Flying Shoes (13 page)

Like a dog pissing in all the corners, he snapped a few more shots and said, “They
love
me over there. I can’t say why. I hardly remember a thing.”

Mary Byrd and Mann exchanged looks. Through the fecund grapevine they had already heard about Wiggs’s trip. It was true: the Japanese did love him. And to repay their love, Wiggs had stood on stage, addressing an audience of hundreds of the most sophisticated photography enthusiasts in the world, and crooned “Love Me Tender.”
Incredibly, he had received a standing ovation.

“Inscrutable, the Japanese, don’t you know,” Wiggs said, smiling devilishly and tilting his elegant head slightly as if he were actually pondering this conundrum.

“And Mops?” Mary Byrd asked. “Did she go with you? How is she?” Mops was his glamorous, longtime Austrian lady friend, also a famed photographer, who as an intrepid ingénue had run with Castro and Hemingway back in the day. Charles and Mary Byrd—everybody—loved her. Wiggs did not deserve her.

“She did not,” Wiggs said. “She had a show of her own in London. She is fabulous, as always.”

Mary Byrd was just passing the little Queen’s Bird plate with the crackers, cheese, and giant caper things when the phone sounded.

“Here, take this,” she said to Mann, handing him the plate, but the phone didn’t ring again. The non-ring seemed to her to echo more loudly than the actual sound.

“Huh,” she said. “Weird.” She handed Mann a stack of cocktail napkins.

She was reminded that she needed to call her mother, and Evagreen, but instead she said, “Y’all. We need to get going if we’re going to eat. Let me call the sitter to come on. She’s just down the street. I’ll be right back. No fighting, no biting.”

Mann had risen to transfer the martinis to go-cups and gave Mary Byrd his slittiest, hairiest evil eyeball. “Hurry up,” he mouthed.

Wiggs watched Mary Byrd cross the room and said, “M’Byrd, are you wearing underwear? I haven’t seen a north-south configuration in
weeks.
” He raised his eyebrows, although his eyes were practically closed.

Mary Byrd turned and gave him the finger and a sarcastic smile and said, “You’re a bad man, Wiggs. I’m telling your
good
friend
, my dear husband Charles, that you are—
besmirching
my honor.” Why did he always have to provoke everybody? It was like his hobby. It was pretty funny, but she was too tired to appreciate it.

“Darlin’,” he said. “You don’t think for a minute that Charles will think your . . .
honor
is worth more than those prints he wants, do you?” He grinned evilly.

“Wiggs,” said Mary Byrd wearily. “Don’t make me come over there and beat your ass.” She’d knew she should be brownnosing him but she just didn’t want to.

Wiggs’s steely, alien-blue eyes opened wide. “Oh, that would be
too
lovely,” he said. She and Mann rolled eyes at each other. Wiggs took a long draw on his cigarette and exhaled in Mann’s direction. “I love these people,” he said.

Five

Upstairs, Mary Byrd didn’t call Ashleigh, who she knew was on her way; instead, she called Evagreen, wanting to be sure she was at home. Jeez—still busy. The children were watching TV in what had been their little playroom. Hearing her approach, the Quarter Pounder, who knew he was in violation of the house rule about dogs on furniture, tried to skitter back downstairs, passing her on the steps with guilt in his eyes. Puppy Sal was afraid to go upstairs at all in winter because the cats lurked there in the warmer air.

Eliza and William were stretched out and propped up on oversize pillows, side by side on an old comforter. Notebooks and textbooks were arranged around them to simulate working on science fair proposals, but neither one budged to assume a studying pose. Two spotless dinner plates and forks were pushed back into the corner, she knew, by the Pounder, who’d licked them clean. William, a mouth-breather, stared gape-jawed at the tube, absently stroking Irene, who was curled in a ball next to him.

“
William
,” Mary Byrd said, and he immediately snapped his mouth closed. Poor fella. “What are y’all watching?”

“Nothing,” they both said, which meant they were watching
Real World
, or
E.R.
reruns, neither of which they were supposed to watch.

“What’s wrong with the History Channel?” she asked them.

Eliza looked at her scornfully. “You mean the tank and aircraft channel?”

William looked up at her and said, with irritation, “That’s what I wanted to watch but Eliza wouldn’t let me.” Eliza cranked her forearm against his chest, rising to change the channel to Nick at Nite.

“Ow!” he yelled, making Irene startle and run off. “Look what you did to Irene!”

“Okay, quit,” said Mary Byrd. She wanted nothing more than to lie down and watch
Real World
with them even though she hated it and would die if her kids turned out like those people. She just wanted to crawl up with her babies in their little nest and breathe their not-very-fresh smells. Of course, she knew if she attempted to do so they would both be gone in seconds.

“Ashleigh will be over in a minute so get your showers and get ready for bed,” she said. “Soon.” She added, “And I will look at your science fair things when I get home, so leave them out, okay?”

No one responded and Mary Byrd said pointedly, “
Okay
,
Mom.
” She made the overhead light strobe to get their attention.

“Not
Ash-hole
again,” said William.

“
William
. I hope you don’t call her that.”

“He did once,” said Eliza. “She thought it was funny.”

“We’re going out to the Palace for dinner.”

“Where’s Daddy?” asked Eliza.

“He’s in Memphis with a gallery guy. He’s supposed to meet us.”

Eliza refocused on the TV. “Okay,” she said, “luvyabye.”

On her hands and knees, Mary Byrd kissed one, then the other. She picked up the plates, forks, and ubiquitous large bowl from which William topped off his pasta with his nightly fodder of Honey Nut Cheerios. You have to choose your battles, she thought. Today was not a day for carping at children, your dear, darling, alive children, about dogs on furniture and TV and homework. “I’ll check on you when we get home. Love you both.”

“Okay,” said William, transfixed by the tube.

“Luvyabye,” Eliza said again, dismissively.

She wondered about Evagreen. She could just leave her money in the mailbox, she supposed, if she wasn’t at home.

At the bottom of the stairs stood Mann, a bottle of wine tucked under his arm.

“Mann, what are you doing? Get back in there and keep an eye on him!”

“I’m starving. I want to eat and go home. This is promising to be a very long night.” Mann was so small, with the metabolism of a hummingbird, and he could get very surly if he did not eat every two hours. “Can you please get your act in gear and let’s go?”

From the kitchen, a girl’s voice called out, “Hey-ay!”

“Here’s Ashleigh,” Mary Byrd said, coming quickly down the steps.

The teenager came through the hall and started up the stairs. In an accusatory voice she said, “Who’s that guy in the kitchen? He’s like,
way
hammered.” She didn’t stop for an answer.

Wiggs was indeed hammered. He sat on a kitchen stool and was leaning back against the wall with his eyes closed and his arms folded over his chest.

Mary Byrd put a hand on his arm, saying, “Wiggs, let’s go! We’re starving. And Charles might already be waiting at the Palace by now.”

“Yes, darlin’,” Wiggs said, barely opening his eyes. “And we can all go back to my room later and see the casino prints. I have scotch and Stoli.” Wiggs, usually snobby about booze, preferred the medium-priced Stoli because, he said, it was “distilled with the passion of the Russian soul.”

“Great,” she said, hoping that would not happen. “We’re dying to see them. Charles is really excited. And he wants to talk to you about a new show.” Mary Byrd knew she wouldn’t be going anywhere later but the blanket show. Charles could go back to Wiggs’s room, or they could do their business in the morning. Some time had to be taken to think about going to Virginia, to make some arrangements, but she couldn’t do it now. I’ll think about that tomorrow, she loved to tell herself. She was amazed that her mother hadn’t called. Maybe she didn’t want to think about it any more than Mary Byrd did.

Finally in the car, headed down the old Fudgetown Road, they all felt a little better, out of the house and refreshed by the night air. The night was cold but clear. It was hard to believe that a winter storm was coming. An orange moon was rising but still hung up in the trees, not giving off much light. Mary Byrd had the urge to fuck with Wiggs and punched off the headlights. Even with the moon they could see the Milky Way, which was a luminous cloud in the deep country darkness. To her surprise, it was Mann who shouted, “M’Byrd! Stop! You’re scaring me!” He laughed, though. “Fool!”

From the backseat the reclining Wiggs, who actually seemed to have sobered up a bit, snorted, “My, but we’re easily frightened, aren’t we, petite monsieur Valentine?”

Mann ignored him. “Turn those lights on, you dumbass. We’ll get stopped or end up in the ditch.” She switched the headlights back on at the thought of being stopped and subjected to the most dreaded weapon in the county, the Breathalyzer. It wouldn’t matter that she wasn’t drunk, but if she registered at all she’d be dead meat. Charles would kill her.

“I’m sorry, y’all, but I’ve got to go by Evagreen’s and give her her money. It’s on the way and will just take a second.”

“Fine, but I hope we’re not eating at that charred-mystery-meat emporium in the odious shack that everyone thinks is so wonderful,” Wiggs said loudly. As if he were going to eat anything.

“Yep,” said Mary Byrd. “That’s exactly where we’re going. You’ll enjoy it, Ed. The steaks
are
really good.”

“
Mis-
steak, you must mean,” he said. “As long as we can bring the bottle.”

The Pink Palace was eight miles away and a place people liked to go for a change of pace. Or just a meat fix. The Palace was just a board-and-batten shack from the outside, but inside it was all painted raw-flesh pink, and the low ceiling was covered in white glitter. Dozens of bass trophies lined one wall. The place was known for its perfectly grilled steaks, the most popular cut being a twenty-ounce T-bone that was about the size of a flattened baby. The Pink Palace motto, beloved by frat boys who regularly stole the sign and put it in front of the Tri Delta sorority house, was
the pink center you crave
. The Tri Delts, pretty, cheerful girls (they answered their house phone with, “Delta, Delta, Delta, can I help ya, help ya, help ya?”) who were known for liking to do it (“If you’ve tried everything else, Tri Delta”), had had a surveillance camera installed, but all that ever came of it was footage of guys in various costumes—gorilla heads and E.T. and Darth Vader masks—planting the sign again and again. Occasionally the sign went to the Bowheads’ house, the Delta Gammas, who were prissy and wore giant ribbons stuck in their hair, but they were no fun and would call 9-1-1.

Mary Byrd went on. “It’s sparkly and colorful. You might want to shoot something. Or somebody.”

Wiggs sighed. “Maybe. If I were Diane Arbus or Shelby Adams.”

Mann said, “Well, I, for one, can use some red meat. I’ve been feeling puny. And I am sick unto death of chicken.”

“I imagine so. Bok bok bagok, here chickee, chickee,” said Wiggs. “I . . . had a fahmm . . . in Affreekahh . . .”

“Do you have to be such an asshole?” said Mann.

“Horrors. An attack. Let me get my cuirass on,” Wiggs said. “Oh, no, I’m sorry, that’s what
you
wear.”

“Oh, fuck yourself, Ed,” said Mann, almost amiably. To Mary Byrd, he said, “What’s a cuirass?”

“I have no idea.”

“If you and your little friends could buy them at Barneys, they’d be all the rage in New York,” Wiggs said.

“You sure seem to know a lot about me and my little friends, Ed.”

“One must know the enemy, don’t you know.”

“Oh, I know all right,” said Mann. “
Don’t
I know.”

Mary Byrd turned off onto the King Road, headed to the old Beat Five community called McCrady Hill. Many of the oldest black families had been living there since slaves were freed. There were Pegueses, Dixons, Carotherses, Isoms, and Barrs out there—black representatives (and in some cases, descendants) of all the first white settlers in the county.

McCrady Hill was a neat, close-knit neighborhood with its own church and playground. They had even had their road paved at their own expense because the ignorant county supervisors, all white, had found dozens of excuses not to do it. McCrady Hill children were bused into the city schools to comply with all the convoluted integration laws even though the county schools were much closer. The small, modest homes were mostly the same, although some urban renewal federal architect had attempted to make them distinctive by using different, and maybe less expensive, brick than those in white neighborhoods: some houses were yellow brick, some black and yellow, some red and black. Here and there some of the original shotgun houses remained, although they were altered and added onto and patched with siding or shingles or tar paper, and had newish tin roofs. All the houses had iron grillwork storm doors. West St. Peter Methodist Baptist church stood at the end of the dead-end road, a plain, white-frame building with a small steeple and a new brick fellowship hall tacked to one side.