Legacy of Masks

by Sallie Bissell

  “It wasn’t anything I did, Ray. The girls did it. Lisa played a terrific game.” Deke always made it a point to compliment the fathers. He knew that though most wouldn’t admit it, they were merely pretending to be excited for girls who couldn’t run or throw or bat half as well as any boy their age. But God had sent them daughters instead of sons and the outfield errors, the dropped balls at first base, the crying over striking out were all just part of the deal. He tried to make the guys feel as good about it as he could, but he knew that however much he praised their daughters, in the playing fields of their fathers’ hearts, they would always be second-rate.

  “You think we’ll make it to the state tourney this year?” Medford, a husky forklift operator, always dreamed big for his modestly talented child.

  “They keep playing like this, we will,” Deke said, moving away from Medford’s sour beer-breath. He scanned the crowd of players and their parents, then smiled when he saw Earl and Darlene Martin, standing shyly in the corner nearest the door. “Let’s talk later, Ray. There’s somebody over there I need to speak to.”

  “Sure thing.” Medford stepped back. Deke could tell he was disappointed. His audience with the Prince of Pisgah County hadn’t lasted nearly as long as he’d hoped. But why should it? The man drove a truck and his daughter was shaped like a bowling pin. There was no reason to spend any more time with Ray Medford. No reason at all.

  He plunged into the crowd, accepting congratulatory hugs and handshakes as he went. As he neared the Martins, he saw that Glenn and Paula Daws had just introduced themselves to the new couple.

  “Hey, everybody.” Deke inserted himself between the two couples. “I was just going to introduce these guys. I see you beat me to it.” He looked down at Avis, who was sticking close to her mother. “Hey, short stuff. How’d you like the game?”

  “It was okay,” she replied noncommittally. Earlier he’d introduced her to the rest of the team, and though they’d greeted her politely, they hadn’t exactly welcomed her with open arms. Girls this age could be such little bitches that he’d kept her close to him, lest they spoil her first taste of being a Keener Kat. They’d all taken note of her special treatment and unless they found her to be a hopeless loser, eventually they would accept her.

  “Think you’d like to dress out for the next one? Maybe play third base?”

  For a long moment Avis didn’t respond. Inwardly, Deke cursed himself for taking her too soon, for not introducing her to Kayla Daws first. Then Darlene Martin piped up. “I’m sure she’d love to. I think she’s just a bit overwhelmed tonight.”

  “I can sure understand that.” Paula Daws smiled at Avis sympathetically. “Settling into a new place is hard on girls this age.” She tilted her head against Deke’s shoulder. “Let this guy help her out. He’s got a real way with kids.”

  “Aw, you’re making me blush.” Laughing, Deke lowered his eyes modestly. Bless Paula’s heart. She had no idea what she was saying. He turned back to Avis. “Our next practice is tomorrow at five. Would you like another lift, in case your dad isn’t home from work?”

  Again, Avis didn’t respond, then her mother must have poked her in the back because suddenly the girl nodded. “Yes sir,” she said softly. “I’d like that.”

  “Great!” Deke exclaimed. “Then you mark it down on your calendar and I’ll mark it down on mine. Tomorrow, five o’clock. Avis and Coach Keener, to the ball field.”

  The party broke up an hour later. The Atlanta Braves had a real game that most of the fathers wanted to watch, and the little girls were eager to go home with their respective best friends. It was dark outside when Deke handed Mick his American Express card to settle his tab.

  “You’ve got some cute kids there, Mr. Keener. Any of ’em go on to play in high school or college?”

  He didn’t know, he didn’t care. The cutest ones spent a fair amount of time naked on his lap. Who gave a shit about the others? “A couple have played in college,” he answered, thinking of the way Avis Martin’s little bird legs had looked. “Most of them, though, wash out in high school.”

  “That’s too bad,” said Mick. “A lot of girls seem to grow up too fast around here.”

  You got that right, brother, thought Deke, Bethany’s face flashing before his eyes. One or two have gotten entirely too big for their britches.

  He signed his credit card slip, adding a generous gratuity. “See you next time we beat Northside.” He waved at the barkeep. “I’m going home to bed.”

  Mick smiled. “Have a good night, Mr. Keener. Glad you guys won!”

  Deke opened the door and stepped out into the June night. The mountain air felt cool but humid, and a fog wrapped all the streetlights in halos. He’d parked his car a block from the courthouse, at his usual place in front of the Baptist Church. Main Street stood empty, except for a single bright puddle of yellow light that spilled out from the Mercado Hispaño across the street. There a knot of short, dark-haired men stood laughing, drinking Tecate beer, listening to the bouncy Tejano music that poured from the speakers inside the store. It looked as if a small bit of Mexico City had come to life once all of Hartsville’s Anglo businesses closed for the night. Curious about the music and laughter, he crossed the street. He had no fear of Mexicans. He owned most of the houses they lived in, paid them more money in wages than they had ever made in their lives before. He approached the store whistling, jingling his car keys inside his pocket.

  The men outside paid him little notice, glancing at him with their frank macho stares, then turning back to their friends. One man was gnawing on a chicken leg, while the others were laughing at another man who was holding up a vicious-looking pair of tiny spurs, the kind meant for fighting cocks. Deke had heard that Tito, the proprietor, held cockfights in his basement, but he’d never bothered to check it out. As long as Jerry Cochran didn’t care, Deke didn’t care. Hell, what was one less chicken to him?

  “Buenas noches,” he said to the men, enjoying their looks of surprise at his decent Spanish. “Qué pasa?”

  The chicken eater shrugged. “Aquí nomás.”

  “Those belong to your bird?” Deke asked the man who held up the spurs.

  “They used to.” The chicken eater laughed with his mouth full. “Now his bird belongs to me!” He patted his stomach. The other men roared, finally cajoling even the man with the tiny spurs into a grin. “No sale,” he said in Spanish, he waved the chicken leg and shook his head in mock sorrow. “No vale.”

  Deke laughed with the other men, then turned to peer inside the store. Tito had moved some of his tables to the back and several couples were dancing to the bright music. Sylvia Goins, the big girl he avoided at Sutton’s Hardware, was bouncing around the floor with a Mexican man half her size while a man he recognized as one of his framing carpenters danced an amazingly intricate step with a beautiful girl who looked like Jennifer Lopez. He smiled as an older couple danced a kind of upbeat tango, but then his face froze. The dancers swirled around, revealing a lead-footed couple, limping to the music in the middle of the floor. His pulse started to race. It was Bethany Daws, tipsy, trying to dance with a skinny Mexican man who was dressed all in black.

  Better get the fuck out of here, he thought. If she sees me here, God knows what she might do. He started to back away from the door, but the cockfighters had clustered behind him, looking at the dancers. He was trying to ease his way through them when suddenly, the music stopped. Bethany’s partner grabbed her to keep her from falling down. Deke backpedaled faster. He didn’t want a confrontation with her here. Drunk, she might say anything, and though the Mexicans weren’t considered upstanding members of the community, he didn’t want them repeating any barroom gossip on his work crews. His foremen would get wind of it, eventually, and slowly it would work its way up the chain of command. He could just picture Glenn Daws’s face then.

  “Con permiso, amigos,” he said, pushing his way through the crowd. “Tengo que irme.”

  The cockfighters parted
obediently, but he’d waited too long. Breathless and dizzy from the dance, Bethany turned her face toward the door for a gulp of cool air. She looked happy and laughing, her eyes sparkling at the pleasure of the music and the night. Then her gaze fell on him. Her face changed just as it had in Mary Crow’s office, only this time it went from placid to furious instead of afraid. As soon as she saw him, her eyes narrowed, and her mouth curled down in a snarl.

  “Hey, look everybody!” she called, slurring her words slightly. “Look who’s joining the dance. Good old Coach Keener, still in his Kats uniform!” She held on to her partner and searched the dance crowd with great extravagance. “Gosh, Coach, I don’t think we have anybody here young enough for you! All these girls have pubic hair and periods!”

  A silence fell over the room. The dancers and the cockfighters turned to stare at him. They didn’t seem to quite understand what was going on. “Es su novia, patrón?” asked the chicken eater sympathetically.

  “No.” Deke shook his head, trying to distance himself from Bethany and her goddamn mouth. He circled his left ear with one finger. “Está loca.”

  “Ay caray!” the man agreed. “Sí.”

  Deke kept backing out the door. Bethany, though, had pushed herself away from her partner, and was now swooning into the arms of another man, this one with a dark mustache. “Do you know the Mexican word for child molester?” she asked him, woozily pointing her finger at him. “ ’Cause that’s one right there, standing in the door. El child molestero.”

  With that, Deke turned. He needed to get out of there, and get out now. He had no idea who was in there, or how much English any of them knew. With Bethany going off like that, this could get bad, fast.

  He fled from the light of the bodega and into the shadows, his shoes beating out a rapid tattoo on the pavement. Though he heard no more shrieks about him being “el child molestero,” when he passed the furniture store he broke into a jog. By the time he reached his car, the music had come back on, and the cockfighters were starting a dice game on the sidewalk. He punched his remote. The door unlocked and he hurried inside. The smell of the leather seats comforted him, and he felt as if he’d slipped back into a safe, dark cocoon.

  “That little cunt!” he whispered, grasping the steering wheel, wishing it were her neck. The damage she could have done! The damage she might well have done! My God, he couldn’t let this go on. He’d hoped maybe her insanity would pass and she would just quietly go off to college and forget the whole thing, but she was not going to let it rest. She was too much of a drunk, too much of a slut, too much of what he’d made her. He would go to her parents, tomorrow morning, first thing. He wasn’t sure what he would say, but he had all night to come up with that. Right now, all he was sure of was that this would be the last time Bethany Daws would ever stand up in downtown Hartsville and accuse him of being a child molester to his face.

  13

  Paula Daws groaned, stretching for the OFF button of her clock radio. Always she woke seconds before the alarm, just as the green numerals of the clock changed from 5:29 to 5:30. She had awakened like this every day for the past twenty years. Early in her marriage, she had loved to be the first one up, loved the still, breath-holding silence of a house before its inhabitants awoke. For the last several years, though, she’d dragged out of bed like a half-drowned cat, her alarm clock serving as reveille for a brand-new skirmish in the Great War with her daughter Bethany.

  She threw her covers back and sat up, already weary at the thought of the day. Last night she’d heard Bethany come in at 2:43. The girl had sneaked out, despite being grounded, and had come home drunk. Paula could always tell by the noisy way she opened the kitchen door and her stumbling footsteps down the hall. Last night she’d fallen on her way up the stairs, and though Paula’s first reaction had been to hurry out to her child, she’d just pulled the covers over her head instead. Bethany was drunk. Bethany had fallen. So what else was new? For the past five years she’d nursed the girl’s bruised legs and hangovers. Paula was tired, and besides, there were other people in this family besides Bethany.

  She stumbled her way to the bathroom, smelling the coffee that had just begun brewing from the small automatic pot on Glenn’s dresser. It had been a Christmas gift from Glenn, one her mother heartily disapproved of. “A good wife would fix her husband a big pot of coffee, and a real breakfast for her children.” With her mother’s harsh opinion echoing in her head, Paula poured herself a cup of the hot, black brew and sighed. Maybe that was why Bethany had turned into a drunk. Maybe it was because she’d given Glenn his coffee in small doses and served her children granola for breakfast.

  “God knows nobody’s come up with a better reason,” she whispered as she ran a brush through her curly brown hair. Years earlier, when Bethany’s bad behavior had grown outrageous, they’d fled the microcosm of Hartsville and sought counseling for their child in nearby Sylva and Waynesville. None of the experts could decide why Bethany had changed from a sweet, happy child into an angry teenager who secretly tippled vodka and wept for hours in her locked room, although one steely-eyed Waynesville shrink looked at them as if they were vermin and informed them that Bethany was being sexually molested. That had so infuriated Glenn that he’d driven home thirty miles an hour over the posted limit. When they pulled into the driveway, he turned to Paula and raged, “If that pile of shit’s the best the experts can do, then we’ll just deal with this ourselves.”

  Sighing again, Paula fixed Glenn his own cup of coffee. As she sat down on the bed beside him, she thought how much like a small boy he looked, his hair tousled from sleep.

  “Wake up, honey.” She kissed the top of his head. “It’s almost six.”

  Glenn sat up. He took the coffee she offered, then ran an affectionate hand under her nightgown, fondling her breast. “Thanks, babe,” he said, then looked at her warily, as if they’d slept on a fight. “You hear Bethany come in last night?”

  She nodded.

  “It was bad, wasn’t it?”

  “She fell down.” Paula, who didn’t drink at all, wondered how much alcohol it would take to make a healthy eighteen-year-old falling-down drunk. A lot, she guessed.

  “That little Indian fucker!”

  “Oh, Glenn, he didn’t pour it down her throat.” Glenn always blamed whatever boy Bethany was involved with. Never could he see his daughter for what she truly was. Paula smoothed the wiry blond hair on the top of his head. “Be thankful she made it home okay. At least she’s not lying in a ditch somewhere, dead in a car wreck.”

  “I suppose,” he said, his voice bitter as the coffee he drank.

  She took a quick shower, pulled on black yoga pants and a pink FIGHT BREAST CANCER T-shirt, then ceded the bathroom to Glenn. She had a busy morning ahead of her. Her new yoga class was starting at the Y, Bethany had the breakfast shift at the café, and Kayla was scheduled to go horseback riding with Jeannette Peacock early, before the sun got too hot. Quickly she walked to the foot of the stairs.

  “Bethany? Kayla? Time to get up!” Though both girls had loud alarm clocks, she found a personal summons always got them moving faster. “Bethany? Kayla?”

  “I’m up!” Kayla’s voice came faintly from behind her bedroom door.

  “Then make sure your sister’s up,” Paula called. “And let Darby out of your room. He needs to go outside.”

  “Okay.”

  As she waited for the dog to come downstairs, she gazed up at Bethany’s closed door, trying to imagine what her life would be like after Bethany went to college. No more slamming doors. No more tears. No more drunks stumbling up the stairs in the middle of the night, no more skinhead Cherokee boyfriends. It’ll be nice, she decided guiltily. Real nice. Calm. Happy. But calm and happy lay a good two months away. She still had the rest of July and half of August to get through.

  “Come on, Darby,” she said to the ever-cheerful old Lab, who stood gray-muzzled and grinning down at her from the top of the stairs. “Let’s go outside.”r />
  Darby followed her stiffly to the kitchen, where she let him out the back door. She noticed that though the white truck that Bethany had sneaked out in was parked sideways in her rose bed, there were no dents on the thing that would indicate any wrecks.

  “Thank God for small favors,” she whispered. As she filled Darby’s dish with crunchies, she thought again of her mother’s snippy remark about her little coffeepot. Maybe she had been a crappy wife and mother. Maybe if she’d just gotten up early enough to fix everyone a real breakfast Bethany would have turned out okay.

  “So give it a shot today,” she told herself, letting Darby back inside. Though she knew that nothing she could scramble up on the stove would change Bethany at this late date, at least when her children were grown they would be able to say that their mother hadn’t been a total flop, at least once she’d fixed them a decent breakfast, way back in June of 2004.

  Marveling at her own insanity, she brewed coffee in her twelve-cup pot, then pulled out her cast-iron skillet to fry some bacon. As she mixed up a bowl of lumpy pancake batter, she heard the thump of Kayla’s stereo, but still nothing from Bethany’s room. Once again, she went to the bottom of the stairs.

  “Kayla!” she called, knowing that Bethany was still passed out. “Don’t forget to wake up your sister before you come downstairs.”

  “Okay!” came the faint reply.

  She returned to the kitchen to find Glenn pouring himself some coffee from the big pot. Dressed in khaki pants and a sport shirt, he still had comb tracks visible in his newly washed hair. At forty-six, he had a bit of gray sprouting around his temples, but he still had a construction worker’s physique—flat stomach, big hands, deeply tanned face and arms. For twenty years she’d followed him all over the South—building skyscrapers in Atlanta, condos in Chattanooga, beach houses along Florida’s redneck riviera. Ten years ago, when he finished a shopping mall in Charlotte, they’d found themselves, for the first time, without a job. The great Dixie construction boom had faltered and men spent their days going from the employment office to the unemployment lines. Competition was fierce from the Mexicans, who would work cheaper and accept money under the table. They themselves had gotten down to their last hundred dollars when a man from western North Carolina called. “Saw your ad in the Builders’ Association magazine,” he told Glenn. “I’m looking for an experienced foreman, and I’d prefer an American, with a family.”