Remarkably Clean For A Dead Man

Remarkably Clean for a Dead Man.

By Anthony Gee. Copyright 2002.

Skanky Blanchette was the kindest name the townsfolk could have given
him. Sure there were other things they'd called him- Skunk Humper, Loon
Toggle and Gaytard- but on the whole he was known as Skanky
Blanchette.
Now, Skanky had a penchant for shocking folks but it's not as if he
were doing it on purpose. You see, Skanky's brain pan was only full of
drool and goo that would always be hanging in long threads from his
mouth. No matter if Skanks was happy, sad or horny, he always looked
like a punch drunk coon dog pervin' on a stack of chicken-fried buffalo
wings. Folks'll even say they seen drool coming out his ears.
Story has it that he just showed up in town one day. They say that he
was once a sane man until he invested all that he had in an ostrich
farm that went belly up. If you ask me, the guy must have already had
twisters in his top pasture. I mean, who the hell would farm an
ostrich? Damn thing's like a big chicken that can kick you.
But like I was saying, ol' Skanks would sometimes shock people. At
first, he would dig holes around the town and stick his head in 'em.
Then he started to get really weird. Often times he would chew on horse
manure like tobacca, spittin' it at the kids and widows on their way to
church. Other times they'd find him in the yard worrying up the
livestock in a sick, bestial kinda way. On one occasion, he was seen to
suckle at the teats of a prize sow- after wrasslin' and killin' her
piglets. Such was the moral bankruptcy of Skanky Blanchette.
Now I guess you're probly saying that Skanks has no soul, or mayhap a
lesser one like an injun. And back then I surely would have agreed. In
fact, Jack Toomey and some of the good men of the Hardwood Rotary Club
were cookin' up plans to do somethin. Somethin' that would have made
sure that Skanky Blanchette's seed would never accidentally sprout in
the good soil of the Hardwood Pines Golf and Residential Estate.
They were fixin' to revoke his membership by veto power.
But that was fourteen years ago, and things have changed up on
Hardwood. Things have changed a lot.

Deputy Carlson has never met Jack Toomey. Even so, he has a hate-on
for him about the size and meanness of a neutered bull. The tank of
rot-gut that Carlson drinks from chuckles deeply as it gets back some
of it's own from the Deputy's ruined mouth. Black strands of pulped
baccy are floating in the 'shine. His mind is steeped in it. Hateful
thoughts crawl around inside him like little scorpions. Their poison
wells up in his body. The whites of his eyes are almost choked with
blood blossoms. Each breath out is a dark growl- the sound a wild beast
makes when it's having bad dreams. His hands, however, are always true
and quick.
The left tenderly strokes the eighteen inch steel barrel of the gun
named 'Pig Hammer' like it's the hair of a woman. The right cradles the
butt of the revolver like it's the balance of justice. And it is. It's
weighed Jack Toomey and found him to be lighter than all of his
sins.
*****
Jack Toomey is having illicit dealings with his neighbour's wife. His
yards are filled with cattle that have been rustled from his fellow
man.
He's gotten careless with his iniquities over the past few months. And
why not? People only see what they want to see. As far as they know,
he's a good husband, Rotarian and trustee for Hardwood Pines. So what
if he skims a little cream when milking the cash cow? What people don't
know can't hurt them. But in a small estate like Hardwood, people talk.
And he'd heard some of it.
They'd been saying that Deputy Carlson's going to ride into town and
clean up the rot. He'd heard them say that vice and corruption had
silently taken root in Hardwood. People are getting frightened. It
seems as though the upstanding reputation of their town, as a place
where a family can raise cattle and children within a five minute
walking distance of trading posts, yet still be free of the crime and
bustle of the city, is just an illusion.
So perhaps it is time. Time for the law to knock on Hardwood.

After a solid day's ride, Carlson pulls his horse up at Hellfire
Crescent.
The unrelenting landscape around him had long refused to be tamed by
the hardiest pioneers. For every new settlement that tried to spring
up, there was a multitude of curses. Disease, Indians, famine, drought,
flood, boredom - all had taken their toll. As new frontiers sprawled
west, this no man's land of unnatural looking rock and abandoned white
goods has been left behind as a forgotten memory.
Carlson surveys it with a steely eye. He looks like an outcrop of the
cliff he stands upon, gazing across the panorama, and there, another
day's ride away, he spies the smug little burg of Hardwood.
He looks around. Buzzards squabble over the carcass of a dead guinea
pig.
Only he could feel at home here- it's the stuff that he is made
of.
"This might be a good place to invest my super annuation," he thinks
to himself, "provided the banks don't jack up the dawg-gone interest
rates, consarn it."
A spectacular wad of black spit balls in the dust near his feet like a
full stop. If enforcing the law weren't second nature to him, he'd burn
down that little match-stick town on the horizon himself- uppity John
Citizens with their fancy cee-ment ponds and their wives without
rickets.
But no. As a deputy, Carlson's unyielding as his surroundings. It's
just? sometimes? a man needs to belong. Somewhere deep inside of him,
every tear he's never wept has crystallised into a hard rock. It'd take
a mighty hammer to break it.
He mounts his horse, grinding his spurs into its side.
"Ya! Ya!" he drives it forward, racing against nightfall. There will
be no sleep tonight. He will reach Hardwood by sunrise.

"I can't believe they got Carlson coming for you!" Joe Bales' eyes
shine with excitement. "Watcha gonna do Jack? Watcha gonna do?"
Joe Bales is fat and sweaty. He does what he's told, as long as Jack
Toomey is doing the telling. Jack looks at him, annoyed, and lays his
winning Royal Flush down on the table.
"Mister Bales. The law in Hardwood is something I bought a long time
ago," he states matter-of- factly. "Possession is nine- tenths of the
law, and if that is the case, then I technically own nine- tenths of
it."
Jack explodes with a villainous laugh despite the fact that he's
scared. Joe Bales and his twin brother, Jim, look at him blankly.
Jack needs to elaborate:
"Nine-tenths! Because? I possess everything else? financially I own
everything. It's a witticism?"
The twins are still confused and they look it. Jack is frustrated. He
slaps them around the head and starts ranting:
"Carlson's a dead man! If he comes near me, I'll plant him in the
ground!"
The Bales both cower beneath Jack Toomey's slapping hand. But he stops
when they finally laugh at his joke.

Deputy Carlson rides into Hardwood just as the last star is fading
from the sky. An ancient Indian once told him that stars, like the sun,
are large balls of gas and that the light from some of them take
millions of years to reach the earth.
Drunk old Apache with their superstitions. They'd just float away like
balloons if they was made of gas. Stupid.
He rides into Main Street, a dark, weathered figure whose gaze looks
right through to the other side of town. Mothers clutch their children
to their bosom as he rides by.
There is only one that dare approach him. And it's because he doesn't
know the fearful reputation that precedes Deputy Carlson. He also
doesn't know that stars are balls of gas. He is stooped and he lurches
with the gait of a drunken child. He stretches his mouth and
dribbles.
Skanky Blanchette reaches out to Deputy Carlson. People freeze and
watch the scene with morbid fascination. The idiot may as well be
offering his arm to a mad Grizzly. His hand blindly flaps onto the
protruding butt of the Deputy's beloved 'Pig Hammer".
"OOOooooooo Yeeeeaaaaar! Bigggg Gnunnnnn?" gargles Skanky.
Deputy Carlson just keeps staring off into nowhere. For three
seconds.
Then his hand snaps down fast like he's drawing his iron. It snaps up
Skanky's hand like the beak of a hawk. Bystanders wince at the sound of
joints popping. Skanky doesn't even seem to notice. He looks as if
they're merely shaking hands and he's pleased to meet the lawman.
Carlson's hooded eyes very slowly turn on him.
"I am a sworn enforcer of the constitution. Tampering with a deputy's
side-arm is a serious violation. Do it again and I'sll kills ya."
Skanky thinks that's a hoot. He brays like a gleeful mule.
"Eheheheheheheheheheheheh!"
Carlson fluently kicks him to the ground like he's scraping something
off his boot. In a loud even voice, he declares to those in the
street:
"Dead or alive, I'm taking Jack Toomey out of here by sundown. Either
way, y'all best co-operate. I is in a tasty mood."
He punctuates it with a tarry wad of spag. Gawkers scurry away,
desperate to be out of reach of the long arm of the law.
Skanky Blanchette regards his own twisted hand with awe as though he
had just reached out and touched a blazing star.
*****
"He's here, Mister Toomey! Deputy Carlson's in Hardwood and he's
looking for you!"
"And he beat down that skunk humpin' loon toggle of a gaytard!"
Philbert Jackson and his son, Boscoe, are wide-eyed and agitated, like
schoolboys announcing the whereabouts of a fight.
A sliver of panic runs through Jack Toomey before he's able to contain
it. It's quickly engulfed by a flash of anger. Wasn't it he that had
tussled with the county bureaucrats so they could all make use of the
estate's fifty foot heated cee-ment pond. Wasn't it he whose wisdom
they had all called for when the resident's horses were leaving their
dung on each other's front lawns. And here they all are, waiting for
him to fall. Well, no chance.
Every challenge he has overcome has given him the strength to take on
a thousand Carlsons. Jack fortifies himself by closing his eyes and
reminiscing how yesterday his head was between the two buxom pillows of
Misses Philbert Jackson. When he does open them again, he is smiling
broadly at father and son.
"Philbert? Boscoe? As men of integrity and good fibre, I know that I
can rely on you in this trying time. I stand on my unblemished record
as faithful sole trustee of Hardwood. We should measure this fiasco
against point number one of the Rotary five point test. Is it the
truth? I think my good name answers that question before it's even
asked. It's obvious that Deputy Carlson has pickled his faculties on
moonshine to the point of bad judgement. Seeing as how it's up to us to
preserve justice, I propose this. We round up all the able-bodied men
of The Neighbourhood Watch vigilante group, and we lynch him from the
highest point in Hardwood."
Toomey knows that his speech has won their solidarity. They move
decisively for the door of Jack's office. They leave him with an
assurance. Philbert Jackson's voice is thick with loyalty and
respect:
"As fellow Rotarians and Freemasons, we'll get that bastard, Jack. My
word we will."

Carlson feeds his horse and passes a kidney stone before hitching his
steed to the post of 'The Claim Jumper' -Saloon and Family Bistro. It's
just before noon. At this time of the day, there is nothing too
'family' about the place. The profane yells of drunks, traders, bounty
hunters and career gamblers almost drown out the jaunty tinkling of
piano that comes from within.
Question time- where's Jack Toomey?
He pushes his way through the front swing-doors without even breaking
his stride.
It's as if every low-life in the place has been waiting for him. Their
dead eyes hold the silence. It's oppressive in the air of the saloon.
In the space between the negroid's poised fingers and the piano keys.
In the space between the gaping jaws of the patrons. The deputy's spurs
crash like cymbals with every step forward. Finally one of them says
something. It's the fat sweaty bartender, Joe Bales. He throws down his
drying rag and points an angry finger at Carlson.
"What's that simple moose- booter doing in my bar? Get 'im out!" he
screams.
Carlson's hand moves faster than his mind. The 'Pig Hammer' is half
raised by the time he realises that they weren't even looking at him.
He hears an excited Skanky Blanchette whoop behind him like a distorted
gazoo. But it's too late. Joe Bales' head pops like a tick and paints
the shelves behind him red.
Men go for their weapons, but it's like they're underwater. Carlson
grimaces like a gator in a frenzy. The quick and the dead. He deep
sixes half the room in half a minute. The piano player crashes forward
onto the ivories. They resound with an E minor, played remarkably
clean- for a dead man.
Just as quick as it began, the carnage abruptly halts. Tattered
playing cards flutter around and settle into the over-bearing silence.
Carlson's hand is still set like iron. The 'Pig Hammer' lazily breathes
out smoke rings like a satisfied lover. The drip tray around the bar is
inches deep in blood. Men slump face down in it.
A gibbering suddenly breaks the stillness.
"Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom!"
The deputy spins a perfect one-eighty and the muzzle of his revolver
is flush with Skanky Blanchette's nose. Skanky blows into the barrel
and it makes a hollow little 'poot' sound.
Carlson's finger tightens on the trigger, then goes slack right before
the crucial moment. Small coughs splutter in his chest. They spread
from there, through the rest of his body like a motor trying to start.
His whole torso starts to rack with spasms.
It's laughter, something that Marion Carlson hasn't really experienced
in all of his many years. He drinks from it like it's a bubbling
mountain stream, frolics in it like the young boy that he surely once
was.
Skanky roars along with him. Carlson is doubled over and heaving now,
almost beyond controlling his bodily functions.
Almost.
He hears the hammer cock behind him, drops to one knee and spins. The
'Pig Hammer' thunders in his hand and Carlson is surprised to see the
bartender crumple to the floor beneath the bar again, the man's Smith
&; Wesson smashes into a pile of bottles.
Carlson walks over to the bar. There, lying side by side, with
identical destroyed faces are the Bales twins- Joe and Jim. The
deputy's face has resumed its stony countenance. He deposits a huge
globule of nicotine spit onto Jim Bales' forehead then holds the 'Pig
Hammer' up before Skanky's drooling face.
"This here is how you kill two birds with one stone," he announces
gravely.

Carlson leads the way out of 'The Claim Jumper' with Skanky in tow.
The harsh light of day assails his eyes, causing him to squint. This
temporary blindness is dangerous. He anticipates the big bang but it
doesn't come.
The street is very quiet, devoid of its previous traffic. He can hear
the dragging lurch of his unlikely comrade just behind him.
"You be my eyes for a second there, Hoss."
Skanky obliges with something like an exaggerated yawn.
Marion Carlson had bonded with neither fish nor fowl in the fifty-five
years of his existence. Except for one. She may have died but one death
in this life, and she continued to die a thousand deaths in his living
memory. Every day he heaped more dirt on that grave. The problem is
that a part of Carlson was buried with her.
But today he had briefly tasted resurrection. This mute galoot had
inadvertently unwrapped the hard man like a gift and handed him his
heart.
He's not sure why, but it softened when he laughed.
It hits home to Carlson that there have been some things missing in
his life.
For one, he sees that killing has become just a job when it should be
something that's fun.
But more importantly, he remembers that kinship is found in joy and
vice-versa, and without it he's been sad and lonely for too dang
long.
As his vision returns, he sees Skanky's grinning maw, red and moist
like a carbuncle. Carlson will never go as far as to smile, but, for
now anyway, he feels less a desperado. The oath that escapes him isn't
any more than a breath. He will not let his mouth steal it from his
proud heart:
"Me so ornery, but me love you long time."

A teenage voice rings out- full of insolence and melodrama.
"If it 'aint the legendary Deputy Carlson! What brings you here
lawman? "
Boscoe Jackson is all knees and elbows at seventeen. The gun in his
hand looks small and harmless. He's trying to cultivate his first beard
but all he has are a few wiry hairs that choose to grow out of his
pimples. Jackson Snr. cuffs him around the side of the head. Boscoe's
prized coon-skin cap falls to the road.
"Awww? Dad."
"Dagnabbit! Ever heard of the element of surprise? Stupit little mud
puppy! Now watch so's you can learn yourself sumpin about killing a
man."
Carlson had seen them long before they saw him. He pointed them out to
Skanky. It's apparent that their slow arrogance is a trait that's been
handed down from father to son.
Boscoe bares the teeth in his ruddy face. He bends over to pick up his
coon-skin cap. Just as his fingers touch it, the 'Pig Hammer' belches
and tears it out of his reach. The tail on it is hanging by a thread.
The boy straightens up quickly.
"Oh well?" he sighs.
But his dad is thoroughly enraged. The man's face quickly turns
purple.
"Do you know how much I payed for that hat? You owe me Carlson! It's
gonna cost you your life!"
Philbert Jackson pumps a shell into the shotgun he's holding. He goes
to shoot from the hip, but Carlson puts a slug in his shoulder. The
shotgun clatters to the ground and lets off a wild blast. Philbert is
seething. He grinds his teeth and hurls insults at the deputy.
"You're dead you filthy cactus jacker. Boscoe! Put him down,
Boscoe!"
Boscoe suddenly looks like he's out of his league. His hand trembles
like it's palsied.
He whines:
"I? I cain't."
Philbert doesn't want to hear that.
"What do you mean? Waste him. Now!"
Carlson doesn't bother to cover the boy with his aim. He keeps it
trained on his father..
"I think you'd better give me the gun, Boscoe," he drawls. "You're
both under arrest for obstructin' the course of justice and attempted
murder. Put it down. Otherwise your daddy is going to go the way of
your funny hat."
Philbert is unfazed by the threat.
"Shoot him, son. Shoot the son of a bitch!"
Boscoe 's lip starts to tremble. Two fat tears roll down his cheeks.
His voice cracks.
"I cain't, Dad. I cain't kill nothin.'"
Jackson senior's mouth twists into a contemptuous sneer. He seems to
be climbing to some deadly pinnacle of rage. His eyes bug out and his
face almost seems to be turning black like too much blood is being
forced in, causing it to swell.
"Right! We've been through this before, you little hippy. At first,
you didn't want to eat meat, and I thought okay, it's just a fad. A man
will always come back to his meat, it's a comin' of age thang. Then I
got you your Davy Crockett hat. Wanted it since you was twelve. But not
now- not since you went and started huggin' trees, wearin' those funny
smellin' oils? damn near had to nail the dang thing to your head. And
oh yeah, why don't you show the deputy where you got branded!"
"It's a tattoo Dad! It's called a tattoo!"
"You is branded like an animal! And such a purty little picture too.
Nice little ladybird- right on his pos-te-ri-or!"
Philbert offers Carlson a look that says "see what I have to put up
with?"
Carlson is disgusted with both of them. He keeps his massive gun
pointed squarely at the man. Junior attempts a small look of defiance
at his dad..
"? symbolises my unique and colourful personality is all?" he ventures
in a small voice.
"Symbolises that you is a fairy! That's what all my friends at work
been sayin." Philbert Jackson retorts.
He abruptly stops like he's just had a good idea. Without any
consideration for the revolver levelled at him, he picks the shotgun up
off the ground. He pumps it once and aims it, one handed, at his son.
His voice is quiet and reasonable.
"?Phil, they all says to me? Phil, your son's as bent as a
blacksmith's thumb. Now I want you to be a man, so, take your gun
there, and shoot Deputy Carlson."
Boscoe's hand is shaking as he raises his gun. He points it at the
deputy. The deputy's gun doesn't waver from it's lock on his dad.
"You've got three seconds to be a man, son. ? One two? thre-"
Thunder splits the air. Two bodies drop.
Philbert Jackson hits the ground first. Shot through the heart. He's
dead before the son goes down.
Boscoe is folded over backward, dying. The shotgun has left a gaping
hole where his budding manhood used to be. Skanky Blanchette gleefully
stoops down and picks up Boscoe's dime-store bought, plastic
cap-gun.

Carlson sniffs the breeze.
Trouble is percolatin' on the main street of Hardwood. The
temperature, humidity and dry westerly all forecast a lynch mob. He can
sense it screaming down the road toward them like a big, black twister.
Carlson lived in a twister once. He found it too domestic for his
taste.
Skanky tucks his toy gun into his pants, just below the armpits. He
does a little jig and trips over Boscoe Jackson's expired body. The
lawman speaks:
"Y' know what, hoss. I've only been in this hole for nigh on five
hours and I'm already bored. I thinks it's about time to paint the town
red."
*****

The small posse make their way through the empty streets. Jack Toomey
is all hopped up on eighteen Co-colas. His eyes are like two bad
pennies that gleam with malice. He feels mean and powerful. Intoxicated
with himself. Two men flank either side of him. He fancies himself as
their general, as a figure of inspiration.
"You know, I was thinkin'?" he attempts a hard, manly voice, "? I
should be called 'Tombstone'. Or 'Captain Tombstone'. 'Cause I'll be
the one standing over Carlson's dead body. Ya!" He urges his mount
ahead of the others. Sleek. Invincible.
His cohorts follow in triangular formation. A sheen of feverish sweat
covers his face.
Yes! Fall in behind The General! I am The Apex. The Capstone. Captain
Capstone! Ya!
Luckily for him, they are all unified within the brotherhood of The
Lodge. Because right now, as individuals, each of them are thinking:
"Toomey is a wanker!"

About two hundred feet away from Carlson, the street arrives at a
T-junction. This is the hub of the Hardwood Pines business and shopping
complex. Right now it's a ghost town. The tanner, the bordello, the
drugstore- all of them are locked and silent, empty save for
dread.
He knows where all the working men were today. Down at the lodge,
drawing up a contract on his life and sealing it with a secret
handshake.
"Well, well. A public holiday in honour of me." He pops six shells
into 'Pig Hammer's' chamber, spins it and clicks it shut. "I feel moved
to make a speech."
He raises the gun and waits thirty seconds.
Five men appear from around the right corner, fanning out and riding
straight at Carlson and Skanky. Their guns are drawn.
It's not the vain posture that gives the middle rider away to Carlson.
And it's not the splendid Arabian steed that has been bragged about in
nine different states. Carlson just knows that it's Jack Toomey because
he sees him and hates him. It's a remarkable gift that he's been
blessed with. The tool of judgement. The fact that he doesn't like many
people makes him sensitive to it.
Skanky pulls out the toy gun and imitates Carlson's stance as the
riders gallop toward them at breakneck speed. Then all hell breaks
loose.
Bullets zing and whine all around. Time stands still for Carlson as he
instinctively waits for the exact moment to let loose. A wild shot
catches him just above his left big toe, but still he remains
impassive. He's an artist, waiting on blessed inspiration. And then it
comes.
Pulling the trigger four times, he pulls the wings off Jack Toomey's
little entourage. Four men sag in their saddles. Their horses career
through the street. One of the riders gets his foot caught in a stirrup
and his horse sweeps the gravel with him. The hole in his neck paints a
red centre-line down the road. Skanky lets forth a victorious war-cry
and squeezes off eighteen caps in rapid succession.
Toomey pulls on his reigns and brings his proud stallion to a halt.
His face falls with dismay. He throws down his gun and puts his hands
above his head.
"Don't hurt me Carlson! I give up. My lawyers are watching! My wife is
pregnant! Just? don't shoot me!"
It's a pathetic sight to behold. Jack Toomey drops to his knees and
shines Carlson's boots with his tears. He blubbers uncontrollably.
Carlson grinds some shag tobacco between his black teeth.
"Get up Toomey, you spineless yella bellied pole-cat! I said get
up!"
The deputy gives him a small kick with his shot foot. Toomey shrieks
and cowers beneath it.
"You had plans for me to dance the long rope. Well, today, I reckon
you're going to show us all what a fine dancer you is. Jack Toomey, I
find you guilty of the crimes of extortion, embezzlement, cattle
rustlin', attempted murder and bein' a prize jackass. I hereby sentence
you to dance."
The 'Pig Hammer' blows a sizeable chunk of dirt out of the ground next
to Toomey. He screams and jumps to his feet.
"Now dance you miserable varmint! Dance!"
Jack Toomey bops and shimmies to a rudimentary polka whistled by
Deputy Carlson while Skanky Blanchette fires caps at his dancing feet.
The sight is too much for Marion Carlson. He laughs more than he has in
his entire lifetime. The whole town laughs along with him.

And there you have it.
It's been fourteen years to the day since Deputy Carlson rode into
town and turned its main street into a gulch of corrupt blood. He put a
noose around Jack Toomey's neck, fixed the other end to Toomey's prize
Arabian, and spooked it with a shot to get it running. The buzzards
chased that horse through the desert for days.
After another ten years, Carlson went and set himself up at Hellfire
Crescent. He never really retired on account of the fact that as long
he lives, he'll continue to go out and kill people that he doesn't
like. He did it yesterday, so's I guess he's still workin'.
As for Skanky Blanchette? well, he changed about as fast and quick as
Hardwood itself. As soon as the town was purged of it's evil, Skanky
walked upright, spoke normal and married the Widow Toomey. The only
eccentric thing about him, is that as a deputised officer of the law,
he insists on arming himself with nothing more than a little plastic
cap-gun. He has no enemies and a lot of friends and all the folks in
Hardwood call him 'Jester' because he's always makin' 'em laugh. And he
tells a purty good story too, if I do say so myself.
Shucks.