The man behind the bar looked like he might have been strong and fit once, a long time ago. There was bulk on his shoulders, chest, and arms that was now masked by a thick layer of fat, and his breasts were pendulous as those of an old woman. There were old yellow sweat stains beneath the arms of his white short-sleeved shirt, and his trousers hung low on his hips in a way that might have been fashionable on a sixteen year old but was ridiculous on a man fifty years older than that. His hair was yellow-white but still thick, and his face was partially obscured by a week’s growth of scraggly beard.
All three men were watching the hockey game on the old TV above the bar, but their heads turned in unison as the new arrival entered. He was unshaven, wearing dirty sneakers, a loud Hawaiian shirt, and creased chinos. He didn’t look like he belonged anywhere above Christopher Street, not that anybody in this bar knew where Christopher Street was, exactly. But they knew this man’s type, yes they did. They could smell it on him. Didn’t matter how unshaven he was, how shabbily he dressed; this boy had ‘fag’ written all over him.
‘Can I get a beer?’ he asked, stepping up to the bar.
The bartender didn’t make any move for at least a full minute, then took a Bud from the cooler and placed it on the bar.
The small man picked up the beer and looked at it as if seeing a bottle of Bud for the first time.
‘You got anything else?’
‘We got Bud Light.’
‘Wow, both kinds.’
The bartender gave him unimpressed.
‘Two-fifty.’ This wasn’t the kind of place that ran a tab.
He counted out three bills from a thick roll, then added another fifty cents in change to bring the tip up to a dollar. The eyes of the three men remained fixed on his slim, delicate hands as he replaced the money in his pocket, then they returned their gazes to the hockey game. The small man took a booth behind the two drinkers, leaned into the corner, then put his feet up and directed his face toward the TV. All four men remained in those positions for about five minutes, until the door again opened softly and another man entered the bar, an unlit Cohiba in his mouth. He was so quiet that nobody even noticed him until he was four feet from the counter, at which point one of the men looked to his left, saw him, and said:
‘Little Tom, there’s a colored in your bar.’
Little Tom and the second man dragged themselves away from the TV to examine the black man who had now taken a stool at the lower end of the L-shaped bar.
‘Whiskey, please,’ he said.
Little Tom didn’t move. First a fag, now a nigger. This was turning into quite a night. His eyes moved from the man’s face to his expensive shirt, his neatly pressed black jeans, and his double-breasted overcoat.
‘You from out of town, boy?’
‘You could say that.’ He didn’t even blink at the second insult in less than thirty seconds.
‘There’s a coon place couple of miles down the road,’ said Little Tom. ‘You’ll get a drink there.’
‘I like it here.’
‘Well, I don’t like you here. Get your ass out, boy, before I start takin’ it personal.’
‘So I don’t get a drink?’ The man sounded unsurprised.
‘No, you don’t. Now you going to leave, or am I gonna have to make you leave?’
To his left, the two men shifted on their stools in preparation for the beating that they hoped to deliver. Instead, the object of their attention reached into his pocket, produced a bottle of whiskey in a brown paper bag, and twisted the cap. Little Tom reached under the counter with his right hand. It emerged holding a Louisville Slugger.
‘You can’t drink that in here, boy,’ he warned.
‘Shame,’ said the black man. ‘And don’t call me “boy.” The name is Louis.’
Then he tipped the bottle upside down and watched as its contents flowed along the bar. It made a neat turn at the elbow of the counter, the raised lip preventing the liquid from overflowing onto the floor, and seeped past the three men. They looked at Louis in surprise as he lit his cigar with a brass Zippo.
Louis stood and took a long puff on his Cohiba.
‘Heads up, crackers,’ he said, and dropped the flaming lighter into the whiskey.
The man with the tattoo raps sharply on the roof of the Lincoln. The engine roars and the car bucks once or twice like a steer on a rope before shooting away in a cloud of dirt, dead leaves, and exhaust fumes. Errol Rich seems to hang frozen for a moment in midair before his body uncurls. His long legs descend toward the ground but do not reach it, his feet kicking impotently at the air. A spluttering noise comes from his lips, and his eyes bulge as the rope draws tighter and tighter around his neck. His face becomes congested with blood and he begins to convulse, red drops now speckling his chin and chest. A minute goes by and still Errol struggles.
Below him, the tattooed man takes a branch wrapped in linen doused with gasoline, lights it with a match, then steps forward. He holds the torch up so Errol can see it, then touches it to Errol’s legs.
Errol ignites with a roar, and somehow, despite the constriction at his throat, he screams, a high, ululating thing filled with terrible agony. It is followed by a second, and then the flames enter his mouth and his vocal cords begin to burn. He kicks again and again as the smell of roasting meat fills the air, until at last the kicking stops.
The burning man is dead.
The bar flared, a small wall of flame shooting up to scorch beards, eyebrows, hair. The man with the gun at his belt leaped back, his left arm covering his eyes while his right reached for his weapon.
‘Ah-ah,’ said a voice. A Glock 19 was inches from his face, held firm in the grip of the man in the bright shirt. The other’s hand stopped instantly, the gun already uncovered. The small man, whose name was Angel, yanked it from its holster and held it up so that he now had two guns inches from the barfly’s face. Near the door, Louis’s hand now contained a SIG, trained on the man with the knife in his belt. Behind the bar, Little Tom was dousing the last of the flames with water. His face was red and he was breathing hard.
‘The fuck you do that for?’ He was looking at the black man, and at the SIG that had now moved to level itself at the center of his chest. A change of expression flickered in Little Tom’s face, a brief candle-flame of fear that was quickly snuffed out by his natural belligerence.
‘Why, you got a problem with it?’ asked Louis.
‘I got a problem with it.’
It was the man with the knife at his belt, brave now that the gun was no longer aimed at him. He had strange, sunken features: a weak chin that lost itself in his thin, stringy neck, blue eyes buried deep in their sockets, and cheekbones that looked like they had been broken and flattened by some old, almost forgotten impact. Those dim eyes regarded the black man impassively while his hands remained raised – away from his knife, but not too far away. It seemed like a good idea to make him get rid of it. A man who carries a knife like that knows how to use it, and use it fast. One of the two guns now held by Angel made an arc through the air and came to rest on him.
‘Unclasp your belt,’ said Louis.
The knife man paused for a moment, then did as he was told.
‘Now pull it out.’
He grasped it and pulled. The belt caught once or twice before it freed the scabbard and the knife fell to the floor.
‘That’s good enough.’
‘I still got a problem.’
‘Sorry to hear that,’ Louis replied. ‘You Willard Hoag?’
The sunken eyes betrayed nothing. They remained fixed on the interloper’s face, unblinking.
‘I know you?’
‘No, you don’t know me.’
Something danced in Willard’s eyes. ‘You niggers all look the same to me anyways.’
‘Guessed you’d take that point of view, Willard. Man behind you is Clyde Benson. And you—’ The SIG lifted slightly in front of the bartender. ‘You’re Little Tom Rudge.’
The r
edness in Little Tom’s face was due only partly to the heat of the burning liquor. There was fury building in him. It was there in the trembling of his lips, in the way his fingers were clasping and unclasping. The action made the tattoo on his arm move, as if the angels were slowly waving the banner with the name ‘Kathleen.’
And all of that anger was directed at the black man now threatening him in his own bar.
‘You want to tell me what’s happening here?’ asked Little Tom.
Louis smiled.
‘Atonement, that’s what’s happening here.’
It is ten after ten when the woman stands. They call her Grandma Lucy, although she is not yet fifty and still a beautiful woman with youth in her eyes and few lines on her dark skin. At her feet sits a boy, seven or eight years old, but already tall for his age. A radio plays Bessie Smith’s ‘Weeping Willow Blues’.
The woman called Grandma Lucy wears only a nightdress and shawl, and her feet are bare, yet she rises and walks through the doorway, descending the steps into the yard with careful, measured strides. Behind her walks the little boy, her grandson. He calls to her – ‘Grandma Lucy, what’s the matter?’ – but she does not reply. Later she will tell him about the worlds within worlds, about the places where the membrane separating the living from the dead is so thin that they can see one another, touch one another. She will tell him of the difference between daywalkers and nightwalkers, of the claims that the dead make upon those left behind.
And she will talk of the road that we all walk, and that we all share, the living and the dead alike.
But for now she just gathers her shawl closer to her and continues toward the edge of the forest, where she stops and waits in the moonless night. There is a light among the trees, as if a meteor has descended from the heavens and is now traveling close to the ground, flaming and yet not flaming, burning and yet not burning. There is no heat, but something is ablaze at the heart of that light.
And when the boy looks into her eyes, he sees the burning man.
‘You recall Errol Rich?’ said Louis.
Nobody responded, but a muscle spasmed in Clyde Benson’s face.
‘I said, do you recall Errol Rich?’
‘We don’t know what you’re talking about, boy,’ said Hoag. ‘You got the wrong men.’
The gun swiveled, then bucked in Louis’s hand. Willard Hoag’s chest spat blood through the hole in his left breast. He stumbled backward, taking a stool with him, then landed heavily on his back. His left hand scrambled at something unseen on the floor, and then he was still.
Clyde Benson started to cry, and then it all went down.
Little Tom dived to the floor of the bar, his hands seeking the shotgun beneath the sink. Clyde Benson kicked a stool at Angel, then ran for the door. He got as far as the men’s room before his shirt puffed twice at the shoulder. He stumbled through the back door and disappeared, bleeding, into the darkness. Angel, who had fired the shots, went after him.
The crickets had grown suddenly quiet and the silence in the night had a strange anticipatory quality, as though the natural world awaited the inevitable outcome of the events in the bar. Benson, unarmed and bleeding, had almost made it to the edge of the parking lot when the gunman caught up with him. His feet were swept from under him and he landed painfully in the dirt, blood flecking the ground before him. He began to crawl toward the long grass, as if by reaching its cover he might somehow be safe. A boot caught him under the chest, skewering him with white hot pain as he was forced onto his back, his eyes squeezing shut involuntarily. When they opened again, the man in the loud shirt was standing over him and his gun was pointed at Clyde Benson’s head.
‘Don’t do this,’ said Benson. ‘Please.’
The younger man’s face was impassive.
‘Please,’ said Benson. He was sobbing. ‘I repented of my sins. I found Jesus.’
The finger tightened on the trigger, and the man named Angel said:
‘Then you got nothing to worry about.’
In the darkness of her pupils the burning man stands, the flames shooting from his head and arms, his eyes and mouth. There is no skin, no hair, no clothing. There is only fire shaped like man, and pain shaped like fire.
‘You poor boy,’ whispers the woman. ‘You poor, poor boy.’
The tears begin to well up in her eyes and fall softly onto her cheeks. The flames start to flicker and waver. The burning man’s mouth opens and the lipless gap forms words that only the woman can hear. The fire dies, fading from white to yellow until at last there is only the silhouette of him, black on black, and then there is nothing but the trees and the tears and the feel of the woman’s hand upon the boy’s own – ‘Come, Louis.’ – as she guides him back to the house.
The burning man is at peace.
Little Tom rose up with the shotgun to find the room empty and a dead man on the floor. He swallowed once, then moved to his left, making for the end of the counter. He got three steps when the wood splintered at the level of his thigh and the bullets ripped through him, shattering his left femur and his right shin. He collapsed and screamed as his wounded legs impacted on the floor, but still managed to empty both barrels through the cheap wood of the bar. It exploded in a shower of shot and splinters and shattering glass. He could smell blood and powder and spilled whiskey. His ears rang as the noise faded, leaving only the sound of dripping liquid and falling timber.
And footsteps.
He looked to his left to see Louis standing above him. The barrel of the SIG was pointing at Little Tom’s chest. He found some spittle in his mouth and swallowed. Blood was fountaining from the ruptured artery in his thigh. He tried to stop it with his hand but it sprayed through his fingers.
‘Who are you?’ asked Little Tom. From outside came the sound of two shots as Clyde Benson died in the dirt.
‘Last time: you recall a man named Errol Rich?’
Little Tom shook his head. ‘Shit, I don’t know . . .’
‘You burned him. You ought to know.’
Louis aimed the SIG at the bridge of the bartender’s nose. Little Tom raised his right arm and covered his face.
‘I remember! I remember! Jesus. Yes, I was there. I saw what they did.’
‘What you did.’
Little Tom shook his head furiously.
‘No, you’re wrong. I was there, but I didn’t hurt him.’
‘You’re lying. Don’t lie to me, just tell me the truth. They say confession is good for the soul.’
Louis lowered the gun and fired. The top of Little Tom’s right foot disappeared in a blur of leather and blood. He shrieked then as the gun moved toward his left foot, the words erupting from his gut like old bile.
‘Stop, please. Jesus, it hurts. You’re right, we did it. I’m sorry for what we did to him. We were younger then, we didn’t know no better. It was a terrible thing we did, I know it was.’ His eyes pleaded with Louis. His whole face was bathed in sweat, like that of a man melting. ‘You think a day don’t go by when I don’t think about him, about what we did to him? You think I don’t live with that guilt every day?’
‘No,’ said Louis. ‘I don’t.’
‘Don’t do this,’ said Little Tom. A hand reached out in supplication. ‘I’ll find a way to make up for what I did. Please.’
‘I got a way that you can make up for it,’ said Louis.
And then Little Tom Rudge was dead.
In the car they disassembled the guns, wiping every piece down with clean rags. They scattered the remains of the weapons in fields and streams as they drove, but no words were exchanged until they were many miles from the bar.
‘How do you feel?’ asked Louis.
‘Numb,’ Angel replied. ‘Except in my back. My back hurts.’
‘How about Benson?’
‘He was the wrong man, but I killed him anyway.’
‘They deserved what they got.’
Angel waved his assurance away as a thing without substance or meaning.
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‘Don’t get me wrong. I got no problem with what we just did back there, but killing him didn’t make me feel any better, if that’s what you’re asking. It wasn’t him I wanted to kill. When I pulled that trigger, I didn’t even see Clyde Benson. I saw the preacher. I saw Faulkner.’
There was silence for a time. Dark fields went by, the hollow shapes of brokeback houses visible against the horizon.
It was Angel who spoke again.
‘Bird should have killed him when he had the chance.’
‘Maybe.’
‘There’s no maybe about it. He should have burned him.’
‘He’s not like us. He feels too much, thinks too much.’
Angel sighed deeply. ‘Feeling and thinking ain’t the same thing. That old fuck isn’t going away. As long as he’s alive, he’s a threat to all of us.’
Beside him, Louis nodded silently in the darkness.
‘And he cut me, and I swore that no one would ever cut me again. No one.’
After a time, his companion spoke softly to him.
‘We have to wait.’
‘For what?’
‘For the right time, the right opportunity.’
‘And if it doesn’t come?’
‘It will come.’
‘Don’t give me that,’ said Angel, before repeating his question. ‘What if it doesn’t come?’
Louis reached out and touched his partner’s face gently.
‘Then we will make it ourselves.’
Shortly after, they drove across the state line into South Carolina just below Allendale, and nobody stopped them. They left behind the semiconscious form of Virgil Gossard and the bodies of Little Tom Rudge, Clyde Benson, and Willard Hoag, the three men who had taunted Errol Rich, who had taken him from his home, and who had hanged him from a tree to die.
And out on Ada’s Field, at the northern edge where the ground sloped upward, a black oak burned, its leaves curling to brown, the sap hissing and spitting as it burst from the trunk, its branches like the bones of a flaming hand set against the star-sprinkled blackness of the night sky.