Dar and Kerry Series - Short Stories

by Melissa Good

  "Jerk." Sally closed the door behind them. Then she turned and faced Andrew, studying him in the light for the first time. "Can't believe your here."

  "Me neither." Andrew smiled briefly. "Y'all are looking well, little sis."

  "You too." Sally smiled back. "Retirement's done you good." She held a hand out to him and drew him back through the winding hallways to a back bedroom, opening it and standing back. "Figured you'll like this one."

  Andrew glanced inside, at the room he'd grown up in. There was a bed, and a dresser, and not much more. He threw the bag on the bed and turned, bracing his arm against the wall. "Been worse."

  Sally came in and sat down. "I know coming here's hard." She said. "But I needed you here, Andy." She said. "Jasper and I need you."

  "Sa''llright." Andrew sat down next to her. "Been worse." He repeated. "Them jackasses outside don't bother me none. I been in places would chew them up for fish food."

  "I know." Sally touched his hand. "How's Ceci?"

  "She's real good." Andrew responded. "Said to say hi." He added. "Got you an arty thing of hers in mah kit for you all for a present."

  "Oh, that was sweet of her." Sally said. "Not sure this old place is worth something nice though."

  "Sallright." Her brother said again. "She made a pitcher would fit here. Flowers or somesuch.."

  "So she's still doing her painting stuff?"

  "Yeap. Got her a show thing in South Beach next week." Andrew said. "Them people out there do like her pitchers a whole lot."

  "And.. your daughter? I can't believe she's grown up already Andy." Sally said. "Last time I saw her she was just a baby.."

  Andrew drew out his wallet and removed a picture, handing it over. "She sure enough growed up."

  Sally studied the photo. "Oh, Andy." She looked up. "She's beautiful!"

  Andy grinned proudly. "She is that." He agreed. "Inside, outside, all over."

  She looked back down. "She's your spitting image." She sighed. "Damn I wish her grandparents coulda seen her. She's the only grandkid they had."

  Andy took the picture back. "Woudlln't a worked." He said, briefly. "She's got my cussedness and Ceci's smarts. Old man'd blown a pipe with her and she don't take crap from nobody, specially not some half assed redneck like he was."

  "Don’t take no guff. Like her daddy." Sally clasped his hand.

  "Yeap." Andy agreed. "Anyhow, where's that feller of yours?"

  Sally got up and closed the bedroom door. "Andy I need your help." She sat back down. "Jasper's afraid to come here." She glanced around. "It's this crazy thing... everybody's got him set on Daddy's still being here."

  Andrew looked round, then back at her. "Sally Mae Roberts." he said. "That man's dead."

  "I know." His sister nodded. "I done buried him. And mama."

  "Dead's dead." Andy said. "I seen a lot of dead. Been in places if there were ghosts, I woulda seen em. Aint' none."

  "Andy, I know. But Jasper swears he's seen Daddy outside and with a gun." Sally said. "You know he didn't get on with Jasper."

  Andy knew. Jasper Collins was a grade school teacher with nothing more going for him than the ability to talk to kids and the old man had hated him just as he hated pretty much everything else around him.

  He'd never met Jasper. Sally had cottoned to him after Andy had abandoned the family, his only contact her infrequent letters and now, lately, email. The letters had followed him all over the world in his deployments until the last one.

  They didn't know about the capture. He'd seen no need to tell them. "Wall."

  "I know." Sally twisted her hands. "It's all this old house. I should get loose of it, but Andy it was all mama had. She left it for me."

  "Yeap. Old man was some pissed about that."

  "So are Stu and Jon." Sally said. "I told em they needed to leave once me and Jasper are married. I'm not having their shiftless ugly asses around my house."

  "Ah see."

  "But he wont' come here." She finished. "He says daddy's ghost is gonna git him."

  Andrew put his big hands on his knees. "Jest what is it you all want me to do, Sally? Can't make a man take his fear out."

  "Well." Sally took his hands again. "I figured this. If you stay here, and nothing happens.. he'll see there ain't nothing to the whole ghost thing." She watched Andy's face intently. "Please don't be all mad at me Andy. He can't help it."

  Since the task at hand wasn't anything more than he'd planned to do in any case, Andy wasn't in fact mad. "Guess you figured the old man'd come after me more'n him. Had a hate on me for sure."

  "Yeah, kinda."

  Andrew shrugged. "S'all right." He said. "That why you all decided to get hitched on that night?"

  "You mean on Halloween?" Sally grimaced. "Not exactly. That's the day the church had free this week. "

  "Lord."

  They were both silent for a few minutes. "Pastor Gray remembers you." Sally said, finally. "He asked me if you were gonna be here."

  Andrew snorted. "Lucky man ah did not bring mah pagan wife here to tweak his short pants that old piece of thinks he knows gods work."

  "Andy, he likes you."

  Andy made a face. "He liked having somebody round who could dust that damn altar and wrestle that old hog of his."

  Sally stifled a laugh, then she cleared her throat. "You go to church down there, Andy?"

  "Naw." Her brother shook his head. "Sunday mornings ah wash mah boat down, and Cec makes us up some aigs and we take a ride, sometimes." He looked down at her. "Ah don't miss it."

  Sally got up. "Let me let you get yourself settled. Mary Allen's in the kitchen making us up fixins for after the ceremony. Got some extra, you hungry?"

  "Had me some lunch at Mobile." Andy said. "But I'll take a sandwich if you got."

  She patted his shoulder and went to the door. "I'll holler when we're ready." She smiled wistfully. "Thanks, Andy. I mean it."

  "No problem." Andy watched the door close. Then he laid back on the bed and put his hands behind his head as he regarded the worn, bowed struts in the ceiling. "Lord. What did I get mah ass into?"

  Ghosts.The Old man. His jackass brothers. That timid weenie Jasper. "What in the hell am ah doing here?" He addressed the room. "Ah should haul my ass back to Miami and figure out how to put that damn hat on that dog for that party."

  **

  The house felt old. Andrew sensed the floor boards shifting and giving way a little beneath his weight as he walked back over to the bed where his duffle rested. It hadn't seemed as worn when he'd lived in it, but that had been a long time ago and he'd been a much different person.

  He remembered it seeming lighter, full of children’s laughter and his mother’s voice singing, and the sound of banjos from the porch on summer evenings. Now it was mostly silent, the rooms largely unlived in.

  Andy finished sorting out the things he'd packed, setting aside what he planned to wear to the wedding and putting his spare shaving kit on the one wooden shelf in the small bathroom next door.

  Everything was a little offset, a little patched, not quite even , not quite aligned right. The house had been built and rebuilt and modified by generations of his family so far back it precluded modern building techniques, or even electricity.

  The bathroom he'd just been in had been added by his grandfather experimenting with all this newfangled plumbing hoo hah and in the corner of the kitchen had stood an old hand water pump he remembered his mother using on cold winter mornings to get water to wash.

  Lot of years. Andy looked around, seeing the worn walls, and feeling a touch sad for the place. It had known a lot of family, kids running round and all, and now it was empty, and old.

  He remembered some very early years of his own life, when he and his brothers and sister had played in the house, when it had all been just as simple as bread and milk for breakfast, and wooden blocks on the floor.

  They'd just been kids. Too young to know anyplace but home,, family and the neighbors around who'd b
een more or less just like they were, living in slowly deteriorating houses on land that had been homesteads for long generations.

  Andrew reached into the duffel and removed a padded case, unzipping it and taking out the black metal automatic pistol inside. He took a clip and seated it, pulling the action back and chambering a round. Then he checked the safety before he stuck the gun inside his belt at the small of his back, pulling his hooded sweatshirt over it.

  It hadnt' been until later, until hed' growed some and gotten to understand things better that his daddy had started in giving him lessons.

  Hate lessons. Andy zipped the duffel shut and closed the light, emerging from the room into the hallway. They hadn't worn white sheets by that time, but the old titles were still there, and all the old hate that went along with it.

  He had been a prime candidate, by his daddy's way of thinking. He was Duke's oldest, he was big, even as a teenager bigger than his brothers and nearly as tall as Duke himself, brought up right, raised in the churchyard, taught to shoot, given all the right ideas by daddy and his friends.

  Andrew walked along the hall, looking at the pictures. Old lithographs stained by oil and smoke, of men in stiffly formal coats and women in hoop dresses, of children with carefully licked down bangs, of the homestead.

  Then there were the ones with the soldiers. Frame after frame of serious men in uniform from the Duke in his army fatigues back to faded clusters of gray clad figures draped in the Confederate flag.

  Back in that time, the house had been full, with family and servants and slaves outside working the land and cropping enough from it to make them, in those times, well off.

  But by Andy's time, that had been all long past save the memory of it, and the resentment, and the hate.

  "Andy?" Sally came around a corner. "There ya are. C'mon in the kitchen we got some chicken on and coffee."

  She led the way through the big dining room and around the corner into the kitchen, a big open hearth space with windows and plenty of working counters. It was brightly lit, and with all the bustling motion and voices coming from it was the one place in the house that seemed fully alive.

  Andy could remember his mother in the kitchen, usually alone or with one of his aunts making biscuits in the morning.

  Right now, it was full of women set at different tasks of getting ready for the wedding - most of them looked up though, when they entered.

  'You all remember my brother Andy, right?" Sally said. "He was the only one I wanted to invite to this wedding."

  There were murmurs of hello, and mostly averted eyes. Sally led him over to a tray of cornbread and cut him a piece, ignoring the sudden awkwardness. "Here. Start on that."

  Andy sat down on one of the stools at the counter and took the cornbread. He returned the furtive look from the woman nearest him with a faint, grim smile. "Lo there."

  "Hello, Andy." The woman replied. "Been a long time."

  "Yeap, it been that." Andrew took a proffered cup of coffee and waited, as Sally brought over a plate with several pieces of fried chicken on it. "Been a long time since I done sat in this here kitchen."

  "Thought you might have come back for your daddy's funeral." The woman said. "Lot of people did."

  Andrew chewed his cornbread and pondered the question in silence. "Wasn't round these parts." He finally concluded. "Didn't hear about it till later. After I got back to the States."

  "Yeah for a while he stopped answering me." Sally said. "I guess it just took a while for the letters to catch up."

  "Something like that." Her brother said. "Didn't figure he wanted me round here then anyhow."

  "That's probably true." The woman agreed. "Had no use for you."

  "Andy turned out all right." Sally said, defensively. "You should see pictures of his daughter. She does something with computers, right, Andy?"

  Andy was busy with a piece of fried chicken. "Mah kid." He said, after he wiped his lips. "Has done right well for herself. She pretty much runs that there company and I do believe she's the one Jesus Christ calls when he has problems with the software for the pearly gates."

  "Andy." Sally looked scandalized, but Andy just chuckled and continued to decimate his chicken thigh.

  The door to the kitchen opened, and Stu came in. "There's the little motherfucker." He pointed at Andy. "C'mon out here and drink with the rest of us."

  Andy regarded him mildly. "Do not make trouble in this here kitchen." He said. "These ladies are workin hard and do not need your fussing."

  "Aw cmon." Stu pushed his way through the crowd of women and approached his brother. "Dont' be a prick."

  Andy got up as he arrived. Stu had been a scrawny tow headed young adult when he'd last seen him, and he'd grown into a wiry middle age with a goatee and a short cropped buzz cut. "Leave it." He said, quietly.

  "YOu think you can come back in here and tel me what to do?" Stu rasped, the smell of corn whisky strong on his breath. "Fuck you, you pansy asshole I'm gonna."

  "Stu." Andy lowered his voice. "You will get your ass hurt if you keep up."

  'Yeah? What ya gonna do?"

  Andy put his hand around his brother's throat and shoved him against the wall, closing his fingers around Stu's windpipe and leaning his weight against him. "Kick you all's worthless ass."

  Stu grabbed at his arm as his face turned bright red, his breathing a tortured gasp.

  "Andy!" Sally rushed over.

  "Stay back." Andy turned his head and barked the command at her.

  She stopped.

  He turned back to Stu. "I aint' got no patience for the likes of you." He told him. "So behave or you all will find your pitiful self in that there graveyard down the way."

  He released Stu, and stepped back, cocking his fist in warning.

  . His brother dropped to one knee and grabbed his throat, rubbing it. "I was just fucking JOKING you asshole."

  Andy relaxed and put his hands on his hips. "We aint' seen each other in twenty some years. Let it go, Stu. I ain't that kid you knew."

  "Fuck." Stu got to his feet. "You're just crazy as you ever was."

  "Ah have found that a useful thing in mah life too." Andy said. "If you'all'd go on outside, ah will be out there shortly to say hello."

  Stu looked at him. "Yeah well I'm gonna go take a dump first." He edged towards the inner door and slunk through it giving a distinct impression of having his tail tucked between his legs.

  Andy watched him go, then turned and sat back down on his stool, resuming his attention to the chicken. "Lord." He shook his head. "Got stupider for every damn year I aint' seen him."

  Family. He sighed inwardly. He'd been the oldest, with Sally next, the two of them a bare 9 months apart in age. Then Stu, two years younger, and Jon the baby. They'd gotten along as well as most siblings did until he'd broken with the old Duke's wishes and decided to make his life go a different direction.

  Then they'd dropped any lies about liking each other.

  "Sorry about that Andy." Sally finally spoke up after several minutes of uncomfortable silence. "He's been drinking."

  Andy finished up his chicken. "Man sells moonshine for a living. Ain't nothing he's ever done but that." He stood. "Least I hear he makes a good jug."

  "What are you doing now, Andy?" One of the women asked. "Still in the Navy?"

  He shook his head. "I done my hitches. Retired for a while now, but ah do some work on the side sometimes for Dar." He said. "Cec and I live down by South Beach."

  "Aint' that a ritzy place?"

  "Yeap. Something like that." He eased between the women and went to the kitchen door. "Ah thank you ladies, that was some real good stuff."

  He could see the grudging return smiles, and he returned them as he pushed the screen door open and emerged onto the small side porch, letting the spring held panel shut behind him.

  A faint sense of motion to his right made him turn his head, but the dusty side yard lit by the porch light was empty. He walked down the steps to the gr
ound, taking a walk around where he vaguely remembered his mother having a kitchen garden that was now filled with a couple of wooden tables piled with junk.

  He walked around the side of the house and headed towards the still burning oil drum fire, where he could smell the essence of liquor and grilling something drifting from.

  Jon spotted him and broke away from the group, ambling over to him. "I ain't a dumb ass like Stu, Andy. We all right?"

  It almost made Andy laugh. Jon had always been like that, following Stu's lead with little ambition of his own, but always ready to roll over and be friendly to whoever had the upper hand.