Nightwoods - Charles Frazier [70]
Bud and Lily’s wedding had been a sudden JP thing in South Carolina, a state that didn’t give two shits for blood tests and those sorts of delaying tactics. Down there, they believed getting married should be totally unpremeditated, if that’s the way you wanted it. Five minutes, in street clothes. Quicker than you could get a driver’s license. So not exactly the kind of ceremony where you hired a photographer. And Lily wasn’t much interested in her family back then. She was too happy to get away from home and too hot for Bud to worry about her people, such as they were. She hadn’t even bothered to send a postcard from their Myrtle Beach honeymoon, a largely drunken forty-eight hours, limited only by Lily’s beautician buddy, who had agreed to keep the kids but had put a two-day limit on the whole affair. No grace period whatsoever. Bud had taken the attitude, So what if we’re late and some hairdresser gets mad? Like she’s going to set babies out on the curb. Lily argued that you don’t do friends that way, and Bud said, Test her on it, that’s what friends are for. Nevertheless, Lily prevailed, and they drove home so fast and full of beer to meet the deadline that when Bud stepped out of the car for a roadside piss, he didn’t care who saw. When a state trooper wearing his Smokey Bear hat passed by, Bud didn’t even try to turn his back to the road. He just switched hands to salute. And for once, good luck prevailed. No lights flashing, no wail of siren to accompany a squealing one-eighty. Smokey drove on. Must have awarded extra points for entertainment value.
All of which added up to a compelling argument for Bud’s anonymity in this town, even with the sad remainders of Lily’s messed-up family. Unless he’d slipped up sometime.
Bud raked back into the past and only reached last week before a bell rang. A vague memory. Waking up one morning—or, rather, afternoon—all cotton-mouthed and feeling queasy. Preemptively rushing to the bathroom and kneeling at the porcelain with his head bowed for a long time.
He wondered now if he might have run his mouth that night playing cards with a few of his high-volume customers. Get a load on among impressionable ears and start being the big man, telling all kinds of tales about how damn cool you are. Wouldn’t be unimaginable to have dropped some comment about a murder charge and a bitch wife. Little towns like this, shit got around, and Lit always had his antenna up.
Bud felt panic rising again in his chest, like the first surge up a percolator tube. He took a deep breath to damp it down. Told himself, If you’re not who you want to be, at least act like who you want to be. Form a clear picture in your mind of a bastard nobody wants to mess with, and then become that picture. Get on with it. Find the money and move on down the line. Go to Brownsville, or all the way to Havana and live with the bearded rebels.
CHAPTER 10
SOMETHING SWIRLING AND TROPICAL pushed heavy air up from the Gulf, the remains of an end-of-season hurricane. Weather hit the wall of mountains and stalled. Wet roads and rain falling out of a blank low sky. Early dark, and every indicator saying summer is long dead. Cold times ahead. Every glint of headlight from dead leaves on wet pavement pointing the way down Lonely Street.
—A slow tenor-sax kind of night, Stubblefield said. Or maybe a Chet trumpet solo with an equal ratio of silence to music. Gloomy and sensitive.
—Movies, Luce said.
Beads of raindrops on the windshield bled together into a sheet of water between wiper passes. A last bunch of purple coneflowers and goldenrod shed their petals on the seat between Stubblefield and Luce.
Bad night for a real first date. And also unwelcome that Luce needed to announce a three-hour deadline for how long the kids could stay with Maddie. This despite Maddie making some winking, embarrassing comment about the kids being welcome to stay for breakfast. A happy surprise, though,