The Dry Grass of August

by Anna Jean Mayhew

  She smoothed my hair. “You sleep good?”

  Puddin was asleep, too, with Davie wedged between us, looking out the window, his hand in my lap, fingers curled. “Doobie.”

  “Hey, Davie-do.”

  “Doobie sleep.” He closed his eyes.

  A thin forest of scraggly pine trees passed by, behind a wide black-water ditch, its surface still and shiny as wet tar.

  Puddin opened her eyes. “I need to use the bathroom.”

  “Tee-tee,” said Davie.

  Mama said, “We’ll stop when we find a decent place.”

  That meant Esso, because they cleaned their restrooms every day. Texaco was next best because it put opera on the radio every Saturday.

  “Mama, I really have to.”

  “Ye gods! If I pulled over now, you’d have to pee in the swamp.”

  “Pee,” said Davie.

  Puddin bounced in her seat, then scrunched her fists in her lap, rocking.

  Davie laughed. “Tinkle.”

  A sign appeared in the distance on the right.

  “Red star at one o’clock!” I called out.

  Mama pulled into the Texaco. “One o’clock, my fanny.”

  Puddin jumped out and ran. “I see the restroom,” she called over her shoulder.

  The heat wrapped itself around me when we left the car. Mary smoothed my shorts in back, pulling the legs down. “Your whole self is wrinkled. I reckon I’m not much better.” But she was. Except for wet circles under her arms, she looked like she’d just gotten dressed and fixed her hair, not like she’d been stuck for hours in the backseat of a car with three kids.

  Mama gave me a five-dollar bill and told me to go to the grill next to the gas station. “Lunch. French fries. Hot dogs, no onions for Puddin and Davie.”

  I walked up to the order window and hollered through the screen, “Hello?” The whole world smelled like onion rings.

  A teenaged girl came from a back room, wiping her hands on a towel. “Yeah?”

  She got to work before I finished the order, putting buns in a steamer, lowering a basket of slivered potatoes into boiling oil, dropping wieners onto a sizzling griddle.

  Her pink peasant blouse was cut so low the tops of her bosoms showed, and her white shorts had ketchup on the pocket. She looked past me. “Where y’all from?”

  “Charlotte, North Carolina.”

  “Where you going to?” Her yellow hair was tied back with an orange ribbon. Stell would have said the ribbon was a mistake because you shouldn’t mix clashing colors, and orange is tacky like purple.

  “Pawleys Island, South Carolina.”

  “Someday I’m going to see the ocean.” She put a grilled wiener in the middle of each bun.

  “You work here all the time?”

  “Except for school. I’ll go full-time soon’s I’m married.” She ladled chili.

  “You’re getting married?”

  “Next summer. My boyfriend drives army tanks in Berlin, Germany.”

  “Golly. How old are you?”

  “Turned fifteen last week.” She sprinkled chopped onions.

  To show I wasn’t shocked, I said, “Your hair’s great.”

  “It’s the same color as Jane Powell’s.” There was lipstick on her teeth. “Y’all gonna eat here?” She pointed to a picnic table, under trees behind the Texaco.

  “To go, please.”

  She wrapped everything in newspaper and put it in a grocery bag. “The two without onions is on top. That’s three dollars.”

  Mama walked up behind me. “C’mon, Jubie, we’re losing time. What’d you get?”

  “Six orders of French fries and eight hot dogs.”

  “Eight?”

  “Anybody who’s still hungry can—”

  “Anybody like you?”

  “Yes.”

  “Better watch for when you stop growing up and start growing out.” As we walked back to the car, Mama said, “That girl ought to cover herself and wash her face.”

  “Her hair is the same color as Jane Powell’s.”

  “Jane Powell would shave her head if she had such hair.”

  “She’s getting married next summer.”

  “She’ll have three kids before she’s twenty.”

  “But she’s engaged to a soldier who—”

  “June, don’t admire such a life!”

  We got back in the car. Even with lunch to look forward to, I dreaded more time scrunched in the backseat. Mama had put the key in the ignition when I shouted, “Puddin!”

  Mama turned. “Ye gods, where’s she gone now?”

  I ran to the filling station. Puddin wasn’t in the restroom, not in the tiny office, not in the empty service bays. Mama stood by the gas pump hollering, “Carolina Wendy Watts! Come here right now!”

  I ran around back. She was sitting in the weeds, leaning against the block wall of the station, crying.

  “Puddin-tane! What’s wrong?”

  “Mama wouldn’t stop. I wet myself.” She howled.

  Mama came around the other side of the building. “What’s going on?”

  I helped Puddin up. “Puddin damped her panties.”

  Mama’s face was a mix of I’m really mad and oh, well. “C’mon, Puddin, let’s get fresh undies from the trunk.” The oh, well won.

  Mary picked the onions off her hot dog, a look on her face that said for me not to notice. She took a bite and I remembered her indigestion.

  As soon as Mama finished eating we were back on the road.

  Stell wiped her fingers and stuffed the napkin in the trash bag. “Only three weeks till school. I can hardly wait.”

  “Yuk.” I hated to think about the end of summer vacation.

  “I’m excited,” Stell said, “because of the new Pledge of Allegiance.”

  I had no idea what she meant.

  “Congress added the words ‘Under God.’ ”

  “Where?”

  She said, in her most religious voice, “ ‘One nation under God, indivisible.’ It’s so wonderful.”

  “Hmph.” Mary crossed her arms on her chest.

  I asked her, “Don’t you think it’s a good thing, adding God to the pledge?”

  “Putting God in the pledge and on money—that’s like a sign in the sky saying ‘air.’ ” Sometimes Mary surprised me, the things she thought about.

  Mama raised the volume on the radio and fiddled with the dial, picking up snatches of Young Dr. Malone. The static was so bad she turned it off. “I’ve got a headache that won’t let up.”

  Stell said, “Mama, please let me drive. You can sleep for a while.”

  Mama pulled off the road and walked around the car, stopping to stretch, her hands on the small of her back. She got in the passenger seat. “You get a ticket, you’re grounded.”

  Stell looked in the rearview mirror. I waved at her. She stuck out her tongue, then adjusted the mirror by the wing window. “All set.” She pulled onto the highway. A tractor-trailer truck came right up on our bumper, air horn blasting. Stell jumped.

  “Stell!” Mama gasped. “You pulled out in front of him.”

  “He’s speeding.”

  The truck zoomed around us and the car rocked, but Stell kept it in the road. Mama slumped against the window.

  For the next hour, Mama slept and Stell drove at a steady fifty-five.We passed a group of Burma-Shave signs. I read them aloud: “Substitutes are like a girdle. They find some jobs they just can’t hurdle. Burma-Shave.” I thought about Mama struggling to pull up the stiff elastic sheath, attaching her stockings to it, announcing she was nearly ready by saying, “I’ve got my girdle on.” I vowed I’d never wear one.

  On the outskirts of Claxton, we passed farms, cotton processors, feed and grain mills. Highway 280 changed to Main Street, and Stell slowed down. Daddy said small towns were speed traps.

  Davie climbed onto my lap, his body a hot water bottle.

  “No.” I pushed him away.

  “Doobie,” he whined, “
badge.” He held out the cap from a Coke bottle.

  “Quiet down back there,” Mama said.

  He collapsed against me, hot and damp. I said no again, trying to whisper and be firm at the same time.

  “Badge,” he shouted.

  Mama swung her left arm over the seat in a slapping motion.

  Stell glanced back at me. “What’s going on?”

  Afterward I said I’d known at that moment that it was going to happen. I said it so much I was pretty sure it was true.

  A shadow loomed. There was a screeching crunch and our car spun and tilted. We slid across the seats on top of each other. The car hung on two wheels, slammed back down. Metal hit the pavement.

  Davie broke the silence, crying,“Oooh-h-h-h. Oooh-h-h-h.”

  “Is everybody okay?” Mama’s voice shook.

  “Jesus bless us,” said Mary.

  Mama said, “Puddin?”

  “I’m here,” Puddin said, her voice shaking. “Under Jubie.”

  Davie wailed again.

  “You okay, Davie-do?” I put his palm to my lips and felt wet on my face.

  “No!” His hand was bleeding.

  Stell opened the driver’s door and stood by the car, looking dazed.

  “C’mon,” Mary said. “Let’s get out.”

  The battered old truck that hit us was across the street, its front tires on the sidewalk.

  Mama took Davie and uncurled his fist, peeling back his fingers one by one. “Oh, Davie.You’ve got a cut shaped like a bottle cap, isn’t that funny?”

  Davie hiccupped and looked at his hand.

  Puddin said, “You’re bleeding, Jubie.” I tasted blood where I had bitten my lip.

  “Jesus H. Christ,” somebody said. A crowd had gathered. People stared, gestured, talked to each other.

  “Let me see. Not too bad.” Mama pulled a Kleenex from her pocket, pressed it against my lip. Blood had splattered the front of my new T-shirt. Mama looked at the cut. “You don’t need stitches, Jubie.”

  I held the tissue against my lip, looking around for Mary. She was standing by the back of the car, rubbing her head. “Are you hurt, Mary?” I asked.

  “No. Bumped around a bit.” She looked at the car and shook her head. “Gone take some fixing.”

  I walked around the Packard. The right front fender was bashed in and the car was turned around, heading west again. A steady drip from the front grille made a puddle in the street.

  Puddin said to Mama, “I bumped my head.”

  Mama parted Puddin’s hair to examine her scalp. “You’re getting a goose egg. Everything else okay?”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “Stell Ann?”

  “I hit my head, too.”

  Mama tipped Stell’s chin and looked into her eyes, “Look up. Down. Side to side. How many fingers?” Mama held up three fingers.

  “Three.”

  “Sit over there in the grass and be real still.”

  A woman said, “Whoo-ee! Bobby Joe done it again.”

  A man in a white jacket stepped out of a Rexall on the corner. “I’m a pharmacist. Be glad to help, if I can.”

  Mama nodded.

  He looked at Davie’s hand. “I’ve got just the thing for that.” He went in the Rexall and returned with a bottle of Mercurochrome. When the man tried to touch him, Davie screamed, turning his face to Mama’s bosom. She held his hand out to the pharmacist. When he’d finished, the man put a Band-Aid on the cut and gave Davie a cherry lollipop. “Got a candy for you being such a good boy.”

  Davie sniffled and put the sucker in his mouth. Mama kissed his head.

  A man was checking out our car, getting down on his knees and peering underneath. He had on sunglasses, and his hair was so long it hung down under his straw hat.

  Mama handed Davie to me. He put his face against my neck, which made me want to cry. I began to shake. I sat on a bench outside the Rexall, trying not to throw up, swallowing over and over until the sick feeling went away.

  The man who’d been checking the car spoke to Mama. “Name’s Jake Stirewalt.”

  “I’m Mrs. Watts, Mrs. William Watts.”

  “S’my place over there.” He pointed to a garage. “Be happy to try to fix ’er, Mrs. Watts.You might need a rade-yater. And I ain’t got one.”

  “Can you get one?”

  “Hafta check the Packard dealers. Savannah, Augusta. Might could take a while.”

  “Oh,” said Mama. “Well.”

  Stell Ann was sitting in a patch of grass across the street. Mary stood at the edge of the crowd, holding Puddin’s hand. She waved when she saw me looking at her.

  A siren sounded a block away, then a sheriff ’s car pulled up. A man in a uniform got out and spoke to Mama. “I’m Deputy Hinson. Is anybody hurt?”

  “My son’s hand is cut, and my daughter’s lip. Everybody bumped heads, but I think we’re okay.”

  He called across the street. “Bobby Joe? Walk on over here.”

  The truck driver lolled against his fender. The front of his truck was crumpled, but he didn’t seem to care. He pushed himself away from the truck and wobbled into the street.

  “Off the wagon, Bobby Joe?”

  The man nodded and folded himself into the sheriff’s car.

  “I have my way, you never gonna drive again.” Inside the car the man slumped against the window, his hair making a flat gray circle on the glass.

  The deputy’s leather holster was high on his hip, the gun black and square like Daddy’s. Had the deputy ever used it?

  He called out, “Anybody see what happened here?”

  Stell stood and walked over to Mama.

  A man stepped up. “Bobby Joe Tart came barreling out of Grady. Didn’t even slow down at the stop sign. Hit this young lady’s car. She was on Main, going toward town.”

  “Is that right?” the deputy asked Stell.

  Mama said, “It happened so fast.”

  Mr. Stirewalt walked up. “Okay if we push the car to my shop?”

  “Yeah, go ahead,” the deputy said.

  Mama said, “Don’t work on it until I’ve talked to my husband.”

  Mr. Stirewalt handed Mama a piece of paper. “Here’s my number. J and J’s Garage. The best in Claxton. You ask anybody.”

  People walked away. Talking, looking back at us like they didn’t want to let go of the excitement. The deputy asked Mama a few more questions and wrote things down.

  Davie held out his hand, palm up, showing me the Band-Aid. “Davie hurt.”

  “Yes, but it’s fixed now.”

  “Kiss it.” He put his hand to my mouth. I caught the dry rubber smell of the Band-Aid mixed with cherry lollipop.

  Mary began taking the luggage from the trunk. I put Davie down next to Puddin so I could help Mary pile our stuff on the sidewalk. Mr. Stirewalt and two men pushed our car to the garage across the street.

  “Guess we’re stuck.” Puddin put her head against my shoulder.

  Mr. Stirewalt walked back to Mama. “You’ll want to stay at the motel park a couple blocks from here.You can call me tomorrow.” He turned and hollered, “Gaither?”

  “Yeah?” answered one of the men who’d pushed our car.

  “Take Mrs. Watts and her kids over to Sally’s.”

  “Will the motel have a place for our colored girl?”

  “That’s a problem.” Mr. Stirewalt took off his hat, leaving a dent in his greasy hair.

  The man named Gaither said, “They’s a nigger hauls our trash. You can’t find a place for your girl, I’ll ask him.” There were damp rings under his arms. His gray work pants were too short for his lanky height, leaving his knobby ankles bare. “Somebody’ll keep her.” He smiled at Mary, but his eyes were hard.

  An old pickup rattled to a stop beside us. The passenger windshield was cracked. The boy driving it hopped out and handed the keys to Gaither, who tossed our luggage over the tailgate, bumping against me when he turned to pick up another suitcase. He stank from ci
garettes and foul sweat.

  Mary moved to help with our bags and Gaither said, “I can handle this, girl.”

  She backed away, looking down.

  He ran his fingers through his thick brown hair, swept back in an oily ducktail.

  Mama and Stell Ann got in the cab. Mama settled Davie on her lap, then called through the window, “Get in the back.” Puddin and I climbed in.

  Mary handed me her pocketbook. She grabbed the sidewall of the truck and put one foot on the bumper, then pulled herself up, holding her skirt against her knees as she stepped over the tailgate. Puddin and Mary each sat on a piece of luggage, and I sat on a toolbox. The truck smelled like our basement when the sewer backed up.

  Gaither drove slowly down the street. Claxton looked friendly, the streets swept, store windows shining in the afternoon light. Gleaming railroad tracks ran parallel to Main Street. A woman in a yellow print dress watered flowers in hanging pots in front of a millinery store. Men sat in chairs outside a barbershop. A sign in the window said MY GRANDMOTHER’S FRUITCAKES FOR SALE. INQUIRE WITHIN. The barber in his white coat leaned against the doorjamb beneath a red, white, and blue barber pole turning around and around, the stripes spiraling out through the top.

  The truck turned in a driveway at a sign: SALLY’S MOTEL PARK. CABINS. POOL. VACANCY, and pulled up beside a brick house with the word OFFICE on the front door. Gray stone paths connected the cabins, dividing the green lawn into squares and triangles. I couldn’t see the pool.

  Gaither got out, cleared his throat, coughed.

  A woman came from the office, shading her eyes with her hand. Her short brown hair was finger-waved in tight rows.

  “Hey, Sally,” said Gaither.

  “Hey, Gaither.”

  “These folks had a wreck. Jake’s got they car.” Gaither unrolled a pack of cigarettes from his shirtsleeve. “This here’s Sally Bishop.”

  “Hello, Miss Bishop,” said Mama. “We need rooms. At least one night.”

  “It’s Mrs. Bishop.” The woman looked at Mary. “That your girl?”

  “Yes.”

  She walked away, her hand to her mouth, the other hand in a fist on her hip. She turned. “You and one of the kids could stay in Cabin Two”—she pointed—“a double bed. The others in Cabin Four—two double beds, a kitchenette, with a cot for your girl.”