Liar's Bench (9 page)

“Daddy will protect you from Tommy. Don't leave us, Mama . . . don't leave me.” I scrambled up from the bench, grabbing wildly for both of their hands. When I latched on, I held them together. “Please, Mama, I'll be strong.” I pressed their hands firmly to show my strength. “Please stay with me, I promise—”

But she turned her head, stiffening.

I tried to run after her, but Daddy caught me. I watched Mama's car head out toward Highway 24. Me and Daddy sat on Liar's Bench for who knows how long—swapping stories, waiting, praying, and me, wearing off the tips of my fingers—all the while clinging to the ragged thread of hope that she'd turn her car back around at the Tennessee line.

 

Seems I spent most of August sitting on Liar's Bench, waiting for Mama to cross the Kentucky line. It would be almost three months before I'd see her again.

Mama and Tommy ended up staying in Chicago for close to seven years, until Tommy ran out of bartending jobs and his daddy took ill. They moved backed to Peckinpaw at the beginning of '72, just in time for his daddy's burial and Genevieve Louisa's birth.

I looked down to find my thumb gliding over my fingers, nervously tap-tapping away, doing its old dance. I couldn't bear sitting in my bedroom another minute, thinking about the past. I had to get out of this house.

I peeked out my door and heard Daddy rumbling around downstairs in the kitchen. Now if I could just find my car key, I might be able to make it out of here without having to face him. I meant all I'd said, but it had been easier with that door between us. Just the thought of looking him in the eye made me blush with shame.

I needed to get out of here. “Where's my key?” I grumbled. Scanning the room, I realized that Daddy must have hidden it after my little display of emotion at Mama's house, afraid that I'd drive off and do something stupid in my grief.

“Damnit, I'm getting out of here,” I said to myself.” The key wasn't on the nightstand, where I thought I'd left it. I went over to my window seat bench and lifted the lid, thinking I might have tossed it in there with some clothes. I rummaged through the quilts in the big bench, finding an old picture album, a box of stationery, useless papers, and a few clothes. No key. “Where could it be?”

Then, I caught the shine of my shotgun peeking out from beneath a quilt. It was the old .410 that Papaw had used as a kid. When I turned ten, he had passed it on to me for rabbit hunting, along with his favorite saying: “You can't catch a rabbit lessen you muddy up those boots.”

My fingertips touched the cool metal and in one whipcrack of thought, I reflected about Mama—my grandparents—and the final escape of madness—and never-ending sorrow. I licked my lips and pressed a hand over the barrel. Oh, but to drive away this madness . . . to lie down beside them in green pastures and restore my soul!

“Driving is a privilege, and one that I can take away.” Daddy's voice was low and stern.

Startled, I piled the quilts over the .410 and dropped the lid. I whipped around to find him standing in the doorway, with his arms crossed and his mouth set in a hard line.

“You're not the Department of Motor Vehicles,” I said, shaken.

“I am today.” He lifted his coffee mug, before he turned and went back downstairs.

When I heard his footsteps hit the bottom landing, I crossed the hall to his bedroom, intent on finding that key.

I worked my way over to his armoire in the corner and opened its doors, doing a double take in the inlaid mirror. Shocked, I peered closer. My long brown hair was a tangled twist of knots instead of its usual soft curls. My nose, splattered with freckles, what Grammy Essie used to call “a redhead's angel spit,” glowed like Peckinpaw's only red light. I groaned. My eyes were road-map red, like the day I'd gotten caught in Grammy Essie's cellar polishing off a jar of sweet dandelion wine. I was nearly thirteen. She'd yanked me out of the cellar and shamed me with a lecture on the evils of alcohol, carefully bringing Mama briefly into it, but I'd only caught two words:
White trash.

I shut the armoire door. “I've worked three years for that car,” I said to the empty room, my resolve growing.

I reached on top of the bureau, fumbling for his leather jewelry box. Finally, I pulled it down and lifted the lid. My nerves lit into my hands, leaving me to fumble. The box slipped from my hands and the contents scattered across the floor.

Dropping to my knees, I scrambled to pick up my car key poking out from beneath the corner of the bed and triumphantly stuffed it into my jean pocket. I stretched my arm across the hardwood to sweep the rest of the mess back into Daddy's box, but I was distracted by a piece of twisted fabric looped around a ring. A small plastic bag labeled “Quality Hair Ribbons, $1.99” lay a foot away, bearing the stamped logo of Nettie's Nest General Store. I scooped it up.

“You leave here without permission, gal, and I will take off your bedroom door and store it in the cellar again,” Daddy said from the doorway. “And you will lose your right to privacy for the rest of the summer!” He set down his coffee cup.

“Go—go ahead,” I stammered, rubbing my closed hand. “Just need to get out of here . . . I'll be back by four.”

“Don't push it, Muddy. You know the rules. Leave the house without consent, you lose my trust—the trust that comes with the protection of privacy—beginning with your door.”

“You've taken it off so many times, the lock only works half the time anyways.” I stood.

“Muddy—”

“I'm an adult now, seventeen,” I said evenly.

“Only ten years older than seven,” he shot back, “and damn well showing it.”

I raised a shaky fist and opened my palm.

Daddy leaned against the doorframe, arms blocked, eyes tightly scrunched as if he didn't see it, it wouldn't be real.

“Who's—who's the lucky woman this time? Which one of them gets this—the new secretary?” I clutched the piece of jewelry. Slowly, I disentangled a cameo ring from the ribbon and placed the piece down on the nightstand. The ribbon was all too familiar.

“What's this, Daddy? This is the same ribbon Mama was wearing.” I raised my fist and let the ribbon slowly unravel. “Everyone knows that Nettie sells in threes.” She always put an extra ribbon in the bag in case you lost one out of the set. Nettie was real thoughtful like that. My breath came fast and hot. “Daddy?”

He pressed his fingers to his temples.

“Daddy, you know Mama never wore ribbons and Tommy forbid her from wearing them. Why do you have the same pink ribbon that Mama had on her ankles when . . . ? Oh, oh.” I felt a tight squeeze in my throat. “Daddy, what is it that you're not telling me? Please,
please
tell me.”

He shook his head dismissively. “Oh, for God's sake, Muddy, you're not making any sense. Settle down! You know it was that horse's ass Whitlock who pushed your mama to the brink. And now, look at you, you're—”

“Stop!” I flailed my arms. “She didn't kill herself. Mama had the other two matching ribbons around her ankles when they . . . when they brought her out of that house. Wait! Did you give those ribbons to Mama? Hurt her? Daddy . . .” I doubled over. “How . . . What Tommy said in the police car . . . you know something about this, about what happened to her, don't you? What did you do? WHAT—”

His face paled. “Enough. I have a lot of grown-up business on my mind.” His eyes locked on the ribbon. “Now, Jingles says—”

“I don't care what Jingles says. You know Mama would
never
take her life.” Daddy moved over to the bed, lowered himself on its edge, and placed his head in his hands.

I brought my own hands to my forehead in shock and winced as I touched the forgotten bruise I'd caught from Roy McGee last week. McGee. I had to tell someone about what I'd seen, none of it making sense anymore. I worried about breaking my last promise to Mama, disrespecting her last wish. But the story begged to be shared: the argument with McGee . . . I charged forward, teetering between anger and regret. I waved the ribbon in his face. “McGee was over at Mama's when I was visiting last week.”

Daddy looked up in surprise. Then recognition.

“Yes. Yes, he was there. And he slapped her. Talk to me. You know something about this. I can see that you do.”

He cast his eyes downward.

“Maybe you and McGee both know something and you're
both
hiding it!” I grasped into the heated air. “What is it?” I dangled the ribbon high, waiting. “Are you in deep with McGee? Maybe McGee's pushing out Tommy, huh?”

“Muddy! That's enough! We can talk about all of this later, when you've had some time to calm down. When you can act—”

“I bet you just couldn't stand the thought that she was never coming back to you . . . back to a lying cheatin' horndog!”

Daddy dropped his elbows to his knees. “Jesus,” he moaned, looking up at me.

I couldn't look at him. Before all this, I'd never spoken to Daddy or anyone like this. And now, seeing him broken, shattered my own angry heart.

I stared down at the floor, twisting the ribbon. I couldn't bear seeing his hurt—his bewilderment—his disappointment in me. I balled my fists and fought the urge to go over and hug him—to beg his forgiveness.

I studied the ribbon, flowered on one side and pale pink on the other. I looked up and saw his pained expression, a mist settling, red-rimming his eyes. A wave of fury buoyed me. How dare he? How dare he steal my God-given grief for his own!

I rubbed the ribbon between my fingers. Mama's ribbon. My head snapped up and my mind flickered with suspicion. “You have to tell Jingles everything,” I said woodenly. “Everything, Daddy. You're the prosecuting attorney. How could you not?” I whispered. “Whatever it takes, I'm going to find out what happened to my mama.”

I grabbed the telephone receiver off its black rotary dial base sitting on his nightstand and listened for the dial tone on our party line. I turned the finger wheel, mentally counting out four long rings. “Sheriff Jingles? Sheriff, it's Mudas Summers . . . Yessir, it was a nice service yesterday. . . . Uh-huh. Thank you. I need to tell you, Sheriff; I'm calling because my daddy has some new information about Mama's death that you really need to—” The sheriff cut me off with awful news of his own. My mouth fell open in disbelief. “Oh, oh. That's just, well, I don't know what to say. . . . All right, yessir.”

I set the phone down in its cradle and slowly tied and knotted the ribbon around my wrist. Daddy's eyes were still glued to the floor, but he was working his thoughts into his old knee injury, massaging absently with his hand.

“Jingles says he found Tommy hanged in his cell. They just sent him off in the coroner's wagon. Daddy, did you hear me? Tommy's dead . . . dead,” I said with a thimble of mixed guilt and relief. My fingers curled tight around the phone cord. “Justice . . . What he did to Mama after he hung her . . . Daddy?” I pleaded, waiting—wanting—and desperate for him to make everything right.

His shoulders dipped lower.

“I'm leaving.” I paused at the doorway, deep down hoping he would stop me if I gave him the opportunity.

He didn't.

“And you called Tommy a horse's ass?” I called coolly over my shoulder. “You're the pecking chicken. Peck. Peck. Peck. Jus' pecking away until you've shattered everything and everyone around you.”

I blinked back the tears, making my way blindly down the stairs and out the porch door. I gave a hard kick to the gravel drive, scattering up chalk-gray clouds of pebbles and dirt. Another. Then another. “I hate you! Hate you!” I called out, stomping stupidly and fruitlessly.

I paced back and forth in front of my car. “Daddy,” I shouted to the house, “I'm leaving now! Need your permission, please!” I paused to catch my breath, and looked up at the house and then over to Peggy, battling between defiance and duty. And gripped by the certainty that I would never be able to see home, or my father, the same way again. When Daddy didn't show his face in the upstairs window, I cried out, “I'm seventeen, Daddy. Seventeen!” I raised my hands in the air, clenched my fists once, then held up seven fingers and swiveled them from my wrists. “Almost eighteen—eighteen and free, Daddy . . . an adult! Legal!” I punched through the grieving air. “Free and legal, Daddy!”

I booted more rock, gravel slapped at my leg.

“Hmph. Prosecute that, Mr. Prosecuting Attorney!”

I swiped at the tears scorching over my cheeks as I jumped into the car.

I
braked in front of Liar's Bench long enough to glimpse inside the Top Hat Café, searching the busy lunch crowd for ThommaLyn, and hoping I'd find Bobby Marshall, too. The last time I'd spoken to him was a week ago, right before I got my car from Daddy. I hadn't seen him at the funeral yesterday, but then again everything was such a blur. Still, I was sure I hadn't seen him in the condolence line. I did a mental tick of time. I couldn't help but to worry why he hadn't called back, or maybe Daddy had said something to chase him off. Surely he'd heard about Mama—everyone had by now. Didn't he care about me? About how I was taking it? He wasn't officially my boyfriend or anything, not my “steady,” that is, but we'd grown close, spending easy hours on the phone, hanging out and mixing in some flirtation now and then. I really needed him around right now.

Under the midday sun, a colored woman with a thick scar wired around her neck hobbled her crippled time in front of my car, then lowered herself heavily onto Liar's Bench. I tried to get a closer look, but a bandana swaddled her face. I stole another peek at her scar. A chill shot up my back. Frannie Crow's “cautious reminder” came to me. I was beginning to worry what the elders meant by calling it that. No one's death should be tied to a stupid object that shines everyone's backsides.

I lifted my wrist and inspected the ribbon I'd taken from Daddy's jewelry box. It dangled like a hangman's noose.

I gunned the motor and headed to the outskirts of town trying to shake off my anger—and everyone and everything that had caused it. I drove the hills aimlessly, letting off steam, letting my mind wander, scrolling through the events of the past week. My head was full to bursting with questions: Why had McGee been at Mama's the day she died, talking about his Rooster Run ledger? What was so important about a ledger? Why did Daddy have those ribbons; what had he done and what was he hiding? How could Tommy do what Jingles wrote down . . . and do that to poor Genevieve, too? I needed to talk it all out, sort it all out, or I'd be stuck in it.

The kind of stuck that usually only my Mama or Grammy could unstuck. I used to save those for Sunday. I was going to miss them. Last Sunday, for the first time since the divorce, I'd taken the phone off the hook. I couldn't bear the thought of hearing it ring, knowing it wouldn't be Mama on the other end. When Daddy'd put the receiver back on the hook, I took off running toward the backfields to numb the memories.

 

Every other Sunday and without fail, and for as long as I could remember, Mama would phone me at exactly 7:00 p.m. Even Daddy helped make it happen. He'd laid down strong words to our party-liners who'd hogged the phone after he found out Mama waited for over an hour in a Chicago snowstorm to talk to me. A lot like her Band-Aids, the calls became tradition, and another small way to keep me in her motherly arms, without the interference of Tommy strong-arming. I'd overheard Tommy arguing with her about our Sunday calls, insisting she use their house phone, but Mama put her foot down, and there it stayed even up until her death. A couple of times he tried to follow her, because I would hear him honking and shouting at her. After that, she took to going out of her way to find different phone booths.

But it didn't matter whether we were separated by one mile or a thousand, we'd talk, and talk, and talk about nothing and everything and anything. A lot of times I could hear the background noises of a big, busy city. Sometimes I'd hear the rain and thunder as a summer storm bounced over her corner phone booth.

I'd spend twice a month on Sundays waiting for the clock to strike seven. When the phone rang, I could barely keep the words from spilling and tangling up with Mama's, worrying about the cost. But the money wasn't important, she would just stuff that phone jaw with more coins and keep going until I'd eventually ticked off my worries and doubts and the week's events to her.

Over the years our conversations turned from lace to lipstick. Last year for my sixteenth birthday, Mama'd bought me
Love Story,
and we'd spent a whole hour and a half discussing Segal's novel. I'd talked a little about boys and the awkwardness I'd felt around them. She'd reminisced about a high-school romance, saying once she'd walked right into a classroom wall and skinned up her nose while trying to catch a boy's eye. The next day she'd accidentally smashed her finger in the library door when the guy passed by her. The week after, she'd been getting a closer look when she missed the bottom step, twisted her ankle, and fell on him. Frustrated, the school nurse sent her home with a note to her parents requesting an eye exam. “I ended up getting that blue pair of cat-eyes I'd been hankering for and the guy's best friend,” she'd laughed.

Once in a while, she talked of her dreams and hopes in soft words and quiet pauses. I'd pry and in a bit, she'd tell me about the ballet lessons she'd taken, and her love for art, and soon her words would leap into a world of dances and colors, and laughter would spill.

Her humor couldn't be beat. No one could squeeze a chuckle out of me faster than Mama. She'd told me about the fish Tommy won for her at a church picnic in Chicago and how it almost killed her.

Mama'd said, “I carried the skinny little fella home in a baggie and borrowed a goldfish bowl from my neighbor. I named him Mr. Church. After about a week the goldfish turned sickly. A few days later I found it belly-up in its fishbowl. So, I thought it would be a good idea and the right thing to do to bury Mr. Church in the neighborhood garden before Tommy came home from work.

“Barefoot, I carried the bowl down the apartment stairs, through the corridors, and out the back door, careful not to splash out water, or poor Mr. Church. When I'd finally reached the small garden in the backyard, I straddled its four-foot fence.

“Well, I guess all that sloshing around did something to Mr. Church. Suddenly, the fish jumped up into the air and out of its bowl. It startled me so bad, I lost my footing and the fish bowl went flying, and the next thing I knew I was flat on my back with Mr. Church slapped across my nose. My first thought was the next day's newspaper headline: ‘Ballet Dancer Killed by a Flying Fish.' The second: How was I going to explain this to the neighbor lady who was now staring down at me with a peculiar look on her face?”

We'd laughed for at least three nickels' worth over that. And after that, we'd always shout “beware of flying fishes” when one of us had to do a tricky chore.

Mama never hung up the phone until she was sure we'd pounded out my problems, and afterward she'd say, “Not hanging up until I hear a smile in your voice.”

Then we'd tease over who'd hang up first, knowing it wouldn't be her, insisting on being last and signing off with “sweet dreams.” Sometimes, I'd get real lonely for her after I'd hang up, so I would pick back up the receiver and listen to the nothingness for a minute, in case she'd changed her mind.

 

“Sweet dreams, Mama.” I pulled back into Town Square. Nothing made sense anymore, and thinking on it didn't seem to help. What did Daddy do?

Needing fresh air, I stepped out of the car and walked over to Liar's Bench. I sat a moment and stared into the face of the Town Square clock nestled in the courthouse commons—the matriarch circle of downtown—then looked across the way to my left at Dick's Barber Shop and Peck's Pool Hall, doors wide open, the haze of cigar and cigarette smoke ghosting out into the summer sun.

Nettie's Nest and Shucks Market set to my right, a few crooked abandoned bascarts strewn between them. Shop doorbells from the Parton & Porter and the Top Hat Café and Milton's Hardware jingled behind me. People flitted in and out, and I saw most were just hanging around to swap stories rather than minding any real business. I watched mamas carrying bags full of supper fixings out of Shucks Market. I thought about Mama fixing my cabbage casserole dish. I wrung out the panic that seemed to grab hold of my hands. I needed to do something. I needed to talk to someone and fix this mess in my head.

I got back into my car and headed to the Dixie Bowl, intent on finding ThommaLyn or Bobby. The Dixie Bowl was the “Let's Beat the Drag” area for Peckinpaw's cool kids (at least those who fancied themselves cool) on the outskirts of town. The Dixie Bowl Bowling Alley, where the only things sure to roll were the wheels on cars full of bored teens cruising the lot, the E-Z Wider papers used by a handful of potheads, and the boozehound kids with their empty liquor bottles.

I parked next to a row of other cars and checked out the Dixie Bowl crowd. Jingles pulled his police cruiser onto the edge of the gravel lot, surprising me. I thought he would've been busy at the jail, instead of making his usual circuits. I guess he just flat ran out of busy. How could that be, with Mama fresh in the ground and Tommy dead? How was I going to find the truth about her death with no one on my side? I set my jaw and grabbed the door handle, aiming to give Jingles a piece of my mind.

Nearby, a carload of boys tossed a bottle out their window. Jingles hit his lights. I dropped the handle and studied the broken booze bottle. I couldn't do this here. I'd set this right, but this littered parking lot and cars full of boozehounds didn't feel like the place. I'd seen enough broken bottles in many a broken hand to last a lifetime. I made myself a promise long ago: I'd never pick the splinters of broken glass out of my hand, or the hands of any babies I might have. I thought about going home, the comfort and nothingness of my bed, but I wasn't ready to face Daddy yet. Didn't think I would be for a long while.

I leaned back in my seat, watching as Jingles eased out of his official car and unsnapped the huge key ring from his utility belt. “Get along now, you kids!” Jingles lifted his keys high and rattled hard. Joey Sims balked and raised his own keys, belting out “Jingle Bells.” A few of his friends joined in the chorus. The sheriff moved toward Joey. He stopped about two feet in front of the boy, slid the key ring back over his meaty wrist, and squirted out a stream of tobacco juice at Joey's feet.

Digging into his pockets, Jingles pulled out a braid of tobacco and his Boker. He stuffed his mouth with another chaw and then wagged the knife in the boy's face. “Joey Sims, this makes twice lately I've done tol' ya to move along.” Jingles scratched his chin with his knife blade. “Didn't you play invisible puppy with me just two months ago?”

Joey took a step back and a few boys woofed and howled in response. I knew from talk, and from the telltale bruises, seat burns, and shiners on some of the boys at school, that “playing invisible puppy” with Sheriff Jingles meant a ride in the back of his cruiser, hands cuffed behind your back, while Jingles locked up his brakes at every other fence post down the road, his metal cage meat-tenderizing your face and body with each forceful slam on the brakes. Him, swerving, laying rubber, and hollering out after each slam, “Well, there goes my invisible puppy, off his leash and in the road again!” Then Jingles would drop the offender off at home, leaving him to explain his sorry state to his parents.

The girls had it worse: They were sent over to Myrtle Dugin's house for six whole weeks of all-day Saturday prayer and evening Bible study.

“You missing the pup? That it?” Jingles asked.

Joey shook his head.

“Then you best move it along real quick, or I'll thump you so hard, boy, you'll be down on your knees searching for your balls with a pair of tweezers.”

Joey moved fast. Real fast.

Before Jingles could spy me and make me his next target, I pushed in my clutch and let the car roll back real slow, then turned on the ignition. The radio crackled and let loose a series of loud squawks. A country roads' DJ scratched out another empty song: Elvis's “Queenie Wahine's Papaya.” Frustrated, I pounded the dash with my fist, but the King crooned on. I fumbled underneath for speaker wires, hoping to jerk them out.

I didn't know what to do, where to go. A bevy of why-me and what-ifs thumped across my brain. I thought about going back and resting a spell on Liar's Bench. Puddling its worn wood with drops of my brokenness. It reminded me of Grammy Essie, and I was feeling in need of some mothering right now. But if Daddy came looking for me, that'd be the first place he'd look and, well, I just couldn't. I laid my head on the steering wheel, thinking.

After a moment, I sat up and looked around the lot, relieved to see that Jingles was gone. I glided my thumb worriedly over each fingertip again, back and forth, back and forth, picking up speed. I knew it was a maddening habit, one that some folks might call a sign of the crazies to come. Grammy Essie said her own mama'd had the same peculiarity, and she was right in her head all her ninety-eight years long. Still, what if Grammy Essie had been wrong?

Worried, I inspected my fingers, looking for a sign. I peered up at the rearview, bug-eyed. What if the crazy had already sneaked up on me? Here I was, sitting in a parking lot alone, with all these loud thoughts.
That
was a bad sign. I had to find my friends. With a renewed sense of purpose, I hit the gas and peeled out toward Ruby's Dog 'n' Suds.