Jesse's Revenge

I was still at Liz's when I saw a cop car drive into my site. He was a young cop, maybe 22, short dark wavy hair, blue eyes, nice arch in his eyebrows, strong jaws. Even in his uniform, I can tell his had a good built. He must've been new on the job, 'cause he seemed nervous, looking around. I called out,

"Yoohoo mister, you looking for me?"

"Are you Mindy Batten?" said the young cop, getting out of the car. He was tall and athletic, his clothes neat and pressed. Honestly, guys in uniforms are so cute.

"You got me," I said, "Come on over here. You on a social call, or pleasure call?" I winked at him.

"Mrs. Batten, which is your site?" He's curious about me, this one.

"Where you are. I'm visiting with my neighbour here. Come and sit," I patted the bench beside me.

"Mrs. Batten, would you mind coming back to your site so we can talk. This is a police matter," he said in a deedper voice, trying hard to take no notice of my friendliness. Oh I like the serious ones. I bid a quick goodbye to Liz and went back to my site.

"I'm all yours," I said, "You want to have a drink or something?"

"No thanks, M'am." He looked down, but I could tell he was blushing.

"Well, I'd like one," I said.

"M'am, I need to talk to you."

"Like I said, I'm all yours."

"Are you the mother of Jesse Batten?"

Mother of Jesse? Jesus, that poured ice on a girl in heat.

"Yes, I'm his mother. Is he okay?"

"He's fine, m'am," he took off his cap, showed me his I.D. and made a slight bow. "My name is Officer McCorkle. Jesse's being held in the county police office right now. I'm to accompany you back to the station so the sargent can talk to you."

"What's happened? Why's Jesse in jail?"

"That's why I'm here, m'am, so I can bring you to the office where the sargeant will talk to you about that. How soon can you leave?"

Well jeepers creepers. Jesse in jail? That's not like him to get in trouble like this. There must be a mistake. The boy's moody and difficult. He's a teenager, that's all. I went inside the tent and put on a clean T-shirt.

"Look, I don't have a car or any kind of transportation. I'll come with you, but you need to bring me back too, okay? Or I can't go with you."

"We can arrange something to bring you back, m'am."

I was all torn inside, like I couldn't be myself. He was so serious and not smiling, and Jesse was in some kind of trouble. I didn't know what to do with myself. Jesse's never been in trouble with the law before.

We drove mostly in silence. I tried to make small talk, but he would only give me short "yes m'am", "no m,am", "wouldn't know about that, ma'm" answers. I wished he'd stop calling me m'am. Made me feel old.

We got to the Wittle Lake police station and a Sargeant Burns sat me down in his office. Jesse was sitting there, looking pretty rough and dirty. Didn't smell so good either.

"What happened to you, Jesse?" I said. He reached for me and started crying. I held him and patted his head. God, he stank. So Sargeant Burns told me the story and Jesse kept nodding as if to say, yeah, that's what happened.

Well, holy crap! That's what that stink was last night. Jesse was responsible for that? Incredible.

What happened was, Jesse was still mad at me and Mick when he was riding in a car with that Ogden fellow yesterday, when he spotted Mick's truck in a field. It was just sitting there, in the middle of old Penner's field, beside Penner's tool shack. The truck was a good 10 minute walk to the Penner farm. Now Ogden is a big, tough guy. He's older than Jesse, maybe five or ten years older. I don't know how he and Jesse got to be friends. I didn't think they even knew each other. But Ogden parked the car on the side of the road and they went into the field to check out the truck, thinking they'd rough up Mick a bit on account of him spreading lies about them. When they got closer to the truck, who did they see circling the truck? Not Mick. It was Joel Woodsinger, old Penner's son-in-law.

Joel was about 45, real heavy set and burly. He basically ran old Penner's chicken farm and worked his ass off. Sometimes, he even brought eggs and vegetables to the park to sell. Jesse worked for him last summer picking beans and cabbage. He was smoking weed and looking at the truck with an angry face, kicking dirt at the tires.

"Hi Jesse. Looking for Mick?" said Joel as Jesse and Ogden got close.

"Yup. He in there?" said Jesse.

"Nope. What do you want him for?"

"You and Mick friends?"

"Hell no. What do you want with him?"

"He roughed me up and spread lies about me and Og here. We want to take that up with him."

"Any truth to what he said about you?"

"No. Whatever you heard, ain't true. Mick's a fucking liar and a cheat."

"Oh, I know about that alright."

"We're gonna get him."

"Well, boys, our Mick's a trouble-maker, ain't he?" said Joel. He took a big toke on his joint and handed it to them, "You boys smoke?"

"Sure."

So the three of them started toking up a storm. The more they smoked, the more they complainted about Mick, the more excited they got.

"Porking my wife, you know. That's a disgrace. When I'm out working so hard," Joel said.

"He sucks shit. How dare he push me around," Jesse said.

"Who the fuck does he think he is, calling me a fag?" Ogden said.

"Parks in my field, sneaks into my house, fucks my wife when he thinks I'm not looking."

"Lies to me, lies to my ma. Gets me in trouble with the cops."

"Ruins my reputation."

"Fat ass."

"Fuck head."

"Slime ball."

"Should be taught a lesson."

"Should be taken out of commission."

"Should get him in trouble."

"Get rid of his stinky truck, then we'll see how he gets around."

"Burn it up."

"Give him a good scare."

"Hey, I got gas in the shed."

"I could crawl under the truck."

"I got matches."

"I could say he was trespassing."

"I could say I was a witness."

"I could drive us away."

"Damn, we make a good team."

"Ha ha, revenge at last."

"Bring him down."

So they went on like that. They must've had ten joints, and all the cigarettes Joel had in his pack of smokes. They were so stoned and laughing so hard by this time, no one knew who did what. But they did pour gas on Mick's truck, poured gas under the truck, set the truck on fire, and drove away.

They were still laughing and weaving on the road when the cop stopped Ogden for drunken driving five minutes later. The cop was taking Ogden's driver's licence when suddenly, they heard KABOOM down the road, following by several smaller booms and bangs. The three of them looked at each other astonished like, and the cop went, "Holy Mackerel!" They were looking at a small mushroom cloud rising from a field.

The three of them burst out laughing and doubled over, they were laughing so hard. Joel fell over and was rolling on the ground, holding his stomach in. Ogden pissed in his pants, which made Jesse laugh even more, heaving for breath. Suddeny, Joel clutched the cop's leg with one hand and his heart with the other. He started gasping for air and his face went white. Then he lay limp and still. The cop grabbed his car radio and called into it, "Code blue, code blue, we need an ambulance here. Heart attack victim."

Jesse and Ogden stopped laughing. They looked at each other and felt dollops of murky thick rain hit their hair, face and arms. Then all the air around them filled up with the smell of shit.