Daisy Fay and the Miracle Man: A Novel (6 page)

All the beach balls, inner tubes and floats that we ordered have come. I have to go and blow them up.

Momma got scared and called the doctor again. I didn’t have polio, just hyperventilation from blowing up all those inner tubes. Daddy is going to buy a bicycle pump.

Mr. Romeo brought Michael over to meet me when I was sick, and he is great! I was sorry my face was so red. Michael is going to take me crabbing and fishing and everything. He is a junior lifeguard, which will come in handy since I can’t swim. He already has a suntan, but it might be his natural color.

Yesterday Connie, the Sunshine bread truck man, let Michael and me ride to Cotton Bayou to a grocery store where he had to deliver bread. Connie gives Michael all the day-old doughnuts and saves me some, too.

Cotton Bayou is way down in the swamps. The people there are Cajuns. That means French and something. The bayou is real beautiful, lots of pine trees and sand. There was someone Connie wanted us to meet. We drove up to an old white wooden grocery store that was falling down. It had a sign on it, “Cotton Bayou Grocery and P.O.” It didn’t look to me as if anybody lived there at all, but Connie told us there were a lot of people way back in the bayou that you never see. A mailman delivers their mail in a boat once a week. I would hate to be waiting on a letter for a week. What if the boat sank, or an alligator got the mailman?

The inside of that grocery store was so old it looked to me that those cans of peppers from Cuba and all kinds of funny foods had been there for a long time. Mrs. LeGore ran the place and was the postmistress. She must be a Cajun because she talked funny. I bought a strawberry drink from her and a Buddy bar. Michael had already eaten six day-old doughnuts, so he just had an RC.

Connie asked if we could see Jessie. Mrs. LeGore said for us to wait until she had cleaned him up a little. I wanted to know if Jessie was a person or an animal. Connie said that Jessie
was a person about twenty-five years old who hadn’t been out of his room since he was fifteen because of elephantiasis. I had never seen anyone with elephantiasis, and neither had Michael. I was willing to go back there only if I couldn’t catch it.

We waited a long time. Mrs. LeGore had over a dozen old calendars on the walls and she must have sold a lot of chewing tobacco because there was a bunch of it. She even sold tobacco in a bag with papers if you wanted to roll your own.

I didn’t finish my Buddy bar. It was too stale. Pretty soon Mrs. LeGore came back in. Connie picked out five loaves of bread and three day-old coconut cakes for Jessie. We went in the back of the store and there was Jessie, lying on a mattress on the floor, with one leg propped up. He must be the fattest man in the world. I couldn’t even see his eyes good. His momma had wet his hair and combed it down for him. He was wearing a flowered shirt without buttons that was fastened together with big safety pins, and he had on what looked to me like pajama bottoms. He was friendly and glad to get the cakes and ate them without a knife or fork. His room was little, and there was a collection of red and blue satin pillows that said “Mother” and “Sweetheart” on them with yellow silk braided fringe all around them and a pillow from Nashville, Tennessee, and one from Charleston, South Carolina.

Grapico, Dr Pepper, Orange Crush and Buffalo Rock signs were all over the walls along with a cross, a Goodyear tire and some Chesterfield and Kool ads from the store. A whole bunch of Christmas pictures of Santa Claus drinking Coca-Cola and a Last Supper picture were stuck right in the middle of them.

Jessie asked if we wanted to hear him sing. I said I would love to hear “Shrimp Boats Are a-Coming,” but he only knows patriotic and religious songs, so he sang something about Jesus. He had a pretty good voice, too.

He gets a wonderful program on his shortwave radio from Del Rio, Texas. They mentioned his name on the air once and sent him a fan with a picture of Jesus Christ dressed like a shepherd standing around with a staff and some sheep.

Jessie asked Michael if he was going to marry me when we grew up. I told him my daddy wouldn’t let me marry an Italian
boy because he didn’t want me to work in a grocery store, and Jessie laughed so hard he shook the whole room. Then he started to sweat a lot and asked Connie to put his leg down. His leg was the size of a truck tire and didn’t have any knees. Laughing must have tired him out because he was breathing real heavy.

We had to go, so I told him good-bye and it was nice meeting him. Michael never did stop staring at him. At least I looked at the room. Connie told us Jessie weighed more than 500 pounds and can’t get through the door of the room or get up at all anymore. His momma has to feed and bathe him there. Every week two or three men come to turn him over on his side so he won’t get sores. All he cares about is his radio, his momma and food. If I ever catch elephantiasis, I am going to get a bigger room.

We were in the “Dashes from Dot” column this week. “William Harper at the new Harper’s Malt Shop is busy preparing for a successful summer and little Daisy Fay Harper is going to be the newest member of the Jr. Debutantes’ Club that will have its first meeting of the summer season in two weeks at the live bait store.” Mrs. Dot also reported that Kay Bob Benson was still up in the air over her plane trip to visit her grandparents in Columbus, Georgia, where she had attended a pajama party.

Mrs. Dot’s husband, Mr. Dot, is mad at me. When we were coming home with them from the dog races at Pensacola, I tried to throw what was left of my hot fudge sundae out the window and accidentally hit him with it. He’s the one who wanted to stop at the Tastee Freeze in the first place.

Mrs. Romeo told Momma that Mrs. Dot married beneath herself and comes from a very wealthy family in Memphis, Tennessee. When they lost all their money, she had to marry Mr. Dot. She used to go to cotillions and everything.

Did you know that the dogs at the racetrack caught the rabbit once because it was too slow and when they found out that they had been chasing a stuffed rabbit all those years, they were so disgusted they all retired right there, never to race again? Mrs. Dot was there the night it happened.

Daddy hired a waiter for the summer, Hank Turner. Hank is about twenty years old and has a crew cut and green eyes and the biggest muscles I have ever seen. On top of that, he’s got real tattoos, an American flag on his right arm and the Statue of Liberty on his left arm, and when he flexes his arm, the flag waves. A map of the entire state of Minnesota, where he comes from, is on his chest. He and his twin brother were famous football players for the university there. When he got in the Navy, he developed his muscles and entered a Mr. Universe contest. He came in second.

He can pick me up with one arm and walk around with me that way. I bet he can kill a person with one blow. Momma says I have to quit pestering him so much. I can’t wait until someone says something smart to me and I can get Hank after them.

Momma finally gave in and Daddy got a beer license. To celebrate, Daddy, the Romeos and some more people drank seventy-eight draft beers, and we played the jukebox all night. Momma even had some beers and jitterbugged and sang “Blue Champagne.”

Some people are starting to come down to the beach already. I can’t wait. Everything is going to be great. Daddy already has a dead flamingo and a fox that died of rabies in the ice cream freezer to stuff in the fall. Michael and I are looking for dead animals all the time, but they can’t be dead too long, they lose their shape.

Oh, and guess what? A man named Roy Grimmett is going to rent the land on the side of the malt shop from Daddy and put in an archery range and bring his wife and live in a trailer, right on the property.

Momma says anybody that lives in a trailer is trash, but I have never been in a trailer myself.

It doesn’t look like I am going to get my pony soon. Daddy has to build a stall for it and he doesn’t have time right now.

I have to go eat some cheeseburgers.…

The malt shop opened and I got so sunburned my nose almost peeled off. Momma took me to some hillbilly doctor that scared her to death about skin cancer and gave her some white junk out of a navy survival kit. She mashes that stuff on my face every day. It looks like lard, and you can’t get it off for anything. The thing that makes it so bad is that other kids come down here for a week and tan like crazy.

I am staying inside most of the daytime because nobody will play with me. I have done every number painting they put out and the one of the Persian kitten twice. I sent one of them up to the crippled girl, Betty Caldwell.

Momma and Daddy are busy all day and night until they close up at ten. I have to go into the shop and get my breakfast like a customer. Hank takes my order and Daddy fixes it, only I don’t have to pay for it Momma is working at the cash register. Our place is always full and she is raking in the money, so I guess we will be rich. I never get to see Michael because his daddy has him working at the store. Those Italians start them early.

Poor Lassie bit the garbage man and we had to give her away to a farm that has lots of children and land for her to play, but isn’t that what they always tell you?

Roy Grimmett’s archery range is wonderful. He made it out of a big wall of straw. He said I could have the straw to feed my pony when the summer is over. I went into his trailer and their air conditioner sure works good. It’s like living in an icebox. He has taught me to shoot the bow and arrows. At the archery range you get ten arrows for a quarter and if you can hit three balloons, you can win yourself a free hamburger or a hot dog at my daddy’s place. The trick is people will buy a cold drink to go with it

Roy’s wife, Mava, has the biggest bust I’ve ever seen. She says it’s so big from shooting those bows and arrows for so many years.

Mr. Grimmett pulls a seventy-five-pound bow that he made himself. It has a sight on it like a gun. He uses special steel arrows and never misses. He went up the road to the Mississippi state park and shot a wild boar in the head. Now it is in our ice cream freezer.

Sometimes he lets me help him attract business by shooting balloons out of my mouth. That was a great business getter until my momma looked out the window and saw me do it. She got real mad and told Mr. Grimmett to shoot balloons out of his wife’s mouth.

I am spending most of my time digging tunnels in the sand under the malt shop. I have four tunnels dug so far. I never get to play with Hank Turner. He is too busy, but I’m glad he’s here because of onions.

Daddy is allergic to onions. When he was little, he had a bad case of the measles and his mother fed him too much onion tea. So if anyone orders onions on their hamburger, Daddy comes out of the kitchen and has an argument with them. It’s good to have Hank stand behind him because Daddy is so little.

I have been making money taping Angel Pistal’s ears back before she goes to sleep. Her daddy lets me go into the lounge, have a Coca-Cola and see the acts.

The Blue Gardenia Lounge is dark blue with white flowers on the wall. There’s a live band and a microphone, a spotlight and everything. I saw Bean Curd Butler, a comedian who talks country, and Miss Mary Kay Hurt, a one-woman band, but the act that’s here now is a singer named Sheila Ray. She is famous. Her ad says she has appeared in night spots in Biloxi and Gulfport, Mississippi.

She is real skinny and has white hair and black eyebrows. I think she dyes one or the other. Her big number is “Tweedlee Dee.” She uses a lot of personality in that one. I like her all right, but as far as I’m concerned, nobody can touch Doris Day for singing and personality. I have a record of her singing “It’s Magic,” which in my opinion is one of the finest recordings ever made.

If truth be known, Sheila Ray is trying to copy Doris Day’s
style and looks, but she can never compare to Doris Day. I understand Doris Day is a natural beauty.

Pretty soon, Pegleg Johnson is coming. He tap-dances with one leg missing. I can’t wait to see him.

I love the acts. The only bad part about going up there is that Claude Pistal, Angel’s uncle, is back from Detroit. And boy, is he mean and ugly. You should see him. He has bad skin and greasy hair and pop eyes, a real Peter Lorre type, only taller and skinnier.

He hates me. I was up there one night and I saw a group of men sitting in one of the back rooms playing poker. I went in and asked if I could play a hand or two. They said fine, so I sat down and ordered a Coke.

You may not know this, but I happen to be an expert poker player. Daddy taught me all his tricks. I was sitting there, minding my own business, working on an inside straight, when Claude Pistal came in and picked me up by the back of my shirt and threw me out the door and slammed it right in my face, just when I was winning, too. On top of that, when I got home, I smelled so bad of cigar smoke Momma found out where I had been and threatened to cut my heart out if I ever did it again. Too bad, I could win a fortune.

I told Angel what Claude had done and she said that Claude hates everybody in the world except her, including her daddy, and not only that, he carries a gun.

Claude bought her a real live miniature grand piano and all kinds of things from Detroit. She even has a dollhouse you can sit in. She said he would buy her a pony if she wanted it.

We are selling those shells in plaster of paris with the cross on them so fast we can hardly keep them in stock.

Everyone says Daddy has the best hamburgers on the beach if you don’t like onions. He sells a lot of beer and at night, when the malt shop closes, he drinks a lot of it, too.

He has made some new friends. One is a short bald man named Billy Bundy, who is a famous radio preacher. Billy got in a lot of trouble once in the Midwest, selling autographed pictures of the Last Supper. Imagine, him thinking you could
forge Jesus Christ’s signature. He promised to get me an autograph of Sue Sweetwater, who has a radio program at his station. Another friend of Daddy’s is Al the Drummer, who plays the drums at the Blue Gardenia Lounge. Momma said he looks like a weasel and that Daddy ought to put him in the freezer and stuff him in the fall!