Chile Death

by Susan Wittig Albert

  But as I sat beside his bed, reading provocative snippets from Constance Letterman’s gossip column in the Enterprise or reporting on my recent consultation with Brian’s math teacher or just watching Mike sleep, I would think of the numbing moment when I feared I had lost him, and feel grateful. Whole or half, healthy or disabled, it didn’t matter. McQuaid was here, he was alive, and that was enough.

  Beneath the gratitude, though, I was heavy with sadness and loss. Why had I been so afraid of intimacy, of caring, of marriage? Why had I built such a wall against his love? If only I had been able to give more, we might have shared more. If only I hadn’t been afraid to be vulnerable, we might have been more open with each other. If only ... if only . . .

  At those moments, I had to turn away to keep him from seeing the tears. I didn’t want him to think I was weeping for him—for what he had been and might not ever be again. I was weeping for myself, and regretting what I had been.

  Chapter Two

  There are about twenty species and hundreds of varieties in the genus Capsicum, indigenous to tropical America. In their native habitat, they are perennial and woody, growing to seven feet tall, though in American gardens they are grown as annuals, reaching a height of three feet. Two highly variable species of the genus provide New World peppers—the red peppers. Bell peppers, pimento, paprika, chile, and cayenne peppers all belong to the species Capsicum, aruiuum. The Tabasco peppers come from Capsicum frutescens, grown commercially in the Gulf states and New Mexico.

  Steven Foster, Herbal Renaissance

  If you've had an accident or major illness in your family, you know that there’s the crisis stage, then there’s what comes after. In some ways, it's easier to cope during the crisis, because you’re so numbed by the pain that the main thing is just to stumble through it, trying not to think. When that part is over and the new realities begin to emerge, you have to plan and organize and think again. You have to alter your life to fit the changed circumstances. You have to do more than just muddle through, you have to carry on.

  In many way, carrying on is easier in a small town like

  Pecan Springs, where people care about you. They go out of their way to let you know that they’re thinking about you and hope it all turns out for the best—conventional small-town sentiments, maybe, but the kindness helps. There were lots of calls and best wishes during the crisis weeks McQuaid spent in the hospital in San Antonio, and after we brought him back to Pecan Springs, the concern continued.

  “Ain’t seen you much lately,’’ Lila Jennings said one morning in mid-April, when I stopped at the Old Nueces Street Diner. "Figger you’ve been purty busy, with Mike out there at the Manor an’ your shop an’ all.” The Manor is the convalescent center and nursing home where McQuaid was now a resident, so he could do daily therapy.

  Lila is fiftyish, with bleached blond hair, as thin as a stalk of Johnson grass. Three or four years ago, she and her husband, Ralph, bought the old Nueces Street Diner—a converted Missouri and Pacific Railroad dining car, rescued from oblivion and refurbished—and renamed it the Doughnut Queen in honor of Lila’s famous homemade doughnuts, which have been written up in every magazine and newspaper from Houston to El Paso. Ralph’s two-pack-a-day habit caught up with him last winter, but Lila’s daughter Docia moved down from Dallas to take over the kitchen duties. Docia suggested that they expand the menu and serve lunches and light suppers, so they put back the original sign and the Doughnut Queen is the Diner again. What goes around comes around, or something like that.

  Lila filled my cup with steaming coffee and added, "How’s that ol’ Mike-boy doin’ since he moved in out there at the Manor? Chasin’ the nurses up’n down the hall. I bet."

  I grinned. “Not yet. But he will if his therapist has anything to say about it. She’s built like the Dallas front line, and about as mean.” Nobody was promising full recovery, but McQuaid had progressed from moving his hands to moving his arms, and the doctors were beginning to be optimistic about his chances for a substantial recovery.

  Lila swiped the red Formica counter with a damp rag. "So what’re you havin’ this momin’?”

  I didn’t have to hesitate. "Raspberry doughnut and coffee.” I’d already eaten breakfast—cereal and orange juice with Brian, while he ate Leatha’s blueberry waffles. “Make that three doughnuts,” I amended. "I’ll take a couple out to the Manor for McQuaid.”

  "Yeah, well, if I was you, I’d keep a eye on things out there,” Lila said, plumping one doughnut on a plate and dropping two into a brown paper bag. "We put Ralph’s mama in that place, first thing happened was somebody stole her teeth.”

  With a grunt, Harkness Hibler shifted on the stool next to me. "Lila, I am so damn tired of hearin' you tell that old tale. Ralph’s mama’s been dead ten years, and things've changed out there. Didn’t you read that investigative piece we did last year? The Manor is the best rehabilitation center in the state, bar none.”

  Harkness is the managing editor at the Enterprise. The newspaper, which used to be a weekly, is now published by Arlene Seidensticker. Not too long ago, she took it over from her father and made it a daily. Arlene said she was ashamed that New Braunfels and San Marcos both have dailies, while Pecan Springs (which has more tourist traffic, not to mention the university) had to make do with a weekly. Hark prefers the lazier rhythms of the weekly and was ready to hand in his notice, but Arlene gave him a raise and promised not to interfere in his editorial decisions, and he agreed to stay on. The work has tolled on him, though. He used to be about forty pounds overweight, but that’s mostly gone. He’s leaner and maybe a little meaner, and wears the world-weary look of somebody who knows that today’s story is tomorrow’s history.

  “Well, for yer information, Air. Skinny Smarty-pants,” Lila retorted frostily, "the Manor ain’t changed all that much. And I don’t give two hoots about your fancy invest- y-ga-shun. You want to know what’s really goin’ on out there, you talk to Edna Lund. Her dad died out there. Ask her what she knows about the Manor. Ralph’s mama’s teeth ain’t nothin’ to what goes on out there ever’ day.”

  She picked up the coffeepot and flounced down the counter to fill a cup for Bubba Harris, the police chief, who was sitting at the end, chewing on his unlit cigar while he consulted with Darryl Perkins about the state of the weather, the price of oil, and yesterday’s injury list from the Cowboys spring training camp.

  Bubba has had more perplexing matters on his mind lately, however, and his habitual scowl has recently deepened. For years, Bubba has run the Pecan Springs police department more or less out of his back pocket. But the last City Council election produced some new members, and this Council is playing an activist role in law enforcement. According to the newspaper, they have instructed Bubba to invest in two women officers, an updated dispatch system, and mandated sensitivity training for the entire staff—including Bubba himself, who is not what you would call a highly sensitive person. The newly imposed limits to departmental home rule add up to a steep learning curve and a bad headache for a chief who has had things his way for the last quarter century. No wonder he scowls.

  Darryl Perkins, on the other hand, has plenty to smile about. He owns the Do-Right Used Car dealership and part interest in the radio station and is married to Pauline Perkins, the Fighting Mayor of Pecan Springs. (Pauline is now in her fourth term and laying battle plans for her fifth campaign.) Darryl is a big man in this little town, but that’s only in public. In private, at least in my opinion, Pauline is the bigger man.

  I pondered Lila’s remark as I ate my jelly doughnut and drank my coffee. “Maybe Lila is right. Hark,” I said finally. “I think I’ll talk to Edna Lund. Just to hear what people are saying about the Manor.”

  There are a couple of nursing homes in Pecan Springs, and I had heard the usual horror stories when I first began looking for a place for McQuaid to convalesce. There’d apparently been some trouble at the Manor a few years ago, but things seemed to have straightened out, and the new rehab
unit was every bit as good as Hark claimed. I also liked the nursing supervisor, a woman named Joyce Sanders, whom I had met when I’d made the arrangements for McQuaid’s move. She had seemed honest with me about the home’s problems in attracting and keeping good staff. The arrangement wasn’t forever, of course. McQuaid had been there several weeks already, and the doctor said he could move back home in another three or four. In fact, he could probably do that right now, although he didn’t show much enthusiasm for the idea. But he wasn’t enthusiastic about much of anything these days, which was part of the problem.

  Hark gave me a comforting grin. "Lila’s just blowin’ smoke. They’ll take good care of McQuaid out there." He spooned salsa from a red-topped jar onto his scrambled eggs, smothering them. Lila puts her hottest salsa, made with habaneros, tomatoes, and onions, into jars with red lids; the milder stuff, made with jalapenos, goes into jars with green lids. You can’t trust the lids, though. Some of the local jokers think it’s funny to switch and watch their buddies hop up and down, spouting flames. “But if you’re curious,” he added, “you might want to talk to Fannie Couch. She told me she’s doing a piece on the Manor for her radio program sometime this spring.”

  “Good idea,” I said. "I’ll do that.”

  Hark split his attention between me and the eggs. "By the way, the Honchos met last night. JuneFest’s not too far off, and we’re lining up chili cook-off judges. McQuaid’s done it for the past five or six years—think he’ll be up to doing it again?”

  "He’s certainly up to it,” I said cautiously. The Honchos are the local pod (yes, that’s right) of the Chili Appreciation Society International, and McQuaid is an active member. "Actually, he’s getting around just fine in his wheelchair.” I paused. "Whether he’ll do it or not is another matter.”

  Hark gave me a sympathetic look. "Like that, huh?” "Well, you’ve got to see it from his point of view,” I said, being loyal. I finished my jelly doughnut and fished a paper napkin out of the chrome holder to wipe the sugar off my mouth. I don’t know where Ralph and Lila rounded up these forties and fifties restaurant fixtures, but they’re all here—red-and-chrome tables and chMrs., vintage napkin holders, old Dr Pepper signs, and framed newspaper clippings commemorating such events as Lyndon Johnson’s first election to the Senate, the Texas City fire, and Hurricane Carla, which roared inland at Port O’Conner with 175 mph winds in September of 1961. There is even an ancient Wurlitzer jukebox outlined with tubes of bubbling yellow neon, although it doesn’t play.

  "Oh, sure, I understand,” Hark said. "If it was me, I don’t know whether I’d want folks to gawk at—” He dove for his cup, swigged coffee, coughed, swigged some more, and wiped his streaming eyes. Lila’s salsa is fierce. “But Mike’s got friends,” he said, when he could talk again. "They’d like to see him out and about again. Anyway, it’d be good for him. Take his mind off his legs.” He blew his nose in his napkin.

  “Right. But it’s not me you’ve got to convince. Ask him."

  Hark went back to his eggs. “That’s Jerry Jeff Cody's job. He’s president of the Honchos this year. I’ll tell him to give Mike a call. But there L) something I need to talk to you about.” He gave me a speculative look. “I fired Wanda Rathbottom yesterday.”

  Wanda Rathbottom is the owner of Wanda’s Wonderful Acres Nursery, president of the Pecan Springs Garden Club, and the wife of a county judge. What she isn’t is a writer, a fact which is sadly apparent in the garden column she has written for the Enterprise over the past few years. And since her manager, Grady Slice, is the real brains behind the nursery, it’s fair to say that she isn't much of a gardener, either, which is also apparent in her column.

  “Congratulations,” I said dryly. "What took you so long?”

  He looked sheepish. "I know,. I know. But Wanda’s a friend of Arlene’s, and the nursery drops a bundle into advertising. I had to wait until Wanda’s stuff got so bad that even Arlene noticed." He forked up a fat, stubby sausage link, dipped it in salsa, and bit one end off. Lila serves authentic East Texas hot links, imported from Pittsburg, Texas. She says nothing else tastes right with her hot sauce, and most people agree. “1 read that piece on hot peppers you wrote for the Austin American-Statesman, and I wondered if maybe you’d do some columns for us," Hark went on. “Not just gardening stuff, though. Cooking, gardening, crafts. The works.”

  I didn’t have to think twice. "You’ve got yourself a columnist,” I said.

  He was severe. "Don’t do it for the money. What we pay will buy you a plate of chicken fried and a pitcher of beer every couple of weeks. Not even a piece of pecan pie to top off.”

  "I think I can handle that.” It wasn’t money I coveted, of course, it was exposure. The Enterprise is the only newspaper in town and it has a wide local readership, not to mention the tourists who buy subscriptions just so they can have a taste of the Hill Country after it’s started to snow in Minnesota or North Dakota or wherever they’ve gone home to. A regular column would not only encourage walk-in shoppers, but new mail-order business as well.

  Hark speared another hot link and it squirted juice onto the counter. “Guess we got us a deal, then. When can I have your first two-three columns? I’d kinda like to have some in the can, so if you miss a deadline we got something to fall back on.”

  I calculated swiftly. "Two weeks?” The sooner I got started, the sooner those new customers would start coming.

  "Yeah, that’d be great. Thanks, China.” He raised his voice. "Hey, Lila, goldum it, you gonna let a guy thirst t’ death in front of your eyes while you’re makin’ out with the chief of po-lice? Bring me some more of that lousy coffee.” He banged his empty cup on the counter. "On the double.”

  "What’s your hurry, Hark?” Lila inquired sweetly. "Got some sweet, sexy young thing waitin’ in your car?” She gave a merry guffaw. Bubba and Darryl joined in, and Hark blushed red. He is a bachelor, and notorious for his lack of success with the local females, a fact which probably dates hack to his days as a heavyweight.

  Hark glowered. "Some women,” he muttered, "just can't keep a civil tongue in their heads."

  As I was saying, small-town people let you know they’ve been thinking about you. I was turning into the courthouse square the very next day when I heard the furious blasts of a shrill whistle and glimpsed a uniformed person on the sidewalk, waving me to pull up.

  Uh-oh, I thought. What have I done now? I stopped in front of the Sophie Briggs Historical Museum (named for one of Pecan Springs’ founding mothers) and rolled down the window on my Datsun. A dozen remarkably docile kindergarten children were crossing the street in front of me, holding hands and looking both ways. They were probably on their way to the museum to see Sophie’s collection of two hundred fifty-seven frogs, which she acquired during her travels across the United States. Sophie was a peripatetic woman, in part because she suffered from wanderlust and in part because her oldest son, John, was an official with the Missouri and Pacific Railroad. She would pack her black leather portmanteau and hit the rails whenever the spirit moved her, free as a breeze and free of charge. Her ashes are sealed in an urn in the garden behind the museum, which I have always thought to be an irony of some sort.

  Mae Belle Battersby came toward me, looking as if she had been stuffed into her blue uniform find the seams .sewn shut, like a pillow. A couple of years ago, the City Council decided to put meters on the square, then discovered that they’d have to hire somebody to enforce the time

  limit and collect the money. They’re still debating whether the meters are paying their way or diverting people from the downtown shops to the mall, where there’s free parking. In the meantime, Mae Belle is the town’s official meter maid, and is also empowered to write tickets for minor traffic offenses—minor, that is, to everybody but Mae- Belle, who takes her work seriously. She’ll ticket you for making a turn from the wrong lane, or failing to yield to pedestrians, as well as overparking.

  This time, however, I was apparently innocent. “Hi,
Miz Bayles,” MaeBelle said, bending over to talk through the open window. "I’ve bin meanin’ to drop by the shop and find out how that man o’ yers is gettin’ along out at the Manor. How’s he doin’?” There was no irony or accusation in “that man o’ yers.” The older folks in Pecan Springs might once have made negative judgments about a couple who lived together without benefit of clergy, but that was before their sons and daughters started doing it. Anyway, McQuaid and I had been together so long that most people take us for granted.

  "Thanks for asking, MaeBelle,” I said. “He’s much better—goes to therapy three or four hours a day now.”

  MaeBelle’s gap-toothed smile split her chubby pink face. “That right? Boy, am I glad. When I first heard whut happened, I figgered he was a goner. P’lice work can sure be dang’rous.” She patted the foot-long truncheon that was hanging from her belt. It was issued to her after a surly German shepherd charged out of the back of the Ford pickup she was ticketing and ate the seat of her pants.

  "It was a close call, all right.”

  "Well, you see him, you tell him Lester an’ me have bin thinkin’ 'bout him an’ hopin’ he gits well quick. I’ll drop in an’ say hi when I git a chance. Next week, mebbe. My aunt Velma’s out there, y’know. Miss Velma Mayfield. My mother’s sister.”

  "Is that right?” I asked. “I wondered what had become of her.” Velma Mayfield had been a fixture around town for years, especially at the courthouse. She had worked for Tom Perry, one of our homegrown lawyers, and was known as a very competent woman. I was a little surprised to hear that she was at the Manor, though. She couldn’t be any more than sixty-five. "How does she like the place?”

  "Hard to say. You cain't always get the straight skinny from Aunt Velma.” She pulled a sad face. "Which is a durn shame, smart as she was. You know, she ran Mr. Perry’s law office for forty years, more or less. Bet she could tell stories on half this town. Bet there are lots of folks just as glad she’s lost a few of her marbles.” Mae- Belle took out a handkerchief and mopped her sweaty face. "But she’s got a clean bed and three squares and a whirlpool bath twice a week.” She gave a horsey laugh. "Wish I held a whirlpool twice a week. Might help my lower back. It gives me a lot of trouble these days.” She glanced at me. "I bin meanin’ to talk to you ’bout Aunt Velma. I hear there’s some kinda weird plant that helps people with Alzheimer’s. That so?”