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TOMMY DIETZ GRABBED the car door handle with one bloody fist, and braced his other hand against the roof, worried the carcasses in the back would buck out of the truck’s bed. Despite the precaution, his head thumped the muddy window. He glared at the driver who rode the truck like a bronco, but BeeBo Benson’s full moon face sported the same toothless grin he’d worn for the past two weeks. Even BeeBo’s double chins smiled—including the rolls at the nape of his freckled neck.
The ferret thin guy in the middle snarled each time his Katy Railroad belt buckle chinked against the stick shift he straddled. Scraggly hair straggled from under his hat and brushed his shoulders. He had to slouch or risked punching his head through the rust eaten roof. Randy Felch’s snaky eyes gave Dietz the shivers even more than the freezing temperatures spitting through windows that refused to seal
Three across the cramped seat would be a lark for high school buddies out on the town, but the men were decades beyond graduation. Dietz was in charge so Felch could either ride the hump or share the open truck bed with two carcasses, and the new Production Assistant.
Dietz stifled a laugh. Not so high-and-mighty now, was he? The man must really want the job. Grady had turned green when told to climb into the back of the truck. Just wait till he got a load of the dump. Dietz remembered his first visit three years ago when scouting locations. He wondered how the spit-and-polish Grady would react.
He’d hired locals for the rest of the crew. They needed the work, and didn’t blink at the SAG ultra-low pay scale, the shitty weather, or the stink. In this business, you took anything available when pickings were so slim. Then the show got picked up and union fees grabbed him by the short hairs. Amateur talent screwing around and missing call times cost even more money, so he needed a Production Assistant—PA in the lingo—with more polish and bigger balls to keep the wheels greased. A go-to guy able to think on his feet, get the job done. No matter what.
If Grady wanted the PA job, he’d have to be willing to get his hands dirty, and stand up to BeeBo and his ilk. Riding in the open truck bed was illegal as hell, though here in North Texas even the cops turned a blind eye unless it was kids. This was an audition, and Grady knew it.
He had to give Grady props—he’d not blinked, but clenched his jaw and climbed right in when they collected him at his hotel. He’d been less enthusiastic after following the hunters most of the morning, tramping to hell and gone through rough country until his eyes threatened to freeze shut. Something drove the man, something more than a PA credit for piss-poor pay and worse conditions. Hell, something drove them all to work in this unforgiving business. Dietz didn’t care about anyone else’s demons as long as they stayed out of his way.
Dietz craned to peer out the back to be sure the man hadn’t been tossed out the tailgate. Grady gave Dietz a thumbs up. Probably wants to point a different finger, Dietz thought. Grady wore the official Hog Hell blue work gloves and ski mask—dark blue background and Day-Glo red star on the face—or he’d be picking his frostbit nose off the floor.
Prime time in the back woods. Dietz’s quick smile faded. Nothing about this trip was prime, not even the butchered Bambi in the back. Deer season ran November through early January and it was always open season on hogs, so they were legal for any follow up film footage. The two deer hadn’t looked good even before BeeBo dropped them, but that’s what viewers wanted. Crocodile wrestlers, duck dynasties, and gold rush grabbers with crusty appeal and redder necks
Nobody wanted actors anymore. Casting directors looked for “real people.” So he’d caught a clue, jumped off the thespian hamster wheel, moved to New York and reinvented himself as Tommy Dietz, Producer. He’d found his calling with a development company relatively quickly.
A movie star face didn’t hurt. Everyone these days had a little nip-and-tuck, it was part of the biz. He’d been selling his version of reality for years anyway, and always came out on top.
He hit it out of the park on his third project, HOG HELL, with Felch, BeeBo and their ilk. HOG HELL kicked off the next step a Texas-size leap. He’d show them all, those who laughed at his dreams, called him a loser. And he’d make them sorry.
The shabby pickup lurched down and back up again, and its engine growled and complained. Dietz was surprised the seat hadn’t fallen through the floor. The overgrown road the hunters called a pig path consisted of frozen ruts formed from previous tire treads. They damn well better not get stuck out here.
“Don’t worry, she’ll make it.” BeeBo talked around the stub of his unlit cigar. “This old warhorse made the trip so often, she could drive herself. Ain’t that right, Felch?” BeeBo reached to downshift and Felch winced as the other man’s ham-size fist grabbed and jerked the stick between his knees.
Dietz sighed. Out the window, skeletal trees clawed the pregnant sky. Weird flocks of blackbirds moved in undulating clouds, exploding from one naked tree after another to clothe the next with feathered leaves. Spooky.
Thank God the icy cold weather stayed dry. Heartland, Texas had dug out of a record-breaking snowfall, and the locals hadn’t quite recovered. It put a kink in HOG HELL filming and they’d barely met the deadlines. Delay turned his balance book bloody with red ink.
Back home in Chicago they’d been hit with the same blizzard and so had NYC. But big cities knew how to manage winter weather. Apparently North Texas rolled up the sidewalks with even the hint of flurries. He wondered if BeeBo and Felch knew what to do in the snow, and didn’t want to find out. The thought of hunkering down overnight in the truck with these men turned his stomach.
Dietz adjusted his own ski mask. He’d folded it up off his face so the blue cap hugged his head while the DayGlo red painted a bull’s-eye on his forehead. He wore the official coat, too, dark blue with the bright hunter-safe star on the front and back, with the Hog Hell logo. The Gore-Tex fabric crackled with newness, and his blistered feet whimpered inside wet, dirt-caked boots. No way would he wear his new $300 Cabela’s purchased for photo ops at the upcoming watch party. He had a gun, too. In Texas nobody blinked if you carried
BeeBo’s preferred weapon, an ancient short barreled shotgun loaded with deer slugs, contrasted sharply with Felch’s custom double gun he’d had specially made last season. Felch shot 44 Magnums, and the cut down double barrel rifle boasted enough fire power to take out an elephant, or a charging feral boar hog. They sleeved the guns in canvas cases stowed in the back of the truck, but the hunters cared far less about their own attire.
BeeBo and Felch would wear official HOG HELL gear at the watch party in six weeks, and not before. Dietz didn’t want them stinking up the outfits. Today they wore wash-faded coveralls, heavy work coats, earflap hats, clunky boots with thorn-tangled laces, and frayed gloves with fingertips cut out. A bit of peeling DayGlo tape formed an “X” on the back and front of each coat after Dietz insisted on the nod to safety, even though he knew the two hunters paid little mind to official start and end hunting season dates.
That was the point of the original reality program, Cutting Corners that focused on people forced to skirt the rules to make ends meet. The unlikely stars of a single episode, though, turned Felch and BeeBo into overnight sensations and birthed the new show after Cutting Corners tanked. The two hunters were experts at skirting rules. Dietz was no slouch, either.
In the truck bed, Grady swayed back and forth. He’d pushed up the HOG HELL ski mask enough to expose his mouth. White breath puffed out in a jerky tempo, and Dietz wondered if the man would pass out. If Grady took a header off the truck bed, the liability would kill the show. “Find a spot to stop, BeeBo. I think our new team member has had enough.”
Felch grunted. “No place to stop till we get there. Unless you want us to get stuck.” He grinned, but the expression never reached his eyes. “You don’t want us lugging that shit back to your hotel. The stink ain’t something you want close by.”
BeeBo guffawed. “Got that right. With all the hunters unloading, it’s what y’all might call a renewable resource.” He twisted the wheel, and the truck bucked, jittering the decades old pine-shaped deodorizer suspended from the rear view mirror. “The critters take care of the stink pretty quick, though.” His hairless wide-eyed face was a ringer for the Gerber baby. “It’s around that next bend. You might even catch a whiff of Jiff by now.”
Dietz wrinkled his nose. The pungent aroma wasn’t assuaged by the out of dated air freshener that probably came with the vehicle. He shielded his head from another thump, and squinted ahead through the crusty windshield. The wiper blades had torn loose on the passenger’s side, and smeared the detritus rather than clearing the view. It didn’t bother BeeBo
The trio remained silent during the final bump-and-grind through the trees. They pulled halfway into the clearing, and Dietz waited impatiently until BeeBo cranked the steering wheel, turned, and backed beneath a massive tree with pendulous clusters hanging from the branches. Grady ducked, or would have been beaned and scraped off by low limbs.
Several similar trees bordered the clearing, and another smaller truck squatted beneath one at the far end of the area with an elderly couple nearby. The man stood in the truck bed and flailed tree branches with a long pole, while the woman dodged and weaved beneath to gather the resulting shower in a bucket.
“What’s that?” Grady wasted no time to jump off the truck bed. He gagged when the wind shifted.
“Nuts.” Felch unfolded himself from the cramped middle seat. “Pecan trees. They’re gleaning the nuts.”
Dietz’s stomach clenched. He pulled the ski mask over his lips and breathed through his mouth, imagining he could taste odor that closed his throat. Neither Felch nor BeeBo seemed to notice the stench.
Grady wipe his watery eyes. The breeze paused and he gulped a less contaminated breath. “Pecans? To eat?”
The truck squeaked, rocked and grew two inches when BeeBo stepped out. “Back in town they’ll pay $8-$10 by the pound, once shelled. I got my daddy’s old commercial sheller, held together with baling twine and spit, but works okay. I only charge fifty-cents a pound to shell.” He shrugged. “Every little bit helps. It’s too early for most of the big-name commercial farms but for the gleaners, if you wait too long the squirrels get ‘em off the trees, or the pigs root ‘em off the ground. Pigs eat lots of the same stuff the deer and wild turkey eat, acorns and suchlike. But they get ground-nesting bird eggs, too. Pigs’ll root up and eat damn near anything.” He jerked his chins at Felch. “Gimme a hand.” He lumbered toward the truck bed, and waited at the tail lights.
Felch vaulted in the back of the vehicle, and adjusted his gloves. He pointed. “Smorgasbord, y’all. Hey Slick, you might want to get video of this. Bet your big-city cronies never seen the like.” His yellow teeth gleamed. He bent low, and grunted as he pushed and tugged the black plastic bag to the rear of the truck bed, hopped down and joined BeeBo. Together they slung the truck’s cargo into the pit. Yipping and growls erupted from below. Dietz stayed back, he’d seen it before. This stuff he wouldn’t put on the air. This’d be too much even for the hard core viewers without the added value of aroma.
Grady covered his mouth and nose in the crook of his elbow. He edged closer to the deep trough, a natural ditch-like runoff that sat dry three quarters of the year. Piles of gnawed and scattered bones mixed with carcasses in various stages of decomposition. A family of coyotes tried to claim BeeBo’s tossed deer remains, but was bluffed away by a feral boar.
Grady ripped off his ski mask, puked, wiped his mouth, and grabbed his camera with a shaking hand. He spit on the frozen ground and jutted his chin at Dietz. “So?”
Dietz smiled. “You got the gig.”
***
THE DAMN SKI MASK DRAGGED against his hair so much, the normally clear adhesive had turned chalky against his scalp. He’d removed the wig after dissolving glue with a citrus-scented spray, a much more pleasant olfactory experience than the afternoon’s HOG HELL visit to the dump. A shower rinsed away lingering miasma, but he gladly put up with the stink, the rednecks, and the sneers. The payoff would be worth it.
Until then, he couldn’t afford for anyone in Heartland to see him without the hairpiece, couldn’t risk being recognized. For the price, nearly fifty bucks for a four ounce bottle of adhesive, it damn well better hold the wig in place for the promised six weeks. He rubbed his hands over his pale, bald head and grinned.
Even without the wig, she’d be hard pressed to recognize him. Muscles replaced the beer gut, Lasik surgery threw out glasses, teeth caps, chin implant, the works. It had taken eight years to track her down, eight years spent turning himself into a man she couldn’t refuse.
He’d done it for her. Everything for her.
He dialed the phone. “I want to order flowers, Forget-Me-Nots, in a white box with a yellow ribbon. Got that? And deliver them December 18. It’s our anniversary.” He listened. “A card, what a good idea. Can you use red ink? Fine, I want you to write ‘payback’ in red ink. No signature, she’ll know who they’re from. Deliver the flowers to two-oh-five Rabbit Run Road, to September Day.” He paused, and chuckled softly. “Yes, it will be a lovely holiday surprise.”
(end of sample)
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