Land of a Hundred Wonders (14 page)

My ears are still ringing from the row Janice and Clever had out back of the diner just moments ago. It went something like this:

“Goddamn it, Carol. When ya gonna learn life ain't
always
about you. I got needs too, ya know,” Janice yowled.

Clever catted back, “What ya mean, life ain't always about me? When has it
ever
been about me?” and her hair was all crazy-looking, too. “It's been 'bout you, Mama. Ya don't care a whit 'bout me. All ya care about is gettin' a bottle and a man to keep ya—”

That's when Janice hauled back her ropey arm and slapped Clever straight across the face so hard that the yellow rose flew outta her hair smack dab into a puddle. And Janice probably woulda hit her like that again if I hadn't yelled, “Charlie, come quick,” and he hadn't come running through the back door, and seeing what was going on, said, “That's about enough of that.” Clever waited 'til Grampa got a good hold of her mama and then she hawked and spit at Janice's white waitress shoes, picked up the rose and stuck it back into her hair, mud and all, and went running off into the woods with one of Miss Florida's chiffon pies tucked under her arm.

So, that's what's been going on around here. Sorry. Nothing else much new to report.

HA! HA! HA!

You think I've forgotten that I left you hanging in suspense after Miss Jessie left for her Cray Ridge Days meeting and I slunk over to the barn to negotiate the return of my briefcase with Sneaky Tim Ray, don't you?

Well, I haven't. Not by a long shot!

(I'm proud to report that my sense of humor may be reassembling itself. To quote the
Jokes-A-Million
book:
Doing the unexpected is important in the funny business
.)

Sooo . . . let me get ya caught up.

This is what happened yesterday right after I waved good-bye to Miss Jessie, who was on her way to the Cray Ridge Days refreshment meeting.

Keeper and me hurried up to the barn, and without further ado headed toward the narrow stairs to the hayloft with a lot of
Trepidation: Trembling fright.

Teddy Smith was sweeping the barn aisle at the time, moving a piece of straw from one corner of his mouth to the other, concentrating with all he had. I am in general much more acquainted with him than I am with his brother since Teddy is over at the Land of a Hundred Wonders so much of the time helping out Miss Lydia with this and that. He was there this morning, in fact, same time I was.

Vern called over from the work sink, “Hep you with something, Gibber?”

I was about about to say, No, thank you, but then from outta nowhere this plan came to me . . . just about blinded me, that's how bright it was.

“Ya need somethin' outta the loft?” Vern asked, as I was placing my foot on the bottom step.

I most certainly did. Because nobody, I mean NOT ONE BODY, is gonna stop me from writing that story about Mr. Buster. And that includes Sneaky Tim Ray Holloway. So I arranged my brilliant plan in my mind and a bothered look on my face when I answered him, “Sneaky Tim Ray's up top. He had some real bad things to say about Miss Florida yesterday and I'm fixin' to have a few words with him to set him straight.”

Vern stopped rinsing the bucket he was holding and said, “What 'zactly that uselessness Holloway have to say?”

Winging it, I said, “Ah . . . he told me with a lot of digust in his voice that Miss Florida smelled like . . . like . . . a chicken coop.”

On hearing that, Teddy leaned his broom against a stall door, brushed his hands down the front of his work pants, and headed up the loft staircase with jackhammer feet. I could smell his mad comin' off him. Almost see it in waves.

“Don't kill him,” Vern warned, because his brother is the classic example of still waters run . . . waters still run . . . Teddy's the strong, silent type.

“Long as you're up there, would you mind terribly retrievin' my briefcase?” I called after him. “Sneaky Tim Ray stole it off me.”

Even though he didn't say, I sure will, Gibber, I knew Teddy heard me by the way the muscles in his back got even bulgier.

“All right then,” I said, pleased as punch with my little plan. “Need some help, Vern?”

Turning the water back on full force, he said, “A body could always use a little help.”

“I'd have to agree with you,” I said, and picked up a rough brush from the shelf above the work sink.

That's right about when the storm, not entirely satisfied with the job it'd done earlier, decided to give it another shot. Hard rain on a tin roof makes Billy ascared because it reminds him of gunfire, but to me, that
tat . . . tat . . . tat
. . . was real soothing, especially since it was harmonizing with the
shud . . . shud . . . shud
from above that could only mean one thing. Teddy Smith had gone back to his sweeping. Only this time it was the hayloft floor and he was using Sneaky Tim Ray Holloway instead of a broom.

Don't think a girl could ask for sweeter sounds.

After it got all still up top, Teddy sauntered down the steps looking refreshed and swinging my briefcase like he just got back from a job in a Louisville office. Normally, if a colored man beat up on a white man, there would be quite a to-do around here. But when it came to Holloway, thank goodness, nobody seemed to care who whacked him around. (Since Teddy only uses his high C voice once in a blue moon, I knew I could count on him NOT to inform Sneaky Tim Ray it was me who told him that Miss Florida was coop-smelling.)

When all was said and done, the Smiths were kind enough to drop me off back in town.

“Thanks for the ride,” I told 'em, slamming the Chevy door behind me.

And they musta really liked the gold stars I gave them because they gifted me something in return. Teddy tossed it to me through the truck window, and Vern said, “Think of it as a souvenir,” and tuba-laughed. “An
eye
-catchin' one.”

Other than forgetting to pick up Clever's belongin's bag, which I promised Miss Florida I would do today, I consider it one heck of a successful afternoon.

So here we are back at the diner, in case you've forgotten. (Awful feelin', ain't it?)

“Gibby?” Grampa calls from behind the cash register. Top O' the Mornin' is closing-time empty 'cept for me and him and Miss Florida, who is done folding her apron square.

“Charlie?” How relieved I am that he's called me Gibby instead of Gibson. His mad at me from going to Browntown the other night must be wearing down some.

“Frank Bailey told me the perch are bitin' off Witch Point,” he says, counting coin.

“That right?” I say, not looking up from my blue spiral. I don't want to break the mood.

Miss Florida calls from the back hall, “See y'all tomorrow. God willin' and the creek don' rise.”

“Stay dry,” I shout.

“So?” Grampa says, emptying the till into his bucket.

“I'd love to go fishin' with you, but I can't today. I gotta get busy investigating the death of ...”
That was a close call
. "... the death of . . . ah . . . Miz Titwilliger's cat.”

He's coming to sit down in the booth across from me. Uncapping his black pen so he can jot down the egg order. “What happened to Miz Titwilliger's cat?”

(Damn, he's cagey.)

“Ahhh . . . not sure. That's why I gotta get over there to interview her ASAP.”

Sliding over the napkin that he wrote 3 doz on, he says, “First things first,” and tips his cowboy fishing hat back hard enough to make the lures jangle. “I believe we have a paper to look over.”

Grampa never lets the
Gazette
get typed up and run off by Miss Ruth over at the library until he checks it over. To make sure I haven't spelled something incorrectly or written about a subject that might get me in a heap of trouble, like it did with that picture I printed of bare-butted Janice Lever doing something she shouldn'ta with Gus the handyman last year.

Grampa reads aloud from the
Love, Love Me Do
column: “There's word in town that Reverend Jack, the Lord's help, and Loretta Boyd, owner of Candy World, are
sweet
on each other.” Giving me an almost apple-puckerin' smile, he says, “Good,” and flips to the front of the paper to read the lead story, the Miss Cheryl and Miss DeeDee one. All of a sudden Grampa doesn't look so amused.

“Ya gotta stop describin' Hundred Wonders like it's some sorta miracle place. Folks are gonna get the wrong idea,” he says, testy.

“I've seen things up there that you wouldn't believe,” I protest. My feelings get hurt that he never takes me at my word. Miss Lydia tells me it's because Grampa got wore down after Gramma died, and when a short while later my mama died, and then when
I
almost died, his faith just eroded away. “Land of a Hundred Wonders
is
a miracle place. Miss Lydia does all sorts of heavenly things for folks who—”

“Lydia is nuttier than one of Loretta's caramel apples and Hundred Wonders is nuthin' but a third-rate—”

“But I heard you tell Miss Jessie once that if I ever get quite right again, that'd be a miracle.”

“I meant a different kind of miracle. Not like what Lydia is up to. What she call them things? Actuations? Visitations? All she's doin' is salving her guilty conscience. Enough is enough. I'm headin' out there this afternoon and havin' some strong words with her.”

“Is havin' words all you'll be doin' with her? Maybe
you're
the one's got a guilty conscience. I heard that you and Miss Lydia were an item at one time.”

“Why, that's . . . that's nuthin' but hog swallow! True, I loved that girl, but not in
that
way.” He looks like he might blow a gasket. “Where'd you hear that?”

Gathering up my reporting supplies and jamming them into my leather-like, I reply tart, “A reporter never reveals her sources.” (Clever.)

Grampa is stubborn as a new bottle of ketchup, but I can hold my own, too. Smacking his palms down hard, he slides out of the booth. I chase after him, even though I'm feeling toward him a way I can't ever remember feeling. Hollerin' from the diner's back steps as he stomps toward the truck, “Ya gotta stop coddlin' me. How am I ever goin' to get quite right if you keep ridin' rough-shod all over me, every minute of the day? Let me do my own thinkin'.”

“Sharper than a serpent's tooth ungrateful is what you are,” he shouts, slamming the truck door hard behind him.

I could spit, that's how infuriating he's being. “What's wrong with me spreadin' my wings a little?”

He's staring straight ahead through the windshield, mouth straight and white as a highway line. “You comin'?” he yells, gassing the engine.

“No, I am not,” I yell back.

Without so much as a see ya later alligator, he charges out of the parking lot, tires spinning and exhaust smoke spewing.

“The hell with you,” I shout, shaking my fist. “I can do just fine all by myself. You'll see . . . you . . . you . . . goddamn peg-legged-fishin'-cowboy-whittlin'-bird-watcher.”

Hiding and Seeking

Completely peeved at Grampa, I dropped the paper off at the library myself, then swung by Rudy's Bait Shop to pick up Clever's things. Now I'm sprinting down Lake Mary Road like I'm gettin' chased by a wet hen. I mean it, the hell with him. Bossing me day and night, giving me those disappointed looks of his. I've had him clear up to here, I tell ya. I even threw away the egg order. Let the customers eat scrambled dirt tomorrow, for all I care.

I've got my briefcase in one hand, Clever's belongin's bag in the other. Maybe I shouldn't, but I take a peek inside and see a once red, now pink sweatshirt, Cray R dge Bul rogs peeling across the front. Ratty jeans. Two pairs of stretched-out socks that don't match at the heel. But there is also something so extraordinary, something so thoughtful that I'd never believe that selfish, selfish Janice Lever would be capable of sending it along. It's Clever's prized possession. The movie poster she got at the county fair of Paul Newman and Robert Redford in
Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid
that used to hang above her mattress in the apartment. (Like I mighta mentioned earlier, that is our most
absolutely
favorite movie of all times. None other even comes close. We got to watch it every single night for the weeks it was up at the Outdoor 'cause Clever was allowing pimply Dennis Franklin to touch her heinie around that time and he ran the ticket booth out near the road, so all we had to pay for was popcorn.)

We can say almost all the words by heart. For me, who can't recall the day of the week without checking my underwear, that's quite the accomplishment, wouldn't ya say? That movie means something
Profound: Penetrating into the depths of one's being
to the two of us. Might be Butch and the Kid's fine friendship. Maybe it's the strong cowboy atmosphere. I've thought about it and thought about it, and I'm still not entirely sure what it is that stirs us so. All I know is that movie makes Clever and me feel like a double anchor resting secure on a sandy bottom, so I put the poster back into the belongin's bag with a lotta careful.

I'll show Grampa. Keeper and me are on our way to the beach. Mr. Buster Malloy will be lying there in the sand, more'n likely a little riper. Being at the scene of the crime should help me set the tone for my story once I solve who done him in.

The Importance of Perception in Meticulous Investigation
says:
Journalists must make sure their readers feel as if they are witnessing a reported event firsthand. Your article must have the right tone.
What that means is you wouldn't want to sound too cheerful when you write Sugar Jenkins's obituary. Telling your faithful readers how unusually clean he looked in his white Sunday suit and wasn't that creamy coffin the most interesting of choices? No. You'd want that obituary to be sorrowful as can be, and not have the same tone as the story you wrote on the 4-H fashion show.