The Devil All the Time - Donald Ray Pollock [52]
After Gene walked away, Arvin opened his eyes and took a drink from a carton of chocolate milk. “Are you all right?” Mary said.
“Sure,” he said. “Why you ask that?”
“Were you really praying?”
“I was,” he said, nodding his head. “Praying for the right time.”
He finally caught Dinwoodie a week later in his old man’s garage changing a spark plug in his ’56 Chevy. By then, Arvin had collected a dozen paper bags. Gene’s head was tightly encased in them when his younger brother found him several hours later. The doctor said he was lucky that he hadn’t suffocated. “Arvin Russell,” Gene told the sheriff after he came to his senses. He’d spent the last twelve hours in the hospital believing that he was running dead last in a race at the Indy 500. It had been the longest night of his life; every time he stomped the accelerator, the car slowed down to a crawl. The roar of the engines passing him by was still ringing in his ears.
“Arvin Russell?” the sheriff, a hint of doubt in his voice. “I know that boy likes to scrap, but hell, son, you twice as big as he is.”
“He caught me off guard.”
“So you seen him before he put that knot on your head?” the sheriff asked.
“No,” Gene said, “but he’s the one.”
“And how exactly do you know this?”
Gene’s father was leaning against the wall watching his son with sullen, bloodshot eyes. The boy could smell the Wild Irish Rose wafting off his old man clear across the room. Carl Dinwoodie wasn’t too bad if he stuck to beer, but when he got on the wine, he could be downright dangerous. This might come back to bite me in the ass if I’m not careful, Gene thought. His mother went to the same church as the Russell bunch. His father would kick the shit out of him all over again if he heard he’d been harassing that little Lenora bitch. “I could be wrong,” Gene said.
“Why did you say the Russell boy did it then?” the sheriff said.
“I don’t know. Maybe I dreamed it.”
Over in the corner, Gene’s father made a sound like a dog retching, then said, “Nineteen years old and still in school. What you think about that, Sheriff? Worthless as tits on a boar hog, ain’t he?”
“Who we talking about?” the sheriff said, a puzzled look on his face.
“That no-account thing laying right there in that bed, that’s who,” Carl said, then turned and staggered out the door.
The sheriff looked back to the boy. “Well, any idea why whoever did do it put them sacks over your head like that?”
“No,” Gene said. “Not a clue.”
21
“WHAT YOU GOT THERE?” Earskell said, as Arvin stepped up onto the porch. “I heard you over in there shooting that pop gun.” His cataracts were getting worse every week, like dirty curtains being slowly pulled shut in an already dim room. A couple more months and he was afraid he wouldn’t be able to drive anymore. Getting old was next to the worst goddamn thing that had ever happened to him. Lately, he’d been thinking about Alice Louise Berry more and more. They had both missed out on a lot, her dying so young.
Arvin held up three red squirrels. He had his father’s pistol stuck in the waistband of his pants. “We’ll eat good tonight,” he said. Emma had served nothing but beans and fried potatoes for four days now. Things always got lean toward the end of the month, before her pension check came. Both he and the old man were starving for some meat.
Earskell leaned forward in his chair. “You surely didn’t get those with that German