Family Thang (11 page)

“Huh?” Ruth Ann gasped, heart skipping beats. “You know?”

“Yes, I do.”

Ruth Ann started to kneel, but they were standing on concrete and she was wearing a dress. “Please forgive me, Shirley. I didn’t mean for it to go as far as it did. You gotta believe me!”

Shirley gave her an odd look. “What the hell are you talking about?”

Ruth Ann backed up to the Expedition and leaned on it for support. Woozy and nauseous. She’d almost stepped out on a greased limb. “Lester! I was talking about Lester, Shirley. I let our relationship go too far.”

“Ruth Ann, you’re married to the man.”

“Yes, you’re right. I better get back to him.” She hopped into the Expedition and started looking for the keys.

“In the ignition,” Shirley said.

“Oh, yeah. See ya, Shirley. I love you!” She started the engine.

“Wait a minute! Let me move Darlene’s car out the…” Before she could finish, Ruth Ann drove across the lawn and then sped off down the street, in the wrong direction from her house.

Chapter 9

Robert Earl lay on the couch, a damp towel wrapped around his neck. He’d come home an hour ago, hurting, his ego more bruised than his neck. His weirdo baby brother had actually gotten the better of him, an ex Marine, a real man.

A minute there, on the floor with Leonard’s thumbs pressing his goiter deeper than it was designed to go, he thought it was over. A few seconds more and he would have lost consciousness.
Choked to
death by a fag!
The though
t made his neck hurt even more.

Leonard couldn’t confront him man-to-man. No, he had to dive in the air, catch him off guard. If he’d been expecting the move, he would have caught Leonard midair, whirled him around a couple of times, lifted him overhead and body-slammed him.

He adjusted the towel around his neck, a wicked smile under his bushy moustache, the imagined sound of Leonard’s body bouncing on the jail floor echoing in his head.

And where’s Estafay?
When he needed her she was nowhere to be found. His neck needed a massage.

As his daddy used to say, “A woman ain’t good…” He couldn’t complete the thought. His daddy never liked Estafay, and hadn’t mind saying so, even to Robert Earl’s face. No one had a better reason than he to kill the rotten, tightwad so-and-so. His daddy had never given Estafay a chance, not once.

An ugly memory played in his mind. He shook his head, trying to recall something more pleasant, but the memory continued...

Honorably discharged from the Marine Corps, he’d returned home with his bride of two weeks, Estafay. His family was sitting on the front porch when he and she got out of the cab.

He strutted up to the porch in his dress blues, Estafay a couple of steps behind, his chest puffed up, head held high, arms swinging six inches to the front and three to the rear, as they’d taught him in boot camp.

He could not have asked for a better day, early April, a light breeze, the afternoon sun hitting his bronze buttons and patent leather shoes just right.

He stopped a few feet short of the porch and said, “Momma, Daddy, Shirley, Ruth Ann, Leonard, I’d like y’all to meet my wife, Estafay. She’s from Oceanside, California.”

Estafay nodded hello.

A long, awkward minute they all stared at Estafay, looking her up and down. And then…his head ached just thinking about it…his daddy shook his head, looked down at the floor and shook his head some more.

“Boy,” his daddy said, “all those beautiful women in California--millions of em! On a beach you can throw a stick in a crowd, knock two centerfolds upside the head. And you come back here with a goddamn orangutan!”

They--Ruth Ann, Shirley, Leonard--burst out laughing; not hee hee and haw haw, but full blown gut-holding laughter. Ruth Ann dropped to all fours, laughing so hard she started coughing and crying.

Robert Earl clutched his fist, unconsciously, as he had done that day, years ago, when his family had laughed in his and Estafay’s face.

He’d wanted to kill his daddy, put his hands around his scrawny throat and choke the life out of him. If Estafay hadn’t whispered in his ear, “Let’s go somewhere else, honey,” he might have done just that.

Estafay practically had to carry him back to the motel, three miles away, holding him up by the arm, urging him onward each step. Tears clouded his vision and he stumbled forward as if he were drunk.

Estafay walked in carrying grocery sacks in each arm, overlooking her ailing husband. He watched her put the sacks on the table and stock groceries.

Yes, Estafay was a tad on the frumpy side, more weight on the bottom than atop. The left side of her face was darker than the right, a color line zigzagging down the middle. Her large brown eyes were askew, the right a bit higher than the left, which conveyed a curious scowl.

Large nose, open-faced nostrils. Bad teeth, the uppers in exceptionally poor condition, two of which protruded out of her mouth even when closed.

She noticed him. “What happened?” she said, coming near.

Her forehead rather expansive, the hairline bordering the top of her head. He wondered how she would look in braid extensions instead of the unflattering style she favored, her short, auburn-colored hair, a tint of orange at the roots, parted in the middle and brushed down.

“What happened?” she asked again.

“The fag choked me!”

Estafay sat beside him, gently removed the towel and tenderly rubbed his neck.

She ain’t Halle Berry. Or Rihanna. But she ain’t a dang orangutan!

“Does it hurt?”

He grimaced. “Only when I exhale.”

“Why did he choke you?”

“Momma confessed to killing Daddy. I said something, can’t remember what. Next thing I know the fag snuck up behind me and started choking me.”

“Your mother confessed?”

“Sure did.”

“She didn’t do it.”

“She said she did. Why would she say she did if she didn’t?”

Estafay rewrapped the towel around his neck. “It’s just bruised. Should feel better in the morning. If not, we’ll go to Doctor Springer. You want a couple of aspirins?”

“I’ve already taken two.”

“Did Sheriff Bledsoe arrest your mother?”

“No. After Leonard and me got into it he ran us all out. A good thing ’cause I was fixin’ to wax Leonard’s ass real shiny.”

“There’s no reason to be profane.”

“I’m sorry.”

“We need to pray. Ask the Lord for strength, help us through this crisis.”

“Crisis?”

She gave him a stern look, eyes squinting, almost lining up evenly. “Yes, this is a crisis. Get on your knees.”

“Honey, my neck.”

“At least close your eyes.”

He did, though reluctantly. He didn’t like Estafay’s impromptu sanctimonious exultations, and he certainly didn’t enjoy joining in. He’d gone along with all of it--eight or nine different religious conversions--had even accompanied her to several revivals, not liking one bit all the chanting and shaking and shouting going on.

He opened his eyes.

Estafay knelt on the floor a few feet before him, rocking back and forth, hands clamped together, eyes clenched shut. She didn’t have a clue how gruesome she looked when she prayed.

“Ohhhhh Lord!” she shouted, and Robert Earl jumped. She held her hands overhead, as if waiting her chance to wave at a football game. He knew what was coming next, had seen it a thousand times, so he closed his eyes again. Estafay was convulsing, shaking harder than an overloaded washing machine. He heard a thud and forced himself to take a peek. She rolled on the floor, ankle-length white dress bunched up around her waist, revealing white cotton panties.

Rolled away from the coffee table…and then back again. Another thud.
Can’t she feel her head
hitting the table?
Apparently not. He closed his eyes again, tighter.

Several thuds later she stopped. Robert Earl waited for her to say amen, and then he mumbled amen and opened his eyes.

“Did the Lord speak to you?” she asked, rubbing a spot on her head.

God, he hated when she asked him that. He nodded.

“He spoke to me, too,” Estafay said. “What did He tell you?”

“Uh…He told me to pray more often.”

Estafay stared at him for a beat. “Give Him the glory! You definitely should pray more than you do. He told me your mother didn’t kill your father.”

“Really?” Estafay shot him an icy look. He knew not to question her spiritual insights. If the Lord told her something, she’d explained a million times, then the least he could do was listen. “Uh…” searching for the right words, “…uh…did He happen to mention who did?”

Estafay stood up and brushed off her dress. “Yes, He did.”

Robert Earl waited.

Estafay said nothing, sat down in the wicker chair and picked up her Bible from an end table.

Ninety-nine times out of a hundred, Robert Earl very well knew but rarely voiced, Estafay’s spiritual messages were dead wrong. Once she’d been direct
ed by divinity to invest all
their meager savings in a venture called CowPatty.com, which attempted to sell manure via the Internet.
What a stink!

“Well,” he said, “who do you think did it?”

“I don’t think, Robert, I know! The Lord told me.”

“Okay. Who did the Lord say did it?”

“Ruth Ann,” barely audible.

“Excuse me, I didn’t hear you.”

“Ruth Ann,” almost a shout.

Robert Earl shook his head. “Uh-uh. She’s too scary. A spider will send her into a conniption. Ruth Ann--are you sure?”

Estafay opened her Bible. “The Lord has spoken,” she said and began to read.

Chapter 10

Eric took off his wet clothes and hung them on the shower rod. Though Shirley had doused him an hour ago, his legs wouldn’t stop shaking. Stark naked he sat on the rim of the tub. He grabbed his right leg with both hands and tried to still the shaking.

Tap water! I just knew it was hot grease!

If Shirley had had an inkling the woman in question was Ruth Ann, then it would have been hot acid. His legs started shaking more than before, thighs jiggling like Jell-O.