Chapter 8

CHAPTER 8

When the cotton fields finally parted, a tiny town from a lost chapter in history appeared before us.

There were no more than a handful of buildings on either side of the dirt road that ran through the middle of town.

On one side was a general store, and next door to it stood the church with its bell tower pointing straight to heaven.

On the other side was a shack of a juke joint, a dilapidated plantation manor that looked like it had been reclaimed by Mother Nature herself, and beyond that an auto repair shop that looked in desperate need of repair itself, its roof rusted and half caved in and its sign— Earl’s Auto —swinging off one hook.

At the far end of this tiny main street, I could see a tangle of trees draped in moss, a juncture where the cotton fields that surrounded the town met the lazy labyrinth of a bayou that disappeared deep into an almost unnatural stillness.

Needless to say, I steered Joan Collins straight for Earl’s Auto .

Only the accelerator suddenly lost power.

The transmission groaned and our momentum became so sluggish it was as though we’d driven into a pool of quicksand.

I heard a strange whir under the hood.

I smelled smoke.

And like an exhausted athlete stumbling across a finish line, the Dynasty shuddered to a halt in the middle of the street, fifty feet from the auto shop.

The sound of the engine’s death rattle was enough to lure several townsfolk from the buildings surrounding me.

From the general store emerged a large woman in her late forties, wearing a plain dress with the sleeves bunched up around her elbows like she’d been doing some heavy lifting inside.

From the church came a pastor, a tall and ominous figure dressed in black trousers, a black shirt buttoned up to the collar, and a black, wide-brimmed hat that shaded his face.

Across the street, a bulldozer of a man in his mid to late twenties appeared from the juke joint. He was chewing on a toothpick and wearing a white tank top, a dish cloth slung over one shoulder.

Next door, a woman in her sixties emerged from the old manor. She walked with a limp, one hand needing a walking stick to lean on while her other hand rested on her hip. “Well, what in Sam Hill do you think you’re doing”—she called out to me—“letting that wreck of a machine fall apart like that in the middle of our street? And here we were about to win the Tidy Town of the Year award. Now look what you gone and done.”

Quickly I got out of the car, calling back a stuttering apology. “I… I’m sorry. It’s been on its last legs since I bought it.”

The woman from the manor laughed. “Sunshine, if you think cars have legs then you probably shouldn’t be driving one.” She turned to the auto shop a short distance away and shouted, “Earl! I think you got a new customer.”

From the auto shop emerged a man in his fifties with scruffy whisps of hair, a pepper-white three-day growth, and coveralls smeared in grease. “What are you doin’ stopping there?” he called to me. “The auto shop’s here.”

“I didn’t really have a choice in the matter. Do you think you can give me a tow?”

The woman from the manor waved the idea away like a buzzing fly. “Forget about towing it. We can push it the rest of the way.” She turned to the bulldozer from the bar. “Li’l Leroy, come and help the gentleman.”

“I’ll help you, Leroy,” said the large woman from the general store.

The woman from the manor said, “Cybil, you do enough lifting all day long. Let the rest of us handle this.” She called across to the pastor. “Reverend Jim, you gonna help?”

“Indeed, I shall,” said the pastor. “With the power of prayer. Although it’s mighty hot out here. I think the Lord will hear me better if I pray from inside the church.”

With that he turned and retreated into his house of worship.

I saw the woman from the manor roll her eyes at him, then using her cane she hobbled toward me, joining Cybil from the general store, Li’l Leroy from the bar and Earl from the auto shop.

“Maybelle, you get in and steer,” Earl said to the woman with the walking stick. “The rest of us’ll push.”

“What are you implying, Earl?”

“I’m implying that you already got one bad hip. Do you want two?”

“Since when did you get yourself a medical degree, Earl? I thought you was a mechanic.”

“I am, which makes me an expert in spare parts. And the way you limp about, pretty soon you’re gonna be full of them.”

“Step aside, everyone,” said the colossal man from the bar. “Li’l Leroy can handle this. Mister, why don’t you take the car outta gear and steer it while I push.”

“Sure,” I said, jumping back behind the wheel.

Beside me, Chet was already wagging his tail at the prospect of new friends. Jesus, was he really that tired of my company?

With a lurch, Li’l Leroy set the car in motion.

The steering wheel was heavy, like someone had poured sticky corn syrup all through the steering column, but I managed to point it toward the auto shop while Leroy pushed harder and harder until eventually the Dynasty rolled into Earl’s Auto .

The car was followed into the auto shop by Earl, Cybil and Maybelle from the manor.

The moment I pulled on the brake and got out of the car, Chet barked happily and jumped onto the ground, racing around to the back of the car and continuing to use his doggy voice to say hello to the strangers. Who knew what he was saying…

Hi there, my name’s Chet.

This place seems nice.

Will you be my friends?

Me, I didn’t think the place seemed nice at all. It was oozing humidity and ghost-town vibes. And as for friends, I sure as hell didn’t need those. I had one thing to do in this town—find Lovesong Valentin and let him know what he’d done to my world.

Of course, that wasn’t something I was planning on telling these people.

“Hey there, little fella,” said Leroy, bending to pet Chet. “What’s your name?”

“His name’s Chet. Thanks for your help.” I turned to Earl who had already popped the hood open. “Do you think you can fix whatever’s wrong with it?”

“Hard to say till I actually find out what the problem is.”

I recalled words I’d heard. “It could be the spark plugs… or the alternator… or the cooling system… or the timing belt… or—”

“Or all of the above, and then some,” said Earl with a concerned glance at the engine.

“Looks like there’s only one thing to say to that,” chuckled Maybelle from the plantation house. “Welcome to Clara’s Crossing. You got any luggage?”

“Oh, I don’t plan on staying.”

Thunder rolled across the sky.

“You might as well stop for the night now,” Maybelle said. “Unless you plan on hitching a ride outta here in the middle of a storm. We don’t get many cars passing through. You could be out in that rain a while waiting for a ride.”

I looked outside through the open roller doors to the auto shop. “What rain?”

As if on cue, the heavens opened and a deluge of biblical proportions pounded the dusty street, drops so fat and heavy they left dents in the earth.

Thunder cracked, a BOOM so loud the tin walls of the auto shop clattered in terror.

Nobody flinched but me and Chet.

Actually, I jumped with such surprise that one shoe almost slipped off my foot.

Chet was under the car in a flash, trembling fearfully.

I knelt down and tried to coax him out, my voice calling over the sound of rain pelting down on the tin roof. “Hey boy, it’s okay. Come on out.”

Timidly he ventured far enough out for me to pick him up and hold him tight. “It’s okay, buddy. I got you.”

“And I got your luggage,” said Cybil, the large woman from the general store. She was hauling my suitcase out of the trunk.

“No, please.” I moved to stop her. “Please don’t touch my things.”

“Let me help,” Leroy said to Cybil, both of them with their hands all over my suitcase now.

“I said, don’t touch my things.”

There was another crack of thunder.

Chet leapt from my arms and cowered under a nearby workbench.

Earl unscrewed something under the hood and released a gush of steam.

Between the pounding of rain and the clash of thunder and the hiss of the steam, I snapped.

“Please! Just let go!”

Leroy and Cybil instantly released the suitcase.

It hit the ground on one corner.

With the impact, a latch broke off and the lid flipped open.

Shirts, underwear, and socks—both dirty and clean—tumbled out, as well as—

“Joel!”

I dropped to my knees as the urn hit the rough cement floor.

A crack appeared in the ceramic shell and the urn rolled.

Desperately I scooped my hands under it, scraping the skin off my knuckles before scooping the vessel up and cradling it in my arms.

Panting, panicked, I checked the crack.

I ran my finger along the jagged, paper-thin fissure that had threatened to take him from me.

There was no sign of anything leaking out, no ashes seeping onto the floor, no hourglass cascade of Joel’s remains that could never truly be salvaged from the grimy, grease-stained floor of this mechanic’s workshop.

I looked up to see the strangers staring at me, their faces sorrowful as they registered what I was clutching.

“Is that…” Leroy was pointing at the urn in my arms.

“It’s none of your business,” I told him.

“Here, let us help.” Cybil knelt and started picking up my fallen clothes.

“Please. Don’t.”

She stopped immediately.

With her cane, Maybelle pointed out the door, shooing Leroy and Cybil out. “Thank you for trying to help, but now git you two. We all got things to do. A busy little town like Clara’s Crossing don’t run itself and the others will be back from the fields any minute now, wetter than a mischief of swamp rats. Now off you go.”

Hurrying into the rain, Li’l Leroy and Cybil disappeared down the street.

I suddenly felt guilty that I’d snapped at them when they were only trying to help. “Do they need umbrellas? Will they be okay?”

Maybelle laughed. “It’s only rain, honey. It ain’t acid. The Lord ain’t that angry at us yet.”

From under the workbench, Chet barked in need of comfort or at the very least attention.

Maybelle turned, both hands on her hips now as she steadied herself in a school ma’am stance. “And what, pray tell, is all your fussin’ about? You’re a dog, ain’t you? It’s not your business to run away from a storm, it’s your business to fight back. When that thunder barks at you, you bark right back, little man. Y’hear?”

Chet tilted his head, ears up, as though taking in her words… which he clearly did, because with the next clap of thunder, Chet looked up at the roof of the auto shop and barked like a watchdog on duty.

“That’s better.” Outside the rain began to ease and Maybelle gave an impressed nod in Chet’s direction. “See what happens when you show ’em how brave you are?”

Chet wagged his tail.

A moment later, Earl shut the hood. “Speaking of brave, I have no idea where you came from, son, but you’re one courageous soul to get as far as you did in this car.”

“New York.” I started scooping up shirts and underwear. “We drove from New York.”

“What’s a boy from New York doing aaaaaall the way down here?” asked Maybelle.

I didn’t know how to answer that.

I didn’t want to answer that.

Carefully I placed the urn like an egg in a nest of clothes before shutting the suitcase as best I could, then asked Earl, “How long do you think it’ll take to fix the car?”

“My dear boy, from what I can tell, I could build you a new car faster than I can fix this one.”

A sigh of frustration escaped my lungs in a dramatic gush. “Seriously?”

“What do you want me to do, pull a miracle out of my ass? You need to talk to Reverend Jim across the road if you want that kinda favor performed. Not that he’s likely to oblige. He don’t take too kindly to strangers.”

I shook my head. “No thanks. I don’t believe in that kind of thing anyway. I just want my car fixed.”

Maybelle stepped toward me, where I still knelt beside my suitcase. “Then I suggest we let Earl start on getting things fixed, while I get you acquainted with the manor. Come along now, I have just the room for you.”

Outside the rain stopped altogether.

As I followed Maybelle out of Earl’s Auto , my suitcase in hand and Chet at my heels, the thunder peeled away to torment some other far-off place.