Pistol Fanny's Hank & Delilah (39 page)

He heard more gunshots and ducked in between the wings of the phone booth. There, written in graffiti on the clear part, was Pepsi’s name. Directly underneath was her phone number and it said:
Call Pepsi if you need some good Shuger
. The Lord does bless us with small miracles sometimes, Dylan thought. He got the operator on the line and had her connect him to Pepsi.

“Oh, Pepsi Shuger, is that you?” Dylan looked around to make sure the robbers were halting their fire. All was clear. “It’s me, Dylan Cotton. It’s so damn good to hear your voice on the line.”

“What is it, thank sweet Jesus for Pepsi week? All you boys are coming too late in life for me. I know they say you never too old, but Lord, I done feel it. Everything all right over there, Cotton?”

“Well, I don’t rightly know, ma’am. Hold on a sec.” Dylan was suddenly hearing gunfire, and Sgt. Pepper was pulling him by the sleeve. “CEASE FIRE! CEASE FIRE! There’s a lady on the line. Pepsi? You still there? Oh, thank God. We have a lot going on over here. We got robbed and those bad boys started firing on us. Sgt. Pepper and I are holding them back until more help arrives. All we have is regular civilians around here, so they can’t be counted on for help. But listen, besides that, I need you to get in touch with Delilah.”

Pepsi sighed. “Lord have mercy, ya’ll done lost your minds. Delilah ain’t there?”

“We drank some rotten, but very smooth, root beer. No, she ain’t here. We haven’t seen her since we arrived, and Hank…well, Hank is having a blow out in one of those old houses around here. It looks pretty beat down, like someone shot it up real good. It seems to be leaning—” Dylan paused when he saw plates go flying out the window. “And there are flying saucers coming out the windows now.”

“Maybe it’s time that old place goes down. It’s nothing but blood and memories. Blood and memories.”

“Sure, that’d be great. But I’d rather Hank be outside of it before it collapses. He’s my best friend and he’s a good man, Pepsi. He doesn’t deserve to be buried in there with the rest of the blood and memories. She’s the only one who can stop him.”

“Are ya’ll there alone, baby?”

“No, ma’am, those cackling sisters of hers are here with us. They’re getting drunk and enjoying the picture show. They’re kinda mean, aren’t they?”

“I suppose. They’ve just been through a lot. All of them. They really don’t mean any harm.”

“What happened to them, Pepsi? CEASE FIRE!” Damn, Dylan thought, a man just couldn’t catch a break around these parts. He wished he had some more root beer. Uh oh, there went more flying saucers. Were the aliens invading?

“Maybe you should ask them, Cotton. They’d tell you.”

“They would?”

“Yes, indeed. Nobody even cares to ask. If they did, maybe they’d talk more. All them baby girls are are sheep in wolves clothing. That’s all. Lord, that’s all.”

“I see. They’re just a little scary.” Pause. “Pepsi.”

“Yeah, baby.”

“I think you really need to call Delilah, now. That wind is picking up and he’s in there causing more damage.”

“Don’t worry, she’s already on her way.”

The line went dead. Dylan and his imaginary partner, Sgt. Pepper, headed back over to the girls, who were still watching the guys run around in the rain. Dylan took a seat next to Jo, who was sitting on an old wooden fruit crate. He noticed when she laughed that she almost seemed pained, like a statue cracking at first emotion.

“Jo, I hope you don’t mind me askin’, but what happened to you girls?”

Jo stopped smiling. “I thought you’d never ask.” She whistled and her sisters gathered around. “Dylan here wants to know what happened to us.”

“All right,” they all answered.

“Is this something everybody knows about?” Dylan said.

Jo shook her head. “We only tell people who care enough to ask. Not many people do.”

The boys crowded around, taking a seat in the sloshy mud. The girls started to tell their stories, only calling the man “mean ole devil”. Dylan and those boys had never hated someone so much. They had never hurt so much than for these women.

Just as Hazel was talking about the burns she endured, Delilah pulled up. At first Dylan thought the car was a black hawk flying down the street, until he realized the tires had been rolling and were sinking in mud.

When she stepped out, Dylan narrowed his eyes at her. He had only met her a few times, and something about her was different. She wore a blue-jean dress that gathered at the waist and flared out until it rested right above her knees. A black sweater covered her arms. There was a difference. It was right in front of him, like a word on the tip of your tongue. But Dylan couldn’t place what.

Delilah stopped for just a moment, staring at the condition of the house, when another set of saucers hurled out of the window. Then she ran inside, disappearing behind those titling, haunted walls.

Dylan had to admit that his friend had found himself a beautiful woman. Her face was soft, her hair thick and long. She had dynamite legs and a nice behind. Her ankles and legs were thin, like she had stolen them from a table, but they were perfectly shaped. He was a breast man himself. It’s what first attracted him to Perkie.

God, she was the love of his life. And he missed her and the baby more than anything, but he was glad she was away. Especially now, he was in a gun battle.

Most importantly, though, he was glad his friend had found him someone who loved him. She was a good person, one of those women who were not the ordinary kind of beautiful, and she had a good sense of humor. She rolled along with him, both of them seeming to be in the same windstorm together.

Delilah wasn’t a nagger, and that’s exactly what Hank needed. Dylan needed a nagger. He never got things done unless you pestered him about it, and Perkie always did. She was always right, though, and he knew Delilah would always be for Hank.

The girls continued their stories, warning the boys that they would remember, but like a message through a dream, maybe not remember
who
it was that
told them.

“And then ya’ll will forget, just like the rest of the world,” Melody whispered, tenderly running a finger around her scarred throat.

H
ank couldn’t control himself anymore. He had come here to take her back, and she was nowhere to be found. Just like a damn ghost. He had seen someone walking toward him. Then he passed out cold, only to wake up to a bunch of screaming men running in the rain, and a bunch of woman laughing saucily at them. He knew that woman walking toward him. He knew that voice. But she was so different.

It was infuriating and confusing, and quite honestly, frightening. It was meeting the love of your life and knowing she was half ghost. Knowing damn well you met her before, but something was different. How do you even explain that? Hank wanted to know. Hank wanted explanations. He was through with the games, with the need-to-know basis, the poison, the rotten root beer. The anger had reached his surface, and he was directing all that frustration at the four corners of the devil’s leaking skeleton around him.

His head still twitched, his body trembling right along with it. He threw plates out of the window like he was exercising the demons out of a person’s soul. He was tearing apart the heart, the kitchen, with his hands. His nails dug into the wood, pulling it apart, shouting as he did.

The walls seemed to sway with the wind, and he knew at any moment it was going to collapse in on itself, but he didn’t give a damn. If he could help it, the whole place was going to burn. He was going to snatch the legs right out from underneath it.

Out of everything he hated the most—the separation. He hated the separation of the perfect china and the chipped dog bowls. He hated the separation between the perfect dresses and the raggedy old things. He hated the bloodstains on the floor and on that dress.

Hank had never felt the fires of hate so much.

Just as he was ripping the dresses off the hangers, putting his fists through the back of the closets, he felt a cool hand touch his shoulder. He hadn’t even heard her come in. He knew it was her though; he could smell the exotic coconut and fresh rain. He knew her proximity to him. Everything around him was heightened in light of her entrance. He felt alive, and she’d done nothing but walk into the same room. Her hand sent a thrill of excitement through his lungs. He could breathe again. He could feel the blood pumping in his veins and his heart drumming like it never had a beat before her.

She said nothing as she stood behind him, her hand on his shoulder. She slowly leaned forward, wrapping her arms around him, resting her head on his back.

“Heaven Almighty, Delilah, I missed you so much.” Hank’s voice was hoarse, low.

“I missed you, Hank.” She kissed his back. He could feel the water from her body seeping through his shirt. “We have to go now, baby. We have to get you out of this house.”

“Are you really here?”

“Yes, I’m here. Come on now, let’s go.”

Hank wrapped his hands around her arms, feeling her skin next to his. “I’m not leaving here. I need for you to sit down and talk to me for a while.”

She let go of him, walked over to the mattress that was nothing but thin fabric and rusty springs, and sat down so quietly that he heard nothing. He stood with his back to her, almost afraid to turn around in fear she would disappear, or not be there at all. His mind continued to jump.

“Delilah.”

“Yes, Hank.”

“I need to know what happened here. What happened to you, darlin’? Why are there bloodstains on the floor? Why are your clothes blood-stained? And those plates, those damn plates. I hate those damn plates, Delilah.”

“Well, Hank. I was beat real bad here, all the time. I was afraid here, day and night, not a moment of rest. I was afraid of my own shadow, and I hardly ever spoke, because I was afraid of my own voice. I was afraid of the thoughts in my head, that they could be wrong. One time, I picked these pretty little roses, you know the kind I have over in Magnolia Springs, and, well, he didn’t like them, I suppose. He beat me until I couldn’t see. He broke my fingers because he said I would think twice before picking anything with thorns again. Thorns that could hurt him…”

Delilah went on. She went on and never missed a beat. She told him of all the horrendous things he’d done to her. She asked him not to say anything about what had happened. She didn’t want an apology. She didn’t need it. After all, he wasn’t the one who owed it to her. After she was done, she was never going to speak of it again. And he couldn’t either.

So Hank just allowed her to speak, until she took a deep breath and the room filled up with the sounds of the hard, sheeting rain. It was running like a river, flowing through the cracks and holes. Everything was swelling.

Hank turned to her, her face dreamily staring at his. He knelt down in front of her, buried his face in her waist. She was soaking wet, the droplets skidding off her skin like water on an oiled hourglass. There was so much movement, everything was twitching and clacking and jumping and beating. He was trembling for her. She ran her hands through his hair. And he took a deep, steadying breath, looking up at her.

“I need you to look me in the eye and tell me you love him. I need you to tell me you’re marrying him and he’s going to make you happy.”

“Oh, darlin’, I don’t think you want me to do that. I’m a very good liar, Hank.”

“Lie to me, darlin’. Tell me all those things you want me to believe.”

“I do love him, and I’m going to marry him, no matter what you say. I don’t love you and I never have. I slept with him. It wasn’t Melody in my office. I never told Pepsi to lie to you. I’d pay any price to have you away from me. I sleep like a baby every night in this bed that we made. My body doesn’t ache for your touch. I’m not on fire when I dream about it.”

Hank had to take a breather. She was damn good at the lying. When he found his air again, he said, “I’ll be damned if I crawl, Delilah. Come home with me. I’m a good man, with good intentions, as long as you don’t cheat. And I mean that, with every breath in me. I want you to come home with me and marry me. I want you to make an honest man out of me. I’ll walk the line for you.”

“Hank,” Delilah started.

“Let me finish now, darlin’. We are perfect for each other, not meant for anyone else. I’ll take care of you, all of you, for the rest of my life. This I promise in this God-forsaken hell of a grave. We can make a little love on Saturday nights; go to church on Sunday mornings. I know this real nice preacher man that would love that. For you, I’m as steady as a rock, even in a fast-moving river. My love is your ticket away from here, from this loneliness.

“But I won’t tolerate you lying just to push me away. I won’t tolerate the rotten root beer either. I don’t particularly like it when you climb the rafters and disappear like the wind. I’m not the mouse, Delilah. You can’t do those things to me, darlin’. I love you, and if this is going to work, we have to be a team.
Hank & Delilah
&
Freud
the gentleman dog.”

Hank slipped his hands underneath her dress, watching as a bead of water rolled down her leg from her thigh. He had been away from her for too long. There was never a wrong time with her, a wasted moment. He didn’t care if they were here or there; there was no separation between him and her. He was the chipped plate. She was the perfect china. He was the ratty clothes. She was the purty dress. It was
them
, imperfect as they were, and he couldn’t stop touching her. He couldn’t stop watching her as she stared back with those bedroom eyes.