Champagne for Buzzards

by Phyllis Smallman

  “Wow,” I heard from deep in the pile when I returned.

  “What did you find?” I asked, although to tell the truth I wasn’t that interested. The joy of antiques was brief for me. I had something else on my mind and I wanted to get back out to Independence.

  “I found a beautiful carved headboard. Must be nearly eight feet tall.”

  “Gross, come on, let’s go.” Her head appeared again. “What’s the hurry?”

  “I want to get the champagne and get back and make plans. You know, figure out where it’s all going to go.”

  “Oh, good idea.” She hurried out now. “Maybe I should take pictures before we go.”

  “I’m sure Clay said there were some back at the house. Use those.” She was going to give me grief when she found out there was no such thing but by then I’d have thought of something else.

  “Oh, great, I’m really excited.” And she was, at least excited enough to run to the pickup while I locked up.

  “I’m planning on measuring the rooms and making floor plans just like they show you in the magazines,” she told me. “Aren’t you thrilled?”

  “Just so long as the guests don’t have to sit on the floor, I’m cool.” This wasn’t exactly the truth. I cared a whole lot more than that. I should have known better. I had never fit into the Travis world, no matter how hard I’d tried. Jimmy’s father was a plastic surgeon and Jimmy’a mother was the social queen of Jacaranda. Their world was a million miles from the trailer park on the edge of a swamp where I grew up, even though it was only a twenty-minute drive apart. I should have known it wouldn’t work any better trying to fit into Clay’s. But I’m a girl who never learns from her mistakes. I tend to stick to the old tried and true errors and make the same screw up again and again. That way I can avoid learning new things.

  So here I was, taking a week off, the first in two years, to make everything perfect. In my head I could see the idyllic evening, the soft glow of ferry lights in the oaks, the Japanese lanterns strung along the porch, the house glowing and alive with lights. Along the porch and under the trees would be bistro tables with long white tablecloths and candles. Elegant and refined. I’d daydreamed about this for months. I was trying desperately to keep from Marley how important this party was to me. If she knew, she’d laugh herself silly.

  She put down the list she was reading for the tenth time and announced, “I’m calling Jane. She works part-time at the office. I’m going to get her to work for me this week and I’ll just cancel the rest of the appointments she can’t cover. I’m taking a holiday.”

  I didn’t try too hard to talk her out of it.

  We swung by the Sunset to load up the champagne. Marley wasn’t going any farther until she was fed a huge lunch on the house. Before the food arrived she started in to tell me that I shouldn’t get involved with Lucan’s murder. “After all,” she reasoned, “if someone killed him in the parking lot and wanted to hide him and your truck was there, if it was just a random thing that he was put in Big Red, it hasn’t anything to do with you, has it?”

  “You’re right, it isn’t my problem,” I agreed. “I’m not involved and I have no intention of ever getting mixed up in it. Besides I have a new philosophy of life.”

  “I wasn’t aware you had an old one.”

  “Shut up and listen, this is how it is…I no longer feel responsible for anyone but myself. Whatever happens I just let it flow by.” My right hand described the undulation of a stream over rocks as I told her this profound truth. “I’m not in control of anything and I don’t want to be in control anymore.”

  “You never were in control,” Marley pointed out.

  “Yes, but now I realize it, that’s the difference. It’s all kinda Zen, this letting the world drift by. My own twelve steps for going through life serenely.”

  “Weird,” she said and helped herself to my chips as the waitress set the plate in front of me. “But not any weirder than some of the stuff I’ve heard come out of your mouth.”

  “I’m glad you appreciate it. Now tell me what’s happening. Have you heard from David?”

  The sunshine went out of her face and she dropped the chips onto her plate. “No. It’s over. He wants to work full-time with the homeless, which will just about make him homeless as well when he gives up his own church. He won’t have his own ministry anymore, no permanent congregation and no income. He will be subsisting on donations, living the same life as those he serves. His sacrifice means he’s also sacrificing his future family.” Her food was forgotten as she leaned forward on both elbows and said, “I want kids, want to send them to good schools, have holidays, healthcare, all those things. I don’t want my children to grow up in a homeless shelter.”

  “Sounds perfectly reasonable to me. Surely David sees that and agrees?”

  She shook her head. “All he can see is the people who need him. Maybe if I loved him more I’d have been willing to make sacrifices as well.”

  “Or maybe he doesn’t love you enough if he chooses strangers over you. Marley, if he had chosen you, you would have clung to him no matter what. He made this decision without thinking about you. He’s asking way too much.”

  She sighed and said, “He wants me to be a better person than I am; he thinks I can be like him.”

  “Yeah, well I’ve promised myself that in my next life I’ll be a better person too, no shooters, no nights I can’t quite recall, fewer parties and a whole lot less fun. But right now I’m dealing with the here and now and I think you should too. Don’t try to turn yourself into some kind of a saint for someone else. You’ll end up resenting him.”

  “And yet I love him. I want to be as giving as David but I still want a home.” She leaned forward in her intensity. “That’s why I’m going to enjoy this week. It might be the only time I get to decorate a house. I may never have a house of my own.”

  “Of course you will.”

  “Not like this one and not if I marry David.” Again the big sigh. “I’m selfish.”

  “You haven’t a selfish bone in your body.”

  She wasn’t convinced. “I go back and forth, wanting to be with David and wanting a different life than the one I’ll have with him. What do you think I should do?”

  “Get a haircut and lose the glasses.”

  “No, I meant about David.”

  “So did I.”

  After we stopped at a paint store for a color chart, I dropped Marley off at Riverwood. Memory is a tricky thing, at least my memory. Lucan’s murder and the sheriff’s comments about April Donaldson brought back the ache of losing Jimmy, and I was flooded with a sense of pain as fresh and as new as if it had just happened that day, not nearly two years ago.

  I wondered how April was handling the fact that Lucan would never walk through the door again. Was she adjusting to this new reality? She’d never hear him laugh again, never even get angry with him or be able to make love to him again.

  I went to visit Lucan’s common-law wife, the lady the county didn’t think much of. I figured April Donaldson and I shared a whole lot. Turned out, so did she.

  CHAPTER 19

  She looked like an unmade bed in a cheap motel — faded, grubby and sagging. Not a place to stretch out unless you were really desperate.

  “What you staring at, Miss Uptown Gal?” she said.

  “I’m sorry if I was staring.”

  She was all elongated bones and hard angles. Her face, long and narrow, was a road map to unhappiness and was dominated by sunken, red-rimmed eyes. She took a deep drag on her cigarette and said, “You and I ain’t so different.”

  And that was what was so frightening. She recognized me right off. Some instinct told her we were sisters.

  It wasn’t just the loss to violence of the men in our lives that we shared. We both lived on the edge of financial disaster. The Sunset looked like it was rolling in do
ugh, but the truth was it was only a real good thing if breaking even excites you. There were still months I took no salary, months when the busboys took home more money than me. The pitiful monthly check I sent to Ruth Ann said how close survival lived to failure.

  It would take only a few small calamities to have me on the same track as April Donaldson, but good God, couldn’t this woman at least comb her hair? It hung in long strings around her face, except for one side where it appeared a nest of rodents had set up home.

  “My name is Sherri Travis.”

  “Sheriff told me about you and I recognized you from town. What do you want?”

  “I wanted to tell you I’m sorry for your loss.” She snorted. “Oh yeah? Knew Luc real well, did you? Liked him even?”

  “No, I didn’t know him but I can see you loved him and that you’ll miss him. I’m sorry for that. I know what it is to lose people.”

  Her face crumbled. She put up the hand with the cigarette to hide her grief and cover her mouth to stop its sounds. The knobby shoulders shook under the thin cotton blouse. I stepped closer and put my hand to the shoulder blade sticking out under the faded pattern, wanting to offer human comfort. She gave an animal wail of pain and turned to me, moving into me and grabbing hold of me as if I might be her only salvation from drowning in a sea of hurt.

  When she pulled away from the damp spot on my shoulder, she was angry again. “I know what people think of Luc. Probably saying it’s the best thing that could have happened. Well, not for me it isn’t.” She swiped at her nose with the back of her hand.

  I stepped on the burning cigarette that dropped from her fingers. The scorch mark wouldn’t be visible on the battleground of the lino.

  “He was good to me,” she said with an anguished wail. She dropped onto the couch, knees together and her elbows dug deep into her gut. Her tears started again.

  I went to the sink and picked up the least dirty glass I could see. The pipes clanged as I turned on the water. I let the water run over the glass, rinsing it out before filling it and taking it to her.

  She looked up at me, holding in the hurt. I offered her the glass and she took it silently.

  I went to the living room window and pushed aside the thin bed sheet draped over the window. A thin brown dog, at the end of a heavy chain, was going around and around a stake in the middle of the yard, retracing over and over again the perfect circle he had worn into the earth. The chain itself had dragged over the soil within the circle and torn out every living thing. The merciless sun beat down on the thin spiked grass that spotted the sandy soil outside of the circle. Only about four feet of the dog’s journey went through any shade at all. He’d exhaust himself in his endless circuit, fall down in the shade until he recovered, then get up and begin his restless journey again. I’m a pack animal myself, need human company the way I need air, so the sight of the dog staked out like a sacrifice did things to me.

  I watched him through two full cycles before April said, “Damn Breslaus. They’re the ones that killed Lucan or had someone do it for them.”

  I let the sheet drop back over the window. “He worked for them, didn’t he?”

  “Off and on. Used to be their foreman; these days he did their dirty work. That’s all they thought he was good for.”

  “Lots of dirty work on a farm. Just what kind did Lucan do?”

  “The kind they pay cash for.”

  “Orlin Breslau, he’s the owner of the Oxbow Ranch, isn’t he?”

  She gave a quick nod. “Nasty piece of shit, him and that grandson he calls Boomer, meanest bastards you ever going to find. Luc was pretty scared of them when he was sober. Drunk, nothing scared him.”

  “Did he say what he was doing for them?” For the first time there was an emotion beside anger on her face — fear maybe, caution certainly. “Why you askin’ all this?”

  “Born nosey.”

  “Yeah, that can be a real disability.” Her mouth stretched in a smile, making the sadness of her eyes more unbearable.

  “Look, can I bring that dog inside?”

  “What for?”

  “It’s hot as Hades out there, must be ninety, ninety-five, and who knows he might just be a comfort to you.” She looked confused but I didn’t wait for her to agree. Only when I jumped over the broken bottom step did she holler, “Careful, he bites.”

  Shit. But there were no signs of food and the metal water bowl had been turned upside down by the chain. He probably hadn’t had water since Lucan left. He couldn’t be left there to die. The dog, straining at the end of the chain and stretching his body out towards me, teeth bared and jaw up, started barking. He was a pretty impressive sight. I edged towards him, talking nonsense and walking slow. My good intentions were fading fast with each attempt at a lunge he made for me before the collar, thick and tough, called him up short.

  “Good dog,” I crooned. My knees creaked and cracked as I sat on my heels and slowly put out my hand. The barking turned to a low growl. He sat and watched the hand ease forward. White flecks of foam sprayed on my hand as he yelped and jerked towards it.

  “You’re slow,” I told him, holding my hand into my chest protectively. “Maybe you don’t really want to bite me.” I moved my hand out towards him again, talking to him and watching him closely. This time he growled but didn’t snap. Under the mottled browns of his stretched skin, his ribs showed. I rubbed his ear. He sank down to his haunches and then eased to the ground.

  Slowly, slowly I crept forward and unsnapped the chain from his collar, laying it on the ground and sliding back from him without touching him, moving slow.

  “Well, you can run away now if you want. I would. Just keep going, miles of nothing for you to live in, but watch for gators, won’t you?” I said and backed away. He stayed there, hunched down, waiting for the blow and watching me. I covered ten feet before I turned my back on him.

  I heard him move behind me and braced for the attack. It didn’t come. At the steps, I climbed gingerly, staying away from the cracked and rotting boards in the middle, easing up the outside where the steps were firmly attached at the edge.

  I heard the click of his nails on the broken concrete behind me. I stopped. He stopped.

  I stepped onto the porch. The paint was peeling back off several layers of color, white over sage green over bare gray boards. I looked back and he lowered himself, not quite lying down but certainly not upright. I opened the door, nudging a stray shoe in front of it to block it open. I went in. His nails went click, click, as he climbed the stairs. April Donaldson was where I’d left her, the empty glass on the floor beside her. I went to the sink and washed out a bowl and filled it with water. The dog retreated down the steps as I came through the door. “You look like you can use this,” I said to him as I set the bowl on the stoop. I went back inside to the click click of his nails climbing up the steps and then the frantic lapping of the water. I went to the fridge and opened it.

  “You make yourself at home, don’t you?” April said, but she didn’t seem unduly disturbed by my rudeness. In the fridge there was a package of gray hamburger still covered in the plastic wrapper from the store. I checked the date and sniffed the package. It wasn’t the freshest but the dog would starve before he died of bad meat. Animals seemed to be immune to things that would kill us. I stuck my nail in the end to open the wrap and plopped a good fist-sized glob onto a plate from the sink. Best to start easy. He’d eat whatever I put out and then throw it back up if I was overgenerous.

  The dog growled again as I approached him but drool was running over his snarling lips. “Good dog,” I started to say as I reached out to place the plate on the bare wood. He lunged and gulped the meat down before the plate made it to the floor. “All righty,” I told him. “Looks like that takes care of dinner. You all come in when you feel up to it.” I took the plate back inside.

  April watched all this without comm
ent and I was starting to think she might have a wheel or two missing from her wagon so I asked, “Will you be all right here alone?”

  “Say, what are you, a bloody social worker or something?”

  “More like a concerned neighbor.”

  She snorted. “So that explains why you let me cry on your shoulder.”

  I ran water over the plate and then put the plug in the sink and searched for dish soap. I twisted around to look at her as the sink filled. “Tell me about Lucan.”

  She shrugged and stayed silent. Minutes passed and the sink filled. At last she said, “We grew up together, me and Lovey and Lucan.”

  I turned off the water and looked at her. She considered her hands, saying, “Lovey Sweet was the girl all the boys loved, specially Lucan. Her father didn’t think Lucan was good enough for Lovey, caught them together once, and threatened to kill Luc if he didn’t stay away from her.”

  She got out of the chair as if every motion pained her and went for her Winstons. “Lovey is beautiful. You seen her?” She looked at me now with gray eyes that might never shine again.

  “Can’t remember.”

  “Oh, you’d remember. She’s like one of those old time paintings, lush, you know? Round and sensual, not like those skinny women you see in magazines today, not like me. Luc is Kelly’s daddy only he didn’t know it for the longest time ’cause Lovey told him he wasn’t, said some other man had sired Kelly, but you only have to see Kelly to know she’s a Percell, and besides, Lovey was never that sort of girl, you know, the sort that would go with more than one man at a time. No, there was never anyone but Luc for her in those days.”

  I set a dripping plate in the dish rack and asked, “Why didn’t Lovey marry him?”

  “I think she was afraid her daddy really would shoot Luc. Mr. Sweet’s a good man but when that wife of his gets talking and doing his thinking for him, there’s no telling what’s going to happen. Besides, back then, seventeen, eighteen years ago, well we were more inclined to do what we was told.”