Then I heard someone running. Footsteps slammed into the hardwood floor. A second later, something fell against the wall. More slapping. Now there was a lot of screaming, shuffling, thudding and door slamming.
“I can’t believe you hit me on the back of the head,” Nash said.
I locked my door and dragged my record player out of the closet. When my Blondie record ended, I went out to check on the score, but it was hard to tell.
I was standing in the middle of the hall trying to figure out what was going on when my mother saw me.
“Go outside,” she screamed.
“But . . . ”
“Get out of here.”
“Oh, god . . . ” I stomped off toward the back door.
I knew the shit had hit the fan. Apparently the Eskimo without an igloo was causing quite a ruckus in our house. On the way down the hall I saw a small piece of scalp with hair attached to it lying on the floor. I leaned closer to inspect, eyeing the tiny white particles of skin clinging to the strands. It was horrible. Someone slammed a door, loud, and I ran. I didn’t need to hear anything else. A piece of scalp is worth a thousand words.
I was in the backyard playing with Moochi when Nash appeared on the back porch. I had no idea how long he’d been there. Since there wasn’t much to do out there except kick at the dirt, we just stood in uncomfortable silence wondering about our futures. I knew we’d reached that point. It was at eleven years of age that I understood the inevitable.
He turned and I saw the bloodied gap on his head where his hair was missing.
The day was clear, sunny—one of those days where normal people sit in the backyard eating lunch, laughing, playing cards. Nash and I wouldn’t be so lucky.
Kicking up some dirt near the doghouse, I said, “Guess this is it, huh?”
He nodded, tightlipped.
Taking out his wallet, he handed me three one hundred–dollar bills. “This is for you to buy whatever you need, Tupelo Honey. Now listen to me. I won’t be able to phone you for awhile.”
“Well, I’ll just use your pager. And then you’ll know where I am. ”
“I’m afraid that won’t be working for a while either. But I’ll find you. Promise.”
Then he hugged me and was gone. That was it.
“I can’t believe you’re leaving me,” I screamed, but it was too late. I went running for the front yard and made it just in time to see the car with Nash behind the wheel and Inca sitting next to him turning onto the street. I ran out across the grass but was no match for the speed of the Oldsmobile.
Since we didn’t have a car, my mother rode an old bike she found out in the barn to a neighbor’s house to call someone named Louise. She came back with her sweaty armpits and emptied every drawer into a duffel bag. When she caught me spying on her from the hall, she said, “Go pack your stuff.”
It was over. I knew it. I stuffed my three hundred dollars into my pink fuzzy purse and crammed all of my clothes and books into my hatbox and a plastic bag I found in the kitchen. About an hour later a car horn honked out front. I ran to the window, thinking Nash had come back to get me. It was Louise. She clomped onto the front porch, smoking a cigarette. She jammed her bony finger into the doorbell. I opened the door.
“Hey,” she said. “Is your mother here?”
“Yeah. She’s in the bedroom.”
Louise walked down the hall, where I heard her say to my mother, “Ain’t this some shit? Men aren’t nothing but trouble. Come on, sugar. We gotta hurry. I gotta date tonight.”
Chapter 17
We stayed at Louise’s for two days. Instead of going to Marmalade’s house, my mother packed us up and moved to a nearby town in Mississippi. Food from the local church and homeless shelter pantry appeared in our cupboards. Cans of navy beans, sauerkraut, hominy, and other mismatched items that had been donated for poor people like us filled the shelves. Poor people like us who owned a closet full of designer jeans and bottles of French perfume and hordes of cashmere sweaters that kept us warm when we had nowhere to go. We were casualties of the drug trade. Single mother with no high school diploma, no job skills other than being able to pack a bong, no technical training, and certainly no customer service skills.
Suddenly my mother was a pretty little princess dangled from the arm of fate. She was going to have to get a job. If I’d thought she was mean before, man, things got worse.
On weekends I begged to stay at Marmalade’s house. This plea wasn’t met with much resistance. My mother didn’t care what I did as long as I left her alone. On Friday mornings I packed my suitcase and took it to school, where I left it behind my teacher’s desk until the final bell. Every Friday afternoon Randall and Marmalade drove to my new school to pick me up. I was so excited to see them, I ran as fast as I could across the trampled grass with my suitcase bumping against my thigh.
“Hey,” I yelled. “It’s Friday.”
“It’s Friday alright.”
Late one night Randall and I were prowling around to see if we could find a snack cake or fruit pie or a rogue Milky Way bar that fell from a 12-pack. I pulled out the pasta holder. Sure enough, inside lurked a packaged cherry-filled fruit pie. I couldn’t remember when I put it in so I checked it for mold. Randall plugged the percolator into the electrical outlet. I dug around in the freezer until I found a cold brick of peach ice cream jammed behind blocks of government cheese.
In the middle of our midnight snack attack, Randall broke the silence. “Do you think Thursgood will come back?”
The butter knife in my hand sliced through cherry goo. I looked over at him, my brow furrowed, my eyes tight. “Why would you ask that? Where’s Thursgood?”
“I don’t know.” He poked at a hunk of frozen peach trapped in cream. “He up and left this week. He took some of his stuff, but he ain’t got no money or food and I reckon someday he’s got to get hungry enough to come back here. Right?”
God, I hope not.
The conversation gave me the creeps. I really didn’t care to imagine the thankless job of predicting Thursgood’s return. I hoped he never came back. I hoped he got lost or fell off the edge of the earth or was eaten by angry man-eating trolls. I ignored the question altogether and turned my attention back to my half of the fruit pie.
“What do you suppose he eats?” Randall pressed.
“People,” I said. “Drop it.”
A stubborn determination crept into his voice. “No. Where does he get his money? He ain’t got no money. It’s all here. But I don’t think he’s coming back. He ain’t never gone anywhere before.”
“What are you talking about? Are you talking about Grandma’s money?”
“No. His.”
I pushed his half of the fruit pie right in front of his hand. He looked down at the red gooey filling oozing onto the paper wrapping.
“His money,” Randall whispered, leaning across the table. “He’ll come back for it and what if he does something bad?”
“What money?”
“All of the money them lawyers gave him when Daddy died.”
“That was a long time ago.” I raised an eyebrow.
He nodded. “Yeah. I know.”
Sweet pools of melted ice cream formed in my bowl. The percolator gurgled and chugged. Finally I said, “What in the world are you talking about?”
Randall heaved himself up from the table. The hall leading to the sunroom where Marmalade usually napped was full of quiet shadows. Randall opened the closet door, trying to keep the bottom from scraping the floor. Slowly, he extended his arm inside feeling around, making the coat hangers bang against one another.
“Shhhhhh,” I whispered.
“OK,” he whispered back, glancing down the hall.
He looked like some alien creature, standing there with his arms disappearing in and out of darkness. He took a step deeper into the closet then backed up. Extending his arm high, he felt around on the very top shelf where I’d never been able to reach, not even with a chair. Second
s later he pulled down an old purse that looked like it was made out of dirty burlap. It was absolutely hideous. The strap was big and thick and frayed from wear. Randall backed out of the closet, motioning for me to follow. We crept to his room. He clutched the hideous purse to his chest. In a sudden fit of paranoia he closed the blinds.
Down the hall I heard Marmalade snoring. Randall placed the purse ceremoniously in the middle of the bed, then nodded in my direction as if to say, “See I told you.”
Right.
Slowly he unzipped the top, holding his breath like a jack-in-the-box was going to pop out. I was not convinced Thursgood had any money and watched only half-heartedly. My attention drifted back to my bowl of melting ice cream on the table. Once the top was open, Randall stepped back, waving his hand for me to look inside. I did. There were twenties, fifties, and hundred-dollar bills. But there were also fives, tens, and one-dollar bills all wrapped up with rubber bands that had long since broken, and bills crammed down the sides all crinkled and bunched up.
How did you find this?” I whispered, reaching for a wad of cash.
Randall held his hand over the top. “I saw him, all the time, when he thought I was sleeping. I used to watch. Like this.” He squinted his eyes. “Then, after awhile I wanted to know why he was in the closet. So I looked.”
I pulled several wads of money as big as my fist off of the top. There was more money underneath. A lot more. “How long have you known about this?”
Randall’s eyes rolled heavenward. He thought awhile. A long while. The percolator gurgled in the other room. The entire house smelled like a warm cup of coffee. I peeled two one hundred dollar bills from a roll.
Finally, he said, “Since 1973, I reckon.”
“You reckon?” I snorted loud enough to wonder if I’d blown our cover. We both listened, holding our breath. The wheezing snore of Marmalade traveled down the hall. I leaned forward and asked, “Have you counted it?”
He shook his head.
“Go turn off the coffee pot. We’re going to figure out how much is here.”
“But . . . ” he stuttered.
“No ‘buts.’ Go on. You can complain later.”
Randall tiptoed into the kitchen. From behind he looked like an enormous bear sneaking through the forest. I found notebook paper on his dresser and a top drawer full of pens that didn’t work and a pencil with a dull lead. Good enough.
Minutes later he returned with big mugs of coffee, a can of cold Vienna sausages, and a box of saltines. In a drum-rolling moment we lifted the purse, turned it over and dumped the contents onto the bed. Wads of money hit the mattress then rolled to the floor. Horrified, Randall ran after them, frantically grabbing each one and tossing them back on the bed like hot potatoes.
“Alright.” I organized my paper and pencil and money. I pushed a pile toward him with my forearm. “This is your section.”
He pushed it back. “I don’t want one.”
“Doesn’t matter. You get one.”
“But . . . ”
“You don’t have to keep it, you sissy. You just have to count it.”
“Then we’ll put it back?”
“Yes. Now, mark down what you count on the notebook paper and only put the counted money back in the purse. Got it?”
He stared at me.
I raised an eyebrow. “Got it?”
“Why are we counting this if we’re not going to keep it?”
“Because it’s treasure,” I declared. “Pirates always count treasure.”
“Oh.” He reached for his pile. “Then we put it back?”
“Yes, Mr. Suspicious, we put it back.”
Some of the rubber bands were so old they stuck to the bills like glue. I had to roll my fingers over the rubbery, wormlike pieces to get them to come loose.
A few seconds passed when Randall looked at me, horrified. “But, he’ll know we’ve been touching his money.”
I rolled my eyes. “He hasn’t been here for days.”
“But he’ll come back,” Randall exclaimed, all grabby, trying to get the money back in the purse.
“Well, he won’t be back before we’re done counting.”
“You don’t know that.”
“Just go get me some new rubber bands,” I huffed.
The faded yellow stripes on his shirt left trails of light as he rushed out to the kitchen. I started counting. Randall returned with six rubber bands of various sizes.
I was already up to $11,443.00.
Meticulously, he rolled up the bills I’d left on the bed. He wrapped a big wad of cash with a fresh rubber band and plopped it in the purse.
I pushed the notebook paper against his knee. “Get to counting.”
An hour later, with morning birds singing in the trees and all of the loot returned to its proper place, we added up the figures on each piece of notebook paper. Then we calculated the total.
I couldn’t believe the numbers. $36,526.05
A lone nickel on the bottom was the only coin in the whole lot.
“That’s a lot of money.” I stared down at the paper.
“Uh-huh,” he nodded, picking up the open can of Vienna sausages from his bedside table.
“What do we do with it?”
“We leave it there,” he said, “in case he comes back for it one day.”
“Or night,” I whispered.
Randall’s eyes widened.
Ignoring his fear, I read from the paper. “$36,526.05. That could buy a lot of Vienna sausages.”
Cramming one in his mouth, he said, “I already got these.”
Right.
We put the burlap bag back in the closet.
When I could no longer stand the persistent grumbling of my stomach, I went back to the kitchen. and warmed up some cream of celery soup. Randall made grits.
The sun rose over the rooftops. In the confines of the kitchen we moved quietly and precisely, weaving in and out of each other’s steps like people with a secret. Halfway through my bowl of soup I was stricken with a case of the yawns so dastardly I had to climb up the stairs to my room to pass out. I positioned the fan to blow directly on my face and climbed into bed. In moments of bliss, as I drifted off to sleep, I thought about the thirty-six thousand dollars. Downstairs Randall washed dishes, turning the water on and off, making the pipes jerk and rumble. Then, I heard him walking back to his room.
I’d work out a good plan. I’d use the money to take care of Randall and Marmalade. Thursgood was never coming back. I knew it—the way you know it’s going to rain. I could go live in Mexico City. The money was safe. That purse was so ugly no one would ever think to steal it.
Chapter 18
While I tried to figure out what to do with Thursgood’s money, my mother descended into an isolated stupor the likes of which would have confounded Freud. None of it made sense to me. Sometimes she’d get up, real late, and leave. I never asked where she went. She never offered to tell me.
One night, by accident, I left a pan of water boiling on the stove until all of the water evaporated. I was completely horrified when I got out of bed the next morning to find the wall behind the stove streaked gray with smoke. I turned off the stove, grabbed my book bag and a peanut butter sandwich I’d left on my dresser the day before and ran to the bus stop. Fast.
Big sweat stains seeped through the thin fabric of my shirt during my first three classes of the day. I was convinced my mother was going to pull me out of class to scream at me in front of everyone.
The biggest mystery of my life loomed dark. I spent hours running scenarios through my mind, trying to come up with a way to bring up the subject. I thought about just saying, “What in the hell happened to the kitchen?” but I was sure she’d glare at me and say, “I thought you knew.” Besides, what if it made her mad? Really mad. It was one thing to be forced to acknowledge something. It was a whole other thing to have to talk about it.
Three weeks passed. Then one day I got off the bus and walked home to fin
d the wall scrubbed almost clean. Still, not a word. I made macaroni and cheese and went to my room. I unwrapped the square of cornbread I’d saved from lunch and listened. Nothing. Sometime in the middle of the night I heard the distinctive growl of the car engine rumbling through the night. Lots of doors slammed, then my mother and her drunk date staggered through the night.
When I was at Marmalade’s house that weekend, I told Preston the whole story.
“But she didn’t yell at me,” I concluded.
Preston was thoughtful. “Are you sure you did it?”
“Yeah. Why?”
“Because she probably can’t remember if she did it or not.”
Nothing of the sort had ever occurred to me.
“Your mom’s not so good at remembering things,” he added. “Like last year when she left us at the zoo and we had to call my mom? Don’t you remember?”
How could I forget?
That night I lay awake listening to the sounds of Randall’s radio program seeping up through the floor. Closing my eyes, I tried to imagine what Nash was doing at that very moment. I dressed him up in his favorite light blue button-down shirt, with his gray sports jacket and took him around to his favorite restaurants like a paper doll. For some reason this soothed me so I had him take a seat and order a beer.
He leaned back in his chair, holding the tall, amber-colored glass in the air. “Here’s looking at you, kiddo.”
I created a paper-doll image of myself to sit across from him. I told him that my rabbit coat didn’t fit anymore, that my shoes were almost too small and that there was no one to help me with my homework.
He leaned forward in his chair, all flimsy and imaginary in my mind, and said, “That’s okay. I’ll help you.”
In the morning, I lay there, staring at the trees outside my window thinking about the way he always glanced up in the rearview mirror when he asked me a question. I climbed out of bed and quietly took out the few pictures I had of Nash. In the pale light I cut each one out and made Paper Nash Dolls. I hid them it my book bag, promising myself I would take them everywhere.
In the back of my mind I held onto the idea that one day Nash would pull up in front of my school. All the people in my class would turn and stare as he got out wearing his leather jacket with the fur collar. He’d walk through the big double doors into the office where the secretary, Mrs. Lions, would call me out of class. I’d be whisked away into the waiting car, then to a plane, then to Mexico City, where we’d buy a hacienda and live. Year after year, decade after decade, people at my school would talk about the day Tupelo Honey was whisked away in a limousine by the coolest man on earth.
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