by Scott Pratt
”I don’t claim to know a whole lot, honey, but I didn’t think the TBI got involved with car wrecks. I thought they only sent you boys in for the bad stuff.”
Nice try. She knew something, and now that she’d fucked up, she was trying to backpedal. Landers decided to try to get her out of her element and into his, get her to a place where she’d be less comfortable.
”Ms. Barlowe, let’s you and I go down to my office where we can sit down, have a cup of coffee, and talk. You can give me a list of your employees and the names of as many customers from last night as you can remember, and I’ll have you back here in a couple of hours.”
The smile vanished.
”Honey, did I mention to you that my late husband, God rest his soul, used to be the sheriff of McNairy County? I was his personal secretary for almost a year before he resigned, and then we got married about a year after that. It was a long time ago, but I remember a few things about the law.
Now, I don’t mean to be rude to you, sugar, but one of the things I remember is that unless you have some kind of warrant or unless you arrest me, I don’t believe I even have to talk to you. I’ve tried to be nice up to this point, but you’ve made it clear that you think I’ve done something wrong. So you know what? I think I’m just going to go on inside and get to work now, okay? You have yourself a wonderful day.”
She turned around and sashayed off. It was the only word to describe the way her hips swayed as she headed into the Mouse’s Tail on her spike heels.
Landers stood there watching her for a minute, then turned and got back into his car.
Most people cringe when they talk to TBI agents, and damned near all of them cooperate unless they have something to hide. This woman had something to hide. Landers decided to stick a flashlight up her skirt until he found out what it was.
April 12
12:10 p.m.
I went up to see my mother after Johnny Wayne was carted off. It was lunchtime, and walking down the hall in the long-term-care wing at the nursing home was like running a wheelchair gauntlet. I knocked gently on the door and walked in. She was awake.
It seemed she was always awake. The doctors told me that Alzheimer’s, as it progresses, interferes with sleep patterns. She was sitting up in bed, watching SportsCenter. Baseball season had started, which meant her beloved Atlanta Braves were back on the field.
”Hi, Ma. How’re you feeling today?”
”Like I’ve been hit by a train.”
”Good. At least you’re with us.”
The disease was steadily running its course. One day I’d walk in and she’d say, ”Hi, Joe,” and we’d talk for a little while, and the next day she wouldn’t even know my name. It was painful to watch. She was only sixty years old, and she’d always been strong and vital. But her skin had lost its elasticity and was the color of bleached bone. Her weight had dropped to ninety pounds, and she seemed to have shrunk by at least two inches. Her cheeks were hollow, her hazel eyes dull, and her hair gray and stringy. Her teeth were in a jar on the bedside table.
As I sat down in the chair next to her bed, I knew it wouldn’t be long before she wouldn’t be able to talk at all.
Ma was born in 1947 in a small town called Erwin, Tennessee, which sits nestled in the Appalachians not far from the North Carolina border and is surrounded by the Cherokee National Forest. She fell in love with a football star from nearby Johnson City and married him in 1964, a month after they graduated from high school. She had Sarah in 1966 and me in 1967, after my father was drafted and went off to Vietnam. I never laid eyes on my father; he was shipped home in a body bag by the time I was born.
Ma provided for my sister and me as best she could by working as a bookkeeper for a small roofing company and taking in other people’s laundry. She didn’t talk much, and when she did, it was usually a bitter tirade against Lyndon Johnson or Richard Nixon. She never dated another man and hardly ever left the house. Her only real requirement of me was:
”Get an education, Joey.”
”Sarah’s getting out of jail today,” I said. ”I hope she’s going to stay at my house for a while. Caroline was supposed to go down and talk to her sometime this morning.”
Her eyes dropped at the mention of Sarah and she began to shake her head.
”My own flesh and blood in jail,” she said. ”Tell me where I went wrong.”
”No sense in beating yourself up over it. She is what she is. It isn’t your fault.”
”You better lock up your valuables, Joey. She’ll haul the whole house off if you give her the chance.”
”Sarah wouldn’t steal from me, Ma.” In fact, Sarah had stolen from me in the past, but I’d never told Ma about it.
”Well, she’s stole from me, plenty of times.”
”Maybe she’s changed. You looked sad when I came in. What’s the matter?”
”I was thinking about Raymond.” She reached for a tissue beside the bed and dabbed at her eyes. Raymond was Ma’s younger brother. He drowned at the age of seventeen. ”Such a waste.”
”No, it wasn’t,” I said before I realized what was coming out of my mouth. ”Don’t spend any tears on him, Ma. That’s a waste.”
”Joey, you’ve never had a kind word to say about your uncle. What did Raymond ever do to you?”
I shook my head, not wanting to get into it. She hadn’t mentioned him in years. ”He wasn’t a good person.”
”He just needed—”
”Ma, could we please not talk about Raymond?
You’re entitled to your opinion; I’m entitled to mine.”
I wanted to tell her what my opinion was based on, but I didn’t see the point. It had happened so long ago, and Ma was dying. There was no sense in sullying whatever pleasant memories she had of her only brother.
I managed to get her mind off of Raymond and onto my son Jack’s baseball prospects for a little while, but then, like a sudden change in the weather, she looked at me as though she’d never seen me before.
”What are you doing here?” she said. ”Who are you?” It was a fast transformation, even for her, like some inner switch had been flipped. Even the pitch in her voice changed.
”It’s me, Ma. I’m Joe. Your son.”
”Why are you wearing that tie? You some kind of big cheese or something?”
”No, Ma. I’m not a big cheese.”
”Where’s Raymond?”
”Raymond’s dead.”
She let out a long sigh and stared at the ceiling.
”Ma? Can you hear me?”
She didn’t respond. She lay motionless, almost catatonic. I looked over at the bedside dresser. On top of it were several photos of our fractured family.
There was one of my grandfather, wearing bib overalls and following a plow pulled by a mule through a cornfield. There was a framed photograph of me walking across the stage at my law school graduation ceremony. Next to it, in a smaller frame, was a black-and-white of Sarah and me when I was seven years old. We were standing on a plank raft in the middle of a half-acre pond out back of my grandparents’
home. Both of us were grinning from ear to ear. Two of my front teeth were missing.
Just to the right of that photo was a slightly larger one of Uncle Raymond, taken about six months before he died. He was seventeen years old, standing next to a doe that had been shot, hung from a tree limb, and gutted. He held a rifle in his left hand and a cigarette in his right. I walked over and picked up the photo. I looked at it for a minute and then turned back towards the bed. Ma was still staring at the ceiling.
”Can you hear me?” I said.
Nothing.
I sat back down on the chair next to the bed and began to dismantle the picture frame. I pried the small staples loose on the back of the frame, pulled the photo out, and tore it into little pieces.
”Hope you don’t mind too much, Ma, but I’m going to put Raymond where he belongs.” I walked to the bathroom, dropped the pieces in the toilet, flushed it, and watc
hed them swirl around the bowl and disappear.
I went to her bedside and sat down again. I leaned back, closed my eyes, and tried to compose myself, the mention of Raymond’s name still ringing in my ears. Finally, I sat up straight.
”Since you can’t hear me anyway, I’m going to tell you what he did,” I said. ”At least it’ll give me the chance to finally get it off my chest.”
I leaned forward, rested my elbows on my knees, and clasped my hands.
”I was eight years old. Sarah was nine. You and Grandma and Grandpa had gone out—it was a Friday evening—and you left Sarah and me at Grandma’s house with Raymond. He was sixteen, I think.
”I remember watching a baseball game on TV. I must have dozed off, because when I woke up, it was dark. The only light in the house was the light from the television. I remember sitting up and rubbing my eyes, and then I heard this noise. It scared me, because it sounded like a cry for help, but I got up off of the couch and started walking towards the noise, more scared every step I took. I was tiptoeing.
”As I got closer, I could make out some words, something like ‘No! Stop it!’ I knew it was Sarah’s voice, coming from Uncle Raymond’s bedroom. I pushed the door open just a little and I could make out Uncle Raymond in the lamplight. He was naked on his knees in the bed with his back to me. Sarah’s voice was coming from underneath him.”
I stopped and took a deep breath, the image of my naked uncle looming over my sister burning in my mind’s eye. ”Can you hear me, Ma?” I said. ”Are you getting this?” I noticed my voice was shaky. Ma was still staring at the ceiling.
”Sarah kept saying, ‘It hurts. Stop it!’ I didn’t know what was going on. I didn’t know anything about sex. But there was so much pain, so much fear in Sarah’s voice that I knew it was bad. I finally managed to say, ‘What’s going on?’ I remember being surprised that my voice worked.
”Raymond’s head snapped around and he looked at me like he was going to kill me. He said, ‘Get the fuck out of here, you little twerp.’ I asked him what he was doing to Sarah. And then, Ma, right then, Sarah said something that haunts me to this day. I’ll never forget that little voice. She said, ‘Get him off of me, Joey. He’s hurting me.’ ”
I had to stop for a minute. The rape of my sister had haunted me, and her, for more than three decades. When I started talking to Ma, I thought it might somehow help to finally describe to another human being—even a human being who couldn’t take it in—what had happened to Sarah. But talking about it was transporting me back to that tiny bedroom. I could feel my heart pounding inside my chest, and my hands had become cold and clammy.
”I stood there like an idiot for a second trying to figure out what to do, but Raymond didn’t give me a chance. He jumped off the bed and grabbed me by the throat. He slammed my head so hard against the wall that it made me dizzy. Then he picked me up by the collar and threw me out the door. I remember skidding along down the hallway on my stomach.
He slammed the door, and I froze. I thought about going out to the garage to get a baseball bat or a shovel or an ax, anything. I could hear Sarah crying on the other side of the door, but it was like one of those nightmares where your arms and legs won’t work. I was too goddamned scared to move.
”Finally, after what seemed like forever, they came out of the room. I remember Sarah sniffling and wiping her nose with the back of her hand. Raymond grabbed both of us by the back of the neck, dragged us into the living room, and pushed us onto the couch. He bent down close to us and pointed his finger within an inch of my nose. And then your brother, the one you loved so much, said to me, ‘If you say one word about this to anybody, I’ll kill your sister.’ Then he turned to Sarah and said, ‘And if you say anything, I’ll kill your brother. Got it?’
”Neither one of us ever said a word to anyone, including each other. When that sorry piece of shit drowned a year later, it was one of the best days of my life. I tried to get him out of my mind after that, but I couldn’t do it. Obviously, neither could Sarah.”
I sat back in the chair and let out a deep sigh. ”So now you know.”
She hadn’t moved since I started talking. She lay there, barely breathing, staring at nothing, blinking occasionally.
”I can’t believe you didn’t notice the changes after that day. I can’t believe you never even bothered to ask what was wrong. I might have told you about it, and maybe you could have done something to help Sarah. But you were too busy feeling sorry for yourself, weren’t you? You’ve spent your whole life being miserable, and now it’s over.”
I looked for some telltale sign that she understood. Nothing.
”Did you hear a word I just said? Did you hear?
Ma? ”
There was a knock and the door opened. A nurse’s aide stepped tentatively into the room.
”Is everything all right?” she said. ”I thought I heard someone shouting.”
It took a few seconds before I understood what she was saying. I suddenly realized where I was, like I’d just been awakened from a deep sleep.
”Everything’s fine,” I said. ”Please close the door.”
She turned and left. I got up from the chair and looked down at Ma.
”I guess I better go now. I’m glad we had this little talk.”
April 12
4:00 p.m.
Shitdammit. Erlene Barlowe missed Gus more than ever. He’d have been better than her at handling the TBI agent. As soon as she got away from him in the parking lot, she sat down at the bar and asked herself what Gus would do. She was worried. The TBI man didn’t strike her as the type she could hold off for long. She knew he’d be back, and she knew it would probably be soon.
Like she told the agent, Gus had been elected high sheriff of McNairy County when he was only twenty-six years old. It was nearly thirty years ago. Erlene hadn’t been much more than a baby, only twenty-two, and didn’t know the first thing about the world.
Her uncle on the McNairy County Commission helped her get a job as a dispatcher at the sheriff’s department. She and Gus were sweet on each other right from the get-go.
What she hadn’t told the agent was that Gus was married to another woman at the time, and his wife Bashie caught Erlene and Gus in a motel room in Gatlinburg on a Friday night. Bashie divorced Gus a few months later and he resigned from the sheriff’s department. There was also some talk that Gus was selling protection to gamblers and marijuana smugglers, but Erlene didn’t believe a word of it.
Gus met some people while he was sheriff who helped him get into the adult entertainment business in Hamilton County after he resigned. He asked Erlene to go with him, and she did. She was love struck, and it went deep down. Gus was big and strong and handsome, a real man’s man. He treated her like a princess. They weren’t able to have children—a botched abortion had left Erlene barren—
but they had a wonderful life together for almost thirty years. She and Gus owned four clubs in four different counties during their marriage. They’d either buy a club that wasn’t making a profit or build one on the cheap and start up. Gus ran the business and dealt with the customers; Erlene handled the girls. They’d make the club profitable, ride it for a while, and then sell it. They took in tons of money.
Along the way, they helped a lot of young girls who were in bad situations.
Erlene and Gus were planning to run the Mouse’s Tail for another five years and then move to the South Carolina coast and retire. But late last September, he’d been mowing the yard on a Sunday afternoon, keeled over, and was already dead of a coronary when Erlene found him. Her heart broke into a million tiny pieces. Her sweet Gus. He was there one minute, smiling and waving on the riding mower when she looked out the kitchen window, and then poof! Just like that. Gone. The only thing that kept her going was the knowledge that the two of them would be together again someday. Her Gus would be waiting on the other side.
After the agent left and she thought for a while, she called the bartender and all
of the girls who worked the night before and told them to meet her at the bar at four o’clock, an hour before the place opened. Ronnie was the bartender. Mitzi, Elizabeth, Julie, Trisha, Heather, and Debbie were dancers. The other two were waitresses, April and Alexandra.
They were all beautiful, with wonderful bodies. The older Erlene got, the more she loved being around them. She tried to teach them to respect themselves and to stay away from bad men and drugs. It was a challenge, but she did the best she could.
Angel had waited tables the night the man was killed, but Erlene didn’t want Angel to be at the meeting. The man who was killed had behaved shamefully towards Angel, and Erlene was afraid that if the TBI man found out about it, he might suspect Angel of something. Besides, Erlene felt guilty for even having Angel working at the club.
She didn’t have any way of knowing it when they first met, but Angel wasn’t the type of girl who could handle herself in a place like the Mouse’s Tail. She was just too tender.
Erlene knew some of the girls thought it was a little strange that Erlene took such a shine to Angel right from the beginning, but they didn’t understand.
A lot of it was because of Gus. He had a daughter from his first marriage, a beautiful brunette named Alyse. After Gus and Erlene ran off together, Gus’s ex-wife Bashie hated him so much that he never got to see Alyse again, but he talked about wanting to see her all the time and he sent money for her every month. He’d always tell Erlene, ”She’ll come someday. You wait and see.”
Sure enough, about a week after Alyse’s seventeenth birthday, Gus got a framed photograph of his daughter in the mail. There was a little note with it that said, ”I miss you, Daddy. I’ll see you next year after I turn eighteen.” Gus hung the photograph up right next to the kitchen door, and every time he left the house, he blew a kiss at it.
Then the most terrible thing happened. Alyse and two other teenagers were killed in a car accident on New Year’s Eve, just a few months after Gus got the picture in the mail. Gus went down to her funeral, but Erlene stayed home. She didn’t think it would be proper for her to go. Gus was the saddest man Erlene had ever seen for the next few months, though he eventually came out of it and got back to being his old self again. But he never took the picture down, and he never stopped blowing kisses to Alyse.
