Daisy Fay and the Miracle Man: A Novel (8 page)

Mr. Kowboski lets me sweep out the penny arcade anytime I want to and be the money changer. It’s great over there! Music plays all the time, and you can hear it over at our place. I like them very much even if they are Gypsies. I don’t believe they steal children, but I wouldn’t care if they did steal me. It would be fun to live in that bus. Michael comes over sometimes and we ride the Ferris wheel. You can see the whole beach from way up there.

Kay Bob Benson came once, but she got scared when I rocked the seat and she won’t go back on the Ferris wheel for nothing.

Billy Bundy, that radio preacher, finally brought me a picture of Sue Sweetwater, who has a radio show on WHEP. She signed it “To Dottie Fay,” so how can I show it to anyone?

Billy Bundy is a funny preacher if you ask me. Daddy and I see him almost every day in the back room of the Bon Ton Café, the only place he can get alcohol after church. He comes in and sits down at a table all by himself and orders his drinks. Then he takes out his red plastic letter opener and opens all the money envelopes he gets from the Christians that listen to his radio show and stacks the money up in neat little piles all over the table. Every once in a while you can hear him say, “Praise the
Lord,” when he gets a $20 bill. Ten-dollar bills only get a “Bless you, brother.” Five-dollar bills get a “Thank you, sinner” and a dollar just gets “Every little bit helps.” Once he got a $50 bill and he said, “Hallelujah, Jesus!” real loud. But mostly he gets fives and tens.

A terrible thing happened. The malt shop fell three feet and is sticking up in the air on the right side! I ruined the foundation by digging so many tunnels. It happened overnight Daddy noticed it because all his hamburger patties kept sliding off the grill into the french fries. I didn’t mean to do it If you ask me, this place is cheaply built. I hope my mother doesn’t notice what I did when she comes back from Jackson. I told Daddy I wouldn’t tell her that he has been drinking if he doesn’t tell her the malt shop fell.

He had to build a ledge on the grill so the eggs and hamburgers don’t slide off into the french fry grease. Other than that, I don’t think it is too noticeable. I’ll be glad when Momma gets back because Daddy is in a bad mood.

Daddy went with Hank when he got married to be Hank’s best man. Daddy said the wedding was sad. It took place in an office and the bride didn’t wear a wedding gown, just a suit with a mum corsage. There wasn’t even a honeymoon. Hank came to work the next day and didn’t look any different. Daddy gave him $50 and I gave them some shell napkin holders and some oyster shell ashtrays I had made at Jr. Debutantes.

The wedding was written up in “Dashes from Dot.” So was the fact that the Harper’s Malt Shop is all cattywampus, but Mrs.
Dot saved my hide by writing it had been a natural act of God that caused it. I think she didn’t want to print the fact that a Jr. Debutante had dug tunnels under the house, what with her liking us to be social and all.

Michael has been reading Mickey Spillane’s book
Kiss Me, Deadly
and thinks he’s big stuff. He says it’s only for boys and adults. I read it last year and it’s not all that hot

The only good thing that happened is the woman who was going to talk to the Jr. Debutantes on accessories got sick, so we sang “Row, Row, Row Your Boat” instead. Mrs. Dot’s thought for the day was: “Remember if people talk behind your back, it only means you are two steps ahead!”

Daddy and Jimmy Snow have been on a drunk the whole time Momma has been gone and poor Hank is running the malt shop by himself.

Jimmy is drinking because his girlfriend, Iris Ann Moody, who he has been engaged to for eight yean, is marrying someone else. I don’t know what Daddy’s excuse is.

Mrs. Dot must have found out that Daddy was drinking because she wanted me to go stay with her, but I told her I was fine. I like her very much, but I can’t stand her husband. He is mean to her and insults her in front of people all the time. I’m glad my hot fudge sundae went down his back.

Momma’s home from Jackson and the first thing Velveeta did was tell her I had caused the malt shop to fall. She also told on Daddy. When he came in drunk, Momma was so mad she socked him all over the back room. Every time he would get up, she
would hit him again, but she did turn the lights off so that the neighbors couldn’t look in.

I could only see shadows and hear them. It was like watching
Flamingo Road
with Joan Crawford. During the whole fight the carnival music was playing a real nice song, “Give Me a Kiss to Build a Dream On.”

Momma was accusing him of fooling around with a roller derby woman. When she broke the phone over his head and he started to bleed, she got scared and made me run over to the Romeos and call the doctor. He came and said Daddy was all right, but we would have to order another phone. He said to Momma, “Fay, you better be careful. If he had been sober, you would have killed him.”

Momma is being real sweet to Daddy because I think she was afraid she might have killed him. I would have been the daughter of a famous murderess, and when she went to the electric chair, I would have been an orphan and everyone would feel sorry for me.

I guess I could get a job and live in a hotel and wear black, but I would be marked for life. I would rather be a shut-in, like Jessie, only I want a better disease than elephantiasis. All of this trouble began because Velveeta is a squealer. She should see what James Cagney does to squealers.

Grandma is fine. She has already started having bingo parties at her house again. Momma is disgusted with her because she won’t give up her Camels. She said she would die anyway if she couldn’t smoke her Camels and play bingo.

Grandma has some old man as a boyfriend and Momma thinks she is going to get married again. According to Momma, he is so decrepit he can hardly stand up and Grandma is acting like a silly, old woman. The only problem is that she can’t find my real granddaddy so she can get a divorce. Grandma is trying to have him declared legally dead because it’s been nine years that the Bureau of Missing Persons have been looking for him and they gave up. If Grandpa isn’t dead, he sure is going to be mad when he finds out he is dead in the eyes of the law.

Grandma sent me a letter and said for me not to worry about her but to be sweet to my momma because she thought Momma
was headed for a complete and full nervous breakdown and no wonder, being married to that little worm, Bill Harper. She also sent me a head scarf with the map of Mississippi on it.

The biggest news around here, besides my daddy getting his head busted, is that I am a real bona fide hero. I may get a medal from the VFW. Last Sunday, Michael and Angel and I decided to go fishing in the lagoon. We were sitting in the boat, fishing for toadfish so we could blow them up and hang them in our rooms when all of a sudden Michael hooked something on his rod and his hair stood up on end. He started hollering and jerked the biggest, blackest snake I’ve ever seen right into the boat. As soon as that snake hit the boat, all three of us jumped out into the lagoon. I was so busy yelling at Michael for pulling a snake in the boat I must have forgotten I didn’t know how to swim because I made it to shore in
NO
time. When Michael got there, we looked around and Angel wasn’t anywhere in sight. Then I remembered she couldn’t swim either. I was so scared at having to tell her momma and daddy their little girl had drowned that I jumped back in the water.

Michael and I were diving and looking for her, but we couldn’t find her anywhere. Finally I saw her standing on the bottom of the lagoon, and I dove down and went under her and grabbed her feet and pushed her straight up in the air so her head would stick out of the water.

I was standing on the bottom and sinking fast, knee-deep in the mud. Michael saw the top of her head and grabbed her by the ear just in time. When I tried to get back to the top, I was stuck in the mud and couldn’t move. Michael was so busy saving Angel he forgot about me. Some junior lifeguard he is!

I thought I’d just have to go ahead and drown at an early age, but then I remembered that black snake. When it hit me that some more of them might be in the water, I must have got the strength of a hundred, because I got loose and saved my own life.

Angel was real sick. I never saw somebody throw up so much in my life, and we had leeches all over us just like Humphrey Bogart in
African Queen
. Ugh! We took Angel back up to the Blue Gardenia Lounge and told her momma and daddy what had happened.

Claude wasn’t there, thank goodness. He’s crazy about Angel. He probably would have killed Michael and me for almost getting her drowned. Mr. and Mrs. Pistal hugged her and were so glad she was all right that it didn’t seem to matter I could have been drowned myself.

Michael and I took Mr. Pistal and showed him that black snake. And guess what? It wasn’t a snake at all. It was a big electric eel. That was why Michael’s hair had stood up on his head.

Mr. Pistal took me home and told Momma and Daddy I had saved Angel’s life and he would never forget what I had done. Momma and Daddy acted proud of me in front of him, but when he had left, Momma pinched me real hard and wanted to know what in the world I was doing, jumping in the water like that when I couldn’t even swim. She was about to hit me when Daddy said, “Well, Fay, she can swim; she isn’t drowned, is she?” He had a good point. So we finally did prove Daddy’s theory that small children can swim if they are scared enough. Daddy is happy about the whole thing because he put that dead electric eel in the ice cream freezer and is going to stuff it in the fall.

At the Jr. Debutantes’ meeting I had to stand up and tell how I had saved Angel’s life. After I was finished, one of those shrimpers’ daughters made a snoot at me. Creep. Mrs. Dot said that I was a natural-born storyteller and very brave on top of that. She is going to put it in her “Dashes from Dot” column.

I guess I should have told them Michael had been there, too. Oh, well, I don’t think he reads the paper anyway. Mrs. Dot’s thought for the day was about snakes in honor of my story. She said, “Never be rude to a rattlesnake because he is the gentleman of the snake world. He always announces his comings and goings with a rattle.”

I want to go to Magnolia Springs and see the double feature that is playing there now. Listen to this ad:

and the other film that is playing is called
Prehistoric Women … They Feared No Beast, Only the Beast in Man
. I can’t wait. Mr. Honeywell and his all-girl army are taking me as a reward for being a hero. Mr. Honeywell believes that this double feature is something that every American woman should see.

Jimmy Snow got put in jail for crashing his plane into his old girlfriend’s house and waking her up. We went to see him and he seems right at home. The policemen like him a lot and give him beer and everything. I found out from one of those policemen that Jimmy Snow is a war hero for shooting down Japanese planes. Daddy told me that’s why he drinks so much, he misses the war.

Jimmy was raised in an orphanage in Tennessee and doesn’t know who his parents are. I can’t get over him having snow white hair and eyebrows when he isn’t even that old. He may have been scared real bad once or else he could have albino blood, like Ula Sour, and not even know it! But I’m not telling him!

Guess what? Hank and Tommie Jo are going to have a baby. I hope it’s a girl. If it is, they should name it Claudette after Claudette Colbert.

I wrote and told her that I thought she was wonderful in
The Egg and I
. I haven’t received an answer yet, but as you know, she is one of the busiest film stars in Hollywood. If it’s a boy, they should just call it Hank, Jr.

I don’t go out much anymore. I had my feelings hurt real bad. I was over at the Kowboskis’ carnival, sweeping out the penny
arcade for Mr. Kowboski, when one of his daughters came in and told me to go home, that I didn’t belong there, the carnival was a family business.

Then she hit me, so I hit her back, and all of those kids jumped on me at once. Big families really stick together. Mr. Kowboski got them off and took me for a long walk. He told me not to feel bad. They were just jealous because I was an only child and didn’t live in a school bus. And I shouldn’t cry because I don’t fit in anywhere. That is what is going to make me special and it will all work out OK someday.

I went to see the movie about the Communists. Boy, I don’t ever want to be one of those. Daddy and Mr. Honeywell are having a fight because Daddy thinks Mr. McCarthy, the Commie fighter, is wrong, but Mr. Honeywell says he is right to get all those Reds out of the country. After seeing that movie, I agree with Mr. Honeywell. Besides, I sure don’t want to stand in line forever to buy my groceries. I want to be rich, but I will be a good rich person.

I’m in charge of the friendship basket for the Jr. Debutantes. I am going around all over Shell Beach and getting everyone to put stuff in it for the poor. I wonder who these poor people are. I never get to see them. I wanted to take that friendship basket up to the colored quarters and get them to put things in it and at the same time try and see if I couldn’t find that albino woman, Ula Sour. It would have been a perfect excuse to knock on all the doors, but Momma wouldn’t let me. She said the colored people don’t want to be bothered with a Jr. Debutante and besides, they need everything they have. But I did ask Peachy Wigham to contribute. She gave me a bottle of Thunderbird wine. Peachy won’t tell me where that albino woman lives for nothing.

We got a letter from that little girl we adopted in South America and she writes letters better than I do. I think someone else wrote that letter. I can’t write in South American, so how come she can write in American? It’s fishy to me.