He’d be in Birmingham by sundown tonight, and back in Knoxville by morning, his tracks fully covered. The fuel tanks still had a hundred gallons of diesel in them—at six miles a gallon, more than enough to make the trip—and he was ready to roll, as soon as he washed off the last of the paint.
Satterfield felt confident that no one had seen the woman get into the truck; I-75 ran right alongside Adult World, true, but the truck’s cab would have hidden her from the view of the motorists whizzing past. Remarkable, really, how oblivious most people were as they went about their daily business and their little lives. Still, it never hurt to be careful, and if—if—someone eventually came forward to say they’d seen a woman—a trashy, slutty-looking excuse for a woman—climbing into a tractor-trailer cab, the police would start looking for a truck that was red. Water-soluble paint, he thought. Brilliant. Long as there’s no rain in the forecast.
After he’d made two meticulous circuits with the pressure washer, perching on a stepladder to reach the roof of the cab, the water sheeting off was crystal clear, and only traces of red remained in the puddles and cracks around the concrete pad and drain. “Abracadabra,” Satterfield said again, giving the pressure-washer wand a final flourish before releasing the trigger.
Some things wash away easier than others, he thought.
“BOY, YOU DROP THEM britches and bend over that bed, and I don’t mean in a minute.” His stepfather’s voice was low but menacing, and Satterfield knew better than to protest. “How long you been spying through that peephole? How many times before?”
“None.” The boy’s voice quavered. He wasn’t good at lying, and he already knew what was coming. A hand gripped his neck and hinged him forward onto the bed. “I wasn’t spying,” he pleaded. “I heard noises. I thought somebody was hurt. I was just looking to see if somebody needed help.”
“Somebody’s fixin’ to need help, all right,” the man snarled, unbuckling his belt and yanking it through the loops with seething, snapping sounds. He’d gotten home less than thirty minutes before, his arrival announced by the hiss of the Peterbilt’s air brakes, and he still smelled of the road—a week of diesel fuel and sweat and stale cigarettes and greasy truck-stop food—topped off now with whiskey and something muskier. Satterfield heard the air hiss as the leather strap swung overhead and then down, gaining momentum as it descended. It struck the mattress with enough force to shake the bed. “Don’t you lie to me, boy. That peephole ain’t nothin’ new. You been spyin’ on us a long time, ain’t you? Watchin’ us in the bed?”
“No, sir,” Satterfield whined. “Never.” The belt swung again, and again the bed shook, but this time the belt struck the boy’s buttocks, not the mattress, and he shrieked and began to sob. A few more blows, and suddenly the mattress grew warm and wet against him as his bladder let go from pain and fear.
His stepfather paused, bending over the whimpering boy, and sniffed the air. “Boy, did you just piss yourself?” His free hand slid roughly beneath the boy’s belly. “By God, you did. Twelve years old, and still pissing yourself. You little sissy-boy. You little piece of dog shit. You nasty little faggot.” A pause. “You know what happens to nasty little faggots? I’m fixin’ to show you.”
Satterfield heard the belt clatter to the floor, then heard his stepfather unzipping his jeans, then felt a searing pain. It took the boy two days to begin to recover.
A week later, the Peterbilt had hissed to a stop in the driveway once more, and the man and woman had disappeared into the bedroom and locked the door, and the sound of their groans had drawn Satterfield again to the peephole.
The peephole that his stepfather had made no effort to patch.
SATTERFIELD STUDIED THE SUNSET through the passenger side of the Peterbilt’s windshield—the sky going red-orange and turquoise behind the silhouette of Birmingham’s blocky Civic Center and the I-59 viaduct—as he waited to hear the verdict from the asshole sitting in the driver’s seat.
“Drives okay,” said the asshole finally, but his tone was skeptical, as if what he really meant was “Drives like a piece of shit.”