Chapter 66
You might want mysteries to be figured out sooner rather than later but that’s rarely how life works. Mysteries are mysteries for a reason and real life – day-to-day real life – comes first.
July in Louisiana. My goodness. I thought it was bad in South Florida, but it was a different kind of hot and humid in Breaux Bridge. Temperature in the 90s during the day and it never got any cooler than 75 degrees at night. At least in Bradenton there was the breeze from the Gulf. In Breaux Bridge there were days on end when there was no breeze and close to 100% humidity. Add to that electric rationing meant some days we were lucky to get enough electric to run the well pump to wash clothes and keep the pool filtered that was being heavily used by more than just officers. Sometimes after lights out there were still so many people in the pool it was hard to see the bottom. I worried we were going to have a drowning and for that reason I told – didn’t ask – that liquor not be allowed around the pool anymore. The Major told me I didn’t make a lot of friends that way. My response to her was I didn’t want to lose the ones that I did have. As word got around that went a piece towards calming what was going to be an out and out fight.
After one such run in with some of the Junior Enlisted I told them, “If you insist on sitting around drinking in your underdrawers – not that any of you are even legal you buncha lunk heads - I’ll build a table and put some chairs out by the gazebo. It is a waste of pay in my opinion but if it keeps people from having accidents around the pool, or wasting time and doing the stupid at the Food-n-Fun, I’ll find the time to get it done.”
A named Tuck tried to take it further and I decided to get some of my own back. “Think you are man enough to take me? How about an arm-wrestling contest? Winner shuts up.”
Zeb warned, “Don’t do it Tuck.”
“She’s just a girl.”
At that Zeb placed a fifty-dollar bet I would win. It made some people think but Tuck the Idiot decided it was a bluff. Did I mention the guy was acting like an idiot? Bets went hot and heavy after that with even some of the junior officers getting in on the action though I wasn’t to know it then.
The guy wasn’t bad, but he had no staying power. Once he couldn’t take my arm down right away it was a done deal.
“What the hall is your awm made of?!” he complained in his thick Boston accent.
“Solid steel.” He snorted at my tall tale. I told him, “I’ve been working one way or the other for a long time. It’s not just my biceps that are strong but my forearms. Train your pronator teres and you’ll get a lot better.”
“My whawt?”
A voice behind me said, “It’s a muscle on the inside of your forearm just below your elbow.”
“Oh, hello Capt. Piccolo,” I said all innocent because I could tell he was trying not to smile. DJ had been a well-known arm-wrestling champion in their age group at one point.
“Hello Granny,” he responded just about causing me to drop my teeth. It had been a loooong time since someone had called me that. So long I had completely forgotten. DJ and some of his friends used to call me that just to irritate me.
I knew that’s what he was doing so I got him one back by saying, “Hello to you too … D’artagnan.”
He gave his own exaggerated wince then grabbed his chest over his heart and said, “Ugh … ya got me.”
“Clown.” I said snorting in no way ladylike form. “You hear for that liniment.”
“Yes. And to deliver a message to Zeb if he is around. He’s invited to dinner on his next day off.”
“Lucky him. I’m sure he’s here someplace,” I said, giving Zeb time to come out of hiding where he’d gone as soon as he must have seen who was on scene.
By the laughter in his eyes he knew exactly what Zeb had done. Big Brother was having him some fun at the expense of the guy coming to woo his sister.
I went to the workshed to see what supplies were to be had to build the bench and found a grumpy Cajun.
“Comment savez-vous le capitaine?”
“Who? Captain Piccolo?”
“Who else would it be? You know a lot of captains?”
Never having dealt with what I thought I was dealing with I slowly gave him a once over. “This is not one of those guy things is it? You know, ‘cause if it is, you don’t have any reason to be having one of those guy things. DJ, Mark, and Zeb’s brother played soccer and stuff together, used to be called the Three Musketeers by their coaches because of how they worked the field. Besides, do you think I’ve lost all sense? Mark is married and has a kid on the way.” I shrugged. “Want some Hibiscus Lemonade? I squirreled some in the freezer so that it would be cold tonight.”
“Er …”
A little cranky but trying not to show it I asked, “Is that a yes or no?”
“It’s a I’m feeling like an idiot and waiting for you to throw something at me.”
I shrugged. “Not my style. Just don’t make a regular habit out of this particular guy thing. It don’t say much for my morals.”
“Or mine.” He sighed then pulled something from behind his back. It was flimsy box then handed it to me. “Here.”
“Uh …”
“It’s not a bomb Ava.”
Well it mayn’t have been a bomb, but it sure felt like it. I opened the box – turned out to be a pastry box – and inside were these pink spritz sandwich cookies filled with white cream. My mouth fell open because someone had drawn a heart on the inside of the box.
I looked at Em and even with the sun going down I could see his face was as red as an old fire truck. My face got to feeling like I had a sunburn as well. “Um … I thought we had a no-teasing rule?”
He gave a small cough. “Wellll … this isn’t teasing. Not exactly.”
“Well, it feels like it. Makes me feel like giving you a kiss on the cheek so … er …”
“You can. If you want to.”
“Should I want to?”
A few minutes later we stepped back … from a kiss that wasn’t on the cheek … and we both looked like we’d walked into a heavy-duty aluminum post. “Okay, you win,” I told him. “No teasing. It’s too dangerous.”
“Good Gawd Lord Almighty,” he whispered desperately before walking over and sticking his head under the shower head.
“Uh …”
“Don’t. Just don’t. A man can only take so much.”
I could help it. I had to know. “Is that a good thing or … bad.”
He looked at me shook his head then smiled. “Just desserts on me. And that means its good and bad and … I’m gonna behave Ava but you’re gonna have to do your part. I get too close from here on out hit me in the head with something.”
“Tu es fou. You make me feel like this again before we’re ready and I won’t hit you in the head, I’ll toss you in the danged Bayou. Got it?”
His smile went from single watt to chandelier. “Got it.”
It’s been a few times I’ve thought about that kiss. Maybe not the first one I’ve gotten, but the first one I’ve given. But for the most part work has taken care of the extra giddyup and go it’s given me. And Em looks like he’s at least as tired.
Add to that some of them goof ball Junior Enlisted have started calling me Granny Ava with even more verve than DJ and his friends had. No, I did not find it amusing. Fabrice thought it was the best joke the first few times he heard it, but it just became part of the landscape after that. For my part I put up with it only because if I had made a fuss they would have probably started calling me something ruder that would set Em or Mr. Julius off, neither of whom found some of the shenanigans “them boys” got up to all that amusing. The female enlisted weren’t much better but they were normally housed in a different place. Gotta say they did make more work that they should have. Even as a Scout or Crew member I knew to always leave someplace cleaner or better than I found it. I know they are soldiering but they screw around a whole lot too. They could have picked up after themselves better that’s for sure. Made them look like jerks and knuckleheads and a dozen times I set out to say something to Major Broadstreet but then pulled back from actually doing it. It was just too dad-blamed hot to make a fuss.
Regular folks get into the bayou to cool off and that has meant more drowning deaths and gator attacks. Fuel came down a few pennies because the stations didn’t have power to the pumps but not much because when there was fuel, people bought all they were allowed to, always putting even more pressure on the availability. There were carbon monoxide poisoning deaths too where people would goof and run their gennies where the fumes would get in the house, usually at night to try and have a few fans blowing. No one realized they were going from sleep to suffocation before it was too late.
For old folks and little kids the heat was the worst. Lots of people dying from it around the country. Around here it got to be where during the hottest part of the day things got quiet all over. Not even the swamp and bayou made noise. I tried hanging a hammock outside so I could nap but the bugs were too bad … and too many other people thought it was public property and took it over leaving me out a place to nap anyway. I gave up trying to sleep the worst of the heat away and simply worked as slow as I could get away with. Momma L also taught me to make something she called switchel. Or that’s what it sounded like she was trying to say. Her bottom dentures broke and needed repair before she could have them reinstalled and she was having to save up her medical ration points to get it done.
The switchel is basically made from honey, apple cider vinegar, ginger, and water. It is what my mother would have called “an acquired taste.” Not bad if you want the truth, because you can drink as much as you want when you are hot without getting sick to your stomach, but I suppose not a rich man’s drink. ‘Course a rich man wouldn’t be grubbing weeds in the heat of the day either.
I told Mr. Maurice about it one day when I was fetching and carrying for Auntie and Momma L and he nearly laughed himself sick. “Lord, Lord … been a while since I thought o’ that.” Well there’s no flies on Mr. Maurice because next time I went by about a week later, what do I see in his cold drink cooler? These bottles of Switchel put out by this company called Superior. He’d found them online and special ordered them in. I bought all three flavors because I’d just gotten paid and … just because I guess. If Em can buy me pink cookies I can buy him something weird like Orange Maple Splash Switchel to keep him from passing out when he has to crawl around in people’s attics.
What I was picking up from Maurice was apples and grapes. By the bushel. I mean really and seriously bushels and bushels of apples and grapes. I won’t even list out what all we made with them but a bunch was put in jars in different ways and I did my own share that is sitting on a gorilla shelf in our storage locker. Since it doesn’t stay cool in there all the time anymore Em and I figured a way to make a kind of cooler with this Styrofoam insulation he pulled out of a job he was doing since it cost too much to pay to recycle it. We took one of the gorilla shelving units and completely covered it in multiple layers and then covered that with this aluminum tape that came from the same job site. It isn’t a perfect fix but it will work for now. We don’t need it to be a refrigerator in there but I don’t want it to be an oven either and by insulating it the temperature stays level instead of going up and down which would be even worse for the jars’ contents.
Trying to save up for the monthly locker fee has meant I don’t have as much Scrip to use even with Em throwing in half. I thought it would mean having to give up other plans but I found almost more crapwork than I could get done every week. Lucky for me Momma L and Mr. Julius put me on to some gleaning work. What that means is that people will pay me in product to clean off their trees, bushes, gardens, etc. Got some Chickasaw plums, gooseberries, blueberries, nectarines, loganberries (raspberry/blackberry cross), and raspberries that way. I cleared out Mr. Julius’ and Momma L’s cherry and pear trees for them. Nearly broke my neck gleaning a fig tree that was going to waste out near the cemetery and fixed up a basket for the Priests to prevent anyone thinking I was stealing from the church. And from the co-op garden as well as the home gardens I got beans, cantaloupes, cucumbers, okra, onions, potatoes, summer squash, and what must have been every variety of tomato known to man. Yellow, orange, purple, red, green, and brown. And every size and shape too … cherry, currant, big, little, round, squashed looking, egg-shaped, you name it. Same for peppers … hot, mild, scald the hair off your tongue, long and skinny, short and fat, red, yellow, purple, green, and on and on. Let me tell you, good thing I have a cast iron stomach because I almost lost it when Zeb got me in a hot pepper eating contest. He knew I could from where I’d done it a few times when we were kids.
“You so did not,” I hissed at him. “Don’t I get in enough trouble without your help?!”
“Tuck is at it again. Just knock him down a little for us? Pleeeeze?”
“Oh for pete … fine. But if I have to have some milk you better have it ready. You know I can’t get into the military pantry supplies. And this is the last time. Y’all need to learn to fight your own battles with that dork.”
“But you get him so good,” Zeb asked, finally happy I had given in.
“Grrr …”
By the time the stupid contest was over I was sweating like I was standing in a downpour and ready to sing, “Chaud, chaud, chaud.” But I kept my cool – appearance wise – while Tuck looked like he was having some kind of conniption while he tried to drown the fire in his mouth and belly with it having the opposite effect of what he wanted.
“I mean it Zeb,” I whispered before walking off. “Last flipping time. And if …”
He chuckled. “Thanks Ava. I swear. Last time. Promise,” he said as he passed me a couple pints of milk.
I calmly walked to the workshed like I was putting away my toolbox. However, as soon as the door was closed I was ripping off the top of a carton and chugging the first container of milk.
“I am a fool, grade A, 100%, and those blasted knuckleheads better do their own dirty deeds from here on out,” I gasped as my hands shook trying to get the second carton opened. “And if they get in the way of me needing the bathroom tonight I’ll just kill ‘em. All of ‘em. Kill ‘em dead. And throw ‘em in the swamp to get rid of the evidence.”
I nearly came out of my skin when Em takes the carton out of my shaking hands, opens it, and gives it back. I didn’t care if he did look like a Tard as he tried to keep from falling over from the laughing he was trying to keep in. He looked like he was having some kind of serious fit.
“Ha … ha … ha,” I finally was able to wheeze out as I finished the last drop of milk.
“You somethin’ else Ava Thibodaux.”
“Yeah. Off my rocker.”
He snickered some more. “Maybe … but I think Tuck finally has had enough.”
“Gawd I hope so. But whether he has or not, them loons are on their own. I’m done. I don’t have the time to make a fool of myself no more. I swear. Them officers just aren’t working those boys and gals hard enough if they’ve still got this much energy to fool around.”
He started snickering again and I heard “Granny” in there some where and the look I gave him for it had him exiting the shed at a fast trot.