Sintown Chronicles I: Behind Closed Doors (5 page)

“Ah, there it is,” he muttered, having located the one entry under “Physicians.” “M. L. Honneycutt, MD,” he read aloud.

Damn, he silently swore as he listened to the dead telephone receiver. That's probably the only thing Bobby didn't think of.

Tim poured a second cup of coffee when he reached the kitchen and then walked to the library. She wasn't there. The book was on the table. He called her name, but there was no answer. Without haste, he searched the ground floor, yielding for a few minutes to the temptation to sit behind the desk in the study. He returned to the kitchen for a third cup of coffee, and turned off the appliance, since the pot was now empty. He checked the back porch and the front porch, then called her name again.

“In the bedroom,” he heard her respond.

“You decent?” he asked after tapping on her door.

“According to my standards,” she replied.

She wasn't by his standards. She stood with her back to him, slipping on a red sweater. A thin blue band circled her waist with a perpendicular strip disappearing between the cheeks of her buttocks. He stared at the abrasions on her back, at the whelps on her buttocks and thighs. He wanted to hold her. He wanted to kiss away the pain.

“I must take you to a doctor,” he said quietly.

“I know,” she replied. She turned to face him. The panties covered more in the front than the back, but were very formfitting, suggesting rather large vaginal lips. He watched her painfully step into blue pants. They more or less fit.

“Your aunt, or whoever she was, was about my size. I think even the shoes may fit.” She pointed to a pair of white sneakers on the bed. “But take a look at this,” she laughed as she pulled from the dresser drawer a brassiere and let her fist completely disappear inside one of the cups.

“What are we going to tell him?” Tim asked, amused by the thought of Sandra fitting into the huge cups of the bra but too concerned about her pain to laugh.

“That you are a wife beater."

“I'm serious."

“I know. I'm going to have to leave that up to you. I'm not as tough as I thought. I can't stand this pain. If I go to jail, I go to jail."

“The doctor's name is M. L. Honneycutt. His office is across from the lawyer's. I remember seeing it yesterday, but he may not work on Saturdays. I tried to call, but the phone's not working."

“If he isn't in, maybe the pharmacist will give me something."

Tim left the Mustang motor running so Sandra wouldn't run down the battery and climbed the steps to the doctor's office. The door was open.

“Good morning,” Tim said to the young, thick-boned woman working on papers behind the desk.

“Good morning,” she replied peering over her horn-rimmed glasses.

“Thank goodness you're open. My name is Tim Dollar, Pete Harlow's nephew. My, uh, companion is in considerable pain. Is the doctor in?"

“I am the doctor."

“But the telephone directory..."

“I use my initials in the telephone book. It cuts down on crank calls. My name is Mary Louise. If your, ‘uh companion’ is the one in pain, why isn't he with you?"

“This is hard. He's a she. I just met her yesterday. I should have brought her in then."

“Why didn't you?"

“She thinks she is going to get into trouble if she sees a doctor. She'd rather not explain the cause of her injuries."

“What's her name?"

“She says her name is Sandy Dollar, but I think that is just a name she made up after she heard my last name. Folks seem to think she is my wife and I haven't tried to explain her yet."

“This is my day off. I'm just trying to get a little paperwork done. Would you get to the point, please?"

Not knowing how to lie successfully in this situation, Tim blurted out, “She was in a gang of some kind. She tried to get out but they caught her. They raped her and beat her up pretty badly."

Dr. Honneycutt removed her reading glasses. “Where is she?"

“In the car, down on the street."

“Can she make it up the steps?"

“I think so."

“Then don't just stand there, man. Go get her."

Tim shuffled down the steep staircase, crossed the road and helped Sandra out of the car. “Where did all these people come from?” Tim asked as he escorted her across the street. “The place was deserted yesterday."

Instead of staying in the doctor's office during the examination, Tim went to Dot's Diner for a bite to eat. “Is it always this busy in Dot on Saturday mornings?” Tim asked Dottie when she served his scrambled eggs and bacon breakfast.

“These are mostly farm people, Tim,” Dottie answered. “They work all week. On Sunday, they go to church and rest up. On Saturday, they come to town to shop and gossip. As you can see, the men usually come here or the hardware store. The ladies meet at the Dot Grocery or Dot's answer to Wal-Mart, the Dot Discount House."

“I haven't seen the Discount House yet,” Tim said with his mouth full of eggs.

Dottie called over her shoulder. “It's in the old tobacco warehouse next to the grocery store."

Driving Sandra back to the house, Tim saw the discount store. It was in a big, rusty, tin monstrosity. Tim thought that whoever owned it should tear it down and start over from scratch.

Sandra was not in as much pain now. The doctor had given her a shot of some kind and suggested that Sandra would probably spend most of the day sleeping. Sandra munched on the bacon and egg biscuit he bought for her at the diner.

“Don't forget to get my prescriptions filled,” she said as Tim made her as comfortable as he could in her bedroom.

Tim felt in his pocket to be sure that the prescriptions were there. “Did the doctor say anything about having to make a police report?” he asked.

“No. She just said I was lucky—no broken bones and the abrasions were beginning to heal with little sign of infection. She said the tests should be back next Wednesday—to give her a call."

“What tests?"

“I don't know. She took some blood and messed with my—you know. I guess she's checking for AIDS and stuff."

That's why he won't have sex with me, she thought. When the tests come back negative, he'll...

Tim pulled the sheet up to her neck while saying, “I sure hope you're lucky on that score too.” He smiled when there was no response. She was already asleep, and she was smiling too.

Dottie's words, “The men usually come here or the hardware store to gossip...” did not register until Tim was on his way back to town. Isn't the hardware store closed? he wondered.

Because all street parking was taken, Tim parked in the lot beside the Dot Pharmacy, left the two prescriptions with the druggist, and dodged slow-moving traffic to cross the street to the hardware store. Several men sitting on a bench in front of the store nodded politely as he passed. Other men were milling around inside, some with arms loaded with merchandise.

After observing the scene for several minutes, Tim decided two middle-aged women were running the store, each wearing a blue cotton jacket. He moved close enough to the one in the center aisle to overhear her knowledgeably advising her customer on what kind of paint to buy. He decided to talk to the woman behind the register who was waiting for the next customer to ring up.

“You would be Timothy Dollar. Right?” the sturdy looking lady asked. “Surprised to see women running things, are you?"

“Please call me Tim. I'm surprised to see the store open at all."

“Oh, before he passed away, Pete told Silas to keep the place open. Folks around here need their hammers and nails. I'm Wanda Wallace, and that's Lizzie Lane over there,” Wanda stated, pointing towards the approaching woman who was carrying a case of paint. “I do the heavy work and she sweet talks the customers and looks after the bookwork."

“That carton of paint looks pretty heavy to me."

Tim watched Lizzie clamp a can of paint into a contraption behind the counter. Suddenly the machine roared and started violently shaking the paint can.

“Course, me and Lizzie can do anything a man can, and have babies on the side. At least we could up until old age caught up with us."

“What you gonna do with the store?” Lizzie asked after putting a second can of paint in motion and joining them.

“I'm not sure yet,” Tim honestly replied. “I know nothing about running a hardware store."

“Honey,” Wanda laughed, “all you gotta know is how to sign our paychecks."

The store was too busy to do any serious talking. Tim wandered around for a few minutes, let the ladies know he would come back later, and left the building amazed at the purchases he had seen being made.

“Pull up a chair and have a seat,” a smiling, toothless man said, inviting Tim to join the old-timers in front of the store.

Before Tim could decline, another voice ventured, “We figure you must be Pete Harlow's nephew, Timothy."

“Yes,” Tim replied taking the cane chair offered him by yet another member of the group. “Please call me Tim. I can't stay but a minute,” he lied. “I need to pick up some medicine from the Pharmacy and get back to the house."

“I seen you and the missus yestitty,” offered another voice. “She's a purty thang, but she looked right poorly. Hope she's gonna be all right."

Tim's few minutes turned into three hours and ended only after joining the men for a hamburger plate lunch at Dot's Diner. In the ancient manner, never satisfactorily replicated by the written word, Tim learned of the history of Dot and of his uncle. More importantly, he heard the plaintive cry of the people who inhabited a dying community.

After picking up the two bottles of pills from the Dot Pharmacy, Tim made a quick stop at the Dot Grocery, belatedly remembering Sandra's request for another box of Alka-Seltzer Plus, and headed for the house. He slowed the Mustang to a crawl as he approached the driveway off Highway 13, searching the opposite side of the road for the house in which Bobby Elliott lived. He shrugged his shoulders, and turned into the driveway. “Nothing over there but an old shack,” he mumbled to himself.

As he expected, Sandra was still sleeping and the smile was still on her face, but the clothes she wore earlier now lay neatly on the end of the bed. She had pushed the sheet down to her navel, and he could not pull his eyes from her breasts. He placed the medication and a glass of water on her bedside table, and sat on the edge of the bed.

Why are men so attracted to women's breasts, he wondered. He longed to cup the peach sized jewels in his hands and kiss the strawberry nipples. He brushed a tuff of hair from her eyes. His gaze returned to her slightly discolored breasts and he lost the internal battle. He gently kissed each nipple before pulling the sheet to her neck.

Reluctantly Tim forced himself to the kitchen to put away the groceries. After preparing and eating a ham and cheese sandwich, he put on a pot of pinto beans to simmer slowly the rest of the afternoon, and he started baking a pork roast in the oven. He wasn't sure he wanted Sandra to know he knew how to cook, but with Dot's Diner closing at 6:00 and Sandra laid up, he did not have much choice.

Bobby Elliott arrived just as Tim settled down on the front porch to read the
Charlotte Observer
, purchased at the grocery store. They spent the afternoon together, exploring the farm, which Bobby knew quite well.

“Bobby,” Tim said as the big man, who looked much less scary in daylight, was preparing to leave, “I looked for your house when I came back from town today, but I didn't see it. Didn't you tell me it was just across the road?"

“Blind are you?” Bobby said with no expression of mirth on his face.

“All I saw was an old shack."

“Looks better on inside."

Tim found Sandra in the kitchen, putting the finishing touches on a tossed salad. She was wearing a red robe and he fought against the urge to strip it from her.

“Feeling better?"

“I think I'm going to live. I don't know if it was the sleep or the shot the doctor gave me, but I do feel better. We may have a problem, Tim."

“What now?"

“Looks like we both like to cook."

“You can have that joy all to yourself,” he laughed. “I learned to cook out of necessity after my wife ... uh, after she found her knight in shining armor. You can do the bottle washing too."

“Thank you, kind sir,” she said, and she kissed him on the cheek.

“I feel like a new woman today,” Sandra said as Tim entered the kitchen for his first cup of coffee Sunday morning. “Thank you for making me go to the doctor yesterday."

Tim nodded in response. Years ago he learned to avoid morning conversation until after consuming the first cup.

“You always get up this early?” he finally said.

“No, but I had so much sleep yesterday I suppose I was just slept out."

“I ran into a bunch of old-timers in town yesterday. They filled me in on the town's history and told me a lot about my uncle too. During the afternoon, Bobby showed me around the farm, or at least part of it. Bobby doesn't know how big the farm is, but we must have covered a hundred acres and he said we hadn't seen very much of it. We stayed on this side of 13, but the farm extends to the other side also."

“I want to see it, Tim.” Her eyes were sparkling.

“I'll show it to you when you are up to it."

“Dr. Honneycutt wanted me to stay in bed yesterday, but she said I should begin moving around as much as possible today. She said it would help the soreness go away."

“You won't have to do too much walking. About a hundred yards behind the house is a storage shed—actually a small barn. That thing is full of stuff, including a Ford pickup and a ‘97 Chevrolet Cavalier. There's also a gasoline powered golf cart that Bobby and I rode around the place in yesterday."

“The red Cavalier is mine,” Sandra exclaimed when first she saw the contents of the storage barn.

“Yeah, right."

After filling the tank of the golf cart with gas, Tim and Sandra retraced the route taken by Bobby and Tim the previous day. Sandra pointed out the fish jumping in the four-acre pond to the right of the house and also in the much larger pond to the left. They passed acre after acre of once tilled, but now overgrown fields.