The Front Porch Prophet

“This is not funny. Tell him I did it, and quit playing around.” A.J. was angry. It wasn’t that he wanted to take the blame, or the credit, depending on the point of view. But right was right, and Eugene didn’t do it. “If Slim is eating out of the palm of your hand, why are you wearing the handcuffs? I’m telling you, you’re loading yourself up for trouble you can’t handle.”

“Sorry,” Eugene said. “It’s my word against yours. You are a piss-poor liar, and I’m taking the rap. We were knights in shining armor on this deal, but four guys are dead. The shit heads shot one of them, and the two you brained with the bat were clearly self-defense. That leaves the one you made into dog food. A.J., I know you, and I know for a fact you were going to fuck that one up. You were already starting to warm up to that cold-blooded-murder shit. Now me, I can lie all day. Slim already knows that the man was just about to cut down on me and the girl, but I got him first. You had gone on ahead to find us a good spot to fish. By the time you got back, it was all over. As for the cuffs, do you know how long Slim has been waiting to slap these on somebody? Hell, I couldn’t let him down. How often does he get to be in on a quadruple murder? Have a little compassion.”

“There’s a problem with your plan,” A.J. said. “The girl remembers.” It was a lie, but it might provide the necessary impetus for Eugene to recant.

“No problem at all,” was Eugene’s reply. “She was in shock. You prompted her because you’re a hell of a guy and didn’t want to see your buddy take the fall.” He paused a moment before offering the kicker. “Here’s the deal. You are a prince among men, and everybody knows you’d try to help me out of a jam. It’s just something you’d do. Me, I’m a piece of shit. I’ve never done a noble thing in my life. Why would I start now?”

A.J. mentally acknowledged that Eugene seemed to have thought it through.

“Anyway,” Eugene continued, “I’m a bootlegger. This will be great for my reputation. Might help get some of the larger bills cleared up. Maybe even discourage competition from some of the younger boys just taking up the trade.” A.J. didn’t know what to say. The abnormality of the conversation dovetailed with the absurdity of the day. They were a matched set, color-coordinated insanity.

“We’ll take polygraph tests,” A.J. offered, stubborn as a bulldog and losing ground. “I’ll prove I did it.”

“Those things won’t stand up in court, and mine will come out better than yours, anyway. I lie better than I tell the truth. It’s one of my strengths.” Eugene was set on his course.

“Eugene, why are you doing this?” A.J. wasn’t giving up, but he had to admit he had lost momentum.

“I’m doing it because I’m your friend. I can get away with this. You can’t.” Eugene was silent for a moment. “Besides, you would do it for me. Who knows? Someday I may need a favor.”

The aftermath of the day’s events was complicated. The girl’s name was Regina Deberry of the Atlanta Deberrys, and she was a senior at the University of Georgia. Her declared major was anthropology, but her long weekend in the mountains had dampened her fascination with primitive cultures, and as soon as she returned to Athens she adjusted her academic focus toward psychology.

But there was one small blemish to clear up before she returned to scholastic life. Found among the ruins of the camp-in Regina’s sleeping bag, to be exact-was five pounds of high-quality black Jamaican marijuana. The cache was discovered by Slim, and Regina’s partial amnesia conveniently extended to cover the origin of the substance. So although she had been almost raped and nearly killed, Slim held her pending investigation of the drug charge.

“Any one of four dead guys he could nail, and Slim tries to hang it on the girl,” Eugene said when he heard the news. He was disgusted. “Hell, I wish I had found it. It damn sure wouldn’t be a problem now.”

A.J. had no doubts on that score, and he found it unusual that Eugene had missed the stash when he had dashed back to retrieve his gun, because he hadn’t overlooked anything else. He had reclaimed his pistol and its spent shell casings as well as retrieving A.J.’s fingerprints from both the bat and the M-16. He had replaced them with his own.