A Place Called Wiregrass

by Michael Morris

  I halfway smiled and turned to go.

  “Let me hear as soon as you find her,” Miss Claudia said. Even though it was hours before dusk, she turned the porch light on when I turned to go.

  At five I returned to the swimming pool to pick up Laurel and hopefully Cher. “She hasn’t come back?” Laurel shook her head no to that question and every one I asked about Cher on the drive back to the trailer. Had Cher said anything out of the ordinary? Did she mention anything today about her real daddy? Was there a place she knew of where Cher might be? Laurel would simply stare straight ahead and sniff her nose.

  “You remember how it was when we was girls,” Kasi said, standing at her trailer door. Laurel slipped under Kasi’s arm and disappeared. “I bet before you get supper fixed, she’s at your door acting like nothing’s the matter.”

  Kasi took a drag of her cigarette and blew smoke over my head. I postponed telling her about the joint I found under Cher’s bed and how Laurel’s name was tossed into the conspiracy. For all I knew, maybe it was Laurel’s marijuana cigarette. Maybe LaRue had nothing to do with it at all. Maybe Cher was right and he had changed.

  “That boy ain’t nothing but the worst kind of trash,” I remembered Mama saying the first time she met LaRue. It was the part of her I was glad I inherited, the commonsense part. And the common sense I had always respected would not play a game of make-believe on Kasi’s wrought-iron trailer steps.

  Before the toilet had flushed the joint down to the septic tank, Gerald was knocking at my door. He was expecting chicken-fried steak, and all he would find would be my brain dipped in a batter of worry and fried in a grease of regret.

  I dished him the highlights of Cher running through the woods and never mentioned LaRue. “A misunderstanding,” I explained to Gerald. He would think trouble was my middle name if I told him all the details. And besides, the motel clerk said LaRue had already checked out. Probably already in Montgomery, riding the streets searching for drugs or a fresh widow he could con into a paint job. At least that’s what I walked around the trailer silently praying.

  “You checked down at the skating rink?” Gerald asked with his brow wrinkled.

  I stood in the kitchen with my arms folded, shaking my head no. As much as I wanted to look at him, my eyes froze on the torn piece of gold linoleum around the edge of the pantry. The strip had long been ripped away from its base and flapped carelessly towards the pantry door.

  “Let’s ride up there. Maybe she decided to mess around with some of her friends.” Gerald fingered the metal clump of keys on his belt loop.

  The jingle from the keys sounded like the first note of a telephone ring, and I looked up at him. “Uh, no, you go on. I better stay here. You know, in case she calls,” I said and glanced over at the phone.

  My arms were still folded against my chest when he engulfed me in a hug. I could smell exhaust fumes on his plaid shirt. I wanted to release my arms and wrap them around the thick back and lovingly squeeze him. I wanted to tell him that I was glad he was here and that I needed him more than ever. But I stood still and held my breath under the weight of his gentle touch. Just when I thought my lungs might explode from the lack of oxygen, he let go.

  “I’ll be back directly,” he said, jingling his keys once more before closing the trailer door.

  The sun descended beyond the tops of the pine trees. I watched from my kitchen window and prayed for a sign that Cher was safe. The silence of the room weighed heavy on my heart.

  My faithful bed, which had been my altar a few weeks back, became my resting place once again. I knelt down and placed my elbows on the frayed white blanket. “Lord, you know this situation. You know where Cher is at this very minute. Please bring her back to me. I just can’t stand this,” I cried out in a loud voice. I opened my eyes and looked up at the brown stain on my ceiling. I pictured my words reaching the top of the thin ceiling and bouncing back down on me.

  The slamming car doors outside made me trip over my feet. I practiced what I would say to Cher, nothing heavy but enough to let her know she created a stir: Girl, do you know how worried sick I’ve been? I’d just die if something happened to you.

  But peeking from my bedroom miniblinds, I saw only Miss Claudia and Richard slowly making their way towards my door against an orange light from the setting sun.

  “I didn’t want to tie up the phone line in case she called,” Miss Claudia said as I helped pull her up the last step to my trailer. “I beg apologies for just showing up, but I’ve been worried to death.”

  “Just all to pieces,” Richard said in a loud whisper. A line I’m sure he had memorized from the numerous times it had been delivered about his own mental state.

  Updating them on Gerald’s search, I was too upset to be uncomfortable about them seeing my humble home for the first time. My home that would fit inside the space of Miss Claudia’s formal living room.

  “What about that other little girl she’s friends with?” Miss Claudia asked. She tucked the coffee-stained pillow between her back and the couch.

  “You mean Laurel? I’ve asked her. She just sat there like an idiot staring out the car window.”

  “If Gerald comes up empty-handed, we should call the authorities,” Richard said. The authoritative tone was a hint of the lawyer Miss Claudia said he once was.

  I twirled the ends of my ponytail and felt my eyes grow wider. The very idea of having the law involved would make it a real emergency. It was not that way at all. Cher will call from McDonald’s, I kept telling myself. Probably when she goes to buy something to eat and realizes all her car-wash money is still in the red coffee can on her bedroom dresser.

  “Well, let’s not call the road patrol just yet,” Miss Claudia said, staring at my frozen expression. “I imagine Gerald’ll find her down at that roller rink.”

  I twirled my hair into a knot and fought off the evil images that flashed through my mind. She’s not in a muddy ditch dead somewhere, she’s just skating in circles—thinking things through. I closed my eyes and repeated the assuring words.

  When Gerald opened the door, I saw the darkness of the night and heard the crickets chirping outside. He looked down at the grease-spotted cap he held in his hand. “They ain’t seen her.”

  I wasn’t sure if the ringing in my ears was from the blood rush that his words produced or from the crickets outside the tin walls. “Call the law,” I mumbled.

  When I opened the door, the old man next door was standing at his kitchen window with the blinds yanked wide open. The sight of two patrol cars at Westgate created a minicrisis. Kasi was standing on her steps with the door wide open. A peaceful glow radiated from her TV.

  I was thankful the officers had not pulled up with their sirens blowing and blue lights spinning. If Miss Trellis was in the office watching one of her home-shopping channels, she would’ve surely seen the officers drive in her trailer park and would appear at my doorstep any minute.

  Idle chitchat and clips of static from the officers’ walkie-talkies drifted around my living room. The photo they had requested stuck to the plastic protective cover, and I noticed my hand shaking when I tried to pry the celluloid away from my wallet.

  “Y’all do a fine job. Just fine,” Richard said. “I have one of those new trunk police scanners so I know everything that’s taking…”

  The door knock made Richard shut up and the rest of us flinch. Gerald moved to open the door, and I pulled hard, freeing Cher’s face from the plastic photo cover. Just as I was handing Cher’s photo to the black officer, Kasi entered with her hands on Laurel’s shoulder.

  Laurel looked down at the floor, and Kasi glanced nervously around the room. “Hey,” she whispered. “Laurel knows maybe what happened. She got all scared when the cops came.” Kasi smacked her chewing gum and played with the tag inside Laurel’s orange T-shirt.

  The static grew louder, and the officer adjusted a knob on the walkie-talkie attached to his hip.

  “Well, go on,” Kasi said with
a slight push of her hand.

  “Umm. Well, you know Cher wants to see her daddy and all,” Laurel said. Her hands and words flew in circles. “And since you didn’t want her to and everything, she planned to anyway.”

  I held my breath, dreading what her next words would be. I felt the heartbeat of fear make a path up my neck.

  “Tell them what she said this morning,” Kasi said, pushing Laurel’s shoulder again.

  “Well, okay. Okay,” Laurel said, closing her eyes as if now she wanted to remember all the details. “She was gonna meet her daddy again today. You know, leave the pool and see him and stuff. Then come back in time for you to pick us up. Okay.” Laurel cut her blue eyes up at me and quickly looked back at the floor.

  “Meet him where? I looked everywhere,” I said, fighting the urge to knock a knot on her blonde head.

  “Down at the store,” Laurel whispered.

  I thought of the convenience store that sat on the edge of the woods behind the pool. My version of events played out in my mind like a horror movie. In the time I spent walking around those woods calling for Cher like she was a lost dog, she made it to the store and rode off in a white van with a lost tag.

  “Who’s the father?” the deputy asked.

  “LaRue LaRouche. I got custody of her.”

  “Man,” the other officer said. His exhaustive tone said it all. A lost cause. A waste of his time to hunt down a man who fathered the girl.

  “He’s been in prison.” My voice was beginning to shake with fright. “For drugs and child abandonment. He’s just, dangerous. Plain dangerous,” I said loudly.

  “Oh, God,” Kasi said. She hit Laurel on the back of the head. “How come you didn’t say nothing before now?”

  Laurel rubbed her head and sank her shoulders lower. “Cher made me swear not to.”

  The flurry of details swarmed around me. Where was the last address for LaRue? How did Cher get in contact with him? Where was the last known phone number for LaRue? I provided as much information as I could to the officers. My mind was in a million places, thinking where Cher might be and what trouble she was already in with that no-good driving her.

  “I should’ve forced her to stop calling him,” I said, handing the latest phone bill to the officer.

  “You can’t worry about that now,” Miss Claudia said. “Just dismiss it from your mind.”

  While I jockeyed questions from the two officers in the living room, Miss Claudia, Richard, and Gerald congregated at my dinette table. I could hear their muffled whispers and the creaking chairs when they leaned forward in conference. Miss Claudia asked Gerald if he knew LaRue had been in town. Gerald reminded her how private I was. I wanted to get up from the sofa and storm the twenty steps to the dinette table and tell them I didn’t appreciate being talked about in my own home. But I remained on my rented sofa and offered “I don’t know” to more questions from the officers.

  The plastic clock on top of the TV read eight thirty-nine when the officers left. They assured us an All Points Bulletin would be released from Wiregrass to Shreveport. Soon Miss Claudia, Richard, and Gerald would leave too, and the emptiness of the trailer would wrap around me and try to suffocate me with despair. Looking into Miss Claudia’s sunken hazel eyes, I cussed myself for being selfish.

  I lightly touched Miss Claudia’s cream silk blouse. “You ought to go get some rest.”

  “You don’t mind me,” she said and tapped her cane on the floor. “Gerald has a good idea.”

  “I hate it. But I know how the cops are. Even if they send that notice out, other towns will sit on it less somebody’s there to push them.” He pushed up the brim of his cap. “You reckon we need to head on to Shreveport?”

  I thought of the time LaRue and Suzette left Cher behind in the drug house. They ran to Las Vegas. “He may not be there, though,” I said. The very words felt like they were coming from somebody else.

  “If you ask me, it’s as good a place to start as any. He’ll have to change out that van or get caught sure enough. I imagine he’s got a set of old boys in Shreveport who’ll help him out.”

  “Gerald’s right. Time is the advantage right now. He’s easier to catch before he slips off again,” Richard said.

  I tried to stand upright and not let the situation overtake me, but my shoulders slumped at the very thought of not seeing Cher until she matured and realized what a mess she made. “I know, but I just can’t run off to Shreveport.”

  “You can and you will,” Miss Claudia said. “I’ll give you an advance to cover the gas and motel.”

  “If we go ahead and leave, we could make it by dawn,” Gerald said.

  I studied him carefully. “We? Oh, no. I won’t have you taking off…”

  “Hey,” he said with a point of his finger. “I don’t want to hear another word about it. I’m going. Period.”

  Before Richard and Miss Claudia left, at her request we gathered in a circle to pray. Miss Claudia led the prayer and asked for my comfort and Cher’s safe return.

  I felt paralyzed by the whole situation and distant from God. Like the pictures in my mind of Cher mangled and torn on the side of a road, I kept pushing away the question of why God would let LaRue take Cher, fearing that if I allowed myself to ask such a question I would surely never see her again. To distract my mind, I lifted my head and looked at the three people gathered around me. Miss Claudia held her head upright, and her red lips moved with words of mercy and deliverance. Gerald and Richard obediently had their heads tucked down.

  Miss Claudia made out a check, squeezed me tight, and stood at my door waiting for Richard to make it down the steps first. “Let me hear from you, now.” She closed her eyes and smiled. “I’ll be wrestling for you and Cher in prayer.”

  The prayer chain did not end with Miss Claudia. While we were driving down the highway, Gerald got on his truck phone and sought prayers from Pastor Lee, A.J., and Brownie—and, of course, Marcie. I didn’t mind any of the rest of my church members knowing about the situation, but I figured Marcie would just gloat over it. “Now Daddy, should you be this involved?” I imagined her asking on the other end of the phone.

  And I could tell by the way he said “yeah” and then cut his eyes over at me that that was exactly the type of questions he was getting.

  If it hadn’t been for Marcie’s job at the sheriff’s department, I admit I would’ve been in a worse fix. Her computer matched LaRue’s phone number with an address. If it hadn’t been for that piece of help, I would’ve demanded that Gerald not call her.

  I looked out the truck window and watched the neon roadside lights flash by me. “I liked to got fired using the computer system for that address,” I imagined Marcie saying the next time I saw her. The humble shall inherit the earth, I reminded myself and quickly wrote down LaRue’s address on the back of a crumpled gas receipt.

  Since we left so late, I tried to sleep on the way to Jackson. As my head bobbed with each worn-out spot on the interstate, I thought of Cher and how I had slapped her. Other than a few spankings when she was little, it was the first time I hit her. I retraced the steps that brought me to the end road I faced. If only I could go back and keep my cool. If only LaRue would have just left us alone. This was all his fault. The anger that fueled me was greater than my natural need for sleep.

  In Jackson, we stopped at Shoney’s and traded seats. I hadn’t been under the steering wheel more than ten minutes when Gerald’s whistling snores began. He filled the passenger seat with his arms folded and cap’s brim pulled low over his forehead.

  Behind the wheel, I fantasized about making a speech at LaRue’s hearing for kidnapping Cher. Even if she went voluntarily, I decided I could get him on kidnapping because she was in my custody. That young lawyer of Miss Claudia’s could figure out a way to make it happen. “Legal loophole” I’ve heard it called on the news.

  During my testimony, a history of his destruction of my family would be offered. I would borrow one of Miss Claudia’s hats
so I would look sophisticated. Sorta like Alexis used to wear on Dynasty. While tractor trailers and cars passed by me, I chose my words carefully. After my comments, I would stop in front of LaRue and stare so long he would look down at the floor. Compelled by my testimony, the jury would sentence him to either life in prison or the death penalty. Since I had not made my mind up on whether any person other than LaRue should get killed through the justice system, I left the option open.

  A chill ran over me, and I cut the air conditioning down. My strength was beaten back down when the thought of how I wanted to stand up and defend Miss Claudia’s rescue home during the church service crossed my mind. Who do you think you are? the darkness asked. You couldn’t even stand up in a church, much less a court of law. And suddenly the pride of securing LaRue’s torment was sucked into the air-conditioning vent and landed flat on the asphalt where it was promptly pounded by Gerald’s tires.

  When we arrived in Shreveport, the downtown casino lights were just beginning to fade against the rising sun. I steered Gerald’s truck while he offered directions. Little Haven Apartments were located in the Red River section of town. Judging by the torn window screens scattered across the patchy-grassed lawn, the apartment complex was just LaRue’s style. Nervous energy, which had been building in my chest, faded when I failed to spot his white van in the concrete parking lot.

  “Hadn’t seen him in two weeks,” the man behind the counter said. His words fought with the roar from the window-unit fan. If his hair had been longer, he could’ve passed as Santa Claus, maybe even fatter. “He left here with checks bouncing ever which a way. He burned you too, eh?”

  “He owes me,” I said.

  “He had one of those girlie-show girls piled in there with him. She told me she was staying down at the Decadence Inn but got kicked out.” He paused to chew the end of his pen.

  “She’s not bad-looking neither.”

  “You remember her name?” Gerald asked.