Georgia Bottoms

by Mark Childress

  If Georgia took a drink every time she poured one for her gentleman friends, she would be a hopeless alcoholic. She only pretended to drink, because men don’t like to drink alone. Also they don’t like women who drink. Georgia’s usual practice was to pour a neat whiskey, take one sip to get the taste on her lips, then after the man leaves, use the little funnel from the seven-drawer highboy to pour it back in the bottle. That stuff was too expensive to waste.

  “Oh goodness,” the sheriff sighed into her hair. “Oh me.”

  “What’s wrong, Bill?”

  “Naw, nothing.” He patted her cheek clumsily, pat pat.

  “Something on your mind?”

  “Aw, not really,” he said. “It’s just… nothing.”

  She lifted up, resting her chin on the bone in his shoulder. Usually the only way to get him to talk was to wait.

  Finally he said, “Maybe best not to talk about it.”

  Georgia squeezed his arm. “You can tell me, or not. I don’t care.”

  “Oh, I was just… daydreaming.”

  “Mmmm,” she said, to coax it out of him.

  “Like, if I could get free,” he said. “We could go off somewhere. I could get another job.”

  Dear God. These were the most words Sheriff Bill had strung together in a long time. She wished he hadn’t done it. Of all her clients, she would have picked Bill as the least likely to fall into this kind of longing.

  Georgia’s usual reaction was to thank the man for such a sweet thought, then invent some reason she couldn’t keep their next date. Usually a week off was enough time for him to come to his senses.

  “That’s a sweet thing to say, Bill,” she said. “Is something wrong at home?”

  “Just—”

  She waited.

  He got started again: “Hate to think I might lose you ’cause I never said nothing to you.”

  “Aw now, Billy, you’re not gonna lose me. Not a chance,” she said lightly. “What on earth makes you think that? I’m not going anywhere.”

  “But—I’d like to…”

  “What, marry me? No you wouldn’t. Think about it. You’ve been with Raynelle how long? Thirty years?”

  “Thirty-four,” he said, like a man serving a life sentence who knows exactly how many days remain.

  Almost as long as I’ve been alive, Georgia thought. “Remember how in love with her you were, until you married her?” she said. “That’s what would happen with us.”

  “It’s different,” he said. “You’re different.”

  “After a while, I’d be the same.” She put her feet on the floor. “Same old Georgia, just like she’s the same old Raynelle to you now. She’s a good lady, Bill. You don’t want to mess that up.”

  A flicker of lightning etched the lacy pattern of the sheer curtains on the opposite wall.

  Bill sat up.

  Another flicker, and another. The bluish flash was too rhythmic to be lightning.

  “That’s a squad car,” Bill said. “What the hell?”

  Georgia rushed to the window to see a pair of squad cars splashing blue light all over the side of her house.

  “Oh God!” She grabbed up the sundress. “I’ve got to get down there.”

  The sheriff was down on all fours groping for his underwear, showing his skinny white butt.

  Georgia wrestled the dress over her head. “Bill, do not come down there, you hear me? Let me handle this.” She hurried out the door, down the stairs, through the backyard, toward the house. Here came Nathan out the side door with his hands cuffed behind him, hustled along by a deputy on either side. Little Mama watched in triumph from the front porch, brandishing the pellet gun she used to chase squirrels from her bird feeder. There were two cops on the porch with her to protect her from the dangerous Negro.

  In a flash Georgia saw one possible future, in which she gazed coolly at Nathan in the arms of the law and said, I’ve never seen him before in my life.

  Easiest thing in the world. No action required—just stand back and watch them take him away. He would never come nosing around her house again.

  But she did not think she could do that.

  It wasn’t that Nathan was her own flesh and blood—hell, they carted Brother off to jail all the time, and Georgia barely roused herself to protest.

  The truth was, she already cared about Nathan. She knew that watching him sleep had been a big mistake. In just those few moments, she had formed an attachment. He started to matter to her.

  This went against her long-standing rules against emotional engagement, but what can you do? It’s not every day your own issue shows up at your house.

  And not every day the armed forces of Cotton County join with the city of Six Points to arrest him. Georgia knew these men—those were the Six Points cops, Jimmy Wagner and Jack Logan on the porch with Mama, sheriff’s deputies Clay Ford and Lester Pine frog-marching Nathan toward their blue-flashing car. Georgia had gone to high school with Lester. He dated Eileen Simmons the summer of their junior year.

  “Hey Lester,” she sang. “It’s Georgia Bottoms, how you?”

  He stopped to give her the once-over. “Well fine, Georgie—damn, don’t you still look good!”

  “Why thank you. What’s going on here?”

  “Your mother called 911, said a black male broke into y’all’s house,” Lester Pine said. “We got him right here.”

  “Well, I sure do appreciate it, Lester, but Mama made a mistake,” said Georgia. “This is Nathan. A friend of our family. You can let him go.”

  “We had a complaint of breaking and entering,” said Lester, “and we caught this subject inside the residence. We have to take him in and write up a report, at least.”

  “Lester, mind stepping over here a minute? Nathan, you stay right there with Officer Ford. That’s right, just—I need to—if I could, just a minute—” She got Deputy Pine off to the side, laid an imploring hand on his elbow. “Lester, don’t make me say this too loud, okay? My mother is not of sound mind. She’s confused. Whatever she told you is all in her head. That boy’s a friend of ours. Now you just let him go and we’ll forget this ever happened, all right?”

  Right in the middle of saying this, she realized Lester Pine was gazing at her mouth, dying to kiss her. Georgia did not think she’d done anything to encourage him, but sometimes these things happened without her doing anything at all. She let the notion dangle in midair, a promise she might keep one of these days.

  Just that hint was enough to soften him up: “Aw, I don’t know…”

  Georgia heard the fatal waver in his voice. “Let him go, Lester. I promise, this is all a big mistake.”

  “Well, maybe if you was willing to—”

  “Absolutely, I take full responsibility.” Georgia squeezed his arm to reinforce the promise. “He’ll stay right here with me till he goes back to New Orleans tomorrow. Will that be okay?”

  Nathan stared at the ground, silent as a tree, his face devoid of expression. Looking at him, you would never be able to guess whether he was innocent or guilty. His face was just that blank.

  He’s been arrested before, Georgia thought. He knows exactly how to behave.

  Lester Pine turned to Clay Ford. “Gotta let him go.”

  “Well damn it,” said Clay, “catch ’em inside somebody’s durn house and they still want to turn ’em loose. Hell if you ask me—how is that not interfering with the conduct of our duty?”

  “It’s a false alarm,” Lester said. “She knows him. He was in the house by permission. Don’t ask me why.”

  Georgia had been waiting for the implication, and there it was. It was unusual in Six Points for an African-American male to be in a white lady’s house by permission, except to do some kind of labor.

  “False alarm? It ain’t no damn false alarm!” Little Mama turned on the nearest cop, big old Jack Logan, and smacked him—hard!—on the forearm. “Don’t you dare let him go! That boy broke into my house!”

  “Now Miz Bottoms
, ma’am,” said the bemused Logan, “you can’t hit me, I can’t allow that, I’m an officer of the law.”

  “Shut up!” Little Mama smacked his arm a second time. “You get off my property!”

  “Mama, stop that!” cried Georgia.

  Jack Logan removed the pellet gun from Mama’s hand, and propped it against the porch rail. Stepping behind her he gently wrapped one beefy arm around her, pinning her hands to her sides. “Miz Bottoms, cut that out, hear? Don’t make me put cuffs on you.”

  “Mama, for God’s sake,” said Georgia.

  Little Mama struggled, trying to kick him. Logan gave a grim smile at the humor of this little old lady resisting him. He lifted her in a one-armed hug—like Popeye with that bulging forearm. Little Mama screeched and kicked at him. Logan winced—she had landed a good one.

  Georgia had been wondering how to convince them of Little Mama’s infirmity. Little Mama had handled that all by herself.

  Suddenly Georgia felt foolish about the whole situation—she must be especially slow-witted this evening, or maybe the rush of circumstances had dulled her into letting this happen. How could she have left Mama alone with the boy, knowing her slippery grip on reality? The minute Georgia realized Nathan was going to spend another night, she should have canceled Sheriff Bill—but she did not want her regularly scheduled life interrupted by something as inconvenient as the fruit of her womb.

  Little Mama worked one foot loose and tried for one last kick at Officer Logan. Her heel struck the porch rail. Georgia watched the barrel of the pellet gun slide along the rail. Time slowed down, as it does when a disaster is unfolding in front of your eyes.

  The gun went into free fall, smacking down crack! on the floor.

  That crack was the gun going off.

  Pellets blew through the seat of Jimmy Wagner’s khaki uniform trousers. To hear him howl you would think it had blown him in two. “I’m hit! I’m hit!”

  Clay Ford scrambled for the squad car, the radio. “Officer down!” he hollered. “Shots fired! Officer down! Get me backup!”

  “Oh for God’s sake, it’s a pellet gun,” said Georgia. “Would you please calm down?” No one listened. The radio squawked. Clay Ford bellowed for backup.

  Georgia cried, “Nobody fired! The durn thing fell over ’cause he had it propped on the rail!”

  “Stand back and be quiet!” Officer Ford pulled his pistol from its holster and began waving it wildly. Georgia ducked.

  Jack Logan one-arm-carried Little Mama down the driveway toward the second squad car. Jimmy Wagner groaned, twisting his head around to see where he’d been hit.

  Lester pushed Nathan’s head down and shoved him into the backseat of the first car.

  It went against Georgia’s nature to stand in silence, but she was the only one not getting arrested. If she stood quietly, she thought, they would turn off their flashers and go away.

  Eventually they did. The yard got dark again, quiet enough to think.

  17

  Georgia walked around the house to the backyard.

  “Georgia.” A whisper from the camellia bush by the back porch.

  “Bill?”

  “Shhhh—”

  “Oh, come out of there. They’re gone,” she said. “Were you hiding in there the whole time? While your stupid boys arrested my mother and—that boy?”

  Hearing him rustle the branches, trying to find his way out of the bush, Georgia realized that she was surrounded on all sides by idiots. Her well-stitched life was showing definite signs of fraying.

  She glanced to the alley. The sheriff’s brown Chevrolet was gone.

  The branches parted, ripping open a whole new seam in her life. It was not Sheriff Bill who stepped out of the camellia bush. It was the Reverend Brent Colgate.

  Gleamingly handsome and tan, in creased khakis and a burgundy polo shirt, he might have stepped out of a Sunday-supplement ad.

  God he’s gorgeous, was Georgia’s first thought. Maybe she said it out loud. Thinking back, she was never quite sure.

  “Well, hello, Miss Georgia!” he said, as if they had just happened into each other on the street.

  “My, my,” said Georgia. “You sure do tend to turn up.”

  He smiled. “I do, don’t I?”

  “At the most inopportune moments,” Georgia said. “What the hell are you doing in my bushes? Spying on me?”

  “Not spying,” he said. “I was waiting.”

  “For what?”

  “For you to be done with the police. So we could talk.”

  How could his teeth be so white, in the shadows of the side yard? The streetlight fell through the branches at just the right angle to glint off his smile.

  “It’s like you’re following me around,” she said.

  “Really?” said Brent. “What if it turned out I am?”

  Georgia said, “Then I’d want to know why.”

  Brent Colgate said, “You fascinate me, by God. You are the most interesting person in this town.”

  “It’s a small town,” said Georgia.

  Sometimes life comes stealing up like a little kid who sneaks up behind you and yells so loud it stops your heart.

  This was different: something new announcing itself, like the pealing of a bell, right there in Georgia’s side yard.

  A moment after Brent stepped out of that bush, Georgia zoomed up and up to a great altitude from which she could survey their future: first the passionate kiss, the coming together, the weeks, months, years of sexy sneaking around, followed by the difficult period while he extricates himself from his marriage, the surge of happiness when he’s finally free and then… a quiet little wedding in Biloxi, or Vegas, or—hey, why not New Orleans?

  And then look out, world—Georgia Bottoms will be the last thing anyone ever expected: a preacher’s wife, perfectly happy!

  Thank God she had maintained her church attendance all these years.

  She could even give him kids—she wasn’t too old yet, although her clock was ticking pretty loud. She could give him beautiful blond children. And she would do it, too. Raise his kids. Keep his house. Have his supper ready at the end of the day. Georgia had spent her life looking down on women with no more ambition than that—and now, for the first time, she knew it was something she could do. No. Something she wanted.

  She could give up the life she had built for herself. The clients. Independence. Easy money.

  Gladly. The whole pancake. For him.

  If only Brent Colgate would love her, would fall deeply in love with her and swear until death do us part.

  Floating way up over herself, seeing the map of their happiness stretching out into the future, Georgia also realized that tonight, for the first time in years, she had the big house to herself.

  Mama was behind bars. Nathan too. You couldn’t count on them staying there for long, but for now that’s where they were. She thought of that old Elvis song: “It’s Now or Never.”

  There stood Georgia and Brent in the side yard like two magnets placed near each other—neither one of them actually moved, but suddenly both found themselves in motion, unable to resist the gravitational attraction of two bodies in space.

  Brent grabbed her.

  Georgia fell into his arms.

  He was kissing her.

  Oh, it was good.

  18

  Ella Fitzgerald singing: Spring can really hang you up the most…

  Waking up from a hard sleep, a fleeting moment when Georgia didn’t know who she was. Then something pierced the dream world and drew her down toward the light of day. On this morning, it was Ella. The CD had been playing softly all night.

  Georgia struggled to open her eyes. The right eye was glued shut. She ran a finger along the eyelid to unglue it.

  She saw her foot poking out of the sheet. She ran her hand all the way to the other side of the mattress. Brent was gone. Of course he was gone, it was morning, and not early, either, to judge from the hot yellow sunlight pouring in through th
e sheers.

  Good God—had she really fallen sound asleep with a man in her bed?

  She might have been sleeping for days. A crusty rim had built up inside her lower lip. The mattress was damp where her mouth had been, the coverlet wadded in the corner, top sheet flung over the chair. The fitted sheet had come half off the bed, bringing the mattress cover with it, leaving a stretch of mattress that looked somehow too naked. As if wild animals had been tearing each other apart in this room.

  Georgia smiled, padding to the bathroom. She was seated spraddle-legged on the toilet when it dawned on her that she had let Little Mama languish in jail all night.

  Oh God, and Nathan too!

  Her natural selfishness and lust had overwhelmed her sense of duty. A hundred times last night this knowledge tried to crowd into her mind, and a hundred times she told it to go away.

  Last night was Georgia’s night. A night just for her. She didn’t want any nagging sense of duty getting in the way of her afterglow. If she wanted to be Scarlett O’Hara, waking up blissful the morning after Rhett had his way with her, that was her right.

  She felt… taken. Ravished.

  She would get up, get dressed, go get Mama out of jail, because that’s what she had to do. But no one could keep her from exulting in this wonderful feeling, of having been well and truly made love to. By a man who was on fire for her. Her whole body sang a happy song, every finger and toe. That’s what sex with a crush can do.

  It had been so long since Georgia went to bed with anybody for a reason other than professional duty. It reminded her what she liked about sex in the first place. The stickiness, the humidity of each other, the natural slipperiness…

  She needed a shower, clean clothes, then she would go get them out of jail. They’d been in there all night. Another hour wouldn’t kill them.

  Georgia wasn’t quite sure what she would tell them, other than how hard she’d been working to get them out.

  Ella Fitzgerald sounded weary, breathy, a little wistful, “I Concentrate on You.” Georgia pressed STOP and gave her the rest of the day off.

  It happens in the great Ant Connection that sometimes an ant finds another ant. Just like the millions of ants running around—but different, somehow. There’s a spark, a connection. Next thing you know…