7. IN FACT NOTHING HAPPENS for several minutes. Everyone is sitting peaceably. I observe nothing untoward—except. Except that the persons present do not exhibit the usual presence of people waiting—the studied inwardness of patients in a doctor’s waiting room, the boredom, the page-flipping anxiety, the frowning sense of time building up—how much longer?—the monitoring of eyes—I-choose-not-to-look-at-you-and-get-into-all-that-business-of-looking—or the talkiness. None of that. Everyone simply sits, or rather lounges, out of time, as relaxed as lions on the Serengeti Plain.
Mrs. Cheney is still holding Coach’s head against her breast and twisting the towel.
“Let’s take a look, Mrs. Cheney. The bleeding should have stopped.”
The bleeding has stopped. “You did a good job, Mrs. Cheney.”
“Oh, thanks, Dr. More!” says Mrs. Cheney, holding Coach close, patting him.
Coach’s eyes follow me trustfully.
Mr. Brunette has got his pants up and is sitting at his ease, only slightly off center, next to Mrs. Brunette, giving no sign of his recent injury. Having got him dressed, zipped up, belted, Mrs. Brunette is busy straightening his clothes, smoothing his coat lapels, adjusting his tie. But now she is busy at his hair, not smoothing it but ruffling it against the grain and inspecting him, peering close, plucking at his scalp. I realize she is grooming him.
The uncle too is at his ease, having taken his place between door and shotgun, not out of time like the others, but passing time like a good hunter waiting, hunkered down, blowing a few soft feeding calls through his fingers.
Only Vergil is uneasy, shooting glances at me. I know that what worries him is not what the others have done but whether I know what I am doing. He takes to pacing. I motion him over.
“Vergil, why don’t you go check on Claude and Ricky. But come right back. I might need you.”
“Good idea!” he exclaims, as pleased to find me sensible as he is to leave.
To share his new confidence, he leans closer, almost whispering, yet not really whispering. Somehow he knows that overhearing is not a problem now. “Am I correct in assuming that you expect them to regress to a primitive primate sort of behavior as a result of the sodium 24?”
“Not primate. Pongid. Primate includes humans.”
“Right. I had that in Psych 101. Did you know I was a psych minor?”
“No.”
“So the reason you’re doing this is not punishment or revenge but rather because, though they have not themselves received the sodium 24 earlier and are therefore entirely responsible for these abuses”—he pats the pocket holding the photos—“the only way you could be sure of convincing the sheriff of their guilt is to dose them up and regress them to pongid behavior, for which they are not responsible but which will impress the sheriff?”
“You got it, Vergil,” I say gratefully. “The only thing is, we don’t know if it will work. Otherwise the sheriff is not going to be impressed by this peaceable scene. The photos are probably inadmissible.”
“That’s ironical, isn’t it?” muses Vergil, glancing around at our little group.
“Yes, it is, Vergil. But we don’t have much time. Do you think you could check on Claude and be back here in five minutes?”
“No problem,” says Vergil, and he’s gone.
“How’s Coach doing?” I ask Mrs. Cheney, who is sitting between me and Coach. Though she has removed the towel from Coach’s head, she has her arm around his neck, her hand against his ear, pulling him close.
“Fine, darling!” says Mrs. Cheney, pressing her knee against mine. “You boys can both come by me!” Mrs. Cheney has suddenly begun to talk in a New Orleans ninth-ward accent.
I lean out to take a look at Coach. He has stopped bleeding and seems in a good humor, smiling and pooching his lips in and out.
“How are you, Coach?”
He too leans out in an accommodating manner and seems on the point of replying, but instead takes an interest in the leather buttons on the front of Mrs. Cheney’s dress and begins plucking at them.
“Mrs. Brunette, how is Mr. Brunette?”
Mrs. Brunette says something not quite audible but pleasant and affirming. She is busy brushing Mr. Brunette’s hair against the grain and examining his scalp. Mr. Brunette, head bowed in Mrs. Brunette’s lap, is going through Mrs. Brunette’s purse, a satchel-size shoulder bag, which he has opened. He removes articles and lines them up on the game table.
A glance toward Van Dorn, who is nodding approvingly.
“Van, what were the casualties at Sharpsburg?” I ask him.
“Federals 14,756; Confederates 13,609,” he says instantly and without surprise.
There are two things to observe here. One: though we have both read the same book, Foote’s The Civil War, he can recall the numbers like a printout and I cannot; two: he does so without minding or even noticing the shifting context.
“What is the square root of 7,471?” I am curious to know how far he’ll go into decimals.
“Snickers,” says Van Dorn.
“Snickers?”
“Snickers.” He makes the motion of peeling and eating something.
“He’s talking about a Snickers bar,” says the uncle companionably from the door. “He evermore loves Snickers. You can get me one too.”
I get them both a Snickers bar from the vending machine in the pantry. “Eight six point four nine,” says Van Dorn, and begins peeling his from the top.
Mr. Brunette has removed, among other things, a good-size hand mirror from Mrs. Brunette’s shoulder bag.
I hold it up to him. He sees himself, looks behind the mirror, reaches behind it, grabs air.
Van Dorn makes a noise in his throat. He has noticed something that makes him forget the Snickers.
Mrs. Cheney has risen from the sofa and is presenting to Coach, that is, has backed up to him between his knees. Coach, who is showing signs of excitement, pooching his lips in and out faster than ever and uttering a sound something like boo boo boo, takes hold of Mrs. Cheney. But he seems not to know what else to do. He begins smacking his lips loudly. Mrs. Cheney is on all fours.
“Now you just hold it, boy,” says the uncle, rising, both outraged and confused. “That’s Miz Cheney you messing with. A fine lady. You cut that out, boy. You want me to shoot your other ear off?”
But Coach is not messing with Mrs. Cheney but only smacking his lips.
Before anyone knows what has happened, before the uncle can even begin to reach for his shotgun, Van Dorn has in a single punctuated movement leaped onto the game table, evidently bitten Coach’s hand—for Coach cries out and puts his fingers in his mouth—and in another bound landed on the bottom step of the spiral staircase. Van Dorn mounts swiftly, using the handrails mostly, swinging up with powerful arm movements. There on the top step he hunkers down, one elbow crooked over his head.
I wave the uncle off—he has his shotgun by now. “Hold it!” What he doesn’t realize is that Van Dorn is only assuming his patriarchal role, establishing his dominance by cowing the young ”bachelors,” who do in fact respond appropriately: Coach flinging both arms over his head, palms turned submissively out. Mr. Brunette is smacking his lips and “clapping,” that is, not clapping palms to make a noise, but clapping his fingers noiselessly. Both movements are signs of submission.
I glance at my watch. Where in hell is Vergil? Things could get out of hand. I know all too well that the uncle and I are no match for the new pongid arm strength of Van Dorn, and we can’t shoot him.
“That’s the damnedest thing I ever saw,” says the uncle, not so much to me as to Mrs. Cheney, who, now sitting demurely, is casting an admiring eye in his direction. “Oh, Jesus, here he comes again,” he says, eyes rolled back, and picks up the shotgun.
“Hold it, Uncle Hugh Bob!” Van Dorn has swung lightly over the rail. I pitch him the rest of his Snickers bar. He catches it without seeming to try, resumes his perch. “Throw him yours, Uncle Hugh Bob.”
“What?”
“Throw him your Snickers.”
“Shit, he’s got his own Snickers.”
“Throw him your Snickers.”
“Oh, all right.” He does so.
Where is—
The uncle has replaced his shotgun and is opening the door.
“Where do you think—” I begin.
In walks Vergil and the sheriff, followed by two young deputies.
I experience both relief and misgivings.
The scene which confronts the sheriff is as peaceful as a tableau.
Coach is sitting aslant, one arm looped over his head, but no more hangdog than any coach who has lost a game. He is not even pooching his lips.
Mrs. Cheney, next to him, is plucking at one of her own buttons, eyes modestly cast down in the same sweet-faced, madonna-haired expression she is known for.
Mrs. Brunette is busy putting articles back in her purse, Mr. Brunette helping her with one hand, the other fiddling with her hive hairdo—just as any faculty husband-and-wife team might behave at any faculty meeting.
Van Dorn, seated on the top step, surveys his staff with a demeanor both equable and magisterial, a good-natured and informal headmaster munching on a Snickers bar, but headmaster nevertheless.
Sheriff Vernon “Cooter” Sharp is a genial, high-stomached, vigorous man who affects Western garb, Stetson, Lizard-print-and-cowhide boots, bolo tie with a green stone, cinch-size belt and silver conch buckle, and a holstered revolver on a low-slung belt like Matt Dillon. He is noted for his posse of handsome quarter-horses from his own ranch, which parade every year in a good cause with the Shriners, clowns, and hijinks rearing cars to raise money for the Shriners’ hospital. He and his posse are famous statewide and are invited to many events, including Mardi Gras parades.
Now he’s taken off his hat again to wipe his forehead with his sleeve, but left on his amber aviation glasses, and is looking around, surveying the peaceful scene with the same queer, for him, expression of gravity and solemnity and here-we-go-again rue. He’s shaking his head, mainly at me.
“What we got here, Doc?” he asks, not offering to shake hands.
The two young deputies are standing at ease, hands clasped behind them, pudding-faced and bored.
“Sheriff Sharp, I want you to arrest Dr. Van Dorn, Mr. and Mrs. Brunette, Coach Matthews, and Mrs. Cheney for the molestation and sexual abuse of children.”
“Oh me.” The sheriff sighs and, nodding mournfully, catches sight of Mrs. Cheney. “Doc, we been that route.”
“Do it, anyway.”
“Hi, Lurine,” he says to Mrs. Cheney, giving a little wave, hand at pistol level. “How you doing?”
“Hi, Cooter,” says Mrs. Cheney, fingering buttons, eyes still downcast.
“We have evidence, Sheriff. Vergil, did you—”
“I showed him the pictures, Doc, but he wouldn’t hardly look at them because he says they are not admissible.” Vergil is taking the photographs out to show them again.
Sheriff Sharp waves him off. “They neither here or there. Y’all know we’ve had a regular epidemic of pictures like that all over the pa-ish. It’s terrible. I hate to think of little children seeing stuff like that. But I’m here to tell you we’re cracking down. On drugs too. And minority crime.”
“You don’t understand, Sheriff,” I say patiently. “That’s not the problem here. What we’re talking about here are criminal molestation and photographic evidence.”
“The thing is, Doc,” he says, turning to face me but not looking at me, looking anywhere but at me—he can’t stand the sight of me!—“we got a problem here.” I’m the problem.
“What’s the problem?”
“Doc, as I told you, we been this route before,” he says wearily, pushing up his amber glasses and rubbing his eyes. “The same charges have been brought before against those same folks before—” He nods toward the Brunettes, a loving couple. “They were dismissed then for lack of evidence and they’ll be dismissed again—those pictures ain’t worth a dime, and now you’re also wanting to charge Dr. Van Dorn here and Coach Matthews, who won state last year in triple-A—and even this little lady”—he stretches out a hand toward Mrs. Cheney—“who has done more to he’p people than anybody you can name, people you know, children, your children, Doc, old folks, Miss Lucy’s mamma—I don’t know, Doc.” He is shaking his head in genuine sorrow. “To tell you the truth, Doc, you the only one we got a warrant for. We got a pick-up order on you from Dr. Comeaux yesterday. Now I wasn’t going to bother you, Doc, since I been knowing you and your family for a long time. But it looks like you hell-bent on—”
“Now you listen here, Cooter,” says the uncle, who, I see with some dismay, is hopping from one foot to the other in a peculiar fashion, coat flapping open, “I was here so don’t tell me what I saw. These folks all crazy as hell. You know what that little lady and the Coach were—”
“You just hold it, Hugh Bob,” says the sheriff, holding out a hand but not bothering to look at the uncle. “You just watch your mouth when you talking about Lurine—Mrs. Cheney. Ever’body knows you were pestering her when she was staying out at Pantherburn with Miss Lucy’s mamma, your sister, before she died.”
The pudding-faced, flat-topped deputy leans over to say something to the sheriff.
“Weapon?” says the sheriff. “What you talking about, weapon? You got a weapon, Hugh Bob?”
The uncle opens his mouth, but before he can say anything, the deputy simply lifts the uncle’s coattails and extracts the Colt Woodsman from his jacket pocket.
The sheriff, again overcome with sorrow, accepts the gun, sniffs the muzzle.
“This weapon has just been fired, Hugh Bob.”
“It sho has.”
“Who at?”
“Him.” The uncle nods at Coach, who appears lost in thought, studying his palms, which are open on his knees. The sheriff walks around him, looking him over. The other side of his head is not bleeding but is encrusted with a maroon clot.
“Coach?” he says, peering down at him. He stands up, hands on hips. “What in the hell did you do to him, Hugh Bob, shoot him in the head?”
“Just his ear,” says the uncle, not displeased.
“What in the hell—check that shotgun, Huval,” he says to the younger, balder deputy.
Huval checks the Purdy. “Two shells, one recently fired.”
“Where else did you shoot him?” asks the sheriff, moving the game table back and stepping past Mrs. Cheney to get a good look at Coach.
“Hi, Cooter,” says Mrs. Cheney, giving him a pat as he passes.
“Did that man shoot you?” he asks Coach.
Coach pooches his lips in and out and says, “Hoo hoo hoo.”
“This sucker has brain damage,” muses the sheriff. “Thanks to you, Hugh.”
Across the table, Mr. Brunette begins to stamp with one foot.
“What in the hell did you do to him, Hugh Bob?”
“I had to shoot him,” says the uncle, beginning to hop again. “He was coming at me and he would have gotten away.”
“What—in—the—hell—” begins the sheriff, turning first to me, then, thinking better of it, beseeches Van Dorn, who is still sitting, rocking to and fro, on the top step.
“Sheriff Sharp,” I say, rising, “I can explain everything. But right now I really think it would be a good idea if you would arrest all these people, examine the evidence, both these photographs and Dr. Lipscomb’s medical evidence of abuse before any more children are harmed, in which case I hold you responsible. In fact, I insist on it.”
The sheriff slowly rounds on me, stepping clear of the table— Mrs. Cheney gives him another pat as he passes—plants feet apart, hand on hips. “You demand of me.” He cups an ear. “Doctor, did I hear you say that you demand of me?”
“I didn’t say demand.” Now he does look straight at me, all the Western cantering-posse geniality suddenly sloughed—we’re back to his old, flat-eyed, bulged-vein sheriff’s anger. He hates my guts! We’re back in the sixties, where we’ve always been, he the true Southerner, I the fake Southern liberal—the worst kind. He could be right.
“Let me just remind you, Doctor, of two little facts, one of which you may be aware of, the other you are evidently not.”
“All right.” Nothing is more menacing than an old-style, soft-voiced Southern sheriff.
“You’re the felon here, Doctor, not them, you heah me? You’re the one I arrested and convicted two years ago of selling drugs. You the one went to jail, not them. Two.” He holds two not fat but big and long fingers in my face. “I have a telex in my office as of last night from the ATFA people to pick you up on the parole violation. You heah me, Doctor?” The cold rage of lawmen is never not present and never less than astounding. I’ve never seen even enraged paranoiacs get as angry as policemen. Slowly he folds his fingers, making a fist with a Masonic ring as big as a brass knuckle. He could easily hit me. Slowly the fist descends until his thumb hooks on to his Texas belt. “So I tell you what let’s me and you do, Doctor. Let’s you and me go on out to my car and go up the road a piece to Angola. Then we’ll see about your old friend Hugh Bob here and take care these other good people—if I can find out what you done to them.”
“Sheriff, I ask you for the last time and in your own best interests to arrest these people and hold them at least for investigation. Otherwise I fear I know what is going to happen. As for the warrant to pick me up, I’ve already been to Angola and am presently out on a pass. If you like, please call Warden Elmo Jenkins in the federal detention unit.”
“If I like—You fear—You mocking me?” Smiling, he comes close. He hates everything I do. He hates my seriousness more than sass, the hatefulness translating into a kind of familiarity. He comes up close as a lover, actually touching me with his stomach, like an enraged coach bumping an umpire—but more erotically. “If I like—I’ll tell you what I like, Doctor. I’d like it if you would get going right through that door.” He reaches for the door.
“Whoa!” says the uncle, not attempting to block the sheriff at the door but craning past him. “Look ahere, Cooter,” says the uncle, hopping from one foot to the other. “Let me tell you—”
The sheriff, aware of a commotion behind him, slowly turns, holding out a staying hand to me.
Mrs. Cheney has meanwhile risen from the couch and, approaching the sheriff, turned her back, lifted her skirt, and now in one quick practiced motion, or rather, several in rapid succession, lifted her skirt, snapped down her panties—teddies? they’re long, lavender, and loose-fitting—and presents to Sheriff Sharp, mooning him in the saucy way sorority girls do in certain film comedies, hands on knees, head cocked friskily around.
She backs into him.
“What?” says Sheriff Sharp, rearing a bit. “Hey!”
Mrs. Cheney reaches behind her and with a sure instinct and sense of direction takes hold of him. Then, finding him clothed, she seizes his hands in hers and places them on her hips, under hers, to assist her movements.
“What?” repeats the sheriff, looking right and left as if to call people to witness, but then thinks better of it, and in a lower voice, speaking to the top of Mrs. Cheney’s head, “Jesus, Lurine,” and in an even lower voice utters (I think): “Later, girl.”
There is a growling above.
Coach and Mr. Brunette are still in their “bachelor” postures of submission—Coach, head bowed, studying his palms, contenting himself with a single stomp of his running shoe; Mr. Brunette, one elbow crooked over his head, laying it over to allow Mrs. Brunette to groom him.
“Would you look at that woman,” whispers the uncle to Vergil, the uncle at first rapt, then hopping and poking an elbow into Vergil’s side.
But Vergil, arms crossed, eyes monitored, permits himself no more than a single, unsurprised shrug. There is no telling what white people—
The two deputies, trapped between amazement and stoicism, both advance and retreat, stretch forth hands to help, pull them back. They cannot bring themselves to look at each other.
Mr. Brunette is exploring Mrs. Brunette’s thigh with an un-lewd finger, simply poking up the fabric of her skirt along her stocking as a child might look under a curtain in hide-and-seek, Mrs. Brunette simply allowing it through a lack of attention. The skirt reaches her waist and Mr. Brunette takes an interest in what is indeed a complex business—not panty hose, as one might expect, but stockings suspended by garters from a girdle of scalloped black lace at her waist—garter belt?—this rigging of straps and lace overlaying a bikini, that is to say, a single transparent tape and a small snug triangle of black lace.
Both Coach and Mr. Brunette have grown more excited but seem at a loss, like the two deputies.
Mrs. Cheney presents to the sheriff again.
From above comes the sound of hollow pounding, like kettledrums. The growling deepens to a roar ending in a sharp barklike sound, aaargh. Everyone looks up, even Mrs. Cheney. Van Dorn is lunging back and forth behind the balcony rail as if he were caged, then comes swinging down the staircase until, halfway down and with both hands on one rail, he vaults clean over and, projecting himself in an arc more flattened than not, clears Mrs. Cheney and lands squarely on Sheriff Sharp’s back, bearing him to the floor, where he falls to biting the sheriff’s head, thumping, shrieking, roaring all the while.
There are other screams, mostly from the women but also from the sheriff.
The two deputies leap to the sheriff’s assistance, but succeed in little more than pulling and tugging at Van Dorn. Van Dorn is biting Sheriff Sharp’s head and neck.
“Vergil, Uncle, come here!” I motion to them above the din.
One of the deputies, the older flattop, giving up, stands back, unholsters his revolver. He bumps into the uncle directly behind him. Vergil is on one side of him, I on the other. The deputy looks up at Vergil, then over to me.
“Put the gun up.”
He puts the gun up.
“You want me to grab him, Doc?” says Vergil, nodding at Van Dorn, who is still atop the sheriff, biting and scratching but not doing him serious harm, I think.
“Okay, do this.” I pull Vergil and the uncle close so they can hear over the din. “Vergil, you stay here to see that nobody gets hurt. Don’t let Van Dorn put his arms around the sheriff and squeeze him. You’re the only one strong enough to handle him. Uncle, you go get a dozen Snickers—shoot the machine if you have to. I have to get the women out of sight. Mrs. Cheney! Teddies up!”
Van Dorn has knocked off the sheriff’s hat and is biting the top of his head.
Mrs. Cheney, who in fact has shrunk away from the fight, elbows looped over her head, arms flailing, is only too glad to have something to do, pulls her teddies up. I take her by the hand and Mrs. Brunette, who is no problem, who in fact is as docile as can be, her dress falling in place over her complex undergarments as she stands, take them both into the bathroom, reassuring them with nods and pats, close the door behind them. “Stay, ladies!”
Coach and Mr. Brunette are still excited, forgetting their submissive bachelor status. Coach is stamping with both feet, pooching his lips and making, I think, his hoo hoo sound, all the while looking around for Mrs. Cheney.
Mr. Brunette, standing, nattering, exposes himself, pulls down his mostly shot-away trousers, takes hold of himself, and starts for the stairs—looking for Mrs. Brunette? to become the new patriarch?
I grab Mr. Brunette, pull him toward the pantry, holler “Snickers!” to Coach as we pass. He follows willingly, loping along, stamping both feet.
The uncle has an armful of Snickers, having broken the glass of the dispenser.
The bachelors are content for the moment to gorge on Snickers in the pantry.
The women are quiet in the bathroom.
With the women out of sight, Van Dorn subsides, leaves off biting the sheriff, and instead cuffs him about in the showy, spurious, not unfriendly fashion of professional wrestlers. It is no problem to lure him away from the sheriff altogether with the Snickers. I tuck the candy in his coat pocket as one might do with a visiting child, head him for the pantry with a pat. Van is quite himself for an instant, noodles me around the neck with an ol’ boy hug. “Thanks for everything, Tom,” he says in husky, unironic, camaradic voice. “Thanks for everything, Tom.” But before I can answer, he’s clapping with his fingers, and off he goes, stooping and knuckling along to the pantry for more Snickers.
In no time at all, with the women out of sight, the sheriff is back in control, helped up and brushed off by his deputies, and has put on his hat to cover his bleeding head.
He too thanks me, shaking hands at length, with a sincerity which seems to preempt apologies. “I sho want to tell you, Doctor,” he says, keeping hold of my hand without embarrassment, “how much I apprishiate your professional input with this case. I mean, we got us some sick folks here! I may be able to handle criminal perpetrators of all kinds and some forensic cases—I’ve done quite a bit of reading on the subject, in fact—but when you get into real mental illness such as this”—he nods toward the deputies, who are keeping an eye on the pantry and bathroom, from which issue no longer roars and great thumps but smaller, happier sounds, squeals, clicks, and a few stomps—“I leave it to you, Doc.” He gives my hand a last pump.
“Thanks, Sheriff. I’ll leave them to you.”
“We’ll need you and Miss Lucy—all y’all, in fact—to come down and give affidavits.”
“Sure thing.”
We part as co-defenders of the medico-legal and criminal-justice system.
I am always amazed and not displeased by the human capacity—is it American? or is it merely Southern?—for escaping dishonor and humiliation, for turning an occasion of ill will not only into something less but into a kind of access of friendship. Both the sheriff and Van Dorn, as they pass, transmit to me by certain comradely nods, ducks of head, clucks of tongue, special unspoken radiations.
Handcuffs and restraints are not necessary. The faculty and staff of Belle Ame troop past in more or less good order, even a certain weary bonhomie all too commonplace after too-long, too-boring faculty meetings.
The uncle, Vergil, and I watch in the doorway as the squad cars leave.
“You want to know what I think of that bunch of preverts and those asshole redneck so-called lawmen—I mean, which is worse?” asks the uncle.
“No,” I say.
“Why don’t I make sure Lurine, Mrs. Cheney, gets home safe,” says the uncle.
“No.”
Vergil says nothing, gazes speculatively at the sky as if it were another day in the soybean harvest.
I look at my watch. “I have to go. Here’s what I suggest. I don’t think anybody feels like fooling with the pirogue. Let’s go to my car, take Claude and that other boy, Ricky, over to Pantherburn. I’ll drop you. Tell Lucy the situation so she can call the Welfare Department, state police—she’ll know—to take over out here until the parents can come get their children. Lucy can bring Vergil back to pick up his pirogue. Let’s go.”
There’s time enough after dropping them off to stop at the driveup window of Popeyes to pick up five drumsticks, spicy not mild, and a large chocolate frosty before heading up the Angola road.