The Late Child (61 page)

“Well, they finally lowered the boom, come get me out,” Pat said. “I need a lawyer too, and not one of these bozos around here. I've had romances with both of the lawyers in Tarwater, and they're too resentful that we broke up. I doubt they'd do a good job even if they had the brains.”

“Pat, you mean you're in jail?” Harmony asked. “If you are, how's Billy?”

“Snoring, he ain't up yet, he don't even know his sister's joined him in disgrace,” Pat said.

“Then how's Peewee?” Harmony asked. She was wondering how Neddie would take the latest news. She happened to glance out the window, as she wondered, and saw Neddie and Rusty kiss. Watching, Harmony felt a little nostalgic. It had been a while since a nice man had turned to her and just spontaneously given her a kiss. Neddie's hair was blowing in the prairie breeze she loved so much. She looked girlish, almost—only a few days
before, she looked like an old woman. Love could come and take away your years; maybe it could come and take away grief; shave it away; whittle it away. Neddie was getting some happiness, but Pepper was dead—the thought was like a burn, like a torn blister. She had the impulse to phone Laurie and see if she made it home safely.

“Harmony, are you listening? I'm in
jail
,” Pat said. “Get Neddie or somebody to bail me out of here.”

“Neddie and Rusty are kissing,” Harmony informed her—the kiss was still going on. Harmony couldn't quite keep her eyes off the new lovers, although she knew it was wrong to peek.

“They're kissing?” Pat said. “In broad daylight?”

“Yep,” Harmony said. “They're getting married. I told Dick this morning. Dick likes a girl named Sally, at the feedstore.”

“Sally, that little slut,” Pat said. “I guess he does like her. So do a lot of other men. Sally's a peanut brain. She's about eighty percent tits.”

“She could still be sweet,” Harmony said. She liked the idea of Dick having a nice romance. The fact that Sally had big tits shouldn't be held against her.

“Harmony, I know you have big tits too, but try to keep your mind on the point,” Pat said. “The point is I want out of jail.

“Peewee gives me the creeps,” she added.

Rusty and Neddie had broken their kiss and were walking back toward the house, their arms around one another.

“Pat, did they get you for the embezzling?” Harmony asked.

“That, and the fact that I got stopped with a few pills in my car,” Pat said. “Seventeen thousand pills, to be exact.”

“Seventeen thousand pills?” Harmony said. “Even Gary couldn't take that many pills.”

“Well, I just happened to make a real good score,” Pat said. “All I meant to do was sell them to some oilman, so I could replace the money I took from the bank. It was just my luck to have a taillight broken out. The damn patrolman only pulled me over because he was bored—it was Sammy Jackson, he's liked
me since we were in grade school together. I don't know why he looked in the trunk—I guess he noticed I was a little jumpy. Seventeen thousand pills is hard to miss.”

“Pat, I'll tell Neddie, we'll be right down,” Harmony said; actually, she had the plane tickets on her mind.

“Okay, but don't let any grass grow, I feel like a caged animal down here in this cell,” Pat said.

“Okay, we'll come,” Harmony said, wishing it was time to go to the airport. Much as she loved her sisters and brother, their needs were not her needs. It saddened her that she could not get to know their children—in the young ones of the family there lay the best hope.

For herself, she wanted to go. She had to recover her spirit, to try and be herself again, and she knew she couldn't recover it in Oklahoma. The best place to try might be the casinos. Beneath their lights she had spent the happiest years of her life. She thought maybe as soon as she got home she would call Myrtle. Maybe if the other half of the duplex wasn't rented she and Eddie and her father could live in it for a while. They could get a goat or two—her father might like that—or maybe a few peacocks, or even some chickens.

“I wish Dick was interested in Melba instead of Sally,” Rusty said. “Then they could have my farm and me and Ned could keep this one. Plus it would solve what to do about Melba.”

“Melba don't want Dick and little Sally don't either, so stop dreaming,” Neddie said.

“Neddie, Pat's in jail,” Harmony said.

“Uh-oh,” Neddie said. “So the bank finally figured it out.”

“Nope,” Harmony said. More and more she was getting to like the short responses.

Rusty and Neddie just looked at her.

“Pills,” Harmony said. “She had seventeen thousand pills in the trunk of her car and some patrolman stopped her because her taillight was broken.”

“Wow,” Rusty said. “Seventeen thousand pills.”

“She was planning to sell them,” Harmony said. “We have to go down and get her out of jail.”

“Why can't she just stay in?” Neddie asked. “She'd be good company for Billy.”

“Neddie, we can't leave her in jail, even if she has committed a few crimes.”

“Pat's got the temperament of a fugitive,” Neddie remarked. “If we bail her out she'll just run off.”

“That's what I think,” Rusty said. “Me and you need to save our money for the divorce lawyers. Speaking of which, I need to get over to my place and try to catch Melba before she leaves for work.”

“Okay, I'll go get Pat out,” Harmony said. She felt sure she had probably been heartless too, during periods when she was in love. Neddie and Rusty should get to enjoy their feelings for a while, without having to worry about Pat's problems.

She left Neddie's with every intention of going straight to the jail and getting Pat out; but when she came to the Tarwater turnoff she didn't take it. Somehow her arms just wouldn't make the wheel turn. She didn't want to go into Tarwater again—so her arms informed her. Despite a desire to be helpful she couldn't make the pickup take her to the jail.

When she drove up the lane toward her parents' house she saw Eddie sitting on the stump by the pond, with her father. There was a fishing pole stuck in the ground nearby. Harmony crawled through the fence again, and picked her way through the grass burrs to where they sat. Eddie was listening raptly, so entranced by what his grandfather was telling him that he scarcely gave his mother a glance. Her father noticed her picking grass burrs out of her socks and smiled a sympathetic smile.

“Some years we get grass and other years we just get grass burrs,” he said. “This year it's mostly grass burrs.”

“Momma, Grandpa was telling me about an Indian chief who painted himself red when he wanted to fight,” Eddie said. “His name was Santana. He was very large and he killed six buffalo
right over there on that hill. Grandpa showed me the place and while I was walking around I found an arrowhead.”

He dug in his pocket and produced the arrowhead, which was made of dark flint.

“I'm going to keep it forever and forever, to remember the farm by,” Eddie said. “I'll show it to my friends though. I think it belonged to Santana and I think it was what he killed the buffalo with.

“It's my greatest treasure,” he added, “and my stuffed animals are my other treasures. And Iggy and Eli are treasures, but they're alive.”

“Dad, do you still want to go?” Harmony asked—she was nervous on that subject.

“You bet—I could leave now, if I had my shirts packed,” Sty said. “Me and Eddie had a pretty good look around the old place. We're going to come back once in a while, just the two of us, so I can fill him in on some stories I might have forgotten this morning.”

“Would you keep my arrowhead, Grandpa?” Eddie said, handing it to him. “I don't want to lose it. It's very important because it belonged to an Indian long ago.”

When they went in the house her mother was sitting at the kitchen table, painting her fingernails and watching a soap.

“People just let me sit here all day, alone, never give me a thought—I could have drunk lye and be dying and no one would come to check on me,” Ethel said.

“Mother, why would you drink lye?” Harmony asked.

“Anybody can make a mistake and drink lye,” Ethel said. “I sit here from morning till night and don't see a soul. I might drink lye just to have something to do.”

“Momma, can't you be glad about anything, ever?” Harmony asked, curious.

“Sure, my hair and my figure,” Ethel said. “I still get compliments on my hair and my figure.

“I called Pat and I called Neddie and I never got either of
them,” Ethel went on. “I don't see why those girls can't stay home in their own houses. They both have real nice homes—better than this old mess of a place.”

Harmony decided not to comment—why tell her mother the truth about Pat and Neddie? But, the very next second, some demon prompted her to do just that.

“Mother, Pat's in jail for selling drugs and Neddie's going to divorce Dick and marry his brother,” she said, just as her mother was applying a little more polish to the nails of her left hand. Ethel lifted an eyebrow but didn't stop painting her nails.

“Well, Rusty's a loser, Neddie will soon regret that move,” Ethel said. “Dick ought to take a gun and shoot Rusty, the lazy skunk.”

“Momma, did you hear me say Pat's in jail for selling dope?” Harmony asked.

“I guess she was set up,” Ethel said. “She works in a bank and steals all the money she needs, why would she sell dope?”

“Mom, I'm taking Dad to Las Vegas—he wants to live with Eddie and me, for a while,” Harmony said.

“Good riddance,” her mother said. “I knew he'd run off, one of these days. He ain't been doing much under the quilts for the last few years. I expect he'll find himself some floozy, as soon as he hits the ground. At least he won't be where he can steal my social security checks out of the mailbox. I might just move Billy into that spare bedroom, once Sty's gone. Billy had no business leaving home in the first place.”

“Mom, the family's gone to pieces, don't you care?” Harmony asked. But Ethel thought she meant the family on the soap she was watching. The soap interested her more than the fact that her husband was leaving, or that her daughter was in jail.

“I know, but that's because they're all atheists,” Ethel said. “When you slight the Lord you pay for it.”

Harmony left the kitchen and went upstairs. With the house almost empty the stairs didn't seem so claustrophobic. Her old room was claustrophobic, though. It wasn't much bigger than a closet. On the little dresser there were pictures of Pepper, sitting
with pictures of all the other grandchildren. On the wall there was a picture of herself, the year she had been made homecoming queen, with Huggie Rawlins, the captain of the football team that year. He had escorted her to the fifty-yard line and kissed her—it was about then, Harmony remembered, that things began to go wrong for her at home. Neither of her sisters ever forgave her for being made homecoming queen. It was an honor they both dreamed of. About six months after the homecoming game she left Tarwater, more or less for good. Nobody liked it that she had been made homecoming queen but didn't even feel obliged to stick around and live her whole life in the town, as a result.

Harmony wandered into her parents' room, briefly—there was another picture of Pepper, again with all the grandkids. Pepper had had braces at the time.

It was in the dentist's office, about a year later, while they were having an appointment to get the braces removed, that Harmony learned that Pepper wasn't a virgin anymore. Pepper was so happy to be getting the braces off—in her view they marred her perfect appearance—that she blurted out the fact that she had been having sex for nearly six months with a lifeguard at the Trop.

But there was Pepper's picture, on her parents' old brown dresser—there at least she was a grandchild among grandchildren, perfect in the eyes of her grandparents.

“Oh, Pepper,” Harmony said, aloud. The burn of grief came again—she rushed right out of the room. She couldn't bear memories of her daughter—couldn't bear them.

To her mother's astonishment she rushed into the kitchen and grabbed the telephone—by good luck she even remembered Laurie's number. Fortunately Laurie answered right away.

“Laurie, when you were upstairs at my parents' did you see the picture of Pepper in braces?” she asked.

“Yes, didn't it break your heart?” Laurie said.

“What will we do, Laurie? I can't bear any more memories,” Harmony said.

“I don't know, sweetie,” Laurie said.

“Isn't there a part of your brain they can cut away, so you have no memory?” Harmony asked. “I want mine cut away. I don't want to remember anymore—it's too hard. Why did I have all those boyfriends? Why couldn't I have just been a mom?”

“Harmony, you need to ease up on yourself,” Laurie said. “We all have plenty we can blame ourselves for. But you need to ease up on yourself, for Eddie's sake.”

Harmony couldn't remember the rest of the conversation, all she knew was that Laurie said she wished she hadn't left. Her father came in and went upstairs to pack. Eddie ran up the stairs behind him. He was sticking close to his grandfather, now that he'd found him.

Her mother still sat at the kitchen table, waiting for the polish on her fingernails to dry.

“Yankees have more diseases than we do, I expect that was the cause of the tragedy,” Ethel said, when Harmony hung up.

“Well, it's so long to the prairie—I expect I'll miss it,” Sty said, when the plane took off.

“But it's not so long to me, Grandpa,” Eddie reminded him. He had Iggy in a little carrying case, under the seat. Eddie was holding his grandfather's hand, and his mother's hand as well, even though he was a little put out with his mother for her lack of regard for proper goodbyes—they had spent the whole day at her parents' house and hadn't really said goodbye to anyone.