As the first notes began, Julie said, “It’s hard right now. But it won’t be when you leave.”
CJ frowned. “What do you mean when I leave?”
“Just that,” Julie said. “Face it, CJ. You’re not here for the long haul, no matter how bad you think things are in Tennessee right now. Eventually you’ll leave, and then things will be back to normal.”
“Normal.”
“As in, I can concentrate on being a wife and mother and not have to worry about you stealing kisses in cold garages.”
“I don’t really think I stole it,” CJ said.
Julie sighed. “And that’s the problem. You should have had to.” Then she gave him a crooked smile. “But I think I can be strong for the both of us.”
CJ supposed there wasn’t much else to say. He pulled Julie toward him and she put her cheek on his shoulder, and they danced that way for a while. At some point, as CJ shifted his feet to turn them in a half circle, Dennis floated by, a smiling redhead in his arms. He was a lot lighter on his feet than CJ would have guessed. Dennis looked his way, and CJ gave him a wink and then he danced with Julie until he felt a tap on his shoulder.
“You in or not?” Harry asked for the second time, but Dennis would not be rushed. He pondered his cards for a bit longer, then closed his eyes.
“Are you praying to the cards now?” Harry said.
“The poker gods,” Dennis mumbled. “I’m praying they clean you out and give everything you own to your ex-wife.”
“Anyone else notice that he doesn’t stutter when he’s had a few?” Jake commented.
“I’m out,” Dennis said, tossing his cards down.
“I was out an hour ago, but I was too stupid to realize it,” CJ said, following Dennis’s lead.
“Are you calling it?” Harry asked.
“I’m pretty sure Dennis has called it for us,” CJ said. Dennis’s head had slumped to his chest and he’d started to snore.
“I’m not sure what to think of a man who passes out before eleven,” Harry said.
“Go easy on him. He lost the girl of his dreams after a single dance.”
“Is he that bad a dancer?” Jake asked.
“Surprisingly, no. He’s a pretty good dancer. But let’s just say that when a man isn’t feeling well, maneuvering around a dance floor usually isn’t the best idea.”
“He didn’t,” Rick said.
Harry’s contribution was a low whistle. Dennis stirred a bit but didn’t wake up.
“I’ve heard a lot of good first-date stories,” CJ said, “but never one that wound up with a guy throwing up on a pretty girl’s shoes.”
“Which is further proof that you and I don’t travel in the same circles,” Harry said. He tipped his chair back and winked at CJ.
Silence settled over the table, and CJ sat there and enjoyed it. As the quiet lingered, and as the Doors drifted in from the next room, a thought came to him.
“You want to do me a favor?” he asked Jake Weidman.
Jake, who had picked up the cards and begun to shuffle, said, “Favors aren’t normally in my nature, but for some reason I’m feeling magnanimous.”
“There’s a guard at one of your prisons—name’s Richard Baxter.”
“A relation?”
“Cousin,” CJ said. “Is there any way he can find himself all alone in a cell with someone a bit . . . I don’t know, disgruntled?” Hearing how that sounded, he added, “Not too disgruntled, but just enough for a black eye and a lump or two.”
Jake didn’t look up but continued shuffling, cigar held in his mouth. When the cards had circled each other twice, he said, “I’ll see what I can do. But I reserve the right to reconsider in the clear light of day.”
“Fair enough,” CJ said, wondering how he would feel about the request in the morning.
In truth, much of what had gone on during the few nights he’d spent playing poker with these men was open to clearer scrutiny during daylight hours, solely for the fact that one of the men figured prominently in CJ’s current writing assignment. Here he was playing cards with a man who appeared to figure into some campaign finance maneuvering, and yet CJ couldn’t bring himself to dislike him. Neither had he sent out even a mild feeler to flesh out the growing list of things he’d found that supported his thesis. They’d just played cards, and CJ found that he liked it that way, regardless of how strange it might seem.
On the heels of that thought a yawn caught him. He pocketed the money he had left and stood.
“Can I leave him here?” CJ asked Rick, gesturing toward Dennis.
“Wouldn’t be the first time,” Rick said.
CJ nodded and started for the front door, and Dennis’s snores followed him until he stepped out into the hallway and shut the door behind him.
Chapter 29
Ronny’s was more packed than usual, even for a Friday, as revelers sought someplace to continue the celebration begun at the football field with Adelia beating Smithson Academy in a fashion befitting some of the storied games of old. Middle-aged husbands and their tipsy wives, businessmen who normally frequented higher-class establishments, even temperance-minded churchgoers who preached the evils of alcohol the other 364 days of the year—all of them found that Ronny’s was the type of place they needed, a near-seedy pub to put a dangerous edge on this night of uninhibited celebration.
Rick was split on the merits of the influx of patrons. It was good money, but it meant having to deal with inexperienced drinkers. Rick liked his regulars. With these people there were more needs to fill, tempers to watch, limits to recognize. It was enough of a pain that Rick had more than once threatened to close for the last night of the Fall Festival. Yet year after year the lure of triple profits saw him sweeping, washing, and rearranging to accommodate the crowds.
CJ, who hadn’t experienced Fall Festival closing night at Ronny’s—at least not legally—was inclined to agree, especially when, on arriving with Dennis, he couldn’t even reach the bar, much less find an empty stool. Even so, over the hour he’d been here, the atmosphere had grown on him. He and Dennis had worked their way into a small table in the corner, and as long as one of them remained at the table at all times, they could preserve their territory on the periphery of the maelstrom. The concession was that they had to wait longer for fresh drinks, but since CJ wasn’t in the mood for more than a few, that wasn’t a deal breaker.
Dennis hadn’t said much in the last hour, and CJ suspected that had less to do with the noise, which made it difficult to hear normal conversation, than it did the constant replaying of his ill-fated dance with Stephanie Nichols.
“You sh-should have seen the l-look on her face,” Dennis groaned.
“I was there,” CJ reminded him. “I did see it.”
“And the scream,” Dennis said.
“I heard that too.”
CJ saw Rick behind the bar dealing with a trio of women who’d dressed up in their trashy best for the evening, but who were well past their expiration dates. Red wine, some drink with an umbrella, and what was probably a Long Island iced tea. CJ caught Rick’s eye and winked, which earned him a scowl, and would have probably earned him more had Rick not been otherwise occupied.
“I’ll tell you what you do,” CJ said to Dennis. “You wait a few days and then give her a call. You apologize, maybe get her to laugh about it, convince her to meet you for coffee somewhere. Maybe she’ll surprise you.”
“You’ve g-got to be k-kidding.”
“I’m serious. What do you have to lose? It’s not like she’s going to talk to you ever again anyway. If she hangs up on you, you’ll be in exactly the same position, only you won’t always wonder if you should have given it another shot.”
“There’s no way I’m c-calling Stephanie,” Dennis said, though the statement lacked conviction.
“Just give it a few days,” CJ said. “Trash day is Monday, right? You should call Monday afternoon. The shoes will be gone—it’s almost symbolic.”
&
nbsp; “You think she threw away the shoes?”
“You’re joking, right?”
“I guess . . .”
“Trust me,” CJ continued. “If I’ve learned one thing from being married, it’s that you can’t overcommunicate. It’s impossible. So pick up the phone and communicate.”
“But you’re g-getting divorced.”
“Because I didn’t communicate,” CJ said, with perhaps more triumph in his voice than the subject warranted.
While they were talking, the crowd had started to thin out. CJ looked at his watch and said, “You want to go watch kids throw rotten tomatoes at each other?”
Dennis shrugged. “I don’t see why not.”
CJ put a twenty on the table, then he and Dennis stepped out into the cold night air. They took Dennis’s truck. CJ thought about running upstairs to get Thor but decided against it, letting the inclination pass. The dog had been all over town the last few days and probably needed some rest. Dennis pulled onto Main and turned onto Eighth, headed west.
Batesville, Adelia’s longtime co-conspirator in this part of the Festival, was a nineteen-mile straight shot west over land made up of steep hills, forests thick with elderly trees, and gorges that seemed to appear out of nowhere. When the first roads went in, their builders avoided the worst of these hazards to wind up with a circuitous route that turned the nineteen miles into forty-one. CJ thought it was a testament to the strength of the Festival tradition that the residents of Batesville made the trip—in the old days by horse and wagon, braving the straight shot between the towns, and now by way of a road trip twice that distance.
By the time they got there, cars lined both sides of the state road for a hundred yards. Dennis parked the truck, and soon he and CJ were walking toward the crowd gathering at the town line. There were so many people, blocking the road to any through traffic, that CJ and Dennis had to go down into the ditch to get around the crowd enough to see anything. They picked a spot near one of the portable light stands that turned night into day for about thirty yards in any direction. In years past, this event would have taken place by torchlight.
As they neared the site of impending warfare CJ heard someone in the crowd call his name. He stopped and scanned the myriad faces until he saw someone waving at him. It was Sr. Jean Marie, who offered him a grin while hoisting a handful of tomatoes. He waited as she worked her way through the crowd toward him.
“Looks like you’re ready to unleash the apocalypse,” he said.
She laughed. “We can’t always wait on God to execute His judgment, now can we?”
“No, I guess we can’t,” CJ agreed.
The nun handed him a couple of tomatoes. “It’s cathartic, isn’t it?”
“I’m not sure; I haven’t been here in a very long time. But isn’t this just for kids?”
“Aren’t we all just kids at heart?”
“I am,” Dennis said. To illustrate, he grabbed a tomato from CJ and looked ready to release it at any likely target that came into range.
“Good man,” the nun said. As Dennis took a few steps away— whether by design or because of the state of things, CJ didn’t know—Sr. Jean Marie looked up from her spot at his side and asked, “Have you given any thought to what we talked about?”
It amused CJ that even a week ago he would have answered that question with his customary avoidance. After a moment of silence he said, “I think I’ve absorbed most of it.”
The nun gave his arm a squeeze. “Good, because we’ve got too much to carry without dragging around anger. The sooner you let go of that, the better you’ll be.”
It wasn’t something he could argue, so he nodded and smiled. She gave his arm another squeeze, turned and disappeared into the crowd.
Over the years the event had developed a set of unofficial rules, one of which was that local farmers spent the few weeks leading up to it collecting the most ripe tomatoes, bringing them en masse for the kids to use as ammunition. From where he stood, CJ saw several bushels of tomatoes in a line across the road, with quite a few more in pickup trucks ready to replenish the young warriors.
“I can’t believe this still goes on,” CJ said to Dennis, who had just rejoined him.
“Last year a citizen c-committee tried to p-put a stop to it.”
“What happened?”
“Have you ever t-tried to remove tomato p-puree from a gas tank?”
It looked as if things were just about to start. CJ guessed there were two hundred kids, forming two opposing groups, each with at least two tomatoes in hand. When CJ looked past the kids, he saw another group of adults, and long lines of cars and trucks. What was interesting to see were the men and women from both towns who mingled near the invisible line that made up the Adelia border. CJ saw a handshake or two, heard easy conversation and laughter. As a kid, he hadn’t noticed any of that; he’d been too caught up in the prospect of produce warfare to entertain the thought that this was anything but serious business.
His father had encouraged that tunnel vision and always brought along a bushel of tomatoes perfect for the occasion. Glancing around the crowd, CJ didn’t see his father, or any other member of his family. He knew Graham’s kids were the right age, and since CJ’s past history precluded this event occurring without Baxter representation, he assumed he was simply missing them in the crowd.
“I gave it away,” Dennis said as he watched the preparations.
“What?” CJ asked.
“The m-money. I paid off my p-parents’ house, put some money into an account f-for their retirement, and g-gave the rest away.”
“You gave it away?”
Dennis nodded.
“All of it?”
Another nod.
“So who got it?”
“M-most of it went to p-people on the reservation who n-needed it. The orphanage g-got a lot.”
CJ chuckled and shook his head. “You big softie.” Then a thought struck him. “But how do you afford poker night?”
“I f-fix up houses with friends.”
That pulled a deeper laugh from CJ, and he might have said more had a squad car not appeared on the road past the Batesville crowd. As the car approached, the crowd parted to let it through. Blue lights flashing but without a siren, the county cop double-parked next to a farmer’s pickup. The deputy got out of the car. He took a moment to survey the scene, eyes scanning the kids who’d come to do battle, as well as the adults who’d come to cheer them on. Then he reached into his shirt pocket and pulled out something that CJ couldn’t see clearly but that he recognized nonetheless. With no further preamble, the deputy put the whistle to his lips and blew a single, piercing tone into the night sky.
Before the sound had faded, the barrage began. The front lines of kids—who stood less than ten yards from their peers on the other side—took the brunt of the first volleys. CJ heard several strong shots right away. Juice-filled tomatoes exploding on impact, throwing their guts for several feet, splattering even the adults who’d chosen spots too close to the action. But that was part of the fun—all of the bystanders knowing that at least a few errant shots that landed amid the crowd were not misfires.
Kids scattered in all directions, throwing their missiles and then rushing back to the dwindling bushels to rearm. Most of the kids wore white, which was another tradition, and CJ already couldn’t see a clean one among them. Before it was all over, every inch of the ground would be covered with tomato goo, and for the next few days great flocks of birds would be seen converging on the scene, dodging cars to gorge.
Every year, there was a point in which the lines crossed, when the fight that had started with shots from afar turned into blurred lines and close-quarter action. It was the first time CJ got to observe that transition from the outside and he marveled at how organic the whole thing was, how the battle went from formations of disciplined soldiers to a full-scale melee within the span of a few seconds. CJ found himself laughing, enjoying the odd spectacle of townsfolk meeting in the da
rk so their children could attack each other with vegetables.
Then a tomato hit him in the chest.
CJ looked down at his shirt just in time to see the slick tomato carcass slide to the ground, and to register that some of it had gotten in his mouth.
“Hey,” he heard Dennis say, suggesting that he too had been a casualty.
When CJ looked up, he searched for his assailant, knowing the throw hadn’t come from the direction of the kids. He found his foe right away, mainly because she was looking straight at him—and laughing. Julie had another tomato in her hand, and standing next to her, Ben was also armed and ready for battle. Julie’s husband grinned at him. With a smile of his own, CJ bent and scooped up a tomato that had landed close by but that was still reasonably intact and he let it fly. Unfortunately the skills that had taken him to Vanderbilt were sufficiently rusty to send his throw wide left, where it struck an unsuspecting woman in the shoulder. Worse, it left him defenseless.
He locked eyes with Julie just before she pulled her arm back for a second throw, and the mischief in her expression made him laugh—until her second toss hit him in the teeth.
“He’s proven that he’s unpredictable,” Daniel said. “I mean, he stole your grandfather’s car.”
Graham leaned back in the leather chair Sal had occupied for so many years. “You don’t understand,” he said. “That car meant a lot to both CJ and Sal. It doesn’t surprise me that CJ had to take it out for a spin.”
“You call driving to Tennessee and beating on his wife’s door taking it out for a spin?” Daniel pressed.
The house was dark, except for the lights in the office. Graham sat behind the desk he’d claimed as his own, considering Daniel’s question. George sat in a straight-back chair near the door and he had yet to say a word.
“What are you trying to say, Daniel?” Graham asked. “So CJ can be a bit of a hothead. You might not have noticed, but that’s kind of a family trait.”
A hint of a smile touched George’s lips, but he stifled it with a draw from his cigar.
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