by Robert Inman
“Right here,” Hank said, and he reached behind the counter and pulled out a huge cardboard replica of a bank check, perhaps three feet by six, with Bright’s name on the “Pay to the order of” line and FIFTY THOUSAND DOLLARS in big bold black letters just below it. Bright stared at it for a moment. So that’s what fifty thousand dollars looks like.
As he held it up, Bright saw a white van pull up in front of the Dixie Vittles with big red letters on the side that said LIVE EYE 5. The television station from the state capital. Good Lord.
“Good Lord,” Doris cried. “Look a’yonder. The TV folks. Hank, did you call the TV folks?”
“Not me,” Hank said. “Mr. Bottoms, do you reckon the regional office called the TV folks?”
“Not that I know of,” Bert Bottoms said. “They don’t ever cover things like this, so we gave up trying a long time ago. If it ain’t a wreck or a fire, they don’t bother. They wouldn’t come to the groundbreaking for the distribution center last year, even with the Governor there.”
There was an excited buzz inside the Dixie Vittles and Bright could hear the clatter of grocery buggies back in the store as the shoppers crowded up toward the front. They watched as a young man got out of the van on the driver’s side and a young woman from the passenger side. She waited by the van, digging in her purse for a pad and pencil, while the young man went around to the back and opened the door and pulled out a big gray camera and hoisted it onto one shoulder, then connected some wires to a box he slung over the other shoulder. Then she held the door while he maneuvered through. Inside, everybody stood watching, fascinated. It was the first time Live Eye 5 had been to town since Fitzhugh Birdsong had retired from Congress eight years before. And then it hadn’t actually been Live Eye 5, but a fellow from the same station with a little dinky camera that he wound up with a crank, and a tape recorder.
Monkey Deloach was waiting just inside the door for them. “Hmmmmmmm … Holly, ah … hmmmmm … Hardee.” He stuck out his hand and the young woman gave him a curious look and a quick shake. Then she looked at the rest of them, crowded about the counter, gawking at her.
“I’m Holly Hardee from Live Eye Five,” she said.
Bert Bottoms broke from the pack and rushed over to her. “I’m Bert Bottoms from the Dixie Vittles regional office,” he said. “What a nice surprise.”
“The Governor’s office called this morning,” she said with a shake of her blond hair. “They said Birdsong’s mother had won a bunch of money. We drove like a bat out of hell to get here.”
“Well, you’re just in time,” Bottoms said. “We’re about to present the grand prize to our lucky winner.” He brought Holly Hardee over to them. “This is Mrs. Birdsong,” he said, “and her grandson Jabbo.”
“Jimbo,” he said, raising his voice just a bit.
“Pleased ta meetcha,” Holly Hardee said, shaking hands all around. She seemed impatient to get on with things. Bright imagined that Holly Hardee thought of this as a dinky story. She would probably rather be somewhere covering a disaster. They should have sent the man with the dinky camera and the tape recorder. He hadn’t been in a hurry at all. In fact, he had stood around eating cookies and drinking punch for a good long while after the ceremony was over. Holly Hardee didn’t look much like a cookies-and-punch person. “Well, what’s the drill here?” she asked.
“Beg pardon?” Bert Bottoms said.
“How are you gonna do this?”
“Well,” he said a little uncertainly, “I guess we’re just going to give Mrs. Birdsong the check here.” He indicated the big cardboard check that Doris and Hank were holding.
“Is that it?”
“That’s it.”
“Okay,” she said, tossing her head again. “Let’s get the show on the road.”
They all lined up in front of the counter, Doris and Hank on either end holding the big check, Bright and Bert and Jimbo in the middle. “Wait a minute,” Bright said. “We need to get the mayor in the shot. Harley, come stand with us. And we’ve got to get Jimbo out where they can see him.” So Harley edged in on the right side of the group and they put Jimbo out in front of the check, down at the left end in front of Doris, so he wouldn’t cover up Bright’s name or the FIFTY THOUSAND DOLLARS.
The cameraman turned on a light on the top of the camera and it flooded the front of the store and made them blink in the glare.
“Ortho, do you want to get your picture now?” Doris asked Ortho Noblett.
“Naw, no hurry,” he said. Ortho was lounging against a display of soft drinks, his Speed Graphic resting on top. “I got all day. Paper don’t come out ’til tomorrow. Y’all get through with the TV stuff and I’ll get my picture.”
“Roll it, Charlie,” Holly Hardee said, and the cameraman turned on his camera. It whirred and hummed. “Shake hands,” she commanded, and Bert Bottoms reached over and took Bright’s hand and gave it a vigorous pump. “Get a close-up of the handshake, Charlie.” Bert kept pumping while the cameraman zoomed in on their hands. “And some tight shots,” she said. He moved around the group, getting shots of their faces from different angles, while Bert kept shaking Bright’s hand and grinning. Bright felt exceedingly silly, but then she remembered feeling silly eight years before when the man with the crank camera took her picture at Fitzhugh’s party.
“Awright, let’s get an interview.” Bert dropped her hand and Holly Hardee stepped in front of the camera, holding a microphone now, thrusting it in Bright’s face. “What’s your reaction to the mess your son’s gotten himself into?” she asked.
There was a stunned silence in the store. Bright looked Holly Hardee straight in the eye. “That’s an impertinent question, young lady.”
“Do you think he’s guilty?”
“Of course not,” Bright said without hesitation. “My son is an upstanding man and a credit to his family. He has made a fine governor and the people of this state would be foolish not to reelect him.”
“I’ll tell you what,” Doris chimed in, “you won’t find a solitary soul in his hometown got a word bad to say about Little Fitz Birdsong.”
“Damn straight,” Monkey Deloach piped up from over near the door, and there was a titter of laughter.
Holly Hardee shrugged. “Do you plan to contribute your prize money to the governor’s campaign, Mrs. Birdsong?”
Bright smiled sweetly. “That’s none of your business.”
Holly Hardee lowered the microphone and turned to the cameraman. “Okay, cut it, Charlie.” Then to Bright she said, “I wasn’t trying to be rude, Mrs. Birdsong. Just doing my job.”
“Of course,” Bright said and then there was a long silence while everybody in the store stared at Holly Hardee.
“Well, that’s it, I guess,” she said to the crowd, flashing them a big smile. “Got to run now.”
“So glad you came,” Bert burbled.
“Sure,” she breezed, and they bolted out the door, leaving the place a little breathless in their wake.
“Gosh,” Doris said as they watched Holly Hardee and the cameraman loading their gear into the van. “She’s a cheeky little thing, ain’t she. At least she didn’t ask you about the town council meeting.”
“Guess I can get my picture now,” Ortho said, hoisting his big Speed Graphic. “Just hold what you got, folks.”
“Do you want us to shake hands?” Bert asked.
“Naw, this ain’t TV,” Ortho said. “Just look this way and smile so I can get all your faces real good.” Ortho took a flashbulb out of his shirt pocket, wet the end of it with his mouth, and stuck it in the flashgun, then peered through the viewfinder, focusing. “Ritz crackers,” he called out.
“Ritz crackers,” they all said together, and the flashbulb popped, leaving a big black speck in Bright’s vision. Then Ortho put his camera down and took a scrap of paper and pencil out of his shirt pocket and wrote down all their names, left to right.
“Do you want an interview, Ortho?” Bright asked.
He grin
ned. “Naw, I reckon I got all I need.”
“I guess that just about does it,” Bert said, and Hank Foscoe took the big cardboard check and laid it over on the counter behind them.
Bright turned to Harley Gibbons. “Harley, we’ll just go on around to the bank with you, and you can cash my check.”
They all laughed at that. “We’ll have the real thing in the mail to you in a couple of days,” Bert said.
“You mean that’s not the real thing?” Bright pointed at the big piece of cardboard.
Harley looked the check over, one end to the other. “Well, legally I guess you could say that it qualifies as a check. It’s got everything that’s required —date, payee, amount. Is that an authentic signature, Mr. Bottoms?”
“Oh, yes,” Bert said. “Our treasurer signed it himself this morning, so it would look just right.”
“But no bank would ever cash something like that,” Harley went on. “But when you get the check, Bright, you bring it right on and make a deposit. You don’t want to leave something like that lying around.” Harley smiled and she could almost hear the adding machine clacking away in the back of his head, toting up the mortgage on her house.
“Good advice, Harley,” she said. “Never can tell what I might want to do with the money, but the first thing I’ll do is put it in a safe place.”
“Can we have this one?” Jimbo chimed in, holding up the big cardboard check.
“Well, sure,” Bert said. “It’s just a prop. No good to any of us. Keep it as a souvenir.”
“Want me to carry it home for you?” Harley asked.
“No, I think we can get it,” Bright said. “Here, Jimbo. You grab hold of the back and I’ll get the front.”
They said their good-byes then and Monkey Deloach held the door for them and Bright and Jimbo went out into the morning, holding the big piece of cardboard between them. They were standing at the curb, waiting to cross Birdsong Boulevard, when Bright heard a loud honk behind her, a vehicle approaching along Claxton. She turned to see the Winnebago bearing down on them. Roseann was leaning out of the passenger-side window, waving and yelling.
“Oh, damn,” she said softly under her breath.
>
Roseann was climbing out of the Winnebago as Bright and Jimbo stepped up on the curb and started across the lawn with the big piece of cardboard between them. She stood in the driveway, arms crossed, waiting for them.
“Hi, Mama,” Jimbo called out to her.
Roseann called back, “What the dickens have you got there?”
“Fifty thousand dollars!” Jimbo said.
“Good morning, Roseann,” Bright said pleasantly as they reached her. “We didn’t expect you so soon. Did you decide to come back early for your brother’s big day?”
“What?”
“Fitz Birdsong Day. Tomorrow.”
Roseann gave her a strange look. “Well …” She shrugged.
“How was the beach?”
“Just fine,” Roseann said. “It was fine.”
Bright thought there was something odd, something amiss here. It took her a moment to put her finger on it. Then it struck her. Roseann is remarkably composed this morning. Her hair was neat, un-plucked. She was calm, under control. The beach appeared to have done her a world of good.
Rupert appeared in the open doorway of the Winnebago. He was wearing the same knit shirt, seersucker Bermuda shorts, black socks, and jogging shoes he had had on two days earlier. The only difference was that his knees were sunburned.
“Hello, Rupert,” Bright said. “I see you didn’t drown.”
“Morning, Bright.” Rupert, she thought, looked a little peaked this morning. Indigestion perhaps. “No” —he gave them a weak smile ‘—“I didn’t drown. I hardly got in the water, in fact. How’s it going, Jimbo?”
“I got overalls,” he said.
“I see you did. Are you becoming a country boy?”
Jimbo tapped on the big cardboard check. “Mama Bright’s rich! She won fifty thousand dollars!”
“Is that it?” Roseann stared at the check.
“No, that’s just what they took the picture with. For the newspaper. They said the real one’s coming in the mail.”
They all stood there looking at each other and the check for a moment and then Roseann said, “I read about it in the paper.”
“At the beach?” Bright said.
“Rupert went out to get a paper this morning and I was propped up in the bed reading it and there on the back page was this story about Governor Fitz Birdsong’s mother winning fifty thousand dollars! I near about fell out of the bed!” Roseann pointed at the cardboard check. “What are you going to do with that thing?”
“Mama Bright said I could have it,” Jimbo said.
“Nonsense,” Roseann said.
“Well, I’m gonna,” Jimbo said stubbornly.
“No, you’re not.”
“Yes, I am.”
“Whoa,” Bright interrupted. “Time out. Let’s just lay it down here by the steps and we can decide what to do with it later. Now let’s go in and get out of the heat. Rupert, you look a little ill this morning. Something in the water at the beach?”
“No,” he said, “I’m just fine. Really.”
Bright gave him a careful once-over. What is going on here?
“Look,” he said, brightening, “I think I’ll go get us some fried chicken for lunch. Save you having to fix anything. We passed a chicken place coming in.”
“Yes,” Roseann said. “That’s a good idea, Rupert. Why don’t you go get some chicken.”
“Fine,” Bright said. “When you get back, you can unload your things, since you’re staying for the big doings tomorrow. Fitz will be delighted.”
Roseann started to say something, stopped herself. She turned and headed up the steps, leaving them there in the yard. Rupert watched her go, disappearing into the house; then he looked down at Bright. Then it dawned on her. The man is embarrassed about something. “Go get the chicken,” Bright said gently. “And then maybe I can find something for you to fix. Maybe the washing machine will go clunk while you’re gone.”
“Ahhh,” he said with a grateful smile. “Yes.”
“Take your time. It won’t be lunchtime for another hour yet.”
He nodded. “I’ll do that.” He closed the door to the Winnebago and climbed into the driver’s seat and started the engine, and Bright and Jimbo stepped back to the edge of the driveway and watched him back out into Birdsong Boulevard. Across the street at the Dixie Vittles, Bert Bottoms was getting into his car, heading back to Columbus. Hank Foscoe and Doris Hawkins stood in the parking lot, seeing him off, and they all gave Bright a little wave.
Bright looked down at Jimbo. His forehead was scrunched in a frown. “I wish they’d stayed at the beach,” he said.
So do I, she thought, but she didn’t say it.
“They musta made the baby already,” Jimbo said. “Or maybe Rupert wore his schlong out.”
Bright cleared her throat noisily. “Well, howsomever.”
Jimbo looked up. “Yeah. Howsomever.”
Bright stood in the driveway for a moment, ruminating, wondering what on earth was going on here. Nothing to do, she thought, but go in the house and deal with Roseann. Then she heard Buster Putnam’s saw going in the workshop behind his house. The band saw, it sounded like. “Jimbo,” she said, “why don’t you go over to Buster’s house and see what he’s doing. I’ll come get you when it’s lunch-time.”
Jimbo brightened. “Okay.” He started toward Buster’s backyard. “And stay back from that machinery,” she called. He waved and disappeared around the corner of the house.
Now. Bright took a deep breath and climbed the steps.
So it was just the two of them there in the parlor, Roseann in the big wing-back chair by the secretary and Bright on the sofa. Now, she thought, let’s get to the bottom of things.
But instead of getting to the bottom of things, Roseann prattled,
and that too was puzzling. Roseann was not one who ever talked in circles, especially when that was the very thing she should do. Usually she went directly, nakedly to the point, bowling over everything in her path. Like me, Bright thought with a flash of insight. Like me at the council meeting last night, beating those old dolts over the head like I did. Roseann sat there now and talked on about the beach, and as she did, the mental image bubbled in Bright’s imagination: Roseann under the umbrella in a low chair with her diet Coke in one hand and romance novel in the other, clad in a one-piece bathing suit with a little pleated skirt affair about the hipline, a rubber thong sandal dangling from the end of one foot as her leg bobbed nervously, smelling of sunscreen and perfume, face scrunched, hand tugging idly at her hair. Bright cringed at the thought. And then on its heels, a pang of old remorse, old guilt. Roseann could do that to you, always could —make you want to take her by the shoulders and shake her, and then fold your arms around her, ashamed that she could make you so intensely dislike her. A mother could be allowed anger, but not dislike.
She resolved now to be gentle with Roseann. Whatever had brought her racing back from the beach, whatever held her now in the wing-back chair, so fiercely in check —Bright would deal with it gently.
She waited, and finally Roseann’s voice trailed off in the middle of a sentence and she looked away, out the window, as if she had exhausted herself with chatter. She studied the morning for a moment and then she looked down at her hands. Bright saw how tightly they gripped each other in her lap, a telltale. Finally Roseann said, “Mama, Rupert needs that money.”
Ah, so. How obtuse of me. “Rupert?”
“To start his business. I told you about it. He wants to quit the University and go out on his own. We’ve talked about it a lot while we’ve been at the beach.”
“He wants?”
“Yes.”
“And he wants the money.”
“Well, he didn’t want me to ask you.” She hesitated for a moment, and her hands rose of their own power, beginning to pull at her hair. Bright winced. She wanted to grab Roseann’s hands, still their plucking and tugging, wrap her arms around her daughter and restore the fragile calm she had brought with her from the beach. But she sat frozen, staring. Roseann rushed on, talking very fast now. “Fifty thousand dollars would get him started, Mama. He could borrow the rest and buy some tools and be all set up. It would be a loan, Mama. I don’t want … we don’t want you to give us the money. We’ll pay it back. With interest. What’s interest these days? Ten percent? We’ll pay it back at eleven percent. We’ll put it in writing.”