Late One Night

5

The trouble between Ronnie and Della came to a head one evening in early September when she showed up at a Kiwanis Club pancake supper with her long blond hair hacked off and ragged, tufts of it sticking out from her head and hanks hanging down along her slender neck. Lord God. It was a sight. Like someone had taken a knife blade to her hair and sawed and hacked until the job was done. That’s right. Della Black. Walked into the grade school cafeteria as big as day.

“How you like my new hairdo?” she asked of no one in particular.

Just stood there in the middle of the cafeteria, blue jeans too big on her skinny hips, a chambray work shirt, sleeves rolled to her elbows. She turned this way and that like a fashion model. Even put a hand to her head and gave a hank of hair a little fluff.

No one said a word. Everyone was sitting at the cafeteria tables, where only moments before they’d been talking about crop prices, and Lord couldn’t we use some rain, and hell, yes, it was hot. Too hot for September. That was for damned sure. It was just now coming on dusk, and the cafeteria lights were on. Della stood there in that fluorescent light, and everyone shut up so for a while there was only the sound of pancakes on the griddle in the kitchen and the cash drawer on the register going shut.

Then a single low voice — a woman’s voice — said, “It’s got something to do with Ronnie. I’ll wager you that.”

The woman was Laverne Ott, who had taught Della in grade school. Now Laverne was a caseworker for Children’s Protective Services. She knew trouble when she saw it.

She came down the center aisle and put her hand to Della’s face. Washed out and not a lick of makeup. “Oh, honey,” she said, “where are your kids? They’re not with Ronnie, are they?”

Della shook her head. “They’re with my mom and dad.” She raised her hand to her head. Her fingers were trembling. She touched her hair, patting the tufts. “Stylish,” she said. “Don’t you think?”

Laverne leaned in close and whispered, “Did Ronnie do this to you?”

“Why Miss Ott,” Della said, “why in the world would you think that?”

Laverne thought it for the same reason so many others were thinking it. Ronnie Black had a temper, and he’d used it in the past to cause misery for Della. Lord knows, he’d had his brushes with the law — accusations of stolen gasoline from farmers’ tanks, domestic disturbances in the middle of the night, bar fights — but nothing that ever landed him in a jail or a courtroom. He was that kind of man, troubled in the heart and full of fight. Pissed off at his life because he couldn’t manage to hold down a job, and there were all those kids — yes, seven of them — and folks had witnessed more than one tussle and throwdown between Della and Ronnie out in public.

He’d left her stranded in Goldengate one night when they got in a snort and holler because she wanted to buy a doll baby for their littlest girl and he said there wasn’t money enough for something extra like that. Right there in Inyart’s Sundries, Della told him there’d be more money if he could do a better job of providing it.

“The way I see it,” she said, “it’s my money anyway since I made it from cleaning houses. I’ll spend it however I please.”

All right then, he told her. She could just walk home if that’s the way she wanted it. And with that he stormed out of the store.

She was a few miles up the blacktop in the gathering dark when Missy saw her and stopped to give her a ride. Della had been friends with Missy and Pat ever since grade school and thought so much of them that she’d made them godparents of all her kids. Missy had always been such a dainty girl, with her dark hair and her brown eyes, and though she’d grown to be a beautiful woman, the years had put enough vinegar in her to make her say exactly what she thought.

“I don’t know why you put up with that man,” she said to Della once she’d heard the story of the fight. “I really don’t.”

Della turned away from Missy, and her voice, when she finally spoke, was the soft voice of a woman who was embarrassed but determined to speak the truth. “Well, we’re a family. That’s what we are. I know it might not seem like it all the time, but we’re who we have and that counts for something, doesn’t it?”

“I guess it’s up to you to decide if it counts enough,” Missy said.

Said Della, “I’ve been married so long. I wouldn’t know myself without Ronnie.”