Karen G. Berry - Mayhem 01 - Love and Mayhem

by Karen G. Berry

  This was not Italy, but it was a foreign land.

  He wondered if anyone in this trailer park had ever been anywhere. Thirty miles from Mexico, and with the exception of a few men who had visited whorehouses and tattoo parlors in Baja, he would bet that no one had ever been there. The only travelers appeared to be the cats, who moved through the park in a shifting mass.

  The only dogs he saw were Rottweilers and pit bulls, and a few that might have been mutts of the two breeds. Then, there were the children. He had some tailing him, a small mob of giggling children with Kool-Aid stains on their faces. It reminded him of his time in Japan, on another exchange summer. His blondeness and his bulk had set him aside. Curious eyes had followed him wherever he went, and he’d felt like a great golden bear of the West set free to roam the streets of Tokyo.

  A cat lounging in a planter made of an old tire caught his eye. It gave him one of those cat looks, conspiratorial and disgusted at the same time. “Can you believe this crap?” the cat’s eyes said to him. He took a shot and muttered aloud, “No, as a matter of fact, I can’t believe this crap.”

  The children who trailed him exchanged smirks, not sure if he was talking to himself or the cat.

  This beats the hell out of doing jail time for carrying too much pot, Isaac reminded himself. Thank god for lawyers. This is almost like being in the Peace Corps. Maybe I’m here to teach these people to fish.

  He passed an older woman dragging a miserable-looking child by the arm. The barefoot girl wore a granny dress. Her hair caught his eye, hair so thick and black it looked wet in the sunlight. He wanted to take a picture of that hair, hair like… He was distracted by the glare from all the sparkling trim on the woman’s clothing. Isaac thought she was too old to be that girl’s mother, but how could you be sure of the age of a woman wearing that much makeup? Her clothes and eyes threw sparks. In answer to his smiling “hullo,” she gave him a look of such furious hatred that it made his stomach hurt. He crunched down the street, somewhat troubled. He wondered what he’d done, aside from breathing, that pissed her off that badly. Yes, it was going to be an interesting experience, this trailer park.

  He exited the gate, crossed the highway, reached the bar, opened the door and adjusted his settings to the perpetual gloom of the place. No windows. Pool tables in the back, sawdust on the dance floor, a jukebox. A rack full of jerky and pepperoni sticks, a glass jar of pickled eggs. A skinny man with grey hair and a hooked nose pouring coffee behind the bar, his cigarette smoke curling heavenward in the light of a neon Budweiser sign.

  “Hullo.” Isaac smiled. His growly voice boomed out cheerfully. “Sir? Do you have a pay phone in here I could use by any chance?”

  The bartender nodded toward the even deeper murk of the place beyond the pool tables. Isaac walked cheerfully back, as the snake-faced, Wrangler-wearing, bet-making, pool-playing, Bud-drinking men around him gave him the eye.

  He decided he wouldn’t take any pictures just now.

  They went back to their games, but Isaac’s big voice was a distraction. “Hi Mom! I got here just fine. I didn’t. I’m fine… Well, see, that’s the problem. I’m staying with a friend, and she lives in her truck, and she doesn’t have a phone… Right… I know, Mom… Yes… Well, I don’t know. I’ll call as soon as I have one… I love you too, Mom… tell Dad I’m fine. Kiss Mittens for me. OK. Bye.”

  He strode back out into the main part of the bar, a smile on his face. “Sir? Could I possibly get a couple cups of that coffee, to go?”

  The bartender, who during the phone call had covered his eyes with his hand, looked up. He set two empty Styrofoam cups on the bar.

  “Uh, I’m sorry, but do you have any paper cups?”

  Beau frowned and filled the cups.

  “Well.” Isaac nodded. “Just this once. It’s just that Styrofoam lasts so long in the landfills. Do you have any cream?”

  Beau filled the cups and set a small jar of Cremora and a spoon on the bar.

  “Do you have any real cream?”

  Beau put on the lids.

  “Well, that’s all right, I guess. I’d like two sugars.”

  Beau simply looked at him.

  Isaac went for his wallet. Beau waved off Isaac’s money.

  “Thanks!” People were friendlier around here than he thought. Isaac walked back out into the high desert sun with his morning offering to Raven. He thought, hearing the belly laughs echoing behind him as the door shut, that somebody in that bar must know how to tell a good joke.

  THIS DAY HAD not gone the way Rhondalee had planned.

  Rhondalee had tricked herself out for Coffee Klatch. Appliquéd coyotes howled along the hem of her t-shirt, and sage-green fringe shimmied up the side seams of her cactus-colored stirrup pants. Her heels, hair, and spirits were high as she’d headed out her front door and next door to Minah’s trailer. She came bearing Divinity Fudge Breakfast Squares and the finest piece of gossip that would ever grace the lips of a resident of the Francie June Memorial Trailer Park.

  Death. Vehicular homicide. She would break the news of the Right Reverend’s demise at the Coffee Klatch. She’d stepped into Minah’s kitchen and heard them all in the living room, talking and laughing. She’d eavesdropped a little, waiting to make her big entrance.

  “OH!” That was Vonda talking, the easily startled Vonda Tyson. “I forgot to tell everyone what Jeeter saw this morning! He was walking around, wondering why no one was up at the clubhouse for church, thinking on it and praying a little, and he was walking past Raven’s truck, and there was a big blonde stranger, Jeeter said he looked like a bum or a hippie, and he was knocking on her door. And then Raven jumped out of the truck in the all-together and gave him a big hug. OH! MY! Jeeter was just shocked. I mean, she was stark naked, wearing nothing, in her birthday suit, bare as the day she was born…”

  “I think we get the PICTURE, Vonda.” Melveena Strange, that uppity teacher who didn’t even live in the Park but who always came to Coffee Klatch anyway, scolded in her most teacherly voice.

  The room had fallen silent.

  Rhondalee had stood in the kitchen, hugging herself in shame. No good, no good, her daughter Raven was simply no good. Carrying on and running off and a child of sin and now this naked stranger climbing in broad daylight, and on the Lord’s day not less, no good, the girl was no good.

  “We missed you at the community meeting last tonight,” Minah had said to someone.

  “I was sorry to miss it,” purred that teacher, Melveena. Why would she need to be at a community meeting? She had no business there.

  “Well, I hope you were having fun, whatever you were doing.”

  “Couldn’t have been having as much fun as Tender,” someone else had said. Cough Cough Cough. “Have you ever seen anything like it? I guess that’s what happens when a man takes up drink late in life.” More coughing. It probably Vonda’s twin, Verla, talking, then. Verla Ridgeway. It was hard to tell their voices apart, being as they were identical twins, but Vonda smoked Menthols and so her voice was a tad raspier. “But Rhondalee could drive even a lifelong teetotaler like Tender to drink.” Yes, that was definitely Vonda. “Did you see his big toe?”

  Verla chimed in. “I did, I saw that toe.”

  “Hanging out there like a dirty thumb waggled by a hitchhiker.”

  “It looks like Rhondalee’s so busy with the newsletter and all that she doesn’t have time to take care of her darning.”

  “Isn’t that a shame.”

  “Yes, a shame, that’s what it is.”

  “A good wife should keep up with things like that.”

  “Oh by gosh, who darns anymore, I ask you?” That was Minah speaking again. “Most folks just head over to Wal-Mart and buy new socks. And with all Rhondalee has to do in a day as manager and watching Annie Leigh and all, well, I guess maybe she doesn’t have time. She’s a fine manager. The way she keeps those Rent-To-Own truck drivers bamboozled when they come in here to repossess people’s furniture, why, I
think she’s a regular hero.”

  A shamed hush fell.

  Rhondalee’s eyes pricked. Damn Minah, she thought. Damn that old bat for being so decent and loyal, because her mascara was going to run and she wanted to look perfect when she broke the news of the murder. She had to pull herself together before she made her entrance.

  She’d smoothed her hair, squared her shoulders, fastened on a footlight smile and charged in. Her voice was unfortunately shrill. “AT TIMES LIKE THIS, A TRAGIC WASTE HAS TAKEN US ALL BY SURPRISE!”

  Minah Bourne had jumped so hard that she nearly stabbed herself in the eye with a crochet hook. The rest of the ladies had stared, blank looks on their faces.

  “AS A COMMUNITY IN TIMES LIKE THIS PERPAREDNESS IS EVERYTHING AS WE FACE OUR LOSSES LIKE AMERICANS!” Rhondalee had felt herself jerking around like a marionette in the hands of a sadistic puppeteer. “HE WAS FOUND DEAD IN THE STREET LAST NIGHT! ON MY STREET! MINE!”

  “Rhondalee, what ARE you going ON about?” Melveena had placed a hand over her heart to calm it, or maybe just to keep it away from the silverware. Rhondalee had gathered up her dignity and her wind, and prepared to open her mouth for the stunning revelation of a lifetime.

  BANG went the door again, and in came a man. Not just any man, but Jeeter Tyson, with tears dripping from the end of his nose. “I just heard… I jus’ . . . I heard…” He stumbled past Rhondalee into the living room and fell at his wife’s feet. “Vonda, somebody went and murdered the Reverend!”

  The room had erupted into a shrieking, dithering gaggle. “A murder?” “Who?” “Oh My God!” Hands flew, jaws dropped. “Oh my GOD, oh my GOD!” shrieked Vonda Tyson. “OH MY FREAKING GOD!” screamed Verla Ridgeway. The twins had fainted. The ladies had closed in as Minah hollered, “Give them some AIR, you have to give them some AIR!”

  Vonda had revived long enough to cry out for a cigarette.

  No one had even noticed as Rhondalee left, stomping hard for home.

  WELL, THOUGHT RHONDALEE, I always said that entertainment was our family destiny. Yes, the LaCours were born to provide entertainment, yes we were.

  And on this day, we seem to have provided plenty.

  She thought about her marriage. Almost thirty years, now. Thirty years of trying to be a good wife to an impossible man, she fumed. And I have been a good wife. I’ve kept my vows, my house, and my figure. I wear a girdle, I cook three meals a day, I manage the Park, and though I no longer attend church, I do watch the 700 Club. I take such good care of my nails, too.

  Her remarks were persuasive and passionate. But the Invisible Committee was always silent.

  Oh, Tender had waited until the crack of nine to tell her, true to his word. He’d mumbled the news, and she’d immediately begun to rehearse how she would present it. What tone would she take as she unveiled this incredible piece of park news? Grieving? Hushed? Panicked, because after all, who might be next? Or calm, as befit a woman in her position of management and leadership?

  The best gossip in the history of the Park, and Jeeter Tyson had run in there and spilled the beans. And he was saying MURDER. Tender made it sound like some kind of deeply unfortunate but not nearly as exciting accident. She just had to have a little more information than everyone else. It was only fair. She was the manager, for God’s sake.

  In this mood, she walked toward the Clubhouse. She passed Quentin’s doublewide. He was succumbing to community pressure and painting the face of his little jockey white. She should have stopped and told him she appreciated the healing touch of this gesture, but she was so furious that she ignored his friendly, purple-faced “hello.”

  She only slowed when she saw the rigging of the Tyson’s old satellite dish. It was some obsolete manual model that he had used to have to tune in by hand. Jeeter would stand out in the rain in the winter, making small adjustments and hollering in at Vonda while Vonda stood inside and coughed and watched and hollered back at him and all those Rottweilers they had barked and growled and whined and slobbered. Rhondalee had hated the way they hollered back and forth.

  “IT’S ALMOST COMING IN!”

  “TELL ME WHEN!”

  “THERE! “

  “HERE?”

  “NO! NOT QUITE!”

  Talk about trashy. The Tysons used it mainly to tune in the weekly Oregon Lotto picks, because Jeeter had a cousin who bought tickets for them. One night when she’d missed the broadcast, Vonda had dialed 911 to get the numbers.

  Rhondalee wanted Jeeter to take down that dish, as it was an obsolete eyesore since the Owner installed the digital cable. Attempts to beautify it by inserting red plastic geraniums in the soil at the base were simply a failure. Rhondalee had suggested that they sink it and convert it to a goldfish pond.

  A child swung on the dish. Rhondalee recognized a bare belly and pair of dusty white underwear that needed changing. Her granddaughter hung upside down by her scabby knees, panties to the wind.

  Rhondalee walked over and yanked her off and pulled her dress down. “For SHAME, Annie. Have you no SHAME? LOOK at you. Barefoot like a BONE PILE woman. I NEVER. You’ll get a TAPEWORM.” Rhondalee hauled Annie along by her bony arm. “I’m taking you home for a BATH. I’m TIRED of your dirty ways. And I’m talking to your MOTHER about it, too. I’ve had ENOUGH.” Annie winced, but kept her mouth shut and moved as quickly as she could. If she’d slowed down, her arm might wrench right out of the socket.

  Yes, Rhondalee thought, the LaCours must be under contract with the Owner to put on a show a day for the whole trailer park. It was too much, just too much. Her husband. Her daughter. Her granddaughter. How much hurt could one heart bear?

  Rhondalee took off her pumps, slammed them into the rack next to Tender’s boots, and moved into her living room like a storm front. Woe to the man with the dirty toenails who slept in his recliner. Rhondalee rousted him from his dreams of tuning forks, piano keys and banjo strings and hit him with a ferocious hail of disappointment, rage, frustration and embarrassment.

  A bewildered Tender shot right out of his chair and directly up to the Blue Moon in his bare feet and bathrobe.

  RAVEN REMOVED HER black boots and set them on the shoe rack by her mother’s door. They were exactly alike. Her father’s were there, too, polished to a high shine. Obviously, her mother was even nagging him about his boots.

  She set the small pair of black leather boots next to her own. Raven let herself into the rather grand manufactured home her parents earned by managing the Park. She followed the sound of her mother’s scolding tones to the master bathroom, where her mother bent over the huge avocado green garden tub, scrubbing Annie within an inch of her life. “This girl of yours is FILTHY!”

  “You might consider leaving a little skin on her. Just a thought.”

  “Her hair is FILTHY.” She twined her hands in the offending locks and pushed Annie under.

  “Are you giving her a shampoo or a baptism?”

  “I hear you have taken up making a public spectacle of yourself.” Rhondalee continued holding Annie’s head under the water. “Yes, I hear you’re taking up Naked Olympic Stranger Climbing. Maybe you can win yourself a gold medal in that.”

  “Well, Mother, I guess I finally found my sport.” Raven frowned. “You seem to be drowning my girl, there.”

  Rhondalee pulled her up for air. Annie was gasping, but smiling. “Gramma! Guess what!”

  “WHAT?”

  “Mom’s buck nekkid!”

  Rhondalee let go the soapy locks and clapped a hand over her nose. “My GOD!” shouted Rhondalee at her daughter, who’d silently shucked her clothing and wore nothing but that accursed scar that had ruined her face. “You smell like a POLE CAT!” Annie scooted over and made way for her mother in the tub. Raven sank in with a sigh. No shame, thought Rhondalee, no shame at all.

  “Gramma? What’s a pole cat, anyway?”

  “It’s what your mother SMELLS LIKE!”

  Rhondalee gathered up the offending clothes and threw them in the washer bef
ore she stomped off to the kitchen. It was disgusting, the way her daughter kept herself. She didn’t even wear any drawers. As she started making breakfast, she could hear the two of them splashing in the tub. Laughing, giggling, whistling. They were practicing birdcalls. Tender taught them those, thought Rhondalee. What an unproductive thing to teach a child.

  The birds in the bathroom sang on. “Whip Poor Wiiill.”

  Whistles and chirps, the song of dawn. She closed her eyes and thought of early morning in Tennessee. When she had woken to a world full of gentle light and birdsong. When the air itself had been so full of humid promise, not this air so dry it made her hair lank, her face crack.

  This is a terrible place, she thought. A hell on earth where men of God meet untimely ends, and I don’t even get to be the one to break the news about it at Coffee Klatch.

  The avian whistles chittered and trilled in her bathroom. What a waste of time, she thought. None of those birds live around here, anyway. Only thing we have living around here are drunk skunks and polecats, and those are the same thing, anyway, aren’t they, skunks and polecats.

  She slammed a carton of eggs down on the counter, breaking two. “I refuse to think about that,” she said aloud. I won’t write a gossip column, she thought. I’m above all that. I’m better than that, low gossip and wagging tongues. I’ll write a column about being a proper woman, with beauty hints and fashion tips.

  My first fashion tip will be, always wear clothing in public.

  A RINGING PHONE is not a welcome sound to an older man who has had no sleep. Memphis stretched out a long arm across his desk and picked up the receiver. “Memphis here.”

  “Memphis, I’ve been through the trailer pretty thoroughly. There’s no evidence of a struggle in his home. And I’m going to wager that the prints are all his or Gator’s.” Phineas sounded as tired as Memphis felt. “Nothing shows a struggle up at the Blue Moon Tap Room. The trouble is, people tear in and out of that lot all night long, and that gravel’s good-sized. There’s also no evidence of the assault where the body turned up. The Reverend was pretty leaky, and there just wasn’t that much of a mess.”