by Joan Hess
The secretary’s tits shrank until they resembled the deflated bags on Miss Una’s chest. Her firm buttocks spread until they were as wide as Johnna Mae Nookim’s rear end. Her bright eyes turned to Sherman Oliver’s vaguely unfocused gape. The glare of the television lights went black.
He could expose the crime, but he was likely to get no more than a pat on the head and a notation in his file. The loan company would get his car. There was a second option. The perpetrator had been stashing away money for a very long time. Perhaps it could be shared—with the one person who knew exactly what was going on and was willing to stay quiet as long as he could drive his Mercedes and dress well.
It wouldn’t do to be overly demanding. But it would do quite well to be firm about it, to make it clear that the embezzlement would remain a secret only as long as he was willing to keep his mouth shut. Once he’d decided he would prefer weekly payments, Brandon picked up a pen and began to compose a letter. It was definitely not the sort one dictated to a secretary.
5
The Closed sign stayed on the door of Ruby Bee’s Bar and Grill for five days straight. In the beginning, a few of the good ol’ boys strolled in just like always, and promptly found themselves right back in the parking lot, their ears stinging and their faces hotter than a bushel of red beets. Not one of them tried it twice.
Which isn’t to say all was dark and empty within the hallowed confines. Not by a long shot. All sorts of activity seemed to emanate from the pink building, causing the good ol’ boys to scratch their heads and wonder what the hell was goin’ on and how they were supposed to have a beer and a plate lunch if the bar was closed, God damn it.
Carolyn McCoy-Grunders’s car stayed parked by the door for the most part, although at midnight or so it might be seen around back in front of unit 2. Dahlia O’Neill waddled across the road to the Kwik-Screw every now and then, clutching a shopping list that included such odd things as peanut butter and masking tape. Ruby Bee came and went, as did Estelle (when she could get away from the demands of the beauty parlor). On the second day, Elsie McMay was spotted marching through the door, along with Joyce Lambertino, whose husband Larry Joe was the shop teacher at the high school and also a member of the town council. But when he was asked what was going on, he could only shrug and mumble something about how he and Joyce weren’t exactly talking to each other these days. Or nights, for that matter.
Johnna Mae Nookim was rumored to be in there too. The two hippie women from the Emporium started coming by in the evenings. Earl Buchanon’s wife, a.k.a. Kevin Buchanon’s mother, may have been there, but when anybody tried to ask him if she was, Earl was meaner than a snake with a knot in its tail. Millicent McIlhaney and Edwina Spitz were seen at the door, along with Millicent’s daughter Darla Jean, who reputedly looked a little pissed about being dragged along. By the third day, all sorts of mothers, daughters, wives, widows, and spinsters were showing up at various hours. It was starting to look as though half the womenfolk of Maggody were spending a goodly amount of time there—and they were refusing to say one word about what they were doing.
Lottie Estes told Miss Una that, in her opinion, whatever was going on in there was the work of Satan hisself. Miss Una felt it prudent to agree, although she wasn’t real sure Lottie wasn’t experiencing those hot flashes again, when she went on and on about how every man in the county was scheming to rape her. Miss Una always found that pretty darn difficult to believe.
Mrs. Jim Bob was obliged to stop by the Kwik-Screw several times a day to pick up a few things, but no matter how long she stood by the cash register staring across the road, she sure couldn’t figure out what they were up to in there. She went so far as to ask Brother Verber if he thought they might be forming a coven to practice witchcraft and sacrifice goats and dance around buck naked. He was so disturbed by the suggestion that he thudded to his knees like a load of topsoil and offered a prayer right then and there for the salvation of any souls in need of it at the moment or in the future while they were dancing. Mrs. Jim Bob thought he was being a might melodramatic over what she’d meant to be an idle question, but she didn’t say anything and left as quick as she could.
The chief of police was aware of parts of the above, since she was being bombarded with questions about the situation. The PD could have used a revolving door those days, and the linoleum would never be the same. And said person had, not one tiny theory about it.
Not that it was keeping me awake at night, mind you. In that Ruby Bee’s was the sole nightspot in town, there wasn’t much to do except sleep. I’d run by Sherman Oliver’s the morning after the picket sign incident, and he’d assured me that he wasn’t about to file a complaint. We smiled, shook hands, and left it at that. I called Johnna Mae to tell her the news, and Putter said he’d give her the message. The dreadful tragedy was thus averted, at least for the time being.
I will admit I was wondering about this mysterious gathering, however, and growing increasingly concerned about my nutritional requirements. Canned soup is fine in a pinch, but it doesn’t hold a candle to pork chops and cobbler. And cool beer on a sizzling afternoon, even if one had to listen to witty dialogue about hawg prices at the sale barn and the inconvenience of having to go all the dadburned way to the co-op in Starley City to get layer grit (don’t ask; it has something to do with chickens and that’s all I know).
Therefore, out of nothing more than pure and unadulterated selfishness, I went so far as to wave down Kevin Buchanon one afternoon when he peddled by the PD on his bicycle. “How’s it going at the bank?” I asked with incredible slyness, ready to manipulate the conversation at will.
“How’s what going?”
“Your job, Kevin,” I said patiently. “You do still work at the bank, don’t you?”
“Yeah, sure, I still work at the bank. It’s just great, Arly. How’re things going with you?”
“Just great. Have you popped the question to Dahlia yet?”
“What question would that be?” he said, his Adam’s apple bobbing like a salmon fighting its way upstream. “Like, how’s it going at the bank or something like that? Dahlia doesn’t work at the bank, you know. She’s a barmaid at Ruby Bee’s. She has been for a long time, and I don’t recollect she ever worked at the bank.”
I took a deep breath and reminded myself that my goal was information. “I know that. What I wanted to know is if you’d asked Dahlia if she wanted to get married.”
He gave me the look of a faithful old hound that’d just been kicked across the room. His eyes began to water. In a ragged voice, he said, “I mentioned something to her about it, but do you know what she said?”
“I don’t suppose she shrieked with joy.”
“She said—” He broke off to wipe his nose on his sleeve. “She said that marriage was like being chained up in a dungeon. She said she wasn’t about to get herself chained up like that because she was a human being and ought to be treated like a man. I asked her why she wanted to be treated like a man, in that she ain’t one to begin with and never was, and she just gave me a real mean look and walked off. I like to have cried.”
“Oh,” I murmured, touched by his emotionalism if not his eloquence. “Does this have something to do with whatever is happening at Ruby Bee’s the last few days?”
“What’s happening at Ruby Bee’s?”
“That’s what I was hoping you could tell me. I thought Dahlia might have given you a hint or let something drop.”
He screwed up his face while he tried to think. I could see it was a painful and unfamiliar process, and I ordered myself not to rush him. After what must have been five minutes, his face eased and he gave me a grin. “Now I remember what she said. She said they was mad about something and were going to turn themselves into men, or something like that. I still don’t understand why Dahlia keeps harping about being a man. She’s the finest figure of a woman what ever walked the earth. Her cheeks are like peaches and her lips are like cherry cough drops. She’s so soft and mars
hmallowy sweet I could just gaze at her all day long.” He sniffled at the image, and pretty soon we were back to watery eyes, a drippy nose, and noisy gulps.
You may have gotten the wrong impression from Kevin’s ravings. Dahlia weighs three hundred pounds, at the least. Her cheeks may be the color of peaches, but they’re the size of watermelons. The cough drops pass through her lips, along with everything else she can find. She has chins too numerous to count and massive breasts that sway back and forth like a pair of tire swings when she walks. Her expression is that of a bewildered bovine, and she’s about as witty as her boyfriend. Or ex-boyfriend, I supposed.
“So what should I do, Arly?” Kevin said piteously.
“Beats me. I would imagine that she’ll get over whatever’s bugging her at the moment and take you back. I wouldn’t take the treat-me-like-a-man thing too literally and offer her a chaw of tobacco or anything. Just try to listen to her and nod when you don’t understand her.”
“Gee, Arly, do you really think she’ll take me back? What about marriage being chains in a dungeon? I thought we could live in a mobile home. I don’t reckon there are any dungeons around these parts anyhow. I wasn’t going to make her wear chains, unless they was those nice yellow gold ones with a locket or a pearl.”
I considered trying to explain the philosophy of feminist thought to Kevin Buchanon while standing in hundred-degree heat on the edge of the highway. We could be there for days, if not weeks. Months. It occurred to me that I was already brainbaked to toy with the idea of explaining anything to Kevin Buchanon, much less a concept or an abstraction.
“Buy her one of those gold chains with a heart-shaped locket,” I said. “Maybe that’ll win her back. What about your mother, Kevin? Has she said anything about what’s happening at Ruby Bee’s?”
“Gosh, no. She hasn’t said more than three words all week, and none of them was very nice. This morning she was ironing me a shirt when Pa yelled down at her to get his breakfast on the table. She told him to cook his own damn breakfast. Pa liked to have choked himself on his suspenders; he’s never cooked in his whole entire life. He told Ma that that’s why he got married, so he’d have a wife to cook and keep house. Ma’s voice got colder than a well digger’s ass and she told him to take his bacon and stuff it where the sun don’t shine. I don’t think I’ve ever seen Pa quite so mad,” Kevin concluded in an awed tone. “Or Ma, neither.”
“Must have been real entertaining,” I said. Kevin pedaled away and I went back into the PD to ponder all that. It was obvious that Carolyn McCoy-Grunders, the woman from WAACO, was stirring up the distaff side of the community. They were hiding out in the bar while they plotted whatever it was they were plotting, and I had an icy feeling in my stomach that it was going to be a doozy of a plot.
Not that I had any objections to a little enlightenment in this last bastion of the dark ages. Earl Buchanon certainly deserved to be told to cook his own damn breakfast and to find an anatomically improbable place to stash the bacon. Johnna Mae had been treated unfairly by the bank. The majority of the women in Maggody considered themselves property of their husbands, to be abused, neglected, beaten, or ordered about like slaves. It wouldn’t do any harm for them to raise whatever consciousness they possessed.
However, I was worried about Johnna Mae’s potential involvement. Sherman Oliver might be more than a little irked if she started in again picketing the bank and shouting rude things about him. I decided to go over to her mobile home and see if I could convince her that a year in the pokey would be seriously inconvenient.
I drove to the Pot O’ Gold and parked in front of her mobile home. A dark-haired child in shorts and a misshapen T-shirt was throwing a ball against the metal wall in a desultory rhythm. He stopped momentarily to gaze at me, then returned to his activity. I went to the door and knocked.
Putter Nookim opened the door. He stared at me as he wiped his hands on a dingy dish towel. A television blared from behind him, and somewhere in a back room a baby began to cry. “Hey, Arly, you looking for Johnna Mae?” he said without visible or vocal enthusiasm. “She ain’t here.”
The tennis ball made a thwacking sound near my ear, but I held back a wince and said, “Do you have any idea when she’ll be back?”
Thwack. “No, she’s off with those women at Ruby Bee’s. She been there all the time for most of a week now and I don’t know when she’ll come home.” Thwack. “She says it’s real important what they’re a-doing. She says it’s for the cause.” Thwack. “I jest wish she’d come home.”
“I’m sure you do,” I murmured, eyeing the stained apron he wore over his jeans. “How’s your back, Putter?” Thwack. “Any chance you can go back to work soon?”
He shoved his hands in his pockets and shook his head. We looked at each other for a moment—thwack—and then I said I’d try to catch Johnna Mae at Ruby Bee’s—thwack. He closed the door. I went to the future major league pitcher and offered him a dollar for his ball. He snatched the ball out of the air and hightailed it around the mobile home, no doubt to commence his game on the other side.
Although it was late in the afternoon, the sun was still blistering the road and doing its best to peel a couple of layers off everybody and everything. The upholstery in the police car crackled as I eased onto it, and I could feel it through my clothes. I decided I could put off a confrontation with the conspirators long enough to stop by the Dairee Dee-Lishus for a cherry lime ade, but as I reached the intersection with the highway, I saw that which is not seen in Maggody more than once a decade.
Two of them, actually. One was a boxy white wagon with a television station logo painted on its door. The other was a cream-colored van with a television station logo painted on its side, and they were parked in front of the Voice of the Almighty Lord Assembly Hall. A man and a woman were chatting at the edge of the lawn, while two men armed with portable cameras were fiddling with their equipment on an individual basis.
The lawn was otherwise uninhabited. As I sat at the intersection, blinking like a toad in a hailstorm and wondering if the Goodyear blimp would show up shortly, Brother Verber and Mrs. Jim Bob came out of the white frame building and joined the man and woman. Much gesturing ensued. At one point Mrs. Jim Bob shaded her eyes with her hand to peer down the highway. Brother Verber took out a handkerchief, blotted his glistening forehead, gustily blew his nose, and stuck it back in his pocket, all the while talking and frothing at the two unknowns, who seemed bemused but not impressed. Mrs. Jim Bob stalked back into the Assembly Hall, her buttocks aswish with indignation.
Things got even more intriguing when a sheriff’s deputy drove into the bank’s parking lot and pulled in beside me. He gave me a little wave and got out of the car as yet another deputy appeared from the opposite direction and pulled into the lot. The two walked to the edge of the highway and began to talk.
Fascinating, I told myself, wishing I’d purchased the tennis ball so I could throw it at them to get their attention. I was about to flip on the siren just for the hell of it (it hardly ever works, but you never know) when another car pulled up behind the television van and a man with a camera around his neck got out, accompanied by a dowdy woman with a notebook. They joined the circle on the lawn.
Sweat was dribbling down my back and dripping off the end of my nose, but I couldn’t seem to snap into action, mostly because I wasn’t sure which action to snap into. I had about to decided to ignore the whole thing in favor of a cherry lime ade when I heard shrill voices in the distance. I inched the car forward until I could see around the corner of the old drugstore.
Parade time in Maggody. Estelle’s station wagon was coming right up the yellow line in the middle of the highway, creeping along at a turtlish pace. Crepe paper streamers flapped from the roof and the door handles; a poster was taped on the door, but I couldn’t read it from my vantage point. Following behind it was a wall of women, their arms linked and their mouths moving in unison, twice as fast as Estelle’s station wagon. Some of them we
re decorated with sandwich boards and crepe paper, while others carried signs. They were all familiar.
I cut off the engine and scrambled out of the car. The television people had whipped to attention and were aiming cameras at the protesters. The newspaper photographer was in the middle of the road, snapping away. The two deputies had moved into the shade under a wilting crab apple tree beside the bank, but they were watching intently.
“Down with the Maggody branch!” came the battle cry.
The door of the pool hall opened and the neckless wonders wandered out to stare as the procession moved regally past them. Roy Stivers came to the door of the antique store, his thumbs hooked in the straps of his overalls. His cheek puffed out with a wad of tobacco, Perkins could be seen staring through the window of the barbershop, as could Earl Buchanon and Jeremiah McIlhaney. Lottie Estes scowled from the porch of the Assembly Hall.
“Sherman Oliver discriminates against women!”
The accused and Brandon Bernswallow came out of the bank. Bernswallow tapped one of the deputies on the shoulder and began to talk insistently into his ear. Sherman Oliver folded his arms and waited impassively, although I could see his eyelid twitching and his face getting redder by the second. His foot was tapping hard enough to eradicate an entire colony of ants.
“We shall stand together!”
Mrs. Jim Bob scurried across the lawn, her jaw leading the way, and took her position next to Brother Verber, who was mopping his face and working on a full-scale expression of righteous outrage.
“Down with the Maggody branch!”
The protesters passed the Emporium and stopped long enough for the television cameras to catch them in their finest hour. Estelle flashed a smile for all those unseen viewers, wiggled her fingers at me, and began to drive slowly toward the bank parking lot. There were at least three dozen women in three rows, and I didn’t even have to squint to find Rubella Belinda Hanks smack dab in the middle of the first row, with Johnna Mae on her left and the WAACO woman on her right. Where else would the chief of police’s mother be—home baking cookies?