Cicadas were already screeching in the trees and the morning vapors had long since ceased ascending out of the moss covered live oaks. Jack was seated on a bench, tackle box beside him, and two fishing poles when Billybob, the sheriff's son arrived in his overalls and Keds. Jack went in and fetched them two Coca Colas. Because, as poppy told him, “It’s not smart to drink on an empty stomach.” Jack had breakfast hours ago, but Billybob still looked bleary-eyed. And a little unsteady.
When he came out, he groaned softly to himself. Billybob had managed to snag the hat off Mrs Chalmers, exposing her grey bun. Evidently entertained by her indignation he dangled her hat just out of reach like a four year old taunting his younger sibling.
“Hey, Billybob…” called Jack.
Billybob dropped the hat within Mrs Chalmers’ reach. She put it on and marched around the corner to the drug store. Criminal mischief. That’s what she thought of Billybob’s behavior. But of course sheriff Nate Jackson would never bring himself to charge his oldest son with anything. Not even if he had been caught red-handed stabbing Doc Savage or one of Nate’s other poker buddies. She was still flushed and flustered when she entered Mr Peeples’ drug store.
“…Let’s go fishing. You carry the cooler.”
Billybob and Jack strolled leisurely across the railroad tracks, down to the levy. There was a small pier there where people sometimes launched boats. And a bait and tackle shop.
Jack had always been intrigued by the term. He knew that it referred to the kinds of goods sold. But he also understood that it was the standard way of doing business. Commerce of all kinds in this part of the world could be well described by it. Those who knew the game dressed for it, wearing the right kind of padding. Mostly, though, people were easy to bait and even easier to tackle. Many got hurt. Mostly when they did it was their own damn fault, he imagined.
In a different place and time Jack would have made a fine junk bond trader, hedge fund manager, or banking executive, but Jackson was a tiny place unimaginably far away from any place or time we know. And the biggest thing in town was Nate Jackson. So the best line of work for Jack was keeping Nate’s oldest son Billybob from getting into a heap of trouble so big that it would reflect badly on the reputation of the sheriff. Jack did pretty well for himself by taking Billybob fishing every day.
When Jack came into town a few years back he was selling brushes. Every Friday when widow White finished her grocery shopping for the week, he’d go over to her house and sell her another brush, taking in the exchange the balance of the cash she had for the week. When the matter came to the attention of sheriff Nate Jackson, Jack was presented with a choice: either stay and keep Billybob out of trouble, or spend some time in the slammer. Neither saw the latter alternative to be advantageous. So it was settled.
When they got to the bait and tackle Jack bought some fresh wrigglers and three six packs of cold Miller beer. He put two six packs and the wrigglers in the cooler, handed a six pack to Billybob. They picked up the rods and they walked out onto the pier.
“Hey Jack, bait my hook for me, I gotta take a piss.” Billybob launched it across the bow of a boat and into the murky Mississippi. Jack chuckled. He knew Billybob was squeamish about wrigglers.
Once in a while there was a nibble. Mid-morning a catfish swallowed the bait, hook line and sinker. Jack reeled it in. It was ten inches long. Not much fight in it, and ugly as Mrs Chalmer’s pug.
“Throw it back, Jack”
“No, Billybob.”
“Whatcha gonna do with it? Broil it?” They both knew that Jack’s apartment didn’t have so much as a plug-in coffee pot. “Sell it to widow White?” Both also knew the history of Jack and widow White.
Billybob hung out on the pier fully engaged in drinking, and telling tall tails while Jack Travers fished and chuckled at Billybob and his cut-ups. The sun began to soften the tarmac outside the bait and tackle shop and the air began to reek of muddy water and creosote. Billybob cracked open the last beer. Already he was leaning lazily against a big post and his head was nodding a bit.
As the stifling heat rose, he began to grow less loquatious. Jack reckoned that he’d had about six or seven beers and was feeling a little tired, so Billybob must have had close to a dozen. Had this been his first fishing trip with Billybob he’d have been impressed at the great capacity Billybob had for processing beer into urine. But Jack had been doing this job for a couple of years and was feeling a little oppressed by the monotony of its rituals.
Jack and Billybob reeled in their lines. Jack picked up the tackle box and the two of them walked down the pier toward the bait and tackle.
A huge black Cadillac pulled up to the bait shop. People of refinement thought the thing was gaudy, covered bumper to bumper in chrome trim. A pudgy fellow with a few strands of reddish hair combed across his balding ruddy pate went into the store. Jack recognized him as Mr. Peeples,’ the owner of the pharmacy. Peeples stopped at the bait and tackle shop every Thursday afternoon for pecan pie and about two pots of coffee. Everyone in town knew it was because Mabel worked the counter on Thursday afternoon. Everyone, it seemed except Mr. Peeples. Nothing seemed to be actually happening between them except, of course, Thursday afternoon pie.
Mr. Peeples was an eligible gentleman, even if he was getting up there in years. Mabel, who had good bones, and expressive eyes that told stories of both hope and heartbreak was no spring chicken, either.
In a way, they were both outsiders: Mabel by virtue of the fact that she had moved there recently and had not yet completely aligned herself with the town’s power structure, and Peeples because he was the only person in the town not somehow beholden to Nate Jackson.
Billybob noticed Mr Peeples enter the bait and tackle. And as tired as he was, the thought of a thrilling spin in the Cadillac buzzed in his brain louder than three shots of tequila. He walked up to the Cadillac and tried the door. “Locked. Damn.”
About this time Jack realized that certain benefits might accrue to him if, in fact, Billybob were to drive that Cadillac out of here. Being an enterprising fellow he figured out how to open the door and then he hotwired the car. Billybob insisted on driving, as Jack knew he would. Jack set the cooler full of dead wrigglers and half a dozen dead catfish on the bench seat between them and they sped away.
Minutes later five tons of steel, tinted glass, and chrome were rolling on white walled tires down state road sixty four at ninety five miles an hour. The air conditioner was turned up full blast and Sweet Home Alabama was blaring on the radio.
“You look happier than a pig in shit,” joked Jack. He was still practicing the local lingo.
“That’s for damn sure,” said Billybob grinning like a fifth grader who’d just decked his best buddy.
Jack knew that in two miles the river made a wide sweeping right turn. The road generally followed the edge of the river, but right at the end it curved sharply to the right. Tall grass grew up near the side of the road, and an occasional tree obscured the view. Billybob was now singing loudly “Lord, I’m comin’ home to you.” The road started to curve. The tires squeeled a little. “Woooo hooo,” cried Billybob.
Then suddenly, up a head stood a cow. Smack-dab in the middle of the lane. Billybob yanked on the wheel. The car started to spin. In a second it was traveling down the road tail-fins first. Moments later it slid sideways up the embankment. It arced out over the water. It skipped once, then plowed nose-first into the murky water.
As luck would have it the river was not five feet deep where the monstrous car landed. That was how far down it was to the mud. The mud was about a mile deep. That’s what Jack thought as he climbed out the window he’d opened in anticipation of the event. He hoisted his head above the surface of the water, took a couple of breaths and went to rescue his buddy Billybob.
It took a few minutes to get Billybob back to shore, but Jack managed to drag him up the levy. Billybob groaned, but he was unconscious. His leg was mangled and his head was smashed in. There were cuts in his arm that would require stitches. Billybob was pretty badly beat up, but Jack reckoned that he’d would be baseball-batting mail boxes before cooler weather set in.
After about ten minutes a car approached, slowing to the recommended 25 mph for the turn. Jack flagged it down. It was Jimmy Taggert. “Jimmy, go into town and get Doc Wilson. Billybob’s been in a car accident.” Jimmy sped away.
About an hour later, and long before doctor could get there a guy showed up in a tow truck. He stopped, got out, learned that of the accident, spotted the tail fins sticking out of the water, and learned that the Doctor was on the way. “Need help with the car?”
“Not from around here, are you?” asked Jack.
“I live just up the road a bit in Tucker.”
“We’ve got our own tow service in Jackson.”
“I heard that the guy who drives it is serving six years in the state pen. Could be a while before he gets here.”
“Reckon I’ll wait.”
The guy with the tow truck grabbed a hook and began pulling a winch out into the water. He was about up to his neck in water when Buck, the sheriff’s deputy showed up, tires squeeling.
“Jack, who the hell is that guy. An what the hell is he doing? Hey you, yeah you,” yelled Buck pointing at the tow truck driver. “Who the hell are you? What the hell to you think you’re doing. Getcher fuckin ass out of the river.”
The two truck driver replied “I’ve gotta pull the car out of the water. She’s a beauty – or was not long ago.” He noticed that the area smelled of rotting fish.
“The hell you are,” yelled Buck. “I’m the law here and that car stays right where it landed until I say to move it.”
“I will, of course, do with it what the car’s owner wishes. But my understanding was that the owner wants his car out of the murky waters and back on the pavement.”
“Who was driving this car?” asked the sheriff’s deputy.
“Billybob,” replied Jack.
“Then I reckon it’s Billybob’s say in whether it stays put or is removed. And Billybob’s not saying anything for a while. So that car stays.”
The tow truck driver secured the hook to the back bumper which was only two feet below water and began making his way back to the levee.
“Unhook that cable,” demanded Buck. The tow truck driver kept on wading toward shore.
Buck drew his revolver “Unhook that cable,” he yelled again. The tow truck driver kept on walking toward shore. Buck drew a bead on the driver’s left shoulder and fired. The bulled grazed the tow-truck driver's shoulder. The tow truck driver dived into the water.
Moments later Doc Wilson showed up and took Billybob away in the ambulance. Jack climbed into Buck’s car and they drove back to town. The tow truck driver swam back to shore, climbed up the levy, and returned to his truck only to find his winch cable shot off. So he drove back to Tucker and ordered a new one.
So whose fault would you say it is that Mr Peeple’s great big car is a heaping wreck lying in the murky waters of the Mississippi? And whose fault is it that the US economy which topped out in 2007 and crashed just at the end of Mr Bush's reign is still stuck in the muck?