Chapter 13 You Can’t Go Home Again
Jeb Sweeney sat on his front porch wearing blood-spattered camo and drinking a cold Bud Light. In the distance, a truck pulled up at the end of his drive. Jeb raised his rifle and put the sight to his eye. His older brother slid out of a 3500 and rattled the locked gate. Jeb kept him in the crosshairs as Mitch paced back and forth in frustration before hoisting his ample form up the four-foot-high cattle guard. He made it over the top, lost his footing on the other side, and fell backward onto the gravel.
“No stunt doubles down here, son,” Jeb muttered, setting the gun aside and taking another sip of his beer. He picked up his phone and opened his brother’s favorite app. The first thing that popped up in his feed was Mitch’s response to a post by Lula Dean welcoming Troy’s prodigal international movie star back to town. Jeb put his beer down and began to type.
Well how ’bout that. @mitchsweeney has set foot in Georgia for the first time in 10 years. #fakesoutherners #hollywoodelites #igotyournumbermotherfucker
Jeb picked up the gun again and watched his brother pull out his phone and type like mad. Mitch had clearly set up an alert. Jeb was almost touched.
When I find you I’m going to rip off youre head off and shit down your throat.
Jeb came a hair short of snorting beer out his nose.
Good luck with that dumbass. #igotyournumbermotherfucker
Jeb didn’t bother to hide the phone as his brother approached. He’d been trolling Mitch online for years. The accounts changed as soon as he got blocked. But the hashtag remained the same. #igotyournumbermotherfucker was Jeb’s anonymous calling card. Mitch still hadn’t figured it out. He’d never been the brightest bulb on the tree.
“Hey,” Mitch said. “Almost didn’t see you there.”
“Was that a camo joke?” Jeb asked. “Y’all find that sort of shit funny out in California?”
Mitch stopped in front of him. “Ten seconds in and you’re busting my balls. That how you say hello to your only living relative?”
“My only living relative? You mean aside from my wife and kids?” Jeb asked. Then he grinned. “Hey, Mitch, want a beer?” He pointed to the cooler sitting between the porch chairs and watched his brother grimace at the blood-covered lid.
“Feral hogs,” Jeb explained, leaning down to open the cooler for Mitch. “Gotta keep the numbers down. They’ve been tearing up the orchard out back.”
“You got anything other than this gay shit?” Mitch asked, peering into the cooler.
“Beer can’t be gay,” Jeb explained. “It’s a liquid.”
Mitch looked disgusted but not enough to turn down a cold beer. He opened the can and took a long swig.
“You feeling the urge to belt out any show tunes?” Jeb asked. “As I seem to recall, you used to do a great ‘Hello, Dolly!’”
“Shut the fuck up,” Mitch replied. “Don’t you wanna know why I’m here?”
Jeb didn’t bother to point out to his brother that announcing every movement on social media lost you the element of surprise. “I’ll admit, I’m curious as hell. What brings an international movie star to our Podunk neck of the woods?”
“I’m thinking of running for office in Georgia.”
“Are you, now.”
“Don’t sound so excited,” Mitch said.
“I was under the impression that anyone representing the state of Georgia was required to inhabit the state of Georgia.”
Mitch shooed away the thought like a bothersome fly. “I’m fixing to buy a house while I’m here. Besides, won’t be for a while. I got a lot of work to do.”
Jeb drained what was left of his beer and opened another as he stared out at the vast yard that doubled as a pasture. Sometimes his patients needed a close eye kept on them, so he let them graze in front of the house. Most of the time the patients were horses, but he’d also boarded alpacas, an ibex, and three capybaras. His kids had loved it when they were little, but his wife still missed her flower beds.
Maybe this was an opportunity, he wanted to convince himself. Jeb always tried to look on the bright side, even when his brother’s antics threatened to block out all light. He’d long since given up on waiting for Mitch to mature. At sixty, his brother was just as hungry for glory as he’d been at sixteen. And Jeb had witnessed the lengths he’d go to in order to get it. You’d think Mitch had grown up neglected, but that hadn’t been the case. Their parents had been loving. One might even say doting. They’d done everything possible to give Mitch what he needed. But no two human beings could fill that bottomless pit. Mitch took everything they had and still wanted more.
But maybe this time he had something to give back. Raging narcissist or not, Mitch did have a public profile. If he really was open to helping his hometown, he could bring nationwide attention to their part of the state, maybe even cut through all the red/blue bullshit that kept anything meaningful from getting done.
“I could help you understand the issues if you’re interested,” he told his brother. “We got a whole slew of problems down here that nobody’s talking about.”
“I know. I can’t believe they’re letting that boy in Clarkesville swim on the girls’ team.”
Jeb breathed in deep, knowing full well that if he took the bait, the conversation would go around in circles for hours. “I don’t see fourteen-year-olds as much of a threat to my health, wealth, or happiness. I’m thinking more along the lines of groundwater and stream pollution. There’s hardly a trout left in this county that’s safe to eat.”
Mitch wasn’t interested. “What about all the crime? Who’s doing anything about that?”
“The crime we have around here is largely drug-related,” Jeb said. “It’s a hard nut to crack.”
“I thought so,” Mitch said. “Dealers coming down from Atlanta and fentanyl streaming across the border.”
“We don’t import all of our problems. Most of them started with doctors prescribing too many opioids and locals figuring out how to cook meth in their kitchens.”
Jeb had been a member of the volunteer fire department for two decades. He couldn’t even count the number of lab fires they’d had to put out. A few years back, two of his best buddies had died in the line of duty when a trailer exploded.
“’Least the cops know who to pick up when shit gets stolen. You just go round up all the junkies.”
“What’s a junkie look like?” Jeb asked.
Mitch snickered. “You know,” he said.
Jeb took his cap off and ran a hand through his hair. “Gimme a description.”
“I don’t have to,” Mitch said.
“No, you don’t,” Jeb said. “Every firefighter carries Narcan these days. More often than not, we’re the first ones to respond to medical emergencies, so I see a lot of junkies. Last one was twenty-four years old. Good kid. Injured his knee playing football first year of college. Coach got the doctor to give him Oxy. Told him it was totally safe. When the season ended, he couldn’t stop taking it. And when the prescription ran out, he turned to heroin. He died, in case you were wondering. We got there too late to save him.”
“That’s too bad. Maybe his people should have done more to help him.”
“His people? The kid was white, not that it matters, you ignorant ass. Opioids are equal-opportunity killers. I’ve seen people of every description taken down. By the way, if you’re really interested in helping the state of Georgia, you should know that forty percent of us ain’t white.”
“I only need fifty-one percent to win.”
“Welp,” Jeb said. Once again, he’d tried to get his brother to act decent and he’d failed miserably. “If that’s how you see it, I’m afraid I won’t be one of them.”
Mitch laughed hard. “I didn’t come here for your vote, you woke-ass motherfucker. I came here to tell you to stop tormenting Lula Dean.”
“By tormenting Lula Dean, you mean protesting her book bans? Aside from the fact that people should be free to read whatever they like, can’t you see how fucking stupid this shit makes us look? Weren’t you the one who used to bitch and moan about Southerners being typecast? She’s just proving those assholes right. The rest of the world thinks we’re all Cletus the Slack-Jawed Yokel.”
Mitch sighed. “I see I haven’t made myself clear,” he said, adjusting his waistband. “What I meant to say is stop making your cute little signs or I’ll sell the farm.”
Mitch had him pinned. There was nothing left to do now but say uncle. That was how it had always worked for the two of them. Older by five years, Mitch had used his size advantage to whup his little brother on a regular basis for fourteen years. For another two years after that, he’d relied on his willingness to cheat.
Now he’d done it again. When their mother passed, she’d left the family farm to the both of them. Mitch had already been in LA for years. Jeb was newly married and just out of vet school. He wanted to live on the farm, but he couldn’t afford the upkeep. Mitch bought Jeb out and let him stay on as caretaker. Since then, Jeb had offered a thousand times to buy it, but Mitch had told him it wasn’t necessary. The farm would always stay in the family. After all, Mitch’s only heirs were his niece and nephew. It was a lie, of course. Mitch didn’t give a fuck about the farm. It had never been anything to him but leverage.
“So you’re joining forces with Lula Dean?” There was no point in arguing. Mitch had Jeb’s balls in a vise and he wasn’t afraid to squeeze.
“Yep. I’m all about protecting kids from communist pedo predators.”
“You know Lula doesn’t care about any of that. She only wants the attention. She’d let this whole town burn to the ground if it got her on the goddamned news.”
“Long as I get what I’m after, I’ll strike the damn match.”
Jeb nodded. “At least you’re honest. You planning to stay here on the farm while you’re in town?”
Mitch seemed amused by the suggestion. “No offense, but the farm’s a bit rustic for my taste. A fan saw I was coming and offered to set me up in his swanky guesthouse.” Mitch checked his watch. “Matter of fact, I need to get moving. I told him I’d be there by five.”
“I’ll walk you back to your truck,” Jeb said, half-heartedly wondering if the local cops were capable of solving a homicide—and if the feral hogs out back were up for eating a body.
“So who’s this fan of yours?” he asked. “You sure this isn’t going to end up one of those Misery situations?”
“Name’s Walsh.”
Jeb stopped. “Logan Walsh? Lives out on Holcombe Road?”
“That’s the one.” Mitch kept going.
“You don’t want to get involved with him and his friends.” Jeb hustled to catch up. “I know you talk tough, but those assholes are bad news.”
A month earlier, he’d been called out to Logan Walsh’s house to treat a sick horse. It wasn’t an unusual request. He made house calls all the time, and he’d known Logan years earlier when he was coach of the kid’s Little League team. Jeb remembered him as a shy boy with a great arm and a father with a penchant for punching umpires. The dad was a rich muckety-muck in the county—a state supreme court judge who sat in the same seat his father and grandfather had held. Jeb never got to know the man. He’d yanked Logan out of Little League after the umpire incident. About six years later, Jeb saw on the news that Judge Walsh had been killed in a tragic hunting accident. The bullet, which sailed straight through his neck and into a neighboring tree, had come from a gun fired by his only son. Jeb heard all the gossip about what had happened between the two Walshes that day, but he reserved judgment. And he didn’t lose a minute’s sleep over the older man’s passing.
Now Logan Walsh was in his mid-twenties, with a compound way out in the boonies. First things Jeb had seen as he made his way toward the barn were a fleet of ATVs, a fishing boat that inspired some serious envy, and a shooting range where the targets had celebrities’ faces pinned to them. Most of the faces belonged to liberal politicians. More than half were Black.
The sick horse would have died without medical intervention, so Jeb went ahead and treated it. Wasn’t the animal’s fault that a racist asshole owned it. When he’d finished working, Walsh had invited him inside to write him a check—and to show off the arsenal he kept behind glass in his den. That was nothing new. Pretty much everyone around Troy owned guns. Back then, Jeb didn’t know of anyone else who also collected Gestapo and SS flags.
“You live here by yourself?” Jeb remembered asking.
“For the moment,” Logan told him as he filled out a check for Jeb’s veterinary services. “I’m working on fixing that.”
“Not sure how many women would appreciate your style of decorating.”
Logan found that funny. “Any woman I invite here will know her place.”
Jeb pitied the woman naive enough to mistake a rich psychopath’s posturing for real strength.
“Do you like the display?” Logan asked.
“No,” Jeb had told him. “I don’t. Aside from what they did in Europe, my grandfather fought a war against those bastards and came home crippled.”
“It’s just history.” Logan finished signing the check and handed it to Jeb with a smile. There was disappointment in the younger man’s eyes, and Jeb realized he’d failed a test. “We got a lot of history buffs around these parts.”
That made it clear. His interest wasn’t a hobby, and it wasn’t a game. And Jeb knew that incident in the woods had not been an accident. Logan Walsh was fucking dangerous.
“What do you mean I talk tough?” Mitch sneered.
“Forget that,” Jeb said. He couldn’t have Mitch getting all distracted. “Just listen to what I’m trying to tell you. There’s a man in Troy named Nathan Dugan. His wife just fled town with their son, and before she did, she emptied out a secret room he’d been keeping in the basement. It was filled with Nazi memorabilia. Ask around. Everyone in town knows about it.”
Mitch shrugged. “You’ve obviously never been in a prop house,” he said. “They got Nazi everything and nobody’s worshipping Hitler.”
“You’re not listening. Logan Walsh is buddies with Dugan. He’s got the same shit in his den. They aren’t filming movies or doing some cosplay shit. They are fucking Nazis.”
Mitch rolled his eyes. “You don’t know that,” he said.
“And you haven’t lived in the real world for a very long time. There have always been people who kept a swastika or two hidden away in a drawer. I don’t know if there are more sympathizers these days, but I will tell you this—our generation’s Nazis aren’t quite as shy.”
“I don’t give a shit what people keep in their drawers. This is a free country. They can think whatever they want.”
“It’s a slippery slope between tolerating Nazis and becoming one, Mitch. Ask anyone who lived in 1930s Germany.”
Mitch reached the gate. “I can’t. They’re all dead.”
“And that’s a big part of the problem.”
“Open the fucking gate, Jeb.”
“So you’re just going to leave? I’m telling you your new friends are dangerous.”
“You’re making me uncomfortable, so I’m getting the hell out of here. Which is exactly what you should do if you think you’re surrounded by terrible people. Just pack up your bags and head for Manhattan like all the other libs.”
As Jeb opened the gate, he realized his brother was onto something. Too many people hadn’t stuck around. Most of those who remained couldn’t afford a fight.
Mitch got into the truck and turned over the ignition. “Here.” He motioned for Jeb to come to the window. “I brought you a present,” he said, reaching an arm out. Clenched in his hand was a hardcover book. “Lula’s not so bad. She’s been giving out free books in that little library of hers.”
Jeb took the book. It was The Art of the Deal.
“If you want to get ready for the future, you better start reading that.”
Mitch peeled off, leaving his brother in a cloud of dust. Jeb walked back to his porch and took out another Bud Light. He stared at Donald Trump’s smirking face on the cover. Then he cracked open the book. Inside was a cartoon panel with two men—one older, one younger—wearing mouse masks.
People haven’t changed... Maybe they need a newer, bigger Holocaust.
The image was instantly familiar, but it took Jeb a moment to realize what he was looking at. He pulled back the dust jacket. The book inside was Maus by Art Spiegelman. Jeb wondered who could have switched the covers—and what it all meant. He didn’t reach any conclusions or compose a list of suspects. Still, there was no doubt in his mind. It was a sign shit was gonna get ugly. But Jeb Sweeney was staying put.