Standing in the Rainbow - Fannie Flagg [134]
Finally the trooper, red-faced and ready to explode, stopped and said, “Listen, you little fairy, you snap your fingers at me one more time, I’m gonna rip them off and shove them up your fat ass.”
Cecil stood and blinked at him, “What did you say?”
“You heard me.”
Cecil frowned. “Don’t you make me waste my valuable rehearsal time fooling with you. I am the director of this show and you are going to do it and you are going to do it right.”
“Over my dead body,” said Trooper Childress.
Cecil glanced at his watch. “Take a fifteen-minute break, people. I want you all back here onstage at exactly one-forty, ready to take it from the top.” He then pointed at Trooper Childress and said, “And I want to see you downstairs right now, mister, let’s go.”
When they got downstairs to the large rehearsal hall, Cecil closed the door and said, “Take off that shirt. I’m not having you rip up a new shirt when we don’t have time to order another one.”
The trooper did so with glee, just itching to wipe up the floor with Cecil. The last thing Ralph Childress heard before Cecil hauled off and beat the living hell out of him was “I will not have a cast member setting a bad example.”
Fifteen minutes later Cecil came back into the auditorium clapping his hands. “Let’s go, people . . . right from the top.” Behind him came Childress, limping slightly. A few minutes ago, he had been lying on the floor too exhausted to get back up, while Cecil had stood over him with his hands on his hips and asked, “Now, are you ready to get back to work or not?”
The trooper had been so surprised that he’d laughed and said, “Yeah, I guess so.”
Cecil may have looked pudgy but he was as solid as a rock and as strong as a bull. He had been lifting dead bodies and caskets all his life. Although most of his military service had been spent arranging teas and bridge parties for the officers and their wives, he had been trained to defend himself. Nothing more was made of the incident but when the others asked Ralph what had happened he replied, “Aw, he’s all right . . . just trying to do his job.” In trooper language that must have meant a lot, because Cecil never had any more trouble with any of them and eventually they even came to like him. As a matter of fact, some came to him when they were having trouble with their wives or girlfriends and asked his advice. He seemed to understand women much better than they did.
And it was true in one important case. He had noticed Hamm and Betty Raye drifting further apart. After the pageant, he went into Hamm’s office and closed the door. “You know I don’t care what you do in your personal life but you need to start paying a little more attention to your wife.”
Hamm, distracted, said, “What?”
“Betty Raye. She hasn’t been anywhere with you in the last six months and that’s not right.”
“Oh yeah . . . yeah, I guess you’re right. Maybe I should take her to dinner or something.”
“It had better be something,” Cecil said, “and soon.”
Hamm said, “Yeah, I will as soon as I get a free night.” But the free night never came. Betty Raye never said anything but she was lonesome. She really did not have any close friends in Jefferson City. Since it was the capital of the state, most people there were either in politics or married to someone who was. Betty Raye did not know a thing about politics except that it had taken her husband away, and she had nothing in common with the other wives, who seemed to love it. Alberta Peets, the ice-pick murderess, was her closest friend. She kept Betty