No Defense

by Rangeley Wallace

  I held out my arms to Eddie, who groaned as he pulled my unwieldy pregnant frame up to a standing position.

  “Coming, coming,” I said.

  “Annie Hall” was Buck’s attempt at a humorous reference to my outfit-a white maternity shirt, polka-dot tie, black vest, baggy pants, and a floppy man’s hat-as well as a compliment on my looks. Unfortunately, any physical similarity between the movie character and me was far more apparent when I wasn’t on the verge of giving birth to twins.

  My dark brown hair was pulled back in one long braid down my back. Hoping to give my face some of the definition it had lost as puffy cheeks replaced high cheekbones, I’d recently added a thin layer of bangs that almost touched my dark eyebrows.

  Though Buck tried to hide it, there was an undertone of irritation in his voice. I knew my clothes bugged both him and my sister, Jane. Not long ago Mother too would have taken the time to make an unflattering reference to my appearance, but around the time Jessie was born she began to look past me. Why bother with me, clearly a lost cause, when she could try to mold Jes?

  Buck crammed his handkerchief into his back pants pocket and slapped Eddie on the back.

  “Y’all are quite a pair,” Buck said. “Annie Hall and-who do you think you are, Eddie? Clint Eastwood? Or the Marlboro Man? Couldn’t you borrow a suit from a friend, big guy?”

  Eddie had on Levi’s, Frye boots, a dress shirt, and a tie. He was not a hick dressed up to go to town; but an individualist who refused to wear a suit to the courthouse simply because he was supposed to.

  The three of us walked toward the rest of the family.

  “Why do you worry so much about how LuAnn and I look?” Eddie asked. “At least I don’t look like a lawyer, Buckie boy.”

  “Well, I am a lawyer,” Buck said.

  “No shit,” Eddie said. “Not something I would brag about if I were you.”

  “Y’all don’t start in on each other,” Mother pleaded when she heard Eddie and Buck exchanging the usual insults. “We all want the pictures to turn out well, don’t we?” she asked sweetly.

  “Yes, ma’am.” Buck hitched up his pants to just below his bulging stomach and tucked his loose shirttail in.

  “Good,” Mother said.

  Over the years my mother had taken the art of being a political wife to new heights, submissive to the point that when standing next to my handsome father she seemed to fade away. Daddy had just turned sixty. Mother was fifty-seven, but she looked older than he. With her thick blue-framed glasses, short curly gray hair, and pale wrinkled skin, she looked like the grandmother she was. She and Jane shared thick ankles, which I had been spared, and large breasts, which I had missed out on. For the ceremony Mother had chosen a navy gabardine skirt, a white silk blouse, and a red, white, and blue scarf around her neck. A small gold American flag pin held the scarf in place.

  “You go in back, LuAnn, Jessie in front of you, and Eddie next to you, on the left,” Scotty ordered. “Newell, you and Gladys stand next to LuAnn, and Jane and Buck should be next to Gladys, on the right here.

  “It looks good,” Scotty continued from behind his camera. “Smile!” He took two pictures. “Now y’all come on over next to those main doors, the middle ones.”

  “Maybe you should sit, LuAnn,” my father said as the group made its way to the front entrance. “Are you all right standing so long?” He looked up at the sun, which was almost directly overhead. “Is that sun too much for you?”

  “I’m just a little tired, Daddy.”

  “A little? A little? You look totally exhausted,” he said. “Pretty as a picture, dear, but tired. I’m worried about you. I want you to know that. When the babies come, something’s got to give. Where you live, how you live, it just won’t work anymore. You’re not college kids anymore, and I’m not going to let you kill yourself to prove some stupid point.”

  Eddie looked at me and smiled-not a real smile but an “isn’t that typical of your father intruding in our lives” smile.

  “We’ll survive, Daddy. We always have,” I said, although I wasn’t so sure.

  “You haven’t always had three children under the age of four, no help, and no money.” My father grabbed my upper arm and stopped walking to emphasize his point. Everyone else stopped with us.

  “You know how he loves to take care of you,” Mother said lightly.

  “And how she loves to be taken care of by you,” Eddie added with a slight edge to his voice.

  “Why doesn’t Jessie come stand next to me for this one picture since our outfits match?”Jane asked when we were assembled in front of the entryway. She stood with her lips pursed and her hands on her ample hips, waiting for an answer.

  “Scotty was in charge of these pictures last time I checked, Jane,” my father said sharply, shaking his head.

  Jane pretended not to hear what Daddy had said, but I caught the hurt look in her dark brown eyes. She quickly turned away and busied herself with running her right hand across her bouffant hairdo.

  “It’s okay,” I said. “Go on over next to your aunt Jane, Jes.”

  Jessie, who adored her aunt Jane, hurried over and stood in front of my older sister. From a distance, anyone who didn’t know better would have assumed that they were mother and daughter. Save for the minor differences in dress waists and shoe heels, they were dressed in almost identical outfits, down to their navy velvet headbands.

  This was not a coincidence. Just a few days earlier, Jane had sent Jessie the matching outfit specifically for this occasion. If Jane’s doctors ever managed to get her pregnant and keep her that way, I wondered whether her fierce attachment to my child would abate.

  “Oops,” Scotty said. He snapped his fingers. “Everybody relax a sec while I put in some more film.” He removed a roll of film from the camera, leaned over, dropped it in his black camera bag, and took out a new roll. He was about to reload the camera when he stopped to talk with a man I’d never seen around Tallagumsa.

  “Now what’s Scotty doing?” Eddie asked. “Let’s go, how ‘bout it? Chat on your own time, Scotty!” he yelled.

  Scotty shook hands with the stranger. The man was almost as tall as Eddie and slightly bigger-boned. He had sandy blond hair, dark eyes, and a pleasant smile. A camera hung from a strap around his neck.

  In a small southern town it wasn’t hard to tell who fit and who didn’t, and this man didn’t. His khaki pants and burgundy polo shirt weren’t made of polyester or a double knit, and his hair-like Eddie’s, just long enough to touch his back shirt collar and cover the tops of his ears-was considered fashionably long in Birmingham or Atlanta but didn’t conform with Tallagumsa notions of style.

  “Y’all don’t mind if this reporter fellow takes a few pictures too, do you?” Scotty asked us.

  “Happy to have him,” Buck answered for everyone. “Right, Mayor?” he asked my father.

  “Where you from, young man?” my father called out.

  “Washington, D.C.,” the man said. “I write for the Washington Star.”

  “You aren’t one o£ those fellows Woodward or Bernstein, are you? You know, from the Watergate thing?” Buck was thrilled at the prospect. “Come to think of it, you look kind of like Robert Redford.”

  “Wrong paper, Sherlock,” Eddie said.

  “I think it’s more likely he’s that reporter friend Junior Fuller’s been talking about,” my father said. “Ben something or other.”

  “That’s me. Ben Gainey.” He gave us a little salute. “Is Junior around? He said I should meet him here, but I’m afraid I’m a little late.”

  “He’s at the reception already,” Buck said, “at the Tallagumsa Steak House down First Avenue, that-a-way.” He pointed to his right.

  “Lucky Junior,” Eddie said. “I’ll be dreaming about Steak House food tonight; I’m obviously never going to get any today.” He folded his arms across his chest and looked annoyed.

  “Mr. Gainey, I’m Buck Newton,” Buck said, “and this is the future gover
nor of the great state of Alabama, Mayor Newell Hagerdorn. Looks like Paul Newman, doesn’t he? Don’t you think that’ll be an asset in the next election?”

  “Buck!” my father interrupted: “How many times do I have to tell you not to talk about that?”

  “That you look like Paul Newman?” he asked.

  “You know damn well what I mean,” Daddy said, seething. “It’s not the time or the place.”

  “Just trying to help.” Buck grinned, oblivious to how mad Daddy was at him.

  Buck had been my father’s campaign manager in the last mayoral election, and he relished the possibility of running his gubernatorial campaign.

  “Pleased to meet you, Mayor.” Ben Gainey hurried over to shake my father’s hand. ‘junior’s told me all about you and your town. I’m looking forward to interviewing you for my book if you have the time.”

  “Happy to oblige,” Daddy said. “just let us know. We’ll do anything we can to help you.”

  Like most successful politicians, my father was able to sound sincere regardless of his true feelings. He’d told me earlier that day how concerned he was about this reporter friend of Junior’s portraying Tallagumsa in an unflattering light.

  “You’re at the top of my list, Mayor Hagerdorn,” Ben said.

  “Not that it’s unusual, but is everybody here going to suck up to your father all day long?” Eddie whispered to me.

  “Stop talking, y’all, and smile,” Scotty yelled as soon as Ben Gainey rejoined him. Ben raised his camera to his eye, and he and Scotty snapped several pictures. In between photos, we talked.

  “Who is that guy, Newell?” Eddie asked.

  “A friend of Junior’s from law school who’s a reporter now. He’s writing a book about the New South and thinking about featuring Tallagumsa in it,” my father said. “If he decides to write about us after visiting this week, he’ll move here next month.”

  “That would be incredible good luck,” Buck said. “He could give us a big step up-I mean, give you a boost, sir. Bring national attention to your campaign.”

  “Come on,” Eddie said incredulously. “He wouldn’t know the real South if it walked up and bit him. I can look at him and tell you he’s just another South-basher come to air all our dirty laundry and remind the rest of the country what racist hicks we are. No reporter comes to this town to write about the state college. They come to write about Jimmy Turnbow and Leon Johnson. That’ll really do you a lot of good, Newell.”

  “Goodness, Eddie,” Mother said. “You must have gotten up on the wrong side of the bed today.”

  “I’m sorry, Gladys, but I’m tired of this Yankee holier-than-thou attitude toward the South. They’ve got plenty of their own problems. I’ve had enough of this South as a bastion of evil crap.”

  “You’ve done a lot of cartoons critical of the South yourself,” I pointed out.

  “As a Southerner, I’m allowed,” he replied.

  “Just one or two more shots,” Scotty sa1d. “Go over to the fountain and sit along the edge. Don’t jump in, Jessie,” he joked.

  We dutifully crossed the landing to the fountain and sat one by one along the broad ledge.

  Daddy detoured toward the Confederate statue, took his jacket off and hung it on the soldier’s bent left arm, then joined us.

  Smiling, we all looked toward Scotty and Ben Gainey.

  “Mr. Gainey’s not interested in our past, Eddie,” Jane said after the first snapshot. A gust of wind blew the collar of her sailor dress up over her face. She forced it down with her palm and continued. “Junior said he wants to focus on all the progress we’ve made, the changes, the good things. And he does too think the state college is important.”

  “I’ll believe it when I see it,” Eddie said.

  “Do I detect a note of jealousy?” Buck asked. “I bet you’d give away LuAnn to be the political cartoonist at the Washington Star.”

  “I’m not his or anyone’s to give away, Buck. And leave Eddie alone, would you,” I said.

  “I for one think we’ve put those dark days behind us,” Mother said.

  “I hope not.”

  “Oh, LuAnn,” Jane said. “What is that supposed to mean?”

  I couldn’t see Jane’s face since she was in front of me, but I was sure from her tone that she was grimacing.

  “Cross your left leg over your right, Gladys. And smile, Jane!” Scotty said, confirming my suspicion.

  “Just that lately everyone seems so anxious to sweep the civil rights movement under the rug and pretend nothing horrible happened here or anywhere else in the South,” I said. “I don’t think it’s right. I also don’t think it’s smart or productive.”

  “I agree with LuAnn’s last point one hundred percent,” my father said.

  “Big surprise,” Jane said, too quietly for Daddy to hear her.

  “Everybody look that way and smile.” Scotty pointed at the fountain.

  As we complied with his request, Scotty and Ben Gainey raced to the other side of the fountain and took the last few more pictures.

  “So, what are y’all sitting around for?” Scotty finally asked. “Get on over to the Steak House-everybody’s waiting on you.”

  “Ever thought about comedy as a line of work, Scotty?” Eddie asked.

  “No. Have you?” Scotty replied, grinning.

  CHAPTER TWO

  My family and I, and the few remaining stragglers from the courthouse dedication, made our way down First Avenue toward the Tallagumsa Steak House. When the light turned red, I grabbed Jessie’s hand and tensed for the dangerous confrontation that crossing streets in downtown Atlanta had become. I looked both ways. Two cars were making the turn; both stopped. The woman in the first car smiled and motioned us to walk ahead. I relaxed and released Jessie’s hand.

  How nice it would be not to have to worry at every downtown intersection about life and death. One day in Atlanta, on the way to Jessie’s day care, I had to jump about two feet backward, jerking Jes along with me to avoid being crushed by the speeding car that turned right into us. I couldn’t imagine that my children would ever be old enough to cross Atlanta’s busiest intersections alone.

  Of course, in defense of my fellow Atlantans, I understood that these Tallagurnsa drivers were so much more courteous and less likely to try to kill a person, at least in part, because they had less cause to be rude: There was no such thing as a traffic jam here, and the concept of a rush hour was ridiculous.

  When I left Tallagumsa for college in 1969, I’d hated its molasses-slow pace of life. Back then I dreamed of men and women in designer clothes rushing from one momentous meeting to another, hailing cabs, passing through the revolving doors of towering buildings, and waiting in front of elevator banks that would take them to the sixty-fifth or seventy-second floor, where they would conduct business of earth-shaking importance. I fantasized about packed expressways and busy downtown streets. I desperately wanted a city full of strangers who didn’t know everything about me and my family, who’d pass me on the street and not recognize me, a place to get lost when you wanted or needed to be left alone. I wanted challenge, action, excitement, and anonymity.

  What I once found romantic about city life, however, I now found inconvenient, unsafe, tiring, or simply irritating. A recent string of unsolved burglaries in our Atlanta neighborhood worried me whenever we left our apartment, and a walk through downtown Atlanta left me longing for clean air, peace and quiet, and open spaces.

  We walked two and three abreast the two blocks to the Tallagumsa Steak House. Mother and Jane were in the lead; Buck and Ben Gainey were close behind them. Jessie, feeling a bit frenzied from the courthouse-dedication ceremony, the waiting and the posing for pictures, ran up and down the sidewalk, circling us and the parking meters in a series of giant figure eights. She sang over and over the only lines she knew from the “Sesame Street” theme song: “Sunny day chasing the clouds away. Can you tell me how to get to Sesame Street?”

  Smoking a Salem,
Eddie followed a few feet behind my father and me. At least he wasn’t muttering to himself or, worse, shouting in anger like the Glad Bag Man near our Atlanta apartment.

  The Glad Bag Man was an elderly homeless man who kept his belongings in a green plastic garbage bag that he somehow balanced upon his head. He passed the day screaming at all who passed his park bench. His verbal barrage of curse words and stream-of-consciousness conspiratorial plot lines tying together hell, President Carter, UFOs, and Patty Hearst had given Jessie more than one night of bad dreams.

  The next time Jessie ran past me I stretched for her hand, caught it, and interlaced her fingers with mine.

  “Sunny day chasing the clouds away. On my way to where the air is sweet. Can you tell me how to get, how to get to Sesame Street?” I sang along with her, helping her with the missing line.

  Jessie tried to skip, but I pulled her back and pointed at my belly. I looked chagrined, letting her know how sorry I was that skipping just wasn’t possible right now. She accepted my limitation, and we sang together, swinging our arms back and forth, until we reached the doors to the Tallagurnsa Steak House.

  The Steak House was the largest restaurant in the county and the only one with a AAA rating. Open six A.M. until twelve P.M. every day of the year except Christmas, the popular immaculately clean, family restaurant, was known for fresh, delicious food; nothing too fancy, just good solid home cooking.

  The restaurant occupied a two-story building in the middle of the block between the SP Drug Store and Bowe’s Department Store. On the first floor were two dining rooms. In the front dining room, from which diners could see anyone who passed on the street and where the majority of the seating was in Naugahyde booths, the atmosphere was always informal. In the more secluded back dining room, where lunch was served under the same bright fluorescent lights, nighttime brought tablecloths, candles, and, by Tallagumsa standards, a measure of intimacy. The top floor consisted of one long, large carpeted room, perfect for banquets and parties, divisible into two or three smaller areas to suit any occasion.