“Maybe soon we’ll catch something,” said Burleigh. Anton and Johnnie rewarded the timeworn quip with slight chuckles.
“Shh,” Annabel scolded. “You’ll scare the fishes.”
Burleigh sat on the ground, one leg hugged to his chest and the other straight before him. He slapped at a mosquito. “There used to be a saying in this town,” he told Macon softly. “ ‘No one comes here by accident.’ ” Macon stared out at the water, tracing his fishing line to the vanishing point, and tightened his slack two-handed grip.
“You’d have to intend on coming here,” Burleigh elaborated, “or you’d never have any reason to so much as get off the bus.” The water nibbled at his words. The rest of the fishing party sat pensive, father and daughter shoulder to shoulder a few yards away, holding their rods, and Johnnie leaning back, ankles crossed, behind them all. The woods rustled softly with life. Burleigh let the quiet build, then reached for his pack of smokes, selected one, and tamped it on the box to pack it. He spoke into his chest. “I think you wanted to get caught,” he said. “People might not know it, but they like discipline. Makes them feel like there’s still right and wrong left in the world. My kids taught me that.”
“Maybe so,” said Macon. He felt like asking for a cigarette, just so Burleigh would have to be generous with him. “You musta had kids pretty young. All of you.”
Burleigh nodded. “The two of them right out of high school, me a year later. My boy Randy’ll be ten next month, and I got a kindergartener and a two-year-old baby girl at home.”
“Seems like people settle down here quicker than up North.”
“Wouldn’t know.” Burleigh ashed into the bottle cap of his beer. He grinned over at Macon, baring two perfect rows of faintly yellowed teeth. “I can do whatever I want with you,” he said. Simply voicing it seemed to give Burleigh great pleasure. “You might think you know what that feels like, but you don’t. It ain’t like you felt giving those big speeches with the whole country watching. A million strangers who might take what you say to heart is not the same as one person right next to you, close enough to touch.” He patted Macon’s cheek, the cigarette between his fingers. “Who lives or dies at just your word.”
Macon’s skin crawled, and the smoke stung his eyes. “You’re a sick fuck, Uncle Burleigh.”
“You and me both, Uncle Macon. You and me both.” They fished in silence, the sun warming their backs. Not a bite. Macon glanced over his shoulder at the truck, certain he heard Leo pounding. Burleigh followed Macon’s eyes. “Wonder how much oxygen’s in there,” he mused idly. Then:
bang.
Macon was sure he heard it this time. The man was trying to get free.
Annabel started. “What was that?”
“Nothing, sweetheart.” Her daddy put an arm around her thin shoulders. “Prob’ly just a coupla chipmunks goofin’ around.”
Bang.
Macon thought he saw the trunk’s lock quiver. Anton’s eyes tore a path to Burleigh:
My daughter can’t see this.
“Hey, Annabel,” said Macon brightly, “how do you get an elephant on top of an oak tree?”
She turned to him, concern playing on her face. “How?”
“You stand it on an acorn and wait fifty years.” She gave him a distracted smile, sorry for Macon if he thought that was funny.
“Guess what, darling,” her father said abruptly, scooping Annabel to her feet. “I plumb forgot, we’ve got to pick up Donna at her mom’s house.”
Annabel’s face brightened. Things today were getting better and better. “We do?”
“Yes, ma’am. I told her I’d watch the both of you while she ran errands.”
“Can she come fishing with us?”
“Sure can.”
Annabel spun and faced Macon, ecstatic. “Me and Donna are best friends forever,” she explained. “You wanna come and meet her?” The entire trunk was rattling now; Macon could picture Leo thrashing inside it, desperate to escape the tiny darkness. Burleigh and Johnnie were on their feet, inching toward the noise. The second there was nothing to occupy her, Annabel was sure to notice.
“Uncle Macon has to stay here and keep Uncle Johnnie and Uncle Burleigh company, sweetheart. But I’ll tell you what: Before we go, how ’bout if you show him where the possum lives?”
“Okay!” She grabbed Macon’s hand and led him farther along the bank, darting between trees. Make a break for it, he thought, feeling her rough, boyish fingers. Jump in the water. Throw her in and vanish while they save her. Pick her up and scream you’ll break her neck unless they toss you the car keys. Just fucking run.
Now he was crouched, hands resting on his knees, watching Annabel peer scientifically at a knotty hole in the trunk of a tree. “I guess she’s out looking for food,” the girl concluded, disappointed. When Macon straightened, Anton was right next to him.
“Time to go, Anna. Say bye to Uncle Macon, for now.”
She hugged him. Macon put one hand on her shoulder and one on the back of her chest-high head. Her hair was clean and glossy, odorless. “Bye, Uncle Macon. Will you come over for dinner tonight? Can he, Daddy?”
Anton smiled. “We’ll see, hon, we’ll see. Come on.” He hung a fraternal arm on Macon’s neck and shepherded his daughter with the other, fingers light against the small of her back. When they reached the truck, Burleigh was standing beside it, hand heel resting atop the barrel of the hunting rifle as if it were a walking stick. Johnnie was not to be seen. The hold box was open. Empty.
“Don’t forget about us out here,” Burleigh joked. “Bye, Annabel.”
“Bye, Uncle Burleigh.” She and her father hopped into the pickup and rumbled off down the hill.
“That’s what I mean about kids,” Burleigh said, gesturing at the road. “They always gotta come first, no matter what plans you might have.” He smiled. “Big responsibility.”
Johnnie stepped into the clearing, dragging Leo behind him by the belt, and pulled him to within a few paces of Macon. The old man’s hands were still tied; his legs wobbled, but his eyes burned. Two more minutes, Macon thought, and he’d have busted that lock open and run.
“All right, Uncle Macon,” said Burleigh, taking up position between his two captives. “Anton or no Anton, it’s time to show and prove.” The rifle bisected the triangle Burleigh’s legs formed with the ground and lent him a balanced, ceremonial air.
“Nothing very difficult,” he assured Macon. “Just ball that meat hook of yours up into a fist and hit the nigger good and hard for us. Real simple.”
Macon stood and stared: right into Leo’s eyes, then down at the man’s trussed hands—rubbed raw and bleeding at the wrists from his attempts to struggle free—then back up at his face. He took too long. Less than five seconds into Macon’s brain-scrambled deliberations, just as he was darting his eyes once again down Leo’s body to his hands and thinking that those hands were everything, those shackled hands dripping with the impossible, self-annihilating effort to break out of bondage, just as Macon was blinking back the sunspots suddenly obscuring his vision, just then Burleigh rammed the butt of his rifle into Leo’s stomach and folded him in pain. Leo clutched his gut, breathless. Then his eyes closed, and he pitched forward to the ground.
And then the rifle came at Macon, hard and fast, and the hurt shot upward from his testicles into his stomach and he collapsed onto the ground and writhed and jerked his legs as if to run and squeezed himself all over, looking for a point of origin so he could tie the pain off. But the pain was loose and everywhere.
“Equal treatment under the law,” Burleigh crowed. He motioned for Johnnie to stand Leo up, then grabbed Macon by the armpits and hefted him easily to his feet. “You better lose that hesitation, boy. This is as serious as your life.” He shook his head in gleeful consternation. “Thought a college man like you would be a little quicker on the uptake. Shame, ain’t it, Johnnie?”
“Shame,” Johnnie affirmed.
“Let’s try that again.” He hefted the rifle, trained it at Macon, cocked it back, and squinted through it. “Macon, hit this nigger or I’ll kill you right now.”
Leo’s eyes bulged huge with naked terror. Only Johnnie’s hands on his rib cage kept him upright.
“I’m sorry,” whispered Macon. “I’m sorry.” He lurched forward, feeling at every moment like his body would never be able to carry him there, that the burning in his shoulders and his guts and heart and loins would freeze him somewhere between here and Leo, that even if his legs could carry him those few piddling feet, something else would intervene: The universe or God or his own soul would pull a hidden rip cord, unleash some magic, and shatter this scene before Macon’s four fingers closed and his thumb locked them together and his elbow stiffened and the blow gathered direction and speed, became a death blow, Leo’s or his own, he knew not which. But someone, something—perhaps a part of himself—would die if Macon did what he knew he had to do.
Leo’s face was soft and pulpy. Macon’s fist sunk in. Johnnie let go of the old man and stepped back just before the punch landed, and when it did, Leo fell straight backward, with no way to brace himself. His entire body hit the moist ground at the same time, with a horrible, flat thump. Macon’s head rang; he cupped his hands to his temples to press away the spangles of light, the deafening hum, which seemed now to engulf him.
When he let his fingers slide down off his sweating face and blinked the world back into focus, Macon heard the cheers and hollers.
“Way to go, Make!” Burleigh came at him and Macon flinched and lunged away. But Burleigh only wanted to slap him on the back.
“Felt good, didn’t it?” from Johnnie.
Burleigh nodded like a proud father. “I knew he had it in him.” He walked over to Leo, bent at the waist, and rooted in the man’s pockets until he found a wadded dollar bill.
“Here you go, Macon.” He thrust it into the front pocket of Macon’s jeans, his thick fingers burning against Macon’s thigh as Burleigh shoved the money deep.
Kill me.
The words pulsed in Macon’s clotted, clodding brain. But he couldn’t make himself say it. He clenched his mind against it, then his jaw, and then his fists.
“You done robbed your first nigger, boy,” said Burleigh. “So far, so good. Now take this.” He thrust the rifle to Macon’s chest. Macon raised his arms, reflexively, to hug it.
“It’s ready to go, Make.” Burleigh was an inch from his face now, all stubble and excited breath and horny eyes. His voice was throaty, motivational. “Put him out of his misery and all this is over, Macon. All this is over and you’re forgiven. You’re walking over there a worthless nigger-lovin’ faggot, but you’re gonna walk back here a bona fide white man as good as me or any. Go.” He slapped Macon on the ass and pushed him in Leo’s direction. Macon stumbled, clubfooted, toward his victim, clutching the rifle to his chest. Leo’s left arm twitched, but that was all. Macon stopped and spread his legs and brought the rifle to his shoulder and found Leo’s chest between the crosshairs.
“Go ’head, boy. Be a man,” he heard behind him. Macon whirled, off-balance, the rifle still on his shoulder, and faced Burleigh. He steadied himself and squinted until he saw that motherfucker’s torso in the gun’s sights.
“What the hell you doing?” yelled Burleigh. Macon clenched his jaw and felt his body come abruptly into focus, tingle and stiffen and belong to him again. He lined the shot up, best he could.
“I said what the hell you doing, nigger?” Out of the corner of his eye, Macon saw Johnnie approaching on his flank. He swung the rifle toward him, and Johnnie fell back. Macon retrained the gun on Burleigh and expelled all breath from his lungs, preparing.
I don’t fucking know, he thought.
“What I have to,” Macon rasped, and squeezed the trigger.
A hollow pop. Nothing. Burleigh stood laughing at him, bellowing, belly in his hands. The rifle slipped from Macon’s grip and thudded to the ground.
“Too little too late, you stupid son of a bitch,” Burleigh cackled. “Come to your senses, hell. Couldn’t even shoot a half-dead nigger with an empty rifle.” He reached behind him and pulled a snub-nosed pistol from the small of his back.
Macon’s legs went numb and he fell forward to his knees, not in supplication, but defeat. His heart was throbbing in his ears now, growing louder by the second, blocking all external sound; Macon had to fight the urge to close his eyes and succumb to it, let the rhythm lull him to sleep. Burleigh roared something; Macon saw his mouth contort, but he heard nothing. He shaped a syllable between his own lips, pushed it forth with a feeble gust of breath:
Puh.
It was all Macon could manage; the sound died before it reached even his own brain. And yet it seemed to have had an effect; Macon blinked through the spangles of red dancing in his field of vision and saw Burleigh’s gun-hand fall, degree by gradual degree, until it hung limp by his side. He and Johnnie lifted their heads and stared slack-jawed at the sky, as if God had chosen this moment to put an end to countless millennia of deadbeat fatherhood and was cleaving the heavens with a staff of lightning, hell-bent on setting shit correct.
Macon followed their gazes and realized with a jolt that the sound pounding in his eardrums was not the last-dance palpitation of his sin-singed heart. The
Deus ex Machina
hovered in the air, blades unblurring as it eased onto the ground. Macon splayed his fingertips, pushed off against the soil, and regained his feet just as the engine cut off and the chopper doors flew open.
Conway Donner and Dominique Lavar stepped from the craft, sporting identical white Panama hats, and sauntered down the hill.
Macon goggled at them. Donner grinned and waved. “Whaddup, Moves?” Nique hollered, jubilant, breaking into a half-jog. “Told you my man Con was a bad motherfucker, right? Now you see for yourself.”
Donner doffed his brim and cupped it to his chest. “My deepest apologies for the subterfuge, Macon. But the only way to really appreciate the effectiveness of the program is to experience it first-hand.” His gesture took in Leo, Burleigh, Johnnie, the entire scene. “The psychodrama element is crucial, you see, in breaking down the client’s self-perception. Prepares the canvas, so to speak.” He tapped the headphones clamped around his neck and turned to look at Nique. “From what we’ve heard, this has been a rather extreme encounter. For a rather extreme client.” He smiled. “Well played by all. A wonderful Plan B, Dominique.”