“Shit, Mama, I could put Ralph Britt in my pocket. He couldn’t have forced nothing on Juanita that she didn’t want forced. Juanita may be crazy as hell but she’s strong.”
“That’s what Nautilus has done for her.”
“I reckon.” Harold rubs his hands through his hair. “I wonder if shell show her face here today. She better not, is all I’ve got to say.”
“Selfish. Add selfish to stubborn, impatient, and rude! This is my birthday, and how do you start it but to come in here with all that depressing talk, and now wishing off three of the people on my guest list.” The phone rings and Granner freezes with her eyes wide open and that banana held up to her chest. “You get it, Harold. I know it’s him again.”
“For God’s sake, Mama.” Harold pushes his chair away from the table and walks over to the phone.
“Tell him that you’re living here, now. You know you could live here really, instead of that trailer.” Granner creeps over to where Harold is standing, creeps closer when he picks up the receiver.
“Hello?” Granner squeezes closer and gets her head right beside Harold’s. There is a pause at the other end of the line. It is just as Granner though; Mr. Abdul ain’t going to talk his trash to anybody else. “Who is this?”
“Harold?” He recognizes Juanita before she even finishes his name, and he hands the phone to Granner and goes back to his chair. His Mama is standing there holding the receiver away from her. “It’s Juanita,” he says, and Granner tosses the banana onto the table and puts the receiver to her ear.
“You give me a scare, Juanita. I thought it was Mr. Abdul again.” Granner breathes a sigh of relief and shakes her head. “How bout from now on you let it ring once and then call right back and then I’ll know to answer.” Granner is listening now, nodding her head. Juanita is probably the one woman that can talk as much about crazy things as Granner. Harold opens the newspaper, what part Granner hasn’t shredded all up, and pretends not to be listening. Granner says, “that was Harold, your husband, that answered,” then she just nods and whispers, keeps looking over at Harold. “All right, Juanita, all right,” Granner says and hangs up.
“That was Juanita.” Granner points to the phone. “She had been to the Burger King. Got back and the air-conditioning unit was on the blink, doing the shimmy shake, Juanita said, making noises like a transfer truck.”
“She’s probably burned the damn thing slam damn up, doesn’t know her ass from a hole in the ground.”
“She’s got a man coming over to fix it.” Granner goes and peeks out the window where she can see Harold’s truck. “Sure hope my present ain’t something that can spoil.”
“I bet that’s not all that man’s coming for.” Harold clenches his fists and bangs them on the table. “I could fix that air myself and here she is calling in a repairman, got to spend some money.” Harold? He hears her saying his name over and over. It sounded for that second like she was glad to hear him. “What else did she say? Everything in that house is probably tore up.”
“Said she’d be here after a while.” Granner turns from the window. “Sure hope my present ain’t plastic. It’ll melt out in that truck.”
“Well, I ain’t going to be here when she comes, I’ll tell you right now.” Harold puts on his cap and stands up. “I better go get your presents.” He pulls his shirt where it is sticking to his back and under his arms, where there are already large circles. “Damn, it’s hot in here; I’m surprised you don’t smother.
“I was thinking I might slip on my sweater.” Granner follows him out on the front porch. “You might have a fever, Harold.”
“I got a fever like you got three titties.” He lets the screen door slam shut.
“Don’t you start that talk on my birthday. I mean it. Here comes Kate and Ernie, so don’t you start that ugliness.” Granner is still talking when Harold climbs in the cab of the truck and sits for a minute. He’s tempted to just crank it up and leave. He looks in the rearview mirror and watches Kate and Ernie get out of that car of theirs. Harold would love to get under the hood of that car, but he ain’t about to ask. Somebody ought to tell Kate that she looks like shit in those rainbow shorts, and that Ernie Stubbs looks like a white-bellied gone-ass queer in those pink britches. God, talk about going from bad to worse, this day is shot to hell. Harold opens the glove compartment and pulls out a pint of gin. If he’s got to be here, he might as well drink. He gets Granner’s presents out of the passenger seat and goes back in. His Mama is as two-faced as that trick penny that Harold always carries around. She’s going on and on about how good they both look, after all that fuss about the article in the paper, just because they’ve brought in this great big box all wrapped in fancy paper. Harold puts his two Woolco bags down beside it.
“Well, Harold, didn’t even see you.” Ernie holds out his hand.
“I saw y’all.” Harold eyes Ernie’s pants and Kate’s shorts. “Y’all like those bright colors, don’t you?”
“We’re colorful people,” Kate says, and fans herself with one of Granner’s copies of National Geographic. “It’s a little hot in here, isn’t it?”
“Pleasant.” Granner lifts one end of that box and lets it fall back, doesn’t make a sound. “I bet I know what is in this box.”
“It’s something that you’ve been needing.” Kate goes over and turns on that one window unit that Granner has.
“Yep, I sure do know what’s in this big box.” Granner has to bite her tongue not to say something to Ernie about what he put in the paper. He wants to bribe her is all, give her that whirlpool foot relaxer that she wants so bad. She’s not going to say a word to spoil it, either. Hell know that she knows what he’s up to as soon as he sees that paper up on the refrigerator, and hell be going in there all right, because he’s brought that little suitcase bar that he always totes along. “What pretty slacks you’re wearing, Ernie,” she says, though deep down she doesn’t mean it. A woman’s got to do what she has to do sometimes.
“Bet you don’t know what’s in those bags, Mama.”
“I can’t imagine, Harold.”
“Sorry I didn’t wrap ’em.” Harold goes and sits down on the far side of the room. He’s going to go mix himself a drink in about two shakes.
“Heard about the murder,” Ernie says and glances at Kate. “What were you doing down at that Quik Pik so late at night?”
“Visiting.” Two shakes is up. Harold gets up and goes into the kitchen, only thing to mix with is milk or iced tea. Harold gets out the iced tea and mixes himself a strong one.
“Visiting? At that hour?” Kate picks right back up on the conversation when Harold comes back in. “Ernie was still at work.”
“I work in the daytime.” Harold takes a big swallow and it feels like pine needles sliding down his throat.
“So do I, just had some big business to take care of.” Ernie crosses that pink leg and stares at Harold. “Heard you saw that man that did it.”
“Yeah.” Harold clinks the ice round and round in his glass. “Saw Charles Husky, too. You remember Charles. He was in school with y’all, lived right up from your old house, Ernie.”
“I can’t place him.” Kate snaps. “He must not have run around with us.”
“Yessir, I know just what’s in this big box.” Granner pats the box and then pulls up her foot stool and sits right there in front of the present. “This is probably what Buck would have give me if he was here. Buck would be sitting right there where Harold is, probably drinking a little Postum, and he’d say, ‘I swear Irene, you’re just like a child at Christmastime.’ That’s what he’d say, all right.”
“They picked up the killer,” Kate says, and Ernie gives her a quick look. She’s not about to let Harold know that Ernie’s secretary lives with that man. “Did you go down and identify him?”
“Nope.” Harold wishes to hell they’d stop this talk.
“Nobody’s sung to me, yet,” Granner says. “I reckon well wait for the others. Ernie why
don’t you go get yourself something from the refrigerator? I see you brought your stuff.”
“In a minute.” Ernie walks over to Granner’s china cabinet. “See, Kate, I knew your mother had some depression glass. It’s going for a lot of money these days.”
“Oh, I know. Helena Foster had gotten some exquisite pieces at an estate auction.” Kate opens the door and pulls out a cobalt blue vase.
They’re dying to get their hands on everything Granner’s got, she knows it. “I bought that at the five and dime way back.” Granner waves her hand. “Cost near bout nothing.”
“It’s probably worth something now,” Ernie says, and holds the vase up to the light like maybe he can see it better. Granner wouldn’t let him have that vase for nothing in this world, just because he wants it.
“Maybe I’ll sell it, then, and redo my bathroom.”
“Why on earth would you redo the bathroom, Mother?” Kate whirls around like she might have said something crazy.
“I’m thinking of a bright canary yellow. Corky suggested that, bright yellow, something cheerful.”
“Oh, Granner, I wouldn’t go to all of that trouble.” Ernie talks to her like she might be a baby. He wants the place to run down and fall apart, just like his Mama’s house did before he stripped it away and sold that land for a liquor store. Granner is fixing to say that, in spite of that present, when Pete Tyner comes running in all out of breath, dragging Petie Rose behind him. “It’s time!” Pete yells, that white face a little flushed around the edges.
“Oh my, where’s Rose?” Kate and Ernie run out on the porch and down to where Pete is parked on the street. “Call us first thing!” Kate screams to Rose, who nods and grips her stomach. “Won’t we have something to tell tonight!” She puts her arm around Ernie and they stand out there watching, while Pete jumps back in the car and drives off. Petie Rose is standing out on the front porch pulling every gardenia that she can reach on Granner’s bush, and throwing it to the floor of the porch.
“Hi Petie.” Kate bends down and kisses her and Petie pulls away. “You’re going to have a little brother or sister real soon.”
“I want a cat,” Petie says, and jumps down behind the bushes there in front of the porch.
“You stay right there now, Petie,” Ernie says and unbuttons another button on his shirt. “Might be time for that drink.” Kate nods and he suddenly grabs her by the arm and stops her. “Not a word about Janie Morris, you hear?”
“Goodness, Ernie, I’m not a fool.” Kate pats her hair. Already the heat is getting to that natural look and her hair is going flat around her full face. “Besides, the way Harold’s already drinking, he’s not going to notice anything.”
Granner is pacing all around the table when Harold goes in to mix himself another drink. Here it is, her birthday, and all this commotion. Lord knows, Rose waited this long for that baby, and here it is coming on her birthday. If she wasn’t going to have it yesterday, she should have held on to it for one more day, or at least until later on in the afternoon when the party was almost over. They didn’t even leave her a present, didn’t even bring those deviled eggs and baked beans that Rose promised.
“What’s your problem?” Harold asks, and takes a big swallow. “Seems to me you ain’t too upset about that article in the paper.”
“Ssh!” Granner hisses. “Don’t you talk to me that way. You tend to your ownself, and I think you got plenty to tend to, especially with that wife of yours loose as a goose coming over here.”
“The leopard has changed its damn spots!” Harold sits down at the table and opens a bag of potato chips.
“Those are for the party!”
“Well, it looks to me like the party has started.”
“The party starts when I say it starts. This is my party and my birthday, and I’m the oldest one here and what I say goes!”
“Ain’t going to argue that.”
“Well, you best not. I’m going to go sit on that porch and wait for the other guests and don’t you eat all of that food.” Granner pushes past Ernie, and Harold hears her talking to Kate and then the screen door slams shut. Ernie opens his little travel bar, takes out a highball glass. “Can I fix you one of these, Harold?”
“Nah, I don’t go for that strong stuff like you and Kate.” Harold rolls his head back and laughs. He wishes that Ernie Stubbs would go the hell on, because he ain’t interested in a thing he can say.
Sam Swett has taken in everything about Corky’s room, from the corn-husk dolls, the single iron bed pushed up near the window, a faded quilt folded over the bed, the table set for two to the little glass bottles that she has in her kitchen area, each bottle with something different, macaroni, tea bags, dried beans, rice. He sits down on the bed and leans up against the window frame. He can see the hotel from here, cars passing on Main Street, the glare of the heat, but it feels cool here, the ivy around the window, the shade of the big tree out front. The shower stops running and he looks toward the door of the small bathroom, which she will open any minute now. It’s comfortable here, smells old for some reason, cool and old and comfortable.
“I feel much better!” Corky steps out, her hair wrapped up in a towel, her body in a thin cotton robe. “You want to take another shower?” She looks over at him and he shakes his head. He watches her undo the towel and drop it to the floor, then she leans her head back and starts combing through her hair.
“This is a nice place,” he says, and watches her take the end of her comb and form a perfect part. She doesn’t even use a mirror.
“I like it, you know, it’s not much but I like it.”
“You have a nice view.” He turns back around and looks out the window. “You could even climb out on the roof and sit.”
“I’ve done that before.” Now she is sitting beside him and he can smell the shampoo, her hair squeaking when she combs it. “You know sometimes at night when there’s a breeze, I sit out there. It’s sort of peaceful.” She leans right beside him and looks out the window. “Some nights I can see people in the hotel, you know, just the shadows of people behind the shades.” She shrugs and turns to look at him. “It’s sort of scary to do that.”
“Why? I like it. I used to sit out on my fire escape in New York and do the same thing.” Corky tries to get a picture of this but it is difficult to imagine. “It’s sort of like what I was saying earlier about observing people, just sitting back like a fly on the wall and observing.”
“Yeah, I see what you mean.” She sits back now and leans against the window so that she is facing him. “But still, it makes me think that somebody might be watching me. I feel like that sometimes, like somebody’s watching me, somebody big and powerful, and it’s not like thinking about God, you know, it’s something different from that.”
“Like aliens?” He leans close to her, wanting to kiss her, but she turns her head away, props her chin in her elbow. At that angle, with her arm propped on the window sill, her robe hangs loosely on one shoulder, tiny freckles on that shoulder.
“No, not aliens, but maybe something like that, maybe this great big feeling, you know?”
“Yeah, yeah, I think I do.” He nods and backs up, studies her profile again with a feeling of for some reason wanting to always remember it, the freckled nose, the full lips. “I think it’s fear.”
“What?” She suddenly turns like he had just awakened her or snapped her away from some thought.
“Fear. I think that when I get that feeling, it must be fear.”
“What are you afraid of?” She laughs now and reaches her arms straight up, makes a weeeooooooo spaceship noise. “Aliens?”
“I think I’m more afraid of things right here.” He rubs his hands over his head, wishing so much that he had his hair, that he looked his best.
“Like death?” she asks, those large gray eyes widening, not blinking. “Like feeling like you might die at any given second?” She stares at him now, leans closer.
“Yeah, something like that.”
“Scared of other people, maybe. People who might make you hear things you don’t want to hear?” Again she stares away. “Scared of losing someone or something that means everything to you?” Her voice trails off lingering into the soft hum of the fan that she has over on the table. He feels that sudden sense of fear now, as though she had taken every thought from his head. “Scared of, of losing,” she turns around, her voice almost a whisper, “of losing your hair?” She quickly rubs her hands over his head and laughs, stops with her hands locked behind his neck.
“I’m not scared right now,” he says and slowly reaches his arms around her waist. “Are you?”
She leans forward and kisses him on the nose, presses her cheek against his forehead and he is staring right into that throat, can almost see the pulse there. “I’m afraid of what Granner will say if I’m late.” She sits back, her pulse hidden. “I’m sorry, but I’ve really got to go.”
“Yeah, I understand.” He slumps back and she watches him, those hound dog eyes. He looks at this minute as lonely as she often feels.
“You know it could be just plain lonesome,” she says, and gets up. She opens the small chest of drawers and pulls out some cut-off jeans and a light blue tee shirt. Then she opens the top drawer and quickly pulls out underwear and a bra and tucks them between the shirt and the shorts.
“What’s that?”
“The clothes?” She holds them up and walks off toward the bathroom.
“No, what could be lonesome?” He gets up from the bed and follows her.
“That feeling, the feeling that we both get.” He follows closer and then she shuts the door. “Hey, Sam.”
“Yeah?” He presses his ear up against the door.
“Do you want to go with me?”
“Would it be okay?” He feels a sudden rush, like it’s his first date, his birthday, Christmas. “I mean, I don’t want to intrude.”
“You won’t be.” She opens the door and walks out, pulls a pair of old tennis shoes from under a chair and puts them on. “It’s sort of a family thing.”
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