E. J. squares his cap, which I have always believed is the font of his bravery, and says, “What’s the new plan?” He throws caution to the wind and doesn’t care where it lands when that coon sits on his head.
“New plan?” I haven’t thought this through. I don’t have any idea what to do next, other than talk to Gramma or persuade Woody to tell me what she saw that night back in the clearing.
“Well, I could… maybe we should… oh, E. J… Mama… she’s… never comin’ home.”
He saves me from collapsing onto the ground by taking me into his arms. Lets me cry on his shoulder beneath the twilight sky.
“Shen?” E. J. says, once I get my sniveling under control. “I know you’ve been wantin’ to talk to Vera. We could head over to the drugstore.”
I scrub the sad off my face with the bottom of my T-shirt and say, “Ya only want to go to Slidell’s ’cause you know Vera’s gonna give you a free brown cow. Do you have no shame?” This is my way of thanking him for coming up with a good idea. Vera Ledbetter was a good friend to Mama. I have already thoroughly questioned her about our mother’s vanishing. She didn’t have much to offer then, so she probably won’t have nothing more to add to my understanding of how Mama died. But she does make a mean brown cow and gives me free Rolaids whenever we stop by. And I promised Woody chow. One of Vera’s scrumptious egg salad sandwiches would do my sister a world of good. When we were hugging during our mourning days, I could’ve played her ribs the way Beezy’s favorite musician, Mr. Lionel Hampton, plays his vibraphone.
“We’ve got to be quick about it. I don’t want to leave Woody alone too long,” I say, looking down at my wrist to check the time out of habit. It’s two freckles past a hair. That’s something else I need to take care of. Getting Mama’s watch back from my uncle tonight. “We also need to make a stop at What Goes Around Comes Around.”
E. J. asks, “What for?”
“I’m gonna get Woody one of Mama’s scarves. Papa rip-I mean, I accidentally lost the one she had.” Getting her that scarf is not a completely unselfish act. I figure she might tell me what she saw the night Mama died if she’s got some of that chiffon wrapped around her neck. Later tonight, when she’s got a full stomach and is surrounded by all that soft, she’ll be prime for the picking. If that doesn’t work, I’m going to have to get strict with her. Absolutely no almond cream rubs until she coughs up that information.
I stand up and dust off my bottom. “Ready?”
E. J. looks around for my lunch box. “Did ya bring the disguises?” We always wear them if we have to sneak into the busy part of town. I have a black-haired wig from the year Mama got this idea that she and Woody and I would go trick-or-treating on Halloween as the three witches from Macbeth. E. J. wore the leftover beard I have from when I played one of the wise men in the church Christmas pageant.
“We don’t need the disguises anymore. Papa says it’s all right for Woody and me to go into town again.”
E. J. gives me a squinty look. I’m sure he must be curious why all of a sudden we’re being allowed to roam free, but just like everybody else around here, he knows better than to go prying into Carmody family business.
I extend my hand, he grasps it, and we turn towards the fastest way to get to town.
We’re about a quarter up this side of Honeysuckle Hill when he says, “It’s a good night for the race, wouldn’t ya say?”
Bless his homely heart. He’s trying to cheer me up by telling me the Bazooka joke the same way I always do when he’s down in the dumps. “And which race might that be, E. J.?” I say, playing dumb the same way he always does.
He can barely contain himself. “Why, that would be the human one, Shenny.”
I am so surprised by what escapes out of my mouth. I don’t know if it’s relief from not having to search for my mama anymore or the comfort of having a steadfast mountain man by my side who’s going to help me find out how she died. It’s the first time I’ve laughed in a coon’s age.
Chapter Twenty-two
Once we’re atop Honeysuckle Hill, E. J. and I can hear boogiewoogie music coming over the loud speakers. Lights that look like full moons are illuminating most of Buffalo Park. Flatbed trucks that’re loaded with rides and game booths and men are struggling with a tent, shouting, “Get ’er up.”
Colonel Button’s Thrills and Chills has come to town.
The half-raised red tent is for the Oddities of Nature show and a couple of them are already here. The fattest lady in the whole world-Baby Doll Susan? Her trailer has a picture of her painted on the side. Her dimples are the size of truck tires. The towel-headed man is relaxing on a folding chair under a shade tree reading a magazine, which strikes me so funny. I never imagined he did anything else with his life but lie down on a bed of nails in a diaper twice a day. The other oddities like Milly and Tilly the Siamese Twins and Tiny Jimbo, and that baby in the bottle that Bootie told me was coming this year, can’t be far behind.
I ask E. J., “What day is it anyway?”
He stopped to watch a couple of the hobos struggling to set up a game booth. “Damnit to hell and back!” E. J. says, throwing his cap onto the grass.
“Ed James!” I’m shocked. He rarely curses.
“Sorry. It’s just that… I shoulda got over here earlier.” He runs his hands through his bird’s nest hair. “My papa’s been feelin’… we could use some extra cash.”
Watching the hobos shuffling to and fro from the trucks, I say, “Don’t worry. Most of them won’t come back in the morning. You know how they are.” They can get work when the carnival comes to town because mostly everybody else in the show is as dirty and scruffy as they are. But they’re not hardy nor reliable. They’ll buy Thunderbird wine with the cash they make working tonight and sleep it off tomorrow.
I recognize a few of the local boys working up a sweat, too. John-John Ellis is here and so is Bootie Young. When Bootie notices me, he stops unloading admission boxes and waves, and I wave back and think once again how dreamy that boy is. I mean, really. He is super something. And he likes me, too. A girl can tell.
Unfortunately, they open the show to everyone no matter how repulsive they are, so Remmy Hawkins is here, too. He’s sprawled on the hood of his fancy car, wearing the same pair of greasy bibs that he’s always got on without a shirt. Judging by the stack of empty beer cans piled alongside the whitewalls, he’s been here most of the day.
Another group of burly men are unloading the merry-go-round piece by piece.
Mama.
That’s the last time I saw her alive. Riding on the merry-go-round that night with Sam Moody in her white blouse with red yarn trim on the pockets. Seeing that smiling swan… it makes my stomach hip-hop so I move my binoculars to the trees that run alongside that part of the park.
“Is that… Curry Weaver?” I ask E. J., not at all sure that it is. He’s standing by himself at the edge of the trees that line the north side of the park.
“Curry?” E. J. is spinning around. “Is he back from the Colony already?”
“He got sent to the Colony?” I ask. Usually the hoboes that get put up there are the habitual offenders. Curry’s only been in town for a few weeks. How much trouble could he get in? “How’d you know that?”
E. J. says sheepishly, “While Woody and you were up in the fort for those days… I got sorta lonely. I went up to the camp to see what Curry was doing. Maybe get some lessons.” E. J. is learning some hand-to-hand combat from the hobo who might not be a teacher or a writer like I first thought, but a soldier who has gone AWOL from the army. Since that war started over in Vietnam, deserters have been showing up at the camp, trying to blend in. I used to think that they were cowards, but when Ricky Oppermann came home from the war without half his skull, that changed my mind. I really liked Ricky even if he was planning on being a dentist like his father. Now he spends every day on his front porch drooling into a bib, so if that’s what Curry is-a deserter-I don’t like him any less for it. “But he wasn’t there. I got worried that he’d hopped a train so I asked around. Dagmar Epps told me that he got hauled off to the Colony by the sheriff.”