Miss Julia Speaks Her Mind (16 page)

That poor woman had sat all through this with a smile plastered on her face, without a word to say for herself. Of course, nobody had given her a chance to speak, and she was probably too tired anyway. I kept wondering how she got all those chil
dren fed, washed, and dressed to make their appearance on television.

“Look!” Lillian yelled, jumping up and pointing at the screen. “Look right there!”

“What is it?” I strained to see what she was pointing at.

“It’s Junior!” Hazel Marie came off the sofa, holding her ribs and spilling her milk shake all over my Oriental. “It’s him! Brother Vern’s got him in that family! He’s right there, don’t you see him?”

“It is him,” I said, seeing that little pinched face with the thick glasses sliding down his nose. All the children were smiling and posing for the camera like they’d done it a hundred times before, while Little Lloyd stood in their midst looking lost and forlorn. I noticed that he had on his clip-on tie because, I was sure, he didn’t have anybody to make the knot in his good one.

“I got to get down there,” Hazel Marie said. “Miz Springer, I hate to ask you, but could you loan me enough money for a taxi? I’ll pay you back if it takes me twenty years.”

“A taxi? To Spartanburg? That’s forty miles from here, and I certainly will not.” I stood up and clicked off the television. “We’ll take my car. Get yourself together and let’s get started.”

W
AIT FOR ME
,” Lillian said. “I’m goin’, too, but I got to get this milk shake up.”

“Leave it,” I said, “we don’t have time to be cleaning rugs. It’s forty miles down there, and he’s going to be on the air for”—I looked at my watch—“another hour and a half. If we hurry, we can be down there about the time he’s through.”

“Oh, please, let’s hurry,” Hazel Marie said. She was so jittery that the blue satin robe was shaking and shimmering around her.

Lillian looked at her and then at me. “You want me to go get her clothes?”

“No,” I said, “it takes too long to get her dressed. You two go on out to the car, and I’ll lock up the house.”

I got my pocketbook, checked the cash in my change purse, turned out the lights, and hurried outside to the garage. Hazel Marie was already in the passenger seat, while Lillian stood waiting for me.

“You want me to drive?” she asked.

“I do not. I’m perfectly capable of driving this car.”

“Well, I know you don’t see too good at night.”

“Neither do you,” I said. “Besides, I do have headlights, so get on in and let’s go.”

She pulled back the driver’s seat and started cramming herself into the narrow backseat, moaning and groaning as she did. “Whew,” she said as she plopped in, “this ain’t built for no normal person.”

Hazel Marie had her hands clasped in her lap, staring straight ahead, willing us to get started.

I drove through town, seeing only a few cars at that time of night, but half blinded by the headlights of the ones we did meet. By the time we got to the interstate I’d learned not to look right into them. There were only a few headlights way off in the distance when I got ready to merge, so I was able to do it without having to fit in between a stream of cars.

“Miz Springer,” Hazel Marie said softly and a little hesitantly, “you don’t have to stop and look on a ramp. You can just go on out in the nearest lane. If you don’t mind me saying so.”

“I’m doing the driving,” I reminded her, but I considered what she’d said. I thought you always had to stop and look both ways when entering a main road.

After a while Lillian said, “How fast you goin’?”

“I’m almost up to the speed limit.”

“Well, get on up there and a little over,” she said. “We got to get to that place ’fore he go off with that boy again.”

“Oh, yes, please let’s do,” Hazel Marie said.

“Now look, you two, I want to get there as quick as you do. But I want us there in one piece, so spare me the comments.”

“I probably could drive,” Hazel Marie said, “if you need me to.”

I glanced at her, hunched over with the pain in her ribs. “You can’t hardly straighten up, much less take the wheel of a car. I’ll get us there, don’t worry. And in plenty of time, too.”

In fact, night driving wasn’t as hard as I’d thought it’d be. There wasn’t a lot of traffic, and what there was came in bunches that whizzed on past us.

“Uh-oh,” Lillian said as a flash of lightning lit the southwestern sky. “Look like a cloud comin’ up.”

“Heat lightning, most likely,” I said. Still, it worried me. I could do without one of our fierce mountain storms that usually followed a heat spell like we’d been having.

For long stretches, we were the only car on the road. The four-lane highway dipped and climbed, ran past the Continental Divide, and curved between high cliffs before streaming down the mountain to the flat country below. Our headlights cut a tunnel through the night as lightning occasionally flashed behind a cloud ahead of us. I thought I could hear the tires humming on the pavement, then realized it was Hazel Marie moaning. Or praying.

“I jus’ thought of something,” Lillian said, leaning forward between the front seats. “What that chile doin’ in that fam’ly? Reckon Brother Vern give him away?”

“Oh, don’t say that,” Hazel Marie cried. “Surely he wouldn’t do that.”

“He might,” I said. “He might want him where he’d be out of your reach, and mine. But don’t you worry about it. We know Brother Stedman lives in Memphis, and from what he said about his activities there, I don’t expect we’d have any trouble tracking him down.”

“I want to get Junior tonight. I just don’t think I could stand it if we miss him.”

“We’ll get him,” I said, with as much assurance as I could muster. I wasn’t ready to drive to Memphis that night, but I’d do it if I had to.

“I jus’ thought of something else,” Lillian said. “Do anybody know where we goin’ when we get to Spartanburg?”

Trust Lillian to say what had just occurred to me. That studio on television had seemed so real that I guess I just thought we could drive down the mountain and straight to it.

“I think I know where it is,” Hazel Marie said. “I was down there one time when Brother Vern had the idea of a family band. The Puckett Pickers or the Pickin’ Pucketts, he couldn’t decide which, but it didn’t work out. He said music was supposed to be to the glory of God, but we couldn’t stay in tune long enough to glorify anybody.”

“I declare,” I said, wondering what other talents Hazel Marie had. Besides those Wesley Lloyd had appreciated.

“I jus’ thought of somethin’ else,” Lillian said.

“For goodness’ sakes, Lillian,” I said, “what now?”

“We might ought to have a plan of some kind. I mean, do we go inside an’ grab him? Or do we wait till he come out an’ scoop him up then? Better think about what we gonna do.”

So we all thought for a mile or so, considering the best way to snatch a child who’d been snatched from us. I wished I could think of some way to trick Brother Vern the way he’d tricked me, but I couldn’t. I looked over at Hazel Marie, but all I could see in the glow of the dashboard lights was an intense frown on her face. She was either hurting bad or thinking hard. Maybe both.

“Uh, Miz Springer,” she said, scrunching up her shoulders so that I thought her pain had gotten worse. “I hate to ask this, but you reckon we could stop for a minute?”

“You want to stop?” I took my foot off the gas and got a blaring horn from a lumber truck that passed us so fast it shook the car. I speeded up a little to keep from getting run over, and asked, “You going to be sick?”

“No’m, it’s just that I got to, well, pee-pee, and I don’t think I can hold it any longer.”

“
Pee-pee?
” I almost laughed, then remembered what she could’ve called it. “Lillian, help me look for a filling station. I haven’t seen one for miles, but we ought to come up on a sign
pretty soon.” But the roadsides were dark, and there were no exit signs ahead that I could see.

“I can’t wait, Miz Springer. I got to go real bad.”

“Well, I don’t know what I can do. I can’t make a filling station with a bathroom just appear out here on the side of the road.”

She moaned.

Lillian said, “Be quicker to jus’ pull over an’ let her go beside the car.”

“Why, that’s plain trashy,” I said. “Lillian, this is your fault, making her drink all day long.”

“Ain’t nobody gonna see her, so jus’ pull on over. When you got to go, you got to go, an’ don’t matter if it do be trashy.”

I didn’t like it, but I pulled over onto the edge of the road. After fiddling around on the dashboard, I found my blinker lights. Hazel Marie had the door open before we stopped rolling good, and Lillian shoved out after her.

“Squat down right here,” she told her, “an’ I’ll stand so cars comin’ up can’t see you.”

“I don’t even care,” Hazel Marie said tightly, hiking up my satin robe and hunkering down beside the car.

“Reckon they’s any snakes out here?” Lillian said, almost stopping Hazel Marie in her tracks, so to speak.

Suddenly a blast of light hit us. We were lit up like the sun had come up at ten o’clock at night. My heart nearly stopped when I heard the whooshing sound of air brakes behind us. A big truck, with running lights over the cab and a pair of headlights that put us on display for miles around, pulled up behind us.

“Thay Lord,” Lillian said. She spread her skirt out to screen Hazel Marie from view.

“Hurry up. Hurry up,” I urged. “My Lord, he’s getting out!”
I saw the shadowy figure of a man climb down from the cab and walk over to my window.

“You ladies need any help?” he asked, leaning down to look across me at Hazel Marie’s head, which she was covering with one hand. I gave her credit. I couldn’t see much of him, but he wore a baseball cap and had a powerful masculine odor to him. Probably been cooped up in that truck for miles on end.

“No, but thank you for stopping,” I said. “We’re all right, just a, you know, a necessity stop.”

“Well,” he said, grinning and spitting on the road, “I know how that is, but you ladies need to be careful along here. They’s been somebody ’long this stretch with a blue light that ain’t no police.”

“Hurry up, Hazel Marie,” I said.

“I’m tryin’,” she said.

“Where you ladies goin’?” the trucker asked.

“We goin’ to Spartanburg,” Lillian said. I glared at her, trying to stop her from telling a stranger our business. “You know where they’s a television station down there?”

“You mean that Christian broadcastin’ one? I know where that is. If y’all’re headin’ there, you can follow me. I’m goin’ to the interchange and on up to the Milliken plant on I-85, an’ we’ll pass right by it.”

Hazel Marie popped up right then, straightening out her satin negligee. She said, “Oh, thank you, thank you. That’s wonderful. We’ll follow right behind you.”

The trucker stood up to look at her over the top of the car. Then he leaned down to look at her through my window. He couldn’t decide which view he liked best, but I doubted he’d seen many beat-up blondes in satin negligees on the side of the road before this. But I could’ve been wrong.

“Lemme see can I get back in this car,” Lillian said, crawling
over Hazel Marie’s seat. “We needs to be there real soon, Mr. Truckin’ Man, so don’t spare the gas.”

“Now, just one minute,” I said. “We don’t need to go too fast. Are you in, Miss Puckett? Reach over and get the door, Lillian.”

“This ain’t gonna be no problem,” the trucker said, squatting now so he could get a good look at Hazel Marie through the window. “Just get behind me, stay a coupla car lengths away, and the slipstream’ll do the rest. Y’all got a CB in there?”

“I don’t think so,” I said.

“Well, I won’t lose you, and when we get to your exit, I’ll blink my lights and blow the air horn in plenty of time for you to make your turn. Just stay in the same lane I’m in all the way down.” He straightened up and began walking back to his truck. Then he turned around and came back. “I hope you don’t mind me askin’, but are y’all some kinda gospel-singin’ group?”

I nearly choked, picturing Lillian in her white nurse’s uniform, Hazel Marie in my blue satin robe, and me in my Leslie Fay shirtwaist singing gospel songs on television.

“Nossir,” I said and, figuring we needed to provide some explanation for ourselves, went on, “we’re going down for a healing service.” Forgive me, Lord, but it was the only thing that seemed to fit us all. I don’t hold with lying as a usual thing, but the ox was just about in the ditch.

“Aw, I’m real sorry to hear that,” he said. “Don’t you worry none; I’ll get you there.” He gave Hazel Marie a tender look, a change from what he’d been giving her.

“We need to hurry,” she said. “The program goes off at eleven, and I just got to get there before then.”

“You’ll make it if I have anything to do with it.” He ran to his truck, put it in gear and pulled out around us, tapping his horn as he went.

I followed, and it was as easy as he said because I didn’t have to watch all the other traffic. He did it for me. All I had to do was click on my turn signal when he did, change lanes when he did, and stay right behind him.

“Uh-oh,” Lillian said.

“What now?”

“They’s another big ole truck comin’ up behind us. He might want us to get outta the way.”

“I don’t think so,” Hazel Marie said, gingerly turning to look back. “No, they’ve put us in the rocking chair.”

“In the what?”

“We’re between two eighteen-wheelers an’ they won’t let anybody else in. He must’ve called out over his CB an’ told him we need to get there in a hurry.”

Across the way on the interstate, two big trucks going west on I-26 blew their horns and blinked every light they had, which was plenty. After a while, a car pulled up alongside of us and just stayed at our speed, every person in it gawking at us.

“What them folks want?” Lillian asked. They were worrying me, too.

“See that antenna?” Hazel Marie pointed at the car. “They got a CB, so they’ve heard about us.”

“Good Lord!” I gasped as bright lights lit up the car beside us, and a horn blew a blast that sounded like Brother Stedman’s last trump. Another big truck came rushing up behind the car, getting right on his bumper. This new truck kept blinking his lights and blowing that horn. The driver of the car spurted on past us like a bat out of you-know-where. Scared to death, and I didn’t blame him.

The third truck then eased up until the trailer was even with us, and we moved on down the interstate with one truck in front, one behind, and one to the side of us.