Saving Grace

by Lee Smith

  None of his answers made any sense.

  “Well, we aren’t very married,” he said. “We was drunk when we done it.” And, “Hell, she’s been running around on me anyway. She’s been running around with her supervisor.”

  “Do you know that for a fact?” I asked. “Have you and her talked about it?”

  “A man can always tell a thing like that,” Randy said, and for a minute I hated him, he acted so superior.

  “I can’t believe you’d stay with her if you knew she was running around on you,” I said. “I’d never do that.”

  “Oh hell, honey, ain’t you ever heard of free love?” he asked.

  “No,” I said, and then he told me what it was, and I said I thought that was awful, but he said he believed in it.

  “You mean to tell me you think people can go around and do whatever they want to?” I asked slowly. This sounded like some of Daddy’s theories to me.

  “Whatever feels good,” Randy said. “Whatever feels right.”

  “Randy,” I said, “don’t you know anything? Don’t you know that what we done is a mortal sin, and we are going to burn in Hell for it?” I was just as serious as I could be.

  But Randy started laughing that wild free laugh of his, which was somehow catching. “Oh Miss Florida,” he said. “Oh honey. You act like you have been living under a rock or something. I swear to God, girl! You need to come out in the sunshine and look around. You need to smell the daisies.”

  Randy was saying this while all the scenery of my life flowed backward past my open window, mountainside and fields giving way to open highway and then filling stations and 7-Elevens and then housing developments and strip malls. Randy went on to tell me his belief that there is no Heaven and no Hell either one! He furthermore believed that what is meant to be will be.

  “Well, I don’t,” I snapped, for I still believed in choices and responsibility, even though I knew I was going to Hell for what I had done. Randy stopped at a 7-Eleven on the outskirts of Knoxville and got himself a six-pack of beer and three wine coolers for me. I had never had one, which I told him.

  “Well, it’s high time you did, then,” he said. “Helps your nerves.” He opened a wine cooler for me with this special knife he always wore on his hip. We stood by his truck and stretched our legs. By then it was dark, but the arc lights above the parking lot cast a beautiful glow over everything. The wine cooler, which was a lemon-lime, tasted great. It did help my nerves. I finished it in a gulp and Randy opened another one for me. “That’s my girl,” he said. Then he pulled me to him and kissed me hard, and I remembered what all this was about, anyway.

  We never did eat supper. We went back to the Per-Flo Motel and did it, and then while I was in the shower, I could hear him talking on the telephone and I figured he had called Brenda, but when I came out of the bathroom, he didn’t say anything about her. I was so tired, tireder than I have ever been in my whole life. I snuggled in beside Randy to watch TV but went sound asleep at once and did not wake up until the middle of the night, when I was instantly horribly awake with my heart going in my chest like a jackhammer. I thought of Travis asleep in our bed at home, and my girls asleep at their friends’ houses, and a wave of terror washed over me. “Randy! Randy!” I shook him good. “Randy, honey, what are we doing to do?” But Randy was sleeping like a baby, so I sat up in the bed by myself hugging my knees and crying as I realized what I’d done.

  Randy who was so casual did not understand that there’d be no going back. But I did.

  * * *

  TO MAKE A long sad story short, Helen packed up all my clothes in three cardboard boxes with my name printed on them in big red letters and got Claude Vickers to bring them over to Knoxville and leave them at the Sherwin-Williams store for me, which meant that everybody where Randy worked knew all about it, all about us, so Brenda took off in a huff, which she was apparently dying to do anyway. At that point I moved out of the motel, where I had been living for a week on a steady diet of Big Macs and free love, and moved into Brenda and Randy’s apartment.

  “Honey, I have got nothing but pity for you,” Brenda said to me on the only occasion I ever met her, when she was driving away from their apartment at Creekside Green in Randy’s flashy red Trans Am piled high with everything she could cram in there. I was upset to find that Brenda was so cute, with big blond hair and puffy lips like Sandra Dee. “And I’ll tell you something else,” she went on, “if he left me, you can bet your bottom dollar he’ll leave you!”

  Then she scratched off, while I stood out in the parking lot and pondered that one.

  But Randy really loved me. I am convinced of this, even now. He loved me as much as he could love anybody. I know it. I knew it then. And he was fun—Lord, he was fun! We used to have the biggest times in spite of how heartbroken I was over losing my girls, or maybe because of it, if that makes any sense.

  One of the worst things for me was that my girls didn’t seem to miss me all that much.

  “You can rest assured that we will take good care of these sweet little motherless girls! They will do just fine,” Helen had told me on the phone right after I left, and this turned out to be true. Annette kept on making A’s, and Misty was picked for the May Court. Living over there in Knoxville, I didn’t even know what the May Court was! I was holed up in the Creekside Green Apartments, fucking my brains out.

  But I missed them so much. And I missed the country too, I missed sitting out under that shade tree in the side yard, or in the glider on the front porch looking across at the mountains. There was no creek at Creekside Green, nothing green either. Nothing but cheap apartments and concrete. Somebody told me that there used to be a creek but they had paved it over to build the apartments, and then they named the apartments for it.

  As for missing Travis himself, I could not even stand to think about him. I didn’t think about him! I pushed him out of my head like a dream in the morning. Every time his face came into my mind, I would turn on the television or drink a wine cooler or smoke a joint—another thing Randy introduced me to—or go lay out in the sun by the swimming pool. The one thing I liked about Creekside Green was the pool, and even though I did not know how to swim, I loved to lay out in my purple bikini, which Randy had bought for me at the outlet mall, and marvel at all my skin which had never seen the sun before. I put lemon juice in my hair, which streaked it blond, and let it hang down to my waist. I liked the way the UT college boys and the other men around the pool looked at me, I knew they were lusting after me in their hearts. This turned me on.

  When Randy came home from work, I’d jump on him like a dog on a bone and then we’d go out and eat at Taco Bell, which I loved, and then we’d get high or drunk. I grew to like vodka in particular, as it was like you weren’t hardly drinking at all. You couldn’t even taste it. I never did any cooking to speak of at Creekside Green, or kept house much. About all we had was the waterbed and the TV anyway, and I didn’t actually know how to cook, since Helen had done it all. I believe Randy was surprised to see that I was not interested in keeping house or buying things, and I know for a fact he got worried about my drinking. All I did for two months was drink vodka and get a tan. Finally Randy told me I would have to get a job if I was going to cost him that much in liquor, so I did. I got a job as a waitress at Halby’s Olde English Pub, where Randy’s band played sometimes after they got back together when his drummer, Marlon Johnson, got out of jail.

  The Sheet Rockers were pretty good and had already started to get a big following. They were a Lynyrd Skynyrd, Allman Brothers type of band. I used to love to go hear them, and I went to all their gigs before Randy made me start working. I loved to watch Randy up there onstage flipping his hair around, leaning over the microphone like he was making love to it. When they played Halby’s, I’d be behind the bar wearing my English serving-girl outfit with the black fishnet stockings, and in between sets Randy introduced me to ever
ybody. “This here is Miss Florida,” he liked to say. “Can you believe she was a preacher’s wife?” This still turned him on. But Randy got moodier and moodier at home and was gone a lot when the band started to travel more. He gave up his day job. After a year or so, it got to where I loved him the most when I saw him up onstage performing. What happened eventually was, the Sheet Rockers started getting hot. They were doing gigs out of town. Marlon bought a van. They all put in some money to make a demo tape.

  It was about this time that Misty ran away from home her senior year and arrived in Knoxville on the bus, to stay with Randy and me. At that point I came to my senses momentarily and made Randy marry me, which took all of five minutes down at the courthouse and didn’t seem to mean what it ought to. This had also been true of my divorce, which consisted of a lawyer who had showed up one day with a paper for me to sign. When Misty came, I bought some furniture at Pier 1 and tried to cut back on my drinking and act more like somebody’s mother, but by then it was pretty much too late for all concerned. Misty was fascinated by the Sheet Rockers and went to Atlanta with them for a gig, and before I knew it, she had married the bass player’s little brother, just like that. He was in a country band. He and Misty got an apartment, and then Misty got a job at a dry cleaner’s. I used to drive by there on my way to work to catch a glimpse of her through the plate-glass window, sorting clothes. She was still real pretty, and real enthusiastic. She loved her job, and she loved Johnny Jenkins, her young husband.

  Annette, meanwhile, was a junior in high school, still making As. She used to write me a letter every month, which she signed “Your Daughter, Annette Word.” I never heard a thing from Travis, though Annette would drop bits of news from time to time, such as that Helen had found him a girlfriend. I couldn’t imagine! In a way I felt sorry for this girlfriend, but in another way the news broke my heart. One good thing about it, though, was that the Words eased up on Annette some. After she got her license, for instance, they let her drive over to Knoxville so she could meet Misty’s husband, and we all ate supper together at the Peddler Steak House. Annette never once looked Randy in the eye. When she left, she gave me a hug and said that she would pray for me. She had a little Bible with her name on it in gold which she always carried in her purse.

  “Thank you, I could use some prayer,” I said, though Randy scowled at me.

  But I was telling the truth.

  The End of the Love Tour

  THE FACT IS, I was not real good at modern life. I didn’t even look good anymore after five years with Randy Newhouse. I had circles under my eyes and a double chin. I had gained thirty pounds. I had cut my hair and gotten a permanent so it would be easier to take care of, and it was easier, but I don’t think Randy liked me as much after that. He liked me back when I looked country, when I looked like a preacher’s wife. This is what turned him on, Now that I was thirty-eight years old and had cellulite on my thighs and looked like everybody else in Knoxville, he was losing interest. The band was traveling a lot, and when he came home it wasn’t the same. But I couldn’t face this, because of course I had given up everything for him. So I just tried to keep busy, working at Halby’s and helping Misty take care of the baby she had one year to the day after she got married. I’d keep him mornings while Misty went to school. First she got her GED, and then she enrolled in a practical nursing program. I was amazed—Misty had never been one bit practical as a child, and always said she wanted to be a movie star. But she made real high grades in the nursing program.

  Annette had gotten a full scholarship to Carson-Newman College, where she was majoring in Bible. Randy used to make fun of Annette and say she went to Carcinoma College. She made him real nervous by being so religious. But I was proud of both my girls. I have to admit, I was not too crazy about being a grandmother at my age, but I was crazy about Misty’s little John-Boy, who was named for his daddy.

  Johnny Jenkins turned out to be a good boy, a hard worker who gave up music entirely after the birth of John-Boy, and advanced steadily in his job at Lowe’s. He gave Misty a diamond lavalliere for their second anniversary.

  In many ways Johnny Jenkins was more mature than Randy Newhouse, and a better provider. Still, I went on pretending that things were all right for a long time, until that winter day when my car was in the shop and I had to drive Randy’s old truck to work, and I opened up the glove compartment and found a black lace bra inside. Not mine. Thirty-two C, some skinny little nineteen-year-old with big tits, I could just imagine.

  That whole night I served food and drinks at Halby’s on automatic pilot, smiling at everyone. Nobody could have guessed that anything was wrong.

  When I walked in the door at home after work I still didn’t know what I was going to say to Randy, or how I was going to put it, but he was gone anyway. I couldn’t remember where he was supposed to be, or who he had gotten a ride with. I couldn’t remember if the band had a gig or not. In fact, I couldn’t remember anything. It was like I had old-timer’s disease. I couldn’t remember how things had ever gotten to be this way. When had it happened? I thought about the Per-Flo Motel and the Magic Fingers, and how we used to be so much in love. I sat on the couch in the dark feeling real confused. Then I got up and got a beer and turned on Johnny Carson, but I couldn’t understand the jokes, it was like it was all a babble in another language or something. I sat there on the couch in my Olde English outfit letting the television noise wash over me like water, at least it gave me some company. Johnny went off and then some old movie came on and went off.

  My Randy showed up at three-thirty, with lipstick on his neck. He was drunk.

  “Why, Florida!” he said like he had never seen me before. “What are you doing up, honey? I thought you’d be sound asleep by now.”

  “Well, I’m not,” I said.

  Randy stood in the middle of the floor breathing hard, his gut going in and out. He had put on some weight too. Then his face started getting red the way it always did when he got mad. “What the hell is the matter with you?” he said.

  I couldn’t tell him. Nor could I look at him. I looked down at my hands instead, crying. I wished I wouldn’t cry but I couldn’t help it, though I knew it made him furious. Anything that made Randy feel bad made him furious. He couldn’t stand to feel bad. Finally I opened up my hand, where I had been holding the wadded-up black lace bra ever since I got home.

  “So?” Randy said. “So what?” He grabbed the bra and stuck it in his pocket and tried a loud laugh. “Big deal, baby. Could be anybody’s, you know? How the hell do I know whose it is? Where’d you find it, anyway?”

  “You know.” I could barely talk. I could not quit crying. Randy tried to touch me but I pulled away. He sat down on the couch beside me and put his head down on his knees. “Shit,” he said. “I wish you hadn’t of done this, Florida. You ought to know what men are like, their nature, I mean. It’s normal. But you’re not normal. You never were normal. It’s all black-and-white with you.”

  I didn’t know what he meant. I couldn’t imagine how else I was supposed to act in this situation. This situation was not supposed to happen.

  We sat there a while longer. Neither one of us had anything to say to the other. Randy kept his head down. I really thought he had gone to sleep, when he said, “Give me the keys, then.”

  “What?” I said.

  “The truck keys. The-keys-to-my-goddamn-truck.” He said this real mean, like I was retarded, I gave him the keys and he left, not looking back. He slammed the door behind him. By then all the channels had gone off the TV, and I sat there and stared at the snow until finally it started getting light outside, and one of the worst nights of my life was over.

  * * *

  ONE OF THEM. The other is the one I am fixing to tell about next.

  I intend to tell everything, as I said. Randy did not come back home or call. I got my car out of the shop two days later, and after not sleeping at all, I went ove
r to Marlon’s early in the morning. It was real cold, and hardly even light. I had to ring the bell for a long time. When Marlon finally cracked the door and saw me standing there, a look came over his face like he wished he could just close it.

  “Where is he?” I did not have time to beat around the bush.

  “Hell, Florida, I don’t know,” Marlon said. He kept the door open just a little bit, and did not ask me in.

  “Is he in there?” I tried to look over Marlon’s shoulder, where, sure enough, a girl appeared behind him, a black-haired girl I’d seen around but did not know.

  “He’s not here, honey,” she said. “He’s really not.” I could tell from her voice that she was feeling sorry for me.

  “You know where he is, though,” I told Marlon. “You’re bound to,” which was true, as I knew they were supposed to go to Atlanta the following week. Randy might leave me, but he would never leave the Sheet Rockers. This was sad but true, and I knew it. Marlon knew I knew it too.

  “I’m sorry, Florida,” he said, closing the door.

  But behind him, the girl said, “Gatlinburg, honey. They’re in Gatlinburg,” and then Marlon said, “God damn it, Shirley,” and slammed the door.

  I stood there crying. Then I went home and called Bill Halby and said I had the flu and would not be coming in to work that evening, and called Misty and told her the truth. I said I was going over to Gatlinburg to find Randy and get him back.

  “Mama, that’s crazy,” Misty said, and I could hear my little grandson John-Boy in the background. I told her I couldn’t keep John-Boy that day, that she would have to take him to his other grandmother, Johnny’s mother, or leave him with a friend. She said John-Boy didn’t like to go to Johnny’s mother’s, and I said well, she’d have to figure out something else then, that I was going to Gatlinburg.

  “Mama, I think you ought to get some counseling, I really do,” said Misty, “and some other kind of job where you don’t have to dress up in an outfit.” Now Misty thought she knew all about such things, since she was in nurses’ school. She thought she knew everything!