Thoughts of Uncle Mary surfaced, and Flannery remembered his bite, the whipping he’d given her on the day they buried Honey Bee in the spring of 1950.
* * *
Honey Bee’d promised Flannery he would wait to push off into the river until after school, but when she got down to the bank, she saw he’d left in the boat without her. She sat there hours, waiting on the grassy slope, knees hugged to her chest, wondering why, worrying how he could leave without her for the first time.
When it was close to sunset and he still hadn’t returned, Mama called Uncle Mary. He went looking and found Honey Bee collapsed on his ferryboat, stuck on a sand bar a mile downriver.
By the time Uncle Mary dragged Honey Bee up the bank, her daddy was dead. Flannery and Mama kneeled on the ground beside Honey Bee’s body, praying over him.
The doctor arrived and told Mama that Honey Bee’s body done broke from the disease he’d been fighting. “Yellowed up like the sun and burned out.” He shook his head.
Mama cut him off, blaming herself. “If only I’d locked up the sugar. If only he hadn’t had the long tooth for it,” she added bitterly.
The doctor and Uncle Mary looked away, not saying a word.
Flannery wrung her hands with a full knowing of her daddy’s true demise. Patsy, who had just walked down to the river to find Mama to help her with something, dropped to the ground in a faint when she spotted Honey Bee.
The morning of the funeral, Flannery, Patsy, Mama, and Uncle Mary sat in the front pew inside the small, packed church soaked in the stink of burial flowers. Folks Flannery knew and those she’d never met came to pay their last respects.
Men from out of town, dressed in wide, chalked-striped suits, sporting pocket squares on jackets and sharp-creased fedoras atop their heads, sat knee-deep with spiffed-up locals wearing clean, pressed Sunday collared shirts and pink scrubbed faces. Other mourners spilled out of the church house and onto its wooden porch and grounds.
Mama, shock on her sagging face, stooped in misery, moved turtle-like.
Flannery and Patsy held hands during it all, soldiering strength from each other until the end when the preacher called for silent prayer. At that moment Flannery felt a soft rumble in Patsy’s grip that leeched into her own hands, battering her heart.
“No, don’t,” Patsy’d mewed low. A deep coloring filled her cheeks as she stared at Honey Bee’s casket. Then her voice grew stronger. “Don’t leave me, Daddy. Please don’t go, Honey Bee,” Patsy cried louder. “Don’t, oh, don’t go,” she’d screeched into the hushed crowd, sobbing until Uncle Mary took Patsy’s hand and led her out of church.
Flannery had buried her tearful face on her mother’s shoulder.
The preacher gave a fine service, one grander than Mayor Dillard’s, who’d died two years before.
From the doorway of the church, Flannery watched Uncle Mary say a private word over Honey Bee’s coffin, lift a bottle of River Witch from inside his jacket, and place it inside his casket.
After, they held an early supper at the Butler house. Strangers stopped in and discreetly left fat envelopes of money on Honey Bee’s cellarette in the parlor for Mama, handing separate ones to the preacher.
Later, when most of the guests had left, Flannery found Patsy up in their room. She sat down on the bed where her sister was curled up, crying. “Hey, Patsy, come down to the barn with me. I think that old mama cat had her kittens a few weeks back. We can go find where she’s hidden them. Take them some scraps from the supper.”
Patsy shook her head. “I can’t,” she said. “Can’t stand to go into Honey Bee’s place and not see him. He’s gone, Flannery. Gone! Who’ll care for us now? Who?” Patsy wailed.
“Honey Bee taught me how,” Flannery said, rubbing her sister’s shoulder, her last promise to Honey Bee taking hold, the worry sawing across her bones. How would she bear it all, now that Mama was wrapped in her own silent grief, Patsy coiling inside her own? Who would see to her?
“Our Honey Bee took good care of us,” Patsy whispered.
“I will too,” Flannery said solemnly.
Patsy looked at Flannery, doubt pricked across her brow, but a yearning to believe flickered in her eyes. Flannery sensed that Patsy wanted to be excused from her duty to her sister, the one that comes from obligation as the oldest.
“I always wished I was born after you,” Patsy said quietly.
“Then I’d be the prettiest.” Flannery tried to make light.
“I’m not as strong as you, Flannery. Like you and Honey Bee.”
“Only ’cause Mama says it.” Flannery brushed a curl away from her sister’s wet cheek. “You’re strong and pretty enough.”
“You and Honey Bee were so much alike. I can’t lose you.”
Flannery squeezed her hand. “Shh, I’m here.”
“You’ve always been braver. I wish . . . I—”
“Patsy, I’ll take good care of us.” At that moment Flannery knew. Saw a measure of relief in her twin’s red-rimmed eyes.
“A dear sister, one as good as any friend,” Patsy said. “You’ll always be my one and only.” Patsy pulled Flannery’s hand to her cheek, kissed it. “I love you, sister.” Patsy sighed, a relief in her breath.
“I love you too, sister. I’ll take care of us. Promise.” Flannery crawled into bed beside Patsy and held her until her twin cried herself to sleep.
It was still light when Flannery went into her parents’ room and found Mama asleep on the bed. “Mama.” She gently shook her shoulder.
Mama stirred, fluttered her grief-stricken eyes.
“Mama, I’m scared,” Flannery said. “Can I stay in here tonight? Please. I—”
“Go to your room. Your sister needs you,” Mama said, turning away and onto her side, a sob thickening her breath.
“She’s asleep. Mama, please. It’s only seven. I’m so lonely. I miss him so much. Can I just sit on the bed beside you for—”
“Don’t be selfish.” Mama’s words were strangling, biting.
Flannery went downstairs and sat by herself at the kitchen table. Neighbors and friends had cleaned up and put away dishes. After a few minutes, she snuck out with some fried meats and ran down to the barn. Inside, the feral mama cat slinked past her in the shadows. She watched it disappear behind a crate.
Needing to love and feel that in its wholeness and in absolute, Flannery followed.
She peeked behind the wooden box, dropping pieces of meat, and saw two orange-striped kittens and one calico. Flannery reached, and the mama cat arched her bony back, took a swipe at her hand, nabbing it with a long, blood-tracked scratch, before running away.
Flannery lifted out one of the kittens, then stole one of Honey Bee’s full whiskey bottles from a dusty, cluttered shelf and soaked herself good in the grief, wetting the tiny, mewing kitten with her tears, cuddling the small creature close to her trembling body.
Uncle Mary found Flannery and pulled her thirteen-year-old self out of the barn that evening and lit her tail with a switch all the way back to her porch.
Uncle Mary said, “Lord A’mighty, child, you’ve disgraced our dearly departed Honey Bee. You don’t gulp to a man’s life, you sip nice and neat with a prayerful toast or two for honor. And only when you’re grow’d up.” He switched her legs again. Once more. “And only for your papa. Ya hear me, child?” Uncle Mary carried Flannery into the house, dumped her onto the settee, and called to Mama.
That was all it took for Jean Butler to pack her grief, beg ol’ Uncle Mary to take on and buy the Butler whiskey business.
Flannery cried buckets for her dear Honey Bee to come back, pleading for another chance with the whiskey. Mama wouldn’t budge, but did let her keep Honey Bee’s old recipe books. And that was all.
Uncle Mary placed a weathered hand on Flannery’s shoulder and told her, “It will be waiting for you when you’re good an’ grow’d up, girl. Stay off the witch’s teat, and we’ll partner up in the end, and no charge to you.”
&nb
sp; But that was all lost now, dead in the water. Age claimed Uncle Mary eight months later. The following week a businessman from Nashville bought the Butler distillery, the stills, the ferryboat, and moved it all downriver.
CHAPTER 10
Patsy
June, 1952
Hollis fell to his knees and slumped over in the dirt. He was out cold, the last light of day taking him prisoner, wrapping his backside with thick ropes of golden-green.
Patsy dropped the rock and ran to Danny. He sat crutching himself against the tree, moaning, wisps of whiskey breath in each cry. “The sonofabitch ruined our p-prom,” Danny said.
“Danny, shh . . . Oh, Danny, look at you. Where does it hurt? Show me where.”
Danny rolled his head, struggling to speak. “Here. Up here.” He held his hand high on his left arm, trying to stand. “Damn bullet got my arm. I think it shattered something, some bone too. Patsy, it hurts. All over.”
“Dear God,” she barely breathed.
Danny touched his crooked nose. “Bastard b-broke this too,” he said drunkenly. “Get me to a doctor, Patsy.”
“The hospital? The one off the Palisades—?” she asked, trying to pull him upright.
Danny grunted, “Yeah, County Hospital.” Danny limped over to the automobile, using Patsy as a crutch, and folded himself into the backseat. Empty liquor bottles scattered onto the floorboard. Danny looked up at her. “What he s-said? What he said, is it true, Patsy?”
“Shh, Danny, I told you, you’d be the first,” she answered and shut the back door. “Just look at you. We need to hurry now.”
“I—I just want the truth.”
“Hush, I said. Just hush now.” Jumping into the driver’s seat, she was relieved to see Hollis had left the keys. She pushed Hollis’s flask out of the way, shoving it over to the passenger side, and examined the dash, knobs, and the gearshift column.
Patsy had been driving, some here, a little there, on two-lane road spurts when Mama thought she and Flannery needed another lesson, or had an errand to run in town. Lately in Mama’s small old ’40s Ford Coupe with the hard-to-work clutch. And only a handful of times driving in the Palisades when Honey Bee began sneaking her lessons. She’d just turned thirteen, though that was their secret they’d left snagged to the pine boughs up there.
And sometimes when she and Danny rode home with Hollis after school, he’d pull over and let them take turns practicing for a stretch of mile or so in the Henry family’s Mercury with its new and fancy automatic, the automobile Sheriff Henry had turned over to his sons.
Patsy looked past her knees and downward, making sure a clutch hadn’t suddenly appeared. She poked her shoe around for the pedals, kicking a bottle under the seat, pumping the foot feed and brake, testing. Then she pulled out the knob for the headlights, though a smudge of daylight remained.
Scooting up close to the big, skinny steering wheel, she draped her left arm over it and turned the key with her right hand. The engine gave a tiny growl and went quiet. She tried again and only got clicks with the engine cranking but not catching. “Damn.” She pressed her head to the wheel, tried once more, furiously pumping the gas.
“Flooded it,” Danny said hoarsely. “Oh, damn . . . This hurts like hell, Patsy. Like a—oh damn, hurts like a sonofabitch!” He hollered out in pain, then quieted a moment. “G-give it a sec. Try again,” he said, drowsily this time.
She peered over the dash out the window and saw Hollis spread out by the elm. His hand twitched a couple of times and stilled. For a second, the sun looked like it had lit him on fire, a wave of heat rippling up from his body.
Slowly, Patsy counted to five and then held her breath and tried to turn over the engine again. It didn’t catch.
Danny groaned.
Patsy’s neck itched, burned from the anxious rash eating at her skin. Her armpits were soaked, the lovely yellow prom dress sticking to her like filled-up flypaper. She scratched her neck, plucked at the fabric pasted under her arms, and again stroked the fires eating at her flesh. My pearls, she almost cried out again. She’d have to sweet-talk Flannery into helping her find them before Mama found them missing.
Danny thrashed in the backseat.
Glancing over her shoulder, she saw his grim, pale face, a bloody hand pressed to his sleeve, his busted nose, swelling and bloodier still. Droplets of drying blood freckling his cheekbones.
“Hang on,” she said.
“Did you let him do it, Patsy?” Danny whispered. “Let Hollis have what you promised me?”
“Don’t be silly,” she gasped. “I want you. Only you. I saved myself just like I promised I would. You believe me, don’t you, Danny?”
Turning back to the wheel, Patsy leaned in even closer. Someone was there, someone in a long blue dress, not twenty feet from the hood. Patsy rubbed her eyes. A woman stood over Hollis, her back to the automobile.
“Help! Oh, Danny, look,” Patsy said, throwing an arm over the bench seat. “There’s someone here. Do you see her? Do you see the lady? . . . I can’t tell who it is. Maybe it’s Farmer Parsons’s wife from across the field?” She honked the horn and rolled down the window. “Over here. Help us. Please help.” Patsy squinted to get a better look.
Danny coughed. “J-Jo,” he wheezed out. “Joet—”
“What?” Alarmed, Patsy turned back to the windshield. “Joetta? No,” she said, dropping her head down to the big, round dials on the dash, pinning her eyes to the fuel gauge. Shaking, Patsy fumbled for the ignition, turned the key far enough to light up the dials, and watched the gas needle rise slowly. Half full.
Patsy turned the key, again got nothing, and then dared to glance back out to the elm. No one was there but a knocked-out Hollis.
She exhaled. “Joetta’s ghost is just a tale. You know that.” Fear chewed at Patsy, stealing her courage. She rubbed briskly at the panicky stink rising from her chest, fanned herself. Nerves. That’s all, she thought, and Danny was letting his fever talk.
“I’m cold,” he whined, more bothered than before.
Quickly she cranked the window shut.
Danny cried out again, startling Patsy into turning the key once more. This time the engine roared, and she shifted the gear into reverse and backed out, lurching the heavy Mercury away from Ebenezer.
“Hold on.” Patsy steered onto Palisades Road toward County Hospital on the other side of the cliffs. “It’s okay, Danny; we’ll be there in no time. They’ll fix you right up.”
“Ho—Hollis has been a-acting”—Danny’s throat seized, and he hacked once—“pretty cozy with you . . . and if you gave it up to him, Patsy, if you . . . with him, and if you’re lying to me ’bout all this, Patsy—”
“Hollis is the liar!” she yelled. “And you’re still skunk drunk.”
“Patsy?”
“Stop it. You hurting like this is making you mean. Mean. Just like Hollis. Just shut up now. Please, Danny. Shut up. We have to get you to a doctor.”
“Patsy—”
“I have to keep it on the road here or else.” Stretching her body upward, Patsy leaned in to the wheel. The Mercury’s big nose was hard to see past. She glanced into her rearview; the shaved trunk dipped heavy and low, awkwardly. It was like driving a big bathtub up and down and around a bumpy roller-coaster.
Gripping the steering wheel, she fought to keep the Mercury on the narrow road, careening too close to one drop-off shoulder and then veering across to the other. The tires sprayed small bites of limestone into the wheel wells, pruned patches of wild rye and mountain lover out from under the low, fishtailing frame.
Danny mumbled something that she couldn’t understand, then fell silent.
“You okay, Danny? Danny? Danny, wake up!” Patsy begged.
CHAPTER 11
Flannery
1972
Flannery said a silent prayer for her sister’s safety, slipped back into the car, and sat for a few minutes, the rocky Palisades cradling her hope, giving her the courage to face whatever wa
s down there.
Out of the corner of her eye, she saw it resting at the end of the rail among the empty beer bottles, scattered cigarette butts, and pieces of broken glass, poking up from the concrete in a spindly thatch of determined grass. The white plastic egg someone had tossed, lying there like a chicken had indeed crossed the road to roost. She laughed at that, a short mad laugh, before marshalling it safely back inside her.
Here she was, going for possibly dreadful news, but thinking about shopping. It was still hard for Flannery to believe you could buy cheap nylons in an ugly fake egg. That women had been scooping them up as soon as the company began selling them last year.
Not Flannery, nuh-uh. She preferred her stockings neatly folded, silky, pressed and packed in slick, fancy cardboard sleeves, and even better, when she could find them, in small, thin linen boxes embossed with a fancy golden script, like the ones that filled two of her dresser drawers in the city.
Flannery jerked her hand down and pulled up the hem of her jeans. She’d been in such a rush to leave, she feared she’d forgotten to wear them. Relief washed over her as she rubbed a finger over the hosiery. They were a reminder, her armor, and she never risked leaving the house without them, ever since that final evening at Chubby Ray’s.
Chubby Ray’s. Flannery knocked the name onto the steering wheel. It was still there. Pull up a stool at the all-American Chubby Ray’s. Refresh with cold, two-dip milkshakes, luscious sundaes . . . Chubby’s, America’s home to the tasty hot-rod hotdogs and Chevrolet cheeseburgers and fun treats. Fun, fun, she recalled the old advertisement she knew by heart.
Though Chubby Ray himself had long passed, and the drugstore and soda joint belonged to his son, Junior, it was still a decent business. A popular spot dishing up the same fifties fun, the only entertainment in Glass Ferry, serving kids like it had when Flannery worked there, like it had, from what folks said, when it opened way back in the late ’30s as a diner first. Fun.
The Sisters of Glass Ferry Page 9