The Cowboy Church, Part 3

by J. L. Mackey

11. 

As he drove, Ezra rubbed his dry eyes and thought the fog masking the tall pines looked odd. He looked at the clock and saw that it was almost noon. His brow tightened and he wondered what could possibly be burning on that side of town to put off so much smoke. He came around a long, gentle bend in the highway and instantly there was a vice on his chest, and it steadily tightened. The scent of the fire hit him acrid and harsh. It smelled of things not meant to take a flame. He put the accelerator down and the straight pipes drowned out his heaving breath. The old pickup was reaching its limit when Ezra jerked the wheel. The tires squealed as he shot up the driveway into the parking lot to meet the chaos waiting for him. 

The only things remaining were the concrete walls, decrepit and black from the soot, and outer edges of the roof that had caved in under its own unsupported weight. Tar from the shingles had melted and then hardened into hellish stalactites. Half the leaves on the hundred year old oak out front were singed to a dull brown. Weak wisps of smoke still floated up from the rubble. A fire engine was parked on either end, its occupants milling around, rolling hose, talking on radios.

Ezra continued around to the back of the parking lot and found Miranda talking to a cop. She saw the truck and pointed at him. Ezra parked and rolled down the window as the cop walked towards him. Ezra lit a cigarette, took a drag, and then released the poison, adding to the malevolence on the wind. 

“Are you Mr. Ballinger?” 

“I am.”

“I’m sorry about your property, sir.”

Ezra nodded while he took another lungful.

“They’re having a hard time nailing down what caused it. Fire Chief seems to think it might have been of an electrical nature, but can’t be sure. An investigator’s gonna come out tomorrow and take a closer look and figure out what’s what. And this is just a standard question, you understand, but do you have any reason someone might’ve done this on purpose?”

Ezra was silent for several long seconds. Edward’s name sat on his tongue like battery acid. He decided revenge would not be wrung from his hands by politicians or badges. “I don’t think so, no.”

The cop pulled a card and handed it to Ezra. Ezra took it and tossed it on the passenger seat.

“And one more thing, sir, before I leave you to it: is this property insured against fire damage?”

“I believe so. But that is a question for the General Manager, the woman you were just talking to, if you need a hard answer.”

“Yessir, she said she had to check, but was fairly sure it was. In that case, I suspect their adjustor will be out sooner or later. He’s going to want a copy of the report. They are welcome to call the number on my business card, or just the general station line, and we’ll help them out.”

“Alright.”

The cop nodded, turned, and walked away. Ezra laid his head on the steering wheel and closed his eyes. He saw only ash and fire. The taste of bile clawed up his throat. He wanted to nail Edward’s hands to a stump, soak him in corn liquor, and watch a smokeless flame slowly devour him. 

There was a light tapping on the truck door. It was Miranda, with arms crossed and mascara running. She sighed. He stared at her and nodded, saying nothing. She looked at his hands, fingers curled around the cigarette and each other, his entire body a coil that had only ever tightened. 

Miranda shook her head. “This is all too much. Too fucking much.”

“I know.” Ezra again felt the presence of the pill bottle in his pocket. 

“I don’t even know what to do.” Miranda put a hand to her forehead, and Ezra saw that it was shaking. He handed her a half-crushed pack of cigarettes. She took one out, lit it, and started tearing up. The sight of it made Ezra uncomfortable. He couldn’t remember the last time he cried, wasn’t sure if he had the plumbing or programming for it. His rage and frustration and anger only ever manifested themselves in empty liquor and prescription bottles. Ezra took in a clean breath as deeply as he could and held it until he got lightheaded. He looked again at Miranda, who looked at the charred cinder blocks, but saw something far beyond it. Previous days maybe, or some other Here and Now that just as easily could have been. One that was easier, happier, filled with something, anything, worth remembering. Ezra had never asked her why she came back to rural north Georgia after school, why she climbed a tall ladder just to slide back down it, and then slide down even further. He had never asked her because he was afraid of what she might say. That her speaking the words might catch him in the gut with a barbed hook he could never hope to dislodge, that would expose his innards as putrid and worthy only of a waste bin. 

Ezra opened his hand as best he could and stuck it out the window. Miranda looked at it as thought he was handing her a strange, unidentifiable object he had found among the charcoal rafters and melted glass. She took his hand and felt the knotted knuckles bulging beneath taut skin. She squeezed it, but there was space that could not be filled. A body that could hold nothing close, including itself. She pushed hair back behind her ear and looked at his face, but he was facing away from her, watching the wind kick up and carry soot. 

He turned back to face her and scratched his chin, hidden under a week-old beard. “Now what?”

“I was on my way back from the liquor store. I have a couple cases in my car. Sorry to say your top shelf stuff is gone with everything else.”

Ezra pulled his hand back and shut the engine off. “Don’t have anything better to do at the moment.”

They walked to Miranda’s car and she opened the trunk. A few of the other cowboys had shown up. They were wearing full brims for sun that would rarely shine on them, boots for horses that they’d never ride again. Red dirt still clung desperately to their truck tires. Hillbilly diaspora with restless hands that only knew shot glasses and nylon braid. Jacob had parked alongside Miranda. He tossed his hat in the cab and sat on his lowered tailgate, hands on his knees. Ezra pulled a bottle at random and closed the trunk. He managed to get the top off, took a pull, and then passed it to Miranda, who did the same. 

“Well this ain’t the kind of bonfire I had in mind.”

“Shit.”

Ezra lit another smoke without thinking about it. His mind was still driving nails through hands with the rusted ball peen hammer in his back seat. Miranda tapped him on the shoulder with the bottle, and he took it. “Well, it was a good run while it lasted.”

The cowboys looked at each other. “What ya mean? Build another one. I know it wouldn’t be the same, but it could be a cowboy church.”

“Maybe. Maybe not. It depends.”

“Depends on what?”

 Miranda scratched one hand with the other. “Insurance covers fire damage, sure. But if the insurance company comes to believe it’s the result of arson, then the insurance is null, doesn’t pay out. You know well as I do that those fuckers didn’t go out of their way to make it look like an electrical accident. But I haven’t checked the tapes yet. And frankly I don’t want to.”

“This guy has some balls. Needs a tall tree and a short rope.” Jacob spit a long string of tobacco juice.

“Nah, he doesn’t have balls. He has goons with balls. But I’ll take ‘em. Don’t matter much who they belong to.”

“Jesus Christ. Hand me that bottle.” Miranda took the thing and tilted it against her lips.

Ezra leaned back until he was lying on the truck bed. He closed his eyes and killed the cigarette while he listened to them talk. The pills were calling to him again. They felt like lead fishing weights, begging to pull him down to some dark comfort. Ezra felt like an addict, and then laughed at himself for the implicit denial. He was one, but admitting it to himself brought no relief. A grimy mirror now cleaned, still showing a sunken and indifferent face on the other side. 

“Who’s gonna do it?” Ezra’s eyes were still closed, his mind still watching the flames eating Edward’s body, hands falling away from their red-hot nails.

“Who’s gonna do what?”

Ezra put a hand on a wheel well and sat up. He tried to stretch his hands out, but couldn’t. “Who’s gonna go up there and tell that sonofabitch to meet me here tonight? ‘Cause I got something to tell him.”

Miranda jerked in his direction. She stared into Ezra’s eyes, jaw clenched. “Can I talk to you for a minute?”

The cowboys looked uneasily at each other, but pretended they hadn’t heard it. Ezra let himself down from the tailgate with a sigh and started limping to his own truck. He got in, and Miranda got in the passenger seat, slamming the door. 

“Be straight with me. Are you seriously going to go through with this?”

“Yes. It’s no less than what he deserves, and I don’t see any other way for him to get it.”

Miranda was crying. “Why do you insist on being the one to deal all of this out?”

“Because it’s my family he almost killed, Miranda. On purpose. That cannot slide. I can’t let it, because if I do, I’m worth nothing, less than what’s already the general agreement.”

“Fuck you, Ezra. I love you. Don’t you know that? Why do you think I came back to this fucking town? Why do you think I put up with all of this shit? All of your shit? Do you think it was to watch you die in some damn shootout of your own planning?”

Ezra lit a cigarette and stared at it silently, watched the paper and leaves slowly turn to fragile ashes, felt the hook come in below his sternum and back out the other side, black tar seeping from the wound. Miranda stared at him through watery eyes. 

“I’m sorry. I dunno what to tell you. I don’t think I’ve ever felt more sure about something. I ain’t gonna ask you to be alright with it. I’ve got my own deep row to hoe. I know it seems crazy.”

“It’s beyond crazy. It’s fucking insane. Suicide. You’ll be dead or in prison for the rest of your life.” She wiped the tears with the sleeve of her jacket. Her makeup turned into a swirled mess. A physical transcript of a long distance call from a phone booth for which enough quarters could never exist. “If you’re gonna do this. I can’t be a part of it. At all. I feel like I’m stuck watching a bad fucking movie and I’m seeing you pick the wrong door a thousand times.”

“I know.” The cigarette met the end of its life, unused. Ezra dropped it on the floorboard between his feet. 

“That’s all you’ve got to say about everything I said?”

“Yeah. I’m sorry.” Ezra shrugged, the weight of what she said clung to his shoulders, threatened to drag him through the seat and truck and ashen asphalt into the cold, hard dirt. There were words uncountable, but he knew none of them. They slipped between fingers which couldn’t hold onto anything at all. 

Miranda grasped his chin and turned his face toward hers. Her fingertips were as cold as the wind. She found in Ezra’s eyes nothing but tired resignation. Ezra turned away and hunted for another smoke. There was a crushed pack between the seats. It had four smokes left in it, two of which were broken. He removed an intact one and lit it. Ezra eased the fired contents out, witnessed the cool menthol coat his throat and lungs and eat him, imagined the cells torn to messy bits, one by one. A casual ease into the grave. Cowardly suicide. 

Miranda’s elbows were on her knees and her head was in her hands. She eventually looked through the windshield, past the wreckage, past the treeline. Past the county and everything else in Georgia. Ezra knew the look, knew what it meant. She looked back at him. Ezra blew a lungful of smoke out and wished he could hide from her behind it, wanted it to linger forever. He watched Miranda open the door and get out, leaving it open as she walked to her car. He heard the four cylinder sputter and then start, and watched it disappear down the driveway. He leaned his head back and closed his eyes. He was jarred awake by the passenger door closing.