Buried Memories (12 page)

One night he became curious about a large glass jar of coins Jimmy Don kept on his dresser. Robby didn’t want the money, but he wondered why Jimmy Don saved them. He poured the jar’s contents onto the dresser, then scattered the coins about. He studied them for a few minutes, but saw nothing that made them look special, so he left them strewn on the dresser and went to the kitchen to make his nightly peanut butter sandwich.

Having tired of pumping gas, he quit his job, so with nothing to do day or night, he found it lonely in the empty trailer. It would be great to see his family when they returned the next afternoon.

“Robby Branson, get your butt in here right this minute!”

From his bedroom, Robby heard the unmistakable voice of his incensed mother greeting him from the other end of the trailer.

He clambered off his bed where he had been enjoying an afternoon nap, and went to talk with her.

“What the hell have you been doing while we were gone?” Betty asked.

“What do you mean?” Robby asked.

“For an opener, you drove my truck through the mud. It’s just caked all over. But that’s not the worst of it. For God’s sake come look at Bobby’s new motorcycle.” She grabbed him by his shirtsleeve and dragged him outside. “Do you have any idea what it’s gonna cost to get that fixed?” she said, pointing angrily.

“I had an accident,” Robby stammered.

Just then Jimmy Don came from the back slip where he kept his boat. “What’s with the loose wires, Robby? Did you take out my boat?”

Robby didn’t want to answer. His world was falling down all around him.

“Let me tell you one thing, young man,” Betty said. “You’re gonna pay every last damn cent for all the damage you’ve caused. You go down to that filling station right now and tell them you want more hours.”

Robby hung his head. “I quit my job. I got tired of having grease under my nails and smelling like gasoline.”

Two weeks slipped by before Betty or Jimmy Don would speak to Robby. He tried to be absent if they were home and spent most of his time riding on his motorcycle or dirt bike.

His younger brother, Bobby, enjoyed all of Robby’s misery, for if the bigger and stronger Robby ever wanted something, he bullied Bobby until he finally gave in.

By the first week in August 1983, Robby tired of his ostracized life and decided to make peace with his family. One morning he woke up, threw back his sheet, then sat up and rubbed his tired eyes from a late night of watching television. Then he glanced out his bedroom window and saw Jimmy Don in the front yard with lumber and bricks.

After breakfast, he sheepishly strolled outside. “Need some help?” he asked, hoping his stepfather wouldn’t hold a grudge.

Jimmy Don looked up, eyed him suspiciously for a moment, then said, “Yeah. You can finish unloading those bricks for me. They’re over in the truck.”

Relieved, Robby went to Jimmy Don’s new red-and-white Silverado truck, lowered its tailgate, then reached for the bricks. He stacked four red bricks at a time and carried them back to Jimmy Don.

“What’s all this for?” Robby asked.

“Your mother wants a wishing well. I had these bricks left over after I rebuilt my house in Glen Oaks. I used them for the fireplace over there. Chimney’s made out of them too.”

Jimmy Don showed Robby a cleared patch of ground and told him to measure an area four feet square. Then he instructed him to hammer wooden pegs at each corner. Jimmy Don followed by tying string from peg to peg as a guideline for the brick foundation. He handed Robby a shovel.

“Here, get some calluses on your hands.”

Both men dug until they dripped with sweat and had gone down a good foot in the soil.

Jimmy Don eyed their project and said, “This won’t work. Any water we put here, like a real well is supposed to have, will drain out to the lake unless we line it with concrete.”

“Won’t the water just stagnate and breed mosquitoes?” Robby asked.

Jimmy Don scratched his head. “Darn if it wouldn’t. Good idea. Let’s put the dirt back and just make it a planter.”

Jimmy Don opened a bag of concrete mortar mix, added water, and stirred vigorously. After the mortar became the right consistency, he began laying brick while Robby served as his apprentice helper.

The project turned out to be bigger than Robby could ever have dreamed. After three days, they had erected four brick side walls, each two feet high. In the meantime, Jimmy Don cut two-foot-long strips of wood to place on top of the brick, so in all, the brick and wood sides would be four feet tall.

All the while Robby complained that his mother couldn’t have chosen a hotter time for the project. It took another day to hammer the wood in place. Then they attached two vertical two-by-fours reaching up another four feet above the base. The upward stretching arms were connected by a strip of wood for hanging plants.

After Jimmy Don painted the wood brown, both men stood back to admire the completed well.

“I can’t believe we did this just because Mom wanted it,” Robby groaned.

“You haven’t figured it out by now?” Jimmy Don asked with a smile. “Whatever Betty wants, Betty gets.”

TEN

On Friday night, Robby Branson stood in the trailer’s small kitchen, leaning against a metal cabinet his mother had bought at a garage sale. He stared at her in fright and disbelief, thinking he hadn’t heard her correctly. He asked again, “You’re what?”

“I’m going to kill Jimmy Don,” Betty repeated.

Robby dropped to a chair by the pale green Formica table and put his hands in his lap. At nineteen, he reasoned he was too old to let anyone see his hands shake. “Why, Mom?”

“For one thing, he’s got a bunch of insurance.”

“So?”

“I’ve spent my entire life worrying about how I’m gonna pay the bills. I’m tired of it. Who knows when he’ll start slapping me around like the others?”

Robby remembered hearing of fights his mother had with other husbands, but for God’s sake, she was talking about Jimmy Don. He had never hit her once and was always so nice to her. They had never come close to having a serious argument.

Robby said hesitantly, “All’s I ever heard was something about an insurance policy from J.C. Penney.”

“I’m not talking about Penney’s. He’s bound to have some with the fire department.”

The kitchen whirled around Robby. Could Betty be in another of her moods? She looked sober. She wasn’t screaming profanities or acting strange. Her brow knitted in concern like it always did when she said something serious. But she appeared calm. Her voice sounded very matter-of-fact.

Robby didn’t know what to do. He had only moved back home last year, and he didn’t want her to send him away again. He recalled his misery when he was eight years old and had been sent to live with his father.

His memory kept drifting to Jimmy Don. Even when he messed up the boat and motorcycle when the rest of the family went to Virginia, Jimmy Don had treated him decently. For a brief moment, he wondered if he should warn Jimmy Don, then discarded the thought, fearing what his mother would do to him.

Robby’s mind flashed back to that morning. The family had said good-bye to Jimmy Don in the trailer, then spent the entire day shopping in Dallas. On the way back, they stopped to see Robby’s sister, Shirley Thompson. He had heard his mother arguing with her, but didn’t ask her about it.

Now around nine
P.M.
, if Jimmy Don had an early shift tomorrow, he’d probably be in bed, asleep. His room wasn’t that far down the hall from where Betty now discussed killing him.

“But, Mom, what if you get caught?”

“Don’t worry. Got it all figured out. All I’ll need is your help.”

Betty didn’t ask Robby to cooperate, she seemed to expect it. He remained silent, but continued worrying over his mother’s plans.

She’s never killed anyone before. With no experience, she could get caught.
He couldn’t think about his mother being sent to a penitentiary.

“I want you to leave now and go find Bobby,” Betty said. “But come back here in a couple hours. And come alone. Get going now. I don’t want you around when I shoot him.”

Robby headed toward the door over a kitchen floor that seemed to tilt under his feet. He climbed onto his dirt bike and pedaled down the road alongside the woods. Less than a mile farther, he spotted his younger brother.

“Hey, wait up,” he called to Bobby.

His brother slowed his bike and waited. They often hung out together and his sudden appearance tonight wouldn’t appear peculiar to Bobby. They rode together, with Robby remaining uncharacteristically quiet. His mind kept churning with the freshness of his mother’s words. Her emphasis on his returning alone made him not want to mention her intentions to his brother.

After two hours of tracing the roads that snaked through their subdivision, he told his brother he wanted to go home to watch television.

“What’s on?” Bobby asked. “Maybe it’s something I want to see.”

“I don’t know. I may just go to bed.”

“It’s only eleven. Why so early?”

Robby had to think quickly since he had to return home alone. “I’m not feeling too great. I had a greasy cheeseburger. I gotta go. See ya.” He turned around and pedaled away, praying that Bobby wouldn’t follow. He finally took a deep breath when he heard Bobby’s wheels crunching over gravel as he disappeared into the darkness behind him.

Now Robby wondered what his mother wanted him to do. She had said nothing specific, but whatever it was, he wanted no part of it. Conflict and fear built inside him, for he didn’t want to disappoint her.

On the way home, his hands shook on the handle bars as thoughts tumbled in his mind.
Why is Mama doing this?

Betty quietly slipped into her bedroom. Not wanting to turn on the light, she kept on the one in the hall. Through the open door, a sliver of light filtered into the room, and shot a strange wedge of brightness across Jimmy Don’s body. She stood over the bed, watching him sleep.

He looked exceptionally peaceful and content. But this man’s death could solve every problem she ever had. With his insurance, in addition to his lifelong pension, she’d never have a financial worry. And she’d never again have to put up with any man slapping her or bitching at her.

Calmly, she opened the drawer to fetch her ivory-handled pistol. It felt cold in her hand. Hard and cold. She would do it quickly. No need for him to suffer, and more important, she wanted to do it fast before he woke up. Quietly, she put one knee on the bed and held her breath as the mattress sagged. She exhaled and let the full weight of her body rest on the mattress. The night had been too hot for even a sheet and Jimmy Don slept in the nude. She concentrated on her purpose instead of his body. If she touched his bare body, it would surely deter her from her plan.

Betty raised the pistol and aimed at him. At that incredible moment, he rolled over to face her. His eyes remained closed and he appeared to be asleep. Just an unconscious nocturnal turn, but it had unnerved her, making her hand waver. When he had moved, Betty instinctively hid the gun behind her back. Now she brought the weapon out again. She didn’t dare give him a chance to awaken. Taking quick aim, she shot his chest, hoping to hit his heart. Then hurriedly recocking the gun, she fired at his head.

Blood spurted everywhere. Experience taught her that head wounds did that, but because the room had been dark when she shot Wayne, she hadn’t seen it gush as it did now. The graphic scene before her made her queasy.

Turning on the bedroom light revealed a scene worse than when she killed Wayne because she had also shot Jimmy Don’s chest. Now blood poured from Jimmy Don’s head, nose, and mouth, in addition to his chest. Again, blood covered the bed and walls. She needed to contain the flow before it soaked her mattress. Ignoring her red-splattered nightgown, she reached for the closest item she could find and grabbed her blue-and-white bedspread. With great effort, she rolled Jimmy Don on it, then tucked the spread securely around his body, hoping most of the blood would seep into that.

From the closet she pulled a blue sleeping bag, and a flash of déjà vu hit her when she unzipped it and spotted the same red lining. Opening the bag on the bed, she discovered that Jimmy Don’s heavy muscular body weighed every bit as much as Wayne’s and proved just as difficult to move. She tried to keep the bedspread around him while she rolled him onto the bag. She zipped it and continued to roll him toward the edge of the bed, and waited for the familiar thud.

She knew she needed to hurry and clean the room before the blood set into everything. A flood of memories rushed to her. She thought of Shirley helping dispose of Wayne two years ago. Reaching for the phone, she punched in her daughter’s number. She told Shirley earlier that she planned to kill Jimmy Don, and Shirley became furious, saying she understood Betty’s killing someone she claimed abused her, but not Jimmy Don.

“You promised you’d never kill anyone again,” Shirley had screamed.

Maybe Betty wanted Shirley’s forgiveness, but in any regard, she had to talk with her. Soon Shirley’s voice came on the line.

“Well, I did it,” Betty said.

Silence greeted her for a moment, then Shirley said, “You sound upset.”

“I am. I need to see you. Please come down.”

“Mama, I said I wouldn’t help. You know I told you explicitly that I didn’t want anything to do with this.”

“Please come,” Betty pleaded.

“It’s late,” Shirley said. “What will my husband think?”

“Tell him that Jimmy Don and I’ve been fighting and he took off for Dallas.”

Robby quietly opened the trailer’s front door and peered inside. He heard the washer and dryer running, and assumed that blood must have spilled onto linens and things from the shooting. He saw his mother busily folding towels as she stood in front of the dryer.

She glanced at him. “You alone?”

Robby nodded.

“Come with me,” she said, and led him down the hall toward her bedroom.