It's Not Like I Knew Her (36 page)

J
odie looked up from the line of wash she was hanging and spotted a county sheriff's vehicle turning onto the lane. Bad memories flooded back, and dropping the wet pillowcase into the basket, she hurried back inside to the rattling of the screen door. Red faked deafness to the deputy's persistent calls.

“Afternoon, Miss Jodie.”

“If you're here to deliver bad news, then you can stick that hat back on your head and get the hell away from here.”

They faced off, the screen door between them, while she more calmly measured his intent, and he surely did the same with her.

“Oh, no ma'am, it's nothing like that. You might say it's more of a special favor to Mrs. Hazel than anything official. That would be checking on her ailing daddy … that is, Mr. Red.” He took great pains to explain that nobody wanted any more trouble.

“Uh-huh, and I'd be the reason she can't do her own checking?” Until now, she'd thought of Hazel as an unfortunate pawn.

“I'm still going to need to talk to Mr. Red.” He stepped back, knocking over a potted geranium. “Shit … sorry about that.” He stooped and righted the pot, pushing spilled dirt over the porch edge.

“Hell, come on in. Satisfy yourself that I've got the poor, pitiful cripple hog-tied there on the couch, flat on his back, forcing him to sip whiskey and listen to Alabama football.”

The deputy, blushing under her scaling, stepped into the room. Red lifted himself onto an elbow, looked first at the officer and then back at her.

“Deputy Green's here to see your bedsores. So cooperate with his investigation by flipping yourself ass-side up.”

Buster lifted his head and growled.

“It's the uniform, sonny. He hates meddling lawmen.” Red dropped back onto the sofa and turned up the volume. Buster took up where he'd left off chewing the Bart Starr exercise ball Silas had given Red, believing it would strengthen his right hand. Jodie decided the near toothless dog was grateful nothing more was required of him.

The befuddled deputy looked to her for help. Although Red's speech was still slurred, his intent was clear. She walked out of the room, leaving the deputy to do Hazel's bidding.

Deputy Green drove away before the water for a fresh pitcher of tea had boiled. Jodie returned to the front room and Red waved an envelope addressed to Charles E. Dozier from Gregory K. Anders, Attorney at Law.

“That polecat boy left it. His duty, he said. Tell me what it says.” The pink in Red's cheeks had gone white as a lye-boiled sheet.

She read the letter and explained that it summoned him to appear day after tomorrow at Anders's office.

“You don't have to go. It's not like the judge sent for you.” Jodie tossed the letter onto the table. Red looked at her as if he weighed the merits of her argument.

“Maybe, but I'm tired. Want this mess settled.” He turned back to the excited voices on the radio, but she thought he'd lost interest.

Maggie had warned that this fight wouldn't be settled in the old ways of sweeter bribes or, that failing, with fists, knives, and guns. Red was up against a vengeful wife, an ambitious lawyer, and, if called upon, a judge who'd easily use the blunt end of the law to settle an old score.

S
unday afternoon, Jodie left Red sulking and walked along the road until she spotted a neighbor's house with a telephone line running overhead. Once inside, the neighbor proudly pointed her to the brand new olive green telephone hanging from a wall in the kitchen.

Maggie answered Jodie's call, and in the background Jodie heard loud barking.

“You got a dog?”

“God, no. It's Lassie tearing off after the bad guys.” Maggie had a long-standing infatuation with June Lockhart.

Jodie's remarks were brief, and Maggie kept her fuming down to a single burst of profanity, agreeing to drive them to the appointment.

Jodie walked back along the road, and at the familiar sound of Silas's truck approaching, she stepped onto the shoulder, allowing for regret should he choose to pass her by.

The truck slowed and he leaned, his face weary behind a week-old beard. “Where you headed?” The words were his, but his tone carried a strained distance.

“Nowhere.” She looked into the sun's glare, his features lost to her.

“What'd you say we go there together? Throw back a few cold ones. Maybe get a thing or two settled. I'm not much good at this new way of ours.”

“Beer sounds good.” She got into the truck and he smelled, not of his usual Mennen and gas fumes, but oddly of turpentine.

“Want to take a run over to our tree house? See if she's still hanging?” His mischievous grin wasn't there, but she felt him working at it.

They drove the short distance and sat staring up at the tree house they'd built her first summer in Catawba with a ceremonial exchange of blood, pledging to its secrecy. The tree house took a full summer given to pilfering and hauling boards, roofing tin, nails, rope, and tools to the site.

“I remembered it a lot bigger,” she said. It was a mere four-foot-square platform with three walls and a lean-to roof resting precariously across two flanking limbs of a giant live oak. A sheet of twice-used rusted roofing tin lay on the ground beneath the tree.

“That old ladder's apt to be rotted. You willing to try it?” His playfulness held only a faint slice of boyish challenge.

“Why not? Can't amount to more than a broken neck.”

“You go first. If it holds, I'll follow.” He winked.

They sat on the platform, legs dangling over the open side, neither finding words they trusted to talk about what had brought each there. When they had polished off the beers, he turned to her.

“I guess you want to know how it was I happened along on a Sunday afternoon when I'd otherwise be watching Bears football.”

“If you've brought me here to try and argue me out of what I said … it won't do any good. It's not like that—something to be fixed or taken back.”

“It's true I don't like what I heard. Understand it even less, but it's not about that.”

“What then?”

“I wanted you to know I pulled those boards off the bathroom doors and painted them over. I'm guessing those who don't like peeing together will pump their gas elsewhere.” Maybe it was his failed play on words, but his eyes bled a bolder conviction.

“What changed your mind?”

“Those little girls.” His voice broke.

“Not your girl?”

“Oh God, no. She's okay for now.” He looked to where the tree line met the horizon and shuddered. “Those four little colored girls. Murdered by some twisted sonsofbitches who figured they could put a stop to history by killing kids.” He spit into the air and wiped his mouth on his shirt sleeve. “News made it sound as if they'd just turned out Sunday school.” He paused, catching his breath. “Goddamn, Jodie. Sunday school. Picture those four crowded together in a bathroom, primping and giggling over boys. Younger than me and you the summer we built this tree house.”

Bitter bile had pushed upward from her stomach and Jodie felt dizzy. She moved back from the edge of the platform.

“That bomb blast blew out the walls, brought down the upper floor, and crushed those girls beneath the rubble.”

When Jodie trusted herself to speak without gagging, she asked, “Where was this?” Not that place mattered.

“Birmingham,” he answered, then more silence before he said, “If Kennedy, King, and the Klan mean to make this an all-out war using kid fodder, then it doesn't leave much wiggle room for us ‘go along, get along' folk.” He rubbed his paint-smeared knuckles and looked at her. It was the second time she'd seen such hurt in his eyes. She took his hand in hers and he leaned into her shoulder, whispering, “Jodie, this evil is way bigger than politics and the damn politicians who drive it. Don't know how many generations will need to die off before this meanness can right itself. You and me, we may not live to see it.”

“I sure hope you're wrong. About how bad and how long.”

He nodded, but she knew hope to be a sorry excuse for almost anything.

In the grip of a human world gone mad, they sat silently, breathing in the evil aftermath, its bitterness staying on their tongues.

Overhead, against a sky so pure, leaves danced to the musical whisper of a gentle breeze, and a chorus of unaware songbirds chirped. It was as though Mother Nature turned her face away in shame, damning all of mankind. What was perception without action but evil?

M
aggie parked the truck near Catawba's only bank and pointed out the '59 Chevy. She waited until Jodie had helped Red to stand on the sidewalk before declaring she didn't have the stomach for the upcoming travesty. She drove away, promising to return in an hour.

Jodie tightened her grip on Red's razor-sharp elbow and they walked toward a side entrance of the bank building. The lawyer's name on the glass was freshly painted in bold lettering that spoke of his recent arrival and his intent to make good.

The shabby carpet and secondhand furniture bore out local rumors that Anders had not arrived with buckets of family money, but that he had taken advantage of his college friendship with Walker Junior, acquiring a generous, co-signed loan from the bank. Jodie understood that Anders's indebtedness likely explained his willingness to take a case against Red, a man of some reputation, if mostly scandalous.

Sadie Slatmore sat behind a secretarial desk, expertly stroking the keys of a Royal electric typewriter. She wore an orange and white striped tent dress, and when she stood, it unfolded to a size sufficient to house a three-ring circus. She looked up and gave Jodie a smile that worked only her mouth, directing her office-friendly manner to Red. He took her hand and inquired about her husband and their three adult boys. She led him to a side chair, and Jodie detected what she thought was genuine concern. But it was Sadie that Maggie blamed for the gossip that had reached Silas.

A slender man with blond curls, dressed in a worn, dark blue suit and maroon tie, came from the office labeled
private.
He spoke politely, introducing himself. He helped Red stand while apologizing for bringing him out under the circumstances of poor health, declaring the matter before them could be resolved in short order. His tone was sincere enough, but Jodie was certain lawyers were trained to sound that way. Red and Anders disappeared into the office, and Jodie caught a glimpse of Miss Mary, tugging at her dress hem.

The office door had no more than closed before Jodie headed out. She was unwilling to chance coming eyeball to eyeball with Miss Mary. She crossed the street, cut through the weedy vacant lot next to Silas's station, and headed for the Flamingo Café.

The door opened to the dull jingle of three tarnished bells held together by a faded red ribbon, remnants from a Christmas long past. Two locals stopped talking and watched her. The blurry-eyed man at the counter was apt to be the driver of the big rig parked in the vacant lot. He didn't bother looking up from his pursuit of the young waitress who stood close. A beefy man wearing grease-stained coveralls stared; his curled lip spoke of his disdain for any woman who wasn't home changing diapers. Jodie matched his cold stare and he looked away.

The young waitress approached, the scent of her cheap Evening in Paris perfume preceding her. Jodie flipped the turned down cup and nodded toward the steaming pot in the waitress's hand.

“You going to want something more?” Her words slipped between her painted lips, and the powder blotched on her face failed to cover a rash of pimples. Her legs were bound in nylons, and she wore scuffed oxfords.

“A couple of plain doughnuts if you've got 'em.”

“They're yesterday's.” She spoke with a take-it-or-leave-it shrug, her weight shifted onto one leg, and Jodie remembered Crystal Ann had said women who lasted in the café trade learned to wear out one leg at a time.

“They'll do.” Jodie pulled a Lucky from the pack at her elbow.

“Can you spare one? Ran out an hour ago. And I can't leave out of here to get more.” She nodded toward Silas's station. “Boss hates women smokers worse than he hates women in general.”

Jodie pushed the pack across the table. “Take two. They burn fast.”

The girl slipped the smokes into her apron pocket, left, and returned with the donuts. She lingered, as though she waited for a verdict.

“Not half bad.”

The girl poured a refill, and she still remained. “You're the one ran off with that shiftless boy, way back, ain't you?”

“Where'd you hear that?” Jodie was careful to keep her surprise to herself. The girl would have been in elementary school.

“From bigmouth Deputy Green. Claimed he was out your way on business.” She leaned closer. “Knowing him, I'd bet it was an excuse to snoop.”

“Yeah, well, I'm still that fool. Why?”

The girl shrugged. “No reason. Just wondered, that's all.”

At the sound of the bells over the door, both Jodie and the waitress looked up.

Clara Lee Walker stood haloed against the sunlight pouring through the open door. She surveyed the café's patrons before moving in Jodie's direction. Her willow-thin body turned heads, and pride erupted from somewhere in the recesses of Jodie's younger brain.

The steaming pot poised, the waitress whispered, “Do you know her? She's the closest we got to a Peyton Place woman.” There was admiration in the girl's excitement. “I'm writing her story someday.”

“I did once … know her. Then, that was a long time ago.” Jodie wondered if the girl would dare to write her side of Clara Lee's story.

“Hello, Jodie. May I sit?” Clara Lee's voice caressed, and her smile still had the power to take Jodie's breath.

“Yes, but I can't stay long. Got business across the street.” Jodie glanced toward the front door, but her mind and body betrayed her words.