Tamar Myers - Batter off Dead

“Where was the intervention?”

“Wanda Hemphopple’s Sausage Barn. Just before I came here.”

“So you’d already eaten. I knew that lactating animals had increased appetites, but-”

“No, I didn’t eat; the whole thing was a bust. Literally. You see, Merle Waggler split his pants. Unfortunately, he goes about without skivvies, so were all able to see that it would be more appropriate if he was named Wiggler, rather than Waggler. Other than that, it was a waste of time.”

Doc chuckled briefly. “Who called this meeting?”

“Apparently the handsome young Elias Whitmore.”

“Pardon me? What did you say?”

“What do you mean?”

“You called this young fellow handsome.”

“I most certainly did not!”

“I may be losing some of my hearing, Magdalena, but I’m getting better at reading lips. Besides, you look practically smitten with him.”

“What a silly thing to say!”

“Yeah, well I’ve got a bad feeling about this kid; I’ve never liked him.”

“How come?”

“That house of his up on Buffalo Mountain, for one thing.”

“But it’s beautiful!”

“It’s crap.” Doc was at liberty to cuss, having freed himself from all religious strictures the day he joined the Marines back in the Civil War-or whenever that was.

“What’s wrong with it?”

“Wrong with it? For one thing, it ruins the view from on top of Stucky Ridge. You’re not supposed to be able to see any houses on top of the mountain from up there. Nada. Not a one. And then there’s the noise. All that Holy Roller Christian rock music that kid plays, and the car lights bobbing back and forth. You can’t tell me there aren’t drugs being bought and sold.”

“You’re equating Christian rock with drugs?”

“Uh-well, no. But face it, Magdalena, these young people today have the morals of alley cats.”

“Meow?”

“Touché. But I still think this kid’s bad news, and if he’s the one who organized the so-called intervention, then I say focus your investigation on him. He’s trying to divert your attention away from the fact that he’s the one who murdered Minerva J. Jay.”

“Maybe you’re right.”

“Aren’t I always?”

“Doc, if I recall correctly, you predicted that a moon landing would lead to the moon veering out of orbit, and that it would most probably head to Earth and kill us all within two years.”

“Yeah, but ‘one swallow doth not a summer make.’ William Wordsworth, by the way.”

“Yes, but he was misquoting Aristotle, who said ‘one swallow does not make a spring’-of course not in English.”

Doc grunted. “And you wonder why I find you so dang attractive. Now’s your chance, Magdalena. Get rid of that interloper from out of state, then marry me. With your looks and brains, and my life experience-the world would be our oyster.”

“You wouldn’t need oysters, Doc-not with your libido. And in any case, I couldn’t keep up. You were born into the wrong culture; you should be living someplace where you could have a harem.”

“Hmm, maybe I’ll look into that. More pound cake and strawberries?”

“Thanks, but no. If I’m going to put the screws to Elias this afternoon, I need to get home and feed Little Jacob.”

“You can feed him here if you like.”

“Doc, he’s nursing. Feeding him here would be like waving a flank steak in front of a lion.”

Doc sighed. “Perhaps you have a point.”

I jumped up and gave him a kiss on top of his hoary, horny head. Immediately after that I scooped up the joy of my life and skedaddled while the going was good. I knew from experience that Doc would refuse help with the dishes, and that me lingering any longer would simply be torture for the man with the iron willy.

There is no satisfactory way to explain marital separation to a child. Alison, as was her right, jumped to conclusions, just as quickly as I tend to do. Although I view my sudden leaps as a form of exercise, and thus defend them vigorously, I felt responsible for Alison’s frame of mind. Especially since she came down on my side of the finish line.

“I’m never going to forgive him,” she said.

“You what?”

“How can I? He didn’t just walk away from ya, Mom; he walked away from me too. And my baby brother.”

“But I’m sure that wasn’t his intent; he just needed to get away from me for a while. He’ll be back to see you two all the time. Or you can go over there.”

“Yeah? Then why didn’t he come to school and tell me that?”

“Because it just happened this morning. He hasn’t had time to think it through.”

“Ya always defend him, Mom. Ya know that?”

“Well, maybe that’s because he’s a good man.”

“Then how come ya treat him like a baby?”

“I most certainly do not!”

Alison has shot up in the last year, so that now at five foot seven, while still as thin as a rotisserie spit, she can do a decent job of looking me in the eye. Her eyes, by the way, are a light Caribbean blue. One of my guests once described them as the color of a Paraiba tourmaline. When she trains those eyes on you, you realize that it’s not a matter of if you’ll get around to seeing things her way, but when.

“Mom, ya do so treat him like a baby! Ya make fun of him because Grandma Ida cuts his meat for him.”

“Yes, but isn’t that justifiable? I mean, a grown man! That’s just ridiculous.”

“Yeah, but ya shouldn’t do it in public; that’s the thing.”

“I don’t do it in public.”

“Ya did that time at the church supper when all youse ladies was talking about your pet peas.”

“The word is peeves, dear-Wait a minute, you heard that?”

“Mom, the way ya were mocking Grandma Ida and her accent, the whole church heard ya.”

I slapped the offending mouth in question. “Oops. I guess I got carried away.”

“Yeah, well maybe she deserves it now, because I’m mad at her too.”

“Yes, I can imagine how hurt I would be if my grandmother hadn’t said good-bye to me.” The truth is that I would have been immensely relieved if Grandma Yoder had not paid any attention to me when I was Alison’s age. The woman had passed on when I was just nine, and although her bones lay moldering in the grave atop Stucky Ridge, her controlling spirit had yet to budge an inch outside the parlor where she allegedly gave up her ghost. I couldn’t even run through that room without feeling Grandma’s icy talons digging into my shoulders and hearing her ravenlike voice cawing in my ears.

“It ain’t me, Mom, that I’m mad for. I’m fourteen, so I’m all growed up. I’m mad on account of Little Jacob. He ain’t never going to know what having a grandma is like-well, except for Freni. But she ain’t our grandma, ’cause she’s some kind of a cousin.”

My heart overflowed with love for the girl I had taken in. Instead of focusing on herself, as could well have been expected, her concern was for the baby, even though he was still not legally her brother. And given the sad state of my marriage, Little Jacob might never officially be her sibling.

“You’re darn tooting,” I said.

“Wow, Mom, ya just swore!”

“Just this once. And just to show you that I agree with you; you are all growed up.”

“Mom, the word is really grown; I hope ya know that. I just say growed to get a rise out of ya. But anyway, since I am an adult and everything, can I go out tonight with Ronny Dietrich?”

“That high school boy on the basketball team? The one whose hands hang down past his knees?”

“Yeah, but he’s, like, only a sophomore, on account of he flunked two times in junior high.”

It’s conversations like these with Alison that can take a reasonable woman, such as me, zooming from Point A to Point Z in a split second. “You’re not even allowed to date!”