Now Let's Talk of Graves

by Sarah Shankman

  Harry was gently slapping Billy Jack, whose right arm was crooked at a very peculiar angle. Lavert was applying the same technique, though not so gently, to Maynard Dupree.

  *

  Arkadelphia, who’d gotten tired of waiting out in the ambulance, bustled up the aisle with the white pebble-grain Bible, his name inscribed on the cover in gold leaf, that his grandmother had given him on the day he was baptized. He carried it in his ambulance kit in case of emergency. “Sister Nadine,” he called. “Sister Nadine, I am such a fan of yours. Could I trouble you to autogr—”

  “Get away from me!” screamed Sister Nadine.

  “Well, I never!’ Arkadelphia puffed up.

  “Never mind,” said G.T., rising from where she’d hit the deck between two pews as soon as she’d seen Maynard’s .38. She patted Ark on the arm. “Never mind. That little bastard’s ours, bubba. After the police come and do what they’re gonna do, we’re taking Billy Jack Joyner into hospital lockup in our ambulance, and I want you in the back sitting on him, get him to autograph your Bible as well as that paperwork we got outstanding from last time we picked him up. You know what I mean?”

  Forty

  SAM PROPPED UP propped up on an elbow, smiled her pretty smile, and said, “Play it again, Harry.”

  So he did.

  It went like this:

  I thought I knew how angels flew

  Till you stepped off the plane

  Toting all my dreams

  In a carryon. Your smile

  The end to all my pain.

  I’d dreamed so long and prayed so strong

  That love would come my way

  But Friday eve till Monday morn

  Were terrible nights and days

  So I went out to the air-o-port

  Down the long ramp

  Laid my head on the tarmac

  Said, Big plane, squash me flat,

  I ain’t going back, ain’t going back

  To that old misery, no way, Jack.

  And there you were

  Sashaying off that plane.

  Saying: What you doing’s wild, child

  Making up new rules, fool

  Gonna give your curls a whirl

  ‘Neath this insane plane.

  Come fly with me,

  Don’t die on me,

  Streak the sky with me,

  My love.

  Who could resist a deal like this?

  I jumped up on your wings.

  Said fly me high

  Oh my oh my oh my oh my

  Waited my whole life

  Who knew it could be so easy?

  Oh, I thought knew how angels flew

  Till you stepped off the plane.…

  “I like it a lot. It’s come a long way,” she said.

  He rolled over, traced a finger across her breasts, naked under the sheet in his big brass bed, the one he’d run out and bought after the first time he’d heard Dylan sing “Lay, Lady, Lay.” Hoping somebody like Sam would come and sprawl herself across it.

  There you go, he said to himself now. Nothing like the power of positive thinking.

  “Glad you like it.” He grinned.

  Sam looked around. On his bedside table sat a jumble of dishes and spoons. She remembered something about stopping at the all-night A&P on the way here last night for chocolate ice cream. In case of an emergency, Harry had said. Her lacy underwear made a small pile on a rattan chaise. She remembered that part better than the ice cream. Harry had undressed her very slowly. Folded things very carefully—at least up to a certain point. Your mama did a nice job on you—she remembered saying that. It was the last thing she said for a while that you could quote in a family newspaper.

  “Not bad for a kid,” she said now.

  “What?”

  “I said for a kid you do pretty good work.”

  “Not bad yourself for an old broad.” He reached over and grabbed a handful of her, his mouth on hers. Showed her he hadn’t forgotten how quickly they found what they were looking for last night, the sweet fit.

  After rerunning a few moves she wouldn’t mind getting real used to, she said, “I didn’t plan this.”

  “Well, I’m glad I did.”

  She punched him. “Scheming all along to get me here?” As if the thought had never crossed her mind.

  “No, now that you put it that way. I kept thinking it would be upstairs at the Royal O. Or maybe a room at the Maison de Ville.”

  “Yeah. Uh-huh.”

  “You think I’m kidding?”

  Sam leaned back against a pile of pillows and stretched long and lazy. Feeling like she did today, she’d happily listen to any kind of nonsense. “Give it to me from the top.”

  He strummed the chorus of her song on his guitar, saying, “Well, first I was going to take you to lunch at Galatoire’s.”

  “Not bad. And what were we going to eat?”

  “Oysters, for starters.”

  “Then—”

  “Shrimp remoulade.”

  “And—?”

  “And then a bunch of other stuff, and after coffee I was going to waltz you into one of those hotels.”

  Sam laughed. “I love it. Did you have some sort of line in mind—‘That was good grub; now let’s go make love’?”

  “I never quite worked it out that far till last night.” He reached over and gave her a big snuggle. She gave him one back. And then there was some other sweet silliness. Finally, he said, “Well, it worked, didn’t it?”

  “What worked?”

  “We ended up here, didn’t we, after the cops came, G.T. and Lavert threw Billy Jack in G.T.’s ambulance, drove him to the hospital lockup—”

  “Boy, Ark was mad as hell Lavert pushed him out, so he could go with G.T., wasn’t he?”

  “Ark’ll get over it. Then they booked Maynard—”

  “You think that’ll stick? Attempted murder?”

  “Uptown lawyer against a redneck unemployed pipe-handler? Are you kidding? No way. Bet Maynard’s already home having lunch.”

  “You don’t think he’s out at the lake?”

  “Now, why would he be there?”

  “I thought he was the promoter behind Jimbo’s flying lawn chair.”

  “Well, he is, or was, but I don’t expect what with one thing and another he’s going to—on the other hand, you know, I bet you’re right. What time is it?”

  Sam felt around under the bed, came up with her watch. “Could this be right? One o’clock? I’ve got to call the airlines.”

  “Do what?”

  “Call about a flight. I’ve got to get home. Gotta get back to work at that damned paper.”

  Harry switched on the TV behind him. “Not today.”

  “I’m afraid so.”

  “But it’s the weekend.” He was reaching for any straw in the wind.

  “Jesus!”

  “That’s right. Jesus, Easter, Easter Parade. We do all that this time of year.”

  “No, no, look at that! I can’t believe it.”

  Harry turned around. No, he couldn’t believe she’d go home just like that. They’d only gotten started. He stared blankly at the picture on the TV screen. Then slowly the images began to make sense. Or not.

  That looked like Maynard Dupree in a white linen suit with a pale blue shirt and a gold watch chain, every inch the Southern politician, yelling “Up, up and awaaaay!”

  Up stepped a woman, a redhead, could that be Chéri? It was Chéri in a tight white dress, or what there was of it was tight and white. She was cutting the last tether with a pair of silver scissors, and off flew Jimbo in his green-and-white striped lawn chair. The gray weather balloons bobbed like crazy. Jimbo let loose a rebel yell. The lawn chair soared out over the lake, headed out to the Gulf and the wild blue yonder.

  “Who’s that?” Sam asked, putting her finger on the screen.

  “Holy shit, that’s Joey! The one with his arm around Chéri?”

  “And those little kids?”

>   “Must be Maynard’s. Yep, that’s Maynard’s wife, all right.”

  “Is that fat blonde with the screaming baby who I think it is?”

  Harry squinted at the screen. “You bet. That’s old Teri. Just one big happy family. Good God!”

  Sam had seen enough. She stood, slipped on Harry’s shirt, stepped out onto the balcony, and inspected the cloudless blue sky. “It’s a beautiful day. A great day for flying.” Then she turned. “Too bad about the Lees, though, isn’t it? No happy endings for them.”

  Harry threw an arm around her waist. “I think Madeline will get in touch with Zoe. Things’ll get better.”

  “I hope so.”

  “Don’t you think you ought to stick around for at least a couple more days? Say good-bye to all of them? To Ma Elise? Stay at least through the weekend?”

  “Go to Easter services at Sister Nadine’s?” She gave him a kiss on the cheek. “Think she’ll preach, her son in jail?”

  “Prob’ly. Boy’s gonna need a lot of praying. And you could hang out a little longer with Kitty. Roll some eggs around the lawn.”

  Sam rumpled his curls, gave him a little push back through the balcony door, back toward the bed.

  He gave her a wink, punched on a Preservation Hall tape. Allan Jaffe’s tuba burped “Saints.”

  He took her hands, pressed them to his chest. He had lots of curls there too.

  “After a while we can go on over to Galatoire’s, grab some late lunch,” he said. “Maybe see if Lavert and G.T. want to join us.”

  “Thought lunch was supposed to be before.”

  “Darlin’, don’t you know order don’t make no never mind, not about some things. Not when you’re having a good time.” He was waltzing her toward the bed, whistling the opening bars of “Lay, Lady, Lay.”