2010 Wyoming Writers Contest Winner - ADULT FICTION

 

Loyalty

by Tom Spence

 

      “I should kill you, you sonofabitch!” Billdee said, but made no threatening move toward Gilman from the easy chair in which he sat.

      “Why?” asked Gilman.

      “For talking like that.”

      “Talking like what?”

      “Saying what you said.”

      “I’m only repeating what I heard,” justified Gilman, rubbing his hand over his shaved head, and then entering his ear with his pinky.

      “Bullshit, you heard it!” said Billdee.  “Who do you know who knows Ryllis?”

      Gilman shrugged, examined his pinky.

      “You don’t even know someone who knows someone who knows Ryllis.”

      “I know what I heard,” said Gilman.

      “Who?”

      “I’m not saying.  Bad enough you’re pissed at me.”

      A knock on the door.  Gilman got up and opened.

      It was Ryllis. 

      Gilman sat back down.  Ryllis, standing, looked at Billdee.  “Figured you’d be here.  What’s the matter?”

      “Nothing,” said Billdee.

      Ryllis eyed the empty Bud bottles on the table.  “Can I have one?”

      “Help yourself,” said Gilman.

      Ryllis went to the refrigerator, small like everything else in the trailer house.

      “Motherfucker’s running his mouth,” said Billdee.

      “Who?” asked Ryllis.

      Billdee indicated Gilman with his thumb.

      “About what?”

      Billdee considered.  “Nothing.”

      “Well, that’s great,” said Ryllis, contemplating the print on the Bud label.

      After a silence Billdee asked.  “How hard is it to be loyal?  I mean….”

      “Loyal like?” asked Ryllis.

      “You know.  Through thick and thin.”

      “Like friends,” Ryllis clarified.

      “Yeah.”

      Ryllis removed her jacket.  Her t-shirt swelled around her hips, over her belly, not quite reaching her low cut jeans.  Billdee appraised her admiringly.

      “So, let’s make a pact,” said Gilman sitting forward on the couch on which he had slept.

      “What for?”

      “A pact, like you know, friends.  A promise is a promise.  All for one, one for all, and the rest of that shit.”

      “Aren’t you supposed to like someone before you do the pact thing?” asked Ryllis.

      “I like you,” said Gilman.

      “You’re full of shit,” said Billdee.  “The way you were talking?”

      “What’d he say?” asked Ryllis.

      “I was only repeating what I heard,” said Gilman.

      “So what the fuck did you say?” demanded Ryllis standing over Gilman.

      Gilman was silent.

      “Tell her,” said Billdee.

      “I heard that you…,” he looked at Billdee.

      “Fuck you,” said Billdee.  “I’ll tell her.  He said you were seen out at Roof ‘n’ Bed.”

      “I didn’t say I saw her,” said Gilman.  “I said someone said they saw you.”  He looked at Ryllis.

      “You fuckin’ turd,” said Ryllis.  “There’s nobody talks to you, and particularly about me.”

      “You talk to me,” said Gilman displaying a smile.

      “Who said it?” asked Ryllis.

      Gilman was silent.

      “Who’re you protecting?” asked Billdee.

      “Alright,” sighed Gilman.  “I was having coffee at the Shack.  Slow in the afternoon.  Licia and I were talking.  .  So she asked if I still hung out with you two.  And I said yes.  And then she asked how come you and Ryllis were still together. What do I know?  And she said that wouldn’t be lasting long when you found out that Ryllis was bouncing in and out one of those cabins out at Roof ‘n’ Bed.”

      “That cunt!” exploded Ryllis.  “She should talk.  And how the fuck would she know?”

      Silence. 

      “Tell us,” said Billdee, rubbing his knuckles.  “You’re making it up.”

      “Graham told her,” said Gilman.

       “Who the fuck is Graham?” asked Billdee.

      “How the hell would Graham know?” demanded Ryllis.

      “That’s exactly what I said,” said Gilman, slapping his knee.  “Hell yes, that’s what I said.  I mean people shouldn’t talk, and ‘specially about my friends, and to my face and all.”

      “Who is this Graham?” asked Billdee.  He looked at Ryllis.

      Ryllis was silent.

      “You know him?” asked Billdee.

      “He runs a track-hoe up on the right-of-way north of town,” said Ryllis.

      “So you know him.”

      “He bought me and Alice a beer once,” said Ryllis.

      In the silence no one met the others’ eyes.  Gilman rubbed his head.  Billdee scratched in his beard.  Ryllis twirled an empty bottle on the table.

      Then Gilman straightened up.  “Like friends,” he said.  “You know, a pact and all, like a pledge.”

      “What pledge?” asked Billdee.  “You playing Boy Scouts?”

      “Let’s kill him,” said Gilman nearly whispering.  “Graham.”

      The other two looked at Gilman.

      “Joke,” said Ryllis.  She didn’t laugh.

      “Yeah, funny,” said Billdee.

      “I’m serious,” said Gilman.

      “Kill him for what?  For talking?” asked Billdee.  “I might be convinced to jump ugly and slap the shit out of him, but kill him?”

      “No.  Not for talking about Ryllis,” said Gilman slyly.  “People talk.  That’s life.  For instance Licia said that Ryllis said you weren’t much good at it.”

      Billdee’s head snapped around toward the table.

      “I never…,” said Ryllis.

      “That’s what I’m saying,” said Gilman.  “People talk.  People deny it.  You ask Graham if he said he saw Ryllis turning tricks out at the Roof ‘n’ Bed, and he’d deny it.  But we should kill the motherfucker anyway.”

      “You know what you get for murder, you asshole?” asked Ryllis.

      “Whatever you get, you only get it if you get caught,” said Gilman.

      “You’re not serious, are you?” asked Billdee.

      “Friends,” said Gilman.

 

      With the guidance of Gilman the rationale for killing Graham was made explicit.  Graham was spreading rumors about Ryllis.  Ryllis had her reputation to consider.  Billdee was Ryllis’ man and needed to stand up for her.  Gilman was the third element in the friendship, and each an anchor for the other two.  That was the configuration, but, what would make fast the bonds of friendship, Gilman argued in his own way, was an act which would set them free of civilized norms and make them utterly dependent on each other, loyal, devoted.

      “I’m not buying it,” said Ryllis, two days later sitting at the table in Gilman’s trailer.  “You can’t be killing people like that, even if what he said was true, and I’m not saying it is; and even worse if it’s a lie, but either way….”

      “Right,” agreed Gilman.

      “Right, what?” asked Billdee.

      “It’s for its own sake,” said Gilman.

      “Killing for its own sake?”

      “Yeah.  I mean you might need an excuse, but only if you don’t get it.  It’s doing it that counts.  A pact between us three.  A secret we can each take to the grave.  And every time I look at one of you I’ll know what you’re thinking, and you’ll know what I’m thinking.  It’ll be a beautiful thing.”

 

      Not long after, on an afternoon in the sun, while loading a truck at the lumber yard, Gilman was delivered a blow of pain that seemed to start by his groin and went all the way down his left leg, then rebounded like a crushing wave to his testicles and rose to his diaphragm. 

      He doubled over dropping his end of the stack of boards.

      “What’s the matter?” asked the high school kid on the other end of the stack.

      “I don’t know,” groaned Gilman, now on his knees.

      The kid ran to the yard office.  Shortly the secretary showed up with her SUV and Gilman was helped by her and the kid into the front seat and taken off to the hospital emergency room.

 

      Gilman was visited by Billdee and Ryllis in a shared room with curtained stalls in the hospital.

      “What the heck?” asked Billdee.

      Gilman giggled under the influence of the morphine.  “Got me something.”  He hit the button on the self-administer.

      “Like what?” asked Ryllis.

      “They’re doing the onco—the oncol—that thing.  Figure it out,” said Gilman.  “Doctor’s talking bullshit.”

      “You gonna live?” asked Billdee.

      “I’m living ain’t I?”

      Billdee peeked behind the curtain at the person in the other bed.  “Don’t know him,” he said.

      “Sleeps, mostly,” said Gilman.

      A third bed was empty.

 

      Two days later the diagnosis of non-Hodgkins lymphoma was confirmed.  The PET scans showed many spots.  Metastasis.

      “Give me a name I can understand,” said Billdee.

      “Cancer,” giggled Gilman to his morphine tickle.

      “It isn’t funny,” said Billdee after thinking a minute.

      “Got the haircut for it,” said Ryllis.

      “For what?” asked Billdee.

      “That key-mo shit,” said Ryllis.

      “They aren’t key-mo-ing me,” said Gilman.  “I’ve seen how that game turns out.”  He suppressed a giggle.

      “What, you’re a doctor, or something?” asked Ryllis.

      “Wilmer had that,” said Gilman.  “The key-mo.  He come out looking like a zombie, then he died.  What’s the point of that?”

      “It’s your life,” said Billdee.

 

      The hospital released Gilman after his refusal of the doctor’s recommended trip to Rapid City for chemotherapy.  He got a pain killer prescription filled and went home to his trailer house.  After a couple of days he called Billdee and asked him to buy a laxative for him and bring it over.

      Ryllis came with Billdee.

      “How much?” asked Gilman.

      “It’s on me,” said Billdee.  “Friends.” Billdee and Ryllis hadn’t taken a seat.  They didn’t intend to stay long.

      Gilman nodded.

      “Still want to kill Graham?” asked Ryllis.

      “Heck yeah,” said Gilman.

      “Too late,” said Ryllis.  “He tipped his track-hoe off the side of the cut.  Crushed him like a bug.  How do you like that?”

       Gilman was silent.

      “Pain got you?” asked Billdee.

      “No pain at all.  I was just thinking.  We could have had ourselves a secret with Graham.  Now it’s taken from us.  When you have a chance you should act.”

      “Dead’s dead,” said Ryllis.

      “Heck no,” said Gilman.  “We could have, like, waited for him coming out of the Black Jack, you know.  ‘Come over here,’ we’d have called him.  Or, maybe Ryllis could have asked if he wanted to….”

      “Don’t get me in your scheme,” she said.

      “You want to be part or not?” asked Billdee.  “What’re friends for?”

      “Either way,” said Gilman.  “We’d have stuck a gun in his face and told him to get in your car nice and quiet.”

      “You got a gun?” asked Billdee.

      “More than one.”

      “Well, doesn’t everybody?” asked Ryllis.

      “And then we’d have driven him up on the mountain and walked him into the trees,” continued Gilman.

      “Jesus Christ, you really were actually planning to do it, weren’t you?” said Billdee.

      “Each of us would have shot him once,” said Gilman.  “The pact.  Friends.”  He gritted his teeth.

      “Now the pain’s got you,” said Billdee, fascinated.  “Right?”

      Gilman nodded.  After a moment he reached for an open beer and shook a pair of pills out of the container.

      Billdee picked up the vial of pills.  “Says one every four hours.”

      “Who the fuck’s hurting here?” asked Gilman.

      They waited.

      “Better?” asked Billdee.

      Gilman nodded and leaned back half way on the couch.  “I want you to kill me,” he said.

      “What the fuck?” said Ryllis.

      “You got to get killing off your mind,” said Billdee. 

      “I want you to.”

      “You want killed, you’re going to have to do your own killing,” said Billdee.

      “I don’t have what it takes,” said Gilman.  “Don’t have the guts.”

      Billdee looked at Ryllis.  “You want to kill him?”

      “Not me.”

      “You’d be doing me a favor,” said Gilman.  “This fuckin’ cancer’s gonna get me anyway.  I just wish I would go away and not notice it.”

      “I feel for you,” said Billdee, bending, giving Gilman a light tap on his knee.  “Things aren’t turning out too good.  But, this is different than killing Graham.  Like you said, that would have been our secret.”

      “Let’s go,” said Ryllis, pulling on the crook of Billdee’s arm.

      Billdee turned toward the door.  “We’ll check in on you tomorrow.”

 

      That night, Gilman, with a double shot of whiskey and some extra pills found the courage.  Billdee discovered him in the morning.  Neighbors in the trailer park told the police that they thought they might have heard a shot.  The police found a note.

     

      Gilman had no family.  The note, written poorly, assigned the trailer house, his pickup, and two handguns to Billdee.  Later a judge would determine that the bank had prior claims.  Gilman’s body was buried in Potter’s Field, and the cemetery district lined up behind the bank.  Billdee and Ryllis were at the grave.

      “We should pray,” said Ryllis.

      “For what?” asked Billdee, stuffing his hands in his jean pockets.

      “He’s dead, you know,” said Ryllis, indignance rising in her voice

      “Stiff too,” said Billdee with a shrug. 

      “At least throw in a handful of dirt.”

      Which they both did.

 

      “He asked us to help him,” said Billdee as he drove Ryllis to work.  “And we tipped it all back on him.”

      Ryllis was silent.

      “We let him down,” continued Billdee.  He pulled up in front of the laundromat which was next to the carwash, and then the Roof ‘n’ Bed.  “We should have killed Graham together.  That would have been something.  Like he said, we would never have looked at each other the same way.”

      “I don’t want to talk about it anymore,” said Ryllis.  She opened the car door and went into the laundromat.

      Billdee sat in his car his hands on the wheel and stared straight ahead.  “Sonofabitch,” he said.  “Sonofabitch!”

 

                                                                                  THE END