Chapter 28
“This doesn’t look like the farmer’s markets I’m used to,” I told Sarge as we pulled up to what I thought was a convenience store.
“Weellll, it’s a market. Different times of year it might be a bit busier. Most of the time this place has outdoor tables with stuff on them. They’ve slowed down for the year right now. The owner is some kind of shirt-tail cousin to Auntie. It is just where she is choosing to do business.”
“Oh, okay. Family helps family. Why didn’t you say so?”
He looked at me and just shook his heat. “Now you listen to me Pistol, don’t go shootin’ off that mouth and catching too much attention. Once Maurice finds out that you are Henley’s niece you might catch a break, you might not. About half the time he and Henley would get a feud on.”
“Why?” I asked, wondering just who Uncle Henley had turned into while I was growing up. Mom used to claim Dad was a “steadying influence” on him. I know he could be wild, but he did get religion for real before moving back here. Did he lose it at some point?
“’Cause Maurice and Henley were courtin’ the same woman until they both decided to give her up when they found out she was playin’ them. It still left some … er …”
“Competition and hard feelings?” I asked rolling my eyes.
Sarge snorted. “You could say that. Now I mean it. I can’t go off and leave you if you’re going to get in fights and what have you. I gotta be able to trust you’ll stay out of trouble.”
“Don’t try and teach your granny to suck eggs. There’s work to be done and I’m the Queen of Crapwork. Just introduce me so they’ll know I’m legit and not trying to pull some kind of scam.”
This time it was him that rolled his eyes, or maybe he was just looking to Heaven for some guidance or something. Since neither one of us heard a booming voice from the clouds I presume that Sarge accepted he was on his own. “Ava …”
“Is your memory so short you don’t remember that I don’t like trouble?”
“I remember, but like it or not, you sure do seem to find you some on a regular basis. I’m going to be over at Zealous putting …”
I laughed. “You’re gonna be where?”
“Smart ass,” he grumbled, hiding his own smile. “Zealous Energy. It’s across the street. I know someone over there and hope to get some referrals. And I mean it … behave yourself. C’mon, I’ll introduce you to Maurice.”
It took a minute but finally a man I guessed to be about Uncle Henley’s age stared daggers at Sarge and snapped, “Took long enough. I could have sold this stock three times over.”
Taking the lead I said, “Good thing you didn’t since it is already paid for. Here’s a copy of the check just in case it went astray. Why don’t I just get things out of your way so you don’t have to worry about that little ol’ paper mix up.”
“Ava …”
I looked at Sarge and grinned, “Stop growling and go take care of your business. I know how to use a dolly and Mr. Maurice has other customers he needs to get to.”
I summarily ignored both men and started moving the crates and boxes that Aunt Orélie had ordered. It was much larger an order than I expected but I found out why after we got them back to the Big House. Seems the lawyers place a big order about once a month and it is supposed to last until the next order. Aunt Orélie then takes whatever is in the order and preserves what she won’t be using up within the week. I found out what preserving meant the next day but I’m still explaining this one.
“Just let her work Maurice and she’ll stay out of your hair.”
The old man just grumped but thankfully did that very thing. I like to work without a lot of hovering. I mean I’ve got a brain and experience so I don’t need people getting in my hair. I’ve run more dolly loads than I can count. It doesn’t matter much what is in the boxes and containers, they all get loaded and moved about the same way … heavy and wide on bottom to light and small on top.
I will admit that what I loaded wasn’t real interesting to me at the time but I did take notice of it. I’ll even list it in alphabetical order just ‘cause I can. Broccoli, cabbage, carrots, cauliflower, celery, collards, kale, lemons, lettuce, mandarins, okra, persimmons, pomegranates, spinach, swiss chard, tangerines, and turnips. Luckily Sarge had parked so that the trailer was in the shade of the building as he was taking longer than I expected. I had everything loaded and was wondering what to do when I realized I’d left a mess where the crates had originally been sitting. Seeing it I grabbed a broom that was leaning inside the door and used a trash can lid like a dustpan and before you know it I had it all swept up.
I was just about to go sit in the truck when this big tourist bus pulls in. It isn’t your traditional tourists like I used to see in Florida, this bus was full of people taking a road trip to do some shopping. Some folks run across the street to the Sonic, some head over to the Super 1 grocery store, even had a couple jog over to a sushi place – I mean who expects to see a honest-to-gawd sushi restaurant in Podunk, Louisiana – but quite a few of them were milling around the produce stand fingering the fruit like they enjoyed the tactile stimulation. And boy were they buying. The bus driver and guide weren’t too happy. It meant making room underneath the bus where the luggage goes and there was already a bunch of stuff down there. I’m not quite sure how it happened but I wound up helping to rearrange suitcases and boxes to fit bags and crates of things without things getting squooshed. When all those people handed me a buck or two apiece before getting back on the bus and pulling away I just looked at the money in my hand before stuffing it in my cargo pants pocket. Easiest seventy bucks I think I’ve ever made.
Maurice was looking at me and all I could come up with was to say, “There are some strange people in this world.”
He said, “Yeah ‘tis … and I guess I’m looking at one. What you help for if you didn’t expect to get paid for it?”
I shrugged. “Do a good turn daily I guess. Um … in your drink case you wouldn’t happen to have Hibiscus Tea would you?”
“As it happens I do. Doesn’t have sugar in it.”
“Even better.” Walking over and looking in the case I pulled out two bottles of Hibiscus Tea and two bottles of lemonade. It meant parting with some of the money in my pocket, but I thought I was due a treat.
“Henley used to drink Hibiscus Tea. I kept it stocked just for him,” said a woman that had been running the register.
“He and Dad used to get my mom to make Hibiscus Lemonade in the summer. They drank it by the gallon.”
“You’re really Henley’s niece then.”
“That’s what my parents told me. Apparently some people don’t believe it.”
She snorted a chuckle. “You Henley’s niece all right.” A little more serious and hesitant she said, “I … was sorry to hear what happened.”
“Me too. He was the last of my family.” Said like that it sounded pathetic, like I was looking for sympathy. It wouldn’t do so I added, “The authorities are supposed to be looking into it.”
“You haven’t heard?”
“Heard what?”
“Oh Lord, and didn’t I just open my big mouth. Dad! You better come over and tell her.”
“Dad” turned out to be Maurice and he was more than willing to explain, “Wasn’t poachers Sugar. Was drug runners. With the military running the highways, they had to find alternate routes to move their poison. Henley was in town about a week before he was shot making a complaint against some of ‘em. Reckon he’d caught them on his game cameras and had taken the evidence into town.”
“He wouldn’t have happened to mention names did he?”
Maurice was a shrewd man and something must have shown on my face. “No Honey he didn’t. Henley tended to take care of his own business and didn’t share it. But even if he had – and Lord knows enough of us have our suspicions – them people are not something you take on alone. You the kind of girl them wolves would gobble right up.”
“I’m the kind of girl that will stick in their craw like a bone and choke ‘em.” I didn’t go further and Sarge’s return changed the subject, but it was more information than I had and I added it to the case I was building in my head.
Sarge seemed to be in a rush to get away and I gave way to that after asking him to sign the invoice. He stated the obvious by saying, “You already signed it.”
“I did,” I agreed. “But this way those Trust lawyers know someone they already trust is checking my work until they learn to trust me without oversight. Want some tea or lemonade?” I asked pointing to the bag now sitting between my feet.
“No thank you. We got another stop and then we gotta head back.”
I let him drive for a minute before asking, “Did you get the referral you were looking for?”
“Maybe,” he answered thoughtfully. “They have more journeyman electricians than they have work for, but they’re short of master electricians.”
“Which are you?”
“Technically neither right now. I fulfilled my apprenticeship before I was out of high school. I was a journeyman from then until I left home to join the military. I haven’t been an ‘electrician’ since.”
“And?”
“It will be easy to pick back up as a journeyman. I’ve got experience in residential, commercial, and industrial work … just never took the test to get master status. I need to take a state exam before I can officially put it on my license.”
“Then do it,” I said thinking it was a no brainer.
He nodded. “I’m thinking on it, but it has a hefty price tag. Journeyman electricians don’t need a license in this state if the job is for under seventy-five hundred dollars, and that’s most jobs. If I do get my license it is through the Licensing Board of Contractors and there is a bunch more crap on the test than how to wire something up. Got to know all sorts of business stuff, labor laws and a bunch of damn nonsense that has nothing to do with the job itself. However, people with military training get preferential treatment.”
“I remember Dad grouching about the same stuff back home. He said it was stupid complicated, that you even needed a license to dig lint out of your own bellybutton.”
He finally smiled and said, “That’s bad all right.” He sighed, “I’m making a run to the library next week to see if they have a book with what is on the test.”
It gave me a thought. “Can I get a ride when you go? I guess I should find out what the GED takes.”
He nodded, “Sure … and yes you should. But you should be able to study for it online.”
“Do I look like someone that can afford a computer?”
“Well …”
“Deep subject so drop it. And why are we going back a different way?
He understood me to say I didn’t want to talk about the things I didn’t have and said, “We’re going by the Fruit Stand. Auntie wants some weird sweet potatoes she’s been hankering for … they’re white.”
“Sweet potatoes are orange.”
“These ain’t. They’re white. I ain’t sure that should be legal.”
“I saw a blue potato once only it was more purple-y. And I’ve seen purple carrots and yellow ones too.”
“Those should be outlawed too. They ain’t natural. Some of the stuff they used to feed us in the chow line … uh uh.”
I smiled and asked, “And how strange did they think you when you brought up eating crawfish and gator.”
“Welll,” he said with a laugh. “Gator ain’t bad, just gamey if you don’t cook it right. And crawfish are just little lobsters.”
“Said the poor man to the rich,” I told him quoting something my Dad would say. “They’re not lobsters, just oversized shrimp.”
“Lobsters,” he said disagreeing. Swinging into a parking lot he said, “Here we are. C’mon and I’ll get you a Delaware Punch.”
“A whut?” I asked suspiciously.
He chuckled. “It’s a soda you crazy girl.”
“Uh huh. And what does Delaware have to do with Louisiana?”
“You ask too many questions.”
“In other words you don’t know the answer,” I said with a grin.
“Mebee,” he said grinning back.
He’d pulled the door open for us to go into this little hole in the wall called “The Fruit Stand” as a girlish woman comes barreling out and right into Sarge. She jumps back like she’s about to snap in anger, sees who it is, then blares out, “Why Emerick Jeansonne, don’t you look good enough to eat!”
I nearly choke trying not to laugh at the look on Sarge’s face and go into the store to look around while he gets the full treatment from a woman whose name turned out to be Ursula. Yeah, I laughed at that too leaving Sarge to wonder just what my problem was. I mean if you don’t get it it isn’t worth explaining, but Disney villians can be funny. And that woman had plenty of tentacles.
He escaped and found me looking at a bag of butterscotch pecans and wondering if they were worth spending the dollars in my pocket on. I decided no right as Sarge came up behind me and said, “Thanks for nothing.”
I finally get my near giggles under control and nearly lost it completely because of Sarge looking at me funny. “Well you’re in a good mood.”
I told him between hiccups, “It was a pretty good show.”
“Ursula is an … er … old friend.”
“I just bet she is.”
“Smart ass,” he said finally grinning. “Let’s get Auntie’s order and get outta here.”
There was a gruff, “She causing problems?”
There went the sunshine. “Excuse me Sgt. Kramer, I hear a … uh … Delaware Punch calling my name.”
I make my way over to the drink area I the store and there was a guy a couple years younger than me cleaning the front of the coolers. I ask him, “Is this stuff a joke to catch the tourists with or are they drinkable?”
“Drinkable,” he answers. “They’re like a grape soda.”
“Oh. Okay. I …”
“Well if it isn’t Miss Thibodeaux. I was wondering where you’d gotten off to.” I turned and looked and there was Deputy Edgar and a woman, he was in plainclothes and she was in uniform.
“Miss Thibodeaux, this is Trooper Wylene Boudreaux.”
“How do you do ma’am,” I said to be polite.
“Fine thank you. I knew your uncle.” It wasn’t followed by “he was a good man” or anything even close so I gave her more of my attention.
“You did?”
“Hmm.” I wasn’t sure if she was being polite by saying nothing or she was waiting on me to make the first move.
Instead I just nodded and said to Deputy Edgar, “I think I’ve finally read all of those legal papers you left for me. Thank you for the licenses, they already came in handy. Um, who would you suggest I speak with regarding those accounts that are listed on the asset sheet?”
“You haven’t asked Emerick?”
“I try and keep business and personal separate so I don’t become a burden. He’s already helping me find out what I need for a GED.”
“You haven’t finished high school?” he asked like he was surprised. Yeah right. He knew, he was just fishing for some reason.
“The evacuation orders for south Florida got in the way.”
“Welll …”
From behind me I hear, “Deep subject.”
“Hi there Em.”
Sarge nodded at Deputy Edgar then said, “Wylene.”
Ol’ Wylene must have been another friend of Sarge because she gave him the same kinda look someone gives a car they’ve sold to see if it was better than they remember it or worse, and trying to decide whether they made a good decision or not.
“Good to see you up and walking,” she told him.
I’m trying to slide down another aisle when he nonchalantly puts the cart he was pushing in the middle of my getaway.
“Thanks,” he said. “I’ll tell Aunt Orélie I saw you.”
This time I nearly laughed at the Trooper because she was struggling not to look like she’d bit into a piece of tinfoil covered in powdered alum. The two LEOs go off to pay for what they had in their hands – there is a “to go” restaurant in the back of the store – and I’m still trying not to laugh.
“You little …” Sarge says with a gator growl.
I nearly lose it again and it was like being back home with all my friends when I hear, “Ava … cut the guy a break will ya?”
I’m snorting and chuffing into the crook of my elbow and finally get out, “Hey, do I look like anyone’s wingman?”
“That’s not it and you know it. You did the same thing to me when Cindy Rydell was trying to ask me out to the Sadie Hawkins dance. My gawd.”
“You looked like you were having a good time … at least after you figured out those eyelashes she was wearing were fake and not out to attack you.”
“Grrr …” he said before taking a couple of pseudo-menacing steps in my direction causing me to back up and keep laughing.
“You coulda helped me out,” he said laughing as much as I was.
“Oooh no. You guys can clean up your own messes. I had enough trouble dealing with Charlie when I found out it wasn’t his brother driving us but his grandmother in that old Monte Carlo she drives.”
Zeb went from laughing to dead man sober in a single blink. “Zeb?”
“Charlie … didn’t make it through basic.”
“What are you talking about Zeb. Charlie and Basic Training shouldn’t even be in the same sentence. He was the biggest momma’s boy on the planet and …”
“Even computer geeks have to go through basic Ava.”
“No.”
“Ava ..”
“No! Charlie is a couple of months younger than me. He couldn’t.”
“He … I heard he went in the day he turned.”
“He’s got asthma for gawd’s sake!”
“He didn’t tell them.”
“No! He’s Mom would have … would have …”
“She was real sick. Some kind of neurological disorder … turns out her migraines were for real. Charlie thought if he went in he could get priority medical care for her.”
“No.”
He stepped towards me and I stepped back. “Ava … c’mon.”
“No!” I snap and storm out of the store with Zeb on my tail.
“I shouldn’t have said anything.”
“Why didn’t any of you keep me in the loop?! What … what about his family?”
“His mom died a couple of days after Charlie.”
“Probably of a broken heart. He was the only thing she seemed to think important in life. Gawd, do you remember that year we went to Camp Barstow? Charlie forgot his raingear and she drove all the way to South Carolina to bring it to him. She brought all those cookies and gatorades too. You remember when she …?”
I refused to cry in public but it was close. I got ahold of myself and asked, “How did it happen?”
“The story I heard was they were on the firing range and something set off an asthma attack. They didn’t realize he wasn’t fooling around until it was too late. They got him to the hospital but everything just … shut down.”
I wanted to hit something but didn’t want to make more of a scene than I had already made. Instead I asked, “Have we lost anyone else?”
“Not yet.”
“Not yet?! That’s a hell of a way to say it!”
“Easy Ava. It’s the way things are.”
“Well the way things are suck!”
“You don’t have to tell me that.”
I lean against Sarge’s truck and say, “Well from me to you to all the others … and you make sure they hear … they better damn sure fight to stay on this side of the cemetery sod – even on days they don’t feeeel like it – or I will come find them and stomp them hard. You got that?”
“Yeah Ava, I got it. Um … here,” he said handing me a napkin. “You kinda need it.”
“Oh hell no. I do not cry in public.”
Quietly he said, “Sometimes you do. Sometimes we all do.”
I turn away with the napkin and tell him, “Go on. Go. Before you get in trouble.”
“You going to be okay?”
“What choice do I have?” I asked. And really, what choice do I have?