Thoroughly 03 - Who Invited the Dead Man? (10 page)

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Authors: Patricia Sprinkle

BOOK: Thoroughly 03 - Who Invited the Dead Man?
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“In Darren’s case, it’s dye,” I informed Hiram. “It washes out. Since I’ve known him, his hair has also been pink, orange, red, and green. I think he mostly does it to see what other people will say. If he let it grow out, it would be as dark as yours.”
Hiram shook his head and spat at a nearby tire. “You all just don’t get it, do you? You just don’t get it.” He trudged away with the heavy tread of a man who alone in the universe knows the truth.
Charlie Muggins walked me to my car to make sure I got in it without causing another scene. I greeted Leon and, without thinking, handed him a dollar reward for guarding my car.
Charlie grabbed my elbow. “You giving that kid a bribe, Judge?”
“He’s twelve years old, Chief. What am I supposed to be bribing him to do?” But I knew he was right. Public officials can’t hand money to people on the street. In the past Joe Riddley would have walked on to the car and I’d have slipped Leon a dollar. Once again, the pain of Joe Riddley’s accident sliced clear through me.
“Sorry, Leon. I can’t give you that now, but it you stop by the store tomorrow and talk to the woman at the register, she’ll have something for you then.”
“You don’t owe me nothin’, Judge.” Leon gave a flick of his hand. “You keep my folks from hittin’ each other, and we’ll be even.” As he pedaled away, I wondered how many other children in the nation would gladly do a favor to keep their parents from fighting.
Charlie stood by the car while I loaded groceries in my trunk. I didn’t expect him to set down his groceries and help. Charlie wasn’t known for kindness to women. Ask his former wife, spirited out of town by a preacher after one too many visits to the emergency room.
“Who was that feller back there?” he asked as I hefted in paper plates and plastic cups.
“Hiram Blaine. He’s been gone four years. Just got back this week.” I put my last bag in the trunk and slammed it shut. “I wish he’d given up that alien nonsense while he was gone.”
Charlie turned, ready to go. “If you all stop paying attention, he’ll soon give it up.”
Maybe Charlie was right, for once. I vowed I’d start ignoring Hiram when he talked about aliens.
 
Thursday, I missed seeing Gusta and Meriwether cruise into town. Joe Riddley and I were at occupational therapy, where they were trying to get him to scramble an egg. “I’ve been trying the very same thing without success for forty years,” I told the therapist after their third failure.
Joe Riddley wasn’t cooperating one bit. “Little Bit and Clarinda do our cooking,” he raged. “I wash the dishes.”
“Scrambling eggs teaches the brain how to sequence again,” she explained. “Each step has to be done in order.”
“Wouldn’t washing dishes teach him the same thing?” I suggested.
She gave me the look medical people always give dumb family members who come up with alternatives to their professional methods. “We learn to scramble eggs.”
“Good luck.” I left them to fight it out and wandered over to physical therapy to watch Darren. He was trying to persuade a woman who’d fallen and broken her hip that she wouldn’t fall again if she walked on the parallel bars. I sat in a chair at one side admiring the way he could cajole or tease people into doing what they should. Darren handled Joe Riddley far better than I, and I’d been honing my skills nearly sixty years.
About the time the woman took her first hesitant solo steps and Darren and I erupted into spontaneous applause, Gusta’s old black Cadillac rolled into town with Alice at the wheel and the other two in the backseat. A stack of boxes sat between them while a mountain of boxes filled the passenger seat beside Alice.
Joe Riddley decided after therapy he wanted to go by the store for a while. “Write it in my log,” he said, handing me the book.
“You write it,” I told him. He had so much trouble writing in those days, just writing “go to store” kept him occupied the whole trip.
When we got there, everybody was talking about the boxes Gusta and Meriwether had brought back with them. Gusta was too stingy to buy souvenirs, and Meriwether had always been on an allowance on previous trips, so they normally returned with little more than they had taken. “It took nearly half an hour to carry everything in when they stopped by Meriwether’s house,” one of my clerks reported. “What you reckon she’s bought?”
“I guess we’ll know soon enough,” I told her.
Only Joe Riddley had a sensible suggestion when I mentioned it to him. “Finally found her wings,” he said in his deliberate way, settling himself more comfortably in his chair and hanging his red hat on its hook by the desk. “Feathering her nest the way she wants it.”
Speaking of feathers, later that afternoon I ran into Hiram and Joe again—and got my first and only chance to live up to my resolution to ignore Hiram when he got hipped up about aliens.
I needed to make a bank deposit, and Joe Riddley insisted that a clerk wheel
him
over and let him do it himself. I was trying to let him do anything he thought he could, and since he didn’t have to do anything more complicated than hand a locked fabric bag across the counter and wait for a receipt, I decided to let them go without me. Seemed like more practical occupational therapy for him personally than scrambling eggs. But like a mother whose child is playing in the yard alone for the first time, I stood on our sidewalk, watching until they got inside. As I was finally turning to go, Hiram came sauntering down the sidewalk. Joe rode the Yarbrough’s cap like a figure-head.
“Not to worry,” the parrot greeted me with what looked like a shrug of his wings. “Where’s Joe?”
I was startled, wondering if he remembered Joe Riddley. My husband always liked that parrot. They’d talk back and forth whenever Hiram came by the office, and Joe would hop off Hiram’s arm and onto Joe Riddley’s shoulder. “My namesake,” Joe Riddley called him, after Hiram allowed as how he’d actually named the parrot Joe Riddley before Helena made him shorten it to Joe. We all knew darned well the name was to spite Joe Riddley; he’d just fined Hiram for painting a purple stripe down Oglethorpe Street one night. Hiram got the parrot the very next week. Joe Riddley always acted like it was an honor to have a parrot named for him, which took the air out of Hiram’s tires.
That afternoon, I ignored the parrot and greeted the man. “Hey, Hiram. You doin’ all right?”
Hiram’s grin was full of crooked yellow teeth except for that one unexpected hole. He stuck out his hand, but before I could take it, he jerked it back and stuck it in his jeans pocket with a very red face. “Hey, Mizzoner. How’s the judge?”
“If you mean Joe Riddley, he’s over at the bank. He’ll be back in a minute.”
He shuffled his feet. “Think I could speak to him? I really hated to hear ’bout his accident. Feller who did that ought to be—”
“If you’re about to use foul language, I don’t want to hear it,” I warned him.
He shrugged. “Well, it oughta happen, anyway. I want to tell the judge personal-like that they’s no hard feelin’s ’bout him signin’ that warrant. He was doin’ what he had to, and I know that.” His daddy raised shiftless kids, but his mama raised polite ones.
“You can speak to Joe Riddley in a minute. He’s just gone over to the bank.”
“I’ll do that. I surely will.” He peered toward the bank, then gave me an anxious look from beneath the brim of his unspeakable cap. “You think you all might have some work I could do? I been workin’ steady up in Atlanta, but I ain’t found nothin’ ’round here yet.” He jerked his head back toward the corner. “Went down to the paper t’other day to see if they might need a story or two ’bout how to prepare in case of alien invasion, but that new feller—” He stopped and spat angrily into a clump of grass.
“Not to worry. Not to worry,” Joe reminded him.
I felt a stab of pity. It’s not always easy to come home. “You know how to use a riding mower, don’t you?”
He nodded eagerly. “Yes, ma’am, Mizzoner!”
“I could use somebody to mow our yard tomorrow morning. We’re having a birthday party for Joe Riddley Saturday, and I’d like everything looking nice. Could you come by early tomorrow?”
“I sure could. Sure could.” He bobbed his head like it was going to fall off. “I’d like to do something for Hizzoner to show I bear him no malice—”
“I leave by eight-thirty, so you’ll need to be there before then,” I warned.
“I’ll be there before eight. I surely will. Thankee, Mizzoner. Thankee.” He stuck out his hand again, then jerked it back to his pocket before I could be so foolish as to shake it.
“Not to worry. Not to worry,” Joe assured me.
“You know,” Hiram continued, “that newspaper fellow, now, I wouldn’t be surprised if he’s not an alien. He’s got that look in his eye.” He stopped and froze, staring across the street with his mouth wide open. “My syphilis!” Hiram clapped his hand to his mouth.
“Don’t talk like that,” I said crossly.
“But omigosh, Mizzoner! Look at that! An alien, sure as shootin’, and I can
prove
it!”
I turned to see what he was looking at. All I saw was Oglethorpe Street busier than usual, but not because of an alien invasion. Maynard Spence was hurrying out of the bank with a bag of change, probably for his daddy’s appliance store down the block. He nearly careened into Gusta as she stumped across the sidewalk with her silver-headed cane. Gusta wasn’t looking where she was going because she was looking back at Meriwether, who was maneuvering her silver Mercedes into a legal parking space behind Gusta’s Cadillac—which was parked, as always, in the handicapped zone. Poor Alice was sitting at the wheel looking straight ahead, probably trying to pretend she wasn’t there. Vern, the bank guard, jumped up and down, yelling. Our clerk was wheeling Joe Riddley out just behind Maynard, and Joe Riddley was riled up about something. I couldn’t hear the words, but I could hear the decibels.
Slade Rutherford had parked on our side of Oglethorpe and was crossing the street, headed for the bank. He had given me a quick wave with his left hand, but his eyes were clearly on Meriwether as he hurried her way. Otis Raeburn and Pooh had come to a dead stop beside Meriwether’s car, holding up three cars behind them, because Gusta was parked in Pooh’s handicapped spot. Darren’s sunny Volkswagen sailed past in the other direction.
A lot of people, but not one single alien. I took Charlie’s advice and ignored Hiram. “There’s Joe Riddley. You can talk to him when he gets over here. Bright and early tomorrow, now, Hiram. You won’t forget, now?”
He shook his head. “I won’t forget. But listen—”
I had no intention of listening to him rave about aliens. I left him standing on the sidewalk like he’d taken root.
Would he be alive today if I’d taken the trouble to listen?
8
Two hundred people showed up to celebrate Joe Riddley’s birthday. I’d dubbed the event “Joe Riddley’s Coming Out Party” because my ornery husband had finally believed Darren that he could stand on his own two legs with the help of a walker. He was actually walking a few steps at a time now, gingerly as a heifer on ice.
We were blessed with one of those glorious October Saturdays that always makes me glad to live in Middle Georgia. Poplars and dogwoods made yellow and red splashes against fuzzy dark pines. Warm, honey-thick sunlight smelled of ripe hay and musty leaves. Most folks preferred to stay outdoors, either at tables scattered under the oaks or up on the porch. Once they’d greeted Joe Riddley, some filled plates and carried them toward the band. Others took plates out under a pecan tree to watch Georgia play LSU on the television we’d set up there, or up on the front porch to cheer for Tech against Maryland.
Renting those two televisions from Spence’s Appliance Store had been Walker’s brilliant idea, so nobody would have to miss their game. Folks take football seriously around here. I considered it a personal favor from heaven when I heard both Georgia and Tech would play out of state that weekend, so folks would be in town.
Of course Hubert Spence, who’d lived next door to Joe Riddley all their lives, wouldn’t take a penny for the sets. “It’s good advertising,” he insisted, “but my sets have trouble picking up the University of Georgia.” Hubert and Joe Riddley would either one do anything for the other—except vote the same way or root for the same football team.
A lot of people pitched in to make the party fun. Walker and his wife, Cindy, who grew up in a wealthy family up in Thom son and loves parties, circulated to make sure everybody was having a good time. Ridd made sure folks found the food and drink. His daughter, Bethany, drafted her cheerleading team and their boyfriends to oversee children’s games in the side yard. Walker’s Tad, nine, and Jessica, eleven, volunteered to keep the drink tubs full of cans and ice. Every time I looked up, I saw a towhead carrying drinks to the tubs. Martha, Ridd’s wife and a registered nurse, offered to stay beside Joe Riddley in case he got tired or agitated. A swarm of kitchen help, overseen by Clarinda, made sure tables in the dining room and out on the side porch stayed piled high with barbeque and buns, cole slaw, corn on the cob, potato salad, baked beans, Brunswick stew, and even platters of raw vegetables for people related to rabbits.
I trotted between the house and yard having a good time. Once in a while, when I stopped by the kitchen to see how things were going, Clarinda handed me a bowl or platter with the order “Carry that out and fill a gap.” I have, without a doubt, the bossiest cook in Georgia.

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