Cracker Town

by WF Ranew

  “No!” she screamed.

  The boy removed his hand. He never asked her out again.

  J.D. proved to be a major challenge. Especially in the backseat of his dad’s car. They’d been going together for two months. It was just after the Christmas holidays and a night which brought them to deep French kissing and advanced groping above her waist.

  The boy pushed her back onto the seat, unbuttoned her sweater, and undid her bra. J.D. massaged her nipples with his tongue.

  To Eloise, the attention felt so good.

  But suddenly, he slipped his hand up Eloise’s skirt and pulled down her panties. He rose up on one knee then came back down in a pushing motion. Eloise felt him enter her. After two or three minutes of all-out panic for her, she felt his issue as he withdrew and zipped his jeans.

  It never occurred to Eloise to say no or try to fight him off.

  With her pregnancy confirmed, her parents went to talk with J.D.’s parents, who said their boy was, indeed, quite the lady's man. He’d impregnated two girls in North Carolina.

  He slipped out of those paternity claims, and he did so with Eloise. In a month, J.D. was enrolled in a military school in Mississippi. Eloise never saw him again.

  Nine months later, her Chrissie was born.

  * * *

  At thirty-seven, Eloise was looking for a man. She dated several older gentlemen around town, mostly only for social occasions.

  Only one man, since J.D., had enflamed her desires and taken her to bed. Dooley Watkins worked at the battery plant where an accident killed him. Just when they were getting serious, too.

  That was five years ago, and when Dooley died, it took the romantic winds out of Eloise’s sails.

  After stopping at Malcolm's station, she couldn’t get Johnny Carven out of her mind. He was handsome in a skinny man way. Despite his work as a gas station attendant, he looked clean and dressed neatly. Eloise could look past grease stains on the sleeve of Johnny’s coveralls or a smudge on his face. He did work with mechanical things, and they tended to cake up with grease and oil, she reasoned.

  But how do I get together with him?

  One thing led to another. The notion that love finds its way and takes its natural course always appealed to Eloise. She helped Cupid along.

  Most weeks, Eloise filled up her car on Monday or Tuesday and topped it off on Friday. She started doing that at Mitchell’s. After three visits, she noticed that Jonny jockeyed to serve her. One time, she saw him gently nudge Malcolm out of the doorway to run out and fill her tank.

  Every two weeks, she got the car washed at Malcolm’s. Johnny eagerly obliged, even though Malcolm had a high school boy doing most of the washing jobs after school.

  Finally, Eloise hit upon an occasion to which she’d invite Johnny. It was the annual Gilmer County business league’s wine auction fundraiser and dance out at the country club. She purchased two tickets, and the Monday before, she pulled into Malcolm’s for a fill-up.

  Johnny wasn’t there.

  She asked about him and was told Johnny had signed up for classes at the local trade school. He’d be back in the early afternoon.

  Eloise returned to the station at two. Still no Johnny.

  At four, he was there.

  She drove in and parked on the corner and waved Johnny to come over to her car. When he got to her window, she waved the two tickets in front of him.

  “Want to go with me to this charitable occasion?”

  Johnny beamed. He said nothing, though, and Eloise wondered what was wrong.

  Finally, he nodded. “I sure can, Miss Eloise. Guess I have to wear a suit and tie, huh?”

  “Well, most of the men will,” she said. “Is that a problem?”

  Johnny said it wasn’t, even though he hadn’t worn a suit since he was a kid in Sunday School.

  She said she’d pick him up around six on Friday. They could go eat at the River Bend Trout Restaurant and then head to the event.

  * * *

  Johnny didn’t know what to make of the invitation. He’d readily agreed for a couple of reasons. First, Miss Eloise was a good customer. Second, he wanted to get to know her.

  He asked Malcolm for an hour off to go to the men’s discount clothing store out at the shopping center. Malcolm let him and loaned him a car.

  The suit, white shirt, tie, and dress socks cost him a whopping fifty-five dollars. But the salesman let him set up a charge account he’d have to pay against for several months.

  * * *

  Cleet spent long hours in the Milledgeville mental hospital thinking about how he could have killed Mitsy by screwing her.

  He figured normally that didn’t happen between a man and a woman. He knew the act itself was for creating babies to repopulate God’s world. It was a natural act, his mother explained to him when he turned thirteen. She added that he should never touch a girl before he married her. She did not tell Cleet about her doubts any woman would be attracted to him.

  But Cleet had looks and urges despite his mental challenges.

  Seven years into his stay at Central State, Cleet gained a modicum of freedom most inmates didn’t have. He could move in and out of the building pretty much when he wanted to. And, he was trusted to drive into town to pick up supplies or meet people at the bus station.

  One summer night, he walked around the various buildings at Central State and met a young nurse heading into work in the women’s building. Her name was Colleen McGinty, and she was fresh out of Georgia Baptist School of Nursing up in Atlanta.

  But Colleen wasn’t a Baptist herself and didn’t possess the body-defense notions of most other girls Cleet had known, few as they were. Colleen was more like Mitsy, someone he tried to put out of his mind forever. And yet, Colleen was so different from Mitsy in many ways. She didn’t push Cleet or try to manipulate him.

  One evening, Cleet slipped over to the women’s building where Colleen worked the overnight shift. She led him to the nurse’s lounge, and they made love on a small cot.

  They repeated their sexual romps several nights a week. Until they got caught by the night nurse supervisor.

  Colleen was dismissed. Cleet never saw or heard from her again.

  When Cleet met Eloise, he was ready to know a sexy woman’s mysteries and fully satisfying aspects. Eloise was just the person.

  * * *

  Johnny didn’t need to spend his money on a new suit. Clean khakis and a white shirt would have worked fine for his date with Eloise.

  He borrowed Malcolm's new sedan and picked up Eloise at her house. They drove up to Blue Ridge and into the mountains to a fish camp serving steaks and trout.

  By the time they finished the second bottle of wine, it was getting on past nine o’clock. Eloise suggested with a sigh it was too late to go to the social event.

  Johnny drove over to her house, where they parked out front and talked.

  Eloise slid over from her passenger seat to get closer to snuggled up against him. They embraced and kissed.

  Johnny felt his Mitsy and Colleen urges arising fast. Eloise clutched his upper right leg and began rubbing him up and down. Her short dress climbed up on her thighs.

  “Dammit, Johnny boy, I want you so much,” Eloise blew into his ear. “Let’s go in the house.”

  They tumbled out of Malcolm’s car and, holding each other close, walked up the driveway and under the carport to Eloise’s kitchen door.

  Inside the house, they embraced and ran their hands over each other. Eloise led Johnny into her bedroom, turned, and asked him to unbutton her silk blouse. As he did this, hands trembling, Eloise unzipped her skirt and let it drop to the floor. She unsnapped her bra and turned to hold him tight.

  Cuddling under the sheet, Eloise asked, “Do you have a condom, Johnny?”

  He did not. Eloise leaned over to her night table and opened the drawer. She fumbled around for something and handed Johnny the foil-wrapped rubber.

  From that point on, they knew nothing but heated, sw
eaty uggs, ohs, and ahs for the next hours.

  At one the next morning, Johnny left. He kissed a nude Eloise goodbye as she clung to him at the front door.

  Three weeks later, they drove over to Helen, Georgia, and got married.

  Neither emerged from their hotel room for three days, with two exceptions to dine out at restaurants overlooking the Chattahoochee River.

  “Good Lord, Johnny,” Eloise said as they drove back over the mountains to Ellijay. “I do love you.”

  “I love you, too, sweet woman,” Johnny said.

  Chapter Twenty

  Eloise knew nothing of Johnny’s eighteen years in a mental hospital, his eventual release, and the murder accusation that got him sent to Central State.

  She had no idea his real name was Cleet Wrightman.

  Eloise just loved him. He was such a good man.

  The only thing Johnny told her about his past was made up. He grew up poor in North Florida. His father died in World War II, which was true. He had trouble as a youth, and he joined the Army and served in Vietnam. All bogus, but nonetheless supported by the forged documents Jean-Michel Durand provided.

  When he moved in, she stored his three boxes of stuff in the attic and saw his Army discharge papers. After that, she had no reason to doubt what he told her.

  She was proud of her husband. In her view, against all odds from his earlier, troubled life in Florida, Johnny Craven did very well in Ellijay, Georgia.

  She helped him along and became patient with his slow ways, his struggle to do some things right, and at times Johnny’s frustration when trying to read.

  She didn’t dismiss him for these shortcomings. Rather, she loved him more for them. She mothered him, encouraged him. Brought him along.

  Eloise was there for Johnny when his best friend, Malcolm Mitchell, died suddenly. Malcolm had no heirs and years before changed his will so that Johnny would take ownership of the filling station. He also inherited forty-three thousand dollars from Malcolm’s estate.

  Eloise helped Johnny invest in mutual funds and advised him not to touch the money.

  “Just let it grow, sweetie pie,” she said. “It’ll shoot up faster than an early crop of sweet corn. But forget about it. We’ll keep an eye on every statement. Just don’t obsess over it.”

  That was fine with Johnny. He had problems understanding the statements anyway.

  Eloise supported Johnny with his business and assumed the role of de facto manager. She helped him expand to a new repair shop separate from the filling station. Eventually, she advised him on selling the station to a big oil company while keeping the auto repair shop. Those proceeds went into mutual funds, too.

  Finally, Eloise accompanied Johnny to the bank for a loan to build a body shop.

  One day Johnny got home for supper. Eloise drove up to the house just ahead of him.

  They greet at the back door and kissed.

  “I’ve got an idea for you, Johnny,” she said.

  “Another one?”

  “Yep. It’s time you did more than serve on the business league’s board.”

  “But I like the boys on it, sugar, you know that.”

  “Oh, you don’t have to leave it, but how many times have you served as president? Two, three? Time to cash in those poker chips you’ve won.”

  They walked into the house and sat down in the living room to talk about Eloise’s latest notion for Johnny.

  “What do you have in mind?” he asked. “But hurry, I’m hungry. Let’s go up to that steak place down the road.”

  “OK, but listen, Johnny,” Eloise said. “Someone is going to retire from the county commission at the end of this year. I think you ought to run for the seat.”

  Johnny said nothing. Eloise figured her suggestion surprised him. That was her Johnny, always falling silent in a moment of news.

  Finally, instead of saying anything, Johnny Craven shook his head.

  “No, honey, I can’t do that.”

  “Why not, baby boy?” Eloise asked. “You a big man on campus in this town. You can go places in politics. Everyone loves you, sport.” Eloise had a thousand nicknames for Johnny, and she loved coming up with new ones. Sport was a new one.

  “But I can’t; you don’t understand,” he persisted.

  Eloise backed down. For that moment, anyway. “Well, let’s just think about it, will you?”

  Johnny smiled. Eloise saw his relief.

  He leaned over and kissed her. He then got up from the sofa, bent down, and picked her up.

  Eloise loved it when he wanted sex with her after a long day at work.

  She giggled as Johnny carried her down the hall.

  They didn’t eat steaks that night.

  * * *

  The next morning as Eloise prepared breakfast, she looked over at Johnny sitting there. He bowed his head, and his shoulders shook.

  Immediately, Eloise went to him.

  Jonny’s tears streamed heavily down his cheeks. He wiped them with the back of his hands, right hand first, then the left.

  “What’s wrong, sport?” she asked as she held his shoulders.

  For some time, Johnny said nothing. His tears subsided, and Eloise asked again.

  He shook his head. “I can’t do it, honey,” he said. “I just can’t do it.”

  “What can’t you do, Johnny?”

  “I can’t do no county commission,” he said firmly. “It terrifies me.”

  Eloise considered her husband’s resistance. She understood, or so she thought.

  No more pushing.

  She never raised the topic of public office again.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  The Reverend Gordon Adan walked into the sanctuary of Mount Olive Baptist Church and stood before the altar. He knelt.

  It was late summer, and the September heat seemed as bad as the past July. Preacher Adan didn’t mind as he prayed in the cool of air-conditioning.

  He took in the smells of the church, the paint on the altar, the hymnals, the faint scent of burned candle wax.

  The preacher spoke to his Lord.

  “Dear God, my demons have returned. They’ve been eating me up all summer. Please give me the strength to again tame them and put me at peace. I’m counting on you, Lord.”

  He stayed there listening to the choir practicing in the doublewide mobile home next door. The structure served as the rehearsal hall and assembly area along with Sunday School rooms. The church itself consisted of two doublewides joined together and opened up into a sanctuary, bathrooms, a small church office, and a pastoral study.

  The space was cramped, but soon new church buildings would rise on the property.

  Preacher Adan adored the choir. He also loved the short, lovely redhead soprano, who sang a special almost every Sunday morning. Her rendition of “The Old Rugged Cross” was his favorite.

  He gloried in her voice and lusted for her body.

  She was the Gordon’s primary demon, at least in his mind. But she was not his only one. The others actually haunted him more than the young woman. But his sin of lust tore at him deeply.

  He had other incubi over the years, from his past and terrible monsters more recently. The past spring brought a particularly heavy load on the mind of the preacher. Oh, so many sins. But at that time, he desired nothing in life more than to hold Ginger Gail Swanton.

  She sang like an angel in a gleaming white, gold-trimmed choir robe with a large red cross over her right breast. Ginger Gail lurked as a demon in the dark recesses of Gordon Adan’s mind. He wanted her gone, but he could not fathom that in reality.

  He had to have Ginger Gail.

  But how?

  He’d been seeking an opportunity; always, Preacher Gordon sought opportunity.

  * * *

  Gordon was several years younger than his older brother Wallace. His cousin, Cleet Wrightman, had two years on him.

  He was a teenager of fifteen when Cleet went off to Milledgeville.

  Gordon remembered
the uproar in Damville over Mitsy Elton’s murder. Later, he remembered when Cleet got out the past spring and returned to his hometown.

  Bad things happened then, too, with Cleet around.

  Gordon received something his kin didn’t have. He was saved, given the Word of God as his guide through life, and awarded a mission of a minister to the afflicted, the downtrodden, the hopeless, poor country people, and the lost.

  * * *

  Just as choir practice was winding down, at around nine forty-five, a thunder burst rocked the entire church. One lady screamed; it was so shocking. Not thirty seconds later, the sky opened up, and a torrential rainstorm pelted the entire town, the whole county, all the church’s trailers.

  Preacher Gordon walked from his office after everyone rushed from the choir room. He saw two ladies in conversation as he walked over to the water fountain for a drink. He lingered there.

  Finally, they said goodbyes to each other, and one headed to the Ladies while the other stepped on down the hall toward the preacher.

  Suddenly, there was a flash of lightning followed by a thunderous roar. The lights dimmed.

  "Goodness, are you able to get home?" Gordon asked of the redhead with the beautiful voice. Another clap of thunder and the lights went out, casting the hallway into darkness.

  Through a split-second before total darkness, Gordon noticed the mischievous grin on Ginger Gail Gillis’ face. He said nothing, but he felt the close presence of the woman of twenty-four who’d just gotten married. She touched his arm.

  “I just need to know you are there, preacher,” she said. “Maybe the lights will come on soon. I have a tiny flashlight in my purse back in the choir room.”

  The lady in the bathroom, Mrs. Emerson, called out for assistance. Gordon took Ginger Gail’s hand and led her into the short hallway leading to his office. He told her to wait while he fetched a light from the top drawer of his desk, picked up an umbrella, and went to help the lady.

  Mrs. Emerson thanked Gordon for coming to her aid. She had parked her car halfway under the canvas-top portico, so it was no trouble getting her to it and seeing her off. He noticed a crowd of people at the back entrance of the church, but they were beginning the rush to their cars even as the rain drummed down. He handed the umbrella to two women.