Biggie and the Quincy Ghost

by Nancy Bell

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Job’s Jottings from Julia

  1

  2

  3

  4

  5

  6

  7

  8

  9

  10

  11

  12

  13

  14

  15

  16

  17

  18

  Willie Mae’s Wedding Reception Lane Cake

  Filling

  Icing

  Acknowledgements

  ALSO BY NANCY BELL

  Copyright Page

  Job’s Jottings from Julia

  July 24 Well, the Independence Day holiday has come and gone, and this reporter is glad of it. The noise around this town would drive a preacher to take a drink. DeWayne Boggs blew his right eyebrow off with a Roman candle and had to be taken to the Center Point hospital for stitches. DeWayne stated that he was looking into the business end of the rocket because he wanted to see the ball of fire come out. DeWayne’s mother, Mrs. Betty Jo Darling, states that DeWayne will be back on the baseball diamond next week playing right field for the Little League Dodgers. When questioned further, she stated that it didn’t much matter whether he could see or not, because the ball never makes it to right field anyway.

  Butch Hickley of Hickley’s House of Flowers states that the fall bedding plants have come in, but you’d better get them early as the Almanac says we’re in for an early frost this year.

  It appears that the town is not to have a historical society after all. An exploratory committee headed by Biggie Weatherford has just returned from a trip to Quincy where the members had hoped to pick up some pointers from the Quincy Historical Society. However, the meetings were called off due to a shocking murder that occurred at the very hotel where the committee was staying. The committee is now looking into other avenues for improving the cultural life of our citizens. Stay tuned.

  1

  My name is J.R. Weatherford. I’m twelve and a half years old, and I live in Job’s Crossing, Texas, with my grandmother, Biggie, who is called Biggie because when I was little I couldn’t say “Big Momma,” and Rosebud and Willie Mae, who live in their own little house in our backyard. I have a new puppy, Bingo. Bingo is in trouble right now because this morning he went to the bathroom in Biggie’s underwear drawer. If you ask me, she shouldn’t be leaving her drawers open with a puppy around, but I could tell she wasn’t in the mood to listen to reason, so I didn’t press it. Now, Biggie is making Bingo live outside for an indefinite period of time.

  I have lived in a big white house in Job’s Crossing, Texas, with Biggie since I was six years old. Before that, I lived in Dallas with my daddy, who sold porta-potties to construction sites, and my mama, who is susceptible to sick headaches and spends a lot of time in bed with the shades drawn. She says the only thing that will help is Miller Beer. My daddy died after an I beam fell on the Porta-Potti he was setting up. Mama said it was just like Royce not to leave her one cent of insurance. That’s why she had to take a job at the Autotel Ballroom on Harry Hines Boulevard. When Biggie, who was my daddy’s mother, heard that, she said she was not going to have any grandson of hers raised by a person who served drinks in a cheap dive, so she got in her car and drove to Dallas to bring me home. Mama didn’t argue hardly at all.

  Me and Rosebud were out in the yard building a pen for Bingo when Biggie came trotting down the back steps with a letter in her hand. She was smiling, so I guess she’d forgotten about being mad.

  “Surprise,” she said, “we’re all going to Quincy next weekend, for four whole days!”

  “Well, now, ain’t that nice,” Rosebud said, taking out his handkerchief and mopping the sweat off his face with his big black hand. “You folks deserve a little break.”

  “Oh, you’ll get to go too, honey.” Biggie patted her hair. “I need you to drive.”

  Rosebud’s face fell. “I don’t know, Miss Biggie. I was plannin’ on paintin’ the garage next weekend.”

  Biggie continued as if he’d never said a word. “You see, the Quincy Historical Society is having a weekend workshop on how to preserve history in a small town, and they have invited our officers to attend.”

  Biggie is a Very Important Person in Job’s Crossing on account of she is the richest person in town, and her family has been here the longest. She decided to organize a historical society after we took a trip to Williamsburg, Virginia, last Christmas. Biggie figured Job’s Crossing could cash in on its glorious history the same way Williamsburg was doing. Her idea was that Job’s Crossing has existed under the flags of six different countries, while Williamsburg could only claim three. When I pointed out to her about how we learned in history class that there wasn’t even a town here when the French and Spanish first settled Texas, she said it didn’t matter, because there certainly were Indians here, and she wasn’t going to be a racist and ignore that fact.

  “Biggie, I don’t want to go to Quincy. I was planning to camp out Saturday night.” I was ready to go into whining mode if she said I had to go.

  Biggie read my mind and gave me a look. “Of course you’re going,” she said. “You can learn a lot on this trip. Besides, J.R., you know how you love history. My sakes, they have about four museums in that little town. Not to mention the fact that the hotel we’ll be staying in is a museum in itself—and it has a ghost!”

  “Ooo-wee,” I said. “For real?” She’s right, I do like history, but I like ghost stories even better.

  “For real,” Biggie said. “They tell about it right here in this brochure they sent. You can read it tonight after supper. Right now, I’ve got to go in and call the other officers so they can make arrangements for the trip.”

  After I watched Biggie scurry back inside the house, I turned to the big black man beside me. “Rosebud, do you believe in ghosts?”

  Rosebud was pouring concrete around a post he’d just set. “Sure do,” he said, not looking up.

  I sat on the ground and watched him pour. I watched his big arm muscles move under the white tee shirt he wore. “I’ll bet you know a story about a ghost.” Rosebud has a story for just about everything that happens.

  “Nope,” Rosebud said, standing up and stretching his back. “Hand me that posthole digger over there. I gotta make this next one a little deeper.”

  Rosebud is my best friend in the whole world. He has little gold hearts, clubs, diamonds, and spades built right into his four front teeth. He won them off a dentist in a crap game down in New Orleans. Rosebud tells wonderful stories; some I believe, some I don’t, but I wouldn’t tell him that because they are very interesting, even if untrue.

  By the time we finished the pen and came in the house, Willie Mae had supper on the table. She turned from the counter where she was stirring sugar into a pitcher of iced tea and waved her spoon at us. “Git in there and wash up. Supper’s getting cold.”

  Personally, I couldn’t see what was getting cold. We had cold sliced ham, cold potato salad, cold sliced tomatoes and cucumbers from the garden, fresh-baked zucchini bread, and iced tea. But you don’t argue with Willie Mae, who is a voodoo lady and can turn you into a frog in a blue-eyed minute, if she takes the notion. She came to live with us when I was just a kid and me and Biggie were trying to keep house all by ourselves and not doing a very good job of it. I’ll never forget the day she came carrying all her things in a black satin pillowcase. Our last maid, Codella, had gone running down the street screaming her head off the day before just because she happened to find a catfish swimming in Biggie’s toilet. It wasn’t anything to get excited about. Biggie had just put him in there to keep him fresh until she had
time to clean him. I have to admit, though, the house was a mess. Willie Mae didn’t waste any time taking down all the drapes and shaking the dust off them, cleaning out the pantry, airing all the bed linens, waxing the floors—well, you get the picture. In no time our house was spic-and-span and the good smells of Willie Mae’s cooking had filled the kitchen. Not long after Willie Mae had moved into the little house out back, Rosebud got out of jail in Mansfield, Louisiana, and he moved in, too.

  We had just sat down in the kitchen to eat when in walked Butch, our town florist. Some people think Butch is a little strange just because he dresses funny and talks like a girl. Personally, I like Butch. Live and let live, is what I say. Mattie and Norman Thripp who own Mattie’s Tea Room down on the square came in right behind him. Miss Mattie is round and soft and has blue hair. She wears floaty dresses with big flowers on them. She and Mr. Thripp have only been married two years even though they are both pretty old. Biggie says Norman Thripp had as much chance as a grasshopper in a chicken yard once Mattie set her cap for him. She also says Mattie leads him around by the nose, which I don’t understand. His nose is little and mashed in. If she said she led him around by the ears, that I could understand. He has ears like a monkey, and they stick straight out. His eyes look like ball bearings.

  “The door was open so we just came on in,” Miss Mattie said, walking right up to the table. “Umm, ham. Is that ham from the farm?”

  She meant Biggie’s family farm out south of town, where Biggie was raised. Now the Sontags live there. For rent, they pay Biggie a dollar a year and all the fresh food we can eat. Their daughter, Monica, is bald on one side of her head from being left too close to the fire when she was a baby. She is not afraid of anything and is my second-best friend next to Rosebud.

  Biggie nodded. “There’s plenty,” she said. “Why don’t you pull up a chair and join us?”

  They didn’t waste any time. Before you could say Jack Robinson, they had gone into the dining room and were dragging chairs in and squeezing them around the table.

  Willie Mae got up and put three more plates and sets of silverware on the table, then she took three cloth napkins out of the drawer of the pine hutch. Biggie took down three glasses from the cabinet and filled them with iced tea.

  “Well, Biggie,” Butch said, spearing a slice of ham off the platter. “We’re all so excited about our little trip to Quincy. I just love that town—so many cute little shops and restaurants. You know, I’ve got a good friend that runs the Gilded Lily Tea Room right down on Main Street. Umm, this potato salad is good. What you got in it, Willie Mae?”

  “Homemade mayonnaise,” Willie Mae said. “Don’t never use that stuff from the store.”

  “Well, you ought to bottle the stuff and sell it,” Mr. Thripp said, talking with his mouth full. “If you ever want to do it, I’ll be glad to go in partners with you.”

  “Humph.” Willie Mae wasn’t about to go into business with Mr. Thripp, who will steal the pennies off a dead man’s eyes.

  “Ruby Muckleroy can’t go with us,” Miss Mattie said. “You know, Meredith Michelle has taken to teaching twirling lessons to the little girls, and she’s having her first recital next weekend. Ruby’s been bragging all over town about what a smart businesswoman Meredith Michelle’s turned out to be.”

  Butch got up to pour himself some more tea from the pitcher on the drain board. “Ruby’s full of library paste,” he said. “Meredith Michelle couldn’t even make change when she was working for me last summer. That girl’s got talcum powder for brains.”

  “I guess it will just be the four of us then,” Biggie said. “Plus J.R. and Rosebud, of course.”

  After the others left, I hung around the kitchen and helped Willie Mae with the dishes.

  “What will you do without us to take care of, Willie Mae?” I asked.

  Willie Mae looked down at me, and for a minute there, I thought she was going to smile. “Reckon I’ll think of something,” she said. “You left a spot on this one.”

  I took the glass from her and rubbed it hard with my dishtowel. “Willie Mae,” I said, “do you believe in ghosts?”

  “Um-hmm.”

  “Are you scared of um?”

  “They just like you and me—they’s good ghosts and then they’s sorry ghosts.”

  I picked up a plate to dry. “What do the sorry ones do? Go around scaring people?”

  “Worse than that,” she said. And that’s all she’d say, even though I had about a million more questions to ask.

  I went into the den and sat down on Biggie’s easy chair next to the fireplace to read the brochure from the hotel. It only had a few lines about the ghost. Most of it was telling about all the famous people who had stayed there. From the pictures, I could see that they had the whole place crammed full of antique furniture and paintings and stuff. I decided then and there that it was going to be a very boring weekend. I was wrong.

  Rosebud came in just then and told me he was going out to the front porch to smoke his cigar. I followed him out.

  Rosebud propped his feet up on the porch rail and looked up at the full moon peeking down through the oak leaves. “Puts me in mind of the West Monroe Werewolf,” he said.

  “Tell about it, Rosebud.”

  “Odie Dell Isom, was his name. Nicest feller you’d ever hope to meet until the full moon come along.” Rosebud laughed without making a sound and slapped his knee.

  “I don’t see what’s so funny.”

  “You would if you knew Odie Dell. He cut hair down at the Spit ’n Polish Tonsorial Emporium on South River Street in West Monroe, Louisiana. Little bitty feller, kinda portly, doncha know. But, oh, boy, when that moon come full, he’d grow a good foot and sprout hair all over his body.”

  “Did you ever see him do that?”

  “Well, not what you’d call with my own eyes, but I did talk to a feller that did. He said old Odie’s eyes would get bloodred and he’d sprout big old fangs that hung out over his lips.”

  “Wow!”

  “Odie wouldn’t bother folks too much when he had one of his spells, he’d just go out in the creek bottom and howl at the moon. Onc’t he scared the water out of Miz Reverend Billups when she come up on him while she was gatherin’ hickory nuts.”

  “And that’s all he did?”

  “Just about, except that one time.”

  “What one time was that?”

  “Well, old Odie, he was right sweet on Miss Shaunista Timpson, who would tip the scales right around three hundred, or thereabouts. Remember, Odie was just a little feller.”

  I nodded.

  “Miss Shaunista lived with her momma and her two aunties who were also large ladies much like she was. Well, they weren’t too keen on Shaunista going off and marrying Odie on account of him bein’ such a little shrimp. Besides, she did most of the work around the place while them three just sat around watching soap operas on TV.”

  “Kinda like Cinderella?”

  “I reckon. So every time Odie would come around to take her out, they would all come out on the front porch and cuss at him something awful. Odie told the fellers down at the barbershop that he didn’t mind the cussin’ too much, but now they’d taken to chunkin’ rocks at him.” Rosebud tossed his cigar butt over the porch rail. “Why don’t you run in the house and pour me a glass of buttermilk?”

  Rosebud always does that to me just when the story is getting good. I hurried back and handed him the buttermilk. “Go on,” I begged. “I bet he turned into a werewolf and killed them all.”

  “Huh? Odie? Naw. He just kept takin’ it, and takin’ it until he couldn’t take it no longer. He says to Miss Shaunista, he says, ‘How come your mama and your aunties don’t like me?’ And she says, ‘It’s ’cause you be such a little shrimp of a feller. The men in our family has always been big, strappin’ men.’ Well, Odie went home and thought about that. He thought and he thought, until finally he come up with an idea. The first thing he done was, he went over to the haberd
ashery store and bought himself a suit about three sizes too big for him. Then he picked out a shirt and some big old shoes.”

  “I know what’s coming.”

  “Maybe you do, and maybe you don’t. Odie knew he was takin’ a chance, but he figured if he dressed himself up and came callin’ on a full-moon night, he could go as a werewolf and maybe Shaunista’s family would like him. Because, lord knows, on them nights, he was certainly a big strappin’ feller. He knew he’d have to be on his best behavior though. Sometimes, werewolves don’t have real good manners. So Odie puts on his big old clothes and sets out just about sundown. It was a good three miles over to her place. Well, there he goes, shufflin’ down the road in his big old shoes and draggin’ his pants legs in the dust. Long about the time he clears the woods and comes up to Shaunista’s front gate, here comes the moon and, lo and behold, Odie’s chest fills out and his legs and arms get longer. Hair sprouts all over him, and his eyes turn red as a baboon’s butt.”

  “Wow, I’d like to see that.”

  “Be quiet and let me tell this. So here come’s the momma and the aunties all ready to start shoutin’ cuss words and chunkin’ rocks at Odie. When they see him their mouths drop open on account of Odie looks so fine in his new clothes. It don’t bother them one bit that he seems like he might could use a shave. Shaunista runs out and takes him by the arm and leads him into the house. He sets a spell, and they offer him sweet potato pie and coffee. Odie controls himself and don’t growl once. He figures once he’s out in the woods, he can howl at the moon ’til the cows come home. Well, at the end of the evening, he bids um all a good night and leaves. Shaunista’s family all congratulate her and tell her how they’re glad she’s finally found herself a real man.”

  “So he pulled it off?”

  “Almost.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “Wellsir, every morning after breakfast, Shaunista’s momma used to come out and throw the slop to her prize layin’ hens. She was more than proud of them hens. Ever year, they’d win her a blue ribbon at the parish fair. Well, this particular mornin’ she came out, took one look, throwed her apron over her head, and run back in the house screamin’ like the devil was after her.”