Chapter 9

Meredith bought a copy of the Golden Springs Gazette and a Clif Bar at a mini-mart on the way out of town. The local, independent, nonprofit newspaper reported “news you need” from the Golden Springs and Antaeus College communities, including all social, civic, ecological, commercial, political, and cultural affairs; it even had a sports section, although they limited its coverage to nonprofessional, noncompetitive sports not linked to brain injuries. Golden Springers generally considered anything written in the Gazette to be gospel. Meredith, not so much.

“Is it ever?” Meredith replied, leaving the clerk confused and speechless. She folded the paper, stuffed it into her backpack, and tossed it onto the passenger seat of her Smart car.

Ever since their first trip to Coon Creek, Meredith had made regular junkets there to purchase pies for Roscoe Alolo. It seemed to her like a hospitable thing to do, although the more pie trips that she made just for him, the closer she got to the limits of her hospitality. Sure, she had a vested interest in keeping him happy, but she was a colleague, after all, not his personal pie supplier.

Despite her misgivings, Meredith considered this a prudent solution. Professor Alolo loved his pies, and he became noticeably petulant if he went more than a day without his favorite dessert. Not just any pie was good enough, though; he demanded none less than the award-winning pies baked exclusively at the Hungry Coon Diner. Unfortunately, his passion for those pies available nowhere-else-in-the-world conflicted with his principled refusal to set foot in Coon Creek. If it meant that Meredith would have to go there herself to fetch the pies, it was a small enough price to pay in the name of peaceful coexistence.

Besides, Meredith sort of liked getting out of Golden Springs occasionally. It took her mind off her personal problems. She enjoyed the drive past green rolling hills, horses grazing in pastures, fields of corn planted in perfectly straight rows, and even the Chew Mail Pouch Tobacco barn. These, and many other aspects of Midwestern Gothic, secretly appealed to her, things like playing cornhole, saying “dontcha know,” tipping cows, making fried-baloney sandwiches, and pouring ranch dressing on top of everything. Before moving to Ohio, she thought that such things were just dumb stereotypes; now, she found them kind of, well, charming.

Too bad that charm was completely lost on Vanessa. She made it very clear that she wanted nothing to do with Ohio.

After crossing the steel bridge, Meredith rounded a sharp bend along Coon Creek, and straight ahead of her was the landmark that campus folks mockingly referred to as the “Good Old Boy Billboard.” It lined up with her steering wheel like the cross hairs in a target. Its words read: “God is watching when you vote.”

Meredith hit the brakes and stopped in the middle of the road to make sure she was seeing correctly. The notion that God endorsed a mayoral candidate seemed outrageous, even for good old boys. She wasn’t sure whether it was meant to be taken literally, or if it perhaps contained some kind of right-wing code or double entendre. She took a photo of it with her cell phone.

A boy around thirteen years old piloted a John Deere riding mower in a pattern of concentric squares through the field surrounding the billboard. Meredith waved at him. The boy shot her a gap-toothed grin and double-barreled middle fingers.

Faye Pfeiffer knew the precise moment when Edith Doody took the afternoon pies out of the oven. On Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, when Edith baked pecan pies, Faye religiously arrived at the Hungry Coon Diner ahead of time to get hers while they were still hot. While waiting, she sat at the counter and drank black coffee.

“Good to see you, hon,” Edith chirped at Faye when she entered. “The pies will be ready in a jiffy.”

Sometimes when Edith wasn’t especially busy, she’d chat with Faye about her favorite subjects, “this, that, and the other thing.” But she was keeping an eye on the oven, so Faye smoothed her trousers and sat down on a stool by the counter.

The only time that Faye ever drank coffee was when she was at the Hungry Coon Diner, and then only one cup. Too much caffeine made her tap her toes and twiddle her thumbs. Drinking coffee, though, provided cover for her real purpose, which was to watch people. Most days, she had no human contact, save for the dead or grieving. It did her good to get out of the mortuary occasionally to participate in the affairs of the living, if only as an observer, and the Coon Creek Diner was the place to go for that. Edith Doody was a reliable source for current events and juicy rumors, which usually satisfied Faye’s need for animate human contact.

It was 1:30 p.m., at the tail end of the lunch hour. Folks lingering in the diner sat in front of their pushed-aside empty plates and chatted with each other, or just sat by themselves and stared into space. A lethargic ceiling fan plodded overhead but generated no relief to the day’s heat whatsoever.

“Maybe to you it’s just tepid. Holy baloney, I don’t know how you can stand it, always wearin’ that dark suit and tie. How do you do it without ever even breakin’ a sweat?”

Actually, as a teenager, Faye often got damp when nervous, worried, or stressed. She’d learned to control her perspiration by dint of sheer willpower.

Faye observed that Edith wore a Belvedere for Mayor button on her apron. “I see that you support the reverend’s campaign,” she commented.

“Well, I ain’t got nothin’ against Mayor Ball. But things haven’t been goin’ too good here in Coon Creek. I’ve always voted for the Democrats, ‘cause they usually have a workin’ person’s back. Maybe it’s time to go Republican, though. Gotta shake things up. Reverend Belvedere is a good man.”

“Well, alrighty then. D’yah want a button for your own? I got a whole bag of them back of the cash register.”

“Uh, I don’t....” Faye changed what she was going to say when she saw Edith reach into the bag. “Well, I could wear it when I’m not working, I suppose.”

“Now, I’d better go check on them pies,” Edith said. She scurried through the double doors and into the kitchen.

The front door to the Hungry Coon Diner had a distinctive squeak. Edith could have oiled it, but she’d come to count on it to alert her when a new customer entered. Regulars at the diner knew to open and shut the door a couple of times to make sure she knew they’d arrived. By contrast, whenever out-of-towners visited, they’d hear the squeak and stop pushing, as if they’d done something wrong, and then they’d open the door very slowly, trying to be discreet.

Faye looked up when she heard that squeak, as did everybody else, and turned to see who had just come in. A black woman Faye had never seen before stood in the doorway. Customers in the diner looked at her once, then returned to what they were doing—except Faye, who couldn’t look away.

Dressed in an off-white boiler suit, with a floral scarf, multiple bracelets, and sporting short and slicked-back hair, the woman looked unkempt and elegant at the same time. She took uneven steps: one long stride left, a short one right, while keeping her back stiff. She had a backpack slung over her shoulder, with a rolled-up newspaper sticking out of an outside pocket. Her eyes darted side to side, as if she was doing math in her head. In the fleeting second that the woman and Faye exchanged glances, she nodded and half smiled.

The woman went straight to the cash register. When nobody immediately acknowledged her, she looked around the counter, into the kitchen.

Edith Doody came, drying her hands on her apron. “Oh, it’s you Professor Stokes. Back for some more pies, are yah?”

“Can’t get enough, eh? Even y’all from the wine and cheese side of Clifton Gorge like a good pie, eh? What’ll it be for yah today?”

Faye listened intently, trying to piece together the bits of information the conversation revealed.

“I can fix yah up with the apple and berry pies, Meredith. But I’m feared that I cain’t do yah the pecan pie. I only got one comin’ out of the oven, and it’s already spoken for.” Edith pointed down the counter straight at Faye. Meredith’s eyes followed the line.

Without thinking, Faye said, “Oh, that’s quite alright. She can have the pie.”

But having surprised herself by speaking up, Faye committed to following through with the offer. She told herself that she didn’t want it anymore.

“Please,” Faye implored her. “I insist. Really. You came all this way. I can get another pie. It will mean more to me if you take it.” She wanted to slap herself when she spoke those words. She meant what she said, but when she replayed them in her mind, she felt like a child trying to please an adult.

Meredith stepped forward, bouncing slightly on her heels. “That’s so very kind of you.” She put her hand on Faye’s shoulder. “My name is Meredith Stokes.”

Meredith brushed shoulders against Faye as she walked away. She took the pies and carried them in stacked boxes out the door. The last thing she did before leaving was smile at Faye.

Faye turned liquid. She felt her soul flush out of her and swirl down the drain. For several seconds, she stared at the door, hoping but not hoping that Meredith Stokes would return. Finally, Faye blinked away jumbled thoughts and noticed a newspaper on the floor. It must have fallen out of Meredith’s pack when she brushed against her. Faye hopped off the stool, grabbed the paper, and hurried out the door, just in time to see Meredith drive away in a tiny car that looked like an egg. Faye looked at the bumper stickers on the back of the car as it pulled away: Coexist, Darwin fish, Visualize Peace, and I’m Pro-Choice and I Vote. Largest of all, an iridescent rainbow flag decal covered the length of the rear hatch window.

Faye watched until the car turned off Main Street and onto Route 343. As soon as it was out of sight, she felt a bubble rise from her stomach, into her throat, and fill her mouth with a bitter taste. At the same time, the faint hairs on her shoulders tingled. She started sweating under her arms. Disgust and arousal were a volatile emotional brew.

When the sensation passed, Faye clicked her tongue. She still had the newspaper tucked under her arm. Returning to the diner, Faye ordered a piece of rhubarb pie, drank her black coffee, and read the newspaper.

Burl Slocum’s first principle of good dietary health was that the body required constant nourishment. Thus, rather than the customary three meals per day, Burl’s daily intake included designated midmorning, midafternoon, before-bed, and midnight snacks. If he missed any one of those, his mental and emotional well-being quickly declined. He generally took his midafternoon repast at the Hungry Coon Diner.

The second principle of Burl’s regimen was that adhering to a consistent menu for each day of the week helped to promote equilibrium. On Tuesdays, Burl dined on swine; hence, his midafternoon mainstay was a pulled pork sandwich platter.

Burl also valued regularity in his personal habits, so for each day of the week, he sat in a different booth at the diner. This provided him with both consistency and variety. Folks knew his proclivities so well that nobody sat in Burl’s prescribed booth on its designated day, and Edith had his place set before he even showed up. As Burl took his seat in his Tuesday booth, he noticed a newspaper that somebody had left behind on the counter; he snatched it and took it with him.

Edith brought the coffee pot. “That fancy pie lady from Golden Springs was here and dropped that on her way out the door. Ever since, customers have been passing it around.”

It had been a long time since Burl had read the Golden Springs Gazette. It always aggravated him because it was a tool of the leftist media, but it occasionally amused him in the same way that watching somebody slip on a banana peel was funny. Only in Golden Springs would free massages, a candlelight vigil for the Dalai Lama, or meeting notes from the Diversity Book Club make the headlines. What a bunch of rubes!

Burl chewed vigorously while reading. He skimmed headlines, then read a paragraph or two before deciding if an article was worth his time. On the editorial page, a headline caught his eye, “To Embrace the Future, Purge the Past.” He stopped chewing, the better to focus. He disagreed with it so ardently that he couldn’t quit reading, much as he’d have liked to. It was another one of those self-righteous rants written by an elitist asshole who thought he knew better than everybody else. This was just more proof to Burl’s theory that there was a direct correlation between higher education and idiotic opinions. It made Burl proud of his high school education.

When he finished his lunch, Burl took the newspaper with him. He had an idea he wanted to try out on a certain gang of people, and he knew just where to find them.

Boog started drinking earlier than usual that day. At the Drink Here Tavern, the definitions of early and late in respect to drinking were related to one’s employment status, conflicting obligations, and the amount of time passed since the last drink. For any person with no job, nothing to do, and four or more hours of sleep since the last drink, there was really no reason to wait until 5:00 p.m. In fact, by the standards of a large percentage of the adult male population of the town, Boog was way behind in his drinking when he drifted into the tavern at 2:00 p.m.

There was already a quorum of the Galoots in the tavern. Buzz Pringle and Paddy O’Brien were arm wrestling to a stalemate; neither seemed to be trying too hard. Tank Turner was singing “Like a Rock” with the jukebox. Red Ryan was watching the $100,000 Pyramid on the television behind the bar, shouting at it, “Rooster Cogburn, damnit, the answer is Rooster Cogburn.” Burl Slocum filled a booth by himself. And Boog’s old man sat quietly at the bar, face down in a schooner of Iron City.

Boog sidled onto the stool next to Zeke and ordered a pitcher. “Sup, Dad? Don’t usually see you hereabouts this time of day.”

“Is that so? Well, I’d be lying if I said that wasn’t bad. But it might not be no more than some itty-bitty infection. Buzz had some such bug last year.” Boog hollered across the room, “Hey Buzz, what’d you do last year when you was pissing blood?”

While Buzz was distracted, Paddy leaned with all his might into his forearm and defeated him in their arm-wrestling contest.

Ignoring the fracas, Boog said to his father, “See what I mean? All you gotta do is flush out your bladder.”

“Ouch. Sorry about that, Dad. I heard that’s kinda painful when they pass.”

“That’s why I’m drinkin’.” Zeke sighed, then added, “Goddamn that fucking Hercules Steel plant for doing this to me. I oughta sue their asses.”

Boog had heard his old man’s harangue against the company a thousand times before. To hear him tell it, every sniffle or wart he’d had in the last decade was due to some toxic substance he’d ingested while working at the mill. Zeke believed that he was part of some diabolical government experiment on human subjects.

While Boog was no fan of the Hercules Steel Company, he shrugged at the old man’s paranoid theories, because even if they were true, they were still far less menacing than the many and varied deep-state schemes that rich liberals were hatching to ruin the country by taking his guns and starting a war against religion.

Boog didn’t have to look up to recognize Tank Turner’s drunken roar. “Stop your quacking back there,” he retorted.

The Galoots were now all seated around one table, as if gathered for a summit meeting. Boog excused himself to his father and went to join them. “What’s got you goobers all worked up about today?” he asked them as he pulled up a chair.

Red passed a newspaper to Buzz, who passed it to Paddy, who unfolded it and smoothed it out on the table, then passed it to Boog.

“What’s this?” Boog squinted to read the headline. “Why’re you dipshits reading this rag from Golden Springs? Ain’t nothing in it but lies.”

“Just read this one letter,” Tank said, tapping his finger on the page to show Boog where to start. “And get ready to blow chunks.”

Reading in front of people made Boog feel self-conscious, but he didn’t want to let the Galoots down. He cleared his throat and began to read slowly, pausing to sound out the big words.

The history of civilization reveals that cultural memory is selective. Societies fabricate a civic folklore that binds their populace through the willful aggrandizement of quintessential shared values....

“Just keep reading,” Tank urged. “Don’t matter if you cain’t understand all of them words. Yah’ll understand enough.”

When, however, the contrived mythology masks ignoble truths, the vox populi must be deconstructed, investigated, acknowledged, and repudiated so the commonwealth can evolve to meet the moral challenges of modernity.

“Whoever wrote this had a bad case of diarrhea of the mouth,” Boog declared, taking a break from the strain of reading. “I don’t know what every other word even means.”

Consider, for example, the case of one Philander Fink, who is revered as a hero in a certain neighboring hamlet. There, the prevailing narrative surrounding this man, Fink, depicts him as a courageous frontiersman, a visionary entrepreneur, and a role model for subsequent generations. Such is Fink’s glorified stature that his likeness, in the form of a bronze statue, has stood in the central plaza of that community for several decades.

The factual history of Fink tells a very different story. My research has revealed that, rather than to quench a thirst for high adventure, Fink migrated west of the Appalachian Mountains to escape burdensome gambling debts in Baltimore.

Unfortunately, soon after he arrived in Kentucky, Fink imprudently accrued ever greater liabilities in the taverns and brothels of backwoods towns. Inasmuch as his notorious reputation rendered him incapable of securing legitimate employment, he became a bounty hunter. He specialized in surreptitiously crossing the Ohio River into lawless territories where he could track and apprehend escaped slaves, whom he returned, in chains, to their overlords, to be tortured or killed. Over time, Fink acquired the calumnious notoriety of being one of the most proficient slave catchers in all of Kentucky.

Contrary to the sanitized legends about this man, Fink was a scoundrel, a miscreant, a wretch, and a ruffian, who in his day was shunned and reviled by all decent people. It is only through gross distortion of historical fact that he is today held in undeserved regard.

Therefore, upon discovery of these truths, it is incumbent upon modern people of goodwill to correct past sins. We must denounce the felon, Philander Fink. We must topple the statue of him that stands in Coon Creek.

Urgently, Roscoe Alolo.

Hearing this, Burl Slocum stepped out of his booth and butted in as if he’d been waiting for just the right moment. “I’ve got an idea. Hear me out....”

Mazie took Shabazz along with her on her morning jog. Surprisingly, although Shabazz was unruly when walking on his leash, he behaved well when jogging, trotting alongside Mazie as deftly as a dance partner. Whenever she slowed down, he gently nudged her to pick up the pace. It felt like having a personal trainer.

Mazie jogged the same route every morning: from Bard Hall, down the main path, along Campus Drive, and by the nature preserve, until she reached Golden Springs, where she went up Main Street to the end of town, then back the same way. Up before 6:00 a.m., she often saw nary a soul in the time it took to complete the entire circuit. The solitude and her steady pace encouraged a pleasant mindlessness.

It was a Tuesday morning. As was her routine, she jogged to the town limits, then turned around to return. Shabazz pulled back on the leash, barking and refusing to go along with her.

This was not Shabazz’s typical happy-to-be-a-dog bark, nor was it his don’t-mess-with-me bark. This sounded more like a look-at-me bark. “What’s the matter?” she asked him.

Shabazz dragged Mazie forward to the sign that welcomed visitors to Golden Springs. Only it wasn’t Golden Springs anymore. Overnight, somebody had dislodged the letters of the word Springs and replaced it with a new word, stenciled and spray painted: Showers.

And that wasn’t all. The water supply for the three-tiered waterfall fountain had been dyed bright yellow.

Mazie thought, This prank has Burl Slocum’s signature all over it. Who else would’ve concocted something so vile and irreverent, and yet so funny. Welcome to Golden Showers, indeed.