(2005) Wrapped in Rain (19 page)

"I think that was one of her favorites."

"She had lots of favorites."

While her ears were trained on me, her eyes were not. Ever since she had arrived at the house, Katie had looked perched to spring and her head moved on a swivel. From her anxious perch, she could view the end of the drive and Miss Ella's cottage.

I put my hand on her shoulder. "Katie." She didn't see it coming and flinched. "It's just me." She smiled and took a deep breath. "He's not here. And he's not going to find you here. If he does, I've got a really big baseball bat and I can still swing it."

She laughed uneasily.

"If that doesn't work, I've got a few really nice goldinlaid shotguns that ought to do." She brushed my hand away, and I tried to make light of the moment. "Besides, you've got that Dirty Harry thing stuck up in the closet. With a little practice, you might hit the broad side of a barn."

"Okay, okay." The smile was real this time. "I hear you."

"Katie"-my tone softened and grew more serious"and if none of that works, I know this lady in heaven who's got a front row seat. She can bring down thunder, and she's not afraid to do it either. I'm speaking from experience."

Katie sank down against the railing, let out a deep breath, and focused about a hundred miles out the back door. I walked through the pews, circling around like a maze, letting my hand gently rub the tops of each. "When I got a little older, maybe I was nine, I walked in here and found Miss Ella leaning against the railing with her knees about where you are." Katie looked down and brushed the dilapidated purple velvet with her hands.

"Tears were running down Miss Ella's face. I ran up alongside and put my arm around her like she always used to do me. `Miss Ella, you okay?' She nodded and wiped her eyes. `Well,' I asked, `what are you doing?' She turned around and sat about like you are now and said, `I'm asking God to protect you. To keep the devil from ever putting a finger on you. He's already been whipped once, so I'm just asking God to keep it up. To keep sticking it to him.' I liked the idea of somebody other than me getting a whipping, so I sat down next to her, leaned against the railing, and pulled a squished and warm peanut butter and jelly sandwich out of my pocket. I licked around the edges and asked, "Miss Ella, do you talk to the devil?'

"She shook her head. `No, not really, other than to tell him to get back in hell and stay there.' She pointed down into the earth, and that got us laughing, which we needed, so we laughed another minute and let our giggling fill the room.

"Miss Ella poked me in the stomach and said, `And I told him I hoped it was hot too.' She put her arm around me and tore off a corner of my sandwich. `Give me some of that sandwich, boy. I'm hungry too. Wrestling with the devil always makes me hungry.' We chewed a minute or two, and with peanut butter stuck to the top of my mouth, I said, `Miss Ella, does my daddy have to ask your permission before he can hurt me?' She swallowed her corner, picked me up, and gently pointed my chin toward her. `Absolutely. Nobody can touch you without talking to me first. Not the devil and not your father.'

"So I asked, `Miss Ella, is my dad the devil?' She shook her head. `No, no, your father is not the devil. But the devil is inside him. Especially when he's drinking.'

"I didn't like that answer, so I asked her, `How do we get him out?' Without skipping a beat, she put her hand on that padding and her head against the railing. `We've got to spend a lot of time right here.' She rubbed the railing and looked around the room. `Child, I may be weak, may not weigh much, may have arthritis just eating me up, but right here'-she touched the railing with her gnarled hand-I'm undefeated."'

I smiled because I liked the idea of her being unbeaten. I sat down next to Katie and propped my feet up on the pew in front of me. We sat in the quiet a few minutes while the pigeons flew in and out of the hole in the roof.

"Shortly after your family left, we had a bit of a drought. Hadn't had rain in what seemed like a whole year, and dust was everywhere. Miss Ella was walking around with a rag and spray bottle strapped to her apron. Mutt and I got this wild hair up our butts and thought we'd try snuff. I don't remember whose idea it was, but one of us convinced the other that it would help with the taste in our mouths."

Katie smiled and leaned back against the railing. "This sounds like one of those lessons of experience."

"Don't laugh. Your day is coming, and he's in there sleeping."

"Tell me about it."

"Anyway, we ran down to the corner grocery and stole some Copenhagen." I put my hand over my eyes and tilted my head back. "I can still taste it. I never wanted death so badly." Katie laughed and pulled her knees more tightly up into her chest. "Anyway, Ave got out of the store, pulled open the can, and split it." I smiled and held out my hand like it was full of peanuts. "Not a pinch, mind you, a handful, in our mouths. We probably swallowed about half right then. By the time we got home, we had swallowed the other half. I hit the front door and the world was spinning backwards, upwards, every which way but right. There were two Mutts and three front doors, so I just pushed the doorbell on the one in the middle. Then came the sweat, and I knew it wouldn't be long. I also knew that this was going to end badly. Miss Ella opened the door, and I heaved from my toes up. Mutt, apparently a sympathetic vomiter, did likewise. We covered that woman in peanut butter, jelly, white Wonder Bread, and Copenhagen.

"Miss Ella thought we had some wild stomach virus, so she threw us in the car and drove ninety miles an hour all the way to Mose's office. We were moaning, holding our stomachs, and caked in vomit. He carried us in, they set up his office like an emergency room, and he went to work cutting off our clothes. When his scissors hit the Copenhagen can, he stopped and investigated. We, in the meantime, were praying that God would just go ahead and kill us, because if he didn't, she would. And as soon as her brother walked out into his waiting room and gave her the can, she did."

Katie laughed and threw her head back. I continued. "She stood up, grabbed us both by the ear, and dragged us to the car, the vomit just drooling down our chests. We were crying and, between dry heaves, apologizing, saying, `We're sorry. We won't ever do it again.' She started waving her finger in the air. `You're right, you won't, 'cause when I get finished with you, you won't ever touch that stuff again.' We got home, spilled out the car doors, and just spread our corpses across the driveway. She walked in the house and came back out with a long switch. Sick or not, she lit into us."

Katie covered her eyes and laughed.

"Yeah"-I smiled-"it's funny now, but back then, I was ready for a portal to open in the earth and just close me up in it. She really whipped us. When she was finished, she said, `Tucker Mason, you ever scare me like that again and I won't use just one switch. Next time, I'll use the whole tree.' I was too dizzy to stand up, but I wiped the drool off my face, or at least smeared it in, and said, `Yes ma'am."'

"How long did it take you two to try it again?"

I laughed. It was a good memory. One I had forgotten. "About six months." I stood up and walked behind the altar. "Every time I walk back into this church, I hear the echo of her laughter." I ran my hand across the worn and polished wood and remembered how she used to polish it with furniture wax. "And every time I walk into Waverly Hall, I hear my father's screaming." I looked out the window toward Waverly, rising up out of the earth like a gravestone. "If Miss Ella hadn't loved that house, I'd have set a match to it a long time ago."

I reached up and straightened Jesus, who was tilted sideways. I took a white handkerchief out of my back pocket and polished the wooden head like I was polishing a bowling ball. Some of the dried droppings flaked off and fluttered to the ground while the more recent stuff just smeared in like bug guts on a windshield.

THE TIME PASSED AS THE SUN FELL THROUGH THE STAINED glass in the back. Katie looked at her watch and whispered, `lase is going to wake up hungry. I need to think about dinner."

"We're going to have a difficult time finding anything around here. I haven't cooked a meal in that house in several months. At least not a meal that you two would eat. And I haven't been to the store in longer than that."

"You really don't come here much, do you?"

"As little as possible. Work keeps me busy."

We walked out and I fought the vines pulling against the door. Katie waited while I jimmied the door shut with a piece of chipped brick. We walked along the pasture, keeping a few feet between us.

We reached Miss Ella's cottage, and Katie leaned in against the window, listening for Jase. Her steps were light and purposeful.

"If you like Southern food," I whispered, "there's the Banquet Cafe."

"Okay, but it's my treat. And no argument from you."

"Fifteen minutes?"

She nodded and I walked to the house. The light was off in the barn, which meant Glue was finished working and Mose was gone for the day. I hopped up the back steps and saw my reflection in the window of the back door. The unusual aspect of that picture was the half-smile across my face. I headed downstairs and hopped in the shower, turned on the water, and remembered at the same time that I had forgotten to turn on the hot water heater.

Ten minutes later, Katie and Jase walked in the back door. I was sitting in the kitchen, in front of the fire, watching the flames and holding a Sprite.

For lots of reasons, I steer clear of beer, but Mose likes one every now and then, so I keep it in the fridge. When I opened the fridge to offer them a Sprite, Jase saw the beer.

He jumped, grabbed Katie's pants, and buried his face, his hands shaking. It didn't take me long to put two and two together. I looked down at the beer and then up at Katie. Her face explained the rest.

I walked over to Jase and knelt down. "Hey, little buddy," I pointed toward the refrigerator door some ten feet away. "Does that scare you?" He peered between Katie's legs, sniffled, and nodded.

I patted him on the back. "Scares me too." I stood up, opened the fridge, pulled the entire case out from the bottom shelf, and placed it on the granite countertop. "But," I said with a smile, "you know the best thing about beer?" Jase's eyes narrowed, a confused look replaced fear, and he peered around Katie's legs rather than through them. The firelight lit up the streaks on his face, he shook his head, and his expression mirrored that of the kid I met at Bessie's.

Tucker this boy is hanging in the balance. "Whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin, it would be better for him if a millstone were hung around his neck and he were drowned in the depth of the sea."

Miss Ella, would you just give me a minute before you send me overboard? Hang around a few minutes. You might even have some fun.

I grabbed the entire case with one hand and reached for his with the other. He looked at me like I'd lost my mind. "It's okay. I'm going to show you what beer was really made for." He reached up and grabbed my hand, and I saw his eyes.

You see those eyes?

Yes ma am.

They remind you of anybody?

Katie looked at use suspiciously but opened the back door anyway. I led him onto the back porch, down a few steps, and sat down next to the statue of Rex. I tore open the cardboard case and laid twenty-two beers on the ground next to me. I picked up two beers and put one in each of his hands. His face took on a dumb look as Katie torqued her head and asked me, "Tucker, just what do you think you're doing?" I handed her two beers and then grabbed two myself. The three of us sat holding a six-pack while I gave the instructions. "Okay, here's the deal. It is very important that you follow these instructions to the letter."

Jase interrupted me. "What's that mean?"

"It means, do like I do." I turned his baseball cap around backwards, making his bangs stick out through the hole in the front. "Rally caps required." He smiled and held the beer, awaiting instructions. "You got to take those things and shake them until your arms can't shake anymore. Then you pick up two more and shake them. Then you pick up two more until all the beer is shaken. You have got to shake like a one-armed paper hanger until all this is one shake short of busting." Jase nodded, and a wide smile cracked from ear to ear. "But you got to really shake. The secret to this whole thing is in the shaking."

Katie leaned in and whispered through a half-smirk, "Did Miss Ella take the switch to you for this too, or did she miss this?"

I raised my eyebrows. "What makes you think she didn't teach us how?" Jase stood poised, ready at the drop of a hat. "On your mark." The smile grew wider. "Get set." His teeth showed, as did the insides of his cheeks. "Go!"

Jase's arms started shaking like two pistons in a motorcycle engine, bringing his heels off the ground. He gritted his teeth, gripped the cans hard enough to turn his knuckles white, and moved his arms in short, fast, flailing strokes.

Katie was only half-shaking. "Oh no. That will not do," I said, moving my arms as fast as I could. "You have got to get into it. Like this." I shook the cans above my head, below my head, and then I started dancing around the cardboard box, whooping like an Indian. Then I started singing, "What makes the Red Man red?" Jase picked up on it and followed the second line in a high-pitched giggly voice that reverberated with the shaking of his arms. "What makes the Red Man red?" I danced around Rex's statue again, still shaking, and dropped my voice an octave lower. "What makes the Red Man red?" Katie, dancing in a line behind Jase and me, chimed in. "What makes the Red Man red?" I grabbed Jase's beers, handed him two more, did the same with Katie and myself, and we kept dancing around Rex. Pretty soon, we started spinning, whooping, waving, and were singing a full-fledged Indian war chant right there on the back porch. Jase got dizzy and sat down but kept his arms moving.

"Unca Tuck?"

"Yeah, buddy," I said over the rapid shaking noise of our arms.

"My arms hurt."

"Oh no, you can't stop now." I shook the cans above my head. "You got to keep shaking. Come on." I shooed him back in line and handed him two more beers. "You too," I said to Katie, who was looking like she wanted to quit. "This is the ninth inning. You can't quit now. It's five to two, we're down by three, and you're up with the bases loaded. This is your chance. Come on." They jumped back in line and we shook every can until each was taut with pressure. Breathing heavily and with sweat peeling off my face, I stopped them. "Okay, you ready?" Jase nodded while I gently placed his fingernail under the tab. "No, you're not. I mean, ARE YOU READY?"