Family Thang Read online

  “What’s the matter, Sheriff? Why you looking at me like that? What I do?”

  “Turn around,” Sheriff Bledsoe commanded. “Do it!”

  “What’s the matter, Sheriff?”

  Sheriff Bledsoe held him by the collar with one hand, frisked him with the other, and then snapped handcuffs onto his wrists.

  “Sheriff, what’s up with the cuffs?”

  Sheriff Bledsoe didn’t answer. He led Eric by the arm down the steps, around the side of the house to the front door. Lester was no longer sitting on the porch.

  He started to ring the doorbell when Eric said, “Hold up for a minute, Sheriff. Let me explain, okay? Ruth Ann and I, we’re messing around. I wasn’t peeking on nobody. I was just trying to get her attention. Honest.”

  “What’s this?” shaking the box.

  “Sheriff, I told you it was already there. I just picked it up.”

  “Uh-huh. You know how Larry Harris was killed, don’t you?”

  “Yeah. Somebody poisoned—now hold on, Sheriff! You got this thang asshole backward. I swear ’fore living God the stuff was already there when I got there.”

  Sheriff Bledsoe rang the doorbell. “We’ll see.”

  “Awww, Sheriff! Ruth Ann’s not admitting the truth with Lester standing by. Why can’t you take my word on it?”

  Lester opened the door. “Hey, Sheriff,” he greeted cheerfully. He eyeballed Eric and frowned. “Hey, Eric.”

  “Is your wife in?” Sheriff Bledsoe asked.

  “She sure is. Eric isn’t under arrest, is he?”

  No, he just has his hands behind his back. “Lester, could I speak to her?”

  “Yes, sure. Come in.”

  “I-I’ll rather stay outside,” Eric said.

  “We’ll wait here,” Sheriff Bledsoe said.

  When Lester disappeared, Eric said, “Shit, Sheriff! You’re not going to tell him, are you? I got these cuffs on, too! What if he goes nuts?”

  “I’ll tell him if I have to. We’re going to get to the bottom of what’s going on here.”

  “I already told you, Sheriff! You gonna get me killed.”

  Ruth Ann appeared at the door, smiling. When she saw Eric, her mouth formed a perfect circle.

  “Sheriff Bledsoe,” and stepped out onto the porch, closing the door behind her. “What brings you two gentleman by this late in the evening?”

  “Mrs. Hawkins, I caught Eric here behind your house.” He held up the box. “With this.” Ruth Ann didn’t even look at it. “Eric says he was paying you a visit. He says the box was already on your back porch when he arrived, along with a half pound of neck bones.”

  Ruth Ann nervously fingered the collar to her black satin robe. “I see.”

  “Does this belong to you?” Sheriff Bledsoe said.

  Ruth Ann gave Eric an icy look. “What are you talking about, Sheriff?”

  “Don’t lie!” Eric said.

  “Shut up!” Sheriff Bledsoe said. “Mrs. Hawkins, does this box of Juggernaut Gopher Bait belong to you?”

  Ruth Ann looked over her shoulder at the front door. “No. No, it doesn’t.”

  “You’re full of shit, Ruth Ann!” Eric said.

  “Shut up! I’m not going to tell you again. Mrs. Hawkins, is it possible your husband—”

  “No! I purchase all household supplies. We don’t have gophers.” She rolled her eyes at Eric. “Or rats!”

  “What about affairs?” Eric said. “Do you have those?”

  Sheriff Bledsoe jerked his arm. “Didn’t I tell you to shut your trap!” To Ruth Ann: “Well?”

  “Well what?”

  “Are you and Eric having an affair?”

  “Let’s talk away from the house,” Ruth Ann said, and walked away. She stopped short of the street. “Where’s your patrol car, Sheriff?” she asked, looking back at the house.

  Sheriff Bledsoe looked back too and saw Lester peering out the front window. “Maybe we should all go down to the station and sort this thing out.”

  “No!” Ruth Ann said. “Okay, Sheriff, we had a brief fling, but it’s over. I told Eric it was over—he can’t get it through his thick head.”

  “Brief!” Eric said. “A buncha years ain’t brief.”

  “Son, do I need to handcuff your mouth?”

  “Sheriff, ask her how long it’s been over.”

  “Son, you open your mouth one more time I’m going to shut it permanently. I’m doing all the questioning here, not you. Do you understand?” Eric nodded. “Mrs. Hawkins, how long has this affair been over?”

  “A couple days ago,” she whispered.

  “Excuse me, I didn’t—”

  “Two days ago!”

  “Thank God,” Eric said. “You can take these cuffs off now, Sheriff.”

  “Not so fast, son. So it were you two acting up at Blinky the other night?”

  Ruth Ann stared back at the house. Lester was still watching. “Yes.”

  “Mrs. Hawkins, do you want to press charges?”

  “No. I want to go back inside my house. My husband probably curious what’s this all about.”

  “I wonder why,” Eric said.

  Sheriff Bledsoe said, “How ’bout I go tell Lester about you. Then mosey round the corner and get the car, take my time getting back while he keeps an eye on you.”

  “No, Sheriff,” Ruth Ann said. “Please don’t!”

  “Sheriff, I’ll shut up. One question. Why am I still handcuffed?”

  “May I go now?” Ruth Ann asked. “All my neighbors are watching.”

  Several of the neighbors were outside, some blatantly gawking; most feigning work in their yards, discreetly gawking.

  “Yes, you can go. I need you and Lester at the station within the hour.”

  Ruth Ann stared at him. “Lester?” Lips trembling: “What on earth do you need Lester for? He doesn’t know anything about this. You don’t need him. I can answer all your questions.”

  Sheriff Bledsoe rattled the box. “This may be linked to a murder, and there’s neck bones on your back porch, Mrs. Hawkins. Chatterbox claims he didn’t put them there and you say you didn’t, either. Somebody did, and I aim to find out who. Tell Lester what you need to tell him and y’all meet me at the station.”

  “You sorry bastard!” Ruth Ann hissed at Eric. “Sheriff, you see what he’s trying to pull, don’t you? I dumped his sorry ass and he’s trying to break up my home. That’s all this is, Sheriff.”

  “Ha!” Eric said. “Your home was tore up long before I came along. Ask anybody, Sheriff. She’s serviced more men than an army recruiter.”

  “Hold on, son. There’s no need for talk like that.”

  “It’s true!”

  “It’s true you murdered my father!” Ruth Ann said.

  “Hell naw! You know damn well I didn’t!”

  “You showed up at my house with poison and neck bones.”

  “Woman, please! I didn’t bring no damn neck bones to your house!”

  “Yes, you did!”

  “No, I didn’t!”

  “Yes, you did!”

  Sheriff Bledsoe knew he should step in and squash this silly bickering, yet was curious what would happen next.

  Ruth Ann got within inches of Eric’s face and shouted, “Yes, you damn sure did! And now I think about it, you were the one who insisted on serving Daddy. Remember?” Baritone voice: “Let me fix your plate, Mr. Harris. You need more napkins, Mr. Harris? May I wipe your ass, Mr. Harris?”

  “You a lying hoe!”

  “Sheriff Bledsoe, is there a problem?”

  They all turned to see Lester standing on the front porch.

  “Lester,” Ruth Ann said, tone cordial. “Lester, everything is fine. We were… we were just having a friendly conversation. Go back in the house, Lester. I’ll be there in a minute.”

  “Is that right, Sheriff?” Lester asked. “Looks to me y’all arguing out here.”

  Sheriff Bledsoe looked from Eric to Ruth Ann. Eventually Lester would h
ave to be told, though he wasn’t sure he should do the telling. And why hadn’t he come out a long time ago?

  “It’s all right, Lester,” Sheriff Bledsoe said. He grabbed Eric by the arm. “Let’s go.” To Ruth Ann in a low voice: “An hour, you and Lester at the station.”

  Then he started down the sidewalk with Eric in tow, tipping his Smokey to all the good people on Whisperwood Drive.

  Chapter 16

  “Rhino-who?” Robert Earl said.

  “Rhinoplasty,” Estafay said. “Also called a nose job.”

  They were riding in Estafay’s Ford Festiva, Robert Earl driving, Estafay in the backseat fanning herself with a newspaper.

  No air conditioning, all the windows rolled down, a steady stream of heat and the stench of cow manure whipping their faces.

  “What you need a nose job for?”

  “I’ve always wanted one. Since we can finally afford it, I might as well get it done.”

  Robert Earl sneaked a look at her in the rearview mirror. Yes, her nose could use some work: nostrils looked like the entrance to two dark tunnels.

  “Estafay, what makes you think we can afford a nose job now? I don’t have a problem with it, I just don’t think we can afford it now.”

  “Yes, we can afford it now.”

  “How?”

  “Don’t worry about it. I’ve been told to do it, and I will.”

  “Who? Who told you to do it?” He sensed himself getting angry. If some man told her to get a nose job, or simply hinted at it, he would whip the car around and head straight back to Dawson.

  “God,” Estafay said.

  Robert Earl grimaced; he’d forgotten about Him. “God told you to get a nose job?”

  “Yes, He sure did. Remember Friday morning, when I was talking with the Lord?”

  “Yeah,” Robert Earl lied. She and the Lord conversed so frequently, no way could he remember a specific conversation.

  “That’s when He told me.”

  He drove a mile or so before mustering the nerve to say, “So the Lord said, ‘Estafay, go get a nose job even though your husband just quit his job and he doesn’t have diddly-poo in the bank.’”

  “Get thee behind me, Satan!” Estafay shouted. Robert Earl jumped and momentarily lost control of the wheel. “Blasphemy! That kind of talk is nothing but blasphemy. If you don’t understand the Lord’s work, it’s best you keep your mouth shut. Ask the Lord for forgiveness, Robert—right now, before He strikes you dead!”

  He steered the car across the centerline to miss a flattened skunk in his lane. The odor lingered for two miles.

  Estafay slapped the back of his seat. “Ask Him for forgiveness!”

  “Forgive me, Lord.”

  “You’re not asking for a loan, you’re asking for forgiveness. Say it with conviction, like you mean it.”

  “Forgive me, Lord,” with less enthusiasm than before.

  “It’s bad enough we’re unevenly yoked, spiritually unbalanced, saved and unsaved, and for you to question the very faith what sustains you, to look righteousness in the eye and mock it—blasphemy! Adulterous blasphemy! Robert, you know…”

  He stopped listening; he’d heard this particular sermon a thousand times. He daydreamed of the day he opened Robert Earl’s Gas Station and Exotic Snake Farm. All day, he thought as Estafay ranted on and on, all day and night. No matter what—flood, earthquake, a death in the family—he would keep his station open all day and night.

  Heck, he might even live there: a cot and a hot plate were all he needed to live on. Come by anytime, we never close.

  Estafay slapped his seat again. “Are you listening to me?”

  “Yes, Estafay.”

  “What did I just say?”

  “A divided house cannot stand.”

  “It sure can’t. Amen. He who doesn’t know the Lord, he who is ignorant of His works, should keep his fat mouth shut.” Robert Earl arched an eyebrow and gave her a look in the rearview mirror; he hadn’t heard that one before.

  “Whatever the Lord tells me, Estafay Bernice Harris, one of His chosen children, to do, let no man, especially my so-called husband, rend asunder. Do you hear me?”

  Robert Earl slowed the car down for a pickup truck going thirty miles below the speed limit. Two events that never failed to occur during one of their rare road trips: Estafay preaching and his driving up behind a geezer in a pickup truck snailing along just when it was impossible to pass because of a curvy stretch of road or steady oncoming traffic.

  Either was an agony worthy of pulling his hair out and committing himself to the state hospital. But to endure both simultaneously.

  Lord, have mercy!

  “Do you hear me, Robert?”

  He steered the car onto the shoulder and sped past the truck. A large cloud of dust rose up, preventing him from shooting a nasty look at the driver. Gravel pinged against the undercarriage.

  “Yes, I hear you,” steering the car back onto the road.

  Estafay coughed and said, “If the Lord tells me to get rhinoplasty, liposuction, mammaplasty and… and whatever else, you should have the sense to be quiet and thankful.”

  “Yes, Estafay. Hey, wait a minute! How much is all this stuff gonna cost?”

  “I don’t know yet.”

  “Where’s the money coming from?”

  Estafay sighed. “What did I just tell you? You haven’t heard a word I said. Faith, Robert Earl Harris. The money your father left you will pay for everything.”

  “The money hasn’t come yet and we don’t know when it will.”

  “It’ll be coming real soon.”

  “How do you know?”

  “Don’t start again! I just spelled it out for you. Have some faith for once in your life. The Lord will provide, just put your faith in Him.”

  They rode a few miles in silence, then Robert Earl said, “Estafay, aren’t you forgetting something?”

  “Your teeth? Don’t worry, we should have enough to get you a brand-new set.”

  “No. My dream. Robert Earl’s gas station and exotic snake farm. Remember?”

  “I pray one day you’ll drop such foolishness.”

  He turned and stared at her. “How can you say that?” A car horn blew and he returned his attention to driving. “How can you say that, Estafay? You know I’ve been planning this for years. What you think I trained snakes for? What if we can’t afford to start my business and get you all the stuff you talking about?”

  “No problem, we drop the snake cage.”

  “What! It ain’t a snake cage, Estafay. It’s a gas station and exotic snake farm. How many times I gotta tell you?”

  “Did the Lord tell you to open a gas station… with snakes… and serpents?”

  “No, He didn’t.”

  “What I thought. Don’t worry about it. We should have enough money to do both. Faith, Robert, faith.”

  They rode in silence, through small towns distinguishable only by the name on a water tower.

  Lake Village. Masonville. Winchester. Pickens. Dumas. Mitchellvile. Gould. Grady, the home of the infamous Cummins prison farm. Moscow. Pine Bluff, where the two-lane road finally ended and Interstate 640 began.

  Arriving in Little Rock, Estafay directed Robert Earl to a three-story medical building. He waited in the car while she, wearing a blue-and-white ankle-length pinafore, walked up the steps to the entrance, holding her beloved Bible to her chest.

  Yes, she definitely could use some fixin’ up, he thought when she disappeared inside. But dag gummit, why should he give up his dream? The way his luck was going when Estafay paid for all the plastic stuff she wanted, he wouldn’t have enough to buy a gallon of gas, let alone open a gas station and exotic snake farm.

  The Lord didn’t tell him to open a gas station and exotic snake farm. So what? He didn’t tell him not to, either.

  “Leave her!” whispered a voice. The demon, rearing its ugly head again, tempting him to do something evil.

  Shut up! he told it. He w
ouldn’t listen, couldn’t listen. The last time he’d listened he’d hurt someone, hurt someone real bad… He pressed his hands against his ears. Shut up! Shut up!

  The voice in his head grew louder: “Leave her, Robert Earl.”

  And throw twenty-five years of marriage away? No way, Jose!

  “What if the operation goes badly?”

  She’ll still be my wife—through sickness and death.

  “Tara Reid.”

  Robert Earl thought hard and couldn’t recall a Tara Reid.

  “Tara Reid!”

  He remembered: she was the little white girl whose titty popped out during a photo shoot. A deformed titty, scarred and mutilated thanks to a surgeon’s scalpel.

  Estafay’s operation could go wrong, just like Tara’s.

  Jeepers! If that happened to Estafay… He squeezed his head harder, hoping to rid the image of Estafay and him sitting at a table in the Waffle House, his teeth slipping out and Estafay’s deformed titties popping loose… Lord in heaven!

  “What’s wrong with you?” Estafay asked.

  “Huh?”

  Estafay got into the backseat. “What’s wrong with your head? Looks like you fighting a demon.”

  “No, just a little headache.” He took a quick peek at her chest and a chill ran through his gums. “That didn’t take long.”

  “The doctor said I should take a few days to think about it. It’s a medical procedure, you know, so there’s a slim possibility of complications.”

  Robert Earl swallowed. “What kind of complications?”

  “Pain. Infection. Scars. The operation doesn’t take with everyone. I’m sure I won’t have any problems. Unlike most people, I have faith in the Lord above.”

  He wanted to tell her about Tara Reid, but didn’t have the heart. “Uh, did the doctor say how much the procedure is going to cost?”

  Estafay fanned herself with the paper. “Let’s go. It’s a hundred degrees out here. Thirteen thousand dollars. It’s hot enough to bake a cake in the shade. Turn the radio on. I don’t feel up for much talking. It’s too hot.”

  Robert Earl started the car and pushed the button on the radio. Paul Simon sang about fifty ways to leave your lover.

  “Turn to gospel. You know I don’t listen to the devil’s music.”