‘Tomato,’ she said. ‘Campbell’s best.’
‘How’s the breaded veal cutlet?’ Jack asked.
‘I ate it tonight, and I’m livin’.’
‘Any veal in it?’ he wanted to know.
‘Some,’ she said.
We all took the soup and cutlet. The pot. and vegs. turned out to be home fries and string beans. If we hadn’t been so hungry, we would have starved. The ice cream was warm; to make up for it, the coffee was cold.
But the drinks were big, and for every two rounds we bought, the house bought one. A pleasant custom. When
Rose brought our coffee, Donohue asked her, ‘That guy behind the bar, is he Hoxey?’
‘Nah,’ the waitress said. ‘Hoxey was smart, sold out to us and moved to California. We never got around to changing the name.’
‘The bartender — he’s your one and only?’
‘That’s what
Donohue slid out of the booth, went over to the bar. In a minute the two men were shaking hands. Then they leaned toward each other, their heads together. I saw Jack slip him money, so neat and quick and smooth, I think I was the only one in the restaurant who noticed it. Donohue came back to the booth.
‘Think we could get a couple of cold six-packs, Rose?’ he asked.
T think maybe I could fix you up. Anything else?’
‘Not right now, thank you, ma’am. The food was fine.’
‘I always did like a cheerful liar,’ she said, adding up our bill. ‘Please pay at the bar. Ben won’t let me handle the money. He figures if I see more’n five bucks, I’ll take off after Hoxey.’
We drove slowly back to Mrs Pearl’s, watching a lemon moon come bobbing into a cloudless night sky.
‘Nice people,’ Dick Fleming said.
‘Uh-huh,’ Donohue said. ‘Most of them. Some ain’t so nice. Like everywheres.’
‘I saw you give Ben some money,’ I said.
‘Yeah. He’s going to keep his eyes and ears open. Give us a call out at Mrs Pearl’s if anyone comes around asking for us.’
‘You trust him?’ Fleming asked.
‘Got no choice, do we?’ Donohue said. ‘But I think he’s straight. Hell, let’s forget it and just relax. That bastard Rossi is probably knocking on doors in Jacksonville right now.’
Mrs Sniffins was rocking on the porch, a white wraith, when we arrived. Jack parked on the crushed stone driveway alongside the house. We walked around to the front, Dick carrying two cold six-packs of beer in a brown paper bag.
‘Evenin’, ma’am,’ Donohue said. ‘Right pretty night, with the moon and all.’
‘Right pleasant,’ she said, nodding, if you’re of a mind to set a spell, there’s plenty of chairs.’
We thanked her and pulled up wicker porch chairs with thin sailcloth cushions.
‘Would smoking bother you, Mrs Sniffins?’ I asked her.
‘Land, no,’ she said. ‘I smoke a ciggie myself ever’ now and again.’
So we lighted up, Black Jack holding a match for Mrs Pearl’s cigarette. She gripped it between thumb and forefinger of her left hand and smoked it importantly. I don’t think she inhaled. But it was obvious she was enjoying the smoke, and enjoying our being there. Donohue had been right: She wanted company.
‘Ma’am,’ he said, ‘we picked up some cold beer at Hoxey’s. It’d be a downright pleasure if you’d share it with us.’
It wasn’t hard to persuade her. So there we were a few moments later, all four of us sipping Budweiser from cans, smoking our cigarettes, and talking lazily of this and that. I couldn’t remember when I had been happier.
After a while, Jack got Mrs Pearl talking about her family’s history. It wasn’t difficult; it almost seemed as if she had been waiting for the opportunity to tell the story. She didn’t want it to die with her.
She herself was from Alabama, but this piece of land had been in her husband’s family since before the War between the States. She had met her husband, Aaron, at a church convention in Athens, Georgia. They had corresponded and then he had traveled to Evergreen, Alabama, to meet her family. She and Aaron had been married a year later, in Evergreen, and she had returned to live with him in the big white house in Whittier. Aaron’s mother was alive then, living with them, and it was evident the new bride and the mother-in-law didn’t hit it off.
‘I won’t say a word against that woman,’ Mrs Pearl Sniffins said firmly, in a tone of voice that implied if she ever started, she might never stop.
She accepted a second can of beer graciously from Dick Fleming, and said, ‘I thank you kindly,’ when he removed the tab for her. She took a deep swallow and belched gently before continuing her story.
She and Aaron had six children. One boy died at childbirth, one girl died at the age of three months from a respiratory ailment. ‘Just coughed up her pore little lungs.’ Another son died aboard a battleship in World War II. The others, three girls, married and moved away. They were all over: Arizona, Chicago, Toronto. Mrs Pearl had eleven grandchildren.
For a few years after they were married, the girls came back to Whittier to visit with their husbands and new babies. But they didn’t come so often anymore. But they wrote regular, Mrs Pearl assured us, and sent pictures of the children and gifts on her birthday.
‘I already got their Christmas gifts,’ she said proudly. ‘All stacked up. I’ll open them Christmas morning.’
We didn’t say anything. Just sat there in silence on a balmy night in Georgia, staring at moon shadows.
‘What about your own family, ma’am?’ Jack Donohue asked softly.
‘All gone,’ she told him. i was an only child and my folks passed. Uncles and aunts passed. Cousins passed or scattered. We just lost track.’
‘Yes,’ Dick Fleming said slowly, ‘that’s what happens: We just lose track.’
‘I don’t know,’ Mrs Pearl Sniffins said, it just seems a shame that a family should break up like that. It wasn’t always so. My land, my husband’s family just went on for years and years. I’ve got all the pictures. Tintypes, they called them then. And some little paintings framed in velvet. And bundles and bundles of letters, so faded now you can hardly make them out. But that was a family that lasted. Now it seems like they bust up so fast. People die or move away. No one stays in the same place anymore. So we lose track. A name used to mean something. People knew who you were. They knew your people. But no more. Well … I ain’t one to pity myself; don’t you go thinking that.’
‘No’m, Mrs Pearl,’ I said, ‘we’d never think that of you. But times change, and customs, and the way people are. And we’ve got to go along with the changes, like it or not.’
‘You maybe,’ she said sharply. ‘You’re young enough. Not me. I don’t hold with the new ways, and don’t have to.
I just wish I had my children around me, that’s all. My own sons working this land that’s been in the family so long. Great-grandchildren I could see and hug. This house is big enough for all. But it’s not to be, and that’s God’s will, and we must accept it and believe it’s for the best. And now I do believe that delicious sip of nice cold beer has made me drowsy enough to sleep, so I will excuse myself and go off to bed. You all set out here just as long as you like.’
We all stood up and Dick Fleming helped Mrs Pearl out of her rocker. She smiled at us in the dimness.
‘Good night, all,’ she said in a tremulous voice. ‘Sleep tight. Don’t let the bedbugs bite. Now that’s just a little saying we have. You won’t find any bedbugs in this house, I do assure you.’
Then she was gone. The screen door closed behind her. We sat down again. I took Mrs Pearl’s rocker, the cushion still warm. I closed my eyes, rocked back and forth and saw it all. I hoped no one would say anything, and no one did.
After a while, the beer finished, we went inside, locked the door carefully, and went up to bed. We heard Mrs Pearl snoring in the parlor, and we moved on tiptoe, not talking, so as not to wake her.
That night we all slept naked together in the double bed in the big bedroom. I was glad I was between two men, being held by both. I never wanted to be alone again. I fell asleep, the old straw rustling gently beneath me: a derisive whisper.
Our stay in Whittier was twenty-four-hour champagne, the days sun-crisped, the nights moon-cooled. It was
