by Bev Marshall
I stood up, thinking I could catch him since he was fat and now weighed down with the dog, but then I sat back down. I didn’t have the energy to smack him, and he was only saying what everyone in Zebulon was saying. After the trial everyone would know I wasn’t a virgin, they would know all of our ugly secrets, and they would twist the truth of us into hideous lies just for the fun of telling it. If Mama was found guilty and hauled off to jail, a lot of the women would be smug and happy that Mama, the most beautiful woman in Zebulon, the woman every man wished was his, was locked away from their men’s eyes.They’d probably pity me.“Poor Layla Jay,” they’d say.“Her life is just ruined.What’s to become of her?” I wouldn’t be sitting in a truck bed on Fourth Street, that was for sure. And I wasn’t going to live with Papaw, who’d be sleeping with his bride in Grandma’s bed. Where would I go? Who would take me? I thought of June, but her mother wouldn’t want me. I kicked the cement stacks. Maybe I could live with Mervin and his statues. I could be his apprentice like he’d said, learn how to use the molds and pick up the craft of carving my own statues.We’d go fishing in his pond and I’d help with the cows and chickens. It would be a good life, except it wouldn’t be the life I really wanted.
I laid my head on my knees and prayed, “Please God, keep us safe from harm. Why won’t you send the Holy Spirit down to save me?” I lifted my head and swayed back and forth on the tin drum, and raising my eyes, I waited for God to form an answer in the stars that were beginning to appear in the darkening sky. But the only sound I heard was the whooshing of the wind as it passed through the chinaberry trees next door.
MAMA TURNED TO BOOZE to numb her fears during the day and Valium to obliterate them at night. She began with a few beers and an occasional Valium, but before the week was out, Mama was drinking whiskey all day with a Valium chaser. I thought it would hardly matter now if she were convicted because she’d already abandoned her life. And consequently, I was forced to give up mine. Each time Jehu called, I’d hang on to the phone like it was a life raft, but always I’d look over at Mama passed out on the couch or slumped over the kitchen table, and I’d tell him I didn’t want to see him.
Mervin showed up every night, begging Mama to stop her crazy binge drinking. They fought over a bottle of Evan Williams like two lions over a kill, and I was terrified Mervin was going to lose patience with Mama and give up on helping her. He took me to the Piggly Wiggly, helped me with the dishes, and carried Mama to bed plenty of nights, but I couldn’t quite trust that he wasn’t going to turn out to be another name in Mama’s Book of Lost Men. After Mervin and Mama had another big fight, this one worse than all the others, he didn’t show up for three nights in a row. I told myself I hadn’t really liked him all that much anyway. Who wanted to spend their lives with a man who talked to cement people every day.
Since God didn’t seem to be listening to me, I looked to Papaw and Miss Louise as our saviors. Every time they came over, Mama fought with Miss Louise just as fiercely as she had with Grandma. Miss Louise was worried that Mama would become addicted to Valium, although Dr. Bonner, who gave her the prescription, said it was perfectly safe to take and Mama needed it to calm her nerves. Miss Louise told Mama that her alcohol intake was going to damage her liver irreparably. Maybe she should see a psychiatrist.“I’m not crazy and my liver is working as good as yours,” Mama screamed at her.
When Mama called Miss Louise a meddling bitch, Papaw slapped her. It was me who cried when the red streak appeared on Mama’s cheek. Mama slapped him back and ran to her room, locking the door. Papaw suggested that I stay with them for a while, but I couldn’t leave Mama. I had been a witness to every triumph and tragedy in her life since I was born, and no matter how much I wanted to pack my train case and squeeze into Miss Louise’s Corvette to ride away with them, I couldn’t leave her alone. If it weren’t for me, she would never have killed Wallace. I was her witness, her only hope, and although I hated her some days, I knew I’d hate myself more if I followed Papaw and Miss Louise out the door.
Chapter 29
PAPAW AND MISS LOUISE DIDN’T GIVE UP AS EASILY AS Mervin. After the night of exchanging slaps, the next morning they were back, Papaw looking as angry as his bull before feeding time. He had a plan for Mama.“We’re not quitters, Layla Jay. Get Frieda out of bed. Lou, you make us some coffee.” He hadn’t shaved and the white stubble on his jaw made him look like a tough guy Mama wouldn’t be able to stand up to. And as I hurried down the hall to Mama’s room, it occurred to me that I hadn’t seen a single bandage or bruise anywhere on him lately. Marrying Miss Louise had somehow made him less prone to accidents.
As I shook Mama out of her drugged sleep, tiny drops of hope dripped down through my body. Papaw was in charge now, and when he made up his mind to get something he wanted, there was no stopping him. He’d just needed some time to figure out how to get it. “Papaw’s here,” I yelled into her ear.“He’s mad.You’d better go talk to him or he’ll be in here dragging you out by your hair.”
Mama’s startled eyes flew open revealing a network of red crisscrossing veins. She’d slept in a pair of turquoise shorts and a white bra. I handed her the rumpled yellow blouse that lay beside the bed. “Hurry up,” I said, pushing her arm through the short sleeve. “The longer he waits, the madder he’ll be.”
We walked side by side into the kitchen, where Papaw stood at the sink, pouring Evan Williams down the drain. Mama didn’t say a word, but pulled out a chair and eased down onto it like it was made of briars that were going to stick in her butt.
Miss Louise was ladling Folger’s coffee into the percolator when Mervin knocked once and opened the door. When he walked into the kitchen, Mama looked up at him. “What are you doing here?”
“Your father invited me,” he said, kissing the top of her head where a nest of tangled hair stood up like a woodpecker’s tuft.
Mama couldn’t seem to focus on him or anything else, and I guessed last night’s Valium was still calming her nerves. “Oh” was all she said as Mervin sat down beside her.
After Miss Louise served the coffee, a bit of color resurfaced in Mama’s face, but her eyes remained dull and lifeless. Papaw pulled her chair around to face him.“Now listen to me, Frieda. All those times your mama told you to straighten up and fly right, you ignored her good advice. I’ve watched you make mistake after mistake, and I never interfered. I thought it was best to let you figure things out on your own, but this behavior of yours has got to stop.You’re not going to ruin your life and Layla Jay’s, too. Not if I can help it.”
Mama looked down at a spilled circle of yesterday’s bourbon on her shorts. “My life’s already ruined, Pop. I’m going to be found guilty and go to prison. I wish it’d be tomorrow. I can’t take the waiting.”
“Bullshit! You get off your ass and fight back.”
I broke in, unable to keep quiet like I knew I should. “But how, Papaw? All the evidence makes it look like Mama meant to kill Wallace, and she can’t even act like she’s the tiniest bit sorry about it.”
Miss Louise smiled, and I knew I’d hit on something that had already been discussed.
Papaw looked over at me. “She can act. She can act better than any of them movie stars up on the screen at the Palace Theater.You’ve seen her in some of her best roles.Think about it.”
I did, and I remembered the “I don’t have a pot to pee in” speech she used on all of her boyfriends way back before Wallace ever came into our lives to ruin them. “Yeah, she could do a number on her dates if she felt like it,” I said. I glanced over at Mervin, wishing I had kept this thought to myself, but all of his attention was on Mama.“But I don’t understand how that’s going to help her.”
Papaw explained it.“You and Frieda are going to practice a little play for the trial. After your testimonies, the jury will give you a standing ovation. Louise has already begun to write the script for it.”
It was a good plan,
but I wasn’t sure it would work. Neither was Papaw, but he said it was worth a try. What did we have to lose? The major role would be played by Mama, of course, but first she had to stay sober, get her wits back together. “You can’t pull this off unless you get yourself healthy. No more drinking, no more pills.” Papaw said it like one of the commandments God had given to Moses.
Mervin was to be Mama’s guardian angel. He would keep her safe from herself. I thought he was really her jailer because, in the following days, he never once let Mama out of his sight. He moved in with us, and although I knew there was now more fodder for the neighbors to gossip about (Frieda Andrews Ebert living with a man and her husband not even cold in his grave) their judgment of us seemed insignificant compared to the benefits of having a man to take care of us.
I don’t know if Mama’s hope was proportional to mine, but she quit drinking and flushed the Valium down the toilet, and she began writing down everything good she’d ever done in her life. “Mr. Albright said that I need character witnesses, people who can attest to my being a solid citizen.”
My hopes were sinking. No one had ever judged Mama to be a solid citizen. She had a list of minor violations that was longer than my Christmas wish list when I was six and believed Santa Claus would bring everything I asked for. Mama had a drawer filled with speeding tickets, parking violations, fines that she’d never paid. If it hadn’t been for her dating a cop, her driver’s license would have been revoked a year ago. She didn’t belong to a church, or a club, not even the square dance group that dosey-doed every Saturday night at the Community Center.
Mervin sat in on our brainstorming sessions, as Mama called them. They were more like light showers though. “What about a book club? Didn’t you join Tina Haskins’s book club one time?” he asked.
“Yeah, but I only went to one meeting.They were reading the most boring books. I couldn’t get through the first one. It was a play called Our Town, I think. It was just as dull a place as Zebulon.”
My list wasn’t much better. I had joined Pisgah Methodist, but then church-hopped to Centenary Methodist to New Hope back to Pisgah, which showed I wasn’t loyal to any preacher who would vouch for my being a good Christian. And, of course, one of them was dead. When I thought of my membership in the Spanish Club, I considered asking Miss Schultz to testify on Mama’s behalf, but Mama had never attended a PTA meeting, much less gone to any of the Meet the Teacher nights. I scratched Miss Schultz off the list that now numbered two character witnesses ... Mervin and June, an artist and a lesbian.
“Not to worry,” Mama said.“It’s our testimony that’s going to do the trick for me. When you get on the stand and tell about Wallace raping you, and how scared you were of him, every mother on the jury will look at me and think, if he had raped their daughter, they’d have killed him, too. Next to me, you’ll be the star witness,” Mama said. I looked at the pencil she held over the piece of lavender-bordered stationery that had as many cross-outs as my list. Her pencil bore so many teeth marks it looked like a tiny comb instead of a writing implement.
I didn’t want to be the star. I was having the testifying nightmares nearly every night, and no matter how much I polished and practiced my lies, I was certain I wouldn’t be able to convince a jury I wasn’t another Lolita, who had seduced Wallace and cost Mama her freedom. And even if I was successful, if Roland didn’t show up, if June said all the right words I’d told her to say, everyone would know all the filthy details. I imagined sitting on the witness chair beside the judge with hundreds of pairs of eyes fixed on me. Those eyes would reflect their revulsion or pity, and I’d never have a chance to finish growing up like a normal girl.
Jehu assured me that this wouldn’t happen. He actually believed there were hordes of nice people in Zebulon who would be praying for Mama to get off. After Mervin moved in, I had called Jehu and told him he could come back over if he still wanted to. I was sorry for how I had acted, and he understood. “With what all you’re going through right now, I don’t expect you to feel like seeing me some days,” he said. “But I want to be there for you whenever you want me.” His saying that only made me feel worse. I didn’t deserve him, and I knew it. But I clung to the hope that at least some of his faith in me was justified.
June came back from Tupelo and called me before she’d unpacked her suitcase. “I thought about you the whole time we were sitting up there listening to Aunt Martha go on and on about her operation. It was torture. Mother, of course, was in heaven, taking care of her and all of the old ladies who came to visit us.”
“I’m glad you’re back. I missed you, too,” I said, realizing that this was true. I needed a friend more than ever.
When she invited me over, I was out the door before she’d hung up the phone, yelling to Mama that I’d be back before dinnertime. June’s mother didn’t look happy to see me. “My goodness, Layla Jay, I swear you’re so thin, you wouldn’t make a shadow next to a lamppost. Is June expecting you? I don’t think she’s had a chance to unpack.”
I had lost a lot of weight during Mama’s drinking spree, but I was gaining it back now with Mervin’s help in the kitchen. Mama had even rallied and made tuna casserole the night before. “June called and asked me over,” I said, easing past her and hurrying down the hall toward June’s room.
June was bending over her open white leather suitcase, and when she turned and saw me, she dropped the blouse she held onto the floor and ran to me.When she threw her arms around me, her hug felt nearly as good as Jehu’s.
I filled her in on the days she’d been gone. She was upset for Mama and I think more than that, upset at the prospect of having to testify for us when the time came.“Let’s talk about something else,” I said.“Tell me about your trip.” Looking relieved to stop worrying about the trial, June smiled and held up her arm to show me the charm bracelet her mother had bought for her. A tiny gold cheerleader’s megaphone and a charm that was shaped like the year “64” dangled from the clasps. “I’ll add to it, of course,” she said,“and if you plan on getting me a present for my birthday, I’d love to have one from you.”
“Sure,” I said. I’d forgotten her birthday was in August. I hoped she wasn’t going to have a party. I wasn’t ready to face any of the kids from school just yet. I lay on her bed, beside her suitcase, and watched June as she carried stacks of clothes from the suitcase to her chest of drawers and back. “Jehu and I are going steady now,” I said.
June stopped with a cosmetic bag in her hands midway to her dresser. “You are?”
“Yeah, he comes over nearly every day now.”
“Oh, well, I guess I won’t be seeing much of you then.” She tossed the bag on the dresser and looked into the mirror where she could see my reflection.
I smiled. “Yes, you will. Nothing can change how I feel about you. You’re my best friend. A boy can’t be a best friend.”
June’s frown disappeared. “Yeah, they don’t care about the same things as girls. Hey, you want to come with Mother and me tomorrow? We’re going shopping for school clothes. We’ll be registering soon, and all the fall fashions are in the stores now. Everyone is going to be wearing culottes this year.”
I didn’t know what culottes were, and since Mama had lost her job, I knew I wouldn’t need to know. “We can’t afford much of anything. Mama got fired.”
June plopped down on the bed beside me. “Oh, that’s terrible. Why?”
“Right after the hearing, she was too upset to work, and even though she’s better now, I doubt they’ll hire her back.”
“Maybe they will. Everybody knows your mother is the best makeup artist in Zebulon. Maybe in the whole state.” She stroked my hair, running strands through her fingers as she talked. “She ought to go down there and ask them to give her another shot.”
I closed my eyes. Her fingernails against my scalp felt wonderful. “Well, right now she’s just trying to figure out what to say
on the witness stand.”
June leaned over and kissed my cheek.“Is that all right? Just a kiss on the cheek? I know how you feel about, about the other,” she said.
I sat up and kissed her forehead.“It’s all right. Sometimes I wish I felt the same way about you as you do about me. Girls are much easier to love than boys in a lot of ways. Jehu will never understand me the way you do.”
June’s happiness spread over her face. She wrinkled her nose and laughed. “And you want me to like boys and get married.”
“I want you to be happy,” I said, and I meant it. If it turned out that June was going to be a lesbian forever, I hoped she’d be a happy one, and that someday a girl or some woman would love her the way she wanted to be loved.
Chapter 30
AS THE STIFLING HOT AUGUST DAYS PASSED AND THE BEGINNING of another school year loomed closer, I began to have panic attacks.The first one occurred in front of Mechanics State Bank. Mama had gone into the new gray stone building to transfer her savings into our checking account, and I was waiting for her in the Galaxie outside. She didn’t want to go out, but Mervin and Papaw both insisted that she needed to put on a look of innocence and not hide out in the house like a guilty person. So Mama had donned her least sexy dress, applied pink lipstick, and brushed her hair into a soft page-boy style for this outing. “I feel like Donna Reed or Harriet Nelson,” she said when we left the house. “The two most pathetic women on TV. Next thing you know, I’ll be baking cookies in a housedress every day, begging Mervin to let me pack him a lunch.”
“You look nice, Mama,” I told her. And she did. I didn’t care about the cookies, but I figured Mervin would die of happiness if she offered to make him his favorite meatball sandwich.
She had just come out of the bank and was standing by the door talking to some man I didn’t recognize when I looked up and saw Roland, swinging a Vest’s Shoe Store bag, walking across Main Street. As he came closer, I slid down in the seat, hoping he wouldn’t see me, but I hadn’t reacted quickly enough. He jogged up to my open window.“Hey, Layla Jay,” he said. “How you been?”