A Savage Wisdom Read online

  “The girl’s dress was dusty and her hair was matted with sweat and tears. I began to slap at her dress to beat the dust out of it. Then we stood up and both swatted at it, laughing hysterically at the sounds of the slaps and the dirtiness of us both that would never come clean. She gazed up at me sweetly and took my face in her palms.

  “‘You’re a nice boy,’ she said.

  “‘And you’re a nice girl,’ I said. ‘You’re so young and beautiful, and I love you.’

  “She laughed. ‘What’s your name, silly boy?’ I told her my name and asked hers.

  “‘Julie,’ she said. ‘Julie Mahorn.’

  “‘No,’ I gasped, shocked first by the behavior of a holy man’s daughter, then at the sudden realization that she would leave the next day and I would never see her again. ‘You can’t be. You love me. Those things you did with me, they prove it and I can’t live without you. Stay here and marry me.’ I kept repeating the idiotic phrases of a desperate fourteen-year-old. Finally, I wound down like a tightly sprung clock. Understanding, she reached up and touched my face.

  “‘Such a sweet, innocent boy.’ Then she began to pat my face lightly. ‘Such a sweet, innocent boy to be soooo . . . Stupid. Don’t you know what happened to you tonight?’

  “Shamed by the revivalist’s daughter, my new faith tarnished an hour after its birth, humiliated before God, I said, ‘I was saved.’

  “Her laughs cut into my heart like shrapnel. ‘You silly, innocent boy. You complete little fool,’ she said. ‘You were manipulated.’

  “‘What?’

  “‘Duped. Fooled.’

  “‘No,’ I said, my facing growing hot. ‘Mr. Thompson. I know him. God crippled him. God struck him down tonight in a mighty display of His power.’

  “‘Wait,’ the girl said.

  “‘And that man that died. I don’t know him, but . . . he’s dead. I saw him, he’s dead.’

  “‘Oh, yes,’ she said, ‘he’s dead all right. That was real enough. But not by the power of God. Or, as Daddy would put it, not taken by God, but killed by the power of suggestion. A suicide. That man wanted to die.’

  “I looked at Julie Mahorn’s prematurely desirable silhouette in the moonlight. I felt sick to my stomach. The faint odor of musty urine penetrated my nostrils and suddenly she was nothing but a country girl with a huckster father, wearing cheap perfume that reeked of sour honeysuckle.

  “I wanted to feel some deep, enduring hurt that would never leave me, that would torture me for the rest of my days and make me welcome the relief of death. Instead, I felt like a tired circus balloon, barely buoyant, its helium half escaped. The girl started up the hill towards the illuminated tent, then turned.

  “‘Oh, about Mr. Thompson,’ she called. ‘Don’t worry about him. He’ll be walking inside of a week. In fact, after the town gives us a good part of their savings tomorrow night, he might even be running to catch up with us before we get to the next town.’ Then she raced up the hill, her giggles receding much too slowly for me, while in the distance the whistle of the Kansas City Southern announced the train’s ten o’clock stop.”

  Nevers paused.

  Toni Jo said, “Wow, that’s some story.”

  “It’s outrageous,” Nevers said. “It changed my life. T. Van Mahorn. If his own daughter hadn’t told me he was a fake, I would never have believed it. Still, he taught me some valuable lessons: things aren’t always what they seem; you never really know somebody—that sort of thing. But one thing he said I’ll never forget. He said that I could be born again. Even after the embarrassment of that other stuff wore off, weeks and weeks later, I realized that what he had said was true. And then I was born again, only this time for real. Remember that football story I told you?”

  Toni Jo nodded.

  “I said I went out for football because girls didn’t like eggheads, remember? What I didn’t give you were the details. I was a bookworm but became an athlete because I saw a cheerleader I wanted as my girl. Irene. From an egghead, I was born again as an athlete, though it took some doing. Three years. And I got Irene.”

  “Was it worth it?”

  Nevers threw his hands up.

  “Irene. That’s another story. Sure, I think so.”

  The two rocked for a while.

  “You’re an interesting man, Harold Nevers,” Toni Jo said to fill the silence.

  “Then, of course, I was born again, again. After the state playoff game, when I ran out of the stadium into a new world. That’s the ultimate lesson I learned from Reverend T. Van Mahorn—that when everything’s gone sour and your whole life’s shot, you can always pick up and start a brand new life, anywhere you want. Isn’t that amazing? It really is like being born again.”

  Nevers reached for the pack of cigarettes in his shirt pocket.

  “Don’t get me wrong. It’s not necessarily easy. There were hard times after that. Hell, I was just a kid. What did I know?”

  Nevers smacked the Luckies against his palm and extracted a cigarette from the box.

  “You can do it too, you know. Remake your entire life starting right now or any time you want. Let me ask you a question, Toni Jo. What are your plans for the next few years?”

  “Well, I’d like to make enough money to go to the Normal School and then teach.”

  “Those are respectable ambitions.” Nevers rocked the swing. “But way beneath your potential.” Toni Jo jerked as if slapped in the face. “Now, let me ask you a question that could change your life, depending on how you answer it.” He took a match from its box. “Would you be willing to relocate if I tripled your salary?”

  “I don’t know,” Toni Jo said, doing some quick math. “I guess it would depend on how far I’d have to move.”

  “What if I could increase your wages five times?”

  “Mr. Nevers, surely you jest. What kind of work—.”

  “What would it take to get a yes from you? Ten-fold?”

  Toni Jo stared at him in disbelief.

  “I’ve been thinking about opening a restaurant on the south shore of Lake Pontchartrain. I’m looking for someone to manage it. I don’t mean to misrepresent the job. It’s true I’ll start you at triple what you make at the Two-Rat Cafe, but it may take a while to reach that ten-fold plateau.” Nevers examined the cigarette in his hand. “And don’t be deceived. It’ll be hard work.”

  “Even three-fold sounds too good to be true,” Toni Jo said. “But, just out of curiosity, how long are you talking about with—well, with the five-fold, let’s say.”

  “I’ve seen it done in a year,” Nevers said. “And you know you’ll never earn that much money as a teacher. Give it some thought. I’ll be back this way in a month. If you think you’re up to making that kind of clover, have a suitcase packed.”

  They sat quietly in the dark. Nevers scratched the match on the swing’s armrest and lit a Lucky. As he inhaled the flame into the cigarette, Toni Jo heard the faint crackling of tobacco shreds igniting. He held the stick out to her in a gesture of offering.

  “Thanks, I don’t smoke,” she said.

  “Toni Jo.”

  “Yes?”

  “Toni Jo,” he repeated musingly, blowing smoke from his nostrils. “That’ll never do.” His dark profile turned towards her. “Come over here.” He patted the spot beside him. “I’m not going to bite you.” Sliding over, she smelled the blended odor of sweat and cologne. He reached an arm around her and pulled her closer. He kissed her cheek, then, briefly, her lips.

  “Don’t get me wrong. It’s a fine name.” Nevers took a lock of her hair and slipped it through his fingers. “For a waitress in a country cafe. But you’ll want something more exotic in New Orleans. Something catchy. Did you ever think about what you would have named yourself if the choice had been yours?”

  “Annie,” Toni Jo said without hesitation. “I always liked that name. It sounds simple, but clean and pretty.”

  Nevers laughed. “That might be one notch above Toni Jo.”
Like an infernal firefly, a red glow appeared in front of his mouth as he drew on the cigarette. “Tell you what. I’ll give it some thought and try to conjure up a new name that suits you. Annie’s too common for a pretty-face like yourself.” He tilted his head back and blew a cloud of smoke.

  They kissed for a while.

  Chapter Five

  June 1938

  “I don’t know,” Mrs. Henry said. “Who is this man, really? You don’t even know him.”

  Toni Jo had come in from the cafe at seven to find her mother at the kitchen table listening to Amos and Andy on the radio while working a worn-out jigsaw puzzle of a New Hampshire snow scene. Toni Jo had worked the puzzle four or five times, her mother at least twice that many.

  “It’s not like he’s asking me to marry him, Mama.” Mrs. Henry looked up at her daughter. “And he’s certainly not kidnapping me. He said I’d be living in a room attached to the restaurant.”

  “I’d feel better if he did ask to marry you. It just don’t sit right. He comes into town a couple of times, he barely knows you, and he offers you a big job. Why? Can you answer me that?”

  “He likes me, Mama. And it’s not a big job. He wants to open a restaurant so he won’t have to travel all the time. He claims he can’t go wrong with this site. It’s right on a lake, beside an Amusement Park set to open next spring. There’s a military base nearby, too.”

  Mrs. Henry tried a puzzle piece that didn’t fit.

  “It sounds like your mind’s set on this.”

  “It is,” Toni Jo said. “But I wanted your blessing.”

  Mrs. Henry looked at her daughter. At thirty-eight, Toni Jo’s mother had permanent dark circles under her eyes. When she was twenty, she was already the widowed mother of a two-year-old. Her life had closed around her like a suffocating pillow.

  “Go,” she said. “You have my blessing. Go off with your Errol Flynn and kill pirates or whatever he does. Find some treasure. It beats the stuffings out of this dreary little town.” There was no cheer in her voice, only resignation.

  Toni Jo stood and hugged her mother without enthusiasm. She didn’t want to appear too happy to be leaving.

  * * *

  Nevers had wired his arrival for eight o’clock the next morning. At nine, Toni Jo had been sitting in the porch swing for over an hour.

  “Sorry,” Harold called from the street. “Caught a train down the road. Liked to never seen the end of it. Might mean prosperity’s around that corner F.D.R.’s been talking about.”

  “That’s all right,” Toni Jo called. “We’re used to it. It happens all the time.” She hefted a large suitcase in one hand and a smaller grip in the other.

  Nevers met her halfway down the walk.

  “Good Lord,” he said, taking the larger bag from her, you got the kitchen sink in here?”

  At the car, Nevers situated the luggage among some bundles in the back seat and pulled out a camera.

  “To commemorate the first day of your new life,” he said. “No, no. No objections. Look, lean right here. Against the fender.” Nevers peered into the viewfinder. He saw his shadow on the car and glanced up and around to locate the sun. He moved until his shadow slid off the fender. Looking through the camera again, he said, “Guess what I found on the drive over.”

  “What?” Toni Jo was holding very still so the picture wouldn’t blur.

  “Your new name I promised.”

  “That right? Is it a good one?” She raised her hand to cut the sun’s glare. “Olivia De Havilland? Something like that?”

  “Better. Drop your hand.” A breeze lifted a finger curl off her face. “Can you say ‘Beatrice’? ‘Annie Beatrice’?”

  “Annie Beatrice.” She smiled until her teeth showed. “I like that.” Harold shot the picture. “Is Beatrice a middle name or a last name?”

  “Does it matter? It’s like a stage name. You won’t have to really change it. Now, put your hand on your head.”

  “I’m a little teapot,” she sang, touching her head.

  Nevers took the picture.

  “That’s it,” he said. They started to get in the car.

  “Wait!” Toni Jo shouted, making for the house. “Mama fixed us a basket before she left for work. Fried chicken and boiled eggs. Even a disposable salt shaker.”

  “Which came first?” Harold asked.

  “What?”

  “Which came first, the fried chicken or the boiled egg?”

  From the safety of the porch, Toni Jo whirled and taunted him.

  “You’re a strange man, Harold Nevers.”

  * * *

  After driving south for an hour, they made their first stop in Lake Charles. Nevers pulled next to a green Chevrolet truck on a shell parking lot that ran off into a bayou. VIC’s, the sign said. Only one other car, an old beat-up Model A, was on the lot. The morning crew, Toni Jo guessed.

  Swinging his door out, Harold asked, “Need to make a rest stop?”

  “No, I’ll just walk a bit and stretch my legs.”

  “Suit yourself.”

  Nevers stepped out and made for the trunk while Toni Jo walked to the edge of the bayou. The color of heavily­-creamed coffee, the sluggish water moved slowly to her right. She turned around to see Nevers hoist a string-tied bundle wrapped in white paper. He disappeared around the side of the building. Just when she was thinking the muddy water could not sustain life, a prehistoric armored fish slashed the surface by a cypress knee and startled her. She laughed at her skittishness, but stepped away from the bank to avoid other surprises.

  They were on Highway 90 East now. Nevers did most of the talking while Toni Jo read the small, two-toned signs and occasional billboards: Sanka, Hiram Walker Gin, Bromo­Seltzer, Havoline, Milk of Magnesia. They saw drifters hitchhiking their way north and south, east and west, seeking work or food, some of them fruit tramps following the harvest band as it moved with the seasons.

  DRINK TANGEE

  *

  Pure Orange Drink

  They passed five Burma Shave ads within thirty minutes.

  In this world, through thick and thin,

  Man grows bald but not his chin.

  Toni Jo laughed. They had been silent for a while.

  “What you giggling about?”

  “That Burma Shave ad. Didn’t you see it?”

  “God, no. I hate those things. You read them a couple of times and you can’t get the jingle out of your head. I learned a long time ago not to even look at them.”

  A mile before the next exit, a crudely painted sign warned them, “You’re Going To Hell.”

  Nevers said, “I was wondering where we were going.”

  The next sign commanded, “Repent Now, Be Baptized Next Exit.”

  “ Sounds good to me,” Harold said as he turned south. “I could use a bath.”

  Ten minutes later, Nevers parked in front of the Shorebird Club in Lake Arthur.

  “I’ll just be a sec,” he said. After a short visit with the owner, he stepped out the club’s door. In the car, he pulled a yellow envelope from the inside pocket of his suit jacket and threw it onto the back seat. It hit with an emphatic thump. “Hungry yet?” he said.

  “Getting there. You want a boiled egg?”

  “Let’s wait’ll we stop for gas. I’ll get us some Dr. Peppers and we can wash them down with that.”

  “Not me,” Toni Jo said. “I never touch the stuff.”

  “Prune juice is for old folks, huh? You’re one of those types.”

  “Right you are, Harry Nevers.”

  “Harold. Harold, okay? I hate Harry.”

  She poked his ribs three times. “Harry-Harry-Harry.”

  Toni Jo counted five Burma Shave ads before Nevers stopped at a Gulf station. Made of bright blue, orange, and white painted-tin panels, it reminded her of a large toy. Three attendants in sharply ironed green uniforms swarmed around the car.

  “Fill ’er up with Ethyl and clean the windows. Forget the oil. Checked it yesterday.” Nev
ers stepped inside to buy the drinks. As the men moved busily around the car, Toni Jo watched a little girl sitting on a downturned Coke crate beside the garage door. Her knees high in the air, her panties exposed, she was plugging her shoelaces into their eyelets.

  “This is the operator. Can I help you, please? Number five? I’ll connect you.” She pulled a lace tip from one shoe and plugged it into the other.

  “Sir? A bad connection? Sorry you’re having trouble. I’ll try another line.”

  The girl was tireless in her efforts to please the callers. When Toni Jo and Harold pulled away five minutes later, she was still at it.

  “No, there’s been no reported trouble with the Greenfield exchange. I’ll try again. Thank you for holding.”

  In Lafayette, the travelers stopped at the Side-by­-Side Lounge, a combination grocery and package liquor store. Nevers hauled another white bundle into the building. Toni Jo heard him and a man laughing through the open door. The heat and glare from the sun made her feel queasy. Her dress stuck to her thighs. She leaned her cheek against the cool metal and roll of windlace on the car’s doorjamb. Hundreds of rusting bottle caps embedded in the blacktop resembled a coded message to the future. Coca-Cola, Jumbo, 7-UP, Hires Root Beer, Tangee. Toni Jo imagined someone digging them up in a thousand years. A mosaic commentary. Cryptic. How would they decipher this hot, dying culture with smiling women holding coke bottles shaking them with a bad taste of salty egg yolks in their mouth?