Shiloh and Other Stories - Bobbie Ann Mason [4]
“She don’t know the meaning of the word ‘knock,’ ” says Norma Jean. “It’s a wonder she hadn’t caught me years ago.”
“Think of it this way,” Leroy says. “What if she caught me with a joint?”
“You better not let her!” Norma Jean shrieks. “I’m warning you, Leroy Moffitt!”
“I’m just kidding. Here, play me a tune. That’ll help you relax.”
Norma Jean puts the casserole in the oven and sets the timer. Then she plays a ragtime tune, with horns and banjo, as Leroy lights up a joint and lies on the couch, laughing to himself about Mabel’s catching him at it. He thinks of Stevie Hamilton—a doctor’s son pushing grass. Everything is funny. The whole town seems crazy and small. He is reminded of Virgil Mathis, a boastful policeman Leroy used to shoot pool with. Virgil recently led a drug bust in a back room at a bowling alley, where he seized ten thousand dollars’ worth of marijuana. The newspaper had a picture of him holding up the bags of grass and grinning widely. Right now, Leroy can imagine Virgil breaking down the door and arresting him with a lungful of smoke. Virgil would probably have been alerted to the scene because of all the racket Norma Jean is making. Now she sounds like a hard-rock band. Norma Jean is terrific. When she switches to a Latin-rhythm version of “Sunshine Superman,” Leroy hums along. Norma Jean’s foot goes up and down, up and down.
“Well, what do you think?” Leroy says, when Norma Jean pauses to search through her music.
“What do I think about what?”
His mind has gone blank. Then he says, “I’ll sell my rig and build us a house.” That wasn’t what he wanted to say. He wanted to know what she thought—what she really thought—about them.
“Don’t start in on that again,” says Norma Jean. She begins playing “Who’ll Be the Next in Line?”
Leroy used to tell hitchhikers his whole life story—about his travels, his hometown, the baby. He would end with a question: “Well, what do you think?” It was just a rhetorical question. In time, he had the feeling that he’d been telling the same story over and over to the same hitchhikers. He quit talking to hitchhikers when he realized how his voice sounded—whining and self-pitying, like some teenage-tragedy song. Now Leroy has the sudden impulse to tell Norma Jean about himself, as if he had just met her. They have known each other so long they have forgotten a lot about each other. They could become reacquainted. But when the oven timer goes off and she runs to the kitchen, he forgets why he wants to do this.
—
The next day, Mabel drops by. It is Saturday and Norma Jean is cleaning. Leroy is studying the plans of his log house, which have finally come in the mail. He has them spread out on the table—big sheets of stiff blue paper, with diagrams and numbers printed in white. While Norma Jean runs the vacuum, Mabel drinks coffee. She sets her coffee cup on a blueprint.
“I’m just waiting for time to pass,” she says to Leroy, drumming her fingers on the table.
As soon as Norma Jean switches off the vacuum, Mabel says in a loud voice, “Did you hear about the datsun dog that killed the baby?”
Norma Jean says, “The word is ‘dachshund.’ ”
“They put the dog on trial. It chewed the baby’s legs off. The mother was in the next room all the time.” She raises her voice. “They thought it was neglect.”
Norma Jean is holding her ears. Leroy manages to open the refrigerator and get some Diet Pepsi to offer Mabel. Mabel still has some coffee and she waves away the Pepsi.
“Datsuns are like that,” Mabel says. “They’re jealous dogs. They’ll tear a place to pieces if you don’t keep an eye on them.”
“You better watch out what you’re saying, Mabel,” says Leroy.
“Well, facts is facts.”
Leroy looks out the window at his rig. It is like a huge piece of furniture gathering dust in the backyard. Pretty soon it will be an antique. He hears the vacuum cleaner. Norma Jean seems to be cleaning the living room rug again.
Later, she says to Leroy, “She just said that about the baby because she caught me smoking. She’s trying to pay me back.”