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    “So this man walked into the Shop Shop,
pulled out a boombox, played some music-“
     
    “Some new wave faggot music,” the man
said, then spat chaw-juice onto his own boot. He glared at it with
disapproval.
     
    “Played some music, and left. Then the clerk
jumped over the counter and beat the victim to death? Just like
that?”
     
    “Just like that,” the man agreed. He
squinted at Helms’ badge again, like he couldn’t believe what he
was seeing.
     
    “So what did this man look like?” Helms
asked, not looking up from her notebook.
     
    “Like some sort of communist hippy liberal
pussy. Or something. I don’t know, I can tell you he didn’t vote
for The Gipper, that’s for damn sure.”
     
    Helms glanced up from her notes and fixed
the witness, one Jeremy Boont, with a questioning stare.
     
    Boont winced a little, spat more chaw, and
stared off at his truck like he thought that description should
suffice.
     
    “How tall was he?” Helms prompted.
     
    “I don’t know. Not very.”
     
    “What color was his hair? His eyes?”
     
    Boont leaned in close to Helms, his gut
pushing her notepad back into her writing hand.
     
    “What do I look like to you?” He asked,
slowly.
     
    “Excuse me?” Helms took a step back. Thought
that might have been a mistake: Probably should have stood her
ground and made him back off.
     
    “I look like some kind of faggot to you?”
Boont asked.
     
    “I…I don’t…”
     
    “Like I just stand around, gazing at men’s
hair, lookin’ deep into their eyes. You think that’s what I
do?”
     
    “So you didn’t notice anything at all about
the man with the boombox?”
     
    “I noticed -- and you can write this down
now, this here’s my statement: He looked like he didn’t vote for
Reagan, and sucks cocks in a rest stop bathroom. That’s all I saw.
Where I’m from men don’t look at other men, and if they do, they
sure as hell don’t see ‘em. That’s faggot business.”
     
    “So you couldn’t tell me what your own daddy
looked like?” Helms asked.
     
    “You sayin’ my daddy’s a faggot now,
lady? Are you kiddin’ me? Who’s tellin’ you I’m gay for men,
huh? Who’s been spreading lies? I tell you, I find who’s been
sayin’ this stuff, I’m gonna stick my gun up his ass and fuck him
with forty four calibers.”
     
    “See, now that sounds kind of
gay…”
     
    “WHAT?!” Boont reared back, like he was
going to deck Helms, but Officer Price stepped between them and
stared him down.
     
    Boont returned the glare for a minute, but
ultimately broke. He spat chaw, in what he probably thought was a
defiant gesture, and looked at his truck again.
     
    “That’s all I got to say,” he finished.
     
    “Why don’t you and your buddy get on outta
here before we break out the breathalyzers, all right?” Price
said.
     
    Boont coughed, pulled up his belt and
adjusted his worn baseball cap – Federal Booby Inspector, it said –
before leaving. Made a big show of taking his time about it.
     
    When he and his buddy finally made the truck
and pulled out, tires squealing, of course, Price turned to
Helms.
     
    “You get anything useful out of the other
one?” She asked him.
     
    “I asked if the suspect had any scars or
distinguishing tattoos. He asked me if I thought he was a faggot,”
Price answered.
     
    Helms laughed.
     
    “The bible-thumping hicks in this town, I
swear to god.”
     
    “That’s not fair,” Price said, “it’s got
nothing to do with this town or the bible. I’ve known Jeremy Boont
since 6 th grade. His daddy owns a furniture company that
makes fancy wicker chairs and such. Sells ‘em to yuppies on the
west coast for thousands of dollars. Drives a bright yellow
Porsche. Boont isn’t some poor uneducated bible-thumper; I’m some poor uneducated bible thumper -- he’s just a dipshit.”
     
    “Look, if it walks like a hick and fucks its
sister like a hick, I’ll call it a hick,” Helms