Some locales seem to come with their own soundtrack. Don Ho and his tiny bubbles provide the background music for Hawaii, Edith Piaf for Paris. The reggae of Bob Marley evokes Jamaica. The soundtrack for Alabama is without question provided by our troubled troubadour Hank Williams. The 2016 biography Hank by Mark Ribowsky paints a dark picture of the musician’s short, alcoholic, drug-filled life: a life of loneliness and pain. He goes so far as to call Hank’s life story “noir-ish.”
Alabamians’ love for and identification with Hank was expressed in the 2012 memoir of columnist Rheta Grimsley Johnson, Hank Hung the Moon... and Warmed Our Cold, Cold Hearts. She writes that Williams was “an Alabamian... whose music had a beat like that of our own hearts.” He was “in our minds as a distant cousin or close friend who had died far too soon. He spoke our language and knew our secrets and made us feel better about our troubles and foibles.”
Marlin Barton’s tale takes place at the Hank Williams grave in Oakwood Cemetery in Montgomery, a spot that has become “sacred” and where ceremonies and rituals of different sorts are performed by visitors, often late at night, similar to those performed at Jim Morrison’s grave in Père Lachaise Cemetery in Paris. Barton’s twisted lovers are caught in a perfectly deadly folie à deux, and with them we end the collection.
In Alabama Noir we encounter “troubles and foibles” galore, darkness in many forms. The stories range from the deadly grim to some that are actually mildly humorous. We see desperate behavior on the banks of the Tennessee River, in the neighborhoods of Birmingham, in the affluent suburbs of Mobile, in a cemetery in Montgomery, and even on the deceptively pleasant beaches of the Gulf of Mexico.
Fans of noir should all find something to enjoy.
Don Noble
Cottondale, Alabama
January 2020
Part I
Cold, Cold Heart
Exhaustion
by Anita Miller Garner
Florence
It’s late, even for young guys like me and Ray and DC. So late, it’s early. The rest of the bars done closed down and we the only ones left just outside the city limits at the Hollywood where life don’t start till after midnight. People been stopped playing pool and gone. Ol’ Skunk — tired ol’ black man, walks slow, got a big white streak in the hair on top of his head — Skunk’s getting tired, shuffling back to where we’re shooting nine-ball and cut-throat. White folks other than me call him Edsel. They slap him on the back, shake his hand, talk like they’re black for about thirty seconds. Hey, Edsel. Man. What up? they say, think they cool. I call him Skunk just like Ray and DC do. We all call him Skunk. I can tell he’s tired of asking us if we need more beers. He’s too busy slow-mopping behind the bar, stacking chairs one by one on the table, making a little bit of noise so we get the message, but not so much noise that Ray gets mad. Skunk wants us to leave, but he’s too scared to say nothing.
We done hustled three drunk dudes for most they paychecks. Don’t nobody look us in the eye or give us lip when we take the money. The men leave us alone and the few chicks all sit on the far side of the bar, far away from us as they can get. But they’re looking, the chicks are. I catch the chicks looking at me sideways-like, acting like they’re not looking. Me and Ray and DC, we’re just what they want. We just what they need, baby. Hard ride. Hard six-pack ride with our big shoulders. Some nights I walk over and pick one out. Like that last white girl I had with the sweet face like she loves me. She wants me bad like I’m G-Eazy/Yelawolf. Tonight ain’t that kinda night, though. Tonight’s a business night. A player’s gonna play when he wants to play.
Ol’ Skunk finally rattles over our way, dragging a nasty sour mop and bucket on wheels. Sun comin’ up, he says. Watch out for the sheriff deputy down by the bridge, he says, like talkin’ is gonna get us to leave. They catch you they put you under the jail till you cough up the big bucks. Which is bullshit. We walked here. Didn’t nobody drive. Walked to the Hollywood through the woods from where Ray’s girlfriend Yolanda stays. Cold weather like this, you see them green and orange outside lights of the Hollywood from Yolanda’s front porch. Just walk down a steep hill and don’t get caught up in no raggedy saw brier vines in the dark, cross over a footbridge, then walk back up a hill and you’ll be right at the Hollywood’s back door. Nobody see you coming. Nobody see you going. We way too smart for that fat cracker sheriff deputy.
Ol’ Skunk’s still talking. Y’all go on over to Poochie’s. He open all the time for whoever show up whenever. Poochie a good man.
Poochie serves whoever shows up all right, but Poochie’s just a bootleg man. Last time we were sitting in Poochie’s front room, some man nobody ever seen before come up to DC and knocked DC out cold with a chair. Man never seen DC before.
Ol’ Skunk’s getting braver now, looking us in the eye, smiling. I seen you boys back here scammin’, he says, like he’s up on us. Then he stands there like he’s ’bout to stick his hand out like maybe he wants a piece of the action just because he thinks he knows something. That Raeburn boy you took for a hunderd, his cousin work down at the jail, Skunk says.
I don’t know where this motha thinks he’s going with this line, but before he can put together his own low deal, Ray’s up off his stool and got this motha choked up against the wall, Ray holding his chalky pool stick with both hands across Ol’ Skunk’s throat so Skunk can’t breathe/talk/nothing. Ol’ Skunk’s right eye pretty much popping out of his head.
Most of the time Ray’s easygoing, but when the money-man comes after Ray, Ray gets nervous. I need to say something to soothe Ray down. “Hey.” I start talking and think fast since I need a plan to get us out of this fast. “Hey man,” I say, “we’re a team. Me and you and DC makes three. Ain’t that right?”
But what I’m thinking is this: money from Skunk’s cash box ain’t enough to help. Ray baby needs more than the skanky jingle in Ol’ Skunk’s cash box. Ray’s in deep to the money-man this time. Way deep. Not even Ray’s fault, but that don’t matter.
Skunk is light-skinned enough that his face turns red. Other eye looks like it’s about to pop too. I can tell Skunk wants to ask something, but that’s hard to do with your throat mashed against a wall so hard your jaw’s hanging loose.
Ray speaks up, talking low and regular, like he’s at the Dairy Queen down on Court Street, trying to decide what flavor Blizzard he wants. “I’m gonna let you down nice and easy like, and you gonna tell me what I want to know.”
And I’m thinking: What the shit? Ray’s not even asked Skunk nothing I can hear, so how is Skunk gonna tell Ray what Ray wants to know? What’s that shit mean? Ray keeps Skunk held up pretty much slammed against the wall, letting him down slow, letting that chalky stick fall, bouncing off the floor. Skunk’s not fighting back, either. He’s just held up by Ray’s big arms, blue skull and flower on top of muscle, the name of Ray’s dead Texas friend in black on the other arm on Ray’s light skin. Almost as light as my skin. Ink looking good on Ray.
Ol’ Skunk tries to talk. Just air comes out. Then he says, like a whisper, I got no part in that deal.
Skunk’s right hand moving and Ray is holding Skunk’s collar with his right and reaching for what Skunk’s reaching for with his left. Metal flashes back up on Skunk’s throat.