Chapter
3 – Knuckle Butt
As I
walked out onto my front porch to get a better look at my neighbor running back
down the street towards home in his pajamas at 9:30 in the morning, I noticed
Ralph run past my new landscaper Grant Pillsbury AKA Knuckle Butt. Grant earned
the nickname “Knuckle Butt” from his biker buddies because, when he wasn’t
mowing, watering, or landscaping he was riding a 1977 Springer Hardtail. The
absence of rear shocks on a hardtail made the bike a bit rougher riding and
often the rider would bounce around in the saddle.
Grant
hadn’t done any serious landscaping for two seasons. He explained the situation
when he first approached me looking to recruit me as a client.
“Haven’t
been able to make any serious money landscaping since the zombies started
wandering over to the north side of town. You can’t dig a damn hole and watch
your back at the same time for fear of getting snacked on by those undead
vagrants.” Knuckle Butt grinned. “Even if you managed to dig a hole, a zombie
was likely to fall into it.”
“How did
you stay in business?” I asked, trying to size him up.
“Oh, I
mowed a lot of lawns.” He said simply.
“And they
left you alone while you did that?”
“Oh, hell
yes. They are terrified of lawn mowers.”
“Really?”
I said in disbelief.
“Yep.
Stands to reason. Most neighborhood pets are skittish around the noise. Some
people too.”
I
immediately liked “Knuckle Butt” when we first met. My previous landscaper,
Curtis Rusk, had been turned into an Abomination by the late Calvin Pryde.
Curtis now had a grave marker in the Little Pine Acres cemetery across the
street. Calvin had also become an Abomination. Alice, in an act of self-defense
dispatched Calvin with four .44 caliber shots to the head. His body was burned
along with hundreds of the undead on Cletus Tylor’s farm last month.
“Howdy
Doc.” Grant drawled as he climbed up the porch stairs. “How’s the shoulder?”
Knuckle Butt’s face looked as tanned and creased after many summers of tending
lawns as the old brown saddle bags of his Harley. You could see a life story
etched into every line of his weathered face and every scar on his calloused
hands. His deep-set brown eyes were framed by a permanent squint from strong
sunlight and long rides.
Despite a
sometimes-brash exterior there was a reflective side to Knuckle Butt. He was a
man that knew both the thrills and the solitude of the open road. He seemed to
be, like myself, another motorcycle enthusiast that somehow ended up in
mysterious Dusk Thorne, Colorado and had chosen to love the little town
unconditionally.
“My
shoulder is doing better. Thanks for asking. I’ve got the Widow Biggs looking
after me now.” I replied.
“She knows
a lot more about medicine than most in this town realize. I understand zombie
bites can be purdy nasty.” Knuckle Butt stared down the street at Ralph, who
was still hot footing it for home. He shook his head. “He does that every
morning now, doesn’t he?” It wasn’t so much of a question as it was a
declaration of something seen before. Like seeing a reenactment.
“Yes. He
does it every day according to Alice. So, what do you suppose is up with
Ralph?” I asked.
“Welp, he
is livin’ in the old Baily house. So, probably there’s a lot goin’ on with him
these days. He’s lasted a bit longer than ole Ozzie Farnsworth did though. Poor
bastard.” Knuckle Butt put a pinch of chewing tobacco between his gums and
lower lip. Generally, you couldn’t even see Grant’s mouth because of a colossal
mustache that drooped down both sides of his face.
“Any
insights you want to share with me? I’ve only been in town for about a month.” As
I looked at Grant I felt a tingling around the nape of my neck. It usually
meant the I was about to go down one of Dusk Thorne’s many rabbit holes.
“Yep, I
reckon you’re still a bit green when it comes to this place.” He spit tobacco
into a small can he was carrying. Annie bumped into the front screen door and opened
it with her nose and ambled out onto the porch. Grant bent down and stroked her
coat. It was September at the tail-end of summer. Annie’s coat looked like the
color of wheat right before harvest in the summer sun.
Knuckle
Butt suddenly looked up at me from his crouched position next to Annie. “Doc, I
ain’t gonna’ ask if you believe in ghosts or not. Maybe you do, maybe you
don’t. Most people that live here for a long time eventually come around on
that issue. But either way, would you like to hear a decent ghost story?”
“I would!”
chirped Naydene as she bounded out onto the porch. Petey was with her. He
looked at Knuckle Butt and just quietly nodded ‘yes’.
Alice came
out as well. “Does this have anything to do with Raph Green and Jerry across
the street?”
Knuckle
Butt cleared his throat. “Less about Ralph and more about Jerry Paloma, but also
about a guy named Arnie Foster. All of them are part of the story, fer sure.”
Alice’s
eye burned with intense interest. “Let her rip, Knuckle Butt.”
Grant
chuckled. “Well okay then. First off, most people assume that ghosts are
attached to places. That is inaccurate. I think Hollywood is responsible for
this. How many movies have you seen that featured creepy haunted houses?”
“Quite a
few.” Said Alice.
“She’s not
kidding.” I interrupted. “Alice and Joe are movie buffs. They have seen
thousands of movies.
Knuckle Butt nodded. “Oh, a special type of
ghost, called a poltergeist, can become attached to a place. Most ghosts simply
pass on into another dimension. They don’t linger. If one does hang around, it
is probably attached to some unfinished business associated with other people
that they have known while they were still alive.”
Naydene
volunteered, “Oh, one time my grandmother said that she would see my dead
grandfather when a fishing buddy of his came into her store. She ran a hardware
store, but he was a farmer. He didn’t die in the store or anything. They didn’t
run the store together. He hardly spent any time at all there. But after he died
grandma said he would just follow certain people around. After a while though,
she quit seeing him.” She settled back into the porch swing and sighed.
“Yep, that
is the sort of thing I’m talking about. Anyway. About 24 years ago, when I had
barely graduated from the local high school (Highland High, go Hornets), A guy
named Arnie Foster was having some marital problems with his wife Doris. Arnie
was a workaholic. He was rarely home and drank quite a bit in his off-work
hours. Arnie sold used cars. He was an honest guy. I bought my first car from
him. At the time of this story and his business was down. Doris was unhappy and
understandably lonely. After five years of marriage Doris decided this
arrangement wasn’t what she had signed up for, so she began to have an affair
another local guy.”
Petey
offered a raised eyebrow and a “Hmm.”
“Unfortunately,
this guy was Jerry Paloma, Arnie’s best friend.” Alice’s eyes bugged out of her
little skull. “Great Jehoshaphat’s Jello! Alice blurted out.
“Let me
tell you this was very bad judgement on Jerry’s part. It didn’t take long for
this small town to begin to gossip about this situation, as small towns usually
do. Doris and Arnie had several bad arguments. He started to drink even more.”
“You seem
to know an awfully lot about this man’s life.” I mentioned casually.
“I do. It
sounds like I know more than I really have a right to. But Doris was my
sister.”
“Sorry to
hear that.” I offered.
“Hey, it
was twenty-four years ago. Water under the bridge.” Knuckle Butt grinned again.
“At about this time, however Arnie received a couple of pieces of bad news. My
sister announced that she wanted a divorce. The day after that Arnie went back
to his doctor’s office to receive the results of some tests that were ran weeks
before.”
The
results indicated that he had late-stage pancreatic cancer. His mind couldn’t
process the information at first. My sister told me before she left town that
Arnie showed up on Jerry’s doorstep late one night with a loaded gun.
Alice
gasped. All present on the porch sat forward. All was silent except for the
thumping of Annies tail. She loved being around people.
“When I
heard the story, I assumed Arnie was going to end their lives. My sister tried
to reason with him while Jerry sat on the bed and wrung his hands. Then she
said the conversation went something like this:
After a
short moment of deliberation Arnie put away his gun. He told Jerry that he had realized that shooting him wasn’t really going to give him what he needed
from him.”
Jerry:
“What do you want? An apology, money, for me to just ‘get lost’. To leave town?
Arnie:
“No. I want you to suffer. I want you to suffer as much or more than I will
have to before this cancer kills me.”
Jerry: “I
still don’t understand.
Then Knuckle
Butt pulled a letter out of his hip pocket. He waved it in front of his face
slowly. "I’ve read this letter hundreds of times. Arnie wrote it before he
passed away. His lawyer gave it to my sister as per Arnie’s instructions."
“Oh my God!
What does it say? Naydene exclaimed.
“I’ll get
to that in a minute. I brought it over as evidence that this story about Jerry
isn’t just a campfire tale. This letter
is in Arnie’s own handwriting. Back to what happened the rest of that night.”
Knuckle
Butt then supplied his sister’s thoughts that she shared that night so many
years ago. Doris believed that Arnie had
lost his mind. That he had become a stark raving psychotic and she called the
Sheriff’s Department. To make a bad situation worse. She laughed in his face
about the “haunting” remarks.
“What
happened then?” Alice said cautiously.
“Well, after
that the Sheriff’s Department showed up. They took him into custody more for
his own safety than threatening Jerry and my sister. Those charges were dropped
the next day. Doris didn’t want any more embarrassing publicity about her
affair with Jerry or her husband possibly going insane. The Sheriff released
Arnie.”
“He
returned to the doctor monthly for pain killers and then later died at home
under the care his doctor and brother Tony. Hospice wasn’t a thing back in
those days. That was what family was for. Before he died, he turned his used
car business over to Tony and paid off the small house he and Doris lived in.
The same house he died in. He gave the deed to Doris, who chose to rent it out.
This was one of my first mowing jobs. The Old Baily place. The same place your neighbor Ralph now lives.
Just down the street.
I could
feel some tension building in our little group on the porch. Alice looked at
Naydene. Naydene looked at Petey. Petey just rolled his eyes. “I don’t believe
in ghosts.” Star Trek looked at me.
“I’m still
on the fence Petey. I’ve seen plenty of weird things since I’ve come to Dusk
Thorne.” Petey scratched his long curly locks (the young werewolf needed a
haircut in my opinion). “Okay Doc, maybe I’ll try to keep an open mind about
this. We’re not in in Xerxes anymore.” Star Trek muttered.
“What
about that letter?” Alice’s eyes sparkled.
“Yep. Let’s
look at it.” Knuckle Butt took it out of the worn envelope. It read:
Dear
Doris,
You
laughed at me when I told you both that I wanted to haunt you and Jerry. Nobody
really knows much about the afterlife. I was never very religious as most of you
will remember. However, if I’m not in hell right now for my hatred of Jerry, then
rest assured the rules of the afterlife aren’t working as advertised. If
allowed I will torment him, using whatever devices I have available to me, for
eternity. He will never know a moments peace again.
I’m
asking not to be buried in Little Pine Acres cemetery as there are too many
monkeys (for some damn reason) over there. It’s like a zoo. I have chosen to be
cremated.
Well,
don’t be surprised if we run into each other later.
P. S. -
Tell Grant that if he returns all the R. C. and Pepsi bottles behind the house to
the ‘Pay Way’ store up the street he can cash them in and keep the money. I
understand he is saving up for a motorcycle. Finally, there was a huge black
cat in the back yard last night. If either of you see it, please run it off.
Indignantly,
Arnie
Foster
Knuckle
Butt passed the letter around. The groups reread it. “I would like to point out that my sister rented the old Baily house out to a young man
named Ozzie Farnsworth. Within three weeks Ozzie started to look ill kept and
began depositing letters in my brother-in-law’s handwriting to Jerry’s Paloma’s
mailbox. Jerry removed his mailbox. The letters kept coming. Ozzie would
shuffle up the street and deposit them in Jerry’s door or on his front porch
much in the same fashion as Ralph Green deposited his letter today.
“And Ralph
Green now lives in the Old Baily place!” Alice added. “Great Gravy Stain! Arnie’s
somehow writing letters to Jerry. He’s haunting him.”
“Also
stalking and harassing him.” Naydene muttered.
“Yeah, I
understand you can go to jail for that.” Petey smirked. Naydene giggled and
punched him in the arm.
“Hey, if I
can get ahold of that letter Ralph left in Jerry’s door…”
“I’m
betting the handwriting matches.” Knuckle Butt winked. I’m thinking Ralph needs
some assistance as well.
“What
happened to Ozzie? Where is he now.” Alice inquired.
Knuckle
Butt looked grim. “Across the street in Little Pine Acres cemetery.”
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