Deliver Us from Evie Read online

  “What are you going to be?”

  That was the big question, wasn’t it? I’d been asking myself that question ever since I’d started in at Duffton School, and I still didn’t have an answer.

  I said, “I’m going to be anything but a farmer.”

  “I wasn’t born when we lost our place in the ’73 flood. The river just ran it down, pffft”—she snapped her fingers—“like that. Everything we ever owned got carried off. Daddy said the Lord in his mysterious way doesn’t step in at every crisis. He said he never wants to own another farm after that.”

  “My sister says the river’s got a will of its own.”

  “She’s right about that. Don’t make any plans for the river, because it’s got its own plans, and when the time comes, your plans won’t do you any good.”

  “Have you got a Christmas tree up yet?”

  For the first time she laughed. “Up yet? It’s Christmas Eve.”

  “We got it up but not trimmed.”

  “What are you waiting for?”

  “For when we get home.”

  “We put ours up a week ago and decorated it the same day. I like Christmas. I didn’t want to sing ‘“Tick!” Said the Clock’ for Christmas Eve. I wanted to sing a carol, but Pastor Bob said only the whole choir could sing carols or it wasn’t fair.”

  “I never even heard ‘“Tick!” Said the Clock.’”

  “You said you didn’t and I was surprised. I thought everyone in the world knew that hymn. It’s real old. Eighteen ninety-six. I always find out the date when I learn a hymn, so I know how old it is.”

  “That’s a good idea,” I said.

  Then Reverend Southworth grabbed Angel’s hand.

  “Welcome to St. Luke’s!” he said.

  She told him her name, and I said, “She sings solos, Reverend. She’s got a real voice on her!”

  “Don’t tell him that,” Angel said.

  “So Parr’s been finding out all about you, hmmm?” said the reverend. “Maybe you’ll sing for us one Sunday, Angel.”

  “Well, if you ask me I will, but don’t ask me just because he said that about my voice. I might not be that good to sing in your church.”

  “She’s that good, all right,” said Mr. Kidder with his hand out.

  I stepped back to let Mrs. Kidder meet the reverend, and the next thing I knew my mother was pulling at my coat sleeve.

  “We’re leaving, Parr.” She looked cross.

  “Wait a minute,” I said. “There’s someone—”

  But she cut me off. “Now!” she said.

  “What’s the matter?”

  “What isn’t! This is some Christmas!”

  “Where’s Dad?”

  “He’s already in the car. Don’t make him wait, Parr. He’s not in a waiting mood.”

  I called out, “So long, Angel!”

  She was so small I couldn’t see her. She was in the middle of a group gathered by the Reverend Southworth.

  “Honey, come,” my mother said.

  “Oh, all right! I’m coming!”

  “Who’s this Angel, anyway?” she said as we started down the front steps into a new, light snow blowing up.

  “You’ll see,” I said.

  “Anyone we know?”

  “Not yet,” I said. “Just I know her.”

  “This is some Christmas,” my mother said again.

  I said, “I’ll say!” and I was grinning and taking deep breaths of the cold December air, thinking thanks for the Christmas present, Lord, if it was You letting that church burn down last night, in Your mysterious way of not stepping in at every crisis.

  11

  DAD MADE HIS SPECIAL eggnog for Mom and him, as he did every Christmas Eve, but this year it didn’t seem like fun to be up at midnight trimming the tree and listening to Christmas music.

  We strung the lights, but we decided to wait until morning to put on the bulbs and the tinsel.

  Dad couldn’t stop talking about the way Mr. Duff had bawled him out for letting Evie drive Patsy into St. Louis without his permission, “just as though Evie was a boy or something, trying to date his daughter. That’s what it sounded like!”

  “Don’t be silly,” Mom said. “He’s just very protective of Patsy.”

  “What’s he think Evie’s going to do to her?”

  “He doesn’t think Evie’s going to do anything to her. He’s probably worried about Evie driving.”

  “So am I worried about Evie driving! So what! It was Patsy’s idea to go to that concert! I told him so, too! I told him we weren’t very happy about Evie being gone on Christmas Eve, and he said then why’d I let her go? I told him Evie’s not a child, and he said Patsy was!”

  Mom sighed and said, “Come on to bed now, Douglas. It’s not Evie’s fault that Patsy didn’t tell him who she was going with!”

  “You know what he said? He said, ‘What’s that girl of yours up to, if she even is a girl.’”

  “I heard.”

  “What was that supposed to mean?”

  “Nothing, Douglas.”

  “I should have asked him what that was supposed to mean.”

  “You did right not to.”

  “He caught me off balance or I would have!”

  They finally turned in, and I sat up for a while thinking about Angel and looking in the phone book for the name Kidder.

  I found a Nelson Kidder in Floodtown, and I copied down the number. Then I looked in my mother’s copy of Favorite Hymns for “‘Tick!’ Said the Clock,” but it wasn’t there.

  Christmas morning about eight o’clock it was blowing more than it was snowing when Cord came by with a present for Evie.

  Mom gave him a cup of coffee and told him Dad was down in the barn checking on Melvin, whose foot was still bothering him from when he got caught in the sinkhole.

  “I bought Evie a Wynonna tape,” Cord said.

  “She loves Wynonna. So do I…. Did you ever hear of Biker Pike, Cord?”

  “He sing Western?”

  “It’s a she. It’s women’s music, I think.”

  “I only know Western. I got Evie a new Ruth Rendell mystery story, too. You say she was at a concert?”

  “A concert given by this Pike woman.”

  “I can’t keep up with music today,” said Cord. “I never figured Evie’d like to go to a concert. I never even knew she was friends with Patsy Duff.”

  “It’s a new friendship,” said my mother.

  “Well they make a strange pair, don’t they? Patsy Duff doesn’t give anyone here the time of day.”

  Mom and I trimmed the tree after Cord left. We put his gifts for Evie under it, along with our gifts for each other. Dad made his scrambled eggs and bacon for us, but I was the only one who was hungry. I was the only one with anything to say. I said I’d met this girl named Angel last night in church and I might ask her over if Dad was going anywhere later so we could pick her up.

  “Today?” Dad said. “We haven’t even had our Christmas, Parr!”

  “Won’t we be having it after we eat?”

  “We’ll be having it when Evie ever gets here!” said Dad.

  “I doubt that your Angel will want to come over here on Christmas Day, Parr,” said Mom. “It’s a family day.”

  “Some family day this year!” Dad snapped.

  After we ate, Dad sat in his rocker in the parlor, watching the road from the window.

  “I think we ought to open our presents,” Mom finally said. “By the time Evie gets here, you’re going to be too mad to have Christmas, Douglas.”

  We were in the midst of gift opening when we heard the Pontiac pull into the driveway.

  Pete and Gracie began barking, tails wagging, excited.

  Then Evie stamped through the door in Doug’s old bomber jacket, with a new red scarf wrapped around her neck and a cigarette dangling from her mouth.

  “Ho! Ho! Ho!” she called out. “Merry Christmas, everybody!”

  12

  WE GA
VE EACH OTHER a lot of music at Christmas. Dad and Evie liked Western tapes. They played them when they were riding around on the tractor or in the pickup or when they were working down in the barn.

  Mom liked Western stuff, too, but she was curious about all sorts of other music: Streisand was a favorite, and Whitney Houston, and she liked old Beatles tapes and Elvis ones.

  There were several tapes strewn around the parlor with the other gifts.

  I think Mom decided music would get us all past the arguing that kept erupting that morning like kernels of corn popping out on a hot pan just when you thought there weren’t any left under the ones that’d already blown.

  She was fixing a tape in the player after Dad had finished going over his meeting in the church aisle with Mr. Duff again, and Evie’d said again she didn’t give a ding-dong-damn what Mr. Duff said!

  “She’s still in high school, Evie!”—Dad.

  “She’s one year younger than I am, and a hundred years more experienced than I am!”

  “What kind of experience are you talking about?”

  “Life experience! Okay? She’s been all over the globe and I haven’t even been out of Missouri, unless I was taking hogs to a 4-H show! I’m a hick compared to her! What’s he think I’m going to do, turn her into a crack addict or something?”

  Dad finally laughed. “I don’t know what got into Duff, I swear!”

  “Am I a Communist or something, a nudist, a serial killer, a member of a cult or something?”

  “I don’t know, I swear!”

  “Mr. Duff’s out of his bird if you ask me!” said Evie.

  Then the music began. This female voice began belting out:

  “They don’t call me Pike,

  They call me a dyke!

  They’re right I’m a dyke,

  A dyke on a bike—Biker Pike!”

  Evie jumped up from the couch and ran over to the player, her face red, her hand reaching out for the STOP button.

  “Don’t stop it!” said Dad.

  “It’s my tape,” said Evie, stopping it.

  “It was here with the others,” said Mom.

  “I was playing it in the car. I just put it down there,” said Evie. “It wasn’t meant for you to hear!”

  “I want to hear it!” Dad said. “Did it say what I thought it said?”

  “It’s just a joke,” Evie said. She ejected it and put it in her pocket.

  “Let’s hear the joke,” Dad persisted.

  “It’s mine,” said Evie. “I don’t feel like playing it. You’d take it the wrong way. You wouldn’t understand it.”

  “I understand what a dyke is!” my father said. “A dyke is a female Cousin Joe!”

  I said, “It’s Evie’s tape. She doesn’t have to play it.”

  “I’m sorry, Evie,” Mom said. “I thought it was the one Cord brought over for you.”

  “Who gave you that tape? Patsy Duff?” my father said.

  “I got it at the concert,” said Evie. “It’s just a joke.”

  “What kind of concert was that concert?” Mom asked.

  “I told you. It was a Biker Pike concert.”

  “Is she a dyke?” my father asked.

  “You heard her!”

  “Then it’s not a joke,” Dad said.

  “It’s meant to be funny,” said Evie.

  “What’s funny about being a dyke?” my father asked.

  “I guess what’s funny,” said Evie, “is that she doesn’t care what people say about her.”

  “That’s funny?” he said.

  “Never mind, Douglas,” said my mother. “It’s Christmas.”

  “Do you care what people say about you, Evie?” my father said. “What if somebody got the idea you were one of them, because you go to a concert like that? How would that set with you?”

  “A lot of people went to that concert. They weren’t all dykes.”

  “Hang around with ducks, you start to waddle,” said my father.

  “Maybe you do, Dad.” Evie lit a cigarette.

  “You don’t? You don’t care if someone gets the idea you’re a dyke because you go to a concert like that?”

  Evie blew out some smoke. She ran her hand through her hair and stood there shaking her head. She said, “I don’t give a ding-dong-damn what people say about me! Okay?”

  She started walking toward the stairs.

  Dad said, “I don’t want you hanging around with Patsy Duff anymore, Evie.”

  Evie stopped in her tracks. She said, “I’m eighteen years old, Dad. If you’re going to suddenly start telling me who I can hang around with and who I can’t, I’m out of here!”

  Dad backed down. “It’s for your own good, honey. I think you’re right about Patsy Duff. She is more experienced than you are.”

  Evie said, “Maybe I could use some experience! Maybe I need to see a little more of the world!”

  I think Dad felt the same shiver go through him I did.

  What in the heck would we do around that place without Evie? Now we had the Atlee land and plans for more hogs, and even Doug seemed to be straying thanks to Anna Banana.

  Evie was starting up the stairs.

  “Oh, honey,” Dad said, “don’t go away mad now.”

  Evie didn’t answer him.

  I wanted to say: Don’t go away at all, Evie. Don’t leave me stuck here.

  Mom had Barbra Streisand on the player then, singing “We’ve Never Been in Love Before.”

  I sat there staring at all the things under the tree: a new sweater and pants for me, the new crock pot Mom had wanted, and the scarf and gloves I’d given her, the Dickey-john soil compaction tester Doug had sent Dad, and the cap I’d got him. There were always new clothes for everyone at Christmas.

  Mom had bought Evie some turtleneck sweaters, even though she liked wearing shirts more.

  I couldn’t think of anything to say. My mind was on Evie, and that song about being a dyke.

  Then Mom said, “Why don’t you call that Angel up? Wish her a Merry Christmas.”

  “I wished her that last night,” I said. “But I still might do it.”

  She gave me a smile. “You like short girls, Parr. Toni Atlee was a tiny thing, too.”

  “She’s nothing like Toni Atlee,” I said. “Did you hear her singing in church?”

  “Who?” said my dad.

  “Parr’s found himself a girlfriend, I think,” Mom said.

  “Ah ha!” Dad said, and the look on his face was relieved and happy again, and he wanted to know all about her.

  13

  NEXT DAY DAD AND Evie and I were counting the hogs we were taking to King’s Corners that afternoon. We looked for the ones around two hundred and thirty pounds. We never sold any under that weight, and past two fifty the packing company would dock you for overweight.

  “I count twenty,” said Evie. “What do you count, Dad?”

  “Yeah, about twenty, twenty-two.”

  I said, “Same here.”

  It was one job I hated. Sometimes the hogs got stressed out and shit all over you, and they all squealed like they knew right where they were going. I could stand that, but I hated snapping the whip to get them so they’d move aboard the truck, and when Dad had to use the cattle prod I couldn’t look.

  We’d take good care of them while they were with us, watching over them like they were babies, hauling bales of hay out to the gilts in the south pasture, checking the heating system, their water, all that stuff … then the heck with what happened to them when the time came to load them up, all atumble in the truck bed.

  Evie and Dad were trying to act normal, but Dad could never fake anything, and his face was down to his boots.

  “Well, it’ll be a good load,” Dad said.

  Evie had on jeans and the old leather bomber jacket, but Dad and I wore overalls and heavy flannel shirts with long johns under them. We had on seed caps with the fleece flaps covering our ears, but Evie always went bareheaded in any weather, and jammed he
r hands into her jeans instead of wearing orange fleece work gloves like we had on.

  I was remembering how Mom always told her don’t stick your hands in your trouser pockets when you walk, honey, it’s so masculine.

  Christmas night I’d gone to sleep thinking of things like that—how Mom would always try to change her to be more feminine. And then I’d tried to turn it off by going over my phone call with Angel.

  It hadn’t lasted long. I could hardly hear her with all the noise in the background. She said all her relatives were over at her place, and said to call her back, or else she’d see me in church on Sunday.

  We were coming away from the hog pens, our two yellow Labs running ahead of us, when we heard the car coming and they began barking.

  There wasn’t another car that came our way that sounded like that, not another car I’d ever seen anywhere the color of black cherries.

  Evie stopped to light a cigarette and she didn’t even look up, but Dad said, “Now what’s she doing here?”

  I said, “It’s not a she.”

  Even on this cold gray winter day—the temperature ten degrees Fahrenheit, it’d said when we’d listened over the radio to the morning hog prices—Mr. Duff had the window down all the way, resting his arm on the sill, wearing the big cowboy’s Stetson he liked better than the caps every other farmer wore.

  “Duff?” Dad said.

  “Himself,” I said.

  He got out of the Porsche and waddled our way while Evie called the dogs back.

  Dad said, “Good morning, Mr. Duff.” He always called him Mister to his face. Everyone did.

  “Morning, Douglas…. Morning,” nodded at Evie and me.

  I said good morning but Evie didn’t say anything.

  “What brings you over here?” said my father.

  “I got something to get off my chest, Douglas.”

  “Come on up to the house then. Cynnie’s got some coffee brewed. We only got decaf, though, I warn you, because Cynnie—”

  He cut Dad off. “I’d rather not go up to the house. I’d rather just say what I have to say right here.”

  We all waited.

  “Parr,” Mr. Duff said, “you go along to the house.”

  “I’ll go with you,” Evie said.

  “No, you stay here,” Mr. Duff said. “This concerns you, too, Evie.”