by Billie Letts
But all that had changed.
And now THE HONK AND HOLLER OPENING SOON was just another tired old joke.
Chapter Five
THE LUNCH CROWD at the Honk wouldn’t have filled a Volkswagen van. Two checkers from the Piggly Wiggly; a telephone repairman out of Muskogee; Cash Garnette, who auctioned livestock at the sale barn; a kid cutting classes at the high school; Wilma Driver, who sold real estate for Century 21; and, of course, Life Halstead.
They’d all cleared out except for Wilma who was waiting on a steak sandwich to take home to her ailing husband, Rex.
“He was up all night,” Wilma said. “Why, I didn’t get any sleep at all. And I had a house to show Big Fib Fry at nine this morning. Going way below appraisal, too.”
“How’s he feeling now?” MollyO asked.
“Big Fib?”
“No, Rex.”
“Oh, still complaining. Says his… thing is swollen. Made me touch it to see if it had fever in it.”
MollyO shook her head, a gesture of sympathy either for Rex and his fevered penis or for Wilma, who had been made to touch it.
“He runs to the bathroom every five minutes. And would you believe he pees through my tea strainer?” Wilma’s mouth puckered with distaste.
“Took my second husband three weeks to pass his,” MollyO said.
“Three weeks?” Wilma’s voice was filled with outrage.
“Wasn’t bigger’n a plantar’s wart. ’Bout as ugly, too. But you’d of thought he had a diamond. Kept it in a little drawstring pouch, showed it to everyone in town.”
“Well, I haven’t got three weeks to spare. Rex is just going to have to understand that I’ve got a career, kidney stone or not. And as far as him showing it off like some Cracker Jack prize? That would not look good for me or Century 21. Would not look good at all.”
“Oh, oh,” MollyO said. “Duncan’s loose again.”
Wilma reached for the phone. “I’ll call Ellen so she won’t worry.”
“Afternoon, Duncan,” MollyO said as a gaunt old man shuffled inside, but he offered no response, and, of course, she expected none.
She knew what he was there for, knew he would begin moving silently around the dining room and kitchen, measuring countertops, shelving, cabinets, windows, doors.
Duncan Renfro, a carpenter for over fifty years, had helped build the Honk, as well as many of the houses and businesses around town. But now, robbed of memory by Alzheimer’s, unable to recall the familiarity of faces and neighborhoods he had known for a lifetime, powerless to voice even his own name, he was aware of only one thing—the importance of accurate dimensions.
So from time to time, whenever he was able to slip away from the confines of home, he drifted into the Honk, fumbled in his pocket for one of the half dozen tape measures he carried and set to work doing the one job he could still remember.
Then, retrieved like a lost pet, he was led home by his wife, Ellen, a wife he no longer recognized and a home he was connected to only by inches.
When Caney came out of the kitchen, he said, “Hey, Duncan. How’s it going?” but the old man, busy measuring the pass-through, never looked up.
“Did you call Ellen?” Caney asked MollyO.
“I did,” Wilma answered. “She’s on her way.”
Caney handed Wilma her sandwich in a paper bag. “Guess you wanted mustard on this. Didn’t think to ask.”
“Caney, why are you doing the cooking again?” Wilma asked. “Thought you hired a new cook.”
“I did. He showed up just long enough to draw twenty dollars against his pay and make off with ten pounds of round steak and a gallon of chili peppers.”
“Now what do you suppose he’s going to do with a gallon of—”
Wilma’s question was cut short by the sound of air brakes as an eighteen-wheeler bounced off the highway and pulled onto the edge of the parking lot. Before the rig had even stopped rolling, the passenger door of the cab opened and a woman in a short yellow dress, a faded jean jacket and red cowboy boots climbed out.
“Now there’s a fashion statement,” Wilma said.
The red boots had barely touched ground before the truck began to move.
“He’s in a hell of a hurry to get back on the road.”
“Maybe he’s just in a hurry to get shed of her,” MollyO said.
The woman dropped a limp duffel bag at her feet, then readjusted a bundle in her arms, tucking corners of a stained blanket around whatever she was carrying.
“What’s that she’s got wrapped up?” Wilma asked. “Is that a baby?”
“Look’s like it’s dead,” MollyO whispered.
Wilma screeched, “She’s carrying a dead baby?”
“No,” MollyO said with little certainty. “I think it’s a cat.”
“Now why in the hell would she be carrying around a dead cat?” Caney asked.
“We don’t know if it’s dead,” MollyO said in a voice that appealed for reason. “It might just be asleep.”
The woman picked up the duffel bag and started toward the cafe.
“Well, whatever it is, we’re fixing to find out.”
The woman looked like she had nowhere to go, but she moved like she was in a hurry to get there. She reminded Caney of a coyote. Fast. Wary. And tough.
Just as she neared the front door, she stopped and peered into the window.
“She sees us watching her.” MollyO grabbed a rag and began to polish the dials of the coffeemaker. “Look busy!”
Wilma, in a frantic attempt to busy herself, plunked her butt onto a stool at the counter, yanked her husband’s steak sandwich out of the bag and snapped off a mouthful with the exaggerated gestures of a silent film star. But Caney, quiet and unmoving, stared back at the woman through the window.
Her face seemed to be all hard edges and sharp angles—an unyielding jaw, defiant chin, the tight, straight line of uncurled lips.
Caney had known her kind before, could tell what she had been… the girl in third grade who went without eating rather than line up for free lunches, the one who stood alone in the corner of the playground, staring down an alley at something the others could never see… the girl at fourteen who smoked in the bathroom and inked H-A-T-E into the back of her hand… the girl in high school who drifted away long before senior pictures ever made it into the yearbook.
She was trouble, Caney had no doubt about that. But she was something else, too… something Caney couldn’t put a name to.
Without glancing up, MollyO asked, “What’s she doing out there?”
“Reading,” Caney said.
The front window of the Honk was plastered with signs—notices of garage sales and pancake suppers, lost dogs and free kittens, ads for houses to rent, guitar lessons, mobile homes for sale, fliers announcing talent contests, county fairs and cattle auctions, posters for the United Way and Mary Kay.
Most had been taped to the glass so long that the paper had curled and yellowed with age. But the woman outside didn’t move until she had studied each one.
By the time she stepped inside, the coffeemaker sparkled and all that remained of Rex’s steak sandwich was the mustard in the corner of Wilma’s mouth.
The woman stood in the doorway for a long time, taking it all in until she had to move aside for an old man measuring the door frame.
“Can I help you?” MollyO asked.
“I’m here about the job,” she said.
“What job?”
“Carhop.”
“Oh, we don’t use them anymore. What made you think we needed a carhop?”
The woman went to the window and peeled a small rippled sign off the glass. CARHOP WANTED. The lettering, once bold and black, had faded to gray.
“Well, that’s been there for ages,” MollyO said. “Eight or nine years, I guess.”
Then Wilma asked, “What have you got in the blanket?” Her tone sounded a bit accusatory, but if this stranger was transporting a dead baby, Wilma believed she had a
right to know.
“A dog.”
“Is it sick?”
“She lost a leg.”
“Oh, poor little thing.” Wilma knew that sympathy would reflect well on her and Century 21. And she had long ago learned that appearances could be deceiving, especially in the real estate business. She would never forget the man dressed like a rag picker who had pulled fifty thousand dollars out of a paper sack to pay cash for a brick duplex with bad plumbing.
“Let me hold her for you,” Wilma said, her voice dripping with solicitude.
After a few hesitant moments, the woman gingerly eased the small bundle of dog and blanket into Wilma’s arms.
“Look,” the woman said to MollyO, “I really need a job.”
“Well, like I told you—”
“I’m looking for some steady help in the kitchen,” Caney said.
MollyO sent a spoon clattering to the floor and shot Caney a slit-eyed stare of caution.
“Can you cook?” Caney asked.
“Nothing you’d want to eat.”
MollyO winked at Wilma, clearly encouraged by the woman’s confession.
“But I’m good at the curb. I can make you money out there.”
“Wish I could help you out,” Caney said, “but I’m only looking to hire a cook. Someone permanent.”
“I’ll work for tips.”
“You wouldn’t make anything,” MollyO warned.
“I’m sorry, lady, but—”
“Vena. Vena Takes Horse.”
“Takes Horse.” Wilma looked puzzled. “Is that Cherokee or Choctaw?”
“Crow.”
“Well, truth is, Vena,” Caney said, testing the name, “we don’t have enough business in here to turn a profit most months. But out there…” He inclined his head toward the parking lot, a man pointing out the wasteland.
“I’ll take my chances.”
MollyO shook her head. “Why, you wouldn’t snag a customer a week.”
“You don’t have anything to lose, then, do you? I mean, if I’m just working for tips, then it won’t cost you a dime, will it?”
“Besides, Sunday is Christmas!” MollyO’s voice was edged with desperation now. “You can’t expect to do any business out there on Christmas weekend.”
Just then a banged-up red Mustang with a twelve-point buck strapped across the hood pulled in and made a wide half-circle around the parking lot, slowing as it headed back toward the highway.
“Glad they’re not staying,” MollyO said. “A deer with a bullet in its head and a little blood smeared across its face would not enhance our dining atmosphere.”
But when the car idled to a stop, Vena shot out the door and headed across the parking lot. The driver, a heavyset man in an orange hunting vest, had already opened his door and planted one foot on the ground before Vena reached him and talked him back into the car.
“I’ll bet you a doughnut he stopped to ask directions,” MollyO said.
The man slammed the door, then rolled down the window. His passengers, a woman and little girl in the front and a man and two teenage boys in the back, listened as Vena leaned in the window and spoke.
“I thought deer season was over,” Wilma said.
“Not for bow hunters,” Caney told her.
As soon as Vena turned away and started back to the cafe, the man rolled up his window and restarted the engine.
MollyO mocked a laugh and said, “Well, so much for curb service.”
But then, instead of leaving, the driver maneuvered the Mustang into a tight turn and pulled into one of the parking spots right in front of the Honk.
“Eight hamburgers, hold the onions on two,” Vena yelled as she came through the door. “Two chili dogs, five orders of fries, three Cokes and two coffees.”
Caney spun his chair and wheeled toward the kitchen.
“Oh, yeah,” Vena said, “you got any doughnuts?”
“Nope,” Caney said. “MollyO just bought the last one.”
Chapter Six
BY FOUR-THIRTY, Vena had snagged three cars, two pickups and a van filled with a covey of Blue Birds—a dozen little girls whose discovery of a “real” carhop was just too “cool.” The driver, a stern-looking Bird Leader, tried her best to convince the brood that eating inside her brand-new Dodge Caravan would not be nearly as “cool” as going inside, but they had seen too many reruns of American Graffiti. She didn’t have a prayer.
Just before sunset Caney ran out of hamburger buns when a gang of 4-H boys jammed into the cab of an old GMC reordered three times. The boys stuffed themselves with burgers less for the pleasure of eating than for the excitement of watching Vena cross the lot, the wind pasting her thin yellow dress against her crotch.
But she couldn’t catch everyone who pulled in. The regulars went on inside where they eyed Vena curiously as she prepared trays and picked up her orders. Each time she went out the door, though, they fired questions at Caney and MollyO about the sudden appearance of the new carhop. Most stayed longer than usual, lingering over Thursday’s special of liver and onions, their conversations enlivened by the dramatic turn of events at the Honk.
Sam Kellam, not quite as regular as the regulars, was out of his truck and halfway to the door when Vena passed him with a tray of foot-longs and fries. He paused and watched her stride across the lot before he went inside.
Sam had just turned forty, but lean and handsome, he made forty look good. Some said he had the hard, mean eyes of his daddy. But they didn’t say it when Sam was around.
An Old Testament fanatic, Kyle Kellam had kept his boys in line with fear of retribution, though they feared God’s punishment far less than they feared their daddy’s. But on the night of Sam’s sixteenth birthday, he made the mistake of diluting his fear with bourbon, and when he staggered home at two in the morning, he found his father waiting for him in the yard.
Kyle, in a brutal rage, stripped Sam, beat him with a cattle prod, then hauled him to town and chained him, naked and bleeding, to the door of Christ Temple where he was discovered the next morning as the congregation arrived for church.
Sam left town that same day and stayed gone for eight years. No one knew where he was or how he found out his daddy had died, but on the day of the funeral, Sam showed up, walked straight to the coffin and spit on Kyle Kellam’s face.
Whatever meanness was born in that boy chained to the door of a church at sixteen had taken root like a spiny cactus that had flourished on nothing more than heat for the past twenty-four years.
As he slid onto a stool near the door, he tossed two dollars on the counter, but kept his eyes on Vena while she hooked the tray into the window of a gray Cutlass.
“You looking for a beer, Sam?”
“If they’re still putting alcohol in it, I am.”
As Caney popped the top from a bottle of Budweiser, Sam watched Vena make change for the teenage driver of the Olds, a boy who looked too young to drive.
After Sam took a long pull at the bottle, he lit a cigarette, then went at the beer again before he glanced back outside at Vena.
“Where’d you find the squaw, Caney?”
“What?” Caney said, momentarily distracted by a popping noise coming from the ice machine.
Sam tilted the nearly empty bottle and used it to point toward Vena. “Nice ass,” he said, then downed the last of the beer and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “Real nice-looking piece of ass.”
Caney was surprised to feel his jaw tighten with anger. He shifted forward in his chair, his face just inches away from Sam’s.
“You figure that’s any of your business, Sam? Seems to me—”
“Caney!” MollyO yelled.
Caney pivoted to see MollyO standing in a puddle of water running from beneath the ice maker.
“Look at this mess,” she said.
But Caney was, at the moment, little concerned with busted tubing spouting water onto the floor.
When he turned back to the counter, Sam
was already out the door. Through the front window, Caney saw him brush against Vena as he walked to his truck.
A minute later, when Vena came back inside, Caney found he still had Sam’s two dollars wadded tightly in his fist.
At seven-thirty Vena picked up her last customers of the night, a couple in their sixties drinking whiskey from paper cups. They had intended a quick stop to use the john, but when they encountered Vena at the curb, they decided to stay. After their business inside the Honk was finished, they returned to their car where they ordered steak finger baskets, glasses of ice and Coke.
Though the food was largely ignored, they reordered fresh setups twice and stayed until closing time.
When Caney turned off the sign at nine, the pockets of Vena’s jacket jangled with change, tips which totaled eleven dollars and eighty-three cents.
“You want to buy some of this silver?” Vena asked Caney as she dropped two handfuls of change onto the counter.
“Sure. I’ll take whatever you got.”
“Well, you didn’t exactly make your fortune, did you?” MollyO said, barely able to keep the I-told-you-so tone out of her voice.
“No,” Vena answered as she stacked quarters four high, “but it’s better than nothing.”
MollyO, who usually left around seven, the tail end of the supper run, had spent the past two hours finding work that demanded her attention. She had emptied all the salt and pepper shakers, then washed and dried each one before she refilled them. As soon as Life Halstead had cleared out, she wiped down all the stools at the counter with Pine Sol. She reorganized everything in the freezer, then changed the shelf paper in a cabinet where they kept clean cups and saucers.
Caney had asked her a couple of times why she was staying so late, but rather than admit her determination to outlast Vena, she had pointed out work long overdue, work she couldn’t put off any longer.
Now, with Vena about to make an exit, MollyO got busy cleaning the plastic menu covers stacked on the counter, a job that would keep her as near Caney as possible.
“Here’s ten dollars,” Vena said, shoving stacks of silver across the counter.
Caney opened the cash register. “Look,” he said as he handed her two fives, “I don’t feel right not paying you a salary, but—”