The Killer Wore Cranberry

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The Killer Wore Cranberry Page 6

by J. Alan Hartman


  It all started up at Lem’s still. It wasn’t somethin’ we planned to do. At my age I sure don’t cotton for sneakin’ around no pig pen at night dealin’ with muddy squealin’ pigs. When I was Ellie May’s age (she’s goin’ on to sixteen), I woulda done it in a minute, but not now. No, sir.

  But somehow it happened. We wuz sittin’ and drinkin’ some of his moonshine hooch as usual on a Saturday night. Lem’s hooch ain’t quite as tasty as the store-bought stuff. As a matter of fact, it tastes like that kerosene that you put in lanterns. You know what I mean. You need them lanterns at night when you go to the outhouse, so you don’t step or sit on anythin’ that can do harm. Ole Lem went out one night without a lantern and he sat down on a bug of some kind and squished it plumb to death. But that old bug didn’t go down without a fight. He bit Lem in the you-know-what. Well, Lem came rippin’ out of that outhouse a screamin’ and a hollerin’, his britches a flappin’ around his feet. He swoll up like a watermelon ripe for the pickin’. As far as I know he never got to do what he set out to do. I expect he woulda died from that bug bite, but Hester, Lem’s old lady, made up a concoction of lye and mustard grass, with a little swamp water so you can spread it, and rubbed it on. Lem says it burned like fire, but it did the trick. ‘Course that all happened before we got the electric lamps. Got one strung up in the privy that lights it real good, ‘ceptin it’s busted most of the time. So I keep that lantern handy. Them folks that makes the lamp should use somethin’ besides glass. The glass busts, and them little wires—Ma calls them “filly mints”—don’t work no more. I hear tell that they’re puttin’ outhouses right inside the house these days. But I don’t see that workin’ out so good. You need honeysuckle to pretty up the smell, and it don’t grow indoors.

  Anyway, I never tasted kerosene, but if I did I suspect it would taste like Lem’s hooch. You see, you don’t drink the hooch for the flavor. No sir. You drink it for the kick. And it’s got a kick like a riled-up mule.

  Well, we drank about a pint of that hooch when Lem says to me,

  “Let’s go steal a pig from Barlow.”

  “What fer?”

  Lem took a swig of that hooch, belched and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “Thanksgivin’ is a’comin’. I fancy pig over turkey.”

  “Well, I don’t know,” I sez. “Pig don’t seem like a Thanksgivin’ vittle. It’s more fer Fourth of July and the like.”

  Lem snorted and some of that hooch came out of his nose. “That feller—whatsisname—Rockefeller who drew them pitchers was the guy who got people thinkin’ that turkeys was the only thing. I bet he was paid by the folks who raise turkeys to draw that pitcher. Besides, stealin’ a pig is a lot cheaper than buyin’ a turkey.”

  Well, I never heard of this Rockefeller guy and didn’t know nothin’ about a pitcher. I still wasn’t sold on the idea. We always had turkey for Thanksgivin’, ever since I was knee high to a grasshopper. I told this to Lem.

  “There ain’t never been a Thanksgivin’ when we ain’t had turkey. Dang it. Turkey is the proper vittle fer Thanksgivin’.”

  “There ain’t no law sez it’s gotta be,” Lem sez. “Them pilgrim fellers et squirrel and possum and raccoons. I don’t expect they went a’shoppin’ fer turkey come Thanksgivin’.

  Well, history was never my best subject, so I had to take Lem’s word fer it. And, being as I was drunk and all, that made perfect sense. So we headed over to Barlow’s place and snuck up to the pigpen. Lem was carryin’ a poke to put the pig in, and I had one of them flashlights. You know, the kind that lights up when you press a button. Don’t know how they work. Batteries, or somethin’. ‘Ceptin’ that it ain’t no battery like they put in automobiles. There’s only these bitsy round things that ain’t big enough to be of any use to anybody. If’n them little things can light up a flashlight, why don’t they use ’em in cars? I guess you gotta be a smartalecky scientist, like the guy who invented gravity, to understand how these gadgets work. We wuz never taught that at school, bein’ as Miss Ferber was not one of them pee aitch dee scientists. But she was real good in English. Taught me ever’thing I know about grammar and how to read and write. She’s dead now, rest her soul. She never got married neither. Of course, that ain’t surprisin’ seeing as she had buck teeth and eyebrows that looked like caterpillars. Boy, could she make them eyebrows dance, especially when she was angered up.

  It was rainin’ cats and dogs and all of their kin. I was soaked clean through to my longjohns, and was beginnin’ to think bad things about this whole pig stealin’ idea. I said so to Lem, but he ain’t about to give up. He could smell them pork chops a fryin’. And Lem likes to eat, I want to tell you. I remember one time I saw him put away a whole half a pig and then finish off the yams and peas without so much as a burp. I knew there was no use in tryin’ to talk him out of it, so I went along. Like I said, I guess I could use a new brain. But Lem is kin. And us Malloys is basset hound loyal.

  We snuck up to the pigpen, me keepin’ the flashlight low so that old Barlow wouldn’t see us. Lem had that poke open, ready to shove a baby pig into it first chance he got. My job was to shoo that pig over towards Lem.

  About the time we get to the pen, old Barlow’s big black dog, Luther, comes a whoopin’ towards us. Luther is as big as a grizzly bear, but he’s harmless; just a lot of noise but no bite. I remember one time he got chased by a dog no bigger than his paw. Why, Luther coulda stepped on him and put him out of his misery. Luther whimpered for the rest of the day, lickin’ hisself like he’d been hurt something terrible by that bit of a thing. That’s the kind of dog he is—nothin’ to be scared of. But I’m feelin’ a mite guilty because we was there to steal a pig, so I back off like I was goin’ to run. Well, old Luther saw me backin’ off, but I reckon he thought I was gonna hit him with the flashlight. He turned tail and ran back to the house like he did when that bitty dog chased him. He ain’t much of a dog, at least in the protection department.

  The rain was still comin’ down. I opened the gate to the pigpen and stepped into mud almost knee deep. I could see mama pig and her young ones sleepin’ in the shack, so I tiptoed through the mud towards the shack. Now it ain’t easy to tiptoe when yer knee deep in muck with rain runnin’ down into your eyes and all that. I didn’t have a hat. I used to have a baseball cap with “Rafer’s Feed and Grain” wrote on it, and a picture of a big red rooster sittin’ on a fence. But I lost it last summer, and old Rafer ain’t givin’ out free caps no more. He says if I buy some chicken feed, maybe he would give me another cap. But I don’t want to spoil them chickens by givin’ them store-bought feed. They’re just as tasty eatin’ what they eat now.

  Anyhow, I wuz just about to the shack when I stepped into a hole the size of a wash bucket. My feet went one way and my body the other. I landed plunk down in that mud like a hacked down tree.

  There I was layin’ there all covered with mud lookin’ like one of them corn dogs—you know, the kind you buy at the fair. Used to be they cost a quarter, but them days are gone. They cost over three dollars now, and I ain’t payin’ that much for somethin’ that gives me the gas. So I buy cotton candy instead. But I only buy the pink, because the blue gets all over and makes you look like you got venerable disease except it’s on your face instead of your venerables.

  Anyhow, there I was layin’ in the mud when this old momma pig comes along and steps right on my stomach. Well, she weighs over 400 pounds jaybird naked—maybe more. I let out a whoosh and my uppers went a flyin’ out of my mouth and landed in the feed trough.

  Now I paid 25 dollars for them teeth to a mortifier—you know, them people who pretty up the dear departed for kinfolk to weep and wail over, except I don’t see how they can be departed when they’re layin’ there in that box for everyone to see. “He’s with Jesus now,” the preacher says. But there ain’t room in that box for two of ‘em. Maybe it’s one of them little Jesuses like you see in them Christmas scenes. The Lord moves in mysterious ways.

  Anyhow, I need t
hem uppers bad. I can eat pretty good with them except for corn on the cob and goobers. Goobers get underneath and riles up the mouth. So I feel around for them teeth. When I found them I hollered real happy like and stood up fast. Well, I hit my head on the beam of that shack with a fearsome noise, like “crrk!” Actually more like “krrckbck!” It’s hard to describe but you know what I mean.

  So I fall down in the mud head first, and would have drowned if Lem hadn’t come along and flipped me over like a half-done fried egg so I could breathe. He drug me out of the pigpen gruntin’ and groanin’ all the while. When he was done it was hard to tell who was muddier—him or me.

  What with all the commotion from old Luther’s barkin’ and crackin’ my head and all, it gets Barlow’s attention. He comes tearin’ out of the house with a shotgun in his hand and yellin’ at the top of his lungs.

  “You pig stealin’ varmints!”

  Then he lets a blast of that shotgun, and them buckshots whiz by my ear like riled-up hornets. About that time Luther starts to get real brave, what with Barlow protectin’ him with that shotgun. So he comes gallumphin’ up the path, his teeth all set to grab the first thing that gets in his way. I was closer to that dog than Lem, so I started runnin’ faster than a hound dog on a rabbit’s trail. I dropped the flashlight in the mud and lost one of my boots. I ain’t goin’ back for ’em though. The batteries is probably dead by now, and I can’t afford new ones. I’m gonna miss them boots. They been in the family for forty years or more. My pap wore ’em before he died. But old man Barlow was hoppin’ mad, and I sure ain’t fixin’ to mess with that shotgun of his. I guess I’ll have to throw that other boot out. It’s gonna be a sad day when I do that. Maybe I could use it to patch up the seat in the tractor. That’s only fittin’, as it spent a lot of time on my backside when Pap was still wearin’ ’em.

  After awhile we make it over the field, me limpin’ on one boot and Lem all bent over from runnin’. He was gaspin’ like a overworked mule. He ain’t in the best of shape and the only time he gets any exercise is when he’s runnin’ away from trouble. Which is pretty often, come to think of it.

  Lem and me come stragglin’ up to the house all dirty and tuckered out. But Ma won’t let me in the house with my dirty clothes. She’s my wife, Peony, but I call her “Ma” because she hates her Christian name. So I strip down to my longjohns and go in the house. Lem starts in after me, but Ma won’t let him in, sayin’ “One dirty old man is all any woman should have to put up with.” Ma can be a real hoot when she’s a mind to.

  One of the buttons is missin’ from the flap in my longjohns, so it don’t stay up like it should. I’m a standin’ in front of the fire warmin’ myself when all of a sudden the log crackles and a spark comes out and hits me right where the flap of my longjohns should be. Well, I let out another whoop and hop around like I was stung by a fleet of hornets. Ma gets out the lard and spreads it on the place where I got burned. Maybe that’s what people mean when they call somebody “lard ass.” I don’t know. I only know that it helped me feel better. And I was mighty thankful that she didn’t use that stuff that Lem’s old lady used on him.

  Old Barlow never did find out that it was me and Lem who tried to steal that pig. I sure ain’t gonna tell him. Besides, I promised Ma I would never do such a crazy thing like that agin. She didn’t have to talk too hard. I had pretty much made up my mind when I was runnin’ away from Luther. Actual, I guess you could say I got the notion when I heard them shotgun pellets.

  And I’m goin’ easy on Lem’s hooch, too. I only drink it on Saturday and special days. Ma sez it looks to her like just about every day is special, but like I say, she’s a real hoot at times. Sunday bein’ a religious holiday and all, well, I don’t touch the stuff.

  I ain’t et a pork chop or bacon ever since that day. I kinda lost my taste fer pig.

  Ma, bless her soul, got a store-bought turkey that’s cookin’ in the oven right now. I hear tell that Lem’s old lady went and did the same thing. Now, ain’t that a hoot?

  That Rockefeller guy had the right idea. There ain’t nothin’ like a big fat turkey fer Thanksgivin’ dinner.

  Mama Made Kugel

  By Barbara Metzger

  Mama made kugel. The noodle pudding was just about the only Thanksgiving dish she cooked that was edible. The turkey had desiccated cardboard on the outside, pink gore on the inside. The slimy green beans, from a can, were drowned in mushroom soup, from a can, and glopped with soggy onion rings—from a can. The sweet potatoes, from a can, of course, were too sweet, with both maple syrup and marshmallows, and the fruit cocktail and cranberry sauce still tasted like the tin they came in. The salmonella stuffing got cooked inside the bird along with mushrooms, chestnuts, raisins, celery, and anything else she found in the cupboards. Mostly Mama found her blackberry brandy, so she enjoyed the meal. I ate kugel and waited for the pies and cookies from the bakery.

  That’s why I wanted so badly to make Mama’s best dish this year, only I couldn’t find the looseleaf she kept, with notes and recipes handed down from her long-dead mother, Miriam, for whom I was named. I needed that damn notebook. I’d spent the last seven years looking for it.

  So I slammed shut another drawer and kicked the last cabinet.

  “You’re not crying, are you?” Alan asked, ready to run. We’ve lived together for three years, except in two different houses. Don’t ask. At least both were on Long Island.

  I snuffled. “No. I’m just mad. I wanted this Thanksgiving to be special, a tribute to my mother, like the funeral we never got to hold. But it’s gone.” The book, Mama, the stubborn search I’d dedicated my life to. All gone. My mother’d been declared legally dead last month, after she’d gone missing so long ago. No more posters, no more harassing the police or hiring private detectives.

  Alan wrapped his strong arms around me, despite my drippy nose and general tear-the-house-apart dishevelment. A keeper, right? “You’re not alone, Mira. I’m here.”

  “But I wanted you to share the best thing she made.”

  He held me tighter. “I already do.”

  Definitely a keeper. “Let the caterers do their thing,” he urged.

  My father was paying. As well he should, with all the people he’d asked to what I planned as a small gathering to commemorate my mother’s final, legal, no-hope-left passing. A few friends and relatives, a couple of neighbors maybe. A lot of blackberry brandy and jokes about her terrible cooking. Closure.

  I should have known better. Harry Michaels was an organizer with an accountant’s mind for details. He did not believe in small, intimate gatherings. The more the merrier. Like wives. I wouldn’t have invited him at all, but he’d kept up Mom’s health insurance when she got sick and handled all the bills and legal stuff, and never tried to weasel out of the divorce settlements.

  He naturally had to bring his current wife, number three, Carinne. Neither her boobs, her nose, her blond hair nor her tan was natural, but that didn’t matter to dear old dad. Since the only date we could agree on happened to be Thanksgiving, a family holiday, he wanted to invite Carinne’s son by her previous marriage, Dillon. Dillon’s partner had to be included, of course, though neither of them had ever met my mother.

  My half-brother Carl, from Dad’s first marriage, usually went to his wife’s family for Thanksgiving, but he’d spent every other weekend with us here for years, before Dad divorced us for Carinne. I know he kept in touch with Mom even afterward. Carl and I were ten years apart, so never really close, but he taught me to drive and helped bury my hamsters. So he was coming, once he found out the meal would be catered, along with Rochelle and their two kids. The kids were Lori and Hartley, like Laurel and Hardy, without the humor. I seldom saw them now that they’d moved to Westchester; Rochelle did not approve of my living arrangements. Or that I held title to Mama’s house, which was bigger than hers.

  Carl couldn’t leave Susan, his own mother and Dad’s first wife, alone for the holiday, could he? He could if he rem
embered how Susan accused Mom of husband-stealing, but I didn’t want to bring up more bad memories.

  Then Dad remembered he ought to bring his own mother out of the assisted living rest home to see her grandchildren and great-grandchildren all together. “Most likely her last time, I suppose,” he said with a deep sigh, laying on the guilt. So Nana Anna who liked to take her teeth out was coming too. And an aide to cut her food and change her Depends.

  My Alan had to come, on pain of dismemberment and promises of hot sex. He got to invite his widowed father. Alan agreed to carve Mom’s memorial turkey and keep sharp knives away from everyone else, so I owed him. Besides, he was one of the private detectives I’d hired and he kept searching missing person databases for me, for free after the first year. He never believed we’d find my mother alive, but he kept looking, for me.

  The only old neighbor who hadn’t moved away or passed away was Mrs. Markoff, who had a seeing-eye dog. At last, a guest I could genuinely welcome. Butch, not the nasty witch who used to rat me out for sneaking through the back door during high school years. She could barely see then, but she heard every squeaky board and unsteady footstep. She was still busybody enough to mention the gathering to my own first husband, Stan, the boy I’d sneaked out to meet. The marriage hadn’t lasted long. The friendship did. Stan was now Mrs. Markoff’s pharmacist. He’d been Mom’s too. He used to drive her to the doctors when I couldn’t. Stan called to give his condolences, seven years after the fact, so I invited him too.

  Alan said he was okay with that. They belonged to the same gym. “I’ll just break his arm if he comes on to you.”

 

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