Story Excerpt

Speed Trap Camera
by James D.F. Hannah

It’s the sheriff who comes by, asking Joey McKay about his uncle Dale.

“He busted up the camera on County Road Twenty-Three,” Sheriff Landing says. Her name’s Charlotte, but Joey’s never heard someone call her anything but “Crash” since they were in high school. She’s small and boyish, and the rolled-up sleeves of her sheriff’s uniform reveal tattoos twisting up her left arm like vines on a lattice.

She stands on the walkway to Joey’s doublewide, more in the shadows than not, barely catching any of the illumination coming off the front porch lights. Most of that falls on Joey up on the creaky wooden porch, still in his red Speedy Mart vest, name tag pinned to the chest. The late evening air’s heavy as soaked cotton, thick with summer humidity. Joey’s sweated through his shirt until the vest is patchy and wet, each blot as dark red as a gunshot wound.

Joey takes a pack of USA Golds from his shirt pocket, shakes one loose, and lights it. He’s a man of hard edges, with tired eyes too big for his face and his hair shaved down to a silhouette across his skull. His own tattoos are a disconnected jangle of words and images as fuzzy as photos from outer space, the distinct whiff of prison ink.

He takes a pull from the cigarette, and says, “That the speed trap camera on Cully’s Ditch Road?”

Two things: It’s CR-23 on maps and navigation apps, but everyone local refers to it as Cully’s Ditch Road. A stretch of two-lane connecting Serenity with the southern part of Parker County, the road’s pockmarked with switchbacks and holler turnoffs, and once or twice a month a car gets T-boned pulling out by someone tearing ass in the other direction. There are other times, during a winter freeze that makes the road slicker than oiled shit, or after a heavy summer rain that gathers in shimmering puddles across baking blacktop, when cars spin out and pile up in the concrete gully like dead raccoons.

And, technically, it’s a “traffic surveillance system.” Rather than pony up for extra shifts for deputies to catch folks in the act, the county got sold on the speed trap camera, the company convincing the commissioners the device would both save money and generate revenue. It’s been true so far, but what Crash notices is no one’s slowing down on Cully’s Ditch Road; they simply pay their tickets and keep on speeding.

“Surprised no one tried to it before now,” Crash says. “Those cameras, they’ve got five pounds of copper in ’em.”

Joey laughs. “Practically a crime waiting to happen then, ain’t it? You mind me asking, how you know it’s Dale?”

“I mean, it’s a camera. There’s big pictures of his face, swinging a hammer to crack the thing open.”

The screen door squeals behind Joey and his girlfriend, Lora Mae, comes out. She’s a sweet-faced woman with long strawberry blonde hair and freckles and a space between her front teeth as wide as the thickness of a nickel. Her arms are arranged one hand on top of her swollen belly, the other cradled underneath, as though she’s shoplifting a Thanksgiving turkey beneath her pale blue maternity top covered in cartoon ducks.

Joe flips his half-spent cigarette into the dirt driveway right between his pickup and Crash’s county SUV, and blows out one last cloud of smoke away from the direction of Lora Mae.

“Everything all right?” Lora Mae says. She sees Crash and smiles. “How you doing, Crash?”

Crash smiles back at Lora Mae. They’re all roughly the same age, and Crash had a crush on Lora Mae back in high school, the way almost everyone else seemed to.

“Doin’ fine, Lora Mae,” Crash says. “You look ready to pop.”

Lora Mae gives her swollen belly a rub.

“Two months still.”

Crash runs an open palm across the back of her neck, wipes it dry on her pants, staining a darker streak across the polyester.

“Still got the worst of August ahead.” 

“It’ll be fine so long as the AC keeps working.” Lora Mae moves a hand onto Joey’s shoulder and gives him a gentle squeeze. “I’m goin’ on to bed.” 

“Be right inside.” Joe nods toward Crash. “Sorry I couldn’t be more help, Sheriff.”

“Appreciate it anyway. I’ll let y’all get to the rest of your night.”

Joey watches Crash back out of the driveway, hoping she doesn’t notice the dead tags on his Camry. The SUV’s taillights float through the trailer park darkness like fireflies, vanishing on a right turn onto the main road.

 

The next morning, Lora Mae goes to work at the grocery store where she decorates cakes all day, and Joey drives to Tully’s, a bar and grill with a sheet of yellow legal paper taped to the entrance advertising an eight a.m. happy hour. The parking lot’s full, workers coming off third shift at the nearby cookie factory.

Breakfast is cooking as Joey walks through the door, people devouring plates of eggs and bacon and sausage and gravy, washing it down with Bud Light or PBR. ESPN’s on the TVs behind the bar, footage of an NFL linebacker who got caught punching his girlfriend in the face by a guy with a cell phone. No one’s paying attention, and you can’t hear it anyway, “Midnight Train to Memphis” playing over the bar’s stereo.

Joey sees his uncle at the end of the bar, hunched over a whiskey double. Joey gets himself a cup of coffee and carries it to where Dale is, sits on the stool beside him.

“Hey there, little man. What brings you out here?” Dale says.

“I was hoping to find you before the sheriff does, and I know this is one of your places,” Joey says. “Sheriff says you busted up a speed trap camera.”

Dale downs his drink and rattles the ice cubes in the glass.

The bartender, a fire hydrant in a flowered shirt, says, “Cash only, Dale, and I gotta see the money first.”

Dale looks at Joey, raises his eyebrows. Joey takes bills from his wallet and hands them to the bartender. The bartender counts them out, goes and returns a minute later with a fresh whiskey. Dale drains half of it in a long swallow, sets the glass down.

“There’s a guy, he’ll buy whatever copper you bring to him, no questions asked, and I need the money. I saw the camera and figured it’d be a few bucks. You think about, it’s practically a public service. I bet those damned things give off radiation and kill birds and shit.” Dale smiles, showing blank spaces where there should be teeth. “Buy me another one.”

“It ain’t even nine in the morning yet.” Joey sips his coffee and regrets it immediately. “Where you staying?” 

“Here and there. Wherever.”

“Sounds nice. Sounds like your best life.” 

Dale downs the rest of his whiskey. “Screw off, little man. What you got that’s so great? Hell, you were the one dumb enough to get caught.”

Joey’d been twenty-two, full of piss and vinegar, when he’d thought robbing the pharmacy would be easy since it really wasn’t anything but a pill mill dosing out Xannies and Oxy like breath mints. But then his car got tagged on a security camera and he scored himself a triple in Huttonsville for his efforts. He’s been living straight since getting out, taking classes at the community college, getting ready for the baby with Lora Mae.

He doesn’t point out to Dale how he himself got caught this time, his face on the speed trap camera. Instead Joey says, “Let me take you home. Get a shower and some food in you. Tomorrow we’ll talk to the sheriff. She’s good people. Go and make things right.”

Dale stares at the mirror on the wall behind the bar. Seeming to think it over. Joey wonders how difficult of a decision this is.

“Why not?” Dale says finally. “The place sucks.”

As they’re walking out of the bar, they don’t notice the bartender typing away on his cell phone.

 

The AC compressor on Joey’s Camry is dead, so he drives with what he calls “four-forty air conditioning”: four windows down, forty miles an hour. The breeze is so loud, Joey doesn’t bother turning on the radio. Dale rides slumped down into the passenger seat like a child who lost his Little League game.

They’re a few miles from Tully’s when Joey notices the pickup in his rearview. A Ford F-150, matte black, zooming to catch up and then hovering at a speed right below their own.

Joey checks the road ahead. It stretches out clean and empty, no traffic. He waves his arm out the window for the truck to pass them.

The pickup flashes its headlights.

Joey motions with his arm again. The headlights flash again.

“Don’t pull over,” Dale says, his eyes locked on the truck’s reflection in the passenger side mirror.

The truck shaves off the space between them. Joey digs the accelerator into the floorboard but the sputtering engine has nothing more to give. The black pickup grows larger in the rearview.

Joey hits his turn signal. “They’re gonna be in the back seat if I don’t.”

He pulls off onto the side of the road. The black pickup does the same, inching up behind them until the bumpers touch and Joey’s Camry jolts forward.

Joey starts to open his door when Dale grabs hold of him. “Stay here,” Dale says.

Two men exit the black pickup. The driver’s a big one, gut rolling over his belt, bearded, thick arms exposed by a denim shirt with the sleeves cut off, carrying a crowbar. Out of the passenger side comes a smaller, leaner man, his thinning hair long and flowing across his shoulders. He walks up to Dale’s side of the car, rests his forearms in the open window while the big man hangs to the back.

“Mornin’, y’all,” the skinny man says. “Wanted to let you know your taillights are out.”

Glass and plastic shatter as the big man swings the crowbar into the Camry’s rear lights. Joey goes to open the door again. A glint of reflected sunlight catches his attention and he realizes it’s coming off the edge of a knife the skinny man’s holding in one hand, waving in Dale’s face.

“Where you boys headed?” the skinny man says. “Comin’ to see me, Dale? Set your account straight?”

Dale sinks as far back into the seat as he can without vanishing into the upholstery.

“I’m getting your money, Bingo. I’ll get it.”

The skinny man, Bingo, rests the flat of the blade across the bridge of Dale’s nose, the tip maybe an inch from Dale’s left eye.

Dale swallows. “Bingo, I—”

The knife moves, the edge flicking across Dale’s cheek. A blade draws a long cut and blood that runs like red tear drops. Dale hisses in pain and grabs his face and blood races down his neck, staining the front of his shirt.

Bingo sets his eyes—as cold and hard as a first winter freeze—on Joey. “What are you to ol’ Dale here?” he says.

“He’s . . . he’s . . . he’s my uncle.” Joey can barely hear his own words, his heart hammering away in his chest.

“That so? Nice how even a sack of shit like Dale has family to lean on. Well then, Dale’s nephew, I’m sorry about your window.”

Joey twists in time to see the crowbar drive into the back window, the glass spiderwebbing around the point of impact.

Bingo leans back from the window and tucks the knife away. “Now you and your nephew have yourselves a good reunion, and you get me my goddamn money, you hear? Because your clock is ticking.” He and the big man get back into the pickup and drive away.

Dale flips open the glove compartment and pulls out a handful of fast food napkins and presses them against his face. He looks at Joey, who’s frozen behind the steering wheel.

“Just go,” Dale says. “Get us out of here.” 

Joey’s hands shake as he puts the car into gear and pulls back into traffic. 

* * *

Lora Mae gets home from work and sorts shifts through the mail as she walks into the trailer and hears the washing machine working.

“Honey, what happened to your car? And are you washing jeans? I just did a load the—”

She freezes in the kitchen doorway when she sees Dale. He’s showered, wet hair like straw matted to his head. Dressed in one of Joe’s Parker County Pirates t-shirts that hangs loose on his lanky frame and an aforementioned pair of clean jeans, the belt clinched to the last notch. A bandage holds together the cut on his face. He has a half-empty plate of meatloaf, mashed potatoes, and green beans, shoveling the food in at a methodical pace. He pauses with the fork in mid-air when he catches sight of Lora Mae in the corner of his eye.

“How you doing, Lora Mae?” He grins. “See you and Joey been busy doing the devil’s business.”

Lora Mae sets the mail down and takes hold of her stomach.

Joey comes out the hallway with clean sheets and a pillow in his arms. The sight of Lora Mae catches him off-guard, the surprise showing on his face.

“You’re home early,” he says. He walks toward the living room. Past Lora Mae. Heat and anger radiate off of her. He dumps the bed linens on the couch.

“Me and Lora Mae gotta talk for a minute,” Joey says. “When you’re done eating, put your stuff in the dishwasher, all right?”

Dale takes a bite of meatloaf. “Sure enough, little man.”

Lora Mae follows Joey outside. She stays on the porch while he steps out onto the small square of grass they call a front yard. He’s got a cigarette blazing before he’s even spun around to see her.

“Tell me what it is you’re thinking,” she says. “Bringin’ him here.”

“One night. We’ll see Crash first thing in the morning, and that’ll be that.”

“Have you forgotten how your momma and daddy busted their asses trying to fix all the things Dale broke in this world? When they got him a new car after he got drunk and wrecked the last one, then he went and did the same thing again. Or them asking for favors so he could get a job he’d only up and quit once he had enough money for a fifth and some pills. What about after your daddy’s funeral and it was you and me cleaning out their house, and every time Dale came through the front door, we’d catch him sneaking out the back with something to sell or pawn. This ringing any bells?”

 

Joey drops his head, seems to be studying his shoes. “You’ve got your people, Lora Mae. Dale’s the only family I got left. Everyone else is dead and buried.”

“If he’s your family, what the hell does that make this baby and me?”

When Joey looks up to respond, Lora Mae’s already gone back inside. Five minutes later she’s pulling a suitcase behind her. She loads it into the trunk of her car and slams the lid shut with meaning. “I’m gonna check on Mom, see how she’s doing. You let me know when he’s not here.”

Joey meets her as she gets into the car. “This is the last time. I promise.” 

Lora Mae clicks her seatbelt, adjusts the strap around her stomach. “I’m not living a life of promises. I can’t raise this baby on those. You make your choice about what you want, and you let me know.”

Joey doesn’t argue. He doesn’t fight. He sure as hell won’t beg. They’re like any couple; they’ve had these spats. She’s gone to her mother’s before, and she’s always come back.

Watching her drive away, Joey hopes she will again this time.

“Where’s she off to?” Dale says. Joey sees him standing on the porch, cupping his hand over his eyes to shield against the sun.

“How much money you owe that guy?” Joey says. “Bingo, is it?”

“Why you askin’?”

“A question to a question isn’t an answer, Dale.”

“Because the amount don’t matter. A hundred bucks or a million, little man, it’s all play money if you ain’t got it.”