Gone to Green (25 page)

“We’ll be glad to have you, Lois.”

One night as I set out from my house, Chris pulled up in his pickup with his three dogs, bringing a cake his mother had made me in appreciation for rescuing Mannix. I put it in the kitchen.

“Would you like to take my nightly walk with me?” I asked. He looked taken aback and then quickly recovered.

“Sure. That’d be great. Can the mutts come along?”

I felt more at ease that night than I had since long before the controversies with Major and Lee Roy and the McCullers had erupted. The dogs were busy the entire time, dashing into bushes and barking or running ahead. I had never exchanged more than a few sentences with Chris, and he turned out to be both funny and thoughtful.

“I’m sorry I never got to any of your games,” I said, embarrassed.

“Oh, no problem,” he said with a big smile. “Next year you can watch us win state. Those fighting Green Rabbits are pretty tough.”

“They must love you,” I said. “I noticed how close you all were at the downtown social. You probably keep them in line but still have fun.”

“They’re great kids, mostly. Lots of them don’t get much attention at home. They have to keep their grades up to stay on the team, so that helps.”

“Do any of them get kicked off?”

“Not if I can help it,” he said, pausing to pat all three dogs that had run back to check on us. “They’re young, deserve another chance. As my mama would say, they haven’t made it over fool's hill yet.”

He rubbed his shoulder absently. “The other day a guy with a sprained ankle was having a contest to see who could jump farther in the locker room using his crutches. Just before I stopped the challenge, I decided it was a teachable moment. I won, but it sure made my arms sore.”

I laughed.

“I bet you’ll have a great season next year,” I said. “Iris says most of your starters will be back.” It made me sad to realize I would not be there to see a game.

As we got back to the house, I grabbed a couple of bottles of water and cut the cake. We sat in the porch swing and visited for an hour more, talking about the new fence he had put up to keep Mannix, Markey, and Kramer under control, speculating on the route for the proposed highway and debating who would win the mayor's race.

“Let's do this again,” he said. I smiled and waved when he drove off.

Our friendship developed slowly that next month. We walked together many evenings, and occasionally he called.

“What do you think about the paper starting a college scholarship fund in Matt's memory?” I asked one night.

“He was a great boy,” Chris said. “That would be a nice way to honor him and Iris Jo.”

“I also want to see if I can help Katy get to college, instead of beauty school,” I said. “She's got the makings of a great journalist. I don’t want her to spend her life doing the wrong thing, just because it seemed easy when she was sixteen.”

One evening we sat close in the porch swing, both wearing sweatshirts on the chilly night.

“I’m thinking of a big children's Christmas party at the country club,” I said. “For all of the low-income kids near downtown. That could be a way to introduce them to something special and to let the town see diversity in action.”

“You are amazing,” he said. “Just plain amazing. That brain of yours is always working. You are something.” And he reached out and gave my hand a squeeze.

His support helped as I tried to move beyond bad things that had happened.

“The Lee Roys and the Big Boys of the world are nothing compared to the Helens and the Jeans and the Katys,” I said. “And the Chris's.” I thought about my first dinner with Eva, who had just made the runoff election for mayor, and how she had told me that we must do something with what we are given.

“Katy loves the notion of being a crusader. I wonder how I might spend my life crusading for good—and if I have the energy to do that.”

“Sure you do,” Chris said, draping his arm around my shoulders. “You’re doing it already with
The News-Item.
You have your own little army down there. Those folks would do anything for you.”

He was a bit in awe of the newspaper business but didn’t hesitate to tell me when he disagreed with something the paper had done. “I do wish, though, you could crusade for a little more school sports coverage.”

Sometimes when other people wanted to talk about the paper, I tried to change the subject, knowing I could be defensive. But Chris was different. He praised and criticized and asked questions in a straightforward way.

I certainly admired his work as a teacher.

“I’d be in the federal penitentiary if I had to stay in a classroom all day with those kids,” I said. “How do you do it?”

I was joking, but he took the question seriously. “I just feel called to do it. I like those kids, and I hope most of them like me. It's good work, the Lord's work. After Fran died, I realized how important it was to do something that mattered with my life.”

We had not spoken about his wife, and the little I knew about her came from Iris Jo. She grew up nearby, also taught at the high school, and fought her cancer fiercely. At some level I wanted to ask questions and complete the picture that had formed in my mind. On the other hand, I wanted to keep their marriage separate from my friendship with Chris.

“I’m really beat tonight,” I said. “Thanks for the company, but I need to get up early in the morning.”

“Me too.” He seemed as uncomfortable talking about his wife as I was. He stood up and gave me a peck on the cheek. “I’ll say good night then.”

“Good night.”

As he took long strides across the yard, I practically ran into the house.

The next evening when I left the office, it was dark and I was alone. I caught a glimpse of movement out of the corner of my eye, and for a moment I thought it was Chris. Once in a while he would stop by the paper, usually to drop something off for Iris Jo or to talk to Tom about a football story. I was uncomfortable with the way I had rushed him off last night, and I thought he might have picked up on it.

As I turned with a smile, I realized it was not Chris, but Lee Roy Hicks with a sneer on his face. My heart immediately began to race. I felt so safe in Green that I never took any of the precautions I had taken in Dayton. I fumbled for my keys and my cell, knowing my pepper spray was on the kitchen counter at home.

“Lee Roy!” I said in a shrill tone. “What are you doing here?”

“Well, Miss High and Mighty, I thought I would drop by to tell you hello and say thanks for ruining my life.” He stepped closer to me, and I backed up, until I was pushed up against my car, with his body nearly touching mine.

“You shouldn’t be here,” I said.

He looked around. “Come in here and act like you can take over this town. Where's all them friends of yours now?”

He was rambling, and I could smell liquor on his breath.

“Lee
Roy, you don’t want to do this,” I said. “Go home and sleep it off. We can talk about this in the morning.”

“Maybe I want to talk about it now. Everything was going great until you came along, sticking your nose in everybody's business, stirring things up at the country club, letting high school kids sell advertising, like it was some menial job. This was supposed to be my paper.” His voice got louder. “My paper. The McCullers promised it to me, not some city girl who didn’t know squat about Green, Louisiana.”

Although terrified, I felt sorry for him. As Aunt Helen would say, he had squandered his talents. He was smart and well-liked and ambitious. He probably could have run the paper or been mayor or any one of a dozen other things if he hadn’t been such a louse. But this louse had me pinned up against a car, and I needed to do something.

Using a move my brothers taught me when I went off to college, I kneed him as hard as I could. He groaned and grabbed at his crotch and stumbled back, before falling to the ground, stunned.

At that moment, Rose walked out of the Holey Moley and squinted my way as her eyes adjusted to the darkness. “Lois, is that you over there?”

“Oh, thank you, God. Yes, Rose, it's me. Please call the police. Quick!”

Within a few minutes, the parking lot was full of people. “It's going to be all right,” Rose said, touching my arm. “Everything's fine now. We’re here.”

A police officer put a handcuffed, mumbling Lee Roy into a squad car. “She won’t get away with this,” my attacker muttered.

Stan pulled in from one direction, and Iris Jo and Chris from another. All of them rushed up, looking terrified. Chris gave me a big hug and kept his arm around me. “Are you all right?”

Feeling a bit dazed, I assured everyone I was fine. “Where did you all come from?” I asked. “What are you doing here?”

Come to find out, Helen's friend had heard the call on the police scanner. She had phoned Iris Jo, who had called Chris and Stan. Within a few minutes, Linda appeared, alerted by Rose, followed closely by Tammy, who had heard it from her former brother-in-law, who was a Bouef Parish Sheriff's Deputy. Alex and Tom popped up after receiving a call from the clerk at the police station. I figured it would only be a matter of minutes before Katy and her mother drove up.

I looked around and, suddenly, smiled the biggest smile I had ever smiled.

“Supper's on me at the Cotton Boll,” I said.

For the first time in twenty years, Green Missionary Baptist
Church soloist Mary Lee Bryan will be unable to participate
in this year's performance of Handel's
Messiah
, following
the district football finals during which she lost her voice
while cheering for the home team from the sidelines. Get
well, Mary Lee! And Hallelujah to the Green High Rabbits!

—The Green News-Item

K
evin came to visit, close to despair.

“What are we going to do?” she asked. “These sorts of living conditions cannot go on. We must do something. We’ve put this off as long as we can.”

She was responding to an upsetting news story about a house fire in the Lakeside Annex. A space heater exploded, and two children and their mother had died of smoke inhalation. A baby and elderly grandfather had survived, but were in critical condition. There were no smoke detectors in the house.

The next week we had a nearly unbelievable story about an infestation of bats forcing another family out of their home. The couple who rented the house from Major Wilson's property company called the fire department about their problem. A parish inspector found a filthy mess, including forty-five decomposing bat carcasses, dead birds, and a large number of hibernating bats. The parish declared the house unlivable. The couple was frantic, not knowing where they were going to find an affordable place to stay.

Kevin and I had discussed this neighborhood off and on for months, and her concern had escalated during our girls’ night out dinners.

“Let's talk to your parents about it,” I said. “They’ll help us figure it out. Why don’t you all come over to my house for supper tomorrow?” The Taylors had been the first people to have me over for dinner, and I had a feeling of peace again as we visited over one of the casseroles from my freezer.