The Poor and the Haunted Read online

  Though Jimmy would suspect the devil’s work throughout his home in the coming days, the visit with Carlisle was good, and needed.

  As visits with big brothers usually are.

  CHAPTER TEN

  1999

  Jimmy planned to run until he and Kelly lived in a small apartment that smelled like Hot Pockets and Lysol, a clean drywall box somewhere in Norman or Stillwater. He didn’t care if he became an Oklahoma Sooner or an Oklahoma State Cowboy.

  He just wanted out of Garrity and as far away from Diane as he could imagine.

  Kelly would get the apartment’s only bedroom. Jimmy would crash on a cheap Walmart futon purchased with his milkshake savings. He would work after school and on the weekends, waiting tables, mowing lawns, scratching by. Kelly would have to work, too, after school at McDonald’s, a daycare, or even babysitting. Money would be tight, and life would be hard, but it wouldn’t matter.

  Life was already hard.

  They would never hear the Firebird rocking back and forth in their backyard. They would never have to defend themselves with weight plates. They would never drink rust-colored water from chipped glasses.

  In the meantime, they would endure.

  Sometimes, when Diane returned from her occasional disappearances, Jimmy took the keys to the Firebird. Escape had a price, and for Jimmy that price was paid when he and Kelly sat on stained vinyl seats that doubled as Diane’s home office. Diane signed the permission slip for Jimmy to take driver’s ed at school—she might need cigarettes, and he was almost eighteen—and Carlisle taught him to drive using the lieutenant’s old Toyota Camry.

  They would drive to 7-Eleven, and Jimmy would buy banana Slurpees and a small package of Twizzlers. They would bite both ends off their licorice, using the candy for straws as the Firebird’s one working headlight probed better neighborhoods, like low-rent burglars shining their flashlight in someone else’s home.

  “I want that one,” Kelly once said, pointing to a huge house in the nicest part of town with an entrance more like a hotel than a home. Jimmy had never stayed in a hotel, but when he grew up he promised himself if he did, he would gorge himself on as much room service as one man could eat.

  “Why that one?” Jimmy asked.

  “Because it looks like it has a pool,” Kelly said.

  “A pool?” Jimmy could only imagine. He and Kelly had never been to a swimming pool, and there is no ocean in Oklahoma. Neither knew how to swim.

  They would return home after their drives, where they would usually find their mother passed out on the couch, or in her room, a sixer of Milwaukee’s Best having dulled her rage.

  Sometimes Jimmy would dip into his savings and buy himself and Kelly a tube of premade chocolate chip cookie dough, and the two would cook half the dough and eat the other half raw.

  More than anything, Jimmy learned even a nightmare can become routine. His high school life was a day-in, day-out grind of events no child should experience, words no child should hear. But as bad as the monotony could be, disruption to the monotony was even worse.

  One such disruption occurred when their mother began dating Roger, the man Jimmy had seen with her in the Firebird.

  Dating would be a charitable word to describe the interaction between Diane Lansford and Roger Crowder. As far as Jimmy could tell, the relationship consisted of Roger eating all the food in their house, giving his mother her fix, calling Jimmy a pussy, and leering at Kelly. He could tolerate the first three, but after weeks of Roger living on their couch and staring at Kelly every time she was around, Jimmy could no longer take it. The last straw came when Crowder tried to explain away walking in on Kelly while she showered as an accident.

  The day Roger walked in on Kelly, Jimmy dialed the pager number Mike Carlisle gave him.

  Kelly was gone, staying after school at art club. The Lansford children joined every possible club and afterschool activity they could, the school knowing ahead of time they needed to waive any fee. Diane was gone, working one of the downtown bars for more cash. Roger could supply her drugs, but she still needed to earn money. He made that clear. Roger himself was sitting on their couch in a too-small tank top, eating generic Rice Krispies by the handful, straight from the box.

  Within seconds the phone rang, and Jimmy picked it up immediately.

  “Jimmy?” Carlisle asked.

  “It’s me.”

  “My man. Is everything okay?”

  “Yeah,” Jimmy said, watching Crowder on the couch. His mother’s boyfriend ate a bit of cereal he dug out of his exposed belly button. “I—hey, can I meet you later, if you have time? I have something I want to talk to you about. How about we meet at Derry’s?”

  “See you there in twenty,” Carlisle said.

  Jimmy went in his room, laced up his Nikes—which were now painfully tight, but still nicer than any other shoes he could afford—and ran to Derry’s. When he arrived, Carlisle was waiting for him with a melting ice cream cone in each hand.

  “My man,” he said as Jimmy walked up and sat down.

  “Hey,” Jimmy said.

  Carlisle handed him one of the ice cream cones.

  “How’s running?”

  “Good,” Jimmy said. “I came in second at regionals. That means I’m going to State.”

  “State! Jimmy, I’m proud of you.”

  If Jimmy became just a half-decent human being, Carlisle would be proud. But the boy he met the day he answered a call about a man stabbing himself in the eyeball was a lot more than just half-decent. Jimmy had become an academic and athletic star—and a father to his little sister.

  “Thank you. These shoes still work. Still magic.”

  Carlisle saw the shoes were nearing the end of their useful life. Jimmy struggled to ask for anything, which is why he knew this visit was important.

  “Tell me, Jimmy, what do you need?”

  “My mom is dating a guy named Roger Crowder—”

  “I know Roger Crowder.”

  As a police officer, Carlisle knew both Roger Crowder specifically and his kind generally. Roger was a low-level dealer and an informant to the police department—a snitch—and came from a breed who talked of loyalty, toughness, and manhood as though they knew the meaning of any of those words.

  “He—Roger looks at my sister. All the time. He walked in on her while she was showering.”

  Carlisle was known among his colleagues for a steady hand and an ability to stay cool in any situation. Well, almost any situation.

  An aspiring child molester was not one of those situations.

  “Has he hurt you or your sister?” Carlisle asked, his fists clenched beneath the sun-faded plastic picnic table.

  “No. Not yet. I won’t let Kelly be alone with him.”

  “Okay. Let me have a talk with him. I can get this straightened out. Where’s Kelly now?”

  “Still at school. Art club.”

  “Is she safe?”

  “Yeah, she’s safe.”

  “Why don’t I drop you off at school so you can meet her. Take this,” Carlisle said, handing Jimmy a twenty-dollar bill, “and take her to the movies tonight.”

  “I have money. It’s okay.”

  “Jimmy. Take the twenty, go see the movies, and come home. Take the bus. I know you like to run, but don’t run through your part of town with your sister. Got it?”

  “Got it.”

  That night, as Jimmy and Kelly watched a movie with Will Smith in a cowboy hat and ate Sour Patch Kids, Mike Carlisle parked three houses down from the Lansfords’ house. He wore his civilian clothes, knowing pleate
d Gap khakis are the least dangerous mask a dangerous man can wear. He doubled down on the false harmlessness by driving his Toyota Camry, the pleated Gap khakis of cars.

  He was sure Roger would leave to go get smokes and liquor, and an hour and a half after Carlisle parked his Camry on the darkened road, Roger Crowder drunkenly stumbled out of the Lansford home and into a beat-up Chevy truck.

  Carlisle started his car and followed for a block before pulling a siren out of his glovebox and placing it on the roof. Half a block of bobbing and weaving later, Crowder finally edged the Chevy toward the curb, nicking the concrete with a rusted-out wheel before coming to a stop.

  Carlisle exited his vehicle and walked up to the driver’s side of the truck. Crowder rolled down his window. Inside Carlisle could see the floor littered with empty beer cans. Good, Carlisle thought. Probable cause.

  Just in case he needed an explanation for the higher-ups.

  “Step out of the car,” Carlisle said. “And turn off your headlights.”

  “What?” Crowder slurred, his gut tight against the bottom of the truck’s steering wheel.

  No gun on the seat, as far as he could tell—which was too bad. Before this conversation was over, he might need that for his explanation, too.

  “I won’t say it again. Step out of the car. Turn your lights off.”

  Carlisle pulled his flashlight, shining it into the truck’s filthy cab. Crowder shielded his eyes. With the glare reduced, Crowder—even in his intoxicated state—recognized Carlisle and smiled a wet, slow smile. It amused him, this black cop who hid behind the authority of his badge. If it weren’t for that badge, Crowder could kick the shit out of him. He was sure of it.

  “I know…I know you. You’re that BLACK cop,” Crowder said, leaning back against the seat. He tried winking at Carlisle, but only managed a long two-eyed blink before asking a short one-word question.

  “Remove yourself from the vehicle, Mr. Crowder,” Carlisle said. “Or I will remove you.”

  Crowder opened his door and stood with a groan, his long hair and growing belly the direct opposite of Carlisle’s buzzcut and hard muscles.

  “Face me,” Carlisle said.

  Crowder ignored him, stretching his back like he was urinating as he looked at the front porch of a long-abandoned mobile home.

  “You know, I grew up in this neighborhood,” Crowder said. “It was a good place then. People worked. Kept their fuckin’ mouth shut. Good people. Good fuckin’ folks. Folks you could share a pool with.”

  “Look me in the eye, boy,” Carlisle said, “Or I will make you look me in the eye.”

  “You can’t talk to me that way,” Crowder said, turning to face Carlisle, who was not surprised Crowder complied. That’s what his kind was all about: big words and a deep desire for someone else to tell them what to do and how to think.

  Crowder and Carlisle stood facing one another in the street, Crowder a foot or so away from the driver’s door of his Chevy. The sound of a dog barking came from the trailer park behind Crowder. The dog’s bark was followed by someone yelling, “Shut that fucking dog up!” which was followed by someone else yelling “You shut the fuck up!” which was, blissfully, followed by everyone shutting the fuck up. Even the dog.

  Roger Crowder smiled, comfortable in his natural element.

  During his senior year in high school, no one in Oklahoma swung a baseball bat as hard or as fast as Mike Carlisle. He used that swing to earn a bachelor’s degree in criminal justice after four years in Norman.

  Placing both hands on the flashlight, Carlisle looked down at his knuckles and wrists. They were older and thicker than they were back when his teammates would wear Hammer pants out to the Bluebonnet bar. That was so long ago, Carlisle thought. Time really did fly.

  His technique would be sloppy.

  He would have to compensate with force.

  Carlisle stepped into his swing, and let his wrists do the rest—just like he was taught. Crowder’s face exploded as what was left of the rotten bones jutting from his gums fell from his lips.

  Carlisle knew another blow above the shoulders could kill the man. On the second swing Carlisle aimed to not just hurt Crowder but to do him and whatever little girl crossed his path next a favor. The head of the flashlight hit Crowder’s crotch hard enough to momentarily lift him off the ground.

  Crowder lay on the pavement, spitting blood and shards of teeth, clutching his destroyed genitals. Carlisle squatted down and waited for the bloodied man to return to a state where he could hear what Carlisle said. Crowder dry-heaved a few times, the pain inside causing his body to clench up before fully vomiting.

  The detective was not worried about passing vehicles or witnesses. In this neighborhood, the sight of a man kneeling over a bloodied body meant you looked away and drove faster.

  Slowly, Crowder’s moaning subsided enough that Carlisle could speak and be heard. The fact that the policeman stayed near his body and never looked away terrified Crowder almost as much as Carlisle’s skill with a flashlight.

  “Listen to me,” Carlisle said. “I’m going to go sit in my car until you can stand up and get in this piece of shit. You are going to drive away and never come back. Ever. You aren’t going back to get your things from Diane Lansford’s house. You hear me? You’re done here. Forever.”

  “Aaagghh,” Crowder said.

  “If you’re asking whether or not I’ll kill you, the answer is no,” Carlisle said. “I’m a cop. Though I will, and this is a promise, make sure your crew—and I mean Brady—finds out you’re nothing but a snitch. We record you every time you talk to us. Making a little mixtape for Brady would be pretty easy.”

  Brady was Dakota Brady, the leader of Crowder’s crew and a man with a hatred for snitches and absolutely no sense of irony given that he was also a snitch.

  Carlisle stood from his crouch, placing his hand on Crowder’s groin to increase his momentum as he got to his feet. Crowder screamed loud enough to start the dog barking in the trailer park.

  Two blocks over a bus would soon drop Jimmy and Kelly off, and they would pass this spot as they walked home. Carlisle did not want the Lansford children to see Crowder lying on the ground. He took a pair of rubber gloves from his back pocket and pulled them over his hands. Crowder’s blood was everywhere, and Lord only knew the nastiness in it. The Lord, and perhaps the free county healthcare clinic.

  Carlisle squatted down, grabbed Crowder, and lifted him up in one rough motion, leaning him against the bed of his truck. Carlisle opened the driver’s side door and grabbed Crowder again, this time manhandling him into the cab.

  Carlisle said one word before closing the door.

  “Drive.”

  Crowder slumped in his seat. Seeing the man’s eyes roll back in his head, Carlisle worried that he might have gone too far. Then Crowder reached toward the ignition, started his truck, and pulled away. The old Chevy weaved back and forth between both lanes, mimicking the unsteady walk of a man whose gonads had just been crushed by a police department-issued steel flashlight.

  Once his taillights faded from Carlisle’s sight, Crowder was gone for good. No one in town saw or heard from him again, though Carlisle was sure he picked up right where he left off in some other town, minus the mooching-off-women part. It was hard to mooch off even the loneliest of women when he could no longer function the way his competition could.

  Carlisle didn’t violently intervene in Jimmy and Kelly’s life again, but he did watch over them. He replaced Jimmy’s Nikes later that spring. In Jimmy’s junior and senior year, Carlisle and his new girlfriend Claudia had the Lansford children over for Thanksgiving. It was the first time Jimmy and Kelly participated in a real holiday. It was
the first time they had anything to be thankful for on Thanksgiving—other than each other.

  Jimmy never saw so much food in his life, and none of it came from a box or plastic package. When Claudia offered him and Kelly Tupperware containers full of mashed potatoes, turkey, and pumpkin pie, they politely declined, unable to stomach the thought of their mother taking the leftovers while cursing her children out for daring to have Thanksgiving without her.

  But Carlisle’s most important contribution to Jimmy’s life wasn’t the violent expulsion of Roger Crowder, new Nike running shoes, or homemade mashed potatoes on Thanksgiving. His most important contributions were the conversations about Jimmy’s grades and his preparation for the ACT, and his presence at every cross-country meet he could attend. He would stand next to Kelly, a uniformed police officer and a beautiful teenage girl cheering a boy who often came in first. It was Carlisle, through both his words and his presence, who helped Jimmy start to picture a world beyond Garrity, a world where streetlights and mothers worked like they should.

  When he looked at Jimmy, Carlisle was reminded of bare-knuckle boxing with his own father. Eldridge Carlisle fed his oldest son a bunch of backyard bullshit about the role these fights would play in molding him into a man. From the first swing Carlisle knew better. Their boxing matches were just a way for Carlisle’s dad to introduce his son to an old man’s bitterness and regret, formed in the shape of two calloused fists. Carlisle could have destroyed his father but didn’t. He was far prouder of his ability to take a punch.

  Though they never said I love you, not when they were young, both Carlisle and Jimmy possessed the abused child’s knowledge that words are cheap. Carlisle’s father told him how much he loved him five minutes before he broke Carlisle’s collarbone. Diane would tell Jimmy and Kelly how much she loved them right before she told them they wouldn’t amount to shit.

  Just like their father.