by McNay, Dan
“Go buy a blow-up doll and paint the eyes closed. That’s all you need.”
“That’s not true.”
But he turned and left. Sean came in after he was climbing in his car.
“You all right, missy?”
“Not at all,” she said. You go fuck yourself as well, was what she wanted to say, but didn’t. “Thanks for your help today.”
* * *
The service started at the funeral home on Saturday morning. Winston asked her to go with him, but she felt that was going to be too much. And she wanted to make sure everything was in order at the cemetery when the casket arrived. All the ladies of the church were going to be there. It would be enough that they came and whispered. She was out at the grave site when her father wandered up the little road and came to look over the scene. She went over to him.
“Daddy, there’s going to be a lot of people coming here very soon. You understand?”
“Of course, we zoo everything and have many hands.”
“You want to go back and I’ll go bring you breakfast in bed? It’s Father’s Day.”
She didn’t think it really was, but she wasn’t sure. She just thought it might get through to him somehow and get him out of the area.
“Paddy’s day, day? Way way. I’d like a cake that big.”
“Ok, you go back and I’ll be right there.”
He seemed to get the idea and ambled back down the road. She climbed in the truck for a McDonald’s run. The hearse was just arriving by the time she returned. There were several cars parked nearby and about twenty people already assembled near the open grave. Her father was standing in the drive waving his arms at them. Everyone was politely ignoring him. She parked and brought the McDonald’s bags over to him. He grabbed them both as if he was starving and was digging in the sack for something to pop into his mouth. Daydee took him by the arm and he jumped. But he didn’t pull away. He let himself be guided back down the hill and through to his burrow. He ate all the way.
“Now you stay here,” Daydee said. “Please understand.”
He nodded and sat down on his log. By the time she got back up the hill, the minister was beginning the service. Winston was in front. She didn’t feel up to being the center of attention which was what would happen if she tried to join him, so she just stood in the back. The ladies from the church were there and were whispering snide remarks about her to each other. She didn’t have to hear what they were actually saying – their eyes and the phony smiles gave it all away. She was hot and sweaty and sat down when she got to the outside row of chairs. She wished she had stayed home. The preacher spoke on and on it seemed. Jack! It hadn’t registered with her that it was him preaching at them. The whole day was a distraction. An angel wouldn’t have anything on Rev. Jack. He acted as if he was as pure as snow. His wife and Sarah were there, but neither of them looked in her direction. Winston was crying. Edward wasn’t around, thank God. As the service went on the sheriff wandered over and sat down beside her.
“Who was that homeless guy?” he whispered.
“I don’t know his name,” Daydee said. “I give him some work once in a while. He just shows up from time to time. He usually comes in from the front entrance.”
“Well, if he gives you any trouble, give us a call.”
“Edward is hassling me.”
“I can speak to him, if you’d like.”
She looked at him. He just looked back without blinking.
“Excuse me,” she said, getting up.
She moved to sit next to her sharecropper and his wife. They, at least, nodded to her.
The service was finally over and people began to leave. She couldn’t because she had to lower the casket and fill in the grave. Jack and his wife walked out without looking at her. The ladies from their church were snooty about walking by her. Sarah offered her hand. Daydee stood up.
“I hear you’ve been having adventures,” Sarah said.
“You were right, what can I say? I always manage to do the wrong thing.”
“I’d like to invite you to a quilting bee we are starting.”
“You are serious?”
“It had been bantered about to make one for your baby… before all that stuff about Mat. Well, the urge to hang out and drink and prick our fingers until they bleed is still a driving force. The idea is that if we invite you, then the women we don’t want to see, won’t show up.”
“I don’t know how to sew.”
“Neither do I, but what are you going to do? I don’t want to hang out in bars.”
“All right.”
Sarah squeezed her hand. Daydee finally decided that Winston was going to stand there forever so she sat down again. He finally turned and realized she was there. They were the only two left. He came over and sat down beside her.
“Thanks for being patient with me,” he said. “You need some help finishing up?”
“Don’t you have family to go to tonight?”
“No, she had no relatives alive. My brother in California hasn’t spoken to me in years. We had no children.”
“Won’t it be odd, cleaning up after your own wife’s funeral?”
“Nothing much is odd anymore.”
She handed him her truck keys.
“If you’ll bring it down, that will be a big help.”
While he was doing that, she cranked the coffin down into the grave and took apart the frame that had held it. He was back.
“We need to load all of this into the truck along with all the chairs.”
They began carrying things over.
“I think your presence is aggravating my daddy,” she said.
“I imagine it would. He was always extremely jealous of your mother and it just got worse the crazier he got.”
“How long was this thing with my mother going on?” Daydee asked.
Winston stopped and looked at her.
“Before you were born,” he said quietly.
He turned and went after the folding chairs. It was a few minutes before they were back at the truck at the same time.
“I often wondered if you were really my daughter,” he said.
Daydee stared at him.
“You gang raped your own daughter?”
He turned red.
“I didn’t know who you were.”
“Winston, the whole fucking town knew who I was! I didn’t realize it then. But there’s hardware store clerks in this goddamn place that are still drooling. You have to be the most incompetent evil man I know. I’m not your frigging daughter, all right!”
“I guess I’m stupid.”
“You can say that again and again.” Then she caught herself. It was his wife’s funeral.
He went back for more folding chairs. They worked in silence. After the truck was loaded with everything, they drove it back up to the shed and unloaded it. She thanked him for his help.
“What else is there to do?” he asked.
“I need to go close the grave.”
“Would you care to go to dinner after? My treat?” he said.
She shook her head and he looked crestfallen.
“All right, your treat. Why don’t we just do Bob’s Big Boy. I’ll meet you there. At five?”
He smiled. She climbed in the backhoe, still shaking her head at herself.
* * *
By the time she filled in the grave and parked the backhoe by the shed, it was well into the afternoon. She walked down to check on her father before going home to clean up. The earlier funeral hadn’t drawn him up to the grounds. It was Winston. There is just too much shit that has gone on here to figure it out. His shopping cart was gone from its usual spot.
“Daddy!” she called.
Nothing. There was a trail through the weeds made by the cart. He decided to hide further away? Or he had decided to leave? She walked along the trail he had left. It wandered over a hill and came out on a paved road. She looked both directions, but there was no sign of anything. One way was
into town, the other was just out into the farmland. She decided he would head for town. There would be dumpsters and people to panhandle. She hurried back to her truck. This was ridiculous. This whole day was just too much work.
As she slowly went up Main Street, she spotted Edward coming out of his office and walking toward his car. She thought of stopping to confront him about her father, but thought better of it. He wouldn’t have bothered with the shopping cart if he had something to do with his disappearance. And if he didn’t know, she wasn’t going to be the one to tell him. He did spot her driving by though. Stupid move, slowing down.
She went up and down the streets, but didn’t find any trace. Then she circled through the alleys. And around the grocery stores’ back entrances. Around the dumpsters. Still nothing. It was getting into dusk. She wondered if he had gone the opposite direction on the road after all, out into the farmland. Then she found the shopping cart. It was laying on its side behind a drugstore – the blanket she had given him, hanging out of it like a dog’s tongue. She stopped and went through the stuff in the cart. It appeared to be his junk. If she left it, somebody else would probably pick through it, even if it was mostly garbage. She quickly threw it into a pile in the back of her pickup and covered it with the blanket. God, did it smell. She could steal him another cart if need be. There were a couple of teenagers down the alley, sitting on the curb, smoking. They might have seen something. When she stopped beside them, they quickly hid the joint and started walking away.
“Guys, I’m looking for a homeless guy, not you!”
“We don’t know anything,” the taller one said over his shoulder.
“Twenty dollars?”
They looked at each and stopped. She dug in her purse.
“I’m trying to find the old homeless crazy guy that had the shopping cart back there.”
“Yeah, the cops took him. In the back of their patrol car.”
She handed the boy the twenty.
“Was it the sheriff or the Paris Police?”
“It was a sheriff’s car.”
“Thanks.”
* * *
Shit. She hurried to the jailhouse. God, how she hated jails. There were just too many lockups in New Orleans when she was young. Too many ham-handed officers and guards. Too many quickies to get out of being taken away. She parked and went to the front desk.
“I understand my father was picked up this afternoon.”
“What’s the name?” The girl was in uniform.
“Donald McIntire, but you wouldn’t have gotten that unless you found some ID on him. He’s really crazy.”
“You have ID?”
Daydee handed her the Louisiana ID, not thinking. She had a driver’s license from Illinois now. She handed over that as well.
“You have something that says who he is?”
“Nothing handy. There might be a birth certificate in my mother’s records. But that might take a while to find.”
“I really don’t know how we can help you. We need proof of relationship.”
“Is Sheriff Turner in?”
“He won’t be able to help you anymore than I can.”
“He knows me.”
“Please wait,” she said and disappeared with her ID.
Daydee wandered around the little reception area. This was not going well. This meant more payback. More dates? God. The sheriff came out.
“Hello again,” he smiled. “So, what’s this about this guy being your father?”
“He is.”
“That’s not what you told me this morning.”
“I’ve been trying to take care of him and figure out what to do with him. He’s really crazy. I figured it was better if no one knew about him. He’s been living in the woods behind the cemetery and I can’t get him in the truck to take him anywhere better.”
“Your father is dead, Deidre. He’s buried out there beside your mother.”
“I don’t know who you people put in that hole, but this is my father.”
The girl at the desk looked away when Daydee glanced in her direction. The glance wasn’t lost on the sheriff. He ran his big hand over his scalp.
“Deidre, you don’t want to start a big ruckus.”
“So you know who is in that grave?”
He eyed her.
“Release him to her,” he told the girl. “Bring me the release form, I’ll process it myself.” He smiled weakly at Daydee. “Nice to see you again.”
She sat down to wait. About forty minutes later, a guard escorted him out to her. Her father was wild-eyed and trembling all over. There was a good chance that he would just run down the street once they got outside. Could she get him in the truck? She took his arm and directed him out the door. He wasn’t resisting. When she opened the passenger door, he climbed in. She locked him in and ran around to her side. Driving away from there as quick as she could, she wasn’t sure where to take him. This was her chance. It would soon be too cold for him out there in the woods.
She took him through McDonald’s and handed him the bag. He was eating cautiously, as if he was afraid the bag might be grabbed away at any second. It was almost comical. He was Charlie Chaplin throwing glances her way, scared like a puppy might be.
“You are coming with me today,” she told him.
He let her take him by the arm again as she got him out of the truck in front of the house. Beneath the big oak tree, he stopped dead and looked up into its bare branches against the night sky.
“Come on, Daddy.”
“Such a place to nest!”
She tugged on his arm and he looked at her.
“Pretty.”
He came in. All right, he was a child, she told herself. She would treat him as one. Leading him into the bathroom, she started undressing him. His clothes were stiff and dirty and oily. His socks were glued to his skin. She was afraid of pulling skin off with each sock. His body was bad, liver spots all over his feet and ankles. Scratches and scars on his back and arms. Skinny. Slack and sagging tummy and butt. She had never seen an eighty-year-old man naked. Never had a client this old.
She turned on the shower and tested the water and pushed him. Soaping him up and rinsing him left her soaked herself. She shampooed his scraggly hair. She pulled him out and dried them both off and gave him her white robe to wear. He let himself be led to the living room where she plopped him down on the couch in front of the television. Cartoons seemed to be the best bet. She made sandwiches in the kitchen. He seemed resigned to his fate.
He ate again.
“You are going to stay here tonight,” she told him.
As he didn’t appear to be interested in resisting, she left him and threw his clothes in the washer and brought a blanket and pillow back. He wrapped himself up and snuggled down on the couch on the pillow she had fluffed up for him and fell instantly asleep.
There was knock at the door. Winston! She opened it, thinking to herself that she was being stupid, it could be anyone. Winston was standing there with a bag of Chinese take-out.
“God, I’m sorry. Come on in. My father wandered off and was picked up by the cops. I just got him here.”
He came in and sat the bag on the kitchen table.
“That’s why I brought take-out,” he whispered. “I figured something came up. We can still eat.”
She didn’t have the heart to tell him she had just eaten. They took out the boxes and opened them up to dish out on plates. Daydee picked at hers. It actually tasted pretty good.
“You sure you don’t know who is buried in my father’s grave?” she asked quietly. “I just blackmailed my father out because the sheriff apparently knows who is buried there.”
“Honestly, I don’t.”
“Who would you guess it is?” she asked.
“I think you better leave well enough alone.”
“Winston, I’m going to have a hard time proving that this is my father if he is legally dead. How do I get him treatment?”
“It’s p
robably Edward’s father,” he whispered.
“Really?”
Winston nodded.
Suddenly, her father jumped Winston and knocked him to the floor. He had Winston under him and was beating him with his fists. Winston cried out. And tried to protect himself. Daydee pulled on her father but couldn’t get him off.
“Daddy!”
She grabbed the spray nozzle from the sink and turned on the faucet on all the way and spayed him in the face with water. He released Winston to cover his eyes. He was moaning. She pushed him over and got Winston up to his feet. Her father was squirming on the floor trying avoid the cold water.
“Go,” Daydee screamed at Winston. “He remembers you!”
Winston ran out the front door. She let up on the sprayer. Was he going to attack her now? The kitchen was a mess. Chinese food and water everywhere. She backed away to the sink, with the spray gun in hand. Her father scrambled up to his hands and knees and crawled back to the couch and wrapped himself in the blanket again. He was shivering and looked soaked to the bone. After catching her breath, she replaced the nozzle and went to close and lock the front door. Her father seemed over his rage. She cautiously moved past him to go get towels. When she came back, she threw one towel over his head as she went into the kitchen to sop up the floor.
“Thanks,” he said.
Such a damn normal thing to say! He hid in his blanket with the towel still over his face.
Chapter fifteen
There wasn’t a lock on her bedroom door, so she took a kitchen chair in to lean it against the knob. It wouldn’t really stop him, but she would hear him try to get in. Locking up everything she could, she took the keys to bed with her and slept with them under her pillow. Her dreams were odd and dark and scary. Gunshot wounds, maggots in some homeless guy’s wrapped up legs. She didn’t want to remember them. Do you give your unborn child nightmares? She finally got up about five, giving up. He was snoring on the couch. She locked him in and went for a walk around the neighborhood.
There was not a soul around. It was still dark and chilly. Her little area didn’t seem to have children about. No toys in yards. No fences to keep them from wandering off. No dogs to speak of. Occasionally, one would bark from inside a house. One kitchen light came on and a grandma type was making coffee in her house robe. The young families must be in the newer houses. She’d have to look. She wanted hers to have other kids around to play with. Not like her childhood. The sky began to grow light. A diehard cardinal was busy in a bush.