I braked in front of Liar’s Bench long enough to glimpse inside the Top Hat Café, searching the busy lunch crowd for ThommaLyn, and hoping I’d find Bobby Marshall, too. The last time I’d spoken to him was a week ago, right before I got my car from Daddy. I hadn’t seen him at the funeral yesterday, but then again everything was such a blur. Still, I was sure I hadn’t seen him in the condolence line. I did a mental tick of time. I couldn’t help but to worry why he hadn’t called back, or maybe Daddy had said something to chase him off. Surely he’d heard about Mama—everyone had by now. Didn’t he care about me? About how I was taking it? He wasn’t officially my boyfriend or anything, not my “steady,” that is, but we’d grown close, spending easy hours on the phone, hanging out and mixing in some flirtation now and then. I really needed him around right now.
Under the midday sun, a colored woman with a thick scar wired around her neck hobbled her crippled time in front of my car, then lowered herself heavily onto Liar’s Bench. I tried to get a closer look, but a bandana swaddled her face. I stole another peek at her scar. A chill shot up my back. Frannie Crow’s “cautious reminder” came to me. I was beginning to worry what the elders meant by calling it that. No one’s death should be tied to a stupid object that shines everyone’s backsides.
I lifted my wrist and inspected the ribbon I’d taken from Daddy’s jewelry box. It dangled like a hangman’s noose.
I gunned the motor and headed to the outskirts of town trying to shake off my anger—and everyone and everything that had caused it. I drove the hills aimlessly, letting off steam, letting my mind wander, scrolling through the events of the past week. My head was full to bursting with questions: Why had McGee been at Mama’s the day she died, talking about his Rooster Run ledger? What was so important about a ledger? Why did Daddy have those ribbons; what had he done and what was he hiding? How could Tommy do what Jingles wrote down . . . and do that to poor Genevieve, too? I needed to talk it all out, sort it all out, or I’d be stuck in it.
The kind of stuck that usually only my Mama or Grammy could unstuck. I used to save those for Sunday. I was going to miss them. Last Sunday, for the first time since the divorce, I’d taken the phone off the hook. I couldn’t bear the thought of hearing it ring, knowing it wouldn’t be Mama on the other end. When Daddy’d put the receiver back on the hook, I took off running toward the backfields to numb the memories.
Every other Sunday and without fail, and for as long as I could remember, Mama would phone me at exactly 7:00 p.m. Even Daddy helped make it happen. He’d laid down strong words to our party-liners who’d hogged the phone after he found out Mama waited for over an hour in a Chicago snowstorm to talk to me. A lot like her Band-Aids, the calls became tradition, and another small way to keep me in her motherly arms, without the interference of Tommy strong-arming. I’d overheard Tommy arguing with her about our Sunday calls, insisting she use their house phone, but Mama put her foot down, and there it stayed even up until her death. A couple of times he tried to follow her, because I would hear him honking and shouting at her. After that, she took to going out of her way to find different phone booths.
But it didn’t matter whether we were separated by one mile or a thousand, we’d talk, and talk, and talk about nothing and everything and anything. A lot of times I could hear the background noises of a big, busy city. Sometimes I’d hear the rain and thunder as a summer storm bounced over her corner phone booth.
I’d spend twice a month on Sundays waiting for the clock to strike seven. When the phone rang, I could barely keep the words from spilling and tangling up with Mama’s, worrying about the cost. But the money wasn’t important, she would just stuff that phone jaw with more coins and keep going until I’d eventually ticked off my worries and doubts and the week’s events to her.
Over the years our conversations turned from lace to lipstick. Last year for my sixteenth birthday, Mama’d bought me Love Story, and we’d spent a whole hour and a half discussing Segal’s novel. I’d talked a little about boys and the awkwardness I’d felt around them. She’d reminisced about a high-school romance, saying once she’d walked right into a classroom wall and skinned up her nose while trying to catch a boy’s eye. The next day she’d accidentally smashed her finger in the library door when the guy passed by her. The week after, she’d been getting a closer look when she missed the bottom step, twisted her ankle, and fell on him. Frustrated, the school nurse sent her home with a note to her parents requesting an eye exam. “I ended up getting that blue pair of cat-eyes I’d been hankering for and the guy’s best friend,” she’d laughed.
Once in a while, she talked of her dreams and hopes in soft words and quiet pauses. I’d pry and in a bit, she’d tell me about the ballet lessons she’d taken, and her love for art, and soon her words would leap into a world of dances and colors, and laughter would spill.
Her humor couldn’t be beat. No one could squeeze a chuckle out of me faster than Mama. She’d told me about the fish Tommy won for her at a church picnic in Chicago and how it almost killed her.
Mama’d said, “I carried the skinny little fella home in a baggie and borrowed a goldfish bowl from my neighbor. I named him Mr. Church. After about a week the goldfish turned sickly. A few days later I found it belly-up in its fishbowl. So, I thought it would be a good idea and the right thing to do to bury Mr. Church in the neighborhood garden before Tommy came home from work.
“Barefoot, I carried the bowl down the apartment stairs, through the corridors, and out the back door, careful not to splash out water, or poor Mr. Church. When I’d finally reached the small garden in the backyard, I straddled its four-foot fence.
“Well, I guess all that sloshing around did something to Mr. Church. Suddenly, the fish jumped up into the air and out of its bowl. It startled me so bad, I lost my footing and the fish bowl went flying, and the next thing I knew I was flat on my back with Mr. Church slapped across my nose. My first thought was the next day’s newspaper headline: ‘Ballet Dancer Killed by a Flying Fish.’ The second: How was I going to explain this to the neighbor lady who was now staring down at me with a peculiar look on her face?”
We’d laughed for at least three nickels’ worth over that. And after that, we’d always shout “beware of flying fishes” when one of us had to do a tricky chore.
Mama never hung up the phone until she was sure we’d pounded out my problems, and afterward she’d say, “Not hanging up until I hear a smile in your voice.”
Then we’d tease over who’d hang up first, knowing it wouldn’t be her, insisting on being last and signing off with “sweet dreams.” Sometimes, I’d get real lonely for her after I’d hang up, so I would pick back up the receiver and listen to the nothingness for a minute, in case she’d changed her mind.
“Sweet dreams, Mama.” I pulled back into Town Square. Nothing made sense anymore, and thinking on it didn’t seem to help. What did Daddy do?
Needing fresh air, I stepped out of the car and walked over to Liar’s Bench. I sat a moment and stared into the face of the Town Square clock nestled in the courthouse commons—the matriarch circle of downtown—then looked across the way to my left at Dick’s Barber Shop and Peck’s Pool Hall, doors wide open, the haze of cigar and cigarette smoke ghosting out into the summer sun.
Nettie’s Nest and Shucks Market set to my right, a few crooked abandoned bascarts strewn between them. Shop doorbells from the Parton & Porter and the Top Hat Café and Milton’s Hardware jingled behind me. People flitted in and out, and I saw most were just hanging around to swap stories rather than minding any real business. I watched mamas carrying bags full of supper fixings out of Shucks Market. I thought about Mama fixing my cabbage casserole dish. I wrung out the panic that seemed to grab hold of my hands. I needed to do something. I needed to talk to someone and fix this mess in my head.
I got back into my car and headed to the Dixie Bowl, intent on finding ThommaLyn or Bobby. The Dixie Bowl was the “Let’s Beat the Drag” area for Peckinpaw’s cool
kids (at least those who fancied themselves cool) on the outskirts of town. The Dixie Bowl Bowling Alley, where the only things sure to roll were the wheels on cars full of bored teens cruising the lot, the E-Z Wider papers used by a handful of potheads, and the boozehound kids with their empty liquor bottles.
I parked next to a row of other cars and checked out the Dixie Bowl crowd. Jingles pulled his police cruiser onto the edge of the gravel lot, surprising me. I thought he would’ve been busy at the jail, instead of making his usual circuits. I guess he just flat ran out of busy. How could that be, with Mama fresh in the ground and Tommy dead? How was I going to find the truth about her death with no one on my side? I set my jaw and grabbed the door handle, aiming to give Jingles a piece of my mind.
Nearby, a carload of boys tossed a bottle out their window. Jingles hit his lights. I dropped the handle and studied the broken booze bottle. I couldn’t do this here. I’d set this right, but this littered parking lot and cars full of boozehounds didn’t feel like the place. I’d seen enough broken bottles in many a broken hand to last a lifetime. I made myself a promise long ago: I’d never pick the splinters of broken glass out of my hand, or the hands of any babies I might have. I thought about going home, the comfort and nothingness of my bed, but I wasn’t ready to face Daddy yet. Didn’t think I would be for a long while.
I leaned back in my seat, watching as Jingles eased out of his official car and unsnapped the huge key ring from his utility belt. “Get along now, you kids!” Jingles lifted his keys high and rattled hard. Joey Sims balked and raised his own keys, belting out “Jingle Bells.” A few of his friends joined in the chorus. The sheriff moved toward Joey. He stopped about two feet in front of the boy, slid the key ring back over his meaty wrist, and squirted out a stream of tobacco juice at Joey’s feet.
Digging into his pockets, Jingles pulled out a braid of tobacco and his Boker. He stuffed his mouth with another chaw and then wagged the knife in the boy’s face. “Joey Sims, this makes twice lately I’ve done tol’ ya to move along.” Jingles scratched his chin with his knife blade. “Didn’t you play invisible puppy with me just two months ago?”
Joey took a step back and a few boys woofed and howled in response. I knew from talk, and from the telltale bruises, seat burns, and shiners on some of the boys at school, that “playing invisible puppy” with Sheriff Jingles meant a ride in the back of his cruiser, hands cuffed behind your back, while Jingles locked up his brakes at every other fence post down the road, his metal cage meat-tenderizing your face and body with each forceful slam on the brakes. Him, swerving, laying rubber, and hollering out after each slam, “Well, there goes my invisible puppy, off his leash and in the road again!” Then Jingles would drop the offender off at home, leaving him to explain his sorry state to his parents.
The girls had it worse: They were sent over to Myrtle Dugin’s house for six whole weeks of all-day Saturday prayer and evening Bible study.
“You missing the pup? That it?” Jingles asked.
Joey shook his head.
“Then you best move it along real quick, or I’ll thump you so hard, boy, you’ll be down on your knees searching for your balls with a pair of tweezers.”
Joey moved fast. Real fast.
Before Jingles could spy me and make me his next target, I pushed in my clutch and let the car roll back real slow, then turned on the ignition. The radio crackled and let loose a series of loud squawks. A country roads’ DJ scratched out another empty song: Elvis’s “Queenie Wahine’s Papaya.” Frustrated, I pounded the dash with my fist, but the King crooned on. I fumbled underneath for speaker wires, hoping to jerk them out.
I didn’t know what to do, where to go. A bevy of why-me and what-ifs thumped across my brain. I thought about going back and resting a spell on Liar’s Bench. Puddling its worn wood with drops of my brokenness. It reminded me of Grammy Essie, and I was feeling in need of some mothering right now. But if Daddy came looking for me, that’d be the first place he’d look and, well, I just couldn’t. I laid my head on the steering wheel, thinking.
After a moment, I sat up and looked around the lot, relieved to see that Jingles was gone. I glided my thumb worriedly over each fingertip again, back and forth, back and forth, picking up speed. I knew it was a maddening habit, one that some folks might call a sign of the crazies to come. Grammy Essie said her own mama’d had the same peculiarity, and she was right in her head all her ninety-eight years long. Still, what if Grammy Essie had been wrong?
Worried, I inspected my fingers, looking for a sign. I peered up at the rearview, bug-eyed. What if the crazy had already sneaked up on me? Here I was, sitting in a parking lot alone, with all these loud thoughts. That was a bad sign. I had to find my friends. With a renewed sense of purpose, I hit the gas and peeled out toward Ruby’s Dog ’n’ Suds.
9
Peckinpaw’s Walking White Liars
I revved the engine before idling alongside the curb of Ruby’s Dog ’n’ Suds, letting the car radio switch itself back and forth between static and music.
The lot was filled with rows of parked cars packed with teens, bored and hungry. Two carhops roller-skated by with trays of cold dogs, soggy fries, and flat root beer.
Georgianna Deats dropped a tray onto the ground. I knew from working a few shifts with her that it would be one of at least three dumped during her shift. Feigning exasperation, she’d bend over, showing off her black lace panties underneath a too-short pink uniform so she could slut it up with any guy who hadn’t had her.
Georgianna was also the reason my ring finger was empty. Up ’til six months ago, I’d been wearing Tripp Seacat’s friendship ring. He’d given it to me on Liar’s Bench over a year ago and asked me to go steady with him. Promises were made and white lies were told. We’d shared our dreams and secrets, and talked about going to college together. We’d even talked about marriage. But then it changed and got ugly when he started hanging with the boozehounds.
Six months ago, I’d tossed the pearl ring in his face after I caught him sitting on Liar’s Bench, trying to wriggle his way into Georgianna’s pants. Both of them had stood up and declared their innocence. But it was too late: I’d seen their heads bent, the shared secret, the kiss, and their white-hot lies painted across alcohol-flushed faces. Seeing him like that, I knew Tripp wasn’t the guy I wanted to share my secrets or my future with. Always pissed an’ pie-eyed, and resembling too much of a passed-out Tommy, he didn’t deserve my secrets. I’d wasted enough on him already. He still called me every week or so, talking all silly, begging for one last chance, one last secret to share. When he’d finally come up for air, I’d give him a firm “no” and slam down the phone. It’s not like he’d ever earned my secrets anyway, though in his drunken states, he may have thought he had. ’Sides, I couldn’t tie up the party line and take a chance on missing Bobby’s call. That was my secret.
Now, I just needed to find my friends so I could talk through this mess. I rolled down my window and poked my head out. “Georgianna,” I hollered, trying to get her attention. She stopped cold and stared at me.
“Oh, hey, Mud-plop,” she cooed, her voice all sugar sweet, dripping with contempt. “Looking for your cows?”
No matter how many times I’d heard it, it was always like the first time, fresh and wounding. I flinched. I tried not to care, but I did. I really did. I wanted my final school year to go smoothly, to wedge myself into that narrow passage of social acceptance.
I shook off her words. “Right, so have you seen ThommaLyn down here today? Or Bobby Marshall? I really need to find them.”
“Can’t say I have,” she smirked, raising a slender hand to her temple. And that’s when I saw my pearl ring on her pretty little finger.
“Slut!” I hissed.
I laid rubber across the asphalt and parked in the gravel lot next to Ruby’s. I got out and used the pay phone to ring Bobby Marshall. No answer, again. Where was he? Next, I dialed ThommaLyn. Her brother answered, saying I’d just missed
her—that she’d tried to call my house to let me know she’d be at her granny’s for the day, and that I should call her back later in the afternoon. I thought about checking on baby Genevieve, and asked the operator for Mrs. Whitlock’s number, but it buzzed the busy signal two times.
I heard a whistle behind me and turned around to see Bobby Marshall waving me over, all lit up with a warm smile, his amber-honey eyes fringed with flecks of gold. A wave of relief came over me; it felt so good to see a friendly face. I made my way between the rows of cars to Bobby, who stood holding a brown package done up with twine wrap.
“Hey, Mudas, there you are!” he said, wrapping me in a big bear hug. “I’ve been looking all over for you. I got back from Boston ’bout an hour ago. My folks took me to visit the university last week, all at the last minute. I tried calling you before I left. From Boston, too, about a dozen times, but your party line was nonstop busy. I got through once, but your dad said you were resting. It’s been busy ever since! What’s going on? Is that crazy widow lady hogging the lines again?”
“Yeah, I guess so.” I looked into his eyes, searching for the telltale signs of pity, finding nothing. Hadn’t he heard about Mama?
“So, what’d you do for your seventeenth birthday? I mailed you a postcard! I was freaking out when I couldn’t get you on the pho—”
“Bobby, I’ve been looking for you. You haven’t heard?”
“Heard what? I just got here, Mudas. My truck battery’s dead, so I thumbed a ride to come look for you.”
Behind him, a group of kids were staring at me. Some looked at me with curiosity, others with pity, and a few with indifference, before shifting their eyes from mine. I pulled him away from the group, and squeaked out, “It’s my mama.”
“Y’all have a fight?”
“No, no. It’s worse than that. Can we go somewhere and talk? My car’s over there.”
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