Little Altars Everywhere (12 page)

Later, she meets me in the ladies lounge with the rattan chaise longue and I show her all my prizes. She says, Really boss, Lulu.

When I get home, I give Sidda, Little Shep, and Baylor their shorts, and they just ooh and ahh, especially Little Shep who plays tennis at City Park with his friends. He’s playing in the city tournaments and everything. Mama says he takes after her. She was captain of the tennis team at Thornton High, which she won’t let anybody forget. She says it’s a sin and a shame that my Daddy deprives Little Shep of being a member of the country club, where he could really perfect his serve.

Those people at the Garnet Parish Golf and Country Club Pro Shop deserve being stolen from. My Daddy says they are a bunch of lazy bums who sit around and live off other people’s money and have been snobs all their lives. My Daddy says they were born with silver spoons shoved up their asses and have
never grown anything in their born days. Mama tells him, Shep, I wish you wouldn’t talk like that around the children. And he says, Viviane, what I’m saying is mild compared to the garbage that spews out of your mouth when you’re drinking.

At the Pro Shop I have also gotten two sport shirts and ten packages of golf balls—even though nobody in our family plays golf. Me and Little Shep like to cut those golf balls open, like you’re not supposed to do because they’ll explode and put your eye out. It’s real fun. It’s like there’s a little prize inside that you have to work to get at. First off, you have to cut off the white outside plastic part of the ball. That’s the hardest part and the most dangerous. It’s better if you use a saw instead of a knife, but either way, the actual cutting could cause you to lose two or three fingers and go through life a cripple. But getting the outside of the ball off is really neat. Almost as good as peeling off a sunburn. Then comes the best part—because under the hide is a long skinny rubber band and that the center is wrapped up in. It’s like rubber-band spaghetti and it must be a mile long when you unwind it! Then you finally get down to this marble-sized little ball. It takes a lot of work to get to it, but it is really worth it! One time when I stole the most expensive balls, they turned out to have this kind of goo at the center. Baylor got scared because he thought it would burn his skin off. And all he was doing was watching. I don’t know where he gets the thoughts in his head.

Anyway, my Daddy is the one I would really like to get something good for. Just surprise him with something out of this world and have him scoop me up and say: Lulu-Cakes, you’re my sweet patootie!

But what are you gonna get my Daddy? I got him a couple boxes of 22-caliber bullets once, but big fat deal. He has eighty-four thousand of them already. He hardly even noticed when I gave them to him. He is a tough customer.

Finally it came to me, though.

So I get myself over to The Cowboy Store of Thornton on the double. I have to ride a city bus to get out there—which Mama would kill me for if she found out because only white trash ride buses. But I’ve got to get there!

I walk in, and it smells all like tack and leather and harnesses and saddle soap. The floors are old wood ones that squeak when you take a step. It’s kind of like being in a cleaned-up barn or something. There are two salesladies who look almost just alike, except one is strawberry blonde and the other is black-haired. They’re both wearing cowgirl pants and shirts and boots. I smile at them and I’m relieved to see that they don’t know me from Adam. Mama and us never shop there, only my Daddy. Mama says The Cowboy Store is too country. So I am a total stranger in there. I browse around looking for something for Daddy, and the only thing that really gets me going is this straw cowboy hat that he could wear in the fields. I finger it
and try it on. It’s way too big for me, so I figure it will fit him fine. It smells like hay and when I hold it up and look through it, I can see light through the straw weave. I think:
This is the hat that could really stop the hot sun from beating down on my Daddy, from burning him up and wearing him out.

Now, a cowboy hat is not your easiest thing to steal. I mean, you might as well try to walk off with that antique globe that Baylor wants! You’ve got to be a true ace, which I luckily happen to be. I go up to the counter and buy some saddle soap that Daddy uses on his boots. Then I wander around, watching the two ladies close and waiting for them to turn their backs. Those salesladies are stuffed into their cowgirl pants like that Italian fennel sausage my Daddy buys from D’Stefanos. I like the way they look, their hair all like Loretta Lynn and the way they walk is kind of half-sexy, half-horsy. They both have on real pointy boots and bright blue eyeshadow, which I can definitely tell you is straight out of the discount off-brand bin at Woolworth’s. If there’s one thing I know, it’s my cosmetics. If Mama saw them, she would sneer her face off. But Mama isn’t anywhere around.

Finally the phone rings and one of them picks it up. She’s got that twangy voice like the people who live year-round at Spring Creek where we go in the summer. The other lady takes out an emery board and starts filing her nails. I’m the only customer in the whole place.

This is my chance! And I reach up and pull that
straw cowboy hat down off the shelf. I stick it in front of my stomach and walk straight out of that store.

I am sweating like a field hand. This is the best heist I have ever pulled off! The perfect gift for my Daddy! Finally. The kind of thing he really
needs.
Those seed company caps he wears don’t do shit to protect him from the sun.

I’m dizzy and my blood is pumping so hard, and I’m trying to remember where to go to catch the bus. I pause for a minute to catch my breath.

And that is what trips me up.

The lady with the blonde hair comes running out on the porch of the store where there are saddles hanging all along the railing. She runs down the steps yelling, Hey you! Little Girl! Little Girl!

I act like I don’t hear her. I think about running. But running is so dumb! Running is the kind of chicken-ass thing Sidda would do! I don’t need to run, I think. I can handle this.

I turn around to the lady and say, Yes Ma’am? so sweet that you’d want to adopt me in a split second if you heard me.

And she comes right up to me, with her butt in those tight pants and she says: If you’re fixin to run off with that hat, you got another think comin, girly-girl.

I look down at the hat all ashamed-like, to give myself a chance to work up some tears.

Then I look up at her—right straight in the eyes—and say: I’m sorry. I really am. I apologize.

The whole time I’m saying this I am sobbing my eyes out.

Don’t you give me no boo-hoo act, she says. Who are your parents? I’m fixin to go inside and call them up right now. You’re lucky I don’t call the Louisiana State Police.

I wipe a tear from my eyes and try to talk just like her.

I don’t have no parents, I say. They was killed in a car wreck just five-and-a-half months after I was born. I was getting the hat for my brother. He works driving a tractor over in Bunkie. He’s sixteen. He takes care of me.

Then I work myself up into a state, until I actually feel like I am an orphan who lives with her only relative in a shack on the edge of a cotton field. I don’t stop crying until the lady puts her arm around me and says, Let’s us go on back inside. It’s too darn hot out here.

Back in the store, she says, Well, Verna, I caught up with our little sneak thief.

Verna glares at me and I squeeze out another round of tears for her. The blonde-haired one whispers to Verna, Both her parents are dead: car crash when she was an infant.

Then Verna looks at me real kind-like. I can’t believe it!

The two of them stand there for a minute with their hands on their hips. And finally Verna says, Well Maxine, what are we goin to do with her?

Maxine says, Well, we could throw her in the Angola State Prison for life. And then she pauses and gives me this long look.

Or, she continues, we could get her an Orange Crush. Do you like Orange Crushes? she asks me.

Oh yes ma’am I say, Orange Crush is my very favorite cold drink. I adore Orange Crush.

And Maxine goes in the back and opens an icebox and brings me out an Orange Crush in a tall cold bottle.

Sit yourself down on that stool and drink it, she says.

I do what she says.

Alright now, Verna asks me, what’s your name?

Corina, I lie. “Corina, Corina, Where You Been So Long?” is my Daddy’s favorite song in the world. He sings it in the truck when we ride back in the fields and he hums it while he’s shaving in his bathroom.

Corina what? Maxine asks.

Axel, I tell them. Corina Axel, tasting the name in my mouth. My Mama and Daddy were Axels from Greenville, Mississippi. Yall might of heard the name.

No, honey, Verna says, I don’t reckon I have. But I’m sure they were real fine people.

She says it like she doesn’t want to hurt my feelings.

Then I get quiet, like I figure I better. Best to just sit there and let them feel sorry for me. Mama always says it’s running my mouth so much that gets me in trouble to begin with.

You say you live with your brother? Maxine asks.
She starts up with her emery board again, so I figure they’re not going to turn me over to the cops.

Yes ma’am, I say. He tries to take good care of me. He quit school to support us. He gets real sunburned in the field and don’t have no straw hat, just this old felt one that’s too hot to wear in the summer. I was getting the hat for him. I’m awful sorry.

I am actually becoming Corina Axel!
And I like her too. She is pitiful and plucky at the same time—the kind of kid people always want to help out.

My brother’s name’s Bucky, I lie to them.

Verna reaches into her shirt pocket and shakes a Viceroy out of the pack. She reaches under the counter and pulls out a big box of kitchen matches, strikes one, and lights her cigarette. Très tacky, Mama and the Ya-Yas would say.

My Mama used to smoke that exact same brand, I tell Verna, forgetting for a second that I was five and a half months old when she died.

I thought you was only an infant when your Mama passed on, Maxine says.

These ladies are sharp, I think. You better watch what you say, Lulu!

My brother Bucky told me, I continue. Bucky has told me every single thing he can remember about our Mama. Mentally calculating his age, I said, He was about five when they died. He remembers what she smelled like and everything.

Then I thought: Shut up! Don’t push your luck. But I can’t stop myself.

Ummm, this Orange Crush sure is good, I tell them. I don’t get to have cold drinks very often. Me and Bucky can only afford ice water.

I roll my eyes around the store like I have never been in such a fine establishment.

That sure is an awful pretty belt buckle you’re wearing, I compliment Maxine.

Mama would drop dead before she would let a belt buckle of a man and woman square dancing onto her waist. She would melt that thing down for scrap metal just to keep it from offending her eyes. I can feel myself starting to really like Verna and Maxine. They are A-OK in my book. They’re my kind of folks.

Thank you, Corina, Maxine says. My husband gave me this belt buckle for our tenth anniversary.

Well, it sure is pretty. You’re lucky to have a husband like that. I sure wish I could of known my daddy.

Then Maxine gets all soft and turns to Verna, and they pass a signal between them with their eyes. I’m thinking: They are either going to reach for the phone and call the state police and I’m going to need Perry Mason quick, or they are going to let me right off the hook.

Verna nods to Maxine and the two of them stand a little closer together. They look kind of like sisters off that show
Louisiana Hayride
, but wilder. They’re both
leaning over a display case filled with horseshoe cufflinks and fancy spurs and lariats.

Tell you what, Verna finally says, How ’bout we give you that hat? You can hand it to Bucky and tell him it came from two of his admirers.

Maxine flicks her ash on the floor and says, Tell him he’s doing a fine job rearin’ you up all by hisself. Even if you do have some sticky fingers.

I know I ought to feel guilty, but I don’t. I am Corina Axel. I am an orphan. My Mama and my Daddy are dead.

I start crying again, but this time they’re not crocodile tears. They’re real tears from my dry heart.

I can’t believe yall are being so nice to me, I tell them. No one has ever been this nice to me in my whole entire life.
I want to stay here and live with yall
, I think to myself.

And they come and put their arms around me.

It’s like a fairy tale or something. When they hold me, I really haul off crying. Not the kind of tears that just turn on and off like a faucet, but tears that I don’t know where they come from, like they’ve been there on the edge waiting for a long time. I feel my hand reach up to pull at my hair the way I used to do when I was little. I want real bad to yank out two or three hairs and eat them, because that always used to calm me down.

But Maxine takes my hand and says, Aw honey, don’t pull on your hair. You’ve got the prettiest blonde hair in the world. I wish I had me a little girl with hair pretty as yours.

The way she says “wish” it comes out sounding like “wursh.”

I put my hand back in my lap and curl my fingers together. At first Maxine and Verna looked like cartoon sisters, but now I see how different they are from each other. Maxine smells like “Evening in Paris” cologne, but Verna smells more like pine straw. And Verna is a little older. She’s got a mole on her cheek. Not a mole like the nuns, with hair sticking out of it, but a mole that’s almost a beauty mark.

I let them hug me for a while. When I’m finally able to stop crying, I say: Thank you, Verna. Thank you, Maxine. Thank you both very much.

The bell on the door tinkles then and a man walks into the store. His boots hit the wooden floor hard and heavy and he brings field dust inside with him. I pray he doesn’t know my Daddy.