"You may wish everyone good night, sugah," Lillian said coldly to her daughter. "You too, Ben, my pugilist son whom I have failed to raise as a gentleman."
"C"mon, Mama. I was a victim of circ.u.mstance. I"ve explained the whole thing to you."
"Yes, you"ve explained it. You"ve explained that you behaved like a beast all day picking one fight after another. I thought I was doing a better job than that of making you into something a bit more civilized than a chimpanzee."
"h.e.l.l," Bull said to Virgil, "I"d hate to be that civilized."
"You obviously have more of your father in you than I thought," Lillian said. "Now good night, you two. It"s been a long day."
Mary Anne kissed Colonel Hedgepath on the lips. "Good night, demon lover," she said. "Good night, G.o.dzilla," she said to her father. "Good night, Paige. Don"t you think I"m old enough to call you Paige? We"re both mature women."
"h.e.l.l no," Bull shouted.
"That"s disrespectful," Lillian said disapprovingly.
"Call me Paige when they"re not around, Mary Anne. That goes for you too, Ben. Give me a kiss, Ben."
"O.K., Mrs. Hedgepath."
"That"s it, golden boy. Get in a few brownies before you go to bed," Mary Anne said. "Good night, Paige."
"What"ve I gotta do. Write you a book? It"s Mrs. Hedgepath to you," Bull said.
"Hush, Bull," Paige snapped back. "Good night, you two. Ben, when are you and I going to run off and get married?"
"Soon. Very soon," Ben said, smiling. His whole body ached and there was a sudden pain when he smiled through split lips.
"Those are two fine kids," Virgil said after Ben and Mary Anne had left the room.
"They still need to be whipped into shape," Bull said.
"Horses.h.i.t, Bull," Paige flared. "Appreciate what you have and be G.o.ddam glad that you have it."
"You know our children look on you as their second parents, Paige," Lillian said softly. "That must mean something."
"It does," Paige Hedgepath said, close to tears. "It means everything."
Chapter 14.
In Bull"s mind, a rational structure that underwent a.n.a.lysis, change, decay, transfusions, and bright injections of insulin whenever he found a flaw undermining the whole system, he plotted out the course of how he would be the best squadron commander in the history of the Marine Corps. In his bones he could feel war with Cuba an inevitability and he constantly exhorted the young pilots to hone their skills because he felt that their day of fire was very near. He knew the mechanics of being a good commander: the tricks, procedures, requirements, and occasional gymnastics one had to employ to keep morale high and the higher echelons pleased. Much of it was natural to him; the rest he would pick up as he went along. Three weeks after he took command, he had talked to every man in his squadron and knew something personal about each one. He had a limitless capacity for being everywhere, for appearing on the flight line when he was supposed to be signing weekend pa.s.ses. His methodology was simple. While he had inherited problems in 367, he was determined to purify it of difficulties, procedural or spiritual, within a short period of time. If he could not, he told his exec, "the squadron will bleed."
Part of this command superstructure that had acc.u.mulated over an entire career was not completely fleshed out but still had impact on the colonel"s persona as a commander. One intuitive feeling he had that he could not trace to anyone or anything, except perhaps to some footnote in the Marine Corps Officers" Guide, was that a Marine commander should establish a good rapport with the civilian population of the local town. He had noticed that none of the other squadron commanders ever mentioned this secondary responsibility, but once Bull thought about it, he hunted about for a satisfactory solution. It was this extra attention to detail, a supernumerary zeal to approach perfection that led him to spend part of each weekday morning at Hobie"s Grill.
Hobie Rawls was the mayor of Ravenel and was the size of a tight end gone to seed. His grill was the gathering place for the men of the town who liked to monitor the traffic on River Street or who wanted to hear gossip when it was still lean and stringy, before it developed the corpulence of pa.s.sing between too many lips. Bull knew that every town had its Hobie"s, a rallying place for both the withered and the bright pharisees who had a pa.s.sion for a.s.sembly and a genuine need to keep a tab on the why"s and wherefore"s of their town.
It was no easy task for a stranger to become a regular at Hobie"s. The men who peopled the grill in the early hours of morning were not just regulars to the restaurant, they were regulars to the town and their family names were on street signs and monuments. It was a closed and grandly intolerant brotherhood. But Bull had broken into the inner circle just by appearing at the restaurant one morning at 0715 hours. Routine was a powerful icebreaker with the boys who drank their morning coffee with Hobie.
He had liked the restaurant immediately. It was unpretentious, masculine, decorated with a nautical motif, and had a constant smell of fried bacon about it. Photographs of shrimp boats and fishermen with their splendid catches of blues and whitings lined the walls from top to bottom. One wall was lined with high-backed leather booths opposite a long counter with twelve stools. A huge beveled mirror gave a man sitting on the stool a view of the whole grill. Bull had chosen a stool in the middle of the counter on the day he first became part of the crowd.
Several men had turned to look and nod at him when he walked through the door. He perused the menu perfunctorily and listened to a conversation resume that he had interrupted when he walked through the door. He marveled at the slowness of their speech; words seemed to crawl from their mouths and drop like stones to the floor.
"Did you see that movie playin" at the Palmetto?" Cleve Goins, the auto parts man, asked without directing the question to anyone in particular. No one answered, but Cleve continued anyway. "What"s this d.a.m.n world comin" to anyhow? Will someone tell me? There was bare t.i.tty all over the screen. My wife made me cover her eyes. I told Wyatt Gosnell that I wasn"t gonna set a toe in his motion picture house until he could start showin" some family entertainment."
"Yeah, it must have been bad all right," Ed Mills, the postman, said. "Wyatt told me you stayed through that movie twice."
"He didn"t say any such a thing, Ed."
"You wouldn"t a missed that pitcher show if it"d been playin" in Red China," Johnnie Voight hissed into his coffee.
"I heard they had to pull ol" Cleve away from that screen four or five times "cause he kept runnin" up there to get a closer look," another man said.
"Liar. A doctor of medicine lyin" like a field n.i.g.g.e.r," Cleve shot back. "I was just tryin" to tell you all that someone ought to do something about that trash that"s being shown in this town. There was one scene, sure enough, when I thought the hero was gonna slap it to her right before my eyes. He was a rubbin" and a underlatin" and a pantin" like an old boar tryin" to get hisself a little."
"G.o.d bless us all," the doctor whined. "Can"t somebody go over to Cleve"s store and buy a carburetor or something so we can escape this unG.o.dly chatter."
"I just thought you boys might be interested," Cleve said, his feelings hurt.
"What time does that movie start?" Ed asked. Everyone in the grill laughed except for Cleve, who a.s.sumed a posture of righteous disgruntlement.
Hobie Rawls, his ample frame encased in a white ap.r.o.n, approached Colonel Meecham and asked if he was ready to order.
"Yes, sir, I am," Colonel Meecham answered. "I"ll take two eggs over light, bacon, a cup of coffee, and hash browns."
"Sorry, Colonel. We only serve grits. It"s kind of a custom down here."
"No hash browns, eh? That"s a shame," Colonel Meecham said.
"Where are you from?" the doctor asked, sitting two stools down to Bull"s right.
Bull glanced up and answered the doctor"s reflection in the mirror. "Chicago, Doc."
"You just get stationed here?" Hobie asked.
"I"ve been here for a while. I"m C.O. of 367 over at the air station."
Ed Mills said, "It seems to me that a man who flies jets ought to be able to eat a few grits."
"I wouldn"t mind eating grits if there"s ever a famine," the colonel answered.
Ed studied the colonel"s features. "Do you live in the old Huger place over on the Lawn?" he asked.
"Yep, at least I guess it"s the old Huger place. It doesn"t have a nametag."
"Your name"s Meecham. I"ve been delivering mail to your house for a couple of weeks now."
"That"s one thing about this town, Colonel. A man can"t fart in this town without it sounding like a thunderclap. I"m Zell Posey. If you ever need any legal work done, I"m at your service." Posey was a starkly thin man with vulnerable eyes and a leg brace. These were the first words he had spoken to anyone.
"Thank you, sir. I"m Bull Meecham and if anything comes up, I"ll remember you. By the way, Ed," he said to the postman, who occupied the first stool by the door, "how long have you been delivering mail?"
"He"s been messin" up people"s mail for thirty years now," a man with a florid, hawk-nosed face said from a far booth.
"Just like you been messin" up people"s hair, Pride," Ed retorted.
"Kilgo can plain mess up a man"s head of hair," Cleve agreed.
"Well, with you, Cleve, I ain"t got a great deal to work with," Kilgo said.
"Ol" Lady Medusa won"t go to n.o.body "cept Pride Kilgo," the doctor added.
"Don"t listen to them, Colonel. I"m a master of my trade. An artist," Kilgo said. "Which is more than I can say for the Doc. I knew a man that went to Doc Ratteree with a hangnail one time and ended up getting his arm sawed off to the elbow. And I swear on a Bible, it was the wrong d.a.m.n arm."
"G.o.d bless the dimwit," the doctor exhaled.
"There"s been many a man who walked into ol" Doc"s office healthy as a roach and come out with a sheet over his face," Cleve said.
"d.a.m.n you, Cleve. You weren"t talking so big when your wife had pneumonia last year."
"It"s O.K., Doc," Ed Mills rasped. "I can say for a fact that you"ve saved one or two people from certain death in your career. And if I stay here all day I can probably even come up with their names."
"He saved Hoyt Simms"s life for sure, by insurin" his wife didn"t live through that operation."
From behind the counter, Hobie called out, "Any of you gentlemen want any coffee, raise your paws."
"Yeah, I don"t think Hoyt could have lived another day with that woman."
"Why did Doc operate on Mrs. Simms?"
"He didn"t operate," Ed Mills said. "He was giving her a blood test and she bled to death."
"G.o.d bless "em to h.e.l.l."
"He made Stinky Sanders, the mortician, the richest man in town, Colonel," Hobie Rawls said while pouring coffee into Bull"s cup from a steaming gla.s.s globe.
"Stinky gives the sonb.i.t.c.h ten percent on every stiff he delivers to get drained," Cleve said, jubilant that the heat was off him.
"That"s a G.o.ddam lie," Ed Mills objected in his acidulated voice, "and I"ll fight any man who says that about the Doc. He gets twenty percent on a stiff if he gets a nickel."
"Hobie," a man from a back booth cried out, invisible to Bull, "something"s wrong with my eggs. They taste good."
"Well, send it back to the kitchen. Don"t let Hobie get away with somethin" as serious as that."
"Colonel, I think I better warn ya," Ed Mills said from his position on the first stool, "Jimbo Punt used to eat an egg a day on that same stool where you"re sittin". He dropped dead of blood poisoning less than a year ago and the boy was only twelve years old."
"He drowned in the river, and he was eighteen, Colonel," Hobie corrected.
The cl.u.s.ter of bells thong-tied to the upper hinges of the entrance door jingled and a short, thin woman with a cigarette hanging straight downward from her mouth walked in. The laws of gravity were about to apply to a long ash that clung to the cigarette. In her face, Bull read a history of too much caffeine and nicotine and too much of something else, but whatever it was, it was much worse. The lines in her face looked earned; they were not decorations casually bestowed. She chose the stool by Ed Mills and barked to Hobie for a cup of coffee. Though she was the only woman in the grill, she did not seem to notice, nor did her entry diminish the feeling of fraternity that enriched the early morning banter.
"If it ain"t Bertha Grimmitt-you ain"t been in here in a c.o.o.n"s age," Cleve Goins shouted.
"Shut up, Cleve," Bertha answered in a strong, slow voice with a bra.s.sy resonance that could hang in a room for a long time. "I"ve always hated you."
Bull thought, "That"ll shut ol" Cleve up, I bet."
"Wa-hoooo," Cleve yelped instead.
"Where"d you park your broom, Bertha?" a voice asked from a middle booth.
"You boys leave Miss Bertha alone," Hobie said.
"Don"t worry about me, Hobie," Bertha said, "these boys don"t worry me."
"Truer words were never spoken."
After taking two deep swallows of coffee she announced to all the men in the grill, and Bull took note that the boys at Hobie"s took their cues from Bertha, that "It"s great to be here among the Dead p.e.c.k.e.r Club again, listening to all the dead p.e.c.k.e.rs mouth off like they still had a little vinegar left in them."
"Ah, the flower of southern womanhood," the crippled man at the kitchen end of the counter sighed. It was the lawyer, Zell Posey, and by his tone Bull knew that bad blood moved between him and Bertha.
"I hope I didn"t offend his royal highness by including him in the Dead p.e.c.k.e.r Club."
"Offend me, Madame?" Posey replied with regal disdain. "I barely even admit to myself that you"re alive." Zell Posey spoke with a voice that was a cry of pain. His face was n.o.ble; a face sculpted from an aggrieved aristocracy that was bleeding out through weak tributaries in the long delta of the twentieth century. His eyes contained a fire that could not ignite the other frontiers of his body.
"That"s because you"ve got that nose of yours stuck so far in the air that you never get to look down to see us common nits on the ground."
"Oh, c"mon, Bertha," a voice said. "Zell"s got blue blood. That"s why his nose is stuck up in the air."
"Yeah, I know," Bertha said. "He"s gotta have his nose up in the air so he can sniff that angel s.h.i.t." Then she turned her eyes down the counter and saw Colonel Meecham stirring the grits that Hobie had insisted on heaping on his plate. He enjoyed eavesdropping on verbal swordplay that had edge, and even wickedness. Bull heard Bertha speaking to him. "The Dead p.e.c.k.e.r Club has a new member, I see. Colonel, my name is Bertha Grimmitt. I"m your friendly neighborhood florist."
"Bull Meecham, ma"am," he answered saluting her in the mirror.
"Got any kids?" she asked.
"Four, ma"am," he answered.
"A real live p.e.c.k.e.r here at Hobie"s. That"s as rare as a good joke on these stools," she laughed.
Hobie asked, "Ya got any kids that"ll be going to the high school?"
"Yep. Two of them, Hobie. And one of them is going to be your star basketball player."
"Is that right?" Hobie answered. "My girl"s gonna be a senior."