"You listening?" he asked. I nodded. "Good then," he said, and we were off to the races. "Jimmy came in a vision, Maggie! He was all dressed in pink robes!"
"Pink?"
"I know what what you're thinking," he said, nodding. "It's supposed to be white. I told Jimmy the same thing and he said, 'That's what all you people left behind think! Don't a one of you know, 'cause you ain't dead!'" Vernell went on. "Well, I couldn't argue with that, especially not when he told me what the Lord wants me to do! The Lord is working in my life, Maggie. He has a great vision for me, and dawg, if it ain't an inspired business vision to boot!"
I was starting to have a bad feeling, a way-down-deep-in-the-pit-of-my-stomach bad feeling.
"Lookee up there," Vernell said, pointing to the satellite dish. "Jimmy says, 'Vernell, the Lord wants you to spread his message. Vernell, paint the dishes.' I said to him, Taint the dishes, what kind of talk is that!' But Jimmy explained it all. He said if I painted the dishes in His likeness, then one and all would receive him."
I didn't know whether to laugh or cry. I just shook my head.
"I know, I know," Vernell said, seeing my reaction. "I told him I couldn't even draw, but Jimmy said I had the gift now. He even told me what kind of paint to use, so's we wouldn't affect the transmission. Latex. Get that? Latex. Jesus even knows about paint! "
"Vernell," I said, trying to interrupt, but he went right on.
"So look, Maggie! It's a damn good likeness, don't you think?"
I looked back over at the truck and nodded wearily. It was a damn good likeness, all right.
"And best of all? This'll sell. Why, do you know I took sixteen orders right here today? In Greensboro? Why, honey, we'll spread the word all over the world."
I didn't like the way Vernell kept saying we.
"What's Jolene think about this, Vernell?" I asked.
Vernell shook his head and spat out into the parking lot. "Jolene don't know shit!" he pronounced. "She thinks the best thing I can do is take you to court."
"Me? Vernell, hello, we're divorced. Why're you gonna take me to court?"
"On account of what Jimmy did." He looked over at me as if to say "The jig's up."
"Vernell, I told you Jimmy and me were never any more than friends, and not even good friends."
"Not that! Although, that's probably why he done it. Maggie, Roxanne's the one who found it! You couldn't hide the truth away from us forever!" I was trying to get a word in, but Vernell was on a roll. "Sure, I was madder than a coot owl when Roxanne told me, and she's still fit to be tied, but eventually I had to accept it. We've gotta work together. And you know what?"
"What, Vernell?"
"Maybe it's God's way of working a miracle in my life." Vernell started to cry.
"All right! All right, Vernell Spivey, I've pitied you and babied you enough. Now you reach down in your drunken soul and you pull yourself together I want to know what you're talking about, and I want to know now!"
Vernell raised his tearful eyes and reached his hand out to touch my arm. "Maggie, Jimmy's done left you his share of the business, you and Sheila; Don't you know?"
I shook my head in disbelief.
"If I recall correctly, Roxanne said he left a copy of his will at the house and he said half of everything him and me co-owned was for you, and half for Sheila, on account of how he told you he'd take care of the both of you." Vernell's eyes narrowed suspiciously. "Is there something I ought to know about Sheila?" he asked.
"God Almighty knows!" I said, jumping up off the curb and whirling around to face Vernell. "You Spiveys'll dog a girl from the grave! Hellfire! No! I had no idea and I didn't have an affair with your brother!"
Vernell smiled sadly. "It don't really matter none now, Maggie. Jimmy's dead and you and I are gonna be partners in the mobile home business. It's fate, Maggie. Pure T fate."
Not my fate! Not my future! I was so mad, I couldn't even begin to take it all in. Damn that Jimmy!
"Come on, Vernell!" I cried. "Get up!"
"Where're we going?" He had a foolish grin on his face, just the way he used to when he'd come home drunk and think he was going to get lucky.
"Vernell, I am taking you home."
"I knew it!" he whooped. "I knew you still wanted me!"
I stared at the pitiful wreck of a man in his scruffy polyester, with his stinky breath, and shook my head. What had I done to piss off the universe?
I tugged him up off the curb and headed for my car, only to face the panel truck blocking me in.
"Give me your keys," I demanded. When he didn't move, I stuck my hand in his pants pocket and pulled them out. Vernell giggled. "Shut up and get in that truck! I'm driving, so don't even think about getting behind that wheel. You're knee-walking, dog drunk!" Vernell giggled again.
"I always did love it when you were mad," he said, wrapping a big arm around my shoulder and resting his drunken head on top of mine.
I stood there for a moment, trapped by the weight of him and trying to urge him forward. From a distance, we must've looked like a happy couple. At least that's what I figured Marshall Weathers was thinking as he watched from his vantage point across the parking lot.
Chapter Thirteen
I slammed Vernell's truck into reverse, stripping half the gears and propelling Vernell across the slippery bench seat.
"Get off me!" I cried, pushing at him with my right hand and trying to keep a grip on the steering wheel with my left. Vernell giggled and rested his chin on my shoulder. I could feel his eyes boring into the side of my face and I almost gagged on his breath. Marshall Weathers was still watching. He was wearing shiny, aviator-style, dark glasses. Even from a distance, I could tell he was laughing.
"The hell with him," I muttered, "and get the hell off my shoulder!" I cried, this time pinching Vernell in the fleshy area tinder his chin.
"Ouch! Dog, you are feisty when your dander's up!"
I pulled out into traffic, easily done since most of the cars on Battleground stopped when they saw me coming. Vernell reached out and switched on what I took to be the radio, but suddenly the air was filled with the sounds of a choir singing the "Hallelujah Chorus" from the Messiah.
I was trying to concentrate on the rush-hour traffic, while trying to figure out the truck's shifting pattern. It was all I could do to make wild swipes at the dashboard.
"Vernell, turn that off!" The other cars were pulling off the road, as if responding to an ambulance. Vernell picked that moment to fall asleep.
"Vernell! Vernell, listen to me! Don't you dare fall asleep!" No response. Instead the sounds of the choir grew steadily louder, and there was a grinding noise from the roof of the truck. It was then that I remembered that Vernell had the dish wired to rotate clockwise whenever the truck was moving.
I looked in my rearview mirror. One lone car followed, a brown Taurus sedan.
"Aw, man! What did I ever do to you?" I yelled. What was God doing, appearing to my ex-husband? Where was divine intervention when I needed it? Pink robes!
I made a sweeping right-hand turn onto Independence Avenue, and began the final descent toward Vernell's brick mansion. How was I going to explain myself to Jolene, the Dish Girl? Maybe she wouldn't be home. Maybe she was out shopping and I would be able to leave Vernell and his truck parked in the driveway. But I knew, even as I thought it, that fate was against me. Jolene would be home. It was just that sort of day.
The brown Taurus rolled to a stop underneath the tree where I sat at night to watch for Sheila. I pulled up into Vernell's driveway with only one casualty: the handcrafted, Victorian mailbox. I flattened it like a pancake, an action which brought young Jolene dashing to the door.