South of Main Street

by Robert Gately

* * *

  DIXIE FELT Sharon’s act of being surprised in seeing her was contrived. The woman had never shown any respect or surprise in chance meetings in the past, so why now?

  “Haven’t seen you in a while,” Sharon said. “How are you?”

  “Fine.” Dixie said, confused at Sharon’s sudden interest in her welfare.

  “Christmas shopping, are we?”

  “Yes,” Dixie said, cautiously trying to walk around Sharon, as one might show prudence when walking around a venomous snake.

  Sharon grabbed her arm. “I understand you’re in need of money.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Oh, don’t be alarmed. I’m not spying,” Sharon said. “Just have an interesting proposition for you.”

  “What kind of proposition?” Dixie queried.

  Sharon took out two one hundred-dollar bills and waved the money in front of Dixie, who reached for them without even thinking. But Sharon was quicker and pulled the money back out of reach. “I need information,” she said.

  “What kind of information?” Dixie asked.

  “About my father. Let’s walk.”

  * * *

  “DAD!” Robin shouted.

  “What, what?” Henry said.

  “You’re not paying attention.”

  “What Sweetie?” Henry sat up straight and looked squarely at Robin giving her his full attention.

  “Asa told me you did a very noble thing today and he wants you to know that he’s not angry with you.”

  “Good. I’m not angry with him, either. What noble thing?”

  “He said you gave Mrs. Curtis baby formula and you were going to pay for it yourself.”

  “Yeah, well, it was sort of a loan, really.”

  “Well, Asa thought that was a noble thing to do.”

  “Oh. I see. I got fired for being noble.”

  “You got fired because you were not supposed to give things a way. A person can’t stay in business if you do those kind of things.”

  “Okay. What’s your point?”

  “I don’t have a point, Dad. I need to talk to you about Monday?”

  “What’s Monday? Christmas is not until Wednesday.”

  “I know when Christmas is Dad. Monday is the hearing with Judge Brady.”

  “Oh, yes. The hearing. I wonder why they call it ‘the hearing.’ Why don’t they call it ‘the listening’ or ‘the saying’?”

  “I don’t know, Dad.”

  “I mean, everyone has a lot to ‘say’ to Judge Brady.”

  “Dad …”

  “Maybe they should call it ‘the lynching’.”

  “Dad! You have to pay attention.”

  “Pay attention? Are you selling attention? Is that why I have to pay for it?”

  “Okay, Dad. That’s enough.”

  “You know why I can trust older people with secrets?”

  “Because they can’t remember them for too long,” Robin replied. “Because they have very poor long-term memories.”

  Henry chuckled. “I told you that one before, huh?”

  “Dad, you say you want to be responsible … you call what you are doing right now responsible?”

  Henry looked out the car window for his youngest daughter, but neither she nor Dixie were anywhere in sight now. “No, I suppose not,” he said. Henry fell silent, gazed down Main Street for a reflective moment. “You know,” he finally said, “it just dawned on me that I don’t have any friends my own age.” Henry didn’t expect a response, and he didn’t get one. They shared another tacit moment and now Henry was ready to listen. “What do you want to tell me about Judge Brady?”

  Robin sat up and leaned towards Henry. “One of the reasons I didn’t want you to do anything out of the ordinary, like get a job, was because I didn’t want anything like this to happen that would make you look bad in front of the Judge.”

  “Bad. You just said Asa said I was noble. I didn’t do anything bad.”

  “I know that. That’s not what I meant. Bad is not the right word. My mistake.”

  “Then bad is a bad word.”

  “Yes ... No ... Dad! Will you please stop?”

  Henry looked through the front window for Sharon and Dixie. He shot a glance out the back window. Not there, either.

  “Listen to me, Dad. On Monday, you’ll need to wear your business suit. And some very uncomfortable things are going to be talked about, so I want you to be prepared.”

  “What kind of uncomfortable things.”

  “You know. Maybe they’ll talk about how you almost got arrested the time you were making believe you were robbing the bank. Remember that one?”

  “No. You’re making that up.”

  “Hmmm. I remember it very well. It’s something that a seven-year-old girl doesn’t forget.”

  “Well, I guess I can’t be too embarrassed if I don’t remember doing it.” Henry chuckled.

  Robin chuckled also. “I guess what I mean,” she said “is that Sharon and I will be, you know, bumping heads a little bit, and she’ll be bringing up things, like you getting fired from the pharmacy, that kind of thing. So, is there anything you want to tell me about working in the pharmacy … some of the positive things you did there?”

  “I don’t know. Why don’t you ask Asa?” Henry yawned. “I’m tired.”

  “I did ask Asa. He said he was pressured into firing you by Kruchuk. That’s all he told me.”

  “Hmm. I don’t like that man. He’s a mean man. Are you and your sister getting along?”

  “We’re okay. Please don’t change the subject.”

  “You’re not angry with Sharon, are you.?”

  Robin looked at Henry squarely in the eyes. “No. Are you?”

  “No,” he responded right away.

  “Well, you should be.”

  “Well, I’m not.” Henry felt the conversation was getting a little snippy. He wanted to steer it in a different direction. “You know, life is made up of a lot of little particulars. There may be two or three big things that can change you a little bit. But really it’s the little things that cause the big changes. Make us who we are today.”

  “Okay.” Robin said as if she were giving up on trying to control the conversation. “I’m listening. What’s your point?”

  Henry wanted to make his point clear, so he turned his body so they were face to face. “If I failed in anything,” he said, “it’s because I remembered the little things that didn’t matter, and failed to remember the little things that did matter. A lot of images are vague in my mind, and I try and try to get them to be clear and make sense. Sometimes I think I remember, but I suppose I’m trying too hard and I just make things up.”

  Robin chuckled. “No. You make things up?”

  “There are periods of time …” Henry held his hands apart as if he were measuring time. “You know, in length ... epochs, like the Civil Rights Movement, or grammar school years, or the sixties … very important, you know. But single events matter a lot too, probably more, like the election of a president or a graduation. It’s a big deal, those single events.”

  “Yes, dad,” Robin said.

  “I remember when you and Sharon were toddlers. Epoch times. But it was the little things that mattered, like sitting on my feet. You loved to sit on my feet, both of you. Remember? I used to walk around with you on my left foot and Sharon on my right. I looked like Frankenstein.” Henry rocked his shoulders back and forth making his point.

  Robin laughed. “Yes, I remember that.”

  “We used to laugh a lot back then. That’s when you used to think I was funny.”

  Robin tapped Henry on the hand. “You’re still funny to me. Sometimes.”

  “It’s not you that I’m worried about, Robin. You continued to laugh as you grew up but Sharon stopped. You see, that’s what I’m trying to say. If I paid attention to those little things back then, like ‘Why isn’t Sharon laughing today?’ Maybe, I could’ve done something.”

 
; * * *

  ROBIN FELT like crying. She knew exactly what her father was saying. She, too, remembered how Sharon laughed at the drop of the hat. Bubbly. Carefree. Her sister lost that spontaneity somewhere in time. Now that Dad exhumed the memory, Robin felt the depth of Henry’s love. “Oh, Dad. There’s nothing you could’ve done.”

  “I’m not so sure, Robin.”

  “What could you have done? If Sharon’s unhappy, it’s because of her own doing. What could you have done?”

  “I could’ve pushed harder to get your mother to accept that car mechanic who Sharon loved so much. I’ve done a lot of thinking and that’s when she stopped laughing, you know, when he left town. I noticed it, but I thought it was only a temporary thing. I thought she’d go back to her old self. But she never did.”

  Robin didn’t respond right away. She sensed the truth in that statement. She didn’t know how to respond except to say, “You’re precious, Dad.” Then she smiled and added, “Hey, I have plans for a nice meal for Tuesday night. You’re still coming over my place on Christmas Eve, right?”

  “Sure. That’ll be nice.” There was a moment of silence then, “Hey. You want to give me a nice Christmas present?”

  “Sure. How much is it going to cost?” Robin asked, snickering a little to let her father know everything was okay between them.

  “Oh, this won’t cost much.”

  “Okay. What is it?”

  “Can I invite Dixie and her mother over for dinner on Christmas?”

  Robin’s jaw tightened at the image of having an addict at her place on Christmas day, a time for family and relaxation, not a time to baby sit valuables because a thief was breaking bread at the dinner table. Muscle tension built in her upper neck and shoulders. She wanted to say ‘no’, but the compassionate look in her father’s face - a kind of innocence – helped Robin through this apprehensive moment. Be grateful, she told herself. Don’t be selfish.

  “Sure. If that’s what you want, Dad.”

  * * *

  HENRY THOUGHT about asking Robin if Wheezy and Joe could be invited also. He sensed that this might not be a good time to ask his daughter since she seemed to be a little uptight. He could tell by the way she was flexing her jaw muscle. Not a good sign.

  “Okay. I’ll take you home now.” Robin made a U-turn and honked the horn at a pedestrian who was walking across the street at a casual pace. She nearly hit him.

  Henry kept a careful eye out for his other daughter, but she was nowhere in sight.

  * * *

  Dixie and Sharon were tucked away in a booth in the bar section of a family tavern restaurant listening to a pianist playing a tune at the near end of the bar. At the far end, a TV hung from the ceiling with the volume turned down. Dixie appreciated the music. It was low, mellow.

  Sharon waved for the waiter and then pointed to Dixie’s wine glass. She put a coaster on top of her own glass.

  “So, tell me more about Danny. Anything unusual? How about his father? I heard that Mr. Petzinger is hitting the sauce pretty hard. Might even be hitting Danny. Doesn’t like my dad very much does he? Why is that, do you think?”

  Dixie scratched her head and tried to think. Too many questions at once. Her thoughts were muddled. Wine didn’t usually affect her this way.

  She stared at Sharon’s pocketbook, wondered how much money was in it. The image of two hundred dollars being waved at her was an incentive for her to think hard. “I don’t know about Mr. Petzinger,” she said, starting to recount her recent activities. “Danny and I just hung a little. I mean, Danny’s such a nerd, you know. He’s … he’s … okay. He’s like the brother I never had.”

  “Okay, don’t get too oozy on me,” Sharon said. “I don’t want you to be advertising I’m the sister you never had.”

  The male waiter placed a glass of wine in front of Dixie. She immediately grabbed the other glass and sucked down the remaining drops that were left before he hauled it away.

  Dixie forgot where she was in the conversation and became more conscious of her drinking. “I’m really committed to getting sober, you know?” Dixie said.

  “I’m sure you are.”

  “I shouldn’t be drinking this.” Dixie nodded to the drink in front of her.

  “Oh, don’t worry. A couple of glasses of wine aren’t going to matter. You’ll still be able to stay sober. Now, talk to me.”

  “I like your father, Sharon. I feel like I’m being a snitch or something.”

  “Oh, no. No. No. I already told you. Consider this helping him. Whatever information you have is only going to be used for his good. Rest assured I have his best interests in mind. I’m his daughter, for crying out loud.”

  Dixie’s foot bounced up and down. Nerves. The muscles in her face twitched. She remembered feeling this way in front of her mother during the inquisitions. ‘Where were you last night?’ ‘Why do you look hung over?’ Those times were terrible, complicated by the lies she had to tell.

  “So,” Sharon asked, interrupting Dixie’s hazy thinking. “Anything unusual going on at the house? With Danny? Anyone?”

  “Okay. Well, last week we hung out a little,” Dixie recounted, “and I remember a couple of unusual things.”

  The dark ambiance of the room and the piano man’s tunes of the ‘70s felt like a surreal, skewed dream-world to Dixie. In this foggy ambiance, she told Sharon about the rock incident, about how strange it looked watching Henry put rocks into Danny’s backpack, how Danny got ticked-off and threw the backpack down, how they, in her opinion, had an argument, and how Henry had to bend down to talk to Danny, like a father would do with a son. But Dixie didn’t bother telling Sharon about Mr. Petzinger coming out of the house and sneaking around back, and how she was afraid he was going to punch Henry. That whole scene with Mr. Petzinger prowling around like an alley cat didn’t make too much sense to her so she left that part out. It would only confuse things, muddle things up. Dixie thought if she just could be direct and not get too personal then no harm could be done to Henry, and she would be two hundred dollars richer.

  She continued talking about the rock incident and chuckled a little. She had just told Sharon that Henry was, well, how could she put it? Henry was just being Henry most of the time. Like the time he swung down from the tree to get the mail. No harm in that story either, Dixie thought, so she told it.

  All this talk made her mouth a little dry so she took another sip of wine. More like a gulp. What she had to say didn’t seem to be earth shattering or damaging, so Dixie continued to talk and drink. As time went by, the words flowed out of her mouth and one sentence blended into the other, and two glasses of wine became three, then four.

  So, Dixie told Sharon everything and made sure she accented the good times, like the park. The snowball fights. And the silly stuff like how they saved Tommy from the ‘dark side’, and how Henry was teaching everyone to fly by jumping off the bench and landing in the blanket of snow, and flapping his wings making butterfly marks. And the long talks. And all the good things and feelings, like how she felt Henry was the father she never had. All this was innocent enough, something Dixie could share with Sharon. What Dixie had to say didn’t seem wrong just because Sharon was paying her to say these things. No harm. No foul.

  * * *

  Sharon reached into her bag when Dixie finished talking. “All this was very enlightening,” she said as she pulled out the two one-hundred-dollar bills and waved them in front of her. “This is yours. But I am not going to give this to you now.”

  “Wuddya mean? You said …”

  “I said I needed information about my father. And then I told you I needed to give this information to Judge Brady.”

  “So. Give ‘em the information. Who’s stoppin’ ya?”

  “Well, that’s the rub, Dixie. I can’t give him the information. You have to. You have to come to court on Monday and tell a couple of these stories you told me just now and then I’ll give you this.”

  Sharon waved the money i
n plain sight again and pulled out a paperback book and slipped the money in between the pages, then pulled the money back out again. She handed the book to Dixie. “When you come up to talk to the Judge, you leave this book on the corner of the desk where I’m sitting. People will think you were just reading it, that’s all. Then you go up and sit next to the judge and after you’re finished telling him these … harmless stories, I’ll slip this money into the book. I’ll leave the book where you left it so, when you walk back to your seat, you can just take the book. Simple, yes?”

  With that Sharon called the waiter over and tapped Dixie’s half-filled glass. “One more for her, and the check please.” She looked to Dixie who seemed to be mulling over her options. “Do you understand what I just said, Dixie?”

  Sharon interpreted Dixie’s head bobs to mean there was a mutual understanding of the terms and conditions of this verbal contract. “I’m so glad we had this chat,” Sharon said. “And I’m so glad you are trying to get your act together.”

  * * *

  Dixie’s head throbbed with each heartbeat, like ocean waves against a bulkhead. A deep, morbid, embarrassing feeling erupted in the pit of her stomach. Something was not right, she sensed. Sharon was planning something, but at the moment, she could only see Sharon’s lips move. The individual words made sense, but Dixie couldn’t understand the complete sentence. The string of words weren’t making any sense at all.

  She watched Sharon get up and leave. The waiter came over and put down another glass of wine in front of her and left. She wondered why he did that since Sharon was not there anymore and she still had a half-filled glass in her hand. It didn’t matter; she guzzled down the wine from the glass in her hand and then began sipping from the new one.

  Her thinking became more muddled; the sounds, the visions were all too … jumbled, and the images in the room spun like she was on a carousel. She sensed time must have just passed without her knowing it because the glass of wine, which seconds ago had been full, was now almost empty.

  She finished the wine in a single gulp and held the glass by the stem. She thought about how she used to laugh a lot when she first began drinking. It used to have a calming effect on her. It made her feel socially acceptable and she could talk about anything to anyone like her opinion really mattered. But that seemed like ages ago. She looked at the glass and wondered why booze didn’t make her feel that way anymore. Too many years of drinking. Too many years of … whatever. She felt bloated. Sick.