Frank Dixon - Home

Frank Dixon

I better tell you about him and there just ain't no better way of telling you then through the story of when Frank became a widower. Probably the best day of his life, knowing him. I think he took it as no more than, being newly single. Shelly Nelle, his now late wife, ran the little cinder block store out the Becklen highway. It was a solid little box of a store. A grey box, with a rusted tin roof just shy of flat. It had one faded green steel door and no windows. She kept her cooler filled with three kinds of beer, all versions of Budweiser, milk and hoop cheese. There were two long pegboard rack shelves between the cooler and the cardboard table that stood for the cashiers counter. Summer time sort of half way filled the shelves with tomatoes, peas and corn. Nothing ever filled the pegs on the racks. Candy bars littered the cashiers table, aimlessly piled and without tether or restraint of any kind. The register, which had to be made of God's own iron, sat caving in a metal, two drawer file cabinet. Both drawers held a concrete block, the only support keeping the register from crunching the cabinet like a Coke can. Behind the table a wooden clock hung catawampus by one screw drilled into the block wall. The second hand of the clock revolved around the likeness of Waylon Jennings, the minute and hour hands stuck permanently in a two o'clock salute to the legend himself.

Shelly Nelle was meaner than Frank Dixon could ever be. Frank hated her for that. And a bushel's worth of other traits, I reckon. The general public figured her to be friendly enough, but Frank figured her to be no less than a cousin of Satan himself. He helped her on Mondays. Restocking the beer cooler, checking inventory (which was merely a sweeping glance around the building and a nod), sweeping the front stoop, and such as that. Frank bitched fairly often about Shelly Nelle's sanitation rules. "Why in all hell do we sweep the front porch woman? You ain't never even mopped the inside once. Not in thirty god damn years, you ain't mopped it."' he would say. And he was right. The floor of the store had never been damp. A dry dusty concrete bottom, inviting only long enough to get your goods and get out. That's how Shelly Nelle wanted it. "This ain't no loitering pot Dixon. Just keep the porch swept and shut your damn mouth about it. I'magine this floor'll get mopped 'for you is take a decent bath. Which is to say, fucking never!"

For some reason, most can't figure out, Frank would always cower to Shelly Nelle. She wasn't all that big, and he wasn't all that timid. As a matter of fact, he was generally believed to have been mean as a cussing hornet and had been within a few paces of at least three dead men over the last decade or so. And I don't mean being near them in a reading over'em sort of way. All in the same, he minded Shelly Nelle right on and never raised a hand to her.

She did well with that store. Not well enough to give Frank a dime of the profit though. She did pay him however. $4.75 an hour, a round half dollar above minimum. And you better believe she reminded him of that fact every time she wrote his check. "Paying you more than you're worth, that's for damn sure. Fifty cent more than I am required, and a damn whole four dollars more than your worth." She'd say, all hateful like. He wondered why she even wasted the check on him. She could've just paid more on the house bills, or hell hired somebody else. But nope, every damn Friday, he had to go up to the bank, look the teller in the eye and cash the pitiful check that his own wife wrote him. Sitting there watching the teller count his bills to him in about three seconds, thanking him for his business. 'What fucking business?' he'd think.

As I said, he hated Shelly Nelle. Hated her something awful. Most knew it. Nobody had a clue why he worked his shifts for her still. She was as cold as the beer cooler her lone sign boasted about. For Frank to tell it, they had sex the night before their wedding and never again. Thirty-four years prior. Most everybody knew that too.

Maybe due to the lack of spirit in Shelly Nelle's panties or just to whatever other hell he was accustomed to, Frank Dixon walked through life with a conscious aloofness. Nothing worked him up much. Sure, he'd been in his fair share of nastiness. But he figured he'd done some good to, if by nothing more than just sitting still. I reckon he figured he was not the finest of men, and he counted on the fact that there were worse out there than him.

None of that changed the morning he found Shelly Nelle bloodied and spilled onto the floor of her store. She hadn't come home Sunday night, and he hadn't much cared. Matter of fact, he cared so little that he never thought that she might have been in trouble. When he came in Monday morning to start sweeping, he noticed the door busted out and that damn register tipped over onto the floor. Walking in, he smelled the blood. Her body lay twisted and gored. "She's near empty of herself" he said aloud.

Frank looked around a minute and then walked back to the cooler. For the first time in thirty years, he took out a Budweiser and opened it without paying for it. He took a sip, looked at the can, and then tipped the whole thing back. Finally, after ripping off a symphony of burps, he walked over to the phone and called the Sheriff's office.

"Gerald in?" he asked when Linda, the sheriff's secretary answered.

"I'm sure he is Frank, but I doubt he will want to talk to you." She said, knowing the two brothers didn't have much for each other.

"Tell him Shelly Nelle's been killed. I'm at the store." He said and gently hung up.

Frank had finished the six pack he pulled from the cooler by the time Sheriff Dixon pulled onto the gravel in front of the store. The brothers had never liked each other, but the dislike never crossed over to hatred. Avoidance and ignorance was their mutual stance. Sheriff Dixon walked into the store and looked down at Shelly Nelle's body and then up at Frank. His eyes counted the beers and then surveyed the store.

'What the hell happened Frank?" he asked.

"Well you're the Sheriff, so I don't want to butt in much, but I'd say somebody has killed Shelly Nelle, Gerald."

The sheriff cut Frank a sideways eye. "I can see that she has been killed Frank. You don't have any idea what happened?"

Frank walked, sort of off kilter, back to the cooler, fetched another six pack, and tossed one to the sheriff. "Well. She didn't come home last night and I found her here this morning, just like this. Register's busted. I reckon someone came in and robbed her. She more'n likely raised all hell at whoever it was and they killed her for it. What do you reckon?"

Sheriff Dixon sat the unopened beer down on the counter.

"Well shit Frank, it looks to me like bad news for you. You call for me this morning without reporting she didn't come home last night. Then I get out here and you're three sheets blowing, acting like your pretty ok with the fact your wife, now tardy for her duties, is pretty well painted all over this damn store."

He looked into Frank's eyes knowing good in well Frank hadn't done what he was asking him. "Did you kill her, Frank?"

Frank Dixon opened another beer, stepped overShelly Nelle and sat down on the one metal folding chair behind the cardboard table. He looked down at her thoughtfully. "It's a shame. Floor ain't never been mopped. She would've wanted to keep it that way. Gerald, I reckon she would've preferred a stranglin."