Up the Devil's Belly

by Rhett DeVane

  Most building projects in the country aren’t completed by one person. Bobby was perfectly content to work alone, but he was often assisted by a number of well-intentioned, if not talented, helpers. Holston, John, Margie, Leigh, and I pitched in as our schedules allowed. Shug and Jake visited the worksite periodically until the main portion of the covered gazebo was completed. Then, Jake arranged for the delivery of a truck full of river boulders, native ferns, and the PVC pipes and pump assembly for the waterfall. With Jake directing from his perch on a folding chair, Shug, Bobby, Leigh, Holston, and I positioned and repositioned the cascade of rocks from the edge of the gazebo to the pond. Once they were in place, Bobby constructed the final water-level deck with built-in benches and fishing pole holders. In less than three weeks, the gazebo was finished. After Bobby ran the underground wiring from an existing power pole, two ceiling fans and the deck lighting were the last items he installed.

  “You know what this means, of course,” Bobby said as he and I surveyed the work site.

  I nodded. “Party?”

  “I’m thinkin’…maybe a family and friend/helpers fish fry. We have plenty of catfish filets in the freezer, and I can bring my propane cooker from town. We could eat out on the picnic tables next to the pool. It’d be like old times on the Davis homestead.”

  I watched a small blue heron angle for minnows. “I can’t think of a better way to celebrate the completion of the gazebo, and…the start of your log cabin.”

  My brother’s broad smile stretched across his face, or, as Aunt Piddie would put it, he grinned like a goat eatin’ briars.

  “None of us have any reason to go gettin’ all high ‘n’ mighty over anything we do. We don’t do one thing on this earth alone, ’cept maybe some lowly body function. When we’re born, there’s at least one other person there. On the other end of our time, if we’re lucky, we have someone keepin’ watch over us when we pass over to the other side. No one ever does a single solitary thing without the help of others somewheres along the line. That’s a thing best remembered if you feel like going and gettin’ up on your high horse.”

  Piddie Davis Longman

  Chapter Eight

  Triple C Day Spa and Salon

  Wanda Ornstein dumped a stack of soiled hairbrushes and combs into her sink and scrubbed briskly with a small, stiff-bristled hand brush. Soap bubbles scudded into the air around the workstation like miniature good fairies intent on escape. She wiped the countertops with a disinfectant-soaked sponge and polished the upholstery of the client chair. She was down on her knees with a toothbrush scouring the chair’s electric lift base when Stephanie walked through the salon carrying a towering stack of freshly laundered and folded sheets.

  “I’ve finally found someone who cleans as much as I do,” Stephanie said.

  “I just can’t stand it,” Wanda said. “One thing about this business — hair everywhere! I just don’t want a patron to look down and freak out.” She wiped her hands on the ragged towel hanging around her neck. “Why are you stocking laundry? I thought that was Tameka’s job.”

  “She’s mopping the wet treatment room right now, and I’m almost out of clean sheets. Besides, with her here only four hours a day, I’d rather have her help me with the cleaning duties. I can always put in a load of sheets to wash between clients.”

  Wanda frowned. “I don’t know how I feel about her working over there with Hank Henderson, but I suppose it wasn’t my decision to make.”

  Stephanie bent over to retrieve a pillow case that had toppled from the pile. “I know what you mean. I really wish we could afford to have her and Moses here full time.”

  “Hmmm…well…with the economy like it is, we’re doin’ good to have us here full time.”

  Stephanie tilted her head. “You got a bad feelin’ about Hank, or something?”

  “Nothin’ I can put a finger on. He’s nice enough when he comes in for a cut. Tips better than most folks.” Wanda dismissed her doubts with a wave of her hand. “I guess I’m just being overprotective of those two kids. I love ’em like they were my own.”

  “How come you never had any kids?”

  Wanda shrugged. “Mystery to me. Married to three men, and not one of ’em…well, maybe it was me. Who knows?”

  “I think you’d make a great mom.”

  Wanda smiled. “Thank you. That’s the best compliment anyone’s paid me in a long time.”

  “Well, let me get back to work. It ain’t gonna do itself,” Stephanie said. “Why don’t you just ask Tameka how things are going over at Hank’s when you’re doing her hair? She’d talk to you, I’m sure,” she called over her shoulder.

  Wanda rested her hands on Tameka’s shoulders. “I have an idea for a different style.” She pulled the hair away from Tameka’s delicate oval face. “Why don’t we bring it back off your forehead? We’ll run a series of large braids back to here…then we’ll pull it all back in a thick ponytail with a braided wrap to hold it together. What’d’ya think?”

  Tameka’s deep brown eyes sparkled. “That sounds real nice, Miz Wanda.”

  Wanda gently worked a wide-tooth comb through a section. “You hair sure is gettin’ long. I tell you, with your pretty hair and face, you could be a model, child.”

  Tameka smiled shyly at the compliment. “That’s what Mr. Hank says.”

  Wanda seized the opportunity to work in questions about Tameka’s new employer. “He does, does he? Hmm. He treating you nice over there?”

  “Yes’um. He pays real good, and the work ain’t hard.”

  Wanda paused and studied Tameka’s reflection in the workstation mirror. “Any…problems at all?”

  “Not really.” Tameka lowered her gaze and studied her hands.

  “You don’t sound so sure.”

  Tameka shrugged her thin shoulders. “I just think Mr. Hank’s always watchin’ me…like he’s afraid I’m gonna steal somethin’. I’d never do that!”

  “Of course not! What makes you feel like he doesn’t trust you?”

  She bit her lower lip. “Well…it’s not like I think it’s just me he don’t trust. He has these cameras all over his house. They follow you around the rooms. He’s even got ’em in the bathrooms!”

  Wanda stopped working with the long braid she held in her hands. “That’s a bit…unusual.”

  “Moses says he thinks Mr. Hank’s just pear-nawed.”

  Wanda pursed her lips to suppress a smile at the child’s pronunciation. “Why’s that?”

  “Cause Mr. Hank has lots of guns in his house.”

  “That’s not so odd. Everyone around here hunts.”

  Tameka shook her head. “No’um. Moses says they’s not the huntin’ kind. They’s handguns. He has these locked cases full of ’em, and he’s always sittin’ around cleanin’ and shinin’ ’em. Sometimes, he talks to hisself.”

  A cold stab of fear ran through Wanda. “You don’t bother with his guns, now.”

  “No’um. He made that clear my first day. I was never to go near his collection ’cept to dust the cases.”

  Wanda slid a blue pottery bead onto the end of a braid. “He doesn’t leave them lying out then, that’s good.”

  “I saw one in the drawer by his bed.”

  Wanda spun the chair around so that she was facing Tameka. “Sweetie, don’t you ever mess with that gun, you hear? It’s probably loaded. I couldn’t stand it if you got hurt!”

  Tameka pressed back into the chair, her almond-shaped eyes opened wide. “No’um. May-May told Moses and me never to touch a gun. Guns are for killin’, and that’s against God’s rules.”

  Wanda turned the chair back to face the mirror. “Well now, I trust you and your brother to listen to your grandma.”

  “How is Grandma Maizie gettin’ on?” Wanda asked after a few minutes had passed.

  Fear mixed with sadness flashed briefly across the young girl’s face. “She’s not feelin’ so good. Her hands pain her a lot. I rub ’em for her at night. And, sometimes s
he says she can’t walk so good cause she can’t feel where her feet’s goin’.”

  Wanda studied her young patron in the mirror. “You know to call me if you need anyone, right?”

  “Yes’um.” The child’s trusting expression tugged at Wanda.

  She steered the conversation toward more pleasant topics. As Wanda’s expert hands worked magic on the child’s long hair, Tameka chattered about her teachers, classmates, and favorite school subjects. Wanda hummed as she developed the intricate hairstyle that would’ve cost a paying patron at least sixty dollars.

  Jon Shug Presley was heating a plate of leftover lasagna when Wanda came into the spa’s kitchen. “Umm! That smells great!”

  “Want me to heat you up some while I’m at it? It’s my spinach and zucchini lasagna recipe — really good,” Shug said in singsong.

  Wanda shrugged. “Since all I have at home is dried-up bologna, I’ll take you up on it.”

  “Great. I hate to eat alone.” Jon rustled in the cabinet and found two red-checkered placemats with matching cotton napkins.

  “No need to go to all that trouble for just me. A paper napkin and plastic plate’s fine.”

  Shug propped his hands on his hips. “That’s the trouble with modern society. Everyone’s so tuned in to rush, rush, rush! It’s just throw away, throw away! I like to eat off real plates with real silverware and actually sit down to the table. Jake would be perfectly happy to eat right out of the container, standing over the sink! Too many years stuffin’ down fast food has almost ruined the man.”

  Wanda held up both hands in surrender. “Hey, I’m not opposed to sitting down to a meal. I don’t get to do it very often, that’s all. Why bother — when I eat alone nine times out of ten.”

  Shug patted the wooden seat of a kitchen chair. “Just sit yourself down, and I’ll serve you, then.”

  She plopped down. “Where’s Jake this evening?”

  Jon poured two glasses of red wine and set them on the table. “The Twin City golf tournament starts tomorrow, and the who’s-its are havin’ a how-dee-do party at the clubhouse later on this evening. He’s finishing up the floral displays for the serving tables.”

  “That’s right. How could I forget? That means poor Stephanie will be busy as a bee in a tar bucket next week with all the golf widows coming in for massage and spa treatments. I’m sure we’ll pick up in the hair salon, too.” Wanda sighed. “It’s not that I mind the business, but some of those high society types are such a pain in the patootie.”

  Jon stuck a lasagna-laden plate into the microwave. “I heard that. I used to hate seeing them as patients when I worked on the floor at Tallahassee Memorial…always so demanding and unappreciative when you did what they asked.” Jon smiled. “There were a few exceptions, though. I once had this old fella who looked like he was poor as a church mouse. Never breathed a word about the fact that his family owned half of the land north of Meridian Road — that’s the high-falutin’ side of Tallahassee. He was nice and cordial as you’d ever ask for. Only his ermine-dipped wife gave him away. I’ll swear, he almost seemed sad to leave the hospital!” He delivered the plates to the table and sat down.

  Wanda took a bite of the warm lasagna. “This is delicious! You ought to open a restaurant. Everything I’ve ever tasted of yours has been off the scale.”

  “Thanks.” Jon sipped his wine. “I’d cook more often if I had the time.”

  “Shug?”

  “Hmm?”

  “I need your help with something.”

  Jon said around a mouthful, “Name it.”

  “I’m worried about Miz Maizie, Moses and Tameka’s grandmama. She’s diabetic.” Wanda shook her head sadly. “She’s all those kids have. Their mother is god-knows-where —crack addict, from what I’ve heard — and Tameka says that Miz Maizie’s not doin’ so well.”

  “Diabetes is a mean disease. Properly monitored, a person can live a long, successful life. Left undiagnosed, or not carefully controlled, it can destroy the vision, kidneys, compromise circulation…eventually lead to death.”

  “Could I persuade you to come with me to check on Miz Maizie?”

  Jon shrugged. “I’m not a doctor, Wanda. I can’t diagnose or treat her, by law.”

  Wanda nodded. “I know. I just….well, if you could go with me for a social visit. I’ll make some food to take over. I’ve got a little cookbook with recipes for folks with diabetes somewhere at the house. One of my friends when I lived down south was a caterer, and she worked a taste-and-educate function for one of the hospitals. She gave me one of the recipe books. Maybe we can stop in and you can just take a peek at her.”

  Jon nodded. “As long as I don’t go in an official nurse capacity, I don’t have any objections.”

  Wanda smiled. “Good. I’ll talk to Moses tomorrow when he comes in for work, to see what day would be best. I do appreciate this, Shug. I’ll owe you one.”

  “Friends don’t keep tabs, Wanda’loo. If you’d corner Jake and give him a trim, it’d be repayment enough. His hair’s longer, and far shabbier, than Elvis’s!”

  Wanda laid her head back and a huge belly laugh echoed through the room. “Maybe you could take a picture and enter him in next year’s calendar dog contest! Give little Elvis some competition.”

  Jon smirked. “You’re so funny, you should’ve been queer.”

  “You shore can’t judge a person by what they got. Material possessions don’t amount to a hill a’beans in the by-in-by. I’ve yet to see a hearse a’pullin’ a U-Haul full of money. A person who’ll sit in the kitchen and pass the time of day and share what little they’ve got – now that there’s quality, and the good Lord sees it, too.”

  Piddie Davis Longman

  Chapter Nine

  Happytown

  Like many small southern towns, Chattahoochee remained, for the most part, racially segregated. The majority of black citizens maintained residences in the southeastern side of town, an area known to locals as Happytown. Grandma Maizie’s small wooden frame house claimed a small lot on Wire Road. Deeply shrouded by one ancient live oak tree and a row of overgrown shrubs, it was one of the few shotgun houses left from the ’40s. The term shotgun house had been coined to describe a long, narrow, cheaply-constructed house that you could shoot a shotgun through the front door and it’d go clean through and out the back door without hittin’ a thing.

  Unlike many of the neighboring dwellings, Miz Maizie’s house sported fresh paint, new windows, and a new roof, compliments of a recent charity clean and fix-up program sponsored by the local churches. The front cement walkway, though cracked, was cleanly swept of sand and leaves.

  Shug Presley parked the 4Runner in the shaded dirt driveway and studied the house intently. “Wow! Aren’t many of these left. At least, not in this good a condition. People are just recently starting to realize their historical value. They’re the one true example of African-American architecture in this country.”

  Wanda raised her eyebrows. “I didn’t know you were such a history buff.”

  “It’s a hobby. I read a lot on the Internet. My mom loved history, so she always bought me books, particularly about the South.” Shug glanced back at the house. “This style was a reflection of the intimacy of African-American familial ties of the time period. I’ll bet there was a row of these here at one time — they were usually built close together.”

  “Hmmm…I’ve seen a few down in Key West and Miami. They’re probably all over the state. I’ve never paid much attention.”

  Jon killed the engine. “Most folks don’t. Bet you didn’t know that Elvis was born in a shot gun house.”

  “Your dog?”

  Jon chuckled. “No, the human Elvis. People associate him with the Graceland mansion, but his beginnings were very humble.”

  He pulled the keys from the ignition. “Need some help with the food?”

  “If you can grab your bread basket, I can get the rest.”

  They climbed the concrete block steps and st
ood on the small painted wooden plank front porch. An old metal kitchen chair and an electric box fan stood on one side of the door.

  “Miz Maizie?” Shug called as he rapped on the screened door.

  The sound of Maizie’s shuffled walk echoed down the long dark hallway. “I’m a’comin’! Jess a minute!” A short bowed black woman in a flower-print housedress appeared at the door. “Whew! The old gray mare shore ain’t what she used to be! Y’all come on in.”

  Jon studied the old woman with a nurse’s trained eye. In her youth, Maizie would have been a formidable force. Now, in her early seventies, she had been dealt a cruel blow by nature and hardship. Her frame slumped forward, curling with the effects of osteoporosis. Jon noted the slight tremor of her hand as she reached out to shake his, then Wanda’s hand. Maizie’s swollen feet were packed into soft bedroom slippers with holes cut out to accommodate bunions on both of her big toes.

  Jon and Wanda were ushered into a cozy sitting room. Though the few pieces of furniture were old, the chintz covers and handmade curtains gave the tiny room a cheerful, homey ambience. A window fan and a 19-inch television, complete with a rabbit ear antenna, were the only visible concessions to the current century. Jon recalled the words of his mother: It’s no crime to be poor – Jesus was no rich man. But, you keep yourself and your home clean. There’s no excuse for slovenly ways.

  “Y’all make you’selves comfortable, hear? I made some fresh teacakes and iced tea for us.” Maizie shuffled slowly from the living room down the hall to the kitchen at the far end of the house.

  Wanda’s gaze was drawn to one wall filled with family pictures. Many were faded black and white prints, the subjects standing rigid with soulful, solemn expressions.

  She could see the strong family resemblance to Maizie, Moses, and Tameka.

  “Oh! Let me help you with that!” Wanda called when she saw Maizie struggling to negotiate the hallway carrying a food and drink-laden tray. The old woman smiled appreciatively when Wanda retrieved the tray and set it on the coffee table.