by Amy Metz
“How long you lived here, Tess?” Honey asked.
“About five months,” Tess said. “I guess that makes me the newbie in town.”
As the last of the dogs passed and the crowd lining the sidewalks started to disperse, Gus Crowley, the owner of the town’s gas station, came by. “Bet I can whoop your butt at horseshoes, Jack.”
“I’ll take that bet and add a game of cornhole to the wager, too,” Jack boasted. “Come on, y’all, be my good luck charms, and come watch me kick Crowley’s behind.”
They strolled through the town green taking everything in. There were pumpkins everywhere—short ones, tall ones, fat ones, skinny ones, big ones up on rocks. Most had been turned into jack-o’-lanterns, some had not.
Tables set up on the town green were loaded with food—barbecue, turtle soup, pork chop sandwiches, potato salad, green beans, corn pudding, zucchini bread, pumpkin bread, apple cobbler, and ice cream. Smoke billowed from a grill, sending the smell of bratwursts into the air, along with that of the fried apple pies bubbling in deep fryers, and apple butter simmering in big cast-iron kettles. It was nothing short of a feast, just as the decorations of pumpkins, cornstalks, and colorful leaves were a feast for the eyes.
By seven o’clock, the festivities were in full swing. Butterbean kept bumping into people with her taco shell costume every time she turned around. She and Maddy Mack wanted to enter the pumpkin carving contest and visit the face-painting table, so they begged off watching the cornhole and horseshoe contests, and Jack and Tess went on without them.
After they carved a tall pumpkin into a scary jack-o’-lantern and a big fat pumpkin into a silly jack-o’-lantern for the contest, the girls had bright orange pumpkins painted on their cheeks.
Next, Maddy Mack and Butterbean wanted to ride in the hay wagon. As they walked toward the tractor, they found Louetta, dressed as a nurse, and Ima Jean, dressed as a doctor.
“Aunt Imy! Look at you!” Martha Maye held out her arms. “And Mama—y’all look great!”
“I’m not a doctor, but I play one on TV,” Ima Jean said.
“Want to take a hayride?” Butterbean asked them.
“Well sure, hon, that sounds like fun.” Lou grabbed her granddaughter’s hand.
“Martha Maye, y’all go on ahead. I’ll catch up to you,” Honey said, disappearing into the crowd. “I have to see a man about a horse.” She waggled her eyebrows.
Lou leaned into Martha Maye. “She maybe has to see a man, but I’d bet a day’s pay it ain’t about no horse.”
With Lou and Ima Jean in tow, the girls and Martha Maye again headed toward the hay wagon, but this time Lenny stopped them. “Carrie Lou!” Lenny, a few meters away, yelled. “Come say hello to your daddy.”
She turned to look at him and nearly knocked over Mrs. Schottenstein’s four-year-old daughter.
Like a baseball catcher, Lenny squatted, his arms outstretched for a hug.
Butterbean looked up at her mother, unsure of what to do. Martha Maye reassured her. “Go ahead, Bean. I’ll be right here.” She kissed the top of her daughter’s head.
Butterbean nervously looked from her mother to her father to Lou, to Ima Jean, and back to her father. Then she slowly walked toward Lenny, scuffing her feet in the grass with her head down, like she was heading to the gallows.
“How about a nice Hawaiian Punch?” Ima Jean yelled at Lenny, her fist held high in the air.
“Shhh now, none of that, Imy.” Lou patted her arm, pulling her hand down. “Come on, Bean doesn’t need an audience. I can’t stand to watch anyhow.” The two moved on.
As Martha Maye stood by, arms crossed defiantly and eyes shooting daggers at Lenny, Johnny appeared at her side. “She’ll be all right. I’ve got my people all around here. He tries anything funny and he’ll get nabbed before he can say ‘kerfuffle.’“
Martha Maye smiled up at him. “What the heck is a kerfuffle?”
He looked down at her with a serious expression. “A commotion or a fuss.”
“Hey, Clutterfield, I thought I told you to leave my wife alone!” Lenny hustled past his daughter and stopped a few feet away from Johnny and Martha Maye.
“And I told you to stay away from this woman, Mr. Applewhite.” Johnny stabbed his finger in the air at Lenny.
“I don’t have to stay away from her. I’m married to her.”
“Oh, I beg to differ, sir.” Johnny clenched and unclenched his fists at his side. “As you well know, she took a restraining order out on you the other day. I just happen to have a copy of it, in case you lost the first one.” Johnny took an envelope from his pocket and handed it to Lenny. “Do you need help reading it?”
“You, you—oh, never mind.” Lenny fisted his hands, throwing them at his side in exasperation and turning away.
“No, no, no. You’ve opened this can, let’s eat it all,” Johnny said, stepping in front of him.
“She’s literally still a married wo-man.” Lenny pointed from Martha Maye to Johnny. “Your fraternacizing with her will not look good when the judge decides custody.”
Butterbean and Maddy Mack huddled together, looking shocked and scared. Everyone around them had stopped talking and turned to listen to the heated exchange. Lou and Ima Jean had backtracked and returned to the scene when they heard the raised voices. Lou tried to get her granddaughter to come with her, but Butterbean stood stock-still.
“Lenny, the word is fraternizing, and our relationship is purely platonic. You should know Martha Maye is too much of a lady to do anything untoward like you’re suggesting. Too bad I can’t say the same about you.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Lenny clenched his jaw.
“For one, it means you have a reputation around town as a womanizer.”
“Humph” was all Lenny could muster.
“And it means we will have no shortage of people to testify to said womanization.”
To Johnny, Martha Maye mouthed, “Womanization?”
Johnny swiped his hand over his mouth as if out of frustration, but Martha Maye saw a hint of a smile before his hand covered his mouth. He looked at Lenny and continued. “And three, if you have anything to do with the mayhem that’s been going on around here, I’m going to find out about it and nail your butt to the tree. We’ll see how the judge likes you then, you hooligan.” He said the word with distaste.
“I’ma get you for this, mister,” Lenny hissed, his eyes narrowed, his chin jutted out.
“Not if I get you first.” Johnny stood his ground with his legs apart and his arms folded in front of him.
“We will continue this conversation at another time,” Lenny yelled over his shoulder, stomping away.
“How about when you’re not loaded up on loudmouth soup,” Johnny hollered after him.
“I ain’t drunk.” Lenny turned back around to protest.
“You should finish your sentence,” Johnny said to Lenny, who glared at him.
“Huh?”
“You mean you ain’t drunk– yet. But you’re well on your way.”
“This ain’t over,” Lenny said, his face scrunched up in anger. “Remember, I’m watching you.” He motioned with two fingers from Johnny to himself as he’d done in Johnny’s office, then looked at his daughter. “Carrie, I’ll see you later, darling.”
Johnny muttered, “In a pig’s eye. Pun intended.” He looked around and waved his hand. “Sorry for the interruption, folks.”
Martha Maye went to hug her daughter and Johnny followed.
“Now, miss, and missy, would you care to accompany me on a hayride?” Johnny offered both arms, and they each took one, with Maddy Mack linking arms with Butterbean and Lou and Ima Jean following.
“Johnny, I wish you hadn’t done that,” Martha Maye whispered, clearly embarrassed by all of the eyes on her.
“I’m sorry, Martha Maye.” He put his hand against her back. “The man just makes my blood boil, and he doesn’t have the right to talk to you, let alone try to tell you who
you can and can’t talk to.” He smiled as he watched Lenny stomp toward the beer wagon. “I’m just trying to set parameters and uphold the law. Sorry if I got carried away.”
“Don’t try to teach a pig to sing. It wastes your time and it annoys the pig. That’s my motto.” She looked up at him, trying to smile.
“Good advice, Martha Maye.” Johnny helped the girls and the ladies climb up on the hay wagon, then he climbed on and squeezed in next to Martha Maye, sitting so close their thighs touched. Butterbean had to sit in front of her mother on the wagon floor since her taco costume was so wide. Hay stuck to her brown tights.
Dusk had turned to evening, and the little white lights strung in the trees on the town square year-round glimmered. Jack-o’-lanterns glowed, and with the twinkling lights, glowing pumpkins, the hazy beauty of dusk, and the feel of Johnny’s leg against hers, Martha Maye felt her annoyance at the confrontation lift.
She looked at the crowd as the wagon circled the town green. She saw Mayor Buck dressed as Colonel Sanders. There were three people dressed as Elvis, and someone dressed as a gorilla chased someone in a banana costume.
“Look at Mark Twain and Minnie Pearl,” she said, pointing out Pickle and Charlotte.
“I thought Pickle would be a pickle,” Maddy Mack said as the wagon rolled and bumped along, jostling the passengers.
Ima Jean broke out in song. “Hold the pickle, hold the lettuce, special orders don’t upset us, all we ask is that you let us serve you your way.”
“Now I’m hungry for a Whopper,” Lou muttered.
Fifteen minutes later, the hay wagon came to a stop, and as people disembarked brushing the hay from their behinds, the group decided to head for the food tables.
After they ate, Martha Maye and Johnny went to watch the bratwurst-eating contest while the rest of the group listened to the Bluegrass band and Butterbean and Maddy Mack danced. When Martha Maye and Johnny rejoined them, they enlisted everyone to go to the wife-carrying contest.
“It will begin directly. Jack and Tess entered, even though they aren’t married yet,” Martha Maye explained.
“Oh, I wanna watch!”
“Me, too.”
“How was the bratwurst-eating contest?” Lou asked her daughter.
“It’s too bad all y’all missed it. It was great.”
“Who won?”
“Slick, but Tommy Thompson filed an inquiry. Said Slick cooked the bratwurst, so it was rigged. Just ‘cause Slick made ‘em, doesn’t mean he cheated does it?”
“Oh, look!” Butterbean jumped up and down. “Here come the first contestants.” She took a hard look and then tugged on Lou’s arm. “What’s that sand pit for?”
“Most wife-carrying contests have a water obstacle, but it’s too chilly to run through water, so they’re substituting a sand pit obstacle. They have to run through it,” Louetta explained, combing her hands through her granddaughter’s hair.
“Oh my gosh!” Maddy Mack screeched.
“What? What?” Lou and Ima Jean said together.
Everybody looked to where Maddy Mack pointed. They saw Honey being carried to the starting line fireman-style by the chief of the fire department, Pete Lallouette.
“What’s she doing with Lolly?” Butterbean wondered out loud.
“Looks like she did have to talk to a man,” Lou observed. “About being a horse.”
Everyone looked blankly at Lou.
“She’s riding Lolly like a horse—get it?”
“Ohhh,” came the collective response.
The race was run two couples at a time. They watched while Lolly ran, carrying Honey fireman style, through the first obstacle—the balloon course. The men had to step on and break ten balloons before they could advance to the next task. Then they had to wade through the sand pit, maneuver over a log hurdle, and finally navigate a rock garden that contained every size of rock from pebbles to bowling-ball-sized stones, all while holding their “wife.”
Lolly and Honey competed against Molly Ann and Stanley, a married couple who looked to be in their late thirties. Even though Honey and Lolly just met and hadn’t worked out a rhythm, they were more fit and beat the other couple by several seconds.
“Look, here come Jack and Tess. Good golly, how’d she get in that position?”
They watched Jack and Tess approach the starting line next to a couple who looked to be quite a bit older. Tess’s front was against Jack’s back. Her arms were wrapped around his waist, and he held onto her legs, which were around his neck.
“I know why she chose that technique,” Honey said, joining them. She rearranged the long black wig on her head. She was out of costume now, but said she’d decided to keep the wig on because her real hair was hot, sweaty, and mashed to her head.
“Why?” Lou asked.
“So she could get up close and personal to Jack’s butt. Shoot. I shoulda thought of that.”
“There’s always next year,” Lou said.
The older couple had trouble from the start; the wife fell off halfway through the rock garden.
Honey, eating popcorn and watching the race as if she were at a movie theatre, leaned toward Lou. “She never shoulda used the piggyback technique. That’s the worst one.”
Jack and Tess received congratulations from the group, and they watched Pickle’s mother and father race another couple. Then they called for all participants to line up for the last heat: the race—the wife-carrying sprint.
“C’mon, Jack, let’s go,” Tess said, pulling on his arm.
“Good Lord, woman. You’re gonna kill me before we even have a chance to get married.” But Jack acquiesced, smiling, despite his protests.
After the sprint—which Lolly and Honey won—Jack and Tess rejoined the group. Everyone sat at a picnic table eating apple hand pies until they were ready to pop.
Johnny’s phone went off, and he answered it with, “Chief Butterfield.” He put one finger in his ear, turned away from the group slightly, and listened for several beats. “Affirmative. Call for backup. Whoever’s closest to the diner.”
Johnny turned to Martha Maye. “Duty calls. There’s been a theft at the diner. I gotta go.”
“You’re not going over there by yourself, are you?” Martha Maye grabbed his arm.
“No, I asked for an assist. Don’t worry. I’ll be back in two shakes of a rat’s tail.” He waved and disappeared into the crowd.
Louetta put her arm around her daughter. “Now, don’t you worry the least little bit, sugar britches. Johnny knows what he’s doing.”
Martha Maye had had enough. There was too much stress: Lenny, her secret admirer, Aunt Imy’s mental state, Johnny’s occupation. She felt like the world was caving in on her. She needed a few minutes alone.
“Mama, can you watch the girls for a bit? I just need to run home right quick and use the little girl’s room.”
Lou rubbed her daughter’s back and said, “Sure, sure, darlin’. You gwon. We’ll be fine. Take your time, but honey, why don’t you go to my house? It’s closer.”
Martha Maye walked to her mother’s house thinking about Lenny. He worried her. She wondered what he would do next. It was completely dark now, except for the occasional pools of light coming from the street lamps. As the sounds of the Oktoberfest faded behind her, she heard a dog barking and the hoot of an owl. She’d never felt nervous to be out by herself in Goose Pimple Junction, but she had a bad feeling tonight. Maybe her apprehension was just a result of the confrontation with Lenny. She hugged her arms to her chest and hurried on.
A blind mule ain’t afraid of darkness.
~Southern Proverb
Martha Maye walked into the house and headed straight to the half bath on the first floor. As soon as she closed the door, she knew she had a problem.
Oh, for Pete’s sake. She lifted her heavy dress a few inches and then let it drop.
What would Scarlett do? She lifted it again. What did Scarlett do?
She hadn’t thought about how
she was going to go to the bathroom wearing a hoop skirt under frilly layers. The bone hoops in the slip prevented her from lifting it and the dress high enough, and even if she could manage to raise the slip, she had many layers of petticoat underneath. What would she do with them? She needed someone to lift it up and place the skirt over the back of the tank. She didn’t think she could do that by herself. And how was she going to get her underwear off?
“Oh, Mammy, where are you when I need you?”
She tried to reach under the frilly layers of the dress, the hoop slip, and the petticoat. After stumbling around the small bathroom a few times like she was on a rocky ship in rough water, she managed to get her underwear down.
Staring at the toilet for a bit, she lifted all of the layers as high as she could. Facing the toilet, she walked forward and tried to straddle it, sitting on it backward. As she got halfway down, the skirt came up in her face, and she knew her hair and makeup would be ruined if she sat all the way down. She stood.
Priorities.
There was only one thing to do. She’d have to take off the dress and hoop slip, pee, and then put everything back on. Or maybe I should go home and change clothes altogether.
When Velveeta Witherspoon’s cruiser turned onto Marigold Lane, her headlights swept over Skeeter Duke standing on a front lawn, waving his arms over his head. He ran toward her car as she approached the house. She rolled to a stop, lowered the passenger side window, and called out to him.
“Hey, Duke, whatcha—”
“Velveeta!” He pointed to a dark spot in the yard. “I think there’s a dead body in Martha Maye’s front yard. Call it in.”
Velveeta didn’t waste any time. “Dispatch, this is unit six. Got a 10-54 at 115 Marigold Lane. Over.” The adrenaline was pumping, and she was itching to get out of the car and take a look at the body.
Bernadette responded right away, but hesitantly. “Uh, we don’t use numbers, Officer. What’s a 10-54?”
“It’s a possible dead body,” Velveeta said impatiently.
“Possible? Is it or isn’t it?”
Velveeta turned toward Skeeter, who now stood over the lump on the lawn. She hollered, “Do we have confirmation of a fatality?”
