Prelo Pressley wasn’t actually a veteran of foreign war. He’d never even been in the service. But back before Jackson County passed liquor by the drink, the VFW was one of the only places where a man could sit down and rattle a glass. He’d sat at the far end of the bar watching the door every evening for decades drinking Heaven Hill Old Style over ice. Ray knew that was where he’d find him.
In his twenties, Prelo lived in a canvas teepee at the back end of Sugar Creek eating acid on land that belonged to the federal government. Through the week he made an honest living detonating explosives at every quarry within earshot. One time back in the late ’70s he’d packed powder in the ground for four days straight at a job in Sapphire, then pulled the shot on a Sunday morning. A church eight miles down the road in Toxaway said every hymnal in the sanctuary jumped a foot off the pew and that one of the deacons shat his pants. That was the last blast that ever took place on the Sabbath. He’d always been a wild man.
The parking lot was mostly empty, but Prelo’s truck sat right where it always did, backed tight against the right-hand side of the building. He drove an unmistakable old Toyota Dolphin mini motorhome from the ’80s that he’d taken the camper off and built a flatbed over the dually frame. Ray parked his Scout beside Prelo’s rig and walked around front to find him.
Cigarette smoke hung eye level in the room. There were only two people at the bar, Prelo and some guy Ray didn’t recognize who was elbowed up beside him. A middle-aged man in a Navy ball cap commemorating a warship was working the bottles and he looked up from wiping down the countertop with a beer-soaked rag as the door slapped closed.
“Ray, Ray, get over here, come over here a minute,” Prelo yelled in a crackly voice. His words always came out high-pitched like someone was pinching his nose. He motioned theatrically with his hand for Ray to join them.
Ray crossed the bar and the man he didn’t recognize peered over his shoulder and nodded.
“You ever met this fellow sitting here?”
“I don’t believe so.”
“Now, this here’s Randall Montgomery from Mobile, Alabama. Ninth Infantry. Đồng Tâm, Vietnam.”
Ray had no clue what in the hell Prelo was spouting off about, but that had long been par for the course. “Good to meet you.”
The man polished off what was left of his drink and grumbled something other than words.
“First time I met Randall I was squirrel hunting back up Pilot Knob. That’s where Randall lives is back up Pilot Knob off Big Ridge right down the road here.” Prelo pointed off behind him. “Now, I was coming down off of this knoll and I’d seen one or two, but I hadn’t gotten any shots and here this fellow sits on a rock with a stringer of squirrels running clean down his leg.”
Prelo spun around on his bar stool so that he was facing Ray. He was only a little over five feet tall and looked like a child sitting there. He was still nimble and strong as most twenty-year-olds even though he had almost half a century on them. Years of alcohol had turned his stubby nose into a cherry tomato. A disheveled white beard ran a scruffy hedge along his jawline. There was a pancaked ball hat propped on top of his head like the flat cap of a mushroom. Prelo slapped his hands on his knees and continued his story.
“When I get close to where this fellow’s sitting I can see it’s a nice mess of squirrels and I say to him, ‘Hey, mister, where’d you get them squirrels?’ Old Randall here, he looks at me and says, ‘I’m a-hunting ’em.’ Thing was, I get to looking and I don’t see a gun in sight. I say, ‘Hunting ’em? Why, mister, you ain’t even got a rifle.’ He tells me he don’t need a rifle, he says, ‘Why, son, I uglied them squirrels to death.’ About that time here comes a squirrel circling around a big pin oak, been cutting acorns, and that sucker comes out on the limb with his tail laid over his head and Randall here makes the god-awfullest face you’ve ever seen.”
Prelo stopped the story and shriveled his face into a raisin. He didn’t have his teeth in so that his mouth looked like an empty eye socket. All of a sudden he clapped his hands real loud and the man working the bar jumped back like he’d tripped a land mine.
“BAM!” Prelo yells. “Randall makes that face and that squirrel drops stone cold dead.” Prelo reached for his glass and took a long drink to wet his tongue. He cleared his throat and kept on.
“Now, I’m here to tell you, Ray, in all my years of hunting I never seen nothing like it. Have you? He makes that face and that squirrel drops dead. I tell him, ‘Now, mister, that there’s a hell of a trick! I bet you’re the only man on earth can kill a squirrel like that. That really is something.’ Well, I want you to know old Randall here looks at me and he says, ‘Why no, my wife can do it too.’” Prelo paused and Ray knew the punch line was coming the way all good mountain jokes hinge on a sentence. “‘Only problem is she buggers the meat up so bad it ain’t fit to eat!’”
Prelo whapped the back of his hand against Ray’s stomach and grabbed hold of the man at the bar’s wrist, shaking his arm violently. He was hooting and hollering like a maniac. Even with all that was running through Ray’s mind, he couldn’t help but chuckle.
The man at the bar yanked his arm loose. “One of these days I’m going to cut you from ear to ear just so I won’t have to listen to you no more.”
Prelo hopped off his stool and stood behind him. He massaged hard into the man’s shoulders and laughed. “You better get that knife of yours awfully sharp if you’re going to go cutting on a lizard like me.”
The man shook his head and smiled. “I hope your asshole grows shut,” he said.
Prelo walked across the room and fed quarters into a cigarette machine by the door. He grabbed the pack when it fell and leaned his back against the door. “Ugly ’em to death!” he cackled one last time and out of the bar he went.
When they were outside, Prelo lit a cigarette and jumped onto the flatbed of his truck, letting his feet dangle and swing beneath him.
“How the hell are we, Ray? It’s been a while.”
“I’ve been better,” Ray said. He unzipped the chest pocket of his overalls and pulled out his cigars. There was no breeze and a cloud of smoke slowly grew around them while they caught up.
“Now, what was it you wanted to see me about?”
“Well,” Ray said. He kicked at the gravel with the toe of his boot. “I was wondering if you could still get your hands on some nitro.”
“I don’t know whether to be insulted that you had to ask or tickled pink I get to blow something up.” Prelo reached into his pocket and pulled out a yellowed set of dentures. He fit the teeth into his mouth and smiled. “Of course I’ve got some powder laying around. Question is, how much are we going to need?”