Deliver Us from Evie Read online

  “Maybe Dad’s right and I shouldn’t wear them to church.”

  “Wear what you want to wear,” I said.

  “Patty spent a fortune on them!”

  “She’s got it to spend.”

  “That’s what Patty says. She says, ‘Don’t deny me the pleasure of giving you something great—that’s what money’s for!’”

  “I don’t know if Mr. Duff would think that’s what his money’s for.”

  “Patty’s got her own money. Her grandmother Duff left her a trust fund.”

  “Lucky her,” I said.

  “Are you being sarcastic, Parr?”

  “No, I’m being bitter. I wish I was rich.”

  “Because I want you to like her. She’s really neat!”

  “I don’t dislike her,” I said. “I don’t know her well enough to like her.”

  We passed the Vets’ Memorial Statue and saw a bra hanging from the bayonet.

  “They’re so original in this town,” Evie said.

  I said, “When Doug was home last weekend there was a huge pair of men’s jockey shorts there, and he got ticked off and he said he hated this town. Figure that out.”

  “Anna Banana is getting to him. It’s not Duffton getting to him. It’s her.”

  “Gawd, I hope not! I don’t want to be left holding the bag. What will we do if Doug decides he’s not going to farm?”

  “Don’t say ‘we,’ Parr. I’m not dead set on hanging around here anymore, either.”

  I just sat there as though something heavy had fallen on me and was holding me down.

  Evie said, “Sorry to say it, little brother, but that’s how I feel.”

  I said, “You’ll change your mind,” but it was only wishful thinking. The whole idea of Evie in the same sentence with change, once she was set on her course, was what you call an oxymoron. Opposite ideas combined.

  20

  THE CHURCH OF THE Heavenly Spirit was celebrating its new building. It was one large room with a pulpit and cross at the front, and choir loft in the rear.

  Angel was singing a solo that morning, so she didn’t sit with the congregation.

  I sat between her mother and father.

  Pastor Bob preached this fiery sermon on the sin of envy, followed by Angel’s voice.

  When she began singing, I couldn’t imagine what the hymn was all about.

  The first verse was:

  C-L-O-C-K—“The world is like a shelf,

  Do you ever think You should be like myself?

  For I tick, tick, quick, quick,

  With a merry chime working all the time.

  Tick!” said the clock;

  “What?” said I.

  “You can learn a lesson from my tick, if you try.”

  I sat there thinking about what Evie’d just told me. Dad and Cord had decided on expanding our hog operation, and planting only corn come spring. I’d heard them say that with Evie full-time and me part-time they’d only need a few hands extra; then in summer Doug would be back, and we’d all pitch in and manage for three months ourselves.

  Then after that what?

  Dad would lose heart if he thought that in the future there’d be no Doug, and no Evie, either.

  He’d already told me he didn’t want me to be a farmer, not if it wasn’t in me. He’d said I should go to the university and spend my first two years thinking about a major. Maybe business, he said. Maybe even advertising, since the journalism school taught it, and I always had a lot to say about the commercials on TV.

  I liked the idea of making up commercials. I figured I could come up with better ideas than most I saw on the tube. It was something I’d never thought about before, and I’d even told Angel I was giving some thought to being an advertising man.

  But I knew I’d never be able to walk away from the farm if both Doug and Evie did.

  For the first time the thing between Evie and Patsy Duff got to me. If it hadn’t been for Patsy, my sister might have gone along without ever thinking she was all that different. She’d managed all right before Patsy came into her life…. Now Patsy was luring her with expensive clothes, teaching her dance steps (where was that going on?), and introducing her to all sorts of sophisticated things Evie could have easily died without ever missing.

  It seemed to me very possible that a Duff would be responsible for me never even getting to the University of Missouri. That made me damn mad, too, that it was a Duff doing me in. Lately we were always in deep shit because of that family.

  I’d never be able to walk away from the farm, probably.

  It’d be on my conscience.

  Then like God was reading my mind, Angel’s voice rang out loud and clear on the last verse.

  C-L-O-C-K—“And I’ve a loud alarm;

  Conscience says Wake up! Sin wants to do you harm!

  Keep awake! wake! wake! wake!

  With a merry chime working all the time.

  Tick!” said the clock;

  “What?” said I;

  “You can learn a lesson from my ’larm, if you try.”

  That night I woke up in a cold sweat from a nightmare.

  Evie was being buried over in Duffton Cemetery.

  Patsy Duff was standing there weeping, holding a smoking gun.

  21

  “YOU NEVER HAD A beer?” said Cord. “Not one?”

  “I’ve had a taste,” I told him. “It didn’t thrill me.”

  “It’s an acquired taste, Parr. Like those oysters Patsy Duff’s got Evie swallowing. You heard about that?”

  “I didn’t hear oysters.”

  “Yeah, oysters! Yuck!”

  It was the week of Easter vacation, and I’d gone over to King’s Corners with him, the mower we’d bought at the farm sale last winter loaded in back.

  It needed repair, turned out, and Evie’d given up on it.

  We were sitting in the rear of the pickup with our feet dangling, taking in the sun of an afternoon like summer smack in the middle of April.

  Cord was holding an empty beer can, crushing it with his fingers, tossing it into the bin behind Howell Hardware, a favorite parking place for the farm trucks.

  He plucked another can from a six-pack and said, “Here’s yours. Try it. It’ll cheer you up.”

  I took it.

  I told him my worst fears about Doug and Evie leaving the farm on my hands.

  “Evie could have fixed that mower, too,” Cord said.

  “Probably.”

  “Evie could fix a space shuttle if she put her mind to it. She knows machinery like she knows soil. It’s in her blood.”

  “Or was,” I said.

  “That thing’s not going to last, Parr. You think a girl like Patsy Duff’s going to want Evie once she’s met herself a man? Thing is, those girls go to private school don’t have the opportunity to find out what the male sex is all about. They keep them like nuns at those places.”

  “Patsy used to date Ned Thacker.”

  “He’s just a kid! He’s a preppie. He’s not a man!”

  “I don’t know anything about it,” I said.

  “That’s why I’m telling you about it. Now Evie’s got her man’s ways, for sure, but a lot of women from the farm do, because they do men’s work. She’d have snapped out of it if this thing hadn’t gotten blown all out of proportion.”

  “That’s what I think. It’s Patsy’s fault.”

  “She turned Evie around, next thing she’ll take a walk.”

  “I hope so.”

  “I know so…. What do they do together? Two females! Hah!”

  “I don’t know what they do together.”

  “Not much.”

  “I don’t even know what two guys do together.”

  I knew. I’d learned about it in health and nutrition, and nothing to do with sex is all that mysterious to a farm boy. I guess what I meant was I couldn’t figure out two guys feeling that way.

  “Two guys get AIDS together,” said Cord.

  He was f
ooling with a thick, black perma-marker he’d used to make a sign advertising the pickup for sale. We’d fixed it up in the window behind the gun rack, hoping to attract a buyer. Cord had his eye on a secondhand Dodge with a larger truck bed.

  He was making a big black heart, with EVIE LOVES PATSY inside it, on a hunk of cardboard.

  “Do you think being a dyke is sinful?” I asked him.

  “Hell no! It’s not serious enough to be a sin. It’s kid stuff. Two women is … Now two men—that’s another matter. That’s sin in the Bible.”

  “What are you doing that for?” I looked at the black heart he was drawing with their names inside.

  “I’m fooling around. I had to take the whole afternoon off because of them, didn’t I? Patsy could have fixed that mower.”

  “You mean Evie.”

  “Did I say Patsy? I’d like to fix her mower.”

  “I thought it was my sister you liked.”

  “I do like Evie. I even love her. But Evie’s what I’d choose for my wife. Patsy’s another story. I’d like to change that little gal.”

  “You’d like to go to an early grave,” I. said. “Duff would kill you with his bare hands.”

  “Don’t I know it! But I can dream, can’t I, Parr?”

  He was right about the beer.

  I didn’t mind the taste so much after a whole can, and I had a second one when he passed it to me.

  I felt a little guilty that we’d left all the work to Dad, Evie, and two hired hands, but Cord was right: We wouldn’t even have been there if Evie’d put her mind back on repairing stuff. She didn’t seem to do anything extra anymore, the way she used to like to tinker with the tractors, the planters, the bailers and harrows. She listened to a lot of music up in her room, and wrote a lot of letters and “statements” in her notebook.

  “Do you still think of marrying Evie?” I asked him.

  “I plan to, Parr.”

  “I’m not so sure she’ll want to do that,” I said.

  “Isn’t that what you want? Me and her to marry?”

  “I’d like it fine, but Evie’s all different now.”

  “She’s not different. Clothes do not make the man.” Cord laughed. “She’s still Evie. We just got to get her past this stage she’s in.”

  “Huh?” I said. “We have to get her past it?”

  “With the help of old man Duff,” said Cord. He opened himself another can of beer and slung an arm around my shoulders. “I have never been an idle fellow, Parr. Did you know that about me?”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?” I had a gulp of beer.

  “I may be a dropout, may not have the education Doug has or the smarts you have, but my mind”—he tapped his forehead with his fingers—“is always busy, Parr.”

  “Glaaad to hear it,” I crowed. “Glaaad to hear it!”

  “A little beer goes a long way with you, buddy.”

  “Yeah, well, isn’t that what it’s for?”

  “Drink up. See if you can chug-a-lug. Can you chug-a-lug?”

  “Do bears crap in the woods?” I said. I tipped the can up and swallowed.

  Cord clapped.

  He said, “You’re all right, Parr!”

  He passed me another.

  He said, “I’ve got a little plan, Parr. You know what happens tonight?”

  “What happens tonight?” I laughed. I felt good.

  “Tonight old man Duff brings his little dyke princess home from boarding school for her Easter vacation. I heard him telling someone that down at the P.O. this morning.”

  “Whoopee,” I said.

  “Yeah, whoopee…. Now I was wondering what he’d think if he was driving her past the Vets’ Memorial, which is right under that big old streetlight, and he saw a sign hanging off the bayonet that said this.”

  He held up the black heart with EVIE LOVES PATSY printed inside it.

  I said, “And vice versa,” because why put the blame on Evie?

  “Oh, that’s good, Parr. That’s good.”

  He took the marker out of his shirt pocket and added AND VICE VERSA.

  Then he got another idea, slapped his knee and laughed, and underlined VICE.

  “How about that?” he said.

  “He’ll croak if he sees that,” I said.

  “He’ll see it all right,” said Cord. “Who doesn’t look to see what’s on that bayonet every time he goes by there?”

  “Everybody looks,” I said.

  “That’s right, Parr. And we’re not doing this to Evie, either—we’re doing it for Evie. The only way she’s going to snap out of this thing is for old man Duff to get that dyke daughter of his out of Evie’s way. If I know him, he’ll send her east, put her in some New England boarding school.”

  “School’s almost out.”

  “He’ll send her to some camp, send her to relatives, send her somewhere Evie can’t get to her. You’ll see.”

  “Evie’d go right after her, Cord.”

  “With what? She don’t have a plugged nickel, Parr!”

  “She’s got savings. She never spent a dime all her life until this happened!”

  “She can’t match Duff money, or outsmart him. Let Duff handle this. You’ll see. When we get to Duffton, one of us is going to jump out and stick it up there, and one of us is going to be the lookout.”

  “In broad daylight?”

  “Guys stick things up there all the time in broad daylight and never get caught. It’s only going to take a second.”

  I said I’d be the lookout.

  “You’re not a licensed driver, Parr. If we need to get away fast, I got to be behind the wheel.”

  I don’t think I’d have agreed to do it if I hadn’t had the beers. But the one night Doug ever got drunk in high school and hanged the principal in effigy from the County High flagpole, Mom said not to blame the liquor, there was malice behind the act. She said maybe the whiskey gave Doug the nerve, but he’d always had it in for Mr. Friar.

  Time hadn’t made me a big fan of Patsy Duff’s, but I didn’t think I had it in for Evie.

  Still, it was Evie letting me down: no warning, nothing. Sorry to say it, little brother, but you’re stuck here forever.

  22

  EVIE WAS IN THE tractor down on the Atlee land, chiseling the field from north to south and back again. Dad was doing the same thing on our bottomland.

  Next day Doug would be home to help knife in the fertilizer, as we got ready to plant.

  I could smell the newly turned ribbons of earth all through the air. There was nothing like that smell. I stood there taking it in, worrying about another smell: the beer on my breath.

  Lucky for me, Mom was over at the sheds receiving a delivery on the seed corn.

  I went up to the house and showered and gargled with Listerine. I opened the window to let the steam out. No one had to know I’d sobered myself up under the hot water.

  I was towel drying my hair as I passed Evie’s room. I saw a framed photograph on Evie’s bureau. That was new. I stepped inside her room and looked at Patsy Duff’s smiling face, trying to hate it so I wouldn’t feel the regret beginning to seep through me for putting that sign up on the bayonet at the Vets’ Memorial.

  The red scarf was draped over the mirror. The ID bracelet was sitting in a glass ashtray Evie now used for her school ring and change.

  I looked at the bracelet. It had EVIE engraved on the front. On the back there was PATTY, and in smaller letters: Our love … it just keeps rolling.

  I figured Evie’d said something to her about the river, same as she’d said to me that you couldn’t change Patty—she was like the river. I remembered the song: “Old man river … he just keeps rolling.”

  When the phone rang, I had to run downstairs to answer it, since our only extension was in the barn.

  Angel said, “Parr? It’s me. Can you talk?”

  “Cat doesn’t have my tongue,” I said. “How are you, honey?”

  “No, I mean, is your family right the
re?”

  “No one’s here. What’s the matter?”

  “I’m not home. I am at a pay phone, so can you call me back?”

  She gave me the number and I pushed the buttons.

  “What’s the matter? You okay?”

  “Parr, there’s all kinds of talk about your sister. Mom came home from Barker’s store filled with it. Parr, they’re saying she’s a lezzie and there’s a sign about it over at the memorial statue in Duffton.”

  “What kind of sign?” I said, all innocence. But that was something I’d never thought about: Angel and her family hearing that kind of rumor.

  “They’re saying she’s after Mr. Duff’s daughter, Parr!”

  “I’ll be coming over to your place tonight,” I said. “We can talk about it.”

  “Mama doesn’t want her driving you over here, Parr.”

  “Huh? What difference does it make if Evie gives me a ride?”

  “Mama says Daddy won’t want her around here. We’re having to redo our mortgage, and Mama says Mr. Duff could hurt us, Parr…. Parr, does your sister know there’s a sign up about her?”

  “No, she doesn’t know.”

  “Do your folks know what they’re saying about Evie?”

  “It probably won’t come as a surprise,” I said.

  “It’s a surprise to us! It’s a shock is what it is! Mama asked me if she ever tried anything with me.”

  “Come on! Your mama said that?”

  “And Mama said she does wear men’s clothes.”

  “She works on a farm! What’s she going to wear?”

  “She didn’t mean her work clothes, Parr. Mama said she’s the one who gets mail from that box Patsy Duff rented, and when she comes in for it, she’s got on a man’s jacket.”

  News traveled like lightning in a small town. Cord and I had only made one stop in Duffton after we stuck that thing on the bayonet. It hadn’t been up there but a few hours.

  I said, “I’ll get somebody else to drive me over tonight.” I wondered who that would be. I could always get Evie to take us anywhere, no matter how hard she worked all day. She’d say, “What I do for love!” and drive not glancing at us, because she knew there weren’t a lot of times we could kiss or even touch, certainly not around Angel’s father, who’d drive us places with one eye on the road and one eye on us.