Now she is curled up on her bed, right in front of the window, the sheet pushed down below her feet. The window is open but the white ruffled curtains just hang in limp folds all around the ledge where there is a large doll made of corn husks, its hair made from silks bleached as light as Corky’s. There is a shelf above her bed with smaller dolls just like the big one, another used as a centerpiece on a table set for two with one red candle stuck in a wine bottle. Her breath rises and falls in sleep; her cotton gown clings to her back, the droplets of sweat forming at the nape of her neck. Something in the stillness causes her to jerk, pull her knees closer, shake her head quickly, softly, her lips parted in a silent cry, and then just as easily it goes and her breath falls into rhythm with the chirping of the crickets and tree frogs that fill the darkness beyond the yellow glow of the porch light, and the darkness spreads until it reaches the slight glow of the streetlight at the corner.
Granner Weeks has tossed and turned ever since she went to bed at nine-thirty, she is so excited. Now it is July 7th; it is her birthday and at seven A.M., give or take a few minutes if her Mama’s memory was correct, she will be eighty-three years old. She just wishes that she could get a little rest so that she won’t be slam wore out when her party starts mid-afternoon. It’s two o’clock now, so she only has about twelve to thirteen hours to wait. She has already gotten up once for warm milk, once for a cup of hot water so that her body will perform first thing when she gets up so that she won’t have that full uncomfortable feeling. Now she is eating a bowl of Product 19 because she has found that that seems to help the system as well. She knows she needs to get a good night’s sleep, but every year it’s this way. It’s more exciting than being a child and listening for Santa’s deer and sleigh bells. More exciting than even thinking you hear that fat man creeping out of your fireplace, like she did as a child once and she didn’t even have any kind of big Christmas like most children nowadays. She was lucky if the fat man left her some fruit and nuts and maybe some shoes and socks, and it was still exciting. Lord knows, if she had ever had a Christmas like her great-granddaughter, Petie Rose Tyner, with all those talking and wetting dolls, she would have tossed and turned all year long waiting. But now she’s old; she’s just about eighty-three and times have changed since she was a girl. People buy nice presents, or at least they got the money to. The actual niceness comes down to whether or not they got any taste about them. It’s gonna be a nice birthday this year, with lots of nice presents, Granner can feel it in her feeble bones.
Imagine, Granner Weeks, formerly Irene Turner of Flatbridge, turning eighty-three years old! She can’t stand it. It really is just like waiting for Santa Claus to come! She has baked a big coconut cake just like she does every year, and has already pulled out a big box of fireworks and her flags that she hangs out every year on her birthday. She has a North Carolina flag that she hangs in the kitchen, the American flag of 1776 that was a gift to her in the Bicentennial year that she drapes over the dining room buffet, her American flag (the modern one that includes Alaska and Hawaii) that she hangs in the entrance hall, and of course the Christian flag that she waves out of her bedroom window, but the real treasure is the great big Confederate flag that her granddaddy passed down to her. She can just see him, just hear his voice! He was sitting out on his front porch swing, with one leg of his pants just sort of hanging limp and swaying back and forth. “They took away my leg, yes sirree, but they can’t take away this flag. Wave it proud, girl. Do it right!” Granner Weeks does do it right. She always has done it right, and every July 7th she hangs that flag out on the front porch and lets it wave all day long. It makes her weep every time.
Her custom of flag-waving started way back, back when her husband Buck was still alive, back when little Kate was just a tot and had never laid her eyes on Ernie Stubbs. Back when her son, Harold Weeks, was still a nice child. She had thought it was silly to have two holidays right there together; it just made things too hard on her, having two big parties in one week. She had said to Buck, finally, after years of being pooped out on her birthday, “Let’s combine the holidays, Buck. Let’s celebrate this country’s birth with my own birth.”
“All right by me,” Buck had said, because he was a very agreeable person, unlike his son Harold Weeks. “You won’t mind gettin’ your presents three days early?”
“I ain’t thinking of changing my day,” she had said. “I was thinking it would be easier to change the country’s day, so that I’ll have three extra days to plan.”
“All right by me,” he had said and it has been that way ever since. It’s a big celebration, with the flags waving, red white and blue Uncle Sam hats, and balloons. You name it. All the family comes and Granner always likes to pause for a few minutes to think over the guest list to see if there are any additions or subtractions. Lord, that was a sad July 7th when she had to cross Buck out; every year it’s sad when she has to cross Buck out. Let’s see, she thinks, and pushes away her half-eaten bowl of Product 19. She is too nervous to eat. There’s her daughter Kate, and Kate’s husband, Ernie Stubbs, who has made quite a name for himself around here as a real estate salesman, especially since he was raised over there on Injun Street, which as far as Granner can remember has always been a rough, cheap part of town. Ernie has done so well that he built them a fine house out in the country, a house with two and a half bathrooms and four bedrooms, even though there’s just the two of them now. What’s more, he can afford to run his air-conditioner all summer long. Of course that doesn’t mean much to Granner, because she’s cool natured now that her blood has slowed, but still that’s a sign of somebody with money to burn. It bothered Granner a little when she heard that they were building themselves a house in the country, because used to people with money moved to town, just like she and Buck had done.
Her yard right here on Main Street is a far sight bigger than Kate’s and prettier, too. Ernie chopped down all of their trees to make room for that big house. Still, he’s done all right by them, built that big brick patio off of that house just so he’d have some place to put up those Tiki torches when they have a party.
“I don’t see you too much now that you’ve moved to the country,” Granner said one day.
“Not country, mother,” Kate had said. “It’s called Cape Fear Trace.” Granner just calls it “out there” because an old woman can’t be expected to remember everything. That Kate always did take it in her head that she was a notch or two better than everyone else; pitched a pure fit when she wasn’t asked to be a debutante up in Raleigh. Granner explained time and time again that Buck hadn’t come from such fine lines, though he was the best looking man in all the county. But no, all Kate wanted was to be in high cotton, and how did she get there but to marry somebody off of Injun Street! Even if he has done well, he still came off of Injun Street and all that money don’t change that, don’t change the fact that his Mama died poor as a churchmouse. Granner is happy that Kate is happy and got just what she wanted, because for the longest time she had had her doubts, due to Kate not being the best looking thing. “She’s a real plain Jane,” Buck said one time when Kate entered herself in a beauty pageant and nobody had the nerve to tell her that she didn’t stand one bit of a chance, and it hurt Granner’s heart to hear that about her very own child, although she knew that it was the dead truth. Buck Weeks, rest his soul, wasn’t the smartest man around, but he always told the dead truth.
Kate’s daughter Rose looks just like her Mama except she got Ernie Stubbs’ squared-off chin. Granner always has thought that Rose would look all right if she had been a man, but she wasn’t, so there ain’t any need to even think of it. Rose is sweet, though, the salt of the earth, and not a bit uppity. Of course she can’t afford to be uppity, because everybody in town knows that she did get herself in trouble some four years ago with Pete Tyner because that’s exactly how old Petie Rose is, but there’s no need for that to ever be discussed, not EVER. Pete is simple and kind, a wiry little thing, white as a sheet,
works like a dog for Ernie in that land business, and he married Rose just as soon as everything came to a head. There’s no reason for Petie Rose to know the truth or that new baby that they’re expecting any day now. That’s six, counting the baby on the way.
Then there’s Granner’s son, Harold Weeks, who is handsome as can be with that dark curly hair and tanned skin but rotten to the core. Granner likes Juanita even though she has recently shamed the family name, because Juanita will tell you the truth, lay it on the line. “They got their noses in their asses,” Juanita said one day about Ernie and Kate, and it made Granner laugh till she cried, even though ordinarily she doesn’t make fun of family. And cute children, that little Patricia and Harold, Jr. Harold couldn’t have done any better. He was thirty-seven before he even got married. Granner doesn’t know if she can count on Juanita, Patricia and Harold, Jr., being there or not, with things being the way that they are. And that’s not fair, wait all year for something and then they let some little marriage problem ruin the whole thing.
Granner thinks it’s something the way that things work out; she and Buck both had good looks and enough money to keep them up in a nice way; Kate and Ernie got all the money and no looks, and Harold and Nita got good looks and not near as much money. What puzzles Granner the most is how money can make ugly people think they got something over on everybody else, when the truth is that you can’t go out and buy yourself a new face or a new body like the one Juanita has got herself by going to that Nautilus center.
Then there’s Granner’s great-niece, Corky Revels, who took up with Granner when she first came to town. Corky is a strange-looking little girl, pale and thin with that almost white hair, creeping around like a kitten and then right out of the blue throwing a temper tantrum like you’ve never seen. Corky has good reason, Granner reckons, and she makes eleven if Juanita shows and the new baby is born; she wants a boy that they can name Robert Lee Tyner and call Buck for short.
Granner takes a bite of soggy Product 19 and goes over to her kitchen window. Her yard is all lit up; people can probably see her house from blocks away. Those floodlights that Harold hooked up for her was the best investment that she ever made. Nobody would come creeping around a house so well lit. God, she hopes that Kate has gotten her one of those whirlpool foot relaxers like she’s been hinting about ever since she saw one in the new Sears catalogue. After all, she’s almost eighty-three and everybody knows what that means. Well, she may not live to see eighty-four. Lord, if anybody can afford one of those machines it’s Kate and Ernie. There will be twelve people at the big party counting herself and the baby on the way, unless of course that Iranian man that has been calling her on the phone should happen to come.
Nobody believes that this man is calling, just because they aren’t there when it happens. Kate says, “Now, mother,” and Harold laughs his fool head off and says that man must be blind and crazy, and Rose’s eyes get all misty and she comes over and rubs Granner’s back and pats her like she’s some blubbering fool. Now why would anybody in their right mind make up a suitor from Iran? If she was going to make up one, it sure wouldn’t be some greasy-looking foreigner who helped to keep all those Americans locked up a few years ago. My God, Granner hates foreigners; she hates they were ever let into this country, and she told that Mr. Abdul that, the last time that he called her on the phone, which was just yesterday. She said, “Mr. Abdul, I want nothing to do with your kind. I’d date a Negro first.”
Harold Weeks can go on back to the trailer park now because he isn’t seeing two of everything any more, must’ve dozed off, which lets him know that he might have had about one drink too many. Anybody that can fall asleep right in the middle of a beaver book more than likely had one drink too many. He gets up from where he had been sitting and leaning against a stack of drink crates. He feels like he has been hit by a transfer truck, like he plowed a damn cotton field with his mouth. His head is pounding, and worse than all of that, he’s got to drive out to that trailer park where he’s renting a place. He thinks about all those nights that he’d get home and find Juanita acting like she was asleep until he got the covers pulled up over him good and then she’d start, screaming in his ear that he drinks too much, and then when she had done that she’d snuggle up beside him and say that she wanted to do it, and she’d keep right on until he said okay, and then she’d say that he had to rinse off first because he smelled like a field hand. It was like a goddamn broken record, the way that she did that. Juanita could probably write one of those beaver books herself, and she’s just forty. Harold wished off and on that she’d go ahead and go through the change of life and maybe she’d slow down a little bit. It got to where he just couldn’t go on, and now what’s he doing but getting drunk and reading beaver books. God, if he had just gotten up to rinse off and do it more often, then he wouldn’t be going to some old trailer park, wouldn’t be riding by the YMCA pool hoping to catch a glimpse of Patricia or Harold, Jr., or even Juanita in that pretty aqua suit she bought on sale just before he left home. God only knows who’s seen inside of that suit since he’s been away. Sometimes when he’s still a little drunk he thinks that he ought to go on home, tell Juanita that he loves her more than anything and that he’ll forgive her if she’ll forgive him, but then he thinks better of it all. He thinks that she ought to come beggin’ after what she did. After all, a man’s got pride; he isn’t some old pussy that can be taken advantage of; he’s a man’s man who just happened to have a little difficulty getting up to get it up from time to time, and she should have known that when she married him. It’s her own damn fault.
He stretches, scratches the hair on his chest where he’s got his shirt unbuttoned, and walks into the store. Those lights are so bright that it makes his head hurt all over again. He gets a Goody powder off the shelf, then goes over and gets a Coke out of the cooler. His Mama always told him that Goody’s were cheap nigra medicine, that that’s how they used to get a buzz, by taking a Goody’s with a Coca Cola. Of course, his Mama also thinks a foreigner is wanting to take her out for pizza. He pours the powder into his mouth and takes a big swallow of Coke. “Hey Charlie,” he yells without turning around. “Ring me up, better get on, got an early day tomorrow.” He chugs the rest of the Coke and rubs his head. “You’d tell me if you’d heard anything about Nita, wouldn’t you? I mean if she’s going around this town putting out, I gotta right to know it.” He turns around and starts strolling up to the front. “Ain’t gonna bother me. I could have just about anybody I want myself, you know? Hey Charlie?” The radio is louder than Charles usually has it and he isn’t answering, probably knows something that he ain’t wanting to tell. He looks up and down all the aisles then leans up against the counter. Charles is face down on the floor, looks like some kind of plastic on his head. “Charles?” Nothing. He reaches down and shakes Charles’ shoulder but he doesn’t move, lifts the hand, the hand resting there under the Slurpee machine and it is cold, slaps against the floor when Harold lets go. “My God, Charlie.” Now his legs are like rubber, numb and heavy like in a dream. He turns Charles over and starts peeling the plastic away from his face. “Charles?” Nothing. He’s got to call the police, there beside the phone, the emergency number in Charles’ handwriting. He lifts the phone and squats down on the other side of the counter so that he won’t have to look at Charles Husky. He cradles the phone under his chin and uses his other hand to hold his finger still so that he can dial. It seems like it rings forever, but there, there’s a voice. “Help,” Harold whispers, “the Quick Pik off of 95.” The man on the other end yells for him to speak up, but Harold can only whisper again, only this time he says please, only this time he is crying and his hands and shoulders are shaking so badly that the phone slips and clatters to the floor. Harold crouches forward, his hands over his face, his forehead on the floor. He opens one eye and glances to the side where there is an opening at the end of the counter, and he sees Charles Husky’s hand resting calmly on that tile floor, there in front of the Sl
urpee machine. Goddamn, he never would have seen this if Juanita hadn’t done what she did.
Ernie Stubbs built himself a new office not long ago. He used to rent out space in one of the old buildings downtown, but once he knew he was really going to make it, he built the new office over near the new shopping center which is near the new highrise retirement home that he built and the new apartment complex. He built the office about the same time that he was building his house, and he got a lot of good deals by doing this, buy more of the same thing, same brick, same roofing. Ernie Stubbs knows how to squeeze every drop of good out of a penny, which is how he has made it this far. Even the slump in real estate hasn’t hurt him one bit. Kate already owned the property where he built the retirement home and the apartment complex, a nice big piece of land that her Daddy left her, and so with just a few investors, Ernie Stubbs has been able to parlay that land into quite a sum. He figures people are always going to get old and children will always pay out more than they’d like to so that they won’t have to have their parents live with them. Hell, it’s a lot like putting somebody away for good—buy the best casket so you don’t feel guilty, same with putting an old person in a home. It’s a real nice home, too, everything an old person could want; fire alarms so they don’t burn themselves up, bars close to the toilet so they won’t fall off, wide doorways so they can wheel around, low counters so they can eat right there in their chairs. He’s been trying to talk his mother-in-law into moving over there, even told her that he’d put her in the deluxe model which has a microwave built right in and a Jacuzzi hooked up to the tub.
July 7th Page 3
