Twilight of the Drifter

by Shelly Frome

  As he approached the Oxford Square, he told himself the only sensible recourse was to intercept Virgil. In that way, playing catch-up, Josh would know exactly where he was going, how to get there and what to expect.

  Checking his watch, Josh figured Virgil would have long since folded his long-handled squeegee and gotten out of his beige jumpsuit after finishing up with the likes of Neilson’s Department Store, the Downtown Grill and Square Books. Given his daily pattern, Virgil would be capping off his day with a quick bite of red beans and rice and a cold one on draft at the Ajax Diner. Which meant Josh had less than ten minutes to park and drop in on him before he was gone.

  True, Josh would have to fend off more good-natured teasing, but if anybody could give him a fix on Otis Brown, he was the one. The very man who, according to himself, knew anything worth knowing about goings-on past and present from Taylor on through the dusty sections carved out of the alluvial floodplain. Surely Virgil could make a call or two and provide Josh with an exact location so that Josh could track Otis down. While the lull was still holding, that is. Even though Dewey was right and Josh knew full well whatever was out there was sure as hell not just holding still.

  As predicted, with daylight dwindling fast, Josh spotted Virgil behind his usual table in the corner under the metal roofing, neatly folding his napkin and placing it just so on the black & white checkerboard table cloth. Before he could drain the last dregs of his frosty stein of lager, Josh sat down opposite him, not caring if he appeared anxious or drew attention from the scattering of customers across the room. After discounting Virgil’s quizzical look and ordering him another round, Josh whipped out a notepad and wasted no time in asking for a bead on Otis Brown.

  At first, Virgil sloughed him off, glanced at Josh’s outfit, laughed out loud and told him there was no chance he could pass as a Delta field hand. And besides, planting season was far off and the days of cotton pickers and plantation owners were long gone. It was high time Josh spent some time at Square Books like Virgil said, and at least read more up-to-date books on the South.

  Declining to play along, Josh told him Dewey Charles had been shaken up. He was too scared to reveal what it was all about but intimated that his estranged half-brother preacher Otis was in on it. Which figured from the old newspaper accounts from back in the days.

  Still smiling while he sipped his frothy gift pint, Virgil thought back about Dewey and the old recordings Virgil often listened to. He recalled how he’d pulled Josh’s leg about ever getting enough mileage to be a bluesman or even thinking about walking in Dewey’s shoes. Pulling Josh’s leg some more, Virgil asked if this wasn’t some way to get a smidge of the Delta and run-ins with the devil to rub off. And that’s what Josh was really trying to catch up with.

  When Virgil saw that Josh was dead serious and in no mood, he started rubbing his hands and slowly began to muse about what he might have heard about Preacher Otis’ present whereabouts. Getting stuck in his recollections, Virgil said he could make a few calls to some long lost cousins who were regular churchgoers and not at all like him.

  It took another ten minutes for Virgil to return from using the house phone in the back after riffling through the directory. But luckily he did come up with some answers.

  It seems, Otis Brown was semi-retired and had been relegated to standby. But mostly he hung around his Pond General Store which carried a few staples and gave him an opportunity to share a lifetime’s worth of cautionary tales. Which, for most folks around those parts, was a problem because they only wanted a few tins, butter and greens and such. But nine times out of ten Otis would be waiting for them first thing, insisting he needed to practice and keep his hand in while he took their order. So, Virgil advised, breaking back into his customary teasing mode, Josh would have the problem of convincing Otis he had some real business there while making Otis feel he still had what it takes. While, at the same time, sashaying around the early-bird ladies.

  “You sure you can handle all that?” Virgil said, joshing him some more. “Not being from around those parts or even the South and sticking out like a big white sore thumb?”

  “I will keep a low profile. I’ve been practicing.”

  “Uh-huh. And all the time doin’ a tap dance around those folks bound to be eyeing you, wondering what in the world you was doin’ down this old dirt road?”

  “There’s no problem here, Virgil.”

  “Maybe. But let’s us hold on for a minute.” Virgil dabbed a few spots of foam that had dripped onto the tablecloth. He repositioned his napkin and glanced up at the reflections glinting off the metal ceiling as if they held some key to the future. “If you was maybe more than somebody out of work with lots of free time on your hands. If you was maybe somebody Preacher Otis might could respect a little so’s he’d want to talk to you.”

  Winging it, Josh confided that he wasn’t kidding yesterday. He was now actually playing both ends against the middle: looking into the backward glance backlash for Hunter Cobb and trying to put Dewey out of his misery.

  Virgil thought it over some more, flashed another of his every-ready beaming smiles and said, “So long as you don’t get too serious on me. Can’t have none of that and get through a day.”

  “I hear you.”

  “Well, all right then.”

  Taking his time, Virgil gave Josh directions which Josh carefully jotted down. Virgil then scribbled the phone number of the Ajax diner on Josh’s pad and asked for an update on Dewey. It seems Virgil had lost track of what had become of him these past years and really wanted to know. Josh agreed, thanked him for his help and ordered and paid for another frosty pint of lager.

  He left Virgil in a nostalgic mood, asking Josh to tell Dewey that “his blues got me through the times when I had trouble bein’ me. You know, the smiley one who done the best he could with what he had. But those blues of his cut right through the bone. And I come out of it feelin’ fine.”

  Josh gave Virgil a high sign and walked out into the glare of the street lights. He retrieved the car, parked down the alley next to The Bottletree and caught up with LuAnn and Alice up in the apartment in time for late supper leftovers.

  On the surface, they spent the next few hours like a trio that had always been together. Dishes were washed and dried; Alice constantly switched channels after commenting how even the new shows on primetime TV were awful “with all those airhead wanna-be pop stars, a cheesy machine that wants to take over the planet, horny teens everywhere you look, and homicide hospitals.”

  LuAnn eventually got sleepy and snuggled-up next to Josh on the couch while Alice turned the volume down. A short time later, unable to keep her eyes open, Alice shut the TV off, said her offhand goodnights while muttering something that sounded like, “I don’t know how much more of this I can take” and got ready for bed.

  Josh had no idea what she meant by that, hoping she meant the shows on TV but sensing she meant something entirely different. Deflecting, Josh and LuAnn exchanged a little banter about larks and night owls and whether sleep patterns were a reliable gauge of compatibility.

  Underneath it all, it was readily apparent all three knew they had been pushing their luck and things were about to unravel. All the while, Alice had slipped off her sling, intermittently rubbed her shoulder with Sports-cream and, every chance she got, sneaked a peek at her cell phone at the new-message icon. Josh had been preoccupied with thoughts of inducing Otis Brown into supplying him with the missing narrative while checking every furtive move Alice made, including more doodling when she assumed no one was looking.

  After dropping the sleep pattern banter which was taking them nowhere and calling it a night, LuAnn lingered by her bedroom door and asked Josh what his immediate plans were. All he would tell her was that, among other things, he was thinking of looking into the backstory of a bluesman’s life and other matters he’d come across that might tie in with Hunter Cobb’s political probes. “Who knows?” he said. “Something might click as a stepping sto
ne back into the newspaper trade.”

  The look on her face told him she wondered what he was really up to. That she feared what was in store but had no way of stopping it. But she let it go and tenuously bade him good night.

  An hour later, still wide awake, wondering how much slack they would give him before they began to close in, he went to the front window and peered through the blinds. It didn’t take long before the low beams of a buff-colored Wrangler flicked on and the jeep eased away, past the last of the carefree diners stepping out of the City Grocery into the quiet of the night.

  28.

  This day was doubtless Josh’s last chance. He knew it the second he woke up as surely as he knew his apprehension had robbed him of some much needed sleep.

  He also knew the timing would be critical. Right after he finished shaving, there was Alice sprawled on the living room rug studying his detailed road map of Lafayette, Benton and Panola counties. When he tried to retrieve the map, Alice balked.

  “What’s the matter? Can’t a person know exactly where she’s at and where’s she’s been?”

  “Later, okay? We’ll retrace your whole journey if you like. But right now I’ve got to get going.”

  “I’ll bet. Retrace my journey, my butt. I saw all the Triple A stuff tucked in your traveling bag. I saw that eggbeater of a Chevy clunker you got parked outside. Take to the highway like always, like you did with your ex. But hey, for a footloose teddy bear you outdid yourself. And after running into whacko Darryl, who could blame you for hightailing it out of here?”

  Shrugging her off, Josh reached down again for the map but Alice wouldn’t budge. “Come on, Alice, I don’t have time for this.”

  “Obviously, man. You jump up, shower and shave and never figured I’d be up too. Never figured I might’ve heard you tell LuAnn you’re just looking into Dewey’s life story. What a crock.”

  One thing led to another until the commotion drew LuAnn out of her bedroom half-dressed.

  Pushing it even further, Alice crumpled-up the map and flung it on the dining table knocking off some of her doodling. “Oh yeah, never mind LuAnn here ‘cause she’s nice and don’t talk much. But the thing of it is, even with half a brain working, I’ve been up front. I told you soon as something clicks in, I’m gonna make it up to you. Give you some coin you can split with LuAnn and be rid of me. ‘Cause I brought it down on Dewey after you dragged me back and all the rest of it. So let’s have it. Are you cutting out on us or what?”

  “No.” Grabbing the map off the table, Josh glanced at LuAnn and then back at Alice’s scrunched up face. “Tell you what, Alice. You’ve got my bag as collateral. Will that do it for you?”

  “Oh, big whoop.”

  “Then you’ll just have to trust me. I need a few hours and I’ll be right back.”

  “Oh yeah? I heard about you and Strother, laying it on him about the odds. What are they, man? Let’s hear it.”

  He realized that LuAnn too was waiting for a straight answer, but all he could offer was, “Like I said, you’ll just have to take my word. Both of you. Okay?”

  He popped into the kitchen, poured himself a cup of coffee, wolfed down a few doughnuts, folded the road map, tucked it inside his jacket and started to leave. Turning back, seeing that neither of them had moved an inch, he said, “Come on, will you? Isn’t it hard enough? What else can I say?”

  He left, hurrying down the outside stairs with his immediate plan fixed in his mind. If he beat the morning traffic, he would make it to Otis Brown’s Pond General Store in good time. He had no appointment but, from all indications, Otis was an early riser and eager to ply anyone within earshot with lessons learned. The way Josh saw it, if he could be convincing and keep it simple, if Alice and everything else could actually hold still for a bit longer, he could get a handle on what this truly was all about. From there he had no Plan B except for figuring out the best way of putting a stop to it.

  . . .

  He eased his foot off the gas as he crossed the steel trestle bisecting the Little Tallahatchie Bridge. Now and then he’d caught a glimpse of a buff colored Wrangler in his rearview mirror. But under the roiling cloud cover, it might have also been his imagination: the phantom Jeep fading off, replaced by the cars, trucks and vans passing by him the minute he left Batesville and hit the Delta flats, all of them headed for Clarksdale some thirty miles away.

  Nevertheless, if he was being tailed by Grady Poe who was keeping close tabs on him, there was no godly reason to implicate Otis Brown. By the same token, if there was no one following him, what was the point of overloading the circuit even more?

  To put an end to this delusion, Josh pulled over, got out, walked back and peered over the concrete railing onto the narrow river meandering by the tree-lined banks with hardly a ripple.

  The roiling cloud cover continued its dance over the water. The cars sped by behind his back. No one braked sharply, nothing happened.

  He got back into the little Chevy and went on, passing miles of fallow fields of cotton and soybeans now owned by huge conglomerates. All this demarcated by white and red markers on the near side of endless dirt tracks; broken up here and there by an abandoned trailer hitch and cart lurched onto its side, a scattering of shacks with rusted tin roofs, sparse farm-supply stores, and a few windowless burned-out 1930s gas stations until he finally came upon the long-forgotten cotton-gin plant set far back over to his right.

  The dilapidated structure stretched out at least a hundred yards with its slanted bare roof leading up to a second story, topped in the center by another bare roof. At this juncture, he was supposed to turn left at the first dirt road. But he still couldn’t shake the feeling he was being followed. He turned sharply to the right, drove down a weedy gravel path to the end, turned sharply to the right again, slowed to a crawl, barely squeezed the car through a rotting shed, got out and rolled a couple of empty barrels behind the trunk to conceal it.

  He scoured around, forced open a metal door dangling loosely on its hinges, closed it and found himself inside a cavernous ginning floor. Up above was a network of belts, pulleys, piping runs and steel boxes mounted in the rafters. The piping runs were hanging down at odd angles, the mouths of the open pipes over two feet wide. Every step he took caused the bare floor boards to creak.

  About to give up on this paranoid maneuver, he went back to the sprung door. It was then that he heard a squeal of tires close by, a screech of brakes, a deep-throated motor rev up and cut off. Scouring around again, he tried the door of an office in the far corner, saw that it was locked, looked for another way out to the front of the plant which soon took him outside beneath an overhang. Standing still exposed him to the traffic whisking by out on the main drag. It also exposed him to whoever pulled in who might, at this very moment, be circling around. Looking up directly behind him, he noticed a funnel-shaped hopper connected to another wide pipe above it encased by a metal jacket linked to a huge steering wheel. The hopper itself was sitting on a crate-like stand fronted by a brace of wooden pallets with barely enough room for Josh to wedge himself in sideways. Pressing himself inside the stand, he felt even more foolish, like a kid playing hide-and-seek. But he had no idea what else to do.

  In no time, he heard the unhinged metal door fling open, footsteps on the ginning floor followed by tugging and rapping on the glass of the office door. More footsteps on the creaking ginning floor, more furtive noises closer by. He waited for the buzz cut and burly shape of Grady Poe to appear, confronting Josh, asking what in hell he was playing at.

  But the confrontation never came. There were more advancing and retreating footsteps, the deep-throated engine fired up again and the vehicle tore away. Grady Poe, if that’s who it was, had lost track of his quarry and would have to step on it to make up the distance. If true, it meant that what Josh was up to and Lamar Dean’s vested interests—be it the infidelities of his present trophy wife Hannah, his political ploys or what have you—had meshed just as Josh intimated they might and ju
st as Cobb hoped they would.

  But then again, what did either of them really have to go on?

  After killing more time hanging back, he returned to the car, circled around the shed and drove out, tooling around to make doubly sure there was no jeep or anything else laying in wait up the road apiece. Then he doubled back and took the designated dirt track past unpainted shotgun shacks, dusty yards dotted with junk cars, a collapsing farmhouse whose barn and other outbuildings had already succumbed to the encroaching kudzu, and a few pecan trees whose frail limbs supported one or two bald-tire swings. He also passed a one-room framed church with pointed windows, bleached-white columns and a cupola; serving perhaps as another of Otis’ onetime congregations.

  A stretch of ragged brush and Otis’ general store was next, with its faded Nehi Soda, Lake Celery and assorted patent medicine signs tacked onto the clapboards by the front windows. A handful of geese and ducks sloshed lazily in the shallow pond just beyond the wooden steps; a chipped yellow rocker sat prominently on the porch by the door.

  . . .

  Apart from the locale, nothing else turned out the way Josh expected. Instead of eyeing him suspiciously, a wizened old lady in a striped apron welcomed him, patted him on the back and thanked him after he helped her with her bags of groceries. Wishing him luck, she pulled her Radio Flyer little red wagon away. He found the grocery shelves well-stocked, a glass candy case by the counter was full to the brim and nostalgic black-and-white photos hung on the knotty-pine walls. Adding to the coziness, a propane-fired heater kept the chill and dampness out and the interior warm and inviting.

  Otis himself, save for his starched white shirt, black ribbon tie and black trousers, was also not at all as advertised. His hair and beard were glossy white and curly, his unlined coffee-brown features belied his age and, along with his crinkly eyes, he doubtless would just as soon play Santa Claus should the occasion arise. And instead of a low, rumbling preacher’s voice, Otis’ was hoarse and pitched on a higher register.