An old man in khakis and a blue suit coat came up to open Grady’s door. He kept one hand in his pocket and his shoulders were hunched up against the drizzle. He had an orange folder of RJR cigarette papers up in his hatband to keep them dry. They were getting wet.
“This is my brother Tilmon,” said Grady. Then he raised his voice and said, “Tilmon, this is Norwood. He’s our new driver. He’s a good one too. He’s a dandy. He’s the man who rode the mule around the world.”
Tilmon snickered and shook hands with Norwood. There was a frosty glaze on top of his right sleeve where he had been wiping his nose. He took the other hand out of his pocket and gave Norwood a flyer. It said, Need $$$$$ —FAST? Get one of Grady’s cost-controlled loans—BY MAIL! There was a picture of Grady at the bottom holding a fistful of money. Yes, Grady is ready to lend you up to $950.00-—IN THE PRIVACY OF YOUR OWN HOME!
“How are you?” said Tilmon.
“Just fine,” said Norwood.
“Grady is a cutter, ain’t he?”
“He sure is.”
“How do you like him?”
“I like him all right.”
“You do what he says now.”
“I will.”
“Just to look at Tilmon,” said Grady, “you wouldn’t think he was a very astute businessman, would you?”
Norwood looked him over again. “I wouldn’t have thought it, naw.”
“Volume is his middle name. Isn’t that right, Tilmon? I say volume is your middle name.”
Tilmon said “Tee-hee-hee.” His tongue fell out as if to receive a coin.
The second surprise was Miss Phillips. She was sitting in the rain on her suitcase—a handsome blue air travel model—with a newspaper on her head. She was eating peaches from a can with a wooden ice cream spoon. She was a long tall redbone girl. She was wearing a shiny green party dress with shoulder straps, and some opentoed shoes that were just on the point of exploding with toes. She glowered. She looked formidable.
“You run off with the gotdamn car keys and left the doors locked, Fring,” she said. Her voice was a piercing whine.
“So I did. I’m sorry about that, Yvonne.”
I’m not about to pay for cleaning this dress. Look at it.”
“We’ll take care of it. Everything will be wonderful. Just keep your shirt on a minute.”
“Don’t tell me what to do.”
“Norwood,” said Grady, “this is the extra added attraction. I want you to meet Miss Yvonne Phillips. She hails from Belzoni, Mississippi, by way of New Orleans, the Crescent City. She is a dandy. Our talent agency down there is sending her to New York. Since it was convenient I arranged for her to ride up with you. I thought you would welcome the company.”
“Yeah, Okay. It’s fine with me.” He tipped his hat and greeted her.
Miss Phillips glared at Grady. “I hope you don’t think I’m gonna ride to New York with this country son of a bitch.”
Grady laughed. “She’ll cool off, Norwood. It’s really me she’s mad at, not you. She thought she was going up on a Delta jet. Perhaps you can understand her disappointment. I didn’t think you would mind her coming along.”
“Naw, it’s fine with me. If she wants to. I don’t think she wants to.”
“She’ll get over that.”
“I wish Sammy Ortega was here,” said Miss Phillips. “He’d break your arm.”
“I’d like to see him try it,” said Norwood.
“I was talking to Fring, I wasn’t talking to you,” she said. “But he’d get you too if he felt like it, you bigmouth country son of a bitch. He’d kick your ass into the middle of next week.”
“I’d like to see him try it,”
“You just got through saying that. Don’t keep saying the same thing over and over again. Don’t you have good sense?”
“You said you was talking to him the first time.”
“You peckerwood.”
“That’ll be enough,” said Grady. “I don’t want to hear any more out of you, little lady. Pick up your grip and go over there by the car and wait. I need to have a word with my driver,”
“Somebody will get you one of these days, Fring.”
“I said hush. Now get your things and move.”
She flounced off and yelled at Tilmon and got him to carry her bag.
Grady hitched at his trousers with his wrists and popped his hands together. “Okay, buddy boy, you’re gassed up and ready to go. Remember now, the George Washington Bridge, the West Side Drive, the Brooklyn-Battery Tunnel, the Belt Parkway, Exit Twelve, Parsons Street, Arnold’s Garage. Follow instructions and watch the signs and you can’t miss it. Now listen to this too. You are not authorized to deal with anyone except Arnold. If he’s not there then wait on him. The garage is open twenty-four hours and he’ll be expecting you late Monday night or early Tuesday morning. He’ll take care of everything—up to and including Miss Phillips. She has expense money so she will pay for her own meals. Don’t let her pull anything. Of course you may want to work out some personal understanding with her, I don’t know. I leave that to your own discretion. In any case remember that we are counting on you to arrive by Tuesday morning at the latest. Got it?”
“I think so.”
“Okay. Drive with care now. Watch the other fellow. Stay within the speed limits. Don’t get picked up in some little town. Those laws are for our own protection. A car is just like a gun. In the wrong hands it is nothing less than an instrument of death.”
The tandem cars splashed down the alley and wheeled around the corner of the ice plant and were gone. A peach can clattered on the street. Grady and Tilmon listened to it until it stopped rolling.
Grady said, “How much did they stick you for those peaches?”
“Thirty-nine cents,” said Tilmon.
“They saw you coming, didn’t they? That wasn’t even a number two can.”
“Thirty-nine cents is what they cost.”
“I know what they do, they charge you more on Sunday. They jump those prices up on you. They’ll all do it. I don’t expect we’ll run into many grocers in the Kingdom of Heaven, Tilmon.”
NORWOOD and Miss Phillips sped north on U.S. 67. He told her fifteen or twenty jokes and pointed out amusing signs and discussed the various construction projects along the way but she wasn’t having any. Except to tell him to slow down, she absolutely refused to talk. She sat rigid and sullen far over against her door. Off and on she pretended to be sleeping. She tried not to move at all but every few minutes she would scratch, or shift about on the seat, her shiny dress squeaking, and each time Norwood would turn to her with a smile.
“You don’t have to look over here every time I move,” she said. “Keep your eyes on the road.” When she opened the vent glass she did it very abruptly, and dropped her hands away like a calf roper in a rodeo, so as to prevent Norwood from seeing and noting and enjoying the act. As it was, he caught only the last part of it.
In Little Rock he asked if she would like to stop for a Coke or go to the ladies’ room. ‘I’ll let you know when I want to stop, Mr. Big Red.” She was in her dozing position again.
“I don’t know what you’re so mad about,” he said, “but we got a long ways to go yet. We could make a right nice trip out of it if you wouldn’t act that way. I would like to be your good friend, Laverne.”
She didn’t even open her eyes. “Yeah, I bet you would. My name is not Laverne, it’s Yuh-von. I don’t want you calling me anything.”
On they rode in hostile silence through the rice fields and the one-stoplight towns of eastern Arkansas. The rain let up some but the trucks were still throwing up muddy slop on the windshield. Grady was right about the reflex tow bar. It was a little wonder. There was no bucking and yawing on the curves, even at high speed. He was right about the Olds too. It was clean and fast and powerful. The tinted glass made it snug inside. Everything worked, the radio, the clock, even the windshield squirters. Norwood could have driven that 98 Oldsmobile th
rough all eternity and never stopped.
They stopped in De Valls Bluff to get some peaches. Miss Phillips paid for them but she wouldn’t get out of the car. Norwood had a barbecue sandwich and a Nugrape. They ate in the car and pressed on. Just before they got to Brinkley Norwood broke the silence with a shout and hit the brakes. “Hey look at that!” Miss Phillips bolted and her red knees bumped against the dashboard. Some of the peach juice splashed from the can and ran down her legs. “What is it!” she said. “Where!”
“You missed him,” said Norwood. “There was a possum back there crawling through that fence. He looked like a big old slow rat.”
Miss Phillips was frantically daubing at her legs with wads of Kleenex. “You son of a bitch!”
Norwood hit the brakes again. “You want to go back and see him?”
More juice erupted from the can, and this time two or three golden Del Monte slivers with it. They stuck on her dress and made dark growing splotches. “What the hell is wrong with you, fellow!” she shrieked. “Look at what you’ve done! You think I want to see a possum crawling through a fence!”
“He’s already through the fence,” said Norwood. “He’s back there in that field now looking for something. He’s probably looking for some chow.”
“You’re the biggest peckerwood son of a bitch in the world!”
“I don’t like that kind of talk out of a girl, Laverne. How would you like your mama to hear you talking like that?”
Miss Phillips had no answer. She quite unexpectedly broke into tears. She did not cry loud but she cried dramatically and long. It went on for miles, the snuffling and the little chirping noises. Norwood considered and dismissed seven or eight things to say. They were on the approaches to the Memphis Bridge when he went back to the first one.
“I didn’t aim to make you cry. I’m sorry I brought that up about your mama.”
“That’s not what I’m crying about, stud.”
“I’ll just keep my mouth shut from now on. No matter what I see.”
Miss Phillips wiped her eyes. Some of her fire was gone. “I wish I was in Calumet City, Illinois, I don’t want to go to New York. Sammy Ortega is a bartender in Calumet City and he could get me a job there easy.”
“Is he the one that’s gonna whup everybody?”
“Sammy may not look very big in his street clothes,” she said, “but he can press two hundred pounds over his head. He can speak four languages too.”
“What are they?”
“What?”
“What are the languages?”
“English and Spanish and I don’t know what all. Italian.”
“What is he, a Mexican?”
“He’s Spanish.”
“A lot of Mexicans are named Jesus.”
“What’s wrong with that?”
“Nothing. I thought maybe it was something you didn’t know.”
The traffic was heavy on the bridge. Norwood was on the inside fast lane and he was twisting his neck trying to get a look at the three big oil barges that were chugging along downstream in the muddy Mississippi far below. A small wooden sign in the center of the bridge said SHELBY CO., TENN.
“You just crossed the state line,” said Miss Phillips. “Now they can send you to the Federal pen.” Norwood brought the cars to a skidding stop. Miss Phillips was thrown forward and her head slammed against the windshield. “You can’t stop here, you fool!” A white station wagon smashed into the back of the Pontiac. Miss Phillips was thrown backward this time, from the neck up, and her head slammed against the center post. The driver of the station wagon had jumped out and he was running for Norwood and shouting. He had a bloody head. Norwood put the accelerator on the floor and the Oldsmobile sat down hard and shot off again with rubber squealing. Norwood yelled back at the man with the bloody head. “I’ll see you in town!” Miss Phillips was crying again. There was a big swelling knot on her forehead. She was holding her head and rocking back and forth on the seat. Norwood said, “I got to get out of here.” They were forty miles from Memphis and passing through Covington, Tennessee, before he said another word.
“Grady told me a lie.”
“What did you think he would do?” said the red-eyed Miss Phillips. She was holding a wet Kleenex on her forehead. “I feel sorry for anybody like you. You are the peckerwood of all peckerwoods.”
“I’m getting tired of that peckerwood business.”
“Well, stop calling me Laverne then.”
“I don’t see how anybody from Belzoni, Mississippi, can call anybody else a peckerwood. How big is Belzoni? . . . It couldn’t be too big. You’d hear more about it if it was.”
“For your information, I spent a lot of time in New Orleans, Mr. Red on the Head. I count that as my home.”
“It’s not your home though.”
“If you live someplace a long time you can count it as your home.”
“Naw you can’t. . . . You could live in Hong Kong for seventy-five years and Belzoni would still be your home.”
“Don’t sit there and tell me what my home is.”
“I am telling you. Somebody needs to tell you.”
“I hope a cop stops you. I really do. They’ll have you locked up down there in that Atlanta pen so fast it’ll make your head swim. You’re sitting over there right now just scared to death.”
There was some truth in this. It was a tough problem. Norwood would think about it for a while and rest for a while. It was like looking at the sun. He waited on something to come to him, some plan. What road was he on? Where was the gas gauge on this oversize jet plane dashboard? Half a tank? Where had he stopped? Somewhere. The man had checked him out on the revoked credit card list. Like he was somebody who shouldn’t have a credit card. Anyway, nothing much could happen as long as they were moving along like this. Darkness fell and the problem lost much of its urgency. Norwood’s mind was soon on other things.
They made only one stop in Kentucky, a peach stop in some little place just across the Ohio River, and, lost in their own thoughts, said nothing to each other until they were approaching Evansville, Indiana. The radio had been droning on for hours untended and a gospel hour was in progress when Miss Phillips reached over and turned the dial.
Norwood said, “What are you doing?”
“I’m trying to get WWL in New Orleans,” she said.
“You can pick it up a long ways late at night. I want to hear Moonglow with Martin.”
Norwood pushed her hand away and regained the gospel program. “I was listening to that.”
“We been hearing preachers all night.” She changed stations again.
Norwood turned it back. “This one is explaining why they don’t have any pianos in the Church of Christ. I want to hear him. Don’t put your hand on the radio again.”
“Well, I don’t want to hear him.”
“I do though.”
“You’re not the boss.”
“I’m the boss of this car.”
Miss Phillips fumed. The preacher went on uninterrupted. In closing he said he was prepared to pay ten thousand dollars cash to anyone who could show him scriptural authority for having a musical instrument in a church.
“I wisht I knew more about the Bible,” said Norwood.
He considered and mused on the offer for some little time. “I wonder if he would really pay you? . . . It looks like he’d have to if he said it over the air. . . . Well . . . I’d whup his ass if he didn’t.”
“I’m tired of this preaching,” said Miss Phillips.
“Hank Snow’s son is a preacher,” said Norwood. “The Reverend Jimmie Rodgers Snow. He’s got him a church off over there in Tennessee somewhere.”
“I want to hear some music.”
“What church do you belong to, Laverne?”
“None of your business.”
“The Church of God?”
“I belong to just as good a church as you do. Probably a lot better one.”
“Well, maybe you do and maybe
you don’t. I belong to the Third Baptist Church in Ralph, Texas, and I’m proud of it.”
“I figured you would belong to the Fourth Baptist Church.”
“They don’t have one in Ralph.”
“That’s why you don’t belong to it.”
“The Missionary Baptists, they all go over to Hooks. I think the Free Will Baptists just get together at somebody’s house. We’re gonna have air conditioning in the new annex if they ever get it finished. Do they have air conditioning in the Pentecost Church in Belzoni?”
“My church comes under the head of my business.”
“If I was a Holy Roller I wouldn’t be ashamed of it. I would be proud of it.”
“I would too, if I was a Holy Roller.”
“Only half the people that are in the church are saved.”
“Has that car back there got a radio in it?”
Norwood checked it out in the mirror. “It’s got a aerial, yeah.”
“Well, stop and let me go get in it. I want to hear Moonglow with Martin.”
“You can’t ride back there. It’ll look funny. Some cop is liable to stop us.”
“I don’t care. If you don’t stop I’ll holler out at the next cop I see. At the next anybody.”
“All right, change the station. Get whatever you want on this radio.”
“I want to get back in that other car. I want to hear it on that radio now.”
Norwood pulled over and stopped. He got the fiber envelope out of the glove compartment and gave her the keys to the Pontiac. “Here. All you’re gonna do is run that battery down and probably get us arrested.” They rode into Evansville like that, Norwood in his car, Miss Phillips in hers. There was nothing doing in downtown Evansville. Night lights were burning in the stores but the streets were still and deserted. Miss Phillips began blatting her horn. It boomed and rang and echoed, and Norwood’s first impulse was to step on it, but he stopped. Miss Phillips got back in the Olds.