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By
Timothy C. Phillips
It was a hot winter day. It was more like summer. Down by the river, Poppa Joe
Greasy Dick had decided to open up the bait shop. His real name was Joseph Dickman,
but everyone had called him Poppa Joe Greasy Dick since he was a young man. He was a
dirty man, hence the name. He lived in a grubby trailer behind his shop; the shop was far
larger than the trailer. He shared the trailer with his daughter, Fanny. The girl‟s mother,
now dead, had named her Fatima, but everyone called her Fanny, because people
thereabouts were small-minded and cruel. They had small, dumb eyes that glistened with
came of a death.
Fanny was slow, some said due to poison that she had ingested. It was rumored by
the petty locals that poison was also how Poppa Joe had ridded himself of Fatima‟s
mother. The local men treated Poppa Joe with a show of respect, but inwardly they
envied him his secret knowledge of poison, as they reviled their carping wives. Most of
them had been driven to the altar by unwanted pregnancies. Their home lives were
housewife might get a quick screw off a colored handy man, but she had to mind not
getting pregnant. The men always had Fanny, who Poppa Joe whored out for ten dollars a
lick. She was pretty, in a tow-headed country way. She had freckles and pale skin. Fanny
always lay quietly motionless while the repressed husbands grunted and sweated and
discharged their squalid pleasure into her. There was no chance she would get pregnant.
“Something was wrong with her pipes when she was born.” Poppa Joe would
always proudly explain, if ever asked. “Don‟t worry. She kin screw all you want.”
The girl drifted in and out from the yard on summer days when she had no callers, or
went down to the river to watch the boats. The fishermen often hooted and raised their
beers as they passed, and hollered her name and laughed. More often than not she hid in
the dense growth there and soaked her bare feet in the lapping water, and fondled a
bracelet that her mother had once worn, until Poppa Joe would holler, summoning her
A dusty road ran along the riverbank. A battered house was at the end of the road.
It had once been a store. Now, a tall, weathered-looking young man lived there. His name
was Tar Williams. He was bent and coughed often. He lived in the back of the building.
In the big front room there were still shelves and racks, but Tar Williams rarely went into
the front of the store. Two rooms in the back were all he needed for his simple bed, small
stove, and scant food. His mother had run off with a Yankee when he was three. His
father had died and left him the store, but Tar had never reopened it. No one knew where
he made his living from, or what he did with most of his time, as he was seldom seen by
anyone. Old timers still called the gray building Williams‟, like it was still a store. Most
Today, Tar Williams was abroad and stealthily making his way along the marshes
near the boat ramp. Over his shoulder he carried a heavy sack. He came at last to a flat-
bottomed boat that was hidden in the reeds, and stopped. In the boat sat Grace Thorpe,
with glittering little eyes and red hair. He was small of frame, with a pot gut like an
underfed child. His open mouth showed yellow, pointy teeth. Tar Williams waded into
the shallow water and dropped the sack into the boat. He said nothing.
“Well, come on,” the little man in the boat hissed. Spit sprayed from his mouth
when he spoke.
In the death of afternoon, they made their way down Cane Creek, a brown
tributary that curled away from the Coosa River. The little red-headed man paddled. Tar
Williams sat in the stern of the little boat and said nothing.
“Don‟t go gittin‟ all soppy on me.” Grace hissed and sprayed. “We gone git us
some money and ain‟t nobody gone be the wiser fer it.”
They traveled a spell down the creek, until it wound back towards the river. This
bend in the creek took them close behind Poppa Joe Greasy Dick‟s bait shop. The outline
of the building showed in stark relief against the red light of the dying sun. The trailer
“Everybody‟s down gone into town, and he‟s setting out there alone with all a that
there money they made last night!” Grace repeated to Tar the reasoning behind the raid.
The previous night there had been a football game in the nearby town of
Ohatchee. The home team had won; several husbands and lonely bachelors had paid for a
date with Fanny. Thorpe had watched them come and go from his flatboat. He had been
snagging for catfish. No one had seen him, there in the darkness. Tonight there was a
rodeo in Ohatchee, the first in several years. Everyone would be in attendance, except for
Thorpe had planned everything, but he had no guns. He knew that Tar Williams
owned several, Tar‟s father‟s old guns. Tar had brought two along. The guns and bullets
were in the sack. Tar had never had a woman and Thorpe had promised him they would
both have Fanny. This promise is what had at last made Tar come along.
“Better be careful, Grace, they‟s alligators on the bank the bank yonder.”
“Hell, I ain‟t scared of them „gators, if‟n they git to close, I‟ll let „em have it!”
Thorpe pulled the bag to himself and forked out the weapons. Both were pistols,
one a lean automatic, and the other a Western style revolver. He held one in each hand
Tar shushed the smaller man and pulled him down into the boat.
The redheaded man flushed, and nodded slowly. “You‟re right, wouldn‟t want to
warn them we‟re a comin‟.” He sat back down in the boat set the guns down. He picked
They slid up onto the bank. Up the slope of the hill from the water they could see
“They probably just settin‟ down to dinner.” Grace grinned. “Maybe we‟ll get to
eat us something, too.” Tar loaded both guns silently, and gave the automatic to Grace. It
was time. “Let‟s go,” spat Grace into the falling darkness, and Tar followed him up the
The trailer yard was full of junk. There were old cars and farm equipment, rusty
buckets and just plain trash. There was just a little space between the trailer‟s front door
and the back door of the bait shop. The bait shop was a big block building that totally hid
the trailer from the highway, but that did not matter, because the highway was dark and
empty.
Grace stepped between the two buildings and kicked at the front door of the
trailer, once, twice, three times, but the door did not budge.
“Here, here, I‟m a comin!” They heard Poppa Joe Greasy Dick holler from inside,
and through the drapes they saw the pot-gutted old man coming through the front room.
He flung the door open, and there he stood, grizzled and unshaven, wearing a maroon
bathrobe over a t-shirt and dirty boxers. On his feet were socks. He wore no shoes.
“Watch ya‟ll need?” Poppa Joe asked in a low, sultry voice, raising his eyebrows
a little, like they were all three in on a joke. Grace put the barrel of the pistol in his face.
“Git back inside, you dirty bastard.” He hissed, and pushed with his left hand on
Poppa Joe Greasy Dick‟s chest. The older man stepped back, and almost tripped over an
Ottoman, and took a quick step back over it, and fell into an easy chair.
The living room of the place was neat and well-appointed, Tar noticed. He had
expected something else, something more like where he lived. It made him uneasy, as
this place was more like a home, and he felt out of place there. He stood there with the
“Where is it?” Grace asked Poppa Joe, who sat in the chair watching him. Poppa
“Where‟s what? Poppa Joe asked Grace, and Grace stood for a second and
chewed his lip. He looked at Tar and then at Poppa Joe, and pointed his gun at Poppa Joe
some more. “Don‟t play dumb with me, you trashy sonvabitch. I want to know where the
damn money is. I‟ll shoot yore fat ass and find it myself, if I need to.”
“Why, I don‟t have no money here. I don‟t keep no money in my house. Except
“That‟s a lie. I know you got money in here. You‟ve had men in here for that
whore daughter a‟yor‟n, and y‟all hadn‟t left this here house, so that money‟s got to still
be here somewheres.”
“Oh, no, you got it all wrong, there, young fella. There was a group of fellas come
by yesterday, and they visited with my Fanny, shore enough. But it was in trade, you
might say; you see, I owed them money for a bet I lost on a football game.”
“I think you‟re talking bullshit! I want that money!” He screamed at Poppa Joe,
Tar said nothing; suddenly, from the rear room of the trailer came a sleepy voice,
Fanny tiptoed out into the cone of light that surrounded the three men.
“You better start tellin‟ the truth now, old man.” Grace growled low and
menacingly, clearly including the newly appeared Fanny in his revised threat.
Poppa looked at Fanny, then Grace, then Tar; his eyes went back to Grace, before
he said anything.
“I‟m telling you the truth, I swear it. You can look all you want, ain‟t no money
here.”
“I bet you know where it‟s at, don‟t you sugar?” He asked Fanny. “What you say?
“See? I told you mister, now if you‟ll just leave, it‟ll be like it never—“
A violent bang filled the room as the gun went off in Grace Thorpe‟s hand. A tiny
hole appeared in Poppa Joe Greasy Dick‟s chest, and blood squirted from it exactly like a
water fountain squirts water, in the same tiny arc, and a stain spread on his t-shirt like
Poppa Joe fell back, against a sofa, and sat down heavily. His eyes grew dim and
“Goddamn it.” Grace said softly, and looked down at the pistol in his hand, which
“I didn‟t go to do that.”
He looked over at Fanny. Her eyes were wide, and her mouth was covered with
her hands. As he watched, her eyes rolled back in her head and she keeled over in the
floor.
“What in the hell did you shoot him for, Grace?” Tar said at last.
“I didn‟t go to, the damn thang just—I don‟t know—it just went off in my hand.”
“She seen us you fool! She‟ll tell everybody Tar Williams and Gracie Thorpe
“Aw, so it‟s like that? You was here with me, and when it goes to trial, you bet
your ass they won‟t take no pity on you, seeing as how you brought the guns along. Now,
use your damn head for something. We‟ll strangle her and find the money and get the hell
out here.”
“I‟m not. Listen to this. Suppose Fanny here got tired of being whored out by her
Tar held up a hand. “Wait, just listen. She killed him, then she got so distraught
about it, she went down to the river and drowned herself.”
“Why would the cops believe that was what happened? Easy, We‟ll just put her
fingerprints on the gun and then throw her in. She‟s passed out, We just gotta carry her
down there.”
Tar nodded slowly and kept talking. “Then, we just come back up here and take
our time a looking for where the old man hid the money.”
“Shoot, Tar, I was wrong, you sound like you planned this little get-together,
instead a me.”
Tar smiled and picked up fanny. She was a little thing, for sure. Probably weighed
“Follow me.” Tar told Grace. The two men went back out the door that they had
come in.
They walked back down to where the boat waited in the darkness.
“We‟ll just row out a ways and dump her in, so the current gets her. Keep and eye
“See anything?”
“Where? I can‟t see shit out here.” Grace stood and squinted. Throw the bitch in
already.”
Grace Thorpe‟s body fell over board and slid into the cold water of the Coosa.
Tar Williams turned the boat and calmly started rowing for shore.
“It‟s done.”
“So we can go away now?” She put her arms around his neck, hugging him
tightly.
“Soon. We have to talk to the police first. Remember what happened?”
“I remember.”
Deputy Pate was writing. “So you were all just about to sit down to supper when
“That‟s right.” Tar was nodding. “He just kicked the door in and come in. Reckon
“Poppa Joe got up and ran at him, hollering. They were shouting about some
money. He shot Poppa Joe, and I pulled my gun and shot at him. I think I might have hit
“Looks like you did. We found a boat adrift out on the river with blood in it, and a
gun.”
Tar nodded. “I hope I‟m not in no trouble. It‟s just, well, he murdered poor Poppa
“Sounds like a pretty good case of self-defense, Mr. Williams, although we will
“No problem. I‟ve carried a weapon for years, never dreamed of shooting nobody
with it.”