October 4th, 1904 was Zipper’s fifth birthday. It was also the day he watched a black man get stomped to death in his front yard. Men in white, pointed hoods with no holes for their mouths circled the man like vultures after a piece of carrion.
“Don’t let him crawl back onto his feet!”
“Make him think twice about showing his face around here!”
“Yeah, kick his teeth down his throat!”
Zipper’s father lead the charge. He knew it was his father because the boot that folded the man’s forehead like a pie tin was the same steel-toe boot his father laced up every morning before going to the sawmill. Zipper recoiled from the window and felt ashamed that he looked away. The thuds of boots to flesh kept going long after the screaming stopped.
A year after the front yard stomping, the sawmill closed down and Zipper’s father made a financial move that raised his net worth threefold. He caught the first train out of Thomaston Georgia and left the three mouths that ate all of his paychecks to fend for themselves—a real fiscal wizard. Mother managed to put food on the table. Their neighbor, Tacket, said Mother looked good for her age; Zipper figured that had something to do with how she made ends meet. Even at six years old, he could tell pretty folks got by easier. Too bad he had a cleft lip just like father, and one of his legs came up two inches shorter than the other—putting a natural hitch in his step.
****
His hitch helped him make the acquaintance of the Spriggs brothers. Varun and Sid Spriggs, shared a fourth grade classroom because Sid failed third grade two years in a row. They made up for their lack of book smarts with creativity. They poured their creative energy into inventing the games Kick-a-Gimp, Zipper Nipper, and Flip Zip. Mother told Zipper to stand up to them or it would only get worse, but he was a head shorter than Varn and two heads shorter than Sid. So on his 10th birthday, Zipper hoped the white spiral of smoke from the candles on his cake would carry his wish to be taller to someone important. At recess the following week, Zipper quit believing in wishes and dreams.
Heavy April rains left stagnant puddles all around the playground that were full of snot-green algae and tadpoles. Zipper liked to catch the little swimmers and squish them in between his fingers. As he was relishing the gush, too enraptured in the strange thrill to notice anyone around him, Lacy Valcroy squealed in horror.
“That was going to be a baby frog!”
An image of himself mashing a baby frog into a bloody mess flashed into his mind’s eye. He didn’t recoil; he felt empowered by his bravery to look on. She ran off in tears. Zipper went to find more tadpoles.
He came upon a pool on the edge of the woods where the ancient oaks reached over the recess yard and cast long shadows that kept the tadpole pools moist and fruitful. Zipper found one teaming with life. Bent over and enjoying the chase, he was closing in on a fat one when a heavy hand pulled him up onto his feet by his shirt collar. He choked. Sid and Varun laughed.
“Hey Zippy, what’s the matter? Can’t breath out of your bad lip?” Sid howled at his own joke.
Varun punched Zipper in the stomach. Zipper went down and it felt like a hot coal had been dropped into his stomach, burning up all the oxygen in his body. He couldn’t cry if he wanted to—no air to cry with. Varun jumped on his chest and pinned him to the ground.
“You got one Sid? A big fat one like we said we would get?” Varun slapped Zipper in the face a few times as he inquired of his older brother.
“Yeah, I got’em riiight here”. A crooked grin spread across Sid’s freckled face as he held up a grasshopper the size of a roll of pennies pinched between his thumb and forefinger.
“Okay, I’ll hold Zippy still, and you make that thing spit like it has a big chaw in.”
A high pitched wheeze escaped from Zipper, and he thought his chest might cave in. Varun shifted his weight so that his kneecaps dug into Zippers bicep muscles. A white-hot pain shot through his arms rendering them useless. Sid bent over him with the grasshopper, grabbed Zipper’s eyelid, and brought the insect down. A surge of adrenaline kicked in and Zipper jerked his head away from Sid..
“Quit wiggling Zippy!” Varun shouted as he grabbed Zipper by the throat while Sid pried open his eyelid again. No adrenaline rush came this time. The grasshopper flailed its legs as it was forced to descend within a few millimeters of Zipper’s eyeball.
“C’mon old sport hock a good one!” Sid coaxed.
The Grasshopper’s deadpan eyes looked like saucers and its antennas tickled Zipper’s eyelashes. Then, to Zipper’s horror, a brown liquid began to bubble out of its mouth. Tangible excitement rolled across Sid and Varun as their creative vision came to pass. Enough of the brown froth amassed to drop from its mouth. It stung like a floating ember from a fresh stoked campfire and blurred Zipper’s vision. Varun got off Zipper’s chest and high-fived his big brother. Zipper rolled onto his side and gulped in air. The brothers kicked red Georgia clay on his back as they broke into jubilee. Zipper dipped his fingers into the tadpole pool and washed out the grasshopper’s spit. It smelled like rot; it all smelled like rot.
****
Sid and Varun went everywhere together. They were brothers and that’s what brothers did. They even went to the bathroom together. After 5th period, still giddy over their artistic success on the playground, they strolled into the boys room recounting how funny Zipper looked squirming to get away from the grasshopper. They didn’t notice Zipper standing behind the door until it was too late. A chunk of steel collided with Sid’s skull and he crumpled to the ground like a boxer who’s taken one on the button. Varun spun on his heel to see Zipper standing over his brother wearing a brown paper grocery bag with crude eye holes torn into it over his head. He knew it was Zipper because his short leg always made him lean to the left. Before Varun could figure out how to respond to the strange sight before him, Zipper clubbed him over and over again. Varun only screamed once but that was enough to bring the teachers running. Zipper’s arms felt like molten lead by the time Mrs. Wright pulled him off Varun.
That day Zipper found the power of the mask. He even began wearing invisible masks when people were around. They couldn’t see it, but Zipper knew it was there and that’s what mattered. The masks helped him survive the group homes. His brother, Shad, sent him a letter while he was in his third or fourth home. It said Mother had died. Zipper hadn’t even known she was sick. That was the last he ever heard from Shad.
To Zipper’s good fortune, the world went to war just after he turned 18. Desperate for warm bodies, they overlooked the hitch in his step. He shipped out to fight three months later. Overseas, he slung chunks of lead and smoked as much opium as he could stand. Everyone celebrated when they signed the Treaty of Versailles, but that’s when the gnawing started for Zipper. A void in the pit of his stomach opened up somewhere deep inside him. More opium, less money. Gnaw…gnaw…gnaw. Steel-toe boots. Thud, scream, thud…thud.
Heroin eased the gnawing.
“You can make it last longer if you shoot it,” his dealer told him when he got back stateside.
Zipper shot it and realized that he had never lived until that moment. Not long after this resurrection, his dealer asked him for a favor.
****
Zipper fished a pack of tobacco out of his shirt pocket and put a big chaw in. The stray strands hung out of his mouth like nightcrawlers. The nicotine leveled him out as he approached the house; a bone-white moon cast black tendrils across the cedar shake roof. The house was about a quarter mile off the road, plenty far enough to be out of earshot when his .38 special went off. His dealer was making a statement by capping this couple in their own home. The husband, an investment banker with a penchant for the White Lady, owed his dealer more than money. But Zipper didn’t worry about the details. This was an easy way to get a lifetime supply of dope and that’s all he cared about.To Zipper’s surprise, the front door wasn’t even locked.
A hot wave rushed over his body as he crossed the threshold. He found the master bedroom at the back of the house. The couple, early thirties, never even heard him come in. Two rounds from his 38. and they never heard another sound. Zipper’s ears rang from the blast. He didn’t hear the small footsteps rush up behind him. When the young boy screamed, Zipper spun on his heels brandishing the pistol. The boy locked eyes with him. The terror twisted up the kid’s face and Zipper knew that was exactly how his own face looked on the night of the stomping. He hated the boy for it. He raised the gun but couldn’t squeeze the trigger. The kid reminded him too much of himself, and his self was all he had. Instead, he grabbed the boy up by his shirt collar and pressed the red hot barrel of the 38. into his cheek. The flesh sizzled and the boy howled all the louder.
“Don’t scream,” he growled and then spat tobacco juice in the boy’s eye before he dropped him onto the cold oak floors.
A week later, Zipper knocked his favorite spoon off the milkcrate functioning as his coffee table. He was three days dry now. After Zipper snuffed the fella and the flapper, his supplier went silent on him. He went through all the bathtub gin he had squirreled away and settled in for the come down. The ping of the spoon landing on the bare concrete floor of the dirty basement apartment made his molars ache. Facedown on the soiled couch, he tried to pick it up but the tremors wouldn’t let him. A fit of dry heaves wracked his body, and the boy’s face flashed through his mind. When Zipper’s front door came off its hinges and the blue lights poured in, he welcomed them.
****
The preacher visited the prison again. Zipper went like he did every Sunday, so he could steal the pencils the preacher gave out to write down prayer requests. The preacher’s message was always the same old thing. Shame on you for this and shame on you for that. Zipper tucked the pencil in his waistband and thought, Huh, shame on him for those patent leather shoes and $10 haircut.
Later that month, Zipper went to get pencils again, but a new preacher man was giving his spiel this time. He only heard bits and pieces of it. It was hard to hear because this one didn’t yell as much, and Zipper always sat in the very back. When the fellas were leaving, the preacher told them to keep the pencils. Zipper still kept his in his waistband.
The new preacher man was back the next Sunday. Zipper realized he wasn’t as distracted and thought that it might’ve been because this new preacher man’s shoes weren’t blinding him like the other’s did. This one just wore old sneakers. The preacher man started in on that father’s love bit again, and Zipper wanted to scream or stuff a whole roll of toilet paper in his ears. All Zipper could see was the bloodied face of a black man and an empty seat at the dinner table. He just wanted pencils. The bleach white walls dimmed and he couldn’t get the two images out of his head—then a third one came. It was a pierced hand, stretching out towards him covered in blood. Boots cracking a rib cage…thud…thump…flesh tearing…howls of pain on the heels of cruel laughter…thud…thump…Oh God help me…Oh God…locust feasting…endless oak doors…the searing light..Oh God…the blood…the blood…Help me..
**1959**
Ella pinned the gas pedal of the ‘57 Buick Special to the floorboard. The whitewall tires barked even though she was already in fourth gear. As the rising sun bloomed on the Kentucky horizon and glinted off the fresh wax on the mint green hood, Roscoe stirred in the passenger seat but didn’t wake. Before they hit the road that morning, he whined the entire way to the car while he tried to put on his belt in between drags of his cigarette. He told Ella that driving five hundred miles yesterday after a full day’s work at the Chicago Tribune warranted more than four hours of sleep. Ella told him to get his camera and get in the car.
The rolling hills of western Kentucky turned ash grey in the breaking light of dawn. Ella saw a sign for Cadiz and decided that would be as good a place as any to get breakfast. They still had ten more hours on the road before they hit Reidsville Georgia, and she didn’t want Roscoe’s kvetching streak to continue.
Ella’s ‘57 Special started a neck craning competition as she cruised down the narrow streets of the riverbank town. She took a right onto Madison Avenue and shook Roscoe awake.
“Hey, wake up if you want on the biscuit train.”
Roscoe grunted and raised his trilby hat out of his eyes. His press card fell out of the hat’s weathered leather band, and he grunted again as he fished around the floorboard for the card; his disheveled pompadour, still slick with yesterday’s grease, put smudges of oil on the dash. He found the card and rubbed his face to get himself back into the waking-world; his three-day-old beard sounded like sandpaper on cedar. Roscoe’s wedding band caught the morning light and flashed in Ella’s peripherals.
“Good morning to you too El.”
Ella saw a parking spot near a red brick building with a hand painted sign over the door that read Shandy’s Cafe.
“Good morning Roscoe dear!” She put on her best southern drawl.
Roscoe gawked.
“I didn’t know it was possible for you to be so God awful at something, Ella.”
“Well, you can blame Scarlett O’Hara. This is my first time crossing the Mason Dixon you know,” she said.
“Really, I thought you said your old man was from Alabama, had a church or something?”
Ella’s tires bumped the curb and she threw the car into park.
“He was. And he did.” Ella didn’t give any more.
Inside Shandy’s, an assortment of junk or antiques, Roscoe couldn’t tell which, adorned the walls. In the places not covered by oddities, crumbling white plaster gave way to red brick. Ella knew the plaster would find a way into her meal. They found a booth by the window that had a view of the Ohio river, and a blonde waitress with a pixie cut was at their elbows before they could sit down.
“Morning. What can I get for y’all?”
Roscoe raised his thick caterpillar eyebrows and asked, “What’s your favorite, doll? What’s good?”
A tinge of pink raced into the waitress’s cheeks.
“Biscuits n’ gravy of course.”
“Okay, I’ll take it. And a coffee,” he said.
She flashed a smile at Roscoe and turned to Ella.
“And you?”
“Chicken n’ waffles, please. I’ll take a coffee as well. Thank yo—.” Ella’s gratitude got cut short by the double-pump of the waitresses ink pen.
Roscoe undid the paper band around his silverware.
“So six hours till we get to Atlanta and then four more from there to the prison. I’m thinking we should stay in Atlanta tonight, maybe get a room at the Ellis, and knock out the rest tomorrow, yeah?”
Ella shook her head as the waitress came back with their coffee. White steam rose up off the thick, black substance, and Ella wondered if they were serving cups of pitch instead of coffee.
“No, we drive through the night—sleep in the car. I want to be at the front door of the prison before the protesters get out of hand,” she said.
Roscoe flicked the wadded-up paper band. Those two big caterpillar-eyebrows pushed up a mound of skin on the bridge of his nose. He dropped the travel-plan discussion. Once the waitress was out of earshot, he leaned forward, lowered his voice a few decibels and asked,
“This guy is really going to walk isn’t he?”
Ella stared out the window as she replied, “Not if we can help it. You just get one good shot of him glowering, and my pen will make sure the public sees him for the threat he’s always been and always will be.”
The waitress came back with their food and lingered long enough for them to each take two bites. Roscoe burned his tongue on the coffee and couldn’t taste the rest of his biscuits n’ gravy. Ella’s chicken n’ waffles were sublime and she knew the waitress didn’t know a damn thing about good.
Back in the car, they headed south. Leaving the technicolor hills of Kentucky behind and crossing into the black jagged rock faces of Chattanooga, Tennessee. Roscoe reached across Ella’s chest and honked the horn as they crossed the Georgia state line. When the skyline of Atlanta came into view, Roscoe pulled Zipper’s file from his briefcase. He thumbed through the thick stack of brittle, yellow pages.
“Okay, so let me get this straight. This guy’s all strung out on smack and blows an affluent couple to smithereens while they’re counting sheep, and their kid is sleeping in the room next to them.”
Ella swerved into the right lane to pass a navy blue Punch Bug spewing thick, black clouds of exhaust.
“Mmhmm. This coming Sunday will be forty years to the day.”
“Do we know what happened to the kid?”
“Not much other than he got shipped up to D.C. to live with a relative of the mother whose husband was a cop. I tried to follow that thread but it was long gone.”
“Damn, it says here that the kid ran into the room right after it happened, and Zipper just left him there staring at the mess.”
“Yeah, and the G.R.A.C.E. Initiative is springing this guy. Can you believe it?” She said.
“Hell no. Giving the Rehabilitated Another Chance to Excel, what kind of garbage is that? You can’t rehabilitate a killer.”
“Yeah, well, they seem to believe otherwise, and they found themselves a ringer with that rat-back lawyer of theirs,” she said.
“I’ll say. What’s that skuz’s name again?”
“Adam New.”
“Yeah, that’s it. So he coughed up 1.2 million dollars in restitution fees to the state… geez he must be doing alright for himself. Is that even legal? I mean…footing the bill for your client like that?”
“Sure. But come on Roscoe, you’re not a dunce. This is one of the highest profile cases in the country right now. If Zipper walks, Adam New will be the most sought after name in America for criminal defense.”
Roscoe slapped his knee, “Yeah, he’s a skuz if there ever was one. But you’re right. He’ll be hot—real hot—if Zippy walks.”
Ella nodded and turned up the radio; she didn’t turn it down until they got past Atlanta. She made Roscoe drive through the witching hours. A few patrol cars and a white Ford pickup were the only things in the parking lot of Georgia State Prison when the delegates of the Chicago Tribune made it onto the scene. They both massaged their stiff necks as they watched the sun rise on razor wire and cold concrete.
****
A bloodshot-eye Warden Billy Bowers greeted them in the lobby and said the chances of the interview happening didn’t look good.
“Look,” he said, “another riot, the third this week, broke out last night. Zipper got mixed up in this one. And I can’t say what—”
“Mr. Bowers, I did not drive all the way from Chicago just to be sat out on the stoop. The Governor’s office signed off on my interview,” she said.
“Ma’am, I understand. But this ain’t even my prison at the moment. The Fed’s have put their men in every position except for the clerical ones. With the damn riots inside and protesters in the parking lot,”–he started to pace–“not to mention the hot button legislation surrounding this whole thing, well, everybody from Washington to washroom is losing their heads. If you’d been here two days ago, I’d of brought Zipper down to you myself. Lord knows we need some good press around here.”
Ella balled up her fist and put it on her hip. She pursed her lips and glared at the balding warden—letting silence do all the work.
“Okay…okay. I’ll see what I can do but I ain’t making no promises,” he said.
Ella stared at his back as he tromp off. They found seats in the lobby and watched the crowd of protesters swell. Men carried cardboard signs with sayings scrawled in red ink that said, “No Cure for Murder! No Cure for Murderers!” and, “40 YEARS DON’T BRING BACK THE DEAD!”.
The chants of the mob grew in volume, and Ella never felt more justified. As they waited, Roscoe struck up a conversation with the deputy manning the front desk.
“So I heard ol’e Zipper was involved in the riot yesterday,” Roscoe said.
The deputy, mid thirties with a strong jawline and a good head of hair, just shook his head.
“Mmhmm, took a shank right in the shoulder blade to keep some colored boy from getting cut. Zip’s one crazy son of a bitch if you ask me, can’t believe he’s walking out of here next week.”
Ella and Roscoe exchanged glances. Bower’s came back, cutting short their conversation with the handsome deputy.
“Good news, they’re bringing him down now. Come on, I’ll take you back.”
****
Inside the interrogation room turned temporary-interview-station, a heavy oak table was bolted to the floor. A well-used ashtray adorned it but nothing else. Two straight-back chairs of the same oak sat on opposite sides of the table. An earthen-skinned man sat in one of them. Wrinkles cut gashes into his face and stark white hair rested on his shoulders. A U.S. Marshal stood at the back of the room, every muscle spring-loaded and waiting for Zipper to try something. A single fluorescent lamp hung over the table providing poor lighting for Roscoe’s Kodak. Ella remembered he had a flash and felt a little better. Her dreams of being the people’s hero kept taking knocks this morning.
“Good morning Zip,” she said as she took a seat.
“Morning, Ma’am.”
Roscoe stood off to Ella’s left and fooled with his camera.
“I’m Ella and this is Roscoe Fields. We’re with the Chicago Tribune.”
“Nice to meet you. Happy to be your circus pony this fine Thursday.”
Ella forced a smile.
“So, Zip, all of America’s following your release. How does that make you feel?”
“Awful.”
“How so?”
“Well, I just hate it for them that they ain’t got nothing better to do than keep up with me.”
“You don’t think your story is worth keeping up with?”
“Nah, nothing special about me.”
“Except that you murdered two people in cold blood and are now about to walk free in three days.” Ella expected her blunt observation to cut Zipper to the quick, get under his skin real good.
But it didn’t.
He just smiled; his cleft lip exposing his top gums on the right side of his mouth.
“Ella, I’ve been free for thirty seven years. But I see your point.”
Ella didn’t know what to make of this retort, so she poked further.
“What do you mean, Zip? You’ve been under lock and key for forty years come Sunday.”
“Well, the way I figure it, before I came here, fear and hate had a grip on me ever since I could remember. And then drugs got a grip on me when I was a young man. None of them has had a hold of me in thirty seven years…so in my book—I’m free.”
“But you haven’t had an opportunity to…how did you say it? Let fear or drugs get a grip on you. Do you really think once you’re back in society that you won’t be affected by your past?”
“Nah.”
“During your parole hearing, one of the best clinical psychologists in the country stated, under oath I might add, he could not guarantee that you were fully rehabilitated and ready to reintegrate into society.”
Zipper tugged at his snow-white goatee.
“I see what you’re getting at. But all psychologists come at it from the wrong direction.”
“Really? How so, Zip?”
“It’s like this, the shrink comes to you and looks at the behaviors you got going on today that ain’t good…or up to their standards. Then, he looks at your past to see what’s causing you to be acting so bad. Right?”
“Right. In simple terms,” she said.
“Okay, see that ain’t never worked for nobody and ain’t gonna work for nobody—ever.”
Ella wanted to bust out laughing. He was an absolute loon. She glanced at Roscoe and he seemed to be having the same revelation. He shoved his hands in his pockets and looked at the ground to hide his smirk. This guy was about to attempt to refute the best psychological practices known to modern science while behind bars. Wonderful. The Editorial was already forming in Ella’s head.
“Well, if that doesn’t work, then what’s the solution Zip?”
“You got to get a new past.”
Ella scoffed, “A new past, huh?”
“Yes Ma’am, a full on life-transfusion.”
“A what? Hold on a second, Zip. You’re losing me.”
Zipper put his elbows on the table; pain from the shank-wound in his shoulder flitted across his face as he leaned forward. The chain of his handcuffs clanked against the oak.
“Well, more like a heart transplant really,” he said.
A pull somewhere deep in Ella’s stomach wouldn’t let her get away from the new past bit.
“Go back to what you were saying about your new past, Zip. I’m sure the public would like to know more, considering you’ll be walking the streets in three days.” She lit a cigarette with a slight quiver in her hand.
“I think you already know Ms. Ella. Yeah, somethings telling me you’re already knowing. Just like I killed them people and put all them drugs in my body and beat on peoples’ faces, you got things you want undid. Everybody does. And a new past is the only way. Maybe that’s what you came here looking for—an undoing,” he said and then leaned back in his chair.
Ella felt like the temperature in the room dropped, and the small of her back prickled. Roscoe straightened and the guard shifted his weight from his left foot to his right. Shaken, Ella pressed on. She was going to get this story. She just needed one photo of Zipper glowering and then she would hang him with her pen. She gave Roscoe the signal. He brought the pictures from the crime scene over to Ella and tightened his grip on his camera. Ella shoved Zip’s past in his face and waited for this man’s decades of violent history to resurface in some degree for Roscoe to immortalize. But it didn’t happen.
Zipper just stared blankly at the pictures for a moment and then tears started to roll down his cheeks, staining his light blue prison uniform. They kept coming and his body began to shake with the soft sobbs. Ella felt dirty. Roscoe pressed himself up against the wall. The Federal Marshal broke his at-attention position and moved towards Zipper. This was the first time Ella looked at the guard’s face. The corners of his mouth were stained with dried tobacco juice. A large lump from his chaw, and a circular scar on his cheek, made his otherwise handsome face look deformed. For a fleeting second, Ella thought she recognized him.
When the Marshal got to the desk, he reached over Zipper’s shoulder and picked up Ella’s pen that she laid down when Zipper began to cry. In what Ella took to be a gesture of comfort, the Marshal put his other hand on Zipper’s shoulder.
Without warning, the Marshal brought the blue ball point pen down into the soft flesh of Zipper’s neck. Ink and blood spewed like a fountain across the room as Ella looked on in horror. Zipper didn’t even try to fight back as the man unleashed blow after blow. All the while the man yelled at the top of his lungs,
“Don’t scream! Don’t scream!”
Ella managed to tear her eyes away from the brutality and looked for Roscoe, but he was gone. He had bolted out the door the instant the Marshal attacked, colliding with the officers in the hallway and creating a pileup of bodies while the assault continued. Ella turned back to Zipper only to see the Marshal spitting the brown tar from his mouth into Zipper’s eye. After this final act of desecration, the other officers managed to make it into the room—where a scuffle between them and the madman ensued. Zipper lay in a pool of ink and blood.
Ella found herself at his side trying to stop the blood spurting from his neck with her own bare hands and muttering to herself. Oh God help me…Oh God…Oh God help him…the blood…the blood…Oh Jesus help me.
End
Brody Smithwick is the founder of Lion Life Community. Lion Life is an educational organization that services the incarcerated population of North Georgia. He primarily teaches the Creative Writing courses where his students have produced a rich body of poetry as well as full length novels and plays. He most recently published “The Red Line” in Red Planet Magazine.