Then Hang All the Liars (11 page)

She dug in her satchel and handed her a photograph.

Sam kept looking at Julia's face rather than the picture.

“You're showing me this guy's dick?”

Julia laughed her huge laugh, a surprise from a woman who was five-two. But then nothing about Julia was usual.

“Look. Go on.”

The man had red hair and an auburn handlebar mustache. He was built like a heavyweight boxer. Everywhere.

“Truck driver. Met him in a juke joint out on the interstate. Boy, is he something.” Julia showed the tip of her pink tongue. “How's
your
love life?”

Sam shook her head.

“Girl, you better get busy. Thing rusts, it's gonna fall off.”

Sam laughed, ordered another iced tea and another beer for Julia. “So what's the big news in Savannah?”

“Lord have mercy, I'll tell you what. We've been up to our
asses
in that goddamned hijacked bus.”

Sam turned down the corners of her mouth.

“You know the story?”

“No. But since it seems to be my fate to hear it, I can't think of anyone's mouth I'd rather hear it from.”

“Then we'll give her a shot. Grab that iced tea and settle in, honey.”

Eight

“It all started a few months ago,” Julia began. “No, that's not true, it actually goes back several generations to when the Tallbuttons started intermarrying, but we don't have time for that this afternoon.”

“Right.”

“Anyway, the Tallbuttons all live up in Bulloch County between Statesboro and Hopeulikit, about fifty miles inland from here.”

“Hopeulikit?”

“Don't get hung up in the details or we'll never get anywhere. Now I don't mean to imply that we're dealing with serious incest here. These aren't the Jukes and the Kallikaks, I mean. They do use
some
discretion, hold it down to second cousins as near as I can tell, but they are all named Tallbutton, and they do all have blue eyes and red hair, though on some of them the eyes do get a bit pinkish-looking, kind of like a rabbit's, and I think they have had more than their share of albinos, but for the most part they're just plain folks, a little closer than your run of the mill, but just folks.
Crazy,
of course, but then, who isn't?”

Sam shrugged and polished off the last bite of fries, thinking about ordering some more.

“Anyway, like I said, they all live up there near Hopeulikit on a bunch of big places. Doing okay even with what the govmint has done to destroy the American fanner, they've been holding their own, keeping about chest-high out of the water, 'cause they figured out they ought to make do with what God gave 'em, and they've been growing pine trees 'stead of cutting 'em all down to clear for farmland.

“Anyway, you got these two cousins, Frank and Medford Tallbutton, on adjoining places, and actually they been getting along pretty good for years, considering that the Tallbuttons are bad to fight. But their wives don't like each other. Frank's wife, Florence, had been known to say in public, as much as the Tallbuttons ever were
in
public, that she'd just as soon that Medford's Mavis would up and die, and it would save the Good Lord the trouble of killing her.”

“I don't see the difference.”

“Don't bother your pretty little head with it.” Julia grinned. “Order me up another beer, okay, honey?

“Anyhow, I don't know what the original problem was between the two women. Some say it was over Florence's having given Mavis a permanent and burning off most of her hair. But anyway, they never went to the same family dos unless they had to, and then they didn't speak. Just walk around one another like the other was a broke-down armchair. But the real trouble started when Florence and Frank's boy, Floyd, fell in love with Medford and Mavis's Maureen.”

“They all have the same initials in these families?”

“Seems like a good idea, don't you think? What with their all being named Tallbutton, it can get pretty hard to tell them apart.”

“But they marry the same initials, too, it sounds like to me.”

“Well, that's right, Little Miss Smarty. And if you can figure that out, you can see this match was not one made in heaven. Floyd should have been marrying his second-cousin Frankie, and Maureen was a natural for Merlin, which was what their parents had been counting on.”

“How many initials do the Tallbuttons lay claim to?”

“As far as I know, they've got the Fs and the Ms and the Js and the Ts pretty well sewed up. But 'member what I said about the details.”

“Not another word. Least not to you. Monroe,” she said and snagged him as he passed, “another order of fries, please. No, make that onion rings.”

“Not a bad idea. You're going to need it to keep up your strength.”

“Should I reserve a hotel room in town?”

“Only if you're going to keep interrupting me. Now, where was I?”

“Floyd and Maureen.”

“Right. So anyway, both their mothers were just fit to be tied. Here they were, hating each other's guts, and on the verge of, because the Tallbuttons are nothing if not fertile, sharing grandchildren. It was bad enough that they had to share the same county and the same name. But the plans for the wedding were moving right along, though they say that Mavis was putting the brakes on wherever she could like giving the wrong date to the woman who makes wedding cakes and forgetting to reserve the church, when Maureen up and announced that she'd changed her mind.”

“Didn't want to marry?”

“Didn't want to marry Floyd. Seems as if she'd come with Floyd to Savannah to look at some veils and have their blood tests, and while they were at the health clinic doing that, she'd fallen in love with a doctor there. He looked in and saw Maureen, and they were both struck by a lightning bolt.”

“Quite a step up in the world for a Tallbutton, sounds like to me.”

“Well, except that he was an Indian. An India Indian, as Maureen said every time she introduced him just in case people mistook him for a Chippewa or a Cherokee. Mahatma Mehta, tall and dark with eyes like a milk cow, a welcome change for the Tallbutton genes, if you ask me. And obviously Maureen thought so. She's been heard to say she just couldn't get over how
different
he looked. But, of course, the rest of the Tallbuttons didn't feel that way. What they did was have a fit.”

“Especially Floyd, I imagine.”

“Well, of course. He was awfully put out. Here he was just days away from his wedding, and his bride up and jilts him for what some people might mistake for a black man.
That
I can tell you did not go down well with folks in Bulloch County, no matter which side of the Tallbutton feud they stood on.

“Of course, Florence said that Mavis had just put her Maureen up to the whole thing, that she'd never had any intention of marrying Floyd, that she'd just seduced him so she could jilt him.

“And that was tantamount to calling Maureen a whore, so that did get things rolling. But then Florence said that Maureen could marry whatever-colored person she chose to, but she hoped that she didn't think she was getting her dowry back. A bargain was a bargain, and it was no less a bargain just because she'd chosen to pull out.”

“What was the dowry?”

“Well, that was the thing, see, because Florence hadn't wanted them to marry in the first place, she'd kept upping the demands. First, she said that Medford and Mavis had to give the kids a mobile home. Well, that wasn't any problem. Medford came up with a double-wide before you could say squat. Not that he wanted them to marry, either, because Mavis was
against it, but once his baby daughter had made up her mind, he wasn't going to be embarrassed, nothing was too good for her. So then Florence said they needed a honeymoon, and quicker'n anything, Medford arranged for an all-expenses-paid week in Panama City. Well, Florence was fit to be tied, till she figured out what would really get Medford and Mavis's goat, so to speak, and that was one of Mavis's pigs.”

“Ah, the famous pig.”

“This wasn't just any pig. Mavis had been raising prize Chester Whites for years, and they were her pride and joy. Medford used to joke that once all the kids were out of the house, Mavis was going to move the pigs in.”

“And Maureen was the last kid?”

“Yep. Well, I don't know that she really would have done that, but she was crazy about her hogs. Used to nearly kill her when it was slaughtering time. And, of course, there were a couple of favorite old sows that she never did let go of—Louise and Miss Hazel.”

“We're going to get to a hijacked bus in here somewhere, aren't we?”

“Patience, patience.”

“I'm so sorry. Could I freshen up your beer?”

Julia nodded and Monroe delivered a cold one as if he'd been waiting.

“So anyway, Florence said that Maureen had to bring Miss Hazel with her to the marriage. She was such a prize producer, throwing a dozen at a time, that she would provide a good start for the young people.”

“What exactly, might I ask, was Floyd bringing to this union?”

Julia batted her big eyes. “Why, darlin', he was a
man.
What do you think he was bringing?”

That occasioned a few minutes of silly giggles.

“Cut 'em off,” Monroe called to the bartender. “'Specially the one who can't hold her iced tea.”

Julia resumed. “So Florence said that was all right, Medford could cancel the honeymoon and they could sell the double-wide, but they weren't giving back the pig. Said Miss Hazel was a nonrefundable deposit on the marriage and wasn't going home just because Maureen had reneged.

“Well, of course, Mavis had a screaming hissy fit. It was one thing to be losing a daughter, but it was entirely another to be losing a favorite sow. She sent Medford over to Florence and Frank's house carrying a double-barreled shotgun to demand Miss Hazel's return, but Medford laid it down on the porch when he got there because he really didn't intend to go shooting his cousin or his cousin's wife, even if she was, as Mavis said, a walleyed bitch.”

“Meanwhile, what's happening with Maureen and Mahatma?”

“Well, Maureen didn't see any point in letting a perfectly good wedding go to waste, so they were going right ahead with it. Of course, they didn't have time to send out new invitations with Mahatma's name instead of Floyd's, but this wouldn't be the first time that ever happened. A girl in my class at school did the very same thing. And Maureen was so busy getting ready to be a bride, she didn't have time to be worrying about a pig. Besides, she always had thought her mother had paid too much attention to the livestock. And she'd never wanted the pig anyway, didn't intend to have anything to do with it, so she was just as happy things had worked out the way they had.

“By this time, of course, Mavis was beyond hissy fits, she was into apoplexy. She had just had it with all of them: Medford, who wouldn't shoot his cousin; Maureen, looking after her own self who didn't give a hoot about Miss Hazel; Florence, who'd stolen her baby; and Mahatma, who unless she was mistaken, was not only some kind of Negro but also thought pigs were unclean. Now there had never been a cleaner pig than Miss Hazel unless it was Louise. And to top it all off, Louise had taken to her sty and wouldn't get up because she just knew that they'd sent Miss Hazel off to slaughter and that she was next, no matter how many times Mavis told the sow that that wasn't true. Louise just grunted and rolled her little eyes.

“Finally, the night before the wedding, after they'd all gotten home from the rehearsal supper and had gone to bed full of fried chicken and potato salad, Mavis just couldn't stand it a minute longer. She got up and tiptoed past Medford, who was sleeping on the sofa where she'd put him when he wouldn't shoot his cousin and had left him ever since, and lit out for Florence and Frank's house.

“There was a full moon that night, which might account for why Mavis did what she did, but anyway, she could see just as clear as daylight. She crept around the side of their barn to where Florence and Frank's sty was, and it was full of pigs, inferior pigs, of course, and not a one answered when she called Miss Hazel's name. If Hazel was anywhere near, she would have, because she certainly knew her own name. Pigs, according to Mavis, are smarter than most dogs. Not to mention quite a few humans, though she wasn't going to name names. Well, she just took a fit on her and before she even knew what she was doing, she had set fire to their barn. It was going pretty good before they woke up, and by that time it was too late, even though Tallbuttons, who had come from all over the county for the wedding, were out in their pajamas throwing water at the blaze.

“They said Florence was cool as a cuke throughout the whole thing—that she just stood on the side with the flames reflecting off her face like Joan of Arc.