Georgia Bottoms Read online

  Georgia spent the next weeks organizing a change of opinion among the leaders of Six Points. She treated Sheriff Allred to an extra-special Friday night as a thank-you for telling Jimmy Lee Newton he now favored Krystal’s annexation plan. His department already spent so much of its resources in East Over, the sheriff said, might as well annex them and let the city help pay for it.

  Jimmy Lee Newton reported this change of heart on the front page of the Light-Pilot. He didn’t realize that’s why he got a long, luxurious head-to-toe rubdown the following Thursday.

  The fact that Jimmy Lee had come out for annexation did not go unnoticed by Lon Chapman at the bank, once Georgia put the paper in his hand and pointed it out.

  A few weeks after that, Lon told her he would be glad to try to talk Jackson Barnett out of his opposition. Georgia could barely contain her smile of triumph. Judge Barnett didn’t realize he was outnumbered until annexation passed the town council by a vote of six to two. The subsequent ballot issue carried by a wide margin, thanks to heavy black turnout. Krystal was the hero of the day. Six Points and East Over were peacefully integrated—thirty years after the rest of Alabama, okay, but justice doesn’t run to the farthest corners first. Georgia was proud that she had helped make it happen after all this time.

  She never told Krystal who had pulled the strings. Better to let her think it was all her own mayoral doing. Krystal knew just enough of Georgia’s private life to deflect her suspicion. As far as she was aware, Georgia was carrying on an affair with the married Eugene while seeing another mysterious man whose identity she refused to divulge. The fact that this shadowy man was actually five other men was the kind of detail Krystal did not need to know. They were best friends but even that had limits, if you were living Georgia’s life.

  She’d been hoping to occupy her empty Saturday night with Eugene Hendrix’s replacement in the First Baptist pulpit, if only for the sake of history and symmetry. For months there had been a succession of guest pastors and lay ministers, then finally a new preacher, a harmless old coot named Josiah Barker, with a plain old wife to whom he was plainly devoted.

  Barker’s unadorned style was better suited to the First Baptist congregation than poor Eugene’s tortured, searching explorations. Barker specialized in homilies about huntin’ dogs and Mama’s biscuits.

  It wasn’t absolutely necessary for Georgia to have the First Baptist preacher on her client list. Yet it had always brought a certain balance to affairs of church and state.

  The first man who ever offered her a gift was the Rev. Onus L. Satterfield, father of Billy, Krystal’s onetime high-school boyfriend (and a side interest of Georgia’s, although Krystal never knew that). Onus was in his midforties at the time, very good-looking for such an old guy—and jealous of his son Billy getting to slip around with the lovely Georgia, who was seventeen. One night after a Campus Life meeting, the randy preacher waylaid her and led her down the path to Satan’s door. He was a horny bastard. He breathed insinuations into her ear, flattered her, promised her things.

  Georgia could hardly pretend to be pure, especially when he told her in exact detail everything she’d done with Billy.

  Even as a girl, Georgia had a practical bent. She made sure Onus kept his promises before he ever laid a hand on her. Nobody knew but the two of them. Over time, Onus gave her quite a lot of cash. When he had his stroke and was forced to retire, it seemed natural that Georgia would dedicate her Saturday nights to his young, handsome replacement.

  But now that was history too. Eugene was gone for good. Georgia felt pure and chaste as a Puritan wife, at least on Saturday night.

  Sunday mornings in the tranquilizing presence of Preacher Barker made her wonder why she even bothered going to church anymore. To maintain appearances, of course, and how bad was it to sit there for an hour inspecting her manicure?

  Still, she began drinking a second cup of coffee before church, just to stay awake.

  She was amazed how easily Little Mama had given up religion after she broke the hip. Every Sunday for months, Georgia offered to take her to church. No, she would say, it ain’t worth it.

  “What ain’t worth it?” Georgia said after hearing this a few dozen times.

  “Dragging myself all the way over there,” she said, “just to get up and drag myself home.”

  “Well, if that’s all it means to you,” Georgia said. “Don’t you enjoy seeing the folks? Visiting with your friends?”

  “Not especially,” Mama said. “If they want to see me, they know where I am.”

  That was that. After a lifetime of faithful attendance, Little Mama gave up on God because her hip hurt. Personally, Georgia didn’t think anyone as old as Little Mama should run the risk of getting shut out of heaven at the last minute. It was left to Georgia, the nonbeliever, to carry the flag for the whole Bottoms clan. Otherwise they couldn’t hold up their heads in town.

  In April she drove across Alabama to the little village at Catfish Bend, for her annual carload of quilts.

  No matter how high Alma Pickett raised the price at Treasures n’ Stuff, Georgia couldn’t keep up with the demand. “I’ve only got two hands,” she told Alma, without actually saying she used those hands to make the quilts.

  This year she called ahead to reserve every quilt in the old ladies’ inventory. Those gals were mighty impressed when she whipped out a bankroll and counted off twenty-two hundred-dollar bills. Nobody asked Georgia what she needed with twenty-two quilts. If they’d asked, she would gladly have told them she was marking up their $100 quilts to $500 at Treasures n’ Stuff, and splitting the profit with Alma Pickett.

  “Can’t y’all make ’em any faster?” she said. “I can use all you can make.”

  The head woman said they’d been thinking of bringing in some nieces to increase production. Meanwhile, one Civic hatchback full of quilts per year was enough to maintain Georgia’s cover.

  Georgia was always scanning Cosmopolitan for 99 ways to be more attractive and 40 ways to satisfy your man. For a while she took to jogging around the track at the high school, ten circuits every morning, until it got so boring she had to quit. No denying that certain areas were beginning to jiggle.

  Thank God the men in her life were aging even faster. She looked better than all of them put together. As long as she maintained that gap, all would be well.

  As the year rolled toward September, Georgia thought hard about canceling the luncheon. Who would miss it? she thought. After last year’s disaster it might just be best to let it go.

  But then—wouldn’t that be letting the terrorists win?

  Damn right. She couldn’t do that. Perhaps her congealed salads did not matter much in the grand scheme of world events, but the least she could do was throw a luncheon to help raise morale in the homeland.

  In the weeks immediately after the attacks, that was all anybody could talk about. By the time of the first anniversary, it was considered bad taste to bring it up.

  Besides: the luncheon was the high point of the Six Points social calendar. It wasn’t even summer yet when people began asking Georgia for the date, saying how much they were looking forward to it.

  The television in September was full of solemn memorials. Nobody at the luncheon even mentioned it. Krystal re-created the foresty tabletop scenes no one had gotten to see. Everyone said the food and decorations were better than ever.

  Everything was quiet on the Roy Moore front until the Montgomery Advertiser reported a rumor that Moore was planning to run for governor of Alabama. Brother’s obsession bobbed back to the surface. He painted a sign that said “Ask Me about the 11th Commandment” and got Sims Bailey to drive him up to Montgomery. He showed up on the Channel 12 news that night, standing on the steps of the supreme court with his sign. The red-haired girl reporter said she’d asked him about the eleventh commandment but his answer was “meandering.”

  Sims Bailey called Georgia shortly after the broadcast to report that he was driving back to Six Points alone.
“You know your brother as well as I do,” he said. “He wouldn’t get back in the car. I begged him, I swear to God, Miss Georgia, I did. There was all these reporters there. He told ’em he was going on a hunger strike.”

  “You have got to be kidding,” said Georgia.

  “No ma’am,” said Sims.

  “He won’t last ten minutes!”

  “I thought so too. I hung around a couple hours, but he won’t budge. Said he’s gonna set right there until they take them commandments out of that place. You know he feels real strong about that.”

  When Georgia reported this news, Little Mama said, “Oh honey, go up there and get him. He’s lost his mind.”

  “It’s always my job, isn’t it,” Georgia said.

  “Who else do you suggest?”

  “How about that no-count girlfriend of his?”

  “I wouldn’t trust her to find Montgomery in the broad daylight,” Mama said. “Much less at night.”

  Georgia got in the car and drove straight up there. She arrived at the supreme court building a little after nine p.m. to find Brother at the top of a wide flight of marble steps, resting his face against his “11th Commandment” placard. A lone Alabama state trooper sat watching him from a car at the curb.

  Georgia had stopped at the Krystal drive-thru on the Southern Bypass to buy a sack of the square steamed burgers she knew would put an end to Brother’s hunger strike. He dove into the sack. “Did you get me a shake?”

  “We can stop on the way out of town,” she said. “Come on, Brother, get in the car.”

  “No way,” he said around a mouthful of burger. “I ain’t breaking no law sitting here.”

  “That’s not the point. Mama sent me up here to bring you home.”

  “Whoopee for Mama. I am finally doing something for the good of the universe, and she’s not gonna stop me.” He wasn’t drunk, not even drinking. Just sitting there, crazy as a moth attacking a lightbulb.

  Georgia said, “What exactly do you think you’re doing?”

  “We gotta get rid of these commandments, Georgie. For the sake of all of us. It’s imperative. Don’t you understand?”

  “I really don’t. Why don’t you come get in the car and explain it to me.”

  “Tonight I started the process of getting the message out through the media,” said Brother. “That’s the key to starting a movement, working through the mass media.”

  “I did see you on Channel 12,” said Georgia. “Did anybody come out to support you?”

  He shrugged. “Rome wasn’t built in a day.”

  “Come on, Brother. Look at that poor state trooper. I bet he has to sit in his car as long as you’re here. He’s been there all day, hasn’t he?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Be a sport, Brother. Let him go home to his wife and his supper. Let him go sit in his recliner, and pet his little dog.”

  Brother stared at her for a long minute. “Nobody’s stopping him,” he said. “I’m on a mission from God.”

  “Yeah, you were on a hunger strike too.” She rattled the bag of Krystal boxes. “Don’t make me waste a whole trip up here.”

  “That’s your call.” Brother blew out a sigh. “I promise I’ll respect you, whatever you decide. I wish you would stay and support me in this thing.”

  “Oh for God’s sake! Don’t you know how busy I am? Now get in that car and let’s go!”

  She took that sharp tone with him—Mama’s tone—to get him up on his feet and moving. She was astounded when it actually worked: meekly he followed her down the steps. She sweet-talked him the rest of the way to the car. “I want to hear all about this movement of yours.” She got him in the car, got behind the wheel, and started driving. She did not slow down until the bypass, where she stopped to get him a milk shake.

  “What the hell is the eleventh commandment, anyway?” she said.

  “Be sweet,” he said.

  “You’re kidding,” she said. “That’s it?”

  “Harder to do than it sounds,” he said.

  By the time they reached Six Points and turned onto Magnolia Street, she had him laughing about the whole thing. “His damn recliner,” Brother said. “That was the thing that got me, when you started talking about his recliner, and his little dog.”

  “I had to get you in the car somehow, didn’t I?”

  This episode seemed to get the Ten Commandments out of his system. Things evened out. Brother slowed up on the drinking, even convinced AA to let him come back to meetings. The parole officer said he seemed a little more serious this time. Georgia tried to be optimistic.

  8

  Little Mama’s mind was slipping so gradually you could almost talk yourself out of noticing. The first luncheon after the disaster, she was well enough to participate. The next year she stayed up in her room.

  Georgia got better at ignoring birthdays… thirty-five, thirty-six… but then suddenly it was 2005 and that big round number was barreling down the road toward her. Don’t say the number don’t say it don’t!

  It didn’t really bother her, really. She chose not to think about it. If you have spent thirty-eight years toiling on the anthill, you earn the right not to think about anything you want. Once you get over your youthful self and stop all that blue-sky dreaming, you are freer to settle down and enjoy life. Stop striving so damn hard. You have time, a few dollars in your purse. You don’t have to eat hamburger unless that’s what you want.

  Personally, Georgia preferred a rib eye and champagne. Tonight she would be having a ham sandwich and the last piece of chess pie. It was Friday night, Bill Allred’s night, but he had canceled because of sheriff business. Georgia was feeling generous and moved him to Saturday, just this once.

  She liked to look after Bill’s sweet tooth so she drove out to Hull’s for the ingredients to make his favorite Lemon Freeze.

  Pulling back into the driveway she saw Hazel Vickrey’s mail truck approaching. She parked and walked to the mailbox, said hey to Hazel, handed her the stack of bills she was mailing, and took from her one piece of mail.

  A small white envelope.

  The mail truck puttered away.

  Georgia did not recognize the shaky hand that had written her name, “Miss Ga. Bottoms,” and her address, “15 Magnolia St., Six Points, Ala.” No return address. The stamp was crooked. Someone at the post office had written the zip code in blue ink.

  For some reason the envelope filled Georgia with dread. A handwritten letter from a stranger. Was that ever good news?

  At any rate she did not want to open it with Mrs. Pinson watching from amidst her petunias.

  She waved hi and carried the envelope up the steps, inside. She slit the envelope with her thumbnail.

  Dear Georgia,

  Forgive me writing this, would call you on the phone but I cannot pay the L.D. Maybe you know my daughter Ree has been sick & now in State Prison at St Gabriel 3 yr. She say not guilty but who knows. The boy Nathan is come to live with me here in N.O. I have just my disability and SSI for 1, it take mos. to get the new papers. You been good to send some $ to Ree, now is very hard. Can you send some more please my name, same place W. Union I make the pick up now. You out to see the boy, big & fine but eats very much! Please let me know what you can. Or if you cannot send $ let me know I will send you the boy by bus or train. Not wanting to trouble you, still I am old and cannot do this myself hartly no help from anybody. Please call me 586-0645.

  Sincerely, Mrs. Eugenia Jordan

  By the time she finished reading, Georgia’s hands were shaking. Her arrangement with Ree called for one-way communication only. That’s what she paid for, month after month, all these years—to be left out of it. The fourth Saturday of every month, she went to Western Union and wired as much as she could afford. In return, no contact. That was the deal.

  This letter came from a new direction. To Georgia, it felt like a threat.

  The boy could not come to Six Points. His daddy was in prison, now his great-aunt Ree too
. This would be the boy’s great-grandmother, Eugenia, who must be at least eighty by now—bless her heart having to handle a big hungry boy…

  But the “boy” was almost twenty, wasn’t he? Plenty old enough to help bring some “$” into the house. If not, why not? If he’d been in Georgia’s house, she’d have him out looking for a job in five minutes. But he wasn’t coming here. He was going to stay right where he belonged, with Eugenia Jordan in New Orleans.

  Nathan.

  She didn’t let his name enter her mind very often.

  She wanted only to send money and forget it. She’d been thinking now that he was growing up, he should be able to take care of himself and she could ease up on the amount—of course she would send birthdays, and Christmas, but there comes a time when everyone has to pull his own weight… then this letter.

  There are some debts you never finish paying.

  Georgia read the letter three times. Gradually it came to seem less a threat than a plea. She copied Eugenia’s phone number, tucked it in her pocket, and carried the letter up to her room.

  From the back of her bra drawer, she brought out the green felted box.

  Her high-school diary was the usual brown square thing with a loop of leather and a tiny brass lock, long since sprung. Tucked in front was a letter she wrote to herself at eighteen—wrote it on separate notepaper because it was too dangerous to commit to the diary. A trace of Giorgio perfume still rose from the pages, all these years later.

  Dear Dairy,

  Today something weird. I went to cheerleading and we did the 2-side pyramid and for the 1st time nobody fell. I was top on the right. After practice I was SO wiped out, went over to set on the bleachers & catch my breath. The sun was this big red ball floating, I couldnt stop looking at it. I heard this little like a baby crying, went around back of the bleachers and up under where everybody drops their bottles & stuff.

  In the weeds a little kittie, black and white spots, about a week old, maybe 2 or 3 weeks, Real little, crying and its mama left or run over by a car. So, trying to get this scared kittie to stop crying, after awhile it does. So soft like mohair. I carried her back of the bleachers and this boy come up, Clarence Blanchard but is called Skiff, not sneaky but quiet like, “What do you have there.” I showed him and he was not like a regular boy, “oh stupid kittie” or something, he was gentle took the kittie in his hand and rubbed her head like a baby. I reached out just to pet her back, didnt mean to touch his hand but I did & then he kissed me. (!!!!!!!)