Whisper Town Read online

  “I can change a tire, ladies. I can’t sew on a button, but growing up with brothers had its advantages. Angel, you help me with this spare.”

  “I watched my uncle change a tire once. How hard can it be?” Angel took off her coat and laid it on the car seat.

  “The most help I can be is to make us up a supper,” said Florence.

  “That’s a good idea. I’m starving.” Fern pulled out the tire tools from under the rear seat.

  Angel crouched next to Fern and helped her jack up the car. It took both of them pressing up and down on the lever to get it moving. After a half hour they were both exhausted.

  “Let’s don’t stop now. We’re almost there,” said Fern.

  “Fern, can I ask you about Jeb?”

  “Go ahead.”

  “Do you love him?”

  “He knows I love him. Here, you hold these, whatever these things are called that hold the tire on.”

  “Enough to marry him?”

  Fern scratched her forehead. It left a streak of grease above her brow. She turned and nodded at Angel and then showed her the ring.

  Angel stared, stunned. “He didn’t tell me.” She ran and asked Florence for a handkerchief and then brought it back to Fern. “I figured Jeb might have trouble getting a wife the way things are now. I guess he’s lucky to have you.”

  “How you mean?”

  “He’s got so many kids. Most women want their own children.”

  “If Jeb wants me, I’ll take him with all of his baggage from the past, all the Welby children in the world, and a baby on top of that. Help me squeeze this thing off the axle hub.” The tire popped off and thudded to the road.

  “I won’t tell him you told me, if you don’t want me to.”

  “I don’t mind who knows. You should know.” Fern and Angel lifted the spare and shoved it into place. A car loaded with college boys pulled up beside them.

  Angel got up and found one of them smiling at her.

  “You look sweet as berries, girl, even with grease on your chin,” he said.

  She wiped her chin. Before she could come up with a wisecrack, she gave the situation a thought and said, “We’re not so great at fixing a tire. It seems that maybe one of you might be better.” She smiled and the young man smiled back and clambered out of the car.

  “Men show up just when all of the real work is over. Ever notice that?” asked Fern.

  Angel smiled at the young men. “We thank you for stopping, fellers,” she said.

  The other boys piled out of the car and took the tools from the ladies. Angel asked them about college as though she would be attending soon.

  Florence passed out the last of their food.

  12

  JEB LAID A DRESS ACROSS THE BED, WHERE Lucky had slept the last two nights. It was from the church rag bag, a cotton dress the color of faded persimmons. She had worn a dress on Sunday that bagged on her thin frame. She showed up looking like some girl dropped along the highway between Arkansas and Texas for whom no one would ever return.

  Fern might be a better judge of girls’ dresses, but when he pulled the dress out of the sack, it looked like something a girl like Lucky might appreciate.

  Girl like Lucky.

  The cotton hand-me-down needed a good pressing.

  “Reverend, you need me for something? Willie said you called for me.” Lucky had a clean diaper slung over her shoulder. “He took his sister off to school already.”

  “Ladies sometimes give us things at the church. I never know what to do with these things.”

  “You saying that dress is for me?”

  “If you don’t like it, you don’t have to wear it.”

  She threw her arms around him. “You a good man, like I been saying.”

  He pulled away from her. She smelled of sweat and smoke. When she smiled, her teeth looked as though they could use a good cleaning. “You smell of snuff.”

  “Sometimes I dip.”

  “Girls ought not do that.”

  “So why men do it and we can’t?”

  “I don’t do that stuff no more. It’ll make your teeth go bad.”

  “My daddy griped at me all the time about snuff and beer. My brother gives me both, if I ask for it.”

  Her daddy had never come up before. “What’s your daddy’s name?”

  “John Blessed. My mother’s name is Vera.”

  “They serve God?”

  “Big time. Daddy never sinned a day in his life.”

  “That’s not true. I sin.”

  “He don’t sin on the outside then.”

  “I hear it’s worse on the inside.”

  “You sound like Reverend Louie. Why you give me this dress?”

  “For Sunday.”

  “My clothes not good enough for your church?”

  He said, while trying to watch the weight of his words, “This one’s better. Look, Lucky, arguing with me is not going to do you any good.”

  “You want me to look good for the white people, don’t you?”

  “For yourself.”

  “I ain’t your girl to show off.”

  “Fine. Give me back the dress.”

  “I want to try this on, if it’s all right.” She held up the dress.

  Jeb backed out of the room.

  “Belinda’s here. She giving Myrtle her feeding in your room.” Her brows lifted. She had remarked once already about Belinda’s flirtations.

  “My room? Thanks for the warning.”

  Jeb bypassed his room and left the parsonage. He would spend the morning cleaning out the belfry and painting the steeple. Near the east corner of the church, he spotted paint splatters on the lawn. It was odd for a painting project to be in progress without his knowledge. He rounded the corner and saw the reason. Graffiti spelled out the message of the perpetrators: NIGGER LOVERS DIE FOR THEIR SINS.

  Phrases in gray and yellow were splattered over the front of the Church in the Dell. Even the church sign had been painted. Jeb’s name had been covered over with another slur. A stick painting of a hangman’s noose depicted Jeb strung by the neck.

  Floyd Whittington pulled into the church drive. He rolled down his window and said, “Your boy, Willie, flagged me down and told me what had happened. I found him running down the road with his little sister running behind and crying. He’s afraid.”

  “We can’t let them bully us, Floyd!”

  “I’m afraid bullying may turn ugly. Let’s get some paint and get this covered up before prayer meeting.”

  Floyd drove Jeb down to the Woolworth’s. Jeb waved down Deputy Maynard and reported the vandalism. George wrote down the details and said he would go and look at the damage before they got back with the paint.

  “George, there’s more to this than schoolboy pranks,” said Jeb.

  “Reverend, I’ll do the best I can. The company you keep, though, ain’t helping matters. It’s hard for me to keep the peace, what with you bringing up matters some folks have already settled in their minds.”

  “George, I want a peaceful life the same as the next person. You know I didn’t ask for any of this trouble. The fact is that we’ve got laws being violated.”

  George didn’t respond.

  “Who do you think did it?”

  “Hard to say.” George excused himself.

  Jeb watched George as he walked across the street, acknowledged the two young men standing outside the Woolworth’s, and turned to head for Beulah’s. Jeb nodded toward the young men. “Floyd, is that Frank Pella and Wade Lepinsky outside your store?”

  “It’s them. We can go in the back way, Reverend.” He held up his set of keys.

  “I’d rather go through the front door, Floyd.” Jeb approached Pella and Lepinsky. “Morning, boys.”

  The two of them talked with two young women. Neither of them spoke to Jeb.

  “Morning, Reverend,” said one of the girls.

  “Daisy, Laverne,” said Jeb.

  “You girls ought to be caref
ul about talking to characters,” said Pella. “You’ll get a bad name.”

  Jeb glanced down and saw a splatter of yellow on the sole of Pella’s shoe. He lunged for him, but Floyd held him back. “Let’s go inside, Reverend.”

  “A fighting preacher? I’ll go a round if you want.” Pella made a fist.

  “You’re headed for trouble, Frank,” said Jeb. “You can stop your foolishness and go the other way.”

  “Go preach to your colored friends. I’ll take my sermons nice and white.”

  Floyd led Jeb indoors, back to the aisle crowded with stacks of whitewash. He and Jeb counted out five cans. “No charge. I’ll pick up the tab on this count, but you got to take it out the back way. You’ve got more than enough to cover up the damage.”

  Jeb carried the paint behind Floyd. Once they made their way out to the street, Pella and Lepinsky had disappeared. Jeb saw George Maynard taking his coffee into the station. Shop owners conversed out in front of the stores. Women wrangled over the cost of a bushel of corn.

  It was a peaceful day.

  Jeb collapsed on the sofa. He had covered the graffiti alone. It took lots of whitewash, more than he had ever used painting the church. After the first coat the words bled through. He had to keep dropping the brush back into the bucket and covering the words one letter at a time, blocking over them until they were first illegible and then invisible. He kept walking out to the street to see if the slurs had disappeared from a distance. It seemed like they would never go away. He painted one last coat on the entire church front before dinner. After a night of drying, he would go back and see if the insults had indeed vanished.

  Lucky fed Ida May grits. Willie had stayed over with a friend for the night.

  The front door banged open. Jeb stumbled off the couch.

  “Jeb, we’re home!” Fern dropped Angel’s bags at the door. She ran to him and threw her arms around him.

  Her hair smelled like the wind. He held her, too afraid to let go.

  “I’m home too,” said Angel. She walked around them and then stood staring into the kitchen.

  “You were gone too long. How’s your momma?” While she answered about the funeral and how the tire blew out, Angel gazed at the girl who fed her little sister.

  “How is that baby doing? Is she still with you?” asked Fern.

  “Myrtle’s fine. Lucky, you want to come here?” Jeb called.

  Lucky’s brow knitted together at the sight of Angel staring at her. “This your missus come home, Reverend? I thought you wasn’t married.”

  “They’re not married,” said Angel. “Who are you?”

  “Lucky has come to help with Myrtle.” Jeb still had a tight grip on Fern.

  “Where do you live?” Angel asked her.

  “I stay here. Reverend, I’m going to finish up with your youngest and then get Myrtle cleaned up before her night feeding.” Lucky returned to the kitchen.

  “Jeb, we don’t have enough beds,” said Angel.

  “If we can work out something, she’s good with the baby. She keeps her all day while I make my runs around town.”

  “You’ve taken in another child?” Fern didn’t hide her surprise.

  Jeb wanted Fern to understand. “Lucky’s almost grown. It’s not like I have to look after her. Someone’s got to see to the baby.”

  Angel walked past Jeb and out the front door.

  Ida May gasped and ran to throw herself on Fern. “Dub’s crabby when you’re gone. I’m glad you’re back.”

  “I see you got your own cook, Miss Ida May.”

  “Lucky’s a good cook. Better than Dub. He burns supper a lot.”

  “Ida May, go wash out your supper dishes,” said Jeb.

  “I have an extra bed, Jeb. We can bring it over tomorrow if you want.” Fern walked toward the door. “Maybe talking to Angel would be good now.”

  “I didn’t think she would care, Fern.”

  “She’s used to being the lady of the house.”

  Jeb took Fern and held her next to him. “I need you around.”

  “I see that. To cook your meals, keep you in the manner to which you are accustomed.”

  “That’s not what I mean.” He kissed her cheek. “I’ll help Angel in with the rest of her things.”

  “I liked Oklahoma.” Angel pulled the rest of her things out of Fern’s car. “The Coulters have it good. It’s quiet and kept nice. Not like here.”

  “Angel, you’re tired.”

  “You do things without talking to a body, like moving in more mouths to feed.”

  “We can talk about it now. Fern said you had some things happen on the trip that were upsetting.”

  “She can tell you. What’s the point of us talking now?”

  “Let’s say that we’re keeping them until we find them a home.”

  “That’s what you said about us. Are you still trying to find us a home?”

  “Your home is with me. Is that what this is about?”

  “Lucky is only going to make matters worse. Our place is busting at the seams as it is.”

  “Lucky is miraculous.”

  “Can’t you see the end of this? People at church are already raising sand about Myrtle. This ain’t no kind of fix-it for things.”

  “If I worry about what everyone thinks, then it’s the same as making no decision at all. Ministers have to make the hard choices at times.”

  “On top of it all, I come from a place where I’m treated with respect and come home to find you give away my bed.” She heaved the heavy suitcase out of the car. “What do I care?”

  “Why don’t you say what’s bothering you, Angel?”

  “That girl acts all settled in, like she plans to stay a long time. She don’t fool me none, Jeb.”

  “Would that be bad?”

  “Are you saying this is as good as it’s going to get?”

  “Give me your suitcase. It’s heavy.”

  “I don’t know what Miss Coulter sees in Nazareth,” said Angel. “All that’s waiting for you back here is another mouth to feed and no way to do it.”

  “Come inside, girl, and let me cook your supper.” Lucky stood on the porch, listening to them. “If you don’t like it, I’ll sleep on the porch tonight.” Instead of waiting for Angel’s answer, she went back inside the parsonage.

  Angel carried her bags through the door. “We’re going to catch hell over this.” She saw the paint splattered across his boots. “Something must have gotten you in the mood to paint. Where’s the masterpiece?”

  “We’ll talk about that tomorrow.”

  The sun was finally setting. Jeb wanted night to come and to forget the way the day had started. In his sleep he had practiced a speech to Fern, about the two of them going away and leaving Nazareth, leaving the church with the problem of how to care for the cast-off children of the Depression. It seemed like the thing to do in his dream.

  Fern had put on a pot of coffee to brew. “Look at you, Rembrandt. Take those things off and I’ll soak them,” she said. She told Lucky how much she liked her name. Fern always set things straight. She always made bad things seem right. When she walked into a room, the way seemed more lucid. With Fern around, Jeb was home.

  13

  THE DAY’S BLUENESS LOST ITS WARMTH AS the day wore on. The cloudbanks along the mountains outlined all that was left of the clear day with something that smelled distantly of snow. Everyone said it was too early for snow, but the clouds hovered like orphans while the old people wished them away.

  Wednesday prayer meeting had lost some of its zeal, so the numbers were down. What had started out in years past as a prayer meeting had become another ritual of standing, reciting, singing two songs, and then listening to a sermon that should not go late if the minister knew what was best for everyone.

  Nonetheless, the meeting kept the name of prayer upon it for the sake of tradition.

  Jeb learned the ritual from Philemon Gracie. With the sun going fast, though, he could not usher the congr
egants into the hall fast enough. In spite of a third coat of whitewash, the graffiti bled through. Two days of priming in the sun had done nothing to help hide it.

  “Evening, Mr. and Mrs. Pearl,” he said.

  The Pearls stood next to the Smithfields, who stood next to the Pattons, who joined the row of faces looking up, squinty-eyed to read the faded slurs.

  Angel pushed her way through the crowd and ran inside. Ida May dawdled staring up with all of the others while the sun went down and the cold moved in.

  “Ring the bell, will you?” Jeb asked Angel.

  She tolled it good and hard until the couples disbursed and entered the sanctuary.

  “We can’t have people driving by and seeing that,” said Sophie Pearl. “They’ll think we’re rabble-rousers.”

  Sam Patton agreed. “Reverend, you can’t leave the church in that state.”

  Angel gave another tug on the bell rope and received the desired bong-bong-bong.

  “That’s good, Angel.” Jeb ushered her into the hall.

  Will and Freda slipped in and shook Jeb’s hand before taking their seats.

  “Can’t figure out why the whitewash didn’t work,” said Floyd. “Beats anything I’ve ever seen.”

  “Let’s all gather into the Lord’s house,” said Jeb. He had heard Philemon say it so often in that soft, whispered manner that caused the church to fall silent, reverent. Jeb felt when he said it, that his words sounded more like stones of provocation.

  “Here we go then,” said Angel to Jeb. “Been a while since we seen a hanging.”

  Lucky, who had waited until the dead last minute to climb out of the front of Jeb’s truck with the baby, entered and sat fast on one of the rear pews.

  Several boys got up and moved away. Muttering rippled through the congregation.

  Jeb took his place behind the lectern.

  Fern led Ida May down the aisle. She was a brilliant smile in a bevy of frowns.

  “Let’s bow for prayer,” said Jeb. He said one first, silently, just between him and God.

  Jeb pulled to a stop in front of Honeysack’s General Store. A boy waved newspapers down on the corner. “You all stay put. I want to pick up a paper and I’ll buy penny candies down at Fidel’s.”