Small Town Trouble

by Jean Erhardt

  This was only the beginning and Dickhead knew it. So it figured that he was in the mood to rain on her parade any way he could. And being the King of Dickheads, he certainly could.

  No doubt there’d be more heavy showers on Nancy’s parade if her bedrock audience got wind of what she was up to when the TV cameras were off duty. The Southerners love their eccentrics and are suckers for real perversity, but they’re an unpredictable lot and can turn on you like mad opossums. One minute they’re throwing you a Champagne Magnolia party, and the next they’re chasing you across the state line with a sawed-off shot gun. There was no way to know how ugly they’d get if confronted with the notion that their fair-haired Nancy Merit, the same charming Nancy who showed them how to make a Sky-High Berry Pie, sharpen their rose pruners and stencil their bathroom walls, regularly took girls’ night out to its wild extreme.

  There was a sharp rap on the bedroom door. “Kimberly! Kimberly, you awake?” My mother shouted. The door flew open. “Oh, good. You’re awake. I feel like having a little night adventure. Get dressed.”

  I had the sudden urge to pull the covers up over my head, but I knew that my mother had had more than her fair share of Manhattans and I certainly didn’t want her to climb behind the wheel, so I complied.

  Chapter 3

  “Take a left. Let’s drive by that awful place where the tavern owner got himself killed and his thing chopped off.”

  “We could use a little adventure,” I said. Always something fun to do in Fogerty. When I’d been watching the TV news, I hadn’t paid much attention to the details about the tavern murder. My mind had been busy mud-wrestling with the Big Questions, like, was Bunky hogging the bowl of frozen yogurt? And was Nancy Merit, at that very moment, wearing her peony pink Victoria’s Secret underwear?

  “There it is!” Evelyn spouted, pointing to a ramshackle of a roadhouse. “That’s it! Jimmy’s Place.”

  The sign propped up with scrap lumber on top of Jimmy’s read TOPLESS TOPLESS TOPLESS. Someone had taken an artistic stab at painting two jiggling breasts about to pop out of a bikini. Nice touch. It was all bathed in a sickly blue light. A few cars were parked in the gravel lot, and a barely flickering neon Open sign hung above the door.

  “I will never understand why they even allow these places to exist,” Evelyn said, leering all the while.

  “Didn’t A.C. used to stop off here once in a while?” I couldn’t resist. A.C., like many of the guys in town had been known to drop by Jimmy’s Place for an occasional brew and breast exam. By reports, even Scotty Mink, the town’s mayor, was a semi-regular.

  “He most certainly did not. A.C. was a gentleman,” Evelyn said, emphatically. “Now pull around to the back. I want to check out the crime scene.”

  “The crime scene?” I wheeled into the back parking lot. “You’ve been watching too much Law and Order.”

  “Just hush and drive,” Evelyn said, sticking her head out the window.

  “For crying out loud, Mother. Get your head inside of this car.”

  “Hey, Kimberly. Lookie there.”

  I was hoping she hadn’t spotted the missing winkie.

  “I’ll bet those are blood stains. Don’t you think so?” she said, pointing at a brown circle in the gravel.

  “Try rust stains.”

  Suddenly, from somewhere stage left, there was a very loud bang.

  Evelyn screamed. We both ducked below the dash. I’d had a feeling all along that this wasn’t going to be my lucky day. But I hadn’t been prepared for things to go this badly.

  Reluctantly, I looked down to see just how much blood was leaking out of me.

  Chapter 4

  It was my lucky day after all. There wasn’t a drop of my blood or Evelyn’s or anybody else’s to be found. In fact, there hadn’t even been a gunshot.

  The deafening noise I’d mistaken for a shotgun blast had actually been the sound of the back door of Jimmy’s Place slamming open.

  Rick Rod Delozier careened out of the door. God knows how I recognized him, but I did. I hadn’t seen Rick Rod since high school, but there was no doubt about it. It was him alright, my best friend Amy Delozier’s more than a bit off-kilter brother.

  Rick Rod was in the process of getting 86’ed from Jimmy’s Place and having the riot act read to him by a mean-looking, well-endowed babe in tight-ass jeans, her big yellow hair piled high like a lemon cake. She had him by the front of his T-shirt, her nose about an inch from his face, and she snarled something indiscernible, but clearly ugly, then tossed him into the parking lot. The door banged closed and she was gone.

  “My Lord!” Evelyn exclaimed as Rick Rod Delozier stumbled and bounced off a few parked cars, then he landed across the hood of mine.

  Luckily or unluckily, I hadn’t decided which, yet my car wasn’t rolling at the time.

  “Oh, My Lord!” gasped Evelyn grabbing my arm with a look of sheer dread. “Make a run for it, Kimberly. Now!”

  Rick Rod managed to peel himself off the hood, and then rolled around to my car window.

  “How’s it goin’, Rick Rod?”

  Looking deeply confused and not unlike Clarence the Cross-Eyed Lion, he eyed me long and hard. Then he peered in at Evelyn who muffled a scream, then gasped like a large-mouthed bass. Rick Rod’s glazed gaze fell back on me. My own alcohol blood level must have risen just from inhaling his vapors.

  “Now hold the phone,” he slurred, the dim-watted bulb trying very hard to click on. “I know you, right?”

  “Kimberly!” Evelyn was now climbing me like a koala. “Can’t you see he’s dangerous?”

  I knew Rick Rod Delozier was a lot of things, but dangerous probably wasn’t at the top of the list.

  Finally his headlights flicked onto low beam. “Hey, I know. Fogerty High, right? You’re Amy’s friend!”

  “Bingo.”

  Ah, Amy Delozier. Momentarily, my thoughts drifted back to the times when Amy and I used to spend hours in her grandfather’s hayloft concentrating on perfecting the French kiss. It had been her idea to get in some kissing practice before we started junior high when, according to Amy, there would be lots of boy action. Boy action hadn’t actually sounded all that great to me. Even then, it was clear that making out with Amy would be hard to top.

  Somewhere along the line I’d heard that Amy had married a dentist and they lived in an enormous Tudor over in Terrace Park. For the record, dentists are notoriously bad kissers. Not that I’d ever kissed one or was likely to, but the information does come from more than one reliable source.

  Curse my luck. Why couldn’t Amy Delozier have fallen across my car hood instead of her drunken, deranged brother?

  Rick Rod looked confused again. “Now what was your name?”

  Evelyn groaned heavily and slumped in her seat.

  I told him.

  “Kim Claypoole!” he said, pointing at me like I’d finally come into full focus. Then he leaned in a little too close for my comfort and said, “Lemme tell you somethin’, Kim.” He nodded over at the tavern. “This just ain’t a very nice place anymore.”

  Like it ever was.

  “Matterafact,” he went on, “this whole town’s goin’ to hell.” So it wasn’t just me who’d noticed.

  “I’m kinda surprised to see you ladies here.”

  “Actually,” I lied, “we were just turning around in the lot.”

  I was as eager to hit the high road as Evelyn, but I simply had to ask.

  “Say, Rick Rod, how is Amy?”

  Rick Rod grinned. “Real fine.”

  But I already knew that. I wanted more, but I was hoping I wouldn’t have to hear about the dentist again. No such luck.

  “She married a dentist. Ask me, the guy’s a jerk. But hey, he makes the big bucks.”

  “Well,” I said, rolling up my window, “tell Amy hello for me, will you?”

  “Sure thing.”

  Like he’d remember.

  “Wait a minute,” he said, putting his paw on my window. �
�Now who are you again?”

  “Martina Navratilova.”

  “Can we please leave now?” Evelyn pleaded. By this time she looked a lot more pissed off than scared. She had a nasty squeeze hold on the back of my neck and it was starting to cut off circulation to my medulla oblongata.

  “Take it easy, Rick Rod.”

  He waved bye-bye as we left a dusty trail.

  On the drive back to Tara Evelyn was uncharacteristically quiet. Actually, it was more of a sulk, but I wasn’t dumb enough to explore it. Instead, I enjoyed the peace and quiet while I frolicked in the sun kissed, breezy, daisy-studded fields of my mind with a possible present day version of Amy Delozier, a woman who probably hadn’t had a decent French kiss in twenty years. I wondered if Amy ever thought back on our happy times together in the hayloft. If she did, I’ll bet she didn’t mention it to the dentist.

  Chapter 5

  Settled, once again in the Ashley Wilkes bedroom, I puffed up my pillow and snapped on the radio, pulling in WFOG. Enjoyment was too strong a word, but it was nice enough listening quietly to a string of lame but heartfelt country songs. My cousin Alonzo was the DJ on duty. He was taking requests, and I stuck with him until a guy named Big O from Withamsville wanted to hear the Reverend Somebody singing Jesus, This is Jimmy.

  Feeling mildly relaxed, I closed my eyes and entertained beautiful visions of Dickhead falling from the highest peak of Mount Le Conte. I watched him flail and drop until he became only a gray speck. Then he disappeared completely somewhere over, say, Cherokee, North Carolina.

  The next morning, over breakfast at Bob Evans restaurant, my mother and I had the difficult talk I’d been avoiding. Not that I was any more in the mood for it, but there comes a time when one must saddle up and ride the pony. Unfortunately, to add to my discomfort, I was feeling decidedly cranky about the fact that Nancy Merit hadn’t returned my call. What was she thinking? How could she so casually allow forty-eight hours to go by without so much as a hello? This breather thing was getting out of hand.

  After sufficient fortification of orange juice, two cups of coffee, scrambled eggs, sausage patties, biscuits with gravy and a melon wedge, I got right down to business. I pretty much knew how it would go and that’s pretty much how it went.

  Evelyn was defensive at first, insisting that things weren’t all that bad in Moneyland. But I knew differently and so did she. Finally, Evelyn broke down and cried.

  “I know that A.C. and I made some unfortunate choices along the way where money’s concerned.” She blew her nose loudly.

  It was excruciatingly difficult, but I refrained from pointing out that “unfortunate” was the understatement of the millennium.

  Reluctantly, Evelyn agreed that things were a mess, that she was scared to death, and that a quarter million could plug up the hole and then some. With the proceeds from the WFOG sale, she could hang onto Tara and keep herself and Bunky in Kibbles for the foreseeable future.

  I tried to inject a bit of levity. “You know, Mother, you’ll still have to cut back on your visits with Mickey and Minnie.”

  But Evelyn wasn’t having any of it. She eyed me like a pissed-off Pekingese. It wasn’t the first time I’d noticed her resemblance to Bunky.

  “Don’t be ugly,” she said.

  The perky Bob Evans waitress who’d refilled our coffee cups about twenty times came by with the check and one last offer of a warm-up, which we passed on. I paid the ticket.

  Back at the plantation, Evelyn went off to water her pathetic rose garden while I worked at landing an attorney through my father’s old connections. After making a few calls, I settled on Bud Upton, a guy I’d gone to high school with who’d, amazingly enough, made it through law school and passed the bar. In his day, Bud had been one hell of a quarterback. I was hoping he’d turned into one hell of an attorney.

  I rang Bud Upton, and though I wasn’t totally convinced that he remembered me at all, he was pleasant enough. After hearing the lowdown, Bud agreed to act on Evelyn’s behalf.

  “Whew,” Bud said, “a quarter mil for WFOG? That’s a hunk of change and then some.”

  “And then some,” I said. “And Bud, you should know that my mother’s financial situation is precarious, at best. Time is of the essence here.”

  “I read you loud and clear,” he said.

  It was nice to know that somebody out there was paying attention.

  Before we lapsed into one last round of small talk, Bud offered the name of an accountant who was ugly and carried a big stick and might be able to save Evelyn from herself once the WFOG deal was, God willing, signed and sealed.

  A.C.’s boys were the men at the oars of WFOG. My cousin Abbott acted as the station manager, advertising director and sergeant-at-arms, failing miserably all around. Between him and his brothers, Alonzo and Agee, they kept the air waves humming at WFOG and a steady drain on Evelyn’s pocketbook.

  It looked like Abbott may have gotten wind of the offer and had probably correctly assumed that his broadcasting career could well be headed down a rocky road. No doubt this explained the somewhat surly look on his face when he saw Evelyn and me coming through the station door.

  Abbott got up from his desk where I could see he’d been reading a sleazy magazine while enjoying a breakfast burrito with a side of buffalo wings.

  “Hey, Evelyn. Howdy, Cuz,” Abbott said, bear-hugging us as was the Claypoole family way. He rounded up some extra chairs and the three of us got cozy around his desk.

  Alonzo gave us a wave from the sound booth. He was on the air reading the list of upcoming community events. I was sorry that I wasn’t going to be around for the Mother-Daughter Mall Walkathon for the National Rifle Association.

  “Y’all want a buffalo wing?” He slid the paper tray in our direction.

  “Well, I believe I will,” my mother said, plucking one from the tray. “Kimberly, aren’t you going to have one?”

  “I think I’ll pass,” I slid the gooey mess back to Abbott.

  We chatted a bit, Abbott commenting on how long it had been since he’d last seen me, and, oh, had we heard that Garth Brooks was coming to Cincinnati? My mother was excited by the Garth Brooks news.

  “I just love Garth! He is so handsome. His wife is the luckiest woman alive. Abbott, would you pretty please ask Alonzo to play one of Garth’s songs? Doesn’t matter which one. They’re all good. Don’t you think so?”

  Abbott just shrugged. “Sure,” he said. He got up, ambled over to the sound booth and stuck his head inside, passing along Evelyn’s request.

  Alonzo nodded with hearty approval and gave us a thumbs-up. In short order, Garth Brooks was belting out the song about the woman who’s every lover Garth’s never had.

  We made a little more small talk. Finally, Abbott couldn’t stand it any longer.

  “So what’s the deal, Evelyn?” he asked, picking at what was left of the last buffalo wing.

  Evelyn did a Vivien Leigh sigh and took a hanky from her purse, which I suspected was only for effect.

  “Abbott,” she said, “I won’t pussyfoot around. You know as well as I do that this radio station hasn’t turned a dime in more years than I care to remember, not that I’ve minded, given my affection for you boys.” She paused long enough to poke the hanky at the corners of her eyes. “You should know that a generous offer has been made for the station, which I’ve been advised to accept.”

  Abbott shot me a moderately hostile look.

  Evelyn continued. “I thought it was only fair to warn you that there may be some changes around here.” My mother sniffed and blew her nose. A nice finale.

  For a minute, Abbott sat there like a dazed toad. Then he said, “You think they might be needing a station manager?”

  “Don’t get your hopes up,” I said.

  From his glass cage, Alonzo grinned at us in an oblivious, too-many-beers-in-his-thirty-years way, and played another Garth Brooks song.

  After the trip to WFOG, Evelyn was dying for a treat so we sto
pped off at the United Dairy Farmers. The frozen yogurt cone perked Evelyn up, and the chocolate shake hoisted my mood elevator out of the basement and left it somewhere just short of the ground floor.

  Chapter 6

  Safely back at Tara, Evelyn went off to take a restorative bath and rest up for her night of singles country line dancing at the VFW. Our adventurous afternoon had definitely worn her out.

  I was feeling a little lackluster myself and decided on a long nap. Bunky decided to join me in the boudoir. He insisted that I lift him onto the bed and whined until I did. He made a beeline for the pillows where he proceeded to get very comfortable on both of them. I made a mental note to suggest to Evelyn that she take Bunky with her to the tub on her next trip. He smelled more than a little like a ratty sock.

  “At least give me one of the pillows,” I said. Encouragingly, I nudged Bunky into a sharing frame of mind, which he was none too thrilled about. He groaned, then finally saw things my way.

  I couldn’t sleep. I picked up the phone and tried Nancy again. This breather thing was really starting to get on my nerves. A quick check of the clock radio revealed that it was about Yabba Dabba Doo time. I was hoping to catch her before she went home to Dickhead.

  I got patched through to Shirley, her trusty assistant.

  “Hi de ho there,” Shirley said. Shirley was a little bit country, a little bit classic rock.

  “Hi de ho yourself.”

  “You called a second too late,” Shirley said. “She just walked out the door.”

  “Rats.” A warning. Dating married megalomaniacs may cause one to use ridiculous expressions like rats. “Rats, rats, rats.”

  “Nancy’s headed home, then out again.”