THUGLIT Issue Seven (9 page)

Sid knew this fact well, and so told his father. One night, while the two were drinking whiskey in the town tavern, Sid pleaded for his father
's help in getting rid of Greta Long and her child. According to the tavern's other patrons, Sid Hartsell was crying into his father's broad shoulders, asking for the old sinner's help in any way.

Andrew Johnson Hartsell told his son to both calm down and to
"start acting like a man of sense." He got a little rough with his son, and at one point his backhand collided with the boy's cheek. The tavern's other patrons took this as a moment of fatherly discipline, and immediately ceased their eavesdropping. If they had continued listening, it wouldn't have mattered. Andrew Johnson Hartsell kept his plan secret until he was comfortable with its final details.

After some rough convincing and cajoling, it was decided that both Hartsell men would kidnap Greta and hold her for ransom. They would not ask for money, only the Long family
's reticence about the affair. Sid taught that this would be enough, and outwardly Andrew Johnson Hartsell agreed with him. Inwardly, the patriarch had an extra horror in store for the unwitting Greta.

On a chilly night in late July, Sid and Andrew Johnson Hartsell set out on foot to the Long family farm outside of town. The night was dark as there was no moon in the sky. Both Hartsell men were wearing their Sunday black, and with them they carried gloves and rope. Unbeknownst to Sid, his father also carried a pearl-handled buck knife in his trouser pocket.

The two men arrived at the farm around one in the morning. They knew that Greta
's room was located near a first floor window, which was mostly cut off from the rest of the house. The original plan was to break through Greta's window, but the plan was made drastically easier by the Long's open front door. The Long's had always been a bit of a wayward family, but they were not wealthy nor did they have any known enemies. They did not fear robbers, and they could not have foreseen kidnapping as possibility. Or murder, for that matter.

It was Andrew Johnson who went into the room first, placing his hand over Greta
's sleeping mouth. Sid took the girl by the feet and tied her up with rope. Working his way up her torso, Sid managed to secure the entirety of the girl's body with the strong hemp rope before Andrew Johnson struck her on the head with the back of his buck knife. While she was unconscious, the two intruders carried her about a mile to the Armstrong house, which Andrew Johnson believed was vacant. Louann Armstrong had been missing for a while, and Andrew Johnson figured her as either dead or another runaway from the state. There were no lights on the home, so it was as good as any for what he had planned.

Sid
's later testimony stated that the house stunk something awful, and when Sid voiced his concern to his father, the old man brushed it off with the idea that Louann Armstrong was dead in her upstairs bed. This idea made Sid nervous, and when his father made him write the ransom note on the back of a page torn from a Sears & Roebuck catalog, Sid admitted to the court that his hands trembled and that his mind often forgot whole words and phrases. The ransom note, which was mailed to the Long family the next day, was a confusing jumble of spilled ink and misspelled words. The Longs were illiterate people anyway, so the content did not matter so much as the suggestion. The family contacted Sheriff Montgomery, who, along with his deputy Mort Little, began the investigation into the relationship between Sid Hartsell and Greta Long.

In a town the size of Quiet Dell, it
's not hard to find people. On the same day that the ransom note was found and read (by Deputy Little, an avowed fan of Western novels), the Sheriff and Deputy Little found an obviously emotional Sid in the dugout of the baseball field. Sid was wearing his pinstripe uniform, which was covered in dust and dirt. Coach Simpson had been so infuriated with the pitcher's performance in practice that he had forced him to play shortstop. Sid Hartsell had never failed so much in twenty-four hours.

Thinking that the boy was upset by his performance, Sheriff Montgomery and Deputy Little were taken aback when the boy started rambling on about Greta Long and the Armstrong house. What he told them turned their stomachs, and eventually led to not only the arrest of Sid Hartsell, but also the apprehension of Andrew Johnson Hartsell, who was put in handcuffs after deputies waited outside the door of Emily Jane Snider.

When the case was put to trial in August in what was one of the quickest turnarounds in Harrison County history, Sid Hartsell accused his father of not only planning the botched kidnapping, but also the murder of Greta Long. For three days, a weak, crying Sid Hartsell told the jury about how his father had taken Greta Long into the kitchen on the first floor. Greta had still not regained consciousness, and the elder Hartsell believed that it was the perfect time to once and for all rid his son of Greta's demands. What this meant was that Andrew Johnson Hartsell took it upon himself to do the type of thing that old crones are paid to do in the back alleys of Whitechapel. I will not revolt you with the particulars here, but suffice it to say that Greta Long did not survive the night due to Andrew Johnson Hartsell's lack of surgical knowledge.

When Sid discovered what his father had done, he immediately broke down and started shrieking about informing the Sheriff. Sid was beaten for his outburst and was forced to drag the corpse of Greta Long behind the outhouse, where she was partially buried.

Andrew Johnson Hartsell and Sid Hartsell were both sentenced to death, not only for the murder for of Greta Long, but also for the murder of Louann Armstrong. While the authorities uncovered the body of Greta Long, they searched the Armstrong house for further clues. In the upstairs bedroom, Deputy Little discovered the decaying corpse of Louann Armstrong, who had been rotting in the summer sun for over a month. The coroner in Clarksburg declared that Louann Armstrong had been the victim of murder, and despite the lack of a confession, both the Hartsells were found guilty of Louann Armstrong's demise.

It wasn
't until 1915 when Mary Wyndham's body was found. A new couple from Ripley were looking to buy the house and stumbled upon a gruesome sight in the upstairs bedroom. At the time, the Hartsells were blamed for a third murder. It wasn't until 1920, two years after the boys had returned from Over There, that it was revealed that both Armstrong and Wyndham had been victims of the murderer Alfred Holmes. By then the Hartsell boys were dead, the victims of a rope's strangulation.

by
Edward Hagelstein

This young gal moved in next door a while back. She drove a jeep and lived alone except for two dogs, mutts as far as I could tell. She was pretty hot with a tight-looking booty, so I had to go over and introduce myself
—but only when my wife, Batty, was confirmed to be at least a zip code away. Her name is Betty, but I haven't called her that in years. It's also why I don't try to glance at, much less talk to other women when she's around. She goes batshit, and I have the punctured nipple to prove it. Batty doesn't care if it's a scoliosis-bent grandmother or a bulldyke in a wheelchair. If I so much as hold a door open for a stretch-pant heifer at Winn-Dixie I'll get a wicked punch to the head as soon as we get in the truck.

The weekend before this new gal moved in I chatted up a fairly hefty and unsightly broad at the Interstate Lounge when we were playing pool, just to keep in practice. I don
't even know what we were talking about, maybe the sudden surplus of Canadian pop stars. Batty took offense, dragged me outside by the wrist in the middle of a shot, and started in screaming and calling me all kinds of filthy whorehound. She flung her beer bottle against the wall so hard a shard bounced back, sliced through my best Harley t-shirt, and lodged in my left nipple. I passed out from the pain and she left me out there.

When I came to
, I pulled the glass out, went inside with half a bloody shirt, and drank a few shots to stem the pain. Hank, the morbidly obese bartender, poured a shot of well whiskey on my punctured nipple to kill the germs. When I picked myself up off the floor from
that
passing-out, I had a gold ring in the nipple. Hank's part-time woman, Jerkin' Julie, said it was hers and since the damage was already done I should keep it in there because it looked sexy. Plus it wasn't real gold, just something she lifted from a booth at the flea market.  Batty had stormed off by then, so I sidestepped a sure beating over that womanly attention.

I took to walking around shirtless, showing off my nipple earring just to piss off Batty because it was her own crazy temper that made me more sexy. I kept an eye out in case she had a mind to yank the ring out, which she threatened to do. It kept me on edge, so the only time I could really relax was when Batty wasn
't home. I didn't think I'd wake up from that passing out.

One morning not long after the neighbor moved in, I was out back smoking in the hammock, which I do a lot. While I was ruminating about what I was going to say when I went over to meet her, I contemplated those dogs milling around her yard. One of them circled around a bit like it was coming in for a landing, then hunched over, squeezed out a big dump, and trotted away from it like they do, wanting to get out of the vicinity before somebody notices. Right before my eyes, the other one ambled up and started gobbling on the steamer before it barely settled down in the dewy grass. I was so astonished I spit out my butt and had to pick it up off the ground, because I can't afford to be smoking anyway.

I thought for a minute about what I
'd seen and realized that was my angle. I'd inform the neighbor her dog was eating poop and offer some suggestions for stopping the same. I hated to snitch on the poor bitch but sometimes you've got to work the system to get ahead. I sauntered over and was knocking on her front door when I realized I didn't know a thing about how to stop a dog from eating poop, so I wouldn't be any help in that department.

They say it
's bad to bring up a problem without having any solutions to offer, but the door was opening and I didn't have time to come up with anything. She stood there in shorts and a tight t-shirt with no bra and I realized I hadn't even worked out an introduction. So I just said the first thing that popped into my head, which is usually a bad tactic for me, and it was no different this time.

"
Howdy neighbor!" I said overly loud and with too much down-home-lonely-weird-guy-next-door emphasis.

She actually flinched, but then I started talking fast and I could feel my eyes flitting around her young smooth face tr
ying not to glance at her tits—which is a definite deal-breaker in the first seconds of any female neighborly encounter (or actually any female encounter that doesn't occur in the Kit Kat Club).

"
I just wanted to let you know that you've got a dog eating the other one's poop back there and I thought you might want to be aware of it so you could take some corrective action since it might not be too good for the dog that eats the poop. I don't think it'll affect the other one, at least not physically. But it might be a mental burden knowing you're being stalked, and every time you pinch out a hot one someone's going to come up behind you and gobble it up," I said. "I think it would bother me anyway."

She stood there with one hand on the door and looked at me for a second, then glanced over my shoulder, maybe to see if I had someone with me either to back up my sighting o
r take me away for observation.

"
Are you okay?" she said.

"
Me? Dandy. I just wanted to let you know what I observed going on."

"
Coprophagia," she said.

"
Sorry, I don't speak Italian," I said. "But you're welcome."

"
It's the name of the behavior." She stood there looking at me like something her dog would gladly consume.

"
You mean the poop eating?"

"
It's not desirable but it's not abnormal either."

I felt a twinge in my jeans when she said desirable. I liked the way she looked down on me all cool even though I was a least twice her age. There we were standing around talking about poop-eating dogs like it was normal.

"Isn't it unhealthy?"

"
People almost do the same thing," she said.

"
I don't know anyone that eats shit." My semi was subsiding.

She gave me a wicked grin. As far as I could tell, her only flaw was that her teeth were too small for her mouth. That and a ce
rtain coldness around the eyes.

"
Haven't you ever given a rim job?" she said.

I swear I came in my pants a little. Like a spurt.

"Or had one?"

I was concentrating so hard on not looking at her tits that I didn
't know if her nipples were getting hard, but mine were. At least the unpunctured one.

"
My betrothed doesn't go for that kind of stuff," I said. "Or any kind of stuff really."

"
That nipple looks infected," she said. She didn't mind looking at mine, so I took a glance at hers, now that we were getting personal. They appeared intact.

"
I should probably get it looked at."

"
It's a rough piercing," she said. "Where'd you get it done?"

"
The Interstate Lounge."

She made a face.

"Oh, you know it?"

"
Never heard of it."

"
I'm not surprised," I said. "How do you know so much about dogs and their habits and all, aside from having two of them?" I wasn't so frantic-acting now that we were having a normal conversation.

"
I work for a vet."

"
Like with cats and dogs and stuff?"

She was looking amused again.
"Exactly."

"
So it all fits together," I finished lamely. "We'll, I'll be going. Just wanted to let you know about your dog, but I guess you got it covered with your specialized knowledge and all." I was getting uptight again trying to get away without acting any more foolish. I was almost back to my yard when she called out.

"
What's your name?"

"
Oh, yeah. It's Huck."

"
Like Finn?"

"
Who?"

She looked at me like some people do at hummus, with an expression that was a cross betwee
n disgust and wonder.

"
Just kidding," I said. "I know who he is."

"
Never mind," she said. "Thanks for the visit."             

"
No problem," I said, and I actually pointed my index finger at her involuntarily, like a pistol. I was able to hold back a wink though. "Don't tell your dog I said anything. I don't want her on my bad side."

"
You mean you don't want to be on her bad side?"

"
That either," I said. This time I winked.

I wasn't always a stay-at-home slug. After I got out of the Navy in San Diego I put together a white R&B bar band that kind of hit it big after a few years of touring the west coast. We had a couple of singles. "I Wanna Be Your Dumpster Cat" hit #51 on the R&B charts, and "I'll Cook Your Bunny" made it up to #37, riding that crest mainly due to vaguely obscene lyrics. We toured clubs off and on for more than a year until everyone figured out we were hairy undernourished white guys in jeans and t-shirts instead of suave studs in sharkskin suits, and stopped buying the records. After that I drifted into frame carpentry.

I figured out the neighbor's name was Mira. In a lucky break, I got hold of some of her mail, almost by accident. I wanted another chance to chat with her, but when we finally did talk about something other than dog dirt I came away feeling like tenth place in five-dog race.

When I rang the bell, she answered the door in her scrubs and looked at me flatly.

"You must have just gotten home from work," I said smartly. I knew that she'd been home for seven minutes because I'd been watching out the window for an hour. I was hoping to catch her in a state of semi-undress from changing out of her work clothes, but I didn't wait long enough. It was a disappointment.

"
Anyway, you must be Mira. I've got your mail." I had removed it from her box soon after it was delivered. I was hoping she didn't notice the faint reek of cat piss that was drifting off me. Batty had come home with a kitten so she'd have something to love, and instead of using the litter box, it preferred the clean clothes we piled on the sofa before they got around to being put away. At least my clothes stunk, maybe Batty put her own away before the kitten got to them. I didn't even know its name.

"
Where's my Victoria's Secret catalog," Mira said. "In your bedroom with the pages stuck together?"

I laughed a little, hoping not nervously.
"I haven't seen one of those in years," I said. "It's a good thing you didn't get one or it might be."

She gave me the look again. One of her dogs barked in the back yard.

"Did you steal this so you could bring it over here after I got off work in the hope you'd catch me changing?"

I probably swallowed my tongue a little. After I spit it up I gave a nervous l
augh. "Yeah, that's me. Totally calculating."

I think she sneered a little, then closed the door.

Aside from my fear of Batty, which is the reason I stuck around, I was also scared of her father. Batty actually told me that if I tried to leave her I
'd wake up one night to her pounding my skull into mush with a ball-peen hammer. I think her father would be happy to do worse.

Batty
's father lived alone with his Kools and Budweisers in a manufactured home a few blocks away. He didn't like me much, which is fairly common in these types of family relationships. But he was pretty good with a grill, and I was always trying to angle for a dinner over there when I knew he was cooking something like a Boston butt. I came up with the idea once that we open a barbeque restaurant together, with him cooking and me handling the front of the house. I even had a name. I was sure he'd go for it because it was named after him.

"
Wow-B-Que?" What the fuck is that?" he said when I proposed the idea one night after we demolished a particularly tender roast at his house.

"
We'll call it 'Smitty's Wow-B-Que' 'cause you'll wow 'em with your bar-b-que."

"
I know what the fuck it means," he said. I could swear he snarled like a dog. "It's stupid."

"
Then we could just call it "Smitty's Bar-B-Que," I said. "Forget the 'Wow.' The food will speak for itself. No need to oversell it."

"
I ain't going into business with you."

"
Why not?"

"
Because you're a fuckin' moron."

Batty sat there and smiled stupidly. She had potato salad on her upper lip. I didn
't tell her.

One night Batty wanted to have Smitty over for dinner for a change. She was a vile cook but he didn't say a thing about the bland meat loaf or lumpy gravy. He just took it out on me more than usual. The only thing Smitty and I had in common was smoking. We were out back puffing away on his cigarettes and not talking to each other after dinner. He gave me a killer look when I bummed one, but didn't say anything. Mira let her dogs out in her yard and after a couple of minutes, the old one circled and dumped and the young one moved in for the kill. Smitty watched, gathered his thoughts, and said nothing for a minute.