Luther Blacktop Read online

  Never Been There: Luther Blacktop

  A Robert Revolver book

  Illustrated by Devon Whitehead

  Edited by James T.B. McCudden

  PUBLISHING HISTORY

  Amazon Kindle Digital Publishing / June 13, 2019

  Published by Robert Revolver for Revolver Visual Design LLC

  All rights reserved

  Copyright ©2019 Revolver Visual Design LLC

  Cover image by Devon Whitehead

  No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without the written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews.

  LUTHER BLACKTOP

  Mikey hauls himself up from the leather couch in his parents’ living room. The backside of his legs stick to the liquid residue left over from last night’s party. A pre-party actually, one designed to keep the oath. Bros before hoes.

  “Dude, what are we gonna do tonight?” He asks, wiping his hand across his whole face. His bare feet shimmy toward the front door and the shadowy figure standing outside the frosted glass side window. “I wanna get with Stacy tonight. Like really fuckin’ bad, man.”

  He opens the door and makes as little eye contact as possible with the teenager in the red hat standing on his step. There’s a large, steaming box held in the kid’s left hand. It fills Mikey’s nostrils, setting them on fire with their eleven secret herbs and spices. Inhaling that first spicy, delicious breath, he hastily fishes the money from his pocket and makes a seamless exchange across the threshold of the door. A handful of bills goes one way and a fresh, twenty piece, jumbo family combo mix-n-match comes back the other. Even Steven, kid. Let’s eat.

  Mikey shuffles back into the living room and slides the greasy cardboard box across the top of the oak coffee table, pushing aside the game controllers and plates of half eaten pizza from the night before.

  “You need to get her scared, man,” Josh says leaning forward and reaching for the chicken while offering a solution to his best friend’s conundrum. “You know she gets scared easy.”

  “We ain’t rentin’ a movie and sittin’ around together with you guys, man.” Mikey retorts, wrinkling up the side of his face in disapproval. ”She ain’t into that.”

  “Naw, not like that.” Josh pauses, working his fingers through the bucket, separating the original recipe from the new, tangy sweet and sour. “I mean you need to take her somewhere. Chicks get so wet when they’re freaked out like that.”

  Mikey’s face snaps back to normal. The thought of Stacy’s shivering cotton panties start dancing in his head. “Okay, but where? There ain’t nothin’ scary around here.”

  “Are you fuckin’ kidding me?” Josh laughs, rolling back into the couch and laying his first bite into an original drummy. “You didn’t hear about what happened in Mannsville a couple years ago? You should take her down there.”

  “Mannsville? You talking like the Mannsville on 70? What the fuck happened there?”

  * * * * * * * * * * * * *

  Mannsville, Kentucky. Population: 140

  Two years earlier, late summer. As usual, the air is thick with humidity and buzzing with enraged locusts. The dwindling population is an old, hand-painted “140” in desperate need of an update. Of the few people still hanging around, there’s hardly a man or woman who didn’t live through the last great war. Aside from the fresh government mile-marker at the edge of town, nobody really cares about Mannsville anymore. It’s all been written off. There’s still a church, a rail stop (freight only) and a historically recognized landmark called, “Mannsville Grease ‘n Tire." That’s all they have left. If not for Social Security, they would have already rolled up their sidewalks and bulldozed everything into another tobacco field.

  “Alright, Mr. Blacktop. Just how you gonna do this? There ain’t no bringin’ this back.”

  The voice belongs to an elderly man named Milton. He’s one of the old guard, born and raised within the Mannsville township limits. When it was a township. There was a time when he worked at the sawmill sixteen hours a day. He rough cut planks and bucked out phone poles, loading them on trucks and sending them on down the highway. Times were booming back then. There were town meetings, pot-luck dinners and dances every Saturday night. The years following the war were alright too. So were the sixties. But then in the seventies, the jobs started to dry up. Kids started to go slack in the wrist. They found drugs and bright lights in the city. The girls came and went. They had no character, no integrity. It was all too easy. They lost their sense of home. They started to leave and never came back. Now, thirty years later there are only memories left, each one etched into the hard lines of the Milton’s face.

  “Tell me, Milton, have you ever seen one of... these before?”

  Luther reaches in his pocket and pulls out a small pile of something that he hides in his hand. His name is Blacktop, but he always tries to introduce himself simply as Luther. He feels accomplished for being just twenty-eight years old. He’s dressed in a nice black suit, slacks and matching fancy shoes. He has a nice watch attached to his wrist. His has jet black hair that he keeps looking wet, trimmed short and parted on the left. Like a preacher. He looks down through his low-power, black-rimmed glasses knowing that his eyes shine with deep blue intensity. His fingers uncoil slowly, breaking the ice with a patient reveal.

  Milton looks down at the dull silver, identifying it as a necklace attached to a crude pewter axe head. It looks like something a kid might come home with from the county fair. He lifts his eyes back to meet Luther’s. His face is a flat slab of stone, but that’s not uncommon. Luther smiles.

  “It’s an axe.”

  “Well Christ, son, I can see that. What the hell’s that little thing gonna do?”

  Luther tempers his enthusiasm and nods his head, respecting the tone of Milton’s question momentarily before he answers.

  “There’s a town to the west of here a ways. It’s actually a couple of states over. Five years ago, almost to the day, they were sitting in the same boat that you are. In fact, they may have been a little worse off. They were an Amish colony. They still are, in fact. But back then, not only were they losing their town, they were losing their entire way of life. Everything they had devoted their lives to was disappearing and they didn’t have a prayer to stop it.”

  Luther pauses and pinches the axe head between his fingers, rubbing it back and forth, silently admiring its quality.

  “Then one of them, one of the older ones, had had it. He talked to a guy who talked to a guy and that guy talked to me.” He pauses and looks up at Milton, who’s listening intently.

  “Everything sound familiar so far?”

  Milton chews his lip and leans back in his chair. He lifts his arms and crosses them in front of his chest—the universal symbol for “cut to the goddamn chase.”

  Luther continues. “So I head out there and I meet this guy. He invites me into his kitchen and sits me down. He shoos his family out of the room and his neighbors away from the windows. He’s sweating bullets by the time he finally has it all under control and when he starts talking, he’s so angry about the whole situation that he can hardly even speak.”

  Luther waits again, this time dropping the necklace onto the center of the table and sitting down in his chair. His hands fold together in front of his face and he continues to stare at it, giving Milton just enough time to either demand the end of the story or to kick him out.

  “Okay. Go on.” Milton mutters, tipping his head to the side. Luther smiles and looks up from the necklace, letting a quick laugh escape his lips.

  “W
ell, I guess that’s when I first saw the axe. It was sitting right there, right beside the stove. They probably used it for chopping up supper for all I knew, but the second I saw it, I knew I was gonna do it.”

  Milton looks down at the table, squinting a bit. Luther can visualize the puzzle coming together in his head.

  “So I told him that he was going to have to kill someone with that axe. And make it big. The bloodier the better.”

  “Now hold on one minute.” Milton’s eyes pop open at the punch line. The stone wall has crumbled. He’s visibly disgusted. “We ain’t gonna kill no one here, Mr. Blacktop.”

  Luther rolls his tongue across the back of his teeth, slowly passing from one side of his mouth to the other. He can still taste the morning’s shot of bourbon. Milton’s eyes tilt away for a moment and Luther takes this opportunity to stand up from the kitchen table. Sliding his chair back a few inches, it creaks across the hardwood floor before coming to a stop at the edge of living room carpet. Still licking his teeth, he does another quick survey of the kitchen.

  Okay, Milton. Where’s your proverbial axe?

  There’s a short, single row of cabinets above the sink. They’re small and white and stained dark around the handles. The bare wall space is covered with crudely attached old calendars, handwritten notes and small knick-knacks. The counter is littered with battered old cooking devices, cords and unorganized paperwork. It’s been a long time since it felt a woman’s touch, but it’s still relatively clean and sanitary. Luther turns away and looks through the big picture window behind him, shifting his search into Milton’s backyard.

  Milton stands up too, walking over to the sink and washing the leftover coffee grounds out of his cup. Luther listens and rubs his fingers against the dark stubble shading his jawline.

  No axe… All right, let’s start with an interesting location…

  Outside, the backyard is huge and fenced off on all sides. There is a big garden full of tomatoes and pumpkins. On the other side of the fence is Mannsville Grease ‘n Tire. It’s a three-stall garage with a single gas pump on a gravel driveway. From a distance, its paint looks as sun-bleached as a dry riverbed. Its service doors sag from their tracks like old skin. There are weeds growing in the driveway and each one of the wooden letters nailed to the front of the building is suffering from irreversible rot. Their colors, once red, white and blue, have all but turned to gray. Overall, it just looks heavy and tired. It’s practically begging to swallow a burning match.

  “Where’s your boy? His name’s Edwin, right? I don’t think I’ve seen him since I got here.”

  “Pfft. Who the hell knows?” Milton scowls and slides his clean cup beside the coffee pot. “Probably off with that devil woman of his. They don’t want nothin’ to do with this or our business.”

  Luther suddenly remembers something about the old grease shop being part of the family too. Milton’s right, the son didn’t want anything to do with that place, ever.

  “But he’s the one that called me here in the first place, correct? Said he had talked it all over with you beforehand...”

  “Well, that figgers. He did, but that’s nothin’ outta his norm. Thing is, he ain’t got no follow-through. Always talkin’ but never does more’n leave a mess like this wherever he goes.”

  Milton joins Luther at the big picture window. The sour stink of fuel oil rolls off his clothes. Together they stand in silence for a long pause before Luther finally pulls his attention away from the service station. He turns to look back at Milton, but not looking him directly in the eye.

  “You know, I don’t think I can do this, Milton.” Luther admits, shaking his head. “Without a killing, this doesn’t work. That’s a corner we cannot cut. Even if you and your boy were on the same page and we worked a different angle, none of it would last without a killing. There has to be an even trade, Milton. Someone dies or your town dies.”

  Milton snorts and stands himself up a little taller. He’s still wearing the scowl produced when he spoke about his son.

  “That Amish...” He remains staring at his old business. There’s an extra crease in the corner of his eye, the same kind people kind get when they stand in front of a loved one’s headstone. “So they did it, huh? You actually talked him into killing someone with an axe?”

  “You could probably make a case for that, but I really just made some suggestions. He was desperate. He did the rest.”

  Milton’s face remains hard, cold and straight to the point.

  “Who got killed? How do you choose something like that?”

  Luther follows Milton’s star back to the garage.

  Okay, so that’s where you want to do it. It’ll work. Unless it’s filled to the rafters with garbage, it’ll make a great set piece. It would make a great black and white postcard someday, too.

  “That’s the rub of it all. That’s who you have to figure out.”

  “So who’d that Amish… figure out?” Milton asks.

  “His mother.”

  Milton’s face flushes, equally from the answer and from the overall blunt force of its admission.

  “Oh no… no… that ain’t righ—”

  “And his son. And his daughter. And his wife and even their dog. He made a great big mess in that house and when he was done, he hanged himself out in the barn.”

  Milton looks like he’s going to vomit. He steps back and paces over to the sink, shaking his head. Luther discretely records the movements, noting that they look more personal than they do sudden. He also notes the naval service tattoo on Milton’s right forearm, hiding under a trail of large, dark grease stains. It’s an anchor and some text. It’s green and blurry and absolutely authentic. Likely, the man has been no stranger to blood and pain.

  “But that didn’t solve nothin’, then. He don’t even know if it worked.”

  “Milton, I’ll admit that whole thing was way over the top. Some people take the ball and run a lot further with it than others. He didn’t need to take it that far but like I said, it was a small, small town. And once he got started...”

  “Yeah and he’s dead now. And his kin are too. That ain’t how I want to see it.” Milton pauses and looks up at the ceiling, his hands on his hips.

  “So, did doing something so terrible change one goddamn thing about that town?”

  “That’s why I brought the necklace, Milton.” Luther looks away from the glass and back to the center of the kitchen table. “The proof’s lying right there on your table.”

  “A goddamn necklace?” He barks. “You made a guy kill his whole family for a piece of junk like that?”

  He growls through his nose, curling his upper lip.

  And here comes the knee-jerk rejection…

  “I’ve think I’ve had enough of this snake oil. Pick up your things and get ou—”

  “That’s one of five thousand necklaces, Milton,” Luther snaps, cutting him off and pointing at the chain. His jaw hardens, his eyes going cold. “Those Amish people sell five thousand of those every year now and that’s just the beginning.”

  Luther locks his eyes onto Milton’s, holding him there while he digests that fact… runs the numbers. His mouth twitches, fighting to repeat the order to leave, but it just can’t. A flash of understanding briefly distorts Milton’s face. He’s putting it all together…

  He’s thinking about necklaces. They fill the shelves of his gas station, maybe a little roadside gift shop. His old navy buddies get some part time work. They give tours, sell t-shirts. Kids come to town just to get scared. Adults come and take pictures. People write articles. They make TV shows about the town. The moment never dies and it only gets bigger as it gets older. The horror keeps people coming back. Everyone wants to see it, wants to spend their money and bring a little piece of it back home with them. Just to say they’ve been there. They want to come to Mannsville…

  “Okay, Mr. Blacktop.” He withdraws.“You’ve made your pitch but now I wanna show you something.” Milton waves his hand toward
the living room in the direction of the staircase leading up to the second floor. “I got something that might be able to change your mind.”

  Milton’s scowl hasn’t completely disappeared as he turns away, but it’s fading. Luther silently lets out a deep breath and slides the necklace off the table and back into his pocket. He follows Milton to the stairs, passing through the living room, noticing that all of the furniture is covered in the same type of dark stains as the cupboards in the kitchen. They are smeared across the walls, too. There’s a stack of old newspapers beside the darkest chair and the television is covered in dust. The reek of old fuel oil grows stronger with every step further into the house.

  Milton starts up the stairs, not saying another word until they reach the landing and begin down a long hallway that leads to the opposite side of the house. The air feels stale and dry. There are windows at either end of the hall but they’re closed tight and covered by black curtains.

  “I know you want a killin’, but there ain’t nobody around here that we need to be killin’, Mr. Blacktop.” Milton growls. “But this here might do the same trick.”

  He comes to a total stop, leaving a few feet between himself and the last door on the left. As he reaches for the lock, there suddenly a nervous twitch creeping through his fingers. The change sparks genuine curiosity and Luther pauses, leaving a comfortable distance between the two of them. Milton exhales and turns around, revealing a very different look on his face, like he’s suddenly embarrassed to be doing this.

  “Okay, Mr. Blacktop. This is what I wanted to show you.”

  Milton’s cheeks balloon out, filled with air while he lets out an exaggerated breath and slowly opens the door. The latch turns with a squeak, followed by an angry groan from the hinges as the door opens in front of him. A toxic, thick cloud of old fuel oil is released into the hallway, mixed with smells of sugar and mixed with human filth. It overtakes Luther’s senses before he even has a chance...

  “Oh god, Milton. What in the—”