by Pat Spears
“If you’re a mind to, you can climb back there and pile up a few Zs.” He nodded toward the sleeper. “Go on now. But take care you don’t piss off that old tom. His name’s Buddy Highway, but that don’t mean he’ll take a shine to you. Then, he’ll let you know. He ain’t a bit bashful.”
She took a bet with fate that she could trust a trucker who rode with a fussy tomcat and climbed into the sleeper. It smelled of old sweat and recent sex, the way Jewel’s bed had after one of Red’s longer visits. A gray cat opened a lazy yellow eye and closed it without complaint. She took that as a good sign, and she, too, closed her eyes and slept.
Sometime later, she was jarred awake by the pitch of the big rig coming to a full stop. Buddy lifted onto his haunches, blinked hard at her, as though he didn’t remember going to bed with a stranger.
“Hey, kid. Here’s where you get off,” the trucker called to her.
She climbed down from the sleeper and sat rubbing her eyes, her thoughts scattered.
“You’re in downtown Selma, Alabama.”
“Where?”
“Little darling, Selma ain’t the end of the earth, but you can sure make it out from here. If you’re hungry, go in there.” He pointed to a café. “Ask for Sally. Tell her Buddy sent you. He runs a tab there.” He grinned for the first time.
She wasn’t sure why she hesitated, just that she did.
“Go on now, girl. I’ve got a load to drop.”
“I’m grateful to Buddy.” Most of all, she was grateful to him, but not sure how to thank him for not hitting on her for no reason other than he could. She climbed down out of the truck and reached back for her suitcase.
“You stay low, you hear?”
She watched until the semi rolled through the second traffic light, and although she didn’t know the man’s name, she felt a strange sense of loss. Her empty belly pinched through to her backbone, and the promise of a free meal had her crossing the street. Whatever awaited her would be easier on a full stomach.
Selma Alabama - 1956-1963
Seventeen
Sally, a plump woman Jodie guessed to be in her late forties, didn’t ask how she knew Buddy Highway, though the question appeared lodged behind dark eyes that didn’t match the dullness of her hair; it was piled high and sprayed into a hardened shell, giving her a rigid yet unsettled presence. She glanced at the suitcase and sighed, then led Jodie to the table nearest the kitchen. Most likely she wasn’t the first girl to arrive hungry, carrying a battered suitcase.
“Where you headed, shug?” Her curiosity was laced with pity, and Jodie considered walking out. But her rumbling belly trumped her pride.
“Dallas, Texas, ma’am.” Her sagging confidence rallied at the sound of certainty in her own voice. Maybe she’d arrived in Selma through ill-fortune, but she had a plan for moving on. She wanted Sally to know that she was no hard-luck case.
“All right then, what’re you gonna have?”
Jodie liked that Sally’s earlier hint of pity was somewhat tempered, although her doubts may have lingered.
“I’ll have a cheeseburger, double fries, large fountain co-cola, and a piece of that lemon pie.” The thought of food had caused her to drool.
“Lord, child.” Sally laughed. “It’s eight o’clock in the morning.”
Unlikely or not, Sally called across the café to a colored man the size of a bear, his hair big as a smutty wash pot.
“Arthur, give me a cheese with double fries.” She leaned and whispered. “If he weren’t the best cook in all of Dallas County, I’d never put up with that mess of wild hair. Ain’t it just awful?” Shaking her head, Sally walked away.
Sally’s problem with her help was none of Jodie’s concern. What mattered was taking full advantage of Buddy Highway’s generosity and getting back on the road. She stood and crossed the room to a public telephone hanging from the wall in a dimly lit hallway. She pulled the sock from the pocket of her jeans and counted out ten dimes, cupped the grease-smeared receiver in her hand, and pressed it to her ear. Line static sounded like a hive of angry bees.
The long-distance operator asked for the name of a city and a number. Jodie’s anxiety swelled in her throat, choking her voice, and she hung up. She dropped into a squat. Dimes rolled across the dirty tile floor, spun on ends, and flopped.
“Hey, kid. You all right? You sick or something?”
Jodie looked back along the hallway where a second waitress stood at the far end, a steaming pot of coffee clutched in her hand.
“Yes’m, I’m fine. Dropped some change.” Jodie began gathering the coins, and the woman watched until Jodie turned back to the phone and lifted the receiver. She gave the operator the number she’d memorized and leaned against the wall.
“Yeah, yeah, I’m busy here. Make it snappy.” The speech Jodie had practiced for months was never intended for the gruff male voice at the end of the line. She’d imagined Lou Palmer’s friendly greeting. Jodie froze, turned stupid and tongue-tied.
“Out with it. You’re wasting my time.”
“Hey, yeah, sorry. I’m Jodie Taylor from Catawba, Florida.”
“Speak up, kid.”
Jodie believed she heard the sound of balls bouncing and the high-pitched chatter of women. “Mister, I don’t know who you are, but Lou Palmer’s expecting my call.”
“Palmer ain’t on the team no more. Broke her contract. We don’t need her kind. What’s this about?”
“Trials. She said I should come try out. Said I’m good enough.” It wasn’t what she’d said, but she had given Jodie her card.
“That right?” His tone carried a load of sarcasm, and Jodie wanted to blame him for her shitty luck.
“Yes, sir. I’m headed your way now. Can be in Dallas in a day or two.” Thumbing a ride was chancy. Maybe it was best she sacrificed, bought a bus ticket. A sure arrival time would mean she’d hit Dallas nearly broke, but she’d only need to hold on until her first check.
“Look, doll, I don’t know a damn thing about a Joanie whoever you said .…”
“It’s Jodie, Jodie Taylor.” Had Joanie made her sound like a sissy?
He paused. “Look, you’re too late. I’m set here.”
She slumped against the wall. “Then at least tell me when trials come up again.”
He laughed. “Ten months. But unless you’ve got an invite, you can forget it. We get girls like you all the time, wanting to catch on. Forget basketball. Marry some shoe salesman and squirt out babies.”
“No, sir. I’m not interested in that. I’ll call back.”
He laughed. “Yeah, you do that, kid.” The man slammed the phone.
Jodie felt weak. She’d need to eat, and soon, or she’d surely faint. She walked back and sat at the table. Her entire body felt numb, her brain on fire. Roy Dale’s crimes and her idiocy had likely made her a fugitive. Even if she wanted to go back to Catawba, she didn’t dare.
Struggling to check her near panic, she forced herself to focus on the café. The place smelled of years of grease and sweaty men who chain-smoked. Its patrons were mostly blurry-eyed laborers, along with a few white-shirt store clerks. Swap overalls for heavy denim work pants and khaki shirts, and they were the same dull-witted men she’d known all her life.
The café was roughly the size of a half court, barely room for a short-order grill, a counter with ten tarnished chrome stools, and the same number of tables, four to six metal chairs at each. A full-color, autographed picture of Governor “Big Jim” Folsom hung from a back wall and on the center wall, behind the counter, an unsigned picture of Coach Bear Bryant. Jodie knew nothing about Governor Folsom, but it figured a coach’s autograph was harder to come by than a politician’s was.
A clean-shaven young man, his upper arms heavily tattooed, looked Jodie’s way and winked. She turned away, focusing her attention on the approach of the waitress who’d called to her moments ago. She twisted her way to the man’s table, and his face brightened with something far different than the lust
she’d known in the eyes of the men her mama had bedded. Yet their exchange held familiarity of a kind she couldn’t name.
Jodie overheard “Hey, shug, you gonna have your usual?” He smiled and nodded. The waitress poured coffee and called across the café, “Arthur, give me a full Ted.” The bear of a man nodded, but never as much as looked up.
Sally returned with a platter of food and a tall, frosty glass of Coke and set both before Jodie. “There you go. Eat up.”
“Thank you. Looks mighty good.” Jodie lifted the hot burger and her stomach romped and stomped.
“What’s your name, honey?”
Jodie put the burger back onto the plate and considered her answer.
“Well, you’ve got one, don’t you? Nobody here’s got much, but at least we all got names.” She waved the hot pot of coffee, meaning to take in the curious, their forks suspended in the spaces between mouths and their next bites.
“Jodie … Jodie Smith. And you’re every bit the kind of boss I favor.” Where was her mouth taking her? “And believe me, I know plenty about café work. My mama owns one down in Florida. You might say the café trade’s in my blood.” Feeling she would drown, she paused, sucking air into her burning lungs. “And I can see my stopping in here is about to work out good. I mean for both of us.”
“And just how would that be?” Sally shifted her weight, and maybe she’d gone back to thinking free-loader.
“I’ve just now decided to settle in Selma for a time. And, I need work. I figure me and this place fit together smooth as slip and slide.”
Jodie sat back in the chair, her chest pumping like the gills on a dying fish, and Sally looked as if she’d heard the whopper of all whoppers. But to Jodie’s amazement, her face broke into a slow smile.
“Well, Jodie Smith, it just so happens today’s our lucky day. I’m short a busboy. The job’s bussing tables, along with cleaning the toilet, vacuuming, and hauling garbage to the alley after closing.” Sally looked again at the suitcase, and Jodie wasn’t sure how much it played into her next offer. “The job comes with a room upstairs, the blue-plate special twice a day, thirty-five cents an hour, and you share tips with the waitress.”
“That’s kind, but bussing is a bit of going backward. What I mean is, I’m used to waiting tables.” Shocked by her own bluster, Jodie felt to hurry what she figured was her last meal at the Red Wing Café.
“Now, is that a fact?” Sally grinned and glanced toward the door.
“Yes ma’am.” Jodie scrambled. “But I tell you what. I’ll take it, and if you’re happy with my work, then maybe you’d consider a promotion.”
“All right, that sounds fair. Job starts soon as you clean your plate.” Sally called across the room, “Crystal Ann, get over here and meet Jodie Smith, our new busboy.”
Jodie flinched at boy, but got what Sally likely meant as a joke. Then Sally turned conspiratorial.
“That one’s a mite slow of a morning. And if you ask me, it’s too much late night partying.” She nodded toward the young man.
Jodie hadn’t asked, and she read in Sally’s face a replica of the nosy slander her mama had known. On the spot, Jodie decided to trust Sally only as far as the job dictated.
Crystal Ann took her time pouring refills before strolling over, her chin a bit in the air.
“Jodie Smith, welcome to paradise. You can start by clearing table six.” She pointed. “And watch out that you don’t pocket my tips.”
Jodie stuffed the last of the French fries into her mouth and stood. With that, Buddy Highway’s generosity was extended, and Jodie Smith was born.
Eighteen
Jodie Smith had mostly stopped looking up at the sound of the café’s door, expecting a cop asking about a fugitive named Jodie Taylor. But after six months of bussing tables at the Red Wing Café, she still worried that crazy Roy Dale Pitts might somehow track her down, stroll into the Wing with his ignorant boyish bluster, and blow her carefully constructed cover.
There were plenty of slow times when Sally and Crystal Ann had managed to squeeze every ounce from local gossip, and one or the other turned to her with a meddling glint in her eyes. While Sally’s prying had the potential for exposing Jodie Smith as a liar and a fraud, Crystal Ann had Jewel’s suspicious eyes and possessed the same cleverness at peeling back layer after layer of her best sidestepping, half-truths, and bold-faced lies. Jodie worried that Crystal Ann’s probing carried the greater consequences.
There were times when Crystal Ann had her pinned in one lie or another, and then simply backed off, leaving Jodie to believe she’d heard traces of melancholy in Crystal Ann’s voice, as though she had her own pocket of stones. Still, she was at a loss to know what lay behind Crystal Ann’s probing, especially after the incident that had shocked her and left her even more baffled.
Crystal Ann had straightened from refilling sugar shakers, her hands pinching into her lower back, and she’d asked, “You ever hear of a tourist attraction down your way where specially endowed women dress as mermaids and swim underwater in a big-ass tank?”
Jodie slowed her pace at rolling breakfast setups and stared at Crystal Ann while weighing the risk of divulging any part of her past, especially a trip with Red to world-famous WeekiWachee Springs. She’d been thirteen and credited the scantily-clad mermaids, gracefully poised behind the glass wall of a giant fish tank, with her first arousal not caused by her own hand. Miss Mary and a disappointed Hazel had waited impatiently in the hot car beneath a noon August sun while she and Red viewed a second show.
“Was that a puny-ass yes?” Crystal Ann showed impatience.
“Yes ma’am, I did once. WeekiWachee Springs, I think it’s called.”
“Good, ’cause I’m thinking seriously about getting out of the café trade and moving on up to the titty business.” She’d arched her back, thrust her ample breasts forward, and shook wildly.
Jodie had looked away, blushing.
“Well, what do you think? Am I mermaid material?” A scathing laugh escaped her lips.
Jodie had been speechless, and although she’d felt a jolt pass between them, Crystal Ann turned away abruptly and rushed down the hall, slamming the bathroom door behind her. Jodie believed she’d heard in Crystal Ann’s laughter the kind of despair she remembered from her mama’s darker moments.
Jodie’s cheeks still flushed with thoughts of how good it might feel to touch Crystal Ann’s breasts. Hers were womanly, in full bloom, while Clara Lee’s had been girlish buds. Still, she couldn’t shake her fear that should she ever as much as think such a thing in Crystal Ann’s presence, there would be an awful price to pay. The coffee can hidden upstairs held a mere forty-nine dollars and forty-three cents: her savings for a bus ticket and living expenses when she reached Dallas. In an emergency, it wouldn’t take her far, but there was enough for a ticket should she need to escape Selma.
On the sidewalk, two Negro women hurried toward the corner bus stop, and Sally stared after them, her jaw set firm.
“Wish the city would relocate that stop. With all that colored mess stirring in Montgomery, it’s bound to spread.” Sally sighed heavily and looked to Jodie, for what exactly she wasn’t sure. “They’d better stay the hell out of here. There’s plenty of our regulars who’d go to their vehicles and bring back guns.”
The two watched the crowded bus pull onto the street.
“I sure don’t want no kind of trouble. Barely keeping the doors open as it is.”
“No, ma’am,” Jodie muttered. She now understood that Sally wanted nothing more from her.
Sally flipped the card that hung on the door to CLOSED. She then stepped onto the sidewalk, locking the door behind her. With the aid of the corner streetlight, Jodie watched as Sally rushed to her car and drove away. Jodie believed she’d seen fear in the way Sally had hurried past the alley and continued to glance over her shoulder as if she expected an attack.
Jodie hauled the carpet machine from the storage closet and began to vacuum the t
attered carpet that no amount of effort could ever again make clean or smell different than a wet Buster. She thought of the dog and hoped he’d taken up with Silas. When she’d gathered and dumped four loads of garbage into the overflowing drums in the alley, Arthur called to her from the kitchen door.
“I’m out of here. And if I see the light of day, I’ll be right back here tomorrow.” Arthur laughed, and just that quick, he was through the door and into the alley. Minutes later his Chevy sped onto the street to the thunderous roar of its rebuilt engine.
Her third week at the Wing, she’d heard Arthur bragging to someone over the phone that there wasn’t a cracker in all of Dallas County with engine enough to run him down. At the time, she’d wondered how his fast car connected to his rant that Atlanta had failed to send a real teacher. He’d slammed down the receiver, turned, and stared at her from across the diner, his eyes burning with instant suspicion.
She meant to keep her head down and stay out of his business. She’d shoved the vacuum into storage and turned to leave when he yelled that local calls didn’t cost extra and Sally was a stingy racist. The veins in his neck bulged against his dark skin, and his anger scared her.
She’d never before heard a Negro speak that way. The sentiment was as old and thick as time, but the word racist was new to her. Then, she knew him for a liar, at least about the forbidden use of the phone. Just the day before, she’d heard Sally wrangling with the telephone company about false charges. She’d declared the café’s phone was off-limits to her colored help and that none had gumption enough to make a long-distance call.
Jodie had managed to mumble that his personal dealings with Sally were no skin off her nose either way. He slowly nodded, and maybe he suspected her a liar as well, but appeared to accept what neither could undo. He walked past her into the kitchen, leaving her to sort out Jewel’s harsh warning that she was never to trust a Negro. Still, she’d decided to watch and wait before making up her mind about Arthur. She was still watching.