Moth

man.”

“I think we need to give some thought to food,” Teresa said. “Food seems essential.”

“I think we’re all still waiting for that conductor,” Beth Ann said.

Chapter Twenty-Two

The sun was edging up by the time we climbed into Teresa’s car to head for a restaurant out on the loop. I sat between her and Beth Ann in the front seat. Morning light filled our conversation, too; shadows fell away. When they dropped me back at the motel an hour or so later, after two pecan waffles and a gallon of coffee, I’d begun filling slowly with light myself.

I showered, put on real clothes (Verne called them “grown-up clothes,” I suddenly remembered) and went to the hospital to see what I needed to do. Day Administrator Katherine Farrell, a woman in her late fifties and more handsome than pretty, striking nonetheless, expressed her condolences and said that Mrs. Adams had already signed the necessary papers.

I found her sitting in the covered bus stop outside the hospital. I sat down beside her. We watched traffic go by.

“Ain’t the first or the last time either of us lost something,” she said after a while.

“No, m’am.”

A workhorse of an old Ford pickup, fenders ripped away, heaved past, wearing the latest of several coats of primer. A beetle-green new Toyota followed close behind. Rap’s heavy iambs, its booming bass, washed over us.

“I want you to know I’ve been talking to those nurses in there. They tell me you loved that little girl, that you’re a good man. And judging from what you said on the way here, my daughter turned out a fair good woman.”

“Yes, m’am. She did. She always was.”

“Been wrong before.”

“Yes, m’am.” Then, after a moment, nothing more forthcoming: “Thank you.”

I stood. “My car’s in the lot, Mrs. Adams. I’ll drive you back home now, if you’re ready.”

She put her hand out and I took it. It was like holding on to dry twigs.

“I’d appreciate that, Lewis,” she said.

I was back in Clarksville by midafternoon and, after a quick meal at a place called The Drop, stretched out at the motel for a few hours’ sleep. I’d got almost half of one of those hours when the phone rang.

I struggled to the surface and said, “Yeah?”

“Sorry about the kid. I know how that feels, and that nothing I can say’s going to help. You know who this is, right?”

I nodded, then came a little more awake and said, “Camaro.” The world was swimming into focus, albeit soft.

“You okay, man?”

“Fine. Just haven’t managed much sleep this last couple of days.”

“Know how that is, too. I can call back.”

“No reason to. What’s up?”

“Well …” It rolled on out for half a minute or so. “Probably shouldn’t be calling you at all. Last time I did, from what I hear, you went apeshit and ralphed those boys right into the hospital. You ever hear of asking a guy first?”

“I asked.”

“Oh yeah? Remember to say please?”

“I’m sure I did. Rarely forget that. I may have left off the thank you, though, now that I think about it.”

“Ever had your jaw wired, Griffin?”

“Came close a few times.”

“I bet you did. Probably chew the wires up and spit them at people. Well, what the fuck, those boys are pretty much garbage anyway. You don’t take them out to the curb, someone else will.”

“So: you called up to give me a few hot tips on navigating the complex social waters of postcolonial Mississippi. Or just to chat, for old times’ sake? Not that we share any old times.”

“We all know you’re bad by now, Griffin.”

“Yeah, well, I need sleep more than I need bullshit right now.”

“You also need help finding your girl. Though damn if I know why anyone’d want to help you.”

“It’s my honest face. My purity of heart. My high position in antebellum society. And the twenties I spread around. What do you have?”

“Thought you always remembered to say please.”

“Please.”

“There’s a girl, Louette, that’s been kind of living at this dealer’s house just over the state line. I mean, they finally took a look around and realized she’s been there at least a month. Helping out at first you know, doing the guys when they were able or whatever, but since then just hunkering down there, riding a big free one. Even they know that’s not good business.”

“Thank you.”

I wrote down the address he gave me.

“One thing,” he said.

“Yeah?”

“Try to keep from going nuclear on this one? You’re not in the big city now. We try to keep a lower profile out here, not draw too much attention to ourselves.”

I told him I’d do what I could. Neither of us believed it.

The house was up in West Memphis, on the outskirts, in a part of town owing its existence to the spillover from Memphis military bases during World War II, a warren of apartment-size simple wood homes set close in row after row like carrots in a garden. Narrow, bobtail driveways had eroded through the years, cowlicks of grass and hedge pushing through them; many of the carports had become extra rooms, utility sheds, screened-in porches; trailers were grafted onto some. Abandoned refrigerators, motorcycles and decaying cars sat in yards beside swing sets and inflatable pools.

I pulled to the curb at 3216 Zachary Taylor. Out my side window in the distance I could see the wing-like curve of the Arkansas-Mississippi Bridge. I’d had to drive on into Memphis, drop onto Riverfront Drive, and loop back across the bridge into Arkansas. I started up the brief walk, hearing what sounded like reggae country music from inside. Marley in Nashville, maybe. Jimmy Cliff and His Country Shitkickers.

Remembering Camaro’s admonitions, I knocked politely at the door. No one responded, so I knocked, politely, again. Then, with still no response, as politely as possible I started kicking.

The door opened and a man maybe half my age stood there. Brush-style blond hair, fatigue pants with a white Hanes T, lizard cowboy boots. Pumper muscles and an earring. Tumbler in hand. Tequila, from the smell of it.

“What is your problem?”

Behind him, from different rooms, both Randy Travis and reggae were playing at high volume, crashing onto one another’s beach, from time to time blending in an oddly beautiful way.

“Oh. Sorry. Didn’t think you’d heard me.”

“We heard you. They heard you over in Little Rock, man.”

“Good. It’s so hard to be heard in this world. Thank you.”

“Mama brought you up right, did she? Manners like that, I’d think you couldn’t be anything but one of those biblebeaters that come through here every week or so. They’re always wearing a coat and tie, too. Don’t nobody else ‘round here.”

He took a sip of his drink.