by Stan Hayes
Enough about him. This younger guy, Ted Foster; the club manager…”
“Ah, Teddy!” Webster said, smiling. “He just does that to keep his nose in his fellow Elks’ business. We’re back to the generational stuff again. Ted’s folks have had the Buick dealership since there’ve been Buicks, along with a bunch of Hamm County real estate. Ted just hangs around the showroom, waitin’ to collect his inheritance.”
“Sounds like you know him a little better than the others.”
“I do. We were classmates at dear old Bisque High. Played in the band. ‘raised up together,’ as they say. Don’t think either of us planned to still be hangin’ around Bisque as grown men. Such a thing is fate.”
“Guess that’s most people’s lot in life; staying put where you grow up, I mean.”
“Yeah. I thought sure that Ted’dve headed up to New York right behind his high-school sweetheart, but he didn’t. Big mistake, in my opinion.”
“She must’ve been something,” said Moses.
“She was. Is. You’ve seen her.’
“I have? Where?”
“At the hotel. She’s Mrs. Mason, your gracious hostess; the former Serena Redding, and generally regarded hereabouts as a permanent member of Bisque Bizarre.”
“I’ll be damned,” said Moses. “I’m trying to imagine the two of them together.”
“Not all that difficult, if you knew them then. The Depression had settled in; she hadn’t gotten over her mother’s death, to say nothing of the circumstances. She’s a fine looking woman now, but she was achingly beautiful then, very smart and kind of distant. Kids made fun of her behind her back. Smart’s a tough thing to be in high school. She took herself very seriously, and so did he. He listened to her, paid court to her actually, came back here to see her a lot during his first year at Georgia. We were a year ahead of her. Then she just took off for New York, and that was it.”
“You said something about ‘circumstances,’ “ said Moses. “What circumstances?”
“Her mother was killed in a car wreck in ’27. She’d just started high school. Bad enough to lose your mom like that, but she was with a guy that she’d been carryin’ on with. For quite awhile, as it turned out. Her dad’s business partner.”
“Jesus. That is rough.”
“Rough as a cob for somebody like Ríni- proud as she was raised to be.”
“Reenie?”
“Ríni. That was what we called her back then; some people still do. She wrote it R-I-N-I, with an accent on the first I- I guess it was pride that got her through it. Pride, Teddy Foster and her love of art. She was always involved with arty stuff, and got a lot of encouragement from Miss Quentin, an English teacher who taught dancing on the side. And Teddy, God help him, used to write poetry about her. He showed me a couple; pretty awful, as I remember, but stuff like that was what helped her survive.”
“Ríni. Not bad. How about the business partner? Was he killed?”
“Peter Hartwell. Yeah. They musta been flyin’. They brought the car, a new phaeton, back to Leland’s. The Packard dealership. It sat there, out in the open, for a couple of weeks. Looked like a giant’d taken it by both ends and wrung it out like washcloth. Just about everybody in town went by there to ogle it.”
“Must’ve been rough on the whole family.”
“Yeah. I’m no big churchgoer myself, so I can’t say for sure, but the fact that the Reddings didn’t have, as they say, ‘a church home’ probably made it harder for them to get over it.”
“ ‘No church home.’ That does seem unusual, in a town like this. To paraphrase what you were saying just the other day, if you ain’t church you ain’t shit.”
“And as I also said, or should’ve, there’s an exception to every rule. Where church and Bisque’re concerned, the Reddings, and the Watkinses before them, are it.”
“How does that work?” asked Moses.
“Well, to begin with, the Watkinses have been one of the big-name families in Hamm County since back before what you Yankees call the Civil War. Ríni used to talk about how the farm got started on land that was part of the old Creek Nation, how her great-great-granddaddy got it in one of the land grants the state had back around the turn of the century. The nineteenth century, that is, when the state capitol was just down the road, in Louisville. When the war got to Georgia, Sherman’s troops swung south of here from Atlanta on their way to Savannah, and the Watkinses farmed the original grant property, plus more that they bought over the years, without having to rebuild after the war. Most of their slaves stayed, even after emancipation.”
“Why would they do that?”
“Where would they go where, from their point of view, they could have it half as good? Most of the so-called ‘freemen’ had no idea at all about how to be free. Anyway, by the time Miz Rose came along, the Watkinses could sit out there on the farm, grow cotton and do pretty much as they damn pleased, which included not going to town all that often, and since Rose’s daddy was not so inclined, not going to church at all.
“Rose was ‘the baby,’ the third child of three, and apparently got pretty much anything she wanted. She was a smart girl, and what she wanted was to go to college in Atlanta. Decatur, actually. A little school called Agnes Scott, where she crossed paths with a renegade instructor who managed to infect her with a hatful of isms, socialism, atheism and who knows what else. Those two were the crowd pleasers, though, and by the time she finished school she was as much of a full-blown revolutionary as she knew how to be. She, and I say she, not they, named her firstborn after Eugene Debs, the Socialist Party candidate for president in 1904.”
“Quite a freethinker, for the time; I’d say a man’d be asking for trouble with that philosophy in these parts, to say nothing of a woman. Hell, they couldn’t vote ’til the Twenties,” said Moses.
“You said it. Folks in ‘these parts’ didn’t take all that kindly to a lot of free thinking, let alone from a woman. You think too much, sooner or later you’re on the road outa here. It’s the same way with every little tank town in America, I guess; they’re built on a foundation of docile, God-fearin’ laborers that doesn’t ask too many questions. Anyway, the boys took her death differently than Ríni did; Gene Debs was about grown, so he handled it a little better. Joined the Navy about a month later. Buster wasn’t so lucky. At twelve, Miz Rose’s death may have hit him the hardest of all.”
“I wouldn’t be surprised,” said Moses, excusing himself with a raised hand. He went next door, switched projectors, and returned. “I’ve only seen him- Buster- once. We met over at the barber shop. Seemed like a decent enough guy.”
“Yeah, Buster’s all right. Nobody’s Rhodes scholar, of course, and on top of losing his mother that way, I think he feels like he’s got something to prove to people because he got 4-F’d outta the war and big brother shot Japs up one side of the Pacific and down the other. I know how he feels; my flat feet kept me in a radio booth, and you never get used to the way people would look at you- just a split second too long- and you were always sure that it was because you were still a civilian who looked like you oughta be in uniform. Anyway, he hired on at the Bell bomber plant over in Marietta when the war broke out, so at least he didn’t have Bisquites staring at him. He came back last year, married Cordelia Bailey and went to work for his old man selling real estate.”
“And now he owns the Hudson dealership.”
“Yeah. You don’t hafta look too hard to see his Daddy’s fine hand in that deal. He got ’im in there in the first place. Good timing, too; after nursin’ their old shitcans all through the war, people’ll buy any kind of a new car they can get their hands on, including Hudsons, and ole Paul Simmons’ boy, who’dve normally taken over the shop, got killed in France. It took all of the starch outa Simmons and his brother, who was already pretty old. They wanted out, so Buster’s a car dealer.”
“And now all the Redding kids’ve come home to roost,” mused Moses. “Guess the old man’s happy.”
/> “No doubt. You’ve met him?”
“This morning. Stopped by to pay the rent.”
“Classy ol’ rascal, ain’t he?”
“Yes, he is. Pretty much a complete surprise to me, for a guy a lot of people call Pap.”
“Yeh-baw-ey,” grinned Webster. The office, the clothes, the fine ladyfriend- ah, assistant- not at all what you’d expect in a deep-South cotton broker. Sump’m about the way he was raised, I guess, or what he did in the army. He musta been a sight to see when he first showed up in Bisque.”
“I imagine. Looks like he took root pretty quickly, though.”
“The story you hear, not that anybody talks about it much anymore,” is that he liked to work as well as his partner- he wasn’t his partner then, he and young Hartwell just worked there- liked to play. They say old man Hartwell took a shine to him right away, and that made Pete Junior act up even worse. To the point that he went back to Miz Rose, who’d been his girlfriend before th’ war, more outa spite than anything else.”
“So the business- the cotton business- fell into Pap’s lap when they took the fateful evening ride togther.”
“Yeh-baw-ey,” Webster smiled. Right into Pap’s lap. Guess that’s the way their contract had it worked out.”
“But he still had losing her to get over,” said Moses, assuming he still loved her.”
“You get the feeling from hearin’ the story that he did. But did he love her as much as he loved dealin’ in cotton? That’s th’ question. Don’t seem like the business missed a beat. But folks deal with what hurts ’em in different ways.”
Chapter X. Blackwater Blues
“Blackwater blues… caused me to pack my thangs an’ go. Old Lightnin’ tells it like it is, and so does Humphrey Bogart. Think you know about tough guys? Think again. They don’t come any tougher than Bogey when he defies evil Edward G. Robinson in Key Largo. He can take it, all right, but when he dishes it out, all bets are off. Except one. You won’t see a better movie this year. See it as soon as you can, but get to the Winston Theatre by Thursday, because that’s the last day for Key Largo. See you at The Winston!”
Moses unlocked the Winston at twelve-thirty. He’d had his usual early lunch at the cafe, his first meal of the day after getting up at around nine. Generally, he didn’t leave the theatre until after midnight. Business had picked up over the past six weeks. Webster’s commercials had already begun to boost attendance, and in the Spring he’d add the sidecar rig to his promotion arsenal. Roy Hartwell had undersold “Skeeter”’s talents; the man, whose actual name, Ribeye said, was Cloyce Daguerre, had turned out to be a bona fide artisan. A little whacky, but art’s like that, he thought. They’d met at Ribeye’s, on the evening of the day after his first ride on the rig.
The bar was quiet on that weekday evening, with a very few customers sitting at the bar, soaking up beer in steady, workmanlike style under the weak light of the Steinerbru clock. The Negro side of the bar, which Ribeye and his clientele called “the mule hole,” closed at six o’clock. The now-familiar You Win Again alternated with A Fool Such as I and Honky-Tonk Angel on the jukebox. They sat at one of the bar’s four tables, sharing a pitcher of Schlitz. “This here’s Skeeter,” Hartwell announced, in a respectful tone. “I tole him about what you ’awnted done with that ole Harley.”
“Hello, Skeeter,” Moses said, adopting Hartwell’s grave tone. “I’m glad to meet you. Roy says you’re the man to make a new rig out of my old Harley.”
They shook. The skin of his hand felt like fine-grit sandpaper. Skeeter was wiry and dark; some kind of hair tonic kept his longish, gray-streaked black hair lying close to his head. He poured a fresh glass of beer from the sweating pitcher that Ribeye had just set on the table. “Well,” he said, the single word a clue to his Cajun roots, “Maybe so. I been doin’ ole cars about twenty year now. Started wid ’tings I would find aroun’ town, Model A Fords an’ like dat, in people’s yards jus’ rustin’ into de groun’. Den peoples see dem when I put ‘em up for sale, and pretty soon some dat had pretty nice ole cars- you know, Packards an’ Buicks- would get me to paint ‘em. Den one guy want me to see about gettin’ de interior of his Auburn Speedster put back right. It jus’ went on like dat. Firs’bike I work on was a ’37 Indian. A Scout. Jus’ a simple repaint, but I learn a lot. Like you gotta take dat bastard completely apart to do it right. I done ’bout twenny since dat one. So I ’spec maybe me and Roy togedder could do whachu want did to dat ole rig. It would not be no fast deal, though.”
“No. I didn’t expect it would be. And I don’t expect it to be cheap, either. I’m gonna use that rig to promote the Winston for a long time, and unless it’s sharp it won’t work.”
“How sharp you want it to be?” asked Skeeter, gazing intently at Moses.
Pouring fresh beers all around, Moses said, “I want it ta look like it just rolled out of the factory, only better,” Moses said. “Not stock Harley colors. I want it white, with red trim, with the spare wheel covered with a red leather cover that has ‘Winston Theatre’ in big white leather letters sewn onto it. And a Harley police siren. Oh yes, and the spotlights should have red lenses rigged ta flash, like a police bike’s.”
“What color you want the frame?”
“Red. Scarlet, actually, same as the trim and wheel cover.”
“OK.”
“I won’t hold ya to any top dollar figure,” Moses told him, and I’ll pay ya every month, or however ya want to work it. Could ya make some sort of guess, though, about how much the whole thing will come to?”
“Oh, man, you could spend a couple grand ’fo I’m troo,” Skeeter said, reaching for the pitcher. “As for payin’, I give you da bills for parts and other stuff I buy. You just pay me for dose, an’ pay me for da work when I’m done an’ you happy wid it.”
“Fair enough. How long do you think it’ll take to finish it?”
Skeeter leaned back in the wire-backed chair, scratching his crotch in contemplation. “Maybe six mont’, maybe eight. I have to strip it down to da bare frame an’ build it back up from dere. But don’ you make no mistake- dat bastard be slick as a ladybug’s back.”
“Whoosh. Well, it’ll give me time to figure out the best way to use it. Can ya start right away?”
“I take it tonight, if dat’s OK.”
“Yeh-baw-ey,” Moses said, extending his hand. “Hey, Rib! How ’bout another pitcher?”
Moses twirled the bottle of Mumm’s Cordon Rouge in its bucket of ice, pulling it out part way and touching it to check its temperature. The bucket was from the hotel’s inventory, a gift Serena brought to their first morning tryst in the Winston’s office. Her knock broke his reverie. “Good mornin’; can a girl possibly get a drink in this here thee-ayter?” She smiled at him from the door, casually drilling into his heart. A navy blue turtleneck sweater eased the formality of the gray muted-plaid suit that she wore with it.
“And a first-class drink at that,” he said, standing up with outstretched arms. “Just step this way, Madam.”
She came into his arms with the ease of long practice, turning her face up to be kissed. The faint scent of Chanel came with her. “Whatcha got over there, Mister? Something to make good little girls forget their raisin’?”
“I intend to lure you, my child, into my lair with champagne... and other trinkets. Siddown; I have things to discuss with you.”
“You’re way too smug for this time of day,” she said, sitting. “Give me some of that champagne before I have to kick your butt.”
He poured two glasses and joined her on the couch. “Confusion to our enemies,” he said, raising his glass and smiling.
“This is very good,” she said. “I hope your news is, too.”
“I hope you’ll think it is; I want to buy somethin’, and I wanted to ask you what you thought about it.”
“I don’t think that there’s anything in this town that you could buy that’d surprise me; what is it?”
“A house.”
/> “A house! Really! Where is it?”
“Out Highway 31; the Wheeler place.”
“The Wheeler place! Mose, that’s an awful lot of house. Why would you want to buy that?”
“It’d be a hell of a lot of house just for me; five bedrooms, four baths and a nice-sized pond. But I didn’t think about it that way. I thought that, after I asked you to marry me and you said yes, we’d move in and it’d be pretty much the right size.”
She looked at him with green-eyed intensity. “OK. You surprised me. You really surprised me. Give me some more of that champagne.” She took her refilled glass from him, drank half of it in a gulp, continuing to look at him. “Why get married? And even if we did, I like living in the hotel. So does Jack. But wait. Back up to the other point. Why should we get married? Do you want more sex? Kids? More of my time? What?”
“What I want is you. To be my wife.”
“Mose. I love you. I love you very much. But I’ve been a wife, matter of fact I’m still one, and I’m pretty sure that I don’t want to go down that road again.”
“What?” exploded Moses. “You’re still married?”
“I’m afraid so.”
“Why? And why the hell didn’t you tell me?”
“Did you ever try to get a divorce in New York? I meant to tell you, but the time just never seemed right. Will you please understand that it has nothing to do with you, and that I want to be with you, just the way we’ve been?”
“I’ll try. I’ll try because I love you, too. And you know I love Jack. But I’m not sure that I can. Seems to me that people who love each other dearly want to live together forever.”
“That’s the way it works for a lot of people; I don’t think that it’s the only answer, because I do love you. Dearly. But wifin’s no business for artists- husbandin’either, as far that as that goes. The role of a wife’s not one that I want to take on again; at least not right now.”
“So when do you think you’ll get around to actually not being one? Legally, I mean.”
