by C. L. Bevill
The balding man perfunctorily held out his hand. “Jesus Christ,” he said harmoniously.
Bubba shook the hand. “I’m sorry?”
“The name,” the bald man said.
“Bubba Snoddy,” Bubba said.
“No, my name,” the balding man said. “Jesus Christ. You know, the son of God. Pleeeeaaaased to meet you.”
“Thou surly mad malignancy,” proclaimed the woman with three sweaters. Bubba glanced at her, but she was still gazing at the ground.
“Borderline personality disorder,” David announced. “Possibly a depersonalization disorder. Her name is Thelda.”
“Ma’am,” Bubba said politely. He would have tipped his hat, but he was sorely in need of his Stetson. It had probably been trampled under the sorry boots of several Pegramville Police Officers.
“Thou art a sponge, boil-brained addle pate,” Thelda said archly.
“Okay?” Bubba said.
“And this is Nancy Musgrave,” Miz Demetrice said cheerfully. She pulled the other woman in closer. She had blonde hair and harried blue eyes.
“Meetcha,” Bubba said. He wondered if it was too late to bribe Nurse Dee Dee for some pain medications, something that had narcotics contained in it. Perhaps something that could be injected into his IV line for more instantaneous relief from his issues. He looked over Nancy at Deputy Willodean Gray and sighed as he watched her nod at him and disappear into the gloom of the hospital’s hallway.
The sunshine went away. Really. The sun that had been streaming into the window had retreated behind a loathsome cloud.
Then Bubba looked at David Beathard expectantly. “So what’s Nancy’s diagnosis, Doc?” Bubba thought hard. “Depression? Anxiety? Schizophrenia? Poor digestive system?”
David frowned at Bubba. “Mental disorders are not something to be joked about, Mister Snoddy.”
Nancy Musgrave sighed loudly.
“The mayor developed an outreach program for the local mental institution,” Miz Demetrice said quickly. “Mainstreaming such unfortunate individuals helps both them and society to gain a better understanding of their various disorders.”
“And provides free help for the Christmas Festival?” Bubba guessed adroitly.
“You know John Leroy, Jr., our esteemed mayor,” Miz Demetrice smiled brightly, “never one to miss an opportunity. I got hornswoggled into keeping them on track this morning. And well, there was this instance of my son being trampled on, so I couldn’t just leave them in the lurch.” Her voice lowered dramatically. “You know, with their…problems and all.”
“Miz Demetrice,” David said loudly. “I’m ashamed of your lack of perspicuity about the ill-starred cerebral conditions of those people who are only trying to find their way back into a world that often turns its back on them.”
“Oh, stick a sock in it, David,” Nancy said. “Or I’ll have the doctor up your meds tonight, and you won’t remember this Christmas for the next three years.”
“Nancy Musgrave is the social worker in charge of the work group,” MIz Demetrice said blandly.
“And him?” Bubba gestured at David.
David stuck his empty pipe in his mouth and pretended to smoke it. Then he adjusted the lapels on his button-down cardigan.
“Another delusional disorder,” Nancy said mildly. “Sometimes he thinks he’s Michelle Obama, but today I think he’s Dr. Phil. We’re lucky he’s not yelling at us to snap out of it.”
David sniffed.
“If you will only believe, you will be heeeeaaaaled,” announced Jesus Christ.
“Thou art a group of gangrenous plume-plucked baggages,” Thelda said conclusively, and Bubba was apt to agree.
There was a low pitched whine that came from under the bed, and Bubba let his hand down so that Precious could give him a sniff. She stuck her wet nose into his hand and then licked it enthusiastically. Bubba had an idea that Doc had let the dog out of the Chevy and brought her with them in the ambulance. Precious whined again and Bubba scratched her head lazily.
Nurse Dee Dee had finally had enough. “No damn dogs allowed in the hospital!” she roared and turned to stomp off down the hallway.
“She art an elf-skinned lout without the sense of a maggot’s backside,” Thelda pronounced vigorously. Apparently Thelda liked dogs.
“Amen,” Miz Demetrice agreed.
~ ~ ~
Chapter Four - Bubba Has a Headache, er, Family Christmas
Sunday, December 25th -
Several hours later, Bubba was sitting in the largest living room of the Snoddy Mansion with a beer in his hand. He wasn’t supposed to combine the beer with the pain pills he had been given, but he wasn’t in a mood to appreciate the advisory. As a result of the combination, the ache in his head had faded to a dull roar, and he didn’t care that Virtna was unobtrusively digging through one of the sideboards for eBay gold. Nor did he care that Brownie was drawing with indelible markers a picture on the wall of what appeared to be a Tyrannosaurus rex eating several cavemen. Not that Bubba particularly cared at the moment, but Fudge was absent. Bubba reckoned his cousin was searching through another part of the house for paperwork that would allow him to take ownership of the mansion and all its shopworn bounty.
Elgin Snoddy had left the entire book and boocoodle to Demetrice Marie Snoddy when he had died several years before. It was a surprise to all and sundry since Elgin was a wife-beating adulterer and an ardent boozehound and apt to berate his wife for having even the tiniest opinion. Miz Demetrice had made up for it in the long run. Since Elgin’s untimely death she did not like to simply whisper her beliefs; they were trumpeted or not said at all. No one would push her down again, and Bubba agreed unswervingly with her approach. It was fine and dandy with Bubba even if that meant that she got her photograph on the front page of the Pegram Herald more than anyone else in the history of the town. Since the will had been signed and witnessed by two sober individuals while Elgin had been in a rare abstemious moment and while he had been in the prime of his manhood, there was little argument that he had meant to leave the estate to Miz Demetrice.
Knowing his father, Bubba supposed that Elgin thought that his mother would suffer while she was trying to keep the Snoddy Estate aboveboard. On the contrary, she persevered. She upped the visitors to the estate by promoting the legends of gold and ghosts and inadvertently brought on Bubba’s previous dire predicament. Regardless, Miz Demetrice took the monies that were invested from Bubba’s grandfather’s clothing store being sold to Sears in 1956 and put in a little work on the mansion. It was still decrepit and tarnished, but it wasn’t going to fall into the ground with a tremendous groan. To be perfectly truthful, Miz Demetrice had done splendidly in temperament, rising to the challenge in a noble manner, once Elgin Snoddy had expired.
If the Snoddy Mansion was still standing and in semi-reputable shape, then it was thanks to Miz Demetrice and her ingenious mind. And one shouldn’t mention that some of the monies probably came from her illegal gambling ring. Thursday night Pokerama, aka the Pegramville Women’s Club, was still a hot commodity.
Consequently, the remainder of the “real” Snoddys was put out. Fudge had some kind of cockamamie formula in his head that culminated in the direct line of ownership of the Snoddy Estate reverting to him. If he couldn’t get to it legally, then he would resort to guilt, manipulation, and low-handed pressuring.
Precious bumped Bubba’s knee, and he scratched her head. She was out of sorts with him. Having been stuck inside the truck while several strange men had jumped on top of her master had been like sticking her nose into a beehive. Sure she got the honey, but there were a million little stinging buggies that were trying to force her out, and her head was stuck fast. She couldn’t get out of the truck until the tall man with the white hair let her out and held her by the collar until she could get into the square vehicle with the twirling red and blue lights with a very immobile master. No matter how she had bayed and howled and twisted and turned, she couldn’t escap
e to rescue her beloved human. Thus, it could only be Bubba’s fault.
The dog regally turned her head away from Bubba’s hand. I’ll slobber in your shoes, buddy boy, see if I don’t. Then you’ll be sorry.
“Who’s my little precious-wecious-mecious?” Bubba cooed to her.
Beer plus master makes a silly, silly human. Precious lowered her head to her paws and ignored him.
“Who’s my little gob-stopping, noodle-brained puppy dog?” Bubba said softly.
I’m what? Is that good or bad? One back paw itched at her floppy ear. I’m not that easy.
“You want to go play ball?”
My ball got burned up in a fire. And you got tromped by strange men and locked me in the truck with only two Tupperware containers of food to sustain me. Precious turned her head away and examined the wall. There was a fly on the wall. Hmm, do I really want to get up and eat that fly?
Bubba paused for a moment. He knew his dog was put out with him, probably because of all of the recent activity and abrupt changes. It was time to bring out the big guns. “Who wants…a treat?”
Screw playing hard to get! Precious leaped up and bayed cheerfully, charging past Brownie and Virtna in the direction of the kitchen.
Bubba climbed to his feet, shooting Virtna a hard look as she was examining a silver tray with an eye loupe. Where the hell did she get the loupe from? Then he made a large circle around Brownie as he was detailing the great gobs of blood dripping from T. rex’s open, snarling mouth. He headed for the kitchen where Miz Adelia stored the dog treats in a cookie jar shaped like a pig wearing a chef’s toque and wiggling its large pink tongue in a lewd fashion.
Fortunately for him, Miz Adelia had had enough of all things Snoddy and retreated to her own abode, ready to do battle with her own visiting relatives. However, Miz Demetrice was sitting at the counter at one end of the cavernous room drinking a fresh cup of steaming tea, while Precious pawed industriously at the pantry door. Bubba opened it, retrieved two treats in the shape of dog bones, and gave one to the dog. Precious growled appreciatively and withdrew to the inviolability of underneath the kitchen table to eat her prize in comparative peace.
Sitting on another stool next to his mother, Bubba said, “So, do you want to talk about Steve Killebrew?”
Miz Demetrice sipped her tea. “Would you like a cup, Bubba dearest?”
Bubba held up the long neck in his hand in silent response. He wouldn’t trade the beer for the tea in China or wherever it was that tea came from.
“You talk to Steve lately, Ma?”
“You sound suspicious,” Miz Demetrice responded archly. “Why, when I dropped a smithy’s anvil on Elgin and killed him deader than roadkill, I didn’t get that much suspicion.”
“Pa died of a heart attack,” Bubba said tiredly. Is there an ice bag in this house?
“I hoisted the anvil in the barn and laid in wait,” Miz Demetrice insisted. “It was a very nice trap. I even took a photograph for posterity. It was a Polaroid so I wouldn’t have to have it developed at the 1-hour place. That was before digital cameras, you know.”
Bubba sighed. He got up and went to the refrigerator and dug in the freezer. There were bags of frozen corn and okra. Aha! Miz Adelia has been cheating at making gumbo. He took the bag of corn and applied it to the lump on his head with no small amount of relief. “Where are the loonies?”
Miz Demetrice glanced around. “Oh, don’t call them that. Some of them are sensitive. The one with the Shakespearian insults, for example. Her eyes tear up when someone looks at her sideways. The poor dear.”
“How can you tell when she’s staring at the ground?” He came back to the stool and established himself on it gingerly, making sure the bag of frozen corn didn’t slip.
“Bubba,” Miz Demetrice hissed.
“So tell me about Steve,” Bubba insisted.
“I haven’t seen the man for a month of Sundays,” Miz Demetrice said slowly. “And he never went near the barn.”
Bubba took another drink of beer while he thought about it. His mother was acting oddly. She wasn’t nearly as outspoken and ready to do battle as she usually operated. To be more precise, she had thrown a fit that the Pegramville Police Department had piled on Bubba and knocked him unconscious, and she had threatened legal recourse as she would usually do. But she’d had a solid friendship with Steve Killebrew. True their paths had parted over the years, and they didn’t agree on common issues, but there were fond memories of the auto parts store owner. He had been a rebellious dissident just like Miz Demetrice. She should have been crying or snarling or something equally distasteful to any human being within fifty feet.
“Have you seen Steve recently?” Bubba asked measuredly. He watched as a certain look crossed her face. He knew the look. Miz Demetrice had a secret. Truly she had many, but she had one she didn’t want to share with her one and only child. “Mama, you have. And you don’t want the po-lice to know.”
Miz Demetrice studied the cup of tea sitting on the counter in front of her. A mulish expression settled over her features. She could have given a braying jackass a run for its money. “If you must know, we argued about politics yesterday.”
“Politics,” Bubba repeated. “Any witnesses?”
“Witnesses?” Miz Demetrice said. “Do you really think I could cart a full-grown man out to the front yard of city hall and put him in the sleigh dressed as Santa Claus? I would have had to have a dolly or an ATV. And his throat was cut. I never would be so sassy as to cut a man’s throat. Why, it’s well known that I much prefer more inventive methods of homicide.”
“Mama,” Bubba said warningly. “You think Big Joe won’t find out about you being around Steve the day before he died? Right now Big Joe is canvasing every neighbor and every employee. They’re going to find out that you had a ‘discussion’ with him yesterday. Then Big Joe is going to come talk to you and ask you where you were last night. Or worse, he’ll think that your argument with Steve got me all riled up, so I went over and did him a deadly deed.”
Her blue eyes came up and glittered fiercely at Bubba. “That’s exactly what I’m thinking, boy. After all, when I shot Elgin dead with a cannon I determined that that is the proper way to kill off an offensive individual who is up to the vilest of undertakings.”
Then Aunt Caressa wandered in and said nonchalantly, “A cannon would rip a man to smithereens and then how in the world would you hide the mess?”
Bubba looked at his maiden aunt, Caressa. Typically she stayed in Dallas, where she lived, but Miz Demetrice had bade her come and visit and be part of a large happy Christmas in rural bumpkinhood. The Christmas tree would be up and decorated in the large living room, which it was. The chestnuts would be roasted in the fireplace, or until they had burned them so badly that the windows had to be opened for hours. The sugar plums would be dancing in their heads, and after Bubba had a few more beers, they would. It would be a grand occasion. Or so Bubba surmised that’s what Miz Demetrice had said when she had lured her older sister down for the holidays. He rose up and gestured at his seat.
Aunt Caressa looked at Bubba and surveyed him with the same blue eyes as his mother. She was three years older than her sister and approximately the same height; they were both knee high to a garden gnome. Her hair was the same white which revealed that the pair frequented beauty parlors to eliminate those pesky darker hairs that habitually beleaguer a grande dame in her virtuous pinnacle. Her biggest failing, according to Miz Demetrice, was that she snored like a cat throwing up a hairball. Bubba, hanging his hat in the smallest, least used bedroom that was also farthest away from anyone else’s in the house, hadn’t yet heard Miz Caressa’s snoring and couldn’t rightly judge its tonal qualities.
“You should be the one sitting, Bubba dear,” she said in the same tone as his mother.
Bubba restrained the wince. Having Aunt Caressa in the same house as his mother was like having two Miz Demetrices. It was very nearly hellish.
“After all,
it was your noggin that was thumped most comprehensively by rancorous, frightful Nazi-like heathens,” Aunt Caressa finished.
“It’s true I spent hours cleaning up after the untidiness the cannon made out of Elgin,” Miz Demetrice admitted. “The real trick was getting him to stay put while I lit the fuse.”
Aunt Caressa helped herself to a cup of tea, pouring the water out of a silver tea pot sitting on the kitchen counter. “Ah, white peach tea. Lovely.”
When she was finished with her tea, she sat at the kitchen table and reached down to scratch Precious behind one of her long floppy ears. Precious briefly allowed the stroke and immediately returned to devouring her treat with the intensity of a dog that had been starved for weeks.
“So it’s true that the man in question was sliced to ribbons and his intestines strewn across the front of city hall?” Aunt Caressa asked politely. “Isn’t there an ancient culture that divines the future from animal intestines?”
Bubba choked on his beer.
“Goodness, no,” Miz Demetrice replied, taking a delicate sip of her tea. “He was decapitated and exsanguinated while letters declaring the true killer’s identity were branded across his chest.”
“I hear that the poor man was flayed, and while the Santa suit was put on him, the skin was put on the mannequin,” Virtna added from the doorway. “You all have any more tea?”
Miz Demetrice indicated the teapot and Virtna eyed it expertly as she retrieved a China teacup from a cupboard. “It was made in Japan, dear,” Miz Demetrice said keeping her tone neutral. “In the eighties. My mother gave it to me. I believe she used her green stamps.”
“I thought it might be some more of that exquisite silver you have in your sideboard in the large living room,” Virtna said coyly.
“Wedding gifts from my side of the family,” Miz Demetrice said firmly. “Not a family heirloom in the lot. Nothing earlier than the seventies. The nineteen seventies, that is.”
“Steve’s throat was cut,” Bubba gritted out. “Only cut. Can you all please stop talking about him like his murder was inconsequential?”
