Sailor & Lula (66 page)

She looked over her left shoulder and saw that ET was sitting with his legs folded, his fingers forming a teepee, and his eyes closed.

“He's meditatin',” Beany told her. “Says he does it twice a day. Told me while you were snoozin' that if ever'body in the world meditated at precisely the same time every day, there wouldn't be no more war.”

“He might be right.”

Lula reached into the back seat and picked up ET's copy of Why God Don't Need to Carry a Gun. ET did not notice since he was still in a trance.

“Listen here what it says, Beany: ‘When the king of Israel was in Samaria, there was a famine and a woman said unto him, “Give thy son, that we may eat him today, and we will eat my son tomorrow.” So the king gave up his son and they boiled and ate him. When on the next day the king asked the woman for her son, she hid him. The king of Israel took no vengeance upon this woman, but instead mourned the loss of his son for all to see. Do you think the king of Israel's unselfish act was an inspiration to his people, or do you think he was just stupid to have allowed the woman to trick him? Do you think the woman should have been punished for her deception? Do you believe cruelty born out of desperation is justified? If you were God, would you have acted to rectify the situation?'”

“If I was God, I wouldn'ta done nothin',” said ET, who had emerged from his trance.

“You wouldn'ta restored the king of Israel's son to life?” asked Lula.

“Nope. This way it becomes an act that nobody would forget, and the story told and re-told as it has been on down the line as a lesson of supreme generosity.”

“Generosity my ass,” said Beany. “Myself, I woulda had that bitch boiled and eaten.”

They rode for a few minutes in silence, each absorbed by their thoughts, then Lula said, “My deceased husband, Sailor Ripley, liked to quote the dyin' words of some Spanish general: ‘I do not have to forgive my enemies. I have had them all shot.' ”

“That'll work,” Beany said.

“Mm-mm,” said ET, “maybe age got somethin' to do with how a person thinks about things.”

I clearly can remember how I felt surrounded by Sailors big strong arms. This memory will never leave me. The three times Sail and I got back together namely after he was sprung from Pee Dee after serving his time for manslaughtering Bob Ray Lemon then when he was released after being in Huntsville following the feed store robbery in Texas and finally after we once and for always was reunited during the time Pace was kidnapped in NO on each occasion without talking when he crushed me to his chest I melted into him and no words could ever describe this peaceful feeling. Home for me was in that mans arms and I aint been home since Sailor Ripley left this planet. Now with Beany and the boy ET we are stopped at a service station in Beaufort ET is gassing up the car and Beany is in the restroom. Im looking forward to seeing Pace as I am feeling a little bit low at the moment probably because I am so used to being alone so even though I love Beany dearly and she always means well it tires me out to be so long in her company or I guess anybodys. ET aint no trouble hes just lost as are so many these days. This was true of Sailor and Pace too for some time until they both got it figured out it took a while they had to learn there aint no rules in the game of life. ET told me hes always felt like a stranger loosed upon the world unwanted sent to Switzerland and all and I said Pace and me felt that way after Sailor was taken from us so early and sudden. I quoted scripture cursed be he that perverteth the judgment of the stranger the fatherless and the widow which covers us three dont it you got to follow your heart and dont despair no matter how creepy things get. Here comes Beany.

“C'mon, Lula, have some fun!”

“I am havin' fun, Beany. You go on and dance, I just enjoy watchin'.”

Lula, Beany, and ET were in Hollywood Del's, a nightclub on the outskirts of Savannah. Beany had been dancing with ET to Felix Mendelssohn and His Sepia Cats, a band that specialized in '60s soul music. Just now they had launched into “Shotgun,” the old Junior Walker & the All-Stars tune. ET went to the bar to get himself another beer and Beany plopped down in a chair next to Lula's.

“I like they're playin' oldies, Lula, honey, 'cause I can't get into this hip rap, or rap hop, or whatever they call it. Whew! It's a wonder I can even move out there on the dance floor. You catch me tryin' to do the skate?”

Lula laughed. “You're amusin' and amazin', Beany, you truly are. Somebody'd knock into me, I'd go flyin' and end up in the hospital with a busted hip.”

“Lula, I know I'm an old lady, but d'you think it'd offend ET if I asked him to go to bed with me just once?”

It took Lula a few seconds to realize that Beany was deadly serious, then she said, “Hard to say. I know the very thought kinda offends me.”

“Why? I ain't expectin' a miracle, only it'd be sorta sweet to have some affection of the intimate type.”

“Beany, it might could take a miracle for that boy to get an erection in your presence, and even if he did you'd break apart soon as he squeezed you.”

Beany took a swig from her bottle of Pabst Blue Ribbon and shook her head. “It's embarrassin' to be horny at eighty,” she said.

“Ladies, meet Jamilla.”

Lula and Beany looked up to see ET with a dark-skinned young woman.

“She's from—Where is it you're from again?”

“Nazareth,” said Jamilla. “That's in Israel. I'm an Arab Israeli.”

“ ‘And Joseph came and dwelt in a city called Nazareth: that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the prophets. He shall be called a
Nazarene.' That's from Matthew, 'course. Nice to meet you, Jamilla. I'm Lula and my friend here is Beany.”

Beany gave Jamilla a tiny wave. “World's oldest teenager.”

“We're gonna go dance,” said ET, taking the girl by the hand.

“Well, I guess that answers my question,” Beany said. “Look at her, she sure is shapely. Shoot, I hate bein' ancient.”

“Beany, you gotta try to get comfortable with it or you'll be miserable all the rest of your days.”

“What you think of all these female teachers seducin' their boy students lately? Some are even havin' babies by 'em.”

As Felix Mendelssohn and His Sepia Cats segued from “Shotgun” into “Green Onions,” Lula watched Jamilla and ET take it down a notch and slither easily into scratch 'n' sniff mode.

“I don't think the world is so wild at heart any more, Beany, just weird on top. Probably each generation on its way out thinks what's come after them is missin' a bulb and dimmer for it. Then again, maybe it's just us old folks can't see so good and it hurts us to admit it.”

“Lula, stop.”

“Stop what?”

“Sayin' ‘us old folks.' I plain can't stand it, even I know this is true.”

Lula placed one of her hands over one of Beany's on the table. Tears rolled down Beany's cheeks.

“When the angels call and ask me to recall the thrill of them all, then I shall tell them I remember you.”

Beany smiled and used her free hand to wipe away the tears.

“What part of the Bible's that from?” she asked.

“Ain't. It's words from an old song Mama and Dal liked.”

“Thanks, baby, but it's Sailor you'll tell the angels about, not me.”

Beany picked up Lula's hand and kissed it, then looked for ET and Jamilla on the dance floor. They weren't there.

At nine o'clock the next morning, Lula and Beany were dressed and ready to get back on the road. They had made coffee on the Mister Coffee machine in their room at The 4 Queens Motel located on the business loop of highway 95, availed themselves of four complimentary powdered doughnuts which Beany had brought back from the lobby, and dialed ET's room twice but had no answer.

“He's probably off somewheres with his Jewess. What you think, Lula?”

“She's an Arab, Beany, not a Jew. Think about what?” Lula was still sipping her second cup of watery Folger's.

“How long should we wait?”

“Hate to say it, but if ET ain't come around by the time we set to roll, he'll have to catch his self another ride.”

“What I think, also.”

Fifteen minutes later, as the two women were putting their bags into the Merc, the telephone rang in their room. The door was open. Lula went back in.

“Mornin', ET. Yeah, we're on the verge. Guess we could, but no longer. Glad you understand. See you shortly, then.”

Beany and Lula were leaning up against the side of the car watching storm clouds form to the east when a metallic green Dodge Dart rumbled into the motel parking lot and stopped next to the Nightcat. Jamilla, wearing blue jean cutoffs clean to the bikini line and a red halter top, got out from the driver's side while ET exited the passenger side.

“Sorry I'm a little late, ladies,” he said, “but Jammy and I didn't get to her crib until past four.”

Beany took one look at ET and shouted, “Damn, boy! What in creation happened to you?”

With his right hand, ET gingerly fingered the blackened area around his right eye.

“Had a brief scuffle with a former suitor of Jammy's. He followed us to her place from Hollywood Del's and sucker punched me.”

Jamilla had on dark glasses with fake rhinestones decorating the frames.

“He hit you, too?” Beany asked.

Jamilla just shook her head no and kept her back to the Dart.

“I'll get my pack and guitar and we can be goin',” said ET, and headed toward his motel room.

“Hope you made it worth his while,” Beany said to Jamilla, who remained mute, her hands stuck in the back pockets of her shorts.

“Beany, quit,” said Lula.

“You sure got pretty legs, though,” Beany said.

“How do you like livin' in Savannah, Jamilla?” Lula asked. “Compared to Israel, I mean.”

“They got fightin' here, too,” said Beany.

Jamilla did not respond. ET came back, carrying his things, which he set down on the ground next to Lula's car. He went over to Jamilla.

“It's all good, huh, baby?” he said to her. “My eye'll be fine. I'll holler at you from Lake Charles.”

ET leaned in to kiss her and Jamilla brought out a push-button stiletto from her left back pocket and shoved the blade hard into ET's abdomen. She kept her hand on it and twisted the knife before he fell, then lost her grip.

Lula and Beany could not believe this had happened. Neither of them made a sound. They stood frozen as Jamilla opened the driver's side door of her car, climbed in, started it up, threw the shiny green machine into reverse and backed away. The two women watched the Dodge Dart fishtail out of the lot and roar onto business 95, then they dropped down and kneeled on either side of ET's prostrate body. His eyes were open and his lips were still puckered up, expecting to be kissed. Lula pushed the tips of the index and middle fingers of her right hand against the carotid artery of ET's neck, held them there for a few seconds, then looked up into Beany's eyes.

“This is worse than weird,” said Lula.

I been sitting in our room number 8 at The 4 Queens Motel just thinking about everything thats happened and listening to the radio. When I was a girl I listened a lot to the radio it seems like back then it was something more people did just sit and listen and dream and maybe there wasnt no more good news then than there is now but it didnt seem like things was moving so fast that every time a person stepped out the door the world was a different place than when you went inside. Beany has been spending time with Mr and Mrs Taylor ETs parents since they come to get their sons body and take it back to Lake Charles. I guess they are going to have the corpse shipped by railroad they cant take it in their Sedan de Ville. If this had happened to Pace when he was so young as ET I dont know what I would have done probably felt like killing myself but I wouldnt because of Sailor. We gave the Savannah police our eye-witness testimony to the murder and two days later the highway patrol spotted Jamillas car in Fernandina Beach parked at a Steak and Shake and arrested her and a forty year old man named Hamid Khartoum who told the authorities he was Jamillas fiance. This must have been the same one hit ET that night we met her at Hollywood Dels nightclub but Im not certain. Jamilla confessed to the killing her fingerprints was of course on the knife so there aint going to be a trial only a sentence which will likely be for life. Her fiance will get time for being a accessory after the fact for helping her escape. Its all too terrible and reminds me too much of the bad business in Big Tuna all the years ago. The Taylors are good people and devastated. Beany told me Jamilla her last name is Salim said she stabbed poor ET because she says he defiled her body those are the words she used. Beany knows more details but I told her honestly I dont need to hear any. The girl is crazy out of her freaking mind and this Hamid Khartoum is some moron under her thumb. A cute tune I heard on the radio a moment ago is a new version of Put Your Head On My Shoulder the old Paul Anka song done by a group called Blue Mother Tupelo its just the sweetest and sexiest record I believe Sailor would have dug it to death. The girl doing the vocal can really sing too sort of warbly
she reminds me a bit of Patsy on I Fall to Pieces mixed with the way Brenda did Heart in Hand both favorites of mine and Sailors. This music is personal as opposed to that stuff could be anybody or nobody just some machine. Sailor said the record companies sometimes produce music they think will be commercial with equipment then hire people to pretend its theirs and have them on a video like actors. I want to hear a real person whispering the song in my ear. Theres the phone. It was Beany saying the police are letting us continue on our way tomorrow they have our written statements its all they need. Thank goodness we wont have to testify in a courtroom. I called Pace yesterday he answered and I told him what happened and he said he never told me but when he was married to Rhoda Gombowicz and living in New York they were attacked one night in front of their building by two men with knives took Paces wallet and Rhodas purse then one of the men stabbed Pace in his left leg on the thigh so he wouldnt run after them. Rhoda took Pace to a hospital they stitched him up and he made Rhoda promise never to tell me and Sailor so we wouldnt worry about him being in New York as if there werent no crime in New Orleans. Matthew says from the days of John the Baptist until now the kingdom of heaven suffereth violence and the violent take it by force. This is a fact of life I been touched so many times by violence what to do but bear it and bless them who are less blessed than others. Pace said to come on hes got a nice little apartment above a courtyard on Orleans Street in the Quarter for Beany and me to stay at and dont pick up no more stray boys on the road. In the newspaper Rashid Salim Jamillas daddy said she only done what was right by their law and that he would have killed ET if she had not. I wonder if Mister Salim ever seen his daughter wearing next to nothing like on the day she stuck ET.