Dry County

by Jake Hinkson

  I press my thumb to my lips. I don’t have anywhere to go. I don’t have anyone to call. I’ll drive back to Stock and drop off Roxie’s car. And then I’ll walk back to my apartment.

  I put my head in my hands.

  My phone buzzes. I rub my eyes and pull the phone out of my pocket. I recognize the number. Richard Weatherford. I called him last month to complain about something he said at a city council meeting. Maybe he’s calling to return the favor.

  “Hello,” I say.

  “Yes, hello. Is this Brian?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Yes, Brian. This is, uh, this is Richard Weatherford. How are you?”

  “I’m not too hot, Reverend. What can I do for you?”

  “I was hoping we could talk.”

  “Okay.”

  “I was hoping we could talk together. In person. Today, preferably.”

  “What do you want to talk about? I’m busy.”

  “Well, it’s about the upcoming vote.”

  “I’m not in the mood for another sermon on the evils of alcohol, Preacher.”

  “Yes, well, I’m not going to preach. At all. In fact, I was hoping we could talk about it.”

  There’s something weird in his voice. He’s never sounded like this. For a second, I’m not really sure it’s him. “Okay . . .”

  “I think you might want to hear what I have to say.”

  “Okay, then. Where? Your church?”

  “Uh, no,” he says. “What I have to say is rather sensitive. I wonder if we could meet somewhere we could have a discreet conversation.”

  “A discreet conversation.”

  “Yes.”

  “Where’d you have in mind?”

  “You know the car wash down Huddo Road?”

  “Yeah.”

  “I can be there in ten minutes.”

  “I’m out on the road,” I say. “How about an hour?”

  “An hour? Okay. Yes. An hour.”

  “I’ll see you then.”

  “Brian, one more thing.”

  “Yeah.”

  “I’d appreciate it if you didn’t mention this to anyone yet. Let’s keep it under our hats, if you don’t mind, until we have a chance to talk.”

  “Kinda sketchy, Preacher.”

  “No.” He laughs, nervous. “No, nothing ‘sketchy.’ I’d just like a word with you.”

  We hang up, and I’m sitting there looking at the phone, thinking, Now, what the hell does he want?

  SIX RICHARD WEATHERFORD

  I’ve just hung up with Brian Harten when my phone buzzes in my hand. I jump because I assume it’s Brian calling me back.

  Instead, it’s my father. I hang my head and groan.

  I can’t miss this call.

  “Hey, Dad,” I say.

  I hear him settling into his armchair. “Well,” he bellows, “how’s it going?”

  “Going well,” I say. “All the kids are home for Easter.”

  “Yeah? That’s good.”

  “We were sorry you couldn’t make it down.”

  “Oh, you know I’m too busted up to travel. Y’all should come see me.”

  I try to laugh that off. “Dad, why do you always invite me to come visit at the only time of the year you know I can’t come visit?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Inviting me to come visit you on Easter is like inviting a groom to come visit on his wedding day.”

  “Well, I don’t mean now, necessarily. Just, you know, one of these days.”

  This is the thing he says every time we talk. In response, I say the thing I say every time we talk.

  “Yeah, we need to make it out to see you sometime. Right now, I’ll tell you, I’ve really got a lot of things going on.”

  Dad chuckles. It’s not mocking, but his amusement carries a hint of sarcasm. “That two-day work week running you ragged?”

  My face gets hot, but I try to laugh with him. “You wouldn’t believe how much I have on my plate, Dad.”

  “Oh, don’t get sensitive. I know you do. Got all them kids to wrangle. Your mother and me could barely handle one. Speaking of your offspring, Matt graduated yet?”

  “In a couple of months.”

  “He given any thought to what’s next?”

  “Well, it looks like he’s going to grad school.”

  “Grad school? No kidding. For that political science thing?”

  “Yes. He’ll stay at U of A.”

  “Gonna be a politician, I guess.”

  “Time will tell. He’s already made some good contacts.”

  “He wants to run for office one day, he should go into the service. None of these politicians have any military service anymore.”

  “I know.”

  “I do like ol’ Trump, though.”

  “Yeah?”

  “Sure. The Mexican border’s got more holes than a piece of Swiss cheese. He’s right about that. Got all kinds of people coming over every day and sponging off welfare, driving down the wages, having litters of kids. Somebody’s got to put a stop to it.”

  “I’m holding out for Cruz.”

  “Ain’t he Cuban or something?”

  “Well, part Cuban, I think. He’s a Southern Baptist.”

  “That’s good.”

  “What else is new with you, Dad?”

  He laughs. “I’m old, son. When you’re old, everything is new, and nothing is. My right hand is just about done. That’s the latest development.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Well, I only got one finger on that hand that works, my pinkie. And what can you do with that? The fingers that do all the real work, they ain’t worth a damn. They’ve gone stiff as a board.”

  “Did you go to the doctor?”

  “Next time you send up a prayer, say a word for my hand.”

  “I will. Did you see a doctor, though?”

  “Oh sure, but these VA doctors don’t know nothing. This little ol’ gal that was working on me told me they could chop off the fingers if I wanted. You believe that? I said, ‘Well, do you need to?’ and she said, no, they ain’t going to kill me or nothing. So I told her, ‘Well, darlin’, I’d just as soon keep my fingers, if it’s all the same to you. They’re useless, but they’re mine.’ These doctors don’t know nothing.”

  “But, Dad, what did they say was wrong? Is it complications from the diabetes?”

  “Oh, well, the diabetes is probably in there somewheres, I reckon, but there’s also that nerve damage in my arm, too, from the time I rolled my jeep in the service. Plus, I got the osteoarthritis. So that’s another factor. But that’s the way it goes. When you start getting old, it’s always something. And once you start getting really old, it’s always ten different things. I’m so beat up now, it’s getting hard to remember a time when I felt whole.”

  “You been praying about it?”

  “Oh, the Lord’s got better things to think about than my old broke-down body. I’m getting old, that’s all. No use bothering God about it.”

  “I’m not sure that’s true . . .”

  “Don’t preach at me, son.”

  “How about Scripture? You reading your Bible?”

  “I don’t have to read it. I know it’s true. That’s all that matters.”

  “Well, are you at least going to church, Dad?”

  “Oh, sure. I go just about every Sunday.”

  “Well, I’m glad to hear that, at least.”

  “I don’t like the new music guy, though.”

  “Why not?”

  “Well, he gets up there with a guitar. Got a kid on drums, one on bass. I mean, they’re okay, but guitars and drums in a church? I thought church was for pianos and organs, not rock and roll.”

  “You know, a lot of churches have praise bands these days. Almost all the big churches do.”

  “Well, your granddaddy only believed in two things—the United States Marine Corps and the Southern Baptist Convention—and if he’d lived long enough to see
some longhair beating drums on a Sunday morning, I think he would have shot somebody.”

  We both laugh at that, and I say, “I know what you mean, Dad, but there’s nothing in the Bible that mandates the playing of an organ to praise the Lord.”

  “If you say so. Y’all don’t have that Christian rock-n-roll at your church, do you?”

  “Heaven forbid. If I let somebody put drums on the stage, Amos Pettibone would lead people to my house with torches and pitchforks. Maybe that’s why I can’t get our membership above three hundred.”

  “Three hundred ain’t bad.”

  “I guess not.” I think of his two-day-work-week comment earlier, and I add, “Three hundred keeps me plenty busy. I do my visitations on Monday. I do a senior adult Bible study every Tuesday morning, plus I do the business meetings every month, in addition to writing two sermons for the Sunday services and the Bible study on Wednesday night.”

  “Well,” he says with the tone he uses to cue the end of a call, “I reckon I should let you get back to it. Sounds like you got a lot going on. You say hi to everybody for me.”

  “I don’t have to run this minute . . .”

  “You tell Penny I said hello.”

  “Okay, Dad.”

  “Okay, son.”

  We hang up, and that’s it for my father until Christmas.

  When it’s time to leave, I walk into the kitchen where Penny is talking to Mary and Ruth. My girls.

  Penny is sitting on a barstool by the island, her legs crossed, coffee in her hand. Mary and Ruth are sitting on the kitchen counter—a practice I long ago gave up trying to discourage when I realized that I had no support from Penny.

  When Ruth sees me, she jumps down from the counter and runs over and hugs my waist. Although she’s every bit the cute little nine-year-old girl, of all the children she is the one who most looks like me. The resemblance is right there in the center of our faces. We have the same prominent nose, thick lips, and big teeth. As they say, I couldn’t lose her in a crowd.

  I pat her back. “Hello, my daughter.”

  “Hello, my father. Can I go to Scarlett’s house?”

  “I don’t know, can you?”

  “May I go to Scarlett’s house?”

  “Did you ask your mother?”

  “I did.”

  “And what did she say?”

  “To ask you.”

  “Then yes. I can drive you, too.”

  Ruth cheers and runs upstairs.

  “Richard . . .” Penny gives me the raised-eyebrow look that is supposed to trigger a recollection of the obvious, but I have no idea what the obvious is supposed to be here.

  “What?” I say.

  “All the children are home. I thought we were going to hang out as a family.”

  “Dear, if you wanted her to stay home, you should have told her so yourself.”

  “But you are the beloved head of our household.”

  “Since when?”

  “Oh, hardy har har,” Penny says, sipping her coffee.

  Mary smiles at that. The children have always appreciated our parental banter. When we were younger, it had more of a sharpness to it, more anger, more frustration. Over the years, it’s softened considerably into playful bickering, enough so that I can make these little jokes about abdicating my authority. It’s understood, of course, that mine is the final word. But I have attempted, metaphorically speaking, to wear that crown a little lightly.

  “Are you feeling better, Dad?” Mary asks.

  “Yes. Thanks for asking.”

  “He’s going to see the doctor on Monday for a checkup,” Penny says.

  I wave in an exaggerated way. “Meh, doctors. I don’t need their black magic.”

  “He’s joking,” Penny tells our daughter, “but you know I’ll have to drag him in there on Monday. Just like a man. They all think they’re too tough to see a doctor.”

  “That’s me. Tough guy.”

  “Were you talking to someone just now?” Penny asks. “I thought I heard you on the phone.”

  “My father called.”

  “Oh.”

  Mary says, “How’s Grandpa?”

  I shrug. “As constant as the North Star.”

  She smiles. “Did he ask you why Matt’s not joining the Marine Corps?”

  “It might have come up, yes.”

  “Did he bring up that you should have joined the Corps?”

  “It must have slipped his mind this time.”

  Although my father was proud of me for going into the ministry, he was disappointed that I hadn’t followed him into the Marine Corps. I flirted with the idea, even met with a silver-tongued recruiter who offered me the world on a platter, but I felt compelled to follow the Lord instead. Dad even pushed the idea of my becoming a chaplain. If I’d had the decision to make after 9/11, I’m certain I would have gone into the Marines like my father wanted, but in the early nineties, I legitimately thought I could do more good in the world as a minister. Besides, I’d seen enough of the military life through my father to know that I sought higher ground.

  Ruth comes downstairs.

  I ask, “You ready, Baby Ruth?”

  “Daddy, I’m too old to be called Baby Ruth.”

  “My daughter, you will never to be too old to be my Baby Ruth.”

  She makes a production of rolling her eyes and shrugging. “Okay then. I’m ready to go.”

  “Okay.”

  “You’re coming right back?” Penny asks.

  “What?”

  “I said, you’re coming right back, right?”

  “Why do you ask?”

  “I was just wondering.”

  “Yes,” I say, a little irritated. “I’m coming right back.”

  She sips her coffee and turns away from me. “Just don’t want you to run away from home.”

  Scarlett’s house is five minutes from the car wash. After I drop off Ruth, I turn onto Huddo Road.

  Penny’s somewhat odd comment lingers in my mind, though she’s always been given to making little caustic remarks. I can think of no reason she would have to be suspicious of me today, but I can tell something’s bothering her. After twenty-four years of marriage, I can always feel when the pressure is building beneath her strange silences and offhanded comments.

  It took us a long time to understand each other. When we first began dating in college, I was constantly baffled by how fervently she worshipped her parents. She’d been their miracle baby, their only child after three miscarriages, and their family was intensely close. Truth be told, though, she’d created a false idol out of her parents. Her worship of them lasted into the first decade of our marriage and, aside from money, was the source of most of our marital problems. Simply put, she wanted me to be a copy of her father. Dan was a good man, but I’d just crawled out from under the influence of my own father, and I didn’t need a new template. It took Penny years to come to terms with the fact that the man she married was never going to be her father, years for her to finally accept that the Lord brought us together for a reason. Certainly, he has blessed us with children. She sees as well as I do the hand of Providence in that. Still, if I know her heart the way I think I do, I know she’ll always place me somewhere just below her father when it comes to measuring the worth of a man.

  The oddity of that, of course, is that I’m more successful than Dan ever was. I have the bigger house, the more impressive job. And not that it’s about numbers, but I have five children, and he, like my father, only had one.

  Yet I can feel my face redden as I reflect that neither Dan nor my father ever did what I’m about to do. Suddenly, I’m so hot, I have to roll down the window to get some fresh air.

  For all his faults, Dad never did what I’m doing. But he never had this kind of responsibility, either. He never had to protect an entire church.

  After passing a few more houses and a couple of old barns, I turn off Huddo to follow a small, arrow-shaped sign for the car wash. I climb a shaded gravel r
oad up to two rickety aluminum stalls at the top of a hill, where I find Brian Harten waiting for me in his car.

  As I pull into the vacant stall, Harten walks around, his hair tousled in the wind. Stepping out of the minivan, I glance toward the road. Aside from glimpses of Huddo Road trailing off into the distance, the swaying trees ringing the hill obscure the view.

  “Thank you for meeting me,” I tell him.

  “Why are we here?”

  He’s a young man, Brian Harten. Perhaps thirty or so. His clothes have a slept-in look, and his matted brown hair appears unwashed. Despite the cool winds coming through the trees, sweat beads his bland face and scruffy chin.

  I say, “I wanted to talk to you about our . . . About the situation with the upcoming vote.”

  “Yeah,” he says, “but why the fuck are we meeting way out here?”

  “Because I wanted to talk to you in private.”

  “Okay, well, here we are. So what do you want to say?”

  “First, you and I both know that the quorum’s going to go against you.”

  “You don’t know that.”

  “Yes, I do. And so do you. There are too many people around here who want Van Buren County to stay dry.”

  “Because you riled them up.”

  “Well, whatever the politics of the thing, it wasn’t personal, Brian, I can tell you that. I’m actually really impressed by you. No, I mean it. Although we’ve been at opposite ends of this thing, I know you’re a sharp, motivated young man with enormous potential. Anyone can see that.”

  “That’s a huge relief, Preacher. I thought you were ruining my life because you didn’t like me.”

  “If I hurt you, Brian, it wasn’t intentional. I always liked you. In fact, I wanted to talk to you today because I want to see if I can help you.”

  “What does that mean? Help me with what?”

  “Well, I know you’ve got a lot tied up in your store. A lot invested in its success.”

  “Yeah . . .”

  “And I’ve given it some thought . . . What if I could help things go your way?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Like you said, I’m a big reason why this vote is going to go against you. What if I turned it around? What if I could help you get the wet ordinance put on a special ballot?”