Edward Lee

HEADER

Edward Lee

Header.

Havin’ a header tonight, we is!

We’se gonna have ourselves a header so fierce ol’ Tully Natter’ll be shittin’ in his grave!

He’d heard the term, in all its variations so many times, but he just couldn’t figure it.

Header.

What
was
it?

The little boy’s eyes widened in the dark, blooming like night flowers. He hid in the closet, a crouched and frozen shadow; he cracked the door half an inch, but couldn’t quite see them. His curiosity burned.

He had to know, he
had
to know what this thing was they were doing.

He’d heard them speak of it many times — only, though, in the least formed whispers, behind the slickest grins and eyes narrowed to forbidden slits. Yes, Daddy and his grandfather. Like just today, when Daddy had brought his tractor in from the graze field.

“That blamed Caudill up an’ cut my fence,” Daddy’d railed. Grandpap looked up from his work table. “Again?”

“Yeah, shore’s shit! Lost six more sheep! Gawd Almighty, we’se gonna have to
do
somthin’ ‘bout this!”

And that’s when Grandpap had smiled that feisty, whiskery smile of his. “What we’se gonna have to do, son, is have ourselves a header.”

“Dag straight! Fucker stole my sheep, third time this year. Tonight, we’se gonna have a header fer shore! Teach that cracker som-bitch ta steal
my
sheep!”

See, that’s what they’se always called it — whatever
it
was. A header.

Like one time he’d overheard his Daddy whispering to Granpap, whispering like creaky, tiny etchings. “McCraw burned down one’ a Meyer’s grain sheds, Pap. He’s havin’ a header tonight, wants us ta join in.” So later on, they’d corn-liquored up and left, and they didn’t return till almost dawn.

The little boy couldn’t imagine what a header could be, but he knew this: next day at school, Jannie McCraw wasn’t in class, and she was never seen again…

……..

“Sweetheart?” Cummings leaned over the bed, gently nudged his wife’s warm shoulder.
Christ
, he thought. Bleary morning light seeped in through the window: starlings chirped. Groggily, then, Kath looked up and smiled.

Special Agent Stewart Cummings smiled back.
My love
, he thought. What would he do without her? And this —
this —
crushed him. To see her so sick all the time, so despondent. She deserved better then this, for sure.
And what am I doing to make her life better?
Cummings dared to ask himself. At the very least, he was doing the best he could.

But that wasn’t good enough.

She was always so pale, always sniffling. The dark circles under her eyes, like smudges of charcoal, only reinforced her turmoil.
What would I do without her?
She’d come through for him, hadn’t she? Waiting tables at the Village Pump while he finished his degree. Now she was sick, and it was his turn to pay her back.

But it was so…hard.

“Be careful at work, honey,” she peeped to him, so loving, so real.

“Where’s your prescription?” Cummings asked. “I’ll pick it up on the way home tonight.”

“No, no,” she insisted amid the sheets. “I’ll get it later. I just need a little time to get going, you know.”

“Sure, Kath.”

“And you work so hard, I’d feel terrible if you had to drive all the way into town just for my medicine.”

“Honey, it’s no troub—”

“Hush!” she insisted, sniffling once more. Some kind of walking pneumonia, the doctor’s slip had said. She’d been like this for months now. “You go on. You do enough for me, I’ll get my medicine later.”

Cummings kissed her full, pink lips. He wanted to cry.

He left the house, got into his unmarked car, and started it up. The light of dawn seemed like the color of misery.
Poor Kath,
he thought. Would she ever get better?

And another question rose, with the same heat as the sun.

Her medication cost $450 per month. Not to mention the mortgage, the power bills, groceries.

And what would his father say, if he knew what he was doing?

Shit
, Cummings thought and drove off.

……..

Header.

Grandpap, what’s a…header?
Travis recalled askin’ just after his 16
^th
birthday. The day before, n’ fact, he’d got up an’ busted fer hot-wirin’ Cage George’s ‘74 Hemi ‘Cuda, drunk on shine, and wreckin’ it with that cute li’l Kari Ann Wells sitting right next ta him, stroking’ his bone an’ eventually poppin’ a good, hot creamer right in her purdy face. Bone, see, was what they called a fella’s dick these parts, but quad was what they called Kari Ann Wells after that wreck. Weren’t Travis’ fault she’d broke her blamed back when he drove inta that bridge ‘buttment. But ‘fore that, Travis had heard about headers many times, heard his Daddy talkin’ ‘bout it with Grandpap, just weeks, n’fact, ‘fore his Daddy and Mama got kilt, but they was just the tiniest whispers, see, so tiny Travis never learnt really what it was. And ol’ Grandpap Martin, later on that same fine day, while’s sewin’ up a pair of workboots an’ sipping some shine hisself, had answered.
Cain’t be tellin’ ya that, son, not till ya got some hair ‘tween yer legs.

Travis figured this was Grandpap’s way of suggestin’ that he was too young to hear such things, an’ never mind that he already had a good plot of hair ‘tween his legs and could squirt a man-sized nut any ol’ time. But what miffed Travis most was this: if he were too young ta hear about headers, how come the blamed county prosser-cueter hadn’t felt he was too young to be tried as a ay-dult?
It’s ‘cos yer hillfolk, boy, yer creek people,
Grandpap had attempted to explain on sentencing day. The fine old man had tears in his eyes sayin’ it.
Ain’t no one round here cares ‘bout hillfolk. All a bunch of dirt redneck crackers tryin’ ta act like fancified city folk, they is. Ya gots ta do yer time now, boy, and ya gots to be good whiles yer in the blamed stone motel, otherwise they’ll’se keep ya longer.

Longer? Chrast. That fancified queer-loving judge had dropped
five years
on poor Travis’ head.

But, shore enough, Grandpap had been right. Those five years he’d gotten fer the candyass GTA had turned ta eleven a might quick. Russell County Detent weren’t no picnic, and havin’ ta beat the livin’ shit outa fellas piled those extra years on faster ‘n shit through one ‘a Dumar McGern’s chickens. Travis ain’t had no choice, ‘less he wanted to get butt-fucked ever night and have a bunch of big, dirty fells callin’ him “baby.” He’d
busted
some heads, he did, spent a lot of time in the hole fer it — BEV SEG, they called it, thought, fer Behavioral Segregation, whatever in tarnation that meant — and then there was that one night when some fella from Crick City doin’ a pound for armed robbery had held a prison shiv to Travis’ throat and dropped his drawers. “Suck it, cracker, and suck it good. Suck it like you suck yer daddy, ‘cos everybody knows all yous crackers are queer,” this fella ordered. “Suck out that nut, cracker. Be the best meal ya had since the last time the chow hall served cream a’ broccoli soup. Make yer daddy jealous, sugar.” Well, for one, Travis’ daddy was dead, and he didn’t much like ta hear talk like that, and two, there weren’t no way in Hade’s place that Travis Clyde Tuckton was gonna suck dick —
getting’
sucked, shore, but doin’ the suckin’ hisself? No way, uh-huh! So he snapped that shiv right outa that fella’s hand and poked him good in the eye. Stuff came out that looked like cranberry marmalade they sold down Hull’s General Store. Didn’t matter much
what
it looked like, thought. Just added more time to Travis’ hitch.

But now he was back. And, havin’ no place ta go — whiles he were in stir, the huse that his daddy’d left him were hit by lightning’ and burnt down — so’s he tromped straight ta Grandpap Martin’s neat little clapboard cottage out in the woods.

“Travis Clyde Tuckton!” Grandpap had about fuckin’ rejoiced upon seein’ Travis’ big shuck-an’ jive grinning’ mug.

“Hey Grandpap.” Travis’ eyes, though, held to the rotting wood floor. “I got’s ta admit, I feel like a right horse’s bee-hind coming straight here right after I get outs the county detent.” Travis felt ashamed. “Got no job, no green, nothin’ goin’ fer me. Shee-it, Grandpap, I’se a loser.”

Grandpap’s old whiskey face turned stern. Same way his daddy’s face turned that time he’d caught Travis stickin’ his bone into one’a the sheep.
Dammit, Travis!
Daddy had yelled.
Ya poop out yer brains the last time ya took a shit!? Chrast, boy! Ya wanna hump a sheep, ya nevah hump yer own sheep, dumbass! Ya sneak over ta Caudill’s field and hump his sheep!
And then Daddy’d given him a whuppin’ like he’d never forgot, but Travis figured he deserved it. And, anyways, that’s what Grandpap’s face looked like right now.

“Travis, I don’t wants ta hear no talk like that
evah!
Yore blood, boy, from my only daughter’s loins, and yous are always welcome in my house. An’ don’t cha be down-talkin’ yerself fer not havin’ a job. Times are tough, ‘specially ‘round these parts since Union Carbide packed up, and then they closed the mine on account of the blamed Japs sellin’ coal cheaper than we kin dig it. I make enough green sewing boots so don’t ‘cha worry none.”

“Thanks, Grandpap,” Travis gushed, his eyes still gazed at the rotten floor. “But—” Travis’ pea-brain thoughts stopped stock still when Grandpap had come ‘round the sewin’ table. Grandpap, see, didn’t
walk
, he
wheeled.
That’s right, he wheeled hisself ‘round that big cherry wood table, inna
wheelchair
. And that’s when Travis spied that his fine old grandpap had no legs much past his knees.

“Grandpap!” he wailed. “What happened ta yer legs!”

“Aw, don’t cha worry ‘bout that, son.” Grandpap sluffed it off. “I’se old, an’ couldn’t get around much no ways. Got some blamed fancified disease called dyerbeetees, so the doc down the state health clinic lopped off my legs. Fucker had the balls ta send me a bill too, kin ya believe it? But it ain’t no big deal.” Grandpap’s skinny arm extended behind him, to the rows of wood shelves full of his fine hand-sewn boots. “I kin do my’s work, an’ figure I should be grateful.”

Travis was impressed by his grandpap’s resolve. But then the old man went on: “So how’d ya do in the poky?”

“Well, not too good, Grandpap. I hadda beat up on some fellas pretty bad, fer tryin’ ta cornhole me, and there was this one fella tried ta make me suck his bone, so I stucks his prison shank in his eyeball and this stuff came out that looked just like cranberry marmalade they sell down at Hull’s.”

Grandpap’s creekbed face lit up. “D’ja kill him?”

“No, Grandpap, but I heard I stucks that shank in so far it got ta his brain and made him retart.”

Granpap clapped his liver-spotted hands. “Good fer you, boy! Yer daddy’d be proud, God rest his soul!”

“Anyways,” Travis went on. He didn’t like ta think about the slam, and he shouldn’t have ta now, should he? There was still some ticks and tucks about it anyways, like something ‘bout havin’ ta report to a roll officer or some shit, but Travis didn’t know nothin’ ‘bout that, and he didn’t wanna worry ‘bout it neither. It was just fine and dandy ta be outa that county cage full of shack bucks an’ crackers and kiddie-diddlers. “I’ll tries ta get me a job fast as I kin, an’ in the meantimes, Grandpap, I kin do stuff ‘round the house to help ya out.”

Grandpap smiled proud. “Travis, you’re a fine young man, gracious, respectful, just like yer daddy raised, and I kin shore use a help ‘round here, seein’ that I ain’t got no legs no more. Like you kin bring in the fire wood an’ such, and haul the water up fer the squirrel stew and possum pie. Ya kin see—” Grandpap pointed to the floor just below the edge of his cherry wood work table. Travis noticed a strange darkness there, stained inta the wood, an’ he remembert that from when he was little too. “Ya kin see.” Grandpap rambled on, “that the floor’s goin’ all ta rot, so ya’s kin help fix it, otherwise yer old Grandpappy’ll be wheelin’ across the blamed floor one day and — Kuh-RACK — that floor’ll break right under my wheels an’ drop yer poor grandpap right smack dab inta the fruit cellar.”