Briar Patch Boogie: A Hap and Leonard Novelette

  The blonde woman giggled. Her hair was wet and plastered to her head, and though she was pretty, something about the way she looked at us reminded me of a ferret. The dark–haired woman’s hair looked like a damp helmet.

  “Let’s take them outside and shoot them in the head,” said the short–haired blonde. “I want the black one. I want to shoot him.”

  Aussie Hat turned off the light attached to the pistol. He sat by the head and let the gun rest on his thigh. I was watching for my moment. I knew if I went after one of them, Leonard would be on the other like a duck on a June Bug. But they were watching us intently. Aussie Hat was probably hoping we’d make that move. He looked like he was itching to shoot that pistol.

  The barge bobbed in the water and we could hear the wind picking up and the rain was brutal now. Aussie Hat took off his hat and shook the rain off of it and put it back on. He hadn’t let go of the pistol in his other hand.

  “Good thing you’re inside,” Aussie Hat said. “You won’t get as wet, and you aren’t lost anymore. Isn’t that good?”

  “It’s a fucking treat,” Leonard said. “If I had some clout, I’d get you guys some kind of Samaritan medal...You better hope the first shot kills me.”

  “Oh, it will,” said Aussie Hat. “And the second will kill him. I’m a good shot.”

  “He is,” said the dark–haired woman. Then to Aussie Hat, “You’re not going to let them ruin our fun, are you?”

  “Nah,” said Aussie Hat. “We got fun coming out of the ass.”

  “Let’s just do them and toss them overboard,” Baseball Cap said.

  “Can’t we have their heads?” said the short–haired blonde. She was watching me carefully, licking her lips. “For target practice. Like the others.”

  Aussie Hat said to the short–haired blonde, “I don’t like the way you’re looking at him.”

  “What do you mean?” she said.

  “You look like you want to fuck him.”

  “I want to fuck him over,” she said. “Not fuck him.”

  Aussie Hat looked at me. “You want to fuck her? I think she wants to fuck you. That’s what I’m getting here.”

  “Actually, that was the farthest thing from my mind, and I’m sure from hers. But I was wondering if maybe you had a cup of coffee, some of those little chocolate doughnuts, and then maybe later, I’d settle for a hand job from any one of you. Provided you’re gentle, of course. And just for the record, I like it dry.”

  “You’re not getting coffee or doughnuts,” said Baseball Cap.

  “So I could still get that hand job?”

  “Just shoot him,” said Baseball Cap.

  “We don’t have any doughnuts,” said the dark–haired girl. “But we got coffee.”

  We all looked at her.

  “Not that I’d give them any doughnuts if we had them,” she said. “Or coffee.”

  “You hunt humans,” Leonard said. “And like most hunters, it’s not sport at all. There’s nothing fair about it. You catch defenseless women, run them through the woods and shoot them with arrows. That’s some sport. That’s some brave business. That’s shit. That’s what that is.”

  “We give them plenty of a head start,” said Aussie Hat.

  “Yeah,” Leonard said. “But they got nothing.”

  “They got a chance, and that’s more than they deserve,” said Aussie Hat.

  “Some chance,” Leonard said.

  “They’re whores,” said the man with the pistol.

  “Unlike these two upstanding young ladies,” Leonard said.

  Aussie Hat lifted the pistol in our direction. I flinched. Leonard didn’t even blink.

  “The whores we kill,” said Baseball Cap, “they’re just a waste on society. Spreading disease. They could do better if they wanted. They are at the bottom of the food chain by choice, by laziness.”

  “You think so?” Leonard said.

  “I think so,” said Aussie Hat. “We pick ones that are on the downhill slope, ones that never darken the doorway of a church.”

  “You are one choice dumb ass,” Leonard said. “Jesus always said, you don’t go to church, you get hunted in the woods with a bow and arrow. I think you can find that in the scripture marked Assholio, first chapter, first verse. What do you do, mount their heads like deer?”

  “Of course not,” Aussie Hat said. “We’re not crazy.”

  · · ·

  Aussie Hat stood up, pointed the gun, said, “We got to tie you up.”

  “No,” Leonard said. “I don’t think so.”

  “You think you get to choose?” said Baseball Cap.

  “You got to get me tied up first, and that will be one hell of a fight.”

  “Then we got to shoot you,” said Aussie Hat.

  Leonard shrugged. “What’s the difference? Shot tied up, or shot untied. I’m not going to make it easy for you. You’re not tying me up, at least not without working for it or killing me.”

  “What about you?” Aussie Hat said to me.

  “Me? Oh, I’m with him. I’m not going to let you tie me up. Shoot or fight, that’s what you get from me.”

  “You can fight now,” Aussie Hat said.

  “Well,” I said. “I’d rather not get shot, as I have plans next week, and I don’t mind being cooperative to keep from being shot. But not that cooperative.”

  “Difference is you two might get a chance to live,” said Baseball Cap.

  “You don’t seem like a couple of fair and square boys to me,” said Leonard. “Suddenly when you want to tie us up, you’re talking chances?”

  I thought: Leonard do not antagonize them too much. Do not poke the dragon too hard. But that was like politely asking a starving dog not to eat a greasy pork chop.

  “You let me and him go, you’ll never catch us in these woods,” Leonard said. “You haven’t got any chance unless it’s with someone doesn’t have the strength to run, or experience in the woods. You’re idea of sport is breaking a deer’s leg, giving it five minutes head start with a sack over its head. Me and him, we can give you a run for your arrows, we get loose. We’ll give you some real sport.”

  “Just take them out on the deck and shoot them,” Baseball Cap said.

  “You shoot us,” Leonard said, “it’ll probably be right here. I don’t have to do a goddamn thing you say. I’d rather get shot right here than make it easier for you to clean up the blood out there on the deck.”

  “You know,” said Aussie Hat, “I think he means it.”

  “Shoot them,” said Baseball Cap, “and then we’ll clean up the mess.”

  “Oh, sure,” said the blonde. “You know who ends up cleaning up the mess? It won’t be you two. It’ll be us. Women’s work. Think the black one’s right. I think you boys don’t want to give someone a fair shake. We don’t get to hunt. We get the shit jobs and you two have all the fun.”

  “Life is just full of little disappointments,” said Aussie Hat, as he turned and looked at the blonde woman. His voice was so raw I could feel paint peeling off the wall behind me.

  The blonde shut up, looked at the floor and tried to grow small. It was as if she realized for the first time she wasn’t the one wielding power. Sex could only take you so far. Step on a man’s pride, he can be silly. Step on a psycho’s pride, and he can go crazy. A man steps on it, that’s bad, but a woman steps on it, that’s terrible.

  “I’m sorry,” said the blonde. “I’m just tired.”

  Aussie Hat kept staring at her, eventually eased his gaze back to us.

  “You’re not going to shoot them here, I say we take them ashore,” said Baseball Cap. “I say we let them run. Won’t be any different than any other time. We’ll catch them, cut off their heads like all the others. I say we take their balls too, bat them around a bit.”

  “Hope you got a tow sack on board,” Leonard said. “You’ll need it for my balls. And maybe some kind of special knot to keep them hemmed up inside. Kind of got a mind of their own.”

/>   The dark–haired woman looked at Leonard and smiled. It wasn’t a smile that made you want to start skipping through the tulips. It was a bit more the way a cat looks at a mouse it’s cornered against a wall. I think she liked thinking about Leonard’s balls in a sack.

  “I don’t know,” Aussie Hat said. “Let me think.”

  · · ·

  For the next few hours I felt sick to my stomach and scared, but I didn’t let them see it. I had dealt with bad people before, and some as bad as this, and the thing is, you got to not let them see how frightened you are. It feeds their passion.

  After awhile, liquor came out and everyone got drunk, except the man with the pistol. And us, of course. Aussie Hat didn’t drink, didn’t lose focus. Finally, the women went into the back room with Baseball Cap and closed the door. We could hear them in there, going at it. The barge rocked.

  Leonard said, “What’s the matter with you? Can’t get it up? That gun about as much as a dick as you got?”

  “You are asking for it, aren’t you?” said Aussie Hat.

  “They’re in there slamming together like hogs in heat, and here you sit.”

  “You want a bullet in the teeth,” Aussie Hat said.

  Leonard was trying to pull the ole Uncle Remus Brer Rabbit trick. The one where Brer Fox catches Brer Rabbit, and the rabbit tells him to go on and do whatever he wants, kill him, whatever, but please don’t throw him in the briar patch.

  Brer Fox hears this, thinks, so that’s the worse thing can be done to that ole rabbit, so I’m going to do it. Brer Fox throws Brer Rabbit into the briar patch, and Brer Rabbit calls out, “Born and raised in the briar patch, Brer Fox. Born and raised.” And away went Brer Rabbit, doing the briar patch boogie.

  If they were to throw us into the woods and come hunting us, they’d be throwing us into our briar patch. Born and raised in the woods, we were. Born and raised.

  Okay. It wasn’t exactly like that. We were offering to head into the briar patch and show our skills there, but in a way, it was the same kind of challenge. Don’t shoot us, Bad Guys, as that’s too easy. Make it hard for us, and show us what sportsmen you are. Throw us in the briar patch and see what we got.

  “Listen to that meat slapping in there,” Leonard said.

  “Don’t worry about my love life,” said Aussie Hat. “I get plenty. We all share.”

  “For the record,” Leonard said, “I have not for one iota worried about your pathetic love life.”

  Aussie Hat lifted the pistol and pointed it right at Leonard. Leonard didn’t flinch. After a long moment where my heart quit beating, he lowered the gun.

  “Just shut up,” said Aussie Hat.

  The night crawled along, and after what felt like about three thousand years and a long afternoon, the morning light came through the barge windows and spread over the floor and lay on the woman’s head on the platter. There was blood leakage in the platter, and the blood had the look of congealed strawberry jam. There was a faint odor of decay from the head, like a refrigerator that had been unplugged for a few days with a ham roast in it. Aussie Hat sat beside the head on the bench and placed his left hand on top of it and held the pistol in his right, resting it against his thigh, his unblinking, lizard eyes focused on us.

  “Good morning, assholes,” he said, stood up, touched a switch on the wall and turned off the cabin lights.

  · · ·

  It was still raining and you could hear the drops falling into the water like plums falling off trees. The man who had spent the night with the women came out looking the way you might think a man would look who had spent the night banging two women. Then the women came out behind him. It was still slightly dark outside.

  The man had his baseball cap in his hand and he put it on his head and then went to adjusting his belt. The four of them spent a few moments watching us, like we were monkeys in the zoo. Like a monkey, I wanted to throw shit on them.

  “Move us to the spot,” Aussie Hat said to Baseball Cap, then to the blonde: “Make us some coffee.”

  The blonde knew she had pushed a little too hard the night before. She tried to sound sweet. “Sure. Them, too?”

  “No. Not them, too. What’s with you two cunts and the coffee?”

  “I’d like some coffee,” Leonard said. “We both take it black, though. Hap here, now and again, likes some artificial sweetener, though he’s picky on which kind.”

  “Cream’s all right if you got it,” I said.

  “Fuck you,” said Aussie Hat.

  “Oh, that’s a wish you won’t fulfill,” Leonard said.

  “Depends on the definition,” Aussie Hat said.

  Baseball cap unfastened the mooring line, came back inside, trudged into the bedroom and on through to the wheelhouse. I knew that because we heard a door open on the far end, and shortly thereafter he started the engine. The barge eased away from the shore, chopping at the water, chugging like a large lawn mower.

  Through the row of windows across from me I could see the night had lifted and the rain had stopped. An early morning fog was hovering over the water, twisting in amongst the shoreline trees. Within moments the fog that had so quickly arrived started to lift and fade. Big, white birds dipped into the water looking for a fish breakfast. Blue morning–shadows formed by the shapes of trees along the lake made patterns on the water. Squirts of apple–red morning poked between thick limbs. The sunlight fled over the water and made it look brightly dyed, and then the red water gradually became yellow as polished gold, and the sunlight rose higher, and all the woods began to glow, the evergreens shiny with rain, sighing in the wind, their bare limbs shedding sun–sparkled drops of water like tears.

  I wanted to feel and see and smell it all. If this was going to be my last time in the woods and on the water, I wanted it to be as much on my terms as I could manage; I wanted to go out with the world I loved nestled in my head.

  Throw us in the briar patch, assholes. Throw us in the briar patch and let us run.

  The barge chugged along for awhile, and then around a bend in the river. The trees cleared considerably there. There was a great patch of darkened land where lightning had struck and trees had burned.

  The barge churned toward that spot, and we came up against the shore slightly, bouncing the barge back a bit. The blonde woman, trying to get in Aussie Hat’s good graces and be as helpful as possible, jumped ashore with the docking line and tied it off. The barge motor coughed a little, there was another bump, and then we were as still as a craft can be on water.

  “Got the whore’s head?” Aussie Hat said to the dark–haired woman, and motioned us ahead of him and out the door. I thought as soon as we were on the deck of the barge, where the blood would be easy to clean, he might shoot us in the head.

  I considered making a leap for it, hit the bank and keep on running, but I didn’t. I gambled there were greater opportunities for us, but I’ve never been a good gambler. Besides, I wasn’t going to leave Leonard behind. We ran together, or we went down together.

  Aussie Hat waved us on shore with the pistol, and we went. The others came after, except for Baseball Cap. The dark–haired woman carried the head and sat it on a low, charred stump some distance away, then went back to the edge of the water.

  Baseball Cap came out carrying two bows and two quivers of arrows. He gave one bow and a quiver to Aussie Hat, handed the blonde the pistol. She held it on us while he swung the quiver into place, threaded several arrows onto the rack on the bow after stringing it.

  He turned then and an arrow flew from the bow almost without effort. It hit the dead woman’s head and tore so cleanly through it, it didn’t even knock it off the stump. They all cheered like a touchdown had been made.

  Baseball Cap fired his bow, and the arrow went into one of the eyes, lodged there, deep in her skull. I thought, you don’t get much worse than these assholes, and if you do, it would be so bad as to be otherworldly.

  Aussie Hat took his pistol back, and handed the dark–h
aired woman the bow. She notched an arrow and shot at the head. The arrow stuck in the stump just below where the head was mounted.

  “That’s why we do the hunting,” Aussie Hat said.

  “Let me,” said the blonde. She took the bow from the dark–haired woman and took a shot. She hit the head in the cheek and the head tumbled off the stump and rolled across the damp, blackened ground.

  “That was alright,” said Aussie Hat. “But you shoot it right, arrow hits so hard it’ll go right through it, might not even knock it off it can be such a clean shot. You got the edge of her face. But it was good. It was good.”

  “You think so?” she said.

  “Sure,” he said. “It was really good. Hey, give me the pistol.”

  Baseball Cap gave the pistol to Aussie Hat. I thought, well, this is it for us. Aussie Hat held the bow in his left hand, held the pistol in his right hand. He said, “Lois.”

  The blonde looked at him and he shot her square between the eyes, spraying blood on Baseball Cap. She hit the ground so fast it was as if her legs dissolved.

  “What the hell?” said Baseball Cap, his face was covered in the blonde’s blood.

  “She talked back to me last night,” Aussie Hat said. “I couldn’t let it go.”

  “Jesus, Cameron,” Baseball Cap said. “Jesus.”

  “Church going pussy is a dime a dozen, same as the whores we kill.”

  Okay. Convictions of any kind were out the window. Jesus had been tossed overboard. I could feel my nerves tightening inside my body like the strings on a well–tuned harp.

  The dark–haired woman stood extremely still, as if she might be able to disappear if she didn’t move.

  Aussie Hat laughed. “You can relax, Mavis. You’re all right. Nothing’s going to happen to you.”

  “I can’t believe you did that, man,” Baseball Cap said. “Lois was all right. Damn, I liked her.”

  “She had a mouth on her,” Aussie Hat said, and gave Baseball Cap a long study.

  “All right,” said Baseball Cap. “You’re right. She talked too much about the wrong things.”

  “Woman ought to keep her mouth full of dick to keep from talking, way I see it,” Aussie Hat said. “You agree with that Mavis?”