by Stan Hayes
“OK,” Ricky grunted, spitting flecks of undigested pizza on the pavement.
“Want a drinka water?”
“Notchet.” They sat for a minute or two, saying nothing. “You know the hell of it…”
“What’s that?”
“The hell of it is,” Ricky said, “that I wish I could take Trisha to N’Yawlin’s.”
“Y’all still in touch, huh?”
“Yeah, every now an’ then. She came up to Taylor a coupla times. An’ now she’s at Scott, which you’gn throw a rock an’ hit from Tech.”
“Hm. Sounds like you put what she did behind you.”
“Whaddya mean?”
“I mean it’d still be botherin’ me, if I was you, that she got my ass in hot water when she didn’t have to.”
“Ah, shit, she ’us scared t’death an’ mad as hell, at Preston, for sure, and prob’ly at me, too, even though we were always real careful. She feels really bad about how she handled it, an’ I quit bein’ mad at her a long time ago. But her folks’re dead set against her havin’ anything to do with either one of us, which means all we can do is sneak around like we been doin’ in Atlanta.”
“You still love ’er, doncha?” Jack asked him.
“Yeah, I do, buddy; got a great way of showin’ it, don’t I?”
Jack acted like he hadn’t noticed the tears running down Ricky’s cheeks. “C’mon, man; let’s get on out to Mose’s and sack out ’fore I get too sleepy ta drive.”
They were throwing Terry’s brother’s football around the following afternoon, while the girls, who had slept late, were still getting themselves ready for a ride around town. The boys were pleased to have the time to themselves to just throw, catch and kick, movement that might take their minds off the effects of what Jack, fresh from his toe-in-the-water with le Français, would remember as la nuit de l'eau-de-vie fine de pêche.
In the house, Jolene Marsh readied toast, scrambled eggs and orange juice for the girls, as Fred, reminded of his own much-earlier breakfast by the occasional sulfurous burp, gloomily anticipated a weekend of television without football. Amahl and the Night-Fucking-Visitors indeed, he thought; and no chance of getting romantic with Jolene this morning, not with Terry home and a fresh hair-do, even if there’s still a little whiff of pussy floatin’ around here from last night. Boy, would I love a shot at that big ol’ Maybelle; I’ll be thinkin’ about you, honey; the closest thing to sex for me today’s gonna be beatin’ my meat in the fallout shelter before I head out to the store…
“J’you sleep all right?” asked Terry as she and Maybelle decided which of each other’s clothes they’d wear.
“Just fine; oof,” grunted Maybelle as she closed her jeans’ top snap. “Think I got a little last night, but I mighta dreamed it.”
“Maybelle!” Terry said with a mischievous smile. “Ain’t no way you’re gonna get laid’n sleep through it. Come on. Whatchoo doin’ lettin’ Ricky in your pants on th’ first date?”
“Hey, Missy! You didn’t have enougha that peach brandy to make any difference. That shit knocked me out; last thing I remember was neckin’ with ’im downstairs, but this mornin’ my pussy felt like it’d had sump’m in it. Hate not rememberin’ a good time, though.”
“Well, just be sure you don’t count on Ricky for too much. He’s cute, a lot of fun and a jock and everything, but he’gn be trouble. If there’s anybody within a hundred miles of here that’s hornier than Jack, it’s Ricky. He’ll do whatever he has to do, tell you whatever you want to hear, to get in your pants.”
“Oh hell, honey, if that’s all he wants, we’ll get along fine. Anyway, I’m bettin’ he’s been there already.”
“Well you be careful, and I don’t mean just makin’ him use protection. He’s got a way of gettin’ under a girl’s skin. That girl Trisha that I told you about when we were drivin’ down here? He was snakin’ her before he could get a learner’s license, and her durn near two years older than him. Then when her regular boyfriend got her pregnant and wouldn’t do right about it, she almost got away with namin’ Ricky th’ father ’cause she’d been screwin’ him, too, all along. He got suspended and kicked off th’ football team.”
“How’d he end up playin’ for Tech, then?”
“Transferred up to Taylor Academy in Chattanooga. He could’ve stayed in Bisque, really; the real father finally owned up to it, but the school people had been so shitty about throwin’ Ricky off th’ team that Jack quit too, and neither one of ’em’d go back and play.”
“Jack! I didn’t even know he played ball.”
“He doesn’t any more. Like to tore the whole town up, losin’ both of ’em off th’ team. Woulda been the first decent season th’ Bears’d had in a long time, and both of ’em woulda probly been All-State their last two years. Ricky did anyway, up there in Tennessee.”
“But Jack just stayed here, and didn’t play?”
“Yep. They wanted him at Taylor too, but he wouldn’t go.”
“Why not, for God’s sake?”
“Wanted to stay here and- how’s he say it? ‘Build flight time.’ This guy, his mom’s boyfriend, taught him to fly, and doin’ that was more important than football to ’im. And once he’d quit, he wad’nt about to ask Bisque High t’take ’im back.”
“That’s th’ durndest thing I ever heard of,” said Maybelle. He was a star; I just can’t understand why he’d throw all that away, just to get back at th’ stupid school people.”
“Well,” said Terry, “you don’t know Jack. Once he makes up ’is mind, that’s it.”
“Honey, nothin’ personal, but I’ll take th’ jock. Warts n’all.”
“OK, honey, but try to remember, warts’re catchin’.”
Jack was putting the football back in the garage as the girls stepped through the kitchen door and down the four steps to join them, Maybelle in the lead. The red of her London Fog windbreaker very nearly matched that of the car. “Hey, Davy,” she said, her smile alternately conspiratorial and accusing, as he stood, arms akimbo, on the far side of the car, its top already stowed under a snap-down cover.
“Mornin’, Maybelline. Ready to roll?”
“Ready as I’ll ever be, you scamp. Feedin’ me that ’shine.”
“Please. Peach Brandy. You said you liiked it last night.”
“Yeah, I guess I did,” she said, opening the driver’s door. “Gimme a hand with this so-called windscreen, an’ le’s get it down to th’ racin’ po-sition.” Following her lead, he took hold of a knurled black wheel at the base of the windshield and turned it, his other hand on the windshield frame. “That’s it,” she said as the supports slid down and hit their stops. “Now jus’ screw it down tiit.” She looked over at him from under a still-lowered brow. “You know how ta do that, doncha?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“I thought so,” she said as she slipped into the bucket seat and swung her legs under the wheel.. “It occurred to me this mornin’, when I figured out you took me upstairs and screwed me while I was passed out.”
“You think I’d do that?” Ricky said as he slid into the passenger’s seat. “You really think I’d do that?”
“Sure. But it’s OK. Try to catch me awake toniit, though.”
“Be glad to, but aren’t the old folks gonna be here toniit?”
“They are. Don’t you liike a little challenge, Davy-boy?” She turned the ignition key, producing a series of thumps behind his back.
“What’s that?”
“Jus’ th’ fuel pump, sugar. It’s electric. Guess we’re gonna follow them, huh?” They rolled onto the road under a high overcast sky, the black hot rod’s flared fenders and boxy cockpit a stark contrast to the slippery scarlet roadster. Their lightly-muffled exhausts swept backward in a booming syncopated wake over the suburban blacktop.
The first leg of Jack’s guided tour would be the south end of a stretch of arrow-straight macadam well known to Hamm County’s habitual speeders, Speckle Bird Road. �
��Do we have to do this?” asked Terry. “That damn Maybelle ain’t gonna let up, y’know.”
“We’re not racin’, baby; just givin’ th’ cars a little exercise. I’m not gonna try to outrun ’er. I just wanta see exactly what that l’il ol’ limey car’s got.” Once they’d turned right on the nameless graded dirt road that crossed Poplar a couple of miles south of the Marsh’s, they were just minutes away. Turning right again at the first pavement, he stopped, rolled down his window and beckoned to Maybelle to pull up beside them. “It’s dead-straight for a mile and a half,” he said to the two grinning faces. “Pull up and take th’ right lane. If we get any oncomin’ traffic, I’ll move over. Ready when you are.”
He was rolling his window closed as Maybelle, instead of pulling into the right lane and waiting as Jack had expected, dropped the roadster’s clutch and moved out at full throttle, taking a lead of several car-lengths before he realized what she’d done. “Goddam sneaky bitch,” he grunted, flooring his accelerator and giving chase out of a small blue cloud of wheelspin. Weighing about the same as the roadster, but putting an extra seventy-five or eighty horsepower on the ground, the old coupe quickly closed the gap, pulling even with Maybelle as Jack slapped his shift lever down into high gear at just under seventy-five. The cars ran neck-and-neck for a very few seconds before the roadster’s red side began sliding away at a slowly but steadily increasing rate.
Maybelle glanced at her speedometer; its needle would touch its hundred mark in seconds. Reaching forward to a dash-mounted toggle switch, she flipped it. “What’s that?” asked Ricky.
“Overdrive,” Maybelle said with a broad smile. The car surged forward, the needle moving through a hundred and five, then a hundred ten.
“Jack!” Terry shouted. “Watch that car!” An old Packard had pulled out onto the road, its massive grille quickly growing larger as the Ford approached.
“Got it,” Jack replied. The roadster had pulled far enough ahead for him to pull in behind without lifting his foot. The needle of the Stewart-Warner speedometer strapped atop the car’s steering column reached for 120 as the wheel’s high-frequency vibration worked its way up to his shoulders. Seeing the straightaway coming to an end, he backed off in anticipation of Maybelle’s doing the same. She didn’t. The roadster swept through the gentle left turn in the road, still running what looked to Jack like a hundred or better. “Goddamiteydayum!,” he said, “look at that!”
They caught up with Maybelle and Ricky at the dead-end intersection with Lee Street Extension, the red car idling in the shadow of the stop sign. “Tell ’em to follow us,” Jack said as he pulled up on their left. Terry wiggled a beckoning finger as Jack turned right, passing an airplane hangar on the left and turning left into the road that led into Bisque’s municipal airport. They parked the cars at the side of the office building. Getting out, Jack walked quickly around the back of the Ford, opening Terry’s door as a speed-flushed Maybelle smiled up at them. “How much?” he asked her.
“122,” she said, “before we ran outa road. It’s good for 125 anyway.”
“I wouldn’t doubt it a bit. How ’bout a Coke before we move on?”
“I could use one. That run dried me out; on top’a shine-drinkin,” she said, shooting a playful elbow into Ricky’s ribs. “This where your plane is?”
“Wish I had a plane. The ones that I get to fly’re at my uncle’s strip, further outa town a ways. We’ll make that th’ last stop on th’ tour.”
Ricky drove the Ford out of the airport after Jack’s wheedling pried Maybelle out of the roadster’s pilot seat. “You can drive it, since you put me on to that niice piecea road,” she said, but be careful.”
“Done deal; wanta take a look at th’ park?” He knew that appearances at the park and the Dog House would maximize the Austin-Healey’s exposure to jealous male Bisquites. Driving con brio through a series of neighborhoods and through the Hamm County Hospital parking lot, Jack had them at the park entrance in minutes. “Love the four-speed,” he said. “This is one handlin’ scoundrel.” Approaching the tennis courts, Jack saw Preston Rogers’ car parked next to the fence. Preston was in the far court, volleying with a girl Jack didn’t recognize. “Speakin’ of scoundrels,” he said as he gave them the finger, “there’s th’ guy that got Ricky thrown off the Bisque football team.”
“How’d he do that?” Maybelle asked, craning to get a better look.
“Knocked his girlfriend up and got her to blame Ricky. Terry didn’t tell you?”
“Nope. Anyway, they couldn’t just throw ’im off without provin’ it.”
“Didn’t have to,” Jack said as he shot a return wave to the golfers on the clubhouse porch. He admitted it.”
Maybelle sat up straight. “They were both screwin’ her?”
“Well, Ricky and th’ girl were next-door neighbors. And she’s a year older. I guess she just thought it was th’ neighborly thing to do.”
“Hm. How long’d this go on?”
“Quite awhile; three years anyway.”
“That little fucker,” she said with a tight smile and a shake of her head.
When he saw to whom Jack’s finger was extended, Ricky repeated the gesture, adding a jaunty flip of the wrist. “D’you ever see Trisha anymore?” Terry asked him.
“Not for quite awhile. You?”
“Back during th’ summer, but not to talk to. Idn’t she goin’ to Agnes Scott?”
“Hab’mp heard that. Makes sense, though, since she went to Decatur. Guess I’ll see ’er sometime over th’ holiday; hard to miss somebody when they live next door.”
“J’you and Maybelle have fun last night?”
“Sure did. J’you an’ Jack?”
“It’s not th’ same thing, and you know it. Jack and I’re serious.”
“Oh. Well, I’gn be pretty serious when I put m’mind to it.”
“She probly didn’t tell you, but Maybelle’s serious with somebody at Georgia.”
“Zat right?”
“That’s right. And she loves ’im. He’s from Claxton, too; he’s real niice. Not wild like Maybelle.”
“Wild? Maybelline?”
“You know damn riit well she is, Ricky. It’d be a shame if you got her pregnant.”
“Sure would. That’s why I won’t be doin’ it,” he said, grinning as he shifted into second for the climb up past the golf course’s eighth. They all wave at the foursome on the green, leaving the men to stare after them as they began to speculate on where that goddam traitorous Jack Mason gets cars and girls like that.
Chapter XX. Standing as We Sing
“Standing as we sing, without the book, the song we know and
love so well…”
-The Reverend Osborne Abercrombie
The late morning sun angled sharply through the cafe's windows, spraying a shadow alphabet of rainbow neon shadows across the tables and floor. Pap Redding, seated at his usual table, glanced up with a smile when he heard the throb of the Vincent’s engine. Moses parked on the sidewalk, just on the other side of the glass from him. He walked through the hotel lobby into the café, gloves in one hand, unbuckling his helmet strap with the other.
“Mornin', Mose.”
“Hey, Pap. Nice Day, huh?”
“Not bad, as long as I don't think about what's going to happen to my sinuses after this January thaw's over.”
“Another good reason,” Moses said as he sat down opposite the older man, “to live life one day at a time.”
“Good advice,” said Pap, smiling up at Reba says she put a cup in front of Moses and topped them both up with coffee, “particularly for a man of my age.”
“You look like a pretty solid citizen to me this mornin’; must be sump’m about sharin’ your birthday with Cupid.”
“Well, today I’m feelin’ a little more like St. Valentine, however th’ hell old he’d be by now,” Pap said after a sip of hot coffee. “That’s probably just because it’s Friday the thirteenth; of course I know you
set no store in such superstitions.”
“No, I don’t, but I am mindful of this birthday. It’s why I wanted to have coffee with you this mornin’.”
“What is this for you, anyway?” Moses asked him.
“Seventy-five; five years beyond my biblical allotment. And time for us to talk about gettin’ me out of the beer business.”
Moses took a long drink of coffee before he answered. “You want to execute the buyout agreement?”
“I think it’s time,” Pap said. “Part of a general simplification of my affairs. You’ll probably feel like doin’ the same thing when you’re my age.”
“Better let me get there first,” Moses said, smiling.
“I wish you well on that; and I want to thank you for the wonderful job you’ve done makin’ that business grow. Pretty much tripled our volume in seven years.”
“Seven years at the ides of March,” said Moses. “The date boded a lot better for us than it did for Julius Caesar.”
“Frankly, I wasn’t sure at first; gettin’ into any new venture involves some degree of risk, but I figured we’d do all right, considering how you turned the movie house around. I sure as hell didn’t count on anything close to what you’ve done for us.” Pap looked levelly across the table at Moses, an unasked question lurking behind his eyes. “You’re either just a natural businessman, or there’s a hell of a lot more to the theatre business than I ever imagined.”
“Well Pap, I guess we’re alike in at least one way; we’re both hard workers.”
True, but that’s not it, Pap thought, but he decided to leave it at that. “Would closing me out on March fifteenth be convenient for you? Not that I’m in any particular hurry, but havin’ exactly seven years of successful partnership with you sort of appeals to me.”
“Oh, sure. All we need’s an audit, and that shouldn’t take more than two, three weeks at the outside.”
“Good. In this world of sloppiness and imperfection, it’ll be nice to look back on something as nice and neat as this’s been.”
“Thanks, Pap; that goes double for me.”
