The Quintessence of Quick (The Jack Mason Saga) (9 page)

“As long as you keep your boots on. I wonder how far we’d get, riding bare-ass from here to the Dog House. Be a nice say-bye to Bisque; they’d never forget it, or us either. And can you imagine the laugh that Pete’d get out of it?”

“It’d turn him back into Mose, at least for a minute or two.” After their joint mirth subsided, she turned to look at him. “Hey, there’s something I’ve been meaning to ask you. About Mose, and your mom.”

Dialing up his inner caution a notch, Jack said, “What’s that?”

“Was there ever any doubt in your mind that they were in love?”

“No. It may not have been everyone’s notion of being in love, with her refusing to marry him or give up going back to
New York, but they were definitely in love. I’m sure that they still are, in a manner of speaking. Why?”

“I’ve just been wondering how you must’ve felt, seeing her grieving, believing that he was dead when you knew otherwise. Wasn’t that hard?”

“Sure it was. It was damn hard.”

“Weren’t you tempted to tell her?”

“I wished I could tell her, every day, for a long time. But no, I wasn’t tempted to tell her.”

“I can’t imagine that. It damn near killed my mom when he left, and she didn’t have to deal with his being dead.”

Jack moved to freshen their drinks. “Not that you’ve told me all that much about your mother,” he said, splashing soda over the scotch, “But I’ve gotta believe that we’re talking about two very different people here. You and I, at least, had our moms around when we were growing up. Her mom died when she was fourteen, and left a tidy little scandal behind her for her children, the two younger ones at least, to deal with. Kids whispering ‘their maw got killed screwing their pappy’s partner’ behind their backs, and probably to their faces, day after day. I know that’s a big part of why my mom’s the way she is. She just lowered her head, got through high school as fast as she could, and went to college a long, long way from Bisque. After that, if she wanted something, nothing or nobody got in her way. She took me away from my dad when I was a little boy; it took me a long time to figure out why. What she told me was that
Los Alamos
was no place for a child to grow up, that it was hot, dusty, crowded and dangerous. Which of course it was. The real reason that she brought me back to Bisque, though, had nothing to do with that. What it boiled down to was that she was angry with him for agreeing to leave
New York
in the first place. She’d loved living there, and once we got to
Los Alamos
and she saw what the living conditions were like, she just wouldn’t put up with it. Next thing I knew, we were on a bus, bound for Bisque.”

“Makes you wonder,” Linda mused, “why she didn’t just take you back to
New York, if she loved it so much and had been given such a hard time here.”

“We were in the middle of world War II, for one thing, and you didn’t just roll into
New York
and move into the kind of apartment that we’d left. Later, she told me that they wouldn’t have sent me to school in
New York City
for much longer anyway; we’dve had to move to
Connecticut
or
Long Island, and the last thing she’d wanted to be was a suburban housewife. So she figured that the best- the easiest solution, for her- was for me to get through school in Bisque while she sharpened up her sculpture in her rooftop studio. Then, when I was off to college she’d be off, once again, to
New York
and life among les artistes.”

“Sounds like she had it all figured out, except for one thing.”

“What’s that?”

“When was your dad going to get back into the picture?”

“I think that was such a low priority on her list as to be damn near nonexistent. She was satisfied to be separated from him, as opposed to being divorced, and after the war I could visit him a couple of times a year- he was back at
Columbia
by then- and life could proceed with minimal disruption.”

“For her,” Linda said.

“And for him. My dad, you see, wasn’t about to set foot in
Georgia, to visit me or for any other reason.”

“What?”

“He literally has a phobia about being in the South. Not sure how that came to be, but my money’s on a simple transfer of prejudice from one generation to another. His dad was the same way. Mom said they wouldn’t come into the city- they lived in a big rockpile out on
Long Island’s north shore- to see their new grandson, i.e. me. They had to haul my ass out there for inspection. He tried to explain it to me a time or two; blamed the war. The War Between the States, that is. Great Granddaddy Mason, see, took a little sightseeing trip down here with General Sherman. Apparently he didn’t like what he saw, and said that neither he nor his offspring would ever set foot in
Georgia.”

“Pretty extreme reaction, wasn’t it? Particularly in the light of who were the burners and who were the burnees. It’d be more reasonable if, say, your great-great-granddaddy’d sworn to keep his issue out of Union territory.”

“But then,” Jack replied, “you’d be operating within the province of normal logic, and that didn’t suit my ancestors, ancient or otherwise. The only one who ever made any kind of sense to me was Pap- and Gene Debs, now and then.”

“So you’re saying that if your mama’s refusal to marry Mose left him free to repay a debt of honor to someone who’d saved his life, her sadness over his death was her just deserts.”

“A little dose of motorcycle mania, and you’re reading me like a book. Mind you, I wasn’t taking any pleasure in it, but the fact that I’d sworn to keep his survival to myself didn’t keep me up nights, either.”

 “So if we were to compare your loyalty to your mother and your loyalty to Pete, he wins.”

“Hands down, sweetie; hands down.”

5  GORY DETAIL

Making do with half a bagel, and reminding himself to replenish the dwindling inventory on their trip to Atlanta, Jack promised himself an early lunch and eased the Vincent out onto the highway, banking left and heading for town. Might as well take advantage of this weather, which surely won’t last much longer, he thought, not in February. Should’ve checked the TV forecast this morning; I could be getting wet on the ride back. Wonder if Buster had any weather problems in Daytona; I’d better give ’em a call at the dealership and see how he made out. Be great if he finished up front in that lonesome
Plymouth…

He smiled, cheeks pushing against the cloth lining of the helmet’s leather skirt, at Buster’s modest success as both a seller and racer of Chrysler products. He’d gotten away from the
Hudsons
just in time, their moment in the sun as competitive race cars ended by the Big Three’s development of horsepower-heavy V-8’s. Jack wished that Pap had lived to see his baby boy do well, assuming that he’d define what Buster’s doing as doing well. As far as Jack was concerned, Buster had never done better; no longer in Pap’s shadow, or Gene Debs’s or Mom’s for that matter, he’d combined the modest fraction of Pap’s talent, and capital, that he’d inherited to build some genuine respect around town. A Big Three auto dealer always has a certain commercial cachet in towns like Bisque, and as a NASCAR driver Buster was the envy of every blue-collar Bisquite whose car sported dual exhausts, or who’d just priced them in Honest Charley’s catalog. Now if he doesn’t kill himself and Cordelia’ll behave, one of these days he may even consider himself worthy of comparison to his personal shibboleth, the mighty Gene Debs. But that day’s still to come.

Shutting his engine down in the Hamm County Beverage Company’s parking lot , Jack sat in the saddle for a moment, pulling off his gloves and contemplating the property that would not much longer be his. Not that it hasn’t been interesting, he thought, but I’ll be glad when I’ve seen this place for the last time. The house that Mose built, and I’m still trying to figure out how he went about it. Stuffing the gloves inside his jacket, he walked across the lot and up the steps, steeling himself, as he had since the first day that he’d elected himself president, for the process of slipping into Mose’s three-sizes-too-big shoes. Opening the door, he walked across the lobby and, putting his hands on either side of Beverly Tyler’s doorjamb, stuck his head into her office.

“Hi, Bev.”

“Well, good morning, Mr. Mason,” she said with mock formality. “And how was
Miami?”

“Hot, buggy and full of Spics, thank you,” he said with a grin. I see the place didn’t collapse while I was gone.”

She’d gone to lunch late on Friday, so this was the first time he’d seen her since he got back. “Not so’s you’d notice it,” she said, standing up and extending her hand. Getting close to fifty, she’s still a handsome woman, thought Jack as he shook it. She’s run this place since I was in grammar school, and we still call her ‘the bookkeeper’. “See you stopped in over the weekend.”

“Yeah. Brought my friend by to show her the place; no tour of Bisque would be complete without a look at the halls of HCBC.”

“Well, I hope you’ll bring her back when we’re here. You know what Mose used to say; ‘it’s not the plant, it’s the people.’ She from
Miami?”

“Yeah; she was kind enough to give me a ride back up here on her boat.”

“Ralph mentioned that. Said it was quite a boat, too.”

“Forty-six feet; guess you could cruise the world on it if you knew what you were doin’, and from what I’ve seen she definitely does.”

“Must’ve been quite an experience for you. How long did it take y’all to get here?

“Just a day over two weeks; left there the morning of the fifth.”

“So you were on the high seas on Valentine’s Day. Pretty romantic way to spend it, I’d say.”

“I’ve certainly had worse ones,” Jack said, augmenting his grin with the briefest of winks. “Guess it’s stretching a point to call the
Intracoastal Waterway
the high seas, though. It would’ve been a much different trip if we hadn’t been able to tie up some place every night. And the last three or four nights were pretty damn chilly, after we ran out of
Florida
weather.”

“Well, count me in on your bon voyage party for the return trip. That’s gotta be a sight to see, that much boat and a lady in command. You are going back with her, aren’t you?”

Jack hesitated for a moment. “Sure; far as I know now, that is.”

Bev smiled at him, the older woman ratifying youthful passion. What the hell else will you have to do, she thought. “Well, it’s good to have you back, sailor boy. You’re going to be here for awhile, aren’t you? I need some decisions on a few things.”

“I’m all yours, boss. Your office or mine?”

“Yours, for sure. My desk won’t hold any more.”

They’d gone at it, nonstop, for an hour and a half when Ralph Williams stuck his head in the door. “‘Scuse me, y’all. Miz Beverly, can you talk to Charlie Martin? He’s already called a couple of times, and he says he needs an answer-  sump’m about last year’s inventory-  ’fo
noon.”

She stood, blowing out her cheeks as she did. “Ol’ Charlie’s dottin’ his I’s and crossin’ his T’s for what’s probably the hundredth time today. I better talk to him. After all, it’s his money; well, theirs. No point gettin’ crosswise with him when we’re so close to making the deal. I think we’ve done enough to keep us out of jail ’til the end of the month, Jack. I’ll come back and get all this paper soon as I get Charlie squared away.”

Ralph smiled as he turned to go. “She keeps more shit in ’er head then I can in a filin’ cab’net. Sorry to interrupt y’all.”

“Hell, I appreciate it,” said Jack as he returned the smile. “I can only look at so many worksheets before I gotta holler uncle. By the way, you talk to Ziggy lately?”

“Oh yeah. One day between Christmas and New Year’s.”

“He still likin’ the big city?”

“Mm-hmm, I reckon so. Stays busy, anyway. He and his manager- can you believe it-  he got a manager now! Anyway, they was s’posed to go up to
Memphis
sometime around now to talk to a record producer about doin’ an album. Him and the band he’s been singin’ with. Guess I woulda heard from him when he got back, though. He probably habm’t gone yet.”

“I thought I might take Linda over to
Atlanta
sometime before we head back south, and I’d like to drop in on him while we’re there. Mind letting me have his number? I’ll give him a call before we leave. If you happen to talk to him, tell him I’ll be calling. I can’t wait to hear ol’ Ziggy belt out a few tunes.”

“Oh, yeah, he’d be tickled to death to see y’all. I got a few of his cards in the back; I’ll gitcha one.”

Looking up from behind the counter, Reba smiled as she saw the Vincent pull up out front, exhaust rattling the café’s plate glass as Jack parked it on the sidewalk near the door between the hotel and the café’s niche in the southeast corner. An image of Mose flashed through her mind, recalling the many times that he’d parked it there. She felt the ripple of a fresh premonition of loss, a wave still forming offshore awaiting its appointed time to crash onto her soul’s beleaguered beach; first Mose, then Mr. Redding, then Ríni, and soon he’ll be gone, too. This little town’s losin’ the little bit of class it has faster than it can replace it. “Mornin’, Jackie,” she said as he slid onto a stool near the door.