He watched the concrete buildings become trees and farmland, smelling pigs and horses instead of the fumes from old Buicks and Corollas. There were beat up shanty homes instead of shopping cart hobos. It was all the same to him. After all, he had a job to do; rob this little town of everything it was clinging to in order to stay on the map.
It was their own fault, really. He was an orphan. Supposedly born here, poor little Michael. He imagined his mother was probably some backwoods hick who got talked into the back seat of one of those Buicks on a drunken, bored Friday night. Nine months later….Tah-frickin-dah. He never bothered searching for her, figuring she was dead; too many Pabst Blue Ribbons on an already malnourished liver. “Breakfast of champions ma?” he thought wickedly. The only trinkets he had was a blanket with little grey duckies and purple bunnies racing around on it. He kept it simply because it drove him; reminding him of what he’d never be… Never. He ignored the tightness in his chest. A bad ticker? Another gift from his thoughtful mother, he grumped.
So he arrived, determined to talk those good ole boys right out of their money. He spouted about wanting to save their little po-dunk, trash-heap town. He promised to take their park with its rusted teeter totters and tether ball sets and make it a shopping Mecca. But they asked him to leave that nasty gnarled sycamore at the edge. He didn’t object, thinking they’d need a reminder of his visit and all he’d done to change their lives. He guaranteed the jobs this town would need from ditch diggers to cashiers. Of course he’d hire local companies and the work would be started right on time; maybe even ahead of schedule. But it wouldn’t last. They’d begin to see the checks weren’t covered and by the time they finally located his office back on the west coast? He was long gone.
David couldn’t believe it. Some young hot shot on the west coast, Michael Something-so-nice decided to venture out here to No Man’s Land. What a moron. That’s what sushi and happy cows do for you. Make you soft and gullible. All David had to do was to play the sob story and get him to invest. He would talk him into using their own companies with a lower bid. Then of course, they’d need to stretch that budget a bit…and a bit more. If this Loo-la had the connections he said (or even half that many) it would be enough. He just needed a little more to get out of here.
Now David lived here all his fifty underachieving years. It’s no secret that he was a little rough on these folks growing up. Most times he was let off; with his weak heart and all, which he played up when his bad decisions got him into trouble; that and his whining momma or big shot papa. But somehow, he felt he’d paid his dues by staying and pretending to “turn his life around”. Why, he even lead the new women’s group at church. CHURCH. What a laugh. Here’s why. Feeling these folks owed him for their lack of encouragement and faith in him, he began to work on their water bills a little. It’s amazing how people don’t pay attention. He even got away with ESTIMATING their amounts. The fools paid him. He simply spread out the amount he wanted over several addresses and there it was. All the “mad money” he wanted. He got so good at it that in two short years, he had almost enough to get all the way to Florida; the NICE part, and grabbing this little bit extra would make SURE he was living the way he should. Big Dave Flint was moving up. Like I always say “Once a mule, always an ass.”
And so these two sharks met and began to swim. They shook hands too hard and smiled too brightly. They tried too hard. But it all came down to Shady Joe Moorman. See, he owned the dump or the park. Now, Shady died in prison years ago, but there were a couple of kids. Not that they were worth a plug nickel, I would know, being the local librarian, historian and life-long resident. I said I thought the kids were in jail themselves or had disappeared. Way back when, I’d been pretty close with those kids. No doubt the Moormans were tough and mean to the core. There had even been a daughter, but everyone thought she was so abused that when she disappeared everyone figured she’d gone to the angels above and finally found peace; until the papers needed to be signed.
Those scoundrels met for almost a week, making their greasy, slick-handed deals and promises to each other with their fingers and toes crossed. At the council meetings where it was proposed and formalized, the place was almost empty. Folks had more to worry about than a shopping center or who wanted to build it. They needed the work and the money. Neither man was sad about that. They clapped each other on the back and slid their stumpy fingers through the air. “Smooooth Baby. Right on through….” And they guffawed like mules.
Then Bill Jackson from the zoning commission peed right on their Wheaties in front of us all.
“Yes, well, there IS the Moorman deed to consider.”
“Shady’s?”
“Well, yes.”
“No one’s here. We can do it like uh-- Eminent domain.”
“Ummm ACTUALLY. There IS someone left. Here in town. We’ll need the daughter, Jaynie’s signature.”
Both men drained to the color of sun bleached sheets. Kind of funny really.
“Wait…Jaynie Moorman?” Michael stammered.
“Zany Jaynie? That nut job that eats rocks and talks to bugs?” David snorted.
“Well…”
They brayed some more.
Sure enough, Jaynie Moorman “lived” near that dump. She often slept under the sycamore tree. Local kids taunted and teased her, but she never wavered. She was never far from that tree. She’d sit, rocking back and forth singing softly to herself. Sometimes she cried. Most times she muttered and talked to the bark. She wasn’t very old, maybe late thirties but she looked ancient. On sunny days, she’d walk all the way to the library and back. Rumor was that one night after too much whiskey her papa (or all the Moormans) had taken their turn with Jaynie under that tree. There were still those in town who remembered that she seemed to plump up some but then…she disappeared for a while. When she DID return, she was all wrong. Talk in town was that she’d had to bury her babies under there. Twins. Both Jaynie and that tree died that summer. Regardless of how she got that way, Jaynie was broken.
So those two wolves decided to go talk to her and if it didn’t work, they’d have her committed.
“I’ll talk to her.” Big Dave said. “We go way back.”
That evening, he ventured out to the tree. Jaynie was there, singing softly to herself. Michael tagged along. He wanted to see how it was done in the back woods. How deals were made. What an idiot.
“Jaynie. I need you to sign or disappear. Not forever. Just a while. ” Dave said quietly, almost affectionately. He handed her a healthy wad of money.
Michael smelled a rat. Or maybe he just sensed a second one.
But Jaynie laughed and ripped the bills in half with her teeth tossing them into the air. “I’ll be dipped. Another favor for you?”
Dave stood angrily over her. He clenched his fist and began to pant. Michael realized there would be no committing.
“What starts here will finish here David.”
“Damn right.” he snapped and began to swing.
It shocked Michael. He hadn’t planned on this; the heavy thudding as David pounded that small lost woman right into the ground.
“You and your stupid tree” he spat in syllables.
Jaynie lay motionless. Michael listened but only heard David’s jagged rasps.
“Help me.” He barked and walked back to remove two shovels from his truck.
“You planned this?”
“You want to build your shops?”
“No one had to die.”
“You don’t know nothin.” He chuffed and shoved the woman carelessly aside so he
could dig.
“What was she talking about anyway?”
“Nothing that concerns you.”
“Really? You think that?”
“Yeah. Dig. Or I’ll smash you with this shovel and then bury you both.”
Michael stabbed at the Earth.
Their only commitment was to never discuss Jaynie Moorman again.
They pushed for the project to move quickly as both were eager to get what they wanted. It was with lightening speed that the ground was broken and people began to “oooh and ahhh” over the two men’s transformation of the landscape. But they left that sycamore. It seemed to scratch at the sky, reach right up out of the dirt clutching for something.
Michael was called back West shortly before the grand opening. David had taken a job down in Florida but wanted to at least see the opening ceremonies. It was a glorious day. The town celebrated in its grandest fashion: a parade, streamers, it was a regular festival.
David seemed removed from it all. He sat fidgeting on the stage as speeches were made. His knees bounced around nervously. A gaggle of kids who wanted to see climbed up into the nimble fingers of the old tree. It groaned and shifted. More scrambled up to hear the mayor and peek at the teenagers making out behind the stage. There was a deep loud pop and then groaning like a boat rubbing a dock. By the time the tree began to fall, it was too late; for David at least. He couldn’t get off the stage in time. He seemed frozen to his chair. It crushed him. Roots and all just pulled away from the ground.
When they went to clean it up, they discovered in the churned up dirt, poor Jaynie all mauled and beaten. Nearby was a garbage bag. It turned out to be a baby wrapped up in a blanket with little duckies and bunnies on it. The medical examiner determined it was an underweight baby, having died from an underdeveloped or weak heart.
No one pursued it. Nobody asked me. I put the saw back in my shed and sighed. I was tired. It took me all night to cut that tree. All these years we waited to get even with David Flint. We talked about it in my library. When she didn't come, I knew. I knew he'd hurt her all over again. I cried for my friend, for the loss of her baby. We used to wonder whether the little boy made it. Sad. I always hoped he'd be like his Mamma and not his Daddy. At least Jaynie will never know.
