Daisy Fay and the Miracle Man: A Novel (21 page)

I may read at a ninth-grade level, but I sure can be dumb sometimes. I was sorry I had been so mean to Rayette. I just pray she keeps her mouth shut and they don’t trace those bullets to her gun. There is such a thing as knowing too much.

I went into Nita’s Beauty Box this morning and asked Rayette Walker if she would go with me to the mother-and-daughter dinner next week. She started to cry right there in her stall and with her customer’s head half rolled up. Her customer sure was mad because her hair was drying all funny. I’ve got to go and get me a dress to wear to the dinner, but I’m not shopping at Elwood’s Variety Store, you can be sure of that. When I grow up, I hope I don’t bawl at the slightest little thing. It’s embarrassing. I’ve seen enough crying the past two days to last me for a long time.

When I got home from school this afternoon, Daddy was as happy as he could be. Rayette must have called him up. He asked whatever made me do such a nice thing, but I couldn’t tell him because I promised Jimmy Snow. I will do anything to make Daddy and Jimmy happy after what they did for me. I can never repay them for as long as I live. If Daddy wants to date Rayette, he can. When I get rich, I am going to buy him another outboard motor and the boat, too. The three of them are the only real live heroes I know in person.

I hope my momma doesn’t find out I am taking a beauty operator to the mother-and-daughter dinner in her place.

The night didn’t start out very well. The first thing that happened was when we went to pick up Rayette, her toy chihuahua, Trixie, bit Daddy on the ankle and made him bleed. It goes to prove Mrs. Dot’s theory: Toy chihuahuas are dangerous. One time her mother was on her way to a DAR meeting and her toy chihuahua, who she loved better than life, was in the car with her. As she came to a stoplight, that dumb dog ran under her brake looking for its ball, and Mrs. Dot’s mother had to make a life-and-death decision, whether to slam on the brakes to keep from hitting two people that were crossing the street or to mash her dog’s head under the brake. She chose the dog over those two people and knocked them eight feet up in the air, and one of them was in a wheelchair. It cost her mother a fortune in hospital bills. It’s a good thing one of those people was already crippled or it would have cost her more.

Rayette had on a royal blue wool dress and shoes to match. When we got to the dinner, Kay Bob Benson came right over to us and said, “That’s not your mother, that’s Rayette Walker who works at Nita’s Beauty Box.”

I said, “I know what my own mother looks like, don’t I? Rayette Walker is just pinch-hitting for my mother, who is a very successful hostess in Virginia.”

Mrs. Underwood was about the only one who was nice to Rayette. Everybody else ignored us the whole evening. The dinner was Chicken a la King with English peas. I hate the dreaded English pea and wouldn’t eat one if my life depended on it, ever since I found out that Ruby Bates’s last meal had been peas and carrots. Mrs. Dot gave a speech entitled “Mother, The Best Friend a Girl Can Ever Have,” and some old woman named Geneva Corsset sang a song called “Mother.” What a stupid song. I know how to spell “mother.” Then we had to sing the Mississippi state song and Billy Bundy said a prayer, and the dinner was over.

Daddy was late picking us up. He had been to some beer joint and was half loaded. I hate to be the last one to leave. Rayette said she had a wonderful time, and I guess she did because she ate everything on her plate, plus three of the red Jell-Os.

Kay Bob Benson and her mother wore mother-and-daughter dresses and acted like they had just come in style. Fashion hits slow down here.

It sure was funny to see Billy Bundy praying in front of all those mothers and daughters.

I’m making all my own valentines this year. I am going to make Flicka Hicks one with a horse on it. He still spends all his time with Kay Bob Benson, and if that isn’t bad enough, a man came to school and made us look at an eye chart and I couldn’t see anything but one big
E
. So I’m going to have to get glasses. A chipped tooth and glasses. I might as well give up!

Today Rayette and I went to the glasses store and got me a pair. I wanted some brown ones like Grace Kelly’s, but Rayette picked out a pair of blue plastic wing tips I’m not too crazy about. She says they go with my eyes and the shape of my face. I put them on and I can see for miles and read every sign they have in Magnolia Springs. I think I have the same kind of vision that Superman has. I went by and showed Peachy Wigham and Ula Sour my glasses. They thought they were great.

Poor Jimmy Snow is in the Magnolia Springs Clinic because he crashed his plane on some telephone wires and broke his arm and his shoulder in two places. Daddy said he was going to be up there in traction for a long time. I am going to visit him and
tell him he better have his eyes checked because he might need glasses like I did and that may be why he is crashing his plane so much.

I got a letter from Momma and she wants to know if Daddy is taking good care of me and all that stuff. She wrote she would feel better if I came to Virginia to live with her, but I can’t leave Daddy because he needs me.

Even though Rayette and Daddy are fussing over something, she is still friendly to me.

I told Daddy he’d better make up with Rayette real soon. I didn’t say why I thought so, but if she gets mad enough at him, she’s liable to blow the whistle. It’s real brave of Daddy to even have a fight with her. If it was me, I sure wouldn’t. I’m wearing these ugly blue glasses, aren’t I?

Kay Bob Benson said I look like a hoot owl.

Mrs. Underwood loved the valentine I made her. It has a Shell Beach, Mississippi, gold decal on it. I made twenty-six valentines. I had two left over, so I sent one to the little girl in South America that the Jr. Debutantes adopted and one to Van Johnson. I only got three, from Michael Romeo, Vernon Mooseburger and Patsy Ruth Coggins. Daddy forgot it was Valentine’s Day and Momma’s hasn’t come yet.

This morning about six-thirty, Mrs. Hammer, who owns Hammer’s Christian Motel, looked out her window and saw a woman naked as a jaybird skipping up and down the beach picking up seashells. She grabbed a blanket and ran out to cover her up and that woman was Mrs. Dot! She had reversed herself back in time and thought she was a little girl again. Mrs. Hammer called Mr. Dot and he said that last night she had gone crazy and stabbed him eighteen times with a penknife and run out the front door naked. He wasn’t killed because the knife was so little. They called an ambulance and took her to the crazy ward in Meridian. I told Daddy for us to go get her and bring her here to live with us, but Mr. Dot had already signed the papers and there was nothing we could do. To tell you the truth, everyone here is disappointed that she didn’t use a bigger knife on him.

I hate all those rotten shrimpers’ daughters and Kay Bob Benson so bad I could throw up. Michael’s mother got us all together and said we should buy Mrs. Dot a gift for her to take when she went to see her. Those girls said they didn’t want to spend any money because she was crazy and wouldn’t appreciate the present. Can you believe that? Kay Bob Benson claimed she knew Mrs. Dot was crazy all along. I asked Michael’s mother if I could go too. I can ride with her, but I can’t go in because
they don’t let children visit. I had gotten Mrs. Dot a box of Whitman’s candy. Maybe after she eats the candy, she can use the box for a purse. I had seen Olive de Havilland do that in a movie called
The Snake Pit
, where she was in a crazy ward.

When we got there, I was surprised to see that the building looked just like a real hospital anybody would be in. Mrs. Romeo went in, and about an hour later she came back and was very upset. She was shaking so bad she had to have five cigarettes before she could drive home. She was still holding the box of Whitman’s candy. They wouldn’t let Mrs. Dot have anything at all. Mrs. Romeo said they walked her down this long hall that had doors with bars on them. People out of their minds were screaming their heads off. Mrs. Dot was in a room with five or six other women. She was sitting on her bed in an old gray dress and her hair had not been combed for days. She kept trying to fix her hair the whole time and thought Mrs. Romeo was her sister or something and started to serve her tea with lemon and cream and sugar. She handed Mrs. Romeo an invisible cup and didn’t even know where she was. She thought she was at her home in Memphis and those other people in the room were visiting her. When she left, Mrs. Dot was trying to give all those crazy people a cup of tea and one of them took it. The nurse said Mrs. Dot was in a bad way, and she didn’t think she would ever get out of there, but not to worry because she was perfectly happy and was not suffering. There was nothing we could do but eat the candy ourselves.

Sunday, Daddy and I were up at the Bon Ton Café and Daddy kept watching Billy Bundy count his money. According to Billy, to make real money in the religious game, you need a Glory Getter. A Glory Getter is someone who can make people think they can get them to glory. The best Glory Getters are little children and platinum-blond-haired women. Billy had a platinum-blond-haired woman once whose specialty was handling snakes. She could get more money in that collection box than you could shake a stick at, but she got mad at him because one of her snakes bit her, so she ran off with a mechanic. There was some little preacher boy over in Louisiana he wished he could get his hands on because he was a gold mine. But the boy’s momma and daddy had him all tied up and weren’t letting anybody have any part of him. I’ll bet that little boy has curly hair.

Billy averages about $150 a week, and that sounds like a lot to Daddy and me, but Billy says it is only peanuts. At one time he made over $500 a week and he can hardly live on $150. He has to pay alimony to two women and child support for five children. He doesn’t dare not to pay it because he is still in trouble with the law for selling autographed pictures of the Last Supper.

Daddy asked Billy Bundy if it was hard to preach and if you had to go to Bible school before they would let you get up in front of people and take up a collection. Billy said no, all you got to do is tell people what they want to hear, and then scare them into giving you their money. Then he went back to counting and stacking his money.

Daddy is worried because the insurance money is almost gone, and we have another payment to make on the land where the malt shop used to be. Maybe that is why he thought up the miracle.

Today when I got home, Daddy and Billy Bundy were both there. Daddy pulled me in the house, shut the door and closed all the windows. I didn’t know what was going on, but I knew it wasn’t bad because they sure looked happy to see me. They sat me down at the kitchen table and asked me if there was anything I wanted before they started to talk to me. I ordered a Coca-Cola and a liver cheese sandwich with mustard and mayonnaise that I got in a hurry. Billy Bundy looked at me and said, “Yes indeed, you are a very lucky little girl because your smart daddy has thought up a miracle that will make us all rich and maybe make you famous.”

The miracle is that I am going to pretend to drown and then come back from the dead as Billy Bundy’s new Glory Getter. Daddy is convinced he can make a machine that can shine a cross on the sky. The deal is Billy is getting sixty percent of the profits and I am thrown in for nothing. When I heard this, I told Daddy I didn’t think he made such a good bargain. Daddy said for me not to worry, we will still make a bundle. Billy Bundy is a very sharp businessman.

Billy wants to keep me dead for three days, but Daddy said no, I was only going to be dead for twenty-four hours. He didn’t want my momma to hear about it or to worry her on any account. Daddy stuck to his guns on that point, and we all shook hands. Daddy is to get to work on that machine and I am to keep my mouth shut.

Yesterday Daddy went to Meridian and bought himself an old movie projector. He has a little piece of plywood with a cross cut in it over the hole in front of the projector where the light comes out. Last night about three o’clock in the morning, when everyone was asleep, he woke me up and we went out on the beach with an extension cord. Sure enough, when he turned it on, there was this cross shining in the sky as big as you please. Boy, is he smart. Now all he has to do is figure out a way to get the machine to work on batteries because on the day of the miracle I am going to have it in a boat and after everybody sees the cross, I am going to sink the boat with the machine in it so nobody can find any evidence. The timing of the miracle is very important because a lot of people should see the cross. Daddy and Billy Bundy think we should do it on a cloudy day. There are a lot of technical things involved in a miracle you wouldn’t even dream about.

Plans for the miracle are moving right along. We need a rowboat. Billy Bundy pointed out that Mr. Wentzel, who lives up on the Bon Secour River and has a lot of rowboats for rent, might not miss one. Last night Billy borrowed a truck from somewhere, and about one o’clock this morning Billy and Daddy and I drove up there. We parked the truck by the river about two miles up from Mr. Wentzel’s boat dock, and Billy told Daddy to stay with the truck while he and I went and got the boat. The trip up was an easy one for Billy because he had a bottle of whiskey he was swigging on the whole way, but I was just eaten alive by those Bon Secour mosquitoes. To me, it would have been easier if Daddy had let us off closer to the boat dock, but they are not listening to me. I don’t even have a percentage of the miracle.

When we finally got down to where the boats were, we picked
us out a rowboat and were busy trying to untie it when all of a sudden we looked up and Mr. Caldwell, the crippled girl’s daddy, was standing right there and shining a big heavy-duty flashlight on us. He said, “Hey, what’s going on?”