The Pecan Man (10 page)

“
He didn
’
t
want me to call, so I didn
’
t.
”

B
lanche
was breathless and she sat heavily on the kitchen chair, still clutching and
occasionally patting her broad chest.

“
Where
is he now?
”

“
He left
you a note. He
knew you'd
be
upset, but he needed time to think.
”

I handed her the note
and
watched
her
read it.
When she
finished,
she laid the scrap of paper on the table, covered it with
both hands, and sat s
taring out the window as she
was inclined to do when she was thinking.

“
Somethin
’
ain
’
t
right, Miz Ora. I know my boy and somethin
’
ain
’
t
right.
”

“
Well,
of course something isn
’
t right, Blanche. The boy just
found out his baby sister was raped and his mama lied to him about it. How
would
you
feel?
”
I hated snapping at her
like that, but her intuition frightened me.

“
This
thing jus
’
gets worse and worse, don
’
t
it?
My mama always said lyin
’
was
bad
and she was right. I tried to teach that to all my babies, too. Once you tell a
lie, you have to keep tellin
’
and tellin
’
and tellin
’
to make it stand.
”

I couldn
’
t
respond to that. I just looked down at my hands.
We sat in awkward
silence, each lost in unspoken thought and apprehension. She never had time to
voice the questions I was prepared to answer with lies of my own. A knock at
the front door saw to that.
           

I crossed the living room and
opened the door, expecting to turn away an ill-timed sales pitch. The sight of
two police officers made my heart gallop in my chest. In all my planning, I'd
not expected this so soon.

“
Mrs.
Beckworth
?
”
I recognized
the speaker immediately.
Barry
Tinsley
and
his family attended our church.

“Barry?" I said, my voice
already shaking. “What can I do for you?"

“I need to speak with Mrs.
Lowery, Ma'am. Is she here today?"

I stepped aside and motioned
toward Blanche, who was already on her feet.

“Mrs. Lowery," he said as
he stepped inside the door and removed his hat. “
Your
son is Marcus Lowery, Ma
’
am?
”

Blanche
nodded,
her eyes darting from Barry to me and back.

“
I
’
m
sorry, Mrs. Lowery. Marcus was killed in a car accident this
morning
on I-75.
”

Blanche hit the floor
before he finished his sentence. She didn
’
t utter
a sound, just fainted dead away.

Ten

We buried Marcus beside his father, in the Mt. Zion A.M.E.
Church cemetery. It was the first time I ever stepped foot in Blanche's church
and I stuck out like a sore thumb. The service was not like any I ever
attended, but I have no intention of describing it here. Of all the details I
must give to satisfy my conscience before I die, there are some that will be
left to the memories of those who were there. I owe Blanche this.

We may not ever know the exact
details of Marcus's death. What we do know is this: on Friday morning, the day
after Thanksgiving, Marcus was headed north on Interstate 75 when a trucker locked
up the brakes on his tractor trailer rig to avoid a disabled vehicle in his
lane. There were no skid marks on the highway to indicate that Marcus reacted
at all.  The hood of the car went beneath the trailer and the windshield took
the full impact. Marcus was pronounced dead at the scene.

Blanche blamed herself, of
course, but I knew I was the one who sent the boy to his death. I’ve lived with
it every day since then. Blanche was right. Once a lie is told, you have to
keep on telling it. You not only have to repeat it time and time again, you
have to embellish it, layer upon layer until you don‘t even remember the truth.
Every day I didn’t tell Blanche what I knew was another day I lied to her.
Guilt cloaked me like a wool blanket in summer and no amount of sweet tea or
gentle ceiling fans ever soothed me again.

I begged Blanche to take some
time off after the funeral, but she refused saying she could not bear to sit
around her house and look at things that reminded her of Marcus. I could not
tell her how well I understood. It was all I could do not to insist that she
retire so I would not have the daily reminder of what I had done. But, even I
recognized the cowardice in that and forced myself to go on.

Two days after Blanche buried
her only son, Eldred Mims was arrested for the murder of Skipper Kornegay.
Dovey Kincaid hightailed it over to tell me herself before I'd had a chance to
read it in the morning paper.

"Miz Beckworth? Miz
Beckworth!" She shouted as she banged her fist against the screen door.

I barely got the inside door
unlocked and opened before she charged into my home without waiting for an
invitation.

"Have you seen this?"
she demanded, waving the Mayville Free Press under my nose.

"Why, Dovey Kincaid! I've
been looking all over for that paper. Where'd you find it?"

"It was right there on
your front step..." she began and stopped as my sarcasm dawned on her. “That's
real funny, Ora Lee. You won't be laughing when you see what's on the front
page. I tried to warn you about that awful old man, but did you listen to me?
No, you did not!"

"What are you talking
about, Dovey?"

"I told you he was
dangerous, didn't I? He's the one killed Ralph Kornegay's son. It says so right
here. They arrested him last night."

I snatched the paper from her
and flipped it open.
Homeless Man Arrested for Murder of Police Chief's Son
read
the bold headline.

"Oh, dear Lord." My
hands shook so hard the paper crackled aloud.

"I'll say 'Dear
Lord!'" Dovey huffed. "We could have all been killed. But you
wouldn't hear a word of it. Harmless old man, you called him."

"Dovey, it's time for you
to leave."

"Well, harmless, my foot!
He's a cold-blooded killer, that's what he is! And you had him skulkin' around
here big as you please. 'Won't hurt a fly,' you said."

"Get out of my house,
Dovey," I warned again.

"He cut that boy to shreds
is what he did! Pure shreds!" she said, wagging her finger in my face for
emphasis. "Well, I wanna know what you have to say for yourself now, Miss
Know-it-All."

To this day, I don't know what
came over me. Maybe it was the schoolgirl tone of her name-calling that just
pushed me over the edge. I rolled up that newspaper and popped Dovey Kincaid
right in the head.

"Oh!" she screamed,
throwing her hands up to cover her face.

"I
said
get out of
my
house
and I
mean
get out of my
house!"
I
punctuated my words with swats aimed at her perfectly coiffed hair.

"Oh! Oh! Oh!" she
wailed as she bobbed and weaved to escape my blows. She fled through the front
door with me on her heels. I stopped at the edge of the porch and watched her
run blindly across the street, cupping her head in her arms and shrieking the
whole way.

I stood there for a few moments
puffing tiny clouds of fog into the cold December air as I tried to catch my
breath. I turned to go back in and Blanche materialized at the screen door.

"Could you call me a
cab?"

"Already did. Be here in
ten minutes."

"You hear all that?"

"Ain't deaf yet, I
reckon."

"Good Lord, what have I
done?"

"Look like you done run
that one off for good, I'd say."

I couldn't bring myself to tell
her I wasn't talking about Dovey Kincaid.

I went straight to the police
station and demanded to see Eddie. It was all I could do not to turn myself in
immediately when I saw what they did to that pitiful old man. According to Ralph
Kornegay, Eddie resisted arrest. That was the official account of the facial
lacerations and bruises and the broken bones in his right arm. By the time I
got to him, his bones were set and his wounds bound, but his attorney had not
made it by to talk to him yet. That didn’t surprise me a bit.

Eddie lay quietly on the lower
bunk of the jail cell, his swollen face turned toward the wall. The sound of
the key turning in the lock echoed loudly down the row of cells, but it did
nothing to move him.

“Eddie?” I spoke softly first
and when he didn’t answer, a little louder. “Eddie? I’ve brought you some
food.”

He mumbled something then, but
did not look up. The guard behind me spoke for him.

“He can’t eat anything, Miz
Beckworth. Can’t hardly open his mouth.”

“He has to eat, Mr. - what was
your name?” I asked and answered my own question by reading his nametag. “Mr.
Smallwood. Oh! You Binky Smallwood’s boy?”

“Yes, Ma’am.”

That’s the thing about southern
boys; they can be mean as snakes and twice as deadly, but they’re raised
polite. This one didn't have a mean bone in his body, if memory served me
correctly, but his father was a piece of work.

Binky Smallwood was a pompous
little barrel of a man with six sons and an exhausted, but forgiving wife. He
attended The Mayville Baptist Church every Sunday, but it was his Monday
through Saturday habits that caused his unsuccessful bid for deaconship there.
This was the youngest of the Smallwood crew, as Binky was fond of calling them.
Binky was captain of his ship and he made sure everyone knew it.

Our pastor was a
forward-thinking man who believed in Southern Baptist doctrine, but had a
decidedly Christ-like point of view. He once preached an inspired sermon on
marriage and all that it entailed. I remember him looking straight at Binky
Smallwood when he said, “If you have to tell everyone you’re the head of your
household, then make no mistake about it, you are
not
.” I have no doubt
the message went straight over the fool's head.

“I taught you in Sunday School,
didn’t I?”

“Yes, Ma’am.”

“I was rather fond of you as I
recall,” I said.

“Yes, Ma’am."

I said a quick prayer that this
apple had rolled a good way from the tree.

“Do me a favor then, would
you?” I asked.

“Yes, Ma’am?”

“Could you find Mr. Mims some
tomato soup?”

“Yes, Ma’am, I could try,” he
responded, but did not move.

“Could you do that now, maybe?”
I prodded.

“Now?” He hesitated and looked
around, obviously weighing the risks of leaving me alone with Mr. Mims.

“Doesn’t look to me like Mr.
Mims has any fight left in him, Mr. Smallwood.”

“I’m Chip, Ma’am.”

“Chip. That’s right. I had
forgotten.”

“I shouldn’t leave you alone
with the prisoner, Ma’am.”

“Would you like to search me?”

I raised my arms. Chip backed
away horrified.

“No, Ma’am, that won’t be necessary.”

“Run along then, Chip. I’ll be
fine and we’ll both be here when you get back.”

He hesitated, struggling I'm
sure with protocol and reason. Then, taking the handcuffs from his belt, he
leaned down and reached for Eddie's left arm.

 “I'm sorry, Mr. Mims," he
said softly as he snapped one link around Eddie's wrist and the other to the
rail of the metal bed.

“Do you really think that's
necessary?"

“I'll take it off when I get
back," he said and let himself out of the cell without looking back.

I turned back to Eddie as soon
as I heard the outer door latch shut.

“Eddie, look at me,” I
commanded.

He moved his head slowly,
almost imperceptibly, and cut his eyes toward me as he did. I moved closer to
him and knelt beside his bed.