The News in Small Towns (Small Town Series, Book 1) (11 page)

He put his pen down on the desk in front of him.  “I haven’t seen a bow or an arrow since I was a kid,” he said.  “You any good?”

“I was on the Olympic Archery team.”

“No shit?”

“Well, first alternate, but I got to go to Sydney.”

“That’s incredible.  I’d love to hear about that some time.  Have you ever written it up?”

“I kept a diary for the paper I was with at the time, but they never used it.  I guess it wasn’t such hot news.  I’ve got it on a disk somewhere,” I told him, flattered at his interest.

“I’d like to read it,” he said.  “Really.”

“I’ll print it out sometime,” I told him.  “But what I came in to tell you was that I want my job back.”

He looked at me with a puzzled expression.  “You
have
your job, Sue-Ann.”

“I want regular assignments again.  I’m not sick any more.  I mean, I am, but I know what’s wrong.  My thyroid is out of whack and I’m getting treatment.  I’ll be as good as new.”

“That’s what I like to hear,” he smiled.  He sat back, pushed his papers aside and asked me questions about my disease, the treatment, and how I was feeling in general.  I told him about Ben Crenshaw and asked him how his own game was going.   He segued into talking about his twin sons and how he would sometimes take them to the driving range; how he was looking forward to making his baby daughter into another Kelli Kuehne when she got big enough to hold a club.  Then we talked journalism for a while.  Although he only mentioned his divorce in passing and did not mention Gina at all, it was the longest conversation we’d had since he had interviewed me for the job.

“So can I have an assignment?” I finally asked.

“You have that history of the Plank Festival to get ready.”

“You were serious about that?”

“Sure.”

“It’s still weeks off, isn’t it?”

“In the meantime, write about stump shooting,” he said.  “And what about that rodeo I told you about?  This weekend.  Ag Center.”

“Oh, right.  I’ll get on that.”

“And Sue-Ann.  Let’s move slow, okay?  Let’s get your strength back before you start having to drive all over hell at whatever hour a story might come up.  Let Mark do that.”

“Yeah, Mark,” I said, trying not to let any bitterness creep into my words.

“Sue-Ann.”

“Yeah?”

“Mark is a grunt.  You’re a world-class reporter.  They’re not the same thing.  And I’m not just your boss; I’m a fan, and I want to have you at
The Courier
for a long, long time, especially now.”

“What do you mean?” I asked.

Cal leaned forward in his chair and intertwined his fingers.  “Well, you know, in the last year or so—since you’ve been here and since Ginette took over the office work and the advertising, our circulation and our revenue have gotten a lot better.  I’m thinking about going to three days a week, maybe hiring a sports reporter.  When I was researching that piece on housing, I found out that there are more and more people moving in to our area every month, more businesses setting up, people are enjoying a higher standard of living.  In a year, two years, we could be a daily with maybe a dozen staff writers.  What would you think about that?”

“I’m uh, stunned,” I said.  “I had no idea that things were—”

“And you would be the bureau chief—in charge of all the other reporters.”

“Really?  I mean, that would be great, Cal,” I managed.  “Let me know if I can help.”

“You can help by getting yourself back to a hundred percent. Now go home.”

I was disarmed.  I smiled.  “Okay, Cal.  Thanks.  I’ll check in next week.”

I left Cal’s office liking him more than I had when I went in, and not just because he had told me that my job was secure.  He loved his own job, wanted to make
The Courier
the best it could be.  The fact that he was Gina’s boyfriend, though, set off an alarm with a very unfamiliar timbre.

I looked expectantly at Gina’s cubicle, but her chair was still empty—she was probably out selling advertising.  Maybe I could call her later.

Outside, I saw Benny’s Jeep and, thought of the article Cal wanted me to do on the Plank Festival.  I remembered that I had once seen a thick history of Jasper County on one of his shelves, so I decided to see if he still had it.  Through the window I saw that Benny was uncharacteristically shelving books from a rolling metal cart.  The bell over the door jingled as I walked in and Benny looked over from his work.

“Hey hey hey,” he greeted me, grinning.  I noticed that most of the boxes and bags of books that had been piled around the card table on Saturday were now gone. 

“How have you been, Benny?” I asked him.

“Better than you,” he said.  “Mmm.  What happened?  Somebody hit you with a shovel?”

“You oughta see the shovel,” I answered.

Benny shuffled over to his desk, sat down, and rummaged for something in a briefcase by his feet.  “Got something to show you,” he said.

I walked over and saw that he was holding an eye-pillow—similar to the one I had shown him but stitched into two halves, with a soft bulge in the center of each half.  On the bulges were representations of a woman’s breasts.  He jiggled it in his hands and I heard what sounded like the shake of rice.

“Titties, heh heh.”

“I see.”

“Found a picture I liked and had it silk-screened on the fabric.  My wife sewed it together.  She thought it was dirty, ewww, but I told her they were hers.”

“This is something I really shouldn’t know about,” I said.  “It’s a good idea, though.  You can probably sell a lot of them.”

“Sell them?” he asked, as if the idea had never occurred to him.  And it probably hadn’t.

“Here in the store.  Get a display for them.  It’s just what every man wants—an eyeful of breasts.”

“Hmmm.  Marff.”

“On to another subject,” I said.  “Do you still have that history of Jasper County I saw in here one time?”

“Yah.  Right in the corner there.”  He pointed to a shelf marked Florida History.  There it was, lying on its side.  I picked it up and gave Benny the money.

“History buff now?” he asked.

“Just research for a story,” I told him.  “Have you seen any of those punkers you told me about last time I was in?”

“Nah, the scratchy little weasels.”

“Well, if you do, try and get a license number or the make of car they’re driving.  If they actually buy something, get a name from a check or credit card.  Even the brand of cigarettes they smoke.”

“You got a lead on something?”

“I’ve got something in the works, yes.  I’ll keep you posted if I find out anything.”

“Don’t leave yet,” he told me.  “Heh heh.  I got something else to show you.  Come on.”

He waddle-walked to the back of the store, where he motioned me through the door into a back room.  It was as messy as my mother’s bedroom after the break in.  Magazines were scattered about, hundreds, maybe thousands of surplus books were placed willy-nilly on rickety shelves, and dozens of boxes were piled up against walls.  Many of the boxes had books growing from the top of them.  Benny picked his way through to the far wall and pointed out a half dozen boxes sitting by themselves. These boxes were sealed tight with clear packing tape.  “Ahem,” he said. “There you go.”

Dubiously, I worked my way through the maze of junk.  Benny cut the packing tape with a Case knife he pulled from his jeans.  Then he stepped back, dumped some stuff off a folding chair, and positioned it where I could sit down.  “Here’s you a saddle,” he said.

I opened the box he had unsealed and my eyes widened.  I saw
Dressage for Beginners
, by R. F. V. Ffrench Blake, books by Paul Belasik and Walter Zettl,
The Gymnasium of the Horse
—the box was filled with horse books.  “Benny!” I cried.  “This is wonderful.  What are in the other boxes?”

“Same old same old,” he said.

“Where did you get all these?” I asked.

“Your dad,” he said.  “Yuk yuk.”

I straightened up in the chair.  “From Daddy?  These are my mother’s books?”

“Aye, lass.  Smart as paint ye be.”

“I want to buy them back from you.  All of them.  I can’t pay for them all now, but maybe a couple a week.  And I’ll give you a deposit . . .”

“Arghh.  Yer gold’s no good ‘ere.  The books is yerz, every last page of em.”

“But you must have given Daddy a fortune for these!”

“Right ye are, Missy, but umm, harrumph, me check bounced.  Boing, heh heh.”

“And what, he left town before he knew it was no good?”

“Aye, Must’ve.”

“You’re a lifesaver, Benny, as well as a criminal.  Daddy had no right to sell these without asking me.  But why haven’t you put them out on the shelves?”

“Errr, been pretty busy.  Naw, that’s not it.  Nope.  Been keeping them for you.”

“What, all this time?”

He became more serious and dropped his pirate accent.  “I ordered some of these books for your mom.  Sometimes, she, um, talked about you and I knew you used to ride some.  The books were kind of a legacy from her, so I got them from your dad and tried to keep the bugs off em.  Since you’ve been back it seems like you’ve had, ahem, things on your mind, so I saved em.  The other day you told me that you were thinking about riding again, so I thought it was probably time.”

“I don’t know what to say.”

“Giddy-up,” he smiled.  “I’ll help you get them outside,” he said.  “I think I have a hand truck around her somewhere.  Hmm, ummph.”

As we lifted the boxes into the back of the truck, I asked him, “Here’s a longshot for you.  You ever listen to that pirate radio station?”

“It’s me favorite.”

“Really?  You’re the first person I’ve talked to who’s even heard of it.  Is it back on the air?  Last time I tried it, all I got was static.”

“Last night in the wee hours they played nothing but Irish drinking songs.  There’s something weird about that station.  Like, woooo!”

“Tell me about it.”  I put the
History of Jasper County
on the front seat of the truck and got in.  I spoke through the open window.  “Anything else I need to know?  Any gossip?”

“Did I show you the horn I invented?”

“Show me next time.  Any progress on the Santeria play?”

“Ummm.  Got stuck on the setting.  Can’t decide whether it takes place in Africa or Haiti or New Orleans.”

“Maybe in the woods in north Florida,” I suggested.

“Who’d believe that?” he asked.

~  ~  ~

It seemed like I made the couple of miles home in only a few minutes, but I had even more to think about than I had before.  Pushed aside for the moment at least was the goat story, crowded out by the recovery of my mother’s library and the news about my disease.  And, oh yes, by Gina Cartwright.  Mental snapshots of her came and went as I unloaded the books from my truck.  The sky was clouding up and I didn’t want to take a chance that they might get rained on.  The effort it took let me know that I wasn’t yet ready to play in that soccer game that Dr. Morris kept talking about.

The house was as I had left it—no scattered papers or corn starch designs or dead cattle on my living room rug, and after I had stored the books in my mother’s bedroom, I fired up the iMac and began my attempt to read everything ever written about Graves’ disease.

DSL or cable had not yet come to most of the rural areas of Pine Oak but my dial-up connection was adequate to do searches, and I read until my eyes threatened to pop out of their sockets.  There’s no point in going into technical detail here—you can Google it yourself.  The important thing is that, in three or four hours, I learned as much about my hyperthyroidism as I could stay awake for, and I think I memorized the booklets Dr. Morris had given me.  I became a big Ben Crenshaw fan; found out that Barbara Bush was diagnosed with Graves’.  So was Christina Rosetti. 

Gail Devers, too, the track star.  I almost met Gail in 2000; we were both staying in the Olympic Village in Sydney, Australia.  She, of course, was the fastest woman in the world and I was just the first alternate on the archery team.  Anyway, it wasn’t much of a chance: she was coming out of a restaurant bathroom and I was going in.  Yet eight years before she had won a gold medal after recovering from a bout of Graves’ disease that nearly killed her. As it happened, she came down with an injury in Sydney, so neither of us actually competed there.

Before I shut down the computer I pulled up the file I had been keeping on my goat story investigation and looked over what I knew so far, adding a bit here and there.

And just for good measure, I checked Amazon.com music for
Goat’s Head Soup
and as all of you Stones fanatics out there already know, it is a real album.  1973.

After that I zonked out.  Not only was my head aching again, but I imagined that all my Graves’ symptoms were flaring up at once.  I took an Advil and nearly fell into bed, but not five seconds later the phone rang.

It was Gina.  Cal had told her about my disease.  She was worried, why hadn’t I called?  Did I have a death wish?  What the fuck had gotten into me?  She had been trying to phone me for the last four hours but my phone was busy and was I all right?