Flycatchers & Fireflies: Chapter 1

Hubie Flynn questioned, perhaps just a little too late, how he had come to be standing on an abandoned trestle in the middle of the woods with Ulysses Sherman “Slick” Hogg, a ferret-like man who seemed more nervous than the situation demanded.

The young man was getting nervous, too. Why was he here, close to the edge, 100 feet above the forest floor, as Hogg pointed and squeaked and seemed to inch ever closer. It was like a game of Red Light Green Light. Every time he glanced back Hogg froze. Yet he still came closer. Maybe it wasn’t Red Light Green Light at all. Maybe it was King of the Hill? The young man began to sweat.

****

It had been a strange day. Young Hubie had knocked on Hogg’s door early that morning, hoping to learn more about the power company’s purported plan to build a dam that would turn his family’s land and half of Forrest County into a lake the size of Amarillo, Texas. 

Google Maps had led him to Hogg’s isolated, modest house, and he’d been impressed. He’d expected gates and a long driveway, maybe a security guard with a paunch and a pistol. But it was just a ranch-style brick house that looked like it was built in the ‘50s and got its last coat of paint during the Nixon administration.

Hogg had surprisingly welcomed him inside and introduced him to his wife, Mimi, a large woman in an avocado-and–orange mumu who looked as much like a Mimi as a person can look.

“Oh, a visitor,” she said, as thrilled as one could expect from a Mimi in a mumu welcoming unexpected guests on a Sunday morning. 

He declined her offer of coffee or Grapico and gaped at the sight before him. On every surface, on coffee tables and bespoke shelves, on top of a vintage oak RCA television console – everywhere he looked – were ceramic figures of pigs. Pink stoats, husky hogs, silly piglets, scary sows and a boar in clown makeup that bore a startling resemblance to Mimi herself. It  was among the most disturbing things Hubie had ever seen.

“This,” snorted Mimi, “is my menagerie.”

She waved her arm, like a pillowy Vanna White revealing her vowels, and seemed to float in the mumu. Hubie could think of nothing to say.

“I have 6,321 pigs,” Mimi said. “When your name is Hogg, you better own it.”

She was a nice lady, charming in her way, the young man thought. But if he had to stay in that house much longer he knew he’d start drinking again. 

The day somehow got weirder from there. Hogg listened nervously to his questions before insisting, suddenly and objectively inexplicably, that he must take the young man to show him the “real situation” the fake news would never report. He ushered Hubie into his yacht of a car – the kind of Buick that went extinct after the ‘70s oil crisis. He turned the ignition, shifted into reverse, and with eyes darting skittishly everywhere but behind him, he stepped on the gas.

And rammed into young Hubie’s car. Or his mom’s if you want to be technical about it.

“Sorry,” Hogg grunted, lurching forward again, still without looking back. “I’ll pay for it.”

Then he slammed the car into reverse again, stepped on the gas and … BAM! He hit the young man’s mom’s Honda Civic a second time.

“Dang it,” Hogg said, without getting out to look at the damage or allowing Hubie to do so. He threw the boat into gear and sped out the driveway, spewing a rooster tail of gravel behind. 

“Where are we going,” the young man asked, confused and shaken by the damage to his car, wondering how he would break the news to his mother. 

“You’ll see, you’ll see,” Hogg chirped. 

And off they went.

****

Ray-Ray Headley was in the shadows, relieving himself under the canopy of an ancient magnolia tree, when Hogg and that young man walked out of the house and climbed into that monstrosity of a Buick.  He was just zipping up as Hogg crashed into the fellow’s little car. Ray-Ray shook his head in wonder when it happened again. He’d once worked for the DMV and he’d seen a lot of bad driving, but he’d never seen anybody have two wrecks before leaving his own driveway.

“Hide your wife and kids,” he thought. “It’s big Buick bumper cars out there.”

Ray-Ray was glad he’d had to pee, glad to be behind that tree. He could be fairly confident that he had not been seen by Hogg, whose vision was clearly not his greatest asset. Ray-Ray didn’t want to be here. He didn’t want to be anywhere near that guy. Slick Hogg was trouble.

Ray-Ray had worked at just about every department in city government. But now he was with the BCWA – the Bedford City Water Authority – which was infested with more rodents than any swamp he’d ever tromped. He had been instructed, ordered by his bosses, to come to Hogg’s home early this morning. He was told to park a quarter mile up the street, so as not to draw attention.

“If anybody sees you, you’re just marking water lines for later work,” his boss told him. “Or for mapping. You’re there for mapping.”

Ray-Ray didn’t need to ask questions and he didn’t want answers. Sometimes it’s better not to know. Even when you really know.

He’d arrived early, before the young man. He had measured and calculated and sprayed a blue X on the browning grass in the spot where another crew would dig. They would come later, also discreetly, also parking up the street, and reroute Hogg’s water line to bypass his water meter.

All so he could water his lawn as much as he wanted in the searing Southern Summer, during a drought when water was rationed and rates were higher than even the humidity. 

Ray-Ray knew how things worked. Hogg was a former county commissioner, a possible candidate for the state’s public service commission. He knew all the palms to grease, all the backs to scratch, all the dirty secrets of every gas, water and power utility in the region and every bond dealer and contractor likely to kick back a little of the take.

Hogg looked like a rat, dressed like a slob, lived in a nondescript house, drove that gargantuan car and pulled strings behind his curtain that nobody saw unless he wanted them to. He’d once been indicted for orchestrating a scam that misdirected – the federal grand jury said “converted for personal use” and the newspaper said “stole” – 27 air conditioning units meant for inner city elementary schools. He sold 21 back to the supplier and donated six to churches like his own, which needed cool air as it abandoned the city and moved to the suburbs. Eighteen people were convicted in that scheme, but Hogg beat the rap after five men of the cloth and one buxom blonde woman with a cross wedged in her cleavage testified that he was a god-fearing man who supported his church. No sweltering second graders had been asked to take the stand.

Ray-Ray knew Hogg had two obsessions: his ability to manipulate others, and his lawn. He was as nutty about his zoysia grass as his wife was about her pigs. Ray-Ray had been inside the house once, to replace the water heater at city expense, and he liked it just fine outside. Dead grass or not.

He watched Hogg careen away down the road, feeling sorry for that pale young man in the passenger seat. He waited to make sure they were gone before packing up his things. Ray-Ray hated people like Hogg. Best to steer clear of him.

****

Hubie Flynn felt Hogg’s tiny wet hands touch his back, and he flinched, prompting Hogg to laugh. A kind, reassuring laugh.

“Relax, there son, I just want you to see the expanse,” he said, his hand still on the young man’s shoulders. “Just look out there and imagine it all, covered in beautiful water. Lakeside houses will start at a million bucks.”

“But I don’t have a million dollars,” Hubie said. “And my family’s house will be at the bottom of the lake.”

“Well,” Hogg said, “I wouldn’t ask you to leave it.”

“You wouldn’t?”

“Of course not. It’s way too late for that anyway,” Hogg said. “But I’ll do you a special favor.”

“You will?”

“I will.”

With all the force he had in his rodentine paws, Hogg shoved Hubie in the back.

The young man hurtled off the trestle and into the abyss. Before Hubie hit the forest floor he had one final thought.

“What a jerk.”

Hogg had the exact same thought.