Taft (22 page)

She watched him walk towards the cash register and stop at a pile of comic books featuring the Shoney's Big Boy. "Don't talk about this in front of him," she said to me. "I don't want to get his hopes up about anything. I haven't made up my mind. I just got here last night."

"But you're going to see about a job?"

"I'm going to say hello to my friends," she said. "Maybe I'll see what's going on." She looked at me like for a minute she was worried. She patted my hand, something she must have picked up in Miami, as I don't remember Marion being much of a hand patter. "Now I'm getting your hopes up."

"I'd rather see the two of you in Memphis," I said. "I don't make any secret about that. I have to tell you though, for someone who doesn't like Miami, you sure seem happier than I've seen you in a long time."

Marion spooned a packet of sugar into her coffee. One sugar, no milk. I could have done it for her. "I wanted to get away from Memphis for a long time," she said. "I had to get away. But I did that. Now it doesn't seem like coming back would be such a bad thing."

I knew this woman. She had once thrown a plate of macaroni and cheese at me. Macaroni and cheese with cut up chunks of stewed tomatoes in it, the way I like it.

"Clean hands," Franklin said.

"Let me see." Marion took his hands. She looked at both sides, like she was a nurse checking for something more serious than dog hair, then she kissed them, palms up.

We ate our breakfast and I paid the check. Once we got outside I told Marion to go on to the hospital, that I'd take Franklin around and bring him back before it was time to go to the bar. "Does he need anything?" I said. "I could take him shopping, clothes or school supplies?"

"I could think of some things," Franklin said.

Marion stared at him. "He's spoiled rotten," she said. "His grandmother had a whole year's worth of clothes waiting on him. Don't buy him a thing." She kissed Franklin in the parking lot. "Be good," she said. "I'll catch up with you later on. You be good, too," she said to me, and then she got in her car.

Boys with their fathers who don't belong to their fathers, I can spot them anywhere. They're taking tours of the pyramid, playing Putt-Putt golf at ten o'clock on a Saturday morning. They're filling up the zoo, carrying cotton candy and a bag of carameled corn, balloons and a thirty-five-dollar stuffed yak from the gift shop. Custody day, I used to think to myself when I passed them. Court-appointed visitation day. And I'd be prideful knowing that wasn't the way it was with my boy. I saw him every day, whether his mother was living with me or not. I bought his shoes and helped him with his math homework. I stood behind him in the bathroom when he brushed his teeth because if I didn't he never brushed the back ones. The dentist told me that. I held his head when he threw up in the toilet after catching the flu. I pulled up socks, fixed belts, took him to church when I didn't have the slightest interest in going myself. Nobody who saw me with my son would think that I was only some weekend father. But that was all before Miami. Now here I was, pulling off the interstate into Big Mountain Golf Land, already thinking about the chili dog stand we could go to for lunch. It wasn't until just that minute that I had feelings for every father who had tried to endear himself in the few hours he had, every father who wanted his kid to go home and tell his mother about how great the day had been. The kid's life is screwed up and I'm the one who did it. That's what us custody fathers think. If I can make it look like Disneyland for a while, then more power to me.

"It's still early," Franklin said. "I want to go through one more round."

So we did. Then there were chili dogs, ice cream, a trip to the mall where I bought him a pair of sneakers that were big and puffy as marshmallows. He loosened up the shoelaces and wore them out of the store.

"Don't you want to tie those?" I said.

Franklin just looked at me like I was crazy.

By the time I got him back to the Woodmoores' it was nearly three o'clock and I needed to be getting over to the bar.

"You'll call me later?" Franklin said.

"You bet."

"Do you want to come in and say hi to Mom?"

I looked at my watch again. I wasn't thinking about Marion so much as I was Ruth. "I better get going," I said. "We'll have a lot of time tomorrow."

"Okay," he said. He picked up his shoebox which had his old shoes inside and put them under one arm. Then he leaned over and kissed me. Mrs. Woodmoore opened the front door and waved to us. He was all ready to go, but he didn't, he sat there with his hand on the door and watched her, like he was trying to decide which one of us he'd rather stay with.

"Go on, now," I said. "I'm coming right back."

W
HEN
I
GOT TO WORK
that afternoon, Fay was waiting for me. "What did you say to Carl last night?" she wanted to know. Was it possible that she was getting smaller? I wondered how fast a girl that age could lose weight. She looked like she was wearing somebody else's clothes, the clothes of somebody a whole lot bigger than she was.

"Nothing."

"You said something to him." She came around to the other side of the bar so she could keep her voice low. Cyndi wasn't far away, and she was watching. "When he came back to get me last night he was calling you every name in the book. He said you stole from him."

"What do you think?"

"Of course I don't think you stole from him, but something happened."

"If Carl has something he wants to tell you, then he's the one to tell you. I don't want to get into this thing."

"But Carl's not telling me." Her voice was going up. She stopped herself and put a hand up on the bar. "You think he knows about us?"

Us. Now there was a question. If Carl knew about us then he was one up on me. "I don't talk about you with your brother."

"Maybe he figured it out." The color was rising in her face just thinking about it. "Carl wouldn't understand about that. He'd take it the wrong way."

I leaned over to her. "Nothing happened," I said. "There's nothing to know. I don't think that's what Carl's problem is."

"Then what's his problem?" she said, hurt.

"You know his problem. You know all of them. Carl's got to start taking some responsibility for himself."

"You folks not serving drinks here anymore?"

I was all set to say something smart, but when I looked up it was Ruth sitting there, perched up on a barstool for God knows how long.

"Look at this," Ruth said. "It's the girl with the dry hair. You know, you should pin that hair back. Get it out of your eyes. You've got pretty eyes."

Just like that those eyes filled up and spilled over and Fay covered them with her hand.

"It was a compliment, girlfriend," Ruth said. "You shouldn't take a compliment so hard."

Fay went off to the kitchen with her head down.

All I could think was that Ruth must have taken a lot off of white girls when she was young to make her hate them so much now. Either that or she just had a bigger mean streak than I had given her credit for. "Why in the hell are you picking on her?"

"You doing her too?" Ruth smiled.

"Jesus."

"That's not a no," she said, looking over in the direction of the kitchen doors through which Fay had disappeared.

"She's got enough troubles. Just leave her alone."

"That's just like you, going around picking up wounded birds. I bet you used to hold bird funerals when you were kid. Did you? Get little boxes for coffins and call all your friends over. Tie two sticks together for a cross."

"Ruth."

"Give me a beer," she said. "No, give me a glass of wine. Give me something nice 'cause I'm not planning on paying for it."

I looked around under the counter till I found a bottle of burgundy that shouldn't have even been in a bar like that. I opened it up and poured her a glass.

"You should be a fly on the wall where I live," she said, taking a sip of the wine. "That's good," she said. "It should probably sit here for a minute. Isn't that what wine needs to do? Hang out?" She smiled at me. "I'm losing my point. You're a regular topic of conversation. How good you look. How good you are with Franklin. How lonely you look. Doesn't he look lonely to you, Ruth? It's hard for me to say anything. I don't think you look so lonely. I think you look like a man who has more company than he can handle."

"I know this is hard for you," I said.

"Hard for me? Why's that? Because you're not crawling up the side of the house to get into my bedroom at night? It's not hard for me. It's hard for you."

We looked at each other until I looked away. Ruth used to love having staring contests when she was a kid. She always won.

"Let me see that bottle," she said.

I handed her the bottle and she read the label. "Look at that. It's from France."

"What do you want me to do, Ruth?"

She put the bottle down on the bar. "I sure don't want to see you winding up with my sister again."

"Is that what you think is going to happen?"

"That's what Marion thinks is going to happen."

That was speculation on her part. I knew Marion well enough to know that if she had such thoughts she'd keep them to herself, and I didn't believe she had them to begin with. And I didn't want Marion back. I didn't even think about it. Maybe for a second it crossed my mind in the Shoney's, right after she told me not to look at the waitress. I thought about it and then just that quick I stopped. Don't beat a dead horse. That was my father's favorite expression. I believe it was his only piece of advice to me. When I was young I had this picture of a man standing in a field next to a dead horse and a turned over plow and he was beating it with everything he had, kicking it and beating it with his fists. It was cruelty I thought my father was warning me against. That it was important not to be cruel to something, even if that something was dead.

"If you're worried about this, then I'll tell you truthfully you don't have anything to worry about. If what you're saying is I can't see Marion, that you'll be able to prevent that, then come on out with it."

And Ruth, who made a point of never being hurt, looked hurt for just a second. "It wasn't my intention to blackmail you, if that's what you're worried about." She shook her head and took a healthy sip of her wine. "You are the stupidest man I ever met in my life," she said to her glass.

"I'm sure that's true."

"You coming over for dinner tonight?"

"Tomorrow night," I said.

"Tomorrow. Well then, I guess I'll see you tomorrow. Tell that little waitress of yours that her Aunt Ruth said not to be so sensitive."

"I'll tell her."

She downed the rest of the wine and picked up her purse.

"You take care of yourself," I said.

"Count on that," Ruth said.

As I was watching Ruth walk away I couldn't help but think I'd gotten up too early. That was my problem. Every time I tried to think about Franklin, the other things started crowding him out. What I needed was a simpler life. I'd have settled for the one I had a week before.

"Cyndi," I said. "Go back in the kitchen and get me some olives. We're about out."

"You know where the kitchen is," she said and kept right on walking. News of what I'd done, or some version of what I'd done, seemed to be traveling fast. I wasn't much when it came to a code of honor, but there was no sense in trying to explain this one to anybody. Maybe that was me feeling bad about Carl, trying to at least give him the dignity of telling whatever lies he was telling. People have short memories. Just look at Marion. They'd all be mad for a while and then they wouldn't be. The thing to do was keep quiet, pour drinks and wipe down the bar. That's exactly what I did until five o'clock when Wallace came in. He hadn't asked me any questions the night before and I hadn't said anything, but I had to admit there was some comfort in having him there.

"How's it been going?" he said, stepping behind the bar and tying an apron around his waist. Most men won't wear aprons, but most men aren't Wallace.

"It's been a real joy."

He pressed his lips together and nodded. "I figured as much. That one giving you trouble too?" He pointed at Cyndi.

"That one always gives me trouble."

"I've been wondering about her relationship to the defendant," he said. "Not that it's any of my business."

"This is a business," I said. "It's all our business."

"Tonight's the night you show me about the money. I figure with your family in town"—he stopped for a minute—"and everything, that it might do you good to spend a little less time here in the evenings."

"I wonder who's working for who these days."

"I'm not telling you how to run the store, chief, I'm just offering."

Good man, Wallace. "I appreciate that, and about last night—"

Wallace put up his hand. "As long as the problem is gone then you don't need to say anything else about it."

"It's gone." But it was always possible to speak too soon. The phone was ringing even as the words were coming out of my mouth and since I was standing closest to the phone, I was the one who picked it up.

"Let me talk to Fay," Carl said.

Fay was still spending her time hiding out in the kitchen. "Fay," I hollered through the door. "Telephone."

She followed me out into the bar, not too close. "You want to take it up in the office?"

"I can get it here," she said.

She picked up the phone behind the bar and it seemed like an awfully long time before she said anything, and when she did all she said was "Christ."

"All right," she said. "All right. I'm coming." After she hung up the phone she stood there and looked at it like she was waiting for it to start ringing again. Wallace and I tried to make ourselves busy.

"Carl's in jail," she said, like it was an old secret and she was just the last one to find out. "I'm going to need you to drive me down there, I guess. I could take a cab, but I want to be able to leave right away."

"In jail?" Wallace said.

She nodded.

There was a part of me saying no, no rides to jail. It was the same old tired part of me that had said no to everything concerning Fay and her brother right from the word go. I was sorry that it didn't ever seem to be the part that won out.