One Mississippi (30 page)

2
3

O
NCE I KNEW
what I had to do, I didn’t wait. This was the kind of action you don’t sit around and ponder too much, or you’ll never go through with it.

I bought supplies at TG&Y and rode to the Texaco station on Hood Street. In the piss-smelling Texaco bathroom I dumped all the bleach from a brand-new bottle of Clorox into the toilet. I carried the bottle outside to the pump and filled it with 87 octane — for my chain saw, I told the guy. When he went in to get my change, I stuffed the length of muslin into the bottle. I tightened the cap, stowed the bottle in the TG&Y bag with the big box of matches.

I dropped a quarter in the phone. I dialed the number and closed my eyes. The phone rang three times. “Yello,” Tim said.

I hung up.

I put on my black hooded sweatshirt and slung the bag from my handlebars. Pedaling over to Bluff Park I had time to reconsider. What I was doing was well beyond reckless, into dangerous. The craziest most drastic thing I’d ever done. But I believed I had to do it. I couldn’t think of any other way to stop Tim. It wasn’t enough for me to know that what we did was wrong. Tim had to know it too.

If Jeff Magill needed a crime, I would give him a crime.

Crickets and other night bugs raised a roar in the leafy darkness of Bluff Park. The occasional pool of streetlight was a gathering place for all kinds of swarming fluttery things.

I rode at a leisurely pace past the excellent darkness of the Martin driveway. The setup was ideal, no streetlamp within fifty feet. The light glancing off the cars was indistinct, a soft glow from the house.

I continued on a few yards beyond their property, coasting to a stop beneath a low-hanging live oak. I laid the bike in a patch of deep shadow, pointed in the direction of my getaway.

I was trying to think through all possible outcomes. I carried the Clorox bottle and the box of big-headed matches across a wide stretch of grass, to the driveway.

I placed the bottle on the pavement beneath the Mustang’s back bumper, and fished out the gas-soaked muslin. The insect chatter seemed to intensify. I unscrewed Red’s gas cap and tucked it in my pocket as a souvenir.

I stuffed one end of the muslin into the mouth of the fuel tank, unrolled it down the bumper, crammed a couple of inches into the bleach bottle, and carried on unrolling as I crept back from the car, across the lawn. I was worried how quickly the gas might evaporate from the muslin, whether there would be enough fuel to carry the flame to the car.

I wiped my fingers on the grass. My hands trembled as I slid out the cardboard drawer. I made a little bouquet of four matches. I struck them all together on the side of the box. The sudden gout of flame startled me. I steadied myself and knelt down, touched the fire to the cloth.

A bright bluish flame raced quick up the slender white trail, over the grass and up to the mouth of the bottle, which exploded with a heavy
woof!
that blew fire into the mouth of the fuel tank. Red’s cherry-red 1972 Mustang Fastback GT detonated with such force that the fastback end sailed up in the air and came down in slow motion, a huge crash, burning, sliding sideways into the pickup truck with a metallic groan.

Flames all over the car! Not just flame decals on the sides. Both cars were burning.

This spectacle made me happier than I had imagined. Death to Red! Death to the Mustang! Burn baby burn!

I jumped on the bike and got the hell out of there. I flashed down Bluff Park Drive into Oak Hill, the long way around to stay off the traffic streets.

Here came a wail from the north — a red ladder truck rocketing down Minor Boulevard with lights and sirens blazing, followed by a pumper truck honking and screaming.

I rode fast toward the highway. You have done it now, Musgrove. You have knocked the nest out of the tree. Now let’s see where the hornets will go.

Red loved that car. That car was never less than spotless, shiny and red.

That was the greatest part of the plan. Revenge was mine, and it smelled as sweet and flammable as gasoline.
That’s for you, Red! A special gift from Five Spot!

I had the strongest urge to find Tim and tell him.

No. He would find out soon enough. Soon he’d be having his little talk with Jeff Magill. That was liable to get pretty hot — Tim with all the indignation of the wrongly accused, Magill embarrassed and mad at himself for ignoring my warning.

Tim would hate me when he figured out what I’d done. That was okay by me. I was willing to lose him as a friend, in order to stop him. It had taken me a long time to make up my mind about that.

Tim would try to convince Magill it was me who burned Red’s car. Magill wouldn’t believe him because I had come to him first, with a warning.

And no one would ever have to find out what Tim really meant to do with those guns.

The plan had other benefits. Red’s car was hilarious rising up on its cloud of fire like a toy car. Like a great big burning Matchbox car.

I did a good job of blowing it up, a job to make my father proud. Demonstrating once again the Musgrove talent for demolition. I was tingling with the same excitement Dad must have felt when he blew up our house. All the violence I ever wanted to do to Red was condensed into that bright bloom of gasoline, the car lifting up, the wrenching crash of metal.

Way back in my mind a little bell was ringing, a persistent alarm bell I was not completely able to ignore. What if things don’t go exactly the way I planned? What if Tim and Jeff Magill don’t react as I expect?

If somebody saw me do it, or I left some stupid clue . . .

I rode off for the Reid Motel. I would have to scrub hard to get the smell of gas off my hands.

2
4

I
JOGGED ACROSS HIGHWAY
80 to the pay phone. I put in fifteen cents. It rang three times before Patsy Cousins picked up.

“Hey Miz Cousins, can I speak to Tim?”

“Daniel, my God! Where are you? Are you okay?”

“Well — yeah, I’m fine. What’s wrong?”

“Well, my Lord, they just came and got Tim, and took him down to Jackson. To the police station.”

I stayed silent. Did this mean they would come for me next?

“They said they wanted to ask him some questions,” she was saying, “but they wouldn’t say what it’s about. And they wouldn’t let me go with them! Do you know what’s going on?”

“No ma’am.”

“Come on, Daniel. Tim tells you everything.”

“They didn’t say why they arrested him?”

“They didn’t arrest him. They took him for questioning.” Her voice tightened. “Why would you say that? Daniel — if you know something, I swear, you tell me right now!”

“Miz Cousins, I haven’t even talked to Tim since Eddie’s funeral.”

“Is this something to do with that colored girl that got hurt after the prom?”

“I don’t think so,” I said. “How should I know?”

“Is your mother there? Put her on the line.”

“I can’t.”

“Well, your father then. Let me talk to him now, please.”

“I’m at a pay phone. We don’t have a phone where we’re staying right now.”

“Daniel. Now listen to me. I am not accustomed to having the police show up at my door and take my son away. Do you hear me?”

“Yes ma’am.”

“Is Tim mixed up in something?”

“Not that I know of.”

“He’s so horrible and moody these days. We’re at the end of our rope. We’ve tried to get him help, but he won’t cooperate. You can’t get that kind of help if you won’t cooperate even a little. He goes off all the time by himself, God knows where, and the times when he is here, he’s so unhappy we can hardly breathe. His poor father is just disgusted with him. Now this. You’re his friend. Would you please, please tell me what’s going on?”

“Well, it all started with — there’s this guy at school,” I said.

She pounced on that. “Red Martin?”

“Yeah.”

“Oh I know all about Red Martin! That boy has caused us more pain — I wish the same thing would happen to his family. Did Tim tell you how he messed up my yard?”

“Yeah, he’s pretty bad,” I said. “But Tim overreacts. And that makes it worse.” Across the road I saw Mom and Dad and Janie climbing into the station wagon.

“Daniel. What can we do to help him?”

“I’m sorry, Mrs. Cousins, I don’t know. Tell him I’ll see him at school, okay? I’ve gotta go —”

I hung up and ran to the car.

I thought we were going to the Dairy Dog for supper, but we drove out old Highway 80 past the turnoff for Old Raymond Road, past the campus of Mississippi Baptist College, past the Hungry L Truck Stop, the school bus shed and the scrap metal yard, and under the interstate bridge to the Twi-Lite Drive-In Theater.

Dad put on his blinker.

“Are we turning around?” I said.

“We’re here, Danny,” Janie said. “This is it.”

The drive-in had been closed for years. The marquee still bore a few letters advertising its last feature:

UN      KAB    E

OLLY     BRO

Dad was watching my reaction in the rearview mirror. Mom gazed across the road as if there was something incredibly interesting about that Spur station over there.

“What are you talking about?” I said.

“Our new house,” Janie said. “We’re gonna live here.”

“At the drive-in?”

“Isn’t it crazy? Wait till you see.”

“This is
not
our new house,” Mom said. “It’s just one of the possibilities Daddy and I are considering. We have a lot of talking to do before any decisions are made.”

“No we don’t,” said Dad. “I told you, I signed the contract.”

“Well, anything that’s signed can be unsigned,” she said.

Dad pulled in at the streamlined pink-and-blue Twi-Lite marquee. When he turned his head I noticed the jaunty toothpick in his mouth. “It’s a golden opportunity,” he said.

We drove past the deserted ticket booth, the flying-saucer snack bar, and the projector hut, onto a wide field studded with speaker-box poles. In front of each pole was a gravelly hillock that raised your front wheels to give your car the right tilt for viewing the enormous screen. That screen was blotched and torn in places, a dim but dazzling whiteness occupying one whole side of the sky.

“Are we camping here?” I ventured.

“It’s such a smart idea, how they built it,” said Dad. “It’s a wonder to me that all the other drive-ins didn’t copy it.” He steered past the play-park of swing sets and slides at the base of the screen, and continued around back.

The screen was not just a screen, but a house. The house was built into the screen, or the screen had a house clinging to its back — it was a chicken or egg question. Dad said they were built at the same time by a man called Tex Mooney. The house was one room wide, stacked in three stories, connected with long ramps and motel-style stairs. Tex’s wife was in a wheelchair from diabetes, Dad explained, and he didn’t want to spend all his time running home from the drive-in to check on her. So he built them a house behind the store, so to speak.

I saw the look on Mom’s face. She had heard this story before and didn’t find it all that charming. She glared up at this odd, tall building with windows poked in it here and there. “Anything’s better than that nasty motel. But don’t y’all get attached to the idea of staying here.”

“Why not?” Dad said. “If you give it a chance, you might like it. Once I get the business up and running, we can make it real nice back here. It’s what you always wanted — country living, right here in the city.”

Mom scowled. “Daniel, get those groceries out of the car. I’m going up and lay down. I have a terrible headache.” She took her purse and left us all there.

“Are you gonna show movies, Dad?”

“Of course we are. The only reason people quit coming is cause old Tex let the place run down so bad. Old fool sitting on a dadgum gold mine and didn’t even know it. A little paint, a little of the old spick-and-span, put the right snacks in the snack bar and show the right picture shows — I believe we’ll do good. And no fake butter on the popcorn.”

“You mean you’re gonna do this for your job?” I wouldn’t have been more amazed if Dad had signed up to become an astronaut.

“The sign goes up tomorrow, ‘Under New Management.’ I hope we got enough letters to spell it.”

“Okay well, first of all, there haven’t been ‘picture shows’ since about 1930,” I said.

“Don’t smart-mouth me, mister.”

“And if you want anybody to come,” I said, “you have to show the right movies.”

“Look, Janie, we got an expert right here in the family.”

“I told you it was cool, Danny!” Janie clomped up the steps. “You and me get our own rooms all the way at the top!”

My own room? Those were words I never expected to hear.

Dad watched my face. “What you think about that?”

“Oh, Dad, really? Oh my gosh, thank you.” I wondered what was the catch.

“Jacko won’t be going up any stairs,” he said. “So you still have to come down and help him get in and out of bed.” Ah, there it was. Not too bad.

“Sure, Dad, anything — wow, this is unbelievable.”

“There’s two beds in your room,” he said. “When Buddy comes home for a visit he can bunk in with you.”

“That’s fine,” I said.

“It’s like living in our own motel!” Janie exclaimed.

“I don’t want to live in our own motel,” Mom announced from the second-floor railing. “Or a drive-in movie, or a hot dog stand, or a windmill, or anything other than a house.”

“You won’t have to lift a finger,” Dad said. “I’ll make you a nice garden. You can live back here like it’s any other house.”

“But it’s not, Lee, it’s not! Now, damn it! Look at it!” She clattered down the stairs. “Where did you get this idea that drive-in movies are the next big thing? Nobody goes to the drive-in anymore except teenagers.”

“That’s because they don’t show any good . . . movies,” said Dad. “They don’t show anything a family can go to.”

“There’s a reason the man has been trying to unload this place. Drive-ins are going out of business all over the country. I read about it in the Sunday supplement.”

“Not this one,” he said. “This one is going
into
business, and we’re gonna make a lot of money. Wait and see.”

“Wait and see,” she repeated. “Wait and
see?
Oh, I’ve been waiting. But I haven’t been seeing. You don’t even like to
go
to the drive-in movie, now you’ve gone and rented one, and moved us into it!”

“That is almost correct,” Dad said.

“What do you mean?”

“Well, did you hear me actually say that I rented it?”

She stared. “You were talking to Mooney, you were going to offer him rent with an option to buy. Isn’t that what you said?”

“Not exactly,” he said.

“
What
exactly?”

“Well I asked him, but he had no interest in renting the place. The only thing he wanted to do was sell. He’s old now, he’s not interested in running it —”

“You’ve said that ten times,” Mom snapped. “Don’t tell me you bought it.”

“Yeah, I did. I sure did.”

That straightened her up. “With what?”

“The insurance money.”

“It came?”

“Friday,” he said. “While you were in Jackson.”

“While I was at the doctor, getting a Pap smear? You took that check and cashed it, and you blew it on this out-of-business, worthless piece of — drive-in — ohh!” She burst into tears, buried her face in her hands, and just sobbed.

Dad didn’t make a move. None of us did. We let her cry where she was. Poor Mom. I still feel guilty for that.

I followed Janie upstairs to have a look at our rooms. We kept our voices low.

“My room is kind of little but I love it,” Janie said. She had already arranged her dolls on the dresser and tacked up a Bo Donaldson & the Heywoods poster. (Their song “You Don’t Own Me” was her personal anthem.) “And look, Danny, you can see out through the movie screen.” Behind the narrow bed a high, square window provided a panoramic view of the speaker field in a soft, milky light.

My room had two of these translucent windows, as well as two beds, two dressers, and its own bathroom. My suitcase and my box of belongings were on one bed, waiting for me. I could not believe our good fortune. “Hey Idjit, this is the best house we’ve ever had.”

Janie frowned. “You heard Mom. She’s not gonna let us stay here.”

“She might not have a choice. I think he already bought it.”

“Yeah, he’s crazy,” she said. “But I love it.”

We crept to the edge of the balcony. They were mad enough to be fighting with their door open so we could hear.

“I got an unbelievable deal,” Dad was saying. “The man was desperate. He had no idea what the business was worth — let alone the land underneath it. He just wanted out. There’s no way we can lose at this price, this close to the interstate.”

“You didn’t even ask me! How could you do that? I’m your wife. Don’t you care what I think?”

“I saw a real opportunity,” he said, “and I jumped, and here you go tearing me down. Could I for once have a nice word from you, instead of just criticizing?”

Her voice rose. “That money was not yours to spend however you want! It was my money too.”

“That’s not what it said on the check.”

That was a low blow, even for Dad. Janie and I cringed, thinking what might come next.

“Fine. You want to run a drive-in? Run it.” The brisk click of her heels down the gallery. “This is the stupidest thing you’ve ever done, and that’s saying something.”

Dad said, “Where do you think you’re going?”

“It’s a good thing I didn’t unpack,” she said. “I don’t care where I go. I’ll go to June’s house. Or I can stay with Mack and Wanda. They’ll be glad to have me.”

“What about the kids?”

“That’s your problem,” she snapped. “They start school Monday, were you even aware of that? You think I’m gonna jerk ’em out of school and take ’em with me to Alabama just to make things easier on you? Forget that. They seem to like it here too. Maybe you’ll all be very happy.”

Thanks a lot, Mom!

“Now just cool down, Peggy Jean,” Dad said. “Give me that suitcase.”

“I’m taking the car,” she said.

“You ain’t going anywhere, honey, just put that down and listen to me.”

“Don’t you ‘honey’ me.” She marched down the stairs.

“You gonna run off and leave Jack Otis to tend to himself in the hospital?” he said. “Have you lost your mind?”

“I’ve lost most of it anyway,” she said. “The little bit I’ve got left tells me to get out of here now, or I won’t be responsible. I need to go see my mother!” She stalked into the yard.

She was pretty upset. Had she forgotten Granny was dead?

“That bunch over there hasn’t lifted the first finger to see about Jacko,” she was saying. “Why is it always my job?”

“Now Peg, you know you’re not leaving —”

“Don’t you dare call me Peg!” she cried. “You know not to call me that when we’re fighting! That’s what you call me when we’re
not
fighting! Now you’ve ruined it!” She burst into tears.

I know she saw us watching, but she chose not to look up. She heaved the suitcase into the back of the station wagon.

All our lives it had been Mom and us kids on one side, and Dad on the other. I could not believe she would leave us in the hands of the enemy.

She started the car and drove a lurchy circle around the oak tree. She turned on her headlights and drove out of there.

I ran to my room, to the screen-window to watch her go. She knocked down a speaker pole and bumped her rear tires over two hummocks before she found the road.

Dad said no way would Mom drive all the way to Alabama by herself with night coming on. On I-20 she would have to pass the hospital, and she would not be able to drive by without stopping to check on Jacko. That’s when she would come to her senses. She would be back by ten o’clock at the latest.