A Place Called Wiregrass

by Michael Morris

  Gerald grabbed the would-be offender’s arm. “That pinhead got excited dancing with Kasi. She felt him. He was feeling her up,” the man yelled.

  Kasi stood in the corner calmly smoking a cigarette. I was unsure if she was embarrassed or pleased at the attention being dished her. What was she thinking? Him with his case of nerves. I couldn’t help but wonder if this was a rerun of other scenes played out with pitiful men under her strict direction.

  Gerald pulled Richard upright by one arm. Richard slurred something undetectable and pulled at the untucked portion of his dress shirt. Another slow song was starting back up. I wanted to push him out the door, tell him to sleep it off in the safety of his car, and get back to dancing. But then I pictured Miss Claudia, dressed in her housecoat and rollers, frantically looking for him the next morning.

  “We can’t let him drive,” I mumbled to Gerald, half hoping he wouldn’t hear the words. He pulled Richard to the door and put him in between us in the pickup seat. I rolled down the window hoping Richard would get enough air and not throw up on my new outfit. By the time the truck snaked down the crooked driveway to the main road, the steady whine of the steel guitar had been permanently drowned out by the heavy snore of the nerve patient. Life as Cinderella, I thought and wiped Richard’s drool off my bare arm.

  Only the next day would I learn from Kasi what the real scene had been that evening. The dramatic exit Marcie made, running out the front door with her hands over her face with a bunch of female followers trailing. Her show was timed to the minute I made my journey with Gerald to the dance floor. Upon hearing the news on the steps of the trailer, I rolled my eyes and mumbled, “Whatever.”

  I didn’t need a man anyway, and besides I was still really a married woman. But he did call. Gerald was even good-natured enough to laugh about Richard, and he brushed aside my apologies. While leaning against the paneled door where I kept canned goods and laughing, a peace floated by me. I knew deep within my gut, the same spot that had told me it was time to leave Cross City, that Gerald Peterson was different from the rest.

  Twelve

  During the first of May the sticky air of summer rolled into Wiregrass just as my own problems began to evaporate. Bozo had stopped his regular late-night phone tirades, and my young lawyer reminded me that in another three months I would legally be a freed woman. Typical of my luck, I would have to end up in a state where the law made me wait six months for a divorce.

  I stood at the kitchen window and watched as my lawyer got out of his black convertible sports car. He was walking around the trailer, snapping pictures as though the apple green trailer would be the featured layout in Southern Living. “If he gives us one ounce of trouble with the agreement, I’ll threaten alimony,” the young man said, loosening his red-and-white-striped tie.

  “Now hold on. We said just child support. Nothing about no alimony.” The least amount of contact my new life would have with Bozo, the better I’d be.

  “Relax, it’s just a threat,” he said, never looking up from the shutter of his fancy camera. I had no doubts that I was his charity case. I could tell it by his sassy comments and the clipped answers he provided. The shiny silver-and-black camera he carried stood as another reminder that I would never have this representation had it not been for Miss Claudia. I’m sure I was the only client he had on a monthly payment plan. And the few times I ventured into his two-story brick office, with its Oriental rug and hardwood floors, I felt a spotlight of either pity or disgust by the manicured ladies guarding the front desk.

  When Miss Claudia’s loaned lawyer stood on the upside-down car-wash bucket to get a shot of the rusted roof, I vowed never to accept Bozo’s handouts. The only reason I agreed to child support was so that I could fill in some of the blanks in Cher’s college savings account. Alimony was crossing the line. It would be too much like a payoff for the mess he dished out to me during our thirty-one years of marital bliss. Besides, he would hold it over my head forever. And if I put him into too much of a financial bind, I worried he’d literally hold it over my head with a red-tipped ax.

  My days in Wiregrass working at the cafeteria and caring for Miss Claudia were so pleasant that I vowed never to return to Cross City. On a borrowed piece of notebook paper from Cher’s school supplies, I carefully noted that upon my death I did not want to be returned to Cross City. They could just plant me at a cemetery here in Wiregrass. Now I think it’s silly, but at that time it felt good to drag that ballpoint pen across the straight blue lines.

  In those early days of May, Gerald and me settled into a routine of spending every Saturday evening at the local steakhouse, and never once did he mention Marcie being upset with me over our dance at the Moose Lodge. As much as possible I avoided Marcie’s name altogether. The evening Marcie called I tried not to stutter from the shock of hearing her voice on my phone line. I took a deep breath and hunkered in for a real knock-down drag-out.

  “I’ve been so busy with work and church I just haven’t been able to think straight,” she said. As she railed on about her stressful job, as a dispatcher for the Houston County Sheriff’s Office, I was trying to arrange the right words. I would tell her that she had misunderstood the dance at the fish fry. We’re just friends, I planned to say.

  “Anyway, it’s about time we all get together,” Marcie said.

  “I want us all to have a big cookout at Daddy’s this Saturday. You and Claire can come over, say at around three? And we can just talk and ignore fat grams for one night.” She giggled a high-pitched sound that caused me to pull the phone receiver away from my ear.

  I tried to correct her on Cher’s name, but every time I inhaled, she let loose on details of the menu and how I shouldn’t bring anything before I could even offer.

  After ten minutes, I forgot she ever called Cher by the wrong name. I was just glad she was not paying long distance for this call.

  “Gotta go. Chase just got in from softball practice. Oh, y’all doing okay? Hadn’t seen you since the fish fry.”

  I was ready. “Yeah, and I just want you to know…”

  “No, Chase. Get out of that refrigerator. I got a plate for you in the microwave.”

  I chuckled like an idiot, not knowing what else to do.

  “Well, I’ll see you around three and don’t worry about bringing anything. Looking forward to meeting Claire.”

  Saturday’s clear blue sky was perfect for a cookout. Not that I could claim to be an expert on such events. The one time I hosted a family cookout with the stainless-steel charcoal grill I splurged on at Wal-Mart, Bozo paid more attention to sipping his paper cup filled with Jim Beam than he did to grilling the hot dogs. And Mama offered swats with her hands in the air, predicting every ten minutes that a mosquito would carry one of us off into the thicket of woods behind my former home. After a throw-down with Cher before leaving the trailer, I wasn’t so sure this second cookout in my lifetime wouldn’t be a rerun.

  Cher sat in the passenger seat with her arms tightly folded over her orange-and-white-striped T-shirt. The scowl look dared me to say anything to her. She had first refused to go and only gave in when I told her we would leave whenever she wanted to. Up until that morning she was acting nice.

  I even tried my hardest to look the other way about Cher’s phone calls to LaRue. His number still appeared on my phone bill. But instead of raising Cain, I would simply circle the Shreveport numbers in red ink and provide the figure owed at the bottom. We developed a telephone-bill ritual. While she showered in the morning, I left my calculations on the kitchen counter for her review and payment. Before I left for work, she would snatch the bill off the counter and stuff it into her book bag. I saw her one morning, standing at the stop sign, surrounded by a misty, early morning haze, running her finger down the page to verify my calculations. A week or so later, the money would appear—wrapped in the original phone bill and placed on the counter. On account of Cher’s fund-raising drives, the windows and automobiles at Miss Claudia’s home remaine
d spotless. Miss Claudia never would tell me how much she paid her. “She’s just needing some independence,” Miss Claudia would say, waving her hand for me to hush.

  No matter how many times I pulled into Gerald’s driveway, I would always look at that two-columned wood house, built in the 1800s, and hear violins. Gerald seemed like a foreigner around his home place. He was an everyday kind of man with grease under his fingernails, his elbows stationed on the dinner table with a fork in his left hand and a biscuit in his right. He was too down-to-earth for this prissy house. Cher even came alive when we almost bottomed out in the washed-out place in the driveway and rebounded to get a wide view of the structure. “This place looks like something off TV.”

  Then we saw the home’s version of Scarlet standing on the front porch, waving her arm like we were part of a rescue squad coming up the sand driveway to save a life. Marcie wore a short navy skirt decorated with sunflowers and a yellow top. A top so yellow, it almost matched her hair. Her face paint and hair were done up perfectly. When we got out of the car, I forced myself not to pull at the ends of my top. I was wearing that blue top Miss Claudia made for me. Try as I might to convince myself otherwise, I knew Marcie would remember it was part of the outfit I had worn at the fish fry.

  “Chase, go check the grill. And put the chicken on first. We’ll do the steaks next. Daddy, they’re here.” She said her hostess lines in one breath. Then she bounded down the wooden steps and pranced towards Cher. I wanted to run over and intercept. To guard my baby from the Marcies of this world. But I stood frozen, saying a silent prayer that Marcie would at least call her by the right name.

  “Hello,” she said in a tone similar to what I imagined her using when singing “Yankee Doodle Dandy.”

  “Marcie, this is Cher. Cher is my granddaughter. Cher is the one I told you about,” I said with the rhythm of a twenty-one-gun salute. Each time I said the word Cher I went up an octave.

  “Oh, I know all about Cher,” Marcie said, touching Cher’s shoulder.

  Cher half smiled and continued to stare over the lowest oak limb at the horse feeding in the grass pasture next to the house.

  Beneath all the hype and comments of “cute” and “precious” when describing us and every item of clothing we had on, Marcie was civil. While Marcie gave me orders on where to place the paper plates and plastic cups, I watched from the back porch as Gerald pointed Cher towards the open pasture. The chestnut-colored horse grazed in the meadow against a steady hum of locusts. Cher slightly flinched when Gerald put two fingers in his mouth and whistled.

  Marcie’s sigh was deep and heavy behind me. She began knocking plastic cups off the wooden table and sighing louder.

  “What you throwing cups for?” I turned to see Chase behind me, puzzled, with crumbs of potato chips falling from his mouth.

  “Maybe if I had some help,” she said in a clipped voice.

  “All you’re doing is sitting in there watching that stupid car race, and me working myself to death.”

  I knew the comments were branded for me. But I let Chase jump down the old creaky porch steps and pick up the cups she had tossed in her fit. She had one more trained, I thought.

  The smell of steaks and chicken searing on the grill had long drifted miles away when Donnie finally arrived. I first noted his arrival by the pounding bass vibrating from inside his little silver truck. The vehicle was so low to the ground, I wondered how on earth he ever made it through the washed-out place in the driveway. He pulled the toylike truck right up behind the house next to the picnic table. Like a veil being uncovered off a dedicated statue, he slowly opened the door. The windows were so black, all I could make out was the dashboard of the truck through the front windshield.

  He was tall and skinny. If he hadn’t been wearing such tight Wrangler jeans, he might have looked like he had more meat on his bones. The silver-and-gold cowboy belt buckle looked heavier than he did. He was tan like all the members of this clan, and his hair was blonde, just not as bright as Marcie’s.

  As he used his thumb and index finger to thump the edge of his little round Skoal can, we were introduced. “And this is ol’ Donnie,” Gerald said with his large hand engulfing Donnie’s bony shoulder blade. We all looked at him, even Gerald. Donnie murmured something that I thought might be “Yeah,” while he poked the particles of tobacco he’d pinched between his thumb and index finger inside his bottom lip.

  If I had been in any position to say anything, Marcie beat me to it. “Dipping? And us about to eat supper?”

  Donnie didn’t look up at her. He just brushed the leftover grains of his supply on his jeans and then took his appointed place at the table. Marcie groaned like she was in labor, and Gerald laughed in a way I couldn’t quite read. Either he was embarrassed, or he was making an excuse for this rudeness.

  Cher had a tomato with a spot of dressing up to her lips when Marcie bowed her head and clutched her hands, “Dear Father.” While I listened to her return thanks for the portion of food we almost put into our mouths, I could only picture her drunk on the dance floor slinging the ends of her blonde hair.

  The talk of the table drifted back and forth between the horses and Marcie’s job. Marcie did all the talking. Cher and Donnie would simply nod their heads in agreement.

  As the sun lowered over the field, we all helped clear the red-and-white-checked tablecloth. Gerald helped until he was pulled away for a conference by Donnie. I held the white salad bowl and heard mumbling. All I could make out was “money” and saw Gerald retrieve his wallet and land two bills into the open palm of his male heir. Donnie had not yet made it three steps to his little truck, when Gerald spoke. “You gonna say bye?”

  “Oh, yeah,” he said, sheepishly rolling his green eyes towards us. “Good to meet you.” His attempt at a smile only resulted in a smirk, and I gave him the benefit of at least trying.

  Gerald and me stood still, watching as his lowered truck with black windows departed in a trail of dust. “You know how these boys are. You got one,” Gerald said and nervously chuckled.

  I kept my stand at the kitchen sink, washing every item lips had touched during our feast. Marcie chuckled when she saw me washing the plastic cups. Not everyone makes good money like you and Chase, I wanted to snap. But I continued with what I did best, cleaning up a mess. She dried the items and continued with stories of her coworkers and the inmates. I filled her up with more fuel by asking all sorts of questions, anything to keep the conversation off me. I just knew she would question my personal business with Bozo and why I came to Wiregrass.

  When I saw Marcie standing next to my side with what I first thought was a piece of cardboard clutched to her chest, I was afraid she would cry. She batted her eyes and smiled, much like I imagined her doing when the announcer called out her name as first runner-up in the Peanut Festival beauty pageant. An accomplishment shared twice during dinner. “Wiregrass has a big peanut festival each year. Did I tell y’all I almost won it,” she said and rolled her eyes up to the plucked eyebrows.

  Standing in the living room with Marcie, I felt every muscle in my neck tighten. She handed me the photograph of Leslie, the one that sat on the TV. I needed no introductions. The dishwater blonde and soft green eyes gave her away as the mother of the two children who favored her. This could be a turning point, I decided, and no matter how much discomfort my brain told me I should feel, I acted sweet. “Oh, lookie here. She’s so pretty.” I gazed into the gold frame and imagined myself speaking of a little baby.

  “Whoever comes in here has mighty big shoes to fill,” Marcie added. I did not look up at her, because I knew all that mascara she had on was smeared from tears.

  I decided to prevent her from causing a scene and pretended that I did not hear her remarks. “And she looks so much like you and Donnie,” I said.

  The screen door screeched and then slammed against the wooden door frame. I looked up and saw Gerald standing in the doorway. He glanced down into my hands and then back up at Marcie. By
this time Marcie was using her index finger to blot the tears that pooled around her eyes. Her mother’s eyes. The eyes of the woman he first loved. I watched his neck strain when he forced saliva down with a hard swallow. I opened my mouth, but could only shake my head, producing nothing but air. What could I say? We just all three stood there for what seemed to be an hour when Cher came running up behind him, peering through the heavy screen of the door, her hands and face pressed against the mesh screen.

  “Grandma, Paintbrush ate an apple right out of my hand.”

  “Is that right?” I said, lowering the photo slowly down towards my leg.

  “Yeah,” Gerald added. “He…uhh…he took a liking to Cher, all right.” He turned, opened the door, and ruffled Cher’s hair.

  Marcie went into the bathroom to apply more cover-up. Try as I might to let go, my hands were frozen on Leslie’s photo. I simply stared into the tan face with lines on the edges of the green eyes. I was in this woman’s kitchen with her husband, tolerating her daughter. I felt odd and hated being the other woman. There’s an old saying that the dead and the living can’t live together. In this house, Leslie Peterson was held prisoner. She never could drift away.

  Thirteen

  Standing in the hallway with the toilet brush and yellow plastic gloves on, I knew Miss Claudia was really my guardian angel.

  “How about it? School term is almost up. You want to stay on with me full-time for the summer?” My laughter was one of joy and humor at her typical no-nonsense approach. We were a lot alike, me and her.

  I almost flung the blue toilet brush towards the high ceiling in victory. I knew I had been foolish to arrange to have all my pay from the Houston County school system paid out over the course of the school days and not have it spread out over the summer, but at the time I had extra costs tacked on from renting Miss Trellis’s ratty furniture. And truth be known, at the time I was not certain how long I would stay in Wiregrass.