Through the torn screens came wild hoots, hee-haws, and tremendous oaths rolled into one blaring din by the volume of the country music from the jukebox. As Lucius Watson emerged from his old car, he was greeted by “Orange Blossom Special,” which burst forth in fine cacophony and wandered out over the swamp north of the road.
On this morning of late spring, dilapidated pickups and scabbed autos had emerged from the swamp woods well before noon, and an airboat—a sled-shaped tin skiff with a seat raised above the caged airplane engine and propeller in the stern—was nudging the bank of the open marsh across the way. Parked askew was a new black pickup truck on high swamp tires. Passing the cab, Lucius jumped backwards, startled by the thump of a heavy dog, which had not barked, simply hurled itself against the window. The silent dog—a brindle pit bull male—seemed to churn and froth in its need to get at him, stiff nails scratching on the steamy glass.
“Now don’t go pesterin ol’ Buck!” A scraggy man in red tractor cap and dirty turquoise shirt whacked the screen door wide and reeled onto the stoop. When Lucius said he was looking for a Mr. Collins, the drunk waved him off. “Ain’t never heard of him!” The man had long hard-muscled arms, tattoos, machete sideburns, and a small beer belly. Half-blinded by the sun, he cocked his head, trying to focus. “Ain’t you a damn Watson?”
“Billie Jimmie around?”
“No Injuns allowed. You’re Colonel Watson, ain’t you? You sure come to the wrong place.” The man jerked his thumb back over his shoulder. In a harsh whisper, he said, “Don’t you go no further, Mr. Watson, lest you want some trouble.” He nodded his head over and over. “Don’t remember me?” He stuck his hand out, grinning. “Name is Mud,” he said, just as this name was shouted by a rough voice from inside. Turning, he lost his balance, almost falling. He clutched the rail and sagged down onto the steps, denouncing someone in a pule of oaths and spittle.
Mud’s red cap had fallen off, and Lucius picked it from the steps as he ascended. By now he had recognized Mud Braman from Marco Island, gone drink-blotched, and near-bald. Seeing his pallid scalp at eye level, the livid eruptions and scratched chigger bites, the weak hair and ingrained grime—seeing the soiled and scabbed human integument that could barely contain the furious delusions trapped within—Lucius perched the red cap gently on his head. “I knew your dad,” he murmured, stepping around the rank cinnamon smell of him and continuing up the stair.
Inside, a man was loudly narrating a story. At the appearance of a silhouette in the torn screen, a silence fell like the sudden hush of peepers in the marsh, stilled by the shadow of a heron, or by a water snake, head raised, winding through the tips of flooded grasses. When the stranger entered, two scraggy men on the point of leaving sank back into their places, and the dancing women in their pastel slacks and helmet hairdos, breasts on the roll in baggy T-shirts, squawked and catcalled.
Lucius was stopped inside the door by a husky barefoot man, sun-creased, with old dirt in the creases. From hard green coveralls—his only garment—rose a rank odor of fried foods and sweat, spilled beer and cigarettes, crankcase oil and something else, something rancid, a smear of old mayonnaise, perhaps, or gator blood, or semen. Expressionless in big dark glasses, this figure crowded him without a word, as if intent on bumping chests and backing the stranger out through the screen door. Then that same rough voice which had yelled at Mud now bellowed “Dummy!” and the man stopped and removed his glasses, and dull eyes gazed past Lucius with indifference as he turned away. His dark sun-baked back and neck and shoulders were matted with black hair.
The man who had yelled was Crockett Daniels, who had recognized Lucius Watson, too, and nodded sardonically at Lucius’s grimace. Daniels crossed the room to confer with a big one-armed man who leaned on the far wall, then went to the makeshift plywood bar, where he poured two glasses of clear white spirits from a jug. Brusquely he offered one to Lucius, who accepted it with a bare nod. The moonshine was colorless, so purely raw that it numbed Lucius’s mouth and sinuses and made his eyes water. The two stood grimly side by side, elbows hitched back on the plywood, faced out across the room, and they sipped moonshine for a while before they spoke.
“Speck” Daniels was a strong short man with a hide as dark and hard-grained as mahogany, and jutting black brows and a hawk beak, and dark grizzle in a fringe around a wry and heavy mouth. Straight raven hair, gone silver at the temples, fell in a heavy lock across his brow, and his green eyes were bright and restless, scanning the room before returning to the big black-bearded man in combat boots and camouflage pants and a black T-shirt with a wrinkled red stump in the right sleeve.