From: "David Hearne" Date: Thu, 26 Aug 1999 12:45:15 -0400 Subject: xfc: Goin' Down South (1 of 26) Source: xfc From: "David Hearne" TITLE: GOIN' DOWN SOUTH(1 of 26) AUTHOR: DAVID HEARNE CLASSIFICATION: X-FILE, HUMOR RATING: R (for...well, just about everything) SUMMARY: Mulder and Scully go to a town called Final, Mississippi to investigate a crime that apparently did *not* happen. ARCHIVE: If you want it, you can have it. AUTHOR'S NOTE: This is a story about the South. Or, rather, it's about the mystique of the South. When we think of Mississippi, we think of a hot stew of weirdness and evil. That mystique has more than a bit of truth to back it up, but the real thing is a lot more complex than that. Still, the mystique is fun to play around with. DEDICATIONS: I would like to say "thank you" to Caroline Willoughby who first read this and to Laurie Haynes who edited it. I would also like to dedicate this story to the KKK who figure so prominently in my tale. Guys, I would just like to say...fuck you in the nose! FEEDBACK must be delivered to ottercrk@sover.net where it will be brooded over on lonely winter nights. DISCLAIMER: All right, Chris Carter. "The X-Files" is your baby. However, if the issue is money, let's look at a few facts. Not only have watched I your show faithfully (and "Millennium" pretty faithfully as well), I have purchased all four "soundtracks," four videotapes and three tie-in books. I saw the movie three times, twice at a matinee and once on video. My mother has gotten me an X-File calendar twice for Christmas and for my birthday, I got to go to the Expo in New York City on both Saturday and Sunday. That's a lot of money that got spent. I think you owe *me* a little something. Pay up, you suntanned bastard. XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX A.C. Burnside glared at the crowd as if he was about to beat them all with his guitar. In the close quarters of The Shithole, he could probably cleave off the heads of five people with one swoop of his Gibson. "All right, you mammy-fuckers, this is the time to listen!" he growled into the microphone, his big voice made bigger and just loud enough to get through the din of the audience's cat-calls, whistles and hollers. "This next number is a sing-a-long! And I better hear all you mammy-fuckers sing or I'm gonna chase your smelly asses out of here! That means you, you, you and you!" With each 'you,' A.C. pointed at an individual person who responded with a cheer or a grin. Nobody looked too intimidated even though A.C. didn't seem to be kidding and he did, in fact, own the bar. Standing near the doorway, Ben Hedge tensed his large shoulders. If A.C. ordered him to haul somebody out, then he was required to do it quicker than shit down a greased plank. Sometimes, he had do it because the person in question was making trouble, but simply pissing off A.C. was also a good way to get yourself tossed out of the Shithole. And A.C. was always pissed off about something. Luckily, most of the people who got the shaft from the bar owner/blues musician took it in good humor. It was even regarded as a rite of passage in Final, Mississippi. However, occasionally, someone did not take it in good humor. That's when Ben had to move onto the next level. The woman behind the bar had witnessed A.C.'s temper longer than Ben had. She was A.C.'s sister, after all. Zola Burnside believed in God because divine intervention was the only explanation for her brother's relatively unscathed life. Here he was, a hot-tempered black man living in the only state that gave a double-digit percentage of its electorate to David Duke's presidential campaign...a man who presided over a blues bar with the highest potency of alcohol and the least effective air conditioning in the whole South...a man who took offense at the slightest affront...yet he had managed to have only a few scars on his body and a large circle of friends. Or acquaintances, anyway. That's why she didn't mind serving the drinks at the Shithole or think much about supplying A.C.'s Home Brew to anyone who wanted it. (A.C.'s Home Brew was a mixture brewed in his own still. Its exact ingredients have been rumored to be a wide range of items from paint remover to buckshot to weeds plucked from the ground next to an outhouse.) She calmly regarded the bar's packed array of heads and torsos that danced, sweated and occasionally fell out-of-sight. What others would see as a drunken crowd ready to go nuts, she saw a sign of the bar's success. Even before the clock turned nine, the Shithole would usually be full of people encased between rotting wooden walls covered with autographed photos of blue musicians who had the strange fortune to wind up playing in the bar. ("Damn, this place really is a shithole."---Lil' Ed Williams.) The very fact that this joint could make money indicated that the Good Lord looked over A.C. Burnside. Of course, it could have been someone else other than God that A.C. had made a bargain with. But Zola doubted that person would have anything to do with her brother. She managed to catch Ben's eyes through the crowd. He communicated his tension to her. She replied with a smile. Ben smiled back. Zola had that effect on him. Only she could have convinced him to have faith in the luck of A.C. What he liked best about her of all the women he had known was that she could always soothe him. Even their lovemaking could calm him down. Usually, sex made Ben's heart slam back and forth in his chest, leaving him overly excited and unsettled. After a hour in Zola's bed, he was ready to just stretch out and take a nap. "You have a Valium pussy," he once told her. (He discovered that women don't really regard this as a compliment.) With one last exhortation to the "mammy-fuckers," A.C. and his band struck up "Smokestack Lightnin'." "Can't you hear me crying?" A.C. called out as if his heart could actually be broken. And every last person in that bar responded, even Ben and Zola. The sound of "Whoa- HOOOOO" went straight back to the band. A.C. nodded, but didn't smile. He had demanded no less than this great moan. Maybe Zola is right, Ben thought. Maybe God is looking after A.C. Can't figure out the fuck why, but it looks like this night will turn out fine, after all. XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX Johnny McDonald clutched his Bible to his chest and wondered if he dared to enter Hell again. When he had come the last time, he hadn't been alone. The assault on the satanic establishment whose name he couldn't dare utter was supposed to have been a great triumph for Young Christians for Change. As they had marched across the railroad tracks and through the streets of the "black half" of Final, he had felt a general like in God's army. Marching with him were the representatives of a new generation who would turn their back on the godless ways of a fallen America. They were going to show the Devil himself that not all teenagers were in the sway of his evil music. And they would throw down the gauntlet in his own camp. The six of them had burst into the Shi...the bar. There they were, six white, well-scrubbed faces before an ocean of black, sweating ones. The two young women in their group frowned in disapproval at the naked shoulders and lengthy display of leg on the female patrons. The young men stood with them, ready to put the armor of their ironed white shirts and well-polished black shoes between their women's chastity and the sin that choked the bar's air. Johnny held up his Bible and cried out, "Repent!" And for one quiet moment, he could feel the Lord's power surging through him, a mighty force that no one could withstand. In the next moment, every one of the Young Christians for Change had been tossed outside. All except for Johnny. He spent the rest of the night tied up and gagged on the stage, laid out next to the drums. For many hellish hours, his ears were punished with that evil (yet strangely enticing) music. He could feel it vibrating through the hot stage under him. The sinful bar owner would occasionally place his boot on him, tapping out the music's tempo on his back to the audience's wicked delight. However, that wasn't the most humiliating, enraging thing about that night. He had led this Christian assault on this bar in the hopes of freeing at least one soul. That one soul was the other guitarist in the bar, a young man who was none other than the son of the pastor of Final Baptist Church. Somehow, his black teenage peer had been seduced into this pit. He had tried desperately to convince the preacher of the danger posed to her son. She would only smile and said, "I have confidence in the goodness of my son's soul. And whatever you may think of A.C., he's a caring man at heart. My son is in strong, capable hands." "God have mercy on you," Johnny shot back and marched away. This was to be expected. Just because a woman was the daughter of the town's last preacher doesn't mean that she should be entrusted with the spiritual life of the community. Granted that this woman had a certain...effect on people, but a man was a man and a woman was a woman. If you let the latter take over, then everything falls apart into wickedness and despair. He knew that a lot of people in town felt the same way. He waited for the day on which he would overthrow the presumptuous woman from her position and appoint a more deserving person in her place. Now, it was time to make a stand. It was time to show the preacher how a real spiritual leader works. And he would start by saving the soul of her son. You would think that the son would appreciate this. Instead, the preacher's son did nothing to help him. When Johnny had looked up at him with a plea in his eyes as he laid on the stage, the guitarist only shrugged and turned to the audience. It had angered Johnny so much that he lodged a complaint with the Chief. Of course, he should have known better. The Chief was always going to side with the woman that he lusted after and, besides, he was one of THOSE people. He only said, "Johnny, you were lucky that A.C. didn't shove a bottle up your ass." It turned out that the other members of Young Christians for Change agreed with the Chief. When he proposed another raid on the bar, they declined. Cowards, Johnny thought. Did they not trust in the Lord? It was his own trust in God that brought Johnny McDonald back to Hornet Street. He stood a few blocks away from that unspeakable bar, attempting to work enough up righteousness to make a solo assault. The heathen music could reach his ears. "Fare you well...never see you no more...can't you hear me crying..." "Whoa-HOOOOO..." Johnny shuddered. He just didn't understand black people. One moment they could play such holy music, the next they were wailing the devil's tunes. He took several breaths, praying his strength up. While he was doing this, he saw a car pull up to the curb next to the bar. He wondered why it was parking there and not in the lot behind the bar. Then he saw four white sheets and he pissed in his pants. XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX Ben was almost enjoying himself---the music was so good, the audience was so happy, Zola was looking so fine---when he saw the worried look on the face of Malcolm Burnside, Jr. One thing that you were sure of in the Shithole---how ever rowdy things might get, none of it touched Malcolm. He would stand by A.C. on the tiny stage, oblivious to the rants of his uncle as he checked on his guitar or looked calmly over the screaming audience. No matter how scorching hot the music felt, he would pluck his strings with a cool detachment. (In contrast, the drummer had been playing with A.C. for over a decade and he still looked tempted to throw a cymbal at his band leader's head.) You could have said that Malcolm had gotten that coolness from his father but Malcolm had never known his daddy. Besides, there was something else to Malcolm...he seemed to be watching you from the clouds... That's why Ben took notice when Malcolm looked towards the back of the Shithole, fear and uncertainty in his eyes. The bouncer got himself ready for anything. Unfortunately, he wasn't ready enough. One bullet is enough to kill a man. Twenty bullets broke through the door and Ben Hedge was in the pathway of all of them. He felt one piece of himself fall away, then another and another. People turned to see him getting chopped up into chunks the size of bread loaves. Those in the back were sprayed with blood. One person was knocked unconscious by a flying shoulder bone. There was one-half second where the music stopped and everyone watched in silence as Ben fell apart. Screaming followed, of course. Right as the screaming started, the chewed-up door was kicked easily off its hinges and four people in white robes rushed in. They quickly formed a line, their eyes staring out from their hoods and their machine guns facing the crowd that was pushing itself back to a space that didn't exist, cramming themselves into a knot of flesh, sucking out the air that was needed to sustain their screams. Zola had grabbed a rifle from under the bar. A.C. was going for a gun that he kept behind a speaker. Malcolm was just standing still. He wasn't looking at the hooded invaders. He was staring at a man standing behind them. A bowler hat topped off this man's short body while a black dress suit led down from his neck to his black shoes. He was waving his hands at Malcolm, eyes wide behind his spectacles as he shouted out a no that only the black teenager could hear. "Fuck it," Malcolm muttered. XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX Julius Grant sat in the car and wondered who invented circus peanuts. Maybe it was that George Washington Carver, he thought. That boy was always doing things with peanuts, wasn't he? Thought up peanut butter, he did. That it itself was a miracle-and-a-half, but if he had come up with circus peanuts as well, then Carver was probably the greatest man who ever lived. Boy probably deserved a blow job from the Virgin Mary herself. Julius munched on the orange circus peanuts as the screams and gunfire continued inside the Shithole. In a few moments, there were no more screams, but the gunfire lasted awhile longer. Yep, nothing like circus peanuts. The four hooded men fled the Shithole and jumped into the car. In a few seconds, the bar was a distant spot in the rear view mirror. "We did it," one of them said, exhausted and exhilarated at the same time. "We really did it." "Yep," Julius said, munching the last peanut and crumbling up the plastic bag. "Now let's see if anything grows where we just took a shit." XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX Johnny McDonald looked carefully out from the dark alley he had retreated into. His whole body was trembling. He made sure that the car carrying the Klan members was out-of- sight. Then he vomited. He looked at the Shithole. The next thing he knew, he was walking towards there. Why are you doing this? he asked. You know what you're going to see. Just call the police. Don't look inside. Don't go through that doorway. Don't... There was blood everywhere, streaked up and down the walls, forming puddles at your feet, sprinkled across the ceiling. That wasn't surprising. There were burning holes in the walls, shards of smashed bottles, clothing torn into shreds, speakers and guitars throwing off sparks. That wasn't surprising, either. What was surprising was that people were standing up. They looked dazed but, despite the blood and damage all around them, they looked completely unharmed. On the stage, Malcolm watched over them with his busted guitar at his side. They stared back at the withdrawn expression on his face. He seemed to be a hundred feet above them. Then A.C. saw Johnny and his wide eyes. "What are you lookin' at, mammy-fucker?" XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX TITLE: GOIN' DOWN SOUTH (2 of 26) AUTHOR: DAVID HEARNE XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX Chief Meyer Spiegelman felt like a schmuck. A southern- fried schmuck. A durn putz. Why am I doing this? he thought. Why am I wasting time with this bullshit? He opened a drawer on his desk. He stared at the inside for a few seconds, then he closed it and sighed. Sounds could be heard in the reception area -- a couple of visitors. He could make out the word "agents." One of his officers yelled out, "Chief, someone here to see you!" He forced himself off his chair and left his office. He was a bit surprised when he saw Agents Fox Mulder and Dana Scully. He had expected to see a couple of pale- skinned geeks in glasses. After all, what other kind of person wastes time with investigating "paranormal phenomena?" (He had abso-fucking-lutely no idea what that meant.) Instead, he found two very good-looking people who were dressed well enough to make him jealous of an FBI agent's salary. They waited for him behind the dividing line between the main office area and the front foyer. The man was tall and dark-haired with a long nose that gave his handsome features the right amount of character. The woman had red hair that curved gracefully down her head and blue eyes that said, "I'm short, I'm a woman, but I'm not the receptacle for your bullshit." They looked like the lead actors of a fancy Hollywood show. Spiegelman's two patrolmen, on the other hand, looked like understudies for Boss Hogg. They were standing next to the snack table, red faces snickering as they added more doughnuts to bellies that squeezed themselves over their gun belts. "Chief Spiegelman, I'm Agent Mulder," the dark-haired man said. "This is Agent..." "How many Spics does it take to screw in a lightbulb?" one of the patrolmen inquired of the other. "I don't know," the other replied with a giggle. "How many?" Before the wit could come with up the answer, Spiegelman hollered at them. "Damn, ain't you two the very pride of Final's police department? I'm just overjoyed that these two FBI agents could see you working your fat asses off!" The two officers stared at Spiegelman, both angry and humiliated, powder flaking off the doughnuts in their frozen hands. "And...this is Agent Scully," Mulder said slowly. Spiegelman glanced at Mulder and said, "Hey." Then he directed another growl towards his patrol officers. "Call me a kike." The policemen said nothing. "I know you call me that behind my back. Why don't you go ahead and get it out in the air instead of holding it behind your yellow teeth?" The fat police officers looked down. "Well?" "You're a kike..." one of the cops finally mumbled. "And you're a couple of whale-sized rednecks with roadkill for brains. Now this is what we call a mutual understanding." Spiegelman turned back to the FBI agents. "Follow me," he said politely. Mulder and Scully followed the chief to his office, too aware of the loathing in the policemen's eyes and the guns hanging at their sides. "You're probably wondering why I keep them on my team," Spiegelman observed after he closed the door. "Actually, we were wondering if you are in any kind of physical danger from your own subordinates," Scully told him. Spiegelman turned his body to her, those six-feet-two- inches of wide muscle poised carefully on his boots. His face was as blank as an unplugged TV. "I ain't worried," he told her. "Have a seat." Mulder and Scully sat down in front of his desk, a little quickly. "I keep them on because I need all the men I can get," he explained as he took his own chair. "Final has a population of 700. Small, but that's still a lot for just two people." "Two?" "Me and Sally Ash, my one good officer. If nothing else, those two pissants can stop a few bullets before they reach us. And they got nowhere else to look for work." He waved a hand through the air, tossing the subject away. "Now, about why I asked you here..." "Yes," Mulder said. "You seem to have an unusual situation here." A little smile pulled on Spiegelman's mouth. "You think so?" "Well...from you told us, you have a crime that has been witnessed but never happened." "What I have is some scripture-sucking kid who has used a yellow highlighter on Revelations so much that the fumes of the ink has gone to his brain. Next thing you know, he'll be seeing statues of Jesus bleeding out of their dicks or something." Mulder cleared his throat and said, "I'm familiar with the history of reported religious visions. I'm also aware that much of it is delusional. However, what Johnny McDonald has testified to observing deviates from the standard motifs of spiritual visitation." "Which is another way of saying someone has imagined a whole new brand of shit." Mulder looked at Scully. She looked back at him, then turned to Spiegelman. "Chief, why did you ask us here?" Spiegelman turned away in his chair and rubbed his eyes. "Well...to tell you the truth, I called you people as a favor to a friend." "Who is ...?" "Nadine. Reverend Nadine Burnside. Her son was in the Shithole when...this supposedly happened." "The what?" "It's the name of the bar. Nadine's brother-in-law owns the place and Malcolm plays music there. Look..." His chair squeaked back in their direction. "...if you want to tell me to go stuff this case up my Semitic ass, then you're more than welcome. If Nadine...if the reverend hadn't begged me to look into it, I wouldn't give a shit about it myself. Now, I know sweet f.a. about how to deal with this. I called you up because I hear that this is your specialty. So, what do you say?" Mulder smiled. "First of all, Chief, wasting time is my specialty as my partner will tell you. Second of all, I think there is something to this story. Johnny may have actually witnessed something that night. Maybe not exactly what he says it is, but let's see if we can find the truth in his fantasy." Spiegelman looked thoughtful for a moment, then said, "If you don't mind me asking, Agent Mulder, you wouldn't be of the same background as me, would you?" Scully waited for Mulder's answer. She wanted to know this herself. Mulder's smile got longer. "That's for me to know and for you to find out." XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX "The Lord was there that night. He sent his angels to protect the sinners because God loves us all from the most holy to the most corrupt. With his never-ending power, he held back Death itself. The flesh was healed and the wounds were erased. For anyone that might doubt His love and grace, look to the bar named the Sh...look to that bar and know that nothing is beyond His..." "This is an interrogation, not a prayer revival, you dumb little cracker," Spiegelman snarled. "Just tell these folks what you think you saw." Johnny McDonald sighed inside. He knew that the chief wouldn't understand. His race just couldn't see the light, even if they were the Chosen People. He doubted that the male FBI agent with the chief would understand either. That nose, that name...such a dead giveaway, On the other hand, the woman was wearing a crucifix. He had taken special notice of it because it was suspended next to two firm-looking breasts, both just the right size to fill a man's hand. "I will only talk to her." "Of all the..." Spiegelman started. "I'm sure it will be all right," Mulder interrupted. "Do you mind, Scully?" "If that's what makes Mr. McDonald comfortable." "Then come along, Chief." Spiegelman frowned, but opened the door and exited the interrogation room. Before he left, Mulder whispered into Scully's ear, "If you need help, just speak out in tongues." "Now," Scully said, looking straight at the young man sitting across from her at a table. "What happened?" McDonald told her everything, taking note of her eyes and lips and, of course, that gold cross against her black- suited chest. He took no offense at anything she asked him, only saying "no, ma'am" to questions about his drinking habits and any possibility of head trauma. When she was satisfied with his answers, Scully told him that he had been very helpful. "I see you're a believer, Agent Scully." She glanced down at her cross. "Yes. I am." He leaned forward, drawing those breasts closer to him. "Do you also believe that a miracle has taken place?" he said. "It's too soon for me to make a conclusion. Of course, the Catholic heritage has no shortage of..." "Catholic?" "Yes." Johnny lurched back from Scully as images of blood-filled cups and the Pope leading murderous armies flashed through his mind. "Is there a problem?" Scully asked quietly. "Well...I suppose that you can't help it." XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX "I can kick him around for a bit, if you like." "There's no need for Southern chivalry, Chief." "Nothing chivalrous about it," Spiegelman told Scully. "The boy just has it coming." "I sense a bit of hostility from you, Chief," Mulder said. "That little prick thinks he can be a better preacher than Nadine. The really fucked-up thing is that he might end up getting the job. Nadine is a great preacher, but this is still a cracker town that has trouble with the idea of a woman being the head of a church." "Or a Jew being Chief of Police?" Spiegelman frowned, not at Mulder but at the whole population of Final. Scully cleared her throat. Spiegelman shook his head. "Sorry about that. Well, Agent Scully, what did you make of his story?" "As Agent Mulder said, there might be some truth in his tale. I suggest that we start with the elements in it that sound most probable." "That would be the Klan shooting at a bar full of black people," Mulder commented. "Chief, did you talk with the owner of the, uh...the Shithole?" "A.C.? I called him up and asked if there had been any trouble that night. He said, 'Nope, it was as quiet as two white people fucking.'" "Ah. Okay. Well, did you go down there yourself to look for any signs of gunfire?" Spiegelman looked at Mulder. "That would be saying that A.C. lied to me. I don't feel like calling him that under any circumstances, especially when I have only the word of some pimply-faced Bible-beater." "Maybe he's afraid that the Klan will retaliate if he talks." Spiegelman got a good laugh out of that. "If the Klan ever tried to attack his bar," he chortled, "then A.C. would track them down so he could make a necklace out of their nuts. Since that hasn't happened, I'm even more doubtful that Johnny's story is true." "Then why don't we make sure?" "How so?" "Are there any local chapters of the Klan around?" Spiegelman raised his eyebrows. "You ask that in Mississippi?" XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX The house looked pretty much like they expected. Holes were bitten into the screen door. An brown oil drum rested pointlessly in a lawn that was nourishing an empire of weeds. An old rebel flag jutted out defiantly under the shine of the roof's aluminum tiles. "Fred!" Spiegelman called out. "Fred Udell, you in here?" "Go away!" a high-pitched voice shot back. Spiegelman motioned to Mulder and Scully who followed him into the house where they found more of the expected -- a television set with a knob on it, gray tape all over the furniture, "The Turner Diaries" and "Mein Kampf" on the shelves, commemorative dishes in a display case. "I said, go away!" Udell hollered. "I'm taking a shit!" "We can wait," Spiegelman said as they followed the voice to the bathroom door. "It's diarrhea!" There was a sound like a walrus sneezing. Everybody winced as a smell crept out from under the door. It was the kind of scent that would have been drawn in comic books as a wide brown line curving back and forth through the air. "Oh, man..." Udell groaned. "Then we'll talk right here," Spiegelman told him. "Ah, Chief, what is this all about?" "A couple of nights ago, someone reported that the Klan tried to shoot up A.C.'s bar." There was a moment of silence from behind the door. "Well, was there?" Udell said. Spiegelman glanced at Mulder and Scully, then said, "It's kind of hard to say." "What do you mean? Were there any bodies? Did anybody get killed?" "No. No one got killed." "Then what the fuck is the deal? I'm telling you, niggers get killed, people pick on the Klan. Niggers don't get killed, people still pick on the Klan." "That's not a nice word, Mr. Udell," Mulder commented. "Who the hell is..." The walrus sneeze again. "...that, Chief?" "I'm Agent Fox Mulder from the FBI." "Oh, that's great. Now, they're sending in the federal kikes." Scully saw the look on the two men and decided to step in. "Mister Udell, it's best that you cooperate in this matter." "And who are you?" "I'm Agent Dana Scully. I'm also with the FBI." "Well, I'll tell you what, Dana. You take your lesbo ass and go back to..." Mulder kicked the door in. Before anyone could stop him, he strode into the bathroom, headed for the sun-burned, long-necked man sitting on the toilet with his pants lowered to the cracked tiles. "Hey, man!" Udell shrieked. Mulder stood over Udell and placed a hand against the wall behind him. He had a little smile on his face. "That's not a nice word, either, Mr. Udell," he commented. "Mulder..." Scully started, but her partner held up a hand. She looked to the chief. Spiegelman was uncertain about all this. "It's just a simple question," Mulder continued. "You're the leader of the local Klan chapter, their Grand High Wizard or Elf or whatever. Did you and your pointy-headed wonders lead a raid on the Shithole?" A twitch jumped in Udell's cheek. "Well, did you?" Another spurt jettisoned into the water. Udell closed his eyes. "Look me in the eyes, Udell." He slowly lifted his eyelids. "Now, tell me." The Adam's apple in Udell's throat went up and down. Then he said, "You can't prove we were." Mulder stared into Udell's eyes for a few moments before he said, "That will be all, Mister Udell." He went to the door, stopped there and looked back. "Oh, by the way..." Udell shifted his eyes in the agent's direction. "Make sure you get lots of fiber." XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX As Spiegelman drove them away in his police car, he said, "I'm not sure you should have done that, Agent Mulder." "I thought you would have liked it, Chief." "I'm not above getting rough. But I like to do it with cause. We don't know if anything happened at..." "They were there. They were there with guns." Spiegelman glanced at Mulder. Scully asked, "How can you be sure?" "I looked into his eyes. He was there with his buddies and he was there to kill." "All right," Spiegelman said. "Then how come nobody got killed?" "They missed?" "Agent Mulder...if Johnny is telling the truth, they went in there heavily armed. And there's very little cover in the Shithole. How could they have missed?" "That would have been a miracle, wouldn't it?" Spiegelman looked at Mulder again, then shook his head. "Okay, Mulder," Scully said. "Try this one. You're a KKK member who has just tried to kill a bunch of black people. They all survive." "Right. A miracle." "Didn't Mr. Udell seem -- despite his condition -- a little too relaxed?" "Hmmm." "She's right, Mulder," Spiegelman said. "That son-of-a- bitch should have been over the Mississippi border by now. If a miracle like that did take place, any Klan member wouldn't be waiting around in his house and taking a shit. He would be hiding in the hills, too scared to show himself." Mulder said nothing. "Well?" "Questions, questions, questions," Mulder said with a lazy air. Before Scully or Spiegelman could respond (her with weariness and him with a curse), he added, "I would like to see Mr. Burnside." Spiegelman sighed. "All right. But I'm waiting in the car." XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX A few sounds really got on Julius Grant's nerves -- jackhammers, car alarms, Garth Brooks and the sound of Fred Udell's voice. "That kike chief was here!" Udell screeched over the phone. "And he had a couple of FBI agents with him!" "That's something special," Julius replied in a casual tone though his body was tense despite being laid across a chair covered in genuine yak hair. The sound of Fred Udell had that effect on him. "They're going to find out what happened!" "Nothing happened, Fred. You know that." "Oh, Jesus, Mr. Grant...I mean, you told us to expect something like this, but...man, this is the weirdest fucking shit I've seen. Those niggers were dead." "And now they're not. Hallelujah." "I hope like hell you know what you're doing." "Absolutely." "I'm only doing this because I believe that it will protect the white race." "Fred, after I'm done, you'll be able to march through Harlem and lynch Puff Daddy, Jesse Jackson and Toni Morrison from the nearest flagpole. On job applications, the question on race will have two boxes to check -- 'white' or 'mud people.' There will be models walking down the runways in white robes and pointed hoods. UPN will be shut down forever. And you...you, Fred, will have the biggest dick in the world." The silence on the other end was the sound of Fred Udell taking in that vision. "But, Fred?" "Yes, Mr. Grant?" "This can only work if...we...all...stay...calm." "Yes, sir. I'm calm." "Good. Now return to your shitting." "Yes, sir." Julius hung up the phone and wondered why did plans like this always required the help of assholes. A great trumpeting sound shot through an open window. "Okay, okay, Stonewall," Julius grumbled. "I'm coming." XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX TITLE: GOIN' DOWN SOUTH(Part 3 of 26) AUTHOR: DAVID HEARNE XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX Mulder and Scully heard the shots right after they got out of Spiegelman's car. They dropped down to the front lawn of A.C. Burnside's house, their guns drawn and pointed at his front door. Spiegelman called out to them from the curb where he was parked. "It's okay," he said casually. "Just go on in." They looked back at the chief. He impatiently waved them inside. Mulder and Scully then looked at each other. Another shot banged inside the house. They climbed to their feet, brushing off the long brown marks from their clothes. A.C.'s lawn was more dirt than grass. Planted into the ground were signs that read "If you're selling something, fuck off!" and "If you're here to save my soul, fuck off!" and so on and so on. All the windows on the house had iron bars and a sledgehammer couldn't knock off the lock on that door. They could hear another sound beside the occasional gunshot. A guitar was being played and a voice was singing, unperturbed by the gunfire. The voice had strong, firm qualities, but it sang quietly. "Down in old Mexico, where a child will slap your face. "Down in old Mexico, where a child will slap your face. "They make bread with cotton powder. "Drink gunpowder to kill the taste." Mulder rang the doorbell which let off a chime that he recognized as "Got My Mojo Working." "But it just don't work on you," he said to his partner with a raised eyebrow. "There's a reason for that," she informed him. The guitar player stopped singing. A few moments later, the door was opened by a tall, thin black youth. His face still had the softness of teenage years, but there was nothing soft in his eyes. It wasn't an unfriendly look., but he seemed to be testing the two FBI agents. "May I help you two?" he asked. Mulder pulled out his badge. "I'm Agent Fox Mulder from..." Another gunshot echoed from inside the house. Mulder took a moment before continuing. "... the FBI. This is my partner, Dana Scully." A tiny smile touched the young man's face. "You're finally busting my uncle's still?" "No. We're here to talk to Mr. Burnside about a reported incident at his bar." The young man slowly nodded. "Excuse me," Scully said, "but are you the son of Nadine Burnside?" "That's right. Name's Malcolm. Malcolm, Jr." He held out his hand. Both the two agents shook it and felt his long fingers. "So," Malcolm said. "a reported incident, huh?" "Yes. Is your uncle in?" Bang. "Take that, you mammy-fucker!" The smile on Malcolm's face got bigger. "Oh, he's in. Come on." Malcolm led them to the living room, then called out "A.C.!" "What?!" "A couple of FBI agents are here to see you!" There was a moment of silence during which Malcolm sat down in a chair and picked up his guitar again. Then a door swung open and a man in his early forties came marching down a narrow hallway. He was a short, compact man with a balding head. He looked like a bullet on legs. And speaking of bullets, a gun was in his hand, its barrel pointing to the floor. Naturally, Mulder and Scully tensed up. "What do you two federal mammy-fuckers want?" Before they could form any reasonable response, Malcolm cleared his throat. A.C. glared at his nephew who looked calmly back as he held out his hand. A.C. slapped the gun into Malcolm's hand. Malcolm placed it on the floor and then concentrated on his guitar, making the strings vibrate with a fluid rhythm. "Well?" A.C. shouted. "Well," Scully said in her best "your-fire-can't-melt-my- ice" voice, "what were you shooting at in there?" "Nothin'. That's my growlery. Whenever I want to let off a little steam, I go in there and fire a few bullets into the walls." The walls must look like a beehive now, Mulder thought. "You know," he said in his best "let's-be-friendly-with-the- lunatic" voice, "there's a character in a Charles Dickens novel who has something called a 'growlery.'" A.C. slowly turned his eyes to Mulder and stared at him for a heartbeat. Then he yelled, "I know that, you mammy-fucker! You think that I could think up something like that by myself?" "Well..." A.C. pointed at his nephew. "Malcolm gave me a copy of 'Bleak House' to read. He's been keeping me updated on the fucking glory that is Western Civilization." "That's right," Malcolm said without looking up. "I have." "Nice book. Too much of that whiny Esther Summerson bitch, though. I liked that bad-ass Inspector Bucket." "Uh, Mr. Burnside..." Scully began. "The name is A.C. You want something to drink?" "No." "I do. Take a seat and I'll be back in a second." A.C. left the room. Mulder and Scully dutifully sat down on a couch whose springs creaked like turning gears. As A.C. searched through a refrigerator, Malcolm took up his song again. "The women down in Mexico, they're as bad as bad can be. "The women down in Mexico, they're as bad as bad can be. "They eat rattlesnakes for breakfast "And drink the rattlesnakes' blood for tea." A.C. came back, a moist bottle of beer in his hand. He gulped down a cup full, then asked, "You two came down here just to talk about books?" Mulder said, "We came here because someone reported that the KKK attacked your bar a few nights ago." A moment of silence. "Don't know where you heard that," A.C. said in an even voice. "'Cause it didn't happen. If it did happen, I wouldn't be here talking with you. I would be trying to track down those pointy-headed mammy-fuckers so I can..." "Make a necklace out of their testicles?" "Yeah and then sell it for half-price at Bloomingdale's." Another swig of beer was tossed down A.C.'s throat. Malcolm kept playing effortlessly. Mulder turned to the younger man. "Do you play down at your uncle's bar?" "You mean, the Shithole?" Malcolm answered, still looking at his guitar. "Yes. The Shithole." "Yeah, I play there a lot. Me and A.C. are in the house band." "You see anything strange recently down there?" "Now wait a minute," A.C. interrupted, pointing his bottle's neck at a Mulder like a sword. "I'm the one who gets the goddamned questions and not..." "Shut up, A.C.," Malcolm said, his voice still as cool as ever. Much to Mulder and Scully's surprise, A.C. did shut up. "I have witnessed a lot of strange things," Malcolm continued, the guitar singing under his touch. "I've seen a parked car with no driver suddenly move all the way down the street and then stop. I've woken up in my bed to see this old man with a guitar, but only for a second before he vanishes. I once got on a bus and saw crickets all over the floor, on the seats, on the passengers. Nobody was complaining. In the bar itself...well, I've seen plenty there, too." He suddenly stopped playing and he looked up. "I've never seen the Klan attack the bar, though. We've been lucky." Nobody moved or spoke for many seconds. Then Mulder said, "I understand that the bar has been closed." "Renovations." "When will you be open?" Malcolm studied Mulder's face, then said, "Tonight." A.C. looked sharply at his nephew. Mulder then stood up and said, "Thank you very much. Come on, Scully." Scully left with her partner who looked a little bewildered by him. A.C. watched them outside through a window. "They're with Chief Spiegelman. What the fuck is that Jewboy up to?" "I don't know, but that Mulder guy didn't believe us." Malcolm did a quick scale of notes up the guitar. A.C. turned to him. "You know, I say when it's time my goddamned bar is open." "Well, is it time?" A.C. wiped off his mouth. "Boy, it don't matter if it is open. Nobody is going to come. Not if Muddy Waters and Robert Johnson themselves were playing tonight. People are spooked and they are spooked good." "Tonight, I'm going to start it off solo," Malcolm said as if he hadn't heard A.C. "If that's all right." A.C. looked at Malcolm sitting casually in the chair and strumming the guitar. Finally he said, "Yeah. Sure. Why not? You're a better fucking player than I am." "Thank you, A.C." A.C. watched Malcolm for a few more moments, then he grabbed his gun off the floor and left for the growlery, sucking his bottle of beer dry. Malcolm's fingers drew out gentle notes as the gunfire resumed. "Muddy Waters and Robert Johnson together," he mused. "I wonder if I could..." "No, no, no, no!" Malcolm looked up to see an agitated face under a bowler hat and a body trembling in a black suit. "Don't, don't even think that!" the man with the bowler hat stammered. Malcolm shrugged. "Just a thought." "You are treading on thin ice as it were, young man. What you did in that bar was...understandable. It was a quick impulse on your part. But it should not be..." "Okay, okay. I won't do it again. Don't get your balls all twisted up." Malcolm looked at the other man's pants. "You do have balls in there, right?" The man in the bowler hat clenched his fists. "I'm aware that you don't think much of me. That's fine. But you're my responsibility and I'm doing my best to keep this situation from getting out of control. Because if it does, then HE will get involved and that's the last thing..." "Down in old Mexico, they're as wild as wild can be," Malcolm sang as his fingers picked up the melody again. "Malcolm, this is serious!" "Down in old Mexico, they're as wild as wild can be..." The man in the bowler hat shook his head. Then he vanished. Malcolm's voice echoed through the space he left. "I'm leaving this country "Because they don't kill them fast enough for me." Bang. "That one was for the mammy you fuck, mammy-fucker!" XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX Main Street in Final, Mississippi had a dusty, faded quality. Not like, say, a daguerreotype. Those old photos have a beauty of their own unique fashion. This collection of stores along the cracked street looked like a magazine left out in the desert or an empty sardine tin at the bottom of a garbage can. They didn't look quaint, merely old and run-down. The hardware dealer appeared to have bent nails in its inventory. The newsstand probably specialized in porno and "Reader's Digest." Let us not think about what they serve down at "Joe's Diner." The people that could be seen did not change your impression. The old men who wandered up the sidewalk or sat on the bench had no stories to tell. They just seemed hollow and glass-eyed. There were also teenagers with torn jeans and shirts with no sleeves, their eyes shifting back and forth as they drank and smoke, looking desperately for something to shake them out of their boredom. Shopkeepers and waitresses watched the outside with intense suspicion. As they stepped out of their rental car, Scully knew that she and her partner stuck out like a turd in a bowl of Fruit Loops. She looked around her with her arms crossed over her chest as Mulder entered a phone booth and looked through a warped copy of the Yellow Pages. She caught the attention of a group of young men. One of them puckered his lips at her and grabbed his crotch, much to the delight of his companions. Scully lifted up her coat so they could see her gun. They immediately moved to another part of the street. "What are you doing, Scully?" Mulder asked. "Just scratching myself. I guess practice does make perfect." "What?" "All those times that you've ditched me has served you well. You ditched Chief Spiegelman expertly." "How good can I be at ditching? You always find me." Before Scully could reply to that, Mulder said, "Here she is. Nadine Burnside. 40 Messenger Road." He put aside the Yellow Pages and took a small map out of his jacket. "Luckily, I got a map of Final from the chief's office. Not that we have a lot of area to cover." "I can see why you want to talk with Reverend Burnside, but why don't you want the chief around?" "Come on, Scully. Where's your woman's intuition?" Scully looked at Mulder's smile and said, "You think that Spiegelman has a thing for the town preacher?" "That's why I told him that we were headed back to the hotel, 'pending further developments.' A man can get quite testy if he thinks you're intimidating the woman he loves." "Is that why you kicked your way into Udell's bathroom?" Mulder's hand froze as he reached for the car door. "Or was that just your idea of chivalry?" Scully asked. He looked at the woman next to him for a moment, then said, "Oh, you mean that 'lesbo' comment." "Yes." With a straight face, Mulder said, "No, actually, I thought that he was talking about me." With an equally straight face, Scully answered, "Mulder, you're riding in the trunk." XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX Nathaniel Leed hated it when people interrupted his experiments. The abrupt sound of his mother's voice almost made his scalpel twitch and ruin some delicate work. "NAAAA-THAN!" "WHAT, MOM!" "YOUR FRIEND, MR. UDELL, CALLED! HE SAID THAT YOU HAVE A MEETING TONIGHT!" Nathan rolled his eyes. "OKAY! THANKS, MOM!" "ARE YOU ALL RIGHT DOWN THERE?" "YES, MOM!" "DO YOU WANT ANYTHING TO EAT? SOME COOKIES?" "NO, MOM!" "ALL RIGHT THEN!" Nathaniel sighed and returned to his work. Just what he needed. Another one of Fred 'Worrywart' Udell's meetings. Nathaniel wondered why he was even a member of the Klan. He had problems with the group's philosophy. Not that he didn't believe that African-Americans were an inferior race. (He disdained the word 'nigger.' It was so unscientific.) Where he differed with the Klan was in policy. Their preferred methods were suppression and violence. He was searching for another way, a solution that could only be found in a rigorous, systematic analysis of the problem. Of course, he had participated in the attack on the blues bar. He was, after all, a member of the KKK and obligated to go along with its current policy. However, it had struck him as a pointless endeavor. Any one of those people killed in the bar could have given him necessary data for his project. Then, again, none of them were killed, weren't they? Supposedly? Nathaniel had a hard time with this concept. He refused to believe Mr. Grant's story that they had risen from the dead. After all, he hadn't seen this alleged miracle take place. Nor had he seen any of these black Lazaruses walking about. (Of course, he rarely got out and he never ventured into the black side of Final.) Nathaniel had been suspicious of Julius Grant from the moment he had unofficially taken over Udell's chapter of the Klan. Their 'official' leader had been swayed by Grant's fantastic promises of power. Yet Grant's story reeked of superstition and that was the last thing the Klan needed. Still, Nathaniel was a patient man. If nothing else, science was about patience. For now, he would be content to perform his experiments in their current stage, waiting for the day that he could bring a more suitable subject down into the basement of his parents' house. He waited, his table waited and his tools waited. Today, he had to satisfy his curiosity with a rabbit. He peeked under its skin as straps secured its trembling limbs and a gag muffled the screeches from its mouth. He remembered when he had first dissected a frog in science class. The experience had been fascinating, but he could never understand why they had to use a dead frog. There was so much more to be learned when they were alive. XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX TITLE: GOIN' DOWN SOUTH(Part 4 of 26) AUTHOR: DAVID HEARNE XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX There were three things that struck Mulder and Scully when they first saw Nadine Burnside. One, she was beautiful. Not just beautiful in that her features were awe-inspiring, but also in that you immediately knew that she was good. She would help you in your time of need. She would invite you into her house during bad weather. She would give her last dollar to feed you. She would hold you all night if you were heartbroken (which struck Mulder as being a wonderfully therapeutic notion.) Second, she was white. Third, she had nine fingers. Her ring finger was missing from her right hand. She made no attempt to hide her deformity. When they had came to her house, she had been... Actually, it was not so much a house as it was a wooden shack built on top of a tree. In other words, a tree house. Mulder and Scully had checked the address twice before they were sure that they had come to the right place. Yet their eyes did not deceive them -- 40 Messenger Street was a big oak supporting a small yet sturdy tree house. Mulder rang a bell next to a water pump. "Who is it?" a voice called out with pure, musical tones. "It's Agent Mulder and Agent Scully from the FBI! We're helping with Chief Spiegelman on a matter you discussed with him!" A trap door opened and a rope ladder spilled out, unfurling itself to the ground. "Come on up!" Nadine Burnside said. "You're most welcome here!" "You go first," Scully said to Mulder. "I don't want you enjoying the view." "Oh, so it's okay for you to look at my butt?" "I've seen your butt and I've seen better. Now, go." As they climbed the ladder, they both expected to find a dirty-haired woman dressed in rags. Nadine Burnside, however, was very clean and her dress was made of a smooth hand-woven fabric. The sunlight that came through a carved-out window gave her a glow that accentuated her perfection. Her almost-perfection. There was that missing finger, after all. "Please sit here," she said, indicated two pillows on the smooth wooden floor. She sat cross-legged in front of them, her expression serene and kind and helpful. "Chief Spiegelman told me that you were coming to Final," she told them. "I wasn't aware that the FBI had a section that handled these matters." Mulder felt like every word had been ripped out of him. He could only stare at Nadine. For once, Scully did not feel embarrassed for him. His reaction wasn't too afar from hers. She found herself remembering what Bette Davis said when she saw Greta Garbo, "My God, if there was ever a time to become a lesbian, this is it." Scully decided to pass on it. "We're not exactly a high- profile department of the FBI," she explained. "But, yes, we do handle cases that involve unexplained phenomena. However, I confess that this case is a bit hard to sort out from our viewpoint." "How so?" "First of all, we're not sure if any unexplained phenomena took place. Right, Mulder?" "What?" he said. Scully said slowly, "We're not sure if any unexplained phenomena occurred. Right?" "Uh, yes. Well, no. I mean..." "You only have the story of Johnny McDonald," Nadine said helpfully. "Uh...yeah. That's right. Correct. Now, I'm inclined to believe his story, but...um..." "My partner is inclined to believe a lot," Scully commented. Mulder made a face at her. "You're a man of faith," Nadine observed. Mulder shrugged. "In my own way." Nadine indicated a legless desk in the corner. A pen and a notebook were on it. "I was preparing the sermon for Sunday when you came. I'm incorporating the part from 'Anna Karenin' where Levin comes to a realization about his own faith. Have you read 'Anna Karenin?'" "You mean...'Anna Karenina?'" "My son tells me that according to Vladimir Nabokov, the proper translation leaves out the 'a' at the end. 'She was not a ballerina,' Nabokov says." Nadine made the kind of smile people would pay good money to see. "I bow to my son's judgment in these matters. He's much better read than I am. Anyway, Levin realizes that he didn't need to struggle to believe in God. The belief was in him and it would always be in him. He could look out at the world and know God made it." Nadine leaned forward. Mulder and Scully found themselves doing the same. "That's how I know that Johnny McDonald speaks the truth. I know that a miracle happened in that bar. I know that because my son was there." "Malcolm?" Nadine nodded, then pointed. Mulder and Scully turned to see a photo held up on a homemade shelf. The photo was of a handsome black man whose face had a clear similarity to Malcolm Burnside, Jr. The expression of Malcolm, Sr. was startling. He looked like a man who should be leading armies or sitting on a throne. His eyes seemed to look directly at you and know you instantly. He wasn't unfriendly, but he had come to an early understanding of the world, a world that he had accepted and planned to change. "Malcolm never knew his father. He wasn't even conceived yet. It seems that all he got from his father was a name. But my husband gave more to my son than you can imagine." There was a brief, silent pause. "You mean 'born,' right?" Scully said. "Hm?" "You said Malcolm, Jr. was even conceived yet. But you meant 'born.'" Nadine smiled again. "No. I meant conceived." Okay, Scully thought. It is now officially weird. "Perhaps I should explain," Nadine said. "Please do." XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX On one hand, the marriage between Malcolm Burnside, Sr. and Nadine French could only be viewed as an inevitability. Here he was, a towering figure in the community. Unlike his salty brother, he was good-tempered and kind. Yet he was nobody's fool. He was a man who avoided using his fists, but he knew how to drop any man to the ground. He was the organizer of several charities which he ran with as much practicality as compassion. When faced with bigotry, he gave back not hatred but his hard dignity. Fred Udell once told him, "You're a pretty high-and- mighty nigger, aren't you?" "No, sir," Malcolm, Sr. replied. "I'm not much. It's just that I smell so sweet when I'm next to your foul stench." Udell turned another shade of red, but only watched helplessly as Malcolm, Sr. walked away from him. There was too much strength and respect around the man for him to be touched. And then there was Nadine. There was a strength in her as big as her future husband's. Yet she seemed soft as the clouds and kind as a rainstorm in the desert. Malcolm, Sr. got your respect. She got your love. Their union was the perfect melding of the better parts in the human soul. Then, again, he was black and she was white. Initially, there was concern. Could the town accept a marriage between the daughter of the town minister and the brother of the Shithole's owner? However, as the day approached, the separate racial populations of Final, Mississippi gradually relaxed. It seemed apparent that racism would not besmirch this wedding. The perfection of it was too overwhelming for the Klan or any bigot to resist. As it turned out, however, bigotry did extend its shadow over that day. Bigotry and another dark emotion of the heart. XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX "I was under no illusions when Malcolm put the ring on my finger. We had our disagreements before and we would have them in the future. We were only human. I also knew that, despite the smiles on both black and white faces in the church, hatred would continue to threaten us. "However, as my father declared that we were one, I came to believe that I was understanding what heaven truly was. I felt that God had personally blessed me and that Malcolm was an angel. I walked out of the church with him into a shower of rice, certain that my life would be forever happy. "But Bob Hoag was waiting for us." XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX Nadine Burnside was kind to everyone, but Bob Hoag had seen something deeper in the kindness she had given him. How else could he explain why a vision like her would show charity on some lonely piece of white trash? Back when they were in high school, she would occasionally watch the football team practice. That was when she still was dating the captain of the football team, Meyer Spiegelman. Yet Bob suspected...he believed...he knew that her heart really belonged to him. If it wasn't true, why did she wave her hand at him sometimes and smile so warmly? Why did she bother even to talk to him -- a young man who was only good at tackling people and lugging iron down at the scrap yard? People regarded him as a half-wit and maybe he was, but he still had his intuition. It was telling him that some unexplainable motivation had made Nadine fall in love with him. One day, he finally confronted her with his knowledge of her love and assured her that he reciprocated it. As gently as she could, she explained that he was mistaken. At first, he refused to accept it. His refusals become so adamant that Spiegelman took him aside and explained Nadine's position in terms more forceful than hers. Bob Hoag began to carry something thick and hard inside. It grew harder as he imagined the laughter just out of his hearing's range and the jokes behind his back. It grew stronger every time he looked at his dull face in the mirror. It grew hotter after every dream where he was kissing Nadine or killing Spiegelman or killing both. Maybe he could have learned to live with it. After all, there had been so much anger in him beforehand. What was a little more? One day, he was working in the scrap yard, two years after his less-than-stellar high school career had concluded, when he got the word that Nadine Burnside was marrying a nigger. It was bad enough when she had been dating a Jew. Sure, Spiegelman was the strong, handsome captain of the football team, but surely she could have chosen someone who didn't have the blood of Christ on his hands. Still, he had come to accept it just as he come to accept that Spiegelman was team captain. But this... One of them... Touching her... Smothering her mouth with his big lips... Ramming his animal penis into her sacred womb... The thing inside Bob burst loose. He was waiting for them as they left the church. Rice fell onto their heads, bouncing off her white gown and his black tuxedo. And, oh, were they smiling. The nigger was not known to be much of a smiler, but he was doing it now and those white teeth were shining and mocking him and saying "I got your woman now, boy, I'm gonna use her as I please, shore enuff" and she was smiling as well and she was laughing at him, "You silly little cracker boy, get out of my way so I can know a real man" but now they weren't smiling and he was standing in their way and nobody else was looking yet as he raised his hand. There was a flash of red. As the nigger fell to the ground, Nadine turned to the side and reached out to him with her right hand stretched forward as if she might pull him back up into the living. Bob pointed towards her and pulled the trigger just as a man collided with him. He recognized the man's touch. He had been tackled by the man a long time ago during practice sessions for high-school football. His aim got just a little off. And then there was a flash of gold. XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX Nadine looked at her missing ring finger. "In a way, I was lucky. The bullet could have done much worse. Instead, it just went through here." She poked her left forefinger through that space. "You know...they never found the ring. Bits of the finger, but not the ring. Odd." She looked up. "But something odder happened that night. Something odd and beautiful." XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX She hadn't said a word ever since the shooting. She hadn't even screamed or cried out in pain. As others pummeled and kicked Bob, she had sunk down to her knees, clutching her wounded hand to her gown, a red spot spreading out from under her hand and her face that of a sleepwalker. Despite the nausea and shock, she had managed to stay conscious. She still remained awake even after they had bandaged her hand and injected a sedative into her veins. Of course, you wouldn't exactly call the empty look in her eyes 'awake.' Trapped in a comatose of her own design, the only thing she could see was the white ceiling of her hospital room. Sounds dimly registered in her ears---the quiet conversation of doctors and nurses, a bed being wheeled by, the hollow call of an intercom. She became aware of two other voices. Even though they were coming from inside the room, they were fainter than the noises in the hallway. She couldn't make out their words, though both voices had a sad tone. Then there was a sudden crack, followed by something falling to the floor. And she saw him. And she heard him. "You are my wife bound to me by a vow taken before God. No one will come between me and you. No one will keep us from knowing each other." And she felt him. XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX "He only came to me once. There is a limit to even what love can do. But once was enough to consummate our love. And to bring our son into the world." She smiled. "I let others think that Malcolm and I had gave into lust before our vows. I didn't mind. What mattered is that I knew. "I knew that my son had been born of two worlds as well as two races. I knew that he had been unlike anything the world had seen before, not since another birth nearly two thousand years ago. "I'm not saying my son is a savior. I don't know what he is exactly. But soon we all shall know. "I'm telling this to you because I believe that you're ready for it. I sense that you will accept the responsibilities with this knowledge. "We must all look after him. We must help him and guide him and teach him. Because the time is coming when he must choose his destiny. He must understand his duties and face the world accordingly. He must do what is right under God. "I know you'll do well. "Thank you for coming and God bless." XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX Scully took the final step off the ladder and felt the earth beneath her feet. Mulder then dropped down next to her and stood by her side. They were both quiet and looking away from each other. Finally, Scully said, "Have you heard anything like this before, Mulder?" He slowly turned his head to her. "Well, have you?" "No, Scully," he said. "I haven't heard too many stories about ghosts who come back to pork the living." "Mul-der!" Mulder was jarred by the sight of his partner's hot eyes and red cheeks. "What?" he said. "That definitely ranks among the top five stupidest things you've ever said." "Wait a second. Wait one goddamned second. Are you telling me that you believe this story?" "No. I'm not. I don't." "Then what are you so pissed off about?" "Because you don't have any romance in you." Now, Mulder had to grin. "I think you've dissected one corpse too many, Scully. It's given you a positive outlook on necrophilia." "You better stand back, Mulder." "Oh, come on," he said, though he did take a step back. "Don't you find anything romantic about a man who loved a woman so much that he transcended death itself?" she asked. Before he could answer, she added, "No! Of course not! You're too busy playing Mr. Cool. Well, take your glib male, frat-boy, beer-swilling, porno-magazine, Comedy- Centralized sarcasm and shove it up your ass, okay?" It was quiet again. Then Mulder said, "Are you a big fan of 'Ghost,' Scully?" "Yes, Mulder. I'm a big fan of Demi Moore's inanimate face." "I'm glad you're the one being sarcastic now because you were scaring me there for a moment. A necrophiliac Scully is one thing..." "But a Swayzephiliac is another?" "Exactly." Now, it was Scully's turn to smile. "This is one of our sillier arguments." "I agree. Let's move on to our standard argument." "I'm not sure we can have it. You don't seem to believe Nadine Burnside's story." "I have no idea what to believe, now. And I won't get an idea until I get an inside look at the...at the, you know..." "The Shithole?" "Yes and I resolve to say that without hesitancy." "Well, I agree with you on that. But A.C. Burnside doesn't seem too eager to let us take a look." "Then we'll just mingle with the crowd." He put an arm around Scully's shoulders. "Feel like the blues tonight, Scully?" "Around you, Mulder, that's a gratuitous question." XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX TITLE: GOIN' DOWN SOUTH (Part 5 of 26) AUTHOR: DAVID HEARNE XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX Fred Udell could feel the shit building up inside him. The pressure was crushing his kidneys. He needed to wind up this meeting soon or his underwear was going to feel the wrath of his colon. Unfortunately, he had to deal with another pain-in-the-ass -- that mother-fucking high-school science geek Nathaniel Leed. "I have yet to see any proof that this incident really took place," Nathaniel primly declared, his bony arms crossed over his plaid shirt and his eyes looking at Udell stubbornly behind his wire-rimmed glasses. "What the hell do you mean, proof?" Udell shouted. "What do you need to believe this happened?" "Some sort of quantifiable evidence." "Oh, would you quit talking like a pussy?!" "Hey!" That was Maggie Morrison. She was normally the biggest aggravation in Final's chapter of the KKK. With her shaved head and unshaved armpits, she was an one-woman crusader against "the sexist patriarchal belief systems of the Klan." She was determined to prove that "women were as important to the preservation of the white race as men." Udell was seriously inclined to kick her out with one of her own combat boots and toss Nathaniel out with her. However, that would leave him alone with Ed. Ed was not an aggravation. He never protested anything. He hardly even spoke except for the occasional grunt which the others had learned to translate. His eyes gave away none of his emotions, whether they were good-willed or malicious. The only time that you knew Ed was displeased was when he stood his six-foot-four inch body up, stomped his way towards you on his size twelve shoes, grabbed you with an arm of thirty inches width and rammed your face repeatedly into the ground. Udell had once seen Ed single-handedly beat three huge niggers almost to death. When he approached Ed for Klan membership, Ed just nodded. Truthfully, Udell wasn't sure that Ed believed in the Klan philosophy. More likely, he joined up so he could indulge in his favorite hobby -- grievous bodily damage. Udell liked having Ed around, but he didn't want to be alone in a room with him. That's why Udell had to take a breath and say, "Sorry, Maggie. I'm just a little frustrated with Nathan, here..." "Nathaniel," the teenage boy corrected. "I'm a little frustrated with this BOY who can't see the actual shit that's going down." Speaking of shit that was going down...oh, man...Udell looked at the bathroom that was so far away from his living room. "Look," Udell growled, trying to hold it in just awhile longer. "We killed a lot of people in that bar, right?" "Yes," Nathaniel said. "Now, have you heard anything about this? Anything about it in the local news? Anywhere? Hell, some nigger in Texas gets dragged behind a car or some nigger in New York City gets a plunger shoved up his ass, everybody hears about it and they all start crying about what a fuckin' injustice it is. We killed twenty niggers at least in that bar. That should have brought Jesse fuckin' Jackson down on our heads." Udell spread out his arms. "You see Jesse Jackson anywhere near?" "I could point that logic in the other direction," Nathaniel calmly replied. "Several African-Americans come back from the dead and no one talks about it?" "He's got a point there, Fred," Maggie interjected. Udell said, "Look, there's...Mr. Grant told me...they weren't...ah, hell!" "I really fail to see what we're trying to accomplish here," Nathaniel stated. "All right, all right. You talk to Mr. Grant. How about giving him some of your shit?" "That's an excellent idea." Udell blinked. "Huh?" "I'll call him up right now." Udell could feel his insides bubble and churn. "Now, wait. You shouldn't go bothering..." Nathaniel left his chair and sauntered to the kitchen. Udell heard him pick up the phone. "I said, wait!" he shouted, his kidneys in a stranglehold. "You don't go calling up a man like Mr. ..." Ed grunted. This particular grunt meant "Let him make the call." Udell doubled over as the pain become intolerable. He ran to the bathroom. Nathaniel heard the bathroom door slam as the phone on the other end rang. He waited until he heard that cracked, scratched, torn-up voice say, "Yeah?" "Mr. Grant, this is Nathaniel Leed." "Nathaniel Leed, Nathaniel Leed," Julius mused. "You're one of Udell's men, ain't you?" *Aren't,* Nathaniel thought, but only said, "Yes, sir. I am." "How did you get my number?" "It's written right above Fred's phone." Nathaniel heard a brief sigh. It sounded like sawdust being poured out of a bag. "That's a private number. I would appreciate it if your grand poobah didn't leave it around for every Johnny Cracker to find." "Perhaps, sir." "So what do you want anyway, boy?" Nathaniel told Julius Grant what was on his mind. Then he waited several seconds before Julius gave his response. "That's interesting. Real interesting. Sounds like you have a few doubts, boy." "Yes, sir. I do." "Tell you what, then...did you know that the Shithole is open tonight?" "No, sir. I didn't." "Why don't you and Fred take a drive on by there? I think you'll be pleasantly surprised." Nathaniel considered the proposal, then said, "All right, sir. I'll do that." "Now, you've gone and put a smile on my face. Thanks for calling up, son." "Yes, sir." Nathaniel hung up and then went to the bathroom door. "Fred, Mr. Grant said that you should take me down to the Shithole." "Oooooohhh..." "Whenever you're done, of course." XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX Why did they come? One obvious reason was that something miraculous had happened there. Scary yet miraculous. Nothing like a miracle to give a place a certain aura that could draw you in. Another possible reason is that they wanted to be there for the second act. There just had to be a follow-up to what happened. Not that they wanted a replay of that event, but... It could have also been that it was their bar, goddammit. This was the place where they had fun. Why should they let anything keep them away from it? Or maybe they just didn't have a choice. They had to come. In any case, the bar was full. Some of the people there had been present on that strange night. Some of them had only heard about it. A few didn't know what the fuck was going on, but they could feel something bizarre was afoot. It was the quietest that the Shithole had ever been or ever will be. People only talked in whispers. There were glasses of liquor in many hands, but they were only being sipped from cautiously as if it was some kind of tea party. Zola Burnside watched them all with her hands under her armpits. She had never felt nervous like this before. The bar was scarier when it was quiet. The Shithole's normal kind of chaos was easier to understand. She knew what could be expected from open craziness. She had no idea what would come out of this silence. The bar opened at eight. Music was usually scheduled for nine. Tonight didn't call for punctuality. The band could have waited till dawn to come out and their audience would have still been standing there quietly. However, 9:00 still meant 9:00. Malcolm Burnside, Jr. came out on the stage. He was wearing his usual jeans and casual shirt. He still had the same calm expression. Every sound in the bar disappeared except for the ones he made. People looked at him as if the slightest twitch from Malcolm would reveal a mystery. He was alone. He carried an acoustic guitar. He looked at everyone. Every last person. Then he did a little tuning of his guitar. And he played. He started out with a sixteen-bar instrumental that flowed from one note to the other like a river over rocks. Its sound slid past the patrons and echoed off the back wall. Then he just strummed a rhythm and he sang... "Oh, by and by, by and by "I'm going to lay down my heavy load. "Oh, by and by, by and by "I'm going to lay down my heavy load." The voice touched everyone like a strong hand stroking up and down their backs. Zola closed her eyes. There was too much of her dead brother up there right now, too much of him in his son's voice. She wouldn't have been able to watch without crying. "I know my robe's going to fit me well. "I'm going to lay down my heavy load. "I've tried it on at the gates of Hell..." As Malcolm sang "I'm going to lay down my heavy load," his eyebrows lifted when he heard everybody sing with him. "Oh, Hell is deep and a dark despair," he told them and waited for a response. "I'm going to lay down my heavy load," the crowd answered. "Oh, stop, poor sinner, and don't go there." "I'm going to lay down my heavy load." Then they were all singing. "Oh, by and by, by and by "I'm going to lay down my heavy load." Malcolm strummed one last chord, then stopped. He looked over the crowd again. Their eyes showed awe and even trust. They waited quietly for his next move. He carefully placed his acoustic guitar in the corner. Then he motioned to someone offstage. A.C. came out with the drummer. A.C. was carrying two electric guitars. He handed one to his nephew and they both plugged in. Malcolm turned to the audience and said, "Well, as Buddy Bolden used to say, 'Let's call the children home.'" And the guitars and drums went right into a rhythm that seemed to circle around you, then slap you on your head. A.C. and Malcolm went up to the microphone, the former's rough throat giving a nice underlying grit to the younger man's pure voice. "Well, I was gone. "Gone to the Army. "I was gone "For a long, long time." Shoulders started to sway. Heads began to bob. The floor was being tapped by dozens of feet. "When I come back home, "My baby... "Still says she's mine. "Still says she's mine." The music abruptly stopped and the band looked at the audience. Without missing a beat, the listeners called out... "SHE'S ALRIGHT, SHE'S ALRIGHT..." The music crashed and boomed out another few quick notes. "SHE'S ALRIGHT, SHE'S ALRIGHT..." Crash, boom. "SHE'S ALRIGHT, SHE'S ALRIGHT..." The music picked up again and this time, nothing would stop it. The audience whooped it up and Zola smiled as she got three orders for A.C.'s Home Brew. XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX Two slumming middle-class honky motherfuckers off the port bow, Ben Hedge thought as the two white people headed for the front door of the Shithole. He was going to take pleasure in telling them to get lost. Ben Hedge had been in a tense, brittle mood. Getting killed can do that to you. He had spent the last few days in bed with Zola. They had less actual sex and more of just feeling and touching. They had come to know the fragility of their bodies in a way like never before. They needed to know that they were still warm and that their hearts were still beating. Then A.C. called up and told Zola that he was opening the bar. "He can't be serious," Ben said. "It's true. The Shithole will be open tonight." She slipped out of bed and started to put on her clothes. "You're going to be there?" he asked in disbelief. "Someone needs to serve the drinks." She turned to him. "And someone needs to guard the door." Like everyone else in the bar, Ben couldn't really explain why he came. One thing for sure, though...tonight, he'll be standing guard on the outside rather than the inside. He did not want a repeat of the other night's nasty surprise. Also, he didn't want to be in that bar, didn't want to get too close to its strangeness, didn't want to look Malcolm, Jr. in the eye. He could hear him, though, singing and playing his guitar. Its sweet sounds didn't relax him. When the full blues band started up and the audience started cheering, he could only roll his eyes. This doesn't change a damn thing about the situation, he thought. Man, I could sure use Zola's pussy right now. So, when the two well-dressed, white people got out of their car and headed for him, he was going to take pleasure in telling them to fuck off. He had seen their likes before -- college kids, music critics, tourists looking for a kick of the "authentic." "Say, honey, why don't we go on down to that big bad blues joint everybody's talking about?" Ben sometimes gently warned them that this wasn't the place for them. Sometimes, he would let them in and then laugh when they came staggering out a half-hour later. Of course, there were a few who actually enjoyed the place and came back again like that guy from Texas. What was his name? Stevie something? No way was he going let these two in, though. Before he could open his mouth, however, the tall dark-haired man pulled out a badge and said, "Agent Mulder. FBI." Well, ain't that just a shit-and-a-half? The male agent put away his badge and said, "My partner and I would like to come inside." Ben closed his eyes and sighed. "Sir?" "Look, I have no idea why you've come but this really isn't a good time." The male agent smiled at the music and cheers from the bar. "Sounds like a good time to me," he said. Ben opened his eyes and said, "Why don't you come back later? Once the bar is clear..." "Quit the bullshit, Ben." Everybody jumped. "Sally?" Ben said, looking left and right. A woman stepped from around a corner of the bar, leaving the shadows that she had expertly used to hide herself. She didn't look like the kind of woman who could sneak up on you. She was a hefty woman with stomach and breasts forming a cylinder shape that stretched out her police uniform. Yet, when she moved, there was a balance and sureness to her step. It was reflected in the low-key confidence of the face under her short black hair. "Evening," she said to the FBI agents. "I'm Sgt. Sally Ash. Meyer assigned me to watch over the place." "We don't need..." Ben started. "Don't need what?" Ben bit his lip and looked away. "All kinds of stories been floating around, Ben," Sally said nonchalantly. "Don't know which ones are true and which ones are just crap, but I'm gonna be on the lookout, nevertheless." Ben said nothing. "In the meantime, why don't you go ahead and let these two people in?" Ben tapped his foot on the ground, then opened the door for the FBI agents. The speakers were allowed to display their full volume to the outside. The agents winced at the sound but they went in. After he closed the door, Ben turned to the female cop. "There's nothing here that concerns the police, Sally." "Maybe. But the chief told me to stay here and I will." "Just because the chief is a good-looking man doesn't mean that everything he says is..." Sally took a step towards Ben. Her pug nose flared a little. "What do you mean, exactly?" she asked. There were a few people that Ben actively avoided a fight with. Sgt. Ash was one of them. He held up his hands and said, "Forget I said it." Sally's brown eyes looked Ben over. She said, "I'll do my damnedest." Then she went back into the shadows. XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX "Mulder, did you ever get the feeling that you were a little inconspicuous?" "Whatever makes you say that?" The two FBI agents tried to push their way through the crowd as politely as possible. Unfortunately, this one of the nights where the air conditioning decided to take a vacation. The sweat getting rubbed off other people was enough to dampen their clothes. And, of course, they were getting the look. The look that says you're a long way from Simi Valley, boys and girls. They finally made it to the bar where the female bartender looked at them with no less suspicion. "May I help you?" she asked. Mulder flashed the badge again, Those who saw it moved as far off as they could. Zola stood her ground defiantly behind the bar. "So?" she responded. "We're investigating the possibility of a Klan attack on this place." Mulder looked down at the bar. He rubbed his hands over spots where a hole had been filled up and painted over. "Looks like you've done some repairs here." "So?" "And those bottles behind the counter...most of them are full as if you just put up new ones." "So?" Before Mulder could say something like, "Only with thread and needle," he heard something. Or, rather, nothing. The music had gone away, leaving only ringing ears and an uncomfortable silence. Mulder and Scully looked to the stage. They saw A.C. looking straight back at them. "It appears," he said. "that we have a couple of first- timers here." It's ass-kicking time, everybody thought. It's the wrath of A.C. "Thanks for coming on down," the bar-owner said. "Huh?" was the next thought on the collective mind. A.C. looked at their confused faces. "What? Just because they're white, they can't be here? You think that black people are the only people who understand the blues? That you have to be poor and dirty to listen to it?" A.C. shook his finger. "The blues is about heartbreak. It's about love. It's about the hardness of life." He pointed his finger at Mulder. "Tell us something bad that's happened to you." "Me?" "Yes, you, you mammy-fucker! Any heartbreak in your life?" "Well...my sister disappeared when I was twelve..." "You see! Right there! That boy is not only entitled to listen to the blues, he could probably play them, too!" A snicker involuntarily left Scully's mouth. "Oh, you can laugh, girl, but what about you? What sad, hard things have happened to you?" Scully said, "I, uh...I once almost died of cancer and..." "Damn! You could get a ten-record box set out of that shit alone! You see what I'm trying to say?" The audience nodded. "As far as I'm concerned, if you pay at the door, then I'm here to play for you and it don't matter if you're black or white or any color of the rainbow!" The audience applauded. Mulder and Scully got patted on the back. They never felt so welcome in their whole lives. Then A.C. narrowed his eyes. "You DID pay at the door, didn't you?" Mulder and Scully looked at each other, then scrambled for their wallets. "That's right. Pay up, mammy-fuckers." XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX TITLE: GOIN' DOWN SOUTH (6 of 26) AUTHOR: DAVID HEARNE XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX Ben Hedge saw a pickup trick park a hundred feet away from the Shithole. At first, it looked like your standard redneckmobile -- rusty bumpers, gun rack, long antenna, a "GOD BLESS JESSE HELMS" bumper sticker. Then he recognized it as belonging to Fred Udell and his blood began to heat up. He found himself reaching for the gun under his coat. "Feeling tense, Ben?" Damn, she was back again. "Maybe," he responded. "I see Fred Udell is around," Sally said. "Looks like that little creep Nathaniel Leed is with him." "Yep." "Want me to talk with them?" Ben hesitated, then said, "I won't stop you." He heard no response. He looked around the corner and saw no one. He shook his head. How the fuck does she do that? Then he turned back to the pickup truck. He found himself smiling. XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX "Now, you see that?" "Yes." "You hear all that music coming from inside?" "I do." "And isn't that Ben Hedge standing by the front door? The very first man we killed?" "It certainly looks like him." "So, what do you think?" Nathaniel kept quiet for a long time, his face emotionless. "I may have to reassess the data," he finally said. Udell let loose a hard laugh. "Yeah, you..." The truck door flung open and a meaty hand yanked Udell out. He landed onto a sidewalk that dug long, bloody scrapes up his hands. Before he could get up, Nathaniel was tossed on top of him, banging his nose into the ground. The bones in his nose gave off a distinct crunch. "OWWW! Geb ob me! Geb ob me, you fugut!" Nathaniel rolled off Udell. Udell turned around and looked up to see Sgt. Ash standing above him. "Give me your knife," she told him. Above the hand covering the lower half of Udell's face, his eyes were raging. "Give me your knife now, Fred." With his fingers shaking, he pulled out the knife that he kept in a sheath tied to his lower back. Sally watched him calmly as he weighed his chances of sticking that knife in her throat. Then he extended it, handle forward. She took it away and tossed it into the back of his truck. Nathaniel had a distant expression as if he was watching this conflict through a telescope. "What are you two doing here?" "You bwoke my nobe, you bizz." "You can consider that the start of a long night for your sorry self if you don't tell me why you're here." "We were curious about the bar," Nathaniel said. "There have all been kinds of strange stories." Sally's eyes shifted towards Nathaniel, but Udell could do nothing that could escape her notice. "You must have been real curious. A couple of Klanboys really shouldn't be in this part of Final." "We were just passing through," Nathaniel asked. "Might I ask what you're doing here, Sgt. Ash?" Sally watched Nathaniel carefully. She could handle Udell, but Nathaniel was dangerous in a way Udell would never be. There were rumors about ugly things that Nathaniel did in his parents' basement. "I've been assigned to watch the place tonight," she said. "Why?" "That is between me and Chief Spiegelman." Udell snorted, then winced as the blood sprayed out across his mouth. Sally turned her eyes back to him. Slowly. "What does that mean?" she asked. Udell's temper often got the better of him. This was one of those moments. "Meabing, bat's the onlee think betweeb you and Spiegebmab." "Excuse me?" "Cob on, Sally! You think bat noboby sees it? Do you think bat the cheef is ever gobba fuct a horf like you? The onlee womab he wants to fuct is Nadib..." In the next moment, Udell was standing up. Two arms were clamped around his back. His chest was lodged against the thick body of Sgt. Ash. Then he felt his spine being squeezed. Nathaniel wondered if he should try to help his leader. However, he doubted that there was much he could have done. Furthermore, he found himself fascinated by Udell's screams, the veins widening in his temples, the blood shooting out of his nose. The most interesting development occurred when there was a honk from the seat of Udell's pants. A dark stain spread out and slid down his legs. A rancid smell was held tight in the hot Mississippi air. Sally Ash was literally squeezing the shit out of Udell. XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX Ben watched all of this and his smile got bigger. Sometimes, it was more fun to watch somebody get beat up than actually doing the beating. XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX There's this logical fallacy called Plato's Beard. A young hotshot came up to Plato during one of his public bull sessions and asked, "How many hairs does it take to make a beard?" "Oh, I don't know. Five hundred?" "Five hundred? But, surely one less than that wouldn't matter?" "No. It wouldn't. So, four-hundred-and-ninety-nine hairs make a beard." "Yeah, but one less than that wouldn't matter, either, would it?" "No. I guess. Four-hundred-and-ninety-eight, then." "How about one less than that?" Well, this went on and on all day until Plato found himself saying "No hairs make a beard." He then went out and got drunk or buggered a young boy or whatever Greeks did when they got one-upped. The moral of this story is that some kind of limit has to be established in certain cases, however arbitrary. (Or you could be like A.C. and simply kick the mammy-fucker in the ass for asking such stupid questions.) Fox Mulder and Dana Scully found themselves falling into Plato's Beard that night. Their reasoning went like this -- they were trying to blend in with the environment, attempting to get the trust of the people there. A lot of alcohol was being handed around and it would have been almost rude not to have a glass. And if one glass didn't hurt, then why not another? The next wouldn't be so harmful, either. And the one after that... By the time the Shithole was officially closed (somewhere around 2 a.m.), Mulder and Scully were both leaning on the bar, holding on as if they were on a sinking ship. Ben and A.C. were prodding the other customers out of the bar while Zola counted up the receipts and Malcolm sat on the stage, quietly playing an acoustic guitar. "Any trouble out there?" A.C. asked Ben. "Fred Udell and Nathaniel Leed showed up." A.C. raised his eyebrows. "Don't worry about it," Ben giggled. "Sally Ash kicked their asses true and blue." "Are they still alive?" "Well, yeah." "Not good enough," A.C. growled. "Those mammy-fuckers ought to get themselves skinned alive." "As I recall, that was my original idea, but you talked me out of it. Remember?" A.C. looked over at Malcolm and sighed. "You know, A.C., it's not like I'm ungrateful..." "I know what you're thinking, Ben. What the fuck is going on here? Well, I just don't know. I'm not sure if even Malcolm knows." Ben nodded, then noticed Mulder and Scully. "What the hell happened to them?" "What do you think happened?" Ben shook his head and called out "Hey, you two, the bar's closing!" "Not until we get some answers!" Mulder declared, shaking his fist at no one in particular. "It's time you got your asses out of here," Ben informed Mulder as he walked towards him. The little red-haired woman stepped in his way. Ben's eyes widened as she poked his big chest with her finger. "You don't understand," she said slowly, wobbling slightly on her feet. "This is a scientific investigation. We are here to gather and collect data. All I've gotten are a..." She pulled out a wadded ball of paper napkins. "A lot of phone numbers from a lot of guys." "So did I," Mulder said. "From women, I mean." "Well, that's because you two are a pair of fine-looking white people," A.C. explained. "Zola, wouldn't you want Mulder's nose digging into your pussy?" Ben stiffened and was about to proclaim that a man shouldn't talk to his sister like that. Zola cut him off by saying, "Ben's is bigger." Ben reached up to touch his nose, then frowned at Zola. She smiled back at him. "These sexual hijinks aside," Mulder said, "we have yet to find a satisfactory...a satisfactory..." "Explanation," Scully suggested. "Thanks. We have yet to find a satisfactory answer to the mysteries surrounding this bar." He twisted his body so that his pointed finger was directed at Malcolm. "You are the key to all of it. I'm sure of it." "Why is that?" Malcolm replied with a lazy air. "Because whenever I'm onto something..." Mulder stood up straight, a solemn look on his face. "...I get the same feeling. My balls start to itch." Then he began to laugh hysterically. Scully watched him for a moment, then she started laughing as well. Everybody else was wondering what to do with them when someone cleared his throat. The sound came from the open door. They all turned to look. The most evil man in the world walked in. XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX TITLE: GOIN' DOWN SOUTH (7 of 26) AUTHOR: DAVID HEARNE XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX Well, maybe Julius Grant wasn't the most evil man in the world. There are people who have probably caused more damage than he has. It's just that he *looked* like the most evil man in the world. The suit that he wore was expensive and sleek, but it only accentuated the sense of decay he gave off. It was hard to tell his age -- maybe somewhere between 200 and 300. He had the appearance of a skeleton that had leather stretched over the bones and two yellow eyes stuffed into the eye sockets. And like a skeleton, he was always smiling. "Evening." A.C. slowly nodded. "Evening, Mr. Grant. We didn't hear your car pull up." "Oh, it's a real nice machine. Got an engine softer than a cheerleader's cunt." A.C. glanced outside to see Julius's lovely car. The driver behind the wheel did not look so lovely. He was a huge man with a thick brow and scars over his face. He watched the bar with cold eyes. "So, you must be wondering why I'm here," Julius cheerfully observed. "Yes," Zola said. "We are." "I'm here because I've got a proposition for you. You know about The House of Solomon?" "You'll have to be dead not to have heard about it," A.C. quietly replied. "Well, I was wonderin' if you would come on down tomorrow night and be the house band." Everybody was silent for many seconds. Then Malcolm Burnside, Jr. spoke. "Why should we want to do that?" Julius Grant turned to the young man sitting on the stage. He walked towards him with a slow yet steady pace. "I can pay you well," he told Malcolm. "Whatever money you lose from closing the bar for one night, I can double it." "I don't doubt that you could. But is there some other reason why we ought to play there?" Julius stopped, his grin a few feet away from Malcolm's blank face. "You might learn some things that you didn't know before," the old, evil man said. Malcolm looked back at Julius, one hand around his guitar's neck and the other tapping a finger on its body. "We'll be there," he said. A.C. opened his mouth to say something, but Malcolm silenced him with a look. "That's just dandy!" Julius declared. "I'll see y'all tomorrow night!" He hobbled his way to the door, then stopped to look at Mulder and Scully. They watched him with uncertainty and more than a little fear. "You two are those FBI agents that the Chief called for, right?" They could only nod. "You two are drunker than a bunch of Shriners on Mardi Gras, you know that?" Then he went out the door to his car, grinning all the way. "Who in God's name was that?" Mulder asked as the car drove off. "That was Julius Grant," Ben said. "That was also trouble. Malcolm, what the fuck are you up to?" "Worried about something, Ben?" the man on the stage replied. "Look, I know what you can..." Ben stopped himself. "You can what?" Mulder squawked. "Nothing." "No, what? What can Malcolm do?" "Would you forget it? It's time to close up." Mulder slapped his hand down at the bar. "I am not leaving and neither is my partner..." He thumped her on the shoulder in a gesture of solidarity that almost knocked her over. "...until we get some answers." Ben was about to move on to "the next level" when Malcolm said, "All right. We'll give you answers." Ben, A.C. and Zola looked at Malcolm, startled. "Terrific," Mulder shouted out. "Mind if we do it over a drink?" "Sure. Why not? You down with that, Scully?" "Only one more," she muttered. "I'm driving." "All right," Malcolm said. Then a smile crossed his face. "Have you two tried my uncle's own brew?" XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX When Julius got back home, he found a message on his answering machine from Nathaniel Leed. He called the youngster up. "How's it hanging there, boy?" "I stopped by the Shithole tonight. Apparently, your story had been confirmed." "Ah, you gone and made me smile again. So you back on the team?" "I never left it, sir." Julius found himself laughing. He liked this boy. "You should also know that we had a little trouble with Sgt. Ash." "Oh, my. What kind of trouble?" Nathaniel explained. "Damn. That Udell can get himself into more hot water than crabs in Massachusetts." "He did...exacerbate the situation more than he should have." Julius thought briefly, then said, "Would you do me a favor, Nathan?" "Yes, sir. And it's Nathaniel." "Oh, sure, sure. Nathaniel, would you tell me if anything is going sour? You know, warn me of any trouble?" "Certainly, sir." "That's good." "By the way, sir, I have to say...this promises to be a most interesting enterprise." "Oh, son, the possibilities just make my cock get hard." XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX TITLE: GOIN' DOWN SOUTH (8 of 26) AUTHOR: DAVID HEARNE XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX Agent Fox Mulder was being torn apart. The separate parts were being washed by overweight Russian women who were dunking them into the river and then beating them with tennis rackets. Mulder did not find this a painful experience. In fact, he rather enjoyed it. What he did not enjoy was being slapped in the face. The slapping continued until he woke up. "Hey, hey!" he yelled as he batted away the hand of Police Chief Meyer Spiegelman. Spiegelman straightened up and looked down at Mulder. He shook his head. "My federal tax dollars at work." Mulder was about to reply with a witty bon mot but a pain closed up his throat. It felt like Plato's beard was growing inside his neck. "If you're wondering where your partner is, she's over there." Spiegelman jerked his thumb towards a couch. Dana Scully was laid out on it, looking like a discarded pile of laundry. Spiegelman went up to the couch and whistled in her ear. She awoke with a great shudder. "Dear God..." she muttered. "You two had yourself a taste of A.C.'s Home Brew, didn't you?" Mulder pulled up a weak memory of something charging down his throat and laying waste to his stomach. He also had a weak memory of him calling someone up on the phone. "Oh, well," Spiegelman said. "Few ever go to the Shithole for the first time and not wind up drunk. What would I like to know is why you were there?" Scully raised up herself to a sitting position, an impressive achievement. "We were continuing our investigation." "Without me. Just like the way you talked to Reverend Burnside without me present. Oh, yeah, word of that got around to me. So, what the hell are you two up to?" Mulder coughed. To his disgust, something dislodged in his throat and slid down. "Has Mrs. Burnside ever told you about the particulars of her son's birth?" he managed to ask. Spiegelman turned his head straight towards Mulder. "I don't think I need to be told the particulars." "Well, she told us her own version about Malcolm's conception..." "You mean that story about the ghost of Malcolm, Sr. coming to her bed?" Mulder's head was starting to pulse. "I guess we're not the only ones who has secrets." "There wasn't any need to tell it to you." "Oh, for Christ's sake, Chief..." Mulder tried to get up, but he fell back into the chair as if a string yanked him back. "We investigate the paranormal. You knew that when you brought us here. It's our job to look into stories just like..." Spiegelman leaned down, placing one hand on an armrest of the chair. His face was close to the agent's bloodshot eyes and his voice was vibrating unpleasantly in Mulder's ears. "Very few of us in town know about this little...belief of Nadine's. We would like to keep it that way. She's as good and pure a human being that ever walked this fucked-up world. That asshole Bob Hoag almost destroyed that goodness. If Nadine needs this story to keep her going, then I've got nothing against it. But I don't want people to be getting the wrong impression about her." "I take it you don't believe it." "What I believe, Agent Mulder, is Nadine and Malcolm, Sr. had a little fun before their wedding vows. That's it." Spiegelman stood up. "I don't think that I need you two feds on this anymore. You just go on back to Washington and chase after Yetis and E.T.'s or whatever shit gets you turned on. But stay away from Nadine and her son." With that, Spiegelman left them. "There goes a very conflicted man," Scully observed. "I was tempted to ask him if he thought Nadine was the kind of person to be sexually active before marriage. Then I thought, 'Hey, he just might beat the shit out of me for asking that.'" "Are you saying, Mulder, that you believe her story now?" "What do you believe?" "I think that the chief's explanation is more probable. What I can't understand is why he even asked us down here in the first place." "Guilt," a voice said. Mulder and Scully turned to see Malcolm, Jr. They both realized that they were in the living room of A.C.'s house. They also saw that his nephew was carrying two cups with steam rising out of them. Mulder said, "If that's coffee, I will be your slave forever." "Hmm. A white slave." Malcolm thought about it, then shook his head. "Nah, I would hate wearing those white suits and drinking mint juleps." He gave the coffee to Mulder and Scully. Scully was about to take a sip when she said, "This isn't your uncle's own blend, isn't it?" "Nope. It's as safe as Starbucks." Scully nodded and both agents took a moment to let warm caffeine soothe their smashed bodies. "What was that you said about guilt?" Mulder asked. "Meyer blames himself for not seeing Hoag in time to stop him. That's why he'll go out of his way sometimes to satisfy my mother's whims." "They used to date, didn't they?" Malcolm nodded. "How many people know about this story of your mother's?" "Just me, the chief, Zola and A.C." "What is your opinion of it?" Malcolm smiled and raised an eyebrow. "You mean, do I believe that I'm the result of a sexual union between the living and the dead?" "Well, do you?" Malcolm sat down on the floor. He looked at his pants and picked at the lint. "The chief was right about my mother. She's as good as a person gets. And I do want to protect her reputation. But I also want to protect my own ass as well." "What do you mean?" "Meaning, I don't want a bunch of people at my door asking for a fucking miracle," Malcolm said in a carefully controlled voice. Mulder looked at the young man and said, "And it would be even worse if your mother's story was true, wouldn't it?" Malcolm raised his eyes, the FBI agent reflected in their cool depths. "There was once a man...a good man. He preached about loving your neighbors and helping the weak. He could also heal the sick and raise the dead. That didn't keep him from a public execution, though." "And the name of this man," Mulder said in a quavering Paul Harvey imitation, "this man who helped so many but got whacked anyway...his name was..." Malcolm picked up a cushion and threw it at Mulder. Both of them laughed. Scully let out a sigh. "Just drink your damn coffee," Malcolm said. "Might I ask a few questions?" Scully asked. "Agent Scully, any woman who can wake up in your condition and still look pretty can ask me all the questions she wants." Scully rolled her eyes and said, "All right. Who is Julius Grant?" Malcolm stopped smiling. "Oh, yeah. Him. Julius Grant is a very wealthy man, but he didn't get that way selling computer software." "How then?" "Let's just say that it would be easier to list the number of illegal activities Grant *hasn't* been involved in." "I take it that he's a powerful man here in Final." "No, he just lives nearby. He's never exercised his muscle in town. Nothing worth his interest here." "Except maybe you." Malcolm shrugged. "He's a fan, I guess." Mulder and Scully looked at each other. They knew that something deeper was going on here. "So, what is this House of Solomon?" Mulder asked. Malcolm's smile returned. "Thereby hangs a tale." XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX Meyer Spiegelman sat at his desk. He had the look of a man too tired to move. Outside, his two fat patrolmen were laughing over their latest spic joke. He unlocked one of his desk drawers and opened it. He stared at its insides for a long time. Then he slowly reached inside it. Knock, knock. "Chief?" Spiegelman swiftly closed up the drawer and locked it. "Come on in!" he called out. Sally Ash came in and closed the door behind her. She sat herself casually in a chair. "You wanted to see me?" "Just got a call from Fred Udell. Or Elmer Fudd from the sound of it. Says you roughed him up a bit." "Sorry, Meyer. I saw him pointing that rifle at Bugs and it got me all riled up." Spiegelman laughed briefly. "He was near the Shithole last night, I take it." "Yep. Wasn't clear about why he was there, though." Spiegelman nodded. "Well, don't worry about it. In fact, this whole thing is closed." "I don't know. Seems like there's still..." "It's done, Sally. It's done." Sally looked at him for a moment, then said, "What about those two feds?" "They're out of it. Forget about them." "Nice-looking couple. Wonder if they have a thing between them." Spiegelman laughed. "Not a chance. You can bet that at least one of them is as queer as a Broadway chorus star." "Huh?" "Bet you it's that Mulder guy. He looks just like that lawyer faggot on that t.v. show. You know, the one that's living with some tall redhead? I forget the name of that show. Seems like there are a lot of lawyer faggots on t.v. nowadays. Of course, Scully...I mean, she's got that feminist 'don't-bring-your-dirty-dick- here' attitude..." Then Spiegelman saw the disgusted expression on the patrol woman's face. "What is it?" he asked. She stood up and said, "They're not gay." "All right. They're not gay. What's got you pissed off?" "Because, at the very least, they respect each other. That you can look at that respect and think it's there because..." She threw up her hands in the air and stormed out of the office. Spiegelman smiled and shook his head. He had gone through this sort of thing before with Sally Ash. She was his oldest friend. Their relationship had started in grade school. They had always backed each other up in the schoolyard fights and, Lord, they sure needed back-up. A Jew in Mississippi and a homely girl (which Sally was, let's face it) in any state were bound to get their share of taunts, not to mention physical threats. There had been long, hard battles, but, eventually, the team of Meyer Spiegelman and Sally Ash become something no one wanted to mess with. Still, every now and then, Spiegelman would say something that would set her off. The first time had been back in high school. He had suggested in all seriousness that she should join the football team. She was tougher and faster than a lot of the pussies he captained and wasn't it enlightened of him to make the offer? Man, did that get him in trouble. She evidently apologized for her outburst, though she never explained why got her panties all twisted up. There had been other incidents like this. Once, they had been on stakeout in a car and he noticed that she was wearing some kind of extremely sweet perfume. "Don't roll down the window," he jokingly told her. "The flies will flock on you like you're a dead raccoon." Another time, she had blown her stack when she had invited him to see some crappy romantic movie with Meryl Streep or Sally Field or some other bitch who gets paid a million dollars for crying. He had diplomatically suggested that they try Eastwood or Schwarzennegger instead. Both his joke and his suggestion had gotten him chewed out. Always, she would apologize later, but never explain. This latest fight would undoubtedly resolve the same way. He hoped. If there was one solid constant in his life, it was Sally. And if there was anybody's respect that he had gotten without being a hard-ass, it was her. She was his partner. She was his best friend. Dammit, where did that bitch go off to? He sighed and unlocked the drawer again. XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX "Oh, my God!" "What? What is it?" "We got really drunk last night." Mulder looked at Scully as she drove the car. "You finally realized this?" "I finally realized the implications of it." "Well, I won't say anything about it if you won't." Scully shook her head, which was still feeling a bit heavy. She and Mulder had redressed and showered and waited a long time before their hangover had subsided. Now, she was driving them carefully over a dirt road. An occasional dip or pot hole would jar them unpleasantly. The afternoon sun flashed repeatedly through the trees around them, creating an annoying strobe effect. The mansion of Julius Grant was, hopefully, only a few miles away. "I never got that drunk before," she said. "Uh-huh." "No, really, Mulder." "Sure." "I mean, I've gotten drunk, but not bad like that." "Whatever you say, my little Irish Catholic sidekick." Scully opened her mouth to retort, but decided to drop it. Instead, she said, "So, what do you want to ask Julius Grant?" She turned the car around a bend. "I would like to...LOOK OUT!!" Mulder could have also said, "Look out for that elephant," because there was, in fact, an elephant heading their way. A big, grey, stomping elephant, his black eyes staring blankly at the little rental car in its path. Scully swerved the car to the side, the brake shrieking. A ditch pulled the car down and a shudder was felt all through the agents' spines. Then another shudder hit them from the front as they plowed into the ditch's bottom, yanking their bodies back and forth before the car was trapped with the engine uselessly running. The crash was too much for Mulder. A stomach that had already taken the abuse of his alcoholic binge declared a holy war against its own occupants. A yellow-green matter was expelled and Mulder bent over to let it drop out of his mouth and onto his shoes. He regarded the lumpy pile on his shoes for a moment, then he looked up. The elephant was right beside them. Mulder and Scully noticed that it had a rider. Julius Grant looked down at them with eyes as blank as the elephant's. He wasn't smiling. There was no doubt that the elephant would walk all over their car if he prodded it in their direction. He said nothing for a few long moments. Then he grinned. "Sorry about that. Give you folks a lift?" XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX