Robert Reed - Graffiti

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2024-11-23 0 0 28.11KB 13 页 5.9玖币

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ROBERT REED

GRAFFITI

It was a river town known locally for drunks and evil women, mayhem and crimes

too sordid to mention in decent company. But in the 1890s, a grisly and unsolved

triple murder made headlines across the country, and simple shame forced its

good Christian citizens to act. Originally called Demon's Landing the town

renamed itself Riverview. Corrupt law officers were replaced with a modern,

professional police force. The town and county were declared dry. New schools

were staffed with young women of unimpeachable character. Zoning laws and civic

projects brought a sense of order, while fortuitous fires drove out the

notorious families. It was even alleged that the mayor, a determined young

pragmatist, hired a wandering mystic to help protect Riverview from the criminal

element.

According to some, the mystic was a wild-eyed, tubercular man with a gaudy name

painted on his mule-drawn wagon. Yet just a few years later, no one seemed able

to recall his name or which direction he had taken as he left town. Hopefully he

was never paid for his questionable work. A terrible crime wave heralded the new

century's arrival. A favorite school teacher was molested in the most heinous

fashion, the bank was robbed twice in one year, and both a Methodist minister

and the beloved mayor were shot and killed by thieves. The only blessing was

that the rejuvenated police force, led by a young man named Bethans, managed

quick arrests, and under interrogation, every suspect confessed in full. The

murderers were hanged with suitable fanfare, while thieves and rapists spent

years in the state penitentiary; and for the first time, the river's vulgar

souls began to say that if you wanted to have some fun, you'd best have it

somewhere other than Riverview.

The next decades were built on small events and modest prosperity. Crime wasn't

abolished, but violence seemed to always end with quick arrests and telling

punishments. By the late 1960s, the little river town had grown into a tidy city

of fifteen thousand, its elderly brick downtown nestled against the wide brown

river, handsome older homes hidden on the wooded bluffs, and higher still, where

the country opened up and flattened, there were the sketchy beginnings of urban

sprawl.

There was both a public and Catholic high school. Macon Lewis played quarterback

for the public school's lackluster team. Eddie Cane was his classmate and best

friend. He lacked Macon's size or cookiness, but Eddie was the better athlete,

one of the top cross country runners in the state, and because of it, the boys

were social equals as well as friends.

Macon was six months younger, yet he played the role of older brother,

introducing his introverted, somewhat artistic sibling to the larger world.

Eddie's first date and first sex were both arranged by Macon. Eddie got drunk

for the first time with Budweiser bought by his best friend. As a team, they had

explored the wooded bluffs, pulled monster catfish from the churning river, and

when Macon heard a crazy rumor about the old storm sewer beneath Main Street, he

suggested that they sneak down there and have a look.

"A look at what?" Eddie wondered aloud.

"You like to paint," Macon reminded him. "Well, there's some really strange

paintings in that sewer. If what I heard is true, I mean."

They met after dark, armed with their fathers' best flashlights, Macon

shouldering a heavy knapsack that rattled as they slipped into a deep,

weed-choked gully. The sewer began where the gully dove into an oversized

concrete tube, the tube's mouth blocked by thick steel bars aligned in a

crosshatching pattern. There was a small door secured by heavy padlocks, and for

no conscious reason, Eddie felt relief when he thought they could go no farther.

It was just a sewer, of course. In eighteen years, he had never wondered what

was beyond the barricade. But he smiled in the darkness, smiled until Macon

said, "Over here. We can get inside here."

Freezes and floods had worn away a portion of the concrete wall. With the help

of a crowbar, chisel and ball-peen hammer, they enlarged nature's work. Then

Eddie, smaller by plenty, slipped easily into the sewer, and with a lot of

grunting and twisting and breathless little curses, Macon joined him, slapping

his buddy on the back, then whispering, "Follow me," with a wink that went

unseen.

A trickle of water, antifreeze, and discarded oil led the way, spilling down a

long slope before turning beneath Main Street, slowing and spreading until it

was little more than a sheen of moisture and reflective slime. Modern concrete

gave way to enduring red brick. The sewer had been built in the 1890s, arching

walls frosted with an excess of mortar, and the mortar was decorated with

colorful, even gaudy paintings. Holding a big Coleman flashlight in both hands,

Eddie focused the beam on the nearest work. In clinical detail, it showed a man

and woman making love. Except they weren't making love, he realized. The woman

was struggling, and the man, taking her from behind, held a knife flush against

her long and pale screaming throat.

"This is real," Macon reported. "Everything you see here happened as it's

shown."

Other paintings portrayed other violent crimes. A man dressed in an

old-fashioned suit was being shot in the face, pointblank. A second man was

being gutted with a long blade. A third was being battered from behind with a

baseball bat. And in each case, the painting looked astonishingly new, and the

murderous person was shown in photographic quality.

It was a kind of gallery, Eddie realized. Utterly unexpected, and inexplicable.

Yet Macon had a ready explanation. "The way I hear it, our town once made a pact

with the Devil, or someone just as good." He illuminated his own face, proud of

his knowing grin. "If there's violent crime anywhere in Riverview, it appears

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Robert Reed - Graffiti

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