No, Deputy Cockman, I Won’t Burn Your House Down
I made my way into the trailer park late at night, followed closely by another set of headlights. The other car parked beside me on the grass. We got out simultaneously, and that’s when I realized it was deputy Cockman.
I couldn’t see his gun or badge, but the squad car stuck out like a sore thumb on the shabby lawn. The worst yard ornament in the history of yard art is a turd brown cop car. “I’ve been meaning to get in your ear,” he announced. “Get in my ear. What for?” I asked.
He reached through the open window into the cruiser’s passenger seat and fetched two beers. “Let’s talk.” He said, tossing an ice-cold Budweiser into my grip. “What choice do I have? This beer’s cold, and you’ve got a gun.” I take the bait, scratching my head and a match, thinking this could be fun. He knows I’m not 21. What the hell’s going on? Fucking crooked cop.
I follow his lead and pop a top. “Thanks.” “Don’t thank me yet. There’s somethin’ I need ya to do for me. Not now, though. Don’t worry. I wasn’t planning on following you here, but it looks like we keep troublemaker hours. I was headed home when you passed me at the crossroads. You didn’t come to a complete stop at the blinking red light, by the way.”
“Oh. I didn’t realize. I’m all ears. What’s up?” I asked him as I took a time-consuming gulp from the can. “Can’t say.” He replied, dialing his self-assured tone down to a whisper. “I just want you to know I’ve been watching you, and I think I can trust you. I can trust you, can’t I, boy?”
Unsure of what he was getting at, I said, “You can trust me, sheriff.” We both paused momentarily as we were buzzed by a pair of bats that had been making a meal out of the streetlight moths. He broke the uncomfortable silence with a tremendous swallow, emptying the contents of his can, and breathed, “Good. I thought so. Take care of this for me.”
He tossed a dead soldier onto the grass by my feet, turned, and walked to the driver’s door. Before getting into the cruiser, he said in a low voice over the car’s roof, “Don’t call me sheriff. Call me Cockman.” With that, he drove away. I was left standing there, confused by what had just happened.
Cockman handed me more than a Bud that night. He might as well have pulled the pin out of a grenade and passed it to me. This guy was more than some ruddy-faced gangster on the county’s payroll. He was the law. In these parts, anyway. Channeling Beaufort T. Justice was what he did. And Deputy Cockman did it for all it was worth. He did it well. You couldn’t see the dirt on his hands. But it was there.
Several weeks had passed since the night he followed me home.
I was shaken awake, exposing my brain to the fierce rays of midday. The blowtorch sun burned through the glass like laser beams. I fumbled for shades, then fished a butt from the tray. I thought better of it, then scratched a match. Somebody’s knuckles are red; they might break if they don’t break the door down.
Now that I’m awake, I’ve gotta face whoever’s behind this relentless assault on the door and my day. The beating continued long after the first butt was gone and well into the second one. Because the bedsheet curtain was sheer, I didn’t have to get near the window to see outside.
It was the cops.
Great.
What a way to start the day.
This guy was beating the door like it was Rodney King. What the fuck? He was probably having fun terrorizing me, rattling my tinny cage. This trailer’s trash, and he knows it. As fate would have it, only one of Anderson Creek’s finest was at my door. Cockman. Damn. Deputy Cockman was out there huffin’ and puffin’ like the big bad wolf. What the hell could he want?
Trapped, I made my way to the door, and I didn’t put on shoes or a shirt for that motherfucker. I thought for a second, back to the bizarre beer incident a few weeks earlier. “This feels like a setup,” I reasoned out loud.
“Maybe he’ll go away,” I murmured to myself. Cockman rained blows on the door until he uttered the words, “I know you’re in there. Open the goddamn door, boy.”
I twisted the fragile knob and gave it a push. Assaulted by the light of day, I shielded my face as Cockman stepped past me, nearly falling from the wobbly stairs and into the living room. “You need to clean this shithole up, son.” He dictated as he turned and gave me his best Bandit chasin’ smirk, still wearing his sunglasses.
“You told me I can trust you, and I believe you. See, I’ve been following you, boy. Other than makin’ a few classes, chasin’ that little blonde girl you like so much and workin’ to pay rent, you ain’t hitting’ on shit.” He folded the mirrored aviators and put them in his breast pocket.
“Am I right?” He asked. I stood there looking at him, as silent as the bottom of the lake. Finally, he said, “Cat got your tongue, boy? I ain’t showin’ up with beer every time I gotta come to talk to ya. Understand. I said, am I right?” “You’re right, sheriff.” I agreed.
Then looking slightly pissed, he said, “I told you don’t call me sheriff, call me Cockman. And tell me, boy, what am I right about?” I repeated the facts as he saw them, careful to avoid calling him sheriff. “Good. Now that I’ve got your attention and know you’re listening, I’m gonna tell you why it’s so important for me to trust you.”
I stood there, smoking, taking in his words like nicotine. “You see, I’ve got this problem. My wife and I haven’t been getting on like we used to. Understand?” I shook my head and put on a shirt from the floor.
“All we do is a fuss. Mostly her, see. She wants me to give it all up. Get into real estate or some other high payin’ sales type of job. I’m a lawman. You hear me, boy? She wants me to put down my badge and gun. Well, let me tell you right here, and right now, that shit ain’t happenin’. Not now, not ever. I’m sheriff Johnny F Cockman goddamnit.” He proclaimed, wiping the sweat from his brow. He was getting worked up. “Okay, okay, but what’s that got to do with me?” I asked, slightly confused. “Not a goddamn thing, junior. But this does.”
And, for the next thirty minutes, Cockman got me up to speed on this plan he put together that’d make all of his troubles disappear. His idea was far-fetched, dangerous, and at the very least, a class four felony. These incredulous details were the blueprint for a job he hadn’t yet asked me to do. “Well, what do you think?” He inquired.
“I think it’s fucking crazy. Someone could get hurt or even killed. You’d go to jail for a long damn time if you got caught.” I said flat out. He looked at me squarely and said, “There’s no chance of that happening because I’m not gonna do it. You are.”
The smokey air was sucked right out of the room. I couldn’t swallow. It sounded like the local sheriff just asked me, no, scratch that, told me I would burn his house down. What the hell’s going on here? There was no way I’d have considered, not in a million years, to help this crooked sumbitch burn his house to the ground. Not. A. Chance.
“You’ll have to let me think about that, Cockman,” I said after a minute or two of feigned contemplation. “If you do this for me,” he said, “you won’t have to worry about money, and you’ll never need to look over your shoulder. At least not around here. Take some time, but not too much. Think about it, and I’ll be in touch.”
He paused, then said, “Good to see you, Joe.” That was the first time I’d heard him say my name. He pulled his aviators from his breast pocket, gently caressed his .357, covered his eyes with mirrors, and stepped back into the North Carolina summer.
I moved out the following week, and I never went back.
