Flying Shoes (20 page)

“Nope, but I talked to him. He says he’s coming up here for that birthday party tomorrow.” She made sure to add, “I haven’t seen Ernest in weeks, though, maybe even a month. Guess he lowered his profile.”

“Yeah, I might go to that party,” Teever said, thinking that if Ernest was going to be there, he’d be holding all kinda shit, no doubt.

“I need to ask you something. Would you be interested in driving me to Virginia? Pay will be good.”

“
Virginia?
Virginia? No way. No way. That is
too
far away,” Teever said, lifting his beer and shaking his head. “Why you got to go there in such a big hurry?”

“Some family business came up all of a sudden that I have to take care of,” she said. “You sure?”

“Yeah, I’m sure,” said Teever, thinking of Ernest’s certain stash in his near future. “’Sides, already told Mr. Johnny I’d bust up some ground for him. He won’t call on me no more if I don’t show up, hire some Mexicans instead. Sorry, Mudbird. That is
too
far
off.”

“That’s okay,” she said, not too disappointed. “I’ll figure out something. I might just drive myself.” With Teever out, it was down to driving solo.

“Charles won’t go? Can’t fly?”

“Nah. He’s so busy. And he needs to be here to see about the kids and stuff. And I’m not crazy about flying.” She lit a Camel Light and offered one to Teever. “But here’s the other thing. What about Angie Bon? Do you know what happened? With Rod?”

“Sure do,” he said, shaking his head again. “Sure do. That
somethin’
.” He made a face at the smokes. “Why can’t you smoke real cigarettes? Lights cut with arsenic, what I heard.”

He expected her to beg a little. “Well, come on, Teever, tell me, please? I went to see Evagreen and L. Q. but it had just happened, and it was too awful and crazy over there. Ken said he’d call me but he hasn’t.”

“Well, the usual. The usual. Rod running ’round, getting up with the wrong people, usin’, sellin’, steppin’ out.” He signaled Chip, who was setting up for the evening. Chip brought another Bud. “Might a beat on her a little, what I heard. You know—ramshacklin’ her.”

“A
little
? What does
ramshackling
mean
?
”

“You know.” Teever looked away. “Cracked up, slappin’ her around.”

“Jesus.” Mary Byrd could not picture either of those kids in such a life. “How badly did he beat her?”

“Well, never put her in the hospital, I guess.”

“God, Teever. Like that’s
not so bad,
or something?”

“Didn’t say that, Mudbird,” he said. “You want me to tell you what I heard, or not?”

“But I mean what—how did she kill him? I don’t even know that.”

“Shot him in the gut.”

“Where would Angie get a gun?” She knew it was a dumb question. This was America.

“You kiddin’? I’m the only guy I
know
who
don’t
have one, and I did, ’til I pawned it, back at Christmas, buy some Christmas presents.”

“Damn,” sighed Mary Byrd. She had rolled her cocktail napkin into a ball and she tossed it into the trash can behind the bar. Christmas presents, my ass, she thought.

“She shoots, she scores,” said Chip. He reached up and changed the channel to the evening news, which was all about the approaching storm front.

She swallowed a gulp of wine and put down a twenty, then added a five.

“Okay, I’ve got to get home to my tribe.” Pointing a finger at Teever, she said, “You behave and take care of yourself. Are you going to be all right in this weather?” She had no idea where he was staying but didn’t want to embarrass him by asking.

“I’m always all right, Mudbird. Hey, can I have them smokes?” Teever asked, pulling Mary Byrd’s unfinished wine in front of him. “You just a bar puffer anyways.”

Mary Byrd tossed the pack to him and clattered quickly down the stairs. She wondered what it would take for her to be mad enough at Charles to shoot him.

Seven

It had been surprisingly easy for Mary Byrd to arrange the improbable trip with Foote Slay, one of the truckers for Valentine Chickens. It was easier than booking a flight, and possibly less risky than a long-distance drive by herself or with Teever. Mann set it up, saying, “You’ll have a good time. He’ll seem completely insane, but he’s a pussycat, I promise. Just don’t bring up politics.”

Mary Byrd knew a little about Foote from Mann; they’d stopped by his lovely, decrepit family home once to drop off some papers. Mann was intrigued by him because he was that complicated Mississippi hybrid of redneck and blue blood—as blue as blood got in Mississippi. Mann said Foote might use the n-word, but more as a challenge than a slur: he
dared
you to call him any more of a racist than you were, you white liberal poser, deep in your most secret, elitist hearts of hearts. Firmly rooted, or rooting, in the nineteenth century, Foote believed in white supremacy, the right to bear arms, and the sexual superiority of black women, but Mann swore that he could be a gentleman, and was shy and sweet and honorable in his own dishonorable way. Kind of a Rhett Butler in an XXXL Lions of Tsavo T-shirt. He lived alone with a big black cat named Mr. T, a creepy pit bull–bassett hound mix named Frank Booth, and a parrot named Virgil Caine, who, if Foote said to him, “Virge, what were all the people singing?” would answer, “
Naaaa, na-na-na-na-na-na-na, na-na na-na, na-na-na-na-naaa.
” The inside of Foote’s house, Mary Byrd had noticed, had been unchanged since who knew when. Heat seemed to be gas space heaters; creaky, spider-webbed ceiling fans the AC. Foote existed there in comfortable, regal squalor—king of his own castle. Empty Ben and Jerry’s tubs (their ice cream was the only thing Yankees had ever gotten right, according to Foote) and beer cans crowded his living room, peacefully coexisting with a computer, stacks of history books, and his .44 Magnum he called “the Tabletopper” that was always at the ready in case any of
them
came around unbidden.

Of course Mary Byrd was drawn to it—its wantonness and neglect and one-time glory. She’d perversely had the urge to clean his house and fix it up and get his teeth fixed and cook healthy meals for him and do his laundry. He was handsome in spite of some pudge and poundage, smart, and way funny. His thing was to defy you to like him, Mann said, and Foote saw no reason to lie about anything; he was what he was and you could take it or leave it. But could she actually drive a thousand, maybe two thousand miles in a truck with him? Better that than a trip on Flaming Cartwheel Airlines. Charles wasn’t happy about it, but tough for him, and Mann interceded for her. Foote could barrel up there in no time, and weather would not deter a Peterbilt. She could sleep or read. This trip didn’t have to be totally a drag. It could be an adventure and a distraction from what awaited her at the end of the line.

Sometimes the most off-the-wall plans were the ones that actually ended up working best, or working at all. Mary Byrd felt all right about it: had she planned to go any other way there would have been a snag for sure. She left at the crack, in the dark, before the children got up, without telling them her mode of transportation. What a chickenshit. Eliza would be appalled; William
might
think it was cool because it was a truck. She’d give them all that: the three of them could have a big laugh and a little contempt-fest at her expense. Fine with her. She didn’t have to worry about anyone else knowing about the trip because Charles and the children would be too embarrassed to mention it to anyone.

So, here she was in the gloomy dawn, eight feet above the road barreling along at eighty miles per hour, eastbound on I-40, enjoying the company of Crofoote Slay VI. It felt a little ridiculous; was she too old to be doing this? During the night, a cold rain had begun falling, but they’d beaten the brutal, frigid front that was expected by taking the northern route; the worst of the storm would be south of them. Foote, so far, was companionable and entertaining. He had been shy at first, but his morning pills—he kept a line of Black Beauties stuck on a piece of two-sided tape along the dashboard, or the control panel or whatever it was—made him an authoritative and talkative captain of his ship. The cab was cozy, if smoky, and curious. She felt like she was in a nuclear sub or at NASA Mission Control, there were so many gauges and knobs and cord things hanging around. Behind the seats was the cool little cabin, with a neatly made up bed, pillows, curtains, and a TV. Some photos were tacked on the wall.

“Do they even still make these?” asked Mary Byrd, reverently touching the Beauties on the dash.

“Have you ever heard of Mexico?” he cracked, and then, with not much encouragement from Mary Byrd, launched into his family’s history. “
My hay-ruh-tay-uhdge
,” he laughed.

The Slay family was from up in Spanish Trap, where they had had cotton holdings—land purchased from departing Choctaws for a few gold coins and easily accessible to the Mississippi River. They had gradually squandered their money on various postbellum enterprises, most notably a riverboat brothel, saloon, and gambling emporium that, because it was on the water, was exempt from all laws but God’s, or the devil’s. The entire crew, maquerelle, and most of the prostitutes who worked the boat and the riverside brothels had been wiped out in one summer by the great 1878 yellow fever epidemic, but not before spreading their pestilence up and down the river from St. Genevieve to Natchez. From that point on, the Slays had lived from decade to decade, selling off wedges and slices of their valuable land like hoop cheese to get by. On the last parcel was Foote’s house, the family seat, a glorified double dogtrot with modest square columns and a broad front porch—the classic, graceful house type that was a hallmark of Mississippi hill country. Which, Foote added, had been mostly frontier when the house had been built. Mary Byrd recalled that the night she and Mann had visited, the cotton fields came almost up to the walls of the house. Woods and underbrush had barely obscured a Texaco Tiger Mart next door, and the county road ran less than fifty feet from the front door. They could just make out the casinos off in Tunica, a glittering mirage in the soybean and cotton desert.

Foote went on. Jerry Lee Lewis, the Killer, lived not far away and had tried to buy the Slay house but Foote wouldn’t sell for any price, not this final little scrap of his family’s past. He’d gone to some parties at Lewis’s place. Once, on an epic binge, Foote said he’d tried to tell Jerry Lee that he knew the rocker was Hernando de Soto reincarnated because he’d been born in Ferriday, Louisiana, and that’s also where the infamously cruel cocksucker conquistador had died and supposedly been chunked in the river. Foote thought it was more than coincidence that the Killer had settled near Spanish Trap—Foote suspected that he’d come back for his buried gold. Foote looked over at Mary Byrd, eyes bugged out, and laughed, saying, “And then I told him, ‘Your wife got hold of your gold, and that’s why you offed her,’ and I got the heave-ho, which it took three of his goons to do.” Wow, thought Mary Byrd. This will be quite a ride.

Foote talked for about two hundred miles nonstop. He talked about some things Mary Byrd liked hearing about, like the old plantings around his house that he kept going—ancient roses, boxwood, and Cape jasmine—and about the cross-country car race he had won once back in the seventies by driving a van that he’d converted, making the whole interior a giant gas tank so that he never had to stop. He also told her things that fascinated but horrified her, like the dogfights he frequented, which took place in an abandoned academy. Foote had once taken Frank Booth down there to fight, but his bassetness had done him in; he was vicious, but he was too long and low to be quick and a nasty-ass bulldog had torn part of his long left ear off. He’d seen a bobcat and a Plott hound fight there once, and the bobcat, even though chained, had easily won because the deeply gut-bit Plott had kept tripping over its own intestines until it finally gave out. He told Mary Byrd that he suspected that the Chinese, or whatever the fuck they were, who owned the Ha Ha Fresh Café in Tunica, bought and served dog obtained from the dogfights in some of their weird-ass dishes. But was fresh, stir-fried dog meat any worse than ground pig sphincters shipped six weeks earlier as sausage from Iowa, Foote wanted to know. He described his dream of signing up for a refrigerator truck haul up to northern Canada where he’d pick up a polar bear, bring it back to fight at the academy, and make a shit-ton of money. And, he went on, speaking of animal abuse, it seemed like every time he watched any porn lately it involved animals, and it made him ill that dogs and horses were getting more than he was. Mary Byrd couldn’t help but laugh at most of it, hoping none of it was true and it was all to pass the time. God—dogfights. How awful. But how different was that
,
actually, from treeing a coon, or spotlighting or running deer to ground? Or baiting the poor bears that had existed over in the Delta in the old days?

“Feel this,” he said at one point, reaching over and grabbing Mary Byrd’s hand, scaring her to death. But she let him, with the tiniest twinge of interest, she had to admit, place her hand on his stomach, where she felt a hard, knotty protrusion.

“Hernia,” he laughed.

“Gross,” said Mary Byrd. “But thanks for sharing.”

“Why, you’re welcome. Just tell me when I’ve gone too far.” He smiled half-sheepishly.