by Pat Spears
Maggie answered Jodie’s call, and in the background Jodie heard loud barking.
“You got a dog?”
“God, no. It’s Lassie tearing off after the bad guys.” Maggie had a long-standing infatuation with June Lockhart.
Jodie’s remarks were brief, and Maggie kept her fuming down to a single burst of profanity, agreeing to drive them to the appointment.
Jodie walked back along the road, and at the familiar sound of Silas’s truck approaching, she stepped onto the shoulder, allowing for regret should he choose to pass her by.
The truck slowed and he leaned, his face weary behind a week-old beard. “Where you headed?” The words were his, but his tone carried a strained distance.
“Nowhere.” She looked into the sun’s glare, his features lost to her.
“What’d you say we go there together? Throw back a few cold ones. Maybe get a thing or two settled. I’m not much good at this new way of ours.”
“Beer sounds good.” She got into the truck and he smelled, not of his usual Mennen and gas fumes, but oddly of turpentine.
“Want to take a run over to our tree house? See if she’s still hanging?” His mischievous grin wasn’t there, but she felt him working at it.
They drove the short distance and sat staring up at the tree house they’d built her first summer in Catawba with a ceremonial exchange of blood, pledging to its secrecy. The tree house took a full summer given to pilfering and hauling boards, roofing tin, nails, rope, and tools to the site.
“I remembered it a lot bigger,” she said. It was a mere four-foot-square platform with three walls and a lean-to roof resting precariously across two flanking limbs of a giant live oak. A sheet of twice-used rusted roofing tin lay on the ground beneath the tree.
“That old ladder’s apt to be rotted. You willing to try it?” His playfulness held only a faint slice of boyish challenge.
“Why not? Can’t amount to more than a broken neck.”
“You go first. If it holds, I’ll follow.” He winked.
They sat on the platform, legs dangling over the open side, neither finding words they trusted to talk about what had brought each there. When they had polished off the beers, he turned to her.
“I guess you want to know how it was I happened along on a Sunday afternoon when I’d otherwise be watching Bears football.”
“If you’ve brought me here to try and argue me out of what I said … it won’t do any good. It’s not like that—something to be fixed or taken back.”
“It’s true I don’t like what I heard. Understand it even less, but it’s not about that.”
“What then?”
“I wanted you to know I pulled those boards off the bathroom doors and painted them over. I’m guessing those who don’t like peeing together will pump their gas elsewhere.” Maybe it was his failed play on words, but his eyes bled a bolder conviction.
“What changed your mind?”
“Those little girls.” His voice broke.
“Not your girl?”
“Oh God, no. She’s okay for now.” He looked to where the tree line met the horizon and shuddered. “Those four little colored girls. Murdered by some twisted sonsofbitches who figured they could put a stop to history by killing kids.” He spit into the air and wiped his mouth on his shirt sleeve. “News made it sound as if they’d just turned out Sunday school.” He paused, catching his breath. “Goddamn, Jodie. Sunday school. Picture those four crowded together in a bathroom, primping and giggling over boys. Younger than me and you the summer we built this tree house.”
Bitter bile had pushed upward from her stomach and Jodie felt dizzy. She moved back from the edge of the platform.
“That bomb blast blew out the walls, brought down the upper floor, and crushed those girls beneath the rubble.”
When Jodie trusted herself to speak without gagging, she asked, “Where was this?” Not that place mattered.
“Birmingham,” he answered, then more silence before he said, “If Kennedy, King, and the Klan mean to make this an all-out war using kid fodder, then it doesn’t leave much wiggle room for us ‘go along, get along’ folk.” He rubbed his paint-smeared knuckles and looked at her. It was the second time she’d seen such hurt in his eyes. She took his hand in hers and he leaned into her shoulder, whispering, “Jodie, this evil is way bigger than politics and the damn politicians who drive it. Don’t know how many generations will need to die off before this meanness can right itself. You and me, we may not live to see it.”
“I sure hope you’re wrong. About how bad and how long.”
He nodded, but she knew hope to be a sorry excuse for almost anything.
In the grip of a human world gone mad, they sat silently, breathing in the evil aftermath, its bitterness staying on their tongues.
Overhead, against a sky so pure, leaves danced to the musical whisper of a gentle breeze, and a chorus of unaware songbirds chirped. It was as though Mother Nature turned her face away in shame, damning all of mankind. What was perception without action but evil?
Fifty
Maggie parked the truck near Catawba’s only bank and pointed out the ’59 Chevy. She waited until Jodie had helped Red to stand on the sidewalk before declaring she didn’t have the stomach for the upcoming travesty. She drove away, promising to return in an hour.
Jodie tightened her grip on Red’s razor-sharp elbow and they walked toward a side entrance of the bank building. The lawyer’s name on the glass was freshly painted in bold lettering that spoke of his recent arrival and his intent to make good.
The shabby carpet and secondhand furniture bore out local rumors that Anders had not arrived with buckets of family money, but that he had taken advantage of his college friendship with Walker Junior, acquiring a generous, co-signed loan from the bank. Jodie understood that Anders’s indebtedness likely explained his willingness to take a case against Red, a man of some reputation, if mostly scandalous.
Sadie Slatmore sat behind a secretarial desk, expertly stroking the keys of a Royal electric typewriter. She wore an orange and white striped tent dress, and when she stood, it unfolded to a size sufficient to house a three-ring circus. She looked up and gave Jodie a smile that worked only her mouth, directing her office-friendly manner to Red. He took her hand and inquired about her husband and their three adult boys. She led him to a side chair, and Jodie detected what she thought was genuine concern. But it was Sadie that Maggie blamed for the gossip that had reached Silas.
A slender man with blond curls, dressed in a worn, dark blue suit and maroon tie, came from the office labeled private. He spoke politely, introducing himself. He helped Red stand while apologizing for bringing him out under the circumstances of poor health, declaring the matter before them could be resolved in short order. His tone was sincere enough, but Jodie was certain lawyers were trained to sound that way. Red and Anders disappeared into the office, and Jodie caught a glimpse of Miss Mary, tugging at her dress hem.
The office door had no more than closed before Jodie headed out. She was unwilling to chance coming eyeball to eyeball with Miss Mary. She crossed the street, cut through the weedy vacant lot next to Silas’s station, and headed for the Flamingo Café.
The door opened to the dull jingle of three tarnished bells held together by a faded red ribbon, remnants from a Christmas long past. Two locals stopped talking and watched her. The blurry-eyed man at the counter was apt to be the driver of the big rig parked in the vacant lot. He didn’t bother looking up from his pursuit of the young waitress who stood close. A beefy man wearing grease-stained coveralls stared; his curled lip spoke of his disdain for any woman who wasn’t home changing diapers. Jodie matched his cold stare and he looked away.
The young waitress approached, the scent of her cheap Evening in Paris perfume preceding her. Jodie flipped the turned down cup and nodded toward the steaming pot in the waitress’s hand.
“You going to want something more?” Her words slipped between her painted lips, a
nd the powder blotched on her face failed to cover a rash of pimples. Her legs were bound in nylons, and she wore scuffed oxfords.
“A couple of plain doughnuts if you’ve got ’em.”
“They’re yesterday’s.” She spoke with a take-it-or-leave-it shrug, her weight shifted onto one leg, and Jodie remembered Crystal Ann had said women who lasted in the café trade learned to wear out one leg at a time.
“They’ll do.” Jodie pulled a Lucky from the pack at her elbow.
“Can you spare one? Ran out an hour ago. And I can’t leave out of here to get more.” She nodded toward Silas’s station. “Boss hates women smokers worse than he hates women in general.”
Jodie pushed the pack across the table. “Take two. They burn fast.”
The girl slipped the smokes into her apron pocket, left, and returned with the donuts. She lingered, as though she waited for a verdict.
“Not half bad.”
The girl poured a refill, and she still remained. “You’re the one ran off with that shiftless boy, way back, ain’t you?”
“Where’d you hear that?” Jodie was careful to keep her surprise to herself. The girl would have been in elementary school.
“From bigmouth Deputy Green. Claimed he was out your way on business.” She leaned closer. “Knowing him, I’d bet it was an excuse to snoop.”
“Yeah, well, I’m still that fool. Why?”
The girl shrugged. “No reason. Just wondered, that’s all.”
At the sound of the bells over the door, both Jodie and the waitress looked up.
Clara Lee Walker stood haloed against the sunlight pouring through the open door. She surveyed the café’s patrons before moving in Jodie’s direction. Her willow-thin body turned heads, and pride erupted from somewhere in the recesses of Jodie’s younger brain.
The steaming pot poised, the waitress whispered, “Do you know her? She’s the closest we got to a Peyton Place woman.” There was admiration in the girl’s excitement. “I’m writing her story someday.”
“I did once … know her. Then, that was a long time ago.” Jodie wondered if the girl would dare to write her side of Clara Lee’s story.
“Hello, Jodie. May I sit?” Clara Lee’s voice caressed, and her smile still had the power to take Jodie’s breath.
“Yes, but I can’t stay long. Got business across the street.” Jodie glanced toward the front door, but her mind and body betrayed her words.
“Patty, bring me a clean cup, please.”
The rustle of Clara Lee’s clothing and the swishing sound her silk-clad legs made, smoothly gliding one over the other, roared in Jodie’s ears, and the familiar flexing of her ankle as she gently swung her right foot was hypnotic.
Jodie glanced in the direction of the departing waitress and worked at pulling herself together, attempting a casual tone. “Has it really been seven years?” She knew right down to the day, but would Clara Lee?
“Time best measured in roads not taken. But yes, it has been. I was away most of the summer, only heard last evening you were back. I hoped I’d see you before I left again.”
“I’m not exactly back. I’m leaving as soon as Red’s better.”
“Yes, I understand that he’s quite ill. I’m sorry.”
“He was, but he’s better now.” Clara Lee wasn’t here to talk about Red’s illness, but Jodie needed more time to sort her jumbled thoughts. “The day I arrived I saw them. Your twins, I mean. They’re fine looking boys.”
“Yes, they are. But I’m sure you’ve heard, I’m a terrible mother.” There was a resigned sadness about her, the kind that took time to gather, and Jodie understood that a painful price had been extracted from Clara Lee.
The waitress brought a clean cup, poured a round, and looked quizzically at Clara Lee.
“No, thank you, Patty, I’m fine.” When the reluctant girl had moved on, trailing steam from the hot pot of coffee, Clara Lee leaned and said, “I’ve thought about you often. Where you might have actually gone.” She twisted a loose strand of hair that she now wore shorter. “Are you with someone special?”
Jodie removed the cup from her lips and set it back down, sloshing coffee. She glanced about the café, but it was nearly empty.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to pry, make you uncomfortable. I apologize.”
“No. I mean, I’m fine. And yes, I am … with someone, you might say. She’s smart and pretty. Lives in Mobile, Alabama, but she’s coming with me to Dallas. I’m leaving tomorrow.” It wasn’t a lie, but a decision she’d only just made.
Clara Lee looked down at her folded hands, but not before Jodie noticed that her eyes flashed a familiar, warm liquid gold.
“I’ve known for some time that I should have gone with you.”
In the moment, Jodie’s body ached with the memory of how it had felt to touch Clara Lee. She needed her not to get so close to where her feelings could get tangled.
“At least tell me we weren’t just a couple of misguided girls.”
“No, Clara Lee. We were much more.”
Clara Lee smiled, but it wasn’t the one Jodie had cherished. “I’m sorry, but I must go. I promised my boys a rare trip to Panama City Beach. They love the kiddy rides.”
She reached across the table and squeezed Jodie’s hand. “Will you remember me?”
“Yes, I will.”
Clara Lee stood, crossed the café, and stepped into the waning heat of an Indian summer.
Jodie signaled the waitress. “What’s the damage?”
The waitress answered sixty cents, and Jodie slipped her hand into her pocket for three quarters.
“Gee, thanks. I’m saving for junior college.” She leaned closer and whispered, “I’m going to be a writer someday.” The girl blushed under the weight of what Jodie had known as a Jewel sentiment: don’t go wishing for what you can’t have. Life’s kicks in the teeth hurt less that way.
“That’s good.” Jodie stood. “Can’t hurt to have a plan.”
She left the café and crossed the vacant lot. It had been a long time coming, but she too had a plan working its way through her brain, its clarity as pure as the brilliant sunlight.
Fifty-One
The return trip was made in strained silence, and now Red sat, hunched in defeat, Maggie occupying the rocker across from him. Their steady gazes made Jodie prickly, and she wished he’d get on with whatever he’d insisted needed settling. He’d handed Maggie a set of pages bound in a blue cover, titled Last Will and Testament of Charles E. Dozier. When she’d finished reading the document, she came up out of the chair, her round face red with anger.
“I knew all along Hazel had plundered those old records. How many times did I plead with you to put that savings passbook in Silas’s safe?”
“Spilt milk,” he muttered.
“Damn you, Red Dozier. That’s all you got to say?”
“Hush now, Maggie. If I’d got to that lawyer boy first, I could’ve turned this thing around.” He rubbed his hand across his grizzly face, the roughness of his whiskers audible in the closeness of the room.
“You’re a bigger damn fool than I thought. This was no pool hall brawl you could bleed and get up from. It had the stench of revenge from its onset.”
“Don’t you think I knew that?”
“I don’t care that it hangs you with a stingy living that’ll barely keep you in food and whiskey. Or that when you’re pushing up daisies, what money’s left, along with this worthless place, goes to Miss Mary. God knows the woman earned every cent.”
“Maggie …,” he pleaded, but Jodie felt his eyes on her.
“Shut the hell up. I ain’t had my full say.”
Red nodded, his shoulders slumped.
“Why not leave Jodie that old dog you’re so crazy about? Anything at all to have put her name alongside yours. Although why she even cares beats the hell out of me.” Maggie pitched the papers at Red and walked out, the air scorched.
Red lay back on the bed, his hands folded acr
oss his chest. “She’s just riled. Things will die down and she’ll see I ain’t holding to this paper.”
He closed his eyes, and maybe his raspy breathing returned to normal, but Jodie didn’t wait around to know. Red seemed to have missed Maggie’s finer point, but she hadn’t.
She’d walked a third of the way to the creek before noticing that Buster followed. He veered off the main path, flushing a covey of quail. The birds lifted on silver wings, ably outdistancing the old dog. While she wished the tiny birds’ pursuers were all slow, she was glad that the dog had retained his will to hunt.
After an empty chase, Buster drank his fill at the creek and flopped down next to her, panting. His wet tongue wallowed to one side of his pink mouth, and she stroked his broad head.
Sometime later, she heard footsteps approaching, and Maggie stumbled into the clearing, dropping onto the ground next to her.
“I thought you’d left.”
“I did. Had too. Worried that I might smother him in his sleep. Came back looking for you. Figured I’d find you here.”
“Was he always …?”
“Crooked? Let me tell you a story, and you decide.”
Jodie nodded.
“The summer Red turned a strapping sixteen, he already had a smile to pick life’s pocket. He left here, his head full of fanciful notions, and went down south with his mama’s no-account kin. He got a job in one of those big Miami Beach hotels, sucking up to rich tourists. He charmed more money out of those fools than he ever knew existed. Came home with his pockets jingling, wearing city duds, and the local girls swarmed him like bees to honeysuckle. He was a sight.” Maggie chuckled. “A time or two he even made me wish I was different.”
“Did he ever go back?”
“Nah, he was already poolhall–wise and rattlesnake-quick. Turned to running bootleg whiskey over on the beaches in a brand new Buick roadster. He left honest work and never looked back. He once joked that what he did was akin to Roosevelt’s WPA for rascals.”
“Did he ever try farming this worthless patch of dirt?”