by Anne George
“Sure,” she said. “You know where they are.”
I sailed through the door to the file room for all the world as if I had legitimate business there. The students’ scholastic records and test scores have been computerized, but the old files are still kept in old-fashioned manila envelopes in old-fashioned cabinets and filed under the date of graduation. What year would Henry be under? 1984? 1985?
The 1985 file was the top one in a cabinet, one I couldn’t reach. This was familiar territory, though. I knew where the little foldout ladder was kept under the counter that still held an old mimeograph machine, the kind that turned out tests printed in pale purple ink that the kids complained they couldn’t read. I pulled the ladder out, climbed up and looked through the class of 1985’s lives.
It’s scary when you see how much personal information is in old school files, information that hasn’t made it to the computer. Each year in our school system, until some group questioned the procedure and threatened to take the system to court if it wasn’t stopped, teachers were required to jot down their personal assessment of a student. Actually write it into his permanent record. Most teachers, like me, covered their asses with remarks like “Very capable” or “Could work harder.” But some actually wrote paragraphs complaining that Mary couldn’t keep her hands off the boys or Johnny probably stole money. It was amazing, some of the things they wrote.
I don’t know what I thought I was going to find in Henry’s files. I had always made it a habit not to read personal remarks about a student, preferring to make up my own mind. The night before, though, I realized I was basing my opinion of Henry on the fact that he was a pleasant boy and a talented writer. Given all that had happened and the fact that he seemed to be moving in on my family, I needed to know more.
I found his manila folder in the 1985 drawer and took it out. It was a thick one, going all the way back to kindergarten. I spread it out on the mimeograph machine and began to read.
Henry Alistair Lamont (I’ll bet not many people knew about the “Alistair”) could read when he got to kindergarten, his teacher noted. His mother attended conferences; his father did not. His father was an insurance executive, his mother a housewife. No siblings. His I.Q. was 145. Recommended for enrichment program.
Lois came in, got a package of Xerox paper from under the counter and wanted to know if I was finding what I wanted.
I nodded, and she left. Henry Alistair Lamont had brought a snake into the classroom in the second grade. Much commotion, though he had tried to show the teacher the snake’s eyes because they indicated it wasn’t poisonous. In fifth grade he won the school spelling bee and came in second in the county. Below that notation, his teacher, a Mrs. Cochran, had written “Father passed,” a good Southern euphemism. The next year he was removed from the enrichment program because of poor grades, and the next year he was listed at a new address with a guardian, an aunt, Miss Elaine Denny. No mention was made of his mother.
Apparently Miss Denny did something right. Henry’s grades improved dramatically, as did his achievement test scores. In high school he was on the debate team, was a National Merit Finalist, and blew the top off the SAT. All this and “Most Popular” in the yearbook. Here was the Henry I knew.
I closed the file, relieved and ashamed that I had had any doubts. Henry was one of those people blessed with charisma and the luck to have a relative as caring as his aunt must have been. I was surprised I had never heard him mention her. I opened the folder and looked at the aunt’s address: 7192 Highland Avenue. Why did that sound familiar?
I went into the office and got the phone book off Mavis’s desk. Surely not. But there it was, in bold: Nachman, Deborah T., Attorney, 7192 Highland Avenue. Henry had come home.
I closed the book, put the file back into the cabinet and wondered what it meant. I’ve never been much of a believer in coincidences, probably because I’ve seen my sister arrange so many. Granted, they happened, but this one was a humdinger.
“You ready to eat, Pat?” Mavis stuck her head around the door. I put the notes I had jotted on the back of my telephone bill in my purse and headed for the lunchroom and chicken fried in so much oil that when you bit into it, little bubbles of one hundred percent polyunsaturated grease exploded against your chin. God, it was good.
It was good to see everybody at the teachers’ table, too. Will Burnham came in and said he had been to a meeting down at the Board of Education. He probably hadn’t, or he wouldn’t have felt the need to explain, but nobody minded. Except maybe Chesley Maddox, the vice principal, who was patrolling the lunchroom and pointing accusing fingers at misbehaving students. And even he seemed to be enjoying himself. Would I rather be here or at home with a sandwich watching One Life to Live? It was not the first time I had asked myself that question, and I still wasn’t sure of the answer. I left with Will’s hug and the assurance that all it would take would be a nod of my head and he would leave Rhoda and the family high and dry for a life of unbridled passion with me.
“Someday,” Mavis said, “he’s going to say that to the wrong woman and have a sexual harassment suit slapped on him.”
Will grinned. “I should live so long.”
I really did miss seeing them every day.
The sun had become totally obscured by high clouds while I was in the school. I turned on the car radio and heard the forecast for thunderstorms that night, some possibly severe. Stay tuned for possible warnings. The next night there would be a light frost. Time to take in the plants and pets, folks. I made a mental note to get Woofer a bag of cedar chips for his igloo. No ordinary doghouse for Woofer. I had found exactly what he needed at the dog show, a plastic igloo with thermal walls. Fred would have had a fit if he knew how much I paid for that thing, but I slept better knowing Woofer was comfortable. Probably more comfortable than we were.
There was something I wanted to do first. I cut across Springdale Road and headed up 78 to Delaney’s, the truck stop where Bonnie Blue worked. If she was still worried about Henry’s whereabouts, I could set her mind at ease. Shacked up with my niece at his old house. And Doris Chapman was in Destin, Florida. Fly McCorkle knew exactly where but was reluctant to say for some reason. It’s been nice meeting you, Bonnie Blue, but Henry obviously doesn’t need any help, and the whole thing, including the murder, is tacky, tacky, tacky.
I had never been in a truck stop before, but they all look alike, unusually busy restaurants with a lot of big trucks parked to one side. Certainly nothing intimidating. I pulled into a parking space near the front door which had just been vacated by a plump blonde in a blue Mustang convertible. She gave me a casual wave and floored the accelerator. The parking lot was full of huge potholes, which she ignored. I expected her to be catapulted out each time she hit one. But she hung on. She wheeled onto 78 and was out of sight before I got out of my car.
That should have given me a clue that this was not your usual family restaurant, or maybe the cigarette smoke pouring out of the door should have. But no. I stepped in casually, dressed in my red suit and white silk blouse as if I were having lunch at the Blue Moon Tea Room. Take my word for it, I was the only person there in a skirt.
I spotted a table in the back and started toward it. I’m sixty years old with gray hair, and the only estrogen in my body comes from the pill I swallow every morning with breakfast. But it didn’t seem to matter.
“Yo,” said a burly, whiskered man who had turned to look at me. He was sitting at the counter eating a hamburger, and he held up a French fry in salute.
“Yo, Red Suit,” said his twin next to him, also looking at me admiringly.
I gave a little wave similar to the woman’s in the parking lot. And so on down the line. By the time I reached the table, I was, as Mary Alice would have been happy to point out, “switching my butt.” What is that saying about older women being appreciative?
I took out the plastic menu that was stuck between the sugar and the salt shakers and which felt slightly greasy. I had been
planning on some dessert, but maybe I would just have coffee.
I wasn’t the only woman in the restaurant, but I was the only one in a red suit. The others seemed to be lady truckers. Truckettes? One had a baby propped on her hip. Lord, hadn’t she heard of secondhand smoke? She needed to get that child out of here. I gave her the old schoolteacher stare and she turned abruptly and walked out. Ha! I still had it.
The truck stop was a male bastion, though. The women were outsiders, even sitting together away from their male counterparts. I wondered if any sociologist had ever done any studies of truck-stop social mores.
“Patricia Anne, what you doing?”
“Just watching their facial hair grow,” I said, pointing toward the men at the counter.
Bonnie Blue pulled out the chair next to mine and sat down. “I’m not supposed to do this, but my feet are killing me.”
“I found Henry,” I said. “He’s at my niece Debbie’s house.”
“Is that precious child all right?”
“That precious child is fine. And Doris Chapman is in Florida.”
“I figured that.”
“But, Bonnie Blue, I found out something else. You know when Ed tried to rape Doris?”
“Sure. I was there.”
“Well, he probably wasn’t trying to rape her. He had a cut weenie.”
“A what?”
“His penis! He cut his penis that morning and had to have it sewed up!”
I had spoken louder than I realized. Suddenly, except for the corner where the truckettes were eating, there was silence. The words “penis” and “cut” had been amplified in the testosterone-laden air.
“Oh, Lord, Patricia Anne.” Bonnie Blue looked upset. Some of the men were pushing their plates back, preparing to leave.
“But they sewed it up!”
There was a general rush for the door. Bonnie Blue groaned and stood up. “I’ll call you tonight.”
“No. Don’t. That’s what I came to tell you, that I’m not going to have anything else to do with this whole mess. Henry is okay and somebody will bury Ed and it’s none of my business, anyway. I’m sorry, Bonnie Blue.”
I got up and stomped out. Several of the truckettes waved at me and smiled.
Thirteen
I knew when I got home there would be a dozen messages from Mary Alice. Mama always taught us that we should exercise tenacity, but Sister didn’t know the difference between exercising it and beating it to death. I might as well go by her house and tell her all I knew about Henry and Doris and even Ed. Tell her I couldn’t believe I’d let myself get dragged into this, and then go home and take the phone off the hook for several days. If Henry wasn’t involved in what had happened out at the Skoot, which of course he wasn’t, in spite of the fact that he had moved in on Debbie under peculiar circumstances, then let him work things out himself with the sheriff.
As I pulled into her driveway, I was rehearsing what I would say and for a moment didn’t notice the grungy man leaning against a porch column smoking a cigarette, which he held between his thumb and index finger. He had on a torn undershirt, torn jeans and rubber flip-flops. His long, greasy hair might never have been shampooed. Or was greased with the same substance that curled his mustache around like a ram’s horns. I slammed on the brakes with every intention of backing out as quickly as I could. But just as quickly, I knew I couldn’t leave Mary Alice at the mercy of this Charles Manson look-alike. I tried to think what I had in my purse that could be used as a weapon. All I could think of was a ballpoint pen and some breath spray. Neither would do much good against this guy, who was now looking at me curiously. He flipped his cigarette into the azaleas and walked toward the car.
“Hi,” he said, smiling. He looked to be in his mid-thirties and his teeth were perfect and white in their mustache frame. At least he was brushing and flossing.
I had the breath spray in one hand, the pen in the other. “Where’s Mrs. Crane?”
“She’s in the house with the others. They made me come outside to smoke. I’m Kenny Garrett.” He held out his hand. I had to drop the breath spray to shake it. “One of the Swamp Creatures,” he explained.
“I’m Mrs. Crane’s sister, Mrs. Hollowell.”
“Oh, sure. You’re Patricia Anne. She’s been looking for you.”
“I’ll bet she has.” I let the ballpoint pen slide to the car floor. I wondered if Kenny could hear my heart still thumping.
“Why don’t you pull on up and come in? I’ll tell her you’re here.” He ambled off toward the front door and I could see that his clothes were just as ragged in the back. He had to be freezing. The wind was really beginning to pick up.
I had stopped about halfway down the driveway, which if Kenny had thought strange, he hadn’t shown. I pulled up and parked by a van that looked much like Kenny, the worse for wear. The name Swamp Creatures was written on the side in cursive boa constrictor. Pieces of metal seemed to have sloughed off as if the vehicle were molting.
“Mouse! Come in and meet the band!” Mary Alice had on a fiery red nylon wind suit and seemed to fill the front door. I couldn’t believe how glad I was to see her. I put the pen and breath spray back into my purse.
“You met Kenny, and this is Ross, Sparky and Fussy.” The three other band members stood up politely and shook hands. Kenny was the one who was dressed best. Fussy would have been thrown out of any bag ladies’ group for not meeting the dress code. The men were no better.
“We were just having tea,” Mary Alice said. “You want some?”
“The cookies are delicious,” Fussy added. “Look at these chewy chocolate chips.” She held one out to show me and I noticed perfectly manicured fingernails.
“Thanks,” I said. I sat down and gave the Swamp Creatures a closer look.
“Aren’t they cute?” Mary Alice beamed. “Don’t you just love Kenny’s mustache?”
He laughed. “She thought Pancho Villa had taken over the hacienda.”
“We’re on our way to play for an anniversary party at the Jewish Community Center,” Fussy explained. “The couple’s children are surprising them.”
“Oh,” I said, as if that made it perfectly clear why they were dressed in rags.
“We just came by to check on the Skoot ’n’ Boot,” Kenny said. “We need the regular night work. Mrs. Crane says the sheriff is still holding things up.”
“We never had any trouble there,” Fussy added. “If we had, my daddy would have jerked me out of that place in a second.”
Her daddy? I realized that under the makeup and the black hat pulled over her forehead, Fussy probably wasn’t more than eighteen. Ross and Sparky were also much younger than Kenny.
“I can’t believe somebody did Ed in,” Ross said.
“Nice guy.” Sparky reached for another cookie.
“Somebody didn’t think so,” Kenny said, then glanced at his watch. “We’ve got to get going. We don’t want to be late for the event.”
They stood, gathering their tatters around them. There were going to be some surprised elderly Jews in Birmingham tonight, I thought. Probably some younger ones, too.
“Supper’s included at the party,” Sparky said. He wrapped what might very well have been the original Count Dracula’s cape around his shoulders.
“Thank you, Mrs. Crane. Mrs. Hollowell, nice meeting you. Hope we see you again soon.” They left saying all the polite things mothers teach children to say.
“What?” Mary Alice turned to me after she had shut the door.
“What do you mean, what?”
“You expected to see Helter Skelter written on the wall in blood? For shame, Patricia Anne. Always judging people by their appearance.”
“I didn’t know these people from Adam’s house cat. Kenny was out on the porch smoking marijuana when I pulled into the drive. I thought he was a hobo or something.”
“They don’t have hoboes anymore, Patricia Anne, and he wasn’t smoking marijuana. It was cinnamon.”
“Well, whatever. Besides, I was very polite to them.”
“Your eyes weren’t.”
“My eyes weren’t polite?”
“No, they weren’t, Patricia Anne. You have got to learn to be more tolerant.”
That did it. Only a few minutes before, I had been willing to risk life and limb for this impossible bitch.
One big, chewy chocolate chip cookie was still on the plate on the coffee table. I grabbed it and whacked Mary Alice right between the eyes with it.
“I’ll learn to be tolerant tomorrow,” I said, stomping out the door. I was proud of that exit line when I thought of it later. Miss Scarlett herself couldn’t have done better. The cookie, I realized quickly, was pretty childish.
Just as I thought, my answering machine was full of messages, mostly from Mary Alice. There was one from Debbie, and one from a neighbor who wanted me to join her bridge group. I had played with them several times, but I wasn’t ready to become a regular. I had already realized I wasn’t the club type. I ignored all the messages and got out the vacuum cleaner.
I hate housework with a passion. When I was teaching, I had two women who called themselves The Jolly Maids come in once a week and clean. They were two of the most unjolly-looking women I had ever seen in my life, understandably, given the work they were doing, but not understandably considering they charged an arm and a leg for it. While I was working, I was happy to pay for their services. And they were good at it, too. But when I retired, the jolly ladies and I parted ways. I explained that I would have all the time in the world to devote to dusting tables and cleaning the stove. That was one of the few times I ever saw them smile.
The adrenaline was still pouring, so I decided to use it in a constructive way, a penance, really. I would vacuum the whole house, dust, and clean the bathrooms. I didn’t even bother to take off my red suit and navy heels, just turned on the vacuum and got to work.