Nancy A. Collins, page 6
One Sunday in ‘47, Reverend Cakebread got up in front of the congregation and said that it was his pleasure to announce that Jasper and Bessie Lynn would be tying the knot in a month’s time.
On the day of the wedding everybody in town turned out to see what had once seemed as likely as men on the moon: Jasper Krait marrying a decent, god-fearing woman. Bessie Lynn was dressed up in a fancy bridal gown that almost made her look pretty. The men-folk took Jasper out by the privy behind the church for some last-minute “fortitude” for his nerves. I was one of them, and as we stood around smoking roll-yer-owns, sipping white lightnin’ out of fruit jars, and cracking wedding-night jokes, it was like Jasper had always been part of the group.
I felt happy for Jasper, in my way. I was enjoying being a husband and a daddy after all the killing I’d seen and done over in Europe; and I wanted other folks to know being part of a family heals all wounds, if you have a mind to let it.
I forgot that families have a way of creating wounds, too.
When Jasper’s pet nigger showed up on the mule, I saw the happiness drain from Jasper’s face like someone had pulled a plug in the back of his head.
It was the Widow Krait. She’d fallen down the stairs. Jasper went straight home and never made it back to the church that day. After the first thirty minutes Bessie Lynn was anxious. After an hour had gone by she got mad. By the time the third hour rolled around, she was crying. I couldn’t take no more and left not long after. I can still see poor, plain Bessie Lynn standing in the vestibule, boo-hooing into her bouquet. It was not a pretty sight.
Bessie Lynn was too ashamed to show her face in Choctaw County after that, so she went to live with a maiden aunt somewhere in the Ozarks. No one ever saw her again. I guess that’s when Jasper really started in drinking. He’d always been one for the bottle, but once Bessie Lynn was gone he ended up being the town drunk.
In ‘53, Sheriff Campbell retired and, seeing how I was one of the few white men left under thirty who’d seen military service living inside the town limits, I ended up with the badge.
Mostly my job consisted of making sure Rial’s Package Store wasn’t selling to minors and hosing off the highway after wrecks. It wasn’t like they show it on television; no car chases or bank robberies or nothing exciting like that.
I tell you, being the Law for twelve years opened my eyes to a lot of things. Most of them not so good. I ended up knowing more about my neighbors than either them or me wanted. It was one thing to gossip about Mordecai Simpkins’ drunken rages, but another to lock him up for putting his baby’s eye out with a coat hanger.
I guess it was-what? 1960?-when it happened. It was a nice spring day and Heck Jones gets a knock on his door. He’s kind of surprised to see Jasper Krait standing there, pretty-as-you-please, even though the Kraits were his neighbors. Heck sees Jasper’s got a stack of records-them hi-fi long-players-under his arm.
“Afternoon, Heck,” says Jasper,, as if he come calling every day. “Afternoon, Jasper. What can I do you for?” Heck was nonplussed by Jasper stopping by unannounced and smelling like the Jack Daniels plant, but he was curious to find out what the richest man in town was doing on his front stoop.
“Well, Heck, I was hopin’ you’d do me the favor of keepin’ these here record albums for me while I go outta town.”
Heck thought that was mighty peculiar at the time, seeing ‘now the passenger trains didn’t stop at the depot no more and he knew Jasper didn’t have no driver’s license, but he let it pass.
“You going outta town? Where to?”
Jasper looked nervous and shrugged. “Just outta town, that’s all. Look, you gonna keep these records for me or not?”
“Sure, I’d be happy to oblige, Jasper. But why can’t you leave ‘em home?” He commenced to sweating and for a moment Heck was afraid Jasper was gonna puke all over his wife’s tulip bed.
“I just can’t. That’s all.” He started to get this belligerent look on his face, like a mule that’s decided it don’t want to move, that was a watered-down version of what Old Man Krait used to give folks who were late paying their notes on account of their crops got washed away. So Heck ended up taking in Jasper Krait’s records.
Later on, I found out Jasper made similar spur-of-the-moment visits on his other neighbors that day, asking each of them the “favor” of boarding a particular cherished object of his while he was “outta town”; he left his paperback book collection with Mamie Pasternak, his prize shotgun with Carlton Tufts, his good Sunday-go-to-meeting suit with Sam Wilberforce, and his fishing rod and tackle with Freddie Nayland. The next night the Krait house caught fire.
I’d just come in from a hard day of plowing the south forty when the call came in. The volunteer fire department was already on the scene, the old hook and ladder pulled up on the Krait’s front lawn. Reverend Thurman, who took over the Baptist church after Brother Cakebread passed on, was standing there in his braces and oilcloth coat, an axe in one hand and soot on his face, as if he’d just come back from freeing souls from Hell.
“How is it, Reverend?”
“Not too bad. The back porch got burnt up real good, but we got the worst of it.”
“Anyone hurt?”
“See for yourself.”
Just then Heck Jones and Sam Wilberforce come out the front door, carrying the Widow Krait between them. She was in her sixties and getting on the frail side, but she still had her dignity. And she weren’t bad looking, as old ladies go.
“What kept y’all so long?” fumed Brother Thurman.
“She wouldn’t come out ‘till she put on her housecoat and got her teeth in, Reverend! Said she refused to stand in front of every soul in Choctaw County in nothing but her flimsies and her bare gums,” Sam explained.
I could tell Reverend Thurman wanted to let fly with a few choice words on the vanity of Eve, but the look the Widow Krait shot him made him shut his mouth before he got started.
Jasper showed up the next day, asking the neighbors what had happened to his mama. When Heck Jones told him she was over at St. Mary’s in Dermott, being checked out for smoke inhalation, Jasper looked more surprised than relieved.
Everyone knew it was arson. Hell, even Granny Simple-who was blind in one eye, deaf as a post, and hadn’t had her wits about her since Hoover was in office-could see that. Someone turned up a bunch of oily rags and an empty can of gasoline under the floorboard’s in Jasper’s pet nigger’s shack and there wasn’t much I could do except arrest him.
Now, I ain’t a nigger-lover, but I ain’t proud of what I done. I knew that nigger didn’t do it-or if he had, it was on orders-but I arrested him anyway. I still feel bad about that, but I had a few more years to go on paying my note and my oldest was fixing to go off to Fayetteville and major in business. There wasn’t much of a trial and Jasper’s pet nigger got sent to Cummins for seven years. When the state troopers came to take him, he looked kind of relieved. I got the impression he was happy to go anywhere, so long it was away from the Kraits.
After that, things quieted down some. It was easier for folks to believe that Jasper’s pet nigger, full of Martin Luther King and cheap shine, got it into his head to burn down the Kraits’ house, than for them to think about the truth.
Widow Krait hired a mess of carpenters to fix up the house and got shed of everything that had smoke or water damage. Most of the time Jasper laid low, drinking even harder than before. My own mama, bless her, passed on that winter, so I was more preoccupied than usual.
Then, about a year after the fire, I get this call before Nadine left the house for Sunday school. It was the Kraits’ nigger maid, Amberola. Seems she found Widow Krait unconscious at the foot of the stairs. I told her to stay put and called Doc McFadden then phoned the ambulance service over in Desha County. Turned out the Widow Krait took herself one hell of a bad spill. She came to for a spell while Doc McFadden was checking her over and asked to see Jasper.
I found him sleeping it off in his bedroom. When I told him his ma was hurt and asking for him, he looked real funny-like he’s swallowed his chaw-then puked all over his bed.
Doc McFadden rode with her to St. Mary’s over in Desha County, since Choctaw didn’t have a hospital back then. He told me later that she’d busted her hip, collarbone, and a couple of ribs, and that it was a testament to God’s mercy she’d lived to tell about it.
She was in the hospital for a long time. Most of the women-folk in Choctaw County paid her a visit while she was stuck in bed. My Nadine took her some Upper Rooms and a couple of crossword puzzles. She said that the Widow Krait was quite gracious, even with her hip in a plaster cast, but acted like she was the queen of England granting an audience. Nadine said that seeing her that way helped her understand Widow Krait. She didn’t like her any better, mind you, but it made things clearer, at least woman-to-woman wise.
It was six months before the Widow Krait came back to Seven Devils. She couldn’t do for herself too well, thanks to that busted hip, so Amberola pushed her in a wheelchair whenever she had to visit the bank. An electrician came in from Pine Bluff and installed a special elevator seat so’s she could get up and down the stairs on her own. Funny how the Kraits seemed to run to cripples: first the Old Man, then Jasper, and finally Widow Krait.
Doc McFadden and me knew a lot of things that most folks hereabout wished we didn’t. Things like that happen when you’re the only doctor and the only law in a town this size. So it was only fittin’ he’d call me that night.
“Jimbo? You set down to dinner yet?”
“Just gettin’ ready to, Doc. What is it?”
“It’s the Kraits. You better get on over here. I’ll be calling Dewar’s Funeral Home next.”
I felt my guts cinch up. The last thing I wanted to do was go and look at Eugenia Krait’s corpse, but I got in the truck and drove over anyway. I was a tad surprised to see the Widow Krait sitting in her front parlor, Amberola hovering over her like a huge shadow. She glanced up when I entered the house then quickly looked away.
Doc McFadden took my elbow and started leading me to the stairs. “Come on up. It’s Jasper.”
The only son and heir of Josiah Krait was sprawled across his bed, dressed in a pair of dirty boxer shorts and socks that didn’t match. There were a couple of empty Jack Daniels bottles on the nightstand and a beat-up dime novel with a picture of a woman being tortured by Nazis laying face-up on the floor. Jasper was colder’n a wet mackerel in January.
“Shit, he’s dead, alright. What was it-did he die in his sleep?”
Doc shrugged. “Can’t rightly tell. I wouldn’t be surprised if it turns out he drank himself to death. Anything’s possible.” He looked at me when he said that and I knew what he was getting at.
Anything’s possible.
Amberola looked at me like I was a mealie in the cornbread when I entered the parlor. She’d been with the Widow Krait since before the Old Man died, and I knew she wouldn’t have me upsetting her mistress, but I had my job to do, nigger maid or no.
I cleared my throat and held my hat close to my chest with both hands, gripping the brim like a steering wheel. The Widow Krait looked up and frowned for a second, as if trying to place me.
“Sheriff Turner,” she said, her voice tired but far from weak. “Yes, ma’am.”
“Is he dead?”
I gripped my hat tighter. Lord, I hated that part of my job more than hosing off the highway. “Yes’m. I’m afraid so.”
She nodded her head and sighed to herself but didn’t offer to say anything else.
“Uh, Miz Krait-when was the last time you saw your son? Alive, I mean. I hate to be asking you these questions, ma’am, at a time like this…”
“I understand, Sheriff. It’s your job. I know what it’s like when something has to be done.” She looked up at me again, and I could see her eyes were as clear and blue as a summer sky. “I reckon the last time I saw Jasper was last night. He brought me some hot cocoa and we sat and drank it in the sitting room. Yes, that was the last time, I’m pretty certain of it. When he didn’t show up for dinner this evening, I had Amberola go up and fetch him. It wasn’t that uncommon for him to stay in his room most of the day, on account of his…condition, but he usually came down for supper. That’s when Amberola found him…”
“Yes, sir. I found him like that.” Amberola folded her meaty arms as if daring me to try and wrassle any more information out of her.
I left them sitting in the front parlor, the Widow Krait looking as delicate as a china doll. But I knew the porcelain was hiding a cold steel core.
When Doc McFadden pumped Jasper’s stomach he found a Moon Pie, some cocoa, and enough whisky and painkillers to kill a team of mules. Doc recognized the painkillers as being those he’d prescribed Widow Krait for her hip. I asked him if he thought Jasper had committed suicide.
“Ain’t saying no such thing, one way or another. Could have been accidental. Jasper had arthritis in that bum knee of his. Maybe he dosed himself with his mama’s pain pills. That, on top of his drinking, would have done the trick. Anything’s possible. As it is, I still owe the bank for my car.”
Jasper’s death was listed as heart failure and a day later he was cremated. Reverend Thurman was scandalized that the Widow Krait had her son stuck in an urn instead of buried, like the Good Lord intended. It just didn’t seem Baptist.
Jasper’s ashes hadn’t cooled on the mantelpiece before Eugenia moved to Florida, taking Amberola with her. I don’t know if she took Jasper’s urn, though. If she ever came back to Seven Devils, I never heard of it. Talk has it she lived in a retirement community near Boca Raton and became a mean hand at shuffleboard.
Over the years the gossip surrounding the Kraits slacked off. And once the state banking authorities took over running things in ‘61, people didn’t have any real reason to think about ‘em any more. The Krait house, once the biggest and finest home in all Choctaw County, fell into disrepair.
A couple of years ago word got out that Eugenia Krait had died. A niece in Biloxi ended up inheriting the estate and she drove up from Mississippi last summer to look things over. I reckon she didn’t like what she found, since they’re tearing the place down.
I guess I’ll go and watch ‘em bulldoze the house. I’m the only one left who remembers how it was with the Kraits, now that Doc McFadden’s retired and moved to Arizona, and Heck, Reverend Thurman, and even my Nadine, bless her, are gone.
Still, I can’t help but wonder what it was like for them in that big, fine, lonely house. Spending all that time together, needing each other so bad love and hate became one and the same thing. I’d like to think he was the one who put the painkillers in the hot cocoa, and that she switched the cups when he wasn’t looking.
Anything’s possible.
THE PUMPKIN CHILD
* * *
Part One: 1946
“Next stop Seven Devils!” the train conductor said in a controlled bellow. “All out for Seven Devils, Arkansas!”
Hollis Railsback, recently a Corporal in the United States Army, started awake at the sound of his hometown’s name and glanced at the wristwatch he picked up at the Honolulu PX. It was six in the morning. Right on time.
He quickly stood up, reaching for the canvas duffle bag in the rack over his seat. After spending two and a half years trying not to get killed, he’d learned to wake up fast and clean. He looked around the coach car to see who else might be getting off at his stop, but judging from the snores, he was the only one disembarking. Shouldering his duffle, Hollis hurried towards the conductor, who stood at the exit with his pocket watch in hand.
“Welcome back, soldier,” the conductor said, eyeing Railsback’s dress greens. “Been away from home long?”
“Nearly three years, sir.”
“See any action?”
Hollis shifted about, trying not to show his irritation with the question. Barely a week out of the service and he was already growing weary of curious civilians.
“I got my share,” he said with a shrug. “Mostly in the Pacific. I’ve just spent the last six months recovering’ from malaria and beriberi I picked up out in the jungle. Now I’m going’ home.”
“Well, you’re almost there now,” said the conductor.
The train hissed like a great iron serpent as it put on its brakes, sending a brief, jarring shudder along its length as it came to a full stop. A porter in a white jacket appeared at Hollis’ elbow, carrying a large metal step stool.
“Move back, sir,” the conductor said, motioning for Railsback to clear the way. “Let George here make sure everything’s safe for you to leave the train.”
The porter stepped into the narrow open stair well and then hopped down, setting the step stool securely unto the station platform.
“There y’go, cap’n,” the porter said, removing his red cap as he smiled up at Railsback.
Hollis smiled and shook his head as he exited the train, tipping the porter a quarter. “I’m just a corporal.”
“Whatever you say, cap’n.”
The porter picked up the stool and hopped back into the rail car. The conductor leaned out and waved to the engineer, and within seconds the train began to move again, its wheels squealing like steel banshees as it pulled away from the station.
Hollis turned his back on the departing train and looked up and down the deserted platform. Not even the tiny one-room ticket office was open. Railsback frowned. He hadn’t exactly been expecting a brass band or anything, but he had, at the very least, thought his father would be waiting for him.
Hollis had wired his father from Kansas City the day before, when he switched trains, to let him know when he was supposed to arrive. Puzzled, he went down the platform stairs that exited onto Railroad Street. As he walked down Railroad Street towards the main business district, he felt strangely disconnected, as if he was in a play, walking through carefully crafted sets designed to replicate the places and things of his youth. His first impression was that nothing about the town was different, and, to a certain extent that was true: the iron clock outside the First Federal was still five minutes off; the bandstand was still in the park opposite the Bijou; Bayou Baphomet still wound its way through the center of town, funneled through a network of carefully maintained drainage ditches. Hollis looked closer, he could see subtle signs of change, such as the sign outside Parker’s Drug Store now reading Parker and Sons Pharmacy, and Tibbit’s Dry Goods having been replaced by a Ben Franklin Store.
