The Front Porch Prophet (6 page)

“You’ll be needin’ some tires soon, Will,” Billy said, peering at the rubber on A.J.’s truck. Billy called his male patrons
Will
and his female customers
Missus.
He was ancient and grizzled. At the moment he was shaking his head, as if he found it hard to believe that a grown man would run around on such a pitiful set of tires.

“You sold me that set last month,” A.J. said, sipping his cold drink. Billy was an old country boy who had done extremely well for himself by adhering to the simple belief that every vehicle had some problem that should be repaired by Billy.

“Well, they’re wore some,” Billy said stubbornly. “Maybe we need to line her up and rotate these front tires while there’s a little life left in them.”

A.J. was now fully alert.

“We ‘lined her up’ when we put the tires on,” A.J. noted. “Maybe your alignment machine was out of whack.” Billy was squatted down, looking at the tires. He scratched his head and lit a slightly bent cigarette. Confusion was etched on his grainy features. As A.J. watched, he saw Billy nod his head twice and look up with certainty in his eye. A resolution had been reached.

“Here’s what we need to do, Will,” Billy said, standing and dusting his hands on his pants. “Bring her in next week and I’ll line her up and rotate those tires. You must’ve run over a pothole or something and knocked her out.”

Actually, it had been a curb. A.J. had vaulted it while avoiding one of Estelle Chastain’s more erratic driving maneuvers. But he wasn’t telling Billy that.

“Don’t you worry,” Billy continued. “I’ll fix her up good as new.”

Ironically, at that moment, A.J. saw Estelle’s aged Ford motoring up the highway, running astraddle the broken white line in the middle of the road. All that could be seen of Estelle were two white gloves clenched on the steering wheel and the top of her head, complete with pillbox hat. She peered with myopic eyes in A.J.’s general direction, and he knew it was time to go. He exited after pointing out the danger to Billy, who was no fool and took cover. When Miss Estelle came to town it was every man for himself, vehicular Darwinism based on survival of the quickest.

In his rearview mirror, A.J. saw Estelle swing into the Chevron in a long, slow arc that left her parked with her right front tire up on the pump island. Billy came out from hiding and squatted in front of Estelle’s car—elevated for convenience—and when the venerable mechanic began to slowly shake his head, A.J. knew the game was again afoot.

It was dusk when A.J. arrived home, exhausted. He sat for a moment and gazed at Maggie’s Folly, his name for the family manor. He and his wife, Maggie, had bought it thirteen years ago, an abandoned Victorian dwelling that had seen better times. It was built during the days when the wealthy kept summer homes in cool mountain valleys to escape the heat of the city. This particular structure was built by a carpetbagging entrepreneur who had traveled to Georgia in 1866 with the intention of stealing a fortune and living the good life, both of which he managed to do before being shot fatally in a bawdy house by the estranged husband of one of the employees of the establishment. As A.J. sat, he remembered the first time he and Maggie had seen the house.

“I want it,” Maggie had said as they walked through the creaking, moldering foyer. “Look at that stained glass! Look at that stairway!” She turned and looked at A.J. “We have to buy it.” A.J. thought that ten or fifteen skilled craftsmen could have it whipped into shape in a couple of decades or so, if their luck held and it didn’t rain too much.

“Who are you going to get to fix this dump up?” he had asked, but it was token resistance. The deal was done from the moment they walked through the door, and he knew it.

“I didn’t marry you for your good looks,” Maggie replied, folding her cruel arms around his poor, doomed neck. The house continued its decline momentarily as she kissed A.J. Then they drove down to the bank and arranged to buy it.

They found the bankers to be motivated sellers; they had been in possession of the property for several years and had pretty much given up on ever finding buyers. Then in had walked A.J. and Maggie. The Longstreets signed a promissory note stating they would pay the bank some money every year if they could manage, and that the house should be paid for in twenty years, if that was convenient.

Now a sense of calm descended upon A.J. as looked at the old place. The anxiety brought about by his reunion with Eugene drifted away. He was in his element. He got out of the truck and walked slowly to the house, which had shaped up well. Maggie had been a stern taskmaster while bringing the Folly back from the brink of ruin, and they both had put in many long hours on the project. She stood double duty as construction superintendent and general laborer, and A.J. did everything in between.

A.J. walked past the porch and patted one of the columns. He rounded the corner and saw Maggie and their five-year-old son, J.J., planting chrysanthemums in the side yard. Gardening wasn’t coming naturally to the boy, and Maggie was down on her hands and knees trying to help him. Several of the unsuccessful attempts lay scattered about.

It was a Longstreet family tradition to butcher fifty or sixty dollars’ worth of flowers each fall and again each spring. These ritual sacrifices were not a pagan rite marking the passage of the seasons. Maggie just wanted a pretty yard. Unfortunately, the ground in the vicinity of the Folly stubbornly refused to support any plant that might possibly bloom. A.J. was the son of a farmer and took personally the fact that he could not get anything worthwhile to grow around his house. He had fertilized, aerated, rotated, watered, and chopped, and still no flowers. Finally, he gave up.

“This must have been an ancient vampire execution ground,” he had told Maggie. “The earth has been scorched and sown with salt.” He went on to suggest that they continue to buy the plants, anyway, and then just throw them away on the way home, thus cutting out all the work in the middle. “Some farm boy you turned out to be,” had been her reply.

“What’s up?” A.J. asked as he sat on the ground. Maggie turned and smiled.

“We’re killing these flowers,” she explained, gesturing with her trowel. “And what we haven’t murdered outright,” she continued, hiking a thumb in J.J.’s direction, “he has tried to eat.” At the moment, J.J. was intent on tamping the dirt around his latest attempt.

“How did the flowers taste?” A.J. asked his son.

“They tasted nasty,” the boy answered.

“They probably needed salt,” A.J. said, tousling his son’s long blond hair. “Run on in and wash up. We’ll kill more flowers tomorrow, but right now I need to talk to Mama.” J.J. frowned and crossed his arms. Going in was not what he had in mind. A.J. looked over at Maggie. “This boy needs a haircut,” he said conversationally. At the mention of the dreaded word, J.J. jumped up and ran toward the house. His little arms were over his head in a protective gesture.

“He sure hates a haircut,” A.J. observed as they watched their son go.

“I’ve never seen anything like it,” she replied. They heard the screen door slam. “Except maybe when it’s time to take Harper to the dentist.” Harper Lee was their eight-year-old middle child and, unfortunately, her first dental experience had been painful. Thus, all subsequent visits to the dentist were like pulling teeth. The problem was so severe the Longstreets had been referred to a pediatric dentist, which is a regular dentist who charges more due to an ability to work on screaming children. They had been faced with this necessity when they discovered Harper Lee was blacklisted at every dental establishment within a fifty-mile radius. “You can’t rely on people with slim hands,” A.J. had noted upon discovering his daughter had become
a persona non grata
in the dental community.

“You’re right,” he said, back in the yard with Maggie. “Taking her to the dentist is worse. It’s your turn next time.” He laid back on the grass to watch the sunset. The sky to the west was passing from dark blue to black. A chill crept into the air.

“How could I forget?” Maggie responded, lying next to him. Together they watched the light fade over the magnolias.

Night fell, and a lone cricket warmed up. It was late in the season, and soon he would be gone. A.J. had briefly forgotten about Eugene’s short, bleak future, but now thoughts of him crept in like ghosts. A.J. wondered what Eugene was thinking now that night had descended. He silently wished him well. As if she could read his mind, Maggie spoke.

“Tell me about your visit with Eugene. Was it a social call, or did he want to accuse you of sleeping with some other member of his family?” Maggie did not generally succumb to petty commentary, but she had not cared for the misunderstanding at the barbecue and had made no secret since then of her opinion that Eugene was primarily responsible for the whole sorry affair. Not that A.J. had escaped unscathed. He had caught the rough side of her tongue over the incident and had listened in abashed silence to an hour-long monologue peppered with many a succinct observation.

But the fight was long ago, and Maggie’s anger did not last, although references to the event occasionally surfaced as instructional aids. She had even sent A.J. off with her blessing earlier in the day. Of course, she had also given him benediction to brain Eugene with the Louisville Slugger if the necessity arose.

The Longstreets lay there in the deepening darkness, and as the stars flickered into their nightly patterns, A.J. related the details of his visit. He spoke of how Eugene had looked, how he had sounded, and what he had said. But not all of what had been said. He did not mention the second favor Eugene had requested. There was no real reason to withhold this information since he had no intention of complying with the wish, but he could not voice the words. They were too bold and terrible, too cold and final. When A.J. finished the story, they were both quiet.

“Well,” Maggie said, breaking the silence. “I don’t know what to say.” She paused for a moment and then continued. “I haven’t had much use for him for a long time. You know that. I think he has been a horrible father to those poor boys and the worst excuse for a husband I have ever seen. He has driven away everyone who ever cared about him, including you. Still, for all of that, I feel really bad for him.” She sighed.

“He’s been no saint,” A.J. agreed. A memory popped into his head to support the opinion.

They had been at a Little League game, and Eugene had taken it as his fatherly duty to coach his oldest boy on the finer points of the game. This action would have been normal behavior for any father in that setting, but Eugene added a twist when he drove his Jeep through the fence and out to center field to give the boy instruction and encouragement. He was in his cups that day, and it had seemed too far to walk. A.J. had sprinted out and sent the mortified youngster to the dugout with a pat and a reassuring word. Then he had turned to Eugene.

“Do you know what hubris is?” he had asked.

“No,” Eugene had said. “What is hubris?”

“Hubris,” A.J. had replied, “is when God screws you over for being a smartass. Move the Jeep.” The words A.J. had spoken in the outfield now rang in his ears.

“Who knows about this?” Maggie asked.

“I get the impression that you, me, Doc Miller, and the Emory boys are the long list,” A.J. said.

“Do you think he intends to tell his family?” Maggie asked. “He can’t just die and disappear. Diane and the boys need to know. He owes them a chance to say good-bye.”

“Who knows what he’s thinking?” A.J. was privy to Eugene’s strategic plan, but he was unclear on the smaller, tactical details, and Eugene tended toward a random logic that made his actions difficult to predict.

“When you go back up to see him,” Maggie said, “try to find out what his plans are for informing his family.” A.J. was silent. “Whoops,” she said, looking at him. “I’m sorry. I was assuming you were going back. Are you?”

“I suppose I am,” A.J. said with reluctance. “I don’t want to, but I said I’d do it. To be honest, I don’t want anything to do with this. I don’t want to see him dying, and I don’t want to see him dead. I must be a coward.” He had developed a bad headache, his lifelong habit when dealing with cosmic no-win situations. He rubbed his temples in the darkness.

“Well,” she said after a moment, “I’d really be worried about you if you were looking forward to it. And you’re not a coward. You’re just a little more honest than most men.” She reached over and patted his chest. “Which isn’t saying that much, really.”

As he was about to respond, they were interrupted by a commotion coming from the house. The screen door slammed and Harper Lee’s voice came to them across the gloaming.

“Mama! Emily says I’m adopted.” Emily Charlotte was the Longstreet’s oldest child at eleven years. In a break with a tradition that had been handed down from mother to daughter for generations in Maggie’s family, Emily Charlotte was named after not one but two of her mother’s favorite authors, the Bronte sisters. A.J. was unaware of this unusual family tradition when he married Maggie but probably would have taken her to love, honor, and obey anyway, had he known. The other two children, Harper Lee and J.J. (short for James Joyce, much to A.J.’s dismay), had to resign themselves to being living tributes to only one of Maggie’s cherished writers. Emily took every opportunity to point out this literary shortcoming to her siblings, because it was her job to torment her younger brother and sister. It was a duty she took seriously.

Maggie, born Margaret Mitchell, had been named by her mother, Jane Austen Callahan, after the celebrated author
of Gone with the Wind,
a self-help manual that dealt with the subject of how best to cope with Yankees when they venture south.

“Mama? Daddy? Am I adopted?” Harper’s voice had a small quaver in it.

“Absolutely not,” A.J. replied. “We got you the regular way. Mama and I went down to the hospital and picked you out. Emily, on the other hand, we bought from a roving band of Gypsies. We gave nineteen dollars for her, back when that was a lot of money. We wouldn’t have paid so much, but we really wanted a son. Emily was the only boy they had, so they charged extra.”