Chapter 8: Peeps

"Okay, Shi. As soon as that car leaves, you're gonna go in. You remember the plan?" I swat at a mosquito on my arm, the blood smearing on my skin, then wipe my hand off on my army camo pants. We been hiding out in a stand of mountain laurel on the edge of the parking lot long enough for the bugs to find us. I hope the hell no more people come.

My lil' sister nods, her white Raggedy Ann hair swinging against her cheeks. She's got her as raggedy as her stuffed tiger in a chokehold, bending over alongside me to peer at the store front. A cowbell clangs, and two old people walk out. The old man helps the old lady to sit in their old car, a brown Cutlass Ciera with a rusted out trunk, hands her two soup cans, and drives away so dang slow the gravel road hardly makes any dust.

I finish hacking the leafy ends off a birch branch with my pocket knife, the stick as tall as me and as thick as three of my fingers, then turn Shiloh to face me. She ain't passing my inspection. I scoop up a handful of red dirt and rub a bunch of it on her cheek. "That's better," I say. She looks sufficiently pitiful now.

Shiloh holds up her stuffed animal, and I shake my head. "Nah, he don't need no makeup. He's staying here with me." I reach for the toy, and she hugs it tighter. "C'mon, you gotta hurry before somebody else shows up," I whisper, getting a tiny bit mad at her. She finally kisses the tiger on his head and passes him to me.

The extra dirt and telling her no tiger has the effect I'm after. Her face is a snotty mess when I push her into the parking lot, and I tell myself not to feel bad when she looks over her shoulder at me, sniffling, a slip of a five-year old girl who's shrunk even smaller without the braveness of a tiger in her arms.

She's the bravest girl I know, as brave as me even, but I ain't never gonna tell her that. We're just doing what we gotta do, and it don't bother me much I upset her. It's for her own good. She'll understand that someday when she's a grown up.

Shiloh pulls the door open, the cowbell clangs, and two minutes later, Miss Dixie is poking her head out that very same door, her face more pinched than usual behind her Coke bottle glasses. She reconnoiters the empty parking lot, and I duck lower in the bushes although she can't see but six inches in front of her face. When she disappears back into the store, I spring into action.

I creep through the leaves and weeds at the edge of the woods, the squirrels scolding me like my teacher, Mrs. Whittaker, does when she sees me about to do something dumb. Then I scoot along the wall of the building, its siding as wavy and faded as Miss Dixie's hairdo when she ain't been to the beauty parlor in awhile. Once I reach the door, I stop to tuck the tiger into my belt and to look through the fingerprinty glass into the store. Shiloh's standing in a patch of sunlight, surrounded by shadows since Miss Dixie don't turn the lights on in her store during the day because that's how she's able to sell her wares so cheap. Mama says Miss Dixie prides herself on her low overhead, but I think the reason her stuff don't cost nothing is because it's all the dented rejects and out of date crap none of them other stores that cater to the city folks wanna sell.

Hill folks are tough, not like them townie wimps. Cut the green spots off the taters, boil canned veggies ten minutes, and don't eat nothing you can't identify, especially mushrooms. Daddy ate a bad batch of 'shrooms once and he slept in the bed of his pick up truck and barked like a dog for two whole days.

If you wanna survive in hill country, you gotta be more than tough. You gotta be smart and resourceful, too.

While Miss Dixie's flim-flamming around, giving Shiloh tissues and a penny sucker to get her to stop crying, then paging through the phone book she's got baler twined to the telephone on the wall behind the cash register, I ease the door open, the birch branch jammed into the cowbell to keep it from moving. I hold the stick to my shoulder like a grunt holding his rifle on a march, and dash into the nearest aisle, my preferred position. Bags are too crinkly, and nut or Pringles cans are too awkward to carry, so I go for boxes. Animal crackers for Shi, Cheese Nips for me, a handful of shrink wrapped beef jerky and a package of bright yellow leftover Easter Peeps to split, and I'm ready to make my escape. I peek around an end display of flabby greens and pock marked melons, and catch Shiloh's eye. She's been keeping count of the seconds in her head like I taught her to, one Mississippi, two Mississippi, and she's on the lookout for me. I hold up my empty hand and flash five fingers twice at her, and she nods, her bottom lip quivering as she watches me fly the coop out the door, Miss Dixie speaking real loud into the phone. Shit, she's probably calling Mister Daryl, since Mama ain't home. Nobody bothers calling the cops because them kinda pigs don't bother coming this far up in elevation. Hill folks are used to fending for themselves.

I jump back into the cover of the bushes, and ten seconds later, Shiloh joins me, her little hand shaking in mine as we haul ass on outta there. When we stop running, following Minnow Creek to home, I show her the box of animal crackers under my arm.

She don't want any. She just wants her stuffed tiger that makes her brave.

Them kids are in my house again.

The kitchen light, the bedroom light, and the lamp in the living room made out of three deer legs with the picture of a monster buck running through a field on the shade are all turned on. The lights flicker through the trees, along with the glow of the television, as I idle up the driveway.

I kick down the stand and shut off my bike, and slip my phone out of my pants pocket enough to check the time. 9:17. It ain't a school night, but kids their age oughtta be sleeping by now.

I stomp up the crooked wooden steps, muttering to myself about degenerate crack whores, and enter my junk trailer, and lo and behold, there they are. The two of 'em are parked on my crappy couch, a blanket with some dopey looking smiling sponge pictured on it spread over them, watching some other dopey looking cartoon characters on the television. Must be a show off of one of their discs from home. Who knew hot wiring that relic TV to a DVD player would draw in these little hoodlums. I'm tired and in a hurry, and of half a mind to unplug the whole shebang, but I don't wanna deal with the fall out. They're gonna get carted back to their mama before my watch reads 9:27.

I got a woman waiting on me.

"Didn't I tell y'all to stay outta my damn house when I ain't home? And when I am home, for that matter?" I boom in my most intimidating voice, my brows lowered.

The girl huddles against her brother, sticking and unsticking her yellow sugar covered fingers. The boy don't even look up from the television, he just keeps shoveling crackers into his mouth. "Yes, sir, Mister Merle," he says.

"Then what the hell you doin' here? Where's your mama at? Y'all kids should be home in bed, not running up my electrical bill!"

The boy shrugs. "Mama left earlier today and ain't come home yet."

"Then why didn't you go to Daryl's place like I told you the last time? It ain't safe, you young un's being unattended." I don't leave guns or other incriminating objects out in the open when I leave my house, and I never been raided before, by pigs or any other interested parties, but I got my caches and plenty of firepower. I ain't running a goddamn daycare.

"'Cause Mister Daryl makes us go to bed, and if you ain't here, ain't nobody gonna make us go to bed," the kid explains matter-of-factly.

I roll my eyes, trying not to be impressed with such simple logic. "Billy boy, you too smart for your own good. Y'all eating my food, too?" I ask, motioning to the boxes and empty plastic wrappings piled between the two small bodies. I can't recall having much of any food in the house, but the alternative twists my gut even more than the thought of them taking stuff out of my cupboards.

I remember doing the same thing.

"No, sir," the boy replies, elbowing the mess behind him, out of my sight. The girl chews her fingers, her eyes bouncing between me and her brother.

I check my watch. 9:22. I know all I need to know, and that's too much. These pukes ain't my problem, and neither is their illegal procurement of victuals. "Let's go. I'm heading out again, and you two can't stay. We'll check to see if your mama's home, and if she ain't it's off to Mister Daryl's with you."

The boy sighs and the girl helps him put away their foodstuffs in his backpack while I bundle up a change of clothes for myself. I switch off lights on my way from the bedroom to the kitchen where the kids are waiting for me. The girl's wrapped in the blanket, the ends dragging on the floor, so I swipe her up under my arm. She goes rigid at first, then when she sees her brother laughing at her being carried around like a football, she relaxes, covering her giggles with her hand over her mouth.

I smile, giving her an extra jostle down the steps, then swoop her into the bed of my pick up truck. The boy scrambles in after her, and they hunker down for the short ride to their house.

It's a damn shame, the way them kids are being raised. I sit with both hands wrapped around the steering wheel, studying the dark place in front of me. The house trailer's older and shorter than mine, still on its wheels, the tires flat and exposed and sunk a foot into the ground. The screens are patched with duct tape, the porch is piled with black plastic bags bursting with garbage, and the yard's strewn with junk cars and metal scrap. Before Axel got locked up, he was constantly after me to horse trade with him for product, but I had no use for anything other than cold hard cash, or cold hard weapons I could black market.

I'm some glad I never got tangled into selling with these folk. I trust Axel not to narc on me, but shit, ain't he dumber than a post. And Bernie went on to develop a taste for harder pharmaceuticals than what her ol' man dabbled in. Hers was a fast descent. The only strength she displayed in her life was going clean while she was knocked up. After she popped out them kids, all bets were off.

It's a damn shame.

I shift my truck into reverse and back out into the road. Not my sperm, and not my problem.

"You're elected," I tell Daryl when my brother drags his ass to the door after I pound on it with my fist.

Daryl squints at me through the screen, his t-shirt bunched up on his shoulders and his hair sticking up. "For what?" he asks, looking past me at the running truck in his dooryard.

"To babysit. Bernie's pulled another one of her Houdini acts, and they can't stay at my place, I'm outta here. They're all yours, lil' brother," I proclaim, waving the kids over.

Daryl shakes his head as Billy and Shiloh jump from the truck bed, and holds the door open for them to come into his cabin. "Y'know, Merle, they're kids. They oughtta be riding in the cab with you, not in the bed like a couple coonhounds."

"What? They liked it!" I call from the open window of my pick up, turning up the radio. "Oh, and I left the rest of the shit in my saddlebags. Go clean it up in the morning, I'll probably talk to you then. Enjoy your evening, Mary Poppins."

Daryl can have fun playing sleepover with a makeshift bed made of couch cushions on his living room floor. I know where my warm bed is, and there ain't no sticky kid faces or goodnight John Boys involved.

I strip and dive into it on my belly a few minutes after the official start of the new day.

The dancing girl welcomes me with her kiss on my cheek that I expect. She stretches and drapes her sleep heated body over mine like a silky soft blanket, her cheek on my shoulder blade, her hair tickling my neck. She slowly traces the scars on my back with her fingertips, lifting her head to kiss each one as she finds them.

I sigh, as boneless as she is, and nestle into her pillow that smells like strawberries. I don't need to talk, and drift into a dreamless sleep, secure in the belief that she knows without asking.

And it don't change a thing.

She wakes facing me, my fingers playing with the ends of her curls so they brush against her shoulder. I stroke her all over, she's as naked as the day she was born, her arm, the curve of her waist, and palm her tits. I love her tits, they're gorgeous and round and supple, with the prettiest lil' rosebud nipples. Pulling her under me with one arm, I suckle and lap and bite, and do everything I fantasized about doing to those fine tits while she slept beside me, until she arches against me, her fingernails lightly scraping the nape of my neck. Her fingernails burn a direct route from the tips of my toes to my dick, like an electrical current flowing through a circuit.

I'm charged and ready and want all of her at once, and my mouth, my hands, my greedy, greedy hips get rough with lust, fueled by her whines of arousal. She's pliable to my demands, oh so willing, her arms around my neck, her body rising to meet mine, and I pin her with my knees spread wide, Lil' Merle throbbing between us. I run my natural born length through her slick curls, and we moan into each other's mouths.

"I wanna raw dog you so bad," I say, trailing wet kisses up and down her throat.

She pushes on my shoulders until I lift my head and she can see my face, her thumb rubbing over my lower lip, her eyes searching mine.

I ain't ready to have her roaming around in my soul just yet, so I distract her with a kiss on her mouth.

"I'm clean, but it's up to you. I come prepared," I add, trying to seal the deal.

Miz Bangles chews her lower lip, deciding again, but I don't mind waiting on her for such a reason as this. I got all the time in the world. When she smiles and reaches down to guide me into her, I shove without giving her a chance to adjust. I ain't about to let this opportunity run away from me. God almighty, she's a tropical ocean swim, so warm and inviting I almost blow my nut like an inexperienced kid.

"Yes," she breathes, her eyes closed and her head thrown back, gripping my ass. That's all the permission I need to take what I want and know she's gonna like what she receives. I feast on her tits, and fill her over and over again, and when I feel that telltale ripple around my dick, I suck the soft spot just below her collarbone with all my strength. She writhes like a stripper around a pole, and comes under me, crying wordlessly. Her mark is dark purple by the time I lose my seed in her, my fingers clutching the edge of the mattress.

She kisses my eyebrows, my cheekbones, my crooked nose, and calls me baby as I regain my senses.

I got sprinkled with kisses.

"Hey, you." Her eyes sparkle up at me, inches below mine. My shoulder muscles are burning from propping my upper half off of her so's my lower half can loiter in paradise as long as possible.

"Hey, y'self," I say, smiling. I can't help it. "I believe I owe you coffee, sweetness."

"Mm hmm. And don't forget the donuts."

"Yes, ma'am."

I leave her in bed with a sleepy smile bending her mouth up, and when I get back with breakfast, that's where we stay for the rest of the morning. I feed her coffee and donuts, and make her laugh with my stupid stories. She likes my stories, about the guy whose teeth I knocked out at the close of my jarhead days, baby brother's first hunting trip when the boy upchucked all over himself when I made him field dress the spike horn, the time when me and my asshole buddies had to outrun the cops on our bikes because we were disturbing the peace at three o'clock in the morning.

"So you have one baby brother and several asshole buddies," she says, fluffing her pillow and burrowing against me. "Any other kinfolk who shall remain nameless?"

"Nah, none worth mentioning. Our mama burnt herself and our house up three days before Christmas. My baby brother was, I dunno, eight, maybe? Old 'nough to understand his mama weren't never coming back. Not in this lifetime, and I couldn't blame her. I couldn't feel anything for her. The boy bonded some with our grandaddy, but I was mostly up to my own hustling by then. My lil' brother," I shrug, "well...he's always gonna be my lil' brother, y'know?"

The girl, who is listening to me, not to the voices coming through the walls or the police sirens or her pinging phone, lays her head on my shoulder and her arm over my chest like a tiny, big-hearted living shield.

"Yeah. I know."

I don't speak none of my father. She knows what she needs to know about that.

That miserable bastard is roasting on a spit in the abode of the dead who deserve worse fates than death.

Bangles tells me about her family, about her daddy who is stern but sends his girls pink roses on their birthdays, one for each year, and her mama who gets red roses and stays home to tend to her family and their menagerie of pets and a vegetable garden. She has the two sisters, the one who's getting married to her prince charming here in fucking Atlanta, and the bitch sister who's too busy to make it to her own sister's kiss your singleness goodbye party. The girl's voice holds no malice when she talks about the bitch sister. She sounds proud of her.

I guess that's just her way.

She seems to like me, after all.

Her phone is buzzing itself silly on the nightstand where she has it charging. She's ignoring it, but it's annoying the piss outta me. Our cocoon time is nearing its end, and we'll have to leave soon to face the music of the day. A wedding march, no less.

"You gonna get that thing, or I gotta throw it out the window?" I huff. Might's well rip the band-aid off right quick and get it over with.

"Chill, bossy." She grins, then blows raspberries on my neck until I threaten retribution, grumbling to cover up how tickled I am by her playfulness with me. She finally checks her messages and announces, "We gotta get ready for a wedding!"

We.

Does that make me a half of a whole?