Madness In Maggody

1

"The picnic pavilion," Ruby Bee read aloud with enough sarcasm to choke the cud right out of a cow, "has comfortable seating for twenty-four diners, who will be only a few steps away from the most incredible display of hot and cold entrées in the county. Don't miss our grand opening." She whacked down the newspaper and folded her arms across her chest. "Well?"

The customer at the counter hunkered over his blue plate special and wished mightily he was elsewhere, because he knew damn well he was in for it, no matter what he said.

"Well?" Ruby Bee repeated, her eyes flashing like the one traffic light in Maggody. "Aren't you impressed with shiny plastic tabletops and an international deli only a few steps away? Everything from tamales and ribs to fresh peach cobbler and that mush they call mousse?"

"Nothing's as good as your chicken-fried steak and turnip greens, Ruby Bee. Why, when I'm hauling a load cross-country, I don't think of anything else except getting back to Ruby Bee's Bar & Grill for the best home cookin' in the whole damn county."

"Are you telling me that you're not going to try their Frenchbread sandwiches and chocolate mousse?" The trucker shoveled in the last bite of mashed potatoes, drained the iced-tea glass, and put an appropriate number of dollar bills on the counter. "I got to run," he said over his shoulder, not actually running but nevertheless making pretty good time. "See you next time, Ruby Bee."

She snatched up the newspaper and squinted at the description of meats and cheeses available for sandwiches and party platters. "Italian baby Swiss! Pro-choot-o! Kosher Polish pickles! What in tarnation's wrong with a nice bologna and cheese sandwich, with a dill pickle and potato chips on the side? I wish you'd tell me that, Gilly Jacana. I wish you'd tell me that."

Gilly was already revving the engine at the stoplight, praying it'd turn green. He swore later he could feel the hairs on the back of his neck rising like there was a spook in the back of the cab.

"Genuine homemade Mexican tamales," Geraldo Mandozes read, struggling with the longer words. He rolled up the newspaper and began to slap it against his leg. "How in the name of sweet Jesus can a bunch of Arkansas grocery clerks make genuine Mexican tamales? I make genuine Mexican tamales because I am a genuine Mexican who came from Mexico, not from some little redneck town. You think my tamales are the best, don't you?"

Kevin Buchanon bent down so he could look through the Dairee Dee-Lishus counter window. He was nervous because Geraldo Mandozes looked like one of those banditos-what with his shiny dark hair, mustache, and stocky body-and everybody knew they could be dangerous if they got riled up. Nobody knew much about this Mexican fellow who'd bought the Dee-Lishus a couple of months back; Maggody's version of the Welcome Wagon (the contingency of church ladies who dropped by in a neighborly fashion to appraise the furniture) tended to roll right past foreigners and other suspicious types.

Kevin cleared his throat. "Sure, Geraldo, your tamales are real good."

"And genuine?"

"Sure, Geraldo. Like you said, you're a genuine spic."

A tamale hit the countertop in an explosion of greasy white paper and greasy orange chili sauce. "I did not say spic, you skinny little turd. I said Mexican, as in a person from Mexico."

"Yeah, I remember now, Geraldo…and this tamale looks real good." Kevin fumbled with the paper until he had secured it around what would be his lunch, then scattered change on the counter and pedaled away before the genuine spic started throwing chili straight from the pot.

"A total-service supermarket with fully trained employees who are dedicated to your needs," Elsie McMay read, her head tilted back so she could see through her bifocals and also keep the perm solution from dribbling into her ears and shorting out her hearing aid (she'd read about such a fatal tragedy in a tabloid and was always careful). She stopped to dab her forehead with a tissue, then met Estelle's gaze in the mirror. "Now just where is Jim Bob finding these fully trained employees? At the Maggody Academy of Supermarket Studies?"

"I couldn't say," Estelle said, more concerned with a pesky wisp of gray hair that seemed to have a mind of its own. "Rumor has it Dahlia's going back to work for him, and as the head cook in the deli, if you can imagine that."

"Dahlia O'Neill couldn't heat up a can of corn. Remember when she worked at the Kwik-Screw? All she ever did was stuff candy bars in her face and guzzle orange soda pop. It wasn't any mystery to me why she topped three hundred pounds a few years back. I once asked her real nicely where to find the kitchen matches, but I might as well've asked her in some foreign language like French."

"Or German," Estelle mumbled through a bobby pin between her lips.

"Or Swedish."

"Or American." Estelle started chuckling, and then so did Elsie, and the bobby pin fell on the floor and the little pink curler unwound of its own accord, but neither one of them cared at that moment because of Estelle's undeniable wit.

"Open from seven in the morning till nine at night," Buzz Milvin read aloud, his frown getting deeper by the word. He aimed it in the direction of his mother-in-law, who was on the settee reading the directions on a bottle of medicine guaranteed to make her regular. "But that don't make no sense, Lillith. When Jim Bob hired me on as night manager, I could've sworn he said the store was going to be open later than that."

"Doesn't change your salary, does it?" Lillith said, more interested in the promises she'd just read.

"No, but…" Buzz took a long swallow of beer as he scratched his head. "Well, it's just that I thought I'd be overseeing the cash-register lines and okaying checks and making sure the employees stayed busy. Jim Bob said he was real impressed with how I'd been line foreman at the plant for more than four years now. The money's still good, but I'm wondering if I'm gonna be a manager or a custodian."

"Excuse me, Buzz, but I've got business to attend to." Lillith headed for the kitchen.

"Jim Bob's in for a surprise if he thinks I'm mopping any floors," he said to himself, since he was the only one in the room except for his daughter, Lissie, who was in the corner whispering to her doll. "I worked my way up to line foreman 'cause I was willing to assume responsibility and keep the line at top productivity. Had to keep the guys happy, the production supervisors happy, the front office happy." He finished the beer, then with slow deliberation crumpled the can in his hand.

Lissie flinched at the sound, but she didn't say anything. She hardly ever did.

Brother Verber, the spiritual leader of the Voice of the Almighty Lord Assembly Hall, was reading, too, but he wasn't exactly reading the full-page ad in the weekly newspaper, nor was he fretting about the impact of Jim Bob's SuperSaver Buy 4 Less on the various citizens of Maggody, not even those in his flock.

He was doing research. He was doing this on his couch, with the fan whirring and a pint jar of iced tea handy on the floor beside the couch. He was doing this in his pastel blue boxer shorts and nothing else, due to the heat in the silver trailer parked beside the Assembly Hall-and the intense nature of his study material.

To be honest-as all God-fearing folks should be-even during the week, he wasn't reading so much as looking, because the study material leaned heavily in the direction of photographs rather than print. But the photographs were educational, to say the least, and Brother Verber made a point of reading the captions that explained why the various participants had selected their positions and what precisely was going through their heads.

Because, Brother Verber thought as he stopped to mop his gleaming forehead and blow his fat red nose, there was depravity in Maggody and the more he knew of the origin of such sin, the better equipped he would be to wrassle with that particular devil. There were things right there in the pictures that he hadn't known were possible, much less popular with the younger set.

It was clear to him that God wanted him to study this variety of depravity, because if God hadn't wanted him to subscribe to Kittens and Tomcats, there wouldn't have been enough money in the collection plate.

He took a steadying gulp of tea and turned the page.

"Our amazing variety of fresh produce will be the lowest-priced anywhere," Ivy Sattering read with a scowl. She turned the scowl on her husband, who was flipping happily through the latest issue of Organic Gardening. "Did you hear what I said, Alex? This supermarket ad says they'll have fresh produce. If they buy in bulk, the prices will be lower than what we can afford to sell for."

"Ladybugs," Alex said wonderingly. He lit a cigarette and held the page closer to admire the amazingly symmetrical pattern of black dots on the little orange creatures. His ponytail swung like a fuzzy brown pendulum as he shook his head in awe, and behind thick spectacles, his faded eyes of indeterminate color flickered. The extent of his hallucinogenic experiences in the late sixties had left him a pleasantly addled child twenty years later. He enjoyed talking to himself in the mirror, even though he had a tendency to forget what he was going to say in the middle of a sentence.

"Would you please pay attention?" Ivy said with measured impatience, resigned to his limitations after fifteen years of marriage but not ready for sainthood just yet. "This supermarket's going to put us out of business. No one's going to come to the produce stand if they can get fruits and vegetables more cheaply elsewhere."

Alex wrenched his gaze from the ladybug ad to smile at his wife, who was attractive in a comfortable way and clearly peeved at him. "But we're organic. Our customers won't buy anything sprayed with pesticides and herbicides."

Ivy looked back at him, her eyes unblinking behind wire rimmed glasses. "We have customers because we have the only source of fresh produce between here and Starley City. The majority of our customers would drink pesticides if it saved money.

"Whatever you say." He returned to the ladybug ad, which promised the nifty little things could rid a garden of aphids in a matter of days.

Lamont Petrel, the occupant of unit number four at the Flamingo Motel, was reading fine print on various legal documents. His thick silver hair was combed in a sweeping pompadour to draw attention away from his slightly protruding ears, and he was often mistaken for a televangelist. He had twinkly blue eyes ringed with lines, an affable voice with only a tinge of southern refinement, and a firm handshake that'd served him well in many a meeting fraught with peril. His teeth were perfect, but his smile went no deeper than his tan. His wife had told him on more than one occasion that he was a cold-blooded bastard who'd sell his grandmother's soul for a fistful of dollars and his own for a few dollars more. Lamont found that a reasonably accurate description, although he hadn't said so.

He'd already checked the infamous ad for typos, but it looked pretty good and he was pleased with his work. Jim Bob had yelped about the cost, to be sure, but Lamont had convinced his partner that advertising was the only way to go, and he'd finally won the argument.

As for the documents, the fine print was pretty spidery for his sixty-year-old eyes, but he'd instructed his attorneys to go whole hawg in terms of complicated language and meaningless legal jargon. By the time you stumbled into the fifth or sixth "wherein the fiduciary obligations of the party of the first part blah blah the reciprocity of obligations of the party of the second part, heretofore to be identified as the blah blah," it made about as much sense as the federal government's simplified tax form. Which was what Lamont wanted, because he sure as hell didn't want to stay partners with the dumbshit mayor of Maggody.

And unless Jim Bob hired himself a bunch of eagle-eyed lawyers to plow through the partnership agreements, Lamont wasn't going to have to put up with him much longer. This was going to be more of a "Slam-bang, thank you, ma'am" arrangement.

"This is the smartest thing I've ever done." Jim Bob Buchanon chortled, studying the ad like a proud papa. "Lamont wasn't crazy about running a full page, but I told him how we've got to get everybody's attention before the grand opening in two weeks. I'll bet you twenty bucks every single sucker in the county will come by for a look-see and free samples from the deli."

"Gambling is a sin," Mrs. Jim Bob said automatically.

"You know what I mean." He leaned back and put his feet on the coffee table, cringed at his wife's sharp intake of breath, and got them off real fast. "I get all fired up thinking about being the owner and manager of a great big supermarket. The whole county's gonna shop at the Jim Bob's SuperSaver Buy 4 Less. We got ourselves fifteen employees, and most of them's at minimum wage and glad to get it. I think I'll mosey down there and see how the roofers are doing."

"The construction supervisor assured you this morning that everything was on schedule, and more likely to remain so without your continual interference." Mrs. Jim Bob said all this without interest, being more concerned with her study of the Book of Corinthians II, because it was going to be discussed in her Sunday-school class and she intended to be prepared. Only three weeks ago, Lottie Estes had won a minor skirmish involving an obscure verse from the Gospel of Luke, and it had taken all this time for Mrs. Jim Bob to overcome the humiliation. It would not happen again.

Jim Bob finished his beer and did his level best to hold in a belch, which would make it all the harder to get his ass out of the living room and its suffocating piety. "Maybe you're right," he said magnanimously. "I guess I'll go over to the Flamingo and visit with Lamont about the grand opening. He's apt to be lonely sitting all alone in a shabby motel room with nothing to amuse hisself."

"The motel room to talk business…or Ruby Bee's Bar & Grill to guzzle beer?"

"I'm just trying to do the neighborly thing for Lamont. You're all the time saying how it's your Christian duty to visit with those who are lonely and bereft in their time of need." He wasn't sure this made a whole helluva lot of sense, since Lamont was probably drinking bourbon and watching a football game. Jim Bob was doing neither, because the smell of whiskey made his wife nauseous and the noise of the television disturbed her Bible study. He waited for a minute, then stood up. "I'll be back before suppertime."

"Dinnertime. Common folks have supper. In this house, we have dinner."

"Right," Jim Bob muttered on his way out the door. He'd already decided to forgo comforting Lamont in order to find out if sweet Cherri Lucinda might be in the mood for company.

I was reading a travel guide to Europe. I was dressed in my uniform and sitting behind my desk at the police department, however, in deference to my position as chief of police of Maggody, Arkansas, population 755 at last count. Nobody counted very often because there wasn't much need. The outside world was not obsessed with an accurate head count, and the good citizens knew what every last person was doing and therefore could keep a running tally of births, deaths, and escapes.

I was in Maggody because I'd skulked home from a posh Manhattan existence to recuperate from a tasteless divorce (as opposed to an elegant one, in which both parties fall all over themselves to be fair about the property settlement and fondly kiss each other on the cheek on the courthouse steps…in Disney World). It wasn't that I was covered with oozing sores; there were only a few scabs to be picked at on a regular basis. I figured it would be only a couple more years before I was ready for the real world, which wasn't ringing all that much anymore.

I was the chief of police because I was the only applicant for the position who'd had any police training. I'd managed to avoid brain petrification only by spending most of my cognizant hours imagining myself elsewhere. And not with a capital E, either, since almost anyplace else was preferable to a one-street town noted for its ornery citizens, dusty weeds, boarded-up storefronts, and artful display of litter that ranged from rusted beer cans and disposable diapers to unmentionables.

At this point, I'd just left Florence, after a delightful stay at a quaint pensione that served robust breakfasts and elegant dinners at a reasonable price. Thus far, excluding airfare, I was well within my fabricated budget and I was considering a few days in Rome in a seventeenth-century villa overlooking the city. I could take a bus in every morning to sightsee, and idle away the evenings on the broad balcony, sipping wine and chatting with the resident contessa.

When the telephone rang, I marked my place (just south of Siena) and, in further deference to my position, answered it with, "Police department, Chief Ariel Hanks speaking."

"Ruby Bee's Bar & Grill, your mother speaking," came a most unfriendly voice. "I thought you were coming down here for supper."

"I am, but it's the middle of the afternoon. I still have time to check in at the Villa della Gatteschi and do the Colosseum before it gets dark."

"Don't give me any of that smart talk, young lady. Are you coming down here for supper or not?"

"Can I expect lasagna and osso buco?"

Her voice was so icy that my eardrum tingled. "Are you coming or not?"

"Of course I am," I said, trying not to sound as irritated as I was. It's not wise to mess with Ruby Bee, who looks like a chubby grandmother with her rosy round face and improbable blond hair but has a streak of something hard to define but best to avoid. Every now and then, one of them good ol' boys drinks one pitcher of beer too many at the bar and learns the hard way. One of them limps to this day. Truth.

"Well, then, get your fanny off your chair and get down here," Ruby Bee snapped, then hung up before I could think of anything else, smart or not, to say.

I got my fanny off my chair, vowed to renew my passport, and went out of the relative sanctuary of the PD into the whitewashed August heat of Maggody. A lone pickup truck was heading south, leaving a ghostly swirl of dust in its tracks. A car was parked in front of Roy Stiver's antique store, and I supposed some naïve tourist was in there trying to pull a fast one over on potbellied, slow-talking Roy, who has more CDs in the bank than a cow patty has flies.

My efficiency apartment was above the store. I gave it a wistful look but obediently trudged along the highway to find out what species of bee was buzzing in Ruby Bee's bonnet this time. I winced as I passed the site of the new supermarket, thinking about the poor souls putting on a tar roof in the heat. The building itself was rather peculiar. Jim Bob was too cheap to tear down the old Kwik-Screw, an ordinary convenience store, so some of the facade remained-like a boil.

As I watched, several trucks rolled in loaded with refrigeration equipment and metal shelving units. A beefy man in a hard hat came out to bellow at the drivers, most of whom ignored him and ambled over to the soda machine in front of the Suds of Fun Launderette next door. I didn't blame them. One of the roofers came to the edge and let out his version of a wolf whistle, presumably intended to flatter me into scampering up the ladder for a quick romp in the tar. I'd lived on the Upper East Side in another life, and responded with a minute yet succinct gesture.

Estelle's station wagon was the only car in front of Ruby Bee's, which was odd on a searing Saturday afternoon. There was a black Cadillac parked in front of the motel unit out back, which was odd, too. No one stays at the Flamingo Motel; its sign is a perpetual V CAN Y and every year its neon flamingo looks a little more inclined to molt into oblivion. Ruby Bee lives in number one and swears she prefers the solitude. I've always thought she didn't want to change the linen or mess with registration.

The bar and grill was bright pink on the outside but dim and cool on the inside. And pretty much deserted. Estelle was sitting at the bar with a glass of sherry, listening as Ruby Bee raged and sputtered over the sink.

Estelle, the owner and operator of Estelle's Hair Fantasies, is the antithesis of Ruby Bee. She's as tall as I-five nine-but she towers over me with her six-inch fiery red beehive hairdo. As a child, I'd kept a cautious eye on it, not sure what would happen if it slipped to one side. It never had, to my disappointment. It didn't even sway when she walked.

"It's about time," Ruby Bee said by way of warm welcome. "You want iced tea or milk?"

"Neither, thank you. I'll just sit here like a little mouse until you tell me all about whatever it is that's disturbing you." I climbed onto the stool next to Estelle and propped my elbows on the bar.

"This is hardly the time for jokes," Estelle said with a snort of disapproval. "You might show some concern for your own flesh and blood, Miss High Horse."

Ruby Bee grabbed a dishrag and began to wipe the counter so hard it squeaked. "Now, Estelle, there's no point in giving Arly a lecture on manners. She lived in Noow Yark, you know, where people don't pay any mind to anyone else. They make you turn in your party manners when you drive across the Brooklyn Bridge."

"I forgot," Estelle said, slapping her forehead like a heroine in a melodrama, which wasn't too far off base. "People in Noow Yark just watch out the window when someone gets mugged, and they can't be bothered to learn their neighbors' names or have a nice conversation in the elevator about the weather."

"Hot enough for you?" I inserted quickly.

Ruby Bee shot me a beady look, then attempted to wrest the starring role away from Estelle. "So there's no reason why I should expect Arly to be concerned about me having to live out the last years of my life in the county nursing home. Isn't Adele Wockermann out there?"

"Yes, but last I heard, she was visiting with aliens through her hearing aid," Estelle said, giving me her version of the Beady Look. It's not as effective, since one of hers wanders. "It's a crying shame, Ruby Bee, you not being able to enjoy yourself in your golden years. No grandbabies, no daughter who worries about you, no little cottage with a nice flower garden. A crying shame."

"A crying shame," Ruby Bee echoed. She wiped her eyes with the dishrag, then bravely straightened her shoulders and prepared to crumble into dust in a rocking chair next to Adele.

"A crying shame," I said to complete the symmetry. I had no idea what was up, but I had no doubts I would find out in the next thirty seconds.

It took sixty because we lapsed into a temporary standoff. Ruby Bee and Estelle exchanged looks and waited for me to demand to know the cause of this bleak vision. I contemplated the gold flecks in the mirror and waited for them to spit it out.

"Don't you want to hear about it?" Estelle finally said, pissed because she'd caved in and knew I knew it.

"Sure," I said. "Can I have that iced tea?"

"It's that monstrosity Jim Bob's putting in across the street," Ruby Bee said. "It's going to put plenty of folks out of business, and you got to do something about it."

Realizing I wasn't going to see iced tea anytime soon, I leaned over the bar and got myself a glass of water. "It's ugly, it's been tying up traffic for six months, and it's likely to be staffed by Buchanons from under half the rocks in Stump County. Who's it going to put out of business?"

"Your mother," Estelle said. "The ad says it has this big deli section with tables and plastic silverware so you can eat right there in the store."

"The picnic pavilion," Ruby Bee added in a dull voice.

I shook my head. "It may hurt business for a few days, but it's not going to win anyone's heart for long. That kind of food's never good, and you're the best cook in the county."

Ruby Bee pointed a shaky finger at the empty room. "Just take a look for yourself Nobody's here."

I tried to figure out how to tiptoe around this one, but nothing all that clever came to mind. "I've heard lately that you've been…confrontational with your regular customers," I said carefully. "You've been getting hot under the collar, demanding loyalty oaths and, in general, running everybody off." Valuing my life, I did not add that the hottest topic at the pool hall was whether or not she was too old for PMS (she was).

"I never!" Estelle gasped.

Ruby Bee once again began to wipe the counter, but without her earlier energy. "Maybe I have. I'll be the first to admit I'm not pleased with this pavilion directly across the street. I'm too old to learn how to make croissant sandwiches and mousse. All I know how to make is regular food like meat loaf and scalloped potatoes.

"And all your customers will try the new place and then come right back here like they always did," I said soothingly.

"What about the Satterings?" Estelle demanded. "You think Ivy and Alex can count on folks' loyalty when their produce costs more?"

"I don't know what to tell you. What about you, Ruby Bee? You buy from them because the stand's convenient. Are you going to buy produce at the supermarket because it's cheaper?"

"Of course not," Ruby Bee said, although not with enough conviction to fool a toddler.

Estelle was still into the voice of doom. "And that Mexican fellow that bought the Dairee Dee-Lishus is right upset, I heard. Dahlia said Kevin said he liked to throw a pot of boiling chili at him. The Mexican at Kevin, not the other way around."

"There's not anything any of us can do about it," I said. "Believe it or not, not even Maggody can withstand a spurt of progress every now and then. We used to gripe about the lack of merchandise and the exorbitant prices at the Kwik-Screw. Now we're going to have to face a larger selection and reasonable prices. I'm afraid we're stuck with it, ladies."

"Unless this picnic pavilion at Jim Bob's SuperSaver Buy 4 Less goes belly-up the first day it opens," Estelle said in a casual voice.

"Why would it?" I said in an uncasual voice.

"You just never know."

"That's right," Ruby Bee said, gazing over my head. "You just never know."

The last bit of reading matter of any significance had not yet been read. It was a letter addressed to the Maggody town council, and it lay in a well-polished silver tray in the foyer of Jim Bob's house. He had ignored it on his way out the door, and Mrs. Jim Bob, who opened whatever mail caught her eye, was much too worried about the upcoming Corinthians II face-off in Sunday school to bother with local affairs.

Jim Bob would read it over coffee the next morning, and it would take him all day to figure out how best to use it to his own advantage, which was pretty much how he approached everything.

The letter was from the Starley City Youth Center and was thick with dates, guidelines, rules, regulations, methods of compliance, and boring stuff like that. The gist of it, however, was that Maggody was invited to enter its local championship baseball team in the Starley City Labor Day Weekend Invitational Intermediate League Baseball Tournament (in subsequent paragraphs referred to as the SCLDWIILBT, but don't try to sound it out, 'cause you can't without coming off like you're drunker'n Cooter Brown).

Maggody didn't have a local championship baseball team, but not because there wasn't a competitive spirit. It had a good high-school football team, and a darn tough basketball team. The local 4-H'ers always picked up their fair share of blue and red ribbons at the county fair. The Future Homemakers of America thrived under the enthusiastic guidance of Miss Lottie Estes, and the club's secretary secretary-treasurer had won third place in the state bake-off with her Lemon-Lime Surprise Dinner Rolls.

Maggody didn't have a soccer team, though, because it was a sissy foreign game where you wear shorts and don't get dirty. It didn't have a chess team or an IQ Bowl team, for obvious reasons. And because nobody'd ever given it any thought, it didn't have a championship baseball team. Not yet, anyway.