Butterfly Weed (32 page)

“I tole you, I don’t want to see your momma,” Tenny said. “That would make me even pukier.”

“But you don’t need to hate her no more for coming between you and Doc Swain, since it’s
me
you’re gonna marry, and when me and you git married, she’ll be your mother-in-law, so you’ll have to see her.”

Tenny seemed to be thinking about that, and whatever thoughts she was having were making her very sad. Russ wondered if she really did want to marry him, and, even if she did marry him, would she always be carrying a torch for Doc Swain?

Neither Russ nor Tenny had the slightest notion that they’d find Doc Swain at Venda’s house. When they went in the door, and heard the sounds coming from the bedroom, it took Russ awhile to remember that such sounds are the cries and grunts not of people being hurt but of people enjoying that supreme act which he himself had never yet known. Just as he had done so many times in his childhood when his mother was entertaining a lover, he crept silently toward the noise. Tenny followed. When they saw who was in bed with Venda, Tenny gasped, but her sound was drowned beneath those coming from the bed. The couple in the bed were having such a splendid time of it that they did not notice Russ arranging a couple of chairs so that he and Tenny could take a load off their feet while they studied the spectacle. Russ had seen this sort of thing many times before, but Tenny hadn’t, so he figured it might further her sex education and maybe put her in the mood for it. She was obviously awestruck, and her mouth was fixed into that almost holy O. The bed partners switched positions, with Russ’s mother on top, allowing her freedom of movements which, Russ hoped, would suggest to Tenny that perhaps she and Russ could more successfully manage their hookup if Tenny was on top doing the connecting.

Russ hoped that whatever feeling Tenny still had for Doc Swain would be wiped out by watching this. As for himself, he had all the proof he needed that his mother was dishonest and hateful: she had promised him that she wouldn’t let any other man stick his pecker into her until Russ had a chance to reap his reward for fixing up Tenny with Mulciber, and even though that effort had failed, Venda was going ahead and breaking her promise without even waiting to find out the results of the attempt.

Now Doc Swain had turned his head and detected that Russ and Tenny were watching, but that didn’t stop him. He just kept on. Russ thought that was funny, and he grinned at the doctor, and the doctor grinned back at him and kept on thrusting beneath the wild bounces of Venda. All those times that Russ had spied on his momma with her lovers, he had never actually seen a simultaneous coming, but now he was watching one, and not only that but the bed was coming apart too, and when it did and they and the mattress crashed to the floor, his mother looked over and saw him and cried, “Russ!” in such a way that he knew she knew that he had been spying on her all those years.

He was so impressed with the performance that he spontaneously began to applaud, the same way he’d clapped his hands in joy when his mother had brought him a present as a little boy, only it wasn’t joy now, but a kind of sarcastic admiration. Tenny caught the spirit of his applause and did some herself. Then he and she looked at each other, and her eyes said to him, “I’ve done seen enough to make me hate him and her both for the rest of my life,” and his eyes replied to her eyes, “So you and me don’t have nobody in this whole world excepting each other, and we might as well git out of here and go live happy ever after.”

They got out of there, and rode Marengo straight to the courthouse. It all happened so fast that he couldn’t even remember afterwards if he and Tenny had actually said anything, until they were both standing there saying, “I do,” and then the man said, “I now pernounce y’uns man’n wife and you kids air shore gonna git wet as dogs if you try to go out in
that!
” and he indicated through the window the growing thunderstorm.

Now it was drowning geese and strangling toads. He and his bride could only huddle in the doorway of the courthouse and wait for it to stop. “Are you okay?” he thought to ask her.

“‘Happy is the bride the sun shines on,’” she said.

“But the sun aint shining,” he observed.

“And I aint too awful happy,” she said.

Well, here come Doc Swain in his buggy, acting as if he hadn’t just been caught bare-assed with his red hand in the cookie jar. Now the fool was just sitting there in the deluge, sobby as a dog, and liable to get hit by a thunderbolt any second now. He just sat there with all that water running down his sad wistful face and he didn’t wave howdy or nothing. Tenny just glared at him. Russ didn’t personally have anything against Doc Swain, and still greatly admired him, even though he had once been the chief object of his bride’s affections, and therefore a rival. But Russ had never forgotten how kind Doc Swain had been to him, and how Doc had even offered to excise his extra pecker if necessary, and Russ was beginning to wonder if it might not be necessary.

“I reckon I’d better have a word with him,” Russ told Tenny.

“Don’t you dare!” she said. “Just ignore him, and maybe he’ll go away.”

But Doc did not go away. Even the horse looked miserable. The thunder was slamming back and forth all down the mountainsides, and the wind was blowing the hard rain into the courthouse doorway so that Russ and Tenny were getting wet anyway.

“Maybe you ought to go have a word with him,” Russ suggested.

“
Huh?
” Tenny said indignantly. “Have you taken leave of your senses? I don’t have ary thing to say to him!”

So they just waited for him to go away or for the rain to go away, but neither Doc nor the rain would leave. It commenced getting on to dark, and they both knew that it was too late to make it back up to Brushy Mountain for the shivaree and infare and all. Russ decided there was nothing to do but go on back to Mulciber’s house for their wedding night. “Let’s make a dash for it!” he said, and they ran out into the rain and hopped on Marengo and headed for Mulciber’s. Russ looked over his shoulder at one point and saw that Doc was following in his buggy, and Russ spurred Marengo to try to outrun him.

They arrived at Mulciber’s. Russ didn’t know the concept of déjà vu, but he thought there was something awfully familiar about walking in and discovering a naked couple fucking, only in this case it was not the bedroom but the living room, on the sofa. Russ’s Victrola was up as loud as it would go, and Russ’s jazz music was playing, and there was Mulciber a-humping some stranger-lady, who, Russ recognized by her bobbed hair, was the same lady who’d stopped at the blacksmith shop yesterday. Once again Russ and Tenny pulled up some chairs and sat watching, although Russ couldn’t help noticing that this couple weren’t nearly so spectacular as Venda and Doc had been. Nor did they come simultaneously. When they were all done, Russ didn’t feel like applauding. He told them that all in all, he’d seen much better, but they’d done tolerable. Then he told his father that he and Tenny had just gotten theirselves married down at the courthouse. His father and the lady were hastily putting their clothes back on, and his father said the lady’s name was Edna. Although Russ didn’t think that Edna looked very much like a stump fence, Mulciber declared that Edna was “going to stay awhile,” so he’d appreciate it if Russ and Tenny would get lost. “But where can we
go?
” Russ whined.

“I was you, I’d jist take her to your mother’s,” Mulciber suggested.

Russ counted his money. He had once had six quarters, but he’d paid two of them for the marriage license, and two more to the justice of the peace, leaving him with only two, not enough for even a cheap hotel room. Tenny didn’t have a cent. So the only way to avoid sleeping somewheres out in the rain was for them to go on back to his mother’s and throw themselves at her mercy, and maybe if he told her how sorry he was and all, she might even forgive him.

On the way to Venda’s, they couldn’t help noticing that they were still being followed by Doc in his buggy. Tenny was still determined not to see Venda, but she was tired, and soaked through by the rain, and a bit chilled, and her cough was getting worse, and she told Russ she hoped maybe there was some way she could have a bed at Venda’s without having to face the woman.

“Wait on the porch while I talk to her,” he told her, and then he boldly stepped into the house to face the music, make the best of a bad job, pay the fiddler, and lay down and roll over. But he could stand up and take it. “Maw,” he said, “I shore am the sorriest feller on airth, and I don’t know how to tell ye this, but I’ve done went and fell in love with Tenny myself, and we’re fresh-married.”

“Sweetheart, that’s only fair-to-middlin funny,” Venda said. “I’ve had a real hard day, and if you’re trying to cheer me up with some jokes, you laid an egg.”

“It’s the honest to gosh truth,” he said. “Paw didn’t want her, and she didn’t want him, and I accidental-like drank some of that love potion myself, and then we seen you and Doc a-fuckin like a pair of minks, so we jist skipped on over to the courthouse and got ourselfs hitched.”

Venda didn’t say anything for a while, but she didn’t get red in the face or clench her fists or start steaming out the ears. Finally she just said, “Go to your room.” He tried to protest, but she made it clear that she was still boss, so he did like he always did when she told him to go to his room. He went to his room. He sat on his bed and put on his baseball glove and slammed his fist into it, and he felt twelve years old. By-and-by, she came into the room and closed the door behind her. First, she asked him a question: “Do you honestly think that I could tolerate my competition as a daughter-in-law?” He figured it was one of those questions that are just said for the sake of making a point, and didn’t have any answer to them, so he didn’t try to make one. Then she asked him another question: “Don’t you think it’s bad enough that I have to watch Colvin falling for her without watching my own son doing it too?” He decided this was another unanswerable question made for show, so he didn’t try to answer it either. “Do you know what you are?” she asked, and it must’ve been the same kind of question, because she answered it herself: “You’re a motherfucker!” He winced because that was truly an awful word, even though it described exactly what he aspired to be. “You’re not only a motherfucker but a motherkiller, and you’re killing me with what you’ve done!” Her face turned red, her fists clenched, and steam came out of her ears. “Oh Jesus H. Fucking Christ! I guess I didn’t bring you up proper. You never learned to tell right from wrong, or even up from down, and you never learned to obey me! You stupid wretch, I sent you out to
ruin
Tennessee Tennison, I mean totally wreck her life, I mean make her so miserable that she would be sorry she was ever born, let alone was such a knockout and built like a brick shithouse! I wanted you to dilapidate her to where she’d think she was a corncrib made of corncobs! And what did you
do?
Not only did you fail to destroy her, you led her down the
aisle!
”

“Hit weren’t no aisle,” he protested feebly. “Hit was jist the hallway at the courthouse.” But that cut no ice with his mother, who begin to pick things up and throw them against the walls. “Maw, look at it this way,” he tried to reason with her. “I’ve done went and removed your competition. You don’t need to worry about her stealin Doc’s heart away from you, because now she’s a married woman and Doc has to leave her alone.”

Venda stopped throwing things against the wall. She stared at Russ in such a way that he realized he’d made a good point. She thought about that, and then she said, “Now, why didn’t I think of that?” It was one more of those questions that don’t have any answers, so he didn’t tell her why she didn’t think of that. Then she finally asked a question that was answerable: “Speakin of whom, jist where is this blushin bride of your’n?”

“She’s out yonder a-settin in the porch swing,” he said.

“Well, maybe me and her ought to have a heart-to-heart women’s talk,” his mother said, and started to leave the room.

“But she still hates your guts on account of what ye done with Doc Swain, and she don’t want to see you. Me, I don’t hate your guts but you shore let me down, breakin your promise and all.”

“We’ll talk about that later. I think maybe I will give Tenny some voice lessons after all, and maybe even teach her how to yodel. I’ll fix you some supper in a little while. You’re still grounded.”

His mother left him, and he felt both relieved that he had managed to cool her off a bit, and unhappy that she had grounded him. Dang it all, she couldn’t ground him, because he was a married man, and married men don’t get grounded—they don’t even have to obey their mothers anymore. He scarcely had time to brood about this before his mother returned and just stood in the doorway staring at him for a while, until she said:

“Okay, I get it. You really did fix her up with Mulciber, didn’t you? And you’ve just been pretending you didn’t, just to tease me, or just to git even with me for breakin my promise not to fool around with any other man until I gave you your reward for fixin her up with Mulciber. Oh, you naughty boy, you! That’s just the kind of stunt you’d pull, isn’t it? So all this time you’ve just been waiting to collect that big reward! Well, come to Momma!”

She held out her arms to him, but he didn’t understand. “Where’s Tenny?” he asked.

“She shore aint on no porch of mine,” Venda declared.

Even though he was grounded, Russ rushed past his mother and out of the house to the front porch, but Tenny wasn’t there. There was no sign of Tenny, up nor down any of the streets. The rain had stopped, completely. The last vestiges of the sunset were visible to the west, clouds the same color as that pretty ring that Tenny wore. Russ stood there a long while, watching the sunset and thinking. His mother came and joined him. It was his turn to ask one of those questions that are meant just for show. “Do you know what I think?” And since his mother made no attempt to answer it, he told her, “I think Tenny must’ve rode off with Doc Swain.” Then he told his mother how Doc had come to the courthouse and followed them to Mulciber’s and then kept on following them, all the way to Venda’s, and he must’ve somehow talked Tenny into going off with him. That was terrible. The thought greatly pained Russ. If everything had gone the way it ought to have gone, with clear skies and all, he and Tenny would be enjoying the beginnings of the shivaree along about now, up on Brushy Mountain, with folks making stupendous noises shooting off guns and banging pans and scaring the daylights out of him and his bride. Instead, the wedding night was plumb flummoxed and shot to hell! Russ felt so sorry for himself that he began to cry, and his mother began to cry also, feeling sorry not for him but for herself because she had her own problems dealing with the situation.