“I want two sour cream and bean burritos.” She watched him shake his head and glance back at the empty counter. “Anything hot,” she said, “spicy hot, a taco, nachos, enchilada.” She was feeling desperate, and there Patricia was kicking up a storm. She always has thought that Patricia may have had a touch of that womb perception and knew that something was going on.
“Ain’t no law that says I can’t whip up something.” He went over to the freezer. He pulled out all sorts of good things and started heating up that big oven. Once he turned and grinned and it was a pretty smile.
“Does this suit you?” Ace asked and set before her two bean and sour cream burritos, a little basket of nachos, and a chicken taco. He got himself a beer and sat there staring while she ate all of that, sour cream and hot sauce running down her wrists. He said, “Motherhood agrees with you,” and she just nodded because her mouth was crammed full of burrito. She ate every bite. “How much?” she asked right when she swallowed that last nacho.
“It’s a favor,” he said and came around to pull out her chair for her. He got real close and he was wearing this heavy musky smelling cologne that she can catch a whiff of right now when she thinks of it. She told him that her husband could afford for her to have a Mexican meal, and even if he couldn’t she could, because she was a professional woman herself. The next thing that she knew, he had rubbed his hand over little Patricia and kissed her hard on the mouth like in a movie, grinned great big and pushed her away. “Now, we’re even,” he said and kept on grinning. She left feeling funny and then cried, and cried once she got home that such a thing had happened. Even now it makes her want to cry, just to think of what Harold would have done to her if he had known. It makes her cry more to think of Ralph Waldo Emerson Britt, him as ugly as he is, and that’s why Harold left her, and it never would have happened if she had known that she was really awake and really in the Winn Dixie instead of on her bed in la la land. Even now she thinks that it’s possible that really she is out somewhere doing some of these thoughts instead of being here in the bed. She slaps her cheeks, turns on the light over the bed. She’s here all right; Harold’s side of the bed still empty, the clock still set for five-thirty and she hasn’t had one wink of sleep. Besides, she’s got to figure out whether or not she’s going to take the kids over to Granner Weeks’ party. Harold might slap her down or something.
Bob Bobbin is still out cruising in his squad car even though his shift is up. It’s relaxing, after a hectic night, especially like this one, his first big murder scene and all he has to go on is a bottle of T. J. Swann Easy Nights and Harold Weeks’ description of a nigger, which ain’t much to go on considering they all look alike to Officer Bobbin. He rides past the old boarding house and slows down. It looks like Corky is sitting in her window, but he knows it’s probably that big old doll that she puts up there sometimes. He starts to blow the horn to let her know that he’s watching out for her, that she’s safe as can be with Bob Bobbin on the scene, but the last time that he did that she got furious, said he woke her up and her neighbors. Her neighbors are black and he’s told her before that she ain’t got no business living someplace with niggers. She just got mad all over again, when all he wants to do is watch out for her.
He turns up Main Street and everything is dark except for the streetlights and, of course, Granner Weeks’ yard. That old woman is forever calling the station to report something that ain’t even there. “You better quit crying wolf,” Officer Bobbin told her one day when she had reported that a man was up on her roof trying to get in a window. “You better do your job, ugly, and if you do you’ll not have to worry with me,” is what she said, and right there in front of her family, called him ugly, which really isn’t true, especially now that he grew his moustache and sideburns to fill out his face a little. Ernie and Kate Stubbs were standing there to hear her talk that way to him, and how about that, Ernie grew up on Injun Street. He never would have guessed it, ain’t even going to ride down Injun Street now that he’s off duty, because something is always going on down there.
The hospital is all lit and he rides on by and out into the country, past the new highrise for oldies, past the new apartment complex where he has just moved, and it’s nice, perfect for a bachelor like himself, and it will even be okay for a young newly married couple. He turns in the big gate that leads into Cape Fear Trace and circles around. All these big houses are always well lit, and with good reason. If somebody was wanting to pull a robbery, this is the place to come, not some Quik Pik where the sign even says that there’s only twenty-five dollars in the register after ten. Twenty-five bucks and a bottle of T. J. Swann, that’s what Charles Husky was worth, and it’s a shame, a damn shame, but that’s the law business, the work of the men in blue. Everything looks fine out here so he swings back on the main road and heads toward his apartment. He has the one bedroom model, “perfect for a single person” is what the brochure said, and it’s true, got a little bar, and Bob was even able to pick out his own carpet and wallpaper, red shag and that black and red sort of velvety paper. Mrs. Stubbs had called and asked several times, “Are you sure this is what you want? What if you move and nobody else wants this combination?”
He assured her that he would live there a good long time. He knew what she was thinking, a little bold, maybe too masculine, but he’s the daring kind anyway. A woman would walk in and see that decor and know right away what kind of man Bob Bobbin is, a daring bachelor, and when he gets his new furniture, that suit of Spanish Mediterranean with the matador lamps, and one of those bearskins to go in front of the portable fireplace, he’s going to ask Corky Revels over for dinner. Corky’s the kind of woman that needs to be spoiled with all the good things, and God knows she deserves it. Sometimes she looks so lost and frail that Bob thinks he could crush her ribs if he pulled her up to his strong chest. She plays hard to get, but Bob Bobbin has never yet to meet a woman that didn’t play hard to get with him. That’s how he knows that women find him attractive; women only play hard to get with those men that they want the most.
The case of Charles Husky is still the most important thing on his mind right now, not much to go on, send the bottle of T. J. Swann to the M.P.D. lab room, get fingerprints, maybe get them off that bread bag, those napkins that they had to pull out of Charles’ mouth. Got to unwind, a little champagne before bed. He goes to the refrigerator and gets himself a little bottle of Champale out of the six-pack, best way in the world to buy champagne if you frequently sip from time to time like Bob Bobbin, because it doesn’t go flat. He pours some into his glass that he just got at Burger King, swirls it around, holds it to the light, takes a sip; you must always sip. This is what hell serve when Corky comes, might buy a can of smoked oysters, or some of those snails, maybe some anchovies. He takes another sip, tosses his cap over on the bar, loosens his tie, pulls off his shoes and socks, unbuttons his shirt, unzips his fly, steps out of his uniform. Now, he’s comfortable. He spreads a kitchen towel on the floor so he won’t get his briefs dirty and sits there, leaning against the refrigerator.
He stares over at the wall where he’s got his outstanding service plaque and the newspaper article framed beside it that tells all about how he saved that old niggerman’s life. He remembers everything about that night, was reminded of it all when he got to the Quik Pik. He was down around the bottoms when that 911 came through, got the address, old shack on the other side of the tracks. The door was locked so he busted a window and crawled through, found that old man stretched out on the floor with the telephone receiver beside him. Old man was breathing by the time the rescue squad got there and carried him off. “You saved his life,” those guys had said, and that old man opened one eye and was trying to say something but they carried him away.
“Kissed a nigger,” one of the guys at the P.D. had said and laughed. “Did you slip the tongue?”
“Shut the hell up,” he had said, “I couldn’t let him die.”
“You could’ve, and the way you’re a
lways talking about niggers, I’d think you would’ve.”
“It’s different” Bob had said, decided that he wouldn’t pin that newspaper clipping up on the bulletin board, spelled his name wrong anyway.
“That was something what you did, Bob,” Corky had said.
“It was nothing.”
“You saved a life!” she had said and smiled; she had actually smiled, and that coffee shop had been full of people looking over there.
“A nigger’s,” he had said, and made several of the men in there laugh. Corky hasn’t smiled at him since, that he can remember; she’s not even smiling in that little snapshot that he’s got of her stuck in the corner of his bedroom mirror. It’s her senior class picture and she didn’t even want to give him that; he had to bug the hell out of her. Hell, he wasn’t going to have all those guys riding his ass like that. He was glad when the whole thing died down and was forgotten, though he still gets cards from that old man from time to time, can’t make out a word of that scrawl, saves them though, thinking that some time maybe hell have the time to sit down and figure out what that old nigger was saying. Everybody’s just about forgotten it by now, even Corky, but sometimes he can’t help but think about it, to remember how he pumped that man’s chest and breathed life back into him. Old Charles Husky wasn’t so lucky and that’s what’s on his mind now, that and getting to sleep so that he can get down to the Coffee Shop first thing before his shift starts. Sometimes he thinks he ought to stop going down there, that maybe Corky would wonder where he was if he didn’t show, that maybe she’d wonder about him, but he never can do it, never can ride by without stopping just to see her, to see the flush in her cheeks when he says, “Coffee, no c&s, ASAP.”
2
Frances Miller pulls out of her drive in Cape Fear Trace at exactly seven o’clock, right on schedule. She passes the little sign on the main road, “Marshboro city limits—Population 10,000—Awarded the Governor’s Community of Excellence—Speed Limit 35 mph.” Lordy, what a dipshit town, tacky, just tacky something awful. She can’t believe that a successful doctor like her father would live here. Nobody drives 35. Frances is in a big hurry to get to Myrtle Beach because she knows it’s going to be a perfect day. She looks at herself in the mirror and she really does look so good today! Her frosting job turned out to be a terrific idea. Now her hair is a beautiful ash blonde and has so much body that it curls and falls around her face and shoulders with a sort of Farrah Fawcett look. A lot of people have said that she looks like Farrah but she can’t decide, she thinks that she sort of looks like Olivia Newton John and this is why she has a little twisted headband up on her forehead. Carl loves Olivia; he loves that song “physical” and he is bound to notice the similarities now that her hair is blondish. Frances is certain that Carl is the one for her, and her parents agree; he was a Phi Delt; his father is a big-time tobacco man; grew up in Greensboro on the finest golf course. In just an hour and a half, Frances will be lounging on the beach in front of the big Ramada Inn where Carl works as bar manager, a temporary fun little thing for him to do before entering his father’s business, of course. She will be lounging there in her new bikini with the G-string effect that she has on right now under her terry cloth coverup, sipping a daiquiri, planning the wedding. After all, she’s twenty-two years old!
There is a stoplight up ahead so she shifts down in her brand new Datsun 280-ZX; she loves this car with a passion, almost as much as she loves Carl. It makes her feel powerful when she shifts down and back up. She likes to hear the engine rev a little. She’s got it all! A Datsun, good looks, knockout figure, blondish hair, a K–3 degree that she has no intentions of ever using, and best of all Carl.
Frances locks her doors. Her Daddy always has told her to lock her doors if she had to ride down around Main Street. It does look bad around here, run down and all, and she wishes that there was another way to get to the highway except to come through all of this. She is getting the spooks; she has never ridden around the bottoms all by herself, and when she gets to the end of this rotten street that’s exactly where she’ll be. She speeds up and pushes in her Olivia Newton John greatest hits tape. “Let’s get physical, physical.” She shifts into fourth. There probably aren’t even any cops around this part of town. “I want to get animal, animal.” Cruising down Main Street at fifty MPH.
“Happy birthday dear Granner, Happy birthday to you!” Granner sings like a bird and goes over to stand by the window. Yessirree! It’s a beautiful day, hot and plenty of sunshine, and it’s the day of her birth. It’s exciting, maybe not for everybody, but for a woman who is possibly entering her last year it’s exciting. Granner ties her warm flannel robe around her tightly, and pulls up her crew socks that she likes to wear around the house, so that she won’t get chilled when she goes out to get the paper. She has saved the Marshboro Gazette edition of July 7th for the past twenty years because the editor always remembers to put a little something about her. It’ll say something like “Happy Birthday, Mrs. Irene Weeks.”
Kate and Ernie would have a pure fit if they saw her walking around in these socks, because last birthday they gave her some of those big fluffy shoes in an all-right lavender color. They have never been out of the box. They make her feel like she is walking around with dust mops on her feet, and an old woman shouldn’t feel like she’s doing housework ALL the time. She gives good presents. She gave Kate one of those vegetable pulverizers that makes carrot juice and all sorts of good things, and she gave Ernie Stubbs four pairs of argyle socks and a paperweight that’s shaped like a bowling ball. He said, “My, how nice, I haven’t bowled in years.” And then Kate had to put in her two cents, said, “Bowling is such a blue collar sport.” Granner can tell when somebody’s giving her the dig, even if it’s her own family member. She said, “Well, he’s got on a blue shirt, better hop to it,” and they both just laughed like she didn’t know any better. She hopes they don’t try to get her back. She wants one of those whirlpool foot relaxers more than anything in the world. The thermometer on the front porch is already up to 96 degrees. Isn’t that nice? Granner won’t be chilled all day long.
“Hi, Petie Rose!” Granner yells. Without a doubt she is the cutest child with those red pigtails, come out cute as a bug, which sometimes makes Granner think that it was someone other than Pete Tyner who got Rose in trouble. Granner was so glad when Pete and Rose moved into the old house that she and Buck gave Kate and Ernie in the first place. Seeing a child out playing is what an old woman needs to keep her living from day to day. “What you doing, Petie Rose?”
“Looking for Tom!” Petie yells back in that gruff little voice.
“He’s probably out prowling. You know what special day this is, Petie Rose?”
“Nope!” Petie Rose is crawling behind the azalea bushes.
“It’s Granner’s birthday!” Granner picks up her paper and stops right there in the yard to open it up.
“Tom! Tom! Tom!” Petie Rose screams and stomps her little feet. My, that child’s got a temper, a fiery temper, and Granner likes that so much. Of course, it’s a blessing that the new baby is on the way. Another year and Petie Rose wouldn’t stand for a new baby.
“You’ll find him, sweetie Petie.”
“TOM!” Petie Rose’s face is now as red as her hair.
“Petie, calm down. Hell come home.” Rose is out on the porch now with her stomach swoll up like a blimp. “Happy birthday, Granner!”
“Thank you, Rosie.” Glory be! Can’t an old woman have no peace to read her very own birthday greeting? Granner likes to save things like letters and important pieces of news for when everything is quiet and she can direct her full attention. “See you later! Hold onto that baby, now. Don’t work and move around till it drops out before you’re ready.”
“I wish it would drop out,” Rose says, and from this distance across the yard Granner can even see the twisted look on that squared-off face. No doubt about it, Petie Rose don’t look like either of them. Granner can’t hardly wai
t. She closes the door and spreads that paper right there on the floor and starts looking over every speck. Ain’t on the front page, and you’d think that by now it would be front page news. Not everybody is alive and well for so long. Granner keeps flipping those pages and finally has to go get her glasses before she sees it. It’s in the smallest print that it’s ever been in, and it ain’t on the society page, either. It says “Irene Weeks turns eighty-three today,” and that’s it, no happy birthday or kiss my foot, and it’s right above an ad for The Salvage Bin which is a junk shop over near Ernie Stubbs’ old neck of the woods on Injun Street. It says, “We take old, used, wornout things that get in your way.”
Well, the nerve of it! She bets Ernie Stubbs put them up to this so that she’ll think about going over to that highrise, or else because she gave him that bowling ball that he probably has in a drawer somewhere. It crosses her mind to call the police in on this but then she decides to handle it herself. She’ll just call Mr. Stubbs up is what she’ll do, and let him have it. It ain’t decent to toy with an old woman and especially one that’s already so upset about that Iranian. “I wish to God he’d have a stroke or something and then he’d see who’s old, then he’d see who needs to live in that highrise with commode bars and such!” Granner is on her way to the phone to say those very words to his face through the phone when she hears this awful screech and Petie Rose screams. It sends a chill through Granner’s scalp. “Oh God, I didn’t mean that wish. I take it all back. Don’t take it out on Petie.”
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