Fiction by Adam Coulter
Adam Coulter works in agriculture and is an avid reader of Southern literature. He lives in North Carolina where he enjoys traveling the mountains, photographing the disappearing Americana of back country roads. His fiction has appeared in New Plains Review, Black Fox Literary Journal, The Main Street Rag and County Lines Literary Journal.
Jake and Harley, Brothers
‘I’ll arrive on the 710 train,’ the letter said in childlike handwriting. ‘I could use a ride home. Your brother, Harley.’
Jake folded the yellow paper and slipped it in his pocket beneath the light of the train depot. He sat alone on the bench. The dawn sky was starting to lighten. He stretched his legs out in front of him and his black hat fell forward, low on his forehead, as he slumped in his seat.
Harley had killed a man. He always claimed in self-defense, but the jury of the Russell County courthouse saw things differently and he was sentenced to a fifteen-year term for involuntary manslaughter. He had served his time in the Raleigh state penitentiary and swore to Jake he had found the right path in life. He just needed a place to stay, “until I can get back on my feet,” he had said. Seven letters in fifteen years and now he wanted his help. Jake punched his palm at the thought.
The click of heels climbing the steps stirred him. He looked out from under his hat at a young lady he did not know. Her dress was new, he could tell, lavender with white roses. His wife had owned a number of new dresses over the years. Now, her new husband bought them for her. He stood for the lady, removed his hat, and held the door for her. She smiled and thanked him, then walked on, the soft scent of her perfume carrying in the breeze. He stood in the doorway and watched as she dug in her purse and joined the line for the ticket office.
“Excuse me,” a man behind him said. Jake stepped aside and the man entered, walking straight to the young lady, holding the small of her back as he stood next to her in line. For a moment, Jake remembered being in love, and a pang of jealousy rose in him.
He closed the door on that and returned to the bench. The day was new and cool. An early Spring was unfolding in the mountains and it had been a rainy March. He looked at his watch. 7 a.m. More people began to arrive at the depot. A black Ford with rusty fenders drove up hauling a half load of firewood, the blocks piled neatly, like connecting pieces of a jigsaw puzzle. A red headed man with a crooked jaw, dressed in overalls, got out of the cab, and set up a handmade sign. Green painted letters announced firewood for sale. He leaned against the tailgate and stood with his arms crossed.
It had grown too crowded for Jake to sit alone. He left the bench and stood on the platform, leaning against a post, watching the tracks. Within minutes, the train came into view, roaring across the valley floor from the east. At first only a black dot with the Blue Ridge Mountains unfolding around it and the sky an ash gray. Jake recalled years past when he and Harley, as boys, walked the tracks into town, balancing their steps on the shiny metal rails and dreaming of faraway lands.
~~~~~~~~~~
“Daddy says these tracks go all the way to California,” a younger Jake said, extending his arms, lining his steps heel to toe on the rail.
“Where’s that?” Harley asked, his blond hair unblemished in the sun and his lips tinged red from a cherry lollipop.
“On the other side of the country,” Jake answered. “So far away they have a different ocean.”
Harley’s eyes widened. “I want to see the different ocean!” he said, running to catch up with his brother, following behind him, arms extended, imitating Jake’s every move.
“Can we get there before Saturday?” he asked.
“It would take,” Jake counted his fingers, pretending to calculate the math, “one month and two days to reach California from here.”
Harley thought a moment. “Could you go with me?” he asked.
“Would you want me to?”
Harley shrugged. “You’re my brother,” he said. “Seems like something brothers should do.”
~~~~~~~~~~
Jake wondered now if he would even recognize Harley. His own hair had turned gray and crows feet punctuated the corners of his once youthful eyes.
The locomotive arrived, its sleek black and yellow engine car screeching to a stop in front of the depot. The crowd gathered on the platform; Jake was swallowed up in the group.
“Russellville!” the porters in their black and white uniforms shouted, opening the doors, and preparing the steps for those disembarking.
Jake walked the platform, pardoning and excusing himself through the crowd. Throngs of people greeted friends and relatives in joyous embrace. A few yards in front of him, a man walked alone, a worn out suitcase in hand, eyeing the crowd like a child looking for his family.
Jake followed him, hurrying to reach him, until an older man stepped out and slapped the young man on the shoulder and the woman with him broke into tears as they welcomed the young man home. Jake continued on, past others waiting, past luggage and deliveries lined along the edge of the platform, past porters assisting departing passengers. Then, through the dirty, dusty windows of the next to last car, he recognized his father’s eyes, looking back at him from his little brother.
Harley stepped off the train. His boots were old and worn. His denim shirt and brown trousers hung loosely and he was much thinner than Jake remembered. His face was pale, gaunt, his eyes hollow, like an ancestor in a tin type photo.
“You came for me, brother,” Harley said in a gravelly voice, his tone seeking forgiveness even if his words did not.
“You look old as hell,” Jake said and squeezed him into a hug, forgiveness granted. He quickly eased up, afraid of breaking Harley’s toothpick frame under the pressure. He stood back and looked at him. “Let’s get you something to eat, boy. You ain’t as big as a minute.”
Harley slung his knapsack on his back and the two walked to Jake’s truck, Harley keeping his head down, Jake keeping his eyes on the others.
“I’m gonna get a job and pay you back,” Harley said.
“I ain’t worried about it,” Jake said. “And you can lift your head. Ain’t nothing for you to be ashamed of.”
~~~~~~~~~~
Harley sat rigid and stiff in the passenger seat, hands folded in his lap, silent. The truck rattled and shook down the dirt road leading out of town, its motor straining to stay running.
“Can I roll the window down?” Harley asked.
Jake looked at him. “You ain’t gotta ask me--,” Jake stopped short. He didn’t mean to snap. “Yes,” he said in a calmer voice. “You can roll the window down.”
Harley worked the crank and rested his arm on the sill. Thin, silvery clouds gave way to patches of blue sky. Blackbirds darted rain soaked fields, gathering insects and soaring into the air, their chirps and calls the sweetest music.
“Had about two inches of rain this week,” Jake said.
“I haven’t felt rain in almost ten years,” Harley replied, smiling like a kid on a carnival ride. “How you been getting’ along?” he asked.
“Eh,” Jake shrugged. “I’m gettin’ by, I reckon. Ever’ day’s pretty much the same.”
“You courtin’ anybody?”
Jake shook his head.
“I work, eat a bite, and go to bed.”
“Sounds like prison life.”
“Feels like it sometimes.”
Harley closed his eyes against the cool air and breathed in the crisp scent of last night’s rain. Freedom felt like a dream.
“Guess sometimes we make our own prisons,” he said.
Just then the black truck with rusty fenders roared up behind them, horn honking, the driver shouting obscenities. Jake cursed in the rearview mirror, flung his arm out the window, and flipped off the driver behind him. The black truck sped up, pushing them from one side of the road to the other. Jake swerved, slinging mud. He gripped the wheel, trying to keep them in the road, but lost control. The black truck clipped their back bumper and sent Jake and Harley off the road and into the ditch.
The red headed man got out of the black truck and slammed the door behind him. His eyes were bloodshot and his cheeks were splotchy and wet from where he had been crying. He marched over to the brothers, clinched his fist, and shook it in Jake’s face. “You the son of a bitch that killed my daddy?” he asked, his words slurred by his misshapen jaw.
“I ain’t never killed nobody,” Jake answered, pushing the truck door open with his boot and climbing out, ready to fight.
The red headed man turned toward Harley, who had already climbed out and walked to the front of the truck. He took a swing and busted Harley’s nose, knocking him backwards.
Harley regained his stance and fought back, delivering his own blow to the other man’s face, and pinning him against the hood of the truck. The man squirmed loose and pulled a gun from his waistband.
The man’s lips quivered like a broken heart and a trail of blood ran down the corner of his mouth, where Harley had busted his lip. He wiped the snot from his nose on his shirtsleeve and pointed his gun at Harley.
“It don’t need to come to this,” Harley said, holding his hands up and backing away beside the truck.
My mama married a monster after my daddy died,” the red headed man cried, the gun shaking in his hand. “Used my face as his punchin’ bag.” He walked toward Harley. “I sent him to hell where he belonged. I’ll send you there too.”
Suddenly, the man fell to the ground, the side of his head a bloody mess. Jake stood on the other side of the truck, a pistol in his steady hand.
“Go to the house,” Jake stated calmly, coming around the front of the truck.
“Jake, I can’t—I can’t.” Harley struggled to breathe.
“Take the shortcut through Carver’s woods. The way we went when we was kids.” He squatted next to the lifeless man. “Don’t stop or talk to anyone.” He looked up at Harley. “You were never here.”
Harley nodded.
Jake lifted the dead man under the arms and dragged the body toward the black truck.
“Can’t be no more than twenty years old,” he said to himself.
The clouds had thinned and sun shined down from blue sky. Ladybugs landed on wildflower blooms along the empty roadside and crickets chirped from the ditch. Jake lowered the tailgate of the truck and lifted the dead man into the back of it the way a husband carries his new bride across the threshold. He slammed the tailgate shut.
“Jake, you can’t do this,” Harley said.
“What else we gonna do?”
“I can’t go back to prison.”
“Go to the house like I told you. Get there quick and lock the door behind you.”
~~~~~~~~~~
Harley sat alone at the kitchen table. The only light that of the moon seeping in between the curtains. A swoop of headlights flashed across the ceiling. Moments later, a truck door closed and footsteps crunched in gravel. Jake came in and flipped the light switch on. In a familiar routine he prepared the coffee pot and set it to percolate on the stove, took two cups from the cabinet and sat them on the table. He returned to the stove and stood with his back to his brother.
When the coffee finished, Jake brought it to the table and filled both cups. He sat and sipped his in silence. Harley held his in both hands and closed his eyes against the taste then sat it down in front of him. He turned the lazy susan at the center of the table.
“This was mom’s,” he said.
“No,” Jake replied. “Evelyn’s. She left it after the divorce.”
Harley swallowed his words, best left unsaid.
“There are some things that were mom’s,” Jake said. He drummed his fingers on the table and remembered their mother. “I packed some away for you. In the closet upstairs. Family photos and what not.”
“Jake—I—,” Harley began.
Jake waved his hand and shook his head, dismissing anything Harley might say. “We’ll think about things tomorrow.” He took a deep breath and walked to the sink. Poured his coffee down the drain and rinsed it away with hot water. Took a rag from the drawer and wet it under the faucet. He rang it out and handed it to Harley.
“Clean your face,” he said, standing by his brother. “You’re home now.”