Chapter Fourteen
SOMETIMES I IMAGINED Roderick watching us. He’d be stretched out on a cloud or something, looking at Pepperses the way he used to lie in the grass and study lizards. He’d scrunch up his nose, slit his eyes, and freeze—just like the lizard. When a chameleon turned green, to hide from him, I half expected Roderick to change color, too. If the dead can see the living, Roderick was watching.
IT IRKED FLORIDA that Louise was worshiping a light-bulb. She’d been carrying her to church since the day she was born. Glued a ribbon to her head when she was a baby, and after that she curled her hair every Saturday night even if it was straight as a stick in the morning. Henry polished the children’s shoes and set them on a piece of newspaper by the door to dry overnight. She had her own Bible, white gloves, and a dime for the tithe. Every single Sunday. She could have stayed home if all Louise needed was a lightbulb.
“I have found a power greater than myself,” Louise told her after she’d been gotten out of the drunk tank in a wedding dress.
“His name is Jesus Christ, Son of God,” said Florida.
“Not necessarily,” said Louise. “But yes. It’s big, bigger than we can imagine, so big it can be anything. God can be Jesus or Buddha or a lightbulb, or a chair—”
“Shoot,” said Florida. “Is that what they taught you at the circus?” and they went at it.
None of those lightbulbs kept her out of jail. Arrested for drunken driving. Where had they gone wrong? Henry spoiled her. Couldn’t say no to her. She told him, but he didn’t listen. And now she was going to have to go back and serve a ninety-day sentence. Her little girl in a cage.
“I wash my hands of her,” Florida said aloud, wiping her tears. She switched on the light in her studio and strode over to the easel. For a week, the canvas had remained blank. Mary MacDermott said to look at a white canvas like a cloud. Try to see something in it. Florida looked hard. She saw a lightbulb. Who wanted to paint a lightbulb? She didn’t want to paint Jesus—that had been done so much. Everybody else was so original. She was saying Dumb, dumb, dumb to herself when the phone rang.
It was Agnes, trying to change her appointment on her. Said she had to take her granddaughter to tap dancing. Last week it was something else. That was how Agnes did—tried to see what she could get away with.
“No,” she said crisply in the receiver. “I believe I’ll find someone else to do my hair. I need to have it done by Saturday because Southern Board is giving Henry a retirement party. He’s worked for them for thirty years.”
Agnes gushed over that awhile, and then she said, “I hope Louise will be able to go. Will she still be in . . . town?” Florida knew that was coming. Blabbermouth.
“We expect so,” she said.
There was a silence. Finally, Agnes said sweetly, “Well, I didn’t know what your situation would be. Can you swing by tomorrow morning? I think I can work you in.”
“I think I’ll just have someone else do my hair. I don’t want it to go flat before Henry’s party. He’s worked for them for thirty years. It’s very important.”
“Shoot, then. Let’s keep the appointment the way we had it.”
“That would suit me better. I’m right in the middle of something, Agnes. I have to go.”
Louise would have been proud of her. You need to define your boundaries, she said. Good Lord. She’d get her fill of boundaries in jail.
She couldn’t stand to look at that empty canvas another minute, so she squeezed a tube of sienna paint onto her pallet, mixed it with soleil, and picked up a brush. Nothing happened. In her Special Art class, Helen Olfinger picked up a paintbrush like it was a fork and went to town. Those paintings were selling for a thousand dollars apiece now. Florida looked at the white space in front of her: nothing to spring off of, no boundaries. Glaring at the canvas, she remembered her daddy’s words: “You’re Brack Deleuth’s daughter; you won’t amount to nothing.”
Then Florida did something unthinkable. She hurled the pallet of paints against the wall. For a moment it stuck to the new wallpaper. Then, slowly, it slid down to the floor leaving a trail of rusty blood.
That’s when she saw the bird. Stepping closer, she looked at the giant claw: thick and ropey, covered with bumps and scales, the way it would be if you were a rabbit in its grip searing with pain as you soared over the pines. With a few dabs of her brush, she pulled out the wing.
All day, Florida painted. When Henry got home from work, he stood in the studio doorway watching her until he determined that she had lost her mind.
“How’s the artist?” he asked in a cheerful voice.
She mumbled a reply and kept working.
He watched her paint on the new wallpaper for a few more minutes; then he went into the kitchen to open a can of soup. If that was oil paint, it would not come off, but she probably knew that. It took all of his strength not to go in there right now with a damp sponge, but he had a feeling that this was it. One word and she would crack. He didn’t need a wife in the nuthouse and a daughter in jail. Not with a son in the grave. When he finished his soup, he washed the pan, his bowl, and the spoon. He put the paper napkin in the drawer because he hadn’t needed it. He glanced into the studio one more time, but she was still going at it, so he went downstairs to watch the news. After he had listened to the same report on several stations, he switched to the Weather Channel. When he was current on the wind patterns moving across all fifty states, he watched the late night news. At three o’clock in the morning, he said good night to Louise, who was doubled up like a pretzel on her bedroom floor in meditation, and checked the locks on all the doors and windows. Finally, he knocked on the studio door. When she opened it, light flooded over them.
FOR THE LIFE of him, Henry couldn’t remember his retirement speech. He looked around the civic center, which was filled to capacity with Southern Board employees and their families. Along the back wall, on a long table covered with a white cloth, sat a roasted pig with an apple in its mouth. The apple was Florida’s idea. She sat up straight in the folding chair beside him; her hair was perfect.
“You’re as nervous as a cat,” she said. “Did you forget your speech?”
“No,” he said, frowning at her.
“Most people in here are deaf anyway. Maybe it won’t matter.”
He nodded as if he hadn’t heard her and looked over at Louise. He had asked her not to close her eyes in public, but she said she couldn’t meditate with them open.
“What are you meditating on?” he’d asked when she first started.
“God.”
“Well. That’s important, but do you have to do it all the time?”
“Without ceasing,” she said.
He wouldn’t let her walk on the street for fear she’d be hit by a car. She had trouble paying attention even when she was trying. She was wearing a sleeveless linen dress, and her hair was cut in a pixie. He couldn’t imagine her in jail.
At the podium, Raymond Patch said a few words of introduction through his voice box. He’d had a laryngectomy last year, paid for in full by Southern Board insurance, but the doctors couldn’t get him to quit smoking. Briefly closing his eyes, Henry prayed that Louise wouldn’t pick up cigarettes again in jail. She’d quit smoking and drinking. Jail was no place for a lady.
Florida poked him in the arm. “Get up there. He wants to give you a present.”
Smiling, Henry walked up to the podium where he and Raymond shook hands and patted each other on the back. He was presented with a stiff new pair of overalls —“the working man’s tuxedo,” Raymond called them —an electronic mosquito zapper, an ice chest filled with venison steaks from the deer Polecat had shot that morning, and a gold watch. Then they shook hands and patted backs again, and Henry was left alone to face the crowd. He hadn’t been this nervous since his wedding. Although he strictly avoided looking at his family, he felt Florida’s presence as always, tugging at him. His awareness of Louise was different; he was pulling her. He felt the pull mo
ve back and forth, Florida to him, him to Louise, all around the gap of Roderick.
Henry’s speech was entitled “Service and Dedication.” He remembered that part clearly. “Service and Dedication,” by Henry Peppers. The rest was a blank. To calm his nerves, he tried to imagine the audience in their underwear, but this made him more uncomfortable. He drank some water from the glass on the podium. Finally, he took a deep breath and began to make something up.
“The first word I spoke was light. My first memory is watching a man hang on the square in Perrytown, Kentucky, where I was born. His head was covered with a black cloth sack. I guess I was four years old. Later on, when I was eight or nine, there was a big flood. I remember the water sloshing in my shoes as I ran down the street calling after a family stranded on the roof of their house —the house was floating down the Okawhalla River. The river rose over the banks and kept rising on the street. People were trying to run, but they kept falling in the water. It was up to my knees by then. A block of ice fell off a car and came at us like an iceberg, knocking people over. A dead chicken floated by, legs straight up in the air. I kept watching the people up on the roof of that house. The whole family was there, the mother and father and son and even the dog, waving their arms and yelling, ‘Help! Help! Help!’ The house went around the bend. By then the water was up to my chest, so I swam over to the Baptist church. My father was the preacher, and I knew how to climb up into the bell tower. You wouldn’t believe what all I saw from that bell tower. I saw horses and cows—the cows were all upside down— and fences and wheels and a lady’s parasol streaming with ribbons. I saw an uprooted tree, a bag of basketballs from the high school gym, and a baby carriage. The water just kept rising. A piano bobbed around the bend in the river. Maybe it belonged to the house. I never saw that house again.”
On the long white table, melting iced tea had reached the rim of the pitchers. Somewhere, a door slammed shut, and the apple fell out of the pig’s mouth.
“Let us pray,” said Henry. He bowed his head. Lord, we thank you for the bountiful gifts you have bestowed upon us and the nourishment we are about to receive.”
Chapter Fifteen
ON THE DAY I was to be driven back to the Wapanog County Jail, Florida brought me a basket of Oscar de la Renta soap, powder, lotion, and perfume. “I don’t know if they’ll let you keep the basket or not,” she said. “They don’t want you to have anything you could use as a weapon. That perfume has alcohol in it, so don’t drink it. They give you soap if you need it, but I expect it’s harsh. When this runs out, I’ll get you some more.”
Henry handed me a catalog: The Wapanog County Continuing Education Program. “They’ve got all kinds of courses,” he said. “Not just the basics, which of course you’ve already taken at Bridgewater. A Bridgewater graduate has the education equivalent to a sophomore in college. They’ve got some real interesting classes.” He thumbed through the pages. “Psychology, typing, computer science, and art and all that. It will all transfer to college when you enroll.” He smiled broadly. “Why, I’d like to go out there and take a course or two myself.”
“Your father wants to go to jail with you,” said Florida.
“You can even get a Ph.D. out there,” he added, “but of course you’ll just be there for three months. You’ll be done before you know it. Just do everything they tell you, and don’t associate with anyone. You’re not out there to make friends. You want a fresh start when you come out.” He patted me on the back, pressing his Masonic ring into my spine. “You can do it. I know you can. Remember who you are. You’re a Peppers.”
“The lady I got on the phone out there said she could have a sketch pad and acrylics,” said Florida. “They’re afraid you might swallow the oils.”
“You don’t want that kind of paint anyway,” said Henry, who was still working on the stains Florida had made in her studio last week. The painting was hanging in a show in Atlanta and had been written up in several papers, but they’d had to tear the wallpaper off the wall. “Even turpentine won’t get those stains off the floor.”
“They are not going to let her have turpentine, Henry!”
“That’s what I said!”
“No, you didn’t. You can start a fire with turpentine, honey.”
“I know that.” He tightened his jaw.
“Don’t fuss at me, Henry.”
“I’m not fussing.”
“Yes, you are. You’re all tensed. I can feel it.”
Sighing, Henry turned back to me. “They must have fire drills out there. Florida, make a note for me to check on the fire escape plan.”
ON THE DRIVE to jail, I sat in the back seat of the Ford Taurus letting thoughts float through my brain like balloons. If I wanted to, I could hold on to the string of a balloon and watch it for a while, or I could let it float up into the sky and disappear. I let Zane float away. The whole Arthur Reese Traveling Show floated on by except for Lollibells. For some reason, I caught the string of that balloon and held it. I wanted to tell him what had happened to me after I drove off the lot in the red truck—Lollibells always liked a really bad love story.
SO I’M DRIVING down I-85 seeing double, and I have to go to the bathroom, but I can’t get off an exit ramp because I don’t know which ramp is real. One of everything is a joke— one of the blue cars in my lane, one of the yellow lines beside me. If I get on the joke exit ramp, I’ll fall through the air. Unless I go up the joke ramp in the joke car. But there is only one of me. By the time I get this all figured out, I’m seeing triple, so I just pee in my seat.
Why didn’t you stop?
I forgot where the brake was. I tried to pass the blue cars riding three abreast in front of me, but it was too scary, so I had another beer and decided to drive through them. I studied the cars, trying to remember which one was the original, but I couldn’t tell. I could drive through the joke cars because they were made of air, but the original—then I realized that everything is made of air. What appears to be solid mass is a spin of molecules.
Atoms.
Right. Whatever. So, if I aimed right, I could drive through a car like a swarm of gnats, without hitting a single one.
You wanted to die.
Yes, it was good to die. We all had to die that day. It was time to get off the planet. I was careful not to pray, not even to say, Oh God. I had worked hard to become an atheist.
I told you about that.
I know. I’m getting to God. I ran that car off the road. That car shunned me.
Girlfriend, I hope you be under lock and key.
I sped up to the next car, and then I blacked out. When I came to, I was parked on the side of the road, surrounded by patrol cars. One of the cops rapped on my window. We looked at each other through the glass, and I knew that he loved me. I was going to marry a cop.
Might as well since you’re already dressed for it.
We’d live in a trailer. When he came home from work, I’d unbuckle his holster.
Don’t forget the handcuffs. What’s your friend’s name? Harvard girl?
Drew.
Drew St. John is appalled but secretly fascinated. Watch out!
Someone said, “Christ, it’s a bride.” Someone leaned into the front seat of the truck and said, “Phew! Get a whiff of this.” They went on all around us talking about expired tags, open containers, stolen vehicles.
And y’all didn’t pay no mind.
He touched me. He pulled my wrists behind my back. “Now I’m going to put these on real loose, so they won’t hurt,” he said. “If you act up, I’ll have to tighten them.” In the front seat of the patrol car, I slipped my wrists out of the cuffs and waved to him. He said, “Louise, what did I tell you about that?”
Father figure. Here we go.
I asked how he knew my name; he got it off my license.
Clever. Y’all stop off for a cocktail on the way to jail?
He said no. He wanted to ask me a personal question. He wanted to know if I was an alcoholic.
Did you smack his hand?
Then he wanted to know if I thought I was different from other people.
In what way?
I don’t know. I told him I was both. Different and alcoholic.
IN THE FRONT seat, Florida asked Henry if he was low on gas. “We can’t run out today. We can’t make her late. They’ll come after us. Pull over here and fill up your tank. I mean it now. Louise, are you asleep back there?”
“Yes.” Behind my closed eyelids, I watched balloons fill the sky. Everything was an illusion. A balloon, a thought, a breath. Pull it it in, let it go. In and out, in and out. I was telling Lollibells: Locked in the bathroom of the Wapanog County Jail, I banged on the steel door and screamed until a woman hollered, “Quit making that noise, you’re messing up the radio waves!” It was a small room and it kept getting smaller. No windows. No lid on the john. Nothing to kill yourself with. Nothing but walls squeezing tighter and tighter around me; the floor came up and the ceiling came down, pressing the air out of my lungs. I tried to breathe, but I couldn’t remember how. I curled into a tight ball and tried not to look at the walls. Then I knew something. God breathed for me. I didn’t have to worry about it.
“Henry, up here on your right,” said Florida. “Ninety-two cents a gallon, honey.”
You got religion? asked Lollibells, and I let his balloon go. More balloons floated past: the dark eyes of Eva, Zane’s bare throat as he leaned back to swallow the sword, Daisy’s wicked grin, Sunny. More came. Drew throwing a left in her grandmother’s pearls. Mr. Rutherford crouched in a tackle position in front of a room of seventh-graders as he introduced Shakespeare. Regina Bloodworth reading a magazine behind dark glasses. T. C. Curtis in a tired light. And more: Mrs. Gubbel on the organ, Sunday after Sunday. Mary MacDermott breaking plates. Raymond Patch wheezing into his box, another voice moving out of his throat. Daddy-Go in a tobacco field with the tall green plants high over his hat, and Grandmother Deleuth in the chicken coop pushing hens off their eggs.
The School of Beauty and Charm Page 25
