by Lynne Hinton
The young man nodded as if he understood, as if what the pastor was saying made complete sense.
They rode for a while in silence as Lamont pondered his new life, going back to a place he had almost forgotten. He wasn’t sure how long he would be able to stay away from a city or from a place where he could buy what he needed to take the edge off how he was feeling.
He had promised his grandmother that he would live with them, help take care of his grandfather, stay with him so that she could get out once in a while, that he would even drive them around town, to appointments and church. And when he had made the promise, he had thought it was completely possible to maintain such an existence, but now that he was heading in that direction, the nicotine not enough to stop his fidgeting, he understood that he would probably soon be breaking another promise.
It wasn’t like he enjoyed himself when he did it. It wasn’t like his mother said, that he was mean and didn’t care. He really wanted to do right, he really desired to keep the vows he had made. It just was too hard. Living without the high was just too hard.
“There’s NA meetings at the Lutheran church in Hope Springs,” Charlotte said as if she was reading his mind.
“You got junkies in Hope Springs?” He crushed the cigarette butt in the ashtray and rubbed his hands together.
“I wouldn’t know. I don’t go to the meetings,” she answered. “But I do know they’ve been going on for several years, so somebody must be attending.”
“Maybe it’s the preacher,” the teenager said lightly. “Maybe he gives out pot to the Joint Lady.”
Charlotte laughed. “Yeah, that’s probably what it is. A twelve-step cover-up for a minister’s dealing.”
“Never know,” he responded. “One gives out cigarettes, another gives weed.”
“No, it’s true; you never know,” Charlotte answered.
Lamont opened the glove compartment and pulled out another cigarette. “You’ll have to tell the old woman that I smoked all her sticks.” He pushed in the lighter, waited, and then lit his cigarette.
“So, what’s the matter with Granddaddy?” he asked Charlotte.
She noticed the clock on the dashboard. It was almost four in the afternoon. She hoped they were early enough to miss the commute traffic.
“Congestive heart failure,” she replied. “He’s been sick a long time.”
Lamont had not seen his grandfather in almost five years. He had rarely come back to Hope Springs since moving in with his mother. He hadn’t visited in spite of the numerous requests he had received.
“Is he going to die?” He tapped the cigarette in the ashtray.
“He’s a hospice patient,” she replied. “Do you know what that means?”
The young man shook his head and took another drag.
“It’s an agency that works with terminally ill people. They gave him a prognosis.” She stopped and decided to use simpler words. “They say he only has about six months to live.” She stared straight ahead.
Lamont nodded with his whole body and twisted his neck to watch the fields and businesses as they sped past.
He was quiet then, didn’t ask any more about his grandfather or how he was. He sat and counted the cars passing, saw the restaurants and strip malls, how much things had changed since he’d lived in that area.
“Did they tell you when your court date is?” Charlotte asked.
He shook his head. “I guess it’s written on those papers they gave me, but I didn’t read them.” He put out the cigarette and slouched down in his seat.
They drove on further, getting closer to Hope Springs.
“Why did Granny send you to get me?” he asked, the question bothering him for most of the drive.
Charlotte shrugged her shoulders. She hadn’t really considered the reasoning for Peggy’s request. “She said she couldn’t get anyone to stay with Vastine and that she needed to clean out your bedroom.”
Lamont nodded. “You think she’s afraid of me?”
Charlotte watched as a car came up very close behind them and then pulled around. She checked her speedometer and guessed that it had to have been going almost a hundred miles per hour. She couldn’t believe drivers drove with such carelessness.
“I don’t know, Lamont,” she answered. “I don’t think she liked going to visit you at the jail very much.” She brought one hand down and rested it on the gearshift between the two seats. “But I suppose that if she was really afraid of you, she wouldn’t be letting you stay at her house.”
Lamont thought about that. He wanted another cigarette but felt embarrassed to take a third one out of the pack.
“I never had no gun,” he said to the preacher as if she had asked. “Somebody else stuck that under my seat when the cops stopped us.” He pulled his hands along the sides of his head. “I ain’t never agreed to using no guns.”
Charlotte didn’t know what to say to the teenager; she wasn’t sure what he wanted from her, where he was going with this line of conversation. So she was silent.
“We had decided to pull something simple. Nobody was supposed to be there and nobody was going to get hurt. We just needed some money for a party.” He stuck his fingers through the open window as if he was testing to see how cold it was or to feel the wind on his skin.
“I said I’d never be with nobody who used guns.” He pulled his hand in. He wondered how long he could wait before taking another cigarette.
“Why would you think your grandmother is afraid of you?” Charlotte finally asked.
Lamont explained sharply, “Well, that doesn’t take a genius to figure out, does it? A grandson in jail who steals, who’s been caught with a gun? The church ladies must love that.” He gripped the handle on the car door.
“I don’t think the church ladies know,” Charlotte said, noticing how nervous he seemed.
“Yeah, right. Like everybody in that small town doesn’t know everybody else’s secrets,” he replied.
Charlotte thought about it. She wasn’t sure what anybody else knew about Peggy and Vastine’s situation. No one had mentioned anything to her, but that didn’t always mean they were without information. Sometimes they were a little careful with their gossip around the preacher.
“So?” Charlotte said. “Even if the church ladies do know, what difference does that make?” She changed hands, resting one in her lap. “If your grandmother didn’t want you to come and stay with her, if she was worried about what others think, or if she really was afraid of you, she wouldn’t have bailed you out, and she certainly wouldn’t let you stay with them.”
Finally Lamont couldn’t stand it anymore. He opened the compartment at his knees, took out another cigarette. Charlotte watched as he lit it, taking another long, drawn-out breath as he sucked in the smoke.
“You ever done anything you’re ashamed of?” He pulled the cigarette out of his mouth and studied the way it was made. He rolled it around in his fingers, noticing the straight tight line where the paper was glued, the compact way the ashes stayed together as the fire burned along the edges.
Charlotte thought about the question. She cracked her window to let out some of the smoke that had collected in the car. Lamont opened the window more on his side, following suit.
The minister realized that she had known lots of emotions—disappointment, sorrow, regret, fear, anger. Many of these feelings she had discussed with Marion. They had spent months of sessions dealing with her issues about her sister’s death, her mother’s alcoholism, and her father’s abandonment. They had talked of her ministry and the depressed way she felt when she attempted the work of a pastor.
They analyzed her dreams, the sense of loss and dread that stayed with her, and the slight pressure of sadness that always lay upon her heart. They spoke of unfulfilled dreams, clinging to the past, and how much pain one person can bear. But in all their conversations, in all their moments of clarity and insight, in all of Marion’s wise renderings and Charlotte’s vulnerable sharing, they had ne
ver spoken of shame.
Of course, Charlotte thought, I have felt ashamed of my mother’s drinking and my father’s disappearance. Of course, she thought, I have been ashamed of how Serena died and how I wasn’t there with her when it happened. I have been ashamed of the things I have said at times, the moments I lashed out in anger. But as she glanced over at the young man who had asked the question, a teenager who had already fallen into the downward spiral of addiction, a young boy who had already caused his family so much pain that his mother had kicked him out of her life, she realized that she had never lost herself to that brand of sorrow.
In her careful and sober way of picking through a life, she had encountered many demons, but that was one she had never wrestled with and lost.
“No,” she answered. “Not like what you’re talking about.”
Lamont put the cigarette to his lips and closed his eyes. He seemed appreciative of her honesty. He waited a minute, blew out a breath of smoke, and then responded. “I sold my mother’s wedding band.” He stuck the cigarette through the crack in the window.
Charlotte watched the road.
“I figured she wouldn’t miss it anyway. She and my dad had been divorced a long time. So, I went through her jewelry and found it in a small black box in the far corner of her drawer.” He rested his head against the back of his seat.
“It was a set, you know,” he said, explaining. “A little diamond on one ring and another plain one that fit beneath it. There were little chips of stones all around the big one.” He pulled his hand in and took another drag off the cigarette.
“I sold it to a pawn shop down near where she works. Seventy-five bucks,” he said, the memory clear in his mind. “When I got home, after blowing the money, she was sitting in the middle of her bedroom, down at the foot of her bed, the drawer pulled out, all the jewelry scattered on the floor, the little black box on her lap, open and empty.” The teenager thumped the cigarette out the window. “She had been crying but she wasn’t then. She just looked up at me while I was standing at the door. Just looked up at me.”
Charlotte took the exit off the interstate, heading into Hope Springs.
“Then she said to me all soft and lonely sounding, ‘Don’t matter anyway; he ain’t coming back.’” Lamont spoke quietly, his voice stretched and thin. “That was the worst time,” he added, his confession finished.
Charlotte drove without responding. She wasn’t sure why he had told her or if he needed something from her. It felt complete and whole in just the way it had been said.
He opened up the glove compartment to get another cigarette, and Charlotte reached over and pulled out the pack.
“Here,” she said. “Just take the whole thing. I’ll buy some more for the old woman.”
Lamont nodded, wiped his nose with the back of his hand, and stuck the pack of cigarettes in the pocket of his coat.
She drove the rest of the way without either of them speaking. For the next seven miles they rode in silence, the air heavy with smoke. When they pulled into the driveway of his grandparents’ home, they both saw Peggy watching from the front window.
They got out of the car without looking at each other.
“Thanks for the smokes,” was all that the young man said. Together they walked to the door.
Seven
THE PILOT NEWS
*
* AUNT DOT’S HELPFUL HINTS
Dear Aunt Dot,
Is there any way to save old athletic shoes? I think mine are still sturdy. They just need a little cleaning. Can I keep them white and tidy without having to throw them in the washer?
Cheap Street-Walker
Dear Walker,
You can clean your athletic shoes in the washer or by hand. If you’re more inclined to wash them by hand, just use a mixture of 1 part baking soda and 4 parts water. Use an old toothbrush to scrub hard-to-reach places. Rinse well. And make sure to stuff the shoes with towels or paper while they air-dry.
*
Dick!” Beatrice came in from her morning walk and took off her shoes while she called out for her husband. She noticed how dirty they had gotten, and she wondered if she should go ahead and wash them right then.
“Dick?” She stood at the door and massaged the top of her right foot, which was sore and a little swollen. She had trouble with gout, but she knew that if she got out of the habit of walking, she would never pick it back up. She tried to exercise even when it hurt.
She slid out of her coat and hung it on the hook in the entryway. She dropped her keys on the counter, yelling out his name once more. “Dick?”
The house was silent and Beatrice peered through the kitchen door into the garage, noticing that her husband’s car was gone. He had left while she was out on her walk. She wondered how long he had been gone, but she didn’t worry because she knew that he would call before lunch and let her know where he was and if he would be joining her for the midday meal.
She blew out a breath, poured herself a glass of water, sat down at the table, and began going through the mail that he had placed there before he left.
Gerald must have come by early, she thought, noticing the clock and confirming that it was just before 10:00 A.M.
There were a couple of bills, her Southern Living magazine, and a newsletter from some funeral home, but she spotted the postcard right away.
It was a picture of a lioness and her cubs resting beneath a tree out on the African plains. The photograph, she guessed, appeared to have been taken late in the afternoon as the sun was low and the shadows were long and deep behind the family of cats. The cubs played at the mother’s feet while the older lioness looked up, seeming to spot the photographer just as the picture was being snapped. A broad and shorthaired yellow beast, she was poised but surprised that she and her family had been captured at just that moment.
Beatrice examined the picture carefully before finally turning the card over to read,
Dear Bea,
It’s so amazing here. The sky is low and full, and there are moments when I feel as if I could reach out and touch a star or rest my hand upon a cloud. We’ve been to the village, where women sell everything they have on blankets set out on the ground. Their poverty and desperation is overwhelming. We go on the safari tomorrow. I hope this cat has already had her dinner!
Forever friends,
Jessie
Beatrice put the card in front of her nose and sniffed. It was a strange thing to do, smelling a postcard, and she wasn’t sure if she was doing it because she missed Jessie and hoped to recover a familiar scent from her friend or if it was because she was curious as to whether there might be odors clinging to the picture or the words from a place she had never visited.
There were neither. It smelled like any other piece of mail that had been fingered and handled by many hands. Disappointed, she leaned it against the fruit bowl in the middle of the table, sat back, and drank some of her water. She was hot and spent from her walk and she finished almost the entire contents of the glass before she set it down on the table.
She thought of Africa and what Jessie might be feeling being in a country so far away, the birthplace of her ancestors. Was it how it had been for her when she visited, for the first time, her great-grandparents’ farm, high in the mountains of Tennessee?
She had gone with her oldest daughter, who arranged the trip for her birthday several years earlier. Beatrice had mentioned once that she had never seen the part of Tennessee where her father’s people lived, and so Robin had researched the exact location of their family’s whereabouts and surprised her mother with a two-day trip back home.
Once they got there, Robin decided that it was something her mother should experience alone, so she dropped Beatrice off on a street corner, giving her specific directions for finding her family’s original property, and drove away, beaming with pride.
The older woman stood unmoving for a while, disoriented at first, and then walked the length of her home place end to end, now a housing
development for first-time home buyers, an inexpensive but tasteful subdivision. As she walked from corner to corner, north to south, east to west, she listened to the wind and imagined that she heard the sounds of her great-grandmother calling to her children and whispering her long-ago dreams.
It had meant something to her, something deep and precious, but it had also touched a place inside her that made her feel a little lonesome. When Robin picked her up, the young woman hopeful and expectant of her mother’s arranged happiness, Beatrice had not known how to talk about it. She said that she was grateful for the opportunity to go to Tennessee, back to the mountains where her bloodlines pulsed, and that it was a very thoughtful gift; but she knew that she had disappointed her daughter when she could not explain why she hadn’t been completely overjoyed with the birthday present.
Was Jessie feeling some of the same emotions, joy at touching a homeland but sadness that it was no longer hers?
She sighed at her thoughts and then returned her attention to the postcard. She folded her arms across her chest, admiring the picture.
She liked the way the lioness stared right into the lens of the camera, daring and confident. It was as if she was not afraid of anything; she was bold and unswerving.
Beatrice wished that she was like that. She wished that she was strong and unmoved, unwilling to change her stance or expression when she saw a camera being pointed in her direction. She wished that she was comfortable being photographed.
She acted like she enjoyed having her picture taken, that it was a pleasure to be posed and smiling, but the truth was she hated it. She hated it because she knew that the proof of her age and sorrow would now be processed through the hands and eyes of people who did not even know her and would be examined by those she had tried to fool.
It had become disconcerting to her to be photographed ever since she had first heard about tribes of people who would not allow their pictures to be taken because they believed it captured a part of their souls. While Dick shook his head at the silliness of the superstition, Beatrice quietly believed that such a thing was possible.
