Tim was standing on the sidelines now, behind the benches where the second-string team sat waiting for a chance to go on the field. Tommy was standing beside him, and Tim was pointing with his good arm to something on the field. The offensive and defensive teams, dressed in their dirty white practice jerseys, were lined up ready to go. Tommy was listening intensely to Tim, but the poor thing would never be half the player Tim was, and he knew it. Everybody did. I felt like starting him in the first game was too much pressure to put on a fifteen-year-old. Tim was his age when he started first string, but Tommy just wasn’t built for it. He was built more like Old Man Sullivan, shorter, stockier, closer to the ground, without the tight lean body that the other Sullivan boys, especially Tim, had. Would have been better on defense, probably. But I guess Coach figured the way Tommy idolized Tim that he’d try extra hard, and maybe some of Tim’s talent would rub off on him. Oh, Lord, Lord, I thought, in kind of a prayer. Maybe things will work out different for Tommy!
Instead of going up into the bleachers where other folks sat watching the practice, I sat by myself down near the bottom, hoping Tim would eventually see me and realize I was there for him, knowing how it must pain him to be here again. I settled down on the hot concrete, which had soaked in a day’s worth of sun, and tried to relax. It was hard to do with the memories that came over me whenever I set foot inside this stadium, though.
It was like just yesterday instead of two long years ago now when me and Tim was in school and out here on this same field, every time there was a game. I could picture so clearly the band standing up before the game began, in their snappy blue-and-white uniforms, and everyone in the stands would slowly get to their feet too, always before the announcer came over the intercom to ask everyone to stand. First one of the local preachers would open with a prayer, usually a long-winded one, and then the band would strike up “The Star-Spangled Banner.” I would raise my baton in salute, signaling all the other majorettes to do the same, and we’d stand in a contorted stance pointing toward the flag as a Boy Scout slowly raised it high on the flagpole till the breeze caught it and bannered it out above us. That was when Tim and I always managed to make eye contact somehow. Even though the majorettes and the football team were supposed to have their eyes only on the flag, we’d always manage it.
It gave me such a thrill, too, that Tim chose me even after he got so famous. He could’ve had anybody he wanted at that time with girls from all over struggling just to catch a glimpse of him. But he stayed faithful to me, his childhood sweetheart. That’s what that reporter from Birmingham who did the feature story on Tim called me, and folks began to tease me about it. But that’s what I’d always been, since first grade. Oh, there were others for both of us ever now and then—we’d break up occasionally, usually after I’d flung some kind of jealous fit—but we’d always end up back together. Though I had some flirtations, I have never loved anyone in my life but Tim Sullivan. I don’t believe that he’s ever loved anyone like he loves me, either. No one.
I watched practice for a few minutes as Tommy snapped on his helmet and ran in. He seemed to be doing pretty good. He couldn’t throw worth a hoot, but we had a good running back this year, Cedric Washington, whose brother Derrick had been a teammate of Tim’s and was now having a great career with the Georgia Bulldogs. If Tommy could get the ball to Cedric and the offensive line held strong, we ought to have a decent season.
After watching practice a bit, seeing Tim so engrossed with Tommy, calling out encouragement to him and also talking with some of the other players, I relaxed and began to look around the stands.
There was a right good many people here tonight, scattered around sitting in little groups. Most of them were the players’ parents or relatives or some of the men teachers from the high school, as well as the regulars.
The regulars increased each year, former players who’d spend their late summer evenings out here at the football stadium, reliving past glories. Afterwards they’d go home to their farms or house trailers or young families. Most of them worked in Columbus, as store clerks or salesmen or mechanics, or else at the Goodyear plant in Tuscaloosa. A few, like Tim, found some kind of work in Zion County, but those jobs got scarcer every year.
I spotted J. D. Hendricks, sitting with his daddy and little boy. He worked with his daddy at the hardware store now, after being out of work since graduation. There wasn’t too many jobs like that available—truth is, his daddy had to give him some of his hours or he wouldn’t have been hired. Most of the others who managed to find work locally worked at the sawmill, like Tim. Lumber was the only industry in Zion County. A few folks farmed, raising cows and pigs or operating chicken coops, but you couldn’t make much of a living on a family farm anymore. Daddy had been one of the last farmers around here to try, and we eventually lost the farm, putting him in an early grave my senior year.
Sitting a couple of bleachers up from J. D. and his family was Candi Elmore, who’d been a majorette with me. We used to be pretty good friends, but I hardly ever saw her anymore. She had a real good job working for the probate judge over at the courthouse in Mt. Zion. Though to tell you the truth, you couldn’t pay me enough to work there. Everybody knows that the courthouse is haunted, a ghost appearing in the window every time it storms. It’s even written up in the Alabama history books.
I looked back to the field. Tim was talking to Coach Mills now. Lord, had Coach put on the weight this summer! He used to be a fairly good-looking man. Or at least Cat thought so, saying she was partial to big rugged rednecks. But he was sure getting a beer gut. If I called Cat tonight, I’d have to tell her. I smiled to myself, wondering if Tim’d ever let himself go like that when he got middle-aged. I swear I’d kill him if he did—it’d be such a shame with that gorgeous body of his. There he stood in his tight faded jeans and an old Bama tee shirt, looking better than ever, considering everything. Just looking at him standing there unnoticed, vulnerable and boyish, was all it took to make me start wanting him again.
Suddenly I could tell that someone was staring at me, and an uneasy feeling came over me. Somebody curious, no doubt, even after all this time, somebody who’d seen Tim out there for the first time and was probably watching me for my reaction. I hated that, hated people’s sick fascination with other folks’ misery. I looked over my shoulder quickly, up into the stands, at the little groups of folks sitting around watching the practice. Candi and some of the others smiled and waved at me, and I waved back. Must have been my imagination, me being so jumpy today after all I’d been through.
But as I turned back toward the field, where Tim was now talking with Tommy, I felt it again. Someone in the stands, just slightly out of the corner of my eye, over my left shoulder, was staring at me. I wouldn’t look, wouldn’t give them the satisfaction of seeing my discomfort, of letting them know how much I hated them staring. I folded my arms firmly and looked straight ahead.
No use. I could feel it, feel those eyes boring into the back of my head with an intensity I couldn’t stand. Unable to stop myself, I turned around slowly to face whoever it was.
Oh my God in heaven—Taylor Dupree! I swear, it was him sitting all the way on the top bleacher, staring at me like that. For a moment our eyes locked, and then he looked away, back to the field. Jesus Christ! What was he doing back here? Here, of all places! Why in God’s name was he back in Clarksville?
I just couldn’t help myself. I was so completely astonished to see Taylor Dupree sitting there that I couldn’t think straight. Before I realized what I’d done, I picked up my purse, got to my feet, and started walking out. I got out of that stadium as fast as I could move. I saw Tim turn and I think I heard him call my name, but I didn’t wait around to be sure. I hurried out of the stadium, hurried to the car as fast as my legs would carry me.
I opened the car door and got in quickly. It was still hot in the car, stifling, unbearable hot. I rolled my window down but I was trembling so bad that I couldn’t possibly drive home.
I forced myself to look back into the stadium and make sure it was Taylor that I’d seen, before I freaked out over nothing. I’d parked at an angle where I could see right in the front gate, past the place where I’d been sitting. Slowly I allowed my eyes to travel back up the bleachers, tracing where I’d sat to where I saw him. And sure enough, there he was. No question about it. Taylor Dupree, sitting up there just as big as you please, looking like he had as much business here as anyone. I absolutely could not believe what I was seeing. How could he? How could he dare show himself around here again?
Since he was too far away to tell that I was looking at him, I was able to get a real good look at Mr. Taylor Dupree. I swear, he had not changed a bit in two years’ time! Still beautiful, just completely, breathtakingly beautiful. Not the same kind of looks that Tim has—all-American, the reporters called him—but exotic, movie-star looks, not like anyone in these parts. Everyone says his mama is a beautiful woman—I’ve never seen her myself—but Taylor must look like his daddy instead, because he don’t look a thing like the rest of the Clarks. He always wore his hair different from the other guys around here, but now it was longer than ever, almost to his shoulders. I’d always admired his hair because of its unusual color—a rich chestnut brown, with glints of red and gold, going so good with his dark Cajun complexion and eyes.
Oh, I knew those eyes so well. How he used them to look down his elegant nose at everybody in Clarksville and in Zion County! And his voice, so snooty and cultured, was not countrified like the rest of us hicks—how he used it to put down everybody, saying the most hateful things, always laughing at us. I swear I hated his guts! Everybody did, everybody but Tim, who’s too good a person to hate anybody. And Cat, who could never hate anyone who looked like Taylor. She almost screwed his head off as soon as she discovered boys, becoming so totally wrapped up in him that they were inseparable until she left town for good.
I knew what Taylor and Cat saw in each other, but never will understand why he took up with Tim. Taylor sneered at football and everything else in this hick town, most of all good old country boys like Tim. But for some godforsaken reason no one could understand, Tim and Taylor became best friends their first year of high school. Taylor had no friends at all until then, then he and Tim became thick as thieves, Taylor idolizing Tim, following him around like a lost puppy. I reckon Tim was flattered or something, Taylor being a Clark, even if he was the black sheep of the family. It never made sense to me; Tim could have been buddies with anyone else, but no. He seemed just about as taken with Taylor. Cat told me once it was because they were so opposite, that each found something in the other that they lacked, or some such crap. For whatever reason, I knew all along no good would come of it, even that something terrible would happen, and I was right. But now, why was he back? I never, ever wanted to see him again and I felt sure that Tim didn’t either.
Still shaking, I cranked up the car. God, what a day, and now Taylor Dupree back. I hoped to God that Tim didn’t see him! I pulled out of the parking lot and hurried home as fast as I could.
Almost an hour later, after I’d fixed supper and left it to warm in the oven, I began to feel somewhat better, not so jittery and unnerved by the events of the day. I even felt hungry now that I saw the fish fried up so brown and crispy. Tim would be home any minute now, and we’d both enjoy sitting together in the kitchen and eating our supper in peace like we did every night, just glad to be alive and together and have a place of our own. I set the table with some of Aunt Essie’s good ever-day china, thinking it would be nice after such a hard day. Part of the reason I was more relaxed was that I recalled a conversation I’d had earlier in the day with Ellis, as I cut her hair. I hadn’t paid that much attention to her prattle at the time, we’d talked of so many things, but now remembering it put a different light on things.
Ellis told me that Taylor’s aunt, Della Clark Dean, was not doing well, which would explain why Taylor was back in Clarksville. She said Mr. Harris Clark wanted to close up Miss Della’s house and put her in a nursing home in Tuscaloosa. Miss Della was getting real old, on into her eighties. So, it stood to reason that Taylor would come back from that fancy college in New Orleans and see about his Aunt Della. She was the one to raise him instead of that sorry mother of his, Charlotte Clark. No one had seen her in ages; she hadn’t even come to Taylor’s graduation.
I’d heard all my life how Charlotte ran off and left her little boy and that Cajun husband of hers, ran off to Europe with some rich old man, leaving Taylor all alone when he was just a baby. Mr. Harris Clark had to drive to New Orleans to get him.
People say that Taylor’s daddy was not any better, that he left too, out west somewheres, and never contacted his son again. So you could almost feel sorry for Taylor Dupree if he wasn’t such a shit.
When I finished in the kitchen there was nothing to do but wait for Tim, so I went to the front porch to do so, since it was hot as hell inside and still light outside.
I was immediately glad that I did. It was a little cooler outside now, and the night noises were soft and soothing. I sat on the porch swing and began to swing real slow, back and forth, back and forth. All of Aunt Essie’s flowers, and the yard was full of them, needed watering, but I was too tired right now. I just wanted to sit and swing and not think, not think about Taylor or Miss Maudie or anything.
Next door, I saw the Methodist preacher drive up to his neat brick parsonage with the white shutters and white picket fence. It was hard to imagine Cat being raised in that prim little house. ’Course I lived out on the farm with Daddy then, not next door, but I visited Aunt Essie a lot and spent a lot of time over there with Cat. I always knew something was wrong, knew that I hated to go there, but didn’t know what it was then. Now I’m more able to look back and see what an awfully sick family they were, see the poison that finally destroyed them.
The new preacher’s family who moved in afterwards, Brother and Mrs. Junkin, were a dignified older couple, just the two of them. Brother Junkin got along well with all the Methodists in town, going around visiting and praying and generally conducting himself like a preacher should. His wife, Florence, did her own hair, even with my shop right next door. Bless her heart, it looked it, too. I could get out that purple tinge if she’d let me try.
The Junkins are a real nice couple, well-liked by everyone, not a thing like Cat’s crazy parents. It’s no wonder Cat turned out the way she did, her daddy was such a tight-ass. Her mama was nothing but a nervous wreck, crying all the time, finally ended up unable to function, to even go outside her own house. Really, it was pitiful. Cat’s daddy used to beat the holy hell out of both of them. Nobody in town knew it but Aunt Essie and me, though. Some people in town actually liked Brother Jordan, thinking he was a real man of God and feeling sorry for him being burdened with such an unsuitable wife and daughter. Aunt Essie never could figure out how such a holy-roller got into the Methodist church, since they tend to be picky about their preachers and even make them go to preachers’ college. Somehow, Brother Jordan slipped through the cracks, because he was more like the Holiness preacher, carrying on all the time about hell-fire and damnation and the sins of the flesh. The Methodists tolerated him for a few years but finally decided they were too dignified for such carryings-on. They persuaded their bishop to move him to some country church up in north Alabama. Cat was long gone by then, though. It was there, in that little country church away from everybody, that Cat’s mama had her nervous breakdown and set the house on fire. She and Brother Jordan, neither one could get out in time. Poor Cat. Such a life she’d had! I missed her so bad and was going to call her tonight. It had been too long, way too long, since I’d talked to her.
Tim drove up just as I was about to wonder what on earth had happened to him. As soon as he parked his truck and got out, I could tell by the look on his face that everything went well at football practice. He must have been pleased with Tommy’s performance.
I watched him carefully as he left the truck
and started toward me. When he was contented and not too tired, his limp was not all that noticeable. I was sure of one thing—he couldn’t have seen Taylor. Thank God for that!
Just as Tim almost reached the front steps, here came that Wanda Wooten from her tacky house across the street. I swear it’s embarrassing to have such rednecks living there—it’s just a plain ranch-style brick house, but soon as the Wootens bought it, Wanda actually put all her flower beds in old tires and painted them white. As if that weren’t tacky enough, she lined the walkway with Clorox bottles, painted them white, and put pink petunias in them, to match her shutters. Like they say, you can take a girl out of the country but you can’t take the country out of her—Wanda was raised so far out in the sticks the sun rose a day late.
She waved briefly at me but headed right toward Tim, stopping him before he could go any farther. I wondered what it was she wanted this time. I couldn’t hear her, she was speaking to him so soft, almost like she didn’t want me to overhear. Every single time her husband was on the road, she was over here wanting Tim to do something around the house for her, playing like she was so helpless and couldn’t do anything by herself, big old farm girl like her. I know of course what she really wants with him, but Tim’s too damn good for his own good, so of course that would never occur to him. Instead he lets her drag him over there and he spends hours fixing her washing machine or TV or stopped-up sink or something. Her kids are plenty big enough to do stuff like that. But what can you expect? Wanda was an Andrews before she married Billy Mack Wooten. Daddy always said there was three kinds of people in Zion County—whites, blacks, and Andrewses.
Making Waves Page 3
