by Lynn Pruett
Dovie Mae was hemmed into the seat by several blankets and an old fake fur overcoat. Her fingers had to be peeled off the steering wheel. Finally the medics pulled her out and laid her on the stretcher. She’d been dead since morning and her husband had discovered it only when he got in the car to sleep with her that evening. Now lying on her back, her fingers curled, her knees resting on her stomach, her right foot extended, Dovie Mae gave the impression both of mashing the gas pedal and of bracing herself against a crash. She looked the picture of terror, as if she had seen Death in her final moment and fought it with all her might.
Hattie began to get queasy, not over Dovie Mae but over Oakley. Had he, lying calmly in an oxygen tent, died in fear? Or had he thrashed around, tangling himself in suffocating sheets, like Dovie Mae’s husband wrapping himself in ropes of honeysuckle? Hattie longed to roll around on the ground in grief, surrounded by kind friends, but she could not without her husband’s body.
She still felt Oakley’s presence. There were times when she seemed to catch him standing at the bedroom window, the scent of smoked tobacco lingering in the air. She wondered what he wanted, maybe nothing, maybe just to be in the place where his things promised him a long life: the hickory chest that had come down the backbone of the Smokies in a wagon to rest in this house in Maridoches County, Alabama; the patchwork quilt, its cloth spun by his great-grandmother from the first cotton grown by his great-grandfather; the stoneware churn purchased with hemp eighty years before. It was no wonder he wandered away at times from the steel and concrete and speed and sterility of Washington, D.C., to stand in their bedroom and gaze out at the rolling hills, to hold for a few minutes the life promised him by his land. He never looked at her; she was sure of it. He’d already lived forty-one years when they’d married. She was a small part of his life, the bright explosion of a firecracker in an otherwise steady whistling ascent.
The medics loaded the ambulance, then hooked Dovie Mae’s car to a tow truck. The car’s two front tires were flat. The reporter gathered the story from the neighbors.
“Her husband never did give us a good answer,” said a broad man who was supporting his slight wife, a combination of shapes that made Hattie think of a house and a lean-to.
“I don’t know why she done it,” the wife said. “She kept a clean house.”
“It was six cars in the last ten years. First a green Hornet, but I guess it was too small—”
“Hornets get lousy mileage,” said another.
“Oh, Raymond. Mileage don’t matter to her. She never went nowhere.”
“And then there was an Oldsmobile, a black LTD, early model, and then it was a red car, a red Chevy.”
“Yeah, Dovie Mae warn’t loyal to no one company, but she surely didn’t buy no Japanese cars.”
Paul waved at the reporter and nodded at Hattie. “We can go.”
“Good.” She climbed into the truck. The neighbors abandoned the reporter and piled the husband into a car to take him to the hospital. The air was heavy with fragrant moisture, too cloying to breathe. Hattie felt tears roll down her cheeks.
“A strange pair,” he said.
Hattie nodded, then had the vague idea he was talking about her and Oakley, then about her and himself. She quit nodding.
“Everybody in this side of the county knew about them living in cars. They weren’t breaking any laws. It was just something they decided to do.” Paul drove at a steady pace, grinding through holes and over broken knobs of concrete with equal disregard. “Don’t take it so hard, Hattie. They wanted to sleep in the car. You saw their house. It was pretty nice, considering.”
Considering what? Dovie Mae Jarboe looked like she wanted to get out of there as fast as she could. Maybe that was the trick. Be the first to die. “I’m sorry. Death affects me in funny ways.”
“Well, in my job, you see it often enough that you get hard to it,” Paul said.
At a stop sign, he opened the glove box and took out a handkerchief. “Cry the clouds out of your eyes. They’re way too pretty to be hiding.”
Hattie took the handkerchief and dabbed her eyes.
“It’s your husband?” Paul said.
“Yes,” said Hattie.
“Let the dead lie and the living keep moving,” Paul said. “That’s my philosophy.”
How simple that was. How clear and utterly irresponsible, she thought. The gulf in this cab is wide. Though she ached to hold and be held by this man who was causing her nerves to thrill in fits and bursts, the bag of grief she carried was heavy. But maybe, maybe, this blue-eyed man was the one who could pry it loose.
JESSAMINE BOHANNON
I didn’t care that Mama was out on a date on Friday night and I was at work adding up the receipts. She could be at the drive-in eating fresh popcorn and laughing, not a thought in her head, while I was keeping an eye on the truck stop. It wasn’t like I was the grown-up and she the daughter, nothing like that.
I dumped the week’s coins into the sorting machine, ratcheted it up, and covered my ears. The machine clanged so loud the noise jarred my bones. I hollered to drown it out. Richard had not called me. I had dialed his number and hung up more than once. I didn’t want to talk about Mrs. Reynolds and her half tit. But how could I pretend I had not seen it? I screamed like a train tearing through a tunnel.
When the sorting machine stopped, the silence hit like withdrawal. My voice sounded pathetic, a snaky wisp of whine. I hoped no one in the restaurant had heard me. Since no one came to the rescue, I guessed I was safe. I pinched open an orange quarter wrapper, slid my forefinger inside, stuck it under the quarter chute, and released enough coins to fill it—forty, ten dollars. When the quarters were done, I did dimes and nickels, scooped up the odd change, and dropped it in my purse.
I went to the kitchen and made pancake batter. The mixer was on its first revolution when Troy Clyde, Mama’s brother, ran in shouting that the truck stop was about to blow up. His eyes were shiny and his hair crackling with electricity. He’s like a walking lightning rod. Everything is a crisis.
“You’re not in Vietnam anymore,” I reminded him. “This is Maridoches.”
“Look out the back window, little sister,” he said, as he ran into the dining room.
I saw the light before I reached the back door. The vat of waste oil was burning to Kingdom Come. Flames flew up like hands trying to touch the sky. I walked—walked!—to the fryer and saw that the switch to the grease pipe was off. Outside, voices howled for water. Everybody knew it took the Gadsden fire department forty-five minutes to get here.
I dialed 911. Jewell Miller had already tried to reach the sheriff but he was unavailable.
“He’s at the drive-in,” I said, “with my mother. It’s a date.”
“I’ll note that,” said Jewell Miller.
I went outside. My sister Darla aimed our hose at the fire but its tiny silver stream evaporated in the heat. Customers stood, watching. Their faces glowed orange while their backs were black, half-people, half-night, half-fire. Smoke spread out in the air like a rug, rolling farther and farther into the night. I could see where the stars were bright, and that was at the far horizon.
Voices buzzed with causes, a careless cigarette tossed into the trash, the No Smoking policy, what was a customer to do? I moved closer to the fire to tell Darla to quit with the hose. It was a waste of water. Against the Dumpster rested the charred husk of my gold chair.
I shouted. Dark faces turned toward me, Reverend Peterson and Gert. She’d done it—she’d burned my chair. She’d lit the cigarettes I’d given her at dinnertime, I knew it.
I’d push the witch into the fire, push until she roasted and her fat had spit itself out.
I stormed over to scream at her oily face when I saw Richard watching our chair burn. His face sagged like melting wax. He looked desolate, his mouth downturned, all his happiness drained out. I wanted to bare my breasts and put his head between them and say, It’s gone, the chair, not us.
Ye
t as I watched I felt his despair myself, and I could not move. It’s the only thing that saved Gert from boiling in oil.
Reverend Peterson climbed into the truck bed of a Chevy and asked everyone to pray. All the noises stopped as he insisted in a fairly fine voice for us to be calm and to rely on God. Darla watered the parking lot. Puddles pushed the crowd back, their shoes soaking.
Troy Clyde jogged up, arms waving as if each new thought jerked them in a different direction. “Dirt’s the answer, Jessamine,” he said. “We need the trucker who owns that Coe.” He pointed to a semi loaded with dirt.
I ran back inside—good thing; the mixer had about frothed the pancake batter into a beehive—and shouted into the men’s room for the Coe’s owner, but no one came out. Back outside, Troy Clyde and the reverend announced that the men would form a line and move dirt from the Coe onto the flames, but first the driver needed to back the truck closer. But he could not be found. The men stared as the metal walls of the Dumpster glowed red. Do something, I thought. Don’t just stand there like a bunch of huddled cows in the rain. The Dumpster surged as if to burst. It would catch us in its river of heat and cascade fire over the truck stop.
“Maybe he’s sleeping,” I shouted. I beat Troy Clyde across the parking lot to the Coe’s cab and flung the driver’s door wide open.
The trucker lay back across the seat, pants around his ankles, a woman’s massive brown hair covering his privates. On the dash was a ten-dollar bill.
“Lordy,” said Troy Clyde. “I knew it.”
The woman’s head lifted. “You got to pay more for a party.”
“Get out,” said the trucker, as he sat up and raised his knees.
Troy Clyde, bless him, was cool. “Wake up and smell the smoke, brother. We need your dirt to smother that fire.”
The trucker slipped his pants on, caught the fire’s sheen on his face, and nodded. The woman moved into the passenger’s seat. Her breasts stood out as if gravity didn’t exist.
Reverend Peterson appeared behind me on the running board and looked into the cab. He gasped, then his face froze to stone.
“Move,” said Troy Clyde to Reverend Peterson. “I’m putting out a real fire.” He pushed me into the cab and pulled the door to. Squashed between Troy Clyde and the trucker, I was overcome by the strong smell of aftershave. On the floor, the woman thrust her arms into a stretchy gray top. Her breasts jiggled like water balloons as she fought to bring her shirt down over her head. The trucker leaned forward and bit the closest nipple. Her right hand sprang free and smacked his face.
The truck had not moved an inch since we’d come inside. Troy Clyde, too, had been caught up in the show.
“Goddamn,” said the trucker. He scrambled over me and Troy Clyde into the driver’s seat. I scooted to the passenger window, leaving room for the woman to climb up next to me, but she didn’t get off the floor. The trucker backed the rig up.
I rolled down my window and peered out as we closed on the Dumpster. Richard was the first man to climb into the truck bed. He sank to his calves in the dirt. Soon he was swinging shovelfuls of soil onto the fire. Our chair collapsed, then became debris. I watched Richard bend, sweat, and turn, saw him remove his sodden shirt and fling it into the flames. He stood out, in silhouette, a smith slick with heat. My body has a memory way across the river from good sense.
I felt my heart beat hard in my ears. The rhythm drummed all the way down my arms and legs and every place in between. I was pulsing.
“Come on, little sister,” Troy Clyde said, opening the door of the cab, “we need to get away from all this sinning.”
When I stepped out, high beams blinded me. Reverend Peterson shouted about sin, prostitution, adultery, and fornication. I stood on the running board, stunned. I must have looked guilty. I stood there as if his words were true—of course they were, but only I knew that. I looked up into the truck bed where Richard was, and saw him hot and dirty. Oh, I loved him. I wished he’d reach down and pull me up there with him. We’d stand there together for everyone to see.
But he merely squinted in my direction as if the glare was too much.
Troy Clyde hustled me off the running board. The fire began to die. In the distance came the wail of sirens, useless now.
I walked to the back of the semi as Richard climbed down. A woman burst from the crowd. It was her, glassy-eyed, hair leaking from a bun, dress hanging loose as an empty sack. “Are you all right?” Mrs. Reynolds asked Richard.
He nodded and wiped his face. She offered him a glass of water, stolen from our dining room. I could see beads of sweat on his forehead and bubbles in the glass. He put his arm around her.
How could he? She was so weak and damaged and crazy. But there she was, wiping his brow and then—goddamn!—his chest. If I had a knife I would have cut her arms off for touching him. My breath came so fast I was panting. The smoke caught in my lungs like a solid and I coughed hard. I could not stop.
Sheriff Dodd was suddenly bending beside me. He got a good grip on my elbows. “You’re a witness. Come with me.”
I coughed my lungs clear, crossing the lot. Then the trucker and the woman and I were all seated in the patrol car, me in the front, them in the back. I didn’t care what happened. Sheriff Dodd asked their names.
“You know my name,” said the woman. She was younger than me and had big blue eyes and crooked buck teeth. Not pretty, all eyes and mouth.
“I’m arresting you, sir, for solicitation and a lewd act and you, Miss Ash Lee, for prostitution.”
“My understanding of prostitution is that money must exchange hands,” said the trucker. “You can search me and my cab and you will see that I am broke.”
Ash Lee said, “You can search me and you won’t find one red cent.”
Sheriff Dodd grimaced as if he’d swallowed nails. “Jessamine, did you see a lewd act?” He asked delicately, like I might not know what he was talking about.
The trucker and Ash Lee were watching me. I could feel their breath and smell their heat. I leaned against the window as if this whole thing was unsavory for me. Wouldn’t they be relieved to know I’d palmed the ten bucks when I slid across the cab? Wouldn’t they be grateful? “No, I didn’t see a lewd act.”
The trucker said, “Listen, sheriff, if your boys are finished pillaging my goods, I’ll be on my way.”
Dodd nodded.
The trucker said to Ash Lee, “You need a ride, darling?”
She put her head right up behind Sheriff Dodd’s and said into his ear, “I’ll let the law take care of me.”
As if her breath were red paint, color spread from the back of the sheriff’s neck to his forehead.
Suddenly I was sorry for him. He knew Ash Lee but didn’t want me or Mama to know it, and yet he couldn’t turn her out to the wolves—Reverend Peterson and Gert—who were waiting near the patrol car.
“Where do you need to go?” I asked.
“Not far if I cut through the woods,” Ash Lee said.
“Oh,” I said in a normal tone of voice, “I can take you.”
“Thank you, Jessamine,” said Sheriff Dodd. “Your mother’s occupied with other things right now.”
I nodded at him as I got out of the car. Of course I could be in charge. I’d been in charge all evening.
Red lights spun on the fire truck and there was water in the air and water underfoot. Everything that had been oily with heat now dripped. The night was still pale above us. Troy Clyde shooed the crowd away and almost got into a shoving match with Gert when he came a tad too close to Reverend Peterson.
Ash Lee and I sloshed across the parking lot together. I felt so gracious to be helping the poor girl out of this embarrassing situation.
She plunked down in the passenger seat of my old VW and said, “Hand over the ten dollars, bitch.”
HATTIE BOHANNON
When she stepped out of the sheriff’s truck into the smoke, she almost swooned. He caught and steadied her. She pulled away and was rude, holdi
ng her brow, shouting out “Thank you!” and then dashing to the center of the disaster. Through the haze, the truck stop looked like a circus shutting down. Revolving red lights illuminated active dark figures. The fire truck’s long gleaming ladder was strapped in travel position. A row of taillights marked the exit lane. She found Gert and Reverend Peterson holding a prayer meeting near the smoldering Dumpster. Troy Clyde was sweaty and shaky. “The fire,” he said to her. “The fire.”
She hugged his warm shoulders and said, “Go home. It’s out. We’ll be all right.”
She was sprayed then with the hose.
“Stop it!” Hattie yelled. “Stop it!”
Darla’s voice came back. “Sorry, Mama, Troy Clyde said to drench him.”
“Tell me what happened,” Hattie said.
She and Darla rewound the hose as the girl recounted the night’s events, her voice pitched high, her eyes blazing.
“Where’s Jessamine?” Hattie said.
Darla shrugged. “She’s around here somewhere. The truck stop’s okay. Nobody got burnt.”
Queasiness rolled over Hattie. She needed fresh clean air. She went into the truck stop and washed her face again and again in the sink. She had to function, despite the illness she felt, memory flooding through every nerve.
A fireman came in and asked her to sign their report. They’d be there a few more hours until they figured out the source of the fire. He seemed awfully calm, Hattie thought.
“It got contained mighty quick,” he said. “At least there were no deaths.”
Hattie sat down at her desk and read the black smudged report. She checked the electrical systems and revved up the airconditioning to prevent the burnt smell from settling inside. After a few hours, everything she could do was done. She had to go outside to get home.
The air was still a veil of smoke. Hattie staggered away from it, up past the house, fighting memory as she breathed it in. She scrambled through the garden and rushed to the rise of the mountain. She needed air. Her feet slipped on pine needles but on she climbed until the scent of evergreens cut through the smoke. She lay down on the soft piney blanket and closed her eyes. It was her childhood home she saw, conjured by the smoke.
