by Cameron Judd
“Yeah, yeah, jabber jabber jabber!” a board member named Truman Hill said. “We’ve heard it a thousand times, Ben. I got your speech memorized, so why don’t you just say ‘Ditto to all the crap I said last month’ and sit down, would you?” Hill grinned over at Eli. “Quote me in the newspaper on that, would you, Eli?”
Eli grinned back, but that was a quote that would never make the Clarion, no sir. Not as long as he was dating Ben Buckingham’s daughter. Journalistic objectivity and separation went only so far.
Buckingham wheeled and looked at Eli. “Eli, huh? So you’re the one my little girl has set her cap for, are you?”
“Watch out, Eli, he’s about to shoot you through the leg,” Hill said, and this time the laughter was more guffaws than chuckles. Buckingham did not join in.
“Truman, that’s a mean-spirited thing to say to a man, especially when you know that the truth is that the boy took a fall in his barn and poked a metal rod through his leg,” Buckingham said. “It was a pitchfork tine, if I heard the story right.”
“Half this county knows that was just a coverup, Ben, but I’ll not argue with you over it. And you’re right: I shouldn’t have said such a thing no matter what happened, and I apologize for it.”
Buckingham nodded his acceptance of the apology.
“Is there anything you do want to say about the business before this body, Ben?” asked the chairman.
Buckingham took a breath and looked at the now-unsettled man who had brought the beer license request before the board. “I’ve got nothing against you personally, Mr. Walters, in fact I don’t even know you. My opposition is against alcohol, which I believe lies at the root of many evils in our modern society. I vowed long ago, and have kept to the vow, that I would attend every meeting of this governmental body, and speak in opposition to all beer license applications made. I have personally seen and experienced within the reaches of my own extended family the wickedness done by the demon of alcohol. It’s from that root, and from my understanding of the law of God, that my opposition grows. I know I am an aggravation to these gentlemen on this board, but that simply is the way it must be. The truth often grates on the nerves of those who don’t wish to hear it.”
The county attorney asked permission to speak and received it.
“There is another truth that has to be heard here, Ben, and that is the truth of what the law is. There are certain qualifications that must be met by those wishing the right to sell beer – a legal product, remember, whether you favor it or not – and it is the job of this body to review those qualifications from applicants and respond to them in a consistent manner. Consistent manner. To do otherwise would result in an inequitable and discriminatory application of the relevant law, and potentially place this county in a precarious legal posture. In other words, Ben, if Mr. Walters makes application and his application meets the same standards outlined by the law and attained by prior applicants who were approved, this board would deny his application only at its own peril.”
Buckingham turned to Eli, presented an expression of perplexity, and shrugged dramatically.
“I will say, Mr. Chairman, that I wish to officially voice for the public record my opposition to the approval of Mr. Walters’ application for the right to sell damnation-in-a-bottle at the In-and-Out Market on Mountcastle Road. I base my opposition on my conviction that such sales are deterimental to the welfare and moral environment of Kincheloe County, and that the addition of one more outlet for this noxious beverage is one more backward step for a county about which I care deeply. That’s my view, and I’ve spoken it.”
“I’ll ask the recording secretary, as usual, to record Mr. Buckingham’s presence and statement of opposition as part of the official minutes of this meeting. Thank you, Ben. Now please, since you have completed your statement, have a seat so we may move forward.”
“Move backward is more like it, if you approve this thing,” Buckingham said, and plopped into his chair.
The vote went exactly as expected, the beer license granted, the board thanked by the applicant, and the meeting adjourned. Eli closed his notepad and rose to go, but Buckingham blocked him and put out his hand. Eli shook it warily, and Buckingham smiled at him.
“Pleased to meet you at last, son, and I’m sorry we haven’t had you over to the house yet. We can rectify that within the next two or three weeks, if you’d be interested in having supper with us one night.”
“Of course, sir. I’ve been looking forward to meeting you.” Eli hoped the lying smile he pasted across his face was convincing.
“I’ll have Melinda get with you on the details, then.” He shook Eli’s hand again and departed.
Eli experienced a sense of relief. He’d just passed a somewhat dreaded milepost, and it seemed to him it had gone well. He felt like Curtis Stokes would feel if he discovered that telephone pole shadows were no longer going to grab and shake him.
Melinda was right, though. Her father was extraordinarily intense.
“Damnation-in-a-bottle.” He might have to quote that one. It was simply too colorful, too expressive, to pass up.
Chapter Twenty-Three
“HE LIKED YOU, ELI,” Melinda said, arms around Eli as she smiled into his face. They were in Eli’s office, twenty-four hours past the time Eli had attended and covered the meeting of the planning commission/beer board. The day’s afternoon paper was freshly off the press and on the street, and obviously Ben Buckingham had been among the first to pick up a copy. “He called me right after he read your story, and said you didn’t seem to have the same ‘derisive’ attitude as ‘that other boy who used to cover those meetings.’ I’m not sure who that was or if he actually had a ‘derisive attitude,’ but Dad was adamant that he did. Not there is ever a time my father isn’t adamant.”
“He probably was right. The reporter’s name was Jeff Ealey, and sometimes he did have an edge to him. David, I know, always took a lot of care in editing his stories because sometimes Jeff seemed to want to inject his own feelings and opinions into his copy, and they were usually snide in tone.”
“Well, apparently you didn’t commit that particular sin, and Dad noticed and appreciated it.”
“You know, Melinda, I have to admit that maybe part of the reason I was so careful about it had to do with you. He’s your father, and if I’m going to be around you, inevitably I’m going to be around him some, too, and I don’t want a bad relationship.”
“Dad told me he invited you to come have supper with us Wednesday night of next week. Believe it or not, they’ve found asbestos in our church building, and there won’t be any Wednesday night activities there next week because they’ll be in the middle of the cleanup.”
“Your dad invited me for supper, but didn’t name a night. He said you’d fill me in on that later.”
“Consider yourself filled in, then. Can you make it Wednesday night?”
“Unless David gives me some unexpected assignment, I can.”
“Good. It’s about time we broke that particular piece of ice, the old meet-the-parents bit.”
“Agreed. Is your mom a good cook?”
“Excellent. I can pretty much guarantee you that she’ll make homemade pizza. She makes the best homemade pizza on the planet, and it tends to be her choice of fare for informal social suppertime get-togethers.”
“My mouth is watering already. But … no beer, right?”
She laughed. “You got that right, young man.” She paused, then said in a tone of amusement, “You know what Dad actually said one time, when he was real worked up on one of his anti-alcohol rants? He stood up from his chair at supper one night and said alcoholic beverages are ‘the devil’s urine.’ Mom laughed at him for saying such a goofball thing, and that made him really mad. When he calmed down, though, he laughed at it too.”
“I’m glad he didn’t say that at the beer board meeting. That would have been too good not to quote, no matter what the relationship consequences.” In the end, Eli had passed
up on quoting the “damnation-in-a-bottle” line for fear Ben Buckingham might thing he was doing it in a mocking way. And he’d have been right. Eli told Melinda about it and she laughed heartily.
“That’s Dad,” she said. “That’s a true Ben Buckingham kind of quote.”
“Would you have quoted it?”
“I don’t even want to think about it. Thank heaven my station has no interest in news so piddling as routine beer licenses … can you imagine me having to cover those meetings with my own father up there all but demanding a return to Prohibition and spouting those colorful, quotable lines of his? Talk about an awkward position to be in!”
“It would be a pure nightmare. It was clumsy enough for me, having to decide how to present him in my story, and I’m not even related to the man.”
Melinda’s expression was coy and playful. “Not yet, anyway. But hey, we’ve already got the rings, right?”
“So we do. Can you believe Jimbo actually did that? Can you believe it?”
“I can’t,” she said, and gave Eli a kiss that all but melted him in his socks.
SATURDAY MORNING, AND MELINDA informed her parents she had to run to her office to “tie up some loose ends.” She drove the Bronco to Hodgepodge, experiencing a moment of panic when she thought she saw Rawls Parvin’s pickup coming her way in the opposite lane. The truck was indeed similar, but the driver was an obese red-haired man singing along to the same radio station Melinda was listening to. She knew it because she saw his mouth forming the words “angel is the centerfold” in tandem with the words blasting from her radio speaker. When the man realized a pretty girl in a passing car was laughing at him, he instantly grew serious, eyes forward, hands on the wheel in standard ten-o’clock-two-o’clock position.
Eli’s car was already at Hodgepodge. Melinda parked beside it as he came grinning out his usual door.
“My car or yours?” she asked.
“Yours,” he said. “I’ll spring for a fill-up of your tank at the end of our running around.”
“No hidden double-meanings there, I hope.”
“Nope. Playing it straight. You drive, I buy gasoline.”
“You are a gentleman and a scholar, as my great-uncle used to tell people.”
The kiss that happened when Eli climbed into the passenger seat lasted an unbroken two-and-a-half minutes. Eli was ready to start a family then and there, but knew better than to say anything. “Where to, cowboy?” Melinda asked.
“Off to the best cup of coffee and the freshest country ham-laden buttermilk biscuits in Kincheloe County, miss!”
“Flea Plank Merchandise and Grocery it is, then!”
Eli smiled. Oh, the advantages of dating a local girl who knew her county!
THEY REACHED THE FLEA Plank store just as a fresh batch of biscuits was being removed from the big oven, filling the store with an aroma so fine it could move a sensitive soul to tears. They obtained their food and coffee and settled into one of the old wooden booths lining one wall, there to nibble ham biscuits and drink enough of the county’s best coffee to keep them on the lookout for restrooms all day.
Melinda took a long sip of coffee and sighed contentedly. “A Saturday morning doesn’t get much better than this, y’know.”
“Amen, sister.”
The sound of the spring-hinged entrance door creaking open caused Eli to look up just as Custer Crosswaite walked into the store, just behind a simply but neatly dressed woman of about his own age. Custer looked around the place, seeing who was present, and didn’t react at all when he saw Eli.
“I’ll be … that egotist just looked right through me like I was nothing,” Eli whispered to Melinda. “Surely he remembers me from the bicentennial meeting.”
“That’s not Custer,” Melinda said. “That’s Buster, the other ‘twin cousin.’”
The resemblance was amazing. Eli gaped and had difficulty persuading himself he was seeing a different man than the one who had put on such a performance at the recent meeting. As he watched Buster and the shy-looking woman with him cross the room, though, he detected a very different demeanor, a slight stoop of the shoulders where Custer had been straight-backed in a stance of self-pride, except when slumping in his chair to make sure everyone knew he was above it all.
“Is that his wife?” Eli whispered as Buster and his companion settled into a booth against the opposite wall.
“Yes … that’s Piebird. Quite a name, huh? When Buster talks about her he always calls her Miss Piebird.”
“Is it true that he proposed to her through the bathroom door?”
“I think so, yes.”
“Amazing.”
“Yeah.”
“I need a coffee refill. You?”
When Eli returned from the food counter with two cups freshly steaming, Buster Crosswaite was standing by the booth, talking with Melinda. She made quick introductions. Eli sat down the coffee cups and shook Buster’s hand, then sat down himself.
“I was just ’poligizing to Miss Melinder for not having noticed who she was when me and the missus came in. That’s Miss Piebird over there ’cross the way, Mr. Eli.”
“Just Eli, sir.”
“Just Buster. Pleased to meet you, young man. I’ve read some of your writing in the newspaper, and my cousin, Custer, told me you are a nice young fellow.” Buster’s voice, like his looks, resembled Custer’s, but was softer, much less forceful.
“Pleased to meet you too, sir, and I look forward to having a chance to see you and your cousin dance soon.”
“We love our dancing, me and Custer. Been doing it since we was boys together. We’ll be proud to have you see some of it.”
“Congratulations on the PBS documentary coming up. Custer mentioned that at the last meeting of the planners for the bicentennial.”
“Thank you, thank you. We’re right pleased with that, even though I admit cameras make me nervous. Sorry ’bout that, Miss Melinder. I know camera work is your own line.”
“I’d much rather be behind the camera than in front of it, so I understand,” Melinda replied.
“When will they get the documentary started, sir?” Eli asked.
“Matter of fact, Miss Piebird and me are meeting with one of them folk today,” Buster said. “Why you think I’m wearing my new jeans?” He motioned down at the denim-clad stalks that served him for legs, just like Custer’s.
“Today, huh!” The newsman in Eli was beginning to stir. “Where do you have to go to meet him?”
“Right here where I stand. He said he wanted to talk to me and my lady in our ‘natural surroundings,’ and asked if there was a little local store or café or some such they could meet us at. And here we are.”
“So you’ll be interviewed right here?”
“I guess so.”
“Is your cousin joining you?”
“Not today. It’s just me and Miss Piebird. There’ll be a whole bunch of interviews done, they’ve told me. They’ll catch Custer on his own later, then they’ll stick us together and talk to both of us. And get a lot of footage of us dancing. We’re scheduled to dance at the Fourth of July parade around the courthouse, anyway, so I’m sure we’ll see the TV folk then.”
“Good luck with it, Buster,” Melinda said, smiling up at the lanky ginger-complexioned man.
“Thank you. You two just out for breakfast this morning?”
“We both have an interest in old historic buildings,” Melinda said, “and we’re looking around at some today. Including the house where Eli’s grandparents lived on Harmony Road.”
“Never knowed nobody who lived on that road,” Buster said. “But it’s a pretty drive. Me and Miss Piebird have drove up and down it a lot in the fall, when the leaves turn. Who was your granddaddy, son?”
“Will Keller.”
“Heard of him, never knowed him.”
A few moments more of chatting and Buster returned to his booth, leaving Eli and Melinda to finish their breakfast without further interruption. After a s
top in the restrooms, they returned to the Bronco and headed out to begin their day of exploration. They pulled out of the parking area just as an olive-green Range Rover with Knox County plates and an East Tennessee Public Television bumper sticker entered it and came to a stop.
“There’s your PBS man,” Eli said.
“Obviously,” Melinda replied. “Those PBSers are Range Rover kind of people – those who were clever enough to marry rich, anyway.”
“Exactly. Hey, that prompts a question: are you just running around with me because you think I’m a rich author, Melinda?”
“You’ve figured me out, moneybags.”
“I should have known.”
“Actually, it’s not money. I just like the way you fill out your jeans.”
“Well, if filling out jeans is what you’re looking for in a man, there’s a dude in the Clarion mailroom you’d probably want to meet. Thunky Fincher. Yeah, that’s his real name, or at least the only one I’ve ever heard him called: Thunky. That dude fills out his pants like nobody you ever saw.”
“Oh my!”
“Yep.” Eli grinned slyly. “Four hundred pounder. Balloons his clothes all the way around. I bet his belt size is seventy inches.”
“Oh … that guy? I’ve seen him before, standing on the loading dock behind the newspaper office. He’s a big, big old boy.”
“He is. Probably sets off earthquake detectors when he walks to his mailbox. Whole different species than the Crosswaite cousins.”
“Yeah,” Melinda said. “If you stood those twin cousins together on the same scale you’d probably be lucky to register two hundred and fifty combined pounds. Skinny, skinny men.”
“Speaking of the Crosswaites, Melinda, I’ve met each of them only once, but already I can understand what people mean when they talk about how different they are even though they’re also just alike. Buster seemed very quiet compared to Custer. Hey, tell me something: are they really named Buster and Custer, or did they give themselves rhyming names for show-business purposes?”
