by Robert Gipe
Calvin said, “But you know what, dude? Kenny’s got his eye on a new woman. I know he does.”
Kenny got back in the Bonneville packing a blue plastic bag. Kenny had a big old gut and his hair was unruly. I don’t know what That Woman seen in him.
“Did you get the right stuff?” Calvin said.
Kenny nodded. They was in the front seat. I was in back. The upholstery was falling in from the Bonneville’s ceiling and when Calvin got rolling, it flapped like ocean waves. Calvin tore through curves and I had no idea where we was. It was old two-story farmhouses and real windy roads and cows standing around everwhere. It was July and didn’t seem the sun would ever go down. I was wanting to see what Kenny and Calvin would do, hoping it would be bad so I could tell That Woman and she wouldn’t think Kenny so bright. Maybe she’d see him for what he was, which I was hoping was bad.
We got back on a main highway lined up with furniture stores and bright shiny restaurants and we pulled up in front of the least bright and shiny one they was—The Straightaway Grill.
Kenny said, “Calvin, don’t go in there.”
Calvin already had the Bonneville door open and one foot on the gravel. Calvin said, “I got to have me some of that casserole.” One of Calvin’s ex-wives worked in the restaurant. They had a hash-brown casserole Calvin said haunted his dreams.
Kenny said, “She aint going to give you no casserole.”
Calvin said, “She still loves me.”
Kenny said, “She’s got an EPO on you.”
“That’s her mother’s idea,” Calvin said.
“Don’t go in there, Calvin,” Kenny said.
The door slammed on the Pontiac and the mirror fell out of the rearview. A police car pulled in next to us and two police went in the restaurant. Kenny put his hand over his face like he was wiping something off of it. He looked back over the car seat at me.
He said, “You doing all right, Gene?”
I said I was.
“I don’t mean to get too personal,” Kenny said, “but you aint got no warrants on you or nothing, do you?”
I said,
The restaurant door flew open and Calvin come to the door. He hollered back in the restaurant, “I can’t believe you called the cops. You’re a goddam heartbreaker, aint you?” The cops came to the door. Calvin stepped out towards us, but he kept hollering back inside. “You get more like your mother everday, Desiree. You know that? Everday. People aint going to be able to tell you apart if you aint careful.”
Kenny leaned over and pushed Calvin’s door open. Calvin got in, beat on the steering wheel with both hands. He put the car in reverse and blew the car horn one long blow. Them cops stepped towards us and Calvin backed out, blowing the car horn all the way, like he was in a victory parade.
When he finally stopped blowing, Kenny said, “Did you get your casserole?”
We was back on the four-lane, the restaurant far behind, but Calvin give the car horn one more long blow.
* * *
KENNY’S WIFE said, “Why did you bring Calvin here?” They was talking back in the little closet room where the food was stacked. “And where did you get that other one?” I reckon the other one was me.
Kenny said something low and mumbly I didn’t catch and Kenny’s wife said, “Kenny, these are my friends,” and Kenny said, “Well, they’re my friends,” and then I heard Kenny’s wife say, “Jesus, Kenny,” and they stepped back towards me and I backed down the hall into where all these blonde women was talking, sitting on high stools in a real clean kitchen, big bright color bowls filled with chopped-up salady stuff and piles of corn on the cob and fat red and green watermelon slices and raw hamburgers and hot dogs piled up on plates, and it was about as nervous-making a room as I’d ever been in and so I went out on the patio where they was a big old yard mostly fenced in and mostly mowed. Big boat in the back corner floated on high grass. There was kids running around, jumping in and out of an aboveground swimming pool, bunch of men standing around looking like bosses in clean shirts and tight haircuts, looking like they didn’t really know each other, kind of awkward talking about nothing and taking a keener interest in the doings of their kids than they might otherwise would’ve.
Calvin was standing next to a gas grill looked like it was a whole kitchen with a stove eye built in and places to set stuff and towels and tools hanging off it, full of meat. The smoke rolling off smelled good and Calvin was waving his arms telling some big tale, talking like he was best friends with everybody there, like he’d known them forever. Against my better judgment, I sidled up next to Calvin.
“So we was locked in the bathroom,” Calvin said. “Couldn’t none of them Tarheel North Carolina Republican assholes get at us.” I don’t know how Calvin could’ve got drunk no longer than we had been there, but he sure seemed so. “And after while they was banging on the door. And finally Kenny opened the door and grabbed one of them by the lapels, set him on the commode, locked the door back, and said, ‘You give us one good reason why we shouldn’t kick your ass right now,’ and you know what?”
Didn’t none of the men listening to Calvin’s story say what, so I said, “What?”
Calvin said, “He didn’t have one. He couldn’t think of one good reason why we shouldn’t kick his ass.”
I said, “What did you do?”
“Aw,” Calvin said, “we turned him loose. We was guests at the wedding. We didn’t want to cause no trouble for our buddy getting married.”
Them other fellers went back to staring into the gas fire. Calvin started in on a tale about Kenny’s bachelor party and then Kenny come up, said, “Come on Calvin, let’s go,” and Calvin said, “Where we going?” and Kenny said, “She needs something else.”
“You got the wrong thing, didn’t you?” Calvin said.
“That’s right,” Kenny said. “I did.”
“Told you,” Calvin said.
I left out with them, trying to think what my reason would be for somebody not kicking my ass.
* * *
WHEN WE got out to the Bonneville, Kenny told us what it was. Kenny’s wife had wanted us out of there. Which I didn’t blame her. Me and Calvin stuck out in there like two used rubbers in a bowl of peanuts. I was glad to be gone, but Calvin pitched a fit, said this was exactly what he was talking about, said this is why Kenny needed to get shed of April. He said it standing on Kenny’s concrete driveway, and didn’t stop when Kenny’s two little whiteheaded boys walked up, twins about five years old. The thicker one said, “Daddy, where you going?”
Kenny said, “Gonna make sure these sure these gentlemen get home all right.”
The other twin said, “Daddy, aint they old enough they don’t need a daddy?”
Kenny squatted down, said, “Honey, I got to go with them so I can pick up my truck.” They looked at him big-eyed and Kenny said, “Aint yall been swimming?”
The thick one said, “We was waiting on you.”
And Kenny said, “Well. Yall go back in there and get ready. I’ll be back before you get your waterwings on.” They stood there and Kenny said, “Do what I tell you.”
And they went in the house.
Calvin said, “April is undermining you with them boys.”
“Shut up, Calvin,” Kenny said, and we got in the Pontiac and backed out of Kenny’s driveway.
We drove about a minute and Calvin said, “Kenny, you reckon you could loan me five hundred till payday?”
Kenny said, “You aint working, Calvin. You aint got a payday.”
“Kenny,” Calvin said, “the damned old IRS got me hemmed up. It aint me. It’s federal.”
“Jesus, Calvin,” Kenny said. “When you going to lend me some money?”
That shut Calvin up, and we rode past the chemical plant on the edge of Kingsport, forests of smokestacks, coal piles big as mountains, and Calvin said to me, “John, now where are you staying?”
“His name is Gene, dumbass,” Kenny said, “and just take me to the truck. I’ll
take him.”
I was staying at That Woman’s house. I said, “Right over there by the train tracks on Mill Street.” I pointed, said, “Right over there.”
Calvin whipped around, cut under the train tracks, and in a minute we was sitting out front of That Woman’s crackerbox house. Calvin jumped out, said, “I gotta take a whiz.”
I said to Kenny, “Don’t look like she’s here.”
Kenny said, “You got a key?”
I said, “Hunh-unh.”
Kenny said, “Shoo,” and got out of the Pontiac.
Calvin tried the door and peeked in the windows. Kenny waved me up on the porch and took a key out of his pocket, opened the storm door, and unlocked the house. Him having the key to That Woman’s house took something out of me, but I couldn’t keep from going in there to take in the misty flowerdy smell I knew would be inside, that come-hither smell like cinnamon and soap and your grandmother’s tea. I closed my eyes to take in the smell a hundred per cent. When Calvin went, “Jesus Christ,” my eyes opened to the sight of paper money laid edge to edge everwhere in the front room of that house—tens and twenties and fifties and hundreds laid all over the chairs and sofa and tables. Money was stretched down the little hall back towards That Woman’s bedroom. The money was wet and set on paper towels drying out. It was hot in there, baking hot, and the three of us stood there piled up, our eyes big as eggs.
Calvin said “Jesus Christ” again and Kenny set down in the easy chair facing the kitchen and he said “Jesus Christ” too.
* * *
CALVIN COULDN’T help himself. He went to counting it, walking up and down the rows of bills laid out plumb as dots on a domino. I stood in the doorway on a plastic runner and Calvin lost track of his counting any number of times. I would’ve helped him but I aint no good at counting neither and finally Calvin said, “They must be a hundred thousand dollars here.”
Kenny finally said, “Where is she?” to the house itself and then he turned to me, said, “Gene, you know what this is?”
I said, “No sir, I don’t. Except that it’s a lot of money.”
We noticed a lot of the bills was old, like from the 1960s, and a lot was from the 1970s, and this, see, was the summer of 2004, and it was odd, very odd, odd on top of all that money being spread out there in the first place.
Calvin said, “I don’t know about you boys, but that’s money enough to solve all my problems.”
Me and Kenny took a good long look at one another and the storm door creaked behind me and That Woman said, “Kenny,” with the breath going out of her and she stepped past me to him and they didn’t touch but you could tell they was wanting to and Calvin looked past me and I turned to see what he was looking at, and there stood Tricia, That Woman’s pillhead sister, and she had a suitcase you could’ve put her in twice and she had makeup over all the trouble she’d been in, and makeup over all the trouble she’d caused, and when I looked back, Calvin’s mouth was hanging open and I didn’t know if I was there. It was a strange feeling and I just sat down, my head light and gassy, and I heard That Woman say,
When That Woman come back with my glass of water and sat down, we was all sitting down.
“June,” Kenny said, “what is all this?”
That Woman sat with her knees together. She wore a white shirt looked like it could have been a man’s, shirt like a lawyer would wear, or an undertaker. Her hair come down across one eye and she brushed it back with a hand light as a turkey feather. When she went to talking, sound of her voice was like the whisper of rain, made you quiet, made you want to lie still in a bed and not turn on a light when dark come through the window, filled the room before it come to the window itself, and she said:
“I don’t know what to tell you.”
We all set there looking at each other and looking at that money, and Tricia, the sister, sparked her lighter, lit a cigarette.
“Honey,” That Woman said to her sister, “go out on the porch.”
Tricia said tense as a screen door spring, “My pleasure,” and when she got up to go, I figured Calvin would too, and sure as his eyes followed her out, his behind stayed right there on the sofa next to me.
“Honey,” Kenny said to That Woman, “whose money is this?”
That Woman said, “Hubert’s.”
Which is what I figured, cause Hubert is That Woman’s outlaw brother-in-law, and actually, he wasn’t That Woman’s brother-in-law. He was Tricia’s dead husband’s brother, and he was sweet on Tricia, always had been. See, that whole bunch was piled up on one another like a box of puppies. Whatever one was into, they was all into.
“What’s it doing here?” Kenny said. “And why’s it all wet?”
“And why’s it old?” Calvin said. “Will it still spend?”
“Are you Calvin?” That Woman said.
“He’s been talking about me,” Calvin said. “I knew he would.”
“June,” Kenny said, “why’s there money all over the house?”
“You know Sidney Coates got arrested,” That Woman said. Sidney Coates was our county’s biggest drug dealer.
“I’d heard,” Kenny said. “And I heard they found a bunch of money at his house.”
“Thirty thousand,” I said.
“And you heard they think Tricia informed on them,” That Woman said.
“I hadn’t heard that,” Kenny said. “Did she?”
Tricia come back in the house, said, “Don’t matter if I did or didn’t if they think I did.”
“So this is to pay them back,” Kenny said.
“So they don’t kill her,” That Woman said.
Calvin leaned back on the sofa, said, “Daggone.”
“Help me gather this up,” That Woman said.
We couldn’t help watching her when she got down on her knees started stacking that money up in little piles. Her shirt rode up her back and you could see them muscles either side of her spine. Lord, they was easy to look at.
Calvin, he looked at That Woman too, but mostly looked at Tricia. He give her a little wink, but she just looked at him like he was her own reflection in a mud puddle. Kenny kneeled down beside That Woman, and I kneeled down beside her on the other side.
“So,” Kenny said, “when yall taking Sidney this money?”
“Tomorrow night, I reckon,” That Woman said.
“You going by yourself?” Kenny said.
That Woman raised up on her knees. “You asking to go with me?”
Kenny said, “Yeah, I’ll go with you. If I can.”
I said, “I’ll go with you.”
That Woman said, “I reckon Hubert’ll take me. Somebody will.”
Tricia huffed, said, “I got to go.” She bounced up, rubbed her hands on her thighs. “All this money,” she said, “making me nervous.”
Tricia had been sitting on the edge of a chair flipping through a clothes magazine while we was stacking money.
Calvin jumped up too. “Where you wanting to go, darling?”
“I got my own vehicle,” Tricia said.
That Woman said, “You don’t need to be driving nowhere.”
Tricia said, “I got to go to the drugstore. I need tampons.”
Calvin said, “I don’t mind taking her.”
That Woman said, “Kenny, take my car and run her down to Mack’s.”
Kenny said, “You sure?”
“Yeah,” That Woman said. “Hurry.”
Kenny left and That Woman went in the kitchen, come back with a ziplock bag full of rubber bands. We put the cash in five-hundred-dollar bundles, them rubber bands snapping around that money. Calvin scooted the bundles over to where I could reach them, but mostly it was me and That Woman doing the work. I could imagine me and her putting up pickles and tomatoes, canning all kinds of good, old-timey stuff. I smiled at That Woman and she smiled at me and then she went in the other room, come back with a red duffel bag, started piling that money up in it.
It’s a funny thing to be around that much mon
ey. You don’t think it’s going to be weird because, you know, you been around money before. But that much of it gives off a smell kind of gives you a buzz—like homemade liquor or a good clean dog. I felt it myself, and I didn’t have no interest in none of it, none of it but doing right by That Woman.
All the money just barely fit in the bag, and right as That Woman zipped up the bag, the phone rang. That Woman went in the other room to get it, and Calvin looked at me, opened his eyes wider and raised his eyebrows like they was a thought we was sharing, but if there was, I didn’t know what it was.
“You go to church, John?” Calvin said.
“I know where one’s at,” I said.
Calvin nodded. That Woman went down the hall, put something up in the closet.
* * *
WHEN I come to, I was in the trunk of Calvin’s Bonneville. The Bonneville needed shocks. Other than that, it wasn’t too bad. There was a bed of pop cans and I could rest my head on the jumper cables. Hardest part was not knowing what happened, and in particular what had become of That Woman. I knew me being in the trunk of Calvin’s Bonneville was part of him taking That Woman’s money, twenty-eight thousand dollars she’d packed up in a red bag to get her pillhead sister out of trouble, not so Calvin could run off with it soon as he got the chance.
I wondered why Calvin hadn’t left me in That Woman’s house. I was glad he hadn’t, cause it made it possible I might end up the hero. I might get back That Woman’s money, or even better, save her from certain death or some such.
These thoughts were a comfort, even after Calvin stopped and it started getting uncomfortable hot. I tried to think of winter growing up in my granny’s house when me and Brother would stay under the quilts and covers and argue who was going to get up and stoke the fire after Granny got too sick to do it. But I couldn’t make my mind work on the ice in our pee bottle or our breath blown out in clouds above our heads. Seems all would come was the toasty feeling me and Brother give each other under all them quilts and covers, a toasty feeling which turned double super hot in that car trunk. My sweat was like butter. I was a turkey in a oven. I shucked off my clothes, but couldn’t get no relief. Them pop cans started gouging me.