Twilight of the Drifter

by Shelly Frome

  After notifying LuAnn he’d be late, Josh kept going over this new information as he carried out the last leg of his delivery route down to Water Valley, at stops along the main drag of 278 and all the way over to the edge of the Delta at Batesville. All the while he went through the motions, dropping the boxes of liquor off, seeing to the invoices, being polite but dispensing with any small talk.

  At the end of his run in Batesville, just before heading back to Oxford with the empty box truck, he peered out across the bridge looping over and down to the alluvial flats. In his mind’s eye he saw that it stretched beyond the little Tallahatchie, past Dewey’s first ordeal with the yellow bus, all the way west to Parchman Farm and whatever befell him there. Circling back, there was the fire bombing of Dewey’s shotgun shack clear over in Ripley to the north and east in Benton County; and then up the line a-ways to Memphis; and then to the man of today whose life was made doubly sorrowful by another run-in with the past at the hands of Darryl Purdy. All told, the linchpin seemed to be some unfinished business hovering around the hill country close to Ashland.

  . . .

  Unable to spend any time with LuAnn due to the bustle at The Bottletree, Josh went up to check on Alice. On top of everything else, he found her rushing back to the dining table, covering up a pile of sketches like a grade-school child who didn’t want anyone to peek. For good measure, she flipped the whole pile over.

  “Man, you are just like Eddie. Can’t give a person a lick of privacy.”

  “Who?”

  “Eddie. The redheaded kid. The busboy. Pretended to go about his business wiping off the table but I caught him. Out of the corner of his eye, glued to my drawings before he snapped his head back so hard he twanged his neck.”

  “I see. So you’re much happier up here.”

  “Was much happier till you showed up.”

  “Ah.” Josh couldn’t help noticing the discarded doodles on the floor of what looked like a road map topped by something on stilts. But out of concern over getting her worked up again, he simply asked, “How’s your shoulder?”

  “Not bad, if you must know.”

  He also noticed her left arm was still in a sling but she didn’t seem to be coddling it as much. The cell phone he’d given her was as close at hand as ever.

  Pulling up a chair but keeping his distance, Josh prodded her a bit further. “Then may I assume you’re doodling, passing the time and not intent on trying anything foolish?”

  “‘Assume, intent’? Will you get off it? What do you want? What are you getting at?”

  “I want to know if I can get in the truck and return it to the warehouse without worrying that you’re about to go off half-cocked again. I want to know what’s in back of that mind of yours.”

  “What gives you that idea?”

  “Oh, I don’t know. Here you are, doodling like crazy, either hiding or tossing the results and using up all the computer paper.”

  Pulling out another sheet and grabbing a yellow and red crayon, Alice said, “LuAnn said I can have all I wanted.” Snickering at him, she added, “Like I said, you and that kid Eddie are two of a kind.”

  “I am serious, dammit.”

  Drawing a rectangle, Alice said, “You cursed. You don’t curse. The ground rules are you talk easy ‘cause teddy bears and Good Samaritans, no matter how stressed, stay nice and cool.”

  “Okay, Alice, let’s put it this way. That swap notion of yours. That way of coming up with a lot of coin that was going to fix everything. Tell me it’s on the back burner. So far back I can at least spend the rest of this day without giving it a second thought.”

  She grabbed a brown crayon and put a border around the yellow rectangle and stared at it long and hard.

  “Oh screw it!” she said, springing out of her chair. “That’s right, I let out a swear. But I got a right, man. At the rate I’m going, I’ll let out some doozies, go through another ream of paper and wear these crayons down to the nub before I even start to get anywheres. Might as well watch the stupid soaps and game shows for all the good I’m doing.”

  “You sure about that? You sure you have no plans I don’t know about?”

  “What does it look like? I am stuck in a freakin’ rut.”

  “Good. Because I’m going to try to work something out so that everything just plain stops.”

  “Like I say, like I keep telling you, it’s not up to you, Jack.”

  “Fine, whatever. In the meantime, you will stay put till I get back.”

  “Great. One more time and we’ll dance to it. Now will you pretty please get out?”

  Josh left her there crumpling up pieces of paper into a ball and flinging them around the room. It wasn’t a good feeling seeing her this frustrated. Yet again, it was the only guarantee he was likely to get that she was going nowhere today.

  Back at the warehouse it was a repeat of the old familiar scene. Only this time it wasn’t Bud and Travis playing keep-away with the truck keys. This time the prize was Josh’s paycheck. And to make it even more irritating, Billy barged in from the recesses of the storage bay and joined the melee: Bud and gap-toothed Travis on the loading platform directly above to Josh’s right, Uncle Billy’s grizzled face peering down to his left, while Josh stood his ground waiting them out. .

  Holding forth as the self-appointment spokesman, Travis went on. “So let’s add it all up, shall we, bro? We got flaky Darryl barging in here and Billy’s Blues Joint causing all kinds of static and woe. Including Dewey’s sore eye whilst chasing after some dude named Bubba plus the juvie you dragged in. Then we got an ice-cold redneck checking up on you and the damage done. Probably the same stoner on the phone as Bud and I were cadging some gumbo that sent Dewey behind the poles with a bottle of gin and juice. Where, it seems, he’s still slumped over. And we ain’t even gonna mention where you spent the night with the lame excuse about a cracked distributor cap.”

  “Yeah,” said Bud, pensively rubbing a thumb across his lips, “plus what’s with that newspaper gig and a complete change of outfit? How does that figure in? It don’t, like they say, compute.”

  “Well,” said Josh, “it’s nice to know you two have been keeping track and come up with such a succinct summary. It must have taken you all of five minutes.”

  “That’ll do,” Billy said, grabbing the envelope out of Travis’ hands. “Let me make it even clearer. You want the rest of your wages while discounting the fact you brought us a little tramp who started it all. Dragged her in, took off and let her infect my whole operation.”

  “If that’s the way you see it.”

  “That’s the way it went down. So what are you goddamn gonna do about it?”

  “I don’t know, what can I say? I’m looking into it.”

  “He’s looking into it,” said Travis, nudging Bud. “Well I got news. On this holiday season we’re settling for nothing less than tidings of comfort and joy. Which means, and what Billy here is trying to say is—”

  Billy cut Travis off with a dirty look and broke in with, “I ain’t trying, I am goddamn saying it. Any way you look at it, you brought us a virus and you are going to see to it that it’s quarantined and removed.”

  Seemingly out of nowhere, Billy produced a packet of road maps and waved it over his head.

  “I don’t care if you have to tie her up and dump her in a detention center. Or cart her back to Carbondale and fling her into her trailer-trash momma’s arms. Whatever. Then you’re gonna inform Darryl and whoever the hell’s been phoning that she’s been eradicated and the smoke has cleared.”

  Billy held out a palm, grinned when Bud and Travis slapped it, hopped off the edge of the platform and began leading Josh down the alley. After handing over the packet of maps and shoving the envelope containing Josh’s pay inside the pocket of his leather vest, Billy pulled out his wallet. He peeled off some twenties and fifties and told Josh to rent a car from a nearby lot and do whatever it takes to restore things to normal. He assumed the money would cover t
he labor and parts to repair the truck and a two-day rental of some clunker with good gas mileage. Once Josh got Alice permanently out of their hair, Billy would square things. Best case scenario, Josh would get it done before the regulars started traipsing in tomorrow night. But even if it took till the following day, say some time on Saturday, they both knew it had to come to an end and Josh’s drifting days were done.

  All the while, Josh didn’t bother to contradict him. It had been a long time since Billy was able to come across as a take-charge guy. At this critical juncture, when all appeared to be going to pieces, Billy needed this badly and Josh let him have it. Nor did Josh offer the least resistance when Billy gave him the money for the bogus repairs and a rental. It was the price Billy would have to pay for holding out on him again, being so simpleminded and selling Alice short. Besides, Josh needed a car and was more than happy to cut any further dealings with his uncle and pair of flunkies.

  Still pleased as punch with his handling of the situation, Billy left Josh on the sidewalk with a hearty, “Put a lid on it, kid. That’s all we ask.”

  And then, turning and calling back to him, “For the record. In all your travels, how many true-blue highwaymen and easy riders you run into?”

  Josh had no answer for him.

  “You’re goddamn right. Nada, zero, zilch!”

  Hurrying along, Josh covered the few blocks to the Ugly Duckling lot within minutes. The only thing the grease-covered owner had that would remotely fit the bill was a Chevette with a 5-speed manual he’d just tuned-up. It also came equipped with heavy duty shock absorbers which Josh assumed would come in handy if he should find himself tooling around the Mississippi outback again. Though it had been years since GM was cranking out this model, Josh took a chance. He didn’t have the time or the patience to look further; this sub-compact reject would have to do.

  He got behind the wheel and contemplated his next move. But the more he thought about it, the more glaring the holes in this jumbled mess became. And by now it was clearly apparent it didn’t start with Alice. It started way before with Dewey.

  27.

  Ella brushed past Josh over to Dewey’s slumped-over form and gathered the empty Mason jars off the table. She shook Dewey a few times, glanced up to the ceiling and then back at Josh. “I tell you, you’re wasting your time, pal. Even if I cut the wires and let the Fender Stratocasters come crashing down on his head. Even if I plugged them into the speakers and strummed in his ear, the man is too far gone to notice. So get off it, will you? Go find something better to do.”

  But Josh stuck it out. He watched Ella shuffle back through the café poles to the bar and deposit the Mason jars. Patiently, he waited till she resumed her calls to the vendors. This time it was an order for ice, lemon and lime slices, olives and juices as she continued to assume it would be business as usual when they reopened for the weekend.

  Giving it one last shot, Josh lifted Dewey’s head off his arms and managed to get him propped up on his elbows.

  “Now what you want to do that for?” Dewey muttered, his wrinkled face resting on his blotchy hands, his bloodshot eyes barely open. “And what you goin’ on about anyways?”

  Yet again, he told Dewey if he could understand what this was all about, he’d do his best to see to it that something was done.

  “Understand? See to it?” Dewey said as if talking in his sleep. “What kinda fool notion is that?”

  As Dewey barely managed to squint at him, Josh told him he was going at it the only way he knew. “You keep digging, knocking on doors, listening till you got it down. Then you handed it over. If you bug them enough, your findings are bound to prod the authorities to act.”

  Realizing that Dewey hadn’t heard a word of it, he raised his voice and argued that as long as everything kept holding still, he would run the upshot by Chief Deputy Clay Tucker.

  “Hold still?” Dewey said, squinting even harder, still somewhere between waking and dreaming.

  “Yes. From what I understand, Sonny Drew has Darryl on ice and—”

  “Have mercy. Sonny Drew, that little peckerwood?”

  “He’s a deputy.”

  “Hell you say. Little skinny Sonny Drew puttin’ Darryl on ice . . . you goin’ hat in hand to Clay Tucker . . . might as well ask the haints to give up the ghost.”

  Now that he’d finally gotten Dewey’s attention, Josh picked up on it. The only problem was, he had to yell to keep Dewey from nodding off again.

  “Okay, Dewey, now we’re getting somewhere. Haints, you once told me, are a combo of haunts and ain’t—what’s stalking you but ain’t actually there. What’s haunting you that Darryl and this cold-voice guy are so worried about?”

  “That does it,” said Ella scuffling back over to them and sticking her head between the poles. “Are you going to cut this out? In case you haven’t noticed, I am actually working.”

  As Ella retreated back to the bar, Dewey began babbling again. “Stone cold voice gotta be a haint . . . brother Otis warned me, you know . . . mustn’t be too lively. . . But a live wire can’t help himself . . . can’t help what’s burnin’ inside . . . Why couldn’t he understand that? Why could he never understand?”

  “Listen to me, Dewey. I’m telling you, I can look into it.”

  “You gonna look into nothin’. You gonna steer clear like I told you.”

  “But what if I could resolve it, once and for all?”

  “Oh yeah,” Dewey said, his eyes shut tight. “Like you ain’t done enough damage. Like Johnny Reb’s gonna sit still. Like they ever gonna leave me alone.”

  Josh tried his damnedest to get Dewey back on track and got nowhere.

  “Otis laid it on me good, know what I’m sayin’? When that empty rockin’ chair starts rockin’ . . . when there’s no way you gonna live it down . . .”

  Slumping on his arms again, cradling his head, Dewey began to sing himself to sleep. “Gonna pack my suitcase, make my getaway . . . ‘cause I got trouble in mind, trouble every day . . .”

  Josh asked about Johnny Reb and the cold few-words-guy. He asked what Otis knew and where he could find him. He asked about Bubba.

  He finally gave up.

  He went over to the edge of the bar. As Ella began to order kegs of beer, making sure supplies of the local favorites would be on tap, he interrupted her. Giving her no chance to get back on the line, he started pumping her about what Dewey might have said before he lost it on gin and juice. What phone message set him off? What spooked him so much that even the prospect of Darryl under wraps didn’t help?

  Giving him one of her world-weary looks, Ella said, “Who knows? Who cares?”

  Moving in on her, pressing hard, Josh said, “You don’t mean that. You need him sober, at least sober enough to function. Otherwise all your phone orders amount to zip.”

  “He’ll come out of it,” Ella said, resorting to her old ploy of wiping shot glasses that were perfectly dry.

  “Come on, Ella, get serious.””

  “Listen, you, with me it’s in one ear and out the other. Billy’s stories that change every time. Barflies that chew my ear off. You see this?” Ella put down the dish cloth, grabbed an egg timer from under the bar and waved it in Josh’s face. “Painted lady used to come in here night after night. Whined about her lost love, her one true love and her messed-up dreams. Over and over, always the same—her lost love, her one true love and her messed-up dreams. I got so sick of it, I got this egg timer and announced my new policy. Three minute limit and no repeats. Otherwise there’s a hefty surcharge for every second over. Haven’t seen her since.”

  Grabbing the egg timer out of her hand, Josh said, “Okay, fine. Don’t talk to me. Give me a line on Otis. Where can I find him?”

  Replacing the timer, Ella said, “Hey, haven’t we had enough? I mean, what is your problem?”

  “Alice can’t remember, Dewey doesn’t want to remember and if somebody doesn’t fill me in before—”

  “Before what?”

>   “I don’t know. That’s the whole problem.”

  “Great, whatever--anything. You want a line on brother Otis, you got it. By the time you get a hold of him, by the time you finally ditch bad-news Alice, by the time you get it all out of your system, we will have had us a damn good laugh.”

  Ella tossed off what little information she had so fast, Josh barely caught the gist before she was back on the phone. It seems Dewey’s half-brother was a random lay preacher somewhere west of Batesville on the Delta flats. Well past a tributary of the Little Tallahatchie but far short of Clarksdale. Dewey and he hadn’t been in touch except for an occasional Christmas card. The churches Otis served were called Mount Zion something or other, New Jerusalem and another bunch of names Ella couldn’t possibly remember.

  To get back at him, Ella cupped her hand over the receiver as Josh made for the door. She asked who he was really shacking up with in case his mom called again and wanted an update.

  Brushing her off, Josh hurried down the street toward the river and the parked car. The sky was sealed this time in a low-hanging herringbone pattern, the damp chill ratcheting up another notch. Reaching the rust-flecked Chevette, he flipped open the trunk, unzipped the overnight bag he’d retrieved from Billy’s closet, and exchanged the wool blazer for one of his old crewneck sweaters and a lined windbreaker. As an afterthought, he retrieved the blues harp as well and was about to slam the trunk when he caught the diesel whine of a freight as it spanned the Mississippi and rolled west. With it, Dewey’s lament came to mind: “‘Gonna pack my suitcase, make my getaway. ‘Cause I got trouble in mind, trouble every day.’”

  Josh fought it off, got back behind the wheel, fired-up the engine and soon managed to get onto Interstate 78 heading back toward Oxford. Buffeted by the 18-wheel rigs passing him right and left, he veered onto the slow lane realizing there was no way the little Chevy was going to hold its own on this main drag. Giving in, he exited onto Route 7 South into the diminishing afternoon light.