Witch Ball (5 page)

"Can you imagine? They crept through the brush, clutching a bundle of clothes, or maybe a basket with some meager scraps of food. In the background they could hear the barking of dogs hunting them, the yells of the men on their trail."

I was getting a bit bored. All I could think of was his beautiful full lips. Wasn't he ever going to kiss me? I guess the answer was no, because he stood up and suggested we go.

"I don't want to get you home too late. Your parents won't like that." He acted like they were more important than I was.

"Eric," I said, "why don't you like your old coach? He likes you." I was only slightly interested in that answer. This was a ruse to stay a while longer. Maybe he would finally decide to steal a kiss.

"He was mean," he said with a flat tone. I don't know how he could have so much empathy for people who lived almost two hundred years ago, and have such obvious hate for a man who cares for him. But I do know that his tone of voice said not to push the subject much further.

When he walked me to my door, I invited him inside. "Not tonight. I have to meet some people," he said, and shook my hand.

What people, I wondered?  It's almost eleven o'clock. Does he have a late date?

It was probably a good thing that he didn't accept my invitation to come inside. Both Mom and Dad were waiting up for me.

"Gertrude," Mom said, "why didn't you tell us that was Hunter Alexander's boy?"

"I didn't know it was important. We never talked about his parents. I don't know what the big deal is."

"They aren't nice people," Dad said. "Not our sort."

Mom added, "We don't think you should go out with him again."

"Why are you throwing shade? He's perfectly nice!"

"Where do you get these strange words?" Dad asked. "Throwing shade? Fierce? Who talks like that?"

Well, Aunt Fleur does. But this wasn't the time to go into that.

"No matter," said my mom. "We still don't think you should see that boy anymore."

This should have made me really unhappy. "Not a problem. I don't think he likes
me." I went to bed to the drone of their muffled voices.

Outside my window the cicadas sounded like sirens. I heard a group of bullfrogs croaking a
call and response in the darkness. The noises were so loud and so close; it seemed that the walls of my room had expanded to include the world of a summer night. It took me a long time to fall asleep.

 

 

 

 

 

 

T
he next day I decided to visit Aunt Fleur to discuss my failed "date
." My grandfather, Hyrum, was there. Not at all unusual, as he is her brother.

"Hey, Gramps!"
I gave him a big hug. "What's cookin'?"

"I'm
jus' visiting with my, um, sister." He looked uncomfortable. The tea cup seemed the wrong fit for his hands. In Mississippi, and in most of the states around here, we drink iced sweet tea. It's called "the table wine of the south." Somehow, drinking hot tea, especially in summer, is as strange as drinking the muddy water straight out of the Tombigbee.

"I came to tell Aunt Fleur about my date last night."

"Date? Aren't you only six years old?" This was a game Grandpa Hyrum and I had played forever. He pretended to forget my name, or my age, or even who I was.

"
Ooooh, Gramps, I'm going into my junior year at Heritage soon. It won't be long before I learn to drive."

"I guess I better get off the road then. Dangerous to have a six-year-old driving around..." We all laughed.

"So, Miss Gertrude, what about this date?  Who was the boy? Will I have to go over to his house and set him straight about a few things?"

"No. He's a nice boy."  No reason to elaborate on the details about how my reputation was very safe.

"Yes," said Fleur, "he has a striking coloring, dark skin and tight curls with bright sparks. You don't see that everyday."

"Aunt Fleur gave me a magic spell to make him like me, but I don't think it worked."

She shook her head at me and waved her hand a bit. A little crease formed between her painted eyebrows. I couldn't understand what she was trying to tell me. But, too late, I had already said the wrong thing.

His face reddened. "You see, Flo, this is exactly what I'm
talkin' about! You can't go 'round doing all this crazy stuff. You knew that when you came back to town."

"Don't worry,
Granpa, it was nothing." After all my years of living with feuding parents, I play the role of peacemaker easily.

He softened slightly. The flush faded from his face as he turned to me. "What's this boy's name?"

"Eric. Eric Alexander."

Grandpa
took a gulp from his teacup. "Alexander? Is his mother Ruby?" Granpa is my mother's father. She is so much like him. They both ask questions that seem innocent enough, but I can always sense that there is something beneath the surface. They don't ask what they really want to know.

"I don't know his mother's name. She died years ago. Why? Did you know her?" That is a stupid question. Everyone knows everyone in this town. They know who your people are, all your kin from way back. They probably know how much you paid for your house and how often married people have sex.

"I knew some of her family."

"That's funny. Eric said she was adopted. Even he didn't know much about her family."

"I mean, I guess I knew somethin' about her. Your mother dated Hunter a long time ago. He was her first love, right before she married your father."

"How strange that she didn't tell me that!"
I suppose there are still some secrets in this town. Well, secrets from me, anyway. This line of questioning was serving a good purpose. Not only was it giving me an insight about my mother when she was a girl, something I have trouble imagining, but it took some of the pressure off my aunt. I got the feeling that he had been giving her a hard time before I got there.

"Oh, Gramps, you
must
tell me. My mother and Eric's father? WOW! This is interesting."

He stared into his cup as if he could read the tea leaves. "There
ain't much to tell. She'd been pining around like a lost pup. They broke up or somethin'. I came home from work an' axed your gramma how she was. She said, 'Alright.  She just came back from the drug store. She's up in her room. She took a bowl of soup with her.'" He stopped talking. Grandpa is a funny guy, always making jokes, but his face dropped slightly. Suddenly, he looked ancient.

I thought he was finished, but he began talking again. "I went upstairs and knocked on her door. There she was, all red-faced and puffy. Sure '
nuff, she was sittin' in the bed spoonin' that soup into her mouth. I got closer and saw little colored things floatin' in the broth. That girl had dumped all sorts of pills into the bowl!"

"So, was she okay?"

"Hell, no! We had to take her to the hospital and get her stomach pumped! Damn fool thing to do. Over a boy!" He shook his lowered head. That must have happened almost twenty years ago. He doesn't appear to understand it even now.

We were all quiet.

"Gotta go," he said. "But, Flo, heed my words." He closed the door quietly behind him.

"Why does he call you Flo?"

"It's my real name—sort of. Really, it's Florenz. I was named after my grandfather."

"Oh, so you changed it, like you changed my name from Gertrude to
Truly."

"If life hands you lemons, make lemon pie, with a fluffy meringue top! Embellish, embellish, embellish!"

"He seems awfully interested in what you are doing," I said. "I guess he misses Granma Belle. She's been gone a long time. Most men would have remarried, or at least dated."

"Oh, she was a great lady. We were good friends. In many ways I was closer to her than to my own brother."

"Do you miss her, too?"

She smiled at me. "After they were married, I came back to visit every year or so. We had a terrific time together.'"

"What would you do?" My grandma died when I was very young. I remember oatmeal cookies and fairytales. Somehow I don't remember her being the life of the party.

"Well, every time I came to visit we worked on a project together. One time
, we made some fabulous curtains for her boudoir. They were so over the top—a rich brocade, with fringe a foot deep, and heavy braided silk tie-backs. They could have hung at Versailles."

"I'll bet
Granpa hated them. He doesn't like anything too girly." I couldn't imagine him sleeping in a bedroom that was so feminine.

"No." She stopped talking. I thought she had something else to say, but then maybe not.

"What else did you guys do?" I was beginning to forget things about Granma Belle. She is buried in
Friendship Cemetery. Once in a while Mom goes there to clean her grave, but she never asks me to go with her. These stories were bringing her back to me.

"Oh, one year I made her an elegant wool coat. We copied it from a photo in
Vogue
. It was emerald green, with square gold buttons shaped like the little boxes from a jewelry store." A sort of darkness fell over her face. I knew it was time to change the subject.

"So, do you want to hear about my date?"

"Certainly!"

"It didn't go too great. I don't think he likes me."

"Give it time. He just needs to learn more about you, about how fabulous you are! And, of course, you need to know a bit more about him. You do realize, Truly, there is the chance that he won't seem quite so marvelous when you meet the real person, the one we all hide."

"Yeah, I guess so. I did find out why he hates his old track coach. He said he was mean."

"Ah, 'mean.' The beginning of the mystery..."

Sometimes Aunt Fleur talks in riddles. I don't always get what she is saying.
"The beginning?"

"Mysteries have layers. That is the first layer."

It all seemed so straightforward to me. His coach was mean. Isn't that enough?

 

 

 

 

 

 

C
olumbus is a place where nothing
ever
happens. The big draw here is Spring Pilgrimage, when a handful of tourists come to visit our huge collection of antebellum mansions. Owning one is
the
status symbol. Historic home owners are treated like the royalty they wish they were.

Sometimes a house gets kicked off Pilgrimage, and that is news. There are a lot of pointless
power-plays, even in the antebellum world of "nobody cares except the homeowners." The Columbus Historical Foundation takes their authority very seriously. You would think they were politicians, or something.

I have trouble understanding why it is all so very important. It seems like people around here have no idea that the Civil War ended in the 1800s. Since the homes are all from the same period, they have a stuffy similarity that I cannot get excited about. I should ask Eric to explain it to me. He is certainly an expert on the past.

Columbus is also the birthplace of Tennessee Williams—"America's Best Playwright." However, only a few artsy types care about him. Most people know that he was a notorious homosexual, so that makes him a sinner in the eyes of God. People here seem to have a direct line to God, and to Jesus, so they know exactly how those two feel about things.

We don't actually have many homosexuals. I would bet that most of the folks in this town wouldn't even recognize one. Still, they are considered evil, with an agenda to seduce God-fearing Christians, winning them over for Satan.

I suppose it's no wonder that people spend so much time minding each other's business, and hating people that they do not know personally. Gossip is somewhat more interesting than boredom.

Not too far away from
Columbus is the city of Tupelo, "The Birthplace of Elvis Presley." We would love to claim him. There's no doubt about his sexuality, and he loved his mama and Jesus, too. If only Elvis had been born here, we would have so much to be proud of.

Of course, Mayor Perkins
' twenty-something twin sons, Karloss and Kordell, get into trouble all the time. That's not really news, especially since influential people at City Hall cover up the boys' peccadilloes. The
Dispatch
tends to downplay their recklessness, as well, taking a boys-will-be-boys attitude. However, their transgressions usually involve guns, and certainly not toy guns.

There are also whispers of dog fighting. That frightens me a lot. Anyone who hurts a helpless animal
—well, it makes you wonder, would they hurt a person, too?  If people in town have proof of that, they are being very close-mouthed about it. I can understand their position, sort of. Mayor Perkins has a reputation for being a bully. There is fear of retribution.

But, Monday morning brought news that stunned the town like a bolt of lightning. Coach Lewis Russell had been murdered!

The headline of
The Commercial Dispatch
read, "RESPECTED EDUCATOR AND COACH FOUND STRANGLED." It was the lead story on WCBI, the local CBS affiliate, at 5, 6, and 10 p.m.

Our weekly paper,
The Columbus Packet
, put out a special edition with photos of the body, in a black bag, being wheeled into the coroner's van. They gave the story a very important position, above the mug shots, and even before the pictures of bloody drunks getting arrested for fighting.

People were frightened, and in a perverse way, thrilled. There was so much to speculate about. By all accounts Coach Lewis was beloved. Not as beloved as Mother Goose, to be sure, but still well-liked in the community.

There were interviews with his colleagues, all giving the expected quotes:
"he was wonderful"; "a dedicated teacher"; "a fine man"; "an asset to the Historic Commission." . . . For some reason there were few comments from members of the track team. He had taught for over twenty years. You would think they would be grieving en masse.