Little Town, Great Big Life. Curtiss Matlock Ann

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      “That was near fifty years ago,” he defended. “I was born before ol’ Hank, and have lived far after him, and I got a lot clutterin’ my brain.” He pointed at the playbill in her hand. “I’ve outlived ever’body on that poster.”

      “No, honey, you haven’t.”

      “No kiddin’—really?”

      “Now, why would I kid about such a thing? Don Helms was in the Drifting Cowboys then, and he is still alive—and playin’, even. He’s younger than you.”

      “Isn’t ever’body?” Winston said, a little sadly. Then, “I’ve outlived so many, Coweta. Just so much has happened in my life. I can’t piece it all together half the time.”

      “I know, honey.” Her hand came over his, so pale and soft against his leathery skin.

      Then he heard her humming. It took him a second to recognize the tune—Hank’s “I’m Going Home.”

      “Mis-ter Wins-ton…Mis-ter Wins-ton.”

      It was Willie Lee, standing right in front of him.

      Why, he was now sitting on his bed. He didn’t remember sitting on the bed.

      Willie Lee’s eyes blinked behind his thick glasses. Looking downward, Winston saw Willie Lee’s smaller hand, soft and white, lying on his own.

      “I’m okay, buddy. Just caught in some memories.”

      “Yes. You are o-kay,” the boy said confidently.

      Willie Lee knew these things, so Winston felt reassured.

      “Moth-er says we need to go to church ear-ly. It is rain-ning. I will get you-r coat.”

      The boy fetched Winston’s blue sport coat from the butler chair and held it up for Winston to slip into. Winston checked himself in the dressing mirror before following the boy from the room. As he went out the door, he paused and glanced around, looking for signs of Coweta.

      There were none. She had been gone a long, long time now. As were so many who had made up his life.

      Over at her small house, Paris Miller peered out her bedroom window through hard rain pouring from the roof and washing over the glass. It ran in the ditch that divided the yards. Behind her on her boom box, a voice sang out an old country tune. “Please make up your miinnd…”

      She was actually contemplating going to the Methodist Church. That was the only church she had ever been able to go into alone. She had gone to the Good Shepherd with a friend, and she liked that they were real friendly, but the thought of being there on her own with them jumping up and running around made her nervous. The Methodists were a quiet bunch. She could slip in, sit in the back and hardly be noticed. She had done that before, enough so that the usher—Leon Purvis, who slicked back his gray hair—no longer tried to get her to fill out a visitation form. When the final closing hymn was sung, she would slip out again.

      She wondered what she hoped to get out of it. She usually did feel a lot better afterward, but then she would come home, and her whole life started all over again, not a thing changed, no matter how hard she prayed.

      She heard a plunk and looked up. A wet stain was spreading on her ceiling, where many had been before. She needed to get a pan to catch the leak.

      “What in the hell are you listenin’ to?” Her granddaddy had come in his wheelchair to her door.

      “It’s a special Hank Williams gospel show today.” She did not know that she hunched her shoulders and sort of winced.

      “Hank Williams? What in the hell you want to listen to that old stuff for? Turn that mess off….” He rolled himself away, mumbling.

      She turned off the radio, stood there a moment, then hurried to get boots, purse and coat. No one had to dress up to go to the First Methodist, especially this special singing, as they called it. Lots of women came in jeans. There were farmers who came from the field in their overalls.

      Pausing to glance around, she saw everything in a blur of drab brown-gray. She had a sense of desperation, and felt that if she did not get out and around color and sound and people, she was going to choke to death.

      “Where you goin’?” her granddaddy asked.

      She hesitated, her eyes moving to the bottle on the table. “I’m runnin’ over to a girl’s house for a few minutes.” And she was out the door, ducking in case the bottle came flying after her.

      What flew after her was him hollering, “Bring me back a six-pack of—”

      The back door closed, and she raced away to her car, hopping over the puddles.

      As she backed out, a car pulled up in front. One of her granddaddy’s drinking buddies. The tightness in her throat grew so great she had to gasp for breath.

      She pulled into the Quick Stop for five dollars’ worth of gas and ended up helping LuAnn wait on a flood of customers driven in there by the rain. Everyone was talking about it, and depending on circumstances and temperaments, people moaned about the dreariness and inconvenience, or gave happy praise for coming green lawns and May flowers.

      Over at the First Methodist Church, a few of the smokers, who usually had a quick cigarette on the front lawn before service, snatched a couple of puffs in the shelter of a large cedar tree. From here they watched the men with umbrellas, who ran to meet those arriving and hold cover over the women and girls.

      Jaydee Mayhall, feeling guilty, stamped out his butt, and hurried to get the umbrella out of his own car and help. He began right then planning to put up an awning over the church walkway.

      Parking was directed by men in slickers and ball caps. There was an unusually large crowd—many who only came on Easter and Christmas, as well as Baptists and Assemblies of God and the Good Shepherds from out on the highway who loved to sing, and a couple of brave Episcopalians. Vehicles filled the church parking lot, the grassy yard where the church played baseball and up and down both sides of the street.

      Bobby Goode, who lived just south of the church, had the idea to make some money by charging three bucks a car to park in his circle driveway and spacious front yard. His wife’s response to this idea was to have a fit and tell him that if she saw one rut on her front lawn, his funeral would be the next event at the Methodist Church. She said that he could let people park in the driveway—for free.

      She said nothing about not taking what people offered, though, so when Rick Garcia parked his big-wheel mud truck in Bobby’s driveway and waved a five at him, Bobby took it quick, and directly after the truck, Bobby waved in two little foreign jobs that he got parked bumper to bumper. He held out his hand and received eight more dollars.

      Across the street, Inez Cooper punched off her radio right in the middle of “Wait for the Light to Shine.”

      “If we wait for the light, we’ll miss the singin’,” she said to the radio. The cloud cover had kept it so dark that at nine-thirty in the morning the streetlights still glowed.

      She called for her husband, Norman, to hurry up. Unfortunately, she immediately caught the scent of cigarette smoke on him. “I СКАЧАТЬ