the second he answered that Dante was going to laugh at him. He’d almost laughed at himself when he’d decided it, but the way he saw it he didn’t have much of a choice. “That’s not me anymore, man.”

They stopped at a set of lights and Dante looked at him, completely bemused. “What? What are you talking about?”

“I’m out of the game,” Chew said with a sigh. “Took too many years of my fucking life as it is, Dante, I’ll be damned if I end up back in that place to line some other guy’s pocket.”

It wasn’t that he was tired of the bloodshed or that he’d decided he wanted to settle down and have kids that had made him changed his mind. It was whilst he was on the inside, listening to stories of guys who’d spend the rest of their lives in that goddamned prison talking about how they didn’t regret a thing. How if they could go back and change how things went down they’d do it all over again in a heartbeat. How fucking dumb did you have to be? It was one thing to throw your life away once but to say you’d do it all over again? He knew then he was done. The gang-banger life wasn’t for him anymore.

“What the fuck else are you going to do? I hate to break it to you, Chew, but the labour market’s not exactly a welcoming place for ex-cons.”

“I don’t care,” Chew said with a shrug. “I’ll find something. Stacking shelves, construction, who the fuck cares? I’m out of the game this time, Dante, I mean it.”

As the lights turned to green and the truck began to pull out, Dante looked at his friend blankly, his face completely emotionless and without expression. Chew couldn’t tell whether it was pity or worry on his face but neither left him feeling particularly comfortable.

Finally Dante let out a long sigh.

“We’ll see if you’re still saying that in two week’s time.”

[Morden Man]

Dante Fulsome was woken from his slumber by the sound of banging from his front door and sat up with a heavy sigh. He could still smell the Jack Daniels and Coke on his breath, amongst other things, and his head was throbbing. He’d taken Chew to Club 65 to celebrate his being a free man and they’d stayed out until the early hours of the morning. It was the first time Dante had seen Chew smiling properly since he’d got out. Whatever happened in there, whatever it is he saw, or whoever got to him, Chew had changed and Dante wasn’t entirely sure if it was a good thing. He’d never been the talkative sort, not even before things went south on that deal with those Georgia boys, but he was even more reserved than Dante remembered. Hell, Chew had even turned him down when he’d offered to pay to get him some company for the night. What kind of man turned down free tail?

He shrugged and climbed out of his bed, steadying himself on his bedroom wall as he stood up, and threw on a pair of discarded boxers. He wasn’t sure if they were clean and he didn’t quite care. All he wanted to do was get whoever the hell it was banging on his front door to fuck off so he could get some more sleep. Though Dante kept himself in good shape there was no denying he was technically no longer a young man. How bad he felt the morning after a night out had only confirmed that to him.

He staggered out of his bedroom and past Chew, who laid asleep on the couch with drool rolling down his cheek, before stopping to peer through the peephole of his apartment door to see who was outside. It was Antwan Dixon, Chew’s nephew, and some other kid Dante didn’t recognise, but damn was that boy big. He looked like a black Michelin Man.

Dante opened the door slowly and squinted as the light from the hallway shone in his face, “What’s good, ‘Twan? You couldn’t have called ahead or something? I’ve got the worst fucking hangover of all time.”

“Sorry,” Antwan said as he gave Dante some dap. “I’m here to see my Uncle.”

Antwan looked more and more like Marcus every time Dante saw him. There was still something of Michelle there though, his features weren’t as hard as his father’s had been, and his eyes were far too fair to have come from Marcus. But there was enough of Marcus there to make Dante feel uncomfortable, he could only begin to imagine how uncomfortable it would make Chew feel.

“Yeah, I figured as much,” Dante said as he gestured Antwan inside. “Come on inside, motherfucker.”

Dante stepped aside to let Antwan in but put out an outstretched hand as the fat boy tried to follow him in. Antwan he knew, but this kid? He didn’t know a thing about him and Dante didn’t trust people he didn’t know anything about. Especially not in a town like Norman.

“Where the fuck do you think you’re doing? You can wait outside, Fatrick Ewing.”

He could see the thinly veiled pain on the boy’s face.

From behind him Dante heard the voice of Antwan call out to him, “Chill, Dante, that’s my boy Jayson.”

“Jayson Aaron? Alicia’s boy? Shit,” Dante said with a bemused shake of the head. “You know I was only playing, right? I mean, I ain’t about to pretend you’re not a big boy but I wouldn’t have clowned you like that if I knew who you were. You know that, right?”

Of course, he neglected to mention that Alicia had let him and a few of the other neighbourhood guys hit it a few times back in the day. She wasn’t exactly a skinny girl back then and from what Dante had seen of her since she’d kept packing on the pounds long after she’d had Jayson. The little homie didn’t have a chance.

For once, Dante actually felt bad. “No hard feelings?”

Jayson reached out and shook his hand, though the look in his eye told Dante he was still smarting from what he’d said. “No hard feelings.”

Life was hard enough in Norman without having thin skin. People got clowned on every single day for the way they looked, the way they dressed, the way they spoke, and you had to learn quickly how to laugh at yourself or learn how to throw hands. Somehow Dante suspected that Jayson had avoided that choice, soaking up Antwan’s reflected glory all of these years had fooled him into thinking life would go easy on him. Dante had some stories that might teach both of them that life in Norman was anything but. It would always be anything but.

Dante kicked the base of the couch with his bare feet, shaking the sleeping Chew Lewis until his eyes began to open. “Wake the fuck up, Chew, we got visitors.”

*****

Chew’s eyes crept open slowly and he noticed Dante Fulsome stood over him. Behind the coffee table in the centre of the room was the biggest teenager Chew had ever seen in his life and… a ghost. It was Marcus Dixon. But how? It couldn’t be Marcus, Chew thought with a shake of his head. It was only when the boy opened his mouth he realised it was his nephew Antwan. He looked so much like his father that even after hearing his voice it was hard to believe it wasn’t him.

“What’s up, Chew? It’s been a while.”

It was an understatement if Chew had ever heard one. As much as Dante had tried to convince him that not much had changed in Norman, Chew felt more out of place there than he’d ever done before. He felt like the world had moved on without him. The only thing he had left tying him to this place was his sister and her son and Michelle didn’t want anything to do with him. Not that he blamed her for that. If Antwan knew what had happened, what he’d done, he wouldn’t want anything to do with him either.

Chew sat up in his couch and looked at his nephew blankly, “What are you doing here?”

“What do you mean what am I doing here? You’re my uncle, man, I came to see how you were. That not allowed or something?”

Chew could hear the hurt in his voice. Before he’d gone away he’d been everything to Antwan. The closest thing to a father he’d have since his wasn’t around anymore, a coach, and a mentor to boot. Whilst the other kids were playing with their imaginary friends Chew had Antwan out on the court working on his fundamentals. He’d have to hone those if he wanted to make it out of Norman. Plenty of kids better than Antwan was at that age flamed out, amounted to nothing, and were never heard of again. He wanted more than that for Antwan. He knew what Norman could do to a young man, he’d seen it with his own eyes, he’d lived it. Antwan wasn’t going to relive his father’s life and he definitely wasn’t going to relive Chew’s life, not if Chew could help it.

And the best way to do that was to stay as far away from him as possible. It’s what his sister had told him to do the last time they’d spoken and he intended to listen to his sister for once. After what he’d done to her he could never refuse another thing she asked of him. That much Chew knew for certain.

His nephew’s face was awash with disappointment but Chew steeled himself and shook his head, “You can’t be here, Antwan.”

“What? What are you talking about?”

The memories Chew had of training with Antwan back when he was barely old enough to loft the ball above his head had got him through prison. Knowing his nephew had become a sensation, hearing from the other prisoners about the player Antwan had become, it had kept him alive in there. But he’d made his sister a promise.

“Look, your moms wouldn’t want you here, Antwan. You know that.”

“Fuck my moms, man.”

Chew leapt up from the couch and grabbed his nephew by his collar, “You don’t ever talk about her like that. You hear me? That woman sacrificed more for you than you’ll ever know, boy.”

“Whatever man,” Antwan muttered. “Get off me.”

Chew released him and the boy took a few steps backwards. He was mean-mugging, doing his best to make out that his uncle hadn’t scared him, but it wasn’t working. Chew looked at Jayson and Dante, who had been stood silently throughout, and suddenly felt a pang of embarrassment. He stepped back and slouched back into the couch with a sigh.

He was a disappointment. How long had Antwan dreamt of being reunited with him, the man that had taught him everything he knew about basketball? And this was all Chew had to offer him by way of reunion, excuses about why he couldn’t speak to him? He’d have been disappointed in him too if he were in Antwan’s shoes.

“You know what? I don’t know why I even bothered coming,” Antwan said, his hands still shaking with shock. “Jayson, let’s get out of here and leave these has beens alone.”

Antwan reached into his pocket and pulled out what looked to be a poorly wrapped present. He threw it down on the coffee table in front of Chew and followed Jayson out of Dante’s apartment, slamming the door shut as he went. It made Chew wince, everything about the encounter had made him wince, but his ailing head could have done without Antwan slamming the door shut. Chew looked at Dante, who was shaking his head in disbelief at the exchange, and then stared at the ground emptily.

“Shit,” Dante said with a sigh. “That shit was heavy, man.”

*****

Opposite Roland Spencer sat Billy Brown. To the untrained eye Billy had the look of an unassuming man. The thick-lensed glasses that sat atop his large nose, his propensity to have his head buried in a book, and the fact he was, to put it kindly, not in the best shape all reinforced that impression. To those that knew though, Billy Brown was the most powerful man in Pickett County and as a result one was expected to pay him due diligence. Today Roland was paying his.

It had been close to a decade and a half since Roland had first sought out Billy Brown. Roland was a broken man then, with barely a penny to his name, but his wits were sharp and Billy seemed to value intellect in a person. Intelligence often, though not always, manifested itself in competence and in the line of work Billy was in that trait was especially important. He’d seen something in Roland that day, agreed to bankroll Roland’s little venture, and Roland had become a rich man as a result. Spencer’s Tires and Rims had gone from strength to strength over the years, opening new branches across the county, and Billy had seen a huge return on his investment.

That wasn’t enough for Roland though. Oh no, he’d wanted to expand out across into Georgia, told Billy he dreamed of reaching out as far as Atlanta, and he needed Billy’s help to do that. It wasn’t so much a question of money anymore as influence. There were certain hands that needed greasing, regulations that had to be met, that for all of Roland’s wealth could only be achieved with the type of pull that Billy Brown had. So they had struck a new deal, one with Antwan Dixon at the center of it.

Gus showing up at the shop had spooked Roland a little. As he sat opposite Billy in a booth at Club 65 and anxiously recounted the discussion he’d had with Deacon Harris to him, he couldn’t help but feel like Billy felt he was wasting his time. As Roland’s tale came to a stop Billy removed his glasses, rubbing them clean, before smiling softly at Roland in a way that unsettled him. Billy’s smile had always made him feel uncomfortable. A man that vicious shouldn’t be capable of smiling.

“It’s nothing to worry about.”

Roland raised an eyebrow, “Are you sure? I mean, people respect Gus around these parts. If he starts making noise on this one it could mean trouble for us.”

Perhaps Billy didn’t quite understand how things worked in Norman, Roland thought to himself, aware he’d never have the courage to speak that sentence aloud. As long as Billy had ruled the roost in Pickett County, he couldn’t understand how things worked there, no one could unless they were from there. Even the crackers that were born and raised in Norman had trouble understanding the politics of the place. Gus Harris might not have been Gene Parker but folks in Norman trusted him more than they ever would the Sheriff’s Department.

“Trust me,” Billy smiled. “Deacon Harris won’t be making any noise on this one.”

“You have something on him?”

Again Billy smiled and again Roland found himself incapable of maintaining eye contact when he did, “Let’s just say that Deacon Harris had some rather addictive habits before he found God.”

That was it? That couldn’t be it. Gus had admittedly that freely to Roland when he’d stopped by the shop the over day to talk about Antwan. They had to have pictures? Something? That wasn’t enough, Roland thought, but peculiarly found himself not saying a word. Why? Billy and he had common purpose, stopping Gus in his tracks helped both of them, but here he was holding out on the most powerful man in town. It could cost him, it could cost them both, but try as he might Roland couldn’t bring himself to tell Billy that alone wouldn’t bring Gus down.

And then it snapped into place as he glanced up at Brown’s smile. There was a part of Roland that resented Brown, resented the part he’d played in Roland’s success, and every time they met it was a constant reminder that he wasn’t strong enough to make it on his own. He’d always be on the hook to Billy Brown and knowing this, knowing something he didn’t know, made Roland feel like he had a little power in the dynamic for once.

Suddenly Brown’s voice cut Roland’s mental tangent short and dragged him back to reality, “You just be worried about keeping up your end of the deal.”

“Worried? What would I have to be worried about? The tire company is bringing in even more than we thought it would.”

“You think I don’t know what goes on in my own business, Roland? I’m talking about the kid.”

His business? The words grated against Roland’s very being. He prided himself on being a self-made man, built his whole reputation around it, and if he didn’t know better he’d think Billy was deliberately trying to cut him down to size. The fact it was deliberate made it even worse. Billy didn’t see him as a threat, nor as an equal, Roland was his employee. That more than anything hurt Spencer’s pride.

Roland sighed, “As long as Gus is kept in line, I don’t anticipate any more trouble. I mean, the decision is still a year away but I think I’ll have his ear when it comes to it. Antwan will make the right choice.”

“Good, because a lot of people have a lot of money riding on this thing.”

“They won’t be disappointed.”

“I trust not,” Billy said, his voice becoming thick with menace all of a sudden. ”Because if that boy so much as thinks out loud about going anywhere other than South Carolina, they’re going to need a whole fucking crew of CSI guys to prove you even existed, Roland, let alone find your body.”

Roland had been threatened before. In his youth he had something of a penchant for finding himself in sticky situations, usually induced by some rye that brought out the worst in him. In all his years no man had made him feel the way Billy Brown had in that moment. The soft smile that had adorned Brown’s face had disappeared and only a steely looked was left in its wake that told Roland that he was being deadly serious. For a moment Roland reflected on his folly in ever wishing himself free of Billy’s command, considered that somehow he’d sensed his insubordination, that he knew he was holding out on him. Should he have told him about Gus? Fuck, he should have told him. It was too late for that now though.

Suddenly Billy’s smile appeared again.

“Have a nice night, Roland.”

Silently Roland walked away from the booth and out of Club 65 without so much as a glance in Wendell or Lisa’s direction. His legs felt weak but somehow he made it out to his car and inside without them giving out. For a few moments Roland sat, his brow now damp with sweat, as his imagination ran wild about what Billy would do if Roland couldn’t keep his end of the deal.

Suddenly he felt a burning sensation in his throat and managed to burst the car door open in time for vomit to come squirting from his mouth into the gravel. He stared down at the deposited contents of his stomach for a few moments, his body shaking with tension, before wiping his mouth with his sleeve.

God help him.

[Byrd Man]

"Personally, I think it's the world's fault."

Scott Andrews watched through a two-way glass as Sergeants Mark Echols and Danny Johnson interrogated a skinny white boy with cuts and sores on his face. The boy sat at a bolted down table, smoking cigarettes, while Echols sat across from him. Danny stood by the door, his arms crossed and scowling. When it was a white suspect Mark played the nice guy, Danny the angry black man. When they had a black man Danny was their brotha and Mark played up his accent, the racist redneck peckerwood sheriff stereotype.

Echols shuffled paper and scanned over the boy's file before looking up. "Says here you never knew your daddy. Alcoholic mamma, it was your grandmamma that raised you. You didn't ask to be brought into this world, Pat. You inherited this shitty place and time from your shitty parents. You were given a raw deal the second you started breathing, son. How else were you supposed to respond but with anger?"

Scott smiled. Fucking Echols. He was an asshole for sure, but goddamn could he work a suspect over. Within a few minutes of talking to a man he could take their measure and figure out exactly what motivated them. He could employ just the right amount of hate and affection to get someone to tell their deepest, darkest secrets. The only other person even close to being like that was Billy. They both had a way of cutting through all the bullshit and presumptions and false fronts a person showed the world and get down to that bedrock underneath. There was only one man Scott could ever remember not being broken by Echols and that was Chew Lewis. The unstoppable force could beaten to shit by that immovable object.

Echols said, "We're all trapped by forces that we don't understand, son. You think I want to be in this room, talking to you about beating up an old lady for her welfare money? No. Fuck no. But here we are. You know DJ, right? Big DJ, runs around town getting into all kinds of shady shit? That's Sergeant Johnson's son."

Scott saw Danny bristle slightly. DJ went to work for Billy right after he dropped out of high school six years ago. Six years on and it still drove Danny crazy that his own son listened to Billy Brown more than he listened to him.

"You're not the only one trapped by circumstance, Vincent. But you have a chance to break the cycle you are trapped in. Tell me about what you did. Confess and we can get you off drugs and get your life back on a right path, a path that will be of your choosing."

Scott shook his head and left just as the boy started to talk to Echols all about the shit he'd done. He walked through the halls of the sheriff's department. It's concrete walls painted pink and hard linoleum floor looked like a school because it was. Old Pickett County High closed ten years ago and the PCSD took over the building. It was cheaper than having to renovate the old building or build a brand new one. Scott's office was the classroom where he took Mrs. Chase's English in the 11th grade. He remember Scooter Redman broke into the school one night and took a shit on Mrs. Chase's desk. Thankfully it was a different desk now.

He plopped behind it and logged into his computer. He found Howard Beggs' file. His stats, his listed address as being somewhere across the state in Florence County. Said Carol Johnson picked up his bail. He knew Carol, she was one of Jed's women. There was a start there. Scott expanded the search to the state, see what kind of shit Beggs got up to outside of Pickett. He got nothing. He went wider. He got nothing in Georgia and North Carolina. Howard Beggs' arrest last week was his first stop. That bothered Scott a whole hell of a lot. The way he remembered Beggs, there was no way in hell that was his first pop.

Scott drummed on his desk for a few minutes before he stood up and headed towards the parking lot. He passed by the interrogation room on his way out. The boy was crying as he wrote a confession, Echols with a hand on his shoulder and saying comforting words as the boy condemned himself to at least five years of prison.

*****

John Norman turned his pick-up truck down the dirt road that ran off Anderson Street near the outskirts of town. The truck bounced down the bumpy road road towards an empty, weed-filled lot that sat by train tracks. He knew there were eyes on me, watching his approach the tracks from more than one hidden vantage point. He pulled to a stop just twenty feet from the tracks and parked the truck.

A bird whistle sounded somewhere off in the distance as he got out and walked over the train tracks and towards the clump of woods on the other side. They'd know he was coming. Good, thought John, that'd make it easier. After a short walk through the woods, he came out to a large, open field. A ratty old camper sat parked in the field without a truck hitched to it. The original white paint on the side of the trailer had faded so much it was now a bright gray, dents and dings ran up the side of the camper. The entire field had the faint smell of cat piss that often accompanies methamphetamine. The door to the camper opened with a rusty squeak and a fat man wearing faded blue jeans and a stained red t-shirt came out. He had the same dark brown almost black hair as John's, just a whole hell of a lot thinner on top. It was so thin you could see his scalp underneath the wisps of hair. John hid a smile. He'd been going bald since he was twenty. In another five years, he'd completely hairless up top. He scowled as John approached. His scowl faded some as soon as he recognized him.

"John," George Silvers said with a suspicious look. "The hell you doing here?"

"Guy can't drop in and see his kin without having a motive?"

"Not when he's working," he said with a thumb pointed back at the trailer. "C'mon, John, I got shit to do, man."

"Just want you to help me find someone."

"C'mon, John." George held his hands up. "I know you ain't law, but if it gets around that I'm helping snitch on my customers, it ain't gonna look good on me."

"George," John said, reaching into my pocket and pulling out the photo of Beggs. "All you gotta do is tell me if this guy comes around to buy from you. If he does, that means he'll be back. All you gotta do is call me when he shows up. I'll stay back on Anderson and wait until he's far away from here before I make my move, okay? You do this and I'll owe you one. Here, look at the photo. Fella named Howard Beggs. Looks like he may be one of your patrons."

George scrutinized John for a few long seconds, looking at his face to try and see what he was thinking, or if he was bullshitting him. Finally, he gave up and started studying the photo. George hadn't asked why John wanted to find Beggs, and John didn't plan on tell him. George probably assumed it was a debt and left it at that. John figured that while Parker was an asshole and a dumb shit, he may be right about most people being open to talking to him over any of his deputies.

"Looks familiar," said George. He scratched the patchy stubble under his chin. "Can't place him right off, but I have seen him around. What'd he do?"

"He bout a quarter pound of weed from me" John lied. "Fucker said he'd pay half now and half later and that was a week ago."

"Fuck, John," George cackled. "You the dumbass then. Thinking this tweaker motherfucker is gonna pay anybody back."

John popped his knuckles and scowled. That shut George right the hell up. He clammed up and went back to the photo. George nodded and kept rubbing his chin. John let him stand there in silence, thinking of what to say next. He figured George was either coming up with a lie, which John would be able to call bullshit on right away, or actually trying to remember something.

"When he did come up to the camper," George finally said. "He had someone with him. Shit, what was her name? Uhh, damn. I used to know it... Carol something..."

"Johnson?"

"Fuck yeah," George said, snapping his fingers. "Yep, he was with Carol Johnson! She paid for it. See, unlike you Johnny I get the full amount up front. It's just good business."

John scowled. "Know whereabouts Carol is staying?"

"Can't say that I do," he said with a shrug. "I just make and sell the shit to 'em, I don't socialize with 'em."

John lit a cigarette. George asked for one and he told him to go fuck himself.

"If him or Carol come back here, you call me. You got my phone, right?"

"Sure do."

John nodded and waved to George.

"Later, cousin."

[Morden Man]

Antwan Dixon was steaming. He’d been steaming ever since he and Jayson had been to visit Chew that morning. Coach Calhoun had been peppering him with questions all afternoon because even he could sense something was wrong. It didn’t matter though, Antwan wasn’t going to let it get in the way of their game tonight. He’d worked too goddamned hard to let something like that from his off his game. Instead he’d use it as motivation, he’d play harder than he’d ever played before, show Chew what a fool he’d been for sending him away like that.

It had worked a little too well.

Antwan had played like a man possessed. He racked up fifty-two points, eight rebounds, and eleven assists and his team hadn’t trailed once. Entering the fourth quarter they had been up by nearly thirty-points and it was clear that barring some Old Testament-level catastrophe they were all but guaranteed passage through to the next round of the county tournament. But Antwan wasn’t done, he wasn’t even close to being done. He dribbled the ball up court furiously and took a quick glance up at the scoreboard as he began to weigh up his options.

From the sidelines he heard the sound of Coach Calhoun’s voice shouting out, “Timeout.”

A look of annoyance flashed over Antwan’s face. He bounced the ball to one of the officials and followed his teammates over to the sideline. He could see his mother and Jayson sat with one another in the stands as he joined the huddle.

“What say we let the backups see this one out?”

“Fuck that,” Antwan said with a shake of his head. “Leave me in the game, coach.”

“What? We’re up twenty-six points, Antwan, I’m won’t risk you getting hurt so you can pad your stats. You’re sitting down.”

Antwan could feel the eyes of his teammate’s boring into his skull as Calhoun talked in his direction. He was barely even listening, replaying his encounter with Chew earlier in the day over and over again instead, but caught the end of the sentence. Antwan shook his head, determined not to let himself be bossed around for the second time in a day, and began to wander back on the court.

“Like hell I am.”

“You’re done,” Coach Calhoun said, raising his voice a little, as he reached out to grab Antwan by the arm.

Antwan slapped it away instinctively, “I’m done when I say I’m done.”

He knew he’d stepped over the line, he could see the look of shock on Coach Calhoun’s face, but it was too late to go back. He strode out onto the court on his own without so much as a glance back towards the sideline and Calhoun reluctantly sent out four backups to play alongside him.

Antwan eyed the opposing team’s point guard as he dribbled the ball up court. He was shorter than Antwan by some way, dark-skinned, but slightly heavier and far less defined. Basketball was a game to him, Antwan could see that, his handles were sloppy, he sagged off every time he had to guard him, and his conditioning was terrible. Antwan thought back to all those hours spent running suicides with Chew, to the tears that had run down his cheeks out of exhausation, and how he’d forced himself to keep going despite everything. The fat fuck opposite him didn’t even have the self-discipline to get in basketball shape. It made him angry.

As he bore down on the ball, Antwan muttered to him, “Aren’t you tired of being shitted on all fucking night?”

There was a defeated look on the boy’s face, but he was determined not to let Antwan’s words get to him. “Just fucking play the game, big shot.”

Antwan knocked down a jumpshot in the boy’s face and then pointed towards the scoreboard. Fifty-four.

“Play the game? Have you seen the scoreboard, motherfucker? I’m the only person out here that has been playing.”

No response. Wordlessly the boy received the inbounds pass from his center and dribbled up the court, desperate not to make eye contact with Antwan. It wasn’t him that Antwan was angry at, he knew that, it was his uncle, but the words get tumbling from his mouth as he forced him into a bad shot.

“That’s weak,” Antwan said with a smug grin. “You’re gonna need to do better than that.”

Antwan caught the outlet pass in transition and passed up on a wide-open dunk in order to wait for the struggling point guard to catch up with him. He dribbled the ball through his legs a few times, his eyes locked onto the eye’s of the boy opposite, before whispering across to him.

“You get a stop and I stop talking.”

He could see his taunting was getting to the boy, who reached out to swipe the ball from Antwan, “Just play, man.”

At the last second Antwan moved the ball away and lifted off the ground and flung the ball in the direction of the hoop.

“That’s money.”

Antwan turned his back on the basket and began to run back to defend before the ball had even passed through it. He heard that sweet swish as it passed through the net and the roar of the crowd. Fifty-six.

“One last chance,” Antwan said, his grin reappearing. “Come on, I’ll make it easy for your no-game having ass. Through the legs, half spin, drive the lane.”

He did exactly as he’d said, dribbling the ball through his legs into a half spin, and then drove the lane. The opposing point guard leapt into the air to contest the shot and Antwan rose over him, pushing him down with his free hand as he did so, and threw down a thunderous dunk that brought the house down. As the boy tumbled to the ground Antwan stood over him, glaring at him with intent. Fifty-eight.

From beside him, Antwan saw a giant pair of hands thrust in his direction. The other team’s power forward shoved him backwards away from his point guard and Antwan smiled, sufficiently pleased he’d got under the other team’s skin. The whistle sounded as the power forward was hit with a technical foul by one of the officials and Antwan stepped up to knock down the resulting free throw. Fifty-nine.

Coach Calhoun, red in the face with embarrassment, barked in Antwan’s direction and satisfied he’d made his point, Antwan wandered back over to the bench to take a seat. His teammates patted him on the shoulder as he stared across the court at the opposing team. The point guard looked broken, defeated, and for a moment a pang of guilt ran through Antwan as he considered that the footage of his dunking on him would be played nationwide for the next week. Antwan had humiliated him and for what? Nothing.

Fuck it.

Fuck him, fuck Coach Calhoun, and fuck Chew Lewis.

*****

Something was wrong with Antwan. He’d played the game of his life and that dunk at the end had been something else, but something was definitely wrong. In all the years Jayson Aaron had known Antwan he’d never seen him play with the kind of nastiness he’d played with tonight. It was almost hard to root for him at the end there. There was something perverse about the thought that it was that Antwan the world would see when that dunk made it to Sportscenter that night. Whoever it was out there on the court tonight, it definitely wasn’t the real Antwan Dixon.

He’d sat in the passenger seat of Antwan’s Charger as they went for their customary post-game drive and mulled over whether he ought to say something. An hour and a half had passed and eventually Jayson found the courage to broach the subject with his friend.

“What was that back there, man? I’ve never seen you like that before,” Jayson said. “Talking trash, going after that guy like that, that’s not who you are.”

Jayson knew the answer to his question before it had even left his mouth. Antwan had been acting a little out of sorts since they’d left Dante’s apartment that morning but they hadn’t spoken about it at all since. Emotional availability wasn’t exactly Antwan’s thing. Heck, it wasn’t Jayson’s thing either when he thought about it. Talking about your emotions wasn’t exactly the done thing in Norman and he didn’t expect that to change anytime soon.

And then Antwan surprised him, “I guess that shit with Chew earlier got to me more than I thought.”

Jayson rubbed his chubby chin a little as he glanced out at the endless fields of Pickett. Their drive had taken them far from Norman, further even that they usually ventured, out here made Jardin look downright metropolitan. The isolation ought to have made talking about their feelings more comfortable but in a way the inside of the car felt even more restricting than a busy night in Norman.

“You wanna, I dunno, talk about it or something?”

“I’m good,” Antwan muttered. “You wanna hit this shit with me?”

Antwan reached across Jayson’s lap into the glove compartment and pulled out a small baggy of weed that he dangled in front of his face with a mischievous grin. Jayson hadn’t expected Antwan to want to talk, in fact he’d been shocked he was willing to even admit anything was wrong, but this was more shocking by a factor of a hundred. He couldn’t believe Antwan could be so stupid.

“What the fuck is that?”

Antwan shrugged his shoulders nonchalantly, “What does it look like?”

“It looks like weed,” Jayson said, shaking his head. “But it can’t be weed because I know you’re not stupid enough to risk everything you’ve worked for your entire life to get high like every other dead-end nigga from Norman.”

It wasn’t just that either, Jayson thought, he couldn’t believe Antwan would go near drugs after what they’d done to his mother when he was growing up. He’d never mention it to him, he never did mention it, but it seemed counterintuitive to hate his moms for being addicted to the pipe if you were up for hitting a blunt. Jayson knew weed wasn’t exactly the same thing but they were in South Carolina, not Colorado, and the last time he checked it was still illegal. No amount of Chew Lewis-induced stress would change that.

Antwan looked at Jay as if trying to persuade him, “Come on, Jay.”

“Fuck that,” Jayson fumed. “Where did you even get that shit, man?”

“Roland couldn’t be at the game tonight. He said he had a meeting or something, so he hooked me up by way of an apology.”

“Yeah, well, Roland ought to know better.”

He’d thought Roland was cool the first time he’d met him. He’d come from nothing in Norman like them and made something of his life. More than that, he was more than happy to be there for Antwan, for all the talented kids in Norman, whenever they needed a little extra something to make ends meet or pay the bills. That took heart. But this? This was something else.

His heart pounding in his mouth, Jayson reached over and snatched the bag of weed out of Antwan’s hand.

“What the fuck are you doing?”

“What does it look like I’m doing? I’m saving you from doing something really stupid, Antwan.”

Jayson rolled down his window and threw the bag of weed out of the window of the speeding Dodge. As he felt the bag leave his hand it was like a weight being lifted off his chest. If they’d been caught with that everything the two of them had spent the past decade and a half dreaming about would have turned to ashes in their mouths.

It was only then that Jayson saw it. A flash of red and blue light in the rearview mirror that seemed to last a second too long. He was dreaming right? He had to be dreaming.

“Pickett County Sheriff’s Department,” boomed a voice over a speakerphone. “Stop the vehicle.”

Jayson glanced at Antwan’s face, white with terror, and began to shake his head in disbelief.

“Oh, fuck.”

[Byrd Man]

John Norman kept his truck at a steady sixty-five as it sped down the highway. He headed north towards the Abbeville County line. Carol worked as a dancer at the Boom Boom Room, and word had it that it was parked out on the boat ramp near Beer Garden Creek this weekend. Country music came in on the radio over static. John lit up a cigarette and stared out at the swath of road his headlights illuminated.

He and Carol had something years ago back when they were in high school. It was a kid's love that burned way too intense. They brought out the worst in each in other. She made him jealous and obsessive, and he made her churlish and cruel. His first stretch of legal trouble was because of Carol. He broke Ferrell Jones' arm after Carol made out with him. The make out sessions followed an argument between the two of them. She didn't even like Ferrell, she just did it to get a rise out of John. He copped a plea and got a year on probation for the attack. He graduated to harder crime and the two of them drifted apart after he went away. By the time he got out three years later, she was hooked up with Jed Tillman and having his baby. C'est la fucking vie.

They still saw each other around town from time to time, only really said hello to each other. She had two kids with Jed, just one of his three baby momma's. Despite it all, what they went through and what they made each other, he still caught himself from time to time thinking about what might have been.

John flipped his cigarette butt out the cracked window and pulled on to Beer Garden Road. He killed the radio halfway down the road and could hear the music pounding loud through the woods. Generic hip-hop from the way it sounded. He turned a corner and his headlights fell on the party scene. Four big RVs sat by the boat ramp, forming a semi-circle. Folding chairs and card tables dotted the dirt and pavement in front of the RVs. People sat and partied around the tables and chairs. Women in bikinis, some just wearing the bottoms, pranced and danced on and around the tables.

As wild as Pickett County was, there wasn't a snowball's chance in hell that a strip club could operate without the bible thumpers getting their panties in a wad over it. They barely tolerated the bars as it was, to have a brazen den of iniquity like a strip club would be beyond the pale. That's where Billy Brown's genius came in. They couldn't have a permanent strip club in town, so he made a mobile one. Once a month, four RV's picked a spot out in the country and set up shop. Billy had somebody in the PCSD make sure the patrols avoided that area for the weekend. Strippers, drugs, and booze were all available at the Boom Boom Room. The RVs were set up to provide the girls and their customers private time where many of the men paid extra for more than just lap dances. Last he heard Carol was one of the dancers. He figured the odds on her hooking were slim. Jed Tillman was the jealous type. Only an idiot or out of towner would be stupid enough to mess with one of his women.

John got out the truck and walked through the party. Theo Tatum, Billy's guy who ran the show, found him and pressed him for twenty bucks, the standard entrance fee to stay at the Boom Boom Room. He coughed up and checked out the sights. Men in wobbly chairs watched young, naked women grinding on them with lusty glints in their eyes. He had to stifle a laugh. Most of these guys would be in church somewhere on Sunday, praying and talking up the Lord and all his goodness, condemning the wicked and the sinful. Southern duality and hypocrisy. It would be one thing to sin. Everyone sins. You gotta sin to get saved, after all, but the denial and condemnation of it all is what made John sick. It was why he hadn't stepped foot in a church since he was twelve years old.

"Hey, baby," John said as he came up on one of the dancers, a twenty in his hand.

"Hey, yourself, John Norman," she said with a wink.

She was topless, wearing a red string bikini bottom that showed off her large behind. Her cinnamon colored skin was dotted with moles and a scattering of freckles around her shoulders. John knew her well. He didn't stare at her small, firm breasts because he'd seen her naked more than a few times. Lacey Cade had been a year behind him in school. They didn't interact much, he being a white boy and she a black girl. After school, they drifted in the same social circles due to their roguish activities. John helped her out of a jam a time or two and she'd paid him back with a few gratitude lays. He felt shitty about it the first time, like he was exploiting her, but got used to it with each subsequent pairing. They tried dating, but it didn't really work out. They were just too different. He thought at first it was because of their differing races, but he realized he was the wrong type of guy for her. She needed a guy to take her away from this shitty little town and shitty little county. He wasn't capable of doing that. There was a lot John could do for her, but escape was something he was incapable of.

"Got a moment to talk?" He asked as he passed her the twenty.

"As long as it's talking, John Norman."

He hid a smile. He forgot how she always called him by his full name. Never just John. Lacey took him by the hand and led him to an empty table near the edge of the clearing, farther away from the music and grinding women. He found the picture of Howard Beggs he'd been using and gave it to Lacey.

"You recognize this guy, Lay Lay?"

John saw the slightest hint of a grin from Lacey when he used his nickname for her. She brushed her hair behind her ear and studied the photo.

"He look familiar. I think I saw him at one of the parties a few months ago. Not the last one, but the one before that maybe."

"Did you see him around with Carol Johson? Is she working tonight?"

"Carol? I ain't seen her in... you know, the last time I think she worked one of the parties was the same time I saw this guy."

John got out his pack of cigarettes and offered Lacey one. She took it and let him light her smoke. They took a few seconds pause in the conversation to enjoy smoking.

"Why you after me, John Norman? What'd he do?"

John flicked ashes and said, "You know what I do for a living, Lay Lay, he owes me some money."

Lacey's eyes flashed. She tapped his arm excitedly. "I remember now! When he was here, that guy you showed me, he was throwing money all over the damn place. Had a fat roll and acted like he owned everything. He had girls all over him... but he went into the RV with just Carol."

John nodded and blew smoke into the air. No Beggs and no Carol, but something interesting as hell was niggling him. If Beggs had cash like that a few months ago, then why was Carol paying for their drugs from Georgie? Strange. The hell was this guy into, and more importantly, why did Sheriff Parker give a shit?

"Thanks for the help, Lay Lay. I appreciate it."

She squeezed his hand. "I'm always happy to help you out, John Norman. You know that. In... any... way."

John laughed. "I don't know if I can afford it, baby."

"Didn't say I was selling. You want to give me a ride home tonight after we close up here?"

John nodded. Howard Beggs, Carol, and all the bullshit around it could wait until the morning.

[Morden Man]

Three hours ago Antwan Dixon had been out on the hard-court putting up a record high fifty-nine points. Now he was sat in a Pickett County Sherriff’s Department interrogation room ignoring the questions of a Deputy Calhoun. He’d wondered when he’d saw the name on her badge whether she was related to Coach Calhoun, he wouldn’t have been surprised, Pickett County was a very small place at the best of times. It was certainly small enough that when news spread of his arrest he’d be hearing about it from a lot of people. That was the last thing Antwan needed.

Deputy Calhoun sat back in her chair and muttered, for what must have been the twentieth time, “Where’d the weed come from, Antwan?”

“Lawyer.”

Antwan wasn’t stupid. He’d seen enough cop shows to know how these things worked. They weren’t meant to be asking him questions without a lawyer in the room and given he was a minor that was doubly bad.

“That’s how you want to play this one? You sure about that?”

Antwan smiled, “Lawyer.”

Deputy Calhoun swore under her breath with frustration and leant towards him.

“Work with me on this and we can work something out here.”

Did this bitch really think he didn’t know the old good cop/bad cop routine? Any minute now some longhaired, stubbly motherfucker that smelled of whiskey was going to burst into the room and threaten to wail on him with a phone book. He would sit it out and wait for his lawyer to get here and he wouldn’t say another goddamned word until that happened. Anything he’d say now would only get him in more trouble.

Sensing her line of inquiry wasn’t working, Calhoun let out a heavy up from her seat and rested on the back of it. She stared at Antwan for a few moments before she let out a heavy sigh.

“You’re a good kid, Antwan, a talented one at that. What was it last night? Fifty-nine points? You could walk into any college team in the country off the back of that performance, even with this on your sheet. But what about Jayson? You think the world’s going to be as kind to him?”

Jayson? As much as it embarrassed him to think it, Antwan hadn’t thought about Jayson at all since he’d entered the interview room. What if he’d said something? Jayson wasn’t exactly a soft touch but he was a little too sentimental for his own good at times. Growing up big can do that to a person.

The weed had come from Jayson’s side. What if they’d made him say something? He wouldn’t last a second on the inside, Antwan knew that much, from what he’d heard about prison them boys would eat Jayson alive. He couldn’t let that happen to him. He wouldn’t let that happen to him.

Clearly Calhoun sensed his apprehension because she smiled in his direction, “I didn’t think so.”

“You help us on this and we’ll take that into consideration, Antwan. I don’t want Jayson sitting in a prison cell over this any more than you do, but the only way we can make sure that doesn’t happen is if you tell us where you got the drugs.”

For a second Antwan considered what his Uncle Chew might do in his situation. Chew was a soldier through and through, he’d keep his mouth shut and do whatever time he had coming to him and he’d expect the same of any of his friends. But if the other day had taught Antwan anything it was that Chew was not the man he thought he was and that he certainly wasn’t anyone to admire. There was nothing brave about rotting away in a cell when you didn’t have to and there was certainly nothing brave about letting a friend do it because of your mistake.

He wouldn’t let Jayson get punished for his mistake.

“You’ll help Jayson?”

Calhoun’s eyes began to glow with anticipation. “You have my word, son.”

Antwan opened his mouth to speak but faltered slightly as the door to the interview room burst open and another Deputy came striding in. Emblazoned on his chest was the surname “Andrews” and from the way he carried himself he seemed like Calhoun’s superior or at least he thought he was, Antwan couldn’t tell. He wasn’t sure what the hell was going on in truth but the man seemed like he meant business.

“Deputy,” Andrews said abruptly as he gestured outside. “A word.”

A look of incredulity appeared on Deputy Calhoun’s face for the briefest moment. Once she noticed Antwan was looking at her she smiled politely in his direction and pushed the chair she had been leaning on back underneath the table.

“I’ll be back in a minute, Antwan.”

*****

Michelle Lewis walked back to her car with Antwan and Jayson in tow without saying a word to either of them. She had not long arrived home after her son’s game when the called had come in from the Deputy’s Office that her son had been arrested shortly afterwards. At first she thought it was some kind of prank but when the nice man on the phone had told her about the Dodge Charger her son had been riding in she knew it was for real. Drugs? Drugs? Michelle knew she wasn’t exactly in a position to say much to her son on that but she never thought he’d be stupid enough after how hard he’d worked.

She’d had to wait a time after arriving there. It was so much busier than Michelle had thought it would have been, she’d even overheard an argument between two of the deputies, though over what she couldn’t quite work out. Not long after they’d let Antwan and Jayson go on verbal warnings given neither had actually smoked any of the weed and warned them that next time they’d be seeing the inside of a prison cell. Michelle was thankful they chose to use their discretion on this one. Maybe PCSD wasn’t too bad after all?

As they entered Michelle’s sedan, Austin muttered in a defeated voice. “I’m sorry, Mom.”

Michelle couldn’t bring herself to look at her son, she was so angry at him for doing something so moronic. It wasn’t the drugs she took exception to so much as his potentially squandering the gifts for nothing. He didn’t realise how lucky he was to have those gifts. How close he’d come to losing them tonight.

Finally she turned her head to face her son and glared at him, “Where’d you get the drugs, Antwan?”

Antwan stared down at his hands. It was in these moments that Michelle wanted to reach out and embrace her son, tell him everything was okay, but that wasn’t what he needed.

“Answer me, boy.”

They sat in silence in the parked car as Michelle waited for her son to speak up and take ownership of his mistake by telling her where the drugs had come from. That he was so unwilling lead her to suspect she already knew where he’d got them and Jayson answering in Antwan’s place confirmed her suspicions.

“It was Roland.”

Antwan looked back at Jayson in the passenger seat with eyes brimming with contempt. “What the fuck, Jayson?”

“I knew it,” Michelle said with a bemused smile. “I knew that vulture was behind this.”

It was one thing when Roland was giving Antwan gifts and buttering him up because he knew her baby was on his way to the league. That made sense, in a kind of depraved, self-serving sense, as much it might have incensed Michelle that Roland did it. What possible benefit could he get from giving the boy weed? It didn’t make any sense, all it did was hurt the boy’s prospects and make it harder for him to get a return on all the “investments” he’d made in Antwan.

From the look in her son’s eyes she could see, despite all of this, Antwan was still fond of Roland. “He’s not a vulture, Mom.”

Now more than ever she wanted to tear into the man but from the look in her son’s eyes she could tell it wouldn’t do any good. Instead she started the car and began to back out of the tiny Sheriff Department’s parking lot.

“You’re getting rid of that car he gave you,” Michelle said firmly. “Yes, the one you think I didn’t know about.”

A look of disgust spread across Antwan’s face.

“What? Why?”

“I don’t want his ill-gotten money anywhere near you or our family anymore, Antwan. Do you hear me? That means the car goes. Any cash or jewelry he gave you goes too. And if I so much as ever smell weed on you, boy, I’ll kick your ass to the curb.”

Antwan shook his head. “No.”

Michelle scoffed in disbelief at her son’s front, “Excuse me?” It was like he had zero concept of exactly how much trouble he was in. That was her fault, Michelle thought, she had been too soft on him.

Instead of backing down, Antwan doubled down. “You heard me.”

She couldn’t believe her ears. In her mirror she saw Jayson trying desperately to glance out of the window as he acted as if he weren’t there. Kind of hard to disappear when you’re nearly three hundred pounds. Maybe Antwan was acting out, trying to front for Jayson.

“You think you’re a big man now, huh?”

“All I know is that Mr. Spencer put food on our table when you were more concerned with putting that filth in your veins. Where were you then? Huh? Where were you? And now you want me to throw his generosity back in his face? No, I won’t do it.”

Every word was like a dagger in Michelle’s heart. She’d never heard her son talk about that part of her life before and she’d never considered how much hearing about him talking about it would hurt. If only he understood what she’d been through, what she’d lost, maybe he’d forgive her for her weakness then. If Marcus were still around she’d have been strong for Antwan, so strong, but the love of her life was gone and she’d let her baby boy down when he needed him the most because of it. When he ought to have been mourning for his father he was worrying about where his mother was that night.

She’d never forgive herself for that fact and apparently neither would Antwan. Not that she blamed him. Michelle wanted to open her mouth, to tell her son he was wrong, to give him the firm hand he desperately needed but her whole body felt weak with shock at Antwan’s words.

For the first time in his life Antwan Dixon sounded like a man. Not one that his mother liked.

[Byrd Man]

Scott Andrews stood by a window inside the sheriff's office and watched Antwan Dixon pile into his momma's car with his fat friend right behind him. He could just make out the silhouette of Michelle Lewis in the darkness, but her body language implied she was massively pissed. She wasn't the only one. Scott was in the middle of his Beggs hunt when Roland Spencer called him up all panicked. Word travels fast among the black people in Pickett County. The small, tight-knit community that passed secrets and rumors among themselves was derogatorily called the GNW, the Ghetto News Wire, by the sheriff's department.

Roland heard on the GNW about Antwan's arrest within an hour of it happening. Not even Scott knew about it, his car radio turned down to prevent distractions. Roland seemed downright hysterical about the fact that "his boy" was getting banged up by the sheriff's department. He wanted Scott to intervene and smooth it all out. He was about to tell Roland to go fuck himself when Billy Brown's voice came on the line and told Scott to do it. Roland Spencer was a parasite, but he couldn't say no to Billy.

"What was that, Major?"

Scott turned away from the window. Sherry Calhoun stood with her hands on her hips. There was a look of annoyance in her eyes as she waited for Scott's reply. He came in just as she was about to fuck Antwan over, get him to admit the weed was his and get the boy in major trouble. He just shrugged and turned back to the window. All he could see of Michelle Lewis' car were taillights.

"It was weed, Sherry. They weren't smoking crack or committing armed robbery. They were two kids with a bag of weed. Stupid kids doing something stupid. Just leave it at that."

"All due respect, sir, I was trying to teach that boy something. All you know about Antwan Dixon is that he plays basketball really well. To you, he's just another black face you see around Norman. My uncle Henry coaches him and that boy has a major attitude problem. He hangs out with that scumbag Roland Spencer and thinks that because he can ball he can get away with anything. And you know what you just did, Major? You proved him right. He ain't gonna learn anything except that it all works out for him and that he can do what he wants."

Scott sniffed and hiked his gun belt up higher.

"You done, Sherry?"

Scott could tell she was holding back something. Some retort or comment that she thought better of saying. "I guess I am."

"Then get back in your car and get back to patrolling."

She turned on her heels and walked off down the hall. Scott watched her go. She wasn't a bad cop, she was just new. She needed to learn how they did things here. She had yet to figure out you couldn't change the world with just a gun and a badge. That was something Scott learned the hard way a long time ago.

He was back in his office when his phone rang. Not his official phone he used for work and personal calls, but the little flip phone that only a handful of people had the number to.

"Yeah?" He asked as he answered.

"Come to Ray's," Jed's gruff voice said over the line. "And be quick about it, motherfucker."

The line went dead. Scott closed the phone with force and fumed in his chair. Yeah, you sure as shit couldn't change the world here in this godforsaken county.

[Morden Man]

Deacon Harris listened in silence as Michelle recounted the events of the previous night. For once they had met outside in the sun, not hidden away in Hobie’s Diner, and Michelle had insisted that the deacon let her bring him something healthy for him to eat for once. He had been reluctant at first but given that his trousers had begun to feel slightly tight around the thighs on their walk over it seemed agreeing had been the right choice. He was snacking on the bright green apple Michelle had bought him as Michelle finished surmising the exchange she’d had with her son after he had been released.

“Jayson told me that Roland gave Antwan the drugs,” Michelle said with an exasperated sigh. “Can you believe that? That son of a bitch gave my baby boy drugs, Gus.”

There wasn’t much about Roland Spencer that Gus wouldn’t believe but given how unsuccessful their conversation had been when he’d paid him a visit, there wasn’t much he personally could do about it other than hope the boy came to his senses before it was too late.

“What are you going to do?”

Michelle shrugged her shoulders, “What can I do? I tried tough love, tried threatening Antwan with throwing him out, and nothing's worked. He’s not scared of me, Gus, I don’t think he’s scared of anyone.”

Gus took another small, precise bite out of the apple in his hand and munched on it for a few seconds as he weighed up her options. Roland was as set in his ways as they came and from the sound of it Antwan wasn’t budging anytime soon, not on his own at least, and then it struck him light a lightning bolt. There was one person that Antwan might listen to although he already knew Michelle wouldn’t want to hear it.

“What about your brother? Have you spoken to him about things?”

Michelle frowned angrily, “What? Why would I do that?”

“From what I hear, Charles was quite a big deal to Antwan when he was growing up. Maybe he could talk some sense into him.”

Gus had heard a thousand different variations of the story that had lead to Marcus Dixon’s death and all of them had involved Chew Lewis in some form. Sometimes knelt over him plugging a wound whilst fighting back impossible odds and other times bearing down on him with a shotgun. The setting? Everything from a drug deal down in Georgia, a shootout in Arkansas, a car chase in Missouri, even a bank heist in Washington DC were all amongst some of the more popular accounts. He’d heard children as young as ten and men old enough to have lived through prohibition talk about what happened. He wasn’t any closer to knowing the truth and he wasn’t sure he wanted to know, but what he did know was that regardless of whatever had happened, Antwan still idolized his uncle.

Chew was the only one that could break Roland’s hold on her son and from the look on Michelle’s face she knew it too.

Suddenly without warning Michelle shook her head vociferously, a defeated look appearing on her face, “I don’t want that man anywhere near my son.”

This was still about Marcus to her and that wasn’t going to change anytime soon. Gus could see the pain, the loss, still etched in her face and he knew better than to try to change her mind for as long as that was the case. He only hoped that Antwan wouldn’t pay the price for his mother’s inability to forgive.

“Then what are you going to do? You’re running out of options.”

Gus tried his best not to sound deflated as he peered into Michelle’s eyes and awaited a response.

Again Michelle shrugged her shoulders, this time more hopelessly than the first, and stared back at Gus. “I thought maybe you could speak to Antwan.”

“We’ve been over this,” Gus said with a shake of his head. “It wouldn’t do any good, Michelle, the boy barely even knows who I am.”

“Like you said, it’s not like I have many other options.”

What was to stop him going over her head and contacting Charles and telling him that he needed to talk some sense into Antwan? What harm could it cause? It would certainly be more fruitful than any conversation that he could have with him and it might go some way to repairing Charles and Michelle’s relationship even if she was determined not to involve him.

Suddenly Vontae Carter’s face flashed across the deacon’s mind, he heard Vontae’s mother’s cries, and he felt his resistance to the idea wavering. He’d promised himself he’d do everything he could to stop there being any more Vontae Carters and, as much as he thought his talking to Antwan would be a waste of time, he wasn’t about to break that promise. A man was only as good as his word.

Gus let out a weak sigh and a small bemused smile crossed his lips as he nodded gently in Michelle’s direction.

“Thank you, Gus, it means a lot,” Michelle muttered, reaching out her hand to place it atop his before drawing it back sharply as she accidentally touched the half-eaten apple in his hand, placing her hand on his wrist instead with an embarrassed smile. Gus exhaled gently and returned her smile.

It faded slowly as three words crossed his mind. No more Vontae Carters.

[Byrd Man]

Scott Andrews pulled into the gravel parking lot outside Ray's. The short brick building was wide with a tin roof on top. An electric sign by the road matched the faded one beside the door, announcing the place as Raymond's Social Club. Scott let out a soft chuckle when he saw the sign. Calling this place a social club was like putting lipstick on a pig. There was nothing about the atmosphere at Ray's that made it seem like a social club. Nothing but a bunch of crackers getting drunk and causing mischief. It wasn't as bad as Mike Norman's place was supposed to have been, Scott was just a kid when it burned down, but it was far and away rowdy by its own right.

The only cars in the parking lot when Scott got there were Ray's pickup truck and Jed's black SUV. Scott parked near the door and walked inside. The walls of Ray's were plastered with all kinds of sports shit from around Pickett County over the years. Old photographs of Panthers football teams, newspapers cut out and framed, jerseys on the walls with autographs. There was a ball signed by the '93 state championship team, including starting left guard Scott Andrews.

"'Bout damn time," Ray said from behind the bar.

Ray Champion's look was just as harsh as the tone of his voice. He was wiry and lean with a constant scowl on his face. His gray hair was steadily growing more and more white with each passing year. The thick beard on his face made him look like a skinny Santa Claus in a bad mood. Ray was among Billy's oldest allies. A former SC Highway Patrolman, Ray had been working with Billy since back in the late 80's. He was part of all that fighting that went on between Billy and the Norman family. Pickett County legend had it that Ray was the one who did Daniel Norman in. Billy's muscle came and went over the years. Most went to jail, a few quit the life before it chewed them up, and an even smaller few met their end at the end of a gun. Amidst all that chaos, Ray was the one constant. The closest thing Billy had to a second in command.

"The hell's wrong with you," Ray said with a scowl. "Jed called your ass a half hour ago. Don't take no half hour to get here from anywhere in Pickett County."

Scott put a plug of chewing tobacco in his mouth. He took his time, making a show of it. Done with that, he walked up to the bar and gave Ray a shrug. Ray had always rubbed Scott the wrong way. He rubbed a lot of people the wrong way. Just an unmitigated asshole through and through.

"I'm watch commander tonight. I can't drop every damn thing and come running just because you and Jed call me. I got a goddamn job to do. I figure you'd understand that a bit better than the rest of 'em."

Ray shrugged and somehow furrowed his brow even worse than he had before.

"Whatever," he said before yelling, "Jed! He's here."

A heavy door behind the bar opened up. Scott saw a flash of metal. The big safe in the back was the stuff of legends. From the glimpses Scott occasionally caught, he estimated it was at least half his height and about as wide as his body. Some said it was Billy's bank, where he kept almost all of his money so either law enforcement or rivals couldn't get it. Another rumor was that it was the motherload of stashes. Weed, coke, dope, meth. Whatever Billy's people dealt in Pickett County came from that safe. Yet another rumor was that it's where Billy kept the souls of the men who worked for him over the years. A depository for the damned. Scott doubted the last rumor was true, since a crank addict missing all his teeth was the one who came up with that theory.

The door shut fast after Jed stepped out. Scott wasn't exactly short, and Jed still had him by about four inches. He wore a white tanktop that showed off his dark skin and ropey, taunt muscles. He wore a black do-rag over his hair.

"Let's go," Jed said without preamble. "Taking my truck."

"Where we headed?" Scott asked, looking between the two men.

"The Bog."

*****

DJ sat on the rotting steps of a house and smoked a cigarette. The sounds of crickets and tree frogs reverberated in the night. It was early fall, but still plenty warm enough for bugs to buzz around DJ's cigarette ember. A loud thump came from inside the dilapidated house behind DJ. He exhaled smoke and flicked his cigarette out towards the gravel road.

About a half dozen crumbling houses sat around the stagnant pond everyone in Pickett County called the Bog. The houses were old, turn of the century shacks that hadn't had an occupant inside of them for over sixty years. The only thing people used the houses for anymore were for shady meetings and sexual trysts. You either went to the Bog to get in a fight or get laid was the conventional wisdom around town.

The throes the man duck-tapped to the chair was in were not the throes of passion. He let out a squeal as Jim Brown let into his ribs with a set of brass knuckles. The two of them ran him down in a Jardin trailer park. His name was Howard something, DJ wasn't sure. All he knew for sure was that Billy wanted him found. Somebody in debt to Ray sent word that he found Howard smoking meth in a trailer with some girl. Jed called DJ and told him and Jim Brown to get their asses up to Jardin and find the guy but leave the girl alone. Howard and one of Jed's old ladies were passed out on a piss-stained mattress by the time they got there this evening. The crash from the meth high was enough to turn the man into a zombie. He willfully got in DJ's car and headed to the Bog with them. At the moment, Jim Brown was in the process of rudely awakening him.

"Please," the man groaned after another shot to the sternum. "You're making a big mistake, the both of you."

Jim Brown spat on the wood floor. The Coleman lantern sitting on a rickety table provided the house's only light source, casting long shadows across Jim Brown and Howard. DJ stood close by, his arms crossed and pretending the man hadn't said a damn thing.

"I know you both think you're good little soldiers," Howard said. "But whoever you're working for is in a world of hurt be--"

A brass knuckle covered fist caught Howard flush and nearly knocked the chair over. He screamed in pain and Jim Brown held his right fist in his right hand.

"Goddamn, I think I almost broke my own hand on that one!"

Just then, light flashed across a broken window. DJ looked out, one hand reaching for the pistol in the small of his back. He stopped when he recognized Jed's SUV. He got out of the driver's seat with a passenger. DJ swore to himself when he saw Scott Andrews sauntering up the warped steps.

For over ten years Scott Andrews had been Danny Johnson's partner in the sheriff's department two-man CID section. They hadn't exactly been best friends, but the then Lieutenant Andrews was an occasional dinner guest at the Johnson house. DJ didn't know Andrews was Billy's man until after he went to work for Billy. Despite all the loose talk around the town and the county at large, nobody at the sheriff's department had a good idea of how deep Scott was in. The few times they were in the same room, they barely acknowledged each other. There was a Danny Johnson sized elephant in the room whenever they were together.

Jed came in first, Andrews right behind him. Jed flashed a grin when he saw Howard all beaten up.

"Sup?"

Jim Brown gave him a shrug and slid off the brass knuckles.

DJ said, "He ain't said a thing worth a damn since we got him here. Just the usual bullshit. For a methhead, he's got a lot of spunk."

He met eyes with Andrews through the dim light. Andrews gave DJ a swift nod before looking towards Jed.

"What did he do so bad that Billy wants him dead?" Andrews asked.

"Dead?" Howard started shaking his head. "No, no, no, no!"

Jed cross the space between him and Howard in just two or three strides. He backhanded the man and sent his head spinning.

"You speak when you are spoken to," Jed hissed. "You violated the one and only commandment in this fucking county: Thou shalt not steal from Billy Brown."

Jed cooly pulled a compact .38 pistol from his waistband. Howard thrashed his head and laughed wildly.

"You dumb motherfuckers! You're all gonna fucking pay! You think my name is Howard Beggs? It's fucking Jerry Miller. Special Agent Jerry Miller."

Beggs -- or Miller -- spat and hit Jed in the face with a wad of spit.

"I'm a goddamn SLED agent, you assholes. You touch me you--"

The roar of Jed's gun cut him off. In a rage, Jed fired three shots into Beggs' face. The shots knocked the dying man's chair onto the ground and sprawled Begg's bleeding body on the hardwood floor.

"Goddammit," Andrews said, pulling his gun and aiming at Jed.

On cue, DJ and Jim Brown pulled and aimed at Andrews just as Jed leveled his own gun at Andrews.

"Why'd you do that," Andrews yelled at Jed. "That motherfucker--"

"Was a fiend," Jed yelled back. "And was saying anything that popped into his head. He was bullshitting you, man!"

Andrews holstered his gun and cursed. "I cannot be here, you hear me?! That's me saying this to all three of you. I cannot have fucking been here."

DJ stepped forward to try and get involved. He felt a hand on his shoulder and turned to see Jim Brown on a flip phone. He put his gun up and tried to make as much distance from Jed and Andrews' fighting as possible.

"Georgie?" Jim Brown asked. "It's me... that guy you said John Norman came around asking about, you said his name was Beggs right? What did Norman want him for?"

[Morden Man]

Ten Pickett Bowling was the only bowling alley in the entire county. Chew had vague memories of having visited once as a child. It was a few years before Michelle had been born and their mother had taken them with one of his many “uncles” as it was a special occasion. Someone’s birthday or something. They’d even let him take Marcus with him. He didn’t remember much else other than forgetting to wear his socks that day and the way the inside of the shoes they’d given him felt against his bare skin. The thought of it still made him uncomfortable.

It seemed like a lifetime ago. Heck, it was a lifetime ago. Yet here Chew Lewis was sat interviewing for a job at Ten Pickett Bowling like he hadn’t damn near ran this county once upon a time. How the might had fallen, he thought, as he watched the skinny middle-aged man opposite the desk in front of him look him up and down. He knew he wasn’t in with a chance before he’d even walked into the room but not interviewing despite knowing that wasn’t an option. He wasn’t a banger anymore. That wasn’t him.

The interview came to an end and Chew shook the man’s hand as he was reassured they’d be in touch. He couldn’t even maintain eye contact with him. So much for that.

Chew made his way towards Dante’s busted old pickup truck parked outside and sat down wordlessly. He drummed his fingers along the frame of the window as he glanced back at the bowling alley with a scornful look.

From beside him he heard Dante’s shrill, invasive voice pipe up. “How’d it go?”

He could tell from the look on his face that Dante was willing it not to go well. At every turn Dante had tried to talk him out of going straight, including the drive here. He didn’t understand, he’d not done hard time like Chew had, this gangsta bullshit still seemed to have some appeal to him. That wasn’t going to change until he was behind bars or in the ground, but he’d be damned if he’d let Dante take him down with him.

Chew shrugged nonchalantly and indicated to Dante to start the car, “Let’s just say I doubt I’ll be hearing back from them anytime soon.”

A broad smile appeared on Dante’s face.

“What’d I tell you? You’re wasting your fucking time. It’s hard enough finding work out here without a criminal record. The whole state’s full of kids with degrees working in coffee shops and shopping malls, man. Why the fuck would they employ you?”

It stung. In another life Chew would have been minded to lay hands on someone for talking to him like that. Not this one though, he’d changed, he was done with that. He bit his tongue instead and said through a scowl, “I’ll find something.”

They drove aimlessly for a time, talking sparingly, until Dante’s rumbling stomach led them to stop at Hobie’s Diner for something to eat. For a small man Dante could really pack away his food. Chew watched in shock as he scarfed down more grits and collard greens than any human he’d ever seen before. His appetite was tame by comparison, though prison would do that to you.

Eventually Dante’s seemingly endless appetite was sated and he sat back in his chair with a satisfied sigh. They sat in silence for a moment but the look on Dante’s face told Chew he had something he wanted to get off his chest. He started to speak, only to be interrupted by Gillian clearing up the plates. Chew smiled at her as she piled the plates up high and waddled away, balancing them precariously as she went.

Dante tapped the brim of his lemonade before clearing his throat and finally talking, “You remember DJ? Works for Billy Brown?”

“No.”

Chew knew Billy Brown. It was impossible not to know Billy Brown in Pickett. The man was an institution. You’d never know it from the look of him, in fact Chew’d never seen a man that looked less like a criminal mastermind than Billy Brown. But the man meant business. As wild as Chew had been back in the day even he eventually had to bend to knee and pay tribute to Brown once the dust had settled and the Normans were out of the picture. This DJ character didn’t ring any bells though.

“Before your time,” Dante said with a shrug. “Well, he’s good people. A friend of his might have some work for us. Nothing too heavy, a little bit of protection at a deal from the sounds of it, I told him we’d think about it.”

We? Chew crushed the can of sweet tea in his hand.

“I told you I was done with that gangsta bullshit, Dante.”

Dante shrugged nonchalantly as he picked his teeth with a toothpick. A mangled bit of collard green fell from between two of them into his reedy goatee. “Yeah, and how’s that treating you?”

Chew thought back to the beanpole back at the bowling alley that had looked at him like trash. It hadn’t been the first time. He’d seen that look countless times over the past few days. No high school diploma, no GED, not a day’s worth of legitimate work experience, and a sheet as long as your arm to boot. They thought he was scum, something to be scraped off their boot, and as much as he tried he couldn’t see that changing anytime soon. There was a lot he could stomach but being pitied wasn’t one of them. He was Chew Lewis.

As if sensing his indecision Dante reached across the table and jabbed Chew in his chest with his finger for emphasis, “It’s only a matter of time. You know that, I know that, everyone on these streets knows it. You either come aboard now while the getting’s good, while your name still rings out around here, or you’ll be forgotten about entirely.”

He wanted to reach out and break Dante’s finger but he couldn’t help but feel like there was some truth to his words. Even if he didn’t want to believe it.

“Make a decision. Are you in or are you fucking in?”

It was only a security job, Chew thought, as he glanced up at his friend with a heavy sigh. One job to line their pockets, nothing too heavy, and then he’d get back to looking for something legit. He was done with this gangsta bullshit. He wouldn’t be one of those bums that landed back inside after five minutes on the outside. Just a little something to get him started. That’s all.

“Fine,” Chew said with a reluctant shake of his head. “I’m in.”

*****

Dante knew Chew would change his mind. That working man shit? That wasn’t the man he’d grown up with. The kind of dog Chew had to him? No amount of prison could take that out of a person. Shit, it was hard enough to believe he’d applied for that crap down at Ten Pickett Bowling, but at least he’d come to his senses eventually and agreed to come to the meet. At least Dante wouldn’t have to turn up with nothing but his dick in his hand.

They were meeting Topher at Club 56 at eight and were running late. By the time they walked through the door it twenty-five to nine and Topher was sat in a booth with a curvy black woman sat beside him. Topher was a good-looking dude, Italian-American with a swimmer’s build and a penchant for black women. Liked to say that was what brought him to Norman. Dante knew better than that though.

“Sorry we’re late,” Dante said as the pair slid into the booth opposite Topher and the woman with her nose nuzzled into his neck. “This is my man Chew Lewis.”

Topher waved the woman away without a word and she strode away with a contemptuous look back at Chew and Dante, it brought a smile to Topher’s face before he looked back at them. “The Chew Lewis?”

“As he lives and breathes, motherfucker.”

“I heard about the job you did on those Georgia boys,” Topher said with a wry smile. “Is that thing about the cement blocks true?”

Dante smiled as he saw a confused look appear on Chew’s face. Yeah, he’d heard the one about the cement blocks too, almost as far fetched as the one with the blowtorch. None of them were true but that didn’t stop people from talking about it. There’d been times over the years that Dante had resented Chew’s legend, thought maybe he deserved a little bit more love, especially given how things really went down in Georgia. That was done though. Georgia was in the past and Marcus was with it.

Chew stared at Topher without a hint of recognition, as if trying to summon up an inkling of understanding. “Cement blocks?”

“No matter,” Topher shrugged. “Has Dante told you the setup?”

“A little.”

Here goes. He had explained to Chew what the deal was on the way over but had left out some of the more juicy details. Well, maybe all of all the juicy details. It wasn’t as straightforward as he’d made out at Hobie’s or in the car on the way there but there was no way Chew would have agreed if he’d known. He needed to get him in the room first and that meant lying to him. Once he knew how much they were set to make he’d get past the deception, Dante was sure.

“We’ve been using the same Dominican crew to run packages across the county line for close to five years. Operation’s been smooth as for the duration. Few months ago, word comes back to us that the Dominicans have turned up dead down in Florida. You know the funniest part? Not only do the guy's responsible make no attempt to hide the fact it was them, they come to us saying they’ll fulfil the Dominican’s obligations. Turns out they’re ex-Cuban military or something.”

Dante noticed Chew’s ears prick up at the words “ex-Cuban military” but to his credit he shrugged and simply asked, “What’s the problem then?”

“Nearly two hundred thousand in guns and crystal went missing when they took the Dominicans out.”

There it was. Two hundred thousand. Topher had promised Dante a cut of whatever they got back, before Brown took what was his in taxes, and something a little extra if they got it done without catching too much heat. Dante glanced over at Chew who stared impassively over at Topher as he took a sip from the glass of Jack Daniels in front of him.

“You think they’re holding out on you?”

“Here’s the thing,” Topher said with a knowing point in Dante and Chew’s direction. “They want to set up a meet to give us it back.”

“Sounds like a trap to me.”

“That’s why we need good men like you and Dante there. If that Georgia thing went down how they tell it, you’re the right men for the job.”

Suddenly Chew sprang up from his seat and shook his head, “I’m not interested.”

Dante looked round, mouth agape, and grabbed Chew by his sleeve as if to pull him back down into his seat. Chew tugged his arm free from Dante’s hand and pushed his leg against Dante’s as if to motion for him to let him out of the booth. Dante kept his legs tensed.

Topher looked up at Chew bemused, as if he’d slapped him in the face with a wet fish. “What?”

“You heard me.”

Chew stepped over Dante’s legs and made his way to the exit and Dante sat in silence for a few moments, his face red with embarrassment. He made his apologies to Topher and then pushed through the crowds towards the exit and after his friend. Dante found him loitering by his truck with a cigarette hanging out of his mouth. It took every part of him not to shake the fuck out of him.

“What the fuck? You don’t get to up and walk out on a meet like that, man. You know who that guy is around here?”

Chew laughed dismissively before puffing a smoke ring into the night’s sky. “From the sounds of it, nobody after he walks into the trap those Cubans are setting for him. What happened to this not being heavy, man? You can’t afford to be this stupid. Marcus isn’t around to wipe our asses for us no more.”

“Yeah, and whose fucking fault is that?” The words came out of Dante’s mouth before he had a chance to catch himself and contain his annoyance. The second they left his mouth he realised he’d fucked up, but it was too late, they were out. “I shouldn’t have s-”

Before he had a chance to finish Chew’s hand were on him. He threw him against the pickup truck hard and stood over him threateningly, his fist raised above his head as if about to strike. Dante held his side as he looked up at his him expectedly.

“Fuck you, man." Chew lowered his hand and shook his head. "Fuck you.”

Slowly Dante climbed to his feet and watched as Chew stormed off into the darkness on foot. There was a slight twitch beneath his eye as he considered going after him and apologizing for what he’d said, but it passed as soon as it had came and he sauntered towards Club 56 instead. Fuck him, if he didn’t have the stones for this life it was on him, not Dante.

[Byrd Man]

John Norman climbed out of his truck and walked across the low-cut grass towards the trailer. It was a trailer, but it was nothing like the one George Silvers dealt out of, or rusty flops they had up in Jardin. This one was well cared for. It was close to thirty years old, but it looked like it was closer to ten years old. The sides were painted egg yoke yellow with underpinning that matched. The underpinning hid the wheels and supports under the trailer, something that went a long way to make it look like a bona fide home. The trailer sat Whitmire Street, where it had been for the past twenty-five years. Three blocks over was Washington Street and the house John grew up in.

He climbed up the steps and rapped twice on the closed screen door. His stomach twisted itself in knots as he waited. He hadn't been to this house in close to ten years. The day Henry Johnson chased him around the yard with a baseball bat. Even though Henry was an old man by now, John still hoped he was at work and not home sick today.

"John Norman," a curt voice said from inside the trailer.

He looked in through the screen and saw Mary Johnson's smiling face, older and wrinkled but still kind. She'd put on about twenty pounds since he last saw her and her corn-silk blond hair was turning white. She had a smile on her face, but that was just politeness and window dressing.

"Long time no see," said John.

"I know," she said with a hint of wariness in her voice. "There's a reason for that."

"Mary," John said softly. "That's been a long time ago. How about you let me in and we can talk?"

"We can talk just as good with you outside..."

"Fine. Mary, Like I said you--"

There was a high-pitched wail from somewhere inside the trailer. Mary turned around and looked in the direction of the noise. She told John to wait a minute while she checked on Sofie. Mary disappeared into the living room and John waited until she was out of sight before he stepped into the living room.

Green shag carpet with wood paneling on all four walls, a long and well-worn sofa with two recliners flanking both sides, a coffee table and TV in front of all three. Pictures were scattered along the wall. Most of them were of Carol, Carol as a baby, Carol as a little girl, a photo of her and John when they went trick or treating when were nine, one of her in that blue and white PCHS cheerleading outfit. She was all big smiles and innocence in the photos of her as a teen, her long blond hair teased up in a big hair style that was completely 90's. It was almost unbelievable to John that the same smiling girl who once made all A's and was the Beta Club treasurer was the same one out there with a fiend like Beggs, the same woman who made him do so many bad things.

There wasn't any photos of her after the cap and gown pictures from graduation. It had been nearly ten years since she broke John's heart, and based on the wall it seemed like time had stopped for Carol Johnson.

Well, not entirely.

The photos on the walls that accompanied Carol's were of babies. One a little boy and the other a little girl, both mixed race. John head a baby's cry from somewhere in the house. He heard that Carol's momma was supposed to be doing most the child rearing while she stayed on the prowl for a new sugar daddy. Maybe Howard Beggs was that sugar daddy.

"I thought I told you to stay outside," Mary said with her lips pressed together.

"I'm looking for Carol."

"Of course you are," she spat. "All these years and you haven't changed a damn bit."

"It's official business. I promise you."

She sighed and balled her fists. An act of suppressing rage, an act that was so effective that it had to be something she did often. "What'd she do this time?" Mary asked after calming down.

"I'm actually looking for a friend of hers. His name's Howard Beggs. He's a drug addict."

"Of course he is."

Mary closed her eyes and swallowed hard. John really hoped she could keep it together long enough for him to get out of here. Mary was a nice lady, and he really didn't want to see her break down and cry. From what he remembered, Mary Johnson was a pretty ugly crier. John pulled the photo from his jacket while Mary fought back the tears.

"Here's a photo," he said, sliding the mugshot of Beggs across the table. "I don't know if you've seen him around, or know if Carol has talked about him, or what..."

"No." She shook her head. "Nobody she knows ever comes around here. Thank God for that."

"Well, where is Carol?"

"I--," she started then stopped. She was on the verge of tears and was beginning to teeter towards the edge. "I don't know... she hasn't been home in days!" She jumped off the cliff, tears welling over her eyes and spilling down her cheeks. "I got the kids here and I been taking care of them since they were born," Mary gasped for breath between her loud sobs and talked so fast and loud the words ran together.

"--andthenHenrysaysweshouldkickerhoutofthehouseand--"

She kept on, descending into a mix of dry heaving, sobbing, and talking. Her face was buried in her hands, her whole body racking with the grief she was letting out. John mumbled thanks for talking to him and quietly left the house while she kept crying.

--

After a full day's work of prowling for Carol and Beggs, John called it a day at around seven and headed to Hobie's. His dinner that night was a ham and cheese omelet with a sweet tea. He ate in silence by himself, thinking about Carol and this giant clusterfuck Sheriff Parker had gotten him involved him. Thoughts of Lacey Cade also filtered in during his meal. Last night was just what he needed. She seemed to enjoy it as well. She was a good kid, Lacey. Damn shame she couldn't get out of this town.

After dinner John headed out to the small field he owned off Trask Road. He tended to his pot plants and checked to make sure they were thriving. The cold was coming soon and he'd have to harvest his crop and start processing it. After he had it ready for sale, he'd sell his entire crop wholesale to Billy's people and that would see him through the winter and into the spring when he could buy more pot seeds.

It was just after dusk when he pulled into the driveway beside his trailer. He went inside the trailer and tossed a little notepad on to the coffee table. It was filled with all the crap he had collected from folks since Parker forced him into this bullshit. The only information worth a damn he had was that Carol Johnson had been distant lately, not very approachable and very moody. John was pretty sure he knew the cause of that. Sucking on a methhead's dick would probably ruin anybody's mood. Except the methhead, of course.

He plopped down on the couch and let his thoughts drift back to Mary and the conversation they had earlier. The way she seemed so put upon by Carol, how she had left her parents and own children behind for days at a time. She had really changed from the little girl who got homesick when she slept over at a friend's house across town. She was a partier when they were kids, but she hadn't changed at all. She was a mother of two, but yet she was still a damn kid herself. John was so focused on Carol and everything else that he didn't realize he was alone in the trailer until it was nearly too late.

He walked into the kitchen and stopped after feeling movement from behind. John wheeled around and came face to face with the intruder. A chubby old man with jet black, receding hair, a salt and pepper beard, and a wrinkled face. His nose was broad and flat, an old injury he said he got from a bar fight forty years earlier. He was dressed in a flannel shirt and blue jeans with work boots.

"Whatever the hell you been doing, boy," he grunted. "You apparently have kicked a goddamn beehive."

"Nice to see you too, grandaddy."

[Morden Man]

Stood over the bleeding Roland Spencer in the hue of Spencer's Tires and Rims blue neon lights was Billy Brown. For the past twenty minutes he had watched whilst one of his men had beaten Spencer until he could barely stand, instructing him to avoid the face. For the most part the muscle-bound brute had managed followed his instructions until a punch glanced off of Roland’s shoulder blade and split open his lip. Roland had never seen a man look so terrified in his life. Billy simply tutted and gestured to the man to leave then alone, which he did, silently thanking God that Brown was in a good mood as he left them.

Unfortunately for Roland, Billy was not in such a good mood with him. A distraught Roland had come to him on the phone to Scott Andrews pleading with him to release Antwan. Billy had got the boy released but he was far from happy with Roland.

“You know, there was a time when I thought you were a clever man.”

Past tense. Not that Roland blamed him. It made him sick to admit it but this was one beat down that he probably deserved.

“When you came to me with your business plan for this place all those years ago I was ready to laugh you out of the room,” Billy said gesturing around Roland's business. “But you convinced me, Roland, you made me change my mind. That’s not something that happens often.”

Billy leant against the desk at the front of the showroom and looked down at Roland, who was bleeding freely from his lip and holding onto his torso to stop the pain. It wasn’t doing him much good and he knew nothing he could say would do him any good. Instead he watched in cowed silence as Billy vented.

“But giving the boy drugs? What possible reason could you have to do that? I have racked my brains all goddamned night trying to figure out what could possess you to think that was a good idea and I’m still no closer to figuring it out.”

Roland’s stared down at the small patch of blood on the group beneath him where his lip had been dripping, desperate to avoid Billy’s gaze.

“Why on Earth would you give the boy drugs, Roland?”

Again Roland said nothing and kept his eyes locked on the ground. Billy shook his head in frustration and knelt beside, grabbing Roland by the hair and slapping him across the face. It wasn’t hard enough to cause him any real damage, though it stung against his lip, but it was certainly enough to grab his attention.

“What’s wrong? You can’t speak all of a sudden?”

“The boy asked me for the weed,” Roland muttered, “He said he’d been stressing out, he seemed like he was in a bad way, so I figured it wouldn’t do him any harm to relax a little.”

He should have known better than to trust those out of towners. They'd promised him they would be discrete but once word came back about Antwan being caught with the weed it had taken all of five minutes for Billy to found out where he’d got it.

Billy leant in close enough that Roland could feel the warmth of his breath against his face. “You don’t have the authority to make that kind of decision, Roland. You never did.”

“I understand that now.”

Billy released Roland’s head and stood up. He strode over to the desk and reached for some napkins atop it, wiping his hand clean of the specks of blood from Roland’s lip. Once he was satisfied they were clean he turned back to Roland and placed his hands on his hips.

“Do you think it was easy for me to get them out of the Sherriff’s Department? To get good, hard-working lawmen to turn a blind eye to cover for your fuck-up? You think that kind of thing comes free?”

Roland shook his head, “I can’t imagine it does.”

“It costs me capital,” Billy said, his voice dripping with contempt. “Capital that I might need down the line and find that I’m left wanting because of this little stunt of yours.”

Roland dabbed his lip with the sleeve of his shirt to quell the bleeding and Billy tutted again, grabbing some more napkins from the side and throwing them on the ground beside Roland.

“You were a clever man once. I’m not sure what happened to change that but I sure as hell won’t tolerate any more mistakes from you. Don’t make me come back here again. You hear me?”

Roland nodded.

He watched as Billy walked towards the exit without so much as a glance back. He made sure to wait until he heard the sound of tires screeching off into the distance before attempting to lift himself to his feet. He barely made it to his knees before he collapsed to the ground again in pain, resting his head on the ground with a heavy sigh. He laid there, his breathing laboured and uneven, whilst he damned the heavens for having entered into business with Billy Brown. Roland had climbed into bed with the Devil without a second’s thought and, having escaped with his soul once, went back for more. This time it was different though, his soul wasn’t his own to win back.

It was in the hands of a seventeen-year-old boy.

[Byrd Man]

Mike Norman plopped down on one of the wooden chairs beside John's kitchen table and looked up at his grandson, squinting. "You got any beer?"

"Not for you," John said coldly. "Smells to me like you've had your share tonight."

"You ain't my daddy," he grumbled.

John opened the fridge and pulled out a beer. He popped the top and sat down at the other chair at the kitchen table."Since I'm not kicking your ass and beating your momma, I'd say that's a pretty safe bet I'm not your daddy. How'd you get in here?"

"Pulled my car around back and jimmied the back door," Mike said proudly. "Did it in thirty seconds. Goddamn door wasn't even deadbolted."

"That's my fault. I guess I never expected an old sot like you would darken my door."

Mike silently stewed. John could tell from the look on his face that he was trying to push his drunken brain to conjure up a comeback. Failing, he just shook his head and leaned forward on a shaky elbow, his bony right index finger stretched out and pointing at John.

"I'm here doing you a favor, boy."

"Not that I'm not grateful for your charity," said John, "but I'm not. Probably be best for all of both of us if you stated your business and got the fuck out of here as fast as your legs can carry you."

"Goddammit," Mike roared, slapping the table with his hands. "You best watch your fucking mouth, boy! You know who you're talking to?"

"Yeah," John said with a nod. "An old drunk who can't stand the fact nobody gives a goddamn about him anymore."

Mike stared at John through narrow slits and leaned forward on the table to stare harder. "You think you're so much better than me, don't you?"

"It's more of a fact than an opinion."

"Well," he said. "You ain't. You may think you're hot shit because you grow a little pot. But who the fuck do you work for? Billy goddamn Brown! Think of all the shit he's done to our family. Your uncles-- my brothers -- and your own goddamn daddy! You're fucking trash. Just like your father, and me, and my daddy, and his daddy. "

John stared back at his grandad, not wanting to give the son of a bitch the satisfaction of looking away. "You got a minute to tell me what you came here for, old man. Take too long and I will beat you half to death. I am not afraid to kick an old man's ass"

"Fine," he said, holding his hands up. "Fine, I'll say my peace. I ran into Mary Johnson at the store earlier today. She said you were asking about Carol. A lot of folks said you been asking around about her and some tweaker she was fucking. Just a few days after some sheriff boys was asking about them. Words getting around town that you're working for the cops. Jed came to see me too and he wasn't too pleased."

"Happen to ask him if he knew where Carol was?" John asked.

"No, but he said you'd do well to stop asking about her. Wanted me to come over here and talk some sense to you."

"I got a job to do," John said with a shrug. "It's either find this meth head or go to jail for a long fucking time. I'm sure you can understand that, can't you? I mean, you being such a force in Pickett County for so long... pick the battles you can win and run away from the ones you can't. That's why you're still standing and all those brothers of yours are in the ground, right?"

"Look," he sneered. "I don't give a good goddamn what you think about me, but think about what Jed said, alright? That man you don't fuck around with. The guy he works for you especially don't fuck around with. I know the two of us have had our differences--"

"Like how I always wanted something to do with my grandpa, but he felt apparently different?"

"You may not believe it, boy, but me staying the fuck away from you was the best thing I ever did for you."

"I'm not your boy," John spat. "And asshole behavior is asshole behavior any way you try to square it."

"Same with your daddy," Mike said without acknowledging John's insult. "He died before he had a real chance to fuck your life up."

"Get the hell out now," John said quietly.

Mike stared at John and tried to read his face for a bluff. John brought both hands down on the table, slamming his big fists against the table. The blow caused Mike to jump from his seat. "NOW, GODDAMMIT!"

"You asshole," Mike said, standing. "Just remember what I said, stay the fuck away from Jed and his girl, alright?"

Mike scurried out the kitchen and towards the back door. John sat there, slugging down his open and beer and listening to his grandfather's car stutter a few times before it turned over. He stayed seated at the kitchen table while the car pulled out the backyard and left. He simmered in the darkness of early evening. Ever since John could remember, the son of a bitch had been taking his anger out on him. Mike Norman always felt hurt that John ended up working for Billy, the man who took everything he had from him.

John sat at the table in silence and contemplated his next move. Mike was an asshole, but he was rarely a liar. There's no way in hell he would have made up that story just to sling more abuse John's way tonight. Jed had talked to him sometime today. And he had told Mike to give him a message that was more like a warning. Good, John thought. That meant he was starting to get somewhere. Also meant that there could be more to this piece of shit job than he first thought.

It was ten past nine. This time of night, Jed had to be only one place: Ray's. John stood up from the table and went into his bedroom. He pulled the metal box from under the bed and opened it. Inside was a black Colt 1911 with brown grips inside a holster. John checked to make sure there was a full clip in it, double-checked that the safety was on, and then tucked the holster into the small of his back so that his shirt and jacket covered it.

It wasn't often that he armed myself, he got by on rep alone, but he'd much rather have it and not need it than to need it and not have it. John had been through a few rough situations since he started growing and dealing, but most of them he got out of without much bloodshed. If he was going to deal with an already pissed off Jed, he was certainly bringing backup. John checked to make sure the gun was secure one last time before he headed for the door and towards the trouble that was waiting for him outside.

[Morden Man]

There weren’t many basketball courts in Norman and most of them were barely maintained, the backboards were broken, the lines fading, and they had been that way since Deacon Augustus Harris had simply been known as “Gus” around these parts. He remembered the pick up games they played here back in the day, how the court had provided them with some form of sanctuary. That was before the drugs tore their community apart and took so much of the deacon’s life away from him. Looking back they seemed like happier times, but when Gus thought about it for a second he remembered them being no less dangerous or fraught with pitfalls.

The court was an oasis of tarmac amidst a sea of empty space, the fields on the horizon seemed to stretch as far as the eye could see. A figure stood alone, putting up shot after shot and chasing after every rebound with a tenacity that one would expect in the middle of a heated game. It was Antwan Dixon, glistening with sweat, and he was completely unaware of Gus stood there watching him.

Antwan went through the legs a few times, making sure to keep low to the ground as he did so, before eventually cocking back a shot that he launched like a trebuchet effortlessly towards the basket. It clanked against the back of the rim loudly but its bounce took it down through the net. Gus applauded gently as he approached Antwan and smiled at the boy.

“Nice shot.”

Antwan walked over to pick up the ball and placed it under his arm, looking us Gus with a bemused look on his face. “What are you doing here?”

He'd heard that Antwan looked like Marcus Dixon, he’d even seen pictures of the boy in the local paper, but in person the resemblance was more eerie than Gus had expected. He certainly was his father’s son as far as appearance, though it remained to be seen if he was cut from the same cloth as Marcus had been.

“Your mother thought it would be a good idea for the two of us to talk.”

“She thought wrong,” Antwan said abruptly.

“My experience with mothers has taught me that they are very rarely wrong about these things, Antwan.”

“Yeah, well, something tells me your moms and mine don’t have very much in common.”

It was clear from his tone that Antwan didn’t exactly hold his mother in high regard. How could you after seeing some of the things he must have seen growing up? The deacon’s mother hadn't been an addict, that particular affliction was one he’d visited upon himself out of choice, but she endured hardships and they had made her a hard woman, quick to reach for a belt or a switch. He had memories of his own mother that he wished he could forget, like Antwan had of Michelle.

“I wouldn’t be so sure about that.”

Antwan raised his eyebrows dismissively and then itched the corner of his nose, “What do you want, man? I’m trying to practice.”

“I thought, maybe, you’d want to talk about what happened last night.”

The boy looked around absently before glancing back at the deacon and shrugging his shoulders, “Nope.”

Undeterred the deacon placed his hands in his pockets and wandered from midcourt to a few feet back from the three point line. As he walked the most fleeting of memories came back to him of the times he’d played on these courts years back. He wasn’t sure whether they were memories or things he thought he remembered, but they flashed through his brain so quickly it was difficult to discern what was happening. A missed free throw here, a shoving match after a hard foul, and a three pointer sailing through the net without it moving an inch. What he would have given to have Antwan’s potential back then. It made his little brush with narcotics all the more frustrating.

“For a minute there you must have thought you’d blown it. Seen those recruiting letters from South Carolina, Clemson, Georgetown, and Duke all disappearing into thin air and in aid of what? Some weed? I know I’d have been scared if I were you.”

Clearly disgruntled by the deacon’s presence, Antwan began to dribble the ball between his back, slowly at first but quicker with each second. He did it so effortlessly that it was mesmerizing and Gus was certain that Antwan had barely heard a word he'd said. Finally the boy looked up and said with a hard look. “Well you’re not me, old man.”

The “old man” comment stung Gus more than it ought to have. The young didn't understand what it felt like to grow old, to have your body slowly begin to fail you, whilst your mind felt as young as it ever did. Though Gus looked fairly young for his age and kept himself in good shape, it was hard not to worry that all the years he had wasted getting high might catch up with him. The things he'd done back then, the things he'd seen, they haunted Gus to this day and in his darkest moments he often wondered how he'd survived that period of his life, whether he even deserved to have survived it.

But he was still here, old as he might have seemed to Antwan, and though he might never of had a fraction of the skill on the court that Antwan possessed, there was still some of that young man left behind.

“That I'm not,” Gus said with a nonchalant shrug. “I mean, I’d have sorted out that hitch in my jump shot by now if I were. Something like that might fly down here playing against trailer trash from Jardin but they’d eat you up in college with that thing slowing your release down.”

Antwan was halfway into his shooting motion when he stopped dead in his tracks. Suddenly there was more emotion was on his face than there had been throughout their entire conversation. He shook his head vociferously as he approached Gus.

“You don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“You’re right,” Gus smiled. “I’m just an old man, right? What the hell do I know?”

The deacon rolled up his sleeves and then clapped in Antwan’s direction for the ball. The boy looked at him, bemused, until the deacon clapped again and he passed it to Gus and stepped out of the old man’s way.

He got low to the ground, as low as his dress trousers would allow, and went through the legs a few times as he’d seen Antwan do earlier before dribbling normally for a few seconds. Gus took a single glance up at the basket and then dribbled the ball into the ground extra hard rather than bring the ball up to his head, as he’d heard Jerry West did to quicken his shooting motion, and let it fly with a little hop. The jump was by no means pretty and he barely got off the ground but the second the ball left the deacon’s hand he had a good feeling about it.

It careened through the air slowly towards the basket and passed through it without making contact with the net. A broad smile appeared on Gus’ face as he said a silent prayer for having grown up idolizing Jerry West instead of Dominique Wilkins like every other kid in Norman back then. Jesus and Jerry West could split the credit for that one having gone in, he thought as he turned to gauge Antwan’s reaction.

Antwan stared at Gus as unimpressed as if he'd run through Club 65 in a Klansman outfit. “Was that supposed to impress me?”

“You try knocking down a three-pointer when you’re fifty-two and have arthritis in your knees, boy,” Harris said with a chuckle. “Maybe then you’ll come to appreciate it.”

They stood in silence for a time before Antwan let out a sigh and looked in the deacon’s direction. “Look, I get that I fucked up, I don’t need you to tell me that.”

It wasn’t much, but it was better than nothing. From what Michelle had relayed to Gus of their conversation the other night Antwan seemed far less belligerent now than he had then. Time could do that.

“I’m not here to tell you anything, son, I’m here to listen.”

Antwan nodded and wandered slowly to pick up the ball. The second it touched his hands it was like the boy’s troubles, which had seemed an unbearable weight before, were lighter somewhat, more manageable. He seemed more at one with a Spalding in his hand than without it. Who could blame him? That thing had probably brought him more solace over the years than anything else. He eyed it as he turned the ball between his hands.

“I know it was irresponsible and I know I could have blew my chance at getting a scholarship, but it’s hard sometimes, man. People think I have it easy or something. Where were they when there was no food on our table? When I was showing up to practice on a hungry stomach?”

Gus placed his hands in his pockets with a sigh, “I understand, son.”

“No,” Antwan shook his head. “That’s the thing. No one does. No one understands what it’s like out here for me. The only people in the world that ever looked out for me, ever helped me without expecting something back, are Jayson and Mr. Spencer.”

From what Gus knew of Roland Spencer it certainly didn’t seem like he didn’t expect something back. He was a businessman first and foremost, and not a socially conscious one at that, not the type of man to ’t make investments without expecting a return on them down the line. It almost hurt Gus to bring light to that given the boy’s trust in him, but he figured it would hurt a great deal less than if he found out down the line.

“Tell me, Antwan, was Mr. Spencer interested in you before you had a basketball in your hands?”

“I see how it is,” Antwan muttered with a distrustful look. “That’s why she sent you. She wants you to turn me against Mr. Spencer as well.”

“That’s not why I’m here.”

Antwan shook his head in disbelief and dribbled the ball away as if Gus weren’t there. He started putting up shots, chasing after them as ferociously as he had done earlier, over and over again until he was breathing heavy and his forehead was sopping wet. Eventually one of the rebounds rolled in the deacon’s direction and Gus put his foot atop the ball to slow it, lifting it up and placing it in his palms.

“You know, the other week I buried a boy by the name of Vontae Carter,” Gus said wistfully. “Maybe you heard about what happened to him on the news. I’m not sure whether kids watch the news anymore. Not sure they ever did, in truth. He was twenty-three years old, Antwan, and he was shot dead not a half hour from here over a pair of sneakers. Can you believe that? A pair a sneakers.”

Antwan wiped some sweat from his head with his forearm and looked at Gus, confused. “Why are you telling me this?”

“Honestly? I’m not sure,” Gus said, throwing the ball back to Antwan. “I guess I’m tired, is all.”

He was tired. Tired of watching Norman’s best and brightest surround themselves with the wrong people, make the wrong decisions, and pay with it with their liberty or even worse, their lives. It was a story he’d seen play out more times than he could bear and it was his desire not to see it play out in Antwan’s life.

It was then the deacon remembered one caveat that had seemingly slipped his mind amidst the deluge of information Michelle had given him. “Your mother told me that Jayson told the police the weed belonged to him. Did you know that?”

He could tell straight away it struck a chord with Antwan.

“What?” Antwan said with a shake of his head. “No.”

“He was willing to throw whatever prospects he might have away for you without a second’s hesitation to get you out of trouble,” Gus said as he began to roll down his sleeves. “You ought to think on whether Mr. Spencer would be willing to do the same for you if it came down to it. Though something tells me you already know the answer to that question, Antwan.”

The boy stood in silence as he contemplated the deacon’s words. His eyes were locked on the fields on the horizon past Gus’ shoulder and were glazed over as if he were lost in thought. Gus would have been in his position too, though if he’d had a friend like Jayson something tells him he’d never have found himself in some of the predicaments he landed in over the years. It was a rare thing to have a friend like that, especially in a place like Norman, and looking into the boy’s eyes it seemed that fact began to dawn on him.

“It was good talking to you,” Gus said with a smile. “You know where I am if you ever want to talk, son.”

Antwan smiled back politely as Gus turned his back to walk away from the court. As he reached the edge of the tarmac he looked back at the boy and pointed towards the basketball resting between Antwan’s hands with an encouraging smile.

“Remember to work on that hitch.”

[Byrd Man]

John drove down the high towards the Georgia line. The scenery was pretty routine. Dense trees with the occasional house and the occasional peak at the lake on the other side of those trees. He passed by a group of old, rotten houses that were little more than tar paper shacks. The shacks were remnants of the old homes black people outside of town used to live.

His truck blew past a few more dilapidated buildings, these only abandoned relatively recently. Old liquor stores and bars that were spitting distance from the river. The two closest Georgia county on the other side of the river had been dry up until the 90's. Pickett reaped the benefits of being the veritable oasis in an alcohol desert. Liquor stores and saloons had littered both sides of the highway just on this side of the bridge. That stretch of highway was Saloon City back during its heyday. These little bars and stores were where Pickett at large got her nickname. When the places in Georgia finally got their heads out of their asses and allowed their counties to get wet, the ABC stores and saloons all dried up and blew away like wilted flowers in a drought.

Five miles from the bridge, John pulled into the parking lot of Ray's. There were close to a dozen cars in Ray's gravel parking lot. Ray's black Dodge truck sat parked close to the front door, beside it was Jed's tricked out Chevy Tahoe with the police grade tinted windows. John parked and headed towards the door. The front of Ray's had a sign that flashed the official name of the establishment, the brick wall on both sides of the door was plastered with ads for the beers Ray's served.

The inside of Ray's was filled with the stench of stale cigarette smoke and beer. John pulled out his own cigarette and started to walk throught he place.

"When the night has been too lonely and the road has been too long, and you think that love is only for the lucky and the strong," Conway Twitty crooned from the jukebox in the corner.

There were maybe ten people scattered at the bar and the tables. The usual lonely drinkers and the few people brave or desperate enough to go prowling for tail here. A normal sized crowd for a weekday night Ray's.

Friday, Saturday, and Monday were always Ray's biggest nights. Friday was people getting ready to go to the football games and then the crowd that filed in afterwards, either wanting to celebrate with a stiff drink or drown the sorrow of the loss in a stiffer drink. Saturdays were always packed with people drinking and whoring like there wasn't no tomorrow. For some of them, there probably wasn't much of a tomorrow.

Unfortunately for John, Jed wasn't among the band of sinners here tonight. He assumed he was in the back room, near that big ass safe, but he didn't know for sure. His car was here, but that doesn't always mean the person you're looking for is here.

He got a few looks from patrons as he bellied up to the bar. Nothing hostile, more sizing mhim up. Everybody knows what he did for a living and who he worked for. There are no secrets in Pickett. He nodded at Carl Roach who was at a table with Shawna Kidd. Shawna was dressed in a tight sweater that showed her rock hard fake tits, and she was wearing enough lip gloss to choke a horse. Carl looked away from John and back to Shawna, whispering sweet nothings in her ear. She laughed and pushed him away, making sure she clung to his arm as she did so. John turned away and looked down at the bar to hide his smirk. It looked as if Carl was going to have a good time tonight... that is, as long as he had enough cash. John wondered if Carl knew Shawna was a hooker. If he didn't, he sure wouldd love to be a fly on the wall when that conversation took place.

"What's so damn funny?" a gruff voice asked.

John looked up and right at Ray. The old man stood behind the bar with an empty glass in his hands.

"Just thinking to myself," John said with a laugh.

"Whatever. You gonna laugh at yourself all day, or you gonna buy a goddamn drink? This ain't no meeting place."

"Sign out front says a social club," John said, producing a five dollar bill. "I thought social clubs were all about sitting around and jawing.

"Not my fucking social club," Rya said as he snatched the money from John's hand.

He ordered a beer and waited for Ray to bring it to him. While he was gone, John saw Carl and Shawna leaving. Carl had a grin a mile-wide as Shawna took his hand and led him out the door.

"Hopefully he has money," Ray said, putting down in front of him a glass of beer with a large foam head. "Last guy that got Shawna all worked up and didn't have any money got a punch in the dick."

"He end up alright?"

"He's doing fine," Ray said with a wry smile. "Although he's no longer a he, at least not in the sense we'd define it."

John laughed and took a long swig off the beer in front of me. It wasn't bad. Better than what he usually drunk. He put the drink down and licked the foam from his lips and leaned forward against the bar.

"Say, Ray, where's Jed?"

It's amazing how fast a man's face can go from easygoing and relaxed to hardened. If somebody was watching from a distance, they would have assumed John had just told Ray to go fuck his momma instead of asking about Jed. He sized him up for a few seconds that felt more like minutes.

"What's it to you?" he asked.

John shot him a look that said he knew the score, that he knew Ray was bullshitting, and that they both knew where Jed was. He looked at John a few more moments, sucking his teeth and staring at him with that cold look.

"Alright," he finally said with a shrug. "Let me go get him."

He walked out from behind the bar and towards the green door marked PRIVATE in big, red letters. Jed's official job was bartender here. And, true, he did tend bar from time to time when Ray was sick or when it was really busy, but he had a more important job. A man comes in and asks for Jed specifically, he asking for more than watered down beer. Jed's job here was the only reason Ray's bar was the last honky tonk standing in the husk of Saloon City. Jed spoke for Ray's silent partner, the man who had provided the capital to get the place going and still kept it afloat.

"John Norman," Benny Rawls said, standing from his end of the bar and walking towards John with a beer in his hand. Benny Rawls was an old black man with hair that was still pitch black. Although John heard talk that Benny was around seventy, he didn't look much past fifty. Always seemed funny to him how some black people never seemed to age, but when they did get old, it hit them like a runaway train and kept pushing them down the tracks until they looked ancient.

"Hey, Benny," John said, taking a sip of my beer. "How's it going?"

"Fine, just fine."

Benny was the only black person in the room. Even though Ray had an all black night that always made Mondays extra profitable, not many black people came in on the other days of the week. The whites of Pickett County had Ray's five nights a week, while the blacks had Club 65 on the outskirts of town. It was the same with everything: undertakers, homes, churches, even the lunchroom at school would always split up between race. That was the way it worked here, and all over the south. Nobody forced segregation, it just happened. Years and had conditioned them to accept it and keep it up, and who were they to buck the trend? Hell, many of them thought, if it was good enough for our mommas and daddies then what made us so goddamn special?

"You know," Benny started after a few seconds of silence. "I used to know the old John Norman, you know. The police?"

"I always heard he was a son of a bitch," John grunted.

"He was." Then Benny laughed softly. "Old man kicked my ass one time. It was a few years before he went and died. I was young back then, and we was in town at the Hill? You remember the Hill?"

"Can't say that I do."

"Well, it was this place up on the hill just before you get into Norman. I was in there one night, drinking and making an ass out of myself. John Norman came in and looked me in the eye and said 'Boy, I'm gonna go around the block. When I get back, your nigger ass better not be here any more,' and he walked out. I laughed and went about drinking. Twenty minutes later, he came back in and saw me. He beat me upside the head with his nightstick and drug me out that place by my ear."

"Sorry to hear that." That was all he could think to say. He figured his son of a bitch comments had done a good enough job to give Benny his thoughts on the man.

"I had it coming," he said with a shrug. "I was acting like a real asshole. No telling what I would have done if I'd stayed that night. People liked to talk about all them niggers John Norman killed, but let me tell you something: Lot of them had it coming. Half of them were gonna end up being killed by someone anyway. I'm not saying he was right to kill them, I'm just saying John Norman couldn't have picked a better batch. Swear to God, I never met a white man in my life that hated niggers as much as John Norman did."

"Well," John said softly. "If it's any consolation, all his granddaughters had children with black men."

Benny pulled his head back and cackled, his beer belly shaking with laughter. "What's that they call that, karma? Yeah, I bet old John Norman spinning in his grave knowing that his great grand youngins is half-nigger."

"God, I hope so," John said with a laugh.

His happy mood disappeared when he saw the door into the back room swing open. Ray came out first, eyeballing him with that hard look again. Jed came out right behind him, his face looking like it was made of stone. It's a look that's scared the shit out of countless people before, and with good reason. Jed, the tough thug with the redneck name. But it was a nickname that came from his birth name. Jedavius or something like that. His momma had been one of those black women that thought giving her boy a unique African name meant pulling a bunch of letters out of a Scrabble bag.

Jed was a few years older than John, but he knew his story. Everyone in town did. He had been a promising athlete back in the day. Lettered in football, basketball, and track, and had a bunch of offers from schools. But then he and three other boys from school had beaten another kid with bricks over some stupid disagreement that escalated before they could cool down. That guy was still paralyzed to this day. Jed's cohorts had copped to the crime, saying Jed served as lookout. They both got fifteen years while Jed got two. His future shot to hell, it didn't surprise a soul when he went to work for Billy Brown right out of prison.

"Outside," he snapped at John as he passed by. John looked at Ray, but found no indication of what was going on in his impassive face.

"Now, wait a minute," Benny started. "We're over here having a conversation, Jed."

"Like I give a fuck," he said. "Outside right now, Norman. We're gonna talk."

Benny quickly made himself scarce. John cautiously stepped away from the bar and followed Jed outside the door. In the parking lot he got distracted by Carl Roach and Shawna halfway across the lot, standing beside his car and arguing loudly. Apparently, his guess had been right. It struck midnight and Carl's trashy Cinderella turned into a money-hungry pumpkin.

John looked away from that scene and right into the punch Jed was throwing. The blow to the face dropped him to the ground. Dirt from his impact flew up and covered his face and eyes. White-hot pain shot from his cheek up into his eye and down into the jaw. He was still contemplating the punch when Jed's foot slam into his side. A rib screamed in pain as the breath rushed out of his lungs in a loud gasp. He tried to yank his gun from the holster on the small of his back, but Jed slapped it away with a swipe of his left foot. The Colt skidded across the gravel and out of reach.

"Should have listened to your granddaddy, John," Jed said calmly. He brought his foot down on his and it all went to black.

[Morden Man]

Antwan sat in silence with his mother at the dinner table as they slowly made their way through the meal that Michelle had prepared. It wasn’t much. In truth, Michelle had never been much of a cook and she’d never needed to be before, so most nights Antwan would get food out with Roland or the two of them would tuck into whatever half-hearted meal Michelle had prepared. Antwan eyed his mother as she lifted the fork to her mouth, a darkened piece of meat between her teeth, as he thought back to the conversation he’d had with Deacon Harris that morning. For some reason he’d not been able to get their talk out of his head since. Some of the things he’d said had made him question his relationship with Roland. He’d even gone so far as not responding this morning when Roland had text him.

Finally Antwan wiped his mouth clean with a napkin and looked across at his mother. “Deacon Harris came by the court this morning.”

His mother feigned a look of surprise that wouldn’t have fooled a child. “Oh?”

“Yeah,” Antwan said as he reached out for the can of soda that sat beside his meal. “Reckons I have a hitch in my jump shot.”

Michelle nodded dejectedly and looked back down at her food as if she were expecting the conversation to go somewhere else. Antwan knew she was the one behind sending Gus to the court this morning. Who else could it have been? Even now though she couldn’t play things straight with him and open up to it. Antwan thought back to the times when his mother had been using and how she’d look him in the face and lie to him. She’d never been straight with him, not even about what had happened with his father or why Uncle Chew had gone away. She hadn’t even told him that Jayson had tried to take the rap for him. That more than anything got to Antwan.

He wanted to leave it and go upstairs but it niggled at Antwan too much to leave things as they were. He swallowed a mouthful of soda and sat back in his seat.

“Why didn’t you tell me Jayson tried to take the rap for me?”

His mother looked up from her food, this time there was no shock or surprise in her expression, only a shrug. “It didn’t seem like it was my place, Antwan.”

He thought about every time he’d looked in his mother’s bleary eyes when they’d found her in some pigsty in Jardin with the trailer trash. About how many birthdays and Christmases he’d spent with Jayson and his mother instead of in his own home. For all his pain, for all his anger, Antwan had seen some sense to the old man’s words this morning but even now his mother couldn’t bring herself to be honest with him. It made him hurt.

Antwan stood up from his seat angrily and pushed his mother’s plate out from underneath her, knocking the cutlery from her hand and onto the ground.

“Could you just fucking treat me like an adult for once in my life? Please.”

Michelle didn’t so much as flinch, raising her eyebrows slightly at her son’s sudden outburst. She stood up and began to pick the plate up from the ground. Antwan watched, breathing heavily, as he his mother gather together her fallen cutlery and clean up after the mess he’d made. He felt his anger drain from him slowly and knelt beside her to help her clean up the food apologetically.

“I’m sorry,” Antwan said with a sigh. “My head’s been all over the place recently, Mom, I don’t know what to think at the minute.”

His mother looked around at him and smiled. She placed her arm around him and without a hint of anger in her voice she purred. “It’s okay.”

Antwan felt a wave of relief flood over him as the pair of them cleaned up slowly and carried both their plates to their tiny kitchen. His mother had offered to clean up after them but, overcome with guilt at having lost control of his temper, Antwan stood over the sink and washed their plates as his mother watched.

“I went to see Chew.”

A look of concern appeared on Michelle’s face. “What? Why would you do that?”

Antwan shrugged.

“I don’t know, I figured I owed him.”

His mother’s face hardened. For almost as long as Antwan could remember his mother had hated his uncle Chew’s guts and she’d never once explained what he’d done to draw her ire. Before Chew had gone to prison he’d been a father figure, a coach, and a big brother all at once for Antwan, but his mother’s reluctance to allow him to spend time with him was clear even then. He’d spent the past decade feeling indebted to Chew for those hours he’d spent out on the court with him. That feeling had dissipated that day at Dante’s when his uncle had treated him like dirt.

“You don’t owe that man anything, Antwan.”

“I know,” Antwan said with a knowing nod. “I know that now.”

Michelle smiled and Antwan finished stacking the clean plates on the draining board beside the sink. He leant against it and his mother and he stood in silence for a few moments. As Antwan looked at her he was still hit by pangs of pain as he remembered the woman she had been, the things she had done, but Deacon Harris’ words for this morning run in his ears and the pain passed. No matter what she had done, what she had hidden from him, Michelle was still his mother and nothing was going to change that. The sooner he accepted that the better for the both of them.

“I shouldn’t have said what I said to you in the car, Ma, it was out of line.”

Michelle smiled proudly and buoyed by his mother's obvious pride Antwan knew what he had to do.

“I’ll give the car back to Roland too,” Antwan said as he walked towards his mother and placed his arms around her. “We got by without fancy cars before, right? We can get by without them now.”

Antwan closed his eyes and held his mother close to him as she spoke. “I’m glad to hear that, son.”

Roland wouldn’t like it when he heard about it but if he was truly his friend he’d have to come to terms with it. Maybe there’d been some grain of truth to what Harris had said, maybe more than Antwan wanted to admit, but Roland had been there for him and he wasn’t going to cut him out entirely considering everything he’d done. Antwan would take a step back and focus on balling, that’s all that really mattered, and that's what was going to get him, his mother, and his people out of Norman. Not all the other shit that came with it and definitely not weed.

He let his mother go and looked at her with a smile that slowly began to shift into a frown.

“You don’t think I have a hitch in my jump shot, do you?”