Ms. Etta's Fast House (17 page)
Read Ms. Etta's Fast House Online
Authors: Victor McGlothin
18
A
LL'S
F
AIR IN
L
OVE
AND
H
OUSE
C
ALLS
LL'S
F
AIR IN
L
OVE
AND
H
OUSE
C
ALLS
O
n Saturday afternoon the county fair was in full swing. Children had their fill of popcorn, hot dogs and cotton candy. The rodeo was a major attraction, as were the amusement rides, but the event which had M.K. and Ollie foaming at the mouth was the contest they had convinced Mr. Watkins to sponsor, the Prettiest Twins competition.
n Saturday afternoon the county fair was in full swing. Children had their fill of popcorn, hot dogs and cotton candy. The rodeo was a major attraction, as were the amusement rides, but the event which had M.K. and Ollie foaming at the mouth was the contest they had convinced Mr. Watkins to sponsor, the Prettiest Twins competition.
To the store owner's delight, herds of on-lookers showed up to view the contestants. While having their undivided attention, he made the best of it. Scores of white and colored customers feasted on bags of peanuts, corn-dogs and waffle cakes. He was making money hand over fist while Chozelle flirted with every adult male who looked half decent and looked at her twice. She consistently shooed Jinx away when he hung around the booth too long for her liking. “Go on and check out the rodeo or something, Jinxy,” she scolded him, not waiting for an answer. “I can't keep the cash drawer straight with you lurking about. Go on now, git. I'll see you later.” With his feelings hurt in the process, Jinx wandered away. Loving Chozelle was bittersweet at times. She was a doll when the mood hit her and a dragon when she developed a taste for something other than him.
Baltimore held a secret meeting with Ollie and M.K. on the side, while Dinah, Penny and Etta applauded the twins' talent portion of the competition. A pair of white teenagers, who dazzled the crowd with a baton twirling exhibition, appeared to be leading the pack early on by three o'clock. But a stunning colored duo, in their early twenties, tap danced their way into the voters' hearts. Baltimore teased M.K. about the remote chance of an elderly set of sisters, who recited the Gettysburg Address in perfect tandem, making off with the trophy, and the men's dreams of bagging the tap dancers while doing it. It wasn't until Ollie exposed several stacks of blank ballots he had run off at the printer that Baltimore conceded the fix was properly administered. He congratulated them on their deceitfulness and aptitude. M. K. had previously promised a matching set of tiaras and fifty dollars prize money in return for the dancers' agreeing to show their appreciation over drinks and devilment afterwards. The only thing standing in his way was working the tail end of a split shift with another resident, and then it was all over but the moaning.
Penny, dressed in new blue jeans, a white cotton pullover and loafers, excused herself from the festivities when she saw Jinx being banished from his steady's company. “Hey, Jinxy. Where're you off to?” she asked, with traces of powdered sugar from the waffle cakes she'd eaten on both cheeks. “All the fun is going on right here,” she mentioned suggestively, “unless you want to be around some smelly ole animals over at the rodeo.” Jinx smiled as he took the corner of a rag from his back pocket, dabbed it on his tongue and then wiped the white powder from Penny's face.
“You always did have a thing for waffle cakes,” he said, smiling even brighter now.
“You wanna know what else I always had a thing for?” she asked shamelessly.
“What's that, Penny King?” he replied, pretending that he didn't have an inkling what she was referring to.
“Well, if'n you don't know, maybe I should keep it to myself,” she teased. When Jinx hunched his shoulders as if he was willing to let it go at that, Penny popped him on the head with a bag of cotton candy. “Ooh, silly boys. I can't stand y'all sometimes, I swear.” Jinx let her fume for a minute before kissing her on the forehead.
“I know, Penny King, I know,” he confessed. “I's just funning with you. And truth be told, if I didn't have Chozelle, you'd make a fine steady, I'd bet. You've grown into a right nice young lady. Everybody says what good Ms. Etta's doing for you.” Penny blushed and tossed her big brown eyes up at Jinx. She wanted to kiss him back and not on the forehead either, but she feared making a fool of herself because she didn't know how.
“Well, if Chozelle don't know what she's got, she stands a chance of losing it,” she said, with a playful shoulder wag to emphasize her point. “Seems that a lady ought to know a good catch when she has one. I sho' do.”
“Come on and walk with me, Penny. 'Spite of all these people around, I feel kinda lonesome. Don't seem possible really.”
“Yes it do, Jinxy,” she countered. “I get that same feeling sometimes, like I'm the only one who knows I'm alive.” Penny placed her hand in his as they strolled down the carnival aisles, sharing cotton candy and feeling alone, together.
When they discovered a tent where a man was asking twenty-five cents for three baseball throws to win stuffed animals, Jinx's smile stretched out like a limousine. “Mistah, I'll take a dollar worth of tries,” he said, with four quarters in his palm. Penny stepped aside and watched as his entire countenance altered. “Without one of these in my hand, Penny, I feel like a fish out of water. A fish drowning on dry land,” he confided. “Mistah, get ready to snatch down and give this woman what ever she wants 'cause I'm about to dive in the water and breathe.” One, two, three, he fired the baseballs, knocking down all of the wooden milk bottles as easy as breathing. In less than a minute, the tent minder was scowling at Jinx and snatching down two of the biggest stuffed animals he had on display. Penny was partial to both the lion and unicorn. She brimmed with excitement when Jinx told her she deserved a lot more than those and in due time, she'd have her choice of men as well as carnival prizes.
The crowd observing the twin competition had doubled in size when Penny made her way back to the platform to show off her gifts to Etta, Baltimore and that stuck-up date of his who everyone thought was so beautiful. Penny tugged on Jinx's arm when he stalled a few feet away from the Watkins's booth. “What's the matter?” she asked before seeing her answer written up and down Dinah's face. Etta was shaking her head while watching Dinah go off on Chozelle, making a spectacle of it.
“If I told you once, I told you a thousand times, little girl,” Dinah spat. “Keep your greedy eyes off my man and I'll try to keep my fist off of your face.” Baltimore tried to ease the tension by ushering her away but she dug in her heels. “Uh-uh, I'm not gonna let her think she's getting away with this. The brat probably wouldn't know what to do with one man at a time, much as she's chasing 'em by the dozens.” After Dinah had run her mouth a little more, Baltimore tipped his hat to nosy bystanders and wrestled her to the far corner of the fair to settle her down. Unfortunately, it was too late to spare Jinx's feelings and to make matters abundantly worse Etta spoke out of turn. She had no idea Jinx was standing on the other side of Penny's overgrown unicorn.
“Dinah had to learn sooner or later,” she said to Penny, in retrospect. “You can't take that man out in public and not expect women to be fighting over him. That's just the way it is, chile. Chozelle done went from curious to crazy.”
“Sorry, Jinxy,” Penny whispered softly. “Miss Dinah didn't know about you and Chozelle.” She was extremely saddened by the turn of events. Jinx saw it on her face and now he finally recognized how love had blinded him.
“That's okay, Penny, people tried to tell me about how things was but I had too many rocks in my head to listen. Chozelle's willful and wayward. I don't have what it takes to alter that. Guess that's a joke on me. I'm a head on home. Thanks for showing me a good time, while it lasted. See you around.” Having his heart stomped on twice in one afternoon was too much. Finally it was so clear, the way Chozelle led him around by the nose and toyed with his emotions as she saw fit. Jinx had seen it for what it was at last, and it hurt twice as much for others to have recognized it beforehand. Chozelle was just incapable of loving anyone as much as she loved herself.
Penny saw Henry before Etta did as he made his way up the main aisle with Roberta and their small boy. She nudged Etta to get her looking that way. “Everybody's at the fair, I reckon.”
“Yeah, everybody and his mama,” Etta hissed, after she saw him too, “though you'd hardly know him with his clothes on.”
“Ooh, Ms. Etta,” Penny giggled.
“What? Oh, I don't mean that,” she argued. “I'm talking about those darned newspaper photos.”
Penny looked at her cockeyed. “That ain't the way I heard it,” she said playfully. “Mistah Baltimore told me y'all used to be crawling on each other like a tub of crabs.”
“Shut yo' mouth,” she chuckled. “That's ancient history and I'm a have a talk with Mistah Baltimore, you wait and see.”
“Uh-uh, Ms. Etta,” Penny pleaded. “If you say I told, he might not tell me nothing more about your old belly rubbing days with Mistah Henry.”
“Penny, I'm a get you!” Etta hollered as her protégée dashed away dragging both of her animals behind. “You're wrong for that, Penny!”
In so many ways Etta wanted to forget how much she loved Henry, less than a year ago. The wound was healing rapidly but it had a strange manner of reopening whenever she saw him with his new family. Since it was easier to look the other way, she did then too, although suddenly the county fair didn't hold nearly as much allure as it had moments before. Besides, it was high time to be getting back to the Fast House, Etta had decided conveniently. That's where she belonged.
At nine o'clock that evening M.K. whistled as he handed off his closing report to the nurse he requested to assist him weeks ago, because of her knowledge and skills. Nurse Helen Bernard enjoyed working along side the popular doctor as well. He wasn't like a lot of the physicians she encountered. Sure, he was a skirt hound like most of them, but he often made her feel more like a person instead of merely a part of the medical machine known as Homer G. Phillips. M.K. shared pertinent information about the patients and explained why he did certain things to treat their infirmities. Helen admired him for taking the time to include her. All of the extra hours she logged were paying off. She was being considered for advancement in the nursing ranks.
“Nurse Bernard, here are the remaining charts for the night,” M.K. sang gleefully. “One of the attending doctors will be here by the time I'm showered and ready to hit the town. I've got a hot date, two of them,” he boasted. “Maybe they'll let me take turns.”
“Goodbye Dr. Phipps,” the slim, dark brown-skinned nurse replied cordially. “You'd better watch yourself, though. Been having a rash of disease lately, the nighttime variety,” she submitted for clarity sake.
“I ain't worrying, these are clean churchgoing girls. Twins.”
“Not that it's any of my business, but churchgoing girls got to keep busy doing something when they ain't in church.”
M.K. thought about it for a split second then frowned at the nurse. “You're right, it ain't your business. Good night, Nurse Bernard.”
“Good night, Dr. Phipps,” she answered, after he'd disappeared down the hall.
“Paging Dr. Phipps,” a voice called out from the hospital intercom. “Dr. Phipps, please contact the emergency room nurse, right away.”
Nurse Bernard chuckled when she heard M.K. yelling at the top of his lungs.
That's good for him. It's probably a stab wound that needs stitching but at least it'll help him keep his pants on.
That's good for him. It's probably a stab wound that needs stitching but at least it'll help him keep his pants on.
Neither of them had any idea that two men arrived after a nasty knife fight, both requiring complicated surgeries. Because M. K. was still listed as emergency room duty doctor when they were signed in, he was responsible to assist in their operations. Cursing profusely throughout, he stabilized their conditions and passed them on to his replacement. After showering and dressing on the fly, M.K. caught a cab to the Remington Hotel and sprinted up the side steps to suite number four-seventy-three, the room he had gone in on with Ollie.
Huffing and out of breath, he knocked on the door. “Come on, Ollie, open up,” he said under his breath. “I need this, don't let me down.” M.K. grew increasingly excited when he saw the doorknob being twisted from the other side. “Oh, yeah, that's it. Come on, man.”
“Hi, ya, M.K.,” Ollie mouthed in a tired tone, with a bed sheet tied around his waist. “What took you so long?”
“Damned that, where's Dora and Cora?” he asked, craning his neck to look inside the dimly lit room.
“We waited a couple of hours for you. Drinking, slow dancing and such,” Ollie informed him, with sleep in his eyes. “They're still back there in the bed.”
“Oh, yeah, that's good!” he howled, before being shushed.
“M.K., you're gonna have to keep it down. After all that tap dancing and then all that stuff we did together, they're plum tuckered out.”
In disbelief that his luck was that bad, M.K. wanted to cry real tears. “Ollie, you telling me you had them both?”
“When you didn't show, I stepped in. I had Dora first and then Cora, I think that's how it went.” Ollie appeared just as exhausted as the girls.
“Nahhh, you weren't with both of those beautiful girls at the exact same time?” M.K. whined, fearing he missed out on that kind of action.
Other books
The Byram Succession by Mira Stables
The Seabird of Sanematsu by Kei Swanson
Rock Me Slowly by Dawn Sutherland
Holiday in Death by J. D. Robb
Everybody Knows by Kyra Lennon
Heads You Lose by Christianna Brand
Con Academy by Joe Schreiber
The Book of Spells by Kate Brian
Alaskan-Reunion by CBelle
The Suburban Strange by Nathan Kotecki