Liberating Paris

by Linda Bloodworth Thomason

  Jeter and Rudy were at Dwight & Denny’s Secret Garden now and Jeter was staring at a soft-bodied young girl with nickel-sized hands and a porcelain face. He asked, “Do you have any…modern dolls?”

  Denny sniffed. “If you mean dolls with breasts, you should try Fed-Mart. We don’t approve of dolls with breasts.”

  Jeter didn’t know what to say so Dwight added. “These are priceless heirlooms from the Madame Alexander Collection. This is something that is passed down from one generation to the next.”

  Rudy careened a little, thinking that Dwight looked good in his tight black jeans and white T-shirt. Jeter gestured with his head toward the one he’d been considering. “How much for her? I mean, if there could be a price.”

  Dwight stood on his tiptoes and retrieved her. “Oh, that’s Jo from Little Women. She’s not for sale. She’s part of my personal collection.”

  Rudy said, “It’s for his little girl who was born last night.”

  “Oh, right.” Dwight stared at the doll now. Then he seemed to remember something. “You know, Amy was really the pretty one but they were out of stock.” Then to Jeter, “Did you ever see the movie with Katharine Hepburn? Jo should never have cut her hair.”

  Jeter was confused now. “So…”

  “How much do you have?”

  “Fifty?”

  “Sold.”

  Wood was making rounds when something at the end of the maternity-ward hallway caught his attention. He stopped and looked at the man who had pulled his wheelchair up as close as it would go next to the nursery glass window. Jeter wasn’t laughing or smiling or doing any of the things that people usually do when viewing a baby. Wood could see that he had a strange look on his face—not unlike the look that Wood had once worn when he’d stood staring at the end of Jeter’s hospital bed—as though he had to come by one more time to make sure that the thing he thought had happened had really happened. After a while Jeter shook his head a little, then started up the wheelchair, and rode away.

  It was Lodusky Phipps’s birthday. Because they had done so for years, Jeter, Brundidge, and Wood attended the party. Milan, who had a cold, sent along a beautiful bracelet, which was much more expensive than the cherub pin with the blue rhinestone eyes that she had given to Miss Phipps as a child. But the former first-grade teacher, who was having one of her final days of clarity, insisted that she would now wear them together. After cake had been served, most of the residents who had been well enough to attend went back to their rooms. Serious also left early in order to visit his son. Because Miss Phipps was having such a good day, Miss Delaney asked Rudy to put on some of Dr. Mac’s music. Then Wood, who had decided to leave, for some reason stayed—maybe just to hear some of his father’s old songs. In a little while, Etta James drifted out of the nursing home speakers, singing “I Only Have Eyes for You.” Shockingly, Miss Lena Farnham Stokes asked Wood to dance. Not knowing what to say, he accepted. Brundidge, feeling awkward, invited Miss Delaney to dance, too. It was immediately apparent that they were all four good at it. Then Lena Farnham Stokes began resting her head on Wood’s shoulder. Wood saw that her eyes were closed and that she looked content, as though she were thinking of some long-ago love. He smiled, feeling happy about this. Then, he began to worry that perhaps she was thinking of him.

  Outside, Jeter and Miss Phipps were now sitting on the porch. A conversation unfolded, without either knowing that it would be their last. Miss Phipps said, “A lot of lightning bugs out tonight.”

  “Yep.”

  “My son used to tie thread to them and fly them like little kites.” For a moment she seemed sad. “You never sunk yourself in what might’ve been, did you?”

  Jeter struggled to come up with an answer. “Well, I guess I just tried to dream up somethin’ better in my head.”

  “Is that what you were doing all these years? You were so quiet, I never knew.” After a while, she added, “Maybe that’s what heaven is…you know, getting to live the life we dreamed of.” Then she said, almost to herself, “If so, I’ll finally get to raise my boy.” Miss Phipps got up and crossed to the door. She usually called him Mr. Jeter, but tonight she didn’t. “I hope I’ll see you there, Carl…And that you’ll be running.”

  Mavis was going out of business. She was sitting at her desk now, in the back of Doe’s, Paris sleeping in the crib next to her. After going over a pile of receipts, Mavis sighed and got up and just stood, taking in the place that had been at the center of her life for the past fifteen years. Yesterday, she had told Mary Paige and Rudy what they both already knew.

  Doe’s was the last business remaining on Main Street, except for Brundidge Beer and Beverage. That would always be there because, as Brundidge said, people needed to get drunk after they got a good look at what was left of the town. Dwight and Denny had finally given up and moved out to the interstate in order to make their small enterprise more convenient for one-stop shoppers. The simple truth was there was no foot traffic left now. Even Tommy Epps was gone, leaving behind his two miles of graffiti.

  The Baptist feud had taken its toll, too. The line that had formed outside the Baptist door each day got smaller as word got around who was standing in it and pressure was brought to bear. Also it didn’t help that Mavis had refused to conceal her relationship with Mary Paige and was now perceived as a full-fledged lesbian. Apparently, for some people, there was a limit as to how much sin sugar could trump. And there was also the fact that more folks had moved outside the city limits and it was a lot of trouble to come all the way downtown just for a bear claw.

  Mavis felt a kind of bittersweet pride that she had held on as long as she did. She was honored to be the last hurrah of this fading boulevard. It was here that Clarence and Dauphine Doe had helped to heal a fatherless girl’s broken heart and allowed her to attend one of the world’s great cooking schools for free. And now, just being here at the end seemed in some small way to repay that debt.

  Suddenly, there was a commotion up front and she went toward it. She saw that Lonnie Rhinehart and two of the puppy stompers had come in. They were wearing boots and hunting clothes and reeked of beer. She was suddenly nervous, but strangely thinking at the same time that they could be a heavy metal rock group, “Lonnie Rhinehart and the Puppy Stompers.”

  She headed them off. “I told you I’m not serving you. Now you all need to go on.”

  She saw Brundidge’s van as it pulled up outside and Wood and Brundidge got out. Then they opened the back door and Jeter started down the ramp. Paris began to cry. Mary Paige went to get her.

  Lonnie said, “Is that your little bastard baby you got back there?”

  Mavis didn’t answer, but instead stood there marveling at the spectacle of Lonnie Rhinehart, history’s bad gene. It didn’t matter what era he lived in, or whether he was in the KKK or the SS or just a group of agitators like himself. He was the same guy, the one who just keeps coming, who never becomes extinct like some species or goes out of style or mutates into something better—but instead, just keeps on swaggering around the world, fearing women, blacks, Jews, and queers like Kryptonite and spouting the same old tired lines, “You’re not from around here, are you?” “What you need, little lady,” “Let me tell you somethin’, boy.” Blah, blah, blah! Mavis was sick of it.

  She knew he was here to gloat, as though she were going out of business for standing up to him. And she had already made up her mind that he would leave empty-handed. What she had learned recently was that having a child makes you either more brave or more afraid. And she wanted to be brave, if not for herself, then so that the next incarnation of Lonnie Rhinehart would have to think twice before he messed with Lottie Paris Pinkerton. Mavis pulled herself up and accentuated each word. “Get out of my store. Now.”

  Lonnie came closer. “You know, you ought to appreciate my business. Most people don’t care to come in a place where two big ol’ dykes have had their hands in all the food.”

  He leaned against the counter. “Now what is
it exactly that y’all do together? I can’t quite figure it out.”

  One of the men laughed. “I bet they sniff each other’s panties.”

  Rudy said, nervously, “Let me just wait on them.”

  Mavis stopped him. “No. They’re leaving.”

  Lonnie turned to the others, “Man, it’s just full up with queers in here, ain’t it?” Then, to Rudy, “What do you say, tiny dancer? I got something you can suck on. I just have to run outside and git it off my gun rack.”

  Mavis was now toe-to-toe with Lonnie. She pictured him in the surrender position, naked, on his back, legs apart in a final homage to women, blacks, Jews, and queers. Then, wishing she had her stun gun, she said, “I’m warning you, I’ll kill you.”

  Now the whirring of Jeter’s wheelchair could be heard coming through the door. Wood and Brundidge entered behind him, but Lonnie didn’t turn around. He was now too involved with Mavis. “You know, I hate to hit a woman, but since you ain’t one, I guess it won’t count none.”

  Brundidge was on him first. He literally leapt a good three feet and took Lonnie down to the floor. Then, when Lonnie’s friends tried to intervene, Wood knocked one of them down, causing the other to throw him against a table. Mary Paige crouched, covering Paris with her body, and Rudy grabbed a bottle of Doe’s best extra virgin olive oil and threw it, missing everyone, but jumping up and down, excited, anyway. The brawlers periodically changed partners whenever one or the other was thrown across the room, shattering dishes, tables, and chairs. Then, what happened next was seen only by Mavis. Unbelievably, when Jeter got a clear shot at Lonnie, he used his good finger to start his wheelchair. At first, Mavis couldn’t comprehend it. Then, after it was too late, she screamed, “Noooo!”—drawing it out and accelerating the loudness of it in proportion to the speed of Jeter’s chair as it went careening into Lonnie, knocking him into the brick wall.

  Then, Lonnie, who seemed to have been stunned by this, impulsively picked Jeter up and tossed him through the air. And Mavis, who was still hollering at the top of her lungs, caught a fleeting glimpse of her child’s father as he passed in front of her with his body waving like a flag or some kind of rag doll that was being shaken. After that, there was a thunderous splintering of glass as Jeter landed against the bakery case, filled with all the fresh pastries that Mavis had made only that morning. Some flour, from a sack that had busted open, lingered in the air. Then, attempting humor, a meek voice came from inside the case, “My neck…I think it’s broken.”

  Before Mavis and Rudy had even swept up the glass, everyone had heard about the terrible fight at Doe’s. And how Carl Jeter was now in the hospital and that Lonnie Rhinehart had gone to jail for putting him there. In spite of his substantial injuries, Jeter was positively euphoric over his unexpected participation in such a no-holds-barred brawl. And he felt strongly that if the town bully was prosecuted for beating up an invalid, it would negate the idea that Jeter had seriously defended the mother of his child. Anyway, since Jeter said he was the one who attacked Lonnie, it looked like Sheriff Marcus West was going to have to hold his nose and let Lonnie go.

  But Wood was worried about something more serious than Lonnie Rhinehart’s incarceration. The X-rays were already showing him that Jeter’s kidneys had been severely damaged when his back had struck the bakery case. Wood knew this was something that was potentially life threatening for someone in Jeter’s condition. He hadn’t even treated his own cuts yet. Right now, with help from his nurse, he was tending to Brundidge’s sprained arm. And Brundidge was still emitting fumes.

  “I never liked that son of a bitch. Even in a parade, he was an asshole. Always had his trombone slide in the back of my neck. Steppin’ on my heels so my feet would come outta my shoes.”

  Wood said, “Yeah. Somebody ought to kill him.”

  Wood’s nurse looked at him, surprised. He didn’t care anymore. He was caring less and less about civilized behavior. Wood hadn’t been in a real fight since junior high and lately he’d managed to have two. One with Dennis Childs and now the one at Doe’s. He was starting to feel reckless, like maybe he could kill somebody with his bare, bloody hands if they pushed him far enough or killed his best friend, which right now, though he didn’t say so to Brundidge, loomed as a real possibility.

  Brundidge was on his way out, shaking his head. “I thought it was just a friendly fight. I didn’t know we were gonna be picking people up out of wheelchairs and flinging them through the air. Shit.”

  Wood went home around midnight and stayed holed up in his den. He put on one of the Edith Piaf tapes that his mother had given to Elizabeth. Then he lay down listening to his favorite song on it, “Les Trois Cloches.” Even though the lyrics were in French, the melody put him in mind of the more mournful American version “All the Chapel Bells are Ringing.” He turned it off. By the time the nurse called to say that Jeter’s fever was 103, he was already up and putting his pants on.

  Wood made it to the hospital in less than seven minutes. Over the years, he and Jeter had been through at least a dozen medical crises together. Jeter could be as fragile as a piece of paper that has to be kept afloat by someone blowing. And that someone was always Wood. Or sometimes Jeter would grow strong and he and Wood and Brundidge would take a trip together. It was an ever-unfolding situation that required daily vigilance. He’d had pneumonia three times, hepatitis, a bleeding ulcer, septemia. Once he had even flatlined and Wood had revived him. But now it seemed that Wood had pulled all the rabbits out of his hat and that the hat was finally empty. No one had to tell Carl Jeter this. Anyway, his doctor was a lousy actor, which is why Jeter had once replaced him as Meriwether Lewis in a sixth-grade play.

  Jeter asked to be moved back to his room at the nursing home. He wanted to be in familiar surroundings, among his own things. Using his stick, he typed a final letter to his daughter, to go with all the one’s he’d already written. Miss Phipps was having an off day, but most of the old folks, like Miss Delaney and Serious, came by to see him, although no one told them Jeter was dying. In fact, because he had come home, they all thought he was doing better. But Milan and Mavis and Brundidge understood why they were there. Mavis brought a bottle of champagne and Milan poured it into Jeter’s plastic bottle. The five of them drank and told funny stories, mostly about all the good times they’d had together. Jeter especially wanted to relive some of the trips he and Wood and Brundidge had taken. In spite of his injury, they had managed to go fishing in the Bahamas, Key West, and even Egypt.

  It was there on a deep sea fishing venture that Brundidge had mooned the Egyptian Port Authority (mistaking it for the yacht of some Euro-trash assholes) and then tried to convince them that his misdeed was nothing more than a friendly American gesture meaning “Hello. Good to know you.” Wood, Jeter, and Brundidge were all detained, while Wood lamented that Milan would be out buying a new outfit every day so she could beg for his release on CNN.

  Pretty soon they were all laughing enough that some had to wipe their eyes and sigh afterward. For a moment, they almost forgot the real reason they were together. Wood had been laughing, too. And when his eyes met Milan’s, it seemed for a second that they were young and in love again, acting silly with their friends and that everything was going to be okay. After a while, it was obvious that Jeter was getting tired and so they each took a turn saying good-bye while the others waited outside.

  Brundidge got upset because Jeter had decided to be cremated, an idea that disturbed Brundidge greatly. They actually had words about this. And then Brundidge had said, “Man, I hate all this. I hate this so bad.”

  Jeter spoke softly, “It’ll be okay.”

  “No, it won’t.” Then he dug in his pocket and retrieved a scrap of paper. “I wrote a few words here, so I can, you know, say it just right.”

  “Ever’thing’s already been said.”

  Brundidge stared at him, holding the paper, unhappy. “No, it hasn’t. And you haven’t even heard it yet.”

  “Why do
you need to load people up just as they’re leaving? You’re just gonna upset me—”

  Now Brundidge was mad. “I don’t see how you can be upset when I haven’t even said anything! I mean, goddamn, I just wanted to tell you…well, I can’t even read it now because you’ve gone and ruined it. Now it’s gonna sound stupid, like we’re at a goddamn banquet or somethin’, so just forget the whole goddamn thing, okay?” He pushed the small piece of paper back in his pocket.

  And that’s how it stayed for a while, until Jeter finally said, “I know you love me, Earl…” Brundidge didn’t answer, so Jeter pushed on. “And I, uh—”

  Brundidge interrupted. “All right. That’s enough. You don’t need to get all theater-in-the-round on me.” Jeter smiled. Brundidge stepped closer to him. “So what’s the deal? Are we done here?”

  “Yeah, we’re done.”

  “Well, all right then…” Brundidge hesitated, not wanting to leave it like this. He seemed not to know what to do. Then, in a little while, he got a mischievous look on his face, as though he was already appreciating what was coming. And little by little, he began to back slowly toward the door, singing low and soft. “See you later, alligator, after a while, crocodile, see you later alligator…”

  Jeter was grinning now, and each could tell by the other’s relieved look that they had finally settled on a satisfactory ending.

  Brundidge pointed a finger directly at Jeter, singing louder, “She said I’m sorry, pretty baby, you know my love for you is true. She said I’m sorry, pretty baby—” He looked fearless and a little pouty, as though he were defying death to try and interfere with something as classic as this. Then he continued facing his old friend as the words trailed him out the door and down the hall. “She said I’m sorry, pretty baby, you know my love is just for you….”