read the book, Miz Harcher? You might find it interesting.” “I don’t have time for such smut.” “No,” I said, knowing that folks were watching, “but you do have time to come in here, make a scene, disturb the other patrons, and in general make a nuisance of yourself.” “I don’t appreciate your tone, Jordy Poteet.” She set her lips tightly, glaring at me. “And I don’t appreciate yours, Miz Harcher.” I had grown tired of her stunts since my victory over her two months ago at a library board meeting. I stood, hoping to look tough at my height of six feet two. I didn’t think it’d work; I’ve been told repeatedly that my blond hair and green eyes make me look too boyish to scare anyone but infants. “I’ll remind you that you were thrown off the library board because of your censorship stance. If you don’t want to read the book, don’t read it. No one is hog-tying you down and forcing you to read Mr. Lawrence. But don’t expect you can come into this library and dictate to others what’s available to them.
This tactic of continually filing complaints-” “This trash undermines people’s souls.” “Good God, Miz-” “Don’t you take our Lord’s name in vain!” she shrieked. You could have heard a page turn in the silence, but no one in the library was reading anymore. Not with Beta’s soul-saving floor show playing. “Hardly anyone checks out that book.”
I lowered my voice rather than lowering myself to her level. “Very few souls are at risk.” I hated all the eyes that were suddenly on me. I’d felt that way ever since I’d come home to Mirabeau and I still wasn’t comfortable with it. I can’t stand pity. “Maybe we can step into my office and discuss this Request for Reconsideration.” I considered that a perfectly reasonable suggestion. So I was awfully surprised when she slapped me. With Women in Love. She belted that book right across my face. Not a love tap, but an honest-to-God blow. And Jesus made that woman strong. My head whipped around and the ceiling lights flared in my eyes. I felt my lip split and there was a wetness on my nose that I was sure was blood. The carpet felt rough against my hands and I realized I was kneeling on the floor, knocked clear out of my chair. I saw my wad of gum stuck on my office door. I glanced up at Beta Harcher; she smiled, as pleased with herself as a child with a new toy. Her eyes were two shiny pebbles, cold and stony. Screams erupted from the Eula Mae Quiffers. Gaston Leach ducked back into the space operas and fantasy novels. Old Man Renfro creaked out of his chair, arthritically trying to hurry to my defense. Ruth Wills beat him to it. She ran over and grabbed Beta’s arm. “Let me go!” Beta squawked, as though Ruth were a demon wresting her from the Lord’s work. Ruth pulled the book from Beta’s clutches and tossed it on the counter. “I think you’d better go, Bait-Eye. You’ve caused enough trouble.” The look Beta gave Ruth Wills held pure venom. “You watch your mouth, missy. You’re a sinner, too. You have no right-” “You’ve just assaulted Mr. Poteet,” Ruth interrupted coolly. “In front of witnesses.” I like Ruth; she’s one of Mirabeau’s nicest residents.
She’s also a lovely brunette with a figure a boy could doze against and die happy. “He could press charges against you, and no one here would blame him.” “You better leave, Beta.” Eula Mae Quiff herself had come up behind them, keeping the younger Ruth as a buffer between her and our local zealot. Eula Mae is fond of bead necklaces and she nervously fingered one of the several around her throat as she watched Beta. “That smut he’s offering our young’s no better than that trash you write, Eula Mae,” Beta snarled. “All that sex-and women living independently from God’s plan.” “My fans judge it otherwise,” Eula Mae sniffed. She swirled her colorful, robelike dress to emphasize her point. I thought she might take a bow. “God’s the final judge.” Beta stared down at me like a dog eyeing a pork chop. “I’ll close this pit of lies. God will help me.” “Beta, stop it!” An unexpected ally had appeared: Tamma Hufnagel, the Baptist minister’s wife. She had come up behind Eula Mae. Beta was one of their flock but Tamma’s young face looked pained. “This is not the way to conduct our Lord’s work-”
“Hush!” Beta ordered. Poor Tamma clammed up abruptly. Back on my feet, I grabbed a tissue and wiped the blood from my nose and mouth. I poked at my nose experimentally; it didn’t shift into a new shape, so I decided it wasn’t broken. I was still in shock that this woman had whacked me. She looked so harmless until she opened her ornery mouth.
Why couldn’t she have assaulted me with a nice thin book-say Of Mice and Men? “No, the final judge is over in the courthouse.” I reached for the phone. “You get out and lay off the library, or I’ll call Junebug Moncrief and have your God-fearing self hauled into jail.” I couldn’t resist, and I should’ve. “You think St. Peter’ll be impressed with your having a record when you approach those pearly gates? He might just put you on the down elevator.” “You’re burning in tell, not me,” Beta announced, pulling away from Ruth’s grasp. She straightened with righteous dignity. “I’ll leave, although I’m not afraid to go to jail. I have the Lord’s work to do today.” She cast a baleful eye over the stunned, silent faces in the library. “Y’all remember that. I have the Lord’s work to do.” I wondered if I was the only one on Beta’s holy hit list. I leaned across the counter and jabbed my finger in her face, tempting her to take a bite. “Fine, you poor misguided woman. Go make trouble for someone else. This may be a public facility, but you are damned un-welcome here. If you bother me, or anyone at the library again, I will press charges.” “You can’t punish me. You judge me not.
Though God is judging you. ” Her voice hardened, and it amazes me still that there could be so much spite in that frumpy form. “He’s judging you, Mr. Know-It-All Jordy Poteet. That’s why your mother is the way she is-” “You shut up!” I yelled. “Get out!” Dead silence in the stacks. Those dark, deadened eyes stared into mine. I fought back a sudden, primitive urge to spit in her face. Yes, I do have a bad temper and Beta saw she’d gone too far. She didn’t flinch away, but Ruth hustled her out into the spring beat. I could hear Beta protesting the whole way, threatening Ruth with various fundamentalist punishments. I could only imagine what special levels of Gehenna she reserved for me. I slumped into my chair. My hands shook. I was ten years younger and a foot taller than Beta Harcher, but her words rattled me more than her punch. I admit it: I could’ve throttled her-just for a moment-when she made that crack about my mother. Whack me with books all you like, but leave my family alone. The bleeding stopped, but I kept dabbing my nostrils with the tissue. The blue-haired crowd headed straight for me, gabbing with their henhouse tongues. The Eula Mae Quiffers examined me carefully and, assured that I was okay, offered their opinions on Beta. “She’s addled,” said one lady. “Poor dear just takes the Bible too literally,” opined a more pious woman who had not been battered with a book recently. “I can’t believe she struck you,” added another, disappointed that my nose was intact. “What a bitch,” Eula Mae commented. She’s the closest thing to a celebrity Mirabeau has-a romance novelist known to her fans by the nom de plume Jocelyn Lushe. I have nothing against romances-I could probably use one in my life-but Eula Mae gets inordinate amounts of local adoration for her prose. I can only take so many heaving bosoms and smoldering loins per page, and Eula Mae isn’t big on setting limits. Mousy Tamma Hufnagel watched me carefully. “Miz Harcher’s upset about being kicked off the library board, Jordy. She’s just awful tetchy about civic morals. She means well.” “No, she doesn’t, Mrs. Hufnagel,” I answered. “She’s a lunatic and they’re usually not concerned with the public good.” I watched Ruth come back into the library, without Beta. “I could just kill that old biddy.” “Don’t you listen to Beta Harcher, Jordy.” Dorcas Witherspoon, one of my mother’s friends, took my hand. “She’s a bitter fool. She’s unhappy, so she wants everyone to be that way. We don’t care if you keep smutty books.
You know all I read here is the Houston paper for ‘Hints from Heloise.”’ “Please, ladies, I’m fine,” I assured them. I sighed. “I guess Mrs. Hufnagel’s right; Beta’s just mad she got kicked off the library board. She’ll just find someone else in Mirabeau to terrorize.” That, unfortunately, didn’t happen. The good Lord decided, I suppose, that He needed Beta Harcher at His right hand a far sight earlier than any of us reckoned. The rest of the afternoon passed without divine retribution for keeping D. H. Lawrence on the library shelves. At six I closed up and drove past the well-kept homes and fake antique light posts on Bluebonnet Street. Mirabeau is Texas old, founded in 1841 during the Republic days, but I figure the powers that be don’t think it looks quaint enough for antique buyers and city folks looking to move to the country. So they’ve started adding Dickensian touches such as Victorian light posts and wrought-iron benches on the major streets in town. We natives try not to mind. It doesn’t take more than ten minutes to get anywhere in Mirabeau, and getting home takes me all of two minutes. I veered left onto Lee Street, drove down a block to Blossom Street, and stared up at the neat, two-story frame house I’d grown up in and recently returned to.
Did it look smaller, or was it that I was just bigger and wiser? I couldn’t tell. I went inside and found my mother walking in circles around the cozy living room. She does that more and more now, shuffling along in her slippers and robe. I suppose it’s a nice room to orbit. Mama just has to navigate a wicker sofa and an oval, polished wood coffee table with a fan of Southern Living back issues spread across it. Normally I would have steered Mama to a chair and told her to sit down, but I had a throbbing headache. This was not the life I’d ever planned on coming home to. So I sat down and watched Mama for a few minutes. She was intent on some journey of her own and she made for good quiet company. Our quality time together didn’t last long. “You’re not being much help, Jordy, letting her do that,” my sister Arlene muttered as she walked in from the kitchen. I could smell the wonderful aroma of black-eyed peas and chicken-fried steaks.
Sister (I never call her Arlene unless I’m really mad at her) flared me a look as hot as her skillets. She took
