Karen G. Berry - Mayhem 01 - Love and Mayhem (23 page)

OH, IT FUELED
her, up at the Clubhouse, her anger
fueled
her through her workday and into the early evening. It continued to fuel her as seventeen women moved through an exhausting emergency kickboxing class. Melveena, a cotton and Lycra-clad model of precision and strength, had called the class to “empower” the women who were concerned over the murder. Rhondalee thought Melveena was just trying to fill her own time, because the word in the Park was Melveena’s own students were so concerned that they wouldn’t come to school. So she filled her time with this busybody meddling kickbox class.

Still, at times like these, some self-defense was a good idea.

Rhondalee wore a pink acrylic sweat suit embellished with some puffy paint and lace bows. Rhondalee thought that even serious athletic wear should have some visual interest, but sweat trickled down her spine and thighs, and her shoulders hurt so much she wanted to cry. She watched Melveena thrusting and punching and kicking, rings of sweat darkening her t-shirt at the neck and underarms. “Is this ladylike? I’d like to kick
her
, I really would.”

She hushed at the sight of Minah, laughing as she flailed away in her Levi’s Bendovers and polyester smock top and an old pair of wavy-soled Famolare lace-ups. She looked as ridiculous as an old dog that suddenly gets up from its patch of sun-warmed blacktop and tries to chase a car.

Melveena cut the tape. “That’s it ladies. Good work!”

Rhondalee called out over the moans of relief. “Could I speak for a moment?”

Melveena, who had been drinking deeply from a bottle of water, dumped some over her own head. Rhondalee did NOT consider water-dumping to be ladylike behavior. “Why of course you may, Rhondalee.”

“As you all know, I am always looking for ways to increase the readership of the weekly newsletter.”

“Maybe you could shorten it,” muttered someone.

Rhondalee ignored that. “I was thinking of a little fun idea, a tattletale column.” There was a collective and sweaty groan. Rhondalee ignored that, too. “But I’m not going to do that. I have a much better idea. My new column will be devoted to Fashion and Beauty Advice.” She ignored the giggles. “Now, I know some of you might wonder how I set myself up as an authority on these matters. As you know, I used to make all my daughter’s costumes back when she was a performer on the stage. And I’d like to think that I can help you all look your best for the performance we call ‘everyday life,’ if you will just let me. So put your pens to paper and your questions in my box!”

The ladies looked at her, looked at each other.

“There’s been a murder, here,” said Mynah. “A murder. One of our own. We’re all of us just scared to death over it, and sick with worry, and you want to talk about what we’re
wearing?
” For once, Rhondalee found herself struck speechless. One by one, without a word, the women left to make dinner for their menfolk.

Rhondalee stomped into her office. Here she was, just trying to be helpful and make these women look a little less like the trash they all were, and they mocked her. The truth be told, she’d hardly gotten any responses at all for the column she’d announced at the last Tenant Association meeting. With all the romantic intrigue in the Park, she’d imagined that her mailbox would burst with heartache pining for remedy. But she sat at her desk reading the letters that had arrived addressed to her newsletter alter-ego, whom she’d christened “Claudina, Queen a Hearts.”

Rhondalee LaCour opened a letter to Claudina, Queen a Hearts.

Well, Rhondalee had to admit, this was quite a serious problem. She stuck her hand in her pocket and played with the keys to Tender’s truck as she considered her reply.

Satisfied with her efforts, she hit ‘save’ and pushed away from her desk to re-tie her Keds. She felt the poke of metal against her bony hip. She extracted Tender’s keys from her pocket and looked at the leather tab worn black with the grease of his thumbs. Oh, this was a trial. Reduced to confiscating his keys. She threw the things down and went back to fretting.

Melveena’s damp hair created a brunette corona as she peeked around the doorway. “I think that column is a lovely idea, Rhondalee.”

“You do?”

Melveena eased into the room, her bag over one shoulder. “I do. That’s just what this park needs.” Melveena lowered her voice to a conspiratorial purr. “The general sense of style here is atrocious and requires addressing.” She leaned in and put at her hands on the metal desk, then pulled back as if she’d touched a hot thing. “I’ll let you get to work.”

Well, decided Rhondalee, Melveena Strange is not so bad, after all. Her good mood lasted just long enough to get home and find out that her husband had disappeared to God Knows Where. Tender was drinking in secret, she just knew it. Behind her back, her husband was drinking like a fish. She wished she were still at the office, where she could jot that phrase, “drinking like a fish,” on a scrap of paper, and push it over to the pile of similar scraps.

Her entire life was Tender’s fault.

TENDER LACOUR SAT
at Shake and Ache Lounge, sipping his second seltzer and lime of the evening. He’d had to hitch a ride to the Shake and Ache in Ochre Water. Somewhere between driving Annie back home and taking a nap in the truck, he’d misplaced his car keys. The things were always getting mislaid one place or another. Most of his money had disappeared as well, but he’d found a ten dollar bill in his front pocket, and that was enough for a steak at the Shake and Ache.

Aside from a very flavorful t-bone, the Shake and Ache Lounge didn’t have a reputation for catering to the finer instincts of mankind. Cheap beer flowed while patrons traded small paper packets for cash in a far corner. Tender sipped his seltzer and averted his eyes from the stripper on the dirty little stage. She looked so cold, tired and skinny that Tender wanted to put a coat around her shoulders.

He said aloud to no one in particular, “I should be going home.”

The man sitting next to him sounded just the slightest bit amused. “You look like you’re pretty anxious to get there.” Tender looked up, surprised to see he was sitting next to Gator Rollins, the trucker who’d been staying with the Reverend before he died. He was not a person Tender had ever had much occasion to speak to.

Gator lifted his glass. “Here’s to home.”

“I’ll drink to that.” Tender drained it.

“Say, Tender, speaking of home. I need my stuff out of the Reverend’s trailer.”

“I’d like to help you out, but that trailer’s my brother’s territory, now.”

“I’ll ask him about it, then.” Gator signaled the barmaid. “Another round on me.”

She smirked as she set down a Sprite and a seltzer. “Sodas and seltzers are free.”

Gator lifted his glass and smiled. He was a plain-looking man, Tender thought, possessed of such an unremarkable set of attributes that he exuded a kind of visual vacancy. “I had another question for you. I heard you had an old black guitar at your place? Some kind of cast-off from a card game?”

“An old National. It’s huge. My wife dug it out a few years back. She decided to teach herself to play on it.”

Gator leaned in, his blank eyes locked in on Tender’s mercury gaze. “And how did that work out for her?”

“Not so well. That guitar has a mind of its own, as far as tuning. My wife wasn’t ever able to find a way to make it let her play. She tried and studied and cursed and cried for six months, and learned one song. Learned it badly, too. She said she was going to donate it to a jumble sale up at the Clubhouse.”

The trucker leaned back. “Well why don’t you look around for it? If you find it, I’d be happy to take it off your hands. I might even pay a couple of hundred dollars for it, too.” He looked around the room. The stripper was absent-mindedly shaking the only part of her body that had any visible padding. Gator let out a whistle. “That’s what I call some Crisco in the can. How’d you like some of that?”

Tender shook his head. He knew as a man it was all right to look a little. But to comment? Not mannerly. Not mannerly in the slightest. “No thanks. I’ve got a wife.”

The trucker smiled. “A wife is a gift from God, isn’t she? One of the best things God ever did for a man was to give us dominion over such loving and tractable creatures. But I’ll tell you, Tender, even the sweetest, most docile woman in the world, you have to keep her in line. You can’t have a woman who fancies herself the head of the household. Sometimes you have to show women what you’re made of.”

“What I’m made of?” Mostly, these days, he felt like he was made of dust.

“Sure. Sometimes you have to show them who’s boss. You know what I mean?” He leaned even closer to Tender’s ear. “Let her know that when it comes to women, you’ve got options.”

“I’m a married man. I don’t see as how I have a lot of options.”

“How about that little blonde harlot living next door to you? That pretty Fossetta Sweet?” Gator’s voice was a parasite crawling under his skin. “Why don’t you slip over there one night and do her? Everyone else has.”

Tender’s fist slammed into the mouth of the average-looking man seated next to him.

He just kept hitting.

It took three men, large ones, too, to hold Tender back from further violence. The bartender offered ice, but Gator Rollins waved it away. “Call the cops! Call ’em! You call his brother and have him arrested right now! And find my blasted tooth!”

Tender looked at the floor. While three bikers held his arms and the roar of ghosts filled his head, he calmly used the sole of his boot to grind that yellow tooth into dust.

WITH THE NIGHT
wrapped loosely around her, a little girl walked the roadway. Hair tangled, feet bare, a sack over her shoulders, humming. The moon sent a baleful glow to light her path. The cacti leaned in to hold her in their wounding arms.

When cars passed, their red tail lights made her eyes bleed.

No heavy black case tonight. She had another pillowcase in her hand and she trudged the highway, stopped now and then, picked up a can. “One more. Just one more.” She was tired of picking up cans, and she was tired. Another can plunked into her bag. She could walk miles in these boots “. . . and I’m gonna HAVE to, if I want to get this DONE,” she said out loud.