Issue 19

Dennis Vannatta

Mom set a can of Vienna sausage and a Yoohoo on the kitchen table in front of me. That’d been my favorite breakfast when I was a kid, but I’m fourteen now, an old fourteen it sometimes feels like although other times I think I’m just starting out. I don’t know.

She’d give me Vienna sausage and chocolate milk or a Yoohoo mornings after we’d had a bad night with Dad, especially nights he’d take the notion to leave off her and start in on me. I spent a lot of a time as a kid just waiting to get big enough to kill him, but he saved me the trouble by dying in the big snowstorm of February 2008. It was barely snowing when he left the same crappy little house we live in now to walk to the nearest liquor store, about a mile down the blacktop, but it turned into a real blizzard before he could make it back. A guy on a road grader found him in the ditch the next morning no more than a quarter mile from the liquor store. He was half buried in the snow, and beside him was the remains of a case of PBR—twenty-four empty cans. The kids at school thought it was pretty funny, and it took me a long time to live it down. Come to think of it I don’t guess I have yet.

I shook the sausages out onto a plate. They were some knock-off Walmart brand or something, covered in this jelly-stuff I couldn’t eat. I went over to the sink and rinsed them off under the tap. Mom was watching me. I sat back down and put one of the sausages in my mouth. “Mmmmm,” I went even though they’d lost some flavor in the rinse job.

“Are they good?” Mom asked.

“Real good,” I said, smacking my lips and plopping another one into my mouth because I could tell she was anxious for me to like them.

“Drink up that Yoohoo,” she said, and I took a drink. It was good.

“Hits the spot,” I said. “I couldn’t tell you the last time I had a Yoohoo.”

“Good, good,” she said. Then: “Hey, I just had an idea—what we ought to do today.”

She hadn’t just had an idea. She’d had that idea all along. The Vienna sausage and the Yoohoo were the build-up. I’d spotted that right off. Something was coming only I didn’t know what, and I was a little nervous waiting for it. I’m always a little nervous, though, so it wasn’t anything I wasn’t used to.

“What ought we to do today?”

“Drive over and see the Halladay place. It’s been a long time since my best guy and me took a drive together,” she said, and then when I didn’t say anything for a second: “It’s no more than five miles from here”—like it was the time on the road I might object to. “You can see it plain as anything just off the county road. That’s state property, a county road. We pay for that. They can’t keep us off it. They said on TV people are lined up there looking. It’s part of history, right here in our own little ol’ Cantrell County.”

She was excited about going, and if she wanted me along for the ride, of course I’d go, too. A son has to do that for his mother, especially after all we’d been through together.

“Sure, dang right, let’s go,” I said, and she clapped her hands and squealed like a little girl who just got invited to the party. Then she was up rushing around the house, getting herself all dolled up. She came out of her bedroom wearing white pants and a sleeveless hot-pink top and these kind of gold high-heeled shoes, or sandals I guess you’d call them. A lot of makeup and lipstick on. She’s only thirty-three. My friend Davis likes to come over and look at her. It pisses me off sometimes but not too much because I know it makes her feel good. She doesn’t have a lot in her life to make her feel good. Dad didn’t leave us a thing. She works for nine-fifty an hour at the cardboard container factory in town, time and a half for holidays. She works just about all holidays, but it evens out because some days she’s too sad to go in to work. “I’m going to take a mental health day,” she’ll say to me like she’s joking. But I know she’s really just sad.

Right when we were ready to leave I remembered it was Tuesday, a school day, and I had a big test in American History. Mr. Wissenhunt is a real bastard and won’t give you a break on a makeup unless you lost a leg and show him the bloody stump, but I figured if Mom didn’t care, then why should I? Besides, I could always tell him I was on a field trip to see some genuine history. Maybe he’d give me a few points for that, ha ha.

It happened sometime over the weekend, I don’t think they’ve figured out exactly when yet. Maybe Vernon Halladay will tell them someday even though right now he’s in the hospital in Little Rock with a bullet in his head, self-inflicted. Too bad he didn’t do a better job of it. It was on TV last night and I’ll bet in all the papers this morning. We don’t take the paper normally, but Mom must have gone out early to buy a copy because there was a Democrat-Gazette on the table when I came out for breakfast, and I looked it over as I ate my sausages, big headlines on the front page and then several pages with pictures of the Halladay place. I’d already heard about it by then, of course. News had started to spread at school during lunchtime yesterday, and by the end of the day kids were saying Vernon had killed fifty, some said a hundred people, but turns out it was only twenty-five. Still, twenty-five, that’s a record for killing family members in one day and right here in Cantrell County. Folks around here seem pretty proud of it, which I can’t quite understand, to be honest, but I guess I’m just odd.

By the time I got myself cleaned up and ready to go, Mom was hustling me out the door, and I didn’t even have a chance to finish reading the paper and get all the details. Like exactly how Vernon—a big man, sure, and obviously mean as hell—managed to kill twenty-five not just women and children but several grown men, too, all relatives either blood or marriage, a record not just in the United States but anyplace in the world is what everyone is saying although I don’t know how you’d know a thing like that.

That’s exactly what I said when someone brought up the family-killing record at school: “How would they know a thing like that? Do you really think they keep records on something like that?”

“That’s just like you, Borland, to say something like that. Why don’t you just keep your fucking mouth shut?” Carson Williams, on the football team, said, and he was right because I’d learned a long time ago that when you’re not popular and tend to piss people off by just existing it’s best you keep your mouth shut. Too late by then, of course, and for the rest of the day any time somebody said some new thing about the killings, kids would look over at me to see if I was going to say something so they could pop me one.

Right at the end of the day, though, I earned some totally unexpected newfound respect when kids started arguing about how Vernon Halladay could have killed dozens of people including adult males, and I said, “Maybe he poisoned them all first with sedatives or knockout drops like at the Jonestown Massacre.”

It just sort of popped out before I remembered I was supposed to be keeping my fucking mouth shut, but before people had the chance to stomp me into the ground, Dallas Hinson, another football player, said, “Yeah, that’s right, just like the Jamestown Massacre.”

He said “Jamestown” so I knew he didn’t really know anything about the Jonestown Massacre, but that was okay. For a few minutes at least I was all right, almost in with the in-crowd, in fact. Wouldn’t last long, I knew, but every little bit helps.

The only reason I know anything about the Jonestown Massacre is that in seventh grade we had this online research project where we had to find out something that happened on our birthday and do an oral report on it in class. November 18, 1978. The Jonestown Massacre. That was me. Some of the guys, I could tell, were kind of impressed, kind of envious that I had such as terrible thing happen on my birthday. Most of them, though, didn’t know what to think. Neither did I. In fact, I’m still waiting to find out.

Turns out the Halladay place is only three or four miles away on the very same road as our house, County Road FF. It’s a little over a mile from our house to the junction where a left will take you in to town. Between here and town there’s mostly gas stations, repair shops, farm supplies, quick stops, bars, and triple-X video stores on both sides of the road. On past the intersection, though, it’s all farms and hills and woods. We went on north on FF until the road curved up the side of a big hill, and all of a sudden there were cars parked every which way. Mom parked the pickup as far off the road as she could get it, the left wheels still on the blacktop. We got out.

“Come on!” she said. She was excited. It was like a picnic for her. I was happy for her, too, even though I couldn’t see what there was to get excited about.

Just like she’d been reading my thoughts, she started to explain: “It’s fun being part of a disaster, being around a disaster, I mean, as long as you aren’t the one bad things happen to. People come together, like. It’s a good feeling, something you want to be a part of. Like in the movie Woodstock on MTV. Did you ever see that? There’s a line in there about a disaster area being a good thing, being fun. I don’t remember exactly how it goes. Did you ever see that movie?”

She was talking fast and almost panting because we were walking up a pretty steep grade, her face flushed like she was blushing and kind of glowing in the sun. I could understand why my friend Davis would want to come over and just look at her.

“No,” I said, “but I’ll keep an eye out for it. It sounds interesting.”

“It is. You should see it. You need to broaden your horizons, get out in the world.”

“I expect you’re right.”

“You’re old enough to where you should start being more independent. The next time you ask me if you can go out on your own, I’m going to say yes.”

“Good, good. I look forward to that.” Like she’d ever said no. Saying no is something my mom doesn’t do. But she’s right about me not going out much. But then I’m only fourteen. I’m not sure at what age you start doing stuff. That’s another thing I’m going to have to figure out, I guess.

We were starting to see more and more people standing at the side of the road, some in knots of two or three or four and others by themselves, some talking but others looking off down the hill below the road. Then the road leveled off, and there was a turnout on the left, a graveled area kind of like a scenic overlook I remember from when I was a kid and Dad and Mom and I took a drive up into the Ozarks, before things got bad. This wasn’t big enough for a scenic overlook, though. It was probably just a turn-around for county road vehicles. Now, though, it was filled with people all pushing right up to the guard rail and craning their necks to see down below.

I kind of hunkered down to make myself smaller than I really am and started worming my way through the crowd until I could see down the hill, and sure enough there it was: the Halladay place. It looked just like it did in the big photo in the newspaper. The photographer must have taken it right where I was standing.

I realized Mom hadn’t made it through with me, so I worked my way back out and found her. She was away from the crowd, standing with three men, all of them wearing cowboy hats and boots. She was talking and laughing like she’d known them all their lives. I could tell by the look on their faces that they hadn’t known her but were real glad to make her acquaintance now. I’d seen that look before. My mom can make a man look that way, which makes me kind of proud but also kind of worried because that can lead to bad situations. I’ve seen it. When I was a boy I used to dream about doing some brave thing to protect her, but now that I’m more mature I know she doesn’t want protecting from the things I’m worried about. That doesn’t make me feel any better. I haven’t seen much about this maturing business that does.

“Mom,” I said, ignoring the three cowboys, “the Halladay place is right down there.” I tried to sound excited. “If you go on down along the guard rail there, you can get a good view.”

“Isn’t that something!” she said to me and then gave the men a big smile. They smiled right back. She was enjoying herself and didn’t care a thing about the Halladay place. That wasn’t what she’d come for.

I went back through the crowd so she could have some time with the men.

The Halladay place was spread out in a kind of flat area between this hill and the next one. There was a house that looked about twice as big as our house but even poorer, more run-down, no paint at all on it that I could tell, and one end of the roof over the front porch sagging down. On the other end of the porch was a wooden swing, not chained up but sitting on the floor of the porch. There were outbuildings of different sizes scattered around the grounds, all in bad shape, and a half a dozen cars and pickups parked here and there at crazy angles. Trash—old boxes, buckets, tires, boards, and tin cans—was everywhere. The place was a real mess, an eyesore, not because of the massacre but just because of what it was—a poor-white hog farm. I know poor white. I can goddamn tell you I know poor white. But at least Mom tries, she does her best. It didn’t look like this Halladay bunch even tried. Still, to be slaughtered like that, to gather for a family reunion or whatever and then be slaughtered like hogs …

When I came back out of the crowd, Mom was standing there on the other side of the blacktop with her arms folded over her chest, tapping her foot.

“Well, did you get an eyeful?” she said, like coming here had been my idea, and a bad one at that. The three cowboys were gone. She hadn’t gotten anywhere with them, that was the problem. Not a thing I could help her with. What kind of hero you’d have to be to save her from that, I’m not sure.

There are plenty of other men around, I almost said that to her because it would have been all right with me if she wanted to flirt some more. But she said, “Come on,” and we headed back down the hill for the pickup.

It wasn’t even lunchtime by the time we got home, but I was hungry from the walk, so I opened a can of Campbell’s chicken noodle soup and put it on the stove.

I asked Mom if she wanted some. She just shook her head. “I’m going to take a nap. Don’t wake me up.”

Through the open bedroom door I watched her take off her pink top and white slacks, and by the careful way she laid them out across the chair back I knew that already she was planning on going back out.

You can’t keep her down long. I try to be like her in that although it’s a hard thing to do, it doesn’t come natural to me. I guess I must put on a good show, though, because once Mom asked me, “How come you never get down like I do, Johnny?” And I said, “It’s because I don’t ever get up in the first place.” She laughed and laughed. I didn’t even know I’d been joking.

I cleaned up the dishes and then studied American history for that test I might or might not get to take. I really don’t know what’s going to happen with my life.

Later in the afternoon I heard Mom moving around in the bedroom. When she came back out she was dressed again and had put on more makeup. She didn’t even give me time to comb my hair or go to the bathroom but said, “Come on, let’s go back out there,” and headed for the door.

“Why are we going back out there?” I asked her after I got in the pickup. I wasn’t objecting. I was just curious.

“It’s good to look at a situation in a different light,” she said. “You might see it from an entirely different angle.”

We hadn’t even made it to the junction before she said, “Damn, I’m hungry,” and pulled off onto the Honky Tonk Heaven parking lot. I’d never been in there but I’d been by it a thousand times. It used to have a neon sign of this cowgirl twirling a lasso above her head. Well, they still have the sign, but it hasn’t worked in I don’t know how long.

Inside it smelled like smoke and beer and fried grease. I didn’t mind it much.

“Give this growing boy a cheeseburger,” Mom said in a voice that didn’t need to be that loud. She didn’t order anything for herself but went over to the jukebox where a man with a big jackknife in a leather holster was standing. She acted like she was interested in the jukebox, but I knew it was really the man.

I ate the cheeseburger and then an order of fries and drank two Cokes. Then I went over to Mom, who was by now sitting at a table with a different man, not the man with the jackknife, and said, “Mom, you need to eat something. You haven’t eaten anything all day.”

She reached up and grabbed me by the collar and pulled me down and kissed me on the head and said, “Isn’t he sweet? Isn’t my baby so sweet to worry about his mother?”

I could smell liquor on her breath. You’d think liquor would be something she’d stay away from after what we went through with Dad, but she never seemed to make the connection. “He’s the sweetest man when he’s not drinking, he really is,” she’d said to me a hundred times like she was talking about somebody I didn’t know. But I knew him.

“Well, you need to eat something,” I said, and she said, “Isn’t he a sweetheart?” And the man with her winked at me and said, “Yep, he’s a sweet one.”

I went back to my table and sat for a long time listening to the jukebox. Then Mom came over, pulling the man by the hand, and said, “Adam and I are going to his house. He’s going to show me his etchings.” She was giggling so she could hardly get it out. “He’s going to show me his etchings!” A real laugh-riot.

They started for the door, but then Mom turned back and dropped the keys to the pickup on the table. “Here. You drive yourself home. You can drive, can’t you?”

She knew I’d never driven anything in my life, but I said, “Sure,” because that’s what she wanted me to say, and that seemed to satisfy her.

I sat there until they’d had plenty of time to leave because I didn’t want to be out there with them, and then I went out to the pickup. I looked at the controls and all the gizmos. I figured I could handle it. You do what you have to do, that’s one thing I’ve learned.

I got it started okay and found reverse and stepped on it and it shot straight across the blacktop and into the deep ditch on the other side. Oops. The pickup was leaning over, but I didn’t think it was going to tip over all the way. I climbed out and threw the keys back in for Mom or whoever to deal with. Then I started walking up the blacktop in the direction of the Halladay place because I knew there would be people there. There wasn’t anybody at my house.

Only there wasn’t anybody at the turnout overlooking the Halladay place, either. I should have expected that. It’d been dusk when I started hoofing it and night by the time I got there. Anybody with any sense would have gone home, but obviously that didn’t include me. I wasn’t much bothered by it, though. All I was doing was killing time anyway, and I could do that here or there, who cares? Killing time until what, though, that was the question.

Even though it was night, there was a full moon out, and you could see everything just as clear. Are you scared? I asked myself. No, I said.

I threw one leg over the metal guard-rail and then the other, and then I made my way down the steep rocky slope toward the Halladay place.

This is the craziest thing you’ve ever done, I said to myself, and then I said, So what?

So what cancels out a lot. There’s not much you’re going to run into that so what can’t handle. That thought gave me a kind of strength, and I ducked under the police tape and marched across the trash-cluttered farm lot, onto the porch, and through the front door of the house.

And then my knees sort of gave out and I sat straight down on the floor with my back up against the wall. Yeah, no more kidding myself, I was scared shitless.

Even with the bright moonlight, it was way dark in the house, and I couldn’t see much. I closed my eyes so they could adjust to the dark, and when I looked again I saw that I was in the living room. I squinted at the floor and what I could see of the furniture and even put my hand out and patted around, but I couldn’t detect any blood. Likely the killings had been done in the back part of the house, in the bedrooms. Twenty-five people, though. Where would they all have slept? Maybe several of them bedded down in some of those outbuildings or slept in their vehicles. Ol’ Vernon had gone from room to room, vehicle to vehicle, with a shotgun and pistol and corn knife, the paper said. What it must have been like! I guess they must have just been too scared to move. What would I have done?

I sat there waiting for my legs to get working again so I could get the hell out of there. Then I thought, well, at least this will be a good story for the kids at school. Maybe they’ll think I’m a hero or something. But then I figured, naw, they’d never believe me. Would that really matter though? Isn’t the important thing what you think about yourself? I’d like to believe that. I’m going to put it on my list of things I’d like to believe, right behind Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny.

I wish I could believe in things. It’s kind of hard to do with a dad like mine. I’m sure if I tried hard I could come up with some good memories. That drive we took up into the Ozarks, maybe. But I was so little, it’s almost like a different boy, a different life. One thing I do remember just like yesterday, though. It was him saying he wanted to see how good I was in arithmetic, and he gives me a penny and says, “Now you’re worth a penny.” Then he takes it away and says, “Now tell me what you’re worth.” I’ve always been pretty good in arithmetic.

I take it back. I remember two things. He’d had me up against the wall with his left hand around my throat and with his right fist he was taking wild swings at my face, always missing me by just a hair. He hardly ever actually hit me. He just liked to scare me until I started bawling, which didn’t take much. This time, though, he swung again and again, but I never cried. Every time he swung I’d just say to myself, So what? So what? Finally he stopped swinging at me. He looked at me a minute and then said, “You’re a tough little nut, ain’t you?” Then he dropped me like a sack of mealy potatoes.

Sitting there on that cold hardwood floor, all of a sudden without even planning to I hollered out, “You’re a tough little nut, ain’t you?”

The darkness just swallowed up my words, and for a moment I was afraid again. But then I thought, What are you, some little scairdy cat? The dead can’t hurt you, not their ghosts, either. And there was a damn good chance I’d go the rest of my life without running into Vernon Halladay. It was a sweet, sweet thought.

When I woke up the sun was shining through the window. I was cold and stiff, and it took me a moment to remember exactly where I was, but I wasn’t scared.

Mom would probably be worried, though. Or maybe not. That’d depend on how her night had gone and where she was now. Probably I was more worried about her than she was about me, but that was okay. I’d never grown up in time to kill my dad, but I was grown up enough to realize that from here on out it’d be me taking care of my mom more than the other way around.

I went outside and had crossed the farm lot to the slope leading back up to the road before I realized there were people looking down from the turnout, not nearly as many as the day before, but a good dozen at least.

I started up the slope. Then one of them, like he’d just that second spotted me, said, “Look at that kid! He must be a survivor or something. He must have hid out and survived the massacre!”

But another guy chewing on a cigar rolled the cigar from one side of his mouth to the other and said, “Naw, hell no. He’s just some teenager. Probably his buddies bet him he wouldn’t have the guts to go inside the house … Well, kid, did you win your bet?”

I didn’t say anything but just concentrated on climbing up. It’d be easy to lose your footing on that rocky slope.

“Survived the massacre,” the other guy said. “Look at him. He looks just like that Halladay outfit.”

“Naw,” the guy with the cigar said.

They kept arguing as I climbed until I was almost up to the guard rail, and then the first man said, “What about it, son, are you a survivor?”

I climbed on up to the road.