Rust on the Razor Read online

  “Will he need an operation?” Mrs. Carpenter asked.

  “We’ll have to see after the tests are in.”

  “He’s not that old,” Shannon said. “He’s always been healthy. Why him?”

  “No one has an answer to that,” the doctor said.

  After the conference, it was agreed that Hiram would take Shannon and the cousin home. They would come back later. Mrs. Carpenter and Mary would keep watch in the hospital.

  Scott said, “I’d like to grab some breakfast and then come back here for a while. Then we’ll go to the house.”

  We walked down to the cafeteria. Scott looked at the watery eggs and stale toast at the breakfast buffet, gazed around at the white-clad hospital workers, and said, “This is more hospital than I need right now.”

  We strolled the two blocks to the Waffle House to eat. As soon as we left the air-conditioned hospital, the humidity struck.

  “Doesn’t it cool off at night or in the mornings?” I asked.

  “Some,” Scott said.

  I breathed deeply. “Fresh pine,” I said.

  “We’re halfway in the middle of the Jefferson National Forest. Jefferson National Swamp is five miles that way.” He pointed east.

  I eyed the towering trees that lined the street and met above our heads. I knew some were pines and others hardwoods, but that’s as good as my botany gets.

  The headline on the Burr County Clarion outside the Waffle House said, “High School Hero Queer.” I stuck a quarter in and bought a paper. I paid for the two that were left in the stack and tossed them in a pink plastic trash can inside the door.

  Patrons filled half the booths at the restaurant. A row of men sat along a counter. Most of them wore T-shirts or flannel shirts with cut-off sleeves revealing burly biceps. I felt like a stranger walking into a bar in an old western. All talk stopped. All eyes followed us. A waitress in a beehive hairdo and, I swear to God, with a pencil sticking out of her hair said, “Sit anywheres you want.”

  We picked a booth that looked out on the passing traffic. Across the street sat a huge old house with graying paint, several pillars at an angle, and a porch that needed propping up. I couldn’t see anything through its windows. Everything in the restaurant except, I hoped, the food seemed to be made of plastic: chairs, table, salt and pepper shakers, cash register. Even the menus were covered with it.

  The waitress seemed to take an inordinate amount of time to arrive at our table for our order. When she showed up, she smiled shyly at Scott. “You don’t remember me,” she said to him.

  He smiled at her. “Tell me your name.”

  “I’m Louise Bottoms. I was a year behind you in school. I’m sorry about your dad.”

  “Thanks,” Scott said.

  She filled our coffee cups.

  I’d never been in a Waffle House, so I ordered a waffle. Always go with the house specialty, I figure. Scott ordered biscuits and gravy. The waitress left. A glance around the restaurant showed me most faces quickly averted, some boldly staring, and a few with studied indifference.

  “You okay?” I asked.

  “I’m not sure.” Scott rubbed his hands over his face, then looked at me. “I didn’t know what I’d do when I saw my daddy. It feels so strange. I hoped my mama would be there. I love both my parents, but it’s tough. I guess you always figure you’ll be the one to bury your parents, but sitting there last night was …” He sipped his coffee. “Mostly I remembered stuff from when I was a kid. He used to always take us fishing—nearly every Saturday, when it wasn’t planting or harvest. You could go fishing almost every weekend. I remembered the first time he held me in his lap and showed me how to put a worm on a hook. He was patient and gentle. I felt warm and safe and honored for being with my daddy in a quiet and peaceful world only he and I shared. I think I remember the song of every bird, the murmur of every fly, and the water as it touched the banks of the stream. I was the oldest boy, and he was still young and strong. The night before that first trip, I was so excited I couldn’t sleep. I must have been four or five.”

  I gave him an encouraging murmur. If remembering helped, I would listen for hours. He rarely talked about when he was a kid.

  “I remember he used to sing us to sleep when we were scared. Oh, yeah … .” He gazed off into the distance. Scott began to sing softly the words from “Jimmy Crack Corn.” He stopped when tears began to run down his cheeks.

  I reached for his hand and covered it with mine. “You’re going to be okay,” I said.

  I heard someone clear his or her throat. I looked up. Louise was there with orange juice, water, silverware, and napkins. She was staring at our clasped hands as if they were a live rattler squirming toward her. I noted that a good chunk of the other patrons must have witnessed my gesture of affection. I squeezed Scott’s hand gently and slowly removed my hand. What was there to hide? If the local paper had made our sexuality front-page news, what was the problem? Everybody knew. A gesture I wouldn’t hesitate to make in Chicago was now fraught with significance. If people could radiate collective waves of disapproval, this crowd did.

  I glanced at Scott. He wiped his tears and blew his nose. He didn’t need extra aggravation at a time like this. I decided I had best watch my behavior very carefully.

  From the back of the room a man in a police uniform stood up. He swaggered toward us. I figured it was a good thing that he wasn’t wearing mirrored sunglasses indoors.

  He stopped at our table. Louise hustled herself off.

  He was maybe six-three and might have been an athlete at one time. His paunch protruded several inches over his belt, and the gun, flashlight, ticket book, and handcuffs around his waist seemed to drag his pants to the point of slipping off. His shirt stretched tightly across broad shoulders as well as around his bulging belly. Perhaps if I’d been standing, I wouldn’t have felt as intimidated.

  He waited for Scott to finish blowing his nose.

  “Morning, Scott,” he said.

  “Morning, Peter,” Scott said. “Good to see you.”

  “I’m sheriff now.”

  “I heard.”

  Peter, the sheriff, placed two huge hands on either side of our table. “I won’t have any of that faggot shit in here or in this town. No holding hands or anything else. You keep your lifestyle out of here. This is not going to happen while I’m in charge.”

  His voice carried. If I thought it was quiet when we walked in, now I didn’t hear a whisper of conversation. The grill ignored us and spat bacon grease; maybe it wasn’t prejudiced. Louise dropped a dish; the clatter seemed to rattle and echo forever. Her fellow waitress shushed her.

  “If I can, I’ll run you and your faggot buddy out of town.”

  I desperately wanted to go berserk. I rose from the booth. It flashed through my head that this was America, and I was a law-abiding person. I remembered snatches of patriotic blather about living in a great democracy and being equal. But more immediately, Scott was in pain, his father might die any moment, and here was this bully.

  I heard Scott saying, “Tom, sit down. Come on, Peter, we were friends when we were kids.”

  I ignored him. I did not shove Peter, the sheriff, but my movement caused him to step back. I tried to keep my voice calm. I could feel my lips quivering, and I had to draw deep breaths between nearly every word to keep from completely losing control. I said, “We haven’t done anything wrong. You need to leave us alone. We’re just here having breakfast. Please go away.” Maybe that sounds wimpy to you, but it scared the hell out of me to be defying this guy.

  The sheriff began to shout, but I didn’t stop speaking. “We have broken no laws,” I said. “We have committed no crimes. We are here because his father is ill. You will leave us alone.”

  His shouts had something to do with him being the sheriff and he’d arrest my Yankee ass and no snot-nosed northern scum was going to come into his town and flaunt their faggot lifestyle.

  Scott said things like, “Come on, Peter, ease up.�
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  I finished talking and the sheriff stopped bellowing at about the same time. We stared at each other. It dawned on me that while my words might be brave, it might have been a whole lot brighter of me to have kept my mouth shut. Visions of dank southern jails and rabid mobs of angry people seized my imagination. Maybe if I got to know the people, I wouldn’t be so prejudiced. Or maybe they were all as big a buffoon as this moron. Our verbiage spent for the moment, we stood breathing like critters rattling antlers at each other, waiting to bang our heads together.

  Peter did not look at all ready to ease anything. I stepped back a pace, hunched my shoulders, and clenched my fists, ready for the physical assault I felt sure would come.

  Several patrons scuttled out the door. Many gaped in fascination. At the farthest booth from the door, a woman in a white silk blouse and a gray skirt stood up and strode to us. She planted herself between the sheriff and me.

  Before we could resume hostilities, she said, “Peter, you are making a fool of yourself. If they do something wrong, by all means arrest them. At the moment they’re facing what you and I and all of us are going to face, the death of our parents.”

  Peter started to speak.

  She held up her hand. “Go home, Peter. Go to the police station. Go on patrol. Leave them alone.”

  Peter drew himself up and glanced around the restaurant. Patrons quickly stuck their faces back in their meals. “You two better watch yourselves while you’re in town,” he said. “You do the slightest thing wrong, and I’ll lock up your faggot asses.” He adjusted the bill of his cap, tugged at his belt, and swaggered to the door. He shoved it open, marched to his car, yanked open the door, and started the car with a roar. Tires squealing, he flew out of the parking lot.

  3

  The woman who’d confronted the sheriff was a foot shorter than I was. Her gray hair clung in tight curls to her forehead. She slipped a pair of gold-rim glasses from her face and let them dangle on a slender gold chain.

  “Thank you for your help,” I said.

  She gave me a tight-lipped smile and turned to Scott. “I hope your father has a full recovery.” She marched out of the restaurant.

  Louise returned with a tray filled with our orders. She placed each item on the table in rapid succession.

  “Who was that?” I asked Scott.

  “Clara Thorton.”

  “Why did she intervene?”

  “I don’t know.”

  Louise leaned over and whispered, “She’s the county commissioner. She doesn’t like Sheriff Woodall.”

  “Why not?” I asked.

  “I have to get my other orders.” Louise fled.

  “County commissioner must be all-powerful,” I said. “I wonder what hold she has on him. Do you know her?”

  “Vaguely. I remember her husband more. He was the town pharmacist when I was a kid.”

  “I hope we don’t have trouble from Peter Woodall. You knew each other?”

  “Oh, yeah. Peter and I went through grade and high school together. We were close friends for many years. He was always at my house and stayed over a lot. He wanted a pro career as a football player, and if that didn’t work, he’d take baseball. Thought he was pretty hot shit, but he didn’t want to pay the price, do all the hard work. Thought he was a natural, and he did have a lot of talent, but he didn’t get either career. Got himself elected sheriff couple of elections ago.”

  “Was he this big of an asshole as a kid?”

  “Aren’t most kids assholes sometimes?”

  “I don’t think I want whimsical philosophy. I want cheap, tawdry gossip.”

  Scott ate a few bites of his breakfast and sipped at his orange juice. Finally he said, “The goofiest thing he and I did as kids was build a raft and try and cross Jefferson Swamp with it.”

  “Why was that goofy?”

  “There’s no current. The water just sits there. The only thing that happened was the damn raft kept sinking. Water isn’t all that deep most places in the swamp, except when it rains. Lots of very unpleasant snakes, though.”

  “Always wanted a snake-filled swamp in my neighborhood.”

  “For weeks, the summer we made our raft, we were filthy and muddy every day when we got home. I got used to sneaking in, changing clothes, and doing my own laundry to hide it from Mama.”

  “Seems kind of more innocent and wholesome than goofy.”

  “You ever spend hours chopping down anemic, innocent trees and trying to tie them together with scraps of rope stolen from your dad’s barn?”

  “I led a swamp-deprived childhood. We built forts in a vacant lot.”

  “For two weeks Peter and I had canteens filled with water that never lasted long enough. We had peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwiches that got soaked in vile swamp water every day because of our ineptitude. We had planned to sail on a great adventure. We never got two feet.”

  “Don’t all kids make plans for great adventures or have wild dreams and fantasies?”

  “And what was yours?”

  I ate some of the warm and not overly greasy waffles and bacon. I glanced at my watch. “Shouldn’t we be getting back to the hospital?”

  “You’re ashamed and embarrassed to say what you did.”

  “I’m not ashamed and embarrassed.”

  He grinned for the first time since his mother called. “This is Scott you’re talking to.”

  “I’m a little ashamed and embarrassed. I’ll tell you later. I’m finished. Let’s go.”

  We walked back to the hospital. I was in a blue button-down shirt and khaki pants, both of which were wrinkled from wearing them overnight. Scott was in gray dress pants and a white shirt that also looked slept in. We both needed shaves. I could have used a shower. I yawned. “We both need sleep,” I said. “If your dad’s okay, we better think about it.”

  He nodded.

  At the hospital the nurse told us there had been no change in his father’s condition. We talked to Scott’s sister and mom for a few minutes. Scott stopped in to see his dad. He came back out to say that he was sleeping peacefully. Since we’d been awake the longest, it was decided that we’d go get some sleep and come back early that afternoon. At that time there would be a large family conference.

  Outside in the cloying heat I asked, “Are we really going to stay at your parents’ house?”

  “Mama said it was okay. Why not? It’s the house I grew up in.”

  I’d always wanted to see that. He’d been to my parents’ place millions of times. I wanted to know everything about where he grew up and what he did when he was a kid—memories and secrets about the person you love. Before today I’d never had a chance to be in his hometown and this could be my only one.

  Scott drove us out a two-lane highway east of Brinard.

  “I thought you bought your mom and dad a new house in Wascaloosa, Alabama.”

  “I did. Wascaloosa’s daddy’s hometown. They didn’t like it. They lived there a couple years, then moved back to the old place. Shannon kept the old place exactly as it was. I paid for any improvements they asked for in the old house. It’s got central air-conditioning that cost more to install than it would have to build them a whole new house.”

  “Air-conditioning is a good thing.”

  “New plumbing and new electric, too.”

  “Tell me you didn’t have to use an outhouse as a kid.”

  “I didn’t have to use an outhouse as a kid.”

  We passed a school complex. A three-story red brick building with long rectangular windows stood in the center of several acres. It looked like it had been there since the American Revolution. Several one- and two-story structures surrounded it, including a larger building with no windows, which I took to be a gymnasium. I saw a running track and a stadium open at both ends, with two sets of concrete bleachers running along the longer sides. In the distance was a baseball field with lights and a small grandstand.

  I pointed. “Is that where you went to high school?”
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br />   “Grade school, everything. That’s the ball field I played on since I was a little kid. Under those stands was where thirteen- and fourteen-year-olds would sneak to smoke during lunch.”

  “Where’d the older kids go?”

  “They had cars, the woods, or more important things to do. I can still picture the first time I hit a home run on that field.”

  “You remember that?”

  “Absolutely. I must have been twelve. I was so scrawny, my uniform draped on my body.”

  “But you still had muscles?”

  “I was lucky. Tall and thin, but strong. It was after school on a Thursday, our first game of the season, against Eugenia Junior High School in Filmore County. That’s just south of here. We were losing about fifteen to one. I hit the ball just over the left-field fence. Everybody cheered as if we’d won the game. Still lost by ten runs.”

  “When did you start pitching and stop hitting?”

  “I always pitched, but when you’re a kid and you’re good, they try and get you to play all the time. Even when it wasn’t baseball season, I remember pitching and practicing for hours. We didn’t have lights back then. We’d play until it got too black to see the ball. We tried flashlights once. Didn’t work.” He smiled. “I’ll never forget the time one of the other fathers got really mad, because in one game when I was fourteen, I struck out all the other kids. Big, ugly old guy in bib overalls, kind of a snaggle tooth.”

  “He did not.”

  “Okay, no overalls and no tooth, but the rest is true. I think he wore a white shirt and tie. Anyway, the guy said it wasn’t fair and that I should have a handicap. My daddy and him got into a fistfight.”

  “Anybody get arrested or sued?”

  “That’s not the way we settled arguments back then. It was just a fight. Only a couple punches got thrown. The other guy had to be helped away. My daddy wasn’t going to let some fool hurt his son’s chances for fame.”

  “Must have been great being a star in a small town.”

  “I never thought about it much as a kid. I was so good from an early age. It’s not arrogance, it’s just some people are lucky enough to be born gifted athletes, the way that some people are real smart. I knew I was better, I guess. Stuff that was hard for other kids came easy for me.”