The breakfast rush at Dames Diner is dispersing. This Texas breakfast house is the epitome of Americana as sports memorabilia litter the walls. Texas pride is big and on full display. This is the type of diner that paints the true picture of the community in the same way a Walmart does on the 3rd of July. Larry sits in the corner booth. Larry is dressed in a cheap dress shirt, Van Heusen, and looks as though he should be slinging fifteen-year-old Buicks at the local used car lot. But he is not a used car salesman. He is a detective at the Grapevine Police Department. Larry just turned fifty-two. He is slim. He is tall. He is clean-cut. Pomade slicks his hair perfectly back. His beard is trimmed with exact precision. His fingernails are cut and clean and his hands are without scars, without calluses, without a wedding ring – without signs of life.
On the table is an open folder displaying images of recently murdered Texans. The photos are of “John Doe,” Caucasian, 6 ft 4 inches, twenty-eight years of age, and “Jane Doe,” Latina, 5 ft 1, thirty years of age. The man in the image is naked, his hands bound behind his back. His face is mutilated, nothing but hair, blood, and bone. His chest has four gunshot wounds in the upper quadrant of his right side. Jane Doe is face down in a tank top and shorts. Her body is deeply bruised and lacerated around the thighs. The right side of her tank top is soaked red as blood has seeped out. Eighteen stab wounds. A flat-tip screwdriver lies beside her. The apparent murder weapon. A splattering of milk falls upon the image.
Larry, smudges the milk on the photograph with the side of his hand while he eats cereal. A small bowl filled with powdered sugar sits to the right. He scoops a heaping spoonful of the white powder and dumps it atop his breakfast. Cheerios. The waitress approaches the booth with a pot of coffee. Rob extends his mug toward her and gives it a shake.
Larry takes a break from his Cheerios and looks up to see a black-and-white aerial photograph of Grapevine from years past. 1981. He recognizes the plot of land and remembers being a child. Larry was raised by his father Steve. Steve drove rock in and out of the quarry and was gone from the black of the morning to the pitch of the night. They lived in a single-wide mobile home surrounded by dust and dirt and desperate blue-collar Texans trying to avoid generational addictions, evictions, and the law.
Monday through Friday Larry was alone. He woke alone. He caught the school bus alone. And he warmed up his microwave dinners alone. But the weekends were spent with Steve. Saturdays were spent out in the country riding four-wheelers. They’d usually ride from sunrise to sunset. Larry was old enough now to ride on his own and loved the freedom of riding away alone in that dusty world. He was 10 years old. Sundays though. Sundays were sacred. Sunday was the Lord’s Day. Sunday was Larry’s day to be with his mom.
“I don’t want to go to church,” Larry whined as he put on his Sunday best; his cleanest pair of blue jeans that were stained with a light shade of brown around the knees, and his snap-up long-sleeve shirt that was just a tad bit too small.
“You gotta go, son. It’s Easter Sunday. Besides the church is the best place for you to be with your momma,” Steve said as he pulled on his boots.
“Does momma live in there?”
“Kinda” Steve replied as he brushed off some of the dust on Larry’s jeans.
“Your momma went to be with the Lord. And the Lord is in the church so, yeah, I guess you could say she lives there too.”
Inside the church, Larry would stare at the figure of Jesus on the cross transfixed. The blood dripping down from his crown of spiny thorns. The blood from the iron nails that were driven into his hands and feet. The look of despair on his face. His limp body hanging there, sprawled out on display. He stared and thought about his mom and began to talk to her in his head.
“I miss you, momma.”
The following Saturday, Larry and Steve woke at 5 AM in the darkness and made the drive to the outskirts of Grapevine. There was nothing but a labyrinth of muddied trails and an overgrowth of trees and brush for as far as the eye could see. They arrived at an open pasture, and Steve unloaded his trailer, which hauled two four-wheelers. Lonesome Texan scenery sprawled for miles except for a small country home about a mile down the road.
Larry had only been out a few times alone, so Steve gave him a quick reminder of the rules.
- Stay on the main tracks and don’t take any of the side trails.
- Don’t drive into anything that looks wet. Stick to dry ground.
- If anything happens, stay with your quad and don’t leave.
As the sun began to illuminate the sky, they took off into a cloud of dust and disappeared into the barren Texas landscape to begin their adventurous ride. It didn’t take long for Larry to peel off and go his own way. Steve never minded it. He thought it was good for the boy to be free like that.
Larry was driving fast around the outskirts of the tree growth when he saw a truck drive into a trail up ahead. He pulled up to the entrance and looked down the cavernous canopy of trees and saw taillights disappear into the distance. He knew better than to go down the side trails, but he couldn’t help but follow and explore what lay ahead. He throttled down and drove inside. It wasn’t long before the trail got wild and rough with erosion and mudholes. Larry noticed fresh tire tracks heading deeper into the tree growth, farther away, farther from his father.
Larry stayed in pursuit of the tracks and came upon a puddle that covered the entirety of the trail. He could see the tire tracks he was following coming out the other side, so he decided to try and cross. As he entered the water, it was only 6 inches deep, but as he made his way to the middle, the depth increased, and the four-wheeler was swallowed entirely. Larry stood, jumped to the side, and was submerged as well. He was covered from head to toe in mud. Worst, he was deep inside on the side trails and worried that Steve wouldn’t be able to find him at all. He took off on foot in search of a way out.
He followed the wet tire tracks, hoping he could find the truck that left them and ask for help. He walked until the wet black mud on his body dried and turned into a flaky grey crust that crumbled with every new step. He walked until he heard what sounded like a car door slam. He listened intently and heard another noise, perhaps a tailgate, and walked quickly toward its source. Larry ran around the bend, and as soon as he cleared the corner, he saw a white Ford Bronco with a blue stripe down the side parked under the canopy of trees. It sat very tall, with a 6-inch Rough Country lift kit and big, old-school Buckshot mud-bogging tires. Larry stood, unable to move, and stared into the eyes of the driver, who was standing on the hood of the truck with a rope around his neck tied off to a strong tree limb extending out above. He had sweat dripping down his face and submission in his eyes. The man stared back at Larry in a catatonic state. Expressionless. No signs of life. He let out a final breath and stepped off the front of the hood of the truck.
Larry could hear the wind as it softly blew his hair away from his eyes. He could hear the trees lean and sway from left to right. He could hear the sun drying the earth beneath him, drying his skin, his clothes. He could hear the rope rubbing harshly against the tree above as the man swung and twirled from side to side until he finally came to a final stop. Larry couldn’t look away. He just stared at the man completely engrossed. The color of the man’s swollen face. The bulging of his bloodshot eyes. The blood dripping slowly from his nose. The man’s tongue protruding from his mouth. His limp body hanging there, out on display. He could hear the birds landing on branches above. He could hear the rustling of brush as rodents ran through it softly.
The Texas sun spun slower in that moment – that day. His eyes locked on the man hanging in front of him. No signs of life. He could hear every sound from his environment but could not move a muscle. He couldn’t blink. He stayed with the man until darkness hid him from sight. In the distance, he could hear voices calling out. He could hear them, but he could not respond. Finally, the darkness of night was interrupted by flashlights and the sound of four-wheelers. The sound of Larry’s father calling out to him.
Steve found Larry just before the sun came up. He had been standing with the hanging man for the entire night. Steve drove to the nearest home to call the police as fast as he could. Larry was still silent. He sat in the passenger side of the truck staring out of the window and could still see the man hanging in his mind.
They arrived at the home, called the police, and waited for them to arrive. The officers had Steve in the living room asking him questions while Larry sat in the kitchen with the owner of the house, Carol, an aged Texan woman with wrinkles that cut deep into her skin.
“You must be starving.” She said to him.
Larry didn’t respond.
“Let me pour you my favorite breakfast treat.”
Carol went to the cupboard, pulled out a box of cereal, poured a bowl, and brought it to Larry. Cheerios. Larry looked down at the bowl of wet O’s while Carol grabbed a small container filled with powdered sugar from the counter, brought it to him, and opened it.
“This is how I make it special,” Carol said as she spooned the sugar onto the cereal.
Steve entered the kitchen to find Larry eating the Cheerios and powdered sugar.
“Son. The police want to ask you a few questions.”
The waitress interrupts Larry’s memory. “Is there anything else I can get for you?”
Larry turns his gaze from the photograph to the waitress,
“Just the check ma’am,” and went back to eating his Cheerios.
Larry’s attention returns to the images of John and Jane Doe while he finishes the final bite of his cereal. He lifts the bowl to his mouth and slurps the remaining milk, sweetened with sugar, and some of the white liquid dribbles down his chin, dropping onto the images. He wiped his chin without regard and closes the file.
The waitress drops the check.
Larry walks to the register, pays, and exits the diner. The parking lot is hot and empty. No signs of life.
Braulio Fonseca is a PhD candidate in Creative Writing at Florida State University and the Managing Editor of The Southeast Review. His work has appeared in Slab Magazine and elsewhere.