American Ghost

by Janis Owens

  At Jolie’s nod, Lena shrugged. “Then they started in on you—about how high-and-mighty you thought you were—going to college, giving it up to the first man who threw his hat in the ring. And, God, it made Carl mad. He was about to come out of that boat. But it was still just a goof, really, Travis and him calling back and forth, ragging each other like they always did. Then one of them, the little one, with the spotter, he must have saw something downstream because he shined it down there, said, ‘Now, what do we got here?’”

  Lena paused, her nose beet red from the cold, though her small face was still blank with disbelief, her voice slightly lower as she dug deeper in the memory. “And it was so crazy, Jol—it happened so quick. I mean, one minute I was sitting there telling Carl to let it go, that they were just drunk, and then Travis—he put his rifle to his shoulder and boom—he took a shot. I didn’t know what was going on, about jumped out of my skin, and Carl—he jumped out of the boat, right into the river, after Travis. He was only maybe three feet from the bank, but the water was so high, so fast, it was like jumping into white water. Travis took off like a rabbit, but Bill helped me drag Carl out—close to the dock, about froze to death. That’s where we found Sam, just up the path—never would have seen him, but he’d dropped his flashlight and it was still on.”

  Lena lowered her voice even further, to a bare whisper. “And even then, we didn’t think it was that bad, thought he’d nicked him on purpose, as a goof. But the bleeding—it wouldn’t stop. It got on everything—our coats, the boat. We couldn’t tell where he was shot.”

  Even as she spoke, the pontoon appeared at the bend, the sound of the motor displaced by some trick of the wind so that they could see it before they heard it. Carl was steering, Sam aside, talking to him, their faces averted. Lena’s face registered relief, and she came immediately to her feet. “Thank God,” she breathed, though Jolie wasn’t half as sanguine.

  She came to her feet, too, but paid no attention to the pontoon, gripping Lena’s lapels and asking to her face, “Why wouldn’t you tell, Lena? You lied to me.”

  Lena seemed emboldened by the return of the menfolk and pulled away with scarce patience. “Tell who? My dad, who had to live out here? Or that judge? Or that idiot deputy? They were already trying to pin it on Carl or your daddy or poor old Ott—the crazy old Hoyt brothers, out on another killing. And he was okay. The doctors—they got him in time,” Lena insisted. “He was fine.”

  “He almost died,” Jolie cried, shock giving way to a cold rage that made her voice tremble.

  Lena wouldn’t budge. “So did Carl— and so did I, trying to get him in the boat—and we didn’t have nothing to do with it, Jol! It wasn’t our fault he came out here lying and digging up all that nasty crap and got everybody so pissed.”

  “Then why didn’t you tell me, Lena? Why didn’t you and Carl just come in that night and say, ‘Hey, Jol, your boyfriend got shot, take care of it’?”

  “Because we loved you,” Lena answered with equal passion, “and you’re too Hoyt,” she said, spitting out the name like an expletive. “You can’t let anything go. You still can’t, till this day. Look at us,” Lena cried. “Here we are, still talking about it! Twelve years and we’re still talking!”

  Jolie was conscious of the fast approach of the pontoon and determined to leave before Sam arrived. She yanked up her shoes and told Lena, “That’s because it’s not over.”

  Lena yelled at her back, as did Carl, and Sam, who were yards away from docking. Jolie had no intention of waiting around for yet another round of denial and explanation. She felt equally defeated by all of them and went to her car as quickly as her idiot heels would permit, wishing she had hurled them in the river when she had the chance.

  She was tired, freezing, flat-haired, and furious and would have made a clean getaway if she’d been barefoot. Sam caught her at the car, windblown and pink-cheeked, but relatively warm in his coat. He didn’t bother to try to stand and argue, but slammed himself in the passenger seat.

  “That’s why I came over,” he said, “to make sure you know about Travis. Carl was supposed to tell you, God, six years ago. Shit, I knew you’d be pissed.”

  Jolie was too livid to answer and too tired to get into another round with anyone. She felt as if she’d gone ten rounds with Joe Louis and just concentrated on getting to town, so glacially silent that Sam had no choice but to continue his defense in that querulous voice, as if she had argued.

  “And I wouldn’t be too quick to point a finger about keeping secrets from the rest of the class if I was you. You were MIA, missing in goddamn action. All those weeks I was hooked to an IV in Miami—did you ever think about doing something really modern and outré like actually picking up the phone and calling?”

  She was finally provoked enough to answer, without turning, her eyes on the flying ribbon of highway. “No. I never did.”

  The reply was insulting in its brevity, its shameless honesty; so much that Sam didn’t speak for a moment, but watched her across the seat with less fury than his old curiosity as they hurled along the highway.

  He had long ago lost his fascination with the Hoyts, and their contradictions, but was, finally, curious enough to ask, “Why not?”

  He asked it honestly, without rancor, and inadvertently resurrected the Jolie of the Campground, the Queen of the Paradox: pale and dark, devout and savage, headstrong but pliable as a child. She offered him a mere glance as she confessed, “Because I loved you. And I did everything I could, to protect you, and I couldn’t.”

  The candor in her voice was inarguable, so much that Sam’s jaw softened. “From what?”

  She offered nothing but an angry shake of the head and a sharp tap of her knuckles on the side window, indicating the passing woods that grew close to the highway, flat with a tropic excess in the palmetto and vine-wrapped palms.

  “From Hendrix”—he pressed—“or your idiot cousin? Because that little shit’ll never step a foot in Florida again.”

  He said it with great confidence, but Jolie was hardly convinced, provoked enough to snap, “You don’t know that. You took a pass. You’re as bad as Lena. You’re worse than Lena.”

  “I took nothing. Shit, Jol, I work for DCF. D’you think I don’t know how to prosecute a felony? When you get to town, call the lead detective—the old guy from Hendrix, who used to be married to someone.”

  “Jeb Cooke?” she asked, incredulous, as she still occasionally saw Jeb around town and never a word had he spoken of the matter.

  “Yeah, Cooke. He works for the highway patrol. Was happy to hear it, but it was too late. The statute of limitations had expired. Carl thought it was six years. It was three, for assault with a deadly weapon. Shelton concurred.”

  “Shelton? Who’s Shelton?”

  “My brother,” Sam said as the exurbs of Cleary began to pass. “He’s a lawyer, in Coral Springs, does real estate—closings, shit like that.”

  The mildness of the answer brought a truly crazy cast to Jolie’s eyes. “You went to a real estate lawyer? With attempted murder?”

  Sam’s expression was equally crazy, not least because she hadn’t slowed for city traffic, but continued to sail along, darting between cars. “Will you slow down? You’re gonna kill us both. And who am I? J. Paul Getty? You think I have a fleet of lawyers on speed dial, waiting on my calls? Shelton wanted to send me to a civil rights lawyer, but, shit, Jol—it wasn’t racial. It was tribal,” he proclaimed with his old anthropologist confidence. “It was more about me poaching one of their women than some racial shit. It was a lot of things,” he corrected at her noise of disbelief as she slowed for downtown. “I shouldn’t have walked into such a thing in a lie—should have come clean that first night I saw you. And I shouldn’t have fucked you—you were too young and your father trusted me and it was exploitive,” he continued, on a fast, soul-bearing little roll that Jolie brought to a halt.

  “Yeah, well, that’s bullshit,” she said as she braked in front of her ho
use to let him out. “Minimalizing and rationalizing—we know it well, in old Hendrix town.” She pinned him with a final, deadly question: “Does your father know? That you let Travis walk?”

  Sam was finally squashed at that and told her plainly, “If you tell my father, I’ll hang myself. So will Shelton.”

  “Good. I’ll buy the rope,” she said, so sincerely that Sam looked at her in amazement.

  “Well, God, Jol, I don’t know why you’re so pissed. I’m the one who got shot in the back and left for dead.”

  “Oh, no, you weren’t. It was my back, too, Sam, and your father’s, and he’s right—you can’t just let them walk. You let them walk, and they’ll just do it again, to someone else. You got to keep your thumb on their head, your boot on their neck, or they’ll take over the god damn world.”

  She was so furious her chest was heaving, though Sam seemed untouched by her fury, more curious than defensive. He watched her a moment, brow furrowed, then unfastened his seat belt and offered a final bit of Sam Wisdom. “Beware of collective guilt. It’s a seductive notion. But it is a lie.”

  He got out and shut the door with no kick, no complaint, just a resignation that struck Jolie as a sort of abandonment. She drove to City Hall with a spate of tears rolling down her cheeks—not for Henry Kite or Sam or the brothers Frazier and their doomed search, but for herself, Jolie Hoyt. Because she was tired and cold and lonely as hell, and her father’s scribbled old notebooks were gone and she had forgotten about them, living the high life in town, planting trees and peeling paint and working so hard to preserve a history that was not even her own. What was she so scared of, anyway? That she’d lose her job? End up like her Big Mama, ironing for the rich folk? How would that be any worse than what she was doing now, wrestling that miserable commission into shape every day of her life?

  Hell, she was ironing for the rich folk, she thought as she turned into the packed parking lot, where the line of political demarcation was clearly drawn, the cars of the members of the Historical Committee parked in one direction—ancient Mercedeses, Volvos, and a Seville or two—and those of the Chamber of Commerce members in the other—Lexus, Lexus, Lexus, all brand-new. She went in the back door through the kitchen to the long, raftered hall that smelled of charred oak and oil heat, and decades of public smoking, long outlawed, but once so furiously practiced that the pine floors seemed to have absorbed a layer of Lucky Strike.

  The commission members were already seated on a raised dais at the front of the room, so physically similar as to appear to be members of the same well-fed tribe. Their ages varied by forty years, but they were all dressed in pressed khaki and Van Heusen dress shirts, monotone ties, and Red Wing boots—a workingman’s uniform designed to designate them as local, prosperous, and up-and-coming.

  Tad was at the sound board, testing the equipment, Faye at his side, the MAYOR folder clutched in her hand, checking her watch. “Thank God,” she said when she saw Jolie. “Juddy was about to start without you.”

  Juddy Hewitt was a bulked-up, crew-cut former ’Nole linebacker. The youngest commissioner on the bench, and lately pro tem, he was only slightly less impatient than Jolie and always wanting to get the show on the road. When he saw her pause to speak with Faye, he had the temerity to emit a sharp whistle in her direction, as if she were an errant cow who’d gone through the wrong gate.

  Jolie was not in the mood to be whistled at and murmured darkly as she took her folder, “Will somebody tell that Cracker I’m not one of his hunting dogs?”

  Faye was used to Jolie’s moods and just sent her up to her seat. She was conscious of her stringy hair and soggy suit. Jolie apologized for her ragged appearance as she took her place in the middle of the long wooden bar that served as the commissioners’ desk and, with no more discussion, called the meeting to order. As predicted, a lion’s share of the night’s agenda was concerned with the cell tower. Only Jolie and a handful of beautification committee members were at all concerned with the possibility of their quaint little downtown’s being afflicted with a tall and blinking red monster of a tower. The cell company had obviously been doing their homework with the commissioners, who would likely have pressed the matter to a premature vote if Hugh hadn’t appeared at seven thirty, just in the nick of time.

  He came in quietly, with Georgia Anderson on his arm, one of the county’s grande dames, whose father had actually built the Cleary Hotel, back in ’22. The place had changed hands many times since, but the Andersons still had a few holdings around town and still had enough of a sniff of prosperity and power that the hustlers on the commission paid heed when she took the podium and pleaded for caution before her father’s masterpiece was desecrated. When she left the microphone, Jolie immediately suggested a workshop before the matter was voted on, which was quickly seconded and carried, which was all she wanted—a little more time for the old Historic and Beautification Board to regroup to battle the forces of modern evil and urban blight.

  She appreciated Hugh’s coming to her rescue and met his eye a moment before he left—or would have, if he would have consented. But he was obviously still furious and only there to squash the cell tower, and left as unexpectedly as he had appeared.

  Jolie went about refereeing the rest of the meeting, which was relatively uneventful, as the cell-tower controversy was plainly their new municipal pain in the ass and would be for many months to come, the cell-phone people threatening them mightily with all manner of drawn-out lawsuits and legal challenges. Jolie took it all in stride, and by seven o’clock they were on to New Business, with Tad briefly taking the podium to put in a word about a coming change in cable regulations that didn’t require a vote. There were no discussions or questions on the matter, the meeting plainly at an end, aside from the small matter of public comments, at the end of the agenda, when citizens could stand and air grievances.

  A few people lined up, for or against the tower, mostly friends of Jolie’s from the old Garden Club set. Their comments were tart, precise, and quickly done, and the room was relaxing with the relief that comes toward the end of any fractious meeting when the double doors at the back opened, and two latecomers unexpectedly appeared. Everyone, even Faye and Tad, turned to give them a second glance, as they were an odd mix: a snappily dressed black man in a fancy coat, and another black man, with a cane and a look of squinting interest. There was a small fear that they were there to weigh in on the cell tower and would pin everyone in for another round of questions, but they seemed to have nothing to do with the business at hand and took seats quietly in the back row.

  After a little more eyeballing and neck-stretching, the audience returned their attention to the mayor, who should have been bringing them down the home stretch, but seemed distracted by the newcomers. She let the final speaker yammer on far too long about the high cost of his new cell phone, which had nothing to do with anything.

  The mayor just sat there, slumped in her wilted suit, her face pale and thoughtful, till he finished yammering. She finally bestirred herself and made the call for unfinished business, which this time of night shouldn’t have been much. It was late and everyone was ready to leave, an obvious fact that only the mayor didn’t seem to grasp. While the rest of the commission buttoned coats and shuffled paper, she went to the great trouble of explaining what everyone already knew: that this was a free forum, that any one could make a citizen’s comment and have it entered into public record—any single thing concerning the city of Cleary, no matter how forgotten or historical.

  She ignored the air of disgruntlement from the commission at what sounded like a clear invitation to the wing nuts to take the floor. Juddy, who sat to her immediate left, was bold (and desperate) enough to lean out of the range of the mike and whisper, “What is this, Jol? A goddamn altar call? I have to be at work at five tomorrow morning.”

  Jolie withered him with a glance, then sat there, gavel in hand, sweating them out, till to the room’s great, groaning horror, one of the latecomers came quietly
to his feet: the pimp in the flashy coat. He made his way to the microphone with great presence, his race and fur collar having an almost visible effect on the older commissioners, who hated being held captive by the kooks and the pimps and the goddamned minorities, who had by God taken over city politics and were always yammering for their share of the pie.

  These commissioners sent many dark looks down the table at the mayor, whose full attention was on the podium, where the pimp had to stoop a little to speak. “Well, I’m not a citizen of Cleary, but I do have a little city bidnis to take care of while I’m here. I’m Hollis Frazier from Memphis, Tennessee,” he began, introducing himself as he had to Sam and Jolie. He even introduced the other old man—his brother, he said, who made no gesture, just sat there, his cane between his knees, listening. The impatience in the room was increasingly palpable, the commissioners at the far ends of the table leaning forward to see what the hell the mayor was thinking, drawing out an out-of-town crank when God knew they had plenty enough to deal with right in their backyard.

  There was a world of grimacing, grunting, and many exhalations of breath till Hollis got to the heart of his request about the return of his father’s fingers with the same simplicity he’d used before, holding up his own hand to demonstrate which fingers (“middle ’ens, right hand”).

  The bizarre leap from cell tower to severed fingers made everyone, aside from the outright dozers (there were always one or two), spring to life with new interest, if politely concealed. All along the rows, everyone—black, white, cell reps, and city activists—muttered, murmured, and mouthed among themselves. They gaped at Hollis Frazier with expressions that varied from incredulous surprise to blank astonishment when he offered the reward: $10,000, cash.

  Jolie grimaced at the public offer in a rare display of emotion (if the wing nuts weren’t out by now, they would be shortly). But it was too late to argue, and when he was done, she opened the floor for question and discussion. This was usually not such a bother at this time of night, everyone ready to be done with it and get home. The citizenry uttered not so much as a peep, their faces curious but undecided, as if they were not quite decided if this was an April Fools’ prank, or the ghost of Henry Kite raising his head at last. They were prepared to go home and sleep on it and call a few dozen relatives and talk about it in the morning—all but Commissioner Wynn. A local auto-parts salesman, he had a keen ear for local nuance and recognized a political windfall when he saw one.