A Place Called Wiregrass

by Michael Morris

  Miss Claudia gripped my arm, and I pulled her from the bench. She was stooped over. The tip of her cane shook when she lifted the end and pointed to the brick two-story building with the words Rexall painted on the side.

  “Aaron had heard some men say concrete was to be poured for the old bank building the next day. So there, Luther Ranker was sealed away for good. After he buried him, Aaron took Luther’s boat over to St. George Island and burned it. Before dawn, Missoura and I took their little rattletrap boat and picked him up. We took turns fighting the waves with the oars. Funny, I remember gritting my teeth and pulling that heavy brown paddle, all the while thinking if I’d known I was this strong, maybe things would’ve turned out different.

  “We timed our move to Wiregrass. I went first as the pitiful young widow looking for work to pay bills because her husband was lost at sea. Missoura and Aaron came six months later.

  “I’ll never love a man more than Wade Tyler for seeing that they had work. My second husband never knew all what went on here. It’s just not fitting to talk about such things. Whenever I thought about that night, I just changed it all in my mind to a part Vivian Leigh or Bette Davis might play in a picture show.”

  A bird chirped off in the distance, and we moved slowly down the brick path to the car. Passing rows of headstones, I felt my head swimming with the words that had been poured into it. I leaned to the left, steadied myself, and put my hand on her pointy elbow. Even if I would’ve had words to offer, I doubt my mouth would’ve produced them.

  Once I cranked the car, I sat still, gazing at the magnolia tree that guarded the headstones of her secrets.

  “I’ve bottled up that mess until, at times, I thought I’d take a running fit,” Miss Claudia said and patted her upper lip with a lace handkerchief.

  I wanted to tell her it was going to be all right, but my lips bonded together. Instead, I shifted the air-conditioning vents on her and pressed my foot on the accelerator. The deepened roar of the car engine was the only sound I controlled as the car struggled to the top of the tall bridge leaving Apalachicola.

  “Nobody’s been truer friends than Missoura and Aaron,” she said and shook her head. “No, siree. When I married Wade Tyler, I felt so guilty for my good fortune. But Missoura led me to the answer. We knelt by my fireplace, and I asked Jesus to forgive me and to take over my life.” She turned to look at me with her eyebrows raised. “Now, not to say I didn’t struggle. I declare, sometimes it’s easier to pray and ask the Lord to forgive you than it is to accept it yourself.”

  When the car was on the highest point on the bridge, Miss Claudia sighed and looked out the window. The second-story windows of the Rexall building were framed in the rearview mirror. A monument too tall for a man as sorry as Luther Ranker.

  A steady drizzle fell on the beach. Cher watched a video, and Richard talked about his adventures at sea. Grease spattered and hissed each time I turned his catch of red fish in the skillet.

  Richard leaned on the kitchen bar, and in between my nods and fake laughs at his fishing tales I cut my eyes towards Miss Claudia’s bedroom. The white door had been closed since we got back from the cemetery in Apalachicola. I was scared to death that I had done the wrong thing by giving her an extra nerve pill the night before. Since then, every time I checked on Miss Claudia, she’d just lick her lips and mumble something about needing rest.

  After the supper dishes were cleared, I eased the bedroom door open. The tinkling sound from the wind chimes was the only sign that movement existed in the darkened room. Light from the opened door spread across her bed.

  “You doing okay?” I asked.

  She slowly pulled the floral print bedspread off her. When she leaned up, her matted hair looked like someone had stomped on her head. And I wondered if Luther Ranker had ever styled her hair in a similar rat’s nest with his work boot. An injustice buried under a building that now gave out medicine to free people from pain.

  She coughed and squinted her eyes. “Where am I?”

  I froze and felt my heart skip a beat. “Now, you know where we are. We’re down here at St. George Island having a big time.” I walked over to the nightstand and turned on the shell-shaped lamp.

  She squinted her eyes tighter and reached for her glasses.

  “I been dreaming,” she said and raked her red fingernails through the black-and-gray waves of hair. “Just awful things. Just not even fit to talk about.”

  “Then we just won’t talk about them.” I sat on the edge of the bed, and my hand rested where her feet poked up under the sheet.

  “I ought not of burdened you with all that talk at the cemetery.”

  “Now, you don’t worry about that.”

  She licked her chapped lips, and I went into the adjoining bathroom. When I handed her the Chapstick tube, she tried to laugh. “You gonna spoil me yet.”

  “That’s my job, remember.” I reached over to pick up the empty water glass from the nightstand, and she grabbed my arm.

  “I hope you don’t think less of me. You know, for what I did. I just felt trapped. And then…”

  “And then, we forget about it.” I rubbed the dry, scaling skin on her arm. “Now, this morning I went ahead and studied the Bible without you. Even though you was in here playing Miss Sleeping Beauty.”

  She smiled and ran her fingers through mine.

  I grabbed the red leather Bible from her nightstand. “When I read this I knew I’d heard you say it before. It’s in Isaiah,” I said, flipping the thin pages and hoping I could find the chapter without her assistance. “Forget the former things; do not dwell on the past. See, I am doing a new thing. Now it springs up; do you not perceive it? I am making a way in the desert and streams in the wasteland.”

  Her bony fingers squeezed my hand. When I looked up, her smile was so sweet and innocent that it looked like it belonged on a little young ’un instead of a confessed killer.

  “I saw that and thought about the first time you read it to me. Our way was made out of the desert. You got nothing to worry about anymore. When you and me asked the Lord to forgive us, we got it without any extra work.”

  Days later, after supper, Miss Claudia went with Richard to see the fishing boat he and his new friend had been using to supply many of our meals. During the time alone with Cher, I discovered just how hard it was to practice what I preached.

  The thin pad of my flip-flops made squeaky noises each time I lifted my foot off the thick sand. The sound made me shrink and bite my lip like I used to whenever somebody would run their fingernails down a chalkboard. To distract myself from the sound, I looked up and waved to Cher.

  She was riding the boogie board on her knees. Rolling waves pushed her towards the white sand shore. Purplish clouds hung low behind her, and the sun waited in the chute for its departure. By the time I reached her, Cher had propped the board against the beach chair.

  “You missed me wiping out,” she said, running the back of her hand across her nose. Two strips of white, dead skin peeled upwards on the tip.

  “Lord, I don’t see how you stay on that thing.”

  “Richard tried it,” she said and laughed.

  I held my hand on my stomach and howled. “And Miss Claudia thought he’d have problems fishing? She’d have a natural-born fit if she knew he was out there on that thing.”

  We walked towards the state park, between white dunes and the departing tide. I looked down at insect-sized white crabs racing from one hole in the sand to the other. If life could only be so easy—to know exactly which hole to run to.

  Cher was still talking about a surfboard she had seen at the beach store when I jumped in all or nothing. “You don’t say much about it. You doing okay and everything?”

  Cher was still smiling. Her thoughts most likely still with the surfboard she desired. She nodded her head and looked down at the sand.

  We stopped long enough for me to slip off my flip-flops, then we continued walking along the edge of the shore. The cool waves t
ickled my toes, and Cher laughed when I moaned. She’s doing fine, I thought and kicked the clear salt-water towards the sky. I felt relieved that her counselor would be satisfied with the way I had cared for her. I could just picture me sharing the good reports with Andra. When I shared the report, Andra would most likely be standing in the white-walled clinic hallway, smiling and widening her blue eyes.

  Cher didn’t look up from digging her big toe in the sand. “How come you let my mama marry him?”

  I stopped and turned towards Cher. The sun was hanging low behind her. I wanted to ignore the question and tell her to turn around and watch the start of the sunset. My heart began to race. Cher’s toe disappeared deeper in the soft sand.

  I noticed she did not refer to LaRue as her father. She omitted his name the same way I had all those times before. Him or that man were words used as scabs to cover up the wounds LaRue had left on our lives.

  “Tell you the truth, I don’t know,” I said and sat down on a cascading bank of sand. I studied Cher and the sinking sun behind her. “She just up and ran off with him. Suzette was legal age to marry. Her home life wasn’t great. I know that. But believe me, I begged your mama not to marry him,” I said and then worried how that sounded. “But you know what? If those two never would’ve married, there’d be no you. And whether you know it or not, you are the best thing in my life. Always have been. You got the world by the tail, girl.”

  She glanced at me sideways and then continued burying her foot in the damp sand. “How come my mama let you and Pop adopt me then?”

  The question had been asked by Cher a hundred times before. The first time I stuttered and coughed a lot. Soon the answer became scripted in a format I’m sure Cher could recite. A half-truth of prison sentences and sickness to drugs. I could see Andra’s raised eyebrows and hear her instructions that the rest of the healing was left up to me.

  I breathed deeply and tasted the mist of sea salt on my tongue. “Cher, I want to be honest with you, I really do. But this thing flat won’t be easy. For me or you. Come over here and sit with me, please.” I was afraid she’d think I was babying her too much. “I just want you to help cut some of this wind off me.”

  Cher pulled her feet out of the sand and never stiffened or shrugged when I placed my arm around her damp shoulders. The warmth of her sun-soaked skin helped steady the rhythm of my heart.

  I started from the day I couldn’t get anyone to answer the phone at the little rental house in Shreveport. And never once did either of us cry when I told the story of finding the best thing in my life discarded next to crushed beer cans and a charred sofa. I just held her tightly around the shoulders and watched the tip of the orange sun slowly dip under the sea. Staring at the pink and blue strokes across the gray sky, I picked my words carefully. Words of lost dreams and hopeful tomorrows.

  Later that evening, each time I looked at Cher, she shied her eyes away from me. When I joined Miss Claudia, Richard, and Cher to watch television in the living room, she got off the floor and went to her bedroom. I heard the laughter from the situation comedy on TV, but never saw the humor. Congratulations, Erma Lee, you blew it again. I stared at the white bookshelves. Part of me wanted to call Andra and chew her out for dictating that I should tell Cher the whole truth. Andra was probably some quack who couldn’t get a real job in the hospital and ended up at the community health center helping charity cases like Cher.

  I tossed and turned in the bed, chastising myself for listening to Andra. What kind of counselor do you call yourself? I wanted to yell. I pictured Andra with her perfect hair, sleeping in a safe, warm bed with her doctor-husband. Cher was better off with my version of just part of the story than the whole nasty mess. I punched my pillow and slung my hair back.

  The door squeaked, and I squinted my eyes. All I could make out was an outline of a body. Her arm latched around my waist. The smell of Cher’s strawberry-scented shampoo kept me steady.

  “You couldn’t sleep neither?” I asked.

  “Remember when I was little and you used to snuggle with me?” She moved closer against my back. “You said I’d say ‘snuffles,’ and you’d know what I wanted.”

  My chest shook when I giggled, and I turned my head to glimpse her in the corner of my eye. The moonlight streaming in from the window blinds made the side of Cher’s face look blue. “Yeah, you and your snuffle.” My chest shook again, and I hoped she couldn’t tell I was fighting off a cry.

  “This new book I’m reading, the one about the girl who rides in horse shows and makes money for her family,” she said and squeezed my stomach harder. “There’s this woman in the book they say is like an iron fist inside a velvet glove.”

  “Umm, she sounds mean.”

  “She’s not. She’s just tough,” Cher said and locked her foot around mine. “Like us.”

  Twenty-four

  When our four-week beach holiday was over and we arrived at our rusting trailer, a note from Gerald was sticking between the rubber lining of the door. The block letters were written on the back of a NAPA envelope. Judging by the dirt and smear of ink on the envelope, it had been there a while. Just trying to catch up with ya. Hope you are good.

  Cher ran to retrieve the mail from Kasi’s, and I fought my way through the thick, hot trailer air. Having told Cher about Suzette’s letter during my confessional, I lifted my mattress and pulled out the note.

  When Cher entered carrying bills and junk mail, I started talking before she could put the stack on the kitchen counter.

  “I put your mama’s letter in there on your bed. Just take it in and talk with Andra about it.” I felt uneasy trying to play counselor and me with no education.

  The following week, Cher announced she was writing Suzette and wanted me to help her. I sat at the dinette table staring at the paper full of Cher’s articulate lines about her episode in Shreveport. I bit on the end of the pen, trying to look as if I was capturing my thoughts, but only a blank slab appeared. My other letter to Suzette was strictly business. LaRue was dead. The words were colder than a morgue most likely would use to announce the death of her former husband.

  “Just write how you feel,” Cher finally instructed and poured herself a Coke.

  Advice coming from Andra, no doubt, and for a lot less money. I drug the pen across the page. I tried to make every letter straight and perfect: We had a real nice time down in Florida. Cher is so tan. But you know me and how I can’t take the sun. I hope you’re good. Mama.

  I looked at the note and read my part again. I was lying. Suzette had been locked away for thirteen years. She didn’t know me. The real me. Just like I didn’t know her. The words on the note sounded cold and calculated, something I’d expect my own mother to write. I quickly picked up the pen and added the word Love to the closing.

  “I believe Mama’s out of those little blue tablets,” Richard said. “I’m going to the drugstore to get a refill.”

  “She’s needing some more toothpaste too,” I said and smiled at Richard. Not that he could handle anything urgent probably, but I was pleased to see him taking more interest in caring for his mother.

  Standing at the sink washing the lunch dishes, I could hear Miss Claudia’s soft voice echoing from the dining room. “Oh, the island’s so grown up you’d hardly recognize the place, Missoura.”

  Upon our return to Wiregrass, Missoura was Miss Claudia’s only visitor. With the rescue home no longer a consideration, there seemed little reason for others to visit. If they only knew she had leukemia, I’m sure the Sick Parade from First Methodist would’ve still been calling. Rinsing off the china plates, I decided I didn’t blame Miss Claudia for not telling her fellow church members. Pity was the worst dose of medicine anybody had to endure.

  Beyond the hushed whispers and occasional laughter, I was sure Miss Claudia told Missoura that I now was a member of their secret sorority. I could tell by the way Missoura would smile at me and nod her tiny head while I stood holding the crystal pitcher, waiting for her to get
the last sips of iced tea before refilling her glass. I felt valued knowing I was trusted enough to protect the secrets buried under a drugstore.

  Wiregrass’s downtown cafe was filled to capacity. The eatery with the mobile marquee in front of its doors claiming south Alabama’s largest buffet bar became a regular stop after Miss Claudia’s oncologist appointments.

  Inside the square-shaped building clanging forks and a local country music station competed for air space. Miss Claudia used her plastic tea glass to brush away my question about her doctor visit.

  “Well, he had to say something, now.”

  “Just some nonsense about me starting blood transfusions.”

  “Well, you’re going to do it, aren’t you?”

  “I told him, I’d study on it. He promises there’s nothing to it. Just needs to recharge my cells is all. How about you going to the dessert bar and getting us some of that banana pudding?”

  I grabbed her bowl and marched up to the food bar. She never wanted to discuss her health with me, and it never stopped me from being mad at her for a few minutes. If I was her caregiver, her companion, or whatever it was she called me, I thought there were a few things I needed to know.

  When I licked the dab of yellow pudding that missed the bowl and landed on my finger, I saw Gerald through the glass top of the food bar. Through the thick glass his head looked wider than usual. A man on the other side of the food bar prevented me from seeing who Gerald was with.

  I walked around the rows of baked potatoes and salad supplies, smiling and thinking how surprised he’d be to see me. When I got to the end of the bar, I saw a woman with curly black hair and lots of makeup sitting across from Gerald. She was talking and batting her eyes at the same time. Three strands of gold necklaces and matching gold hoop earrings with little angels decorated her. Classy. The word I remembered Marcie using on the police scanner to describe the type of woman she wanted Gerald to have.

  “Excuse me,” a man with a potato loaded with clumps of sour cream said behind me.