Karen G. Berry - Mayhem 01 - Love and Mayhem Page 15

  They were back home.

  He parked the truck on Sweetly Dreaming Lane. “I’ll see you later, Grampa.”

  “You going up to your mother’s?”

  “She won’t be awake yet. I’ve got other business.” Annie slipped away. Her grandfather sat for a moment, looking at the door of the trailer next to his. He thought it might be the door that opened on Paradise, but he doubted he would ever know. Paradise, he knew, was not to be his. And nothing was there to take its place but that howl, that hum, that noise that rose up on him now and then, making him fearful. He heard it again. What is that, he wondered, that scream of fury that filled his head and made him cover his ears with his hands, what was that sound that made him want to call out to his lost God for mercy?

  Overcome, his head slumped over the wheel. And that was where Rhondalee found him, “Passed out like a damn Indian in his truck,” a half hour later, when she stepped out the door to go to work. She promptly relieved him of his car keys, and reaching gently into his back pocket, the wad of cash he kept stuffed back there.

  OH, IT FUELED her, up at the Clubhouse, her anger fueled her through her workday and into the early evening. It continued to fuel her as seventeen women moved through an exhausting emergency kickboxing class. Melveena, a cotton and Lycra-clad model of precision and strength, had called the class to “empower” the women who were concerned over the murder. Rhondalee thought Melveena was just trying to fill her own time, because the word in the Park was Melveena’s own students were so concerned that they wouldn’t come to school. So she filled her time with this busybody meddling kickbox class.

  Still, at times like these, some self-defense was a good idea.

  Rhondalee wore a pink acrylic sweat suit embellished with some puffy paint and lace bows. Rhondalee thought that even serious athletic wear should have some visual interest, but sweat trickled down her spine and thighs, and her shoulders hurt so much she wanted to cry. She watched Melveena thrusting and punching and kicking, rings of sweat darkening her t-shirt at the neck and underarms. “Is this ladylike? I’d like to kick her, I really would.”

  She hushed at the sight of Minah, laughing as she flailed away in her Levi’s Bendovers and polyester smock top and an old pair of wavy-soled Famolare lace-ups. She looked as ridiculous as an old dog that suddenly gets up from its patch of sun-warmed blacktop and tries to chase a car.

  Melveena cut the tape. “That’s it ladies. Good work!”

  Rhondalee called out over the moans of relief. “Could I speak for a moment?”

  Melveena, who had been drinking deeply from a bottle of water, dumped some over her own head. Rhondalee did NOT consider water-dumping to be ladylike behavior. “Why of course you may, Rhondalee.”

  “As you all know, I am always looking for ways to increase the readership of the weekly newsletter.”

  “Maybe you could shorten it,” muttered someone.

  Rhondalee ignored that. “I was thinking of a little fun idea, a tattletale column.” There was a collective and sweaty groan. Rhondalee ignored that, too. “But I’m not going to do that. I have a much better idea. My new column will be devoted to Fashion and Beauty Advice.” She ignored the giggles. “Now, I know some of you might wonder how I set myself up as an authority on these matters. As you know, I used to make all my daughter’s costumes back when she was a performer on the stage. And I’d like to think that I can help you all look your best for the performance we call ‘everyday life,’ if you will just let me. So put your pens to paper and your questions in my box!”

  The ladies looked at her, looked at each other.

  “There’s been a murder, here,” said Mynah. “A murder. One of our own. We’re all of us just scared to death over it, and sick with worry, and you want to talk about what we’re wearing?” For once, Rhondalee found herself struck speechless. One by one, without a word, the women left to make dinner for their menfolk.

  Rhondalee stomped into her office. Here she was, just trying to be helpful and make these women look a little less like the trash they all were, and they mocked her. The truth be told, she’d hardly gotten any responses at all for the column she’d announced at the last Tenant Association meeting. With all the romantic intrigue in the Park, she’d imagined that her mailbox would burst with heartache pining for remedy. But she sat at her desk reading the letters that had arrived addressed to her newsletter alter-ego, whom she’d christened “Claudina, Queen a Hearts.”

  Rhondalee LaCour opened a letter to Claudina, Queen a Hearts.

  Dear Claudina, Queen a Hearts,

  I never thought I would find myself writing to a column like this, on account of I think you all are mostly full of crapola. However, my wife is spending all her time chatting online. I don’t know what she is finding so interesting on there. It looks like a bunch a hooey when I try to read over her shoulder. I work nights, and when I come home, I expect a hot meal and hotter wife, if you know what I mean. Lately, I been getting Cornflakes and precious little else. My house used to be neat as a pin. Now, it is a dump. My mother, bless her heart, calls my wife several times every hour and tells her what a terrible job she is doing of taking care of her husband and home, but this doesn’t seem to get through to the little woman, either. We talk, and talk, and talk at her, but all she does is sign on and ignore us. I think it’s this online chattering that is tuckering her out. What do you think? I figgered a low-life columnist might understand something like this a little better than a hard-working, god-fearing person like myself.

  Yours,

  Getting None

  Well, Rhondalee had to admit, this was quite a serious problem. She stuck her hand in her pocket and played with the keys to Tender’s truck as she considered her reply.

  Dear Getting None,

  I guess you haven’t heard about Internet addiction, the latest addiction to be sweeping the country, because you are asleep when all the really informative shows like Jerry Springer are on. Your wife is an addict, and she needs help. But first, you have to deal with her denial.

  I suggest that you arrange for you and your wife to be on national television where you can confront her about her problem in front of millions of home viewers. Tell her she’s ruining your life with a lack of hot breakfast. Have your momma there to talk about her side of things. And be sure to bring Polaroid snapshots of the messy house to broadcast to the nation at large. I think this will be an important first step in healing your home. And be sure to drop me a line and let me know when your air date is.

  Good Luck,

  Claudina

  Satisfied with her efforts, she hit ‘save’ and pushed away from her desk to re-tie her Keds. She felt the poke of metal against her bony hip. She extracted Tender’s keys from her pocket and looked at the leather tab worn black with the grease of his thumbs. Oh, this was a trial. Reduced to confiscating his keys. She threw the things down and went back to fretting.

  Melveena’s damp hair created a brunette corona as she peeked around the doorway. “I think that column is a lovely idea, Rhondalee.”

  “You do?”

  Melveena eased into the room, her bag over one shoulder. “I do. That’s just what this park needs.” Melveena lowered her voice to a conspiratorial purr. “The general sense of style here is atrocious and requires addressing.” She leaned in and put at her hands on the metal desk, then pulled back as if she’d touched a hot thing. “I’ll let you get to work.”

  Well, decided Rhondalee, Melveena Strange is not so bad, after all. Her good mood lasted just long enough to get home and find out that her husband had disappeared to God Knows Where. Tender was drinking in secret, she just knew it. Behind her back, her husband was drinking like a fish. She wished she were still at the office, where she could jot that phrase, “drinking like a fish,” on a scrap of paper, and push it over to the pile of similar scraps.

  Her entire life was Tender’s fault.

  TENDER LACOUR SAT at Shake and Ache Lounge, sipping his second seltzer and lime of the eve
ning. He’d had to hitch a ride to the Shake and Ache in Ochre Water. Somewhere between driving Annie back home and taking a nap in the truck, he’d misplaced his car keys. The things were always getting mislaid one place or another. Most of his money had disappeared as well, but he’d found a ten dollar bill in his front pocket, and that was enough for a steak at the Shake and Ache.

  Aside from a very flavorful t-bone, the Shake and Ache Lounge didn’t have a reputation for catering to the finer instincts of mankind. Cheap beer flowed while patrons traded small paper packets for cash in a far corner. Tender sipped his seltzer and averted his eyes from the stripper on the dirty little stage. She looked so cold, tired and skinny that Tender wanted to put a coat around her shoulders.

  He said aloud to no one in particular, “I should be going home.”

  The man sitting next to him sounded just the slightest bit amused. “You look like you’re pretty anxious to get there.” Tender looked up, surprised to see he was sitting next to Gator Rollins, the trucker who’d been staying with the Reverend before he died. He was not a person Tender had ever had much occasion to speak to.

  Gator lifted his glass. “Here’s to home.”

  “I’ll drink to that.” Tender drained it.

  “Say, Tender, speaking of home. I need my stuff out of the Reverend’s trailer.”

  “I’d like to help you out, but that trailer’s my brother’s territory, now.”

  “I’ll ask him about it, then.” Gator signaled the barmaid. “Another round on me.”

  She smirked as she set down a Sprite and a seltzer. “Sodas and seltzers are free.”

  Gator lifted his glass and smiled. He was a plain-looking man, Tender thought, possessed of such an unremarkable set of attributes that he exuded a kind of visual vacancy. “I had another question for you. I heard you had an old black guitar at your place? Some kind of cast-off from a card game?”

  “An old National. It’s huge. My wife dug it out a few years back. She decided to teach herself to play on it.”

  Gator leaned in, his blank eyes locked in on Tender’s mercury gaze. “And how did that work out for her?”

  “Not so well. That guitar has a mind of its own, as far as tuning. My wife wasn’t ever able to find a way to make it let her play. She tried and studied and cursed and cried for six months, and learned one song. Learned it badly, too. She said she was going to donate it to a jumble sale up at the Clubhouse.”

  The trucker leaned back. “Well why don’t you look around for it? If you find it, I’d be happy to take it off your hands. I might even pay a couple of hundred dollars for it, too.” He looked around the room. The stripper was absent-mindedly shaking the only part of her body that had any visible padding. Gator let out a whistle. “That’s what I call some Crisco in the can. How’d you like some of that?”

  Tender shook his head. He knew as a man it was all right to look a little. But to comment? Not mannerly. Not mannerly in the slightest. “No thanks. I’ve got a wife.”

  The trucker smiled. “A wife is a gift from God, isn’t she? One of the best things God ever did for a man was to give us dominion over such loving and tractable creatures. But I’ll tell you, Tender, even the sweetest, most docile woman in the world, you have to keep her in line. You can’t have a woman who fancies herself the head of the household. Sometimes you have to show women what you’re made of.”

  “What I’m made of?” Mostly, these days, he felt like he was made of dust.

  “Sure. Sometimes you have to show them who’s boss. You know what I mean?” He leaned even closer to Tender’s ear. “Let her know that when it comes to women, you’ve got options.”

  “I’m a married man. I don’t see as how I have a lot of options.”

  “How about that little blonde harlot living next door to you? That pretty Fossetta Sweet?” Gator’s voice was a parasite crawling under his skin. “Why don’t you slip over there one night and do her? Everyone else has.”

  Tender’s fist slammed into the mouth of the average-looking man seated next to him.

  He just kept hitting.

  It took three men, large ones, too, to hold Tender back from further violence. The bartender offered ice, but Gator Rollins waved it away. “Call the cops! Call ’em! You call his brother and have him arrested right now! And find my blasted tooth!”

  Tender looked at the floor. While three bikers held his arms and the roar of ghosts filled his head, he calmly used the sole of his boot to grind that yellow tooth into dust.

  WITH THE NIGHT wrapped loosely around her, a little girl walked the roadway. Hair tangled, feet bare, a sack over her shoulders, humming. The moon sent a baleful glow to light her path. The cacti leaned in to hold her in their wounding arms.

  When cars passed, their red tail lights made her eyes bleed.

  No heavy black case tonight. She had another pillowcase in her hand and she trudged the highway, stopped now and then, picked up a can. “One more. Just one more.” She was tired of picking up cans, and she was tired. Another can plunked into her bag. She could walk miles in these boots “. . . and I’m gonna HAVE to, if I want to get this DONE,” she said out loud.

  She walked back toward the park, stopping at the front door of the Blue Moon to have a peek inside. During the day she could go in and Beau wouldn’t make her leave. But at night, she knew she’d be scooted out like a cat on a broom. She peered into the neon gloom. No Pops, nowhere at all. “Grandma’s gonna be madder’n hell,” she whispered.

  She crossed the highway, walked between the lions at the gate, headed over to the east side, where the old woman who didn’t know how to feed herself lived. She hadn’t been able to sneak her much this week, because her grandma was suspicious. Too much food gone, and one too many pillowcases disappearing.

  She found her destination; a mountain of cans, shining blue and silver under the almost-full moon. This, she thought, might put me over. But Abner Widdell sat beside his treasure pile, cracking, chugging, tossing. Occasionally, his pink tongue heaved out like a frog’s to lick away the precious foam.

  “Hey Abner. Mind if I carry away your empties?”

  His eyes swam to focus on her. He chuckled. “What’s in it for me, little girl?”

  Annie frowned. “What’s in it for you?”

  “Yesh.”

  “Well, you won’t have a big-ass pile of empties outside your door, garbaging things up. That’s something in it for you.”

  “You can have’em if you show me your tang tang, girlie,” he croaked.

  She crossed her arms.

  “I’ll give you all these empties and ten dollars just to see your tang tang.” His fat white stomach shook in laughter.

  Her eyes glowed red like a raccoon’s. “I don’t know that you could be any more disgusting, Abner Widdell.” She stomped off. Stomping in new boots gave your feet some power, she felt it, an echo in how they hit the earth. And she’d have those empties, she would. She’d tell her Grandma she wanted to beautify the Park. Her grandma liked that word, “beautify,” and she’d give Annie Leigh permission to carry off those empties while Abner snored, passed out, one afternoon this week.

  She decided to climb up on the old satellite dish outside the Tyson’s and have a look around. She stashed her sack of empties under their aluminum stairs and threw the granola bars she had hidden in her pocket to the puppies that shifted, not barking when she came near.

  She grabbed hold of the posts. It only took her a second, her arms doing most of the work, her boots occasionally scrabbling to keep her progress.

  It reminded her of climbing the moon.

  The air was even colder up here. She never minded the chill. She looked out over the roofs of the Park, some of them gleaming with white rock, others darkly tarped, tires holding down the plastic. A trailer was like a shoe box, she thought, you could lift off the roof and see the life in each one, then put the lid back on all that misery and put it in a closet.

  Closet. She was missing the guitar, tonight. That g
uitar had been a black misery to her until she learned to play it. After that, the black misery came from not playing it. But tonight was about those empties and the money they’d bring her.

  She sat up on the dish like a sentry, watching. She knew that greasy Reverend Heaven had been killed, and she shivered a little, wondering where her grandfather was. But no one would ever kill my grampa, she thought. He’s good. That Reverend was as nasty as Abner Widdell.

  She watched Fossetta’s car pull up in her driveway. Fossetta got out, stepping soft in those pink moccasins. She went in first, and a man followed her. A tall, handsome man in a John Deere cap, it looked like. No. That wasn’t Gramps. Annie Leigh closed her eyes. It wasn’t. That tall, muscular man with the cap and the dark boots making his way into Fossetta Sweet’s trailer was not her Gramps.

  Because Annie Leigh said so.

  Tuesday

  ASA STRUG WOKE, head in hands. He felt the wind’s cry like an eel feels the coursing power of its own electricity. His eyes rolled white in aggravation. “Satan, thou will never make the Top Forty with this discord.”

  “Where the heck art Thou, Lord?” Asa felt the pressure of the magazines stacked around him, pages and pages of glossy female flesh, arranged and displayed like a buffet of sin. The only diners were mice that tunneled and nested in the stacks and aisles through which he paced, caged, ready to tear off the roof, to hurl it at sin. Because no matter how much he took into himself, no matter how many nights he walked and bought, his meager checks squandered on this filth, sin survived. Sin lived in the Francie June Memorial Trailer Park, sin lived and grew and claimed and triumphed.

  His dirty feet trampled a Gethsemane road into the defilement of the female that carpeted his home. He kicked his door aside and strode out, rocks tearing his bare feet, his ropes of hair standing up in rage and fear. Asa Strug saw it then, glowing in his mind, a tidbit of Scripture.