Georgia Bottoms

by Mark Childress

  “All going to storage,” said Krystal. “I’m traveling light this time.”

  “Krystal, you and I need to talk about this. Finish up here, then come to the house. I’ve got part of a cake, I’ll make coffee. We’ll talk. Okay? I’ve been so crazy lately I haven’t even seen you.”

  Krystal let herself smile. “That sounds good. Okay.”

  “Just one thing I absolutely have to do first, then I’ll be at the house waiting for you.”

  Krystal’s face fell. “Oh, I see.”

  “See what?”

  “Tell you what, Georgia, go on and run your very important errands. If I have time, I’ll stop by on my way out of town.”

  “No. Don’t do this. Now listen to me—Mama flipped out and spent the night in jail, it’s a long story, all a big mistake but I’ve got to go get her out of there. Then I’m going straight home to wait for you, hear me? You promise you’ll come!”

  “Your mother’s in jail? Georgia, what the hell are you doing talking to me? Go!”

  “I thought you might leave without saying goodbye,” Georgia said.

  Krystal shook her head. “I wouldn’t do that.”

  On her way out the door Georgia remembered the speech she had practiced. “Hey, I love you, Krystal. If that makes any difference.”

  Krystal didn’t look around. She tucked the ends of the paper into the goblet. “I know,” she said. “Me too.”

  19

  The courthouse was a Greek Revival palace with huge Ionic columns and a gleaming white dome, built by the wealthy cotton planters who owned the county before the Civil War. Every time Georgia walked up the marble steps, she felt as though she was entering the seat of a much grander county. Amazing to think that in antebellum times Six Points was one of the richest towns in Alabama. Things had been going downhill ever since. The courthouse had not been improved, beyond a fresh coat of white paint on the dome every few years. The clock in the portico hadn’t kept time since before Georgia was born.

  The excited uproar of a school field trip echoed through the rotunda. Georgia climbed the staircase that curved up the wall. Kids thundered all over the second floor, peering into the glass cases at the same dusty Confederate flags that were on display when Georgia was a child.

  She waved hi to the teacher, her old classmate Cindy Helms, and continued up the stairs to the jail. Some of the kids followed her with their eyes. No doubt they still liked to spook one another with stories of prisoners hanging themselves in the cells up there, ghostly images of their faces etched by lightning into the leaded windowpanes.

  The third-floor landing opened onto a small lobby with plastic chairs for waiting, as at a dentist’s office. In the security glass of the window, Georgia had a dim double vision of a man in uniform.

  The speaker crackled. “Can I help you?”

  Georgia stated her name and why she was here. The deputy walked his eyes up and down her body while deciding whether to help. She gave him a generous smile.

  Soon the deputy was buzzing Nathan into the waiting room. He appeared to be undamaged, still wearing his shiny drapey polyester basketball clothes with the black windbreaker zipped up to his neck.

  “Where’s Mama?” said Georgia. Nathan shrugged.

  She waved to get the attention of the man in the window.

  The speaker crackled. “Yeah?”

  “What about my mother?”

  The deputy swiveled on his chair to talk to someone behind him. He leaned back to his microphone: “She’s refusing to come out.”

  “What? Why?”

  “She says she doesn’t have a daughter. Her daughter is dead.”

  “The woman has dementia,” Georgia said. “Can you please let me talk to her?”

  “No civilians allowed in here. Hang on.”

  “Dayum,” said Nathan, “that ol’ lady is pissed off at you.”

  Georgia turned. “Would you please sit down and let me handle this?”

  “Say she gone write you out of her will, leavin’ us in here all night,” Nathan said, and when he saw her face: “Well? That’s what she say.”

  “When did you talk to her?”

  “All night long,” he said. “She don’t ever shut up. Told me all about you—all the trouble you used to get in, you was my age.”

  Georgia was surprised the sheriff would put them together. Nathan said no, they were in cells facing across the hall. It was a small jail, he said.

  “Smaller than the one in New Orleans?” Georgia watched for his reaction.

  He started to answer, then cut his eyes at her. “What you think? I been in jail before?”

  “Well, haven’t you?”

  “Just visiting,” he said.

  “Good. Glad to hear it,” said Georgia. “Let’s keep it that way.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “But you have been arrested before,” she said.

  The slouch went out of Nathan’s spine. Suddenly he stood about a foot taller. “What?”

  “You heard me.”

  “How you know that? Mamaw told you that?”

  “I didn’t know for sure.” Georgia smiled. “But you just confirmed it.”

  He narrowed his eyes. “Why you want to trick me for?” He scrunched his mouth into a narrow point and set it over on the side of his face—exactly the way Georgia did when she was vexed.

  Until this moment she had never really felt it. She had known it in her head, but had never been physically touched by the idea that Nathan really was her son.

  She covered her mouth. She had an almost violent urge to throw her arms around him. She realized she’d been with him for two days and had not touched him once.

  He stared at her. “What?”

  “Oh,” she said, “oh God, oh Nathan I am sorry. You’re right. I really don’t want to trick you. Did they give you something to eat?”

  “Yeah.”

  “I bet you’re still hungry.”

  He nodded.

  The door buzzed behind them. Here came Little Mama with a uniformed man leading her by the arm. She brushed his hand off, and turned to Georgia. “It’s about goddamn time.”

  The man said, “Take care, Little Mama,” and went back in the buzzing door.

  Mama said, “Where the hell have you been?”

  “Don’t you start on me! Haven’t I told you to leave that pellet gun in the closet?”

  “I told them I didn’t have any damn daughter, my daughter must surely be dead if she’d leave me to rot in this goddamn hellhole all night.”

  “Hush your mouth with that cussing,” said Georgia. “There’s children downstairs that can hear you.”

  “I don’t give a damn if Billy Graham is down there,” said Little Mama. “I don’t care if the goddamn Pope in Rome is down there—”

  “Okay Mama,” Georgia said loudly, “I get it.”

  The speaker made a staticky click. “Miss Georgia, I need you to sign by your name there, if you would please.” The deputy slid out the steel drawer, with a clipboard. Georgia signed and put it back in the drawer with a friendly smile. The deputy grinned at her like a fool.

  Georgia gathered her parolees and herded them down the stairs.

  The schoolchildren were lined up double file along the wall, preparing to depart. They gawked at Nathan, the obvious prisoner in the group. One bratty-looking girl with straight-across bangs was really giving him the evil eye. Georgia fought the temptation to stick out her tongue.

  Somehow Little Mama kept quiet until they were outside. Georgia was thinking how unfair it was that Mama never forgot anything you might actually want her to forget, like the fact that she’d spent the whole night in jail. Why couldn’t that slip her mind?

  Nathan slunk along in their wake, bobbing his head to the beat of unheard music, silently declaring that he was not associated with the quarreling old white ladies. He seemed to love it when Little Mama cussed. He snickered at every Goddamn and Bullshit. It blew Georgia’s mind to think of the two of them tal
king all night. The boy must have gotten an earful. Good to see he was still amused by her.

  The Honda was blazing hot in the noonday August sun. They groaned and complained even after she got the windows down, motor running, the A/C pumping out as much cool air as it could manage.

  “There’s too much whining in this car,” Georgia said firmly. “I could use a little thanks from you two. You’d still be in there if it wasn’t for me.”

  “I didn’t do nothin’ to get put in there in the first place,” said Nathan.

  “Me neither,” said Little Mama.

  “Mama! You slapped that deputy—twice!—and it was your stupid gun that shot the other one in the butt.”

  Nathan cackled.

  “Don’t you laugh, Nathan Blanchard. You’ll be lucky if they let you off without a criminal record.” In fact no charges had been brought against either of them. Georgia had confirmed that with the deputy before signing the paper.

  “Aino Blanchit,” said Nathan.

  “What?”

  He repeated it until she understood, I ain’t no Blanchard.

  Georgia tilted the mirror to see his face. “That was your daddy’s name.”

  “That’s what you say,” said Nathan. “Ain’t never seen him. He ain’t never bothered to seen me.”

  “Well then, what is your name?”

  “Nothin’, I guess.”

  She smiled. “Nathan Nothin? Nice to meet you.”

  His expression was deeply serious. “I used to put Jordan, ’cause that’s Mamaw’s name.” He pronounced it as Eugenia had: Jerdin. “But I ain’t no Jordan neither.”

  “You can be Nathan Bottoms if you want,” Georgia said.

  He met her gaze in the rearview. “I don’t think so.”

  Little Mama laughed. “Why would he want to use our name? He’s got a perfectly good name of his own.”

  “Because,” Georgia said.

  She felt Nathan’s eyes on the back of her neck. The correct answer was “Because he’s my son, Mama,” but she didn’t feel like getting into that right now. She hoped Nathan would understand. Or at least keep his mouth shut about it.

  “Nathan’s going to have to spend another night with us, Mama. I’ll put him in the blue room again. I really need you not to call the police.”

  “Why would I do that?”

  “Beats me,” said Georgia, “but you did. That’s why the two of you spent the night in jail, remember?”

  “I did nothing of the kind,” Little Mama said. “Nathan is a good boy.”

  This announcement was as unexpected as Mama’s declaration of love for the Supremes. Georgia glanced at the mirror to find Nathan smirking at her, mocking her look of surprise.

  “Yeah, we big friends now,” he said. “Ain’t we, Mama?”

  Georgia turned to look at Little Mama. “Is that so?”

  Mama said yes, it was. They had a lot in common. Both liked LSU and hated Tennessee. Both liked cornbread made from white meal, not yellow, with no sugar. Both liked Clint Eastwood movies except the one with the monkey. It was amazing, Mama said, two strangers having so much in common.

  “You’re just trying to drive me crazy now,” Georgia said.

  “Nuh-uh,” said Nathan. “Her and me bonded in there.”

  “She and I,” Georgia said.

  Considering Mama’s tendency to say “nigger” at the first opportunity, it was hard to imagine their friendship could last. For now, though, this was better than having them hate each other. Mama’s dementia was coming in handy after all. She was a little bit less like herself every day. Soon she would be a completely different person. Maybe Georgia would get along with her then.

  At home, Georgia cooked up a big lunch of baked chicken, field peas, sliced tomatoes, pop-the-can biscuits with homemade fig preserves. Once Nathan got going on his eating, he had no further comment. Little Mama forgot how mad she had been, and scarfed down three of those biscuits.

  While they ate, Georgia ran up to check her machine. No messages. She dialed Krystal to tell her to come on over.

  Three rings, then a recording: “The number you have dialed is not in service at this time.”

  Krystal would come by. She promised.

  Georgia didn’t believe Krystal was really going to move away forever. Even if her stuff was already on the truck. Trucks can be turned around. Stuff can be put back where it was.

  For a while there, it had seemed as though Georgia was headed for disaster on all fronts, but now she could dimly make out a way through this mess. First, convince Krystal to stay, or if need be let her go to Atlanta for a few weeks, get it out of her system, then come back. Next, feed Nathan a good supper and send him home tomorrow with a hug and no hard feelings. Then it was just a matter of simmering Mama down, dealing with the problem of the quilts, and putting her life back on schedule.

  Her life.

  Suddenly there was more to Georgia’s life than just her. There was Nathan—and there was a new man for Saturday night.

  Maybe not just for Saturday. That man would be just fine, come to think of it, for every night of the week.

  The thought of her night with Brent had been bubbling up inside her all day like the most wonderful crisp champagne. A great night like last night lends a special color to the air of the following day.

  Once she got Little Mama down for her nap, the phones unplugged and stashed in the cupboard (in case Mama got another urge to call the cops), and Nathan installed with a vast bowl of chips in front of Celebrity Deathmatch, Georgia headed out to the apartment to straighten up after Sheriff Bill.

  She found his envelope tucked under the hurricane lamp. She folded the bills away in the pocket of her dress. So sweet of him to remember to leave a gift, amidst all that confusion.

  She returned to the big house to clean her own room. She gathered the sheets from the floor and carried them out to the washer. She pressed her face into the sheets to breathe the last traces of Brent Colgate.

  Once the washer was going, she filled a bucket with soap and hot water, and carried it back to her bedroom.

  She turned on the clock radio—a Madonna dance tune, a thumping beat perfect for swabbing the floor. She mopped and danced, shaking her booty while getting the job done. The mop head swung back and forth, dragging a piece of paper from under the bed.

  Bending down she saw it was not a piece of paper but an envelope.

  A sealed white envelope with GEORGIA BOTTOMS hand-printed in small precise letters.

  Her heart began beating faster. She didn’t recognize the handwriting.

  What the hell was this doing in her room?

  The idea that it was somebody’s gift she had accidentally brought back to the house, drop-kicked under the bed or something—that was impossible.

  Georgia kept the books in her head. She knew to the penny how much money came in and went out. From each according to his ability to give, that was her pay scale, with adjustments if someone went through a rough patch and needed a discount, or a gift in return…

  “Oh hush,” Georgia said, and switched off the radio. She knew what was in that envelope: trouble.

  She tore off the edge, and drew out a sheet of onionskin paper folded around some bills.

  A hundred. A twenty. Three fives.

  The message was printed in the same precise hand as the envelope.

  Dear Georgia,

  Surprise!

  Bet you didn’t expect to find this tucked under your pillow.

  Georgia’s eyes raced down the page to the signature. Not a name. Just the inscription,

  You Know Who

  She went back to the top.

  By the time you read this letter, we will have spent the night together. A night of great passion, if what I’ve heard about you is true. I’m really looking forward to it. Deep in the night I will hold you in my arms, and tell you I believe we were meant for each other.

  That’s just how it happened. About three o’clock in the morning, Brent woke he
r up to whisper those words in her ear. Georgia smiled, kissed him, drifted back to sleep.

  Never dreaming she was sleeping in the arms of a snake.

  Since my sister confided her troubles to me, and asked for my help, I’ve been looking forward to getting to know you. It took a lot of string pulling to get myself assigned to the church her husband had recently left—rather abruptly, as you will remember. My friends at the Ala. Baptist Convention were surprised I would request a move from one backwater to another, but finally they approved my request. And here we are!

  My original plan was to get to know you, learn all about your evil ways, and expose you to the public for what you are.

  When I saw you, I had to abandon my original plan.

  You are an exceptionally beautiful woman, charming to a fault. I realized I could accomplish my goals in a way from which everyone would benefit.

  Even you, if you play along.

  Enclosed you will find $135. I believe that is your going rate, for men of the cloth anyway. I don’t know what you charge others. Please accept it with my thanks. I’m sure you were worth every dime.

  I have to warn you, though. This will be the only time I pay. From now on I will receive your services free of charge.

  Just this once, I wanted to pay you, so you know that I KNOW.

  I know about you, Georgia Bottoms.

  I don’t know all the names yet, but start with a certain Honorable Judge, and a certain MD who shall remain nameless (for now). And of course—my sister’s husband. I know there are more. What a naughty, busy girl you have been!

  If you follow these instructions exactly, your secret will be safe with me.

  If not, you may find my sermons in the coming weeks especially relevant to you personally.

  1. Tell your other “men friends” you have retired from the profession, effective immediately.

  2. Starting today, you will make yourself available to me anytime I choose, day or night. I will give you one hour’s notice by telephone.

  3. You will tell no one about this letter, or about us.

  4. I expect to see you in church every Sunday. Listening attentively to the sermon.

  That is the way to heaven, Georgia. Not the path of flesh and the Devil, the path you have chosen.