Granner runs out her front door about as fast as any woman with a slight touch of arthritis can do and catches her chest with a sigh of relief when she sees Petie Rose standing by the roadside, still screaming, but alive.
“Get up!” Petie Rose screams. “TOM!” She stomps those feet but Tom doesn’t move at all. Petie Rose keeps screaming even when her mother and Granner come and pull her away from the street.
“I’m so sorry! So sorry!” That blonde-headed woman with the string around her head squats down and tries to get Petie Rose to look her in the face. Petie Rose doesn’t want to look her in the face. Petie Rose wants Tom to get up.
“You fix Tom!” Petie Rose screams. “You make Tom get up!”
“Sweet Pete,” Granner says and hugs Petie Rose close. “Poor old Tom is hurt too bad to get up. Tom’s dead.”
“Tom’s dead?” Petie Rose screams. “You killed Tom!” Petie Rose pulls her pigtails so hard that it hurts her head. She pulls them until her Mama makes her stop pulling.
“I’m so sorry,” that lady says. “I’ll do anything to make it up to you.”
“You couldn’t help it,” Rose says. “Old Tom wandered all the time. It was bound to happen sooner or later.”
“How fast were you driving?” Granner asks. “You know it’s twenty here on Main Street. Always has been twenty, due to there’s lots of old people around here and some children like this one. That could have been Petie Rose here that you killed.”
“Granner, please,” Rose says, and nods down to Petie Rose who is crying up a storm, her nose dripping like a faucet on her pretty little top.
“I hate you! I hate you!” Petie Rose screams and starts to run away. Petie Rose is going to go inside and turn the T.V. set up as loud as it will go. That’s what she’s going to do, all right, and what’s more, she’s gonna take her crayons and scribble all over the living room wall. She’s gonna scribble and scribble and throw her Legos all over the house just as soon as Granner will let go of her.
Frances Miller watches that little girl twist away and run up to the house, crying and carrying on, and who can blame her? Her pet that she loves is dead.
“I’m so sorry,” she says. “Can I get her a new kitten? My father is Dr. Ted Miller.”
“I don’t care if St. Peter’s your Daddy, it ain’t gonna resurrect Tom there.” That old woman steps closer to Frances. “I reckon you might have been going too fast.” The old woman goes out into the street, picks the cat up by the skin of his neck and slings him into the yard. “Gotta do something with him, Rose,” the old woman says. “It will just kill little Petie to see him again.”
“Here, here, put him in my car and I’ll take him. It’s the least I can do!” Frances can’t believe what she’s saying, but the old woman takes her up on it and picks the cat back up and carries him over to the car.
“My, my, a young person like you driving a sports car!” The old woman says, and sways back and forth with the cat. Frances can’t stand to look at that cat. She opens the hatchback and watches that woman plop that cat right down on that pretty new ice-gray upholstery. “It’s a killing machine all right, a fast little car like this. Hope you wear a seat belt.”
“Granner please!” the pregnant woman says, and the old woman turns on her.
“Granner please! You say that like I don’t know a thing I’m saying, like I’m old as dirt and need to be put away. That’s all your Daddy can think of is to have me put away just like something old, used up, and in the way. All of you act like Mr. Abdul ain’t really so, act like I should have just sat back and done nothing that day that that man was crawling around trying to get in my windows.”
“Oh my,” Frances says and covers her mouth.
“Oh my, is right.” The old woman stops and stares at her again, those beady little blue eyes suddenly widening. “Did you say your Daddy is Dr. Miller?”
“Yes, yes,” Frances nods.
“That’s who I took my Buck to when he had a little chest pain and next thing I knew your Daddy come out and told me that Buck was dead, D-E-A-D, dead, as dead as Tom.”
“Granner, granddaddy had a heart attack, nobody could have helped him.”
“Heart attack, foot. He had a touch of the gas, told me so himself. He’s the one that drove the car, too, and I sat right there in the passenger side and told him where to go. A little gas don’t kill.” The woman eyes Frances again. “’Cept when it’s inside of a machine like that, then gas’ll kill.”
“Why were you getting Grandaddy to the doctor then?” The woman grabs the old woman’s arm and speaks slowly to her like to a child.
“I was going to see if they’d give him an enema.”
“Oh Granner.”
“Believe what you want. I know that little bit of gas isn’t what killed Buck. The gas ain’t responsible for me being a lonely old widow.”
“Am I responsible? I mean, can you forgive me for killing the cat?” Frances opens her door and stands there with her head pressed against that hot ice-gray metal. Her Kleenex is all soggy and she has to use her Olivia Newton John headband because her nose is still running. Her mascara is running.
“I thought you were gone!” That old woman says and stomps off to the house next door.
“It’s okay,” the pregnant woman says, but keeps watching after that old lady. “You couldn’t help what happened. Petie Rose will understand what happened. You go on now. You were nice to even stop.” The woman waddles up her own driveway, stopping to pick up her paper, and Frances gets in her car. She is driving ten MPH, watching the road through watery eyes almost as if she expects a cat to jump out any minute. “I’ve never killed anything,” she sobs. “Here I was riding along above the speed limit thinking of myself and now that little girl and her old Granny will hate me forever! Forever they will remember the blonde that looks like Farrah Fawcett that was driving the Datsun 280-ZX, that ice-gray Datsun that ran over her kitten! That little girl will grow up and go to pajama parties and when they all start telling sad stories, that child will speak up and tell about that awful streak-haired woman in a skimpy coverup driving a gray killing machine that ran her cat down and killed him.” It makes Frances cry that much more; it takes away the joy that she was feeling just a little while ago. Frances sees this filthy-looking guy with a shaved head squatted down in front of the Coffee Shop at lower Main Street and she wants to speed up so that she can hurry by, but she can’t speed up. At this speed, it will take her until noon to get to Myrtle Beach.
Corky Revels pours herself another cup of coffee and goes to wait on Harold Weeks, who has just come into the Coffee Shop and is sitting there talking to Bob Bobbin. She wishes that just one morning she could come into work without Bob Bobbin standing around out front waiting for her. Bob Bobbin doesn’t even notice that she can’t stand him, doesn’t even notice that strange-looking boy that’s strolled up and is sitting right outside the shop. “Can I get y’all something?”
“Coffee,” Harold says. “Gotta go over to Woolco’s and get something for Mama’s birthday. Reckon I’ll pick up some little something and stick Harold, Jr., and Patricia’s name on it, cause I know Juanita ain’t going to do it.”
“You don’t know,” Corky says, because she likes Juanita. Just about everybody likes Juanita.
“Ah, her head’s too full of other thoughts.” Harold looks up and his eyes are all red and puffy. Corky would think that Harold had been crying, but that’s impossible. Must’ve pulled a bad drunk, like he’s done regularly since he left home.
“What happened between you two, Harold, not being nosey of course, happened to wonder just last night when I was sipping a little champagne.” Bob looks directly at Corky when he says this and she turns away. She gets so damn sick and tired of hearing about his champagne and his apartment.
“What have you heard?” Harold pours some of his coffee in his saucer and then drinks it from there.
“Heard something about Juanita and Ralph Britt,” Bob says and it make
s Harold clench his teeth. “Is that true?”
“Does a fat dog fart?” Harold pours some more coffee into the saucer and spills it all over the counter.
“You don’t have to be crude right here in front of Corky. All you had to say was yes or no.”
“Cause it ain’t your business. Your business is police work.”
“Anything else?” Corky asks Bob and starts figuring up his bill so that he’ll leave. He never even leaves her a tip.
“Got any English muffins and marmalade?”
“Why do you ask that every single morning when you know good and damn well that we don’t?” She rips off his bill and hands it to him.
“Just teasing, Corky,” he says and then looks at Harold. “Private joke.”
Corky comes close to saying that he’s the joke, but she knows that the sooner she completely ignores him, the sooner that he will leave.
“Got a full day down at the P.D. Gotta find the man that murdered Charles Husky.”
“What?” Corky puts down the pot and sits on the low table behind the counter. “Mr. Husky was murdered?” Corky can’t keep her eyes from getting all watery. Mr. Husky was without a doubt one of the sweetest men that she’d ever met. He and his wife were regular lunch customers.
“Yeah, time of death approximately 1:00 A.M. Wouldn’t have anything to go on if it weren’t for Harold here.”
“You were there?” Now Corky really is amazed. To think that Harold Weeks, of all people, is the one that was there.
“Saw the man leaving.” Harold shakes his head back and forth. He practically has himself believing that he really did see that black man in the dashiki. “Then I went in and found Charles.” Harold puts his head down on the counter and Corky wishes that he wouldn’t do that. It doesn’t look nice to have dirty hair on a countertop where people are expected to eat, but in this case she forgives Harold.
“That’s horrible,” Corky says, and pours some more coffee into Harold’s cup.
“Yep, suffocated him with Saran Wrap,” Bob Bobbin says, “gagged him with paper napkins, got the weapons right there in the Quik Pik. Husky’s eyeballs were close to popping out of his skull when we got there, blue-looking.”
“Just shut up!” Corky screams. “I don’t want to hear all of that, and you ought to be out there looking for the murderer anyway.” Corky notices now that that strange boy is squatted down in the doorway with his hands up to his shaved head. “Bob,” Corky whispers, “Don’t look right yet but there’s a strange-looking person outside, might be the man.” Bob whirls around, draws his gun and then starts laughing. “He ain’t black, Corky, and he ain’t wearing one of those bright foreign shirts.” Bob sits back down and blows into his coffee, and he looks like a turkey with that big Adam’s apple bobbing back and forth and coffee getting all over that puny moustache.
“Well, I didn’t know!” Corky slams down her cup. “How was I to know? That’s a stranger out there and he looks strange, strange enough to have killed somebody.”
“Ah, Harold knows that kid, knows his Daddy is a Shriner.”
“Didn’t say I knew him. Said he got out of that truck after Charles was already killed and we went in together to find him.”
“You gave him a ride home.”
“I took him to the hotel, said he’d probably catch a bus this morning, probably waiting around now to catch one.” Harold turns and glances at that kid. Yep, it’s him all right, not cleaned up a bit. “But he is a Mason, knew all the secrets.”
“I’ve thought I may be a Mason,” Bobbin says, and looks at Corky again like she might be impressed.
“You don’t just say you want to be a Mason, ain’t like getting in the Jaycees.”
“I’ve thought about the Jaycees, too.” Corky doesn’t even look his way at this one. Bob turns and looks out the door again. “I swear though, even if he is a Mason, he’s filthy dirty, and with that shaved head looks like he might be a cult member, like those that go around with that Chinese preacher, you know?”
“Maybe he’s been in the service.” Harold doesn’t even look again, though now Bob Bobbin is staring.
“Bad image for the Masons. Don’t that upset you?”
“Does a dog use a rubber?” Harold is getting fed up with Bob Bobbin, especially today when he feels so damn bad for so damn many different reasons. “Masons takes all kinds from Presidents to farmers like myself, greatest place in the world to be.”
“I think Cape Fear Trace would be a great place to be.” “Stop staring at me!” Corky screams at Bob, and starts wiping off the counter, now that Harold has his head raised back up.
“I wasn’t staring at you.”
Corky just ignores him and keeps looking out from time to time at that boy. He sure doesn’t look like a Mason, looks a little kooky. Kooky. That’s what Granner Weeks used to call Corky. Granner Weeks always has said that Corky needed to find herself a man that is as Kooky in a nice way as she is. But that boy looks bad with that shaved head and all. Corky goes back behind the counter when he starts to stand up, his whole body swaying and he keeps holding onto his head. The bells jingle when he pushes in and both Harold and Bob Bobbin turn around and wave at him.
“What’s new, stranger?” Bob Bobbin asks. “Thought you would have left town. Wasn’t a pretty sight you saw last night.”
The boy looks like he wants to say something, but then he goes and sits at the table by the window. He slumps over and lays that shaved head right on the table! What on earth is going on today? Corky is going to have to take Lysol to every counter in the place.
“Bet it was drugs,” Harold says. “I bet that murderer is on drugs. I mean, he’d have to be wouldn’t he? To do what he done?”
“Some people are just plain mean as dogs,” Bob Bobbin says.
Corky gets up her nerve and walks over to the table with a coffee cup and the coffee pot. “Can I get you some coffee, sir?” That boy doesn’t even look up, just rolls that shaved head back and forth. “Hey, you,” She shakes his shoulder in spite of the fact that she really hates to touch his clothing. He lifts his head and squeezes his eyes tight several times before he opens them and looks at her. “How bout some breakfast?” He turns his head to one side like a confused dog and keeps staring at her. His eyes are hollowed out, looking like somebody who hadn’t slept for weeks.
“What time is it?” he asks, and it sounds like his whole mouth is full of cotton balls. “I smell food.”
“It’s after seven o’clock and you ought to be smelling food. This is a restaurant. What can I get you?”
He keeps staring at her, and Corky can’t help but notice that he’s got real pretty eyes, great big and brown, if he’d just get rid of those awful bags under them. “Hey, are you okay?” She shakes that nasty shoulder again.
“What day is this?” he asks and now he’s staring at her eyes as hard as he can, turns his head from side to side, staring at her eyes.
“It’s July 7th, Thursday, July 7th.”
“Just Thursday?” He puts his head back on the table, but this time with it rolled to one side. He is still staring at Corky’s eyes, then her mouth; it’s like he can only see one thing at a time.
“Hey, are you sick?” Corky sits down across from him and whispers. “You know, have you maybe just been let out of somewhere or something?”
“New York City.”
“You were locked up?”
“Sort of.” He looks up and he really does have pretty eyes; they look a little like Dr. Zhivago’s eyes. “Sort of locked up, still not free.”
“Are people looking for you?”
“Huh?”
“The people who locked you up.” Corky notices that Bob is watching her, so she pours a cup of coffee and pushes it in front of this Kooky person. He lifts the cup to his mouth and starts drinking, and that’s hot coffee. Corky always serves piping hot coffee. “Good,” he says. “This is good.”
“You need some food is what you need.” Though she doesn’t wa
nt to, Corky touches his face and lifts his head so that he has to look at her. “Probably made you sick to see what you saw last night, didn’t it?”
“I was sick last night. Cool,” he says and rubs her hand over his head.
“It ain’t cool; it’s bad is what it is.”
“So cool,” he says again and rubs her hand through his prickly hair and back around his eyes. He’s sweating like a pig.
“I believe you’re still sick. Honest to God.” She takes her hand away and wipes it on her apron. “I’m getting you some breakfast. Just don’t move. Stay right there.”
“May be in shock,” Harold says. “Too, I never seen anybody as drunk as that boy was last night. May still be drunk or bad hung over.”
“I still think he must be in one of those cults as well as the Masons,” Bob Bobbin says. “Did he ask you to give up your stuff, Corky?”
“I beg your pardon! That’s a bad thing to say, Bob Bobbin, just cause I won’t go out with you.” Corky goes and starts mixing up pancake batter.
“No, Dizzy Dame, I mean things like your home and car and clothes and money, you know, to follow that Chinese.” Bob laughs great big. “Course you ain’t got a bit of anything, do you?”
“I got what I need and no, he didn’t ask none of those things. He’s feeling sick is what he’s doing, and who wouldn’t if they had seen what he saw?” Corky pours the batter into neat little circles on the griddle and fixes some sausage patties while she waits for that batter to bubble. She looks back over to make sure that he’s still there. He’s filthy, all right, but he’s got the prettiest, saddest eyes that she’s ever seen, and it makes her think of things that usually hurt her to the core, but somehow, now it doesn’t hurt as bad.
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