Lucky Strikes

by Louis Bayard

  “His people are from Cumberland,” I said. “Just like Mama’s.”

  “He don’t sound like he’s from Cumberland. He sounds like he’s from, I don’t know, Ohio. Maine. Maybe nowhere. Where you from, Mr. Watts? You can hear me in there, can’t you?”

  Hiram nodded.

  “We was just wondering where you’re from.”

  “All over,” said Hiram.

  “That so? Why, that’s a very general place to be from. You fixin’ to stick around awhile?”

  Hiram said nothing.

  “I mean, it’s awful fortuitous,” said Harley Blevins. “You floating in here like this.”

  “It’s the Lord’s doing,” I said.

  “It’s some doing.”

  Bit by bit, he peeled his eyes off Hiram. “Know what, Melia? Me and you need to talk.”

  The house was still swarming with folk, so Harley Blevins pointed his elbow toward the door. Opened it easy and slow and motioned me outside.

  I caught a glance of Dudley on the other side of the coffee urn. His mouth swung open a little, but the door was already closing after us.

  Lord, it was chilly. And not ’cause of the weather but on account of I was wearing a dress for the first time in I don’t know how long.

  “Melia,” he said. The chaw in his mouth kept pushing against his cheek, like a hornet fighting to get out. “We known each other a good long while, ain’t we?”

  “Couple years.”

  “That’s a lifetime in business, darlin’. Point I’m making is, we can be straight up.”

  “Sure thing.”

  “Now, this daddy of yours. He didn’t land here by no accident, did he?”

  “There I must differ, Mr. Blevins. It was every bit an accident.”

  The weirdest smile took hold of his mouth. “I can’t hardly believe it,” he said. “You’re holding on to this shit heap.”

  “It’s what she would’ve wanted.”

  “What do you want, Melia?”

  Standing there in what passed for a front yard, I could see pretty much the store, the gas pumps, the air pump, the service bays. That damned sign, creaking with every breeze. It all looked like the world’s saddest carnival.

  “I don’t recall my wants having much to do with anything,” I said.

  “Well, there ain’t nothing keeping you here now. I mean, assuming we could arrange for your comfort and all, why, you and yours could be on your way tomorrow.”

  “We could,” I said. “But we won’t.”

  “And why’s that?” he said.

  “’Cause I think Brenda’s Oasis should stay as is.”

  He smiled.

  “’Course you do. Say now, how ’bout I keep the name? In memoriam, like.”

  I shook my head, turned away.

  “Ain’t just the name, Mr. Blevins. Them truckers come down the hills every morning, and they’re looking for a place. Not just any place, neither, but somewhere they can shake out their legs and, I don’t know, whatever they got coiled inside. Oh, I know this ain’t a real oasis—like they got in the Sahara—believe me, I know all the things it ain’t. But for them fellers, for a few minutes every other morning, it’s real. Kinda. And that’s something. At least it ain’t nothing. With all respect, Mr. Blevins, if you get your hands on this here station, it’ll die.”

  “Ain’t no business ever died on me.”

  “Oh,” I said, “it’ll make you some money, but it’ll be good as dead.”

  I stared off to the road, where a couple beards of fog had crept down from the mountains.

  “Seems to me,” I said, “if we let you take this here station from us, the way you done all those other stations, from Winchester to Strasburg to Marshall, then the taking’ll never stop. We’ll get something taken the next day and the day after and the rest of our natural days ’cause once you get in the habit of rolling over, there’s always someone to roll you. And that’s another reason to hold on. And maybe the best.”

  Harley Blevins said nothing for a long while. Then he spit out a line of tobacco juice, and he turned on me, and everything else burned away.

  “You really think you got the sand, girl? To take me on?”

  If you’d’ve put a gun to my head just then, I suppose there’s a chance I’d have said no. But what I said was …

  “I mean to try.”

  He smiled. He nodded.

  “Then it’s been nice knowing you,” he said.

  I stumbled back inside. The room seemed crazy bright all of a sudden. I stood for a bit, getting my balance. Then I climbed back onto the dining table.

  By now, folks was getting merry—Minnie-Cora’s beau had brought along a banjo, too, and some old gal I’d never seen was cutting the pigeon wing—so I had to clap my hands three times.

  “Listen now,” I said. “Being as Mama’s buried and all, we won’t need folks to watch all night, so—so don’t stay on our account is all I’m sayin’. Oh, but I nearly forgot to tell y’all! Brenda’s Oasis is still open for business. Six days a week. And will remain so for all your petroleum and general-store needs.”

  The front door opened. Harley Blevins edged back in.

  “And guess what?” I said. “In honor of our mama, we’re gonna be cutting our price to nine cents a gallon. Starting tomorrow. Least we can do for the working man, ain’t that right? So come on by, why don’t you!”

  When next I looked, Harley Blevins was leaning his head against the door. Eyes all the way shut, like he’d gone to sleep.

  Chapter

  EIGHT

  Word travels fast in the Blue Ridge. If you need proof, consider this. The morning after the wake, every trucker that come down from the hills already knew about Mama.

  Not that they said a word on the subject or breathed her name. Mostly they just brung me stuff.

  “Hey now, Melia, here’s a piece of quartz. From down by Staunton.”

  “Found this here oilskin hat at the Wheeling bus depot. Thought it might fit.”

  “My wife, she wanted you to have this handkerchief. She made it herself. Got a blue border, see?”

  Joe Bob brought an old pinochle deck. Glenmont brought canned cabbage. Dutch give me a sample bottle of Gilbey’s Spey Royal, and Trevor, he had a back issue of Photoplay with Jean Harlow on the cover, looking half-asleep.

  Warner didn’t bring a damn thing, he just barreled in like always, shouting, “Fix the goddamned radiator!”

  Didn’t take me long to figure out the coolant was leaking, so I went and fetched some pepper—it was a trick Mama taught me—and sprinkled it in, and by the time I slammed down the hood, Warner was standing there with his third cup of Sanka, stirring it with his pointer finger.

  “Your mama was plenty all right,” he said.

  He downed his coffee in one gulp. Crumpled the paper cup in his mitt, tossed it into the cab of his rig.

  “You run into any trouble,” he said.

  Then he was off.

  I can guess what you’re thinking. Couldn’t just a one of ’em have said “Sorry to hear”? But if you was to twist my arm, I wouldn’t trade that quartz or that hankie—or Elmer’s brand-new toothbrush or Merle’s cracked compass—for a week’s worth of sorrys.

  I was sorry to see ’em drive off, though. The midday lull was gray, for all that the sun was needle-bright. I set at the store counter, flipping through the Photoplay, but all I could think was, How the hell we gonna get by charging nine cents a gallon?

  That missing penny kept multiplying in my head. Twelve cents less every truck. Fifteen dollars less every day. A hundred dollars less each passing week. Coins and dollars flying out the door, and me and Earle and Janey down to our last can of stewed tomatoes, and a crazy ol’ ghost of a man rattling over our heads.

  A rattling in the air around me, too. Just loud enough to crawl in my brain. I looked up and found a redbird pecking away at the store window.

  No, pecking don’t cover it. That bird was throwing himself at the danged gla
ss—beak and claw and body—like he was fixing to bust right through. At first I took it personal, thinking he was picking a scrap with me, but when I crossed to the far side of the store, he just kept hammering at the one square of glass.

  That’s when it hit me. Fool bird was attacking his own reflection.

  Not just once, I’m telling you—a dozen times, three dozen times. Take that, you son of a bitch!

  Don’t recall how long he stayed that first time, but he was back next day, a hair past noon, madder than ever. The day after, too. Take that! In my head, I began sorta waiting for him—not exactly pining—just curious to know what was on his mind.

  “Why you hating on this other bird so much?” I’d say. “He ain’t done nothing. He’s got just as good a right to be there as you do.”

  He never listened.

  On Saturdays, Earle and Janey minded the store, and when I asked ’em if some redbird had come a-peckin’, they looked at me like I was touched. Sundays we was closed, and then come Monday, and if I’d been a betting type, I’d have put money on that bird being dead, but seven minutes after noon, he was back, slamming his fool self against the glass.

  “He’s got some temper on him,” said Hiram Watts.

  He’d gone and crept down the stairs without a sound.

  “It’s kinda crazy,” I said. “He thinks he’s fighting some other bird. I can’t seem to explain his mistake to him.”

  Hiram frowned. “Have you got something we could stick on the window?”

  The only thing I could find was a decal for Quaker State Oil. I put it on my side of the glass, right where the bird was pecking, and he flew straight off. Didn’t see him for the rest of the afternoon. But sure enough, he was back the next day, pecking at a new stretch of window.

  “I think that’s about the most cussed bird I’ve ever seen,” said Hiram.

  In those days, it was strange to see Hiram anywhere but his room. Oh, he’d come down every so often for a snack or a smoke or to empty out his pot, then steal back upstairs. I asked him once or twice if he wanted a magazine or paper, but he shook his head. To this day, I’m not sure what he was doing up there, hour upon blessed hour, but with each passing day, he started coming down a little more. Mostly to check on that damn redbird.

  It was a late Friday afternoon—in May, I believe, ’cause I have a memory of dogwoods—I looked up from filling a Studebaker to see Hiram over by the tulip-tree swing. You’ll learn this. If there’s one thing that Brenda’s Oasis has got plenty of, it’s tire swings. Hanging from every oak, poplar, and butternut. But Janey, she’d only ever swing on the tulip tree. Maybe it give her a view of the hills.

  So there she was, swinging, and there was Hiram just back of her. Close enough to give her a push if he’d had a mind to, only his arms never left his sides.

  My point is that’s where they was, the both of them, when the police car drove up. Slow and tickly, like a caterpillar. In the front seat, Sheriff Claude Motherwell, with his white-blond hair and his pimple-scarred face.

  “You need a new muffler,” I told him.

  “That ain’t why I’m here.”

  I waved Janey over, leaned into her ear.

  “Go to the phone in the store and give Chester a call. Can you do that?”

  “What’s his number?”

  “Melody one-oh-five-one.”

  “What’m I supposed to say?”

  “Tell him I need him here lickety-split.”

  She was disappearing round the corner when I said, “Hey, Sheriff, let me wash up a little.”

  I went to the well, poured some cold water over my hands, and then pressed my hands against my face. After a minute or so, I heard a light tap from the sheriff’s car horn.

  “Guessing this ain’t no social call,” I said.

  “No, it ain’t.”

  “Then what you got to say?”

  “I’ve received word that a fraud is being perpetrated in these here precincts.”

  “And who told you that? Does it start with a Harley? End with a Blevins?”

  “Now, Melia. If there’s a crime being committed, I’m obliged to look into it.”

  “You see any crimes going on?”

  “That ain’t for me to decide.”

  “Who, then?”

  He reached over, give a rap on the car window. The rear door opened with a groan, and out climbed a woman I never seen before. Holding a sheaf of papers that didn’t want to be held.

  “This is Miss Wand from the Warren County Juvenile Court.”

  Sure enough. A spinster.

  Though this one was younger than I was expecting and had the kind of hair you couldn’t put in a bun if you tried. She reached behind her ear for a pencil, give the point a quick gnaw, and said, “Are you Amelia Hoyle?”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “Is that…” She squinted at the tulip tree. “Is that Mr. Watts?”

  “Yes.”

  “Would you mind calling him over, please?”

  He come at us like he was on stilts.

  “Good afternoon,” said Miss Wand. “Is your name Hiram Watts?”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “Do you hereby swear that you are the father of Amelia Hoyle?”

  Hiram’s lips give a little swell.

  “I’m wondering if you heard me, Mr. Watts. I need to know if you are this girl’s father.”

  His steady eye cut toward the ground. The wobbly one followed.

  “Sure,” he said.

  “He don’t sound persuaded,” said the sheriff.

  “That’s just his way,” I said. “Ain’t that your way, Daddy?”

  “Suppose it is,” said Hiram.

  “Guess that answers y’all’s question,” I said. “Don’t want to take up any more of—”

  “In point of fact”—Miss Wand give her ear a fierce tug—“the Virginia code—Section 3, Clause 23—stipulates that an individual’s word may not be considered dispositive evidence of paternity.”

  “Which means?”

  “We can’t take Mr. Watts’s word on whether or not he’s your father. Nor can we take yours, Miss Hoyle. We require some kind of documentation.”

  “That right?”

  “A birth certificate would be a good starting point.”

  “Mine’s lost.”

  “Lost how?”

  “In a fire.”

  “Then you mean it was destroyed, not lost.”

  “How ’bout we just call it gone?”

  “We’ll need to find a duplicate.”

  “We sure will. I will get right on that.”

  The social worker drove her pencil into the thicket of her hair. “Miss Hoyle, can you tell me where you were born?”

  “West Virginia.”

  “Which county?”

  “Garrett.”

  “Home birth or hospital?”

  “Hell if I know.”

  “Melia,” said the sheriff, “you ain’t helping yourself none.”

  “Maybe you can tell me where you was born.”

  “In my granddaddy’s barn, that’s where.”

  “As it happens,” said Miss Wand, “I’m personally acquainted with the Garrett County clerk. I’ll be glad to contact him myself.”

  You do that, I was about to say, only another car was easing itself behind the sheriff’s. A Buick sedan with dual taillights. From the driver’s seat jumped Chester, in a seersucker suit, tightening his bow tie.

  “Sheriff,” he said, “you didn’t invite me to your party.”

  The sheriff hocked a loogie at the ground. “It ain’t like we gone and handcuffed her, Chester.”

  “You’re asking questions of her and her kinfolk, and I believe her lawyer should be on hand for that.”

  “We got wind that Melia made herself up a daddy,” said the sheriff.

  “Now why on Earth would she do that?” asked Chester.

  “So as not to face consequences.”

  “And what would those consequence
s be?”

  “Absent a surviving parent,” said Miss Wand, “Amelia and her brother and sister would become wards of the state. In that event, the Warren County Juvenile Court would be legally required to find them a suitable home.”

  “One home? For all three?”

  “We work with what’s available.”

  “I fail to see why you’re in such a rush to move these children. After what they’ve been through.”

  “Mister—I’m sorry…”

  “Gallagher.”

  “… Gallagher, we have three minors who meet the legal definition of orphans. In such cases, the county is obliged to act in loco parentis.”

  “You haven’t even established that they’re orphans.”

  “They are unless I can verify Mr. Watts’s paternity claims.”

  Chester leaned back against the grille of his Buick. “So what you’re saying is, you need a birth certificate.”

  “Indeed we do. Now, tomorrow, I intend to phone the clerk’s office in Garrett County.”

  “Oh, I’d hate you to go to all that trouble.”

  “No trouble at all.”

  “What I mean is, there doesn’t seem to be much point when I already have the document in question.”

  Miss Wand blinked. “We were told it had been lost.”

  “Oh, well, Melia wasn’t to know. Her mother left it in my care.”

  He reached into his seersucker coat.

  “Janey,” I said, “why don’t you go help Earle with the wood chopping?”

  “I ain’t going nowhere.”

  “You sure as hell are, missy.”

  Then Hiram spoke. Which was a wonder ’cause I’d gone and forgotten he was even there.

  “She’s all right where she is.”

  I swung my eyes toward the road. Told myself to watch the Chevy delivery truck that was crawling up the hill to Mr. Tompkin’s horse farm.

  “Well, I’ll be,” said Sheriff Motherwell.

  My birth certificate was sitting in his hands. There, under the heading of FATHER, sat the name …

  HIRAM WATTS

  “I think you’ll see everything’s in order,” Chester said. “Official Maryland seal. I can certainly see about getting copies made.”