Funeral Hotdish Read online

  Bernard was the one who kept arriving with bad news. Johnny’s leg was healing and he’d be up and about pretty soon, but it wasn’t just him that they had to worry about. “I think his dad and uncle are as determined to kill Crabapple as Johnny is,” Bernard whispered at a regular card game. “Wouldn’t surprise me if all three of them went hunting the punk.”

  “Think we should move it up?” Earl asked. Nobody had to him what “it” was.

  “No, I think they’ll let Johnny take the lead,” Bernard said. “Paul thinks that’s how his son is going to redeem himself. The man has gone as batty as his brother.”

  “I’m ready,” Earl offered, to be sure they knew the silo was prepared. He’d attached steel chains to the rings in the wall and soldered handcuffs on the ends. He had a kerosene lantern and gas-powered space heater in place and borrowed one of Angie’s old quilts. When the time came, he’d add a jug of clean water and fill the bucket with water to make do as a toilet. He’d already bought a sackful of junk food and soda because, after all, they weren’t barbarians.

  “No, we’ll wait,” Ralph decided. Crabapple was predictable as the fall harvest. He showed up for work five days a week at five a.m., beating the sunrise by nine minutes this time of year. Ralph saw that Huntsie wasn’t exaggerating when he said the boy was a natural mechanic and a hard worker. Darryl had lunch at noon at the motel outside town, back to work until five or six—well after the sun had set—a couple beers at Jerry’s bar, and then the drive home in the pitch black of a North Dakota winter. He’d turn left at the Sunoco Station and head to his place, turning right at Harding’s Corner, and then left on County Road Four that ran in front of the farm.

  The last turn is where the men were waiting. Ralph’s pickup truck blocked the road, its lights on. Crabapple naturally stopped, thinking there had been an accident. He parked at an angle so his headlights gave him a clear path and yelled out Ralph’s name as he sloshed through the melting snow.

  “WHAT THE HELL?” he yelled when he was met by three men in ski masks with shotguns. Even if he hadn’t been so startled, he could have guessed who they were and he was sure he’d seen those winter jackets. But that hardly counted. “IS THIS A FUCKIN’ JOKE? WHAT DO YOU BASTARDS THINK YOU’RE DOIN’?”

  He was blindfolded at gunpoint, pushed into the pickup, and taken to a place he knew by smell was a grain silo.

  Nobody said a word to him on the drive, and they didn’t take the blindfold off until he was chained by his wrists to rings on the silo wall.

  That isn’t to say Crabapple was a silent hostage. From the moment he realized this wasn’t a joke, he’d shouted, using the f-word again and again—a word these captors found particularly offensive. He called out each of their names, reminding them they weren’t fooling anyone with their silly disguises and asserting his rights as an American (for all that was worth at this moment).

  When the blindfold came off and his eyes adjusted to the darkness of a silo illuminated only by a lantern, he stopped swearing and started begging.

  “DON’T SHOOT ME. OH GOD, DON’T SHOOT ME. WHAT DO YOU WANT? WHAT DO YOU WANT?” He’d already asked the question a hundred times and got no answer. “Is it money? I don’t have any money. I swear. But my cousin will loan me some. Is it money? I’ll get you money.” Even though he said the words, he knew damn well this wasn’t about money. But he sure didn’t want to let on that he knew exactly why he was here.

  Nobody answered him. The men stood there with shotguns on their hips and stared at him like he was a strange animal.

  “WHAT’S GOING ON? WHAT THE FUCK IS GOING ON?” Crabapple screamed.

  The three men turned to leave. The first two were out the door when the last man said a single sentence. “Sold any drugs to kids who died lately, Crabapple?”

  “WHAT DO YOU FUCKERS THINK YOU’RE DOING?”

  “COME ON, THIS IS ENOUGH.”

  “YOU’RE GONNA BE IN A SHITLOAD OF TROUBLE WHEN I GET OUT OF HERE.”

  “HEY, COME BACK. YOU CAN’T JUST LEAVE ME HERE.”

  “I’LL FREEZE TO DEATH!”

  ***

  “A couple days there and he’ll confess.”

  “Or leave town.”

  “Either one’s okay by me.”

  “I want him locked up.”

  “Even if he confesses, what kind of sentence would he get?

  “I don’t think it’s much. Maybe better he leave town.”

  “Either way, he’s not selling any more drugs to our kids.”

  Ralph stopped next to Crabapple’s pickup. Earl jumped out to drive it to the kid’s place. He left the keys under the front seat, then climbed in with his friends and Ralph drove them all back to town. Nobody said a word.

  After dropping them off at their vehicles, Ralph drove the six blocks home alone, admitting to himself he felt kind dumb that he hadn’t spotted all this sooner. Looking back a year, it took the stammering words of a little kid to clue him in.

  Ralph always paid extra attention to his slow nephew, Danny.

  “Uncle Alph,” Danny called him. “Danny Boy,” Ralph returned.

  Danny had never been quite right, but as his mom liked to say, it’s no sin to be slow. Slowness accounted for most of it, although that didn’t explain the individual world where Danny spent most of his time. Danny could play by himself for hours in apparent bliss. Good thing, since nobody paid much attention to him in the social world of the fourth grade, where he had a desk everyone knew he hadn’t earned. He was passed along every year because it seemed the only thing to do. He wasn’t slow enough to be in a special class—even if they had a special class in Northville—but he wasn’t fast enough to keep up. He was always caught in the middle.

  Ralph had spent more than one sleepless night worrying about what was going to happen to Danny. He had a pretty good idea. Eventually the kid would be pushed through school or drop out, but he’d never be fit for more than sweeping floors somewhere—Ralph always prayed it wouldn’t end up being at Jerry’s, because he knew how cruel drunks could be.

  At every family gathering, Ralph let Danny hang on him.

  “Crabapple floats,” Danny told him one Sunday in 1998 when they were celebrating a confirmation. “He can float like a balloon way up in the sky.”

  “Oh, sure,” Ralph answered, as though that made sense.

  “He says it’s lots of fun. He says he can see the top of the water tower from up there. He says you can see all the tops of trees and you can fly with the birds.”

  “Uh-huh,” Ralph said as his brother interrupted to get him a beer.

  “Crabapple says if I give him ten dollars, I can fly up there too.”

  “Oh, good,” Ralph said, wondering when dinner would be ready.

  “So Uncle Alph, can I have ten dollars?”

  “What?”

  “Can I have ten dollars so I can fly like Crabapple?”

  Danny had never asked for money before. The boy liked the lifesavers Ralph always carried in his pocket—and sucked on since he quit smoking years ago—and once when they ran into each other downtown, Ralph bought him an ice cream cone, but he was taken aback at being asked for money.

  “Now, what do you want this ten dollars for?” he asked to get himself focused.

  “If I give Crabapple ten dollars, he said I can fly up into the sky.”

  Ralph wasn’t sure how Crabapple had even gotten into this conversation, but Danny now had his attention. All Ralph knew about the kid called Crabapple was that he was a mechanic at Huntsie’s who’d had a tough childhood and always had dirty hands.

  “Now tell me again,” Ralph began. “What did Crabapple say?”

  Danny took a deep breath like he was getting tired of repeating himself and repeated himself.

  To be sure he got it right, Ralph said the words back to him.

  “Exactly ho
w can he make you fly?” Ralph asked.

  Danny didn’t even hesitate. “He gives you this yellow magic pill and you swallow it and you fly up like a bird.”

  Now Danny had Ralph’s undivided attention. In fact, they had to call twice for the man and the boy to come in for dinner.

  “Crabapple says he’ll give you this magic pill?”

  “Yes.” Danny beamed with the enthusiasm of a boy who finally has the right answer.

  “And it costs ten dollars?”

  “Magic is expensive, Uncle Alph.”

  Ralph looked at the boy with such intensity, Danny carried on. “He says all the other kids do it and he wants me to have some fun, too. I want to be like the other kids, Uncle Alph. I want to fly like a bird.”

  Ever since the war, Ralph Bonner knew there was a special spot in his gut that acted up when he was scared. That spot was acting up now. He took Danny in his arms.

  “I want you to stay away from Crabapple,” he whispered to the boy. “This is important, Danny. I don’t want you to talk to him anymore. Okay?”

  “But Uncle Alph…”

  “No, I’ve got something better for you—much better than what he has—but you can only have it if you don’t talk to him anymore. Okay?”

  “Better magic?”

  “Oh, yeah. It’s really, really good. It’s going to take me a little while to get it, but just wait for me, okay?”

  “Sure, Uncle Alph. I’ll wait for you.”

  The next day, Ralph started playing detective. He made an unusual afternoon visit to Jerry’s Bar to shoot the shit. Nobody got suspicious when he started bemoaning how the kids in town were getting into drugs. Yeah, it’s a shame, the afternoon drinkers said, but then it was a problem that went in spurts.

  “Remember back in, oh what was it, maybe ’96, ’97? Remember we had that pot field out by the Colgrove farm? Man, you coulda got high just standin’ there while they burned that sucker. Then it seemed to die down. Guess it’s back, huh?”

  Jerry’s daytime bartender, Ruthie, said she heard the school was searching lockers to confiscate the stuff brought into the schoolyard. She wasn’t sure that was true, but that’s what somebody said.

  “You mean it’s bad enough that kids are bringing it to school?” Ralph was incredulous.

  “Now, that’s what I heard,” Ruthie reaffirmed. “But you know how the school’s always trying to make things worse so we’ll pass another bond election. What was it last time? The cafeteria ceiling was falling in? Hell, I went and looked at it myself and it just needed repairs. If you ask me, they always make things worse to soften us up for more taxes.”

  Ralph didn’t dismiss that logic, since he shared the disdain for politicians who always had their hand out. And the schools were as bad as politicians sometimes, although he couldn’t remember a school bond he hadn’t voted for.

  “Well, how are these kids getting the stuff?” he asked.

  “Damned if I know,” one of the drinkers said. “I bet the high school kids are picking it up in Fargo. Or Minneapolis.”

  “What about the grade school kids?” Ralph wondered.

  “There’s drugs in the grade school?” Ruthie hadn’t considered that. “Oh, I don’t think it’s that bad. The locker stuff is in the high school. You don’t think the little kids…? Hah.”

  “That’s what I hear,” Ralph offered. “I was talking to a kid the other day and he told me kids in grade school are getting high.”

  “Damned if you say,” one drinker pronounced, as he downed his brew and, as usual, left Ruthie no tip.

  “Who do you suppose is pushing this junk?” Ralph tried again.

  “Man, the only idiot around here who’d do that is probably Crabapple,” Ruthie offered, but it was clearly a guess.

  Ralph left and had a good idea where he could get some real information on the situation. He drove out to his nephew’s farm. If any kid in school knew the score, it was his nephew’s oldest son, Bobby. Ralph didn’t think Bobby was into drugs—the kid was more intent on earning wages for the car he’d get to buy at sixteen, and he had only a year of saving left. But Bobby was one of the cool kids in school—tall, handsome, smart, quick with the tongue, he was the unofficial leader of the kids who weren’t athletes. Bobby was never much good at sports, but he was good at making friends and if there was a hot party in town, Bobby was sure to be on the guest list.

  Ralph had known Bobby since birth and always had a good relationship with the kid, but you’d have thought Ralph was the FBI the way Bobby backed off from the questions about drugs in school.

  “Man, I don’t know nothin’ about drugs. I don’t do ’em. My friends don’t. Don’t ask me. I dunno.”

  “I’m not saying you do drugs, I’m just asking if somebody is pushing drugs in school.”

  Bobby didn’t see it the same way his older relative did. As far as he was concerned, opening his mouth made him a snitch. And Bobby was too cool to be a snitch. He even congratulated himself on how well he was playing dumb. It would make a great story at school, where, by the way, everyone should know they were getting wise to Crabapple and they’d better back off. Bobby had no particular reason to protect the guy, but he had no beef with him either. If the guy wanted to make some extra change, well, that was his business. Besides, the adults got just as bent out of shape over the beer that Bobby preferred, and the last thing they needed to know is that Kook Miller was their buyer. You start snitchin’ on one thing and who knows who’s gonna snitch you off.

  Ralph could see the smugness and he let it sink in for a minute before he dropped his bombshell.

  “Well, Danny tells me Crabapple wants ten dollars from him for yellow magic that will make him fly.”

  “That son of a bitch.” Bobby didn’t even realize his admission as he said the words. As far as he knew, Crabapple only sold to high school kids—kids old enough to make some of their own decisions, even if their folks hadn’t recognized that yet. But dammit, what was the asshole doing pushing the stuff to dumbshits like his retard cousin, Danny?

  “He’s gotta be stopped,” Ralph declared. “He’s hittin’ on little kids who don’t know any better. And can you imagine Danny being stoned? Who knows what the kid would do. I could see him climbing the water tower and jumping off, convinced he was going to fly.”

  Bobby looked at his uncle and he could see it, too. “Yeah, that’s bogus, man. He’s got to be stopped.”

  The next day Ralph filled in his buddies and they went to see Sheriff Potter.

  Everybody in town knew how badly that went. Their frustration at being turned away empty-handed burrowed into their guts. It ulcerated when Amber died, and bled every day that Crabapple went unpunished.

  Ralph Bonner knew they were doing the right thing now because that pain in his gut was gone by the time he got home from kidnapping Crabapple.

  ***

  Jesus, it’s cold in here. A blanket. A space heater. They left me a blanket and a little space heater and they think that’s going to be enough? Those fuckers. They can’t do this to me. I’ll show them when I get out of here. They ain’t got nothin’ on me. They think I’m so stupid I’m gonna get caught? Hah. I’m showin’ them.

  They’re just trying to scare me. Chain me up for a night and think I’ll be scared shitless. Then they’ll let me go and think it’s all over. In a pig’s eye. Their asses are goin’ to jail. It’s a federal offense to kidnap somebody. Isn’t it? The FBI will be all over this town and they’ll take care of those shitheads. Who the fuck do they think they are?

  They wouldn’t kill me. Hey man, don’t even think about that. Of course not. It’s just a scare tactic. They couldn’t kill me. It would be crazy to kill me. They don’t have the guts. I don’t think any of them have ever killed anybody. Even in the war they think was so high and mighty. No, they’re just trying to scare me.

 
Okay, boys, I’m scared. Wait till you come back and see how scared and repentant old Crabapple can be. I’ll promise them I’ll never do anything wrong again. Now, don’t go admittin’ anything, Darryl. They don’t have any proof of anything, so don’t go giving them any.

  What if they’re wired, and they want you to confess and they’ll take the tape to old Lazy Potter? No, don’t admit anything, but let them know how sorry you are. Be real nice and tell them they’ll never have to worry about Crabapple again.

  And then they’ll let you go.

  And the first stop I’m gonna make is to the sheriff’s office to report a kidnapping. And then they’ll never mess with me again.

  ***

  The plan was simple. And true to plan, the three men met in the parking lot at the Legion—a place their pickups were familiar and nobody would wonder why they were there—and drove out together to the silo the next night to check on their hostage. They left their ski masks at home because there really was no need for them.

  They found Crabapple with wrists bleeding from trying to slip out of the handcuffs. He’d already eaten all the junk food and sodas, and the toilet-bucket had been used.

  Ralph put a Tupperware cake pan on the floor and pushed it toward him with his foot. “Supper,” he said in a deadpan. “It’s left over funeral hotdish from the Mead funeral.”

  “It’s probably poison,” Crabapple shot back.

  “Well, if you don’t want it,” Earl taunted, as he took a step toward the food and watched Crabapple scramble to grab it.

  “Anything you want to tell us?” Bernard asked, and prayed they’d get the answer they were after. Seeing the boy on the cold cement floor, shivering, even with the quilt and space heater, he felt bad about what they were doing.

  “I don’t know what you think I did, but I’m just a mechanic. Ask Huntsie. You guys know him. He’ll tell you. But whatever you think I did, I want you to know I’m sorry. Don’t know what I’m supposed to be sorry for, but whatever it is, I am. Now let’s just stop this. Unchain me and let me be and we’ll forget all about this.”