Harley was wearing some kind of blue nylon jacket with yellow letters on the back, GHP for Georgia Highway Patrol or some such, although the first time around (we heard this story many times, too) he was merely an out-of-uniform member of the local constabulary. Whatever else he was, he was certainly comical. At least the way Annie tells it. She’s wonderful with accents and dialects, my sister. I wish I could do them the way she does.
Young Harley, it appears, came up to the bandstand during the eleven o’clock break and immediately introduced himself to Pearl and my sister.
“Hah, ah’m Hahley Wales, nice t’meet y’all, ladies.”
(I can’t do dialects, I’m sorry.)
I’ve been observing you ladies (he tells them in his inimitable way) and it occurred to me that you both being strangers in town and all, you might enjoy a little sight-seeing tour after y’all quit playing tonight. I want you to know there are more enjoyable places we could visit here in town than this li’l ole fire house, though I must say your presence has enlivened and beautified the place beyond measure. We could, for example, go to a fine ole bar I know of down the road, which is touch-close to a lovely motel many visiting celebrities like y’all stay at when they’re here in town. I would be happy—
“We’re busy, thanks,” my sister says.
“Thanks,” Pearl echoes.
I would be happy (young Harley goes on, undeterred) to accompany you ladies to this bar I’m telling you about, where perhaps you might enjoy dancing a little instead of singing and playing your l’il ole hearts out, like you’re doing here, though it’s a juke box there, I must admit. I’m a fair dancer, and I would be happy to alternate as your partner, so to speak, until such time as the three of us might become better acquainted. I’ve been noticing how well you two ladies play together, and I know this sort of intimacy, if you take my meaning, comes with practice—
“Get lost,” my sister says.
“But thanks,” Pearl says.
He is not about to get lost, young Harley. He tells my sister that if perhaps she’s not interested, then maybe her little black friend here with the swift fingers and the big smile might be enticed into sharing a brew and tripping the light fantastic, or whatever, this being an enlightened age in the South and all. My sister tells him that perhaps he hasn’t understood what she’s saying, which is that neither she nor her little black friend here with the speedy fingers and the bright smile is interested in sharing anything at all with him tonight, and besides it’s time they got back on the bandstand.
“So tell you what, Cracker, take a walk,” she says. “Or I’ll call a cop.”
“I am a cop,” he says.
According to my sister, Harley then pulled a rather large weapon from under his blue nylon jacket with the letters GHP on it, and pointed it at both her and Pearl, waving it in their faces from one to the other, and forcing them to accompany him outside behind the fire house where he ordered both of them to take off their panties and pee on their hands.
This was sixteen years ago.
I had not yet heard Annie’s story of molestation by the man giving pony rides or the kid sitting behind her on the saddle or poor Mr. Alvarez under the sink. When she related this Southern atrocity story to me and my mother, it sounded entirely fresh and believable. My mother was thoroughly appalled. I think she would have preferred Annie being raped, rather than so humiliated; her ruination, so to speak, rather than her urination.
As for me, I found the whole tale amusing. First, the image of these two frightened amateur rock artists, one black, one white, pulling down their panties for a redneck in a blue nylon jacket holding a .357 Magnum on them, and then Pearl actually starting to pee on her own talented fingers while Annie becomes so enraged that she suddenly straddles ole Harley’s leg and begins pissing all over his pants and his shoes — hey, you can’t get that on prime time television.
We laughed so hard, Annie and I.
We sit on the living room sofa, side by side, my mother and I. It is beginning to become light outside, a false dawn promising another clear day. I take my mother’s hand in mine. It is cold to the touch.
“Mom,” I say, “when did you speak to her last?”
My mother hesitates.
“Mom?”
“Yesterday afternoon sometime. I was going downstairs to do some shopping. We needed milk and orange juice.”
“What did she say to you?”
“She certainly didn’t say she was planning to leave. I would have...”
“Mom? Please, okay? We’re trying to find her. No one’s hurling accusations. Can you remember what she said?”
My mother sighs deeply.
“She was watching television. I came in to ask if she wanted to come shopping with me. An old movie was playing. Something with Joan Crawford, they play all those old movies in the afternoon. Annie asked me if I thought Joan Crawford was smarter than she was. I told her...”
“Smarter? Why would she ask something like that?”
“She said people say Joan Crawford is smarter. People say she’s stupid.”
“What people?”
“Well, she didn’t say ‘people,’ exactly,”’ my mother says, sounding suddenly wary, even cagey, the way she often sounds when we’re discussing my sister.
“What were her exact words? Can you remember?”
“Well... she asked me if I thought Joan Crawford was smarter than she was, and when I said ‘No,’ she said, ‘They say she’s smarter.’ ”
“They?”
“Yes.”
“They say?”
“Yes.”
“Who did she mean by ‘they,’ did she say?”
“No. Well... she was using it the way everyone uses it. It’s a common expression. ‘They say’ means ‘People say.’ ”
“Did she seem to think anyone was at that very moment telling her Joan Crawford was smarter than she was?”
“No, she was watching television. There were just the two of us in the room. I certainly didn’t tell her Joan Crawford was smarter.”
“What did you tell her?”
“I told her Joan Crawford had script writers.”
“She didn’t think anyone on television was telling her Joan Crawford was smarter, did she?”
“Well, I can’t say what she was thinking, I’m not a mind reader.”
“Did she seem to be listening to voices coming from the television set?”
“There were voices coming from the television set, Andy. There was Joan Crawford’s voice and the actress in the scene with her, I forget her name.”
“Mother,” I say, “please don’t be dense.”
My mother flashes me one of her withering green-eyed looks.
“I’m asking you if voices told Annie to run off again.”
“I did not hear any voices speaking to Annie,” she says stiffly. “Did she ever tell you she hears voices?”
“No.”
“Then what are you saying?”
“I’m simply trying to...”