Little Town, Great Big Life. Curtiss Matlock Ann

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СКАЧАТЬ leaving the telltale coffee spilled all over. He would tell her that he had missed cleaning it all. He could no longer see crap without his glasses. Somehow having the world by the tail at twenty-two had turned into the world having him by the tail at fifty-two.

      Down in the ragged neighborhood behind the IGA grocery, seventeen-year-old Paris Miller, sleeping in the front seat of her old Chevy Impala because her grandfather had been on a drunken rampage the night before, had just turned on the car radio and snuggled back down into her sleeping bag. Her life was such that it was prudent to keep a sleeping bag in her car. All of a sudden a voice was shouting out.

      Paris came up and hit her head on the steering wheel. Seeing stars, she fell back onto the seat, until, at last and with some relief, she figured out it was not her grandfather hollering at her. She thought maybe she had dreamed the yelling voice, because now Martina McBride was singing.

      She snuggled back down into the warmth of the sleeping bag, dozing, until fifteen minutes later, when the yelling came out of the radio again. This time she recognized it as Mr. Winston’s voice. She started laughing and about peed her pants. Mr. Winston was always doing something funny.

      She had to get up then, and the cold made her really have to hurry. She raced across the crunchy grass, into the musky-smelling kitchen, hopped over an empty vodka bottle and on to the bathroom. Glancing in the medicine-cabinet mirror, she was dismayed to see a bruise, good and purple, high up on her cheek, where she had not been able to duck fast enough the previous evening.

      Down at the Main Street Café, owner Fayrene Gardner, tired and bleary-eyed after a lonely night kept company by a romance novel, a Xanax and two sleeping pills, was just coming down late from her apartment. Her foot was stretching for the bottom stair when Winston’s shout came crystal clear out of the portable radio sitting on the shelf above the sink, which happened to be level with her ear.

      Fayrene popped out with “Jesus!” stumbled and would have plowed headlong into the ovens had not someone grabbed her.

      Over at the grill, Woody Beauchamp, the cook, said, “Miss Fayrene, I’m gonna assume you’s prayin’. We wouldn’t want to give this visitor a poor impression, would we?”

      Fayrene assured him that she had truly been praying. She was now, anyway, as she found herself gazing into the dark eyes of a handsome stranger, who had hold of her arm. Dear God, don’t let me make any more of a fool of myself in front of this handsome man.

      The dark-eyed stranger grinned a wonderful grin, and Fayrene wondered if she might still be dreaming. Those sleeping pills were awfully strong.

      Across the street, at Blaine’s Drugstore, which was on winter hours and not set to open for another hour, Belinda Blaine, who was not a morning person and not feeling well, either, was in the restroom peeing on a pregnancy-test strip. Somehow the radio on her desk just a few feet beyond the door, which she had not bothered to close, had been left on. (Probably by her cousin Arlo, when he had cleaned up the previous afternoon—she was going to smack him.) Hearing Winston’s familiar voice within two feet got her so discombobulated that she dropped the test strip in the toilet.

      “Well, shoot.” She bent over and gazed into the toilet, trying to figure out the exact color of the test strip.

      “Belinda? You in here?” It was her husband, Lyle, coming in the back door of the store.

      She yanked up her reluctant panties and panty hose, while Lyle’s footsteps headed off to the front of the store. The panties and hose got all wadded together. Her mother swore no one should wear panties with panty hose, that that was the purpose of panty hose. As much as she hated to ever agree with her mother, this experience was about to convert Belinda to the no-panty practice.

      Snatching up the test-kit box, she looked frantically around but found no satisfactory place to hide it. She ended up stuffing it into the waistband of her still-twisted panty hose.

      “Of course I’m here. I was in the bathroom, Lyle,” she said as she strode out to the soda fountain.

      Lyle was on his way back, and Belinda almost bumped into him.

      She asked him where he thought she had been.

      “Well, honey,” he said, with a bit of anxiety, “I saw your car out back, but didn’t see any lights turned on in front here, so I just wanted to check things out.”

      Lyle was a deputy with the sheriff’s office next door. He had just gotten off night duty, and wanted coffee and to chat with her before he went home. Lyle listened to a lot of late-night radio when he was on patrol, which seemed to be encouraging morbid thoughts. Late-night talk shows were filled with a lot of conversation about scary things, such as UFO invaders, terrorist cells and, last night, the report of murderers who broke into the house of an innocent family up north and ended up killing them all.

      Belinda, who made it a point to never listen to the news and really could have done without her husband telling her, ended up walking around with the test-kit box rubbing her skin while she got Lyle a cup of fresh coffee and tried to look interested in his report of world affairs and the idea of installing a security system at their home. Since she was already at the drugstore and had coffee made, she ended up opening early and got half a dozen customers coming in. At least Lyle had someone else to talk to, letting her off the hook.

      All around a radius of the radio signal, roosters came out to crow, and skunks, armadillos and other annoying critters headed back to their dens, while early risers got up to let out the dog, let in the cat and look hopefully for the newspaper, which was often late. Word of Winston Valentine’s wake-up reveille spread, and Jim Rainwater began to take call after call, and to keep a running total of for or against.

      Out front of the small cement-block radio station, Tate Holloway, who had received a number of telephone calls, and Everett Northrupt arrived at the same time. Everett, a short, rather bent man, was in such a state as to forget that Tate was the owner of the station and therefore his boss, and to jostle him for going first through the door. A man with a good sense of humor, Tate stood back and waved the older man on.

      They reached the sound studio doorway just as Winston put his mouth to the microphone for his final reveille. “Gooood Mornin’, Valentinites! This is your last call. GET UP, GET UP, YOU SLEE-PY-HEAD. GET UP AND GET YOUR BOD-Y FED!”

      This time Jim Rainwater over at the controls played a symbol and drum sound, and he and Winston grinned at each other. Jim had more fun working with Winston than he did any of the other volunteer disc jockeys.

      Winston saw Everett Northrupt glaring in the doorway. His response was to lean into the microphone to say, “Well, folks, we’re leavin’ you now that we’ve gotcha woke up. Stay tuned for my good friend Everett, who will ease you into the day. Join me again for the Home Folks show at ten, and until then, remember Psalm 30, verse 5—For His anger is but for a moment, His favor is for life; Weeping may endure for a night, but a shout of joy comes in the mornin’.”

      The men, all except Everett, chuckled.

      CHAPTER 3

      Belinda Blaine of Blaine’s Drugstore and Soda Fountain

      THE MORNING RUSH STARTED. TING-A-LING WENT the bell over the door. Brrring went the cash register.

      “Mornin’, Belinda. Hey, Arlo. Get up, get up, you sleeepy-heads! I’ll take three lattes and two Little Debbies to go. Hurry up, I’m already supposed to be in Duncan.”

      “Just СКАЧАТЬ