The Influence Read online

  Ross ordered a beer and asked the question he’d wanted to ask since meeting the man. “So is your name really Jackass? Your parents didn’t name you that, did they?”

  The handyman shrugged. “Might as well’ve been my name. That’s what my old man called me. My momma always called me Chester—that’s my given name—but my daddy never called me nuthin’ but Jackass. When the old bastard died—praise the Lord—I decided to sort of reclaim the word, make it good. You know, kinda how the blacks did with n—”

  “I get it.” Ross held up a hand. “So is your mom still alive?”

  He shook his head sadly. “Died a couple a years ago, God rest her soul. But she was good up to the last. No oldtimer’s disease or cancer or nuthin’. She just died in her sleep, peaceful like, and there wasn’t none of that wastin’ away or loss of memory. It was a good life, and she went out on top.” He drained half his beer glass in one chug. “How about you? Momma and daddy still alive?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Not that close, huh?”

  Ross was surprised. “You can tell?”

  “Got a sixth sense about these things. People with daddy issues can always spot a fellow traveler. Want to talk about it?”

  “Not really.”

  “Okay.” McDaniels finished his beer and ordered another.

  Ross nursed his drink. “So, have you always lived here?”

  “Magdalena born and bred.”

  “And was your dad a handyman, too?”

  “Nah. A farmer. And a shitty one at that. We lived in a trailer in the middle of a dead field where he was always trying to grow cotton. He grew some, I guess, and we raised enough animals to kinda eke out a crappy existence. But after he keeled over—heart attack—my momma and I sold the land to Holt, who was trying to expand his ranch at the time. A lot of other people at that end of the valley already sold, so we were pretty much the last holdouts. Momma was tough, and we ended up gettin’ some decent money. I was of age then, and I convinced her to buy a little plot of land up close to the mountain here, and me and a few buddies put up a house, plumbing, wiring and all. I was pretty good at it, so I just kept on. That’s how I became a handyman. Now I can fix or build just about anything.” He nodded at Ross. “You’re…what? Some kind of scientist?”

  “Engineer.”

  “What’re you doin’ here?”

  “I can’t find a job.”

  “I thought that was a good racket to go into, engineering. I heard there’re lots of jobs available.”

  “You heard wrong.”

  The two of them talked for awhile about how hard it was to make a living these days—“Although, I’m pretty sure it always has been,” McDaniels said—and then Ross got up and said he had to go.

  “Well, nice talkin’ to you,” McDaniels told him. “And if you or your cousin ever need some work done…you know where to find me.”

  “Here.”

  “Most afternoons.”

  Ross drove back to the ranch. He decided to prepare early for the farmer’s market tomorrow and get things ready, so he put the sign and the folding table in the truck, boxed up a dozen jars of honey and counted out ten egg cartons, about half of the amount in the cellar. On a whim, he decided to check if the hens had laid any more eggs, and when he went out to the coop, he was surprised to find that they had. He collected nearly two dozen, in fact, all of them normal looking. As it was getting late, he took them down to the cellar and left them in the baskets, intending to sort them tomorrow. Not only had none of the chickens attacked him this time, most of them had been hiding, and while that was definitely weird, he was not complaining. It was better than being pecked.

  The fear returned after nightfall. He’d left a light on in the kitchen of the Big House to let potential burglars know that someone was home (as though a burglar would drive all the way out here on that horrible dirt road in the middle of the night to steal Lita and Dave’s TV), but that single light somehow made the house seem creepier than darkness would have. He closed the drapes in the shack to block all views of the world outside, but it made him feel claustrophobic, and he found that not being able to see outside made him think there was something out there. So he partially opened the drape on the front window, enough to let him see if anyone—

  anything

  —was coming, and he popped in a DVD of The Larry Sanders Show in order to take his mind off the morbid track on which it was headed.

  The comedy was distracting, but not distracting enough. He was always aware of his isolation and the night outside, and even as he was laughing at Gary Shandling’s neurotic self-obsession, Ross kept glancing toward that partially exposed window. He didn’t know what he was afraid of, exactly, and wasn’t sure what had put him in this mood, but his mind kept drifting to that black thing he’d seen in the sky and the way the hens had spied on him before that one had attacked him, and he wished Lita and Dave would hurry up and come back.

  He’d never been a devotee of Ben Franklin’s philosophy. That “early to bed, early to rise” aphorism had never made much sense to him, but since coming out here, Ross always seemed to fall asleep before ten o’clock. It was probably the lack of things to do at night—he understood now why those pioneer families on the prairie would go to bed soon after the sun went down—and tonight he was grateful that he was starting to doze in front of the television. He didn’t want to be awake when midnight rolled around, and though he was no longer watching, he left the TV on for company as he got ready for bed, using the remote to turn it off before curling up and pulling the covers over his head.

  He slept through the entire night, undisturbed.

  And dreamed.

  It was the most realistic dream Ross had ever had, so real that even for a few seconds after he’d awakened, he still thought it might have happened.

  He was here, in the shack, and Lita had come back from Las Vegas alone, leaving Dave to tie up all the bureaucratic loose ends resulting from his parents’ deaths. Ross was lying on the floor when she walked in, on his back, reading a magazine that he held up at arm’s length.

  Lita said nothing as she closed the screen door behind her, and when he put down the magazine and glanced over at her, Ross saw that she was naked.

  “What are you doing?” he said, panicking.

  Smiling, she said nothing, striding across the room until her bare feet were on either side of his head. She squatted over his face. Her vagina was gorgeous—pink and perfectly formed, the delicate slit framed by roseblush labia—and she dipped lower, lightly brushing his mouth, her sweet juices dripping onto his lips.

  He awoke with a powerful erection, a tent-poler that raised the covers above him. His lips were wet and tasted slightly salty, and it took him a moment to realize that he’d bitten his bottom lip and it was bleeding. It had all been a dream. Patting his lip with the palm of his hand, Ross saw a small spot of red, and he continued to dab at the cut with his palm until the bleeding had stopped.

  The sun had risen, and white light seeped into the room from cracks in the drapes. He’d overslept. Getting up, he still had an erection, and he pushed down on it, trying to get it to go away. She was his cousin, for God’s sake, and he felt shamed and disgusted by whatever part of his brain had concocted that cockamamie scenario. The erection disappeared as he took a cold shower, and he washed, dried off, got dressed and chugged a glass of orange juice before heading outside to quickly feed the horse and goat. The chickens he’d see to later.

  Glad that he’d packed the boxes ahead of time, Ross loaded them into the cab of the pickup, honey on the floor and eggs on the seat next to him. He should have asked Lita where they kept the money box, but he probably had enough ones and fives in his wallet to make change, and he found a notepad and pencil with which to tally up sales.

  He drove to town. As before, the street was blocked off, and though the cowboy hatted senior manning the barricades didn’t know him from Adam, the old man must have recognized Dave’s pickup because he pulle
d one of the sawhorses aside and waved Ross through.

  He wasn’t as late as he thought he’d be. Most vendors were still setting up, and he pulled next to the Native American family, who had their table out and were arranging their jewelry and leather goods. With no one to help him, Ross dragged his table out of the truck’s bed on his own, unfolding the legs and righting it before taking out the sign. He’d forgotten to bring the bricks and boards that Dave used to prop the sign up, so he leaned it against the pickup’s bumper. It couldn’t be seen from afar, but Ross assumed that by this time, most of the market’s patrons probably knew where the L Bar-D table was. Besides, if they didn’t, the display of honey jars and egg cartons should make it pretty clear what was being sold.

  He arranged the jars and cartons on top of the table.

  Jackass McDaniels stopped by with some old honey jars to trade in. Ross didn’t know what to do with them, so he told the handyman he could bring them back next week, when Dave and Lita would be back.

  “Nah,” McDaniels said. “You take ’em and give ’em to Dave when he gets back. He can credit me next time.”

  McDaniels didn’t buy any more honey, but he hung around and shot the breeze for a few minutes, leaving only when other customers started to arrive. The priest didn’t come by this time, but neither did Cameron Holt, and though Ross didn’t recognize most of the people who stopped by, he did recognize Anna Mae, the old woman whose husband had Alzheimer’s. When she worriedly asked after Lita, Ross carefully explained where she was and that she would be back next week.

  “Oh, that’s terrible!” Anna Mae kept repeating, genuinely distressed.

  “I’m sure they’ll be very touched by your concern,” he told her.

  There wasn’t much to sell, so he ran out of eggs early, honey soon after that. Once he’d packed up the table, sign and boxes, and made sure the money was safely tucked into the front pocket of his jeans, he took a quick tour of the other vendors’ displays.

  He walked by the mushroom stand, saw the little granny-skirted girl. He smiled at her. “Hi.”

  “Dick suck mushroom! Pickaninny pie!”

  Shocked, he faced the child. “What did you say?”

  She giggled, turned away, and ran behind her mother, who was standing behind the booth, frowning at him.

  He still wasn’t sure he’d heard what he thought he’d heard. “What did you say?” he asked again.

  The girl shook her head, refusing to answer.

  “Stop badgering her!” the mom ordered. “Either buy something or leave. In fact, no, you can’t buy anything. I won’t sell anything to you. Get out.”

  “I—” Ross began.

  “I know why you’re sniffing around here!” the mom screamed. “You think I don’t? You’re using her to get to me! I know what you want!” She lifted her skirt to reveal dirty blood- stained underwear.

  “Lady, you’re crazy,” Ross said and walked away as the woman screamed after him.

  “What a bitch.”

  At the sound of the voice, he looked to his right, where a dark-skinned young woman with long black Pocahontas hair was standing behind a table covered with an assortment of large individually wrapped cookies in the shapes of various household items: couch, table, refrigerator, television. Approximately his own age, she was dressed casually in loose jeans and a Decemberists t-shirt, which instantly put her in his good graces. She smiled at him. “You must be Lita’s cousin. I’m Jill.”

  “Ross,” he introduced himself. He did not remember seeing her before.

  Jill nodded toward the mushroom booth. “What’s with her?”

  “I don’t know,” Ross admitted, “but—”

  “A lot of crazy things have been happening around here lately. Believe me, I know.”

  The girl was still chanting. “Dick suck mushroom! Pickaninny pie!”

  Ross tried to ignore her. “Why? What’s happened to you?” he asked.

  “Nothing much,” Jill said. “I was attacked by Puka, the golden retriever I adopted at birth and who has never so much as growled at a squirrel. Right after he bit me on the leg, he ran away, and he hasn’t come back since. Although I have a new friend: a snake took up residence on my front stoop this morning. I had to sneak out the back door to get out of the house. I’m just hoping it’s gone by the time I get home. Oh, and my friend Jenny called me up last night and told me she hated me. She wouldn’t tell me why, and she won’t answer the phone when I call, or return any of my texts.”

  “Wow.”

  “Yeah.”

  “My tale of woe is not quite as bad, but I was pecked by a chicken.” He was tempted to mention that black flying thing but decided against it.

  “And that crazy mushroom woman screamed at you after her daughter said racist obscenities.”

  “That, too.”

  “It’s a weird world,” Jill said.

  A customer strolled over, wanting to buy one of the refrigerator cookies, and she excused herself to help the man. Had Ross walked away, that might have been the end of the conversation, but she was attractive, and she seemed nice, and he noticed that she wasn’t wearing a ring.

  Pathetic.

  It was pathetic, but it kept him there. He motioned toward her cookies after the customer left. “Those look amazing,” he said.

  “Thank you.”

  “Can you actually make a living with this? I mean here? In Magdalena?”

  “Oh no. I have to have a day job.”

  “Which is?”

  She shook her head. “You’ll laugh.”

  He laughed. “No I won’t.”

  “You just did,” she pointed out.

  “Sorry. But I wasn’t laughing at your job. I was laughing at the idea that you thought I would laugh at your job... Never mind. Forget it. You don’t have to tell me if you don’t—”

  “I’m a telemarketer.”

  “Hmm.”

  “I guess that’s better than laughing.”

  “No, I’m just surprised. You don’t look like a telemarketer.”

  “What does one look like?”

  “I don’t know. Older. Grotesquely overweight.”

  Jill laughed.

  “You definitely have the voice for it, though.” Ross looked around. “Where do you work? Do you commute every day? Because I don’t see any calling center here in town.”

  “I work out of my home.”

  “I didn’t know they did that.”

  She shrugged. “It’s another way to save money: no brick-and-mortar. There are five of us in my unit. We all log in to a central exchange where we’re monitored, and everything we need shows up on the screen.” She smiled wanly. “It’s not something I’m proud of.”

  “What do you sell?”

  “Do you really care?” She looked at him skeptically.

  “No,” he admitted.

  A woman with her young son in tow walked up and bought two cookies. Ross bought a cookie, too, a TV set. He wanted to talk to Jill more, but some friends of hers came over to chat, and he waved goodbye as he excused himself.

  He ate the cookie on the way back to the ranch. It was delicious.

  That evening, Lita called and said they’d be back on Saturday. She sounded worried, and he asked what was wrong, but it turned out to be nothing. She was just concerned about her horse, and he reassured her that all of the animals were fine.

  “Do you think you could take him out for a run?” she asked. “He needs daily exercise.”

  “That’s not going to happen,” he told her. “Besides, you’ll be back in a few days.”

  Now her tone sounded amused rather than worried. “Are you afraid of my horse? Are you afraid of Mickey?”

  “I don’t know how to ride a horse,” he said defensively. “I don’t know how to put on a saddle or any of that.”

  “You’re afraid,” she teased.

  “Fine. I’m afraid.”

  Lita laughed. “I’m glad I called. You cheer me up.”

  “I�
��m happy my cowardice amuses you.”

  She hadn’t talked to Dave about it yet, had only been toying with the idea in her own mind, but Lita told Ross that once they received their money, they might be able to pay him for the chores he did around the ranch, hire him on as an official ranch hand. He didn’t want to argue with her over the phone, so he didn’t respond to her suggestion, but there was no way that was going to happen. He felt like enough of a freeloader already, even with the chores, and the charity of payment was more than he could put up with, no matter how awful his financial state.

  Lita promised to call again tomorrow, and before hanging up, Ross told her how much they’d made today at the farmer’s market. “You didn’t have to do that,” she told him.

  “I wanted to,” he said. “Not that I don’t love sitting around here by myself all day.”

  She laughed. “I hear you.”

  There’d been a trace of light in the west when Lita called, but the night outside was now full dark. He hung up the phone. He hadn’t told his cousin everything about the farmer’s market, and he found himself thinking about the chanting little girl and her mom with the bloody underwear.

  Dick suck mushroom! Pickaninny pie!

  Feeling uneasy, he turned on the television, but the DirecTV was out, and there was only snow and static on the screen. Turning on his laptop, he found that he could not connect to the internet. The room was well-lit, but the blackness of the windows made him nervous, and he closed the drapes, made sure the door was locked. Leaving the TV on, in case the satellite came in again, he put on a They Might Be Giants CD and looked through a trade magazine that he’d brought with him from Phoenix but hadn’t yet had time to read.

  He finished the magazine, moved on to the Stephen King book he was reading.