Something Else up There

Ernest Campbell, who was patronizing a local bar called The Devil’s Chemistry, took a swig of beer from the glass mug, and then downed the rest.

With a noticeable slur to his voice, he asked the bartender for “Another beer,” and the man deftly served him another, which Ernest also downed; he set it down right before letting his head drop onto the counter and his eyes close.

When he came to, the bartender had served and was conversing with another patron — a young man who’d only recently entered. Ernest looked at that patron and, furious that this person was delaying him from having another drink, yanked the glass of wine out of his hand, causing its contents to spill all over Ernest’s pants.

“You son of a bitch! Look what you made me do!” Ernest shouted, raising his hand at him.

The young man punched Ernest in the face, but was immediately afterward met with a blow to his own. Then he was shoved onto the ground and beaten till the bartender left the counter and pulled Ernest off of him. The young man, less injured than he anticipated, got up and slipped out of the bar; if he stayed, Ernest would surely kill him, and he could deal with the wound — a simple gash on his cheek — at home. The developing bruises that riddled his skin would heal on their own.

The bartender demanded, “Sit your ass down, Ernest, and don’t go till you stop being drunk”. He had to say this every time Ernest came here — which was every single evening since Ernest moved to Wyntton, California back in 1875, which was over six years ago — but to the both of them this demand had long grown routine.

He sat back down on his barstool(he sat only on this one) and said “Fine, Herman,” before falling unconscious again.

When he came to(again), the sun shone through the bar’s windows, and he was sick to his stomach. He got up shakily, lumbered to the bathroom, threw up all over the floor, and immediately returned to the barstool. He took several hours to feel decent enough to go home. Thank God his house was only a few blocks away from here. He walked home and opened the door to see his wife, Pearl, mopping the floor.

“Pearl! What did I tell you about cleaning without asking first?!”

“You never told me any-”

He threw her onto the ground before she could finish her sentence. His hands slithered up her gingham dress as she, in futility, tried to kick him away. Then he undid his belt and put something else up there.

At the same time, their neighbor — a shopkeeper, James “Jack” Hill — was pulling dandelions out of his grass, when he heard a commotion next door. But each man’s business was his own, and only his own. If there was any problem the police would deal with it. He kept pulling the weeds.

By the time Ernest was done with his wife, she’d passed out, and blood speckled the lower half of her dress and dripped down her legs; but she was not menstruating. He dragged her by her hair to their bedroom and left her on the floor.

He stormed into the other bedroom to see his fourteen-year-old daughter, Ida, fast asleep; with her precociously developed breasts, flared hips, and cherubic countenance, there was(he thought) no man who could resist her. He pulled the blankets off of her, lifted her skirt up, pulled her knickers down, fondled her, and walked away a proud man.

* * *

The young man whom Ernest had attacked in The Devil’s Chemistry sat in a chair at his parents’ house; his mother, standing at his side, was stroking his hair while also cleaning his wound with a rag doused in antiseptic.

“You know, Stephen, that Ernest’s not known as the kindest man in Wyntton,” remarked the mother. “The only person who likes him is Herman.”

Then, leaning close to Stephen’s ear, she whispered, “When I was paying Mr. Hill for some books I was buying from him, he mentioned how he heard Ernest screaming at his wife last week. And rumor has it he’s roughed up his daughter, too.”

“I’d frankly kill that sack of shit if I could. But he’s six-foot-four and I’m five-foot-nothing,” Stephen lamented.

His father, who was in an adjacent room, quipped, “You can, if you use my revolver.”

“That’s not a bad idea,” replied Stephen. “Can I borrow that gun?”

“It is underneath my and Mama’s bed.”

Stephen got out of his chair, went upstairs to his parents’ bedroom, crouched to see what was under the bed, and took the revolver with him downstairs. He kissed his mother goodbye and, before she could say anything, put the revolver in his pocket, put his coat on, and left the house.

It took him an hour of walking(and several incidents in which he bumped into people walking the opposite direction) to reach Ernest’s place, and when he did he knocked on the door, which was swiftly answered by a matronly figure with a bloodied dress and a bruise above her eye.

“You must be Ernest’s wife. Where is he?”

“He’s knocked out on the bathroom floor.”

Pearl opened the door so that he could enter.

“Lead me to the bathroom, then.”

She obliged(having learned, from being married to Ernest for eighteen years, to never disobey orders when they’re given by men), and Stephen saw Ernest lying face-down and snoring in a pool of his own vomit, and with a bottle of gin at his side.

He pulled the gun from his pocket, held it against the back of the unconscious man’s head, and fired, causing blood to run down onto the floor, where it formed a puddle. Kneeling at the corpse’s feet, Stephen grabbed one foot and, though finding Ernest extremely heavy, dragged him into the backyard and then searched the area for a shovel; after seeing that there wasn’t one out in the open, he looked inside the shed next to the house, where he found it.

He dug a deep grave in the barren dirt, hauled Ernest into that grave, and shoveled the dirt onto him.

After he returned inside, he picked his revolver up, put it back into his pocket, and told Pearl, “Your husband’s been dealt with. Tell your daughter to come downstairs.”

Pearl went upstairs and retrieved her daughter, who, Stephen thought, must have been only two or three years younger than himself.

“I cannot leave either of you here; you both can stay at my parents’ home,” he said, before going out front and pointing south. “If you keep walking south down the road, turn right when you see Whiting’s grocery store, and keep that direction, you will find my house to be the one that’s painted red.”

After Pearl and Ida left, Stephen looked around the dilapidated house for something that could start a fire. Out of a drawer in the kitchen, he produced a box of matches; he opened the gas oven, turned it on, stepped back, lit one of the matches by striking it against the matchbox, and threw it at the oven; it was engulfed in flames immediately, so he pocketed the matchbox, ran out of the house, and made his way back to his own.

When his mother opened the door for him he saw that Ida and Pearl were already having a meal at the dining room table. His mother had even prepared food for him as well.

Stephen’s father asked, “So what did you do, son?”

“You know that bastard, Ernest Campbell. I... I killed him and torched his house.”

“Good; now have a seat.”

He sat down and ate, as if it were any other day.

* * *

Jack Hill was placing new inventory on the shelves when he glanced out of the window and saw smoke billowing into the air. He wagered that the firemen would arrive any minute now — which never happened. It was rather the police who arrived(a good while after the fire practically burnt itself out, having reduced the Campbell house to a pile of rubble).

He heard one of the policemen remark, “No remains in sight. What the hell happened here?”

Another replied, “Look at this match — this was surely an arson. If Mr. Campbell was murdered, he might be buried somewhere round here.”

A third one suggested, “There’s a shovel lying on the ground, and a patch in the yard over there that doesn’t look like the area around it. Why not we dig that up?”

So the third cop began to dig with that very shovel. When he felt something hard stop him, he dug around it to find the decomposing remains of Ernest Campbell, buried face-down with a gunshot wound to the back of the head.

Campbell’s funeral would be held that evening.

* * *

There were only a few residents of Wyntton in attendance, not including Campbell’s wife or daughter; however, many relatives — most of whom were cousins, nieces, and nephews who hardly knew Campbell in life — had traveled(some by rail, some by carriage, some even by foot) from Alabama(the state where Campbell grew up, and where most of his relatives still lived) solely to sing his praises.

One of his nieces, a thirty-two-year-old woman named Betty, verged on sobbing when she delivered his eulogy inside the Connection Church:

“It is on this evening that we, having known and loved Ernest Marion Campbell for the 54 years he graced our planet, must bid farewell to him. His was a life of many roles — loving husband, doting father, hard worker, and, most importantly, an upstanding, morally excellent human being whose example most people can only admire.
“He moved from Alabama to California in search of better work prospects and a change of scenery, and it is here where he fell in love with a woman named Pearl, whom he would marry shortly thereafter and with her have a daughter, Ida; unfortunately, I do not think either Pearl or Ida are present. He was a loving husband who would have fought for the Union had Pearl told him to, and a doting father who would have gone to Hell and back for his daughter’s sake.
“He was, to family, friends, and strangers alike, a kind, generous man. He gave money to the poor, searched the streets for poor people to feed, and even set fish out for animals to eat. He and his family exemplified what an American family ought to be — a hardworking, protective husband; a loyal, loving, untroublesome wife; and cheerful, obedient children who are raised well by both.
“Tragically, he was murdered last week by a despicable young man, named Stephen Woodrow. I, as any person with a modicum of decency, am not only greatly bereaved, but wholly appalled by this man’s senseless slaughter of a wonderful, upstanding human being, and I know that, if he cannot repent, he shall burn in Hell for what he has done.
“I can attest his great personality. I was a little girl, and Uncle Ernie, who still lived in Alabama at this time, would come by to visit my parents; every time he visited me, he would hold me on his lap, tell me stories, and bring me dolls and flowers. I still have most of the dolls. Now let me sing a song that I think to be pertinent to this wonderful man’s life.”

She began to sing, or, more accurately, squawk like a duck being spun around by its neck:
“I know you’ve gone above,
loved one of mine,
for the Lord’s decided
it’s your time
to meet the angels far above,
to bask in your ancestors’ love.

You’ve left behind a wife and child
who’ll miss you, greatly so;
But you’ll return to your parents
who left you long ago.

But your amazing legacy
will grace this Earth for centuries;
and of your moral excellence
I’m sure the Lord is pleased.”

By the time she finished squawking, every single person was crying; some hid their faces in their hands but the majority wept without restraint. Then everyone went outside once it was time to lower his coffin into the ground. As it was being lowered they dropped their flowers onto it; some were belladonnas, some were geraniums, some were black-eyed Susans.

The rest of the service was spent exchanging memories of how good a man Ernie was. The mourners spoke of how he was the most generous man one could meet, or the hardest worker one could meet, or the kindest man one could meet, or the greatest father the Earth has carried, or the greatest husband a woman could ask for, or that he treated his wife and daughter extraordinarily well; but they spoke of nothing specific, because there, in reality, was nothing specific to talk about. But to admit that would be horribly disrespectful, wouldn’t it?