by Bev Marshall
Mr. Albright reminded her of the term “excessive use of force.”“He had no weapon,” he said.
“Yes, he did,” Mama said. “And he was trying to get it inside Layla Jay.” Mama was mad now. Her face flamed and I imagined her testifying in court, losing her temper when she was questioned, and I prayed silently that it wouldn’t come to that. She’d get herself convicted for sure. She calmed down some, but then reached in her purse and snatched her cigarettes and lighter. After lighting up, she blew smoke across the table and said,“So let’s skip the rest and get to the part about my so-called enemy. What’s the dread news? Go ahead with it. I’m ready.”
Mr. Albright rose and went to the door. “I’ll be right back,” he said.
Mama and I looked at each other. “I don’t think you’re allowed to smoke in here,” I whispered. “There’s no ashtray.”
“I don’t give a shit,” Mama said, cupping her palm, tapping her ashes onto it. “For what this is costing us, he ought to have an ashtray the size of a plate made out of solid gold on the table.”
He brought back a small glass one, handed it to Mama, and then sat back down in his place. “Do you know Bonita Garza?”
Mama laid her cigarette on the ashtray and brushed her palm off into it. “Yeah, I know her. She’s a bitch. She bought some face cream from me, stuck her dirty finger in it, and tried to bring it back for a full refund. She’d used up a third of the jar, too. I can’t stand her.”
“You’ve got a lot stronger reason for not liking her now. According to her statement, she told the DA that you threatened to kill Wallace some months ago.”
“What?” Mama and I said the word together.
“Threatened to kill him.”
“Bullshit,” I said in Papaw’s absence.
“Well, if she gave a false statement, we can press charges. But let me tell you what she said; then you can tell me how to refute it. She says that at the party at Dixie Springs Lake on the night of your accident, you and Wallace were separated and you got drunk and said,” he looked down at the report,“said—and this is a quote—‘Wallace is lucky he got out with his limp dick still in his Sunday pants. I ought to have cut off that useless piece of flapping skin between his legs.’ Do you recall saying that?”
Mama sucked in her breath. “Sort of. I was drunk. But I didn’t say I wanted to kill him, just castrate him.”
Mr. Albright looked down again.“Miss Garza goes on to say,‘Frieda was bragging about how she could shoot her daddy’s shotgun as good as any man, and she said that if Wallace or any man ever made a fool of her, she wasn’t afraid to use it on him.’ ”
Mama stubbed out her cigarette, grinding it into the glass so hard, bits of tobacco flew out onto the table. She stood up.“Well, I’m going to go find that little black-eyed bitch and shake the crap out of her. I ought to get Pop’s gun and shoot her right in her big mouth.”
I looked across at Mr. Albright; he was pressing his temples with the heels of his palms. “Frieda, please. Sit down. It’s saying things like that that got you in this situation. Let’s try and remain calm. Now, did you say that about your father’s gun?”
Mama slid down in her chair. She shook her head back and forth.“I don’t know. Seems like I may have said something like that. But I was drunk; I’m not sure.” She sat up straighter. “What I do remember is that she grabbed my arm when I was dancing with Scooter Peachon and told me to keep away from her man. She’s always been jealous of me. There were a couple of other times she got pissed at me because she couldn’t stand her dates flirting with me, and I can’t help it if men find me more attractive than her. I ought to charge her with assault. I think I had a bruise on my arm.” Her voice drifted down an octave. “But I had the wreck and ...”
Mr. Albright lost his lawyer composure and sighed.“That’s the other damaging part of her statement.” He didn’t bother to read from the paper in front of him this time. “She says that she works for State Farm Insurance Company and that you filed a claim for your car and injuries and that it was out-and-out fraud because you were drunk and they were, therefore, not obligated to pay your claim.”
“They did too pay, and they paid the Worldwide Movers for the damage on the van. I wasn’t charged with drunk driving, so she has no proof that I was drunk.”
“Miss Garza says that you and Darryl Thomas conspired to commit fraud, that he admitted to her he filed a false report when he didn’t reveal that you were drunk, and Miss Garza says, if they had known you were drunk, they’d never have paid you a dime.”
“Why would Darryl tell her what he wrote?”
Mr. Albright rolled his pencil up and down the legal pad as he talked. “They were engaged for a short time, and I guess he told her when they were together.”
“But they’re not now?”
“No, he broke it off, and now she’s out for his blood as well as yours. As Byron wrote in Don Juan, ‘Sweet is revenge—especially to women.’ ”
“Yeah, and hell hath no fury like that of Frieda Andrews, right now,” Mama said.“That bitch better watch her step. Still, I don’t get how all of this affects the outcome of the manslaughter hearing.”
I didn’t listen to Mr. Albright’s explanation. I didn’t need to because I already understood. If Mama was the kind of woman who would cheat an insurance company, conspire with a cop, and threaten to cut off Wallace’s dick and shoot him, then she might have meant to kill her husband, lie about it, and then force her daughter to back up her story. I laid my head down on the table. Suddenly, I was so tired I felt I could fall asleep with my cheek against the warm wood. I hadn’t slept more than a couple of hours, and now I longed to crawl back into my bed, pull the cover over my head, and sleep until Christmas when all of this would be behind us.
Chapter 28
ANGER IS A GREAT ENERGIZER, AND MAMA’S RAGE OVER Bonita Garza’s statement propelled her into a frenzy. After our meeting was over and we were back at home, Mama jerked off her clothes, and in celery green bra and panties, she hopped on her exercise bike. Hunched over the handlebars, she pumped the pedals, rotating them as fast as an airplane propeller. When Mervin came over hours later, he tried to talk her off the bike. Standing in front of the handlebars, he crooned, “Frieda, sweetheart, you’ve got to calm down. Whatever has happened, this isn’t helping.”
Mama ignored him. Her breath was ragged, sweat coursed down between her breasts and trickled across her stomach, dampening her panties. When she spoke, Mervin leaned closer. “Bitchbitchbitchbitch,” she gasped, pedaling harder.
Mervin looked across the room to where I sat on the couch as if to seek my help.“Been on the bike on and off all day,” I said.“Her feet will slip off the pedals pretty soon, and then she’ll get off for a while.” I pointed to the bruises on her calves where the pedals had caught her each time one of her feet slipped. “She can still feel pain, I guess.”
“What happened?” He left Mama to her pedaling and sat in the chair beside the couch.
I explained about Bonita’s statement and told him the facts as Mr. Albright had laid them out for us. “It doesn’t look good for Mama,” I said. “I could tell Mr. Albright is worried.”
Mervin dropped his head in his hands.“Oh shit,” he mumbled to the floor.
“Yeah. Mama’s scared ... and reeeeal mad at Bonita Garza.”
Mama screamed a short little yelp and fell sideways onto the floor. Mervin rushed over and helped her to the couch. She was crying, making the most pitiful sounds I’d ever heard come out of her.“I’m going to jail,” she wailed.“I’ll spend all of the good years I’ve got left with a bunch of women.”
Mervin pulled her head against his chest and patted her every place his hands would reach. “No, no, no,” he said. “You’re going to stay right here with me and Layla Jay. We’ll get this worked out. I was there that night, too. Did you forget it was me who invited you?�
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Mama rubbed her wet face against his shirt and looked up. “No, yes, well, I didn’t remember who was standing around when I was talking to Bonita. Did you hear me saying something about killing Wallace?”
Mervin’s eyes shifted across the room over Mama’s head, and I knew he was considering whether or not to tell a lie. A lifetime of thirty plus years of honesty was a high hurdle to jump over into Mama’s messy life. “Let him lie,” I prayed. “Just this once, bend Your rules, Lord. It’s for a good reason. Mama needs his help so bad.”
God won out. My prayer wasn’t answered. Mervin eased Mama up into a sitting position and wiped tears from her face with his long fingers. “Well, no, I was outside most of the night sitting on top of the picnic table with Rafe and Howie.You kind of dumped me at the party.” He chewed his lip.“But I could say I know you wouldn’t hurt a fly. And I’ve known Bonita since high school. It wouldn’t be the first time she’s exaggerated something. I could testify to that. Might help some.”
“Oh poot, nobody will care if you say that.” Mama stood up and shot him a mean look with her eyes narrowed. “I understand now.You were only pretending you were going to help me. I need a shower. I’ll see you, Mervin. Why don’t you get on home to your stupid cows and little stone people? They don’t ask you to do much for them.”
Mervin watched her sauntering across the room toward the hall. “You want me to lie? Say I was there?”
Mama stopped and turned back around. She adopted a Scarlett O’Hara drawl when she said, “I wouldn’t dream of it, Mervin. Why, everyone in Zebulon knows you’re too perfect to do such an awful thing.”
Mervin looked miserable, like he might even cry. “Frieda, honey, it wouldn’t matter if I did. Bonita knows I wasn’t there when you said those things. Besides, lots of people know we’re dating, and they’d say I was just trying to get you off because ... because I love you.”
Mama turned her back to us and unhooked her bra and stepped out of her panties. She held them up and then sailed them over her right shoulder to land on the coffee table. “A souvenir,” she said. “We’re not dating. I don’t want to see you anymore.”
We watched her naked butt shimmying down the hall, then looked at each other with open mouths. “Wellll,” I said, not having any other words to say.
Mervin stood up, then sat down again. He grabbed the back of his neck, pulling his elbows together in front of him. “Damnit to hell and back,” he said.
“She’s desperate,” I whispered.Tears were on their way and I’d never cried in front of him. I thought of the day he’d taken me to his farm. I thought of the little angel holding the bird in her outstretched hand. I understood that a man who spent his days creating angels to watch over the deceased would have a hard time lying to a black-robed judge in a courtroom. Maybe if Mama had gone out there and seen what I had, she’d understand, too. But she hadn’t gone.
“I know she’s desperate,” he said.
As we sat listening to the sound of the rush of water in the shower, I considered the character flaws that I seemed to have inherited from her. I hadn’t thought we were all that much alike. Hadn’t Mama said I took after Grandma when I’d judged her? But Mama judged, too. We were both slobs, both stubborn and proud. We cared about breasts and makeup and men. And c’est la vie. And, worst of all, we were both expert liars. As I tallied our behaviors, I worried our multiplying faults equaled bad character and only the Lord knew what we might be capable of next. “I’m sorry,” I said to Mervin. I didn’t know what I was sorry for, but maybe I wanted forgiveness for Mama.“Mama didn’t mean what she said. She’s just real real upset.”
Mervin almost smiled. “Well, if she thinks I’m leaving she’s got another thought coming. I don’t give up easily. When an arm breaks off one of my figures, I don’t throw it away. I fix it.”
I doubted Mervin was going to fix things with Mama as easily as he could repair a statue, but I nodded my head in encouragement. I remembered Mama’s triumphant smile when Wallace and I drove up that day and saw his things boxed up.“Hit the road, Jack” were the words she had said. And Wallace had known that there was no use in arguing. But Mervin wasn’t Wallace. Not by a long shot.
When Mama came back into the den, she was wearing a white turbaned towel and her green satin robe. Her face, scrubbed clean of makeup now, was etched with worry lines between her thin eyebrows. She brushed past Mervin’s chair as though he were a cloud of smoke from the lit cigarette she held and went into the kitchen. We heard her slamming a pot on the stove, and I shrugged my shoulders. I had no idea what she was going to do now that she knew Mervin hadn’t obeyed her and gone home.
She boiled a wiener. Only one, and from that I deduced that she had placed me in Mervin’s camp and wasn’t about to feed a traitor. I remembered the day I had sided with her against Grandma not long before Grandma died, and I broke out in a sweat, worrying this was another precursor to tragedy.With the boiled wiener in her hand, she flipped on the television set, backed up, and sat on the floor watching the screen light up with Walter Cronkite and the evening news.
“Frieda, we need to talk,” Mervin said.
She ignored him.
“Mama, don’t be mad. You know Mervin would help you if he could.”
“Shhhh, listen,” she said, waving her wiener toward me. Walter was talking about our state.The bodies of three civil rights workers had been found in Philadelphia, Mississippi. “Now that’s a real crime. Three bodies, not just one, and whoever killed them will probably get off and I’ll be hearing about it from prison.”
“You’re not going to prison, Frieda,” Mervin said, as he walked over and squatted beside her. Mama dropped her head toward the floor. “Look at me. Please, honey.”
Mama jumped up, wheeled around, and crouched down like she was going to fly at him. He leapt up and took a step back as she moved toward him. “You’re not here. I told you to leave.” She pointed her half-eaten wiener at the door. “Now go!”
I couldn’t stand it any longer. I wasn’t going to let her ruin the one good thing she’d invited into her life. “Mama! Don’t do this. Mervin loves you. Finally, somebody loves you, don’t throw him out.”
Mama looked around Mervin’s big frame and her eyes locked with mine. I knew I’d overstepped the boundaries of a daughter, but I held my ground and didn’t look away. “You love him,” I said. Then in a much softer voice, “Don’t you, Mama?”
She dropped her eyes to the floor, then lifted them to Mervin’s face. Slowly, she nodded her head up and down. “I guess I do,” she said. His arms encircled her and I let out a big whoosh of air.
I was flat worn out. I felt like I’d been on that exercise bike pedaling to the moon and back. “I’m going out,” I said, figuring they needed some time alone. Locked in a clench without a sliver of light between them, the wiener on the floor beside their feet, they didn’t hear a word I said. I opened the door and crept out to the carport, where Mervin’s work truck was parked behind Wallace’s Galaxie. I peeked in the bed of the truck and saw a stack of cement bags, a wheelbarrow, and a big tin drum. Climbing over the tailgate, I stepped over the cement bags and sat down on the drum. The setting sun cast a golden radiance over the houses across the street, and I imagined all of the happy families sitting down to a nice dinner of fried chicken and creamed corn. They would all be laughing, telling one another stories about what had occurred during the day. The mothers would smile at their children and remind them to brush their teeth before they came in to read them a story and tuck them in bed. I tried to remember if Mama had ever read to me, but all I could conjure up was the image of Mama weaving up the walk at Grandma’s with a man wrapped around her like honeysuckle vines twisted around a fence pole. I told myself I didn’t care. Who wanted to live in one of those boring houses where nothing exciting ever happened? Not me. I was destined to have a life filled with adventure. I’d travel someday, get ou
t of Mississippi, go to Paris, France, and scores of other exotic places.
Ten-year-old Gaylord Daniels brought me back to Fourth Street as he came running toward me yelling, “Here, Daisy, Daisy, come. Stop.” His brown-and-white cocker spaniel was making a getaway. I cupped my hands around my mouth. “Run, Daisy, run,” I yelled. “Don’t let him catch you.” Gaylord snapped his head around as he passed in front of our drive, but kept on running on his fat stubby legs down the middle of the street. He’d never catch that dog. “Stupid boy,” I said. But I was jealous of him. I missed the animals on Papaw’s farm. I’d wanted to bring one of the yard dogs or barn cats when we moved into town, but Mama said they weren’t house-trained and she wasn’t going to spend her days cleaning up after them.
I wondered how long I should stay outside. How long did it take to have sex if you were in love? It wouldn’t be as quick as what had happened with Roland, and in the movies, they always cut away to an ocean or a grove of swaying treetops, so you didn’t know how much time had passed until you saw the couple readying themselves to go home, and sometimes they even skipped that part.
Gaylord came back down the street carrying the dog beneath his arm. “Too bad,” I said. “You didn’t escape, did you, Daisy?”
“Shut up, Layla Jay.You wish you had a dog to chase. All you’ve got is a mama who’s a murderer,” he said, picking up his pace.