Little Town, Great Big Life. Curtiss Matlock Ann

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СКАЧАТЬ it is me, Mama. What other woman would be answerin’ my home phone at ten o’clock at night?”

      Her mother, who had at the age of seventy quit living by anyone’s normal hours, said, “Oh, is it ten o’clock there? I must have miscalculated.”

      Belinda knew her mother had not bothered to calculate whatsoever.

      Her mother continued, “However, is that any way for a daughter to speak to her mother?”

      Her mother launched into a lengthy lecture on Belinda’s less-than-cordial attitude, for which Belinda immediately apologized, because her eye had fallen on the pregnancy-test box and she imagined her mother seeing all the way from Europe. She did not think it a stretch of the imagination that her mother had such power.

      Her mother then wanted to know how everything was going at the drugstore, and had Belinda been listening to Winston’s new early-morning radio show? Her mother’s awareness of Winston’s escapades was the perfect example of her mother knowing everything, even over in France.

      Just then, with her mother’s voice in her ear, Belinda tucked the telephone in the crook of her neck and snatched up the pregnancy-kit box, folded it into a small shape and stuffed it down in the bottom of the wastebasket.

      After hanging up with her mother, she went to the kitchen and drank a full glass of water. Returning again to the master bathroom, she shut and locked the door and turned off the phone.

      Digging down again into her purse, she pulled out yet another home pregnancy-test kit. After all, Belinda was both the owner of a drugstore and a practical woman who anticipated contingencies.

      Opening the box, she removed the test strip and set it on the counter. Then she brought a plastic bedpan from the closet, along with a set of medical collection cups. A drugstore owner had plenty of equipment. She expertly pulled off one collection cup, put it in the bedpan and set the bedpan atop the closed toilet.

      She looked at everything with satisfaction.

      Then she positioned herself and filled the little collection cup.

      She dipped the test strip into the warm liquid.

      It was easy to read.

      She was pregnant.

      A chill swept her. With a precise motion, she rose, set the test strip on the marble counter and got her robe off the hook on the back of the door. She tied the robe snugly, then leaned toward the mirror, studying her face.

      Suddenly her head spun and her legs turned to water. She sank down on the side of the large tub, where she put her head in her hands and cried.

      CHAPTER 7

      1550 on the Radio Dial

       The Hank Williams Sunday Morning Gospel Hour

      IN FRONT OF THE BATHROOM MIRROR, WINSTON ran an electric razor over his craggy cheeks. From a small black portable radio on the nearby glass shelf came his own voice.

      “Good mornin’, folks, and welcome to the Hank Williams Sunday Mornin’ Gospel Hour.”

      He mouthed along with the words. He thought he sounded mighty fine.

      “And, yes, Hank Williams, Sr., is still dead, but we’re resurrectin’ some of his gospel tunes for this special show. This program is recorded, meanin’ when you hear this, we’re all doin’ something else, but right this minute our own Felton Ballard is here in the studio to sing for you. Many of you know Felton from the Saturday evenin’ singings over at the First Baptist. He plays these tunes in the original style, just like ol’ Hank sang ’em. We’re mighty proud of Felt. He starts off here with ‘I Saw the Light….’”

      Winston hummed along with the tune. Felt sang it well. They had recorded the show back last winter. Miracle of modern life, the way music and voices could be recorded, and then all manner of changes made. Had not been like that back in his day, no, sir. Hank Williams, Johnny Cash, Loretta Lynn—they all went to the station and sang into the microphone before getting recorded.

      Winston was not a fan of recording. It hindered him from adding in the clever things that came to his mind when he was listening on a Sunday morning in the bathroom.

      “Well, folks, I want to tell you that our Sunday gospel hour today is brought to you thanks to Tinsley’s IGA, the All Church Pastors Association of Valentine and the Burger Barn. And you can hear Felton Ballard playing Hank Williams’s gospel live at the First Methodist Church this Sunday, where a special nine-thirty service is an entire singing service. Everyone’s invited.

      “Up next we got ‘Are You Walking and a-Talking with the Lord?’ What a lot of people don’t know is that in his short career the original Hank Williams wrote some fifty gospel songs. Isn’t that right, Felt? You’re somethin’ of an expert on this, I understand.”

      Felton answered, “Yes, sir. My wife sometimes sings with me, like Audrey sang with Hank…and Hank recorded a series of gospel albums as Luke the Drifter. I guess they thought it wouldn’t fly with his real name, with all his drinkin’ and carryin’ on.”

      “Well, I can recall that he always sang one or more gospel tunes with Little Jimmy Dickens in his Grand Ole Opry appearances. This one is for all of my friends out there who remember the Grand Ole Opry in the old days. Go ahead, Felt.”

      The music started, and Winston could sing along with this song, too. He remembered that this one had been a favorite of Coweta’s.

      Suddenly he looked around and saw Coweta racing toward him in the garage, where he was tuning up the Ford. Her little black shoes flew over the ground. “Oh, Win! Look at this. Birdy sent it. Can we go? Oh, let’s! Won’t cost us nothin’ to stay with Birdy. Just you and me. Mama can take care of Freddie.”

      The yellow playbill floated up before his eyes. Blurry. He had to squint, and then it came in plain: April 1,1951, Robinson Memorial Auditorium, Little Rock…Star! Hank Williams! and His Drifting Cowboys…also Lefty Frizzell…

      Coweta’s dark eyes shone like they could, pulling him in. He and she had just come out of a big fight, and he was in that place where he would lasso the moon for her. She knew it, too. That’s how it played out for them again and again. Took them thirty years to see it, and some more to start doing anything to break the cycle.

      Somehow, just as she could always work a miracle, she had made the phone call and gotten them tickets. “Yes, I did. Row five. Don’t ask what they cost.” She laughed, and the skirt of her dress swirled as she raced up the stairs to pack.

      He shook his head. He never had been one to worry over money. It was her who worried over it.

      “Not that time,” she said now, grinning at him right there in their bedroom. “I loved that Hank Williams.”

      He never could understand it. “That Hank was so scrawny, he’d blow away in a good wind.”

      Coweta smiled. There was a pink glow around her, pretty as could be. She said, “We had us a good time. Remember?”

      “Yeah. I remember…we had to drive through five hours of sleet and rain and the windshield wipers actin’ up.”

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