Yellow Mesquite (42 page)

“Thank you,” Harley replied, a mocking bow.

He had hardly turned around when a young man stepped into his path. “Sir, I have good news!”

“What…?”

“Good news, sir.” He was a gawky young man, all arms and legs, a green polyester suit flapping around his bones. A wide yellow tie with a palm tree and an orange sun seemed to grow at an angle out of his neck. His pointy-toed shoes were run-down at the heels. “Good news right here in God’s Holy Word.” He waved a zippered case in one hand, a Bible and a copy of
The Watchtower
in the other.

Harley stepped aside. “Sorry. I’m in a hurry.”

The boy tried to head him off. “Sir, just let me––”

Harley stopped. “You step in front of me again, I’m gonna stomp your skinny ass right through the goddamn floor.”

The boy stared after him, still holding the pamphlet out.

The outside attendant brought his car around—a Corvair. Harley glanced at the paperwork. “That the only car you’ve got?”
 

The attendant studied him with curiosity. “That’s what I was told to bring up.”

Harley was tempted to take the paperwork back inside and tell the guy to shove it. But he was in a hurry. While the attendant entered the mileage, Harley glanced over the map that came with the car. He then got in and drove out toward McNeese University. He found Highway 90 and then spotted a road sign to Sulfur. Sherylynne’s mother lived on past Sulfur in Vinton. He had only been there the one time, a few years ago.
 

The afternoon sky was colorless. Cypress and pine trees grew along either side of the highway, heavy with undergrowth. The February air here in southern Louisiana was heavy, wet and warm.

He had halfway expected to be arrested in Midland for the attack on Whitehead, then in Dallas and again here in Lake Charles. He supposed it said something about his mental state that he didn’t really give a shit—he had nothing left to lose. But there wasn’t any law waiting, only curious looks from other passengers shying away from him and his bandaged nose, his swollen eyes.

He was still sane enough to wonder if he was a little crazy, thinking of how he had almost killed Whitehead. At the crucial moment, he had thought of his mom and dad, his sisters, what it would do to them, to his chances of getting custody of Leah. But it was the damage the shotgun had done to the dog that stopped him finally.
 

The swampy terrain gave way to more solid ground. He drove through the little town of Sulfur, and while it was late February, a few people were out working their yards, putting in gardens.
 

Twenty-four miles later he drove into Vinton. A little farther on, he spotted the mailbox and the name: Riley. He recognized the little frame house with its screened-in porch at the end of the sandy track leading back through the pines.
 

His rental bounced through the potholes and came to a stop in front. He got out, went up to the door and knocked. He saw through the screen a silhouette behind the curtained window in the door to the house itself. The inside door opened and Mrs. Riley stood, looking at him through the screen.

“Mrs. Riley,” he said. “It’s Harley.”

She nodded slowly.

“I’m looking for Sherylynne.”

She nodded again.

“I heard she was back here in Louisiana.”

Mrs. Riley twisted the hem of her apron in heavily veined hands.

“I’d sure like to know where she is.”

She watched him, steady, except for her hands kneading the apron.

“And Leah. I haven’t seen her in a long time.”

“What happened to your face?”

“Accident.”

“You look bad hurt.”

“Not really. It’s okay now.”

“You like turnip greens?”

“Turnip greens?”

“I got some good turnip greens.”

He hesitated. “Yes, ma’am. I like them very much.”

“With hot bacon grease?”

“Sherylynne sometimes made greens like that.”

“You like cornbread?”

“Yes, ma’am. I do. But, Mrs. Riley, I’m in kind of a hurry.”

“A body’s gotta eat. You want some greens and cornbread?”

“Uh…sure. I guess so, if it’s not too much trouble.”

She held the screen door back and he stepped inside.
 

“Thanks.” He followed her through the living room into the kitchen. The place looked smaller than he remembered—the stuffed chairs soggy, the papered walls oily.
 

Mrs. Riley appeared older than he remembered. Her eyes were small, her face red and knotty. Iron-gray hair fell down from an unraveling knot at the base of her neck in back.

“You sit right there,” Mrs. Riley said, nodding at a table with a checkered oilcloth on it.
 

“Thank you.”

Mrs. Riley shuffled to the stove, took the lid off a pot, peered in, and turned the gas burner on underneath. She set a cast-iron skillet of congealed bacon grease on another burner.

“There ain’t no catfish,” she said.

“Excuse me?”

“Willard brings catfish from time to time. But there ain’t none left.” She took a half pan of cornbread from the fridge and put it in the oven to warm.

“About Sherylynne. You know how I could get in touch with her?”

“My brother Willard, he brought them greens down from Starks. You know where Starks is?”

“No, ma’am. I don’t think so.”

“Plumb full of blue-eyed niggers.”

Harley was mildly surprised. He couldn’t recall hearing that term since leaving Texas for New York.
 

“Some of ’em got kinky blond hair, too.”

“I thought she was prob’ly here with you. Sherylynne, that is.”
 

“Over in Vidor, they once had a big sign on the highway: ‘Nigger. Don’t let the sun set on your head in Vidor, Texas.’ ”

“I guess the thing about ignorance is it insists on advertising itself.”

Mrs. Riley paused, gave him a searching look. “I got nothin’ against niggers myself.” She took the lid off the pot. “Here. I think this is just about ready.”

“Been a long time since I had it like that. With bacon grease.”

“I’ll get some butter for your cornbread.”

She moved slowly and with purpose, and set butter on the table, the cornbread in its cast-iron skillet on a potholder, then spooned greens onto a plate and drizzled it with hot bacon grease.

He hadn’t thought about food, but suddenly he was starving. He slathered the cornbread with butter, stabbed the greens onto the fork and it was the best food he had ever eaten anywhere. He wondered vaguely how he could feel such ill will for someone while calmly eating greens at her mother’s table.
 

“I can’t tell you how good this is. Thank you so much.”
 

“I like a man to enjoy his food. Here, I’ll get you a glass of milk to wash it down with.”

“Thanks again.”

Mrs. Riley scraped the rest of the greens onto his plate, then pulled out the other chair and sat down, hands folded in her lap.
 

“Why’re you looking for Sherylynne?”

He paused. “I’m not quite sure. Truthfully, I think she took advantage of me.”

“You ain’t gonna hurt her, are you?”

He thought on that a moment. “I don’t intend to, no.”

“I don’t want nobody to get hurt.”

“No, ma’am. Me either,” he said, only then realizing how sincerely he meant it, wondering if he really had meant to kill her. In fact, he wasn’t at all sure just what he did mean to do.

Mrs. Riley gave him another studied look. “What happened to your face?”

“Uh, I had a wreck. Knocked my nose on the steering wheel.”

She nodded. “Did you know my husband, Farrell?”

“No, ma’am. He was shipped out when I was here.”

Her gaze wandered. “Oh. Yes. He was. Shipped out.”

Harley scooped up the last of the greens with the last of the cornbread and washed it down with the milk. “Mrs. Riley, thanks. I needed that. I haven’t eaten in a while. About the best meal I ever had, too.”

“Really? You out of work?”

“No, no. Nothing like that. I just got so busy I forgot about eating.”

“She lives up toward Edgerly.”

“Edgerly?”

“You ain’t gonna hurt her, are you?”

“No, ma’am, I don’t intend to.”

“It ain’t Christian of me, but you can kill her sorry husband, far’s I’m concerned.”
 

Harley stared. “She…remarried?”

A shadow flickered behind her eyes. “Oh. No. I guess not. Not that I remember.”

“Mrs. Riley…are you okay?”

“Of course. Did you know my husband, Farrell?”

“No, ma’am.”

Her gaze wandered out to one side. “Farrell, he got killed. That Methodist preacher over in Sulfur.”

“He…what…?”

“Just on the other side of Edgerly. Here, I’ll draw you a map.”

“You said…”

“Good Christian man, Farrell was. Brought home a regular paycheck.”

“I’m sorry,” he mumbled.”

“The flesh is weak.”

He looked on, at a loss, as she took a pencil from a cup on top of the fridge, tore a piece of paper from a brown grocery bag, laid it on the table and drew a map on it.
 

“You go on back up the road here for about five miles. You’ll come to a little place called Edgerly. It ain’t much to it, but you’ll see a Pentecost church sign on the left. There’s a dirt road there. You go down about a mile, you’ll see a buncha mailboxes on the corner. On past is some trailer houses. You go on past to the back. That’s where Sherylynne lives. Way back there. One a them little houses. A little black house.”

“Black?”

“With stars on it.”

“Stars?”

She handed him the map. “You foller these directions, you won’t have no trouble.”

He put the paper in his shirt pocket. “Thanks again for the food. That was really good.”

“I’m glad you liked it. A body’s gotta eat.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

 
Mrs. Riley trailed him to the front door. “There ain’t no catfish. I’d a fixed you some.”

“No, those greens were the best.”

“Willard brings ’em over.”
 

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Willard, he’s my brother.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“From Starks. You know about Starks?”

“Yes, I heard.”

“I don’t know why he’d want to live there.”

She followed him out to the car, fingers pinching at her apron. “This is a nice car for a boy with no job and no money.”

“Yes, ma’am. It’s rented.”

“Well, when you find a job maybe you can get one of your own.”

“Thank you. It was nice seeing you again.”

“You come back if you can’t find work. I almost always got something to eat.”

“Mrs. Riley, you’re a good woman.”

Chapter 45

Temporary Insanity

H
ARLEY DROVE THROUGH
Edgerly and, as Mrs. Riley said, it wasn’t much to it. He came to the Pentecostal church sign and turned off onto the dirt road where he spotted the bank of mailboxes and then the trailers and a half-dozen or so little houses scattered through a thin stand of pines. He eased the rental car past laundry lines, propane tanks, and burned-out garbage barrels; an abandoned washing machine and a doorless refrigerator stood knee-deep in weeds.

He spotted her house—black with stars, just like Mrs. Riley said—tarpaper with shiny tin disks nailed all over to keep the nail heads from pulling through. He stopped in front and shut the engine off. The silence was broken only by the sound of his heart thumping in his ears.

Buddy’s Corvette sat to one side, tires flat. A tarp had sunk into the cockpit under the weight of larva-infested rainwater and pine needles. Nearby, a dog nosed through a mound of half-burned rubbish.
 

The house was small, no more than two or three rooms. The front door wide open.
 

He got out and eased up to the one-step entrance. There was no screen on the door, and Sherylynne was visible, sitting at a table, silhouetted against the light of an open doorway on the backside. Though he couldn’t see her features clearly, he recognized her posture—one foot up in her chair, chin on her knee. She looked up at him in her doorway without surprise, without anything at all.
 

She was barefoot, in jeans and a plaid shirt. Her hair swept up on one side, pinned with a plastic barrette. The flesh around her eyes had thickened, an alcohol-swollen shine squeezing her eyes down to narrow gleams. Her freckles had darkened. A cigarette trailed smoke from between her fingers.

“Sherylynne,” he heard himself mumble, his bitterness tempered by her pitiful condition.

The thin line of her mouth curled down into fleshy cheeks. “Well. Look what the cat drug up.”
 

He took another step inside.
 

She picked up a glass from the table, swirled the ice cubes and took a sip, watching him over the rim.

He glanced about the room, empty but for the table and chairs, and a set of red metal-flake drums.
 

“Where is she? Leah?”
 

Sherylynne took a drag off the cigarette and blew the smoke in his direction.
 

“I almost killed her father,” he said.

Sherylynne laughed artificially and stubbed the cigarette out in the ashtray. “Looks like you’re the one about got killed.”

“How long had you been sleeping with him?”

She tapped another cigarette out and pitched the pack on the table. “Wendell, he promised me things.” She pushed up from the chair, made her way to the refrigerator and poured a little beer from an open bottle into the glass. She took the beer and the glass back to the table, sat on the chair and hiked her foot up onto the seat again.
 

“Where’s Leah?” he asked again.

Sherylynne glanced past him as a pickup drove up and stopped in the front yard. Harley looked on as a thin, hunch-shouldered man wearing a Little Richard T-shirt got out and sauntered toward the house, looking sideways at Harley’s rental car.

Sherylynne threw her head back and laughed. “Now, here comes a
real
man.”

The man came up the step and eased his way inside, cautious. His gaze flickered at Harley, then settled on his own feet, hands in his pockets.