by Terry Shames
I pause, not wanting to tell the story, but when I stop talking, she stops packing. My throat is dry.
“Eventually Daddy found a job at the railroad tie plant. But for that year he was out of work, my brother and I never had enough to eat. To this day, I don’t understand how my mamma thought it was okay for us to go without meals.”
She leans against the chest of drawers and watches me.
“I was always hungry. One day, Horace and I were walking along and I was crying, and this old black woman came by.” I snort. “I thought she was old, but she was probably no more than forty.” I sigh. “She asked Horace what was wrong. Horace wouldn’t talk to her, but I was little and I told her I was hungry. So she took us to her house and fed us.”
“Samuel.” Jeanne sits down and puts her arm around me, and only then do I realize that I’ve barely been talking above a whisper.
“Here’s the thing. She fed us every day after that. Horace and I got to depend on it. It got to where we stopped by there after school every day, and she was waiting with a meal.”
She lays her head on my shoulder. “That’s not so bad, honey. It wasn’t your fault.”
“That’s not the bad part. Horace talked behind her back like she was dirt. Horace would tell me she was filthy and that her house smelled bad and that she was stupid. Oh, he was awful. And I bought it.” I bow my head. “He had sense enough not to say those things to her face, but I suspect I didn’t hide my scorn.”
Jeanne puts her arms around me and kisses my check. “You were a little boy,” she says. “You didn’t know any better.”
“When my family moved out of there and into a house, Horace and I never went back to see her, never thanked her. When I got older and thought about it, I knew it was wrong for him to say those things and for us to take her for granted. I kept thinking one of these days I was going to go back and tell her I appreciated what she did for us. And then one day it was too late. I heard she had died.”
Jeanne pulls back and stares at me. “Let me ask you something. Where did she get the money for the food?”
“I wondered the same thing. She probably got help from her church congregation.”
She lays her head back on my shoulder. “Then it wasn’t just her.”
“Maybe not, but she’s the one who went out of her way. I still owe her, and I’m going to see to it that Truly Bennett is exonerated. It’s the only way I know to pay the debt.” I pull her arms away and stand up. “Now I don’t want to talk about it anymore. Finish packing. I’m going to the school to pick up Tom.” I’ve spoken harshly, so I walk over and put my hands on her shoulders. “Please.”
She walks to the closet and takes out some blouses and throws them into the suitcase. Usually she’s a meticulous packer, but she hardly seems to notice what she’s doing. “Do you think somebody is coming to kill you?”
I realize that she’s picturing something out of an old cowboy movie, like High Noon. I smile and hug her tight. “No, it’s not that bad. I’ll feel better if I don’t have to worry about you, that’s all.”
“All right. I’ll go, but I don’t have to be happy about it. I can’t imagine going to Disneyland and playing like I don’t have a care in the world while you’re here in danger.”
“You don’t have to go to Disneyland. Your mamma has always wanted to get to some art galleries and museums out there in California. You can do that.”
“Maybe.” Her eyes get a faraway look, like she’s already planning what she’ll say to her mamma. “If you’re sure you’re okay.”
“Absolutely. I’m going to school to get Tom. I’ll be back soon.”
When I arrive at the school, I see a familiar car pulling to the curb ahead of me. My heart starts pounding in time with the pounding in my head. I get out and walk over to my brother’s car just as he’s opening the door. Donna isn’t with him.
“Look who’s here! Hey, Samuel, you’re saving me a trip. I was going to pick up Tom and then head over to your place to get his things.”
Anger surges up in me so hard I could knock my brother down without a second thought. “Why are you taking him out of school?”
“Me and Donna have rented a place in Houston, and we’re going to move there.”
“You’re not taking Tom with you.”
He laughs. “Sure we are. He’s our boy.”
“You’re going nowhere, except maybe to jail.”
His eyes harden. “Have you lost your mind?”
“No, but I think you’ve lost yours. At least you’ve lost your way. How long have you been back in town?”
“Now listen here, little brother, you have no right to question me.”
“Horace, I’ve been hearing you say that ever since I moved back here. And now I know why.”
He sneers. “You came back here full of yourself because you got a college education. You think you’re pretty smart, but you don’t know as much as you think you do. There are a lot of things you don’t know about . . . the way the world works.”
“I know you’re getting yourself in big trouble.”
“Who are you to judge me? I protected you from hard knocks the whole time we were kids. You owe me.” He’s referring to how he protected me from our folks—from our daddy’s drunken rages and our mamma’s sharp tongue.
“And I’m grateful. But that doesn’t give you a license to break the law. I want you to go back to your place and wait for me. I’ll be there in twenty minutes. We need to talk.”
“By God, you can’t tell me what to do. I’m getting my boy.”
“You’re not. If I have to, I’ll arrest you.”
“Arrest me for what?”
We glare at each other. The school bell rings, and kids spill out on the schoolyard for recess. The happy shouts of the children are a sharp contrast to the tension between us.
“I heard your voice last night, telling whoever hit me not to do it again.”
He’s startled, but he recovers and says, “I don’t know what you mean. That wasn’t me.”
“Yes, it was. We can talk about it in a little while at your place.”
“I don’t know what you think is going on, but you’re dead wrong. But I don’t want to create any more problems than we already have, so I’ll go home and wait for you.” He climbs into his car and revs the engine. I watch him drive away, hoping that Tom is not one of the children out at recess.
My hope was in vain. I spy Tom standing in a corner of the schoolyard away from other children, watching me intently. As I walk into the yard, he runs to me and throws his arms around my waist. He’s trembling. “Was that Daddy?”
“He was here to pick you up, but then he remembered he had something to do, so I’m going to take you instead.”
I gather him up in my arms. He looks off to watch his daddy’s car disappear down the road. “Are you taking me to him?”
“No, you’re going away for a few days with your Aunt Jeanne.”
He nods. His face looks like a wise old man’s. “I don’t really want to go with him.”
“Why is that?”
“I just don’t.”
“Did he hurt you?”
He shakes his head. “I don’t think he likes me.”
“Tom, listen, your daddy loves you a lot. I know he does. He doesn’t always have good judgment, but I assure you he loves you, and your mamma does, too.”
He sighs and relaxes, a little. I set him down, and together we walk into the school so I can find his teacher to tell her he’s going to miss classes for a few days.
Jeanne keeps up a good front for Tom. If she didn’t have his welfare in mind, she’d probably refuse to leave my side. But when she tells him they are going to fly to California to see Disneyland with Jeanne’s mother, his excitement is contagious.
She sends Tom to change clothes and says, “I talked to Mamma. She’s making arrangements. I hope you’re sure about this.”
I hug her and tell her I am. A half hour later, they are gone
; the house has never felt so empty.
Horace’s car is not in front of his place. I’m torn between being annoyed and being relieved. The idea of hauling my brother and sister-in-law off to jail doesn’t appeal to me. But neither does letting them get away. I bang on their door in case Donna is there, and the door swings open. I walk inside. “Donna? Horace?” The living room is bare of everything but the shabby furniture.
In the bedroom, drawers hang open and empty. The bed has been stripped of linens. A few ragged bits of clothing have been left on hangers, and a few pairs of worn shoes remain on the floor of the closet. They can’t have been gone more than a few minutes, but already the place has a stale feel.
I walk into Tom’s room with dread in my heart, and, sure enough, they haven’t bothered to take any of his belongings. I sit on the edge of his little bed and wonder what to do. Jeanne will know. Until then, I’ll call the man who owns these apartments and make sure the rent is paid up so I don’t have to make a decision right away.
They didn’t bother with the kitchen, either. They have left unwashed dishes in the sink, and clean dishes in the cabinets. A motley assortment of pots and pans remain in the lower shelves. There’s not a lot of food—a few cans of soup, a box of saltines, oatmeal, and noodles—but Donna never kept food on hand for more than a day or two.
I wander through the rooms again in a daze. If I hadn’t met Jeanne, would I have ended up the same as my brother? No, I mustered the gumption to go to college, while he didn’t even bother to get through his last year of high school. I blame the woman upstairs, but I can’t leave here without telling her they’re gone. I lock the door behind me.
My heart trips double-time as I trudge up the stairs to the second floor. I’m going to bear the brunt of her anger and disappointment; and as disgusted as I am with Horace, I’m not sure I can hold my temper. I wish I could harden my heart to her and walk away, but Jeanne would be disappointed in me, and truthfully I’d be disappointed in myself, too.
“A person can’t get a bit of peace and quiet around here,” Mamma says when she comes to the door, cigarette dangling from her hand. The TV is blaring, so I’m not sure what kind of peace and quiet she expects.
“There’s been a lot of noise?”
She takes a deep drag off the cigarette. Makes my lungs ache just to watch her. “I don’t know what in tarnation was going on downstairs, but it sounded like Horace and Donna were tearing the place apart.”
“In a manner of speaking, they were,” I say. “They’ve cleared out.”
“You mean for good?”
“That I can’t tell you.” It unnerves me to see that she has a look of glee in her eyes.
“How soon will you know? Not that you’d ever tell me.”
“Mamma, let me ask you something. Did you ever get an idea that Horace or Donna was doing things that weren’t on the up and up?”
“You mean like some kind of criminal thing? I wouldn’t put it past Donna one bit, but I don’t think Horace has the brains to be a criminal.”
“You ever get any idea that Donna was prostituting herself?”
I don’t know what Mamma had in mind, but it clearly wasn’t that. Her mouth falls open. “I never. And if I was you, I’d get my mind out of the gutter. That’s what comes from getting all those ideas in college and the military.” She glares at me and then gets a funny look on her face. “What made you think she was doing that?”
“There was a woman in Bobtail who got beaten up the same way Donna did. She was a working girl.”
That and Donna’s flimsy excuse that she went out late at night to get milk, plus my history with her, all add up to a tawdry picture. But no way am I going to bring up any of that.
She stares over at the television, and I realize for once she’s speechless.
“Horace didn’t give you any idea he might be leaving town?”
“Neither of you boys ever give me the time of day. Did they take Tom with them?”
“No, as it happens, Tom was spending a few days at our house.”
“You mean they just up and left him behind? I never did figure out why they had a child to begin with. I guess they found out it wasn’t always fun and games when you have children. I should know. There was never any end of trouble with you boys. And your daddy wouldn’t lift a finger to help. If anything, he was worse than you two.” Although she is rattling on in her usual way, she looks scared and sad.
“Mamma, I worry that you aren’t going to be all right here by yourself.”
“Of course I am. You really think Horace and Donna ever worried one bit about me? It’s going to be the same with them gone as it was with them here. They wouldn’t have known whether I died until I started to stink up the place. Neither would you, for that matter.”
I don’t even bother to protest. It wouldn’t make any difference. “I’ve got to go. Some things have come up.” I start toward the door, but a thought stops me. If Tilley is right and the Houston drug dealers want to get at me by attacking my family, they might go after her. The problem is, even if she is in danger, I don’t know where she could go to hide. I can’t have her at my place for more reasons than I can count. She has a sister in Brownsville, but I don’t think they talk to each other except to exchange birthday and Christmas cards. “Mamma, when was the last time you saw Aunt Judy?”
Her interest has gone back to her TV program, and I’m not sure she heard me, but after a minute she says, “It was at Daddy’s funeral. Let’s see, that would be fifteen, no, sixteen years. Why?”
“Would you like to go visit her?”
“Why would I want to do that?” She looks at me with a sneer. “She has snippy ideas that I can’t put up with.”
“I thought you might want to see her.”
“You’re lying. You always was a terrible liar. What kind of bee have you got in your hat?”
“I don’t want to scare you, but there may be some trouble in town. My family might be targeted. I sent Jeanne and Tom off to Dallas an hour ago.”
She snorts. “Scared? Me? You know better than that. If anybody thinks they’re going to mess with me, they’re just plain wrong. I’m not going nowhere.”
I don’t like to leave it at that, but persuading her otherwise is beyond my capacity. Truth is, I have pity on anybody who runs crosswise of her. “All right, if that’s the way you feel.”
“I do. Who are these people anyhow?”
“Not anybody from around here.” Although George Cato is from around here and seems to know something about them. “You ever hear anything in town suggesting that George Cato was into any shady deals?”
“All I know is that George Cato is another one of them with big ideas. That silly woman that writes the newspaper, Bonnie Bedichek? She’s the one to ask about him.”
That makes sense. Bonnie knows everybody. “I’ll be on my way. Mamma, I’m serious now, call me if you need anything.”
“I’ll tell you what I need. I need to know if Horace is gone for good. If he is, I want to get his apartment. It’s on the ground floor, and I wouldn’t have to walk up and down stairs.”
Now I understand why she seemed so chipper at the idea of Horace and Donna leaving. I tell her I’ll let the landlord know. What I don’t tell her is that I’ll do it in my own good time.
“Be sure you do, and don’t take no for an answer. You always were something of a cowardly boy, not standing your ground.”
Chapter 35
After I leave Mamma’s place, I go back to the office and get on the phone. I track Bonnie Bedichek down at her home. “Can I come by? I need to ask you something.”
She tells me I’m welcome as long as I don’t tattle to anybody what a mess her house is. When I walk in, I see what she means. It looks only slightly less chaotic than my brother’s apartment.
“Sorry, I don’t have time to keep house.” She picks up a stack of magazines off a saggy chair and plops it on the floor so I can sit down.
She brings me a mu
g of coffee. The cup is chipped, but at least it looks clean.
I can’t reveal what Wills told me about the corruption investigation, but I tell her that there’s a good chance the murders were committed by people connected with the drug trade in Houston. I also mention my confrontation with Tilley, and his warning that I should reconsider messing with people involved in the drug dealings. “He was pretty heated up. I wouldn’t want you to broadcast it, but I think he’s scared. Anyway, I sent Jeanne and Tom off to Dallas to keep them out of harm’s way.”
“You don’t plan to follow his advice, I take it?”
“I don’t like the idea of Truly Bennett sitting in jail for a crime he had nothing to do with.”
“I do admire you, but I don’t see how you’re going to get anywhere unless you plan to go to Houston and lay waste to the drug dealers there.”
“I’ll leave the big drug people to the big lawmen. All I want is to get my little corner cleaned up and get Truly out of jail.”
“You really think you can stop people from selling drugs around here?”
“I’ll do my best. I remember hearing somebody say that if a burglar hears a dog in somebody’s house, he’ll move on to a house with no dog. I intend to be the dog in town. Let the dealers move on to a town that they don’t have to fuss with.”
Bonnie chuckles. “I hope you can make that happen, and I’ll be glad to get the scoop when you do. But you might want to listen to Tilley.”
“I’m not ready to do that yet. Bonnie, what do you know about George Cato?”
I’ve never known Bonnie not to have a quick reply, but now she looks startled. Color rises in her usually sallow cheeks. “Why are you asking me?”
“You seem to know pretty much everything that happens around here, so you’re a natural person to ask. What is it I don’t know?”
“I’m surprised you don’t know. Twenty years ago, George came to Jarrett Creek and lived here for a while. The two of us had a . . . a thing.”
“A thing?” I realize now that Mamma must have heard gossip about the two of them. That’s why she told me to ask Bonnie.