As the numbness grew, he pondered over the list of expenses RD had tacked to his door. He thought of his own wives. One was buried in the city’s cemetery and the other was buried in North Carolina. Even though it had been almost a decade, he knew by the tally tacked to his door that he’d spent more, given more respect, to his wives than RD had to LaRae.
He saw RD coming up the driveway, gripping something nearly hidden in his hand.
“Ain’t you got business?” Jeffers blurted.
“I’m here on business. I’ve been to the funeral home.”
He gazed down at RD, who was dressed in a shirt Jeffers wouldn’t have used for a rag-threadbare in the chest, as if it belonged to a man who itched a lot. He noticed that RD was petting a rabbit’s foot in his left hand, part of a keychain. “You bring that for luck?”
“Hell, I don’t need no luck.”
“You need something. You’ve eaten or buried the best part.”
“You get my note.”
“Yeah, I got your duns.”
“I told them at the home you’ll pay for it.”
“You kill that dog?”
“LaRae said it was your wives that haunted her. Said you beat ’em.”
“I never struck them.”
“That’s not what they said.”
“You kill that dog?” Jeffers asked again.
“Said you should have to pay.”
“You kill that dog?” Jeffers leaned forward, puffed smoke.
RD gnawed at the inside of his cheek. “Why don’t you give me a smoke and I’ll knock off a few dollars on that bill.”
“You kill that dog?”
“I know who did. I’ll tell you for ten dollars.”
“So you know it’s dead.”
“I know you been asking about a dead one, and that one’s been lately put out of its misery.”
Jeffers shot a gleaming stream of spit at the little man without hitting him. “I didn’t cause its misery.”
“But you killed it.”
“I put it down.”
“Then why are you ragging on me about killing a dog?”
“Cause you’re the one who gutted it to start with.”
“I don’t know about that,” RD said.
“You don’t know you gutted a dog?”
“I didn’t.”
Jeffers was silent.
Looking at the spit webbed across the parched green leaves of the boxwoods, RD said, “What’s that dog mean to you?”
“Nothing. Having it slaughtered on my property does mean something.”
“Well, I’ll help you look for your dog-gutter if you pay for LaRae.”
Jeffers felt the slight palpation of his heart. “I’m not paying you for a goddamn thing.”
“You will.”
“Why do you think I’ll pay?”
“You want peace, don’t you?”
Jeffers legs were numb, up to his stomach. At that moment, he wanted more than anything to chase RD down and beat him senseless.
Slightly hunched, RD eased up onto the porch as if he sensed weakness. He stood up and reached for one of the Ziploc bags of pennies and plucked it down from its nail. Jeffers’s head twitched and he ground his teeth. There was no feeling whatsoever in his legs, as if he were dead from the waist down.
RD turned and walked down the steps.
“Hey,” Jeffers called. “Come get this.” Jeffers held up the funeral bill.
RD stood in the yard, with a big smile on his face, danced a burlesque and mocked masturbation and then spat a reddish brown streak. He wiped his chin. “You can knock four cents off that bill,” he said. He turned and walked out of the yard, disappearing behind the trees.
His Sunday evening phone calls with James were little more than reminders-for James it reminded him that his father was still alive, and for Jeffers that his son was little more than a beggar, begging for a donation. Tonight James called asking about some article he’d sent Jeffers regarding blood circulation. Poor circulation: that was what was wrong with Jeffers, according to James.
They sat in silence, Jeffers listening to his son’s breath and the hum of foreign ambience at the other end of the line. He yawned. He flicked off the lamp beside the chair and sat in the dark so he could see through the window to the little, unlighted house across the road. He opened his shirt and put a hand to his chest, his heart. His feet were cold in his bedroom shoes.
“Any more thought given to what you’re going to do with the Ashcross place?”
“Some,” Jeffers said.
“I spoke to the United Methodist Ministries. They said if I could get the land, they’d help me with the church.”
“That so?”
“Yes.”
James called it a perfect little hill to build a church upon. For Jeffers, property had to be earned. He had earned it, bought with monies he got paid from other lands, which he bought with monies he earned originally from labor in a dust-filthy mill. Everything he owned he’d earned. He wanted his son to earn it. James prated on about church, but Jeffers couldn’t listen to him. He was angry with RD, angry with himself. He was going to have to get rid of the little man, evict him.
“Anything else going on up there?” James asked.
“Nothing.”
“Did you get the squatters out of the house?”
“Not yet.”
“You can’t do anything with the place until you get them out.”
Jeffers let out a meek huh, which his son didn’t respond to. He flicked the light back on and saw himself in the blackened window with a hand across his chest as if he were taking a pledge. His face was sullen. He smiled at himself, mirthless, false. When he stopped smiling the leaden expression returned. His son wasn’t speaking. Who was his confidant? Jeffers wondered.
“Don’t make any decision about that place before talking to me,” James said.
Jeffers didn’t respond.
James sighed on the other end and told his father goodnight.
Jeffers got up the next morning surprised he’d had a good night’s sleep. His feet were warm and when he stood he could feel them-he could feel the coolness of the floor. He was still angry, but he felt good and up to running off squatters. He would have to deal with RD soon, and getting Ashcross taken care of would be one less thing to worry about. He’d foregone calling the police. In years past, just telling the squatters to leave did the trick. Sometimes he’d flash his pistol.
When he got to Ashcross he knocked on the front door and a young woman with a gaudy bloom of red- and yellow-dyed hair answered. She was very pregnant, and she smiled so brightly that Jeffers couldn’t help thinking of a flower he wished he could pick. The young woman said her name was Lucinda, but that everyone called her Panky.
He didn’t mention that he’d seen her before. He began by telling her that she was a squatter and that the property belonged to him. If she didn’t clear out immediately, he would have her arrested for trespassing and demand back rent by garnering future earnings.
The young woman stood quietly as Jeffers finished speaking. After a few moments she spoke. “Someone told me and Toby it was empty and we could just stay a while until Toby got a job.”
“I am the landlord. I charge rent on the people who live here.”
“But it’s been empty for a long time.”
“That doesn’t mean anything.”
“But we have nowheres to go.”
He’d never felt sorry for squatters or tenants, but Panky’s festival hair, spray of freckles across her nose-her belly-released an unexpected shock of tenderness in his chest. He looked away, toward the trees and the catfish heads, as she continued to talk about their plucky intentions to stay briefly, have the baby, find a job for herself, find a better place. She just needed a little more time.
He hustled his pants around his haunchless hips. The weight of the pistol tugged on his trousers. His feet were going numb.
She was silent for a moment, and he looked back to see why she’d stopped talking. Then she said, “We could do some repairs on the house. Toby’s good with that. Let us stay here and we’ll fix it.”