Рита Браун: Catch As Cat Can

He made a decent living from that and his taxidermy but he also exhibited a creative streak. The license-plate-covered coffee tables were his latest idea.

“Not satisfied. I want to make some using the color for design. The old New York plates used to be orange so what if I used orange and, say, the old California plates, black. I don't know. Something different.”

“These are good. The ones right here. Where do you get these cool old plates?”

“Yard sales mostly. Junkyards. Scratchin'.”

As they'd known one another since they were toddlers, they employed a shorthand. Scratchin' meant he'd scratch up stuff like a chicken scratches up grubs. Many of Harry's friends did this, as they all had known one another all their lives. In the case of the older generation, this shorthand contracted into orders. The Virginia way was that older people gave orders, young people carried them out. “Worship of youth is for other parts,” as Virginians said. And what any true Virginian would never say was that those “other parts” of the country didn't count.

Another fundamental of Virginia life was that society was ruled by women. The entire state was a matriarchy, carefully concealed, of course. It would never do for men to know they were being directed, guided, cajoled, or sometimes openly threatened to do what the Queen wanted, the Queen being the reigning woman of every locality.

What the men never told the women was that they knew that. Hunting, fishing, and golf provided a respite from the continual improvements of the ladies. Despite the occasional irritations, interruptions, and exhaustion of pleasing women, Virginia men bore this burden for reasons they did not share with those same women. The men felt they were bigger, stronger, and more inclined to fight, which also meant they could protect those who were smaller, weaker, and who needed them. They declined to let the women know that those ladies needed them or that they knew full well what the ladies were doing.

The system worked most times. When it didn't there was hell to pay.

Harry and Don, in their late thirties, actually believed they weren't part of this dance. Of course they were, and in time they'd understand just how much they'd been influenced by their elders and by the very ethos of Virginia.

“You're the craftsman.” She smiled.

“I get by.” He wiped his hand across his chin, leaving a faint streak of light brown stain, as he'd been coloring calfskin before Harry came into his shop.

“You've always done good work. I don't know where you get your ideas. I remember the Homecoming float with the stallion that bucked. I still don't know how you built that bucking horse. No one's ever topped that.”

“Wasn't bad.” He grinned.

“Where do you get all this stuff?” She pointed to a broken pediment, good stone, too; a huge pile of ancient license plates; an old gas pump, the kind with a whirling ball on the top; a massive enameled safe with a central lock like a pilot's wheel; and a beautiful old Brewster phaeton, badly in need of repair but an example of the coach builder's art.

Mrs. Murphy and Pewter sat in the cracked, deep green leather of the phaeton seat. The body of the coach itself was dark green enamel with red and gold piping, quite lovely even if faded and cracked.

“O'Bannon's.”

“The salvage yard? I haven't been there since the old man died.”

“Opened up four acres in the back. The boys are good businessmen. Sean really runs the business and Roger runs the garage, old cars. He still spends half his time at the stock-car races. You ought to go over there.” Don carefully put the woodpecker into a large freezer he had for game. “They've even got a caboose on the old railroad siding. Must have been fun in the old days when businesses all had railroad sidings.”

“When did Sean expand?” Harry asked, knowing Sean O'Bannon was the older of the two brothers and seemed more commanding than Roger.

“He started about a month after his dad died. Said he could never get his father to see how the business could grow. He borrowed some money from the bank. It's a big expansion.”

“Thought I knew everything.” She scratched her head.

“You gonna be another Big Mim?” Don laughed, naming Mim Sanburne, in her late sixties although not broadcasting her age. Mim was wealthy, beautiful, imperious, and prepared to rule Crozet and all of Virginia if permitted to do so—and even if not permitted. She had to know everything.

“Thanks,” Harry dryly replied.

“Mom likes to give orders as much as Mim, secretly,” Pewter giggled.

Murphy disagreed with her companion. “I don't think so. I think she likes to go her own way but if she has to work in a group of humans she wants to get the job done. Mother doesn't want to hear a lot of personal stuff about people's lives—girl talk. Hates it.”

“I think she could run Crozet every bit as much as Big Mim.”

“She has the ability but not the desire.” Mrs. Murphy sat up and thought how civilized it would be to travel in a phaeton on a perfect spring day such as this.

“Don't forget Little Mim.” Tucker, who had been inspecting every item on the floor of the shop, walked over.

“True.” Pewter considered the social and political ambitions of Mim's sole daughter. “She's vice-mayor now, too.”

Jim Sanburne, husband to Mim, father to Little Mim, was mayor and had been mayor since the middle of the 1960s. His daughter challenged him for the mayoralty in the last city election but they compromised and she became vice-mayor, appointed by her father, approved by the City Council. Had she gone through with the campaign it would have divided the community. This way harmony was preserved and she was mayor-in-training.

“Go over to O'Bannon's,” Don suggested. “Artists go there. Not just motorheads. BoomBoom Craycroft is there once a week, sifting through scrap metal.”

“What?”

“She's welding artistic pieces. Says it grounds her.”

“Give me a break.” Harry grimaced. “BoomBoom can't stick to anything and every new activity is her salvation and ought to be yours, too. Well, at least she's out of her group therapy phase.”

“Ready for the Dogwood Festival next weekend? Our mid-April rites of spring?” He changed the subject.

“No.” She pursed her lips. “Damn that Susan. She suckers me every time.”

“What do you have to do this time?”

“Parade coordinator.”

“Yeah?”

“Means I have to line everyone up at the starting place, Crozet High School, space them correctly, use the bullhorn, and get them marching. It's easy enough until you consider who's marching in the parade. The clash of egos—our version of Clash of the Titans .”

Don laughed. “BoomBoom especially. Your favorite person.”

Harry started laughing so hard she couldn't talk. “She's leading a delegation of disease-of-the-week. I forget which disease.”

“Last year it was MS.”

BoomBoom Craycroft, a beautiful woman and an ambitious one, each year selected a charity. She would then lead this group in the annual parade, a celebration of spring and Crozet. It wasn't just that she wished to perform good deeds and help the sick, she also wanted to be the center of attention. She was too old to be the head majorette for the high school, obviously, so this was her venue.

“I suppose we wouldn't laugh so hard if we had whatever illness it was but I can't help it. I really can't. I think she should lead a contingent for breast reduction.” Harry giggled. BoomBoom carried a lot of freight upstairs.

Don gasped. “Don't do that.”

“Spoken just like a man. You twit.” She made a gun out of her thumb and forefinger and “shot” him. She walked over to the huge safe. “Got your millions in there?”