Lovesick (34 page)

I had no reply for that.

“What is it you want? A car? When I get the hospital bills paid, we can go look.”

“I told you I don't want a goddamn car.” His chair flung backward across the floor as he stood up and headed to the door. I hobbled behind him, but by the time I caught him, he was already at the van loaded with the flowers to take to the churches for Sunday services

“Then what?”

“I think we need to be partners here. That way I would know you was on my side and wasn't just going to turn me out. That you was loyal.”

I let you break my leg,
I wanted to scream.
I stood by and watched you shoot my dearest friend in the head. Doesn't that count for something?
I was trying not to think of what Roger had said to me: “He wants something from you. He will get it from you, too . . . or take it from you, and then he will be done with you.”

He closed the door on the van. “You just think about it. You just think about what could keep me coming back here to be with the likes of you.”

I must say, that wounded my vanity. I knew I should just walk back in the house, let things settle, but I was deep in the white water, paddling with all my might. “So, since you don't want to be with the likes of me,” I said, “I guess that means you will be keeping the van tonight.”

He didn't say a thing, just turned and backhanded me across the face so that I fell backward into the azalea bushes along the front of the shop.

“Where I go ain't none of your bidness,” he said. “Besides, you can't drive it, so if you ain't using it, then why shouldn't I? I make the deliveries in this pile of shit, and if it weren't for me it probably wouldn't even run. I don't need the grief. So you better watch it—if I wanted, I could just say you go and do all this yourself. Would you like that? No, I bet you wouldn't. I should be able to get something back out of it for myself.”

I thought about mentioning all the food, the clothes, the money that he had “gotten back,” but lying on the ground has a way of changing your perspective. So, I merely helped myself to my feet and walked back inside. I heard the motor start. Gravel flew as he sped out of the driveway. I hoped he would at least make the deliveries that were scheduled. I had a professional reputation to think of after all. I attempted to occupy myself with the notion that churches would be flowerless the next morning and how the congregations would react, but I knew it was only a game to keep my mind from settling on what was really wanting to claw its way into the center of my brain. I went to sleep that night for the first time hoping that Lonnie would not return.

5

I spent Sunday afternoon fielding calls from the local churches trying to explain why they had no flowers. I blamed the pain medication, said that I had been unable to work, should have called, so sorry. As might be expected, the Baptists were the most unsympathetic.

“We had an agreement, Mr. Vale. Do I need to remind you? Our members expect flowers on Sunday morning. Especially in the winter. It brightens the sanctuary. You should know, the early worship service was ruined because of it—ruined. Dot Owens went home during Sunday school and brought in a potted plant just so we would have something to put on the altar for color. It wasn't right.”

“I am so sorry,” I said. I did not want to have another fight. I just wanted to be left alone. “I will do whatever it takes to make it up.”

“What you can do is never let it happen again.” And then the click of the phone.

In my experience, despite their unbending belief in eternal green pastures and streets of gold, Baptists are a pretty angry lot.

Neither Lonnie nor the van showed up on Sunday, and I thought about reporting it stolen, but I knew that would just sound foolish since Lonnie had been driving the van all over the county for months. The same was true on Monday, and I decided not to open the shop. Joe Boggs had called early in the morning to see if I had any knowledge of where Lon might be. Lon wasn't now just gone from me, he was gone all together, and I made myself sick with worry. There was no way I could bear to deal with the likes of Joanne Jackson or any flowerless Baptists who might want to pay me a visit.

I started a hundred chores and abandoned them almost as soon as I had begun, unable to focus my attention on anything except
Where is Lonnie? When is Lonnie coming back? Will Lonnie come back?
Then, about midafternoon, when I was lying down to rest, I heard a car pull into the driveway. I knew by the crunch of the tires on the gravel that it wasn't the delivery van, and I almost didn't go to the door when they knocked. But when Lon called out, “Hey, M.R.—you in there?” I sprang from the bed as quickly as my broken leg allowed. When I answered that I was coming, I could hear Lonnie whispering to someone. He wasn't alone.

I opened the back door to the porch and was astonished to see Lonnie standing with his arm draped over the shoulder of none other than Drexel Smith. From the looks of them, it had been a hard weekend. I wasn't sure if they were drunk or high; the neck and armpits of Lonnie's shirt were ringed with sweat, and his pupils were large black dots in his brown eyes. Drexel shifted his weight from one leg to the next dancing to his own internal rhythms. He chewed on his fingernail as if scared of how I would react to him standing at my back door.

“What was you doing sleeping in the middle of the day?” asked Lon, as he walked past me into the kitchen and opened the fridge, taking out two beers.

“Not sleeping. Resting,” I said.

“You sure you wasn't pounding the pud,” said Drexel, holding his right hand at his crotch and shaking his wrist back and forth.

Lonnie uncapped the longnecks and handed one to Drexel. “M.R., you remember Drexel here, dontcha?”

“Sure he remembers me.”

“Yes, I remember you, Drexel. What I didn't know was that you had gotten out of prison. I thought you were gone away for three years.”

“Well, you know how that works. It was my first offense and they labeled me with manufacturing instead of possession because of the fire. But because most of the evidence burned up, they couldn't stick it to me very hard. Plus, I ‘accepted responsibility for my wrongdoing and sought out drug rehabilitation on the inside. ' ” At the last comment, Drexel put his hands together like a penitent. But he seemed unable to stop himself from talking. “Yessirree, I was a fucking model prisoner. I been back a couple of months now,” he continued. “I bought me a camper van and parked it out where the trailer burned up. You should see it. There's still just a pile of burned-out shit sitting there. No one even hauled it off. And as long as the lot was empty, I figured I might as well settle back in for as long as I needed to be here.”

“So, you're not back for good, then,” I said. I didn't know whether this was a good sign or a bad one.

“Hell no,” Drexel hooted. “We plan to get shed of this place as soon as we can.”

“Shut up, Drex,” Lon interrupted. “You're on one of your talking jags and just spilling over like a plugged-up toilet.” Lonnie drained his beer in a gulp, then reached in the fridge for more. “M.R., why don't we step into your parlor where we can all relax a bit. Me and Drex got something to talk over with you.”

I had turned Mother's old bedroom into a den so I could have a place just to watch TV. It ran along the side of the house, and as we entered, I couldn't help but notice the nearly new Cadillac they had driven. I wondered whether they had traded the van for a new car but knew that was impossible. Besides, the car looked familiar to me. It took a moment for me to realize that it was Laverne's missing car. I can tell you this, it did not give me comfort to know that Drexel and Lonnie had sequestered the car—probably out at Annabeth's abandoned lot, waiting until they were ready. For what, I could only imagine. This meant that they had not just run into one another or recently met. Roger had been dead for over a month—they had known each other before his death. This had been planned.

I dropped to the couch, wondering what Lonnie had in store for me. Would he bring out the tire iron again, or would he just shoot me and be done with it like he had Roger? He sat in the recliner where I had serviced him so many evenings; but instead of putting his hands behind his head, he leaned over to make sure he had my full attention. It wasn't typical for Lonnie to be so intimately engaged, and I wondered whether he was trying to help me relax or if he wanted to intimidate me. Either way, he had my complete consideration. Meanwhile, Drexel stood in the doorway doing his own private jitterbug.

“M.R., you remember the talk me and you had the other day.”

“Yes,” I said. “Very well.”

“You remember that you was wanting to know what you could do as a favor to me for helping you out around here.”

“That's not quite the way I remember it,” I said.

Lon sat back and sighed. “Well, whatever,” he said. “I seem to recall there was some discussion about what you could do for me.”

“Yes, you know I only want to make you happy. But this frightens me. I am not sure what you want. Or what it means when you show up to the house—not alone.”

“It means he may have other friends besides you,” chirped Drexel. “Me and Lonnie known each other a long time. Longer than you. I known him before we was together on the inside even.”

Lon held his finger up in warning. “I told you, Drex. Stop running your mouth. Let me talk to M.R. here.”

Drexel leaned against the doorjamb and sulked.

“Anyways,” Lonnie continued, “I was thinking about your offer of what you could do to help me out, and I thought about all what you got here that don't belong to nobody else but you. And so I thought maybe it was about time you and me became partners.”

To be honest, there was one fleeting moment when I wished that what he meant by partners was that he wanted only to use my store as a place to sell drugs, that I would launder money for him, let him use the van to make deliveries, but even as I considered that, I knew it was not even a remote option.
Crash, bam, boom. Would he break my neck, throw me down the cellar steps, blow my head all over the shop window?

“Partners. In the business.”

“Yeah, me and you. You can make the flowers and I can deliver them. And we can split the profits.”

It couldn't be that simple I knew, so I followed the trail to see where it would lead. As it turned out, the path was a short one with a cliff not too far beyond. “Of course, we would have to have an agreement, so it would be legal and everything.”

“A contract, you mean.”

“Yeah, but just one that we could write out together that would say we were partners. We wouldn't need to go to no lawyer or anything. Just sign it and date it and it would be an agreement.”

“And what would I be agreeing to?” I asked.

“Like I said, that we would be partners here in the business. In everything. Like the house and everything.”

Crash. Bam. Boom.
It became crystalline clear. It wasn't the business Lonnie was interested in. It was more than just wiping out the bank account. It was also the house. In the same way Drexel had acquired Annabeth's trailer, Lonnie wanted to acquire the house. I watched Lonnie's eyes dart back and forth across my face so quickly that it appeared as if they were vibrating. I wondered how it would feel to die.

“So, what do you say, M.R.—you think you could see your way into cutting me in?”

“Lon, this is a conversation we should have in private.”

“I told you I known him even before you did,” Drexel declared.

I looked at Lonnie as hard as I could. “Is he a part of this?” I asked.

“I'm here, ain't I?” Drexel held his arms wide as if I might not have noticed him before.

“I told you to keep quiet!” Lonnie shouted. “I am handling this.”

“Lonnie, you will not get away with this. Do you think I don't know what you will do if I open my bank account to you, sign my business, my house over to you?” I turned my attention to Drexel. “I'm not like Annabeth Owensby. People in town know who I am. They would be suspicious.”

Drexel sneered. “They wasn't so interested in your friend when he bit it. And he was a lot more popular than you are.”

“And then what?” I asked.

“Surely you two don't plan to set up house here and run the store?”

Drexel let out a belly laugh. “Can't you see it, Lon? You can pick the flowers and I will put 'em in the jars.”

“They're called vases,” I said. I wanted to add
you moron,
but knew the thread was extraordinarily thin, and I was dangling with no safety net. They hadn't just come in and killed me. They could have done that, but they knew they needed my signature on a document that gave Lonnie ownership of my life.

“Whatever,” said Drexel. “I told you we're getting shed of this place.”

“So, what do you say?” asked Lonnie.

“No, Lonnie. I say no. No. No. No.” I could hear my voice pitching up and I knew he could hear the panic and fear.

“You know I can make you do what I want,” he said.

“Are you saying you can hurt me?” I pointed at my bandaged foot. “We both know that is true. And I also know that no matter what I do you're going to hurt me, so might as well get it over. Besides, how would you explain bruises and more broken bones when the police ask you to explain my signature? I have lived here all my life. I wouldn't just disappear. You will need a body, and it better look natural because the spotlight will turn on you both. There is some money, probably not as much in the account as you think.”

“Nearly forty thousand last time I looked,” he said.

He had been looking at my bank receipts. What else did he know? I took a gulp and kept talking. “That would only get you so far. It will take time to sell all of this. You can't think there won't be questions.”

Lonnie and Drexel exchanged a look. I wasn't sure what it meant. Was I making sense to them? Lonnie stood, motioned Drexel toward the kitchen. “M.R., you sit for a moment. I need to talk to Drex. And don't try nothing stupid like trying to run away. You know we'll just catch you.”

“Why are you doing this?” My voice trembled and I struggled not to break down.

“It's bidness,” he said. “Bidness. And I plan to get what's coming to me.”

I could hear them talking in hushed voices from the kitchen. I was happy to think that I had thrown a wrench into their plans, bought myself some time. If I had known what was to come, I would have asked them where to sign. Offered to have the document notarized for them. But I didn't know what was to come. I only knew I was scared and didn't want to die. Winter shadows were beginning to fall across the room, and I wondered what would happen if I managed to escape and hop down the street on my good leg screaming bloody murder. Would they arrest Lonnie and Drexel Smith? Would they both come back one night and finish what they had begun? Besides, Lonnie was right. It was a long way to the front door, which was locked and bolted. I would never make it outside before Lonnie grabbed me.

In a few minutes, Lonnie and Drexel returned to the den. “We're gonna take us a ride, M.R.,” said Lonnie. “You got to know I am serious here.”

“I'm not doubting that,” I said. “But I am just as serious.”

Drexel plopped down on the couch, obviously preparing to stay while we ‘went for a ride,' but Lonnie would have none of it. “Have some sense, Drex. You can't be here. Whatcha gonna do? Sit here in the dark? What if somebody sees you here? Besides, you got some cooking to do. I'm going to drop you off at your place. M.R. and me will get this figured out on our own.”

Drexel pouted, but complied. And with that, we piled into Laverne's Cadillac like three good mates off for an evening out and drove away. I didn't bother to lock the door behind me.