The Honk and Holler Opening Soon (28 page)

“Well, it’s almost seven. Seems like she’d be back by now.”

“There’s a good chance they already put her to work.”

“Really?”

“Yeah. I talked to Little Fib Fry—you know, he’s the store manager now—and he said he had a part-time slot open and if she wanted it, he’d hire her, so she might already be on the job.”

“Boy, that sure seems strange. I just can’t imagine Brenda working at Wal-Mart.”

“Well, I can’t say she was thrilled about the idea, but like I told her, she can work there till something better comes along. Might take a while, things being the way they are here right now, especially her without a high school diploma.”

“Look, Mrs. O’Keefe, I think I’ll run out to Wal-Mart, see if she’s still there, but if I miss her, will you ask her to give me a call when she gets in?”

“Sure. Hamp, have you said anything to her yet? You know, what we talked about?”

“Not yet, but that’s why I was hoping to see her tonight.”

“Then I’ll be sure she gets hold of you, Hamp. You can trust me on that.”

As soon as Molly O recradled the phone, she noticed the grocery sacks still on the cabinet.

“Oh, my gosh.”

The ice cream was already half-melted when she took it from the sack and opened her freezer. She had to shuffle packages around to make room, shoving meat and vegetables and waffles . . .

Waffles!

The box had been ripped open and the plastic bag, the bag where she kept her money, had been pulled out and emptied.

“No,” she whispered. “No, baby. No.”

She didn’t run to Brenda’s room, didn’t even hurry, but by the time she stepped inside, she was so tired that she crawled onto her daughter’s bed.

She sat in the dark for several minutes before she summoned enough energy to turn on the light, but there wasn’t much to see because Brenda hadn’t left much behind—three dirty socks, a can of hairspray, two guitar picks and enough hurt to fill a fifty-foot Skyline in the Cozy Oaks Trailer Park.

M
OLLY O CAME ON to work the next morning, weepy and exhausted. She hadn’t slept for twenty-eight hours, but it wasn’t the first time she’d spent a night walking the floor in despair.

When Caney found out what Brenda had done, he was so furious that he raged around the rest of the morning, his anger splattering like bacon in hot grease. He banged around in the kitchen, slamming skillets onto burners, hacking the meat cleaver into the cutting board, knocking cans of corn and peas from the pantry shelves and cussing onions and eggs as if he’d found them sneaking around telling lies.

But once, when Molly O came back to the sink to wash her hands, he’d grabbed her around the waist and buried his head in her chest, held her without a word, then rolled away and smacked five pounds of ground beef, punishment, perhaps, for whatever grief that cow had brought to its mother.

Vena, though a good listener, could think of little to say that would ease Molly O’s pain. She saw too much of her seventeen-year-old self in Brenda, and the memories of what she’d put Helen through were still too raw.

Bui wasn’t quite sure what was going on, but while he was bus-ing a table, scraping uneaten food into a pan for Spot, Molly O said what a shame it was to see so much good food going to waste.

“And with the little children starving in China,” she said, which caused her to cry, leaving Bui with the impression that her sorrow was caused by her tender feelings for hungry children, especially those in China.

Oddly enough, Molly O found her greatest comfort in Life, who stayed through the morning, listening, patting her hand and opening up to her about his own daughter, something he’d never done before.

“She was a mess, I’ll tell you that. Reba did her best with the girl, tried to keep her in church, steer her away from trouble, but that church stuff don’t always work out when a girl takes to sin like a kid to mud.

“I guess Reba had some notion of what laid ahead when her girl was born, so she named her Chastity, like she thought the name would make some kind of difference. She just as well have called her Screwin’ Around. It seemed to fit her better.”

“Oh, Life. You oughtn’t to say such a thing.”

“Wait now, hear me out.”

Molly O nodded, then wiped her nose with a balled-up paper napkin.

“When Chastity was fifteen, she ran away from home for the first time. Came back three months later with one of them venal diseases. Like to’ve broke Reba’s heart, but she didn’t give up, no way. Reba was like that. Determined.

“Well, the girl wasn’t back no time before she started drinking, running with a hard crowd and got herself knocked-up. But she got drunk one night, fell out of the back of a pickup and she didn’t have to worry no more about having a baby. At least not that one.”

Molly O said, “Life, I had no idea you and Reba had been through something like that. And here I am telling you my troubles.”

“No way you could know, Molly O. We was living in Indiana then, a long time before we come to Oklahoma.

“Anyway, a few months later, Chastity took off with a guy just out of prison. Had a kid by him, little boy named Jake. Then she lived with a fella for a while down in Alabama. He gave her a two-inch scar across her forehead and another baby before he kicked her out.

“By then, she was a drunk. Got arrested, I don’t know how many times. Public intoxication, prostitution, resisting arrest.

“Me and Reba finally went and got the kids to come live with us, and let me tell you, when we left the rat-hole Chastity was living in, I figured it was the last time I’d see her alive, given the direction she was headed.

“But then, the damnedest thing. Chastity was dancing in one of them naked clubs down in Georgia when she met a guy in some hamburger joint. A machinist named Don Buck, a real decent fella. And believe it or not, Chastity got herself together, got married, came got her kids and settled down.

“They been married now, over twenty years. Got grandkids, go to church regular. A real comfort to Reba before she died, I’ll tell you that.”

“I love stories with nice endings, Life.” Molly O started crying again. “Just like a fairy tale. But with Brenda . . .”

“Look, the point I’m trying to make here is that things ain’t settled with Brenda yet. There’s more to come. Some good, some bad, but all you can do is wait. She’s going in another direction now, one you didn’t pick out for her, but it’s her direction.”

“But she didn’t even leave me a note.”

“What the hell was she gonna say? ‘I stole your money, lied to you, broke your heart.’ She didn’t need to tell you what you already knew.”

“I just wish I could—”

“Molly O, people change. Look at us. We’re not who we was at seventeen or thirty or fifty. Hell, I ain’t who I was yesterday.

“But here’s what you have to hang on to. All the things you taught Brenda, they’re inside her now, like little seeds. You planted them there and someday they’ll start to grow. And when they do, she’ll remember what her mama told her about right and wrong.”

“You really think so, Life?”

“I sure do.”

Molly O managed a feeble smile.

“But while you’re waiting for that to happen, you got your own life to live.”

“I’m not sure I know how.”

“Well, I’ll tell you how you’re gonna start. We’re gonna get out of here, go out to the lake and have a picnic.”

“Oh, I couldn’t do that. Leave Caney here at lunchtime.”

“Caney,” Life called back to the kitchen, “think you can fix me and Molly O up with a picnic lunch?”

“A what?”

“A picnic. You know, a few sandwiches, maybe some potato salad. Something cold to drink.”

“Sure, Life,” Caney said, unable to hide his surprise. “I’ll have it together in no time.”

“Good. ’Cause we’re in kind of a hurry.” Life smiled at Molly O.

“We’ve already wasted too much time as it is.”

*

Vena poured herself a cup of coffee, then joined Bui at the table where he was eating a late supper.

“You like American food?” she asked as she watched him pour soy sauce over his meatloaf and mashed potatoes.

“American food very good.” He took a bite, then made a face of approval. “But Vietnam food bester.” He paused as he mentally ran through one of Galilee’s lessons, then corrected his mistake. “Vietnam food better.”

“I’ve never tasted it.”

“My wife come, you eat Vietnam food. You like it, I think so.”

“When will she get here?”

“Maybe soon, maybe late. Hard to knowing. She leave Vietnam in boat, then boat go where boat go.”

“What does that mean?”

“Sometime boat go to Thailand, sometime Malaysia, sometime Indonesia. Boat go where boat go.” He shrugged then to show he understood the nature of fate. “My boat go . . . my boat went Malaysia. Many days of sea, then two years in refugee camp.”

“Two years?”

“Very hard to getting papers for America. Must wait long time.”

Bui added more soy sauce to his potatoes. “I rat catcher in my camp. Camp fourteen. Catch many rats,” he said with pride. “More over one thousand. Win prize for best rat catcher.”

“Is a refugee camp like a prison?”

“No! Not like prison. In Vietnam, I stay in prison long time.

Prison bad, very bad.”

“Bui, you mind if I ask you why you were in prison?”

“In prison for stealing rice from boss of black market.” Bui could see Vena’s confusion. “Do what have to do. Mother sick, sister sick. Not enough rice, so I steal. Go to prison. “But . . .” He turned his hands up, palms open, “Mother well, sister well.”

Vena shook her head.

“World keep go turning round,” he said, then he smiled.

“Yeah, I guess you’re right. World just keep go turning round.”

*

Bui poured the pan of scraps into Spot’s bowl while the little dog waited patiently.

“Eat all, Spot.” Bui gently cupped the dog’s chin in his hand and raised its head. Then, his look solemn, his voice serious, he said, “Remember, Spot. Little childs in China starving.”

He waited until he was satisfied that the dog was eating with good appetite, then stepped over the low fence and switched on the flashlight as he started across the field.

The night, warm and still, was dark, the light of the quarter moon only slicing now and then through a tear in the thick blanket of clouds.

He smiled to imagine Nguyet with him here on a night like this, holding tightly to his arm, jumpy at the sounds of crickets and cicadas, rushing her steps as stiff weeds brushed against her ankles.

Bui liked being in the open at night. No roof, no walls, just space—space that stretched all the way to Vietnam. But tonight, though he would not know it until too late, he was not the only one crossing this field of darkness.

“Phong Ma,”
he called, his voice echoing in the heavy, still air.

He hadn’t told Caney and Vena that he’d given the gelding a name.
Phong Ma.
Wind Dancer. For now, the name was a secret that only he and the horse shared.

When Bui unfastened the gate, the clank of the chain caused the man who was following, hidden now by the bus, to stop and rub at his wrists . . . the wrists of the bloody, naked boy long ago chained to the door of a church.

As Bui walked into the pasture, he could see the horse coming to him while, snuffling, he smelled Bui’s familiar scent and the scent of the carrot.

“Hello, my friend,” Bui said when they met. “You are happy to see me, I think so.”

The gelding dipped his nose, sniffing at Bui’s pocket.

“Oh, you think something hide there,” he said as he pulled the carrot out and held it before him. But before the horse could take it, Bui, laughing, ran in a wide, slow circle with the gelding trotting along behind him.

When Bui stopped, he waited until the horse neared, then took several running steps backward.

“
Phong Ma.
You must come quick.”

Finally, Bui stood still, holding the carrot behind his back while the gelding nudged him in the chest with its nose.

“Okay, my friend. You work hard for carrot, now is yours.”

Unmindful now of the animal’s teeth, Bui held the carrot until the horse took the last bite, neither of them noticing the dark figure slipping soundlessly through the open gate.

Then, suddenly, the gelding lifted his head and snorted.

“What the matter? Want more carrot?” Bui teased. “Well, I have surprise. I bring two.” But when he offered the second carrot, the horse backed away. With his head high, his ears down, he whinnied.

From her fence behind the Honk, Spot began to bark—sharp, shrill yelps answering the horse’s warning.

“So long, Hooks,” Caney said.

“See you folks tomorrow.”

Vena was refilling Bilbo’s coffee when Hooks fired up his truck.

A second later, the dog started barking.

“Sounds like you’ve turned that mutt of yours into a watchdog, Vena,” Bilbo Porter said.

“That’s strange. I’ve never heard her bark before.”

“She probably got scared when she heard Hooks crank up that old Dodge,” Caney said.

“Yeah, that damned thing clankin’ and clatterin’.” Bilbo laughed. “Hell, it makes me want to bark.”

When Bui heard a twig snap somewhere behind him, he turned toward the gate and saw a dark figure moving across the pasture, coming toward him.

“Miss Vena?” he called, but there was no answer.

When he directed the beam of the flashlight across the field, he saw the face of the man called Sam Kellam.

“What you want?” Bui asked, his voice pitched high with alarm. Then he saw a glint of steel as Sam raised a gun and fired.

Bui felt a jolt of pain in his hand when the flashlight was ripped from his fingers and, still shining, cartwheeled through the air.

“What was that?”

“Huh?”

“That noise.”

“I didn’t hear anything.”

“Sounded like a shot.”

“Probably Hooks’ truck backfiring.”

The gelding, frenzied now, whinnied and stamped the ground, then reared, legs windmilling the air.

Holding his injured hand before him as if offering it in greet-ing, Bui took a step forward as Sam fired twice more.