by Shelly Frome
You better believe it, she told herself now; then shook her head again but it did no good.
A shaft of moonlight spilled out, causing weird shapes to play across the windshield. The dank air inside the truck reeking more and more of stale liquor only added to her misery. Rolling down a window didn’t help matters as she took in the musty smell of rotting leaves and earthy decay.
As a chill breeze kicked in, she could have sworn she heard a rustling sound and something scurrying near by. All of which sent her rushing away, not even bothering to shut the truck door. She cut through the gap in the tree-line, circled back to the hospital, hurried past the information desk and handful of people milling around, and made her way down the corridors fast as she could till she located the cozy confines of the ER waiting room. There she sat in the corner, hunched over by the coffee-vending machine. It was all she could do to avoid the glances of an elderly, birdlike lady across from her who seemed dying to strike up a conversation.
About ten minutes passed, other folks coming and going which, eventually, left only the two of them. When the old lady couldn’t stand the silence a second longer, she chirped, “You know, hon, it’s liable to be hours afore you hear anything. Sometimes they can lose track of you altogether. I myself am living proof. Best you call your dad or mom or who’s ever looking out for you.”
Only the slightest pause before she added, “And, after all, this is a school night and tomorrow you’ll have to rise and shine. Trust me, hon, things are bound to look better in the morning. They always do.”
No longer able to wait her out, Alice took out the cell phone and said, “Good idea. I’ll go out by the front drive and see if I can pick up a signal.”
“That’s the ticket. Chances are, you see, I’ll finally get word and be gone and you’d be all by your lonesome.”
“Right, thanks, I’ll see ya.”
Traipsing back outside, she went over to the far edge of the drop-off zone and waited. Because of what the bird lady had just said, she couldn’t help thinking of a mom and dad who’d look out for her. And the girls back home, all snug in their pink-and-white bedrooms, supposed to be doing their homework but actually texting like crazy: “omg R U shr?... ok ok rly cool.” No worries, no thoughts in their little brains. Not ever at a loss out in the damp and cold.
Barely making up her mind, she flipped open the case, touched the tiny red phone key, waited for the blue bars, hit the speed-dial and was relieved there was no answer. Happy that the message she left was short and not at all wimpy or sappy like a scared little kid.
Returning to the warmth of the hospital, it took a while hanging by the emergency exit till she spotted the bird lady scurrying out of the waiting room, allowing Alice to have it all to herself. She slipped in unseen, scrunched up against the wall by the hum of the vending machine and figured she might get a little sleep before someone came and kicked her out. Having absolutely no idea what she was going to do. Worried that more hidden bits would appear giving her worse nightmares. Shuddering every now and then, she couldn’t help wondering what Josh would make of her call.
17.
Early that evening, Josh found himself in the café, seated directly under the fluorescents and dangling electric guitars, across the table from his uncle, with Ella to his right. Dewey kept busy scurrying back and forth from the kitchen, ladling out more helpings of his Mississippi gumbo. Unlike Dewey, Josh’s only recourse was to avoid eye contact and concentrate on whatever Dewey was dishing up. Every now and then he’d rub his eyes as a way of indicating he was too tired from the day’s work to keep up his end of the conversation. But mostly he counted on Ella to divert Billy’s attention and deflect, a knack she’d obviously perfected over the years.
By this point, each time Billy leaned his balding head forward, Ella would counter by calling over to Dewey as if she really gave a damn about his recipes. In turn, more frustrated and irritable than ever, Billy pressed Josh for some answers.
“Don’t give me that, fan-tan. There’s got to be some goddamn reason a nutcase like Darryl would drive all the way up here and grill my guys at the warehouse about you. ‘Is Billy under the gun, forced to play ball with an undercover agent? Or is it some excise tax thing? That Yankee’s got a smooth agitator attitude if ever I seen one. Tell me straight, boys, what is goin’ on here?’”
“So?” said Josh, finishing his salad. “You said he was a nutcase.”
“So, it’s what we call rocking the boat, ever hear of it? I’m not around, my guys don’t have a clue and the only one knows what brought nutty Darryl barging in here is you.”
Chiming in faster and louder this time, Ella hollered out, “I gotcha, Dewey. You started with a roux of flour and bacon grease and waited till it got real toasty and a peanut butter color, right?”
Dewey kept up his part by continuing to enter and exit, masking his swollen eye with a turn of his head, grumbling something unintelligible, clearing away some unused plates with a clatter and hobbling off.
At the same time, Josh offered yet another tired, “I don’t know, Billy. I just don’t know.”
Before Josh could take another bite of the spicy gumbo and Billy could press him further, Ella jostled Josh’s arm and said, “So what do you think? Am I right or am I right? I’d say he tossed in some fired okra this time. No, not tossed but sneaked it in along with some black-eyed peas and grits which, along with the sassafras powder, was a little overboard, don’t you think? Not to mention the cayenne peppers. I can see by the way you’re guzzling that ice water you fully agree.”
The look Billy gave her was not the usual grimace indicative of their longtime relationship. This look held for a good seven seconds before it boiled over. Scowling at both of them, Billy reached across the table and grabbed Josh’s wrist. “Cut the tap dance, I want some goddamn answers!”
Josh pulled away from him so hard, he knocked over Ella’s highball, spilling the drink all over the place settings.
The surprise on both Ella and Billy’s faces came from the fact that, as a rule, Josh never got angry or came close to losing his temper. Josh got annoyed from time to time but, as far as either of them knew, that was the extent of it.
Recovering, Josh said, “Look, Billy, the guy is obviously unbalanced. You should know. I was only with him a couple of minutes. He’s your customer.”
“That’s right,” Ella said, mopping up the rest of the spill with her napkin and retreating toward the bar for a refill. “Maybe you should lose some of the lowlifes you do business with and give it a rest.”
“That is not the goddamn point. I mean, what in hell’s going on? I got a runaway on my hands but not any more. Dumb-ass Darryl drops by hassling my guys. What am I running here?”
Ella shot back with, “Will you knock it off? One more time and we’ll dance to it.”
“But—”
“No ands and buts. Can’t you lighten up for crissake and change the subject?”
Giving Billy no chance to reply, Ella said, “So, as I was saying, the plump pieces of shrimp were perfect, and so was the crispy bacon bits and glazed ham. But when you mix in grits instead of rice and then throw in some—”
“It’s okay,” Josh said as she rejoined the two of them with her drink amply refreshed. “I’ll handle it.”
“Fine. But make it short. Screwing around with gumbo is one thing. But this so-called conversation is putting a crimp in my sweet nature.”
“As for Darryl,” Josh said, “I am not a factor. Unless you count my apathy toward an upcoming radio interview with some new governor-elect. Unless you hold my aversion to right-wing pundits as some idiotic excuse for barging up here.”
“Pundits?” said Ella, her mouth full of gumbo, feigning interest. “What’s that and how do you treat it?”
“Never mind,” Billy said, pushing his plate aside. “I don’t buy it, it makes no sense—none of it.”
“I was just minding my own business, all right?”
“When you shoul
d’ve been minding mine.”
“What is that supposed to mean?”
Pointing her fork at Billy’s face, Ella said, “If you don’t get off it, you can damn well forget about going back to my place tonight and anything else you got in mind.”
“Then just tell me this,” Billy said, lowering his stress level a notch. “Ain’t no way Dewey’s eye swells up on him and Darryl shows up spooked about our little rambling boy here. There is a goddamn cause. Not to mention little Alice, who’s so shot last night you’d think a semi ran over her; who is still flaked-out the next day and, by the time I get back here, has flown the coop and everybody’s acting like it’s just another Tuesday night.”
“Because,” Ella cut in, “that’s the way it goes and you are Billy being Billy. Paranoid. Spending every waking minute wondering when they’re going to finally catch up with you.”
“That has nothing to do with it.”
“That has everything to do with it.”
As they went at it, Josh took a few more bites of the hot and saucy gumbo, washed it down with another glass of ice water, cleared his plate and headed back to the cramped narrow kitchen.
But leaving the scene only exacerbated matters. With even his good eye tearing up, Dewey stopped him cold saying, “Maybe you get past Billy but you ain’t got past me. You keep away from them crazies. I don’t know what you done or said that brought that one to my door, or what that Alice done or said, but it’s way more’n I can bear.”
“But I don’t get it? I heard your troubles were in the Delta. And it was all a long time ago.”
“What you think? There’s some fine line between counties, some border guards or color codes and folks can’t pass through? Or yesterday is yesterday and somebody come along with a mop and pail and wiped the slate clean? We cool on this? We finally struck brain?”
“Hardly. You won’t talk to me, I don’t understand and I’m still expected to make amends?”
“Just leave me out of it, boy, and let me be.”
Josh left Dewey still having no idea what set Darryl off and/or what he himself may have inadvertently caused. He returned to the table and made his excuses to pack it in for the night. For his part, Billy reluctantly agreed to put his worries on the back burner for now. But he couldn’t help remarking that at least they were rid of Alice who was as close to a hex as you can get.
Walking Josh out to the front entrance, Ella said, “Look at it this way, kiddo. All together you dropped in at a homeless shelter and came across an orphan in a boxcar and a loony redneck and caused all kinds of static. Now that ought to do you for a while.”
Glancing at the gashed vintage photo and broken mirror behind the bar, Josh said, “Right, Ella, what a lark. I’ll just add it to my memoirs.”
. . .
Back up in the flat, Josh checked his cell phone again for some inkling of Alice’s whereabouts. This time there was a message, sent some time while Dewey was serving up his hodgepodge gumbo and Uncle Billy was losing his grip:
“If you’re passing by Cody’s for breakfast first thing, you might run into me . . . . compare notes. But hey, otherwise, who needs you?”
Slowly Josh took it in: “. . . compare notes, otherwise who needs you?” This coupled with Darryl’s loopy accusations, what Darryl did to Dewey and Dewey and Billy’s intimations vis-à-vis Josh’s culpability worked on him until he went over and retrieved the Alice journal. Snatching up a pen, he sat down on the worn leather couch and jotted down more pointers. But they led nowhere and he was much too tired to think straight.
He closed his eyes for a while and tried again, this time starting with Alice’s cry in her sleep and her torment over failing to blow the whistle. From this starting point, he could conceivably trace events back to what Alice had stumbled upon that was too awful to remember. But what did that have to do with what happened to Dewey years ago and sicced Darryl on him today? It was all too much.
After a time, he recalled something an editor once told him. There is never a straight line to a big story. It’s made up of hidden parts, things that don’t fit, elements that nag at you for no apparent reason. You have to find or stumble on “an access code.”
Reexamining his notes under the dull yellowish glare of the floor lamp and racking his brains only made him more frustrated and drowsy and resulted in a fitful sleep.
. . .
In the dream, Josh darted here and there through the fog and smoke in a vain attempt to get through. He told folks he was trying, really trying this time. He reminded them of the wayfaring strangers who hit the road and rode the rivers and rails and brought back the news. He mouthed the words of the old Woody Guthrie song: “‘If I had a bell, I’d ring it in the morning, I’d ring it in the evening all over this land . . . I’d ring out danger, I’d ring out a warning . . .’”
But the more he reached out, the more he sputtered. And the more he sputtered, the more everyone cut him off and walked away. Some of the people he knew, some he was close to, some he’d met briefly on his travels. All their reactions were basically the same: “What’s he babbling about? . . . big laidback guy . . . big misguided guy . . . in the wrong business, in the wrong place, at the wrong time. . . ”
Every now and then Darryl appeared and baited him. “They’re wrong. I know you of old, Yankee. You are an agitator. Born and bred. And that is God’s truth.”
Back and forth this went on. When the smoke finally cleared, the only one left was LuAnn. She put down her book. Her features were so soft they began to fade. Before she vanished altogether, he said, “Bob Dylan, remember? ‘Yonder stands your orphan, crying like a fire in the sun.’”
He detected a slight movement of her lips but was unable to read them before she was gone.
Moments later, he awoke with a start, switched on the floor lamp and groped around till he located the journal. He riffled through his notes until he came across something he’d jotted down only yesterday.
LuAnn says Alice kept skipping school, looking for a ticket out.
Letting that one simmer, he underscored it along with a few others. Vintage Christmas decanters of Old Taylor 86 circa the 1960s. Crossed red swords on a field of yellow--Montecristo. The Rebel Yell.
Glad to see that Billy hadn’t returned and was doubtless ensconced at Ella’s place, The Rebel Yell prompted Josh to highlight another telling note.
Darryl is convinced I’m a Yankee agitator.
Wide awake now, Josh recalled something else the editor told him. The greater the consequences, the more unobtrusive you had to be. You had to go at it obliquely: do your spade work without tipping your hand.
Which was all fine and dandy if only things would settle down so he could hang back and unobtrusively square things with everyone.
He knew better, of course. There was no way things were about to settle down. Still and all, only a fool kept playing the same hand hoping for a different result.
18.
Up at first light on a cloudy Wednesday, Josh showered and trimmed his hair and beard. As an afterthought, he shaved his beard completely off and located a button-down white shirt and rumpled tweed jacket he’d left behind.
All freshened up, he’d decided on an agenda. At the outset, he’d attempt to intercept Alice. Might even persuade her to ride along with him as he crossed over into Lafayette County to make his first deliveries. That way he could keep her from harm, learn of her latest misadventure and how it might possibly connect to whatever had set Darryl off. Whatever the outcome, he would take it from there.
That settled, while making sure he had everything he’d need, he unconsciously slipped his blues harp in his inside pocket.
The first glitch happened right off. In an attempt to cover his back, Billy had occupied his time yesterday afternoon hiding all the unmarked cartons and cases of vintage liquor deep in the recesses of the crumbling brick warehouse. Billy had also made sure that the cargo area of the old International box truck was already neatly packed and loaded; ea
ch carton with its distinctive brand and packaging clearly stamped and certified. The clipboards and invoices above board as well, along with exact routings to every remaining liquor store in the Oxford Ole-Miss vicinity, points south to Water Valley, west to Batesville at the edge of the Delta.
This all meant that after Darryl’s loopy interrogations, Billy was taking no chances with Josh and any more trouble he might bring. As the story went, the enclosed quadrangle was supposed to be condemned and set for demolition. Save for a slot through an alleyway, it was virtually out of sight and out of mind, tucked away in the wrong section of town. Totally gone and forgotten were the days when it was integral to a thriving market and regarded as a necessity for a number of the city’s army of cotton merchants as a storehouse of bales of finished cotton. Since that time, there was no way anyone was about to meet the new standards, provide adequate firefighting equipment and so on as the location succumbed to urban blight and the market completely changed. How Billy managed to sneak into the premises, stock-up for the illicit liquor trade, ward off imminent demolition and maintain his Blues Joint and Café as a front was anybody’s guess. And it was little wonder why Josh had exacerbated Billy’s perennial worries.
Which, by the same token, helped explain why Josh was having difficulty getting by Billy’s two flunky warehousemen Bud and Travis. Especially after rousting them out of bed this early. If they didn’t get off it, they’d keep Josh from beating the traffic, arriving at Cody’s right before LuAnn opened up and carrying on with his plan to intercept Alice.