Her light blue shirtwaist dress, limp in the afternoon heat, rode up a disappearing waistline and pulled at bosoms too large. She smiled and waved to them as she picked her way across the street made lumpy by years of unfettered oak tree roots. The residents of Lower Peach Tree had grown to love the corridors of shade provided by the top half of the trees that lined the sidewalks of their town. They had learned to live with what was bubbling up from beneath the surface.
“Mrs. Yandell comin’ up,” Tuway said. “And she look like she wants to pass the time.”
“Just the man I want to see,” she called to the Judge.
The Judge slowed. “Afternoon, Kitty Lou. How you doing?” They all came to a standstill under the shade of a big oak. Kitty Lou Yandell carried a handkerchief that sent sweet smells wafting through the air each time she raised it to dab her face and neck.
“I could do with a little less heat.” She smiled at the three of them. “I swear, y’all are beginnin’ to look like the Three Musketeers, I see you together so much.”
“Well, you know”—the Judge smiled—“us big high-powered business types need lots of assistants.” The Judge reached out and put his hand on John’s shoulder. The boy jumped at the touch. He was always surprised that the Judge knew exactly where he was standing.
“Tuway, I hope you’re keepin’ these two on the straight and narrow,” Kitty Lou Yandell said.
“Yes, ma’am, Mrs. Yandell. Hope this heat ain’t gettin’ you down.”
“ ’Bout like it always does. I’m just out from under the porch fan long enough to walk to the post office and see to the mail—but then I saw y’all. I just said to myself, Byron is the one I need to talk to about this. It’s been on my mind all day long.”
The Judge began immediately. “I know what you’re gonna say, Kitty Lou. Every woman in town has been complaining to me about that new furniture in the lobby. I didn’t have a thing in the world to do with that. Miss Maroon—”
“No, no, Byron. That’s not it at all, honey. It’s something else entirely . . . although I will admit I told Red the other day that furniture is a bit—well, never mind about that now. What I want to talk about is what everybody in town is talkin’ about.”
The Judge cocked his head and turned toward Tuway. “Everybody in town, and I haven’t heard about it? Tuway, you told me everybody in town was talking about the tacky new bank furniture.” The Judge shook his head. “See there, Tuway. I’m always the last to know.”
“Yes, sir, Judge.” Tuway couldn’t suppress a grin. “You always the last to know.”
“Y’all may think this is funny, but it’s not funny. It’s serious. I wouldn’t waste my time comin’ over here if I didn’t think it was serious.” She paused to let the gravity of the situation sink in. Then she took a step closer. “I think you need to do somethin’ about that incident over at the Cotton Patch the other night.”
The Judge tried to look knowledgeable. “Ah, that incident at the Cotton Patch.” His head moved slowly up and down, as if contemplating.
“I know you’re gonna say it’s none of your business. That’s what Red said. But the boy is on your bank board, isn’t he? And his daddy was a friend of yours, and his mama does stay in Montgomery all the time, doesn’t she? She’s no help.”
Now the Judge stepped closer to Kitty Lou and said in a loud whisper, “Who is this we’re talking about here, Kitty Lou? I got a feeling it’s either Jack the Ripper or L.B. has been getting himself in trouble again.”
“You know good and well it’s L.B. That boy is gettin’ to be a disgrace to the whole town.”
“In either case, Kitty Lou, there’s not a lot I can do. L.B. is free, white, and twenty-one. Actually, he’s more like thirty-five. He’s a grown man.”
“Grown man? Grown men don’t go around gettin’ drunk as Cooter Brown at the drop of a hat and tryin’ to—” She looked down at John and stopped, then looked back at the Judge and cleared her throat. “Well, don’t you think it’s a disgrace? Right out there under the streetlight. I just think it’s appallin’. I wish he’d go on back over to Selma and do his cattin’ around. They say over there he’s got a”—she lowered her voice—“a Negra girl . . . had her for years.”
“Why, Kitty Lou,” the Judge said in mock surprise. “What do you think the Baptists are going to say about you gossiping like that?”
“It’s not gossip. It’s a fact. And the other night, I saw him with my very own eyes, right out there under the streetlamp after Sissy Reed’s engagement party. . . . And don’t you go and try beatin’ me over the head with the church, Byron Vance.”
The Judge smiled. “Well, sometimes that works, Kitty Lou.”
Kitty Lou was undeterred. “He’s just gotten all out of hand, Byron. What in the world do you think they think of us over in Selma . . . or Tuscaloosa, for that matter?”
“He’s not the first Black Belt boy with too much land and too much time on his hands, Kitty Lou. Selma has its share.” He held up his hand. “All right, all right, I’ll see what I can do, but I’m not promising you anything. L.B. doesn’t think he needs advice from anybody—especially me.”
Kitty Lou was immediately mollified. She patted the Judge’s lapels with her handkerchiefed hand, sending lilac smells swirling about them. “I know you’ll think of something, Byron. I just knew if I talked to you, you would fix it. I’m gonna tell Bible study you’re gonna be workin’ on it. We’ll put you on our prayer list.” She backed off and again started toward the post office. “Y’all have a good evenin’, and say hello to Adell.”
“I’ll do that,” he said. The sound of her heels clicked down the sidewalk and the Judge turned toward home again. “What in the world was that all about? What party? What lamppost?”
“You the Judge. You suppose to know ’bout them lamppost doin’s.”
“I wasn’t going to ask her what happened under the lamppost. If I had, we’d have been there all night, but—”
Just then, Cal honked as he passed by in the bank truck, headed home. They all waved back at the sound of the horn.
“But what did happen”—the Judge leaned in Tuway’s direction—“under the lamppost ?”
“Well now, I tell you, Judge.” Tuway was taking great pleasure in the telling. “I ain’t one to spread rumors, but the way I hear it was, seems like L.B. come to the party with some loose girl from over in Canton nobody knowed and he commenced drinkin’ too much, like usual. Long about midnight, when everybody was leavin’, he got her outside as far as the lamppost and—” Tuway stopped and turned around to see where John was. The boy was so intent on every word, he bumped into Tuway’s back.
“And what?” the Judge asked, walking on.
“And . . .” Tuway hurried to catch up.
“And what?” John asked, more interested now that the story seemed to have a surprise ending. “What happened under the lamppost to the drunk man?” Then he remembered something Little Luther had told him. “I know, I know, he humped the daylights out of her.”
The Judge and Tuway stopped abruptly in their tracks and turned to look at him. He stared up at them. “Well . . . well . . . that’s what Little Luther says Uncle Luther does when he gets drunk. He goes to town and . . .” His voice trailed off as they both frowned at him. “Well, that’s what Little Lu—”
“Boy, I’m gonna wash your mouth out with soap,” Tuway growled.
“Well, that’s just what he—”
“Do you repeat everything Little Luther says?” the Judge snapped, and began to walk on.
“No, sir, I just thought that when you got drunk and you weren’t at home, you—”
“You what? ” they both yelled at him.
The boy was still trying to know. He asked in a small voice, “Well, what exactly does it mean to hump the daylights out of—”
“Don’t say it again,” the Judge yelled, and held his cane up in the air, signaling them all to stop again. “Eight years old and talking like a Mobile dockworker
,” he mumbled.
The three of them began to walk on again in silence.
Kitty Lou looked up from her mail and waved to them from across the street. Tuway returned the greeting with a nod of his head. The Judge stumbled over a crack in the sidewalk and cursed under his breath. The boy walked along, watching them both intently, waiting for some explanation.
They were a block away from home before the Judge said anything. “Tuway will explain that to you when the time comes. Until then, I would advise you never to repeat things Little Luther says, especially if you don’t know what they mean.”
“Yes, sir,” he said, still mystified.
They were to the front steps before Tuway said, “That’s one thing I ain’t doin’. I ain’t explainin’ nothin’ to him, nothin’. You the Judge. You do it.”
Adell Vance smiled sweetly from behind the screen door. “Supper’s almost ready.”
CHAPTER 28
JOHN sat on his bench outside Miss Maroon’s office, watching the comings and goings that were part of board-meeting day.
L.B. always arrived early, then usually Red Yandell or Jason Debo. This day, Debo and L.B. were the first to arrive. L.B. came in, running a comb through wavy blond hair. He put it back in his coat pocket and walked over to shake hands with Debo. “How’s it hangin’, Debo buddy?”
“This to a man thirty years his senior,” Miss Maroon muttered as she gathered up papers and prepared to go through the boardroom door, which was still open, as the others had not arrived yet.
“Can’t complain,” Debo said. “Too much dry weather, but I’m survivin’.” John knew from talk around the bank that Debo owned a large farm to the south of Lower Peach Tree. Lately, Debo had been turning more and more of his land into pasture, the better to build a herd of dairy cattle and get out of the cotton business altogether.
Debo sat down in one of the conference chairs. “Hear you lost more people. Heard R.C. and his family up and moved out on you.”
“Yeah, in the middle of the night, with half a crop planted.” L.B. straightened his tie. L.B., the Judge, and state senator Comer were the only ones who always wore a suit and tie to the board meeting. The others came in their workplace clothes. “Only good thing about it was, I didn’t furnish him. The Judge made that one.”
“That ain’t like the Judge,” Debo said. “He usually calls’m better than that.”
John saw L.B. lean closer to Debo, pretending to spare Miss Maroon his comments—she was in the room, putting pencil and paper at each of the places—but John could hear L.B., and so, of course, could Miss Maroon. “Well, you know what with his health problems and all,” L.B. said.
“What health problems? I didn’t know the Judge had a problem,” Debo said.
“Well hell, Debo, I call goin’ blind a health problem.”
Miss Maroon slammed pencil and paper down on the conference room table. No one seemed to notice but John.
“Oh, that,” said Debo, “well, we all know about that. That’s been going on for a long time now. I think he’s learned to deal with it pretty good.”
“Well, course he has. Just the same. You can’t ever tell when something like that will—” There was a loud bang. Miss Maroon was in such a huff, she had walked out of the conference room and pushed the door so hard, it hit her desk and knocked over the framed picture of her nephew.
“Oh, I hate days like this,” she said, standing with both arms straight down, hands squeezed into fists. She spotted John watching her. “Pick it up. I mean, pick it up, please.”
Just then, Red Yandell came in. L.B. jumped up to greet him. “Red, buddy. How’s it hangin’?”
Miss Maroon began mumbling to herself, or maybe she was speaking to John, who had come over to pick up the broken glass. “How’s it hanging indeed. I’d like to tell him where to—” She turned and walked back into the conference room.
“Why, it couldn’t be better, L.B.,” Red Yandell said.
“You gettin’ the gin all oiled up, ready to do business?” L.B. asked.
Finally, everyone drifted in, and the meeting started after the Judge came in the room from his office door and was seated.
John was on his hands and knees, picking shards of glass out of the carpeting around the conference room door. After a few minutes, he finished and crawled away, unnoticed, to put the glass in the trash and get a Coke from the refrigerator. Miss Maroon had told him that since he was an employee now, he could have one Coke a day. By the time he came back to his place, on the bench, they were arguing, as usual.
“I will readily admit it. I missed on that one,” the Judge said. “I took a chance on R.C. and it didn’t work out. I knew he was a risk. It’s not a total loss, though. He got seed and fertilizer. That’s all.”
“And that’s another thing,” L.B. said. “You’re treatin’m like children, dolin’ out the feed and fertilizer one by one. Hell, that ain’t what a bank is supposed to do. You’re supposed to give them the money up front.”
The Judge took a deep breath. “They wouldn’t be coming here in the first place if they could get a fair deal.” He turned in L.B.’s direction. “To charge somebody three dollars for a sack of fertilizer that costs fifty cents is out-and-out robbery.”
“He’s right, L.B.,” Red said. “You can’t expect anybody to grow cotton like that.”
“Are you accusin’ me of cheatin’?” L.B. said. “Hell, Comer over here has been doin’ it for years, and he’s in the state senate, for Christ sake.” L.B. gestured to the man sitting at the table opposite him.
Senator Comer shifted in his seat. “I think it’s inappropriate to take the Lord’s name in vain, L.B.”
“Sorry, Comer . . . but”—he looked back at Red—“I don’t like to be accused of cheatin’.”
“I ain’t accusin’ you of cheatin’,” Red said. “I’m just agreein’ with the Judge. This is the fairest thing we can do. The ones that aren’t a credit risk get the whole loan to begin with. The others, we dole it out. We’ve been over this a thousand times. I say let’s call it quits for today. Kitty Lou and me are meetin’ the Webbs at the Cotton Patch at seven, and if I’m late, she’ll have my fanny in a sling. Excuse me, Miss Maroon.”
The Judge adjourned the meeting and everyone got up to leave.
John sat on his bench, waiting until the Judge and Tuway came out of the Judge’s office. Tuway was walking along beside the Judge, helping him on with his suit coat. “I’m sorry to rush you, Judge, but my cousin Elva, that stays over at Canton, I told her I’d help her out with a leak in the roof and—”
“No need to explain, Tuway. I can walk home by myself.”
“No, sir, Judge, I wouldn’t let that happen. I just need to get on as soon as I get you—”
“I am not an invalid, Tuway.”
“I know you ain’t no invalid.” Tuway looked down at the bench. “Why, look who we got here. John, he be glad to walk you home, and that’ll make everybody happy. Ain’t that right, John?”
“Yes, sir.” John jumped up off the bench. “I can walk you home by myself.”
“John, what in the world are you doing still here?” the Judge said. “I thought you were long gone, it’s so late. Don’t you have to get the mail and get home?”
“I already checked the mail. There wasn’t any, so I just came on back over.”
“I don’t need—”
“Why can’t we let John here—”
“I can do it, I can do it,” John begged.
The Judge held up his hands. “All right, all right. I give up. John, you can walk me home, but Tuway, you need to stop by the Spraigs’ on your way to Canton and tell Mrs. Spraig that he’ll be late. . . . In fact, just tell her we’ll keep him for tonight and he’ll be home tomorrow, since it’s Saturday. That way, we won’t have to worry about getting him home after dark. He’s at the back door for breakfast every morning anyway.”
“Really? I can stay overnight?” Embarrassed by his outburst, John lowered his head be
fore saying, in what he thought a more dignified way, “I won’t put you out. I’ll stay on the back porch; I’m used to sleeping outside.”
The Judge smiled as he felt for John’s shoulder. “You are, are you? Well, I’m sure Mrs. Vance will have you sleeping in the lap of luxury tonight.
“Does that suit you, Tuway? This way, if you have to stay over at your cousin’s, you won’t have to worry about getting back tomorrow.”
“That’ll be just fine, Judge.” Tuway turned to stare at John with his Tuway eyes. “You know I ain’t gonna be happy if you don’t do right, boy.”
“Yes, sir, Tuway,” he said.
It was his first time to escort the Judge home by himself. He was disappointed that no one was on the sidewalks. He wanted to be the one who whispered the names as they approached. He wanted to be the one to tell what cars were passing, if Miss Etta was sitting on her front porch, if the Reverend Riley had gone from the church yet. It was too late for all of this. Everyone was inside, getting ready for supper.
When they were within seeing distance of the house, John saw Mrs. Vance waiting for them on the front porch and told the Judge.
“Son, Mrs. Vance has been waiting for me on that porch every day for the last thirty-five years. I can tell you exactly what she’ll say.” He began to talk in Mrs. Vance’s accent. “‘Byron, honey, I was gettin’ worried sick about you. It’s quarter to six. Where in the world have you been?’ Then she’ll see you and she’ll say, ‘Why John honey, what are you doin’ here? Your aunt is gonna be worried sick about you.’”
She said exactly those things as they walked up the steps to the front porch. The Judge smiled.
He and the boy sat on the side sunporch in white wicker waiting for supper. The Judge rocked and listened as John read the Montgomery Advertiser to him from cover to cover. All the news, the comics, even what was playing at the movies in Montgomery and about the sales in the department stores.
“You have to keep up with what the women are wearing, John. It tells a lot about what the men are earning.”
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