Land of a Hundred Wonders

by Lesley Kagen

  “Hurry up,” I tell Keeper, who’s dragging behind me. He is not at all fond of felines, so he’s low growling. I got the kitten up close, snuggling into her fur the way you do. “Shhh . . . shhh . . . shhh . . .” I’m croonin’ over and over, when outta the dark comes a voice I know only too well.

  “Well, lookee here.”

  “Sh . . . it!” I squeal, tripping, almost falling. “Ya ’bout scared the wits outta me!”

  “Don’t you mean what wits you got left?” Sneaky Tim Ray says, the stink of him permeating the air. It’s not only the usual hooch smell, it’s something else real off-putting. Keeper’s full out snarling.

  I say, the fright of it all giving me heart-pumping bravery, “I’m warnin’ you, Holloway, quit poppin’ out at me like that or I’ll . . . I’ll . . .”

  Swaying back and forth like a strong wind’s gotten under his skin, he says in his snidest of tones, “You’ll what, darlin’?”

  “I’ll . . . I’ll . . .” He’s right. What will I do? I cannot thwart him. He’d hurt Keeper “accidentally on purpose,” the way he’s sworn to do. “What do ya want?”

  “Saw y’all boatin’ along the shore,” he says, swigging down a swallow from his jug. “Ya could say we’s your welcomin’ committee.”

  We? What does he mean, “we”?

  Who is that towering behind him in the shadows? “That you, Cooter Smith?” I ask, hoping it is ’cause me and him go way back. Not only as gadabout friends, but after his mama and daddy disappeared, Miss Florida asked Grampa to take Cooter under his wing. Growing up, I can’t tell you the number of nights I fell asleep listening to the two of them out on the lawn practicing birdcalls. For old times’ sake, I sing to him, “Oakalee . . . oakalee . . . oakalee.”

  “Gib.” Cooter steps forward and nods, barely.

  Lord, what is that citified thing he’s done with his hair? Looks as sleek as a fender on a funeral car.

  “Whatcha got there?” Sneaky Tim Ray pries my arms apart with only-God-knows-where-they-been fingers. “Awww. Ain’t she precious.” He runs his hands down the kitten’s spine, wrenches her outta my arms. “Ya know, you and me have a lot more in common than ya might realize, darlin’. Bet you didn’t for instance know that I love pussies, too,” he says, laughing cruddy and flinging the kitten into the woods.

  When I start after her, Holloway cinches me around the waist. “Not so fast. You ’n me got some unfinished bidness to take care of.”

  Cooter, shifting from foot to foot, says, “We ain’t got time for this. Leave her be.”

  “ ’Fraid I cain’t do that,” Sneaky Tim Ray says, wrenching my hand to the front of his stained bibs. “The south has risen again.”

  Cooter brushes past me mad as hell, leaving behind the smell of chewed bones and coffee grounds and orange peelings from the Browntown dump. He’s gotta work there because Sheriff Johnson spreads awful tales about him so nobody else will hire him anywheres else. (There’s a feud between Cooter and the sheriff that is perpetual. You ask anyone, they’ll tell you how much LeRoy despises “that uppity Smith boy.”) “You comin’?” he calls back to Sneaky Tim Ray.

  “That’s the plan,” Holloway says, breathing faster now. But it must be important wherever they’re going ’cause he’s glaring at me, then back at the woods that Cooter disappeared into, and then back at me, finally spitting out, “Fuck,” as his hand darts up to my neck. He thumbs the indent of my throat, tears off my new locket. “I’ll jus’ take this for a consolation prize. Ya know what tha’ means, don’tcha?”

  I’m pretty sure it means I wish I was back at the cottage with my grampa.

  “I’ll catch you on the flip-flop, darlin’. Don’t think I won’t.” He takes a swipe at my ninnies and yells, “Hold up, Smith,” and off he goes into the trees.

  Goddamn that Holloway!

  After I’m sure that he isn’t going to double back, which he’s pulled on me more than once, I head over to where the kitten landed, but Keeper’s stopped fussing, so she musta made her way back home. Ya know one of the things I pray for each and every night without fail? That Sneaky Tim Ray’ll fall into a pit of quick-sand right before my very eyes. And when he starts begging for me to hand him a branch, I’ll break one off the closest tree and wave it just outta his reach, saying, “Remember that time in the woods? In the barn? All those times ya took advantage?” (I’m lettin’ you know right now, I ever get a chance to avenge myself, I’ll eye-for-an-eye do it.)

  Clever is calling again, “Giiibby.”

  “Over here,” I try to yell back, but Sneaky Tim Ray’s stench has clenched tight in my throat.

  “There ya are,” she says, skipping down the path toward me. “Look who I found.”

  My, oh, my. If I had my camera with me, if it wasn’t lying under those bushes in my briefcase over at Miss Jessie’s, I’d click off a picture of Miss Florida Smith. That’d make a good human interest shot for the Gazette during L&N Railroad Days, that’s how much she resembles one of their locomotives.

  Miss Florida yells, “What in tarnation ya doin’ here?”

  “I don’t remember,” I yell back.

  “Are you crazy comin’ over here in the dead of night? If your grampa finds out, ya know what kind of trouble y’all’d be in?”

  Clever says to her, “Don’t be so mad. It’s my fault. I made her.”

  “Why don’t that news surprise me none?” Miss Florida gives us both a real crummy look and commences chugging back toward her house.

  “I saw Cooter,” I say, thinking that’ll slow her down some because she loves her grandbaby to bits.

  “Ya saw Cooter?” Clever says, real lively.

  Miss Florida asks me, “He alone?”

  “No, he was not. He was with Sneaky Tim Ray, who told me the south—”

  “Oh, Lord. Sure as the day is long, that no-account Holloway has gone and got my Cooter into something he shoun’t oughta be into,” Miss Florida laments.

  I almost say: Well, of course he did, but I dare not get Miss Florida any more worked up. She’s already steaming.

  The Queen of Browntown

  No denying the paint could use some refreshing, and a couple of the windows are black-rotted, but Miss Florida has washed many a dish and baked hundreds of pies to save up for this little white house that stands at the edge of Browntown.

  “I swear, you two gals have less sense than a penny,” she says, hiking herself up the porch steps. Her younger brothers, Vern and Teddy, are off to the side in ladder-back chairs and well into a game of dominos on a TV tray ’neath the bug light. Keeper’s already curled himself up at their feet, thumping his stump to the top-hat sound that’s riding down the road above one of those blues tunes that get me all choked up whenever I hear their moody sweetness.

  Miss Florida does not miss a beat. “Boys, wind that game up now. I need for y’all to take these girls home,” she says, just about pulling her screen door out of its frame. “I’m fixin’ to call Grampa to tell him you’re on your way.”

  I say, “For chrissakes, don’t do that,” but she’s already speeding through her sharply decorated parlor. Besides a green brocade sofa, she’s got a rag rug she made herself, and golden lamps she got from a catalog that sit on two matching spool tables. And she must have a pie in the oven because something smells divine. “Please, please, don’t call Grampa,” I say, when we catch up with her. “Clever is knocked up.”

  “What?” Miss Florida says, bringing her face close to mine and then jerking it toward Clever’s stomach. For a bit, it’s like an ice storm swept through and froze us all up. Except for Vern and Teddy, who are bickering hotly about something outside the window.

  “Knocked up means Clever is goin’ to have a baby,” I try to explain, but before I can, Miss Florida yells, “Mercy,” and collapses into her red watching-television chair with a crashing thrump.

  “And Mr. Buster Malloy is dead and after I solve the crime and write my awfully good story for the Gazette,” I say, “Mama
will finally be able to rest assured ’cause she’ll see I’m gettin’ more Quite Right and that I can take care of myself and . . .”

  Damn.

  Clever and Miss Florida chime in together, “What?”

  Hat’s out of the box now, no sense denying. “I said, Mr. Buster Malloy is dead and—”

  Miss Florida interrupts with a wave of her hand. “Lord knows, there’s plenty of good folks wish it upon him.” Mr. Buster is known countywide for paying dirt cheap and not supplying near enough shade breaks to the colored men bent over those tobacco plants from sunup to sundown. “But Buster ain’t dead. Talk at the diner is he’s missin’, is all.”

  I can tell by the sassy look on her face that Clever doesn’t believe me either. Good by me. According to The Importance of Perception in Meticulous Investigation: Breaking News: One of the most important aspects of solid investigative reporting is the ability of a reporter to keep a story under wraps until he has gathered the proper substantiation of said story.

  Miss Florida groans, “Why din’t you tell me you was pregnant? Thought ya just been eatin’ too much barbecue.” She jabs her finger at Clever, who drops onto her knees and lays her head in Miss Florida’s low-valley lap. Everybody in Browntown’s probably running for cover, ’cause when that girl lets loose with her wailing, it cuts through the still of the night like an air-raid siren.

  I report, “I don’t know why she didn’t tell you, but I suspect the who is Willard and the what is his highness, Lord Sparky.”

  “Willard?” Miss Florida asks with a screwed face. “He that hippie boy livin’ up next to ya for the summer?”

  I nod my head the same way she always does, slow and with deepness.

  “Who’s this Lord Sparky?” she asks.

  “Lord Sparky is what Willard calls his . . . ah . . .” I bring my finger down to the front of my shorts, waggle it, hoping she gets the idea.

  “Oh, man alive, man alive!” She lifts Clever’s slippery face up in her hands. “He the father?” Clever does not answer right off ’cause she’s heaving pretty bad, so Miss Florida tempers herself some. “Ya should know by now, tears don’ help none.” Drawing a hankie outta the sleeve of her polka-dot house dress, she dabs at Clever’s blotchy cheeks. “That Willard boy . . . he the baby’s daddy?”

  Clever stutters out, “Can’t . . . can’t . . . say.”

  “Ya can’t say? How many men you done had, for godssakes?” Miss Florida thunders, which gets Clever air-raid sirening again.

  “Stand up, girl. Let me see that stomach a yours.” Miss Florida hikes up the flowing skirt past Clever’s underpanties. Goodness. I can still see her ribs, but right in her middle section it looks like she swallowed a world globe. And something real bad has happened to her belly button. It’s sticking out like a doorbell.

  “You ’bout eight months?” Miss Florida asks.

  Clever whimpers.

  “Yer not all that big, but see how that baby’s come down low? It’s gettin’ ready.”

  I ask, “Gettin’ ready to do what?”

  “To get on out of there and start bein’ more trouble than you can ever imagine,” Miss Florida says. Then the oven bell goes off—oh, that simply delicious smell. Maybe cherry? And with a shake of her head and a few tsks . . . tsks, Miss Florida braces her dimpled arms against the sides of her chair, pushing up hard on her way into the kitchen, and Clever is left to stew in her juices.

  “Why’d ya tell her?” Clever snarls, shoving me down onto the sofa.

  “Hush the hell up,” I say, bouncing back up, ready to shove her to kingdom come ’fore I remember her condition. If she wasn’t about to have a baby, I’d shove her back real good. She’s so irritatin’ when she acts like this. I’d much rather spend my time with that bubbly fruit smell than put up with her crab appleness. “I’m goin’ to get me a piece of that pie now. Do NOT get any bright ideas,” I warn her as I head that way. “I expect you to be here when I come back.”

  (It wouldn’t be ladylike to repeat what Clever sasses back to me. Suffice it to say, when she gets a bee in her bonnet, her mouth gets mighty waspish.)

  Coming into the small kitchen, I can see that Miss Florida is bent over at the waist in front of her old black stove. Her rump being so big, I cannot see past it into the oven.

  “What will happen when the baby comes out and will be more trouble than I can ever imagine?” I ask her. “May I have some lemonade?” Uh-oh. That makes me remember Grampa. (If he should wake up and come to check on me out on the porch like he does sometimes, well, I leave it to your imagination what kind of tangled-ass trouble I’ll be in.)

  When Miss Florida straightens, she’s got a beaut of a pie in her hand. Browned just right. About the same color as she is. “Hep yourself,” she says, nodding over to the Amana. “That girl is gonna have to give that baby up, is what’s gonna happen. She’s not much more’n a child herself and gots no money. How she gonna buy it food and diapers and such?”

  “No, I meant . . . how will I know when it’s time to take her to the hospital?” I am pouring the lemonade into my favorite jelly jar that’s been mine since I was tiny. “That’s what you’re supposed to do, right?”

  Miss Florida stands back, appraises me like she does one of her pies. “You’s been a good friend to that gal all these years, ya know that?”

  “Like my mama was to Miss Lydia?” Folks around here still talk about how Addy Murphy and Lydia Malloy were glued together practically from birth. And how if you pinched one of them girls, the other would cry. Miss Lydia was in almost every old picture I have of Mama. Until Grampa cut her out. “And the kind of good friend you are to her now?”

  “Just like your mama was to Lydia back then, and I am to her now.” When she isn’t working at the diner washing up or rolling out dough, Miss Florida helps out Miss Lydia, who has pet named her the Tender. Miss Florida has mentioned to me that she’s not sure if that means she’s good with the bees, or that she’s got skill with the growing of things, but that’s not unusual. Because Miss Lydia? She is so, so meaningful in her ways that sometimes we all have to think for days to figure out what she’s really saying to us. Like in some of those Bible stories. Ya know how you got to ponder them some to figure out what the hell the Lord is really trying to tell you? Like when He uses that word smote and you’re not exactly sure what He means by that, but you get a sense that he’s madder than a sprayed roach? Well, same with Miss Lydia.

  “Please tell me what happened to Miss Lydia’s boy,” I say, rubbing up and down Miss Florida’s arm.

  “Oh, Gib. How many times we got to go over this, ya think?” I guess this is not the first time I have asked her about this subject because she adds, so put out, “Georgie drowned a few years back.”

  “How’d that happen? Whenever Clever tells me tales about him, she never fails to mention what a strong and wonderful swimmer he was.” And that he was well known for his practical jokes. Like setting a grocery sack of dog duty on Miss Lilith Montague’s front porch, taking a match to it and yelling, “Fire . . . Fire!” (Georgie Malloy’s the reason Clever just about laughs her head off every single time she comes across an A&P bag.)

  “Let’s not go on ’bout Georgie,” Miss Florida says, wiping her damp hands on the towel attached to her frilly apron. “We got ourselves enough trouble in the here and now. Like how we gonna get ya home. No ways you goin’ back in that boat.”

  After I follow Miss Florida back into the parlor, somewhat disappointed she has not offered me a slice of that cherry pie, but nicely revived from the lemonade, Clever is nowhere to be seen. I was afraid of that.

  “Now we got another one missin’,” Miss Florida grumbles, sticking her head into her bedroom, where I have taken many a lie-down on her dried-in-the-sun sheets when Grampa got tied up with one thing or another.

  “I like the new one a lot.” I have stopped to admire her paintings on velvet that hang off the parlor walls and am pointing to a curly-haired puppy wearing a coonskin hat. Like
me, Miss Florida’s an art lover. She’s got two other framed ones of Jesus and the King—Dr. Martin Luther. And Darnelle, there are loads of pictures of the lovely Darnelle, who was Miss Florida’s girl, and the mama of Cooter until she went missing some years ago when she was selling peanuts up roadside. There’s also lots of photos of Cooter doing all sorts of things, like being sloppy in the mud when he was a kid, and swinging off the Geronimo rope down at the lake with his best friend, Georgie Malloy, but mostly he’s playing basketball. Miss Florida and Grampa were so proud when he got a scholarship to college a few years back, but after his knee got jammed up, he had to come home to Cray Ridge and work at the dump. (Even though Grampa has asked Cooter time and time again to come back to cook up at the diner like he used to when he was a boy, he won’t. I perceive Cooter can’t stand the heat in the kitchen. Because he’s gotten rowdy these days, mostly gambling. Grampa does not approve of that sort of thing.)

  “What did ya mean when you said now we got another one missin’? Who else is missin’ besides Clever?” I ask.

  Miss Florida takes a look-see in her bathroom, pulling her head back out with a shake. “We jus’ done went over this. Buster Malloy is missin’. ’Member?”

  “ ’Course I ’member,” I fib.

  “Miss Caroool Lever! Come out from wherever it is you is,” Miss Florida shouts with her hands on her hips. “You ain’t too big to feel my hand on your backside.”