by Ann B. Ross
“What’s that?” Mr. Jones leaned forward, cupping his hand around his ear. “Speak up, I didn’t hear you.”
“A Poker Run,” I said, in a voice somewhat above my normal tones. “You know, it’s something having to do with cards and motorcycles.”
“Hah!” he cackled, throwing himself against the recliner so that both feet came off the floor as it sprang backward. “I’d like to see that!”
“Well, you’ll certainly have the opportunity. Now, Thurlow, how much can we expect from you?”
He raised himself to a half-sitting position, fastened his eyes on me, and said, “You ridin’?”
“Oh, no, not me.” I twittered at the thought. Everybody and his brother seemed to think I belonged on a motorcycle. “No,” I said, shaking my head as if I purely regretted my inability to straddle and ride. “That’s not the sort of thing I do.”
“I dare you,” he said, taking an inordinate amount of pleasure in doing so.
“Absolutely not.”
“Hah!” he yelled, jerking his chair upright so that he was almost catapulted off of it. “Double-dog dare you.”
I’d had almost more than I could take from Thurlow Jones, so I gripped my pocketbook and prepared to rise.
Then, squinching his eyes as a beam of sunlight in the darkened room flashed on his glasses and cocking his head in a calculating way, he said, “I’d give money to see it.”
I gasped, struggling to maintain my decorum as I balanced my strong aversion to motorcycles in general, and to me on one in particular, against my even stronger desire for a large check from Thurlow Jones. He watched me carefully, as if he could see the battle in my mind. I settled back on the sofa.
“How much?” I whispered, the battle now won.
“How much what?”
“How much would you give to see me on one of those death machines?”
“Hah!” he yelled, springing back in the chair again, his legs spraddled out so that one slipper went flying, landing on Ronnie, who passed gas in surprise.
I ignored the faux pas, as any well-bred lady would under the circumstances. Lillian looked as if she were about to pass out, but then she was closer to the dog.
“Behave, Ronnie,” Mr. Jones yelled. “There’s ladies present. Now, Ju-u-lia,” he crooned, moderating his voice and turning to me with what looked like a salivating grin on his face. “I’d give one hundred thousand buckeroos to see you ride in that Poker Run. How you like them apples?”
I couldn’t get my breath. A hundred thousand dollars. Lord, that property was as good as ours. A quick thought of what I’d have to do for it passed through my mind, and I just as quickly let it pass on out. I’d face that when the time came.
“I like them just fine. Now, if you’ll just give me a check.”
“Not so fast, little lady,” he said, that grin still on his face. “I got to see it before you get it. You might cash my check and then back out on me.”
“Indeed, I would not,” I said, ruffled that he would impugn my given word. “But, now that you’ve brought it up, how do I know you won’t back out on me? I’m the one risking my life, here. To say nothing of the impropriety of it all.”
He cackled again, seemingly delighted to have someone stand up to him. “We better come to terms then, hadn’t we? You wanna sign an agreement?” He hopped up and scrounged around on a littered desk in the corner, then swung around with a sheet of paper and a pen in hand. “Your woman,” he said, pointing the pen at Lillian, “can be a witness. We can get it notarized, too, if you want to hold me to the fire.”
“That won’t be necessary,” I said, aghast at taking such an agreement downtown for some notary to look at. Even though they’re not supposed to read a document, you know they do. “No,” I went on, “what you can do is give me a down payment today, and we’ll both sign an agreement that upon my completion of the Poker Run, you’ll hand over the remainder.”
His eyebrows went up and a look of absolute pleasure passed across his face. “A looker and a businesswoman! God dog, you don’t meet many of them,” he said, then he turned to Lillian. “That’s a fine-looking woman, ain’t she?” Lillian nodded, too mesmerized to speak. “Yessir,” Mr. Jones went on in a satisfied way, “a handsome woman with a head on her shoulders. Holds herself well, too, don’t she? A little age on her, though, but beggars can’t be choosers, can they?”
Lillian was nodding, then shaking, her head, her eyes wide and round. I sat there while my qualities were being analyzed as if I were an object up for sale.
Lord, I thought, that’s exactly what I am.
Then, waving the sheet of paper, Mr. Jones said to me, “Come on over here, I’m gonna write this up right now. Can’t let you get away without signing it.”
“And you need to sign your check,” I said, as sharply as I could between gritted teeth. “Make it out to the Willow Lane Fund.”
He laughed, his narrow shoulders shaking. “Tell you what I’ll do,” he said, holding up the pen. “I’ll write out a check for fifty thousand, and give it to you today. Then I’ll write another one for the same amount, but I’ll hold onto it till I see you come sailing in on a motorcycle. That’ll make a cool one hundred thousand. Now, wait, I see you gettin’ all huffed up, but I ain’t finished.” He looked off into the distance as his mind turned over some other crazy notion. “Here’s the deal,” he finally said. “Listen up, now. What I’ll do is donate ten thousand more dollars for every female you can get to ride in that Poker Run. And I mean quality ladies. I’m not talking your usual run of Harley mamas.”
I needed a fan to stir up enough air to breathe. Other ladies? Who? And how in the world could I talk anybody into doing what I so feared to do myself?
I narrowed my eyes, thinking LuAnne, maybe Helen Stroud, and certainly Hazel Marie. Several young women in the church came to mind.
“How many would you have in mind?” I asked.
“However many you can get. Hell, it’s only money.” He watched me, his eyes glinting behind his glasses. “But let’s make it interesting. Any woman under fifty won’t count.”
There went more than half the women I’d come up with, but there were still plenty who could meet the age requirement—if they’d admit it. “Write out the agreement and the down payment check,” I told him. “And sign both of them. I’ll deposit the check, and the other one better be waiting for me when I come off that Run.”
And he did, laughing to himself and mumbling about how he liked a woman who knew her own mind. And he had certainly met one today, although I feared that I might’ve lost it, too.
I took the signed check and a copy of the agreement and walked toward the door, Lillian close behind. Mr. Jones hurried in front of us, almost skipping in his eagerness to be a gentleman.
As he opened the door, I spoke as formally as I could under the circumstances. “I can’t tell you how much your generosity is appreciated, Mr., I mean, Thurlow. You are to be commended for the greatness of your heart.”
I stepped aside so Lillian could precede me, as I knew she was anxious to get away. While she hurried to the car, I turned and offered my hand to Mr. Jones.
“Thank you again,” I said stiffly, wanting to leave the impression of a cool and self-possessed businesswoman. “And, Thurlow, if you know what’s good for you, you won’t even think of stopping payment on this check.”
“Dear lady, you have cut me to the quick,” he said, taking my offered hand with one of his, while the other one slid around my waist. Before I knew it, his bony fingers had nipped through wool coat, wool dress, and silk underclothing to a most tender and private spot.
“Mr. Jones!” I shrieked, backhanding him with my pocketbook and scurrying out the door. I could hear him cackling as I steamed my way to the car.
“Lillian,” I said, breathing heavily as I locked the car door behind me. “You won’t believe what that old goat did.”
Chapter 19
“Don’t you tell a soul,” I said to Lillian, as we got to the hous
e. I was so glad to be home and away from that offensive old man I didn’t know what to do.
What I did was take off my coat and try to calm my jittery nerves. “Let’s have some coffee, Lillian. I declare, I have never been subjected to such an outrage in my life.”
I sank down into a chair at the table and covered my face with my hands. “Such presumption,” I moaned. Then I took my hands down and looked at her. “Say something, Lillian.”
“That ole man need a whippin’, is what I say. An’ nobody gonna know anything ’bout it from me. But what you gonna tell Mr. Sam about how you gettin’ them checks?”
“I’ll just tell him that we asked him for a donation, and he gave us one. The other one, the one we’ll get if I ride that machine, well, I’ll think of something when the time comes. Just don’t let on that he’s paying to see me on a motorcycle. And, whatever you do, don’t say a word about him pinching me, it’s too humiliating.”
Lillian set a cup of coffee in front of me and said, “You don’t need to tell me more’n oncet ’bout that pinchin’, but you better make out like you change yo’ mind ’bout that Poker Run thing. An’ Mr. Sam gonna want to know why you change it. An’ something else you better be thinking about is how you gonna get some of them quality ladies on a motorsickle.”
“I’m trying to think of how to present it to them.” I picked up the cup, then set it back down. “Oh, Lord, Lillian, you know what this means, don’t you? I have been bought and paid for. That’s why that repulsive old man thought he could put his hands on my person and get away with it. He paid for the privilege. What if he tries to pinch every woman who climbs on a motorcycle?”
“I ’spect he won’t try long ’fore somebody take a broom to him.” She put her hands on her hips and laid down the law. “Now, I want you to quit carryin’ on like you doin’. All he done was put up money for that Poker Run thing to help us all out. It don’t buy him nothin’ else, so you jus’ set him straight on that.”
I started laughing, though I felt more like crying from the shame of it all. “Oh, Lillian, I think I did. I whacked him good with my pocketbook, and it certainly set him back a step or two.” I wiped my eyes, trying to see the humor of being pursued by a disreputable old man with false teeth that kept loosening up on him. For all I knew, Sam could be just as crazy, but at least he had his own teeth. And he was tall.
I shuddered at the thought of that grizzled old man with his wet, shiny lips getting close to me again. It was beyond me why such a short, repulsive man found me so attractive. For once, I could understand why widows wanted to remarry so quickly. They couldn’t stand being pawed at by men who swarmed up from the bottom of the barrel.
“Okay, Lillian,” I said, having had enough of ruminating over such unappetizing matters. “I’ll call Sam and see if he’ll have dinner with us. And I might as well call Mr. Pickens, too, whether Hazel Marie wants him here or not. Though she probably does. He was the one with the Poker Run idea, so we need to get that started. I declare, I feel like we’re feeding them every night.”
“That’s jus’ about what we doin’,” she said. “But they batchin’ it, so we he’pin’ ’em out. What you want me to fix?”
“I don’t know. What about a pork tenderloin? And some sweet potatoes, and whatever else. That’s a good fall dinner.”
She nodded and went toward the pantry to see what she’d need from the grocery store. I left to do the telephoning, determined to be happy about the money I was raising without worrying too much about the way I was getting it.
When I dialed Sam’s number, it was a relief to catch him at home. I realized that I hadn’t heard from him all day, and wondered if he’d been lying on the side of the road somewhere. “Sam,” I said, “where have you been?”
“Collecting money, Julia. Why? You worried about me?” I could hear the smile in his voice, which got my back up.
“Not one bit. I just thought you’d check in sometime today, since hardly a day goes by that you don’t.”
“Day’s not over yet, Julia.”
“I know that, but here’s why I called. How are you doing with your collecting? Are people responding like they should?”
“Pretty well, I’d say. But we’ve got a long way to go. I thought I’d talk to Gibbs and see how much time he’ll give us.”
“Oh,” I said, trying to think fast. “I wouldn’t do that, Sam. I’m still negotiating with him. In fact, I’m supposed to call him tomorrow morning to see if we can come to some agreement.”
“That’s fine, then. If he’d give us six months, I know we could come up with his price.”
“Hold on. I’ve got to sit down,” I said, and did. Six months, I thought. Lord, we had to do better than that. Clarence Gibbs would have both my house and his water-bottling plant long before then. “He gave me the impression that he won’t wait that long. He wants to get started on something.”
“The only thing we can do is just keep raising the money,” Sam said. “I might as well warn you, though. There’s all kinds of talk around town. I’ve heard that he’s listing it with a realtor, that he’s thinking of an asphalt plant, or maybe an office building. And the word is still going around about a water-bottling plant.”
“Oh, Sam, we have got to nip all of that in the bud,” I said, wishing I could strangle Clarence Gibbs for his underhanded way of doing business. He was supposed to be giving me a little time, and instead he was letting the rumors run rife. And I knew why—to make me anxious enough to seal an agreement concerning my house.
Sam said, “You’ll be happy to know that I got pledges of about thirty thousand today, and Binkie has the fund set up, with you as the treasurer. It’s all legal and safe-guarded, so we can begin funneling donations into it any time.”
“Good. But, Sam, pledges’re not good enough. We have to have the money in hand. You know how people are about pledges; they tend to put off paying them. That’s the way it works for the church, anyway.”
We chatted a little while longer, and several times I was on the verge of telling him about my visit to Thurlow Jones. But each time I opened my mouth to do it, I closed it again, or filled it with something else. I knew Sam would tell me I shouldn’t have done it, not that that would’ve stopped me, but still. I didn’t want him to know exactly how I’d been able to extract a hefty donation from the most unlikely source he could imagine.
“I fixed you a sam’ich for lunch,” Lillian said as I walked into the kitchen.
“Oh, thank you, I do need to eat something. Now, Lillian,” I said as I sat at the table, “there’s something else I need to do, and I’ll need you to help me.”
She hung a dish towel on the rack, and said, “Ever’time you want me to help with something, you get us in trouble. You not aimin’ to go see that ole man again, are you?”
“Lord, no,” I said. “I’m as through with him as I can get. No, Lillian, I need to make a trip up to that spring so I can see just what kind of water is in it. I need to know what we’re up against. For all I know, Clarence Gibbs is bluffing, trying to make out like that land is more valuable than it is. I aim to call him on it.”
“Well,” she said, turning away. “I kinda thought when Little Lloyd get out of school, we’d go over to my house one las’ time. That Rose of Sharon need diggin’.”
“Oh, Lillian,” I said, just done in by my own thoughtlessness. Of course, her plants could stay right where they were, if I played my cards right. But I didn’t want anybody to know what kind of hand Clarence Gibbs had dealt me. “I’d forgotten about moving your plants, being so taken up with all this fund-raising. We’ll pick up Little Lloyd at school and go right on over there.”
She glanced back at me. “I don’t want to mess up yo’ plans if you need to see ’bout that water.”
“My plans can wait, but not for too long. Besides, it might be better to make that trek to the spring after dark, anyway.”
“After dark?” She stared at me, her eyes wide. “Le’s do it in the mo
rnin’, if you have to do it.”
“No, it’d be better if nobody saw us. I tell you, Lillian, you don’t know what kind of man I’m dealing with in Clarence Gibbs. It wouldn’t surprise me one little bit if we got up there and found nothing but a mud puddle, with him carrying on like he’s Moses getting a miracle out of a rock. We’ll run up there as soon as Sam and Mr. Pickens leave tonight.”
She didn’t look too happy about the prospect of traipsing around after dark, but I couldn’t help that. It had to be done before I risked my house the next morning.
Lord, when I drove up and parked us in front of Lillian’s house that afternoon, I was overcome with the sense of emptiness of the whole street. There were no chairs or swings on the porches, no hanging baskets, no dogs lying in the shade, no curtains on the windows. The little houses looked so weather-worn and lonely as they waited for the yellow monsters parked in the field beyond, that I wondered how wise it was to’ve brought Lillian back.
Still, I didn’t blame her for wanting one last look around before the wreckers reduced her house to kindling. It was heartbreaking, though, and I could’ve cried for her. Although I will say that if you looked with cold business eyes at the shape the houses were in, you’d have to admit that leveling them would be a decided improvement.
And that made me mad all over again, for it was Clarence Gibbs who’d let them get in such a state. Right then and there, I decided that Little Lloyd and I would make a tour of inspection of all our rental property and make sure we weren’t letting them deteriorate as he had let his.
Still, as I looked closer at the houses, I could see possibilities for refurbishment. The houses were not as far gone as Mr. Gibbs had made out when he’d had them condemned. Do a little masonry work on the foundations, replace a few roofs, and put on a coat of paint, plus upgrading the interiors, and those houses would be fit to live in. It would cost time and money. But, then, what didn’t?
“Well,” Lillian said as she opened the car door and maneuvered both the hoe she’d been holding and herself out. It wasn’t easy to do with her huge pocketbook gripped under her arm. “Settin’ here ain’t gettin’ it done.”