Ford Country

by John Grisham

  It takes quite a while for her to recall all the men she's known, but Lyle eventually does not make the cut. “Afraid not, dear. Why?”

  “He's one of my patients, my favorite, really, and I was think' ing of taking him to the movies tonight.”

  “How sweet of you.”

  “There's a double feature at the drive-in.” She almost blows a mouthful of whiskey across the front yard, then laughs until she can't breathe. Finally, when she collects herself, she says,

  “You're taking an old man to the dirty movies?”

  “Sure. Why not?”

  “That's funny.” She's still highly amused, her large yellow teeth on full display. A pull of Jimmy, a drag of the cigarette, and she's now under control.

  According to the archives of the Ford County Times, the Daisy Drive-In showed its outdoor version of Deep Throat in 1980, and the town of Clanton erupted. There were protests, marches, ordinances, lawsuits attacking ordinances, sermons and more sermons, speeches by politicians, and when the brouhaha was over and the dust settled, the drive-in was still in business, still showing dirty movies whenever it wanted, fully embraced by a federal court's interpretation of the First Amendment. As a compromise, though, the owner agreed to show the XXX stuff only on Wednesday nights, when the church folks were in church. The other nights were heavy on teenage horror flicks, but he promised as much Disney as he could get. Didn't matter. A boycott by the Christians had been in place for so long that the Daisy was generally regarded as a blight on the community.

  “I don't suppose I could borrow your car?” I ask, apologetically.

  “Why?”

  “Well,” I nodded at my sad little Beetle parked at the curb. “It's a bit small.”

  “Why don't you get something bigger?”

  As small as it was, it was still worth more than her tank.

  “I've been thinking about that. Anyway, it might be crowded. Just a thought, no big deal. I understand if you don't want to.”

  “Let me think about it.” She rattles her ice and says, “Believe I'll have just a tad more. You?”

  “No, thanks.” My tongue is on fire and I'm suddenly groggy. I go to bed. She goes to bed. After a long sleep, we meet back on her porch at dusk, and she continues, “I think I'll have a little Jimmy. You?”

  “No, thanks. I’m driving.”

  She mixes one, and we're off. I never expressly invited her to join me and Lyle for our boys' night out, but once I realized she had no intention of the Cadillac leaving without her, I said what the hell. Lyle Spurlock won't care. She confesses, as we sort of float through town in a vehicle that must feel similar to an oil barge going downriver, that she hopes the movies are not too raunchy. She says this with an exaggerated flapping of the eyelids, and I get the impression that Miss Ruby can take whatever filth the Daisy Drive-in can dish out.

  I crack a window to allow fresh air a chance to dilute the fumes emanating from Miss Ruby. For the night out, she's chosen to give herself an extra dousing of her various perfumes. She lights a Marlboro but does not crack her window. For a second I fear that the flame might ignite the vapors engulfing the front seat and we could both be burned alive. The moment passes.

  As we make our way to Quiet Haven, I regale Miss Ruby with all the gossip I've picked up in the kitchen on the subject of Mr. Lyle Spurlock and his roving eyes and hands. She claims to have heard the rumor, years back, about an elderly gent caught bedding a nurse, and seems genuinely excited about meeting such a character. Another nip of Jimmy, and she declares that she might just remember a Spurlock as a client after all, back in the glory days.

  The second shift is run by Nurse Angel, a pious, hard •woman who's currently number two on my shit list and may quite possibly become the first person I get fired here. She immediately informs me that she doesn't approve of my plans to take Lyle to the movies. (I've told no one but Lyle, and now Miss Ruby, which movies we're going to.) I fire back that it doesn't matter what she disapproves of because Ms. Wilma Drell, the number-one Queen Bee, has given approval, said approval not coming forth voluntarily until Mr. Spurlock and his daughter (by phone) had raised more hell than the Queen could take.

  “It's in writing,” I say. “Check the file. Approved by W. Drell.”

  She flings some paperwork, mumbles incoherently, frowns as if migraines were attacking. Within minutes, Lyle and I are shuffling out of the front door. He's wearing his nicest slacks and his only jacket, an old shiny navy blazer he's had for decades, and he walks with a determined limp. Outside the building, I grab his elbow and say, “Listen, Mr. Spurlock, we have an unexpected guest with us.”

  “Who?”

  “She goes by Miss Ruby. She's my landlady. I borrowed her car and she came with it, sort of a package deal. Sorry.”

  “It's okay.”

  “She's nice. You'll like her.”

  “Thought we were going to watch dirty movies.”

  “That's right. Don't worry, they won't bother Miss Ruby. She's not much of a lady, if you know what I mean.”

  Lyle understands. With a gleam in his eyes, Lyle gets it completely. We stop at the front passenger's door and I introduce them, then Lyle crawls into the cavernous backseat. Before we're out of the parking lot, Miss Ruby is turning around, saying, “Lyle, dear, would you like a little Jim Beam?”

  From her large red purse she's already pulling out a quart-size flask.

  “I reckon not,” Lyle says, and I relax. It's one thing to take Lyle out for a little porn, but if I brought him home sloshed, I could get into trouble.

  She leans in my direction and says, “He's cute.”

  Away we go. I expect Miss Ruby to mention the Sonic, and within minutes she says, “Now, Gill, I'd like a cheeseburger and fries for dinner. How 'bout we run by the Sonic?”

  With effort, I manage to fit the oil barge into a narrow slip at the Sonic. The place is packed, and I catch stares from some of the other customers, all sitting in vehicles that are noticeably smaller and newer. I don't know if they're amused by the bright red Cadillac that will barely fit, or by the sight of the odd trio in' side it. Not that I care.

  I've done this before, at other homes. One of the greatest gifts I can give to my favorite friends is freedom. I've taken old ladies to churches, to country clubs, to funerals and weddings, and, of course, to shopping centers. I've taken old men to Legion halls, ball games, bars, churches, and coffee shops. They are childishly grateful for these little excursions, these simple acts of kindness that get them out of their rooms. And, sadly, these forays into the real world always cause trouble. The other employees, my esteemed co-workers, resent the fact that I'm willing to spend extra time with our residents, and the other residents become very jealous of the ones lucky enough to escape for a few hours. But trouble doesn't bother me.

  Lyle claims to be full, no doubt stuffed with rubber chicken and green Jell-O. I order a hot dog and a root beer, and soon we're floating down the street again, Miss Ruby nibbling on a fry and Lyle way in the back somewhere relishing the open spaces. Abruptly, he says, “I'd like a beer.”

  I turn in to the lot of a convenience store. “What brand?”

  “Schlitz,” he says, with no hesitation.

  I purchase a Six-pack of sixteen-ounce cans, hand them over, and we're off again. I hear a top pop, then a slurp. “You want one, Gill?” he asks.

  “No, thanks.” I hate the smell and taste of beer. Miss Ruby pours some bourbon into her Dr Pepper and sips away. She's grinning now, I guess because she has someone to drink with.

  At the Daisy, I buy three tickets at five bucks each, no offer to pay from my pals here, and we ease through the gravel lot and select a spot on the third row, far away from any other vehicle. I count six others present. The movie is under way. I mount the speaker on my window, adjust the volume so Lyle can hear all the groaning, then settle low in my seat. Miss Ruby is still nibbling at her cheeseburger. Lyle slides across the rear seat to a spot directly in the middle so his view is unobstruct
ed.

  The plot soon becomes evident. A door-to-door salesman is trying to sell vacuum cleaners. You would expect a door-to-door salesman to be somewhat well-groomed and to at least try to have a pleasing personality. This guy is greased from head to toe, with earrings, tattoos, a tight silk shirt with few buttons, and a lusty sneer that would frighten any respectable housewife. Of course, in this film, there are no respectable housewives. Once our slimy salesman gets in the front door, dragging a useless vacuum cleaner behind him, the wife attacks him, clothes are removed, and all manner of frolicking ensues. The husband catches them on the sofa, and instead of beating the guy senseless with a vacuum cleaner hose, the hubby joins the fun. It's soon a family affair, with naked people rushing into the den from all directions. The family is one of those porn families where the children are the same age as the parents, but who cares? Neighbors arrive, and the scene becomes one of frenzied copulating in ways and positions few mortals can imagine.

  I slide deeper into my seat, just barely able to see over the steering wheel. Miss Ruby nibbles away, chuckling at something on the screen, not the least bit embarrassed, and Lyle opens an-other beer, the only sound from back there.

  Some redneck in a pickup two rows behind us lays on his horn every time a climactic moment is featured on film. Other than that, the Daisy is fairly quiet and deserted.

  After the second orgy, I'm bored and I excuse myself to visit the men's room. I stroll across the gravel lot to a shabby little building where they sell snacks and have the toilets. The projection room is a wobbly appendage above it. The Daisy Drive-in has certainly seen better days. I pay for a bucket of stale popcorn and take my time returning to the red Cadillac. Along the way, I never consider glancing up at the screen.

  Miss Ruby has disappeared! A split second after I realize her seat is empty, I hear her giggle in the backseat. Of course the dome light doesn't work, probably hasn't in twenty years or so. It's dark back there, and I do not turn around. “You guys okay?” I ask, much like a babysitter.

  “You betcha,” Lyle says.

  “There's more room back here,” Miss Ruby says. After ten minutes, I excuse myself again, and I go for a long walk, across the let to the very back row and through an old fence, up an incline to the foot of an ancient tree where beer cans are scattered around a broken picnic table, evidence left behind by teenagers too young or too poor to buy tickets to the show. I sit on the rickety table and have a clear view of the screen in the distance. I count seven cars and two pickups, paying customers. The one nearest Miss Ruby's Cadillac still honks at just the right moments. Her car shines from the reflection on the screen. As far as I can tell, it is perfectly still.

  My shift begins at 9:00 p.m., and I'm never late. Queen Wilma Drell confirmed in writing that Mr. Spurlock was to return promptly by 9:00, so with thirty minutes to go, I amble back to the car, break up whatever is happening in the backseat, if anything, and announce it's time to leave.

  “I'll just stay back here,” Miss Ruby says, giggling, her words a bit slurred, which is unusual since she's immune to the booze.

  “You okay, Mr. Spurlock?” I ask as I crank the engine.

  “You betcha.”

  “You guys enjoy the movies?”

  Both roar with laughter, and I realize they are drunk. They giggle all the way to Miss Ruby's house, and it's very amusing. She says good night as we transfer to my Beetle, and as Mr. Spurlock and I head toward Quiet Haven, I ask, "Did you have

  fun?"

  “Great. Thanks.” He's holding a Schlitz, number three as far as I can tell, and his eyes are half-dosed.

  “What'd ya'll do in the backseat?”

  “Not much.”

  “She's nice, isn't she?”

  “Yes, but she smells bad. All that perfume. Never thought I'd be in the backseat with Ruby Clements.”

  Ford Country

  “You know her?”

  “I figured out who she is. I've lived here for a long time, son, and I can't remember much. But there was a time when most everybody knew who she was. One of her husbands was a cousin to one of my wives. I think that's right. A long time ago.”

  You gotta love small towns.

  *

  Our next excursion, two weeks later, is to the Civil War battlefield at Brice's Crossroads, about an hour from Clanton. Like most old Southerners, Mr. Spurlock claims to have ancestors who fought gallantly for the Confederacy. He still carries a grudge and can get downright bitter on the subject of Reconstruction (“never happened”) and Yankee carpetbaggers (“thievin' bastards”).

  I check him out early one Tuesday, and under the watchful and disapproving eye of Queen Wilma Drell we escape in my lit' tie Beetle and leave Quiet Haven behind. I stop at a convenience store, buy two tall cups of stale coffee, some sandwiches and soft drinks, and we're off to refight the war.

  I really couldn't care less about the Civil War, and I don't get all this lingering fascination with it. We, the South, lost and lost big. Get over it. But if Mr. Spurlock wants to spend his last days dreaming of Confederate glory and what might have been, then I'll give it my best. In the past month I've read a dozen war books from the Clanton library, and there are three more in my room at Miss Ruby's.

  At times he's sharp with the details—battles, generals, troop movements—and at other times he draws blanks. I keep the conversation on my latest hot topic—the preservation of Civil War battlefields. I rant about the destruction of the sacred grounds, especially in Virginia, where Bull Run and Fredericksburg and Winchester have been decimated by development. This gets him worked up, then he nods off.

  On the ground, we look at a few monuments and battlefield markers. He's convinced that his grandfather Joshua Spurlock was wounded in the course of some heroic maneuver during the battle at Brice's Crossroads. We sit on a split-rail fence and eat sandwiches for lunch, and he gazes into the distance in a forlorn trance, as if he's waiting for the sounds of cannon and horses. He talks about his grandfather, who died in either 1932 or 1934, somewhere around the age of ninety. When Lyle was a boy, his grandfather delighted him with stories of killing Yankees and getting shot and fighting with Nathan Bedford Forrest, the greatest of all Southern commanders. “They were at Shiloh together,” he said. “My grandfather took me there once.”

  “Would you like to go again?” I ask.

  He breaks into a grin, and it's obvious that he'd love to see the battlefield again. “It'd be a dream,” he says, moisture in his eyes.

  “I can arrange that.”

  “I want to go in April, when the battle was fought, so I can see the Peach Orchard and the Bloody Pond and the Hornet's Nest.”

  “You have my promise. We'll go next April.” April was five months away, and given my track record, I doubted if I would still be employed at Quiet Haven. But if not, nothing would prevent me from visiting my friend Lyle and taking him on another road trip.

  He sleeps most of the way back to Clanton. Between naps, I explain that I am involved with a national group working to pre-serve Civil War battlefields. The group is strictly private, no help from the government, and thus depends on donations. Since I obviously earn little, I send a small check each year, but my uncle, who's stout, sends large checks at my request.

  Lyle is intrigued by this.

  “You could always include them in your will,” I say.

  No reaction. Nothing. I leave it alone.

  We return to Quiet Haven, and I walk him to his room. As he's taking off his sweater and his shoes, he thanks me for a “great day.” I pat him on the back, tell him how much I enjoyed it too, and as I'm leaving, he says, “Gill, I don't have a will.”

  I act surprised, but then I'm not. The number of people, especially those in nursing homes, who have never bothered with a will is astounding. I feign a look of shock, then disappointment, then I say, “Let's talk about it later, okay? I know what to do.”

  “Sure,” he says, relieved.

  *

  At 5:30 the following m
orning, the halls deserted, the lights still off, everyone asleep or supposed to be, I'm at the front desk reading about General Grant's Southern campaign when I'm startled by the sudden appearance of Ms. Daphne Groat. She's eighty-six, suffers from dementia, and is confined to the Back Wing. How she managed to pass through the locked door is something I'll never know.

  “Come quick!” she hisses at me, teeth missing, voice hollow and weak.

  “What's the matter?” I ask as I jump up.

  “It's Harriet. She's on the floor.”

  I sprint to the Back Wing, punch in the code, pass through the thick locked door, and race down the hall to room 158, where Ms. Harriet Markle has lived since I went through puberty. I flip on the light to her room, and there she is, on the floor, obviously unconscious, naked except for black socks, lying in a sickening pool of vomit, urine, blood, and her own waste. The stench buckles my knees, and I've survived many jolting odors. Because I've been in this situation before, I react instinctively. I quickly pull out my little camera, take four photos, stick it back into my pocket, and go for help. Ms. Daphne Groat is nowhere to be seen, and no one else is awake on the wing.

  There is no attendant on duty. Eight and a half hours earlier, when our shift began, a woman by the name of Rita had checked in at the front desk, where I was at the time, and then headed to the Back Wing. She was on duty, alone, which is against the rules because two attendants are required back there. Rita is now gone. I sprint to the North Wing, grab an attendant named Gary, and together we swing into action. We put on rubber gloves, sanitary masks, and boots and quickly get Ms. Harriet off the floor and back into her bed. She is breathing, but barely, and she has a gash just above her left ear. Gary scrubs her while I mop up the mess. When the situation is somewhat cleaner, I call an ambulance, and then I call Nurse Angel and Queen Wilma. By this time, others have been awakened and we've drawn a crowd.

  Rita is nowhere to be seen. Two attendants, Gary and me, for fifty-two residents.

  We bandage her wound, put on clean underwear and a gown, and while Gary guards her bed, I dash to the wing desk to check the paperwork. Ms. Harriet has not been fed since noon the day before—almost eighteen hours—and her meds have also been neglected. I quickly photocopy all the notes and entries because you can bet they'll be tampered with in a matter of hours. I fold the copies and stick them into a pocket.