Up the Devil's Belly

by Rhett DeVane

  Piddie Longman held his gaze for a moment. Stupid old bat. She had a way of looking at him — like she knew. He turned it over in his mind. How? How could she possibly be privy to information relating to his business endeavors? She’d been bluffing when she’d turned the screws on him over the rezoning for the Witherspoon mansion. Just blowing smoke outta her ass. Look at the tacky old bitch — got-damned hair like a cowpie sprouting flowers. Got-almighty!

  How anyone could admire the tacky old broad was a mystery. Her cathead biscuits were the only things Hank found the least bit redeeming about Piddie Longman. They were as close to his mama’s as he’d ever tasted.

  Mama. His thoughts strayed to the dim, time-fogged memories of a kind dark-haired woman with the gentle voice. He couldn’t remember a lot about her. He tried hard to recall her face, her touch. He was a little boy, not much more than four, when she died of cancer, leaving him with his father.

  The muscles at his temples pulsed as he gritted his teeth. “Father,” he mumbled under his breath. Pillar of the community. An asset to the town. Founding Father – blah, blah, blah. If the church-goin’, Bible-thumpin’ people of this hole in the road only knew what dear ole Dad did to his young son behind closed doors — the beatings, the humiliation, the pain. And later as he entered his teens, when he felt the gentle hormonal urgings teasing around the edges of his awareness — the forced sex. Cruel. Rough. Full of hate. His duty as a son: to provide a receptacle for his father’s needs.

  Hank’s father provided carnal knowledge of the dark underbelly of certain men’s cravings. Hank had used the blood and tear-earned wisdom to develop a profitable enterprise. Men like his father — men who lived to lord over helpless children — paid dearly for his masterpiece videotapes. Modern technology made advertising and distribution a breeze. Through the anonymous magic of the computer and the Internet, he hawked the masterful creations.

  The economically-deprived children Hank employed served his purposes well. The chase was almost delicious. Small gifts. Words of kindness. The winning of trust. By the time his little cinema stars made it to the concealed studio off the garage, they were too well paid, too enamored of the scent of money, to offer resistance.

  Hank grunted. If dear old Dad only knew how the estate money had been spent, he’d arise from his grave and demand a cut of the action. Hell, the old letch would probably want to take top billing in the next film. Especially if it was one of the sweet-faced, untainted children — like Tameka Clark. Hank smiled. His last caper before leaving rural north Florida promised to be the most succulent of all.

  His father’s face appeared unsummonned in his mind’s eye — one of the few times his torment had been outside of the dark, claustrophobic cave of his parents’ brick house on Satsuma Road. Summer: a time most country boys spent idling away the sun-drenched hours. On his father’s expensive bass boat. Long, deserted miles down the Apalachicola River, hidden from the main channel of the waterway by the low-hanging branches of willow trees anchored in the soggy muck of the bank. Hank closed his eyes to block the memories.

  A soft voice startled him back to reality. “You all right, Mister Henderson?”

  Hank studied Tameka’s innocent face — creamy unblemished brown skin the color of latte, her deep brown eyes full of compassion.

  He wiped the sweat from his brow with the corner of a paper napkin. “I’m just fine, honey. Mighty sweet of you to ask as to my well-bein’. I reckon I just ate a little too much of this fine meal.” He patted his rotund stomach. “I could stand a little of that iced tea you have there.”

  Tameka nodded and refilled the Styrofoam cup.

  “Sit down and talk to me a bit.” Hank patted the metal seat of the folding chair beside him.

  “I can’t. I’m workin’ right now.” Tameka’s beaded braids clinked like soul music percussion when she moved her head.

  “Well now, work’s something I been meanin’ to speak with you about. C’mon, sit for just a second. No one will mind.”

  Tameka hesitated for a moment, then lowered herself onto the edge of the folding chair.

  “There now. Tell me something. You working full time over at the day spa for the summer?”

  Tameka shook her head. “Just a few hours a day.”

  “Reason I’m inquirin’ — I need someone to help me out with some light house cleaning. The girl I had is moving over to Tallahassee to live with her cousin so she can go to the community college. How ’bout you coming over with your brother and doin’ the inside work while he’s outside working the yards?”

  Tameka shifted uneasily in her chair. “I don’t know…my Grandma May-May…”

  He rested a hand on her slender shoulder. “I’ll come speak with Miz Maizie for you. I think she’ll agree that a little more cash coming in during the summer will help out — what with her bein’ too sick to provide for you and Moses. Y’all going to be needing money for new clothes and supplies for school in the Fall, am I right?”

  She ducked her head. “Yes, sir.”

  “Well…” Hank reached over and brushed her cheek lightly with one finger. “It’s settled then. I’ll stop in some time this next week and speak with your grandmother. You get on back to your work, now.”

  Tameka nodded shyly and grabbed the tea pitcher. She glanced across the room to where Moses was cleaning tables. Her brother watched solemnly as she made her way toward him. “What you doin’ talkin’ to Mr. Hank?”

  “He wants me to come clean for him this summer. For cash money. He’s gonna come talk to May-May.”

  Moses looked across the crowded room, intending to fire a warning glare in Hank’s direction. The table was vacant.

  “We’ll see about that,” he said through clenched teeth.

  “That went swimmingly well, don’t you agree?” Jake grinned as he wiped a dollop of banana pudding from the seat of a folding chair.

  I nodded. The last guests had left, as well as the birthday girl and her entourage. Moses, Jon, and Tameka carried double handfuls of folding chairs to the storeroom while Jake, Holston, Stephanie, Mandy, and I cleaned and collapsed the serving tables.

  Mandy wiped a table with a damp rag. “I kept waiting to see if the real Karen was going to come out, but her new personality didn’t crack open one inch.”

  “Didn’t seem to faze anyone, though. Piddie certainly had a blast, especially during the video production. I’ve never seen her so lively,” I said.

  Jake tilted his head. “Can you believe that one shot of her and Carlton with the ’54 Chevy? I’ll bet they were a hoot when they were young.”

  I smiled. “Piddie told me that was taken only a few months before he had his fatal heart attack.”

  Jake snapped the welded legs shut on the table we were folding. “Well, it was worth every bit of planning to see her so happy.”

  “I can only hope I have as many friends if I get to be her age,” Mandy said.

  Jake grinned wickedly. “You will, sugar plum. You’ll have so much dirt on folks, they’ll show up in self-protection.”

  A waded napkin missed Jake’s head by inches.

  “Ain’t a day passes, I don’t talk to someone who’s nursing a grudge. Life’s too dang short to hold on to past hurts. You got to soften up your heart and let the healing happen. The more hurt opens you up, the more joy you can hold.”

  Piddie Davis Longman

  Chapter Seven

  The Hill: Hattie

  The last few months I lived in Tallahassee before answering the country’s beckoning call home, I grew more and more agitated with the press of snarled traffic and ill-mannered people. The once-friendly howdy-neighbor southern city charm tarnished each year with the influx of college students and politicians. Every direction I turned, I faced crowds in the restaurants, stores, and city streets. Rude blaring car stereos with basses strong enough to interrupt the heart’s rhythm jarred me at the intersections. As folks became more wrapped in their own agendas, common courtesy flew out the back window lik
e a discarded fast food bag.

  When midlife hormonal fluctuations were added into my personal mix, I fully grasped the validity of road rage. The move to the slower, kinder pace of Chattahoochee and its two lane blue highways was timely. Otherwise, I’d have ended up behind bars for choking the life from some poor slob who probably deserved to be removed from the gene pool.

  On the Hill, the world awakened at a pace equal to my own. While Holston and Sarah chirped happily to each other over breakfast, I clutched my morning cup of strong black coffee, making my way to my father’s old wood-framed rocking chair on the wide front porch. Over the rim of my cup, I watched the early morning frenzy at the birdfeeders Holston had erected beneath the spreading arms of a southern magnolia tree at the corner of the wrap-around porch.

  I rocked in time with the guitar licks and easy harmony of an old Loggins and Messina tune drifting from the two overhead speakers Holston and Bobby had installed on either end of the porch. Instead of facing the angry mishmash of dawn commuters, school buses, and road construction crews that dotted the Tallahassee roadways, I now spent my early morning hours stretching slowly into the new day.

  The loud drone of Bobby’s truck echoed from the driveway. The faded denim-blue pick-up slid to a stop in the soft sand at the edge of the yard. The truck’s bed was filled to capacity with pressure-treated lumber, bags of nails, and a tangled mass of power tools and wires.

  “Mornin’ glory!” Bobby called as he erupted from the cab and slammed the creaky door. He clumped onto the wooden porch and shook his head. “Jeezus, Hattie! I don’t know how Holston stands to look at you first thing of a mornin’. You look like something the dogs dragged in.”

  “Don’t start up with me, Bubba. I’m only on my first cup of coffee. Perhaps you’ve forgotten the house rule?”

  Bobby dismissed me with a wave of his hand as he opened the screened door. “How could I? I spent the first eighteen years of my life dealing with you and Dad, the two family crabs. I’ll just go inside and seek refuge with the happy folks.”

  “Ummph.” I rolled my eyes. I enjoyed the easy chiding banter — far better than the sarcastic trap we’d fallen into before Mama’s death.

  Bobby paused halfway through the door. “You coming down to the fishpond later? We’re laying the support foundation for the gazebo this mornin’.”

  “I guess. I hate to take Sarah out around the water with all the mosquitoes. That West Nile virus thing has me spooked.”

  “I hear ya’. Bud Johnson, down the road toward Sycamore, lost an old horse to that stuff a day or two ago. I got plenty of bug spray with me, if you decide to come down. Leigh even found this all natural citronella spray that’s safe for kids and animals.”

  I pointed toward his pick-up. “When you gonna break down and buy yourself a new truck? That one looks like it’s held together with baling wire.”

  Bobby’s tanned face wrinkled as he grinned. “Hey, don’t cut old Flossie down, now. She’s been good to me. Besides, I got a new truck for work. After taking one look at all the computer crap underneath the hood of that new F-150, I’ll keep my old truck, thank you. At least I can do my own tune-ups on her. I wouldn’t even touch the new truck. There’s five mile’a wire around the engine!”

  “It’s still a pretty vehicle. I noticed it had the new logo and title on the side. Very impressive.”

  Bobby ran his fingers through his thinning hair. In another couple of years, he’d have the same wide part and high forehead our father sported by his mid-fifties. “Yeah, my new official title is law enforcement officer. No matter. Folks around here will still call me a game warden…like this place will always be the Davis farm, and the Triple C will always be the Witherspoon mansion.”

  Bobby stepped inside, then poked his head back out. “Leigh and Tank will be out later on. She said don’t worry about lunch. She’s made some sandwiches and some kinda pasta salad for all of us.”

  My child squealed with delight when she spotted her Uncle Bobby. I would have to wait until all the merriment died down before I slipped back into the kitchen for a second cup of coffee.

  “I usually don’t like pasta salad much, but that was good, hon.” Bobby flopped on to his back on the quilt Leigh and I had spread for the picnic lunch.

  Leigh smiled. “It was easy as pie. I got the recipe from Angelina Palazzolo. Course, she makes hers with homemade pasta.” She picked up Tank. “C’mon Holston, let’s take the kids down to see the frogs.”

  They carried the children down the newly cleared pathway leading to the edge of the water.

  Bobby released a large breath. “I’ll be getting the steps in by the end of the week.”

  I punched him playfully on the arm. “You know, you don’t have to finish this project overnight, Bobby.”

  “Hey…this is a vacation for me. I haven’t actually built anything with my hands in years, other than the planter’s pottin’ bench I made for Leigh a while back. Besides, I felt like I needed some time off from work. I just get to the point sometimes where I’m dog-tired of dealing with stupid people…and, God as my witness, there’re a boat load of ’em out there.”

  We watched our spouses and children. Spackle chased the frogs from the water’s edge, and the kids dove through the grass in giggling pursuit.

  I studied my brother’s profile. The intense Florida sunshine had tanned his skin to the hue of aged leather. Fine wrinkles around his eyes and mouth gave him a chiseled, rugged, handsome-cowboy look.

  “Hattie, I been meanin’ to talk to you about somethin’.”

  “Hmm?’

  “How would you feel about Leigh and me buildin’ a house out here on the Hill?”

  He turned to watch my reaction.

  A few years back, I would’ve cringed at the thought of being cooped up in the same room with my older brother, even for a couple of hours. Now, the notion of being close to him gave me the same sense of security I’d treasured when our parents were alive.

  I shrugged. “You want to live out here? I thought you liked it in town.”

  Bobby plucked a long blade of Bahia grass and stuck it between his teeth.

  “I never liked livin’ in town. That was Joan’s idea. She had to be right up under her mama’s skirt.” His eyes roamed across the pond to his family. “I’ve always wanted a log cabin in the woods. And now, with Leigh and Josh. I just want my son to be able to grow up like we did, Hattie. Out here with loads of room, fresh air to breathe. I want to teach him about the trees, the land, the animals…like Daddy taught us.”

  Bobby turned to study me full face. His blue eyes squinted in the bright sun. “I know I haven’t been the best brother in the world, Hattie.”

  I reached over and rested my hand on his shoulder. “There have been times I felt you didn’t like me very much.”

  He shook his head. “It wasn’t you. It was me. After Joan left the way she did, I was mad at the world. There you were — free as a bird, traveling all over the country — and I was here. It’s like I was stuck for a long time. I was such a bastard. To everyone, not just you and your friends. I started drinkin’ pretty heavy, almost got myself fired from my job…and, you know how much that means to me. I worried Mama sick, there for a while.”

  Bobby’s expression softened with love as he gazed down the embankment toward his wife and son. “Then, along came Leigh. She was my salvation. Shook me off, cleaned me up. I stopped crawling in the bottle to get away from myself and the world. First time I laid eyes on that woman, somethin’ inside of me just opened up. It all came pouring out…the hate, the anger…all the junk that was keeping me down.”

  I shook his shoulder playfully. “Hey, can I believe my ears? Bobby Davis sitting here talking to me about his feelings? Lord help!”

  He smirked. “Don’t be a smartass.”

  “Sorry.”

  He pointed a finger toward the pond. “You can blame Leigh for that all that emotional junk. She can dig down and pull stuff outa me. Nothin’ gets past that
woman.”

  “I think it’d be fan-freakin’-tastic to have you guys out here. But, you really don’t have to ask my permission. It’s your land too, after all.”

  “I know. I just thought it’d be the right thing to do.”

  I stretched my legs out in front of me. “You picked out a spot yet?”

  Bobby grinned. His even white teeth flashed like quicksilver against his tanned face. “Yeah. I thought I’d clear a lane right off the main drive as you first come in…set the cabin in the deep woods on the top of the hill. I’d make it where you and Holston, and John and Margie, wouldn’t feel crowded in. You wouldn’t be able to see the cabin from either of your houses. I don’t need to cut a lot of trees, either. Just enough to keep the snakes away from the house.”

  “Mama Tillie and Mr. D. would be happy as two pigs in a poke about us settling down with our families on the land.”

  Bobby slapped his hands on his thighs. “Well! Alrighty then! Wanna go tell the troops?”

  We started down the embankment toward the pond.

  I slipped my arm across his broad shoulders. “When will you start to build?”

  “I’d like to go ahead and get started in a couple of weeks as soon as I can pull the permits. I’ll have D.J. Hartman come out with his equipment, soon as he can get to it, and clear the road and homesite. He can do that pretty much without any help from me. For now, I’ll concentrate on finishing the gazebo and decking.”