CENSUS_What Lurks Beneath Read online

  He ignored the looks from the cashier, paid, and went back to his truck. A few moments later, filling up the first of two five-gallon plastic gas cans, Dave found himself staring down the empty road, wondering which direction she’d come from, and how close her house might be. The clerk had called her Deputy even though she was in street clothes… But then again, it’s a small town and everyone knows everyone—except the weekenders, who only know the people they pay to keep their places in working order, and who the locals generally avoid, as they are seen as transient, ignorant and often suffering from severe superiority com- plexes. He caught himself again—why was he spending time thinking about her?

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN: Willis

  The next day, Dave, nodding to himself as he made important points to his client on the other end of the line, stared out over the hood of his truck at his pasture beyond. He’d been stuck on this call, which seemed like it might never end, for the past thirty minutes, and had spent the last ten of those minutes parked in front of his gate. At long last, he sensed an opening for closure, and went for it.

  “Why don’t I send you the revised exhibits tonight and then we can walk through them together on the phone tomorrow afternoon, after you’ve had a chance to review them?” He once again nodded for emphasis, will- ing the client to take this as the final word so he could get out of his truck and open his gate. There was also a pressing biological need in play, and he looked down at the oversized Styrofoam cup from the gas station that had recently held 42 ounces of Diet Dr. Pepper.

  He nodded again as he absently picked up the cup and shook it to confirm that all that was left was ice. “I should be able to get them to you by 10:00 tonight, and I’m free tomorrow afternoon from…” he held the phone in front of him and checked his calendar app, wincing at the nearly non- stop meetings that awaited him tomorrow, “1:30 until about 2:15. Can I call you at 1:30?”

  He nodded one more time, then smiled. “Sounds good. Talk to you shortly.”

  He ended the call and tossed the phone onto his passenger seat, turned off the ignition and opened his door. Gingerly stepping between the ant beds that hadn’t been there this morning, he walked to the passenger side of his truck and, with a quick look down the road to make sure that no one was coming, undid his zipper and relieved himself of the majority of the 42 ounces of Diet Dr. Pepper.

  He used his free hand to keep his slacks up. He continued to shed pounds at a rapid rate. Adam had told him he looked sick. Adam was probably correct.

  For entertainment value, Dave aimed his output at the top of an ant mound, and smiled maliciously as the workers scrambled about trying to defend their home against this unwelcome intrusion.

  Zipping back up, he pulled his keys back out of his pocket, walked over to the gate and grabbed the heavy lock and chain from where they hung over the middle rung. He fumbled with the extra-heavy-duty lock.

  He heard someone muttering behind him and turned to see Willis, part of the impoverished family that lived down the road, shuffle up and then lean his overfed, pear-shaped body against the front fender of the truck. Based on the fact that Willis had three teenage sons who routinely sped by in decrepit vehicles, Dave believed Willis to be fifty-something— though he looked considerably older. Willis’s closely cropped hair had gone completely white above his ears, and his eyes betrayed the weary sadness of a hard life. And perhaps alcoholism.

  Dave hadn’t seen Willis and his perennial pack of dogs walk up, as his bathroom break had been facing the opposite direction. Over the few years that Dave owned the farm, Willis had run through at least two, maybe three different dog packs. They always started as small puppies that fell all over themselves as they followed Willis down the blacktop road. Over time the pack would shrink in number as the dogs grew, but none of them ever made it to adulthood. Dave liked to think that

  Willis was selling the dogs, but he doubted there was much of a market for the hodgepodge of breeds involved. Dave instead suspected that the dogs died of malnutrition, or some kind of illness. Whatever the cause, once the count was back down to zero, Willis started anew with another round of puppies.

  He’d passed Willis on the road many times and their conversations were short, and typically transpired via the rolled down driver’s side window of Dave’s truck. Dave held them out as proof that he was neighborly. It was odd though, Dave thought as he eyed Willis, still leaning against his truck, that Willis had proactively decided to stop and talk face-to-face. Dave wanted to keep his internal merit badge for being a good neighbor, but was truly more interested in getting to work on the never-ending mowing that needed to be done. Talking wasn’t on the menu.

  Dave looked at Willis out of the corner of his eye as he finally got the lock to release and then dropped the long, heavy length of chain so he could open the gate. “Evening, Willis. What can I do you for?”

  Willis stood slightly and leaned in to get a better look. “That’s a mighty big chain you got there.”

  Dave pushed the long gate open, watching to make sure that it didn’t bounce back and block his path. “Yeah. I got the bigger lock and stronger chain after I had a couple of break-ins.”

  A group of five Labrador (and beagle?) puppies spilled out from under Dave’s truck and began chewing on Willis’s shoes. All the puppies had oversized bellies, which likely meant that they had worms. Their coats covered the entire range of the color spectrum, with various spots to boot. One of the fat puppies pulled Willis’s dirty shoelace free while others went to explore the fence and the chain.

  “Hmph. What’d they steal?”

  Dave thought back to the interview he’d had with the deputy the night his trailer was stolen. The deputy said the trailer had most likely been stolen by a neighbor who’d had plenty of opportunity to see it, and who also knew when no one was home.

  There were plenty of candidates in this regard, including Dave’s favorite neighbor Bill. Willis and his family were also high on the list. It was hard, though, to figure out if Willis was just extremely poor or did in- deed share qualities with many of the rough-looking people who visited him. The Sheriff ’s department also seemed to frequent Willis’s drive- way, though it was hard to say if they were checking in on Willis and his family, or perhaps their visitors.

  Willis’s place was a study in willful neglect, animal abuse (besides what- ever went on with the dogs, there was a sad horse in a small, grassless enclosure, perpetually nibbling at the dirt in a vain attempt to find food) displaying apathy. Refrigerators that had long since ceased to function were wedged among rusted car parts and piles of trash. This perceived treasure was ironically blanketed by “No Trespassing” and “Private Prop- erty” signs.

  Dave stared at Willis, attempting to discern if this question was small talk, nosey curiosity or Willis’s idea of playing dumb to throw Dave off the scent. Willis’s eyes revealed nothing.

  Dave leaned back against the gate post. “First time it was the trailer I’d just redone. Second time they kicked in the front door and mostly grabbed food.”

  “Mmm. Kids likely for the food. Bet they took your beer too.”

  Dave scratched his back against the post as he mulled Willis’s observa- tion, which agreed with the deputy’s theory. The gate wasn’t touched when the house was burglarized. No one was going to park on the main road, jump the fence and walk, exposed, a quarter-mile to the house to

  kick in the door and steal food. Dave also knew that the only kids within a mile of his house belonged to Willis.

  “Yep. The beer too.”

  A puppy with a particularly fat belly waddled over to Dave and sat on his shoe. Dave looked down at the puppy’s big brown eyes and lost interest in any anger he had regarding the break-in, and the fact that the person in front of him, or his family, was potentially involved. He also found that the animal lover in him didn’t like the fact that this puppy, like all the others, was going to meet some unsavory fate in the very near future.

  “If you don’t mind me askin
g Willis, where do all of these puppies come from?”

  Willis bent down to pick up another one of the puppies, which he then held against his chest and petted absently, as the dog squirmed to get down. “Got a couple of bitches at my place in the building out back.”

  Dave had long noted that dog breeders, particularly those of the low rent variety, enjoyed mixing the word “bitch” into the mix whenever possible for its shock value. The only thing that Dave was shocked about was that Willis was keeping animals in the squalid, dark inferno of a shack behind his ruin of a house.

  Dave waited to see if there was more information coming. There wasn’t. “Are you selling them?”

  Willis snorted as he bent to put the squirming puppy down. The puppy, overly eager, leapt out of his hand and landed awkwardly on its back. It squealed for a moment, then waddled under Dave’s truck—whining as it went. Willis had no further interest in the puppy, and instead picked at a bug that was plastered on the grill of Dave’s truck.

  “Not exactly a line of people wanting ’em. Could use some huntin’ dogs but it don’t matter. Can’t keep ’em alive long enough.”

  “Why is that?”

  Willis stopped scratching the bug, and for the first time, his eyes betrayed some life. After locking eyes with Dave for a moment, Willis gestured with his chin toward the large patch of woods that made up the west side of Dave’s place and, with a few mostly absentee neighbors in between, the east side of Willis’s property. “There’s a lot of bad shit in them woods.”

  Dave turned and followed Willis’s gaze. All Dave saw was a large ex- panse of yaupon, cedar, post oak and live oak trees. “Like coyotes?”

  Willis now looked uncomfortable. “And worse.”

  Dave pondered this statement. It’s not like there were mountain lions out here. His game cameras had definitely shown coyotes, wild hogs and very rarely a bobcat, but nothing that would routinely dine on mutts. He decided that Willis, like a lot of the locals, was messing with him. He shouldn’t take the bait, but he couldn’t help himself. “What’s worse than a coyote out here Willis?”

  Willis stopped leaning against Dave’s truck and instead leaned in towards Dave. “What’d they tell you when you bought this place?”

  This wasn’t a path that Dave had envisioned for the conversation. “I don’t follow. What do you mean?”

  Another of the puppies chose this moment to waddle over. Both men watched as it stood over the chain laying on the ground, and then lowered its back-end. After a momentary quiver, and before Dave could react, a large sluice of wormy, unhealthy shit landed directly on the chain.

  Willis seemed grateful for the diversion. “Umm. I’ll get that for you.”

  Willis patted his pockets and then looked around the general area until he spotted something he liked. Reaching through the fence he grabbed a large wad of leaves from a tall clump of weeds and walked over to the

  chain. Gently pushing the puppy aside, he used the wad of leaves to wipe at the pile of steamy unhealthy poop.

  He stood moments later and chucked the sodden pile of leaves back over the fence onto Dave’s property, then took a half step back to review his work. He had succeeded in removing the top layer of shit from the chain while pushing the rest between the various links.

  Dave looked at the final outcome and fought back several things that came to mind. He also noted that the poop-laden portion of chain was exactly the area he would need to grab when here-locked the gate.

  “You got a hose or something?”

  Dave stared at Willis for a moment, then steered his gaze back toward the house. “Not any that will reach a quarter of a mile.”

  Willis chewed on his bottom lip for a moment, then bent down to pick up the puppy. “I can go get a bucket of water from my place and clean this up.”

  Dave, now staring at the puppy in Willis’s arms, shook his head. “Don’t worry about it. I’ve got to let my dog out and I’ll bring a bucket of water back up here.”

  Willis, visibly relieved, put the puppy back down on the ground and smiled. “I guess we’d oughta keep to our rounds then.”

  Willis waved and began to walk away, gently nudging a wayward puppy with his foot, when Dave stopped him.

  “Sorry—was there something you wanted? And what did you mean when you asked what they’d told me about the place?”

  Willis stopped and kicked at the dirt with the toe of his raggedy tennis shoe as he pondered his reply. “I didn’t mean nothing by it. Just talking. That McAlester stuff was way back.”

  “McAlester? Maybe you can help me out. What should I know about this place?”

  Willis waved absently as a reply, and shuffled off. The puppy that had gone under the truck

  hurried as best it could, on its short uncoordinated legs, to join the rest of its pack.

  Dave stared at Willis and his puppies, awaiting a response that didn’t come. He then looked down at the poop-laden chain, sighed, and headed back to his truck.

  “What the hell was that all about?” Dave said aloud to no one but himself as he shut the truck’s door behind him. This conversation, like many he’d had with locals, left him wondering if he was just the butt of a never-end- ing joke. With no answer forthcoming, he inserted the key and turned over the engine.

  He put the truck in gear and began the short drive to his house. He might have strange neighbors and a chain covered in shit, but at least Sampson wasn’t with him when Willis and his odd-lot crew of puppies had arrived. There’s no telling how much slobber and fur he’d be sitting in if Sampson had been stuck in the cab with the roving pack of puppies wandering about.

  He counted his small blessing while he stared across the pasture at the dark woods, wondering what actually lay within them.

  Moments later he pulled up to the small house and, per usual, saw the odd shadows caused by the leaping of the backlit Sampson at his arrival. The light inside the house was on a timer and, unlike the exterior motion- sensitive gear, was usually reliable. He grabbed his laptop bag and his jacket, which was slung over the top of the passenger seat, and went inside.

  Sampson was, also per usual, very happy to see him. His urge for petting was, however, overridden by his need to perform his ritual of placing his now digested breakfast in an area that was most likely to be trod upon. Sampson raced out into the darkening world while Dave closed the door behind him and put his laptop bag and his jacket on the couch.

  The scene inside was a bit more messy than usual due to the fact that Dave had forgotten to put the trash can behind closed doors. Dave stepped over the mangled remains of a plastic bag that had held the last couple of pieces of stale bread (portions of the bag and all of the bread were now part of Sampson’s gastro-intestinal system).

  He grimaced, and was opening the pantry to get the broom, when his phone vibrated in his pocket. He leaned the broom against the open door and retrieved his phone. Moments later he was reviewing a list of new demands from the client he would be meeting with the next day. None of these requests would have been difficult had they been given a week earlier. As it stood, he would now have to work through the evening, and then stop somewhere in the morning to print off the new output on his way to the meeting. He pondered the steps involved, phone in one hand and broom in the other, and was brought back into the here-and-now by Sampson’s urgent barking.

  He opened the front door, let Sampson in, and stared again at the mess on the floor. He also now remembered the fact that he needed a bucket of hot water to take out to the gate, should he ever wish to touch the chain again. He rubbed the sore spot inside his skull that defied his reach and, uncharacteristically, lost his will to continue.

  All work was just going to have to wait. He needed a minute to re- group. Talking to Adam always seemed to help, though that also meant that he would likely need to speak to Marilyn as well. He rubbed his head again, and then quickly scrolled through recent calls until he came across “Home.” He used his index finger to make the selection and
leaned against the wall as he waited for it to dial.

  He brought the phone to his ear and realized the signal was again too poor to be able to speak indoors. He dodged Sampson, who believed he was once again about to be left behind, and went to the front porch in time to get shuffled to voicemail. His own voice instructed him to leave a message.

  He left a cryptic message saying hello to all, and asking where they were, then put the phone back in his pocket and returned inside—dodging Sampson who raced past to reclaim his stake on the house.

  Dave grabbed the broom and returned to the task at hand. This manual labor morphed into his now-emergency preparations for the coming day of work—which had to wait until he could compile the notes from his meetings earlier in the day to make sure that he did not forget any of the many tasks that were now assigned to him.

  Many hours later he put his work laptop down on the coffee table and realized that he was hungry, very hungry. He got up, awakening Samp- son at his feet, and saw that it was once again pitch-black outside. He shuffled into the kitchen and noted the time on the microwave, which read 10:35 p.m. The fridge had almost nothing to offer, so he migrated to the pantry and pulled out a sad, not-atypical offering of Ramen noodles. His stomach immediately rumbled an objection, so he returned to the pantry to get another packet of the meager noodles. It was like college again, only nowhere near as much fun.

  He stood by the stove, waiting for the water to boil, and thought through the day to come. In addition to being able to pick out specific trees in the financial forest, his other strength lay in his ability to juggle many complicated tasks at the same time, and see them to completion even as new obstacles emerged. This was a big part of his success in the business world, where many individuals seemed challenged to own a single task without prodding and inevitable corrections. The downside of this quirk was that even when he was physically in one spot, his mind roamed,