Gil Brewer - Wild to Possess.pdf - chicoahmed

Wild to Possess

Gil Brewer

1959

Chapter One

It was an August night. It had just stopped raining. Lew Brookbank

turned off the ignition of his six-year-old Ford sedan and climbed

out He stood for a moment on the soggy shoulder of the road,

sighed bitterly, reached in across the seat and drew out a wooden

road-sign with a four foot stake, and tossed it into the grass. This

was the last of them.

He had foolishly promised Jay Redmen he would have all the

signs placed for his barbecue drive-in here on the Oolachi River

road, so Jay could see how they looked when he came to work at

seven a.m. It was one o’clock now, and a very lousy, wet morning,

if anyone asked.

It was dark. There was very little traffic. Even the crickets,

katydids and bull frogs seemed to have died.

Lew stood there a moment, musing—a tall, rangy, heavy-

shouldered man, with a grimly cynical strong-featured face like a

large carved block of gray stone on which the sculptor’s chisel had

slipped to gouge extra deeply here and there. There was an

impression of tremendous, careless strength about him and his

bigness suggested noise and tumult Yet, he always spoke softly

and he walked as lightly as a cat His hands were enormous; the

antithesis of what anyone might imagine a sign-painter’s hands

should be. Lew was a sign-painter, of sorts, with his own small

business. Right now, he wore sagging dark trousers, and a light

baggy red woolen sweater with no shirt

Well, he thought, standing there, a drink is probably in order. A

drink is always in order.

The bottle was on the floor of the car. He reached in, brought it

out, uncapped it, and read the label. Gordon’s Gin. He took a short

quick one, snapping it off the neck, and turned to stare at the wall

of Florida jungle-growth beyond the road shoulder.

Florida, he thought Why can’t I get away from it? Shove it—every

last flat wet stinking acre.

He knew why he couldn’t leave the state. It was a little matter of

curiosity—with some guilt thrown in.

He took another longer drink, capped the bottle and placed it

back on the floor of the car, then lit a cigarette. This Florida he

knew now was one hell of a lot different from the Florida he’d

Wild to Possess — 2

known down around Miami with Janice, when Janice had been

alive... but—the hell with that.

A sudden wave of nausea assailed him and his features altered,

taking on strain. He snapped the half-smoked cigarette into a

ditch, picked up the sign, and jammed it savagely into the soft

ground. Then he yanked it out and walked over closer to the wall

of undergrowth, kicking the ground with his foot. He located a

good spot and thrust the stake into the ground again. He leaned on

it and the stake slid into the earth. He stepped back, looked at it,

nodded, then walked back to the car, got in and started the motor.

He drove sullenly now, feeling the rotten core of what was

always with him, down inside his vitals, squeezing and tugging at

his heart. Sometimes he would lie there on the army cot in the

back room off the paint shop, and want to cry. But the tears never

came. Not any more. The grief was with him all the time but it was

gone, too. Kind of complex. A psychiatrist would claim he was

trying to punish himself for what he’d done; that he would likely go

on punishing himself for the rest of his life, looking for ways to be

hurt. Well, eff those head-shrinkers, he thought. Slap them down

here in Florida and shove the whole caboodle.

He reached for the fifth of gin, got it uncapped, and took three

long swallows, as if it were water. He put the bottle back, and

gunned the Ford along the hump-backed asphalt river road.

Resolutely he shoved thoughts of the past out of his mind.

Memories could wait for the near-dawn hours; lying there on the

cot drinking until he passed out filled with hate and remorse—

remembering the mistake of blind panic which had led to the

inevitable, slow creation of fear.

He traveled a mile down the road, then made a vicious U-turn,

and started back, driving at a normal speed in the right hand lane,

trying to keep his mind off the one thing he sought above

everything else—a way to escape outrageous memory... the

material means to help him flee crazily into a blind fog of oblivion.

You poor self-pitying bastard, he thought You can afford cheap

gin, and that’s what it’s going to be. Why don’t you go cut your

throat? Because you haven’t got the guts to cut your throat that’s

why.

Time erases all things, soothes the worried brow. Now, what

stupe said that?

He began checking the placement of the signs. They were merely

jammed by hand into the ground. He still had to set them with a

sledge.

One Mile To Redmen’s Bar-B-Q. That one was okay, luminous

paint he’d used on the lettering showing up nicely for hungry night

drivers, so they wouldn’t miss The Best Bar-B-Q In The Southland,

Wild to Possess — 3

any more than daytime drivers. Bar-B-Q! Watch Out! 5,000 Ft.

Ahead!

Lew stopped the car, got out and turned the last sign a bit

because the light hadn’t reflected the way he wanted. Redmen was

getting a lot for his money. But Jay was a good joker, as good as

they came in Gulfville.

The gin was taking hold fine now. For a minute Lew felt like

singing. The feeling passed as quickly as it came and he drove on.

4,500 Ft. Redmen’s Bar-B-Q. ALL FINE EATS!

He continued along the quiet night road, checking the signs,

sometimes turning one slightly, sometimes resetting one in a new

spot. Five cars passed him coming from the other direction—

probably late drunks heading home from Tampa, he figured. He

crossed the low bridge over the Oolachi, thought he saw a car

parked back there, hidden among the pines, then kept driving and

checking until he reached the dark unlighted shadows of Redmen’s

restaurant and the last sign: YOU’RE HERE! REJOICE! TURN IN

NOW AND EAT!

The poor bastard, Lew thought. Those signs would scare half the

customers away. But that’s what Jay wanted.

He made another U-turn, drove the entire mile back, stopped the

car and got out with the bottle of gin and a small five-pound sledge

hammer.

He set the first sign firmly, ramming the stake about two-and-a-

half feet into the ground. It wouldn’t entirely discourage lads from

yanking them out, but it might help.

In the car once more, he drove to the next sign and used the

sledge on that. Mosquitoes were out in force now, and the night

was slowly beginning to heat up after the rain. Trees still dripped.

The ceiling was low and the air was close and humid. There might

be more rain before morning.

By the time he reached the third sign, the gin bottle was three-

quarters empty. He missed hitting the stake, and began to use

special care with the sledge. No use spending the whole night out

here, he told himself, repairing signs and smashing them all at the

same time.

He had five signs to go when he decided to walk the rest of the

way. He argued with himself that it was a waste of time, starting

the car, driving it, stopping it, getting out. Actually he knew he

was pretty well tanked up and figured the walk would clear his

head.

It was very quiet now. Only an occasional, distant cricket’s chirp

disturbed the heavy stillness. Everybody was asleep except old

Brookbank, out setting signs in the middle of the night. Drunk as a

coot, too. There was no noise at all. Walking on the asphalt in his

old tennis shoes, he made no sound. He had been more or less

Wild to Possess — 4

Gil Brewer - Wild to Possess.pdf

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