by Lisa Howorth
Uh oh. Just as she thought. “Hey!” she said, “I’m not a Yankee! I’m from Virginia!”
“Puh,” Foote huffed. “Virginia is for lovers. And Yankees.”
“I call bullshit on that.” She wondered how many soldiers—husbands, sons, brothers, boys—had died in Virginia over the centuries. Foote would know, but she wasn’t asking. “And you live in your ancestors’ house.”
“Virginia is what Yankees think of now when they think of the South,” Foote said. “They don’t know the real deal. All that genteel old Virginia colonial horsey shit, and they think they’ve got so much more history than Mississippi. And my house is no farmhouse, thank you very much.”
“I didn’t mean that. But Virginia’s twice-soaked land, isn’t it? It is way older,” Mary Byrd said.
“Twice-soaked? What’s that mean?”
“You know—the Revolution and the Civil War were both fought and ended in Virginia. And Jamestown—”
“Jamestown? That place was sorry as shit. And hell, De Soto was in Mississippi at least fifty years before, in what? Fifteen forty-one.”
“Okay, well, lots of Mississippians are Virginians who went west to settle,” she said.
“Exactly.” Foote lit another smoke, sucked in, and exhaled. “Exactly. They came out to Mississippi to get away from the federal government, which was too close, so they could do what they fucking wanted. My mother’s great-great-grandfather came out of Kentucky—a sorry state that never could decide, by the way—and went to Virginia, where he grew and shipped tobacco on the Richmond and Danville Railroad, and then in the War of Northern Aggression,” here Foote enunciated pointedly, “he shipped guns for the Confederacy. The Yankees tore up the tracks, and then somebody blew up the arsenal. It blew for six days. He lost fucking everything. They came to Mississippi to start over. They made it the hard way. Mississippians are the survivors. Carpetbaggers poured into Virginia. J. P. Morgan bought the railroad.”
“I’m tempted to mention Natchez, if we’re talking carpetbaggers,” Mary Byrd said. “But I won’t. Let’s talk about something else.”
But Foote went on. “And then, Mississippi was forgotten about. The only time the federal government ever paid attention to us was when they decided we were doing something wrong.” Sleety rain was coming down hard now, and Foote bumped the giant wipers up to a faster tempo. Mary Byrd was so glad she was not driving.
“One fifth of the Mississippi state budget after the war had to pay for prosthetic arms and legs for Confederate veterans.”
“But come on, Foote. What about all the New Deal—”
“Shit! Roosevelt just wanted to give it all to hillbillies, and,” he paused, “African-Americans,” he added sarcastically.
“Okay! Uncle!” cried Mary Byrd. “All hail Mississippi—the only authentic southern state! I’m a lover not a fighter!” Mann had warned her. “Do you want me to get out here?”
“Maybe. Admit you’re guilty.”
“Guilty of what?” she asked.
He laughed. “Failure to have been born in the great state of Mississippi, and of being a liberal.”
“Fine.” she said.
“And here’s your sentence,” he said, poking the tape deck buttons. “You have to listen to this.”
Mary Byrd waited until the tape stopped whirring and began to play “Dixie.” She might have known. They both laughed and listened to Black Oak Arkansas’s version of the song, the mournful, crudely harmonious opening vocals giving way to metal chaos. She could picture the half-naked band whipping their hair and whaling at their guitars. What an incredible song “Dixie” was, Mary Byrd thought but didn’t say for fear of cranking Foote up again. She definitely wasn’t going to point out that it had been written by a Yankee and maybe even a black guy. It was still one of the most poignant and stirring songs ever, even sung by Black Oak Arkansas, with the ability to raise the hair on her forearms, to her embarrassment. It was too bad that it had been claimed by a lot of rednecks as a football fight song and that it was now banned. She couldn’t help it. “It is an amazing song,” Mary Byrd said, with cheesy feeling.
“Yep,” said Foote. “The greatest.” He knocked the wipers back to a slower pace. As the song came to a close, Mary Byrd said, “What’s next? The Elvis ‘American Trilogy’?”
Foote laughed. “As a matter of fact, that’s on here somewhere. But I need to listen to my CB.” He punched off the tape. “So you keep it down, okay?”
Lunch and beer and the hypnotic effect of the wipers made her sleepy. It seemed like a lovely idea to crawl into the bunk and conk out, but it also seemed rude. But she was tired of hearing Foote talk his crazy trash and tired of sparring with him. She was tired of hearing everything she had to say, too; she’d said everything she’d ever known over and over again a million billion times. In a few hours she should be in Richmond. Who was this detective, she wondered. He wasn’t one of the original guys; they had to be retired, or dead. She hoped he wouldn’t show them anything horrifying, including her diary. She hoped not to cry. She would try not to bow up with attitude. Putting her head down on the crumpled jacket between her and Foote, she hoped Foote wouldn’t put a hand on her hair, or on her upturned shoulder. There might be something in the surprise of it. Was this the way people who committed sex crimes felt? Always having inappropriate, wrong thoughts? She willed this one away and thought instead about staying at her mother’s house, full of crazy cats, the hard guest mattress, the familiar sniping she and Nick and her mother would do, and the silly comfort she felt there anyway, and she fell asleep.
Mary Byrd slept long and heavily, and when she woke it was nearly dark and the truck was rolling along fast—too fast—approaching Richmond. She had drooled not only on her jacket but had made a sticky spot on some of Foote’s papers—a clipboard with receipts and forms.
“Oh, man,” she said. “I kind of drooled a little bit on your stuff.” She tried to clear the slobber off the papers with her hand and wiped it on her jeans.
“A little bodily fluid never hurt anything, far as I know.”
Mary Byrd fluffed her fluffy hair a little and rubbed the crusty corners of her mouth with her fingers. She should put on some lipstick and blusher, which would please her mother. “Wonder what the weather’s doing at home?”
“Sounds bad from what I heard on the CB while you were asleep. A lot of ice, roads closed. You never would even have gotten to Mempho, let alone taken off.” She wondered how Charles and the children were getting along. William and Eliza were probably having a blast and Charles was probably pissed.
“Wow,” she said, seeing a sign for Caledonia. “We’re almost there, aren’t we?” The dread resurfaced in her groggy consciousness.
“Yep. Where exactly am I taking you?” Foote asked.
“Anywhere in the West End is okay. My mom or one of my brothers can come get me.”
“I’ll take you wherever, but it’s hard for me to get this thing into and out of residential areas.”
“There’s a little shopping center at Libbie and Patterson. Just take the Patterson exit. I’ll show you.
She had suddenly taken it in her mind to go back to their old neighborhood—to Cherry Glen Lane, the house where they had all lived when Stevie died. She wasn’t sure why she wanted to do it; maybe to refresh her memory for Monday? She realized that all along she had planned this, and that she wanted to be alone and not with her mother and brothers. The two neighborhoods—Tuckahoe where her mother now lived and Cherry Glen Lane—were a couple miles apart. She’d call a cab from Doc’s Drugstore, if it was still there, to take her to her mother’s when she finished seeing whatever it was she expected to see, or feeling whatever it was she expected to feel.
“So you’ve got some unfinished business to tend to up here,” Foote said.
“Some … unpleasant stuff that happened a long time ago in my family. I’m not looking forward to it.”
“Mann told me a little.”
“It’s no b
ig secret or anything. Just something it’s not fun to talk about, and nobody wants to hear about.” Mary Byrd shrugged.
“Creeps like that should be fried.” Foote shook his head. “I hope they’ve got the guy. They should let me and Frank Booth interrogate him.”
Mary Byrd laughed a little. “You and Frank Booth could get a false confession out of anyone. I’d say I did it to keep y’all away from me.”
“Fuckin’ A,” Foote said grimly. “You know that scene in Reservoir Dogs? Your guy would definitely be stuck in the middle with me and Frank Booth.”
Foote was just a little too serious, but she laughed. “I think the case is sort of past all that now,” she said. “I don’t know a hell of a lot about what’s going on. They’ve reopened it, and I think they might have finally decided they’ve even got a case, and they’re trying to move fast and seal the deal before some reporter scoops them.”
“The big pedophile barbeque,” Foote said. “Save me the heart.”
“Good lord, Foote.” Mary Byrd rubbed her eyes. She noticed a couple more Beauties were gone from the dash.
“Don’t you and your family want to see him sizzle?”
“God, I don’t know. No! Back then, maybe I—we—did; I’m not sure. We were all so shell-shocked it was kind of all we could do to just get dressed in the morning. My stepfather was pretty badass; if he’d been himself, and they’d been sure of who did it, he would have torn the guy to pieces and anyone who tried to stop him. But he was so destroyed and drugged-up. He was just gone.” Mary Byrd drew her feet up under her, hugging her knees, thinking of how hard it must have been for Pop with Tuttle just down the street. “It really did kill him, and he was hard to kill. He survived the Battle of Hürtgen Forest! My mom was still picking shrapnel chunks out of his hip. But losing his kid that way is what did him in.”
“And you don’t think this fucking freak needs to die?” Foote said.
“I … that’s just too dark-ages or something. I mean, probably, the guy was totally fucked up by something that had happened in his life, right?”
“And he had no choice but to go out and fuck up some other people? Shit, M’Byrd, your bleeding heart is messing up my upholstery worse than your drool.”
“I just have to imagine what’s it’s like to be the parent of a person who … does that stuff, and have them get the death penalty. Maybe there should be some mercy in it somewhere,” she said, thinking about Evagreen and Angie.
“Mercy’s overrated.”
“What if he’s been doing something good all this time, like in the Peace Corp?”
“Or like a priest or a Boy Scout leader?” Foote said, viciously sarcastic. “Girl, trust me: those fuckers don’t change. They can’t. Don’t even think that ‘but he’s a human being too’ bullshit.” That thing that happened in West Memphis a few years back? Those three little dudes?”
“Don’t remind me of that.” The boys had been killed in early May, like Stevie, and the murder had made her jumpy, hovering over William.
“Those punks didn’t do it; they’re just some loser Death Metal kids. Anybody with half a brain could figure that out. I go in and out of that truck stop over there all the time—the biggest freak crossroads you’ve ever seen. Somebody really sick and pissed off did that shit, and you think he deserves to live?”
“God, I don’t know,” she said miserably. “How does more killing fix anything? But let’s not talk about it anymore. It’s too scary for me.”
“Okay, but if you ever want me to take your guy out, just let me know,” Foote said. “Whoever—whatever—he is.”
“Okay, Foote,” she said, rolling her eyes. “Don’t call him my guy.”
“I’m serious,” he said. “I have my ways. Don’t think I can’t hide a processed piece of pedophile in one of the Valentine freezer trucks.” Foote laughed. “Sell it to KFC.”
She laughed weakly. “O-tay,” she said. “O-tay.” Foote might really be insane. There was silence until Mary Byrd said, “Next exit.”
He began down-shifting, making the exit onto the wide street and pulling the behemoth truck over to the curb.
“End of the line, baby.”
“Okay, right here is good,” she said, glad to be getting out. She needed a little walk.
She zipped her leather jacket and gathered her duffel from behind the seat. “Thanks, Foote. You got my mom’s number; call me when you head back. If I don’t go back with you, I’ll see you around town. Be careful.”
“You be careful. Mercy is an anagram of cryme, ya know.” Foote smiled. “Never mind. Get outta my reefer, Miss Liberal Lily-liver.”
It must have been an odd sight to a passerby; a middle-aged woman climbing down out of a semi on a suburban Richmond street. Or maybe not; it was hard to know what seemed weird to people anymore. But here she was, getting out of Foote’s rig at the old bus stop, her red duffel bag over her shoulder, on her uncertain little mission.
Down the road where the woods had been was a tract of townhouses, as they called them up here. She crossed the intersection and turned the corner onto Cherry Glen. In spite of the nagging dread, Mary Byrd felt a little excitement. The cherry trees lining the street had grown enormous. Their branches, even without leaves, formed a thick canopy over the street, which was lit like a tunnel by the streetlights. The thick trunks were taut and shiny with growth and rain and reflected light. A couple of the old houses were gone, and stupid-looking, vaguely “French” McMansions were squeezed onto the small lots, their three stories towering over their neighbors—like Fisher-Price castles or something. But there was the Furmans’ house, and the Coles’, and the Greenawalts’, and Mr. Nance’s aka Big Nana’s, all looking smaller but spiffier than she remembered. More landscaping, more decorative gewgaws, lots of lighting fixtures illuminating trees, walks, and driveways. Decks were visible in backyards. And there was the Tuttles’, which hadn’t changed much at all; it was still shabby and mildewed and rundown looking. In all the windows, shades or curtains were drawn. Mary Byrd felt cold, like she had descended into a dark creek bed on a warm day. Was Ned in there? Did Mr. Tuttle still live here? Or Neil, the creepy older brother? Maybe they were all in there together, watching sports, or old Saturday evening monster movies, aging bachelors, eating Healthy Choice dinners on TV trays. Or maybe Ned had been here alone all these years. She hoped he was in custody. Shivering, she walked on.
She stopped when she reached 5117, her own house. It seemed so tiny, as miniature as Eliza’s dollhouse. How had they all fit in? The white painted bricks she remembered had been blasted back to bare, and maybe the roof had had green shingles instead of black? A spindly, leafless sapling stood on the hill outside the living room window in front of her mother’s slow-growing boxwoods, which were a lot larger. It was amazing that the boxwoods had lived at all after all the Pushy-in-the-Bushy and Sardines games they’d played. There was her bedroom window, where’d she climb out, late on hot nights—only her parents’ room had had an air conditioner—and sit on the roof, her hair in rollers, in her mom’s black hand-me-down baby doll pajamas, whispering to John Nicholson down below and listening to his older brother practice Kingston Trio songs on his guitar. The wonderfully tragic songs; “Tom Dooley” and “Where Have All the Flowers Gone” drifting across the street from an open window, making them feel like they had a clue about love, then wacky “Coplas” making them laugh. Lay lay lay umm ole lay … Had that been leading John on, too? But she had actually had a crush on John, and he on her. She wondered what was in her diary about him. Ned Tuttle had seen her one night, sitting on the roof talking to John. At least she thought she remembered that, or had she dreamed it, or made it up? Surely she’d written about it in her diary?
Their front yard hill seemed smaller, too. It had seemed so steep when they sledded on it, and her mother had had to descend the walkway steps so carefully when she was pregnant, which she’d always seemed to be. Mary Byrd remembered how gingerly, as if in slow motion, the ambulance guys
had carried Pop down the steps after his first heart attack that summer. And somewhere, maybe in her old scrapbook, there was a Polaroid, spotty and faded, of Mary Byrd holding on to the lamp pole with one hand, leaning away Twiggy-style, the other hand on her hip and her ankles crossed in a pose that she must have seen in Seventeen or Tiger Beat. The dress had been her favorite: a mod, navy blue voile shift with a round collar and flared cuffs trimmed in cream tatting. Under that dress there would have been a slip—your mother would never let you out of the house without one then, and you wouldn’t have considered wearing see-through—and a stupid damn garter belt holding up her pale patterned stockings. In the background, unbeknownst to her, Stevie and Nick had leapt into the photo, looking like the dirty, shirtless, knuckleheaded brats they were, ruining her glamour shot. She had been so pissed. Her mother must have taken the picture. It might be the last photo they had of Stevie.
There had been some happiness in this house worth remembering, she realized, in spite of Pop’s drinking and how problematic all their relationships were, and how shockingly their life in this house had ended. Pop had tried with her, before Stevie died, bringing home “Ferry Cross the Mersey,” for no particular reason. Mary Byrd felt an unexpected rush of nostalgia for those few years, the last of childhood. She thought of the summer afternoons she’d spent in the backyard, lying on the chaise longue, roasting, basted with baby oil and iodine, trying to pick up Barry Richards on WUST out of Washington on her transistor, reading the Jalna books or watching the babies and Stevie play in the sandbox and wading pool, the divine scent of her mother’s Crimson Glory roses mixing with “Unchained Melody” or “Tracks of My Tears” in the steamy summer air. Here’s where her first boyfriends had started coming around. Where they’d all watched the Beatles on Ed Sullivan (“a bunch of nellies,” Pop had called them), and the shooting of Lee Harvey Oswald right before their eyes, in their own living room—where they’d all had Christmas and Thanksgiving and the babies’ first birthdays. Where she’d lain in her bed wondering why losing one’s virginity seemed like such a big deal before and such a letdown after. It had been in this house, after all, that she and Nick and Stevie had been part of a real family. A sort of slapped-together family, yes, but still, for Mary Byrd and Nick, their mother and real father having divorced when they were so young, for a while they’d had the traditional deal: a mother and a father and a bunch of kids all under the same roof. With a shitload of dysfunction, but still. A lot of it had felt good. Secure. Normal. It only lasted, what? Five years. And then, overnight, literally overnight, it had turned into a haunted house, scarier to them than the smelly Laff-in-the-Dark ride at the amusement park. Nick and the babies huddled in one bedroom, Stevie’s room emptied, the door closed for good. Even little James and Baby Pete wouldn’t go near it. That whole summer before they moved, Pop had never again gone upstairs, claiming that climbing the stairs was “too hard on his heart.” Mary Byrd’s own heart clenched at these memories. It was a wonder that they all hadn’t had heart attacks that summer.