A Place Called Wiregrass

by Michael Morris

  Last summer at the Thomley family reunion, Lucille drew a crowd when she pulled up to the community center in a brand-new white El Dorado Cadillac. The men tucked their hands in their pockets and walked alongside the car, while little kids dared to touch the shiny chrome hubcaps. Her new husband, J.W., was a welder, she reported over potato salad and fried okra. To hear her tell it, Wiregrass was the place to be. “Jobs galore,” she said, holding a drumstick with her pinkie acrylic nail stuck out. Lucille, with her bright red hair, orange-colored nails, and thick gold-coin necklace, certainly seemed the image of prosperity. So, on a rare impulse, I decided we would join my rich cousin in Wiregrass, Alabama.

  Only thing was, Lucille lost her newfound prosperity soon after the reunion. And that El Dorado everybody had such a fit over was really an Alamo rent-a-car. The man, J.W., wasn’t even her husband. I would’ve still been mad at her for lying to me, but the poor old thing had gained a pile of weight, and those nails were back to the half-chewed-up mess I remembered. Before those shiny fake things, it always hurt me to look at Lucille’s nails, bitten off near the quick. Standing at the door of her ice-cold apartment, I scored her as being worse off than me and decided not to ask if we could stay. My Aunt Stella used to say everything happens for a reason. So I guess I have to give Lucille credit for directing me to the Westgate Trailer Park.

  Miss Trellis, the trailer-park owner, was a seventy-five-year-old widow who said she ran a clean place with forty-two trailers and wouldn’t take a single one more. She moved around the one-room office under the sway of a polyester housedress. “No loud music, no speeding, and no gossiping about neighbors. What they do in their castles is their business,” Miss Trellis told me before handing over the leasing agreement. She tacked on an extra hundred dollars for letting me use her hand-me-down furniture.

  Cher settled in for the last semester of school and seemed to be doing good. She was always a whiz with numbers. The friends would come soon enough, I assured myself, and tried to concentrate on finding us some grocery money. Along with the job demand in Wiregrass, one of the only truthful things Lucille reported, also came stiff competition. My odds weren’t increased on account of me quitting high school just shy of my senior year. Having secretly wanted to be a nurse when I was a kid, I even tried to get on at the big hospital in town. After dead ends, I finally found a job in the food industry.

  The cafeteria at Barton Elementary seemed perfect for the time being. I was able to be home soon after Cher’s middle school let out, a luxury I never had with my own two children, and the manager, Sammy, seemed to like me. Not that he felt sorry for me or anything. I think he had a natural affection for me since he was raised by his grandmother and respected the way I was bringing up Cher. “Foxy Grandma,” he’d call me. “You sure don’t look like any grandma I know.”

  The upcoming spring break was the only thing that made me real nervous. Up to that point, we were managing just fine. But since I asked for all my pay up front and didn’t slot any out for holidays and summertime, I knew financial trouble was around the bend again. Two weeks before school let out for Easter break, Sammy told me Mrs. Murray wanted to see me.

  This is it for sure, I thought as I walked down the brick walkway towards the principal’s office. If she lays me off, so be it. Under no circumstances will I go back to Cross City with my tail between my legs begging for my old job back.

  “Sammy says the best things about you, Erma Lee,” Mrs. Murray said. She was a full-figured woman and had a singsong voice that made me think she was either stupid or stuck up. Judging by the string of degrees on her wall, I put my money on the latter. Her light brown hair was teased as big as a basketball, with tuffs of bangs over her right eye. She wore so much makeup, I couldn’t help but think she must’ve gotten in the way of somebody painting a fence red.

  “I appreciate it.” I pulled at the bottom my white polyester top. As much as I hated that uniform, I hated the black hairnet I had to wear even more. All I could think the first time I caught a glance of my reflection in the gigantic mixing bowl was the skit Ruth Buzzi used to do on Laugh In. The one about a bent-over old woman. I’m forty-eight, I wanted to scream each time the frumpy, twisted shape stared back at me.

  “You crop that hair like I told you to, you wouldn’t be wearing that thing,” I imagined Mama saying. I quickly tucked a loose strand of hair behind my ear.

  “I’m real happy here, Mrs. Murray.”

  She waved a hand at me. “Now, you call me Patricia. And we appreciate you, just so much.” Patricia’s wide smile revealed a red dot of lipstick on her front tooth. She seemed like she could claw somebody to pieces and never lose that fakey smile.

  Patricia leaned forward and propped her elbows on the glassed desktop. “The reason for our little visit is personal. My mama, bless her heart, took a bad fall a few weeks back. She’s just not getting along like she should. And with it being Easter break and all. Well, I was just wondering if you’d be interested in helping her out. Little things like picking up the house, some washing maybe.”

  Years ago, I promised myself I’d never be a maid. The idea of cleaning someone’s toilet was just too humiliating. “Sure. When you need me to start?” The groceries, the rent, and the electric bill made me put pride on the shelf.

  I still wasn’t real familiar with certain parts of Wiregrass yet. Certainly not familiar with the type of neighborhood Mrs. Claudia Tyler lived in. I thought Patricia Murray would come from a rich family. In Cross City, anybody who went to college was either rich or a good enough football player that LSU snatched them up.

  As I held my city map in one hand and steered my Monte Carlo with the other, I couldn’t help but gawk at the big brick homes. Looking at manicured yards, water sprinklers running, and gigantic oak trees guarding the two-story homes, I could only guess how stuck up the Queen Mother would be.

  Mrs. Tyler’s home was a two-story brick building with two white columns and black shutters. It reminded me of a courthouse. Two oaks as big around as four elephant legs towered over the row of pink azaleas leading up to the front door. The covered porch was as big as my trailer and ran sideways towards the garage. Her shrubs were cut neatly, and when I got out of my car, I noticed a rose garden. Needs a full-time staff to keep this place up, I thought.

  “How you doing? Richard Tyler. I’m the other child,” said the man who greeted me at the door. He squinted his beady eyes and chuckled for no apparent reason. I thought of Roxi. He was a little older than his sister, Patricia, and a little fatter. His white hair hung in strands, and his round face reminded me of a moon pie.

  After pleasantries and questions about my background—thank God he had never heard of Cross City—he led me to the downstairs bedroom that Mrs. Tyler was occupying. I had never seen so many clocks in all my life. The oak-paneled hallway leading to her bedroom not only had two different clocks on the wall, but also a dark grandfather clock standing guard at the end. Ticking rang through my ears, and the hardwood floors creaked under the weight of my work shoes.

  The room was dark in muted colors, and the mahogany canopy bed didn’t help lighten it any. A tall bronze lamp formed a backlight against her wavy black hair. She was holding some sort of red book and looked every bit like the Queen Mum I’d imagined.

  “Mama, she’s here,” Richard announced and promptly chuckled. The room smelled of Pine-Sol cleaner and expensive flowered perfume.

  Mrs. Tyler adjusted herself on the bed and pulled at the pink chiffon nightgown. When she looked up, I saw her hair was all fixed and a touch of pink lipstick covered her thin lips. Not as much makeup as the daughter, but enough to strike me as strange that this woman who was bedridden would even bother. Another extravagance Mama never allowed. To this day I don’t wear any makeup except for special occasions. And I couldn’t tell you the last time that was.

  “Well, it’s just so good to know you.” Her hazel eyes danced underneath wire-rimmed glasses. “Come sit where I can get a good look at you.” She poi
nted to a wingback chair next to the bed. “I guess you know I had to go and fall. Right after I pulled the clothes from the dryer. I just thank the Lord nothing was broken.”

  I nodded my head and tried to look pleasant, thinking that if she didn’t like me the job was off.

  “Well sir, they want me to lay up here on this bed for a few weeks, and Patricia insists on getting me some help.”

  Richard was just beginning to take a seat on the padded chest at the end of the bed. “Richard, you go now. You’ve got that appointment with the dentist, remember.” He tucked his head and babbled something undetectable when he bumped into the hallway wall. The Queen Mother, just as I guessed.

  I tried to cross my legs and look ladylike. Then I saw the black lace-up shoes on my feet. The pair Cher called Grandma Walton shoes. I quickly hid them under the chair and settled on looking ladylike with my hands folded in my lap.

  “Richard’s a nerve patient,” she said in a stage whisper.

  “Once a big-deal lawyer in Birmingham and now…” She raised her arms and opened empty palms. “That’s why I need help. Got his own apartment. Lives by himself, just over yonder above my garage. But as far as lifting or anything like that, well he’s just as worthless as teats on a boar hog.”

  My eyes widened. I tried not to look surprised, but I always was the world’s worst at hiding my expressions.

  “I’m just talking plain now. And as for Patricia, well she’s so busy tending to that schoolhouse and all her parties, I never can get her to do a thing.”

  “Who helps you with the cooking and cleaning?” I refused to let her think I was some mousy something or another she could lecture.

  “Sugar, you’re looking at her. Bertha worked for me thirty-two years. When the Lord took her, I decided I would do it myself. And then I had to go fall. Oh, gracious, enough about my mess. You got any children?”

  “Yes, ma’am. A boy and a girl. They’re all grown now. But I’m raising my granddaughter.”

  “Does your husband help out with raising the granddaughter?”

  I looked down at the Oriental rug and then, thinking I might seem pitiful, I looked back into her forgiving eyes. “We been separated for the past few months now. He’s back in Cross City, you know in Louisiana, where I come from.”

  “I don’t guess I know that place. Near Monroe? I got a third cousin who lives in Monroe.”

  “No, ma’am. Near New Orleans.” Maybe this was getting better after all.

  “Well, tell me about your granddaughter.”

  If a thermometer had been set up to measure my confidence level, it would have overheated. “She’s thirteen. Well, soon to be fourteen. She’s a good girl. Good with her school work. Likes to read. I told her she must’ve read every horse book this library has.” I tried to chuckle.

  Mrs. Tyler propped the blue-veined hand on her chin. “She sounds precious. What’s her name?”

  I was hoping to skip that part for the time being. Older folks like Mama never understood why anybody would name a child after Sonny’s partner. The words rang in my mind as clear as they had the day Cher was born. “Why couldn’t Suzette give that baby a decent name?” Mama had asked. “Cher, like that singer? Don’t you remember how that trashy thing showed her belly button on TV? And had to drag that young ’un of hers on TV too. You sure don’t see somebody with a decent name like Carol Burnett dragging her kids on stage.”

  “Her name’s Cher,” I said with eyes closed.

  “What a pretty name. And how about her mama and daddy?”

  She adjusted a pillow, and I hoped had not seen my cheek flinch. The question struck me as too personal and something she had no business asking this early on. “Well, her mama, my daughter, is…uh…a nerve patient like your son. She’s in the state hospital up in New Orleans.”

  A lie was the first thing I jumped for. I couldn’t very well say Suzette was in the Louisiana Correctional Institute doing time for drug trafficking and child abandonment. She’d throw me out on my ear for sure. And before I made it out the driveway she would’ve called that principal daughter of hers too, probably interrupt one of the woman’s parties and really make her mad. Then I’d lose the cafeteria job on top of everything. And it’s not all a lie. If Suzette would’ve had a decent lawyer, she probably could’ve gotten off on insanity.

  “Well, I declare,” Miss Claudia said and wrinkled her brow.

  “Richard was forty-three when he had his nerve attack.”

  After she offered me more money than I expected, we discussed my hours and general responsibilities. Maybe I’d been wrong about Claudia Tyler—“Miss Claudia” she said everybody called her. As I approached the bedroom door, she held up her hand. I leaned forward, still uncertain whether I could take her and her mansion on.

  “I really only had Bertha around because the poor old thing needed the money that bad. Her with that little retarded boy and all.” Miss Claudia gazed at the comforter covering her legs. “But I never called her my housekeeper. And at eighty, I’m not starting now. Just tell folks you’re my companion.”

  Three

  The key was almost in my assigned mailbox when the swish-swash of polyester made its way out of the cinderblock office. Miss Trellis carefully stepped, to avoid a puddle deposited by her window air-conditioning unit. The way she worried so, you would’ve thought the black cloth shoes she wore had been bought in New York City. She leaned to the left and then to the right like her swollen midsection was the balance between her two feet. Poor old thing, I thought and pulled a postcard advertising a tire store and a missing Hispanic boy from my mailbox. My heartbeat resumed a normal pace. No bills.

  “Oh, me,” Miss Trellis groaned and put her elbow on top of the metal mailboxes jumbled together in birdhouse fashion. A mound of flesh plopped where a tricep might have once been. “Your grandbaby told me you was working two jobs now,” she said, barely managing to catch her breath.

  “Yes, ma’am.” I made a mental note to remind Cher to be careful what she told Miss Trellis. All I need is for us to break her rule about gossiping and get thrown out. My cousin Lucille was my only fallback, and she hadn’t returned my last phone call.

  “Poor old Claudia Tyler,” the worn-out woman said. “Me and her used to sew together down at the Emporium. Oh, I forget you ain’t from here. It was the big department store uptown. Anyway, we was the tailors, me and her. She was a Ranker back in them days.”

  I turned my eyes from the postcard and studied Miss Trellis. I wanted to call her a liar because I knew the woman who lived in the courthouse-shaped home could’ve never been a seamstress. “You did?”

  “Oh, yeah. Back in them days she didn’t have it so good. No siree.” She paused to slap a gnat. “Not until the old man Tyler’s son up and quit his wife. Then things got a whole lot better for Claudia. Next thing you know, Tyler’s son and Claudia up and married—real fast like.” Miss Trellis stuck her neck out long and bugged her gray eyes. I could see the crooked red lines in her sockets.

  Lord, she’s crazy as a coot. “Well, that’s real nice.”

  “I ain’t even gonna say what all us girls knowed about it. So don’t even ask me.” She drew her neck back into its double-chinned shell and closed her eyes.

  “Well, let me get going,” I said, taking a step towards the Monte Carlo. She made me nervous, and I couldn’t help but think she was trying to set me up to break her gossip rule. Besides, I could hear the air conditioner running in my car and knew I didn’t have the gas to waste listening to some pathetic hag like her.

  But Miss Trellis was on a one-way journey. “And then the Benson’s Department Store come to town and bought out the Emporium. Just gave Claudia’s husband a plumb pile of money. That’s how they come up with all they got. Old Man Tyler was long gone by that time. Wade, Claudia’s husband, he just got ever dime of it.”

  When I saw a white pickup pull in behind Miss Trellis and park, I jumped at the opportunity. Just when I was fixing to get in my car, I heard the
last comment that confirmed my impression. “If you was to give me all her money, I wouldn’t take it. No, ma’am,” she said. “She’s got so many problems, bless her heart. Money ain’t gonna buy you happiness.”

  She didn’t move from her position when the man with a ruddy complexion and an orange cap with the word Caterpillar opened a mailbox. What I didn’t hear her tell the man as I drove off was how sorry she was for me and my poor little granddaughter. But I didn’t have to hear her words. I knew her type and could’ve written the lines for her. Old or young, black or white, bitter spirits speak the same language.

  The blaring sound of screaming turned my attention away from tales about Miss Claudia to the inside of the metal frame box I called home. I jogged to the silver handle and tried to picture the tragedy unfolding. Bozo, I first thought. But he would never lay a hand on Cher. Not unless he’s wasted out of his mind and decided to beat information about me out of her.

  “Cher!” I bolted inside the trailer. The TV blasted, and I surveyed the room to make sure nothing was out of order. I saw the white phone cord spring behind the kitchen wall. Cher leaned against the pantry door.

  Just as two women began to fight over their lesbian cousins, I turned the talk show off. “I could hear that mess screaming all the way out to the car. You like to give me heart failure with that thing.”

  Cher tucked a strand of brown hair back behind her ear. She created a breeze when she swept passed me and picked her book off the red-and-white-checkered couch. If it had been my furniture back in Cross City, I would’ve gotten after her for plopping down so hard. She sat Indian style, pulled her bare feet under the couch cushion, and tried to retreat into a world of fiction. I never did know why she liked reading so much. Halfway through any romance book I ever tried to read, I’d jump on to the end. Just say what needs to be said, too much rattling for my tastes.

  The end of the phone cord was lightly swinging against the kitchen wall. “Who was on the phone?” I asked and put the lid back on the jar of peanut butter.