Miss Julia Hits the Road

by Ann B. Ross

  “You’ve had a shock,” I told Lillian. “And it’s no wonder you’re feeling under the weather.”

  “I feel worse’n that,” she mumbled.

  “I expect you do. We’re all feeling the effects. But Hazel Marie’s going to get you some clothes, and when you feel up to it, I’ll take you home for your last-minute things. Who knows, Lillian, you might enjoy moving to a new place, and all this anxiety will’ve been for nothing.”

  I stopped then, realizing that I was sounding like a Pollyanna, which was not like me at all. If there was one thing I’d prided myself on ever since Wesley Lloyd had been gone, it was seeing things as they are and speaking out on them when necessary. There’s nothing worse, to my way of thinking, than someone who puts a happy face on reality and goes through life in a hypocritical haze.

  I know what I’m talking about because I’d been one of those people for most of my life. But no longer, because if you can’t face reality yourself, sooner or later somebody’ll come along and shove it in your face, as happened to me.

  “Lillian,” I said, determined to help her rather than smooth over the truth with pious platitudes. “I’m going to quit downplaying what’s happened. I think you’re going to have to face the fact that your house is all but gone. Surely, Sam would’ve let us know if he’d come up with something to stop the destruction. So you’ve got to prepare yourself for the worst, and if it’s better than that, well, that’s all to the good.”

  “Here, Lillian,” Hazel Marie said, handing her three aspirin tablets and a glass of tomato juice. “Take these and just sit still for a while. Then go up and take a shower. I promise you’ll feel better before long.”

  “Yessum, thank you,” Lillian said, obediently swallowing the pills and sipping the juice. “I jus’ hope it all stay down long enough to do some good. I’m gonna tell Mr. Pickens I don’t want him fixin’ me nothin’ else to help me sleep.”

  Hazel Marie laughed, then quickly sobered up as she re membered that she was put out with Mr. Pickens. “I don’t blame you,” she said. “His fixing doesn’t always work, but I intend to fix him, if it’s the last thing I do.”

  Little Lloyd, his head bent over his plate, looked up at me, a frown between his eyes. I nodded my head at him, hoping to assure him that things would eventually work out. And of course they always do, although nine times out of ten, not in any way, shape nor form like we want them to.

  Chapter 11

  After Hazel Marie and Little Lloyd left, Lillian and I girded ourselves to face whatever awaited on Willow Lane. I got Lillian’s dress re-buttoned and held her coat for her. She wasn’t functioning all that well, for she kept taking deep breaths as if she couldn’t get enough air. Her hands were trembling, too.

  “Lillian,” I said. “You don’t have to do this. I can go over there and make sure the men get everything.”

  “No’m, I got to see ’bout it myself,” she said, getting that blank look on her face again. “Not no use me settin’ here doin’ nothing. Might as well go ahead and face the worst.”

  So that’s what we did. I drove through the streets, just dreading the empty feeling of emptying out Lillian’s house. One good thing, the wind had died down during the night and it looked to be shaping up into a cool but sunny fall day.

  As we turned into Willow Lane and drew near Lillian’s home, we saw several pickup trucks and U-Haul trucks and trailers backed up to the porches. Men walked to and from them, carrying boxes and manhandling appliances and yelling for dollies. Some of the women who lived in the houses stood on the porches or out in the yards, watching as their possessions were loaded up to be taken who-knew-where.

  I parked beside an enclosed U-Haul truck with a ramp that extended onto Lillian’s front porch. We got out of the car, but Lillian just stood for a minute, taking in the house she’d lived in for years, as if she were memorizing it. I walked over to stand beside her.

  “Now, Lillian,” I said, taking her arm. “Prepare yourself.”

  She nodded, but I purely didn’t know how anybody could be prepared for the forcible loss of house and home. I tried to imagine it for myself, but I couldn’t.

  “Morning, Lillian, Miss Julia,” Deputy Coleman Bates called out as he came through the front door lugging one end of a mattress. Behind him, on the other end of the mattress, Sam emerged, giving us a quick smile but too intent on holding on to do much more. They hefted the mattress up the ramp and into the truck.

  When they came out of the truck, Sam was wiping his face with a handkerchief. “Hot work,” he said, although it seemed too early in the day to be all that warm.

  “Don’t give yourself a heart attack, Sam,” I said, concerned that he would overexert himself. I declare, there’s not a man alive who’ll ever admit that something is too much for him. I eyed Sam carefully, trying to determine how well his mind was working. It seemed to come and go, you know.

  Sam laughed. “It’s good for me, Julia. Lillian, I sure do hate this, but we’re doing the best we can for you.”

  “Yessir, Mr. Sam,” she said. “I know you are, but it real hard to take.”

  “We need you to come on in here, Lillian,” Coleman said, as he leaned on the porch banister. “We’ve just about got everything, but you ought to look around behind us.”

  “Yessir, an’ I need to sweep and mop when ever’thing get out.”

  “For pity sakes, Lillian,” I said. “The last thing you need to do is clean this place up. It’s all going to the dump, anyway.”

  Then I realized that I could’ve chosen a kinder way of reminding her of what was going to happen. Lord, I could’ve throttled Clarence Gibbs, as I stood there wracking my brain for some way to stop him.

  “I misspoke, Lillian,” I told her. “It’s just that I don’t want you doing any extra work. Now, let’s go inside and see what else needs to be done.”

  Easier said than done, for the truck’s ramp covered the narrow front steps, and there was no way for us to climb up on it.

  “Back door’s open,” Coleman said, so I took Lillian’s arm and we walked along the side of the house toward the back.

  “There’s my Rose of Sharon,” Lillian said, sniffing as we passed a bush in a mulched bed. “Miz Thompson give me a cuttin’, oh, Law, how many years ago? An’ it been bloomin’ ev’ry year since. Now it gonna be gone, too.”

  “We’ll get it out,” I said. “If the men are too busy loading up everybody, there’s no reason we can’t do it. In fact, we’ll bring Little Lloyd over after school and he can do the digging. You just decide what you want to save, and I’ll get Raymond to heel them in behind the garage. He’ll look after them until we can transplant them to your new place.” Wherever that’ll be, I added to myself.

  She seemed to brighten at that. “Can Little Lloyd and me come back over here after he get home from school?”

  “Of course you can. You can stay all day if you want to, and I’ll drop him off as soon as he gets out. I want you to take all the time here that you need.”

  As we reached the back steps, she stood for a minute and looked around the small yard. There was a privet hedge along the back, with a few azaleas and rhododendrons in the corners of the yard. A clothesline was strung from two wooden posts, but I knew she often spread her washing across the bushes to dry.

  “Well, no use lingerin’,” she said with a sigh that seemed to come from her feet. “Le’s us get at it.”

  There wasn’t all that much to get at when we got in. A kitchen with a sink on exposed metal legs, one built-in cabinet, and a stove that’d needed replacing years ago.

  “Is that your stove, Lillian?”

  “No’m, it here when I moved in. I guess it belong to Mr. Gibbs. Maybe we ought to move it for him.”

  “We certainly will not,” I said, and right smartly, too. “We’re not about to ask Coleman and Sam to move that heavy thing. If Clarence Gibbs wants it, he can get it himself.”

  Hearing the footsteps of Coleman and Sam on the wooden floor
of the front room, we walked on in. Lord, the place was empty. Except, of course, for pages of newspaper, dust, and lint that had gathered in the corners during the packing process. And a telephone on the floor by the front window. I’d put that in for her when I discovered after Wesley Lloyd’s passing that she didn’t have one. I’d paid the bill every month, too, telling her that it was all for my convenience so she’d let me do it.

  “Lillian,” Coleman said, laden with three paper sacks filled with oddments of all kinds. “We’re about finished here, but check your closets and all the rooms. Be sure we’ve got everything. Oh, and,” he said, turning back to her, “is there anything under the house we ought to get?”

  “I got a leaf rake an’ a snow shovel under the porch, an’ they’s a tub and a washboard out on that ole table by the back door. But I’ll get ’em.”

  “No, you won’t.” Coleman grinned at her. “We’re the movers around here. You just be sure we get everything, that’s all you have to do.”

  Lillian nodded, tears beginning to shine again in her eyes. Then she walked into the two bedrooms and looked around. I stayed where I was, figuring she needed time to herself. I try to be sensitive to the needs of others whenever I think about it.

  When I thought she’d had enough time to say good-bye to the room where she’d slept for so many years, I called to her. “Lillian, do you want to stay here for a while? Or go on back to the house?”

  “I ought to stay,” she said, coming back into the former living room. “See I can he’p some a the others, but Miss Julia, this all ’bout done me in. Seem like I can’t hardly drag one foot front of the other.”

  “Well, no wonder,” I said, looking sharply at her. She had that same dazed look she’d been getting off and on since the previous night. “You need to rest yourself, so let’s go on back. I’ve got a number of things to see to myself, and I ought to get to them. Sam,” I said as he came in, brushing his hands from the last load. “We’re going on back to the house, so we’ll be there when you and Coleman come to unload.”

  “Okay, Julia. Park your car on the street so we can back up to the garage. Ready, Coleman?”

  “Yep,” Coleman said. “I think we’ve got it all, Lillian. But let us know if we’ve missed anything. As soon as we unload, Sam’s coming back to help at the other houses. I’ll be back, too, after I check in with Binkie. She was feeling a few twinges this morning.”

  “Law, Coleman,” Lillian said, her spirits noticeably rising. “Miss Binkie ’bout to have that baby? You ought not be here helpin’ me, if she havin’ that baby.”

  “No,” he said, shaking his head and smiling at Lillian. “It’s still a little early for the baby. But I have a pager, if she needs me.”

  As Coleman and Sam started toward the cab of the rented truck, the grinding of many gears drew our attention to two long flatbed trucks that were turning into Willow Lane. Everybody on the street stopped to watch as the heavy trucks maneuvered their ponderous way down the lane, across the turn-around and into the field beyond. The trucks themselves were unlikely enough on the narrow street, but it was what was on them that brought us all to a stunned stop. If Little Lloyd had been there, he could’ve told me the names of the big yellow machines that were chained to the flatbeds. Two of what had to be instruments of destruction were off-loaded into the field. They both had tracks like tanks, and one had a big shovel on the front, while the other had a scoop with teeth. It took only a little imagination to see them chewing up these defenseless little houses.

  “Don’t look, Lillian,” I said. “Let’s get away from here before we both break down and cry.” As Coleman eased the rental truck away from the porch, I took her arm again to lead her down the front steps.

  We’d barely gotten in the car good when one of those machines fired up, emitting a cloud of black smoke and a nerve-shattering roar. It turned on its track and began following two men who directed the driver with arm signals. The yellow monster headed toward the last house on the left of Willow Lane, the abandoned one with the caved-in roof. With pincers opened wide, it sunk into that shell of a house and took a huge bite out of it. Then it spun on its tracks and dumped its mouthful into the back of a truck.

  At the sight and noise of the thing, everybody who was moving and being moved came out into the street to watch the destruction. Others hurried back inside to grab their possessions for fear that, once started, the machine would continue up and down the lane, gobbling up houses as it went.

  “Oh, my Jesus,” Lillian gasped. “That thing eatin’ up houses, an’ not everybody moved out yet.”

  “Somebody ought to stop it,” I said, staring with my mouth open. “They weren’t supposed to start today. Oh, look, Coleman’s walking down there. He’ll straighten them out.”

  And apparently he did, for after leveling the house and dumping the remnants in the truck, the driver cut the motor and climbed out. Just getting a head start on his demolition work, I guessed. Amazed at how quickly the house had been leveled, I had a mind to organize everybody and form a living line around the rest of the houses. I’d read about those protester types who stretched out in front of trucks and tanks or chained themselves to trees, and I wondered if the same tricks would work here. We’d probably just be arrested like they’d been, and I’d have to go everybody’s bail.

  There had to be another way to stop it but, for the life of me, I couldn’t come up with one.

  Soon after we arrived at home, Coleman and Sam drove up and began unloading Lillian’s household goods and stacking them in the garage. On our way into the house, she and I stopped and peeked in at the accumulation of a lifetime.

  “Sam,” I said, “Lillian’s clothes are packed up somewhere in there. Have you or Coleman come across them?”

  Sam stopped and looked at Coleman, the one who’d been helping Lillian pack. Sam said, “I’ve not seen any clothes, except a couple of sweaters that were hanging in the closet. Have you, Coleman?”

  “I sure haven’t. What were they in, Lillian?”

  “I don’t much ’member,” she said. “All them boxes you brung me look alike. But if you find anything for me to wear, I ’preciate you let me know.”

  “Don’t worry about it now, Lillian,” I said, turning her toward the house. “Hazel Marie’s getting some things for you.”

  She smiled as she reached for the screen door and, with a touch of her usual humor, said, “That’s what I’m afraid of.”

  I helped her get her coat off and said, “Why don’t you go up and lie down for a while?”

  “No’m, I think I’m gonna make us a cake. Or a pie. Or maybe both.” And she headed for the sink to wash her hands.

  “You don’t need to be doing any cooking, much less making a pile of desserts. I think you need to rest.”

  “Cookin’ help me rest, Miss Julia,” she said. “It take my mind off all them troubles. I jus’ hate to do it in my church dress, though. ’Course, it my only dress, since no tellin’ where the rest of ’em be packed up.”

  “Not for long,” I told her. “If I know Hazel Marie, she’ll come back with an armload.”

  Lillian took an apron from the pantry and wrapped it around herself, tying it in back. Then she brought out three cake pans from a cabinet under the counter. “I’m gonna make us a three-layer white cake with pineapple fillin’ and seven-minute frostin’, an’ that’ll take up half the day. After that, I’m gonna use them Granny Smith apples I got yestiday an’ make a apple pie. Or maybe that lemon pie what Coleman like so much. By that time, maybe this first day of havin’ no house be done an’ over with.”

  “Oh, Lillian,” I said, clenching my fists. “Believe me, something will be done about this, and I’m going to start in right this minute.”

  As I turned to leave, we heard the truck start up, and Lillian said, “Coleman comin’ in.”

  That handsome young man walked in, looking considerably different in his blue jeans and flannel shirt than he did when he was in his uniform, with his l
aw enforcement paraphernalia strapped everywhere around him.

  He walked over to Lillian and put his arm around her. “Lillian, I know that moving’s no fun under any circumstances, but this way is just . . . well, I just hate it for you.”

  Lillian patted his arm. “I be all right, Coleman. Don’t you worry ’bout me. I got so many frien’s I can’t even count ’em all. Why don’t you call Mr. Sam in here, an’ let me fix you something to eat.”

  “I can’t, Lillian,” he said. “I’ve got a wife so pregnant that I’m afraid to linger anywhere. Now, Lillian, since I’m the one who didn’t pay attention to the boxes, you’ll need some clothes. Let me help you with that.” And he reached for his wallet.

  “Hazel Marie and I are taking care of it,” I told him. “But we’re putting together some plans to raise money to get new homes for all those people, so we’ll be contacting you and Binkie pretty soon. Then you can open up that wallet.”

  “Great,” he said, hugging Lillian again. “Just let us know. I’ll be around, Lillian, if I can do anything for you.”

  And with that, he left to check on his heavy-laden wife. And I left to go upstairs, just as heavy-laden with money-raising schemes running around in my head.

  Chapter 12

  Reaching my bedroom upstairs, I sat down in the easy chair by the window and pulled the telephone close to dial Sam’s number. I couldn’t figure why he hadn’t come in with Coleman, unless he was in a hurry to help the rest of the Willow Lane folks so he could get on that motorcycle again.

  As I listened to his phone ring, I thought again of how much I depended on him—his good common sense, his reasonable approach to every problem, and his indulgence of me when I began to bounce off the walls. I knew that in his current condition, in spite of the good front he’d put up the night before in the church, I might not be able to depend on him. But like always, he was the first one I turned to.