Understairwell

by Brian McDonald
illustrations by Jessica Bernhart

I was born, a whole month premature, on the evenin’ of ma’ daddy’s dyin’. No need ta say it, but these sure as shit ain’t the best sucumstances to begin life with, in any culture, however they take on an ‘specially bleak outlook given the exactitude of my placement here on the Earth. The way I figure it, I wander back and forth on these clay banks of this muddy rivulet at somewheres around the thirty-second parallel headin’ north, and the ninetieth goin’ west. In as many words, I was given the Mississippi darkness to call my home. Not the paper, not the law, not the television or the belief that life is improvin’ on all fronts pop’ lar can penetrate the winds, deep and wet, barely movin’ like lava, and convince the people O’ Miss’ ssippi anything diff’rent than what we already knowin’ t’ be true; when yer alive down in Miss’ssipi, don’t not a thing matter ’bout much other than keepin’ yer body breathin’. But folks might say I’s overly pess’mistic, even fer Mississippi, given my peculiar lot in life and all.

My daddy, he weren’t much of a man, s’far as I can figure from what I been let know ’bout ‘im, what been pounded in ma brain. Mama weren’t none much better. She had her friends, and, always, they came to her with less than honorable intentions. She knew the mayor, and all three of his boys too. She knew the sheriff. He was real nice to my daddy as he was always releasin’ him when he shoulda been in the tank; when Daddy weren’t truckin’ through the South deliverin’ concrete fer his uncle, he was near sure as water runs at the joint gettin’ his head wild on gin and olives.

So, one night, ma Daddy come home a day er two early from a trip up to Memphis, er somewhere there abouts, and he set himself up at the bar and proceeded to get drunker than what seemed humanly possible. S’ interestin’, my father become some kind of a deranged sort of celeb’ity. People in town still tell folks who seem to be headin’ fer trouble with the liquor, “Yer headin’ for a Hurlie hole,” which of course causes some of ’em to slow down out of fear that they’re truly losin’ it, while t’ others, it jes’ provokes in ’em a ceremoneous round a’ curses and slanders thrown upon my daddy’s grave. T’ain’t easy, like I said. Anyway, this partic’lar evenin’, after my daddy rolled into town tired and worn from the road, one of the toadies in the town, one of them sorts with no job other than to stir up commotion, sits down next to him. Ma daddy, he may have been a drunk, and he may have not been a great husban’, and he may have had trouble with the law here and there, but he never slandered another man behind his back. Well, as I was sayin’, this scaly old fella named Lucien Tittle, it was rumored that his great-great grandpa rode alongside Robert E. Lee as the Rebels tore through Kentucky and Tennessee, he sits next to ma daddy and begins whisperin’ words into his ears. Given the exasperated state my father was in from the liquor, well, those words traveled right past any sort of idea of selfpreservayshuhn, and sent him into a driven rage.

-Listen here, Hurlie, Lucien began. If you know what’s good for ya, y’all put down that god-damned drink and listen to me fer a few.

-What the hell, in a good god-damned Lucien, ya got’s ta know I don’t want none ta shit of whatever ’tis you got sellin’ tonite, tha’s fer good god-damned sure, tonite anyway, you can just get on outta here boy.

My daddy wasn’t fond of Lucien. He didn’t need anybody bringin’ any more trouble in his direction.

-Listen ta me fer a minute, he persisted. I got some information you may be wantin’ ta hear ’bout ‘fore it come up and bite ya right in yer own home there, Hurlie.

-What in fuck are you pissin’ on me for Lucien?

-I ain’t got nothin to do about that, Hurlie. S’just. Well, look, seein’ as how yer always out on the road, well, me and the other fellas been talkin’.

-What other fellas, Lucien? What you been talkin’? You been concernin’ yerself ’bout me Lucien? You best unravel yerself from wherever you done dug into my affairs, and I mean now, boy. My daddy stood up and towered over Lucien.

-Now, Hurlie, yer drunk, relax… Cecil, the drunk one stool down, didn’t want no trouble.

-Yer god-damned right I’m drunk, and I’m fixin’ to get pretty damned violent on this here thing. He cranked up his right hand over his left shoulder like he was set to back-hand Lucien off his stool.

-Wait. Wait, Hurlie. It’s ’bout yer wife. She ain’t been right to you, she ain’t been right.

At this point, ‘cordin’ to what I heard from folks in town, them same folks who made good and sure I know’d ev’ry detail of this story ‘fore I’m dead, the bartender stepped in, wantin’ to avoid any type of breakage that accompanies a solid drunken fistfight.

-Lucien, God-damn it! He hollered. Get the hell outta here! Get on, boy! You ain’t nothin’ but trouble to yerself. I’m doin’ you a favor boy, you better run on out!

Lucien looked up from his bar-stool, he was leanin’ way over backwards under the power of ma daddy’s lead-in with his back-hand like that, hangin’ like a storm cloud.

-I wasn’t sayin’ nothin’ that everybody don’t know already, George. You said so just t’other night. You said you wouldn’t be surprised if’at baby weren’t none other than the sheriff’s hisself.

My father looked at the bar keep awe-struck and somewhat sobered by the possibility that Lucien were on ta some’in.

-Zat so George? He asked.

But George said nothin’. He looked down at his beer taps and slung his bar towel over his shoulder.

-George? My father figured if there were anybody on this earth a man could truss’, had ta be his bar-keep. That trust may have been a symptom ta so many other uh the problems in his life, who knows?

The bar-keep didn’ t look at him but looked up from polishin’ the taps and snapped at Lucien.

-Lucien, god-damn yer ass, you are gonna get a god-damned whippin’ outta me if it’s the las’ thing I do! He threw his towel down and ran around the bar. Lucien took off out the back-door and George followed him until he was sure he was gone.

-Ahh, Hurlie, that Lucien, he’ s nuthin’ but… he started to say Lucien weren’ t nuthin’ but a drownin’ rat bitin’ on anything for a hold, but my daddy had already flew out the front door. Everybody in the bar went back to drinkin’, albeit at a somewhat tamer pace. George walked over to the front door and watched as Hurlie, my daddy, went runnin’ through town towards the Sheriff’s house.

Everybody in town knew that my mama had been sleepin’ with the sheriff. How it all got started…? Well, there were some folk who heard that the sheriff made a deal to release my daddy, without fine, every time he found hisself cranked up in the tank, fixin to shit-kick any livin’ thing within an inch of its own head-stone, which was often ’nuff and quite an economic burden on the family, if my mamma agreed to certain terms he laid out for her, to which she had reluctantly agreed out of concern fer the family. But that would have meant that my mama loved daddy, which I don’t think she did, and was makin’ a sacrifice on his behalf. Others felt they were just sinners, simple lustful insects rollin’ in the Mississippi heat, unable to control themselves. Whatever the case, my mother had been having a relationship with the sheriff for some time.

As for whose baby I was, well, there was no doubt that I was, before God and ever’ body, my father’ s boy. He been laid-off for a few months from the truckin’ company he had been drivin’ ‘fore his uncle offered him a job with his cement company haulin’ product. It was during this period that I was conceived. While my daddy was home, my mother kept a fairly reg’lar house, seein’ fit to avoid trouble with such an ornery man on call. And the sheriff saw it fit to respec’ a man’s territory while he was around, even if that respec’ were only half-bred. He didn’ t respect my daddy, I can say that fer sure. Everybody saw that, but hadn’ t heart ta say anythin’, fer fear, I guess.

But, that night, after he left the bar, not a soul saw my daddy live again, ‘cept fer Lucien who was trailin’ ‘im out of his own concern. Some say my father showed up at the sheriff’s house, with ever’ intention of confrontin’ ‘im. But, as anybody in town will tell you, ours is not a sheriff to fool with. He han’t the slightest hesitation in shooting a man puttin’ up a natural fight for his freedom, let alone one trespassing upon his premises, drunk and in a rage obviously set for blood. If he did make it to the sheriff’s place, he probably thought better of it and headed off to see to his wife. Things would have been better had he knocked on the door of the sheriff’s empty house and set ta wreckin’.

To get from the sheriff’s house to our house made up ’bout a quarter mile run through some thick woods which, due to the twistin’ and turnin’ necessary to avoid the brambles and underbrush, turned into a good mile-long ramble. Well, he must have run it pretty hard, and with little regard for the brambles ’cause when they found his body, besides the three holes in his chest, he was scraped to hell and back, like he’d run through barbed wire.

He must have made pretty good time, too, because Lucien come back to the bar with the news about Hurlie’s death little more than two hours after he got run out. According to him, my daddy went runnin’ up the steps of his own house, with a big stick in his hands hollerin’ my mother’s name, over and over, `Liza, Liza, I’m gonna rip that baby outta yer belly and drown him in the river! You hear me? Liza! Liza!’ Over and over again he yelled it, the air, so thick and full of flies: must have seemed like his mind was seeping out of his head into the lunatic heat that he was swingin’ ’round in. He started breakin’ windows, and throwin’ rocks into the house then, when he finally crawled through one a the broken winduhs, the door was locked on account o’ the fact that my daddy wasn’t s’pposed to be back for another day er two, and mama well, she wasn’t stupid about people, bein’ one herself, he set to tearin’ up the house, all the time yellin’ for Liza to come on down, to get her

-…ass on down here!

-Liza! Liza! You can’t hide that chile from me. He ain’t no baby o’ mine. Liza! Liza!

He ran to his shotgun case and pulled one out. Lucien said he looked at the gun in his hands for a long time, Lucien bein’ lookin’ in the whole time, watchin’ the whole affair like some movie that he was directin’, and just about to be finished with. He said he loaded it real slow, like he wasn’ t sure what to do, like he’d never fired a gun before, which was anythin’ but true. And then, he heard a stumbling up the stairs and snapped to, like a machine.

Lucien said he started up the stairs, aimin’ the gun out in front of him, restin’ it on his forearm as he was lookin’ into the dark, swingin’ it from side to side like he was swattin’ at cob-webs and, just as he was about to take the first step, up, he, hesitated.

-He stayed there, on that bottom step, like a stone, thinkin some’in’ over, mos’ likely thinkin’ ’bout his wife, ’bout his baby and such. He had a look such as I ain’t never seen afore er since. He just about slipped out a’ hisself, right there on that bottom step, he just about seemed to disappear. But then, he snapped to again like he heard some’ in on the top of the stairs, and he raised his gun up to his shoulder, but he couldntah seen nuthin’, ’twas pitch black up top there. He called out, `Liza? Zat you Liza? You best get on down here ‘fore some’in real…’

And that’s the last thing he said. That first shot hit him square in the chest, jest ‘bove his heart. I ain’t never seen a man shot before that one. Ya can’t understand the look on a man’s face when he’s been shot. He dropped back on the floor and his eyes got real small. Not much else can be at that moment, I guess, when yer shot. Well, he got real focused, like he could feel the blood goin’, and he raised his gun, pointin’ it up the stair. But, he hadn’t no idea who he was shootin’ at, and the next two shots rang out real quick from top there. Bang! Bang! Just like that. And that’s when his eyes got all wide, like they were gonna get up and walk away, I don’t know. He knew it was through, though, and it was, soon enough. He just lay there, next to his gun lookin’ up at the ceilin’ of his own poor house.

Lucien stayed outside, hidin’ in the bush under the windows, waitin’ for who he knew was the one who shot my daddy ta leave. He wanted to see him, real bad, so he could finger him in the lineup, get that sheriff offa his back once and for all. You see, Lucien had a few problems with the sheriff of his own. He’d stolen money from just ’bout ev’ybody in the town, and the sheriff finally had the proof ta send him away fer good. Caught him with his hands in the livery drawer. Up ta that point, though, the town folk had developed the habit of blamin’ all them thefts on travelers, truckers and vagrants who wandered through Mississippi and disappeared into the swampy ether as quick and easy as they had materialized. But the Sheriff finally caught up with Lucien, pinned seventeen petty thefts to him, and was threatenin’ to send him up for good unless he agreed to off my daddy in exchange o’ which he would burn up Lucien’s file. Well, Lucien may have been a pest, but he knew he was in a lose ta lose situation, he didn’t trus’ that sheriff t’all, knew he’d pin the murder on too, fer good measure. Well, way he saw it, no matter what he did, he was goin’ down river rather than up. Given the sit’yashun, well, I’m pressed ta blame old Lucien. At least he dodged the murder rap.

Anyway, somehow it was that ma mama made it down the stair to her dead husband. The sheriff must a gone out some other ways. Lucien never caught sight of him as it were. Lucien stayed right there under the bushes and watched my mama lookin’ at her man. Said she didn’t cry, nothin’, just sat there and sort of leaned back and forth, pickin’ up the shotgun and settin’ it down again, pickin’ it up and settin’ it down. I guess, with all of the blood, and the excitement, well, my mother…

Lucien said he saw the water spread out ‘cross the floor first, and my mama lookin’ horrified, like some in’ terrible were happenin’ that weren’ t supposed to be happenin’. Then, he saw what she was gettin’ so scared about. She was sittin’ to the left of my daddy’s body, and the blood was flowin’ out o’ his body on the right, as that was where the bullets had hit, right where that sheriff aimed ’em. Anyway, the blood started to flow out the left side of my daddy, or at least what seemed like my daddy, but it were my mama’s blood. She started to screa-min’ real loud, like the world had opened up all in noise too loud for her ears. Well, Lucien said he couldn’t stand seein’ it, her bein’ pregnant and all, and that’s when he ran back ta the bar, ta tell George and get a doctor and all.

George called up the doctor and he closed the bar down to get over there as fast as he could. The doctor was there by the time George and Lucien showed up. My mama wasn’ t nowhere ta be found though. But there I was, lyin’ across my daddy’s bleedin’ chest, wrapped up in his bloody shirt, cryin’ for the love o’ God. Nobody knows what happened t’ mama. Most a’ the women folk say she must a crawled off into the swamps and died, but they never turned up a body, and with all the huntin’ that goes on round ‘ere, well, you’d think otherwise, but, like I said, Mississippi is awful deep. The sheriff ain’t never reappeared neither, although stories circ’late that so and so saw him in Kansas on a gravel run, tendin’ to a herd. Or that somebody saw him down in Florida raisin’ gators. I tend to feel he done drowned out there somewhere, maybe with the gators, maybe with the cows. And Lucien, well, he served a good amount of time, them deputies got good mem’ries and all, and, besides, the town had had good and enuff a him for the rest a time.

And me, well, like I said before, I wander the banks of this old river not far from where I was birthed, havin’ drifted most a my childhood from foster home to foster home, I figured it’d be better if I set out on my own, sort things out fer mysef. Anyway, people tend to feel dead ta me, right from the start. It’s like, I don’ t know, like Mississippi air is full of death, and I been breathin’ it ma whole life.

-writ by a southern man