The husband of the above was out back picking up garbage scattered on the lawn. It looked as if dogs had gotten in the cans, or maybe a coon. Odd thing was, dogs and coons hardly ever left behind a Bible under a limp lettuce leaf. Jim Bob started to toss the Bible into the garbage can, then stopped and opened it on the off chance there was a name written within the inside cover. There was. Frowning, he set it aside and resumed his chore.
Brother Verber lay on the couch inside the silver trailer that served as the rectory for the Voice of the Almighty Lord Assembly Hall. Like the newly elected president, he was oblivious to the day unfolding outside, since he was keenly and painfully preoccupied with his pounding head, moldy tongue, bleary red eyes, tumultuous stomach, and general feeling of being trampled by an endless herd of bison. Which, for all he could recollect of his previous evening's adventures, might well have happened. Whatever lust he might have been harboring had been replaced with righteous heartburn.
Raz Buchanon was on Cotter's Ridge, as was Marjorie. She was snuffling contentedly for acorns, but he was up to no good.
Eilene Buchanon was well on her way to losing her mind, having spent the night alternately pacing the floor and sitting by the telephone, willing it to ring. Well after midnight, her husband had gone on to bed with a few grumpy remarks, and earlier in the morning had gone on to work with a few more, even grumpier, since Eilene had not been of a mind to fix him breakfast.
Joyce Lambertino was vacuuming the front room and trying to remember if she had enough sugar in the cannister to make peach cobbler for her in-laws, who were coming for supper. Shortly afterward, she discovered there would have been enough had the kids not made Kool-Aid and left snowy white hills all over the counter and the floor. No use crying over spilt sugar, she wearily told herself as she went for the broom and dustpan.
Somewhere in Tennessee (or maybe Kentucky by now), Marvel was cruising along in the passenger's seat, his feet on the dashboard and the warm breeze buffeting his face, gazing at the bucolic panorama and humming along with the whiny country music from the radio. The road to Cleveland had turned out to be damn empty thus far, and they'd been obliged to sleep in the car. He was in the mood for food.
"When we gonna eat, man?" he asked Kevin.
"As soon as we find a place," Kevin said, glancing in the rearview rearview mirror. "Doesn't that sound like a good idea, my sweetums? Eggs and sausage and grits? Biscuits and gravy? You'd like that, wouldn't you?"
Dahlia was still in the only position that gave her relief from the insidious itching. She grunted and said, "All I'd like is to see you being dragged behind the car in a gunny sack. I must have told you twenty times that this is the wrong road, but you just kept driving and now we're so lost that the cows probably speak a foreign language. It's all your fault."
Marvel turned around and smiled at her. "Hey, Big Mama, you got to trust me on this. We're not lost. I know exactly where we are. Why, if you were to blindfold me and spin me around three times, I'd still know where we are."
"Yeah," Kevin said, bobbing his head like a dashboard figurine. "Marvel knows where we are."
"So where are we?" she demanded.
Kevin stared pleadingly at Marvel, who was a little bit uneasy about the direction of the conversation (and of their desired destination). The latter finally cleared his throat and said, "On the road to Cleveland. Your man Marvel ain't gonna steer you wrong. I been to Cleveland so many times I could find it in the dark. You just relax and leave the navigating to me, Big Mama."
Kevin accurately interpreted the noise from the backseat as a mixture of disbelief and of displeasure with the increasingly frequent use of the phrase "Big Mama." He wanted to believe Marvel more than anything (except the consummation of the marriage), and he was aware that he didn't have a passel of options at the moment. "Look up there," he said, struggling to sound like a hearty trailblazer. "We're coming to a town, and if that's not a cozy café, then I don't know what it is. It doesn't look busy, so we can be settled in for a nice big breakfast afore you can count to ten.
He parked right as Dahlia reached eight, hurried out of the car and opened her door, and with some exertion, managed to slide her out of the car and get her steadied on her feet.
"Not much of a town," she said, squinting at the few buildings, ramshackle house, and rusted mobile homes on cinder blocks. "It's uglier than Maggody."
Marvel was equally unimpressed. "Or East St. Louis long about January, when the snow turns to slushy mud."
"This looks like a mighty fine café," Kevin said with enough enthusiasm for all three of them. With Marvel trailing behind, he herded his beloved across the rocky parking lot, through the doorway, between the tables, and to a booth where he gestured for her to tuck herself in.
"Ain't this nice?" he said hopefully.
Dahlia looked real hard at the interior and then at him. "I wouldn't let my dog eat here." Nevertheless, she managed to slide into the booth, pick up a menu, and begin to read, saliva gathering in the corners of her mouth as she savored the promise of carbohydrate heaven.
"It's cool, Big Mama," Marvel said as he slid in across from her. "We gonna have ourselves some food and drink. Sure we are." He grinned at the two elderly men sitting at the counter and at the waitress in the kitchen doorway. Something about the way she was eyeing him made him uneasy, but he figured his main man and Big Mama weren't going to drive another mile until they ate. His instincts were very good.
There were people I could call and announce my presence, if not my triumphant return through the gates of the city. There were women with whom I'd done lunch, men with whom I'd worked in the security agency. Lining the gray gullies of the city were stores and shops I'd patronized. Museums, galleries, bars, restaurants, delis-the whole gamut: the sidewalk where I'd first been mugged, the corner from which my car had last been towed, the apartment building where I'd bathed and slept and cooked and told my ex that I was unwilling to continue to feign ignorance of his philandering (I'd called it something else at the time; what we'd called each other afterward was too unimaginative to repeat).
Yeah, I could make a few calls and sally forth, serene in the notion I had neatly severed all emotional entanglements with the people and the place. Or I could hang out in the lobby, waiting to hear that Ruby Bee and Estelle had been murdered in a subway station. Mr. Cambria would protect me from the intrusion of the ghosts (of yuppies past), as well as muggers and others less desirable.
I turned away from the window and determined that I had the place to myself. On my left were double doors that led to a dimly lit dining room, the site of future antics. The registration counter was directly in front of me, with the elevator and stairs on the right. On the left, between it and the dining room, was a hallway which led to an office and ultimately the kitchen, where the cartons of Krazy KoKo-Nut were safely stored.
For lack of much else to do, I went quietly down the hallway, pausing by a closed door long enough to overhear Geri snarl, "Mother will be terribly disappointed, Tina," then continued to a scarred metal door at the end.
The key was in the lock and I was curious, or perhaps merely bored. I eased the door open. The overhead fluorescent lights were on, and water was gushing and splattering in a double sink. As I hesitated, Kyle stood up from behind the stainless steel island, his arms laden with bowls and utensils, and dumped them into the sink. The ensuing foamy splash was accompanied by an expletive more often heard in the alley behind the pool hall in Maggody.