A Fine Cast of Characters - J. Dane Tyler [66]
Martin squirmed under a gaze he felt rather than saw. It pierced his soul. He tugged at his loosened tie, and straightened his rumpled lapels.
“Look, mister, I don’t know who you are, but I—”
“Yeah, you don’t even have the guts to use a gun, do this right. What’s the matter, afraid you’ll spoil the beautiful corpse? Ain’t that what women and queer-cowards like you do? Try to leave a beautiful corpse behind?”
“Wait a minute, I’m not—”
“See? You can’t even muster the balls to tell me to take a flyin’ fuck. Coward.”
Martin drew a long breath. “Damn it, listen to me, you don’t know—”
“Don’t know what? That you lost your job? That your investments and retirement fund and mutual funds and what the fuck have tanked over the last two years? That your girl still works at the comp’ny that canned you and now she’s ridin’ your boss’s knob? That what I don’t know?”
“Wha—how do you—who the—”
“You think you got it bad, boy? Think you’re unique somehow? Think your little world fell apart and that’s it, the universe came to an end? That what you think?”
Martin swallowed. His eyes fell.
“Better think about life in a bigger way, BB-balls,” the man said and drew long on his cigarette. He inhaled deep and held it a few seconds before he blew another bluish smoke cloud. “Set your ass down. I got a few things to say to you.”
Martin balked for a second, but the figure under the hat never flinched. Martin sank to the bridge pavement and stared at him. He felt like a child.
“Our Ol’ Mamma married for the first time at fourteen. She buried six husbands ‘fore she finally died herself, but that first one … well, he blackened her heart good.” He blew out another plume. “Ol’ Mamma was tougher’n shoe leather and twice as hard to shine after he finished with her. She’d as soon knock you on your ass as look at you. Didn’t take kindly to quitters and whiners, neither. Like you.”
The man turned and pitched his butt over the side of the bridge against the furious wind, but it sailed true. He stuffed his hands into deep, worn pockets and rocked on his worn heels.
“Ol’ Mamma said there wasn’t no point to wishin’ things better,” he said. “She’d say you could wish in one hand and shit in the other and see which gets filled first. That first husband, though … he taught her a thing or two about being mean enough to get by on little or nothin’. He’d drink up their food money after earning shit wages all day. Then he’d expect a king’s banquet for dinner. But there wasn’t nothin’ left to buy groceries with, most times. He didn’t care much for beans and rice and let her know by blacking her eyes or breaking her nose.”
He fished into the breast pocket of his billowy white shirt and took out a soft pack of unfiltered cigarettes. A blue-headed match appeared from his right front pants pocket. His thumbnail struck the sulfur and he held the hissing flame to the cigarette until smoke wafted away on the breeze.
“Ol’ Mamma told her daddy what that bastard did to her, but he didn’t want to hear none of it. Neither did her mamma. They were glad to have her married off. Told her she ought to be grateful any man would have her at all. Never mind all them bruises on her arms, legs, face and back where he pounded on her while she cowered in a corner.
“She quit cryin’ ‘fore long, though. Decided she had two choices. Either shut up and deal with her lot in life, or do something about it.”
Smoke billowed from under the hat brim when he turned his head toward Martin.
“Know what she did, limp-dick? She waited. Waited until that drunk came home demanding beef and beer. She told him to set at the table, she’d bring it. What she brung was a hammer from the cellar. Hit