The High Lonesome is a tavern ‘cross town. Near the Savon.
I drink there often but not as often as I used to. My liver’s been actin’ up. Achin’, tender, and I spy some red in my pee most days. The Doc sez I should stop.
I tells the Doc I can’t. I needs to forget. I needs to forget. All of it.
When he asks me of what, I say it don't matter. Even talkin' about it drives me to the bottle, but he don't take no fer an answer. This Doc ain't like my other Docs. He don't wear no lab coat and always has a bit of mud on his shoes. He’s got kind eyes, a little syrupy. Like my sweet baby, Ronnie, before she done died. Murder’d be more apt.
Before I get to the tellin’, I can’t take my eyes off the cotton swabs. The long’uns in the glass container. They remind me of snow, and mountain tops, packed tight. I usta’ run the way up there section of the highlands on our spread, an’ I was slap happy doin’ it. Huntin’, fishin’, teachin' my boys to shoot and track. Them were great, bodacious days, and them mountains never thawed, never gave up that snow. Those peaks always shone bright and lit the way home. At night you could see all the stars in heaven, a billion lanterns, and they couldn’t wash ‘em away, those snowy peaks. Don’t even get me started on the Moon. It paled in comparison. That’s all there is to that.
He listens to my startin’ of the tellin’ of it, the Doc does. Ain’t no use gettin’ into it here, I say. But I do. As I do, I notice there ain’t no clock in his office. He ain’t wearin' no watch, neither. He must be a timeless sort, is all. I always feels the seconds scratchin’ at my neck. I hear rain hittin' the window and stare at it, an' I keep tellin’. Each raindrop would be a teardrop if I’m tellin’ it factual.
It was bad. The cops all took turns throwin’ up. The county coroner said he ain’t never seen nothin’ like that. My buddy at the Gazette told me. He was a tunnel rat in ‘Nam and saw a bunch of nasty doings. He couldn’t look at me when he said what he said. An old coon hound come up on her in that hay field, back aways, off Munson Road, where the tractor pulls ‘usta happen. They wuz pictures took but I ain’t never seen ‘em. She was turned inside out. It was quality knife work, from what I was tol'. They never did find the feller or fellers who done it. Some around town think it was them Jefferson boys. The whole family’s a bunch of sonbitches, but Sheriff Joe couldn't get 'em to crack, and he went heavy on 'em. Real heavy. One ain’t right in the head since.
And that was that, and the case went cold. I turn’t to my scripture, but that didn't help much. I'm a book of John follower, and even that didn't help my sorrow.
One day, a couple weeks after we buried our girl, the phone rung three times and me, and Joelle froze tight. We had the box that showed the phone number, and it was Ronnie’s. The next day it rung six times. The day after, nine times, and then never again. 3-6-9. Ronnie’s birthday was March 6, 2009. My spine goes soft thinkin’ on it.
I never answered the phone, and it still weighs on me, thick like day and night. It don't matter. I did call the number some days later, two jugs in, liquored up when I had the guts to do it. The voice recordin' said it was out of service, just like that. I must a called it a hundrit’ times before I didn’t call no more. I finally ripped the phone out the wall. I think I hear ringin’ comin’ from that hole once in a bit. Those nights drip slow, molasses through my mind.
In my head, I imagine that Ronnie would have tol’ me that she was okay. She’s in a better place. We woulda’ said our goodbye’s proper like and that woulda’ been that. My wife saw it differn’t. She said it was Lucifer mockin’ us, and the house is spoil’t. She couldn’t chase the smell of rotten meat out her nose, so she packed up and lit out to stay at her sister’s. She’s still there, and I smell nothin’ except for empty. I smell empty all the time.
I tell the Doc all that, and he just stared at me and said some well-meanin’ words but nothin’ that mattered. Ronnie’s dead, my liver is shot, and there ain’t a damn thing I can do now about them calls.
There ain’t no medicine for regret. There ain’t no cure for what I got.
I tells the Doc that, too, an’ we part ways.
Well, that’s my story, and that’s that.