Red Creek Waltz

by Gregory Kay

  Six months! Only six months to go!

  He couldn’t wait to get the hell out of here and off to Paris Island. He figured those Marine DI’s might be just as loud as his mother, but he’d bet his sorry hung-over ass they wouldn’t be nearly so damned shrill and long-winded.

  Scanning the empty beer cans, cigarette butts, and Mary Jane Allison’s tousled brown hair poking out from under the covers, he reckoned she’d really go ape-shit if she found out he'd just boned her self-righteous preacher's daughter under her own roof.

  It’s tempting to leave her there, but then I’ll have to listen to even more of it. I’ll finish dressing and sneak her out.

  He heard Jake’s truck pulling up in the driveway, and then he heard the unmistakable heavy footsteps inside the house and swore under his breath.

  Oh shit!

  Sylvia MacKenzie moved down her hall with a slow, inexorable dignity, much like a glacier and just as cold and hard. Above the white blouse buttoned to her neck, the face beneath her graying bun was set in a permanent bulldog scowl of disapproval at the world in general and her son in particular, and the thick-soled black shoes supporting her two hundred seventy-five pounds walked with confident authority. Her shoulders were held as squarely as her starched black calf-length skirt. Approaching her son’s door, she rapped it sharply with her index knuckle.

  “Joe Bob! Jake just pulled in; are you up?”

  Joe Bob, busily carrying his coat and rifle towards the window, called back, “Yes, Mom.”

  Mrs. MacKenzie paused as her sensitive nostrils caught a whiff of an acrid smell.

  “Do you smell something burning? Joe Bob! Are you smoking in there?”

  “No, Mom,” he mumbled around the cigarette hanging from his lips.

  “Did you clean your room last night like I told you? I’m not having you taking off with it still looking like a pigsty.

  Joe Bob glanced around with a grin; to be honest, he figured no self-respecting pig would be willing to set a mud- and shit-caked cloven hoof in here. Dirty clothes and odds and ends were scattered around until they formed a miniature mountain range on the carpet, and a pair of his dirty underwear dangled from the right antler of the buck’s head on his wall. As the icing on the cake, the latest issue of Playboy lay open on the bed.

  “Yes, Mom.”

  “Well, you let me check it before you leave.”

  She rattled the door only to find it locked, and, as he picked up his boots, her son called out, “Hang on a minute; I’m getting dressed!”

  As soon as he had opened the window and set his boots, rifle, and jacket outside on the front porch, he was satisfied that his own self-preservation was insured, but before he could quietly wake Mary up and get her dressed and the hell out of there, she stirred on her own. Sitting up and allowing the sheet to fall to her waist, unconsciously and indifferently putting her notably large teenage breasts on display, she rubbed her eyes and loudly complained, “What’s all that noise, Joe Bob? I can’t sleep!”

  Joe Bob’s eyes widened even while he made frantic shushing motions.

  Oh shit!

  On the other side of the door, Mrs. MacKenzie felt like saying much the same thing. She blinked in disbelief at what she had just heard, and in her own house.

  “Joe Bob! Who was that? Have you got a girl in there?”

  Her voice, loud to begin with, raised in both volume and pitch with every word, and seemed to fill the whole structure until it vibrated the walls. Furious, she jerked the knob again.

  “You open this door right now! Ooh, when I get hold of you...”

  Her words trailed off into a grunt as she gave up pulling and instead began throwing her substantial bulk against the panel, trying to break it down by sheer force in her rage.

  Inside the bedroom, as he watched the door bowing dangerously in its frame, Joe Bob knew he had finally done it this time. He had broken their unspoken truce by sneaking Mary in, not to mention the beer and cigs, and there would be hell to pay. Only one thing came to mind.

  Time to get the hell out of Dodge!

  “Sorry, Mary; gotta go!” Giving her a quick peck on the lips, he clamped his cap on his head and headed towards the window, then turned back, snatching the Playboy off the bed as an afterthought.

  He was halfway out the makeshift exit when the door finally gave way under the repeated impacts and flew open, sending splinters from the frame flying into the room. Mrs. MacKenzie stood there in speechless horror, looking at the mess, and at her preacher’s daughter sitting naked on her son’s bed.

  “Mary Jane Allison!”

  “Oh, hi, Mrs. MacKenzie,” Mary said with a smile, and with no more concern than if she had greeted the woman in in a church pew in her Sunday dress. Turning to look towards the window, she called out, “Bye, Joe Bob; call me!”

  Jake was pulling up in the MacKenzie driveway when he saw Joe Bob’s window open, and his friend setting his rifle and gear out onto the front porch through it. He grinned and shook his head.

  Never a dull moment!

  He felt sorry for Joe Bob – well, to be honest, sometimes he even felt sorry for his overbearing mother – but he couldn’t deny that the situation often got entertaining as hell. Rolling down his truck window despite the frosty, pre-dawn air, he could clearly hear the voices carrying through the open window, but once he heard Mary, he thought the same thing Joe Bob had.

  Oh shit!

  He stayed there in the truck, a not-exactly neutral observer; he was rooting for Joe Bob, of course, but he couldn’t directly interfere in a family situation either. So, he decided to just sit back, watch what happened, and enjoy every minute of it.

  Jake laughed out loud when Joe Bob’s climb out the window turned into a tumble as he flung himself the rest of the way out, accompanied by the crash inside when Mrs. MacKenzie forced the door. Quickly scooping up his coat, boots and rifle, the somewhat bent cigarette still dangling from his lips, Jake’s friend made a run for it, pounding down the frost-covered front steps in his socks.

  “You in a hurry there, Joe Bob?” he asked with intentional nonchalantness, and then saw the furious Mrs. MacKenzie appear in the window. Jake thought it would be a good day for the resurrection his own family's preacher was always talking about, because her voice was certainly loud enough to wake the dead.

  “You get back here this minute, young man! Do you hear me?”

  “Sorry, Mom, gotta run! See you this evening!” Joe Bob said back over his shoulder as he jerked open the passenger door, handing his rifle to Jake. “Here! Take this!”

  “You come here to me right now!”

  Jake stuck the weapon in the pickup's gun rack and waved, as though nothing out of the ordinary was going on.

  “Hey, Mrs. MacKenzie; how are you?”

  Meanwhile, Joe Bob had jammed the rest of his stuff between them and was frantically shouting, “Go! Go!”

  “Jake Estep, you hold it right there!”

  Jake pointed at his ear. “Sorry, Mrs. MacKenzie; can’t hear you over the truck. We gotta run; see you later.”

  Jake pressed the clutch and shifted into reverse, but his progress was halted when a waving Mary appeared in the window beside Joe Bob’s mother, wearing nothing but a smile and a sheet held with far too much casualness in front of her.

  “Good luck today, Joe Bob. Oh, hi, Jake!”

  “Hi, Mary,” he called back with a broad smile. “It’s good to see you.” And it was; she wasn't at all hard to look at.

  Seeing that her son was now ensconced in his friend’s truck and safely out of reach, Joe Bob’s scandalized mother turned her anger on a closer target.

  “Mary Jane Allison! You ought to be ashamed of yourself!” Grabbing the girl by the ear, she ordered, “Now get away from that window, march right over there, and get your clothes on right now!”

  “Ow! Hey!”

  Mrs. MacKenzie continued pulling, turning the girl to lead her away, which had the effect of facing Mary away from the window a
nd revealing her bare backside to the boys outside. Jake laughed loudly and wolf-whistled. Joe Bob’s mother realized what she had done, she drew back and slapped the offending bottom as hard as she could with the palm of her free hand.

  “Ouch! Let go, Mrs. MacKenzie! Stop! That hurts!”

  Still spanking, Mrs. MacKenzie led her out of sight, but definitely not out of hearing.

  “I said to go over there and get dressed! You just wait ‘til I tell your parents!”

  Through his laughter, Jake shook his head in sympathy as he backed out of the driveway and onto the street.

  “Poor Mary!”

  “Ah, she’ll be alright,” Joe Bob grunted around the bent cigarette as he slipped his left foot into its boot, then propped the lugged sole against the dashboard to lace it up. “Mom'll be way too embarrassed to ever tell her parents or anybody else. She’ll just make her sit there while she preaches at her for a few hours.”

  Jake snorted. “Like I said, poor Mary!”

  “Huh! Better her than me; I’ve listened to enough of that crap to last me a lifetime!”

  “I’m not surprised; you get into more shit.”

  Realizing his cigarette’s integrity hadn’t survived his escape, Joe Bob dropped it in the ashtray and shook out a fresh one. As he pressed the truck’s lighter in to activate it, he grinned irrepressibly and said, “Yeah, but it sure is fun.”

  “It ain’t gonna be any fun when you get back home! I think you've really done it this time, and I don’t reckon you’re ever gonna hear the end of this one.”

  Joe Bob lit the fresh cigarette and propped his other foot on the dash to work on his boot laces.

  “She’ll cool down after she yells herself out at Mary.” his tone held much less confidence than the words it carried, and face flushed with embarrassment as he struggled with what he was about to ask. Jake knew what was coming, but he said nothing, and pretended not to notice his friend’s discomfort.

  I wonder how long he’ll hold out.

  About a minute and a half, it turned out.

  “Hey, Jake? Any chance I could stay at your place tonight? I mean...you know, it’s not like we’re going to have that many more chances.”

  Both of them sobered a little at that truth, and when Jake teased him about Mrs. Mackenzie not being there, it was less to rag his friend and more an attempt to take their minds off what he had just said. Finally, Joe Bob threw up his hands.

  “Hell, she can’t stay mad at me too long. Six months, and I’m the hell out of here and off to sunny South Carolina.”

  “I know,” Jake said dryly, and with so little inflection his friend almost missed it, “you always were a dumb-ass.”

  “Well, you know...” Suddenly Joe Bob realized what his friend had just said, and yelled in pretended outrage. “Dumb-ass? Dumb-ass! I’ll give you dumb-ass, you little prick!”

  Throwing himself on top of Jake, Joe Bob began poking and tickling, sending the truck swerving all over the road.

  “Hey, quit!” Jake shouted through his laughter, fighting to get his buddy off him with one hand while trying to handle the wheel with the other. “Get off me, you dumb-ass! I’m trying to drive!”

  “Damn it, I’ll dumb-ass you!”

  Struggling and howling with mirth, they rolled down the mountain road in the pre-dawn darkness, the bad mood finally broken, at least for the moment.

  Chapter 5

  Larry’s 24-7 Marathon station was the only store in Morgan’s Knob; if you wanted something a little more substantial or a little less costly than the selection the large convenience store had to offer, your only other choice was the Walmart over at Wolf Run, eighteen miles away. As a result, most people in the Knob did their everyday shopping at the place, so it turned a good trade for a small town. That, plus the men working rotating shifts for the area’s main employers – the coal mines and the sawmill – stopping by before and after work, justified it remaining open 24-7, just like the name said. People could come in any time of day or night and fill up their vehicles with gas or their bellies with subs from the deli and junk food from the shelves.

  The glass entrance door swung open, and Jake and Joe Bob sauntered in.

  “But sir,” Joe Bob was saying, “most of the men just ride her into town!”

  Jake shook his head at the tired old joke.

  “You’re a sick man – sick-sick-sick!”

  “Oh yeah? Well you laughed!”

  “I did not; that was your imagination.”

  “Bullshit!”

  “Watch your language, dumb-ass; we’re in public.”

  “Public? Shoot, the only one here is Carol, and she ain’t public. Are you Carol?”

  The fat, middle-aged clerk behind the counter sighed as she glared at him through her thick glasses.

  “Am I going to have to throw you out of here again, Joe Bob?”

  The object of her threat promptly leaned his elbows on the counter and asked with exaggerated wistfulness, “Is that an offer? I like strong women.”

  “You like any woman, you little pervert!”

  “Looks like she’s got you pegged,” Jake quipped before saying, “Hey, Carol, how are you doing this morning?”

  “I was doing just fine until you brought this walking hormone in here. How about yourself?”

  Joe Bob promptly made a face and stuck his tongue out at her as Jake said, “Great. Has Scott made it in yet?”

  She rolled her eyes skyward.

  “Oh yeah; he’s been here for almost an hour now.” She nodded toward the back of the store, near the soda and beer coolers that took up an entire wall. “He’s over there; he and Becky are having another one of their little...chats.”

  Joe Bob muttered, “Oh, God,” and Jake shook his head and blew out his breath in disgust.

  “Let me guess; she’s the one doing the chatting, and he’s standing there bobbing his head up and down like one of those little dolls you set on your dashboard?”

  “Yes, Becky.” Joe Bob imitated the object in question, bobbing his head rapidly with a wide-eyed look on his face while wringing his hands together. “Yes, Becky.”

  Carol nodded again.

  “Yep, that’s about the size of it.”

  “Is he in trouble again?” Jake asked, already knowing the answer, and the clerk confirmed it.

  “Is he ever out of it?”

  “Good point.” Turning to Joe Bob, he said, “Come on; we’d better go rescue our buddy.”

  “I don’t know, man; it could be dangerous. I hear she bites.”

  “Hey, you want to be a Marine, here’s your first combat mission. Let’s go, Rambo.”

  Turning to leave, he looked back and saw Joe Bob leaning on the counter once more, smiling lasciviously at Carol.

  “So, where are we going later?”

  “You’re going to be going to the hospital if you don’t leave me alone.”

  “You’re so forceful!”

  Grabbing him by the arm, Jake dragged him along towards the back of the store, while reflecting on the really disturbing part of the whole thing, which was that Joe Bob actually would have nailed her if she ever gave him a chance. He was just that way.

  “Come on, Casanova.”

  At six foot-one and two hundred-ten pounds, Scott Donald was the largest of the three friends, both in height and mass, but now he stood there, looking for all the world like a cowardly Saint Bernard confronted by a tiny but fierce dark-haired terrier, trying to get a word in edge-ways, while the foot shorter Becky laid things out for him. He had determined to stand up to his fiancée again, but, like every other time he’d tried, it just didn’t seem to work. He’d rehearse his words and comebacks for hours, and then, once she started in on him, he’d forget them all, and just stand there nodding his round blond head...

  It’s not like I don’t have the guts to say them or anything...I just don’t want to hurt her. I love her.

  “But you told me it was my decision.” He knew his voice was coming out i
n a whine, but he couldn’t seem to stop himself. He never could when he was with her, and lately it had been worse, because he couldn't get any sleep because of the girl who came to him at night, who did things Becky never even thought of...

  Oh shit, I can't let on about those dreams! She'd freak if she found out!

  Cocking her fists on her slender hips and looking up at him, she didn’t let up.

  “Yes I did, and I thought you’d be smart enough to make the right one!”

  Becky shook her head in disgust. Scott just couldn’t seem to get it through his thick skull that they were getting married, and his world revolved around her now.

  He’s so dense sometimes, it’s a wonder I don’t have to tie his shoes for him!

  Scott blushed all the way out to his ears at the thought of having his intelligence questioned in public.

  “Don’t talk to me like I’m stupid, Becky.”

  “Then don’t act like it!” she snapped.

  Then his day promptly got worse; unbeknown to Becky, a broadly smiling Joe Bob stepped up behind her and winked over her head at Scott. He spotted Jake too, farther away on the other side of the store, quickly and efficiently grabbing snacks and pouring cups of coffee, and he glanced at Scott with a tight smile on his face he couldn’t quite suppress. Scott knew them well enough to know they were up to something, and whatever that something was, he knew for certain Becky was definitely not going to like it.

  Oh, please, don’t upset her anymore, or I’ll never hear the end of it!

  He saw Joe Bob’s expression broaden, and knew that he recognized Scott's silent plea, and had a sinking feeling like a kick in the gut that he was going to do just the opposite.

  “Look, honey,” he said, doing his best to remain calm, both in front of her and his friends, “we’re just going hunting over on Little Back Mountain. We’ll be back tonight.”