Once, when Granpaw was in one of his spells, Victor out of the blue offered to take care of him. Granny wouldn’t let him. “This is woman’s work. Man’s got more important things to do.” Something in the way she said it made me think she wouldn’t let Victor take care of Granpaw even if it was a man’s work.
He did help out with things though, Victor did, like when he went into Circle Stump to buy groceries. Sometimes he brought back soda pop and potato chips for us kids. Willis and me would each get a bottle and take the chips out on the front porch.
Missy wouldn’t have any.
She stayed close to Momma. Only time she said anything was when Momma asked her questions, simple questions like, “You want to eat now hon?” or “You got to pee?” Missy would answer “No Momma,” or “Yes Momma,” but in a whiny little voice made you want to slap her direct in the face, not to be mean or anything, just to wake her up from her spell. If Victor got too close, she would let out a scream that would soar up to the ceiling so loud Momma would have to take her off in another room. Granny would get a look on her face and shake her head.
Victor stayed sober. Him and Momma went to church in the fancy blue Cadillac. Circle Stump Church. People there liked Victor.
“He got a natural way with folks,” Momma said. “When he wants to have, he does. Reverend Pennycall was plumb beside himself, introducing him around. I never seen the like.” She liked to be proud of Victor — of the way he looked, of the way he dressed — so fine, so important. I think his being important made her feel important too.
Still they fought. I would hear them yelling at each other in the trailer. I heard things thump against the wall. One time Momma screamed. I saw Victor push out the door and go cussing all the way up the little wagon road toward the barn.
Another time I saw him up at Old Man Harlan’s store, standing out on the porch there with Old Man Harlan. Reverend Pennycall was there too. Victor laughed with them and smoked his cigarettes. Reverend Pennycall put his hand on Victor’s shoulder. Victor let it stay.
“You can’t never tell how things will work around,” Momma said to Granpaw one day. “Why, the Lord might be working through Victor to make things right between you and Nealy.”
“Hell He is,” Granpaw said.
“I don’t care much for Nealy’s ways myself, you know I don’t. He attends church though,” Momma said. “I saw him over to Circle Stump.”
“The Devil attends church, Sweetness,” Granpaw said.
“I’d rather Victor was talking to somebody just the same,” Momma said. “Rather than him moping around here everyday.”
That was one thing about Momma I couldn’t understand. How she fit things together sometimes. Like Old Man Harlan and Victor. To me they fit together all right but more like a gun and a holster than friends.
He spent a lot of time in the trailer, Victor did, with the door and all the windows open. When he wasn’t there, he kept the doors locked. Momma got the key from Granny. Momma said it was because he was writing letters in there. Letters to Armstrong and to Fords. Private important business he didn’t want anybody else to mess with.
“He’s still trying to get things straightened around, I reckon,” Momma said to Granny. “About all what happened up there, you know, with Jessie and all. ‘Investigation’s still going on.”
“I thought that was done with,” Granny said.
“It is. There’s just some loose ends, you know.”
“You’d have thought they’d have been tied by now,” Granny said.
It was getting toward the end of August. Victor started to talk more about Detroit, about us going back to Detroit, what he would do to set things right when we got there. He talked about the move to Florida and the manager job at The Pink Flamingo. It was his big chance to get ahead. Not to take it made about as much sense as flushing money down the toilet. I heard him talking to Momma in the trailer. “You’ve got to strike while the striking’s good, baby! I admire your parents. I care about them. I do. Mr. Wood seems quite capable when he’s up and about. And your mother certainly is.”
“I know, but I can’t just up and leave,” Momma said. “Not till they’re better situated.”
“The kids will have to begin school soon.”
“I know. I’ll figure something out.”
“Well, figure it out now!” Victor said. “I’m tired of all this nonsense! I’ve got important matters to see to.”
“Go on to Detroit then, if that’s what you want!”
“Leave you and the kids?”
“We’ll come as soon as we can,” Momma said. “I told you.”
“Jesus, you’re stubborn.”
“Look who’s talking,” Momma answered. “Mr. Easy-To-Get-Along-With, himself!”
Victor agreed that he would go on to Detroit by himself but he never did. Seemed like there was always something else he had to do. Another letter to write. Another letter to wait for. A talk with Old Man Harlan or Reverend Pennycall. A drive into Circle Stump to use the pay phone at Grinestaff’s. The important thing is that we stay together as a family, he kept on saying.
Momma would pretty herself up, put a bunch of makeup over what was left of the bruises on her face and smile for Victor. She helped Granny cook and clean, took care of Granpaw, slopped hogs and fed the chickens. I showed her some of the tricks Elvis and Johnny could do, and I told her about the beauty contest coming up at the fair.
“I’m so proud of you, Orbie. You know that don’t you?” Momma ran her hand over the top of my head, her bright blue eyes all sparkly and full of smiles. “You look so much better. I mean it. You look happy. Your Daddy would be proud.”
I didn’t feel so happy though — not with Victor and all his business taking up Momma’s time. The Dark Thing was everywhere — in Victor’s letter writing, his Dean Martin haircut and fancy cigarettes. It was in Momma not knowing what to do, in her trying to be a married person, a mother and a daughter all at the same time.
“You and them chickens are a regular circus act,” Momma said. “We probably won’t be around for that fair though. You know that, don’t you?”
“Yeah,” I said sadly. “Granny will take them.”
“I’m so proud of you sweetheart.” Her eyes went away from me then, looking a way off toward the trailer and Victor. Sometimes they’d be in there with the door and all the windows closed — even in the middle of the day — even with it being so hot a person would sweat buckets just standing in the shade. “Real proud,” she whispered. But I could feel her slipping away.
That’s how it went, all through the end of August and on into September. Victor and Momma shutting themselves up in the trailer every chance they got. Momma worrying over what direction to take. Granny’s eyes flashing with something she knew but wouldn’t tell. Victor, Reverend Pennycall, and Old Man Harlan talking on the porch in front of the store. Missy sucking her thumb one minute, screaming the next. Granpaw spitting cuss words all over the yard, then laughing about it, shaking his head like he just heard the best joke. Me under the house with Granny’s knife, standing my army men in a line, or else down to the swimming hole with Willis and the Kingdom Boys, the days so hot you could fry eggs on the rocks, ugly black thunderheads reaching out over the afternoon sun, sometimes pissing out a little rain, most times not.
24
Signs
Granpaw opened the back of the station wagon and got out one of the signs he made, a white cross with crooked black letters wrote across the arms. ‘love tHine eneMy’, it said. With the sign in one hand and a hammer in the other, he ditch-walked up the road where there was a red clay bank and a field behind a barbed wire fence. Willis and me followed after him. The fence posts stuck out every which a way, some rotten and falling apart, tilted toward the road like frozen pieces of black fire. Some of the barbed wire made thorny loops along the ground.