Gwenny June's Tommy Crown Affair

  Chapter 45 – A Short Stop on the Way to Jekyll Island

  We were an hour out of town on the back road down to Jekyll when Tommy spotted a hand-painted sign that said Peach Cider. Evidently they don't have fruit up in New York City, because he went nuts, demanding that I turn around, saying he'd never heard of peach cider before, and then saying, of course, The Peach State, and me having to tell him that ain't us, we're The Palmetto State, and him asking what kind of animal that is. I thought the place looked like a dump, but knowing I'm a bit of a snob and him so badly wanting to try the cider, I did a uey and turned into a drive at the side of the shack.

  We went in and saw a counter on which sat a half dozen gallon jugs of dirty brown liquid that had stained labels saying ‘Lord Jesus's Own Peach Cider Heavenly Nectar.’ I looked at Tommy and said, "You buy it, you drink it."

  He hefted one of the jugs and shook it, looking at the small brown particles swirling in the muddy liquid. He didn't have the nerve to say it, but I'm sure he was thinking, 'I hope those are pieces of peach skin and not pieces of bugs.' We heard a noise from the back of the shack and the proprietor appeared, all 300 pounds of her. She took the cigarette out of her mouth, looked at Tommy, and said, "You drink all that Lord Jesus Nectar, you be sweeter than you already are, if'n that's possible. Yessir, sweet on the inside match sweet on the out."

  I said to him, "If that doesn't sell you, you are a hard case."

  Again he looked at the brown stuff floating in the jug but he knew he couldn't back out now, and he pulled out his wallet, asking how much. She hesitated a second, then said, "Honey, for you, twenty-five dollars."

  He handed her the cash, and as we walked out of the store he said, "No more stops, ok. I can't afford them."

  We turned the corner of the shack and found three guys standing and looking at the yellow bomb. One was close to the 300 pounds of his mama, inside, while one was six four tall and half that weight, and third guy was half way in between. I wasn't sure if they knew it or not, but all three wore black steel-toed boots, black jeans, and white t-shirts, and all were smoking the same brand of cigarettes, which matched the brand of the Lord Jesus Nectar hustler back inside. The skinny one looked at me and said, "Your boyfriend's got a nice car here. Real nice."

  I said, "It's not his car, it's mine."

  The fat guy looked at the skinny guy, who thought for a moment and then said, "I don't believe her. That's too much car for a bitch." And they both looked at the third guy.

  He pondered on the situation and, finally, offered, "Naw, it could be her car cause yellow is a pussy color for a car like this. Should be black."

  I looked at Tommy and said, "You're the one wanted to stop here, but that's ok because there's good and bad about this."

  "What's the good part?" he asked.

  "You get to see the real South Carolina, or at least another piece of it, Charleston being something of an anomaly in the state."

  The guys looked at each other, trying between the three of them to generate enough IQ to parse the meaning of the word anomaly.

  They came up empty, so Tommy asked, "And the bad part?"

  "I don't know exactly what form it's going to take," I said, "but sure as shit it's coming up fast."

  The fat boy said, "Where you Charlestonians going?"

  I wouldn't've answered but Tommy said, "Jekyll Island."

  The third guy, more non-descript than the other two, said, "That's gonna be a long walk for you two. Long walk."

  Tommy looked at me and said, "I see what you mean."

  Now the fat guy said, "Hand 'em over."

  "Hand what over?" I asked, knowing what he meant.

  "Keys, bitch. Keys to the pussy car."

  I looked at Tommy and said, "You have rude boys like this up your way?"

  "A few."

  I looked at my watch and said to Tommy, "We better get moving or we'll miss lunch. The dining room closes at 2pm, and this stop has cost us time." Then I looked first at the skinny guy and then at the fat guy and then at the guy halfway in between, and said, "We're going to enjoy Jesus's Nectar, I'm sure, and thanks, but now we got to go, ok guys?"

  "You can go, but the car stays," said the fat boy.

  Tommy looked from one to the other to the other and said, "You heard the lady; we're going. Nice to have met ya."

  Now the three guys looked from one to the other to the other, and then the skinny guy held up his hand in a 'hold on' gesture. He walked around the corner of the shack, went inside, came out a minute later holding a claw hammer in one hand, a length of pipe that looked like it had been part of a water heater in the other, and a length of two by four wood under an arm. He kept the hammer, handed the piece of wood to the non-descript guy, and the pipe to the fat man.

  I looked at Tommy and said, "Do those look at all like dangerous weapons to you? You think they could hurt in a significant way if applied to the right place on a person's body? You feel these last gestures in any way constitute a threat to your well-being, maybe even to your life?"

  He said, "If applied properly and with even a modicum of efficiency, I think those really could hurt a person. And from the looks on their faces, ugly ugly looks, I feel certain they mean to do us bodily harm, their body language and posture screaming threat and malice."

  "You fear for your life, Tommy, your very existence, all your future hopes and dreams passing before your eyes?"

  "Yes, ma'am, I do, there they go, whizzing by, one by one." He paused and looked at me, said, "How about you?"

  I shook my head, No, but said, "That's ok, because under the laws of the great State of South Carolina a person can use deadly force if he or she sees another person whose life is threatened, and we just have fully and clearly established the fact that you are scared."

  He said, "I didn't say I was scared, I said I feared for my well-being. That's different."

  The skinny guy asked the fat guy, "What the fuck are they talking about?"

  Tommy had the jug of paint thinner in his hand and I had my purse in mine. I said to the boys, "Ok, I tried to be nice, but now here's how this plays out. Any of you idiots ever thought about what happens when a 40 caliber hollow-point slug shatters a thigh bone?" And I looked at each guy in turn.

  The fat guy looked at the skinny guy and asked, "You ever thought about that?"

  He shook his head, No, and looked at the third guy, who also shook his head, No. The fat guy said to me, "I guess not."

  I said, "You want to think about it now?"

  In unison they said, "Fuck no."

  "Fine by me," I said. "Now the question is, on which of you am I going to demonstrate that phenomenon?"

  The fat guy said, "What are you talking about, bitch? Give us the keys."

  I looked at him and said, "That's the third time you called me a bitch, and normally with me, three strikes and you're out. But, I can see you have something of a disability, carrying all that fat around with you, so I'm giving you pass on this. It'll be one of your friends gets the demo."

  "What demo?"

  "This demo," and I reached in my purse with my right hand, pulled my Glock, dropped the purse on the ground, racked the slide with my left hand, assumed the shooters stance with both hands on the gun, left foot slightly forward of the right, weight slightly forward, aimed, and fired a single slug into the center of the right thigh of the non-descript idiot. BLAM.

  It was a surprisingly short scream that truncated when he landed in the dirt on his back, at which point the blubbering and whining began. I looked at Tommy and said, "I think we can go now."

  He looked at me, and then the guy, and back at me, and said, "We're just going to leave him?"

  "The big arteries are on the inside of the thigh. The bone is right in the center. He's not going to walk very well after this, but he's not going to bleed to death." I handed him the purse and said, "You drive. I need to watch these two; they're dumb enough to try to jump into the car after
us."

  He took the keys out of the purse and said, "You. Dumb enough to jump in the car after you." He fired up the 390 horses, turned the car around so it pointed out at the road, and opened the passenger door for me. I started to get in, then saw the jug of cider on the floor. I picked it up, walked back to the idiots, and said, "If he says the pain is too much to bear, that he can't stand it, have him drink this shit; I'm sure it'll put him out of his misery," and set it on the ground. I backed to the car, got it, and Tommy gunned it out onto the road.

  He said, "That's a lot to go through just to find an excuse to let me drive. But, thanks. I've been waiting for this."