by Lisa Howorth
A man came and stood in the living room window and looked out at her standing down on the street. She wondered what the people living in the house were like. Could be anybody now: a gay couple, a single father with kids, a group of graduate students, an unmarried lawyer couple. Thirty years earlier, with the exception of Mr. Tuttle and Big Nana next door who were widowers, Cherry Glen Lane had been a street of traditional families, most with children. Her mother had heard that after Stevie was killed and the murderer was never caught and signs pointed to Ned Tuttle living right on their street, other families had moved away, too. The man in the window continued to stare at her and she realized that she probably looked suspicious carrying luggage and staring back. Maybe the fear still lingered in the neighborhood? Probably Stevie’s death had become folklore: a lurid cautionary tale that still kept families with kids from buying homes in the neighborhood, and those that did always a little on-guard. If there were any kids around, they talked about a little boy’s ghost, or maybe dared each other to run up and ring the Tuttles’ doorbell, like Jem in To Kill a Mockingbird. That’s what she and Nick and Stevie would have done, like they used to do to Big Nana. Big Nana surely died years ago. Or had he? He’d seemed old then but was probably in his fifties. They must have made his life miserable.
Mary Byrd moved off toward the shopping center and Doc’s, where she could call a cab. The guy in the window had lightish, crew-cut hair. Like Stevie’s. Stevie, had he lived, would be about that guy’s age, forty or fifty. Or about Pop’s age when he’d died. Weird. Life was just fucking weird.
She moved on, circling back to Patterson and continuing past the Horseshoe Apartments, where the scary poor people lived. Big, reeking garbage bins had stood in the parking lot in front of, not behind, the apartments, with broken glass strewn across the pavement. The few residents who took the Times-Dispatch in those days often wouldn’t—or couldn’t—pay Nick when he tried to collect on his paper route, and sometimes they yelled, so their mom had gone with him when he did his collecting. Police cars were often breaking up fights and parties. Kids didn’t need to be told to stay away from the Horseshoe and loved to imagine the things that went on there. When Stevie died, that was one of the first rumors, of course: someone in the Horseshoe did it, although they were no doubt as terrified as anybody about the murder. In reality, the ’Shoe was just an enclave of poor young whites, many of them transient construction workers in from West Virginia and little Virginia hill and piedmont and tidewater towns, always working on their cars, raising hell on payday, and trying to get by. As far as Mary Byrd could see, not much had changed in the ’Shoe except the garbage bins were gone, replaced by Dumpsters; some trees had been planted; and some of the people she saw in the darkening winter light looked Hispanic.
At the Libbie Shopping Center, Doc’s was Doc’s no longer, but a chain store, and the fountain with its cool granite counter was gone, she was sad but not surprised to see. So was the comic book rack; and the magazine rack, which before had held only the Times-Dispatch and a few things like Life, True Confessions, and Mad, now was a brilliant grandstand of slick publications. For ten cents—the price of a Baby Ruth and a cherry Coke in a paper cone, kids had been able to waste an entire afternoon reading comics, depending on who was working the counter. Sal would let you read the comics without buying them, but Estelle and Lloyd wouldn’t. She loved Archie and Betty and Veronica because they were about teenagers and love and had fashion pages, although the clothes were tacky. She preferred girly reality to the Justice League comics that Nick loved. Stevie loved them, too, but he wasn’t allowed to cross the big streets to Doc’s. Sometimes she looked at Soldier of Fortune, poring over stories about torture in World War Two prison camps. The Japs had put a glass tube in a guy’s penis and smashed it. Another had a story with “real” photographs of Fidel Castro zipping up after raping somebody. She hadn’t been sure what constituted rape, but she’d had bad dreams about it after. For the amount of change she was now having to put in the pay phone she could have had a week’s worth of comic books, Cokes, and candy bars. She tried calling Charles first to tell him she’d made it, but there was no answer.
Leaning against the pharmacy’s front door, Mary Byrd waited for a cab and tried to pinpoint what she was feeling, as she might examine her arms and legs for cuts and bruises after a fall. She didn’t know what she’d expected to feel. Probably exactly what she was feeling: a dull, sweet sorrow, and a sharp desire to hit rewind and stave off what had happened. She wouldn’t have gone parking with her boyfriend. She would have gotten Nick and Stevie to help her make a Mother’s Day cake so that Stevie wouldn’t have wandered off. He loved projects, and cake. She could have taken him and Nick to the old Westhampton Theater to see the Sunday matinee of The Sound of Music. The boys hadn’t been allowed to go alone and they’d been dying to see it again because the evil Nazis looked like tools. But what had happened had happened. Randomness seemed to be the only order to the universe. If they’d made a cake they might have blown up the kitchen, or they might have gotten run over going to the movie. The only thing to be done now was to offer her two cents in the hope that it might keep what had happened to her family from happening to someone else’s. And it had happened to her entire family. Each one of them had been molested and some part of them killed off, or maimed for life. If it hadn’t happened, they’d all be different people. She heaved a big sigh, startling a woman leaving the pharmacy. “Sorry. Excuse me,” Mary Byrd said. The woman didn’t speak. Okay. She was through. She’d had her little scab-picking tour and she would now face everybody’s most real reality: mom.
Eight
Charles rummaged in the refrigerator, which was dead from the storm, looking for something to feed the children, disregarding the Tupperware tub of chili marked eat me. It was probably something old. Hadn’t they had chili a week ago? There were hot dogs, but he only saw hamburger buns. He knew Mary Byrd had told him what to have, but he’d forgotten. Oh well. He could put perishable stuff in a cooler outside. There were seven boxes of macaroni and cheese on the pantry shelf, so he knew they wouldn’t starve. Plenty of OJ and milk and cereal, plenty of cat food and dog food, of course. She’d never let the animals go without. Luckily there were some jugs of water; the water and toilets had quit just after the electricity. The phone had been last to go. At least they had the gas. It would be a boring Saturday night with no TV, no ESPN.
He wondered how Mary Byrd was doing. Riding in Mann’s semi seemed so batty, but it was true that she wouldn’t have gotten out of the Memphis airport if she’d tried to fly; everything was shut down. Worrying about her was pointless; she was going to do what she needed to do. This mess with her family was so awful, he felt a little bad that she was having to do it by herself. But even if he could have taken her, his being around her mother and brothers would only have made things weirder. There might be fighting, and yelling, and if he tried to intervene, somehow he’d get blamed for intervening. Mary Byrd could take care of herself, though, and she was tough, something he credited himself with helping her be.
He’d learned that if he let her lean on him in situations about which he could do nothing, she’d lean too much and not figure out how to deal with things herself. But he knew that she knew he was going to be there, no matter what craziness came down the road. He didn’t want to be her damned father, though.
Hearing activity in the kitchen, the cats came around and rubbed against his legs. Irene said, “Ow?”
“Oh yeah, now you guys love me, right?” The cats paid little attention to him unless Mary Byrd was gone. As he was trying to put some cat kibble into their bowls, Iggy bumped his big fat head against Charles’s hand, scattering kibble across the floor. “Iggy, you big dumbass,” he said. He didn’t pick the stuff up; whatever the cats didn’t eat the dogs would take care of.
The dogs. How could they be walked with all the ice and deadly branches crashing down? He saw William’s neon green Ninja Turtle bike helmet hanging on a peg by the ki
tchen door. He put on his overcoat and the helmet, took down the leashes, and whistled loudly. The Pounder and Puppy Sal trotted in hopefully, looking sideways at the munching cats and spilled kibble.
To the dogs he said, “Forget about it, you two. Y’all can clean up when we get back. I just fed you an hour ago, remember?”
Charles hooked them to their leashes and the three of them went out the door, stopping to take in the icy scene, their breaths three white clouds in the dark cold. It was part winter wonderland, part tornado aftermath, and the man and dogs, recognizing an unusual adventure, went forth in wary excitement.
“Okay, dudes, let’s have some fun!” Charles hoped that he wouldn’t slip and bust his ass. He wished William and Eliza were with him, it was all so amazing, but taking them out in the storm would probably be reckless endangerment or something. Mary Byrd would think so. He had a shitload of work to do, but the light table wouldn’t be working to view Wiggs’ photos, and anyway, he wanted to spend some time with the children. He wished he hadn’t let William sleep over with Other William; they’d better be playing board games like they said, and not be out in this shit. When he got back from walking the dogs, if he got back and wasn’t clobbered by a falling limb, he’d get Eliza to play some Scrabble if she was still awake. They hadn’t played in a long time, since the time Eliza had spelled “yoni” and he’d challenged her, only to be horrified when he looked up the word and saw the definition. That was the problem with kids today; they knew too much. Where, oh where, was the goddamn innocence anymore?
Ernest felt pumped up by yesterday’s call from Mary Byrd and the last of Pothus’s bottle of Maker’s, which the ladies thought they’d hidden. It was getting chillier and the day was turning bitter and threatening, even a little icy shit coming down How bad could it get? He’d seen unbelievable snow in the Dinara Planina south of Sarajevo—snow that fell in clumps for days, covering tanks, cows, houses. Snow in Mississippi was puny and accidental and didn’t last. Things never got covered over; you could always still see the ugly kudzu tangles underneath, like piles of chicken bones. But now the early night sky had turned that ominous steely gray he remembered in Bosnia—low and solid and not looking like there was going to be any breaking up to it.
A little weather sure as hell wouldn’t have bothered Kalashnikov, who’d lived in Siberia and then worked in some wasteland at the munitions plant, not giving a fuck about the cold and lack of attractive gash as long as he could jink with his guns. Ernest pictured him in his tiny, immaculate dacha, cheesecloth spread out on a table where dozens of oily steel pieces lay scattered like watch parts, or jewelry. Kalashnikov would work at the guns into the night with the wind and the wolves trying to out-howl each other outside his door in the vast taiga, or the steppes, or whatever. In the morning he would gather up a few parts, tying them up in an old babushka, and take them to the factory, where he’d fool with them some more. He would mess with them until he got it right, honing and tooling until the gun became a perfect little piece of clockwork, an artifact of impeccable craftsmanship and satisfying—thrilling—to hold and behold. This was just the way Ernest intended to write his novel, refining each little detail until the whole worked flawlessly. It would be the AK-47 of novels. He would get to work on it seriously again after the weekend. Anyway he’d better get his ass on the road.
Ernest gathered up the things he would need for the night. It was a birthday party at Janky Jill’s, black tie, but would they be lame enough to cancel it for a little weather? Surely not. The Lords of Chevron were lined up, and even though all they did was R&B and rockabilly covers, they must have cost somebody some money. It had to be happening. He was out of here. He had had no fun, zero, in weeks, unless you counted the night at the boats in Greenville, where he’d lost a wad and glimpsed his father.
Maybe Mary Byrd had already left for Virginia, and he wondered how. The Teever idea was just nuts. He was encouraged by her call; she wouldn’t have made it if she weren’t still interested, right? She could put that shit in Virginia off for a day or two. Crime always waited.
Ernest threw his tux and batwing of Tanqueray into his MG and stowed his overcoat, hunting boots, and gun in the trunk. He carefully tucked a folded-up Dixie Crystal sugar packet in the glove box. A little toot for the ride back. Backing down the long, rutted dirt drive he stopped to throw back a little white pill. “Godshpeed,” he said, chewing. He was off.
The roads were fine and there was no precipitation until he hit Highway 7. Ernest could feel but not see that there was a little ice. The MG was so low to the ground that he could sense the road slipping away beneath him, tire treads unengaged. At one point he fishtailed, sending him into a cheek-stinging adrenaline rush and a lower gear. The little car righted itself and Ernest patted the dashboard. “Good girl,” he said, and plugged in a Stones tape. The Stones; you could always count on them to supply intestinal fortitude and a surge of confidence. God bless Mick and Keith, although sometimes Ernest had a nagging fear that they had gone soft on him. He didn’t mind all the models—that was good—but all those kids, the health food and tennis and tans, the repaired teeth; what was going on with those guys? Ernest had missed out on the early days; Brian Jones, the incredible drugs and parties; he was just about being born when Marianne Faithfull had done the candy bar thing. He had read about it. Now that would have been a party.
The light, Ernest noticed, had gotten really strange, like tornado weather, but that was a good month off. The clouds in the lights of the highway seemed so low, like they were barely clearing the trees. Sleet was coming down in hard little lines, and few cars were on the road, almost none from the opposite direction. Here and there a car had run off into a ditch, or had pulled over. Still, it was just a little glaze—nothing so unusual. Southerners just did not know how to drive on ice. They would try to brake, and they would turn against a skid. Sorry bastards. He was glad his country-boy driving skills were so superior. He took another pull of Tanqueray.
By the time he reached Coffeeville, the dex had kicked in good, which made it hard to deal with the fact that he was creeping along, doing maybe forty, forty-five. What was this shit? The trees sparkled even in the low light, their branches drooping. The surface of the road had a high and alarming sheen to it now, as if it were coated with Vaseline. Ernest lit a cigarette and fast-forwarded to “Memo from Turner.”
Didn’t I see you down in San Antone on a hot and dusty night?
You were eatin’ eggs in Sammy’s when the black man there drew his knife
Inspired by Ry Cooder’s thrilling slide and Mick’s lip-curling snarl, he sucked on the Tanqueray again. Mother’s milk. He would probably arrive in time to shoot a few at Purvis’s Tables with his bud, Boudleaux. Maybe.
Ernest took the exit at a crawl. For the last half hour he hadn’t seen a soul on the road. The freezing rain was falling thickly and noisily now, and trees were burdened with ice, branches bending to the ground. Wires sagged. What the fuck?
He decided that first he would go to Boudleaux’s where he could change and leave the MG. Boudleaux would know whether or not the party was still on. From there he could walk to Jill’s. Clearly there would be no driving anywhere tonight. He could crash with Boudleaux in the unlikely event that he did not get lucky. Or he could get a room at the Ole South Motel, where all the doors had hearts painted on them, and room 14 had the Black Romeo circular bed with lights and mirrors. But that was a waste of cash if he didn’t score.
Upstairs, in Boudleaux’s little apartment overlooking the town square, Ernest hung the tux on a door and flopped down on a crusty plaid sofa. He brushed away some Sonic foot-long wrappers and a puckered nub of hot dog bounced out and rolled along the floor. He pulled on his gin.
His friend Bryant Boudleaux was a faux Cajun. While still in his tender adolescence he had left his unbearably white middle-class Rochester home to work on the rigs off the Louisiana Coast. Taking advantage of his Frenchy last name, he had managed to pass as a local and to pick
up some useful skills. A great singer, he had learned to play a wicked squeeze box from some criminal and learned to cook from a three-hundred-pound woman who he only occasionally had to service in exchange for meat and groceries. She had been a wonder with seafood, from catching it to having her way with it in the kitchen. Boudleaux had felt like just another crustacean in her hands, soft and peeled and defenseless, waiting to be plunged alive into a boiling pot of pungent Zatarain’s.
The Tanqueray was about a third gone and, wanting to conserve his gin, he switched to the beer in the fridge. “Ah, PBR,” he said, gulping. “Piss, But Refreshing.” He shook his head.
Boudleaux came in with a sack. “Hey, man,” he said. “Why don’t you have a beer?” He began unloading batteries, candles, and more beer.
“All they had at Family Dollar were these red Liberace candles.” He carried two beers to the window and opened it. On the outside ledge was a narrow painter’s trough for spinning beers. A beer could be spun to icy perfection in ninety-six seconds.
