Guess Who's Coming to Die?

by Patricia Sprinkle

  Hope County, like most counties in the South, has a lot of poverty. Most of our small cotton farms have been swallowed up by conglomerates, and we have lost so much industry, there’s not enough left to employ our people. Caught in a cycle of illiteracy and poverty, too many people have few job skills, but find unskilled jobs harder and harder to come by. The ones they can find don’t pay enough to live on, given that the national minimum wage has been raised by only one administration in the past twenty-five years. I wonder sometimes which of our elected officials would be willing to live today on what he or she made twenty-five years ago, and why they think poor folks ought to be smart enough to do it when they can’t.

  The good news is that we no longer have the unpainted shanties that dotted the South when I grew up. The bad news is that Hopemore, like many other small towns, has large pockets of substandard housing, poverty, drugs, and crime. The only difference between a small town and a big city in that respect is that in a small town, poor people live closer to the rest of us and are generally related to somebody else we know.

  As I drove down Wilford Road, I remembered a Sunday school lesson that Martha, Ridd’s wife, had taught recently on Deuteronomy 15:4-11, which she called “God’s solution to poverty.” She said that God knows that people will sometimes, from their own foolishness or misfortune, hit a rough patch and become poor, so God commands those of us with more than enough to take care of them during those times and help restore them to prosperity. Martha pointed out that Deureronomy 15:4 makes an amazing pronouncement: There will be no poor among you if you obey God’s commandment. But verse eleven ends the passage with an indictment of us all: The poor will always be with you, so open your hands and be generous. I will never again look at people living in second-, third-, and fourth-generation poverty without knowing that it is, in some sense, my own fault.

  The fact that Dexter lived in Pleasantville (which wasn’t pleasant at all) surprised me. I had pictured him in a neat brick house like Clarinda owns. I wondered whether the Hopemore Community Center job was paying him a fair wage, and knew that was something I’d need to look into.

  I was so lost in those thoughts that I almost missed Mad Mooney’s Bar. It was easy to miss, not more than fifteen feet wide with a faded sign over the small screened door. My sudden right turn caused the driver behind me to lay on his horn and a teenager beside the fire hydrant to give me a thumbs-up and a grin.

  When I found Good Hope Lane, I wondered whether the person who named it had been drunk or facetious. Hope didn’t live on that lane. Porches sagged. Screens hung in tatters. Lawns were decorated with appliances and rusting cars. A toddler in paper diapers and a red shirt explored the debris in her yard, while two apathetic women sat on the front porch waving away flies and talking, paying her no attention whatsoever. When a rat the size of a small cat dashed across the road in front of my car, I made a mental note to ask Chief Muggins to send some deputies around to check on code violations and force the owners to clean up the worst of the trash. We’d be real busy in magistrate courts in coming weeks, if I got my way.

  I thought maybe Dexter’s house would stand out as clean and well kept, but no house looked better than the others. Spying two boys hanging around a souped-up yellow Mustang down the street, I pulled up and asked, “Do you all know where Dexter Baxter lives?”

  They shuffled a bit, aware they ought to be in school. From the way the bigger one flicked his eyes toward me and then away, he knew who I was.

  He looked about twelve but outweighed me by several pounds. “He lives over there,” he volunteered in a husky voice, jerking his thumb toward a house that had been painted white so long ago that the color was mostly memory. Down behind it I saw Dexter’s Ford under a carport made from rusty pipes and a corrugated green fiberglass roof.

  “You all need to get on to school,” I pointed out. “It’s already past ten.”

  “Yeah, we was just goin’.” The smaller boy, who looked like he might be ten and was as skinny as the other was fat, gave me a saucy grin and jerked his head toward his partner. “Come on, dude, we’re late.”

  They strutted down the street like I had been detaining them. Yet I suspected that, if I checked with the school later, neither would have shown up. Those boys were neither dumb nor lacking in interests, they simply found the schooling we offered them boring and unrelated to their lives. As I turned and parked in front of Dexter’s, I wondered what kind of education those boys could get excited about, and what it would take to convince our school board to provide it for them. We are so caught up in schools looking good, teaching arcane literature and complicated math, we tend to forget that the point of education ought to be to help children learn what they will need to get on in their actual lives.

  I am used to carrying my pocketbook over my shoulder. Keeping up with that clutch was troublesome, especially since I couldn’t carry it in my wounded left hand. I settled for tucking it under my left elbow and carrying the bag of frozen blueberry muffins with my right hand as I headed up the cracked cement walk leading to Dexter’s house.

  It had no screened porch, only a little cement stoop, but the peeling gray front door sported a shiny brass dead-bolt lock that looked sturdier than the door itself. Seeing no doorbell, I shifted the muffins to my other hand and knocked.

  No answer.

  I knocked again. “Dexter? It’s Judge Yarbrough.”

  No answer.

  I pounded the door so hard, I skinned my knuckles.

  As I paused to listen for sounds inside, I sensed somebody watching me from behind.

  I turned. Three feral dogs stood stiff-legged beyond the bottom step, regarding me like they had spotted dinner. When the nearest one growled low in his throat, I felt the hair on the back of my own neck tingle.

  I like dogs. Lulu is the light of my life. But these dogs were no more like my friendly little beagle than a drug-crazed addict is like a kindergarten teacher. The leader was lean and mean, built like a German shepherd, with a coat so dirty and neglected, it was gray. The others were of no recognizable breed and equally dirty and scrawny. None wore a collar or tag.

  All three stood with teeth bared, front feet braced. The leader took a step toward me. The other two followed. They growled in evil three-part harmony.

  I darted a glance across the street, hoping the two women on the porch might be of help. They were no longer there. I didn’t blame them. If I had a child on that street and those dogs came down it, I’d go inside, too. But I sure could use some help here.

  I turned and pounded on the door. “Dexter? Dexter!”

  The lead dog put one foot on the bottom step.

  One of his followers inched forward and bumped the leader’s lean haunches. The leader turned with a snarl and snapped at him. He backed up.

  That gave me a second to act.

  Years ago Mama taught me that if a dog approached and scared me, I should bend down, pretend to pick up a rock, and hurl it toward the animal. I’d done that a time or two, and it works. I didn’t dare bend down with those dogs so close, and imaginary rocks wouldn’t keep them at bay long enough for me to reach the street, but I had something better. I awkwardly pulled one of the semithawed muffins from my zipped plastic bag and pitched it with a yell. “Git! You hear me? Git!”

  The lead dog was so close, I hit him smack between the eyes. He yelped and swerved into the yard, where he stood barking furiously.

  I pitched two more muffins in rapid succession and hit each of the other dogs. At that range it would have been almost impossible to miss. Both joined their leader, snarling and barking. None looked like they were planning to leave anytime soon.

  “Git! Git on now!” I took a cautious step down the steps, holding a muffin above my head. I hoped I looked more confident than I felt. It’s hard to walk on jelly knees, and any minute my purse was going to slip from under my elbow.

  Frantically I tried to remember whether you are supposed to maintain eye contact with a vicious animal or avo
id looking it straight in the eye. It was a moot question. I couldn’t drag my eyes from those brutes.

  I edged down the walk, another muffin at the ready. When one cur started sidling my way, I pitched the muffin with all my strength and hit him in the side. He yelped and darted toward the back yard, tail between his legs. I pitched two more muffins for good measure, but missed. Why hadn’t I been more willing to play catch with my little brother years ago?

  The lead dog edged over to sniff the useless weapon. Next thing I knew, two dogs were wolfing down the fallen muffins. In a minute, would they come after the rest?

  I pitched four or five for good measure, then covered the rest of the distance to my car at a fast walk. Later I would tell the story and make people laugh at the picture of me fending off feral dogs with deadly muffins, but at the time I simply hoped to live long enough to reach my front seat.

  I had an anxious few seconds when I had to stop firing muffins long enough to find my keys, but I kept one ready on top of the car and was relieved that keys were easier to find in a clutch than in my big pocketbook. The dogs finished gulping down all the muffins I’d pitched so far and stood staring at me, like they were calculating the best plan of attack.

  I jumped in and slammed the door, then sat there trying to remember how to breathe. My hands were shaking so badly, I could not hold my keys, so I dropped them onto the passenger seat and laid my head on the steering wheel. I was shaking from head to toe.

  Slowly my body recovered from terror. I found my cell phone, called the police station, and told one of the deputies, “Send a dogcatcher out to Good Hope Lane. Pronto!”

  I stayed until the truck arrived, pitching an occasional muffin through my window to keep the dogs in Dexter’s yard. Not until they were safely locked in the animal control truck did I breathe easy.

  One of the women from across the street came out on her porch to watch the process. As the truck drove away and I prepared to follow, she yelled a stream of profanity after me. The only part I clearly heard was, “You got no call to sic the cops on Dexter’s dogs. Them is his babies.”

  13

  After all that squalor, it was a treat to head out to Wilma’s. Although few Georgia planters ever lived in big plantation houses, and the Kenans bought cotton instead of growing it, William Robison Kenan had built himself an enormous Southern plantation home. White with black shutters at each tall window, the house had massive square columns supporting both a downstairs and an upstairs front porch. The upstairs porch had intricate crisscross banisters that gave an airy effect to the weighty house. Oaks, hickories, maples, magnolias, and poplars provided shade in summer and a gracious setting year-round.

  As I turned into the long curved drive, lined with crape myrtles so old, they had become trees, I couldn’t help thinking what a shame it was that one single woman owned all that. Knowing Wilma, she’d will it to the county for a museum without leaving enough money to maintain it, for keeping up a house that big and old is like trying to stop a waterfall with your bare hands. I wondered whether the county commission would sell it to some Yankee with more money than sense, or tear it down and sell the land for development.

  Of course, MayBelle Brandison might buy it and make it the elegant clubhouse for a new subdivision, but as I looked at the wooded acres leading to the house, that idea was so distressing that I pushed it out of my mind. I rounded the last curve and saw Wilma bent over, pulling weeds and tossing them into a four-wheeled rubber wheelbarrow she had positioned nearby. She stood and looked to see who I was.

  I parked on a patch of gravel near the house and waved. “Good morning!” I called as I walked back toward her.

  She’d been working in her herb garden that morning, one of several theme gardens that dotted her yard. From the drive I could see her Shakespeare garden, her Bible plants garden, and her formal English garden. Over in the side yard were her rose garden, her lily bed, and a Japanese garden, complete with raked sand, a small water feature, and a tiny humpbacked bridge. Each of the gardens was lovely in itself, but taken together, I found them a tad overwhelming.

  She wiped her forehead with one arm. “Why, hello, MacLaren.”

  For gardening, Wilma wore a pair of pressed khaki slacks, a white cotton shirt with the cuffs neatly buttoned, a straw hat, and black rubber Wellington boots that she reordered every time a pair wore out. I wear rubber clogs in the garden, but Wilma lived in terror of snakes, so she preferred boots that came to her knees.

  She pulled off her gloves and threw them on top of her weeds, then clomped across the grass in my direction, talking as she came. “The weeds are growing like wildfire with all the rain we’ve been having, so I thought I’d pull some while the ground is soft. My grounds are sorely neglected. The trees need pruning, the borders need edging, and the liriope is taking over my lawn.” As she reached me, she took off her hat and held it loosely at her side. “I’m needing to get somebody out here to help me, but you know as well as I do that you can’t get anybody to work anymore.”

  What she meant was, she was reaching the limits of Hopemore’s available gardeners. No wonder. She worked her yard men like slaves, paid them as little as she could get away with, and insisted on supervising and criticizing every blessed thing they did. I suspected she was hinting that it would be neighborly of me to send one of our landscaping crews out for a day or two as my contribution to alleviating her sorrow, but I couldn’t. Most of our lawn service staff had worked for Wilma at one time or another, and they had all nodded when one of them begged me, “Doan ever send me out to her place to work, Miss Mac. There’s not a man God ever made who can dig or prune to suit that woman.”

  When I hadn’t said what she expected, she added, “Lincoln can mow, but that’s about all he’s good for in the yard.”

  I felt a spurt of resentment on Lincoln’s behalf. The man kept her old Cadillac up and running and did most repairs on that huge house. When would he have time for yardwork?

  I didn’t know what to say, to tell the truth. She had discombobulated me by being out in the garden. I had expected to find her lying on her couch, prostrate with grief, dabbing her nose with a lace-edged cotton handkerchief, wailing about losing Willena. (Wilma, unlike Nancy, never used tissues if she could help it, and if she had to use a tissue, she never, ever used it more than once.)

  Wilma must have seen my puzzlement, because she gave me a sad little smile. “I can’t simply sit in the house and think about what’s happened. I have to be doing something, or I’d go mad. Nothing comforts me like working in the yard.” She reached into her pocket and, sure enough, brought out a white cotton handkerchief edged in an inch of lace.

  I held out my dish. “I brought you some of Clarinda’s chicken pecan casserole. You said you liked it at the Garden Club luncheon.”

  “Thank you so much. Let’s go inside. I was ready to quit here, anyway.”

  Carrying my offering before me, I followed her up the brick walk. The paint on the house was a little dull and peeling in places, I noticed, but that wouldn’t last long. Wilma might be stingy in other ways, but she never begrudged a dollar to keep up the old Kenan home place.

  Near the front steps she detoured to a spigot and daintily washed the mud and yard trash off her boots. As she led me up the steps, her boots made wet footprints and some mud still clung, for the rusty water looked like Willena’s blood. I shuddered.

  Before we reached the front door, it was opened by Linette, Wilma’s housekeeper for at least thirty years. Linette was long and lean, with a stride that let you know she knew where she was going and planned to get there. She adored Wilma and shared her dedication to perfection. Over the years she had supervised an army of young women who came in twos and threes to work for a while before throwing up their hands in despair and leaving with the cry, “They is too particular out at Miss Kenan’s and don’t pay you enough to live on.” I didn’t know what Linette and Lincoln earned, but at least they lived in.

  She handed Wilma a thick w
hite washcloth, already damp, with an equally thick white towel. Then she took my casserole with a murmured, “Thank you so much,” and headed for the kitchen with a swish of starched gray uniform skirt.

  While Wilma seated herself in a rocker to wipe her hands and face and exchange her boots for neat tan walking shoes that sat ready, I stood wondering how she got maids to wear starched uniforms. Clarinda has worked for me for forty years, but what it would take to get her into a starched uniform would entail more grief than I am willing to endure. Are rich girls taught at their mother’s knee how to manage household help? Clarinda basically manages me.

  Wilma dropped the washcloth and towel onto the porch floor and held out a foot. “Would you help me, MacLaren?” Then she noticed my bandaged hand. “Never mind. I’ll do it myself.” I figured Linette usually performed that service and had used my casserole as an excuse to escape.

  Shod and tidy, Wilma stood. “Come on inside for a little while. Linette will bring us some tea.” She left her damp boots beside the towel and washcloth on the porch floor.