Chimes from a Cracked Southern Belle

by Reinhardt, Susan

  “I’d love it. Jay and Miranda start regular school in a couple of weeks. Miranda’s going to preschool five days a week.” This gave me time to take care of business with Bryce, to drive to Charlotte and put a stop to his threats and twisted control.

  “One more thing,” Theresa was saying and smiling. “It’s a pay raise and new position. I don’t care if you have a masters or not. I’ve got it budgeted for a year. ‘Social Rehabilitator.’ I think I can get a grant, and I know in my heart nobody’s made more of a difference with these old people in such a short amount of time as you have.”

  I felt a lump of gratitude in my throat, and as I was fighting tears, Annie Sue scurried around to the other side of the bed and tapped me on the shoulder, diverting the attention from employment and employer. “Guess what?” she said, not waiting on an answer. “There’s a new fellow at the home and he’s sweeter on me than them stinkers at the bar. I may give up my boozing for this one,” she said, winking, mouth popping as she slapped her thigh. “He said if I didn’t quit going out drinking, he’d send me to rehab with Lindsay Lohan.”

  The spark had returned as soon as she heard I would be back, and not only back—but on the campus every day of the week for the entire day. “I was eating the fried fish in the cafeteria and you know how good it is,” she said, “the slaw and them hush puppies. In walks this old geezer hobbling along and dragging his walker behind him instead of using it to aid in the business at hand. I said, ‘Come over here and join me,’ and sure enough he abandoned the walker in the middle of the mess hall and sat right down in front of me. Before we even had an introduction he says, ‘Lord help me. My genitalia!’”

  Oh, God, I thought. Here we go. I had noticed over the years when some women reach a certain age, say 80 and older, all pretense of decency flies out the window. They began to speak in streams of unedited commentary, most of it a combination of religious quotes followed by the bawdy and shocking.

  “I say to him, ‘What in the world you talking about?’ and he says, ‘I’m afraid it’s shriveled up to nothing. I used to have some starch down there, but I ain’t got nothing left but a useless nuisance that does nothing but dribble and draw up.’ I tell you it was right impressive that he got down to business, and we didn’t have to warm up like the young people with a bunch of chatter that does nothing but tiptoe to get to the real business. Which is always the genitalia now, ain’t it?”

  Theresa winked and I let Annie Sue prattle on.

  “See, this man had it all figured out. He’s learned to skip whole chunks of courting, knowing we ain’t got time left on the clock to monkey around with such banal chitchat as ‘How’s the weather?’ or a big old list of our ailments.”

  I couldn’t help it and cracked up, causing Theresa to join in as Annie Sue grinned, gold flashing in her teeth. “I let him go on about it because the information he was sharing could prove right useful at some point. I’m starting to have them feelings down there again. I may ask him to lay down in the back seat of my car and put another kind of mileage on the thing since I can’t drive it no more according to the law.”

  After about an hour, they left and I dozed, a smile on my face. It would be wonderful working at Top of the Hill full time. With only one job to juggle, it’d be that much easier to get my nursing degree, steps closer to the dream. I could do this; it was looking more possible every day.

  I must have slept for a couple of hours. When I awakened I glanced at the visitor’s chair expecting to see Mama and instead saw Croc Godfrey.

  His eyes were closed. He’d been waiting for me to wake up.

  “Croc?” I said. “Croc!”

  He raised his eyes toward mine and didn’t blink, not for the longest time.

  “I’m here,” he said, walking over to my bed and stroking my hair. He leaned over and kissed me on the forehead, on my eyelids, then on my cheeks . . . soft, sweet, loving. “There’s no more room for fear in either of our lives. It’s a waste, Prudy. A waste.”

  The way he was looking at me, I knew he had more to say. He’d better have more to say after what he’d put me through. A bouquet of “Thank-you flowers” followed by weeks of silence doesn’t cut it. Then again, he’d been so nice during my awful date with Dr. Ego, defending and taking up for me. He’d promised to call, and he probably would have, or maybe he’d tried and I’d been cooped up here in the nut ward of the local hospital.

  Every time I saw him, I died inside, wanting to be as close to him as possible, so close I could smell traces of Irish Spring on his skin.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Hop on out of bed, Prudy: Even honey seems tasteless to a man who is full; but if he is hungry, he’ll eat anything. Proverbs 27:7

  Mama’s Moral: I suggest if you aren’t going to date Landon, you best find someone who’s neither hungry nor full. Croc looks like a refugee, sugar. What does that tell ya?

  Croc jumped into our lives as if he’d never bowed out. He conveniently forgot he’d dumped me for three weeks, not even a measly e-mail, and was pretending he was some kind of Fairy-Godfather swooping in to make us all better. I wasn’t about to ask him why he hadn’t called. He’d just have to think I never paid it a bit of mind. Too many activities such as skydiving and flying lessons and whatever else exciting and interesting women who didn’t need men did with their time.

  One day out of the blue, about a week post my mental breakdown, Croc announced he had a big surprise. He drove to my apartment shortly after Mama had left her morning Proverb.

  “Get dressed,” he said, presenting a bag of bagels with honey-nut cream cheese, my favorite. “I have something for you.” He reached deep into his blue jeans and pulled out a velvet box, not the ring size, but a large rectangular version covered in dark green cloth. I felt my heart turn a flip and skip two beats. “Hold up your hair, please,” he said, opening the box, not giving me a chance to peer inside.

  He stood behind me and looped a silver chain around my scarred neck. Dangling at the bottom was a small tortoise encrusted in emeralds. He must have sensed my reaction—why a tortoise?—while carefully hooking the necklace.

  “Giant tortoises are great symbols of survival,” he said. “They go through so much and always make it on top. I figured I’d get a small one because it might look weird to have a giant turtle hanging from your throat.”

  “It’s beautiful,” I said, touched by the sentiment but not too fond of having a turtle on my neck, no matter its symbolism. With a sudden movement, not too unlike those Croc and I enjoyed while christening all the golf course holes with our love, he spun me around and kissed me softly on the lips, progressing with each kiss until I felt his tongue searching mine, wanting that connection lost all those years ago. Almost as soon as the kissing started, it ended, the fire burning in my belly and loins extinguished.

  “Prudy, I’m taking you somewhere long overdue, but don’t worry, jeans are fine.”

  “With this?” I asked, holding up my emerald tortoise. “Where’s Sam?”

  “He’s at a friend’s,” he said, kissing the top of my head, my cheeks and my lips once again. “The tortoise is meant to bring you courage. This is going to be one place you’re going to need some.” He waltzed into the kids’ room to help Jay find his decent clothes, a pair of Gap khakis and blue striped Polo Mama had bought while we were at the mall having my hair dyed crow black for the tragic date with Landon Kennedy.

  I dressed Miranda, gave her one of Annie Sue’s old purses, and we dropped the children off at Mama’s where she couldn’t wait to take them to her church. “Heaven knows it’s about time they got reacquainted with a decent version of the Lord,” she said, refusing to come outside or even wave hello to poor Croc from her window.

  “Where are we going?” I asked as he backed out of the driveway like a 95-year-old man, a trait he’d probably never get over since his
wife’s death.

  “Charlotte.”

  “Charlotte?”

  “I understand there’s a certain prison there. A certain asshole of an inmate.”

  God, it was really going to happen. I inhaled deeply. “Oh, well . . . good . . . fine, I guess. How did you know I was planning on going?”

  “Your Aunt Weepie told me you wanted to face the felon. It’s not like your mother has suddenly found me loveable and offered up info. The necklace is because when a woman goes to visit her felonious ex, a mighty turtle can’t hurt.”

  “Kind of like a Ninja Turtle,” I said, thinking Croc might be borderline loony and Mama at least ought to appreciate that quality—the notion of a big-ass turtle for a prison visit to see a man who’d tried his damnedest to polish me off.

  Croc said he’d written the Charlotte prison and requested Bryce put his and my name on the visitor’s list.

  “That’s the only way we’re allowed on the premises.”

  “I can’t believe he actually agreed to all of this.”

  “I didn’t want you to do this alone,” Croc said. “I know you feel like you have to go—and I don’t blame you—but I’m going, too. Just to be on the safe side.”

  It took nearly two hours because of Croc’s ultra-cautious driving and my frequent trips to convenience store bathrooms to puke my guts out. This would be the first time in two years I’d seen Bryce, since he sat in his state-issued jumpsuit and shackles in the courtroom. I poured an Alka-Seltzer into a Diet Coke, hoping for a settled stomach and full control when I had a face-to-face with my would-be killer.

  The prison featured a sprawling set of facilities—a two-story structure with fencing all around and another one-level unit silvered up with razor wire spiraling and threatening to turn escapees into sliced ham. Several guard towers rose high in the air where armed corrections officers kept watch and smoked cigarettes.

  When we entered, after I’d hyperventilated by the car and Croc had handed over a brown bag to breathe in, we were searched and zapped, much like during airport security where they all but stick a wand up one’s hoochie. After an eternity we made it into the visitor’s area, and as soon as I realized we were there, really there, I had to run to the bathroom and throw up again.

  “Prudy,” Croc said. “Once this is over, you’ll be free, sweetheart.” He held my hand, rubbing my knuckles with his thumb. He was looking more handsome each day. The nicer he acted, the cuter he grew. I think he gained a pound or two. Probably not.

  The doors clanked open and for a moment my heart stopped. I waited for my body to fill with bitter hatred, but as I stared at the stooped and thin figure before me, the shell of humanity with flat, greasy hair, I was thrown off track. Bryce’s gait was unsteady and he stumbled as he took a seat. For a moment, he didn’t raise his head, and when he did, I saw the eyes, the trick-card eyes, boring into me for a long, never-ending moment and then vanishing, lost somewhere in his own brain. My hand instinctively fingered and held the tortoise.

  He jerked up suddenly, as if alertness had kicked in. He grinned and waved, like an idiot. He had cheese crackers in his teeth and the crumbs dusted his stained white prison T-shirt.

  Croc spoke first, soft in his approach. Any initial thoughts that we were going to barrel into the joint and lay down the riot act were quelled by the pathetic appearance of the source of these threats. Bryce didn’t seem capable of tying his own shoe, much less finding loopholes in laws and sending hulking cons to take care of his “unfinished business.”

  Croc continued talking, increasing the firmness in his voice, but he lacked the malice I’d predicted as we drove to Charlotte. “We’re here to tell you that if you send another one of your sick letters, we will press charges. We’ve saved copies of them all.”

  Bryce grinned and nodded, as if Croc had been discussing the weather. “Hey, Prudy,” he said, slurring. “Whatcha been up to?” Oh mercy, this man was either drunk or zonked on high-octane medicine of some sort. I’d seen it enough in the nursing home. “You look so pretty. Did I send you a letter?”

  Before I could answer, Bryce addressed the officer and said, “I need an ace. Can you bust me down with an ace?”

  I didn’t understand, until the officer said, “No smoking right now. Maybe later. It’s not going to help your condition to be smoking.”

  Smoking? Bryce smoking? What condition?

  My head dropped into my hands, and I smelled my own sweat and vomit breath until I felt someone tap my shoulder, the same officer motioning me to follow him.

  “Excuse me,” I said leaving Bryce and Croc alone.

  The man led us to another section of the room where no one could hear what he was about to reveal. He had Skoal in his cheeks and pores on his nose that looked like tiny ice-pick holes.

  “He’s out to lunch,” the officer said. “Gone. A Bam-Bam. They’re trying different stuff, seven or eight meds.”

  “What’s wrong with him?”

  “You’ve not been notified? He has some brain tumor the doctors said had been growing for years. He’s been over at state hospital going through a bunch of tests. They even paid, his folks did, and took him to Duke. That’s about all I’m allowed to say due to all these medical violation laws. It was weird because when he first came to us, he was all in control and working out and preaching. Now, he is almost infant-like some days due to the tumor.”

  “Tumor? For years?”

  “They say it’s only a matter of months. Six if he’s lucky. He’s going to another doctor end of the week. He won’t eat, ’cept crackers, just lays in his bunk or plays cards in the activities room. He makes collages out of magazines. Tears them out with them big hands of his for hours and hours, gluing it all to a posterboard. You ought to see them posters. I’ll bet he’s done made a dozen of them and all have pictures of pretty ladies with children and families. He’ll cart one around and say, ‘Look at my wife and kids,’ pointing at six or seven different women and sets of kids. Most the time, he’s wantin’ to get up a gang to play cards.”

  “Cards? He never played cards.”

  “Go Fish’s the main one. Got him a pack of Old Maids, too, and threw a fit one day when he drew the hag. Thought you might want to know. Hard to believe he’s the same man who—”

  “If that’s all, I’ll head on back,” I said, quickly shaking his hand so he couldn’t finish his sentence. “I assume there will be no more letters?”

  “Nope. Far as we know, he never sent no letters. Musta been somebody else. Regardless, once the tumor got so big, he forgot all about revenge and other things men in here typically talk about.”

  When I returned to the visiting area, Bryce held up an arm and waved like a child delighted to see his mom.

  “I know you,” he said. “Don’t I?” His perfect-phony-preachery smile, those big white teeth, had turned gray with neglect.

  Croc gently put a hand on my shoulder and said we needed to go. I leaned into the partition and tried to find Bryce in the face staring back. I waited for his eyes to turn, wanting to see the trick eyes. But they weren’t there. No one was home. Maybe that’s a good thing, the place people flee when they can’t stand their own minds.

  “Prudy?” he said, but I stood and began walking, my heels echoing in the cold hallways of the prison. “PRUDY!” I stopped but didn’t look back. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry I hurt you.”

  For a moment I couldn’t move. These were words I never in my life expected to hear. I reached for my neck and tried to swallow. Slowly, I turned back one last time.

  “It’s over now, Bryce. I forgive you. So does God if you ask.” As I said these words, cinderblocks of weighted pain and horrible memories lifted, and I felt as if I could fly. I smiled and threw my hands up in the air and let out a whoop.

  I felt satisfaction that my husband wasn
’t driven to hatred because of himself, but a tumor—because somewhere within his screwed up head or DNA everything got all mixed and wired wrong and brewed up a malignant mass. Like when a house burns to the foundation and they rule the fire “electrical.” Not arson.

  Croc tried to hold my hand in the car but I pulled away. I wanted to feel nothing but my own body, my own thoughts, uninterrupted.

  “Whip into that Shell station,” I said. “I need to celebrate and could sure use a beer.”

  “I don’t drink and drive,” he said.

  “That’s true. You’re not drinking, I am. I’ll pour it in a cup.” As an afterthought and to prove there remained nothing but sweet bones in my body, I said, “It meant a lot to me that you would do this, drive to Charlotte and everything. The necklace. All of it.”

  “I love you. I always have,” he said, and turned into the Shell station, popping Allison Krauss in the CD player. He loves me. What could I say? What should I say? Oh my God. He said the words. I. Love. You.

  I bought a six-pack of Blue Moon and poured one into a cup printed with a Diet Pepsi logo. Life was good.

  ***

  With school having started, summertime feels shorter than ever, most of the children already back the second week of August. As soon as the voters approved the bond referendum for central air, officials have been herding the flock to their desks with the dirt of summer still clinging to their newly shod feet, their arms and legs brown as pecans.

  Jay had entered second grade in a gifted program at a well-respected public school on the north side of town. We decided it was as good as the private school he’d attended earlier. Several people wanted him to skip a grade, but I wouldn’t hear of it and wanted him to be a kid as long as possible. We’d found this public school a few miles away that had a program for what Mama calls “bona-fide geniuses,” allowing them to remain in their regular grade and study a more advanced curriculum. This meant when recess came around, Jay would run around on the playground with his peer group, not a bunch of 9-and-10-year-olds who already knew the F word and more about sex than my Mama did on her wedding day.