A Place Called Wiregrass (4 page)

When I walked through the door at eight-thirty that evening, I found the trailer pleasantly still. The only sound was the popping of the metal as it adjusted to the cool night air. Cher was spending the night at a new friend’s house, Laurel Krandle, who lived in a trailer across the Westgate driveway. After checking in with Cher, who actually seemed in good spirits, I unplugged the phone and slept the best I had in months.

My newfound rest was short-lived. I arrived at Miss Claudia’s the next day to find her actually sitting up at her kitchen table. That was good news. The bad news was she said my better half had been calling for the past hour. I licked my lips and ran my hand over the top of my pulled back hair. “Lord, I’m so sorry.”

“He’s an impatient thing,” she said and then sipped her coffee.

I wanted to ask if he was drunk, but then I doubted if she’d ever been around such behavior. Miss Claudia looked angelic sitting at her pine table in a cream robe with embroidered roses on the collar.

“You might as well call him. Richard’s still sleeping, and if there’s any straightening out to be done, I’d just as soon him not hear it.” She pulled at one of the little satin roses. “His nerves, don’t you know.”

I knew her own nerves were probably running on high, thinking my old flame was gonna come gun me down on her manicured lawn. Most likely, I’d fall over on top of one of her pink azalea bushes and shed blood on her concrete walkway. Then there’d be CNN and all the little ladies from First Methodist congregating after the unfortunate incident. Prune Face would probably stand over me clutching her purse and
shaking her head. “Pure D trash,” she would say and squinch her mouth up.

The living-room phone was the most private place for the butt-chewing I wanted to give Bozo. I sighed and entered the red-walled room. I almost couldn’t remember the phone number. But instead of worrying that it was the sign of some brain tumor or Alzheimer’s, I was relieved. One more thing I was forgetting about that place I once called home. He cleared his throat into the receiver and welcomed the caller.

“How’d you get this number?” I imagined icicles snaking through my voice to Cross City. I wanted to scream, but I knew Miss Claudia sat in the kitchen, glued to the edge of her chair.

“My grandbaby give it to me. Right after you left the house without fixing her no breakfast.”

Adjusted to Wiregrass or not, I’m gonna blister that girl when I get home. “She spent the night…Look, that’s none of your business. And don’t be calling here again. I mean it.”

“Don’t you tell me where and who…” He sighed. “Fine. I just got one thing to say to you. Either you get your tail back here by the end of the month, or I’m getting me a lawyer.”

I wondered if Bozo would get that quack who represented Suzette the first time she got arrested for dealing drugs. That man with long nose hair and a bright yellow tie that ended at the crest of his big belly. “Well, hallelujah!”

“Listen, I mean this thing. Me and your mama done talked it over, and she knows I’m—”

In the background at my former home, a female voice mumbled something about eggs. The clanking of a spoon hitting the frying pan rankled in my ear. I could hear Bozo trying to conceal the evidence by muffling the phone receiver.

Funny,
I thought.
He never tried to hide it before.
“Which juke joint did you find her in?”

“Don’t you never mind. Hey, I got rights, you know. Don’t you forget them adoption papers list my name as Cher’s daddy. I can get you for custody, gal.”

The one bullet I didn’t think he’d fire. I giggled, the type of giggle that said, “Kiss my butt” and “You’re an idiot” all in the same octave.

“And just what judge would put some thirteen-year-old girl in the same house with a wife-beating, whore-hopping drunk like you?” I was too loud with that one and was sure Miss Claudia heard every word.

But it worked. Bozo went off like a cherry bomb. “Hey…hey, she ain’t no…Hey…Hey…anyhow a man got needs. Any judge knows that. And how’s about you…”

“Send my best to your whore there. Tell her she better learn how to handle that frying pan, ’cause sooner or later she’ll need it.” I slammed the phone down as hard as I could.

He wouldn’t even think of fighting me over Cher. Not even Mama could go along with him on that one. The slightest chance made my heart race.
I’m stronger than this,
I reminded myself.
But what if he does fight and finds some crooked judge?
Lord knows Louisiana was full of them. I sat on the edge of the shiny black piano bench and tried to let my nerves settle. My breath grew deeper, and soon my heartbeat withdrew from the base of my neck. As I sat there looking at a painting of two brown rabbits, which hung over the phone table, I couldn’t help but wonder if this was how Richard felt during one of his nerve attacks.

With my head held high, I walked briskly back into the kitchen. Miss Claudia, standing with the help of her silver cane, was taping something on the refrigerator door. She did her best to act like nothing out of the ordinary had taken place. My attention was diverted by her upright position. She was much taller than I expected, and she shook her head as she smoothed out the edges of a piece of notebook paper.

I began pulling out the usual equipment for breakfast, and she sat back down at the kitchen table. When I turned to the refrigerator, I paused to notice the white paper with block letters: CLOSE!

“That’s not for you, sugar. That’s for Richard. He’s gonna run my electric bill sky-high. Can’t remember to leave that door shut for the life of him.”

I tried to smile and moved quickly to retrieve the frying pan. The clanking spoon against the frying pan in my old house drummed in my mind. Before I could close the cabinet, the black cast-iron tumbled to the floor. I scooped it up and mumbled an apology. Turning around three times, trying to remember where the eggs were, I suddenly felt lost.

“Eggs are right behind you, sugar.” Her smile was warm and comforting, like someone who wanted to keep a secret.

No, don’t fall into that trap
.
I’ve told her too much as it is. Lord only knows how much she heard.

“You’re just all to pieces. Come over here and sit down.” She patted the wooden chair like she was enticing a disobedient child to behave.

I was sure she was gonna tell me if I don’t leave my personal problems at the house, she’d have to let me go. My heart moved up to my throat again. I thought for sure she could see the pulsating rhythm in my neck. Flipping my ponytail over the base of my neck, I rested my hands on the table as if everything was hunky-dory.

Her eyes closed, and she sighed. “Some men just ain’t worth spit.” My palm flinched when she put her blue-veined hands on top of mine. She gazed out the kitchen window and shook her teased hair.

“I’m real sorry you had to hear all that.” I sighed, trying to find words to explain and at the same time censor the details of life in Cross City. “He just…I mean, it was just too much and finally…”

“You felt like you were just about to suffocate.”

I wanted to stand up and yell “Yeah” and go off on a testimony about Bozo and what a waste he had been in my life. But I just sat there, mesmerized by this woman who suddenly seemed foreign compared to her circle of friends who participated in the First Methodist sick-list parade. She stared at the blots of yellow and pink in the rose garden just beyond her window.

“Not many people know I was married before. Down in Apalachicola, Florida, where I was raised. Richard and Patricia hardly know a thing about all that. It comes to me now and then. Like just now when you were talking to that man.” She rubbed my hand, but never looked down. I knew the reprimand was just a few breaths away.

“My first one, Luther Ranker, was not good to me a’tall. If Daddy would’ve lived, things would’ve been different. I can still remember the salty sea smell on Daddy’s shirtsleeve. He’d come in from fishing after a long day and still find time to tussle around on the floor with me and my little brother, Jack Henry. He was only thirty when he came down with typhoid fever. I remember noticing that the dirt was still fresh on his grave when we buried Jack Henry next to him three weeks later. Mama and me cried and begged the Lord to give the fever to us. Mercifully, we were spared.

“I declare, Mama looked like a scarecrow when Old Man Maxwell came calling a month later. I never had any use for that man the minute I laid eyes on him. Well, for one thing, he was old enough to be Mama’s daddy. Old Man Maxwell thought he was something because he owned the mercantile with a bait and tackle shop on the side. I tried to convince Mama we could make it on our own. I was getting pretty good at shucking oysters, and Mama took in wash from some of the fishermen. But she said I was too young to be burdened with such. I never could get her to understand she wasn’t a
piece of property. And with his store and his land, Old Man Maxwell had the highest price.

“For a while me and my newfound daddy tolerated one another. I even liked working in his store. I learned all about fabrics and studied the latest styles in the Sears and Roebuck catalog. By the time I turned fourteen, I was making dresses for me and Mama. And if I say so myself, they looked just as good as mail order.”

I nervously chuckled and nodded my head in agreement, but Miss Claudia never drifted her attention away from the rosebuds outside her kitchen window.

“Directly, Mama had another baby. Little Madeline. Oh, she was just the sweetest thing you ever did see. After the store closed, I’d hurry and get my lessons done so I could rock her before fixing supper. I liked to pretend I was Madeline’s mama. Problem was, Old Man Maxwell pretended I was her mama too. One evening when Mama was still in bed recovering from the birthing, he made his intentions known.

“I was used to closing the store by myself, so I was surprised to look up and see Old Man Maxwell’s long, bearded face in the glass front door. The image disappeared as soon as I pulled the green shade down. But he had that musky scent, just like a water moccasin lets off before it strikes.

“When I began cleaning out the cash register, he moved in on me. I edged away from the cash register, still clutching pennies in my hand. His old, prickly beard rubbed against my neck. I yelled for him to behave, but he just kept on with it. I can still feel his dry tongue on my neck. I reckon it was reflex that made me throw those pennies as hard as I could at his baggy eyes. It was the first time anybody ever slapped me on my face.

“Poor Mama was so weak with anemia from having the baby that I thought it best not to talk about such things with her. I could fight him off, I decided that night with the covers
pulled tight over my sweaty head. The next morning over his runny eggs, I looked him dead in the eye and told him if he ever tried to touch me again, he’d be sorry. The dishes in the kitchen cabinet plumb vibrated from his laughing.”

Miss Claudia’s hand trembled when she adjusted her glasses. I was on alert, waiting for her to stop talking and go to crying—my cue to jump in and rescue her by changing the subject.

“Mama got better, but my situation sure didn’t. Whenever I’d try to mention his behavior, she’d just start chirping about how Old Man Maxwell saved us from the poorhouse. To keep away from him, I started working in the bait and tackle shop. I’d dig for earthworms, slice minnows, and put weights on fishing line, anything to keep away from that creature. In the process I ran right into another one.

“Luther Ranker was a regular in the bait shop. He owned two fishing boats and hired out three colored men to help him. Mama always said he tried to get by on his looks. He seemed sweet at first. Every day he’d come in the shop and tease me about us running off and getting married. I called him silly, handed him his minnows and new hooks, and sent him into the bay. Two months later I stood at the courthouse and promised to honor and obey him.

“I still remember the day I made up my mind to marry Luther. It was a hot morning. July, I believe. I was getting everything ready to open the shop, when the Old Man caught me by myself and pushed me to a corner where some nets were stacked. ‘I put a lot of money into you, girlie, and it’s time to pay up,’ he said. The bacon my mama had made him was still fresh on his breath. When I heard his zipper go down, my vocal cords dried up. I just…never thought it’d go that far. And my poor mama…just inside the store putting money in his cash register. If only I could’ve done…”

She squeezed my hand until the knuckles ached, her gaze
set far above the pink and yellow roses beyond the window. We both jumped at the slap of the screened kitchen door.

“We’re not having breakfast this morning?” Richard stared at the empty frying pan.

Miss Claudia quickly released my hands and dabbed the sweat beads on her forehead with a nearby napkin. A ghostly white imprint remained on my fingers.

“Umm…yeah, I’m getting a late start this morning.” I returned to my proper place at the frying pan and began melting the butter. Imagining the black coils as Old Man Maxwell’s beard, I slammed the pan on the eye of the stove. The loud bang made Richard turn towards me.

Miss Claudia casually patted her hair like she had walked through a gust of wind and smiled. “Sleep good?”

“Yes, ma’am. I did.” Richard joined her at the table and went over all the drama that had taken place in Wiregrass the night before—knowledge thanks to the police scanner that ran constantly in his garage apartment. “You never know when a good lawyer might be needed,” he reminded us this morning, like he did every time he reported a car wreck or burglary scoop learned from his faithful mechanical friend.

I eyed Miss Claudia real close, trying to think of some question to ask Richard in case she needed more time to gather herself. She gracefully propped her left hand on her chin. While Richard told of a fire downtown, she nodded her head in agreement, and the white rock on her left hand sparkled. He never realized she was sitting at the table for the first time since her fall. He just continued his 911 report, spoke of his need of prescription refills, and asked about his doctor’s appointment for the day. “Remember they changed the appointment to three o’clock,” Miss Claudia said with a point of her finger. The lady of the house was back where she belonged.