Hillbilly Heroin Read online

  Hillbilly Heroin

  A Novel by Lemay Marks

  Chapter 1

  My name is Garrett Benson, and I’m nothing special. The small, southern, middle Tennessee town of Lakewood doesn’t produce a lot of exceptional folks. We are what we are—rural, white, and mostly trashy. That being said, I’m going to share my story. It is a story that speaks of a sheltered boy who became a man out of necessity, not because he was ready for the transition. I went from a teenage boy chasing tail to placing my life and other people’s lives in disarray. But before I get started with details, I’ll tell you a little about my town, myself, and some of the people who surrounded me growing up. I hope this can begin to set the stage for what was to become one of the most difficult time periods of my life.

  Lakewood and the areas around it aren’t much to get excited about. Most people who envision the Tennessee countryside think of rolling hills of oak and hickory trees, or maybe creeks and rivers coating over the outer veins of the earth with clear, crisp water running over misshapen rocks. Folks might identify a small town nestled below the hilltops with an old City Hall building fringed by surrounding small brick businesses with mom and pop owners.

  This is not Lakewood. Lakewood and Walter County are set atop Cumberland Plateau. The whole area is stamped flat with corn, soybean, and tobacco fields camouflaging the brown dirt below with the occasional mobile home, overgrown yard, and tree patches. Lakewood itself is a product of greed, ignorance, and stubbornness. The township is not friendly to most outsiders and is run by a prominent few who only have their interests in mind. They’ve done everything they can to keep any outside industry from settling, and the residents never question their motives.

  The town square withered away over two decades ago, when the big box stores moved in one county over, and it never recovered. The square is just a piss-poor monument of what the town never was and will never be. Two highways cross in the center, and they are both four lanes leading nowhere. All you can see is the endless fast food restaurants, check cashing centers, and used car lots that have infected the strip.

  When I was a teenager, the only lifeblood the town had was a large union factory that made lawn mowers, but it, like everything else, closed its doors back in the early nineties and left a lot of broken families to pick up the pieces, which they could never do. The county and town were dying, but all the residents kept trying to clutch to dream that wasn’t there. It was plagued with poverty, and the drug trade started to flourish due to the high rates of unemployment. But this is all hindsight talking. I was unaware of all this at the time and just saw my town as another regular dot on the map. It wasn’t special, but it wasn’t that bad in my mind. However, I did think about leaving all the time. I wanted to see what else was out there.

  I never was much to look at, especially back when I was eighteen. I was tall, lanky, and wouldn’t weigh one hundred fifty pounds soaking wet. I had short, blond hair and a set of dark-blue eyes that my mother always compared to sapphires. I spoke with a deep and slow southern drawl through no fault of my own. I was just a product of my surroundings.

  I always thought my childhood was typical. My parents raised me by their three rules of life: mind your own business, make your own living, and live a quiet life. They did pretty well with those rules, especially the first one, because there was hardly anyone around growing up, outside of immediate family. We were kind of like hermits. I lived in this isolated space and didn’t have much intuition about what lay outside of it. I wasn’t a great conversationalist with new folks, or with anybody else for that matter.

  My parents always made sure my sister and I had the basic necessities in life, and we were all close knit, but we never really showed much affection to one another. So it always made me uncomfortable when I heard or saw other families doing that sappy shit. My parents were good people. They were just forced into their adult lives by a teen pregnancy—my sister—and I always felt like my sister and I were a burden to them, like they could have done more without us in the picture. But Momma and Daddy did the right thing and raised me and my sister to become contributing adults; we were just emotionally lost. I had turned eighteen just a few months ago, and I knew my parents were ready to cut the cord and put me to test of making my own living.

  It was June of 1999. I had just graduated high school the month before. My parents were proud of me because I was one of the few in the family who managed to complete the task. I had landed a good-paying job at a local machine shop. College was never a consideration for me. That sort of dream was never instilled in me growing up. The idea was to find a good job, work hard, and build a stable life. I was still living at home and had managed to save fair amount of money, in the neighborhood of fifty thousand dollars. That small fortune was from a combination of hard work in the tobacco fields of my parents’ farm and taking any odd job I could find growing up. I had no idea what to do with that money and never told anyone about it, not even my parents. Even with all that money, I was stuck in a standstill and had no idea on how to advance myself into the next step. I think I was scared to leave my home and take any chances, so I considered myself in limbo.

  I did have a girlfriend. We had been together for over two years. High school sweethearts would be the term. Her name was Jamie Benson. I know, I know; she had the same last name as me, but we weren’t related. I swear. I had taken a multitude of incest jokes about fucking my cousin over the last two years. She had actually moved here from Florida with her family about four years back when her father had landed a good job with an accounting firm about fifty miles away. Her family chose Lakewood because of the cheap real estate. Jamie was a little on the jealous side, but beautiful. She was just a little over five feet tall and had a thick, curvy body with short brown hair and blue eyes like mine. She also wore a lot of makeup, but I never thought she needed it. She was irresistible to me. I used to get boners in class just thinking about her body. Jamie had a little bit of a mean streak and could be possessive when I talked to other girls, but for some reason I liked it when she let that insanity out in the open. She had just graduated too and was beginning to pressure me into getting married. I just wasn’t sure that was what I wanted. Jamie was great and everything, but I didn’t like the sound of that kind of commitment. When she would talk about her dream—buying a small house and spitting out a couple of kids—I would completely zone out and fantasize about leaving my small corner of the world. I wanted to see what was out there, but I just didn’t know how to get started. I did love Jamie, and I didn’t think what she wanted was that far off base. A lot of our classmates had already married and were building a life together. I just couldn’t decide if that was what I wanted. I didn’t want to wind up like my older sister, who had struggled since her late teen years with marriage and kids.

  My sister, Carol Benson, was a piece of work. We looked just like each other, except she was short in stature and had long brown hair. She should have been born a man, because she was one crude bitch. She was five years older than me and already had ended her second marriage. She could not tolerate anyone for longer than a few minutes at a time, so I never thought of her as the marrying kind. Maybe it was because she was so damn mean. She’d just as soon whoop somebody’s ass than look at them. Carol and I hated each other when we were younger, but we had become close over the last couple of years. Sometimes people would try to run her down in front of me and want me to agree with them. But we were family; and I was taught family always comes first. I defended her honor a lot in small town like Lakewood and got my ass kicked many times because of it. She got married the first time at sixteen and had a couple of children. She always seemed to marry men with little boy mindsets, so they never could adapt to the daddy responsibilities. But Carol w
as book smart, and school came easy to her. She even managed to graduate high school and then go to nursing school and finish top of her class. She landed a decent supervisor job at a local nursing home.

  I didn’t have any real friends outside my family other than my girlfriend. I’d always had a hard time connecting with most people my age. My mother always told me it was because I was “born old,” so maybe that was why connections were hard to make. I was well liked by most people but always kept them at a distance to ensure they never got too involved in my business. I didn’t want outsiders in my affairs—only family. Family was blood; everyone else was just an afterthought. This sort of thinking would come back to bite me in the ass later, because I had never had much exposure to other people’s lives and how they lived them. Not really knowing other ways of life, I had a hard time deciphering the intentions of people, good or bad. This would put me in a world of hurt later.

  I had no idea what was in store for me in the next few months. If anyone would have told me the experiences I would undergo and the ethical lines I would cross, I never would have believed them. I had never really seen what evil was out there in the world. And who knew I was going to see it all in my hometown? I considered my life dull, but that was all about to change, and not for the good.

  Chapter 2

  It was a hot and humid afternoon in July of that year. Tennessee had been getting plenty of rain, so our tobacco crop was flourishing. Jamie had come over to the farm, and we took off on the four-wheeler out toward the tobacco fields. I loved our farm and spent a lot of time outside just admiring all the shades of green from the fescue fields encircling our place. We even had a slight drop-off on the back of the farm that was lined with tall oak trees on the high side and a little, natural spring flowing at bottom, surrounded by honeysuckle vines. Jamie and I would go racing up that hill on our way to the tobacco patch. As we would ride by the perfectly separated tobacco rows, I would envision piles of money. With a lot of luck and hard work, tobacco produced a nice payday at the end of the year. Of course, I also spotted hiding spots for Jamie and me. We loved to go out to the fields and ride up and down the rows to find a good hidden spot to do the nasty. That had become somewhat of a ritual for us during the summers while we were still in high school. And we both still lived with our parents, so places for private time were few and far between.

  “There’s a good spot,” Jamie said, pointing.

  “I see it,” I said. Then I pulled up against the tobacco row and shut off the engine.

  Jamie and I didn’t waste any time and fell right into sex. I laid out a blanket that we had brought. Then Jamie and I quickly undressed and began our sexual routine. We lay together on the blanket and kissed softly a few times while I slipped my fingers between her legs. Jamie never had trouble getting wet, so that gave me the impression that I was a sexual master. She then rolled over and buried her head and knees in the wrinkles of the blanket, while simultaneously arching her back and erecting her ass in the air for me to enter her from behind. I remember watching sweat beads roll off both side of her hips as I thrust back and forth. Every time my body slapped against hers, sweat would splash like creek water dripping from a rock up above. A few moments later, Jamie pushed her body upward and placed her back against my chest. I reached around and caressed one of her breasts while gently pinching her nipple. She let out moans of pleasure. I then reached down to feel her well-manicured trim and then used my hand to pull her deeper into me. I came rather quickly after that, all while the toppling tobacco leaves overhead kept us out of view. It was the best two minutes of my life.

  After we finished, we both quickly put our clothes back on and then lay back down on the blanket. We were both looking up at the clouds, and I could tell that something was bothering Jamie.

  “What are we doing?” Jamie asked assertively.

  “What are you talking about?” I responded.

  “We need to talk about our future and what we’re doing. I want to know when we’re getting married.”

  “I don’t know, Jamie. That’s a lot to think about.”

  “What the hell does that mean? You love me, don’t you?” she asked, more irritated.

  “Yes, I fuckin’ love you. Goddamn, Jamie, why can’t we just enjoy today?”

  “I don’t want to just enjoy today. I want to start planning.”

  “Planning what?”

  “Our life together, asshole.”

  “Jamie, I don’t want to talk about that shit right now. Let’s just go back to the house.”

  We both got back on the four-wheeler and headed back to my parents’ house. I could feel Jamie’s anger in her arms as she held on during the ride. We pulled up to the house and I parked over by Jamie’s car. She got off the four-wheeler and made her way to her car door.

  “I gotta go help Momma do some cleaning, but we are gonna talk more about this, okay?” Jamie asked.

  “Okay, we will. I’ll call you later,” I said.

  “All right, I love you.”

  “Love you too.” Then Jamie drove off.

  My parents were sitting on the front porch. They liked to sit out there in the evenings. The porch and the kitchen table were the places we would all sit together and have our visiting time. Our house was simple, but my father had built it himself. My mother would describe it as “rustic” because of all the raw and rough popular lumber inside and out. It was small, but it was home. As I made my way up the front porch steps to sit down, Daddy made eye contact with me and grinned.

  “Have fun crackin’ your cousin?” Daddy jokingly asked.

  “Sure did. I went balls deep,” I said with a smirked grin.

  “I hope you cleaned up afterward. Nobody likes a crusty pecker,” Momma chimed in.

  My parents and I had that sort of relationship. Even though they never really expressed much affection, I could talk to them about anything else, and they were okay with it. They were open about sex and never taught abstinence, just caution. Sex talk was never considered taboo in the Benson household, and they both loved to give me hell about Jamie having the same last name. We all used a lot of profanity too. My sister Carol was the worst. Carol could make anybody in the room red-faced with embarrassment just by opening her mouth.

  My father was a simple southern man. He made his living as a farmer and as a part-time mechanic. I never knew a smarter man. He was not a book educated man, but he could do almost anything and was a good provider for his family. He just never used his potential like he could have. He spoke with a deep and slow voice. He had thick black hair with a little salt mixed in, and it hung down to his shoulders. He was just over six feet tall and thin boned. His face was starting to show some mild wrinkling around the eyes, but they were intimidating, and if he ever glared at me out of anger, my gut would literally twist up in knots. Daddy didn’t like outsiders and made sure his family didn’t either. He never taught us to hate anybody, but he did teach us not to like anybody other than your own people. Never trust anyone.

  My mother worked as bookkeeper for a local well drilling business. She had brown frosty hair and was tall for a woman. She had put on a little extra weight throughout the years, but her height hid it. She wore thick oval glasses, because without them, she couldn’t see shit. She was smart too, like Daddy, and they got along really well. Momma saw the same threats from the outsiders as Daddy did but didn’t enforce the “no outsiders” rule as much. She grew up in an upper-middle class family and had lived in different places in Tennessee and Mississippi as a child. She knew there were more opportunities out there for her children, but she wasn’t entirely sold on the idea of my sister or me venturing out past what we knew, which was Lakewood.

  “Are you going to marry that girl?” Momma asked.

  “I don’t know, Momma. I wish people would just leave me alone about it,” I said.

  “Well, don’t lead the girl on. If you don’t want her, let her go. She’s a good girl,” Momma said.

  “I don’t know w
hat I want right now. I like being around her, and we got plenty of time. We don’t have to get married tomorrow.” I began to roll my eyes.

  Then my daddy chimed in. “Son, you need to find a big woman like your mother. Fat women will always love you harder. And if she leaves, who gives a damn?”

  “Shut up, asshole,” Momma fired back.

  And with that, we all got up and went into the house. I only had one more day before I had to start the work week, so I wanted to sit back and relax for the remainder. I had no idea what would happen the next day, and I didn’t know that it would begin a course of events that would change my life forever.

  Chapter 3

  The sun was beginning to peer through the trees and cast a light through my bedroom window onto my face. The light made my face hot and caused me to open my eyes, and I instantly smelled fresh coffee. I got myself together and then headed into the kitchen. Momma and Daddy were sitting at the table talking. That’s usually where I would find them most mornings. They were up before sunrise every day. I sat down at the table, and Momma poured me a cup of coffee.

  “We are going to ride down and see Carol and the grandkids. You wanna go?” Momma asked.

  “Nah, I think I’ll just stay here and watch TV,” I said.

  “Okay then. We’re about to leave. We’re going to go grocery shopping after we see Carol and the kids. We’ll be back later this afternoon.”

  “All right. See y’all later.”

  I took a long slurp of coffee from the cup and left it on the kitchen table. I walked back to my room and turned on the television. There wasn’t shit on TV that morning, so before I knew it, I fell back asleep.

  A couple of hours later, I was awakened by a familiar voice. I opened my eyes to Jamie straddling me. She stared at me, and it gave me the feeling that she was looking at me with pity. I was unclear why I felt that way. Jamie and I began to kiss and then one thing led to another. She stood up on the side of the bed and slipped off her jeans and cotton panties. Then she reached over and pulled off my underwear and threw them in the floor. I was already erect just by her kissing me, so I was ready. She immediately straddled my middle section and then guided my erection inside of her. I remember thinking how good the whole thing felt. We never broke eye contact during the encounter. I quickly climaxed as she was slowly swaying back and forth like a straight-backed rocking chair. It was another great two minutes of my life I’d never forget. After we finished, Jamie and I lay in the bed facing each other. She still was looking at me as if I my puppy had just died.