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Christmas flyers had made Nonny run late and worn her patience thin as gauze. The pasty-faced man wearing the Santa Claus suit on the flyer looked as authentic as a tub of margarine.
Margarine, she thought. What a boatload of crap that was.
Nonny could still remember her mother stirring yellow food dye into a white slab that resembled lard, which marketers sold as being more nutritious than butter.
“It’s hydrogenated vegetable oil, loaded with trans fats,” she explained. Though she’d talked until she was blue in the face about the ills of margarine, her mother preferred it to butter right up to her dying day.
She swore under her breath as she hauled the last empty tray inside the post office, thinking nothing had changed in her forty years on Earth. If anything, it had gotten worse. Her back aching from the weight of the flyers she’d hauled around, she silently damned retail stores and outlets for not allowing Halloween and Thanksgiving to be turned off before switching Christmas on. To her thinking, they could just forget Christmas altogether. Though she enjoyed the study of myths, she was not a believer in them, in particular, the one this season represented. Neither the traditional nor the commercial version.
Nonny was one of the last contractors to finish up. The front lobby almost empty, the sound of laughter from the front lobby caught her attention. It came from a mother and child picking up what looked to be an early Christmas package. She paused to study the little girl, whose eyes were trained on a cardboard box that had just arrived. She wondered how any mother could allow a child to believe in a mythical creature that rewarded goodness with gifts au gratis. No strings attached.
In the next instant, an image popped into her mind. The fake Santa Claus on the marketing flyer was handing her the baby Jesus. But as she reached for the baby, it dissolved into a crumpled Big Mac wrapper and the Santa turned into a sneering Ronald McDonald. That dissolved into an image of her discarding the wadded paper into the trashcan. In the next fade, she was standing in front of the trashcan, hearing the crumpled wrapper cry like a baby doll as it fell through the slot.
Her lips numb, Nonny pried the image from her mind. “DTs?” she mumbled. “After all this time, I get the DTs?” She stumbled from the post office, saying, “Pull yourself together, Folsom. You have things to do.”
Nonny made sure she always had things to do. This day, she had to pick up outdated produce at the Piggly Wiggly and take it to the Homeless Shelter, which made it questionable that she would get to jelly that afternoon.
“Just have to do it tomorrow,” she said under her breath. “Sunday or not.”
Her parents would never allow work to be done on Sundays, saying the good book admonished against such things, and she had continued the ritual. Right then, she wondered why and decided it had everything to do with the nature of rituals. Once imprinted, they stuck.
Like margarine, she thought.
She drove the rusty Jeep to the Texaco station on Highway 69, another of her rituals. Filling the tank on Saturday night meant she could drive straight to the post office on Monday, the busiest day of the week. A necessary ritual if she was to finish before dark.
On the way, she recalled how some route carriers found places other than people’s mailboxes to deposit junk mail. A carrier in Oklahoma City had stored flyers still in the mailbags in his garage. Postal inspectors found stacks of #3 postal bags piled in a corner and nailed his hide to a jail door. Nonny pulled up to a pump and shut off the engine, talking as she climbed out of the Jeep.
“El loco dopo. Anyone stupid enough to leave flyers in their garage, and leave them in official pouches, deserves to get caught.”
As she fitted the nozzle into the gas tank, Nonny began to wonder how she would’ve handled the situation. Return the bags to the post office, she decided. Empty, of course. A lot of people didn’t know that postmasters were required to log mailbags, both incoming and outgoing, and had to produce the logs when postal inspectors paid unscheduled visits. To her thinking, that was the mistake el loco dopo made. He should’ve brought back the mailbags and destroyed the flyers. Fire would be her preference. An old oil drum and can of gasoline and pftttt, ashes to ashes. Then she recalled that laws now outlawed the burning of trash.
“Crap,” she mumbled. “A person can’t get away with shit anymore.”
Suddenly, she wished for a bygone day when there was less bureaucracy and more freedom, as in territorial days. She recalled how outlaws were considered mythical heroes back then. Jesse James. Cole Younger. Belle Starr. Now there was a woman for you. The famous woman bandit of Outlaw Territory didn’t take crap from anyone. She ambushed anyone who stood in her way—even one of her husbands.
Nonny sighed, wondering why she couldn’t live someplace like that. Then she had an awakening. “Hell—this is Outlaw Territory,” she mumbled.
That thought dampening an already dripping mood, she focused on the spinning meter on the gasoline pump. She found the blinking meter not unlike the eyes of students she used to lecture: wide-eyed kids eager to absorb the spiel coming out her mouth. She shook her head, remembering how she once enjoyed being one of the chosen people who spewed humanitarian gospel from a lectern. That line of reasoning led Nonny to consider that some of her last words hadn’t been entirely accurate and she felt an ethical need to correct herself.
“This was Outlaw Territory,” she told the pump. “That myth is dead, too. Dead . . . dead . . . dead—”
“Yoo-hoo, Nonny. What’s got you talking to yourself? Did someone die?”
Startled out of her daymare, Nonny looked toward the next pump. Seeing Ruby Barlow filling up her Chevy sedan, she felt her face turn warm.
“No, just daydreaming,” she said. “I was wishing this was still Outlaw Territory when there weren’t so many rules. I’d like to turn outlaw and burn all these damn Christmas flyers . . .” She waved her words away, preferring not to explain the way her mind worked. “How are things with you?” She watched Ruby shut off her pump, say something to her sister, who sat in the front seat, then walk her direction.
“Well, right now,” Ruby said, “I’ve got an outlaw son running a bit too free for my liking.”
“Son? Well, that could only be Mack. He coming back for Christmas this year?”
Ruby looked startled. “Why, he’s home right now. But didn’t I tell you that already? I was planning on you coming to supper tonight so you two could visit.” She paused, frowning. “I’m just positive I told you about Mack being home.”
Frowning, Nonny said, “Something troubling you, Ruby? Is Pa all right?”
“What? Oh, we’re heading to the home to see him right now. But no, Pa isn’t all right. He’s still insisting on being buried with those mules—and Mack is planning on looking for them. Sister told him some cockamamie story about Pa burying them animals together and he believed her!”
Nonny put her arm around Ruby’s shoulder. “Maybe you’re making too much out of this—”
“That’s just what Mack said,” Ruby snapped, pulling away. “I was hoping for a little understanding from you, Nonny—Lord knows I’m not getting it elsewhere.”
As Nonny pulled back, Ruby paused, looking remorseful. “Oh, hon. I didn’t mean that. You’ve seen me through some hard days since you come home—and I haven’t even thanked you for those persimmons you left yesterday.”
“I had a good time picking them,” Nonny said, considering where to go next. “I’ll do anything I can to help, Ruby, you know I will. But if Pa won’t change his mind, then that affidavit he drew up is as legal as it can be.”
“Tell me again what it said.” A hopeful look crossed Ruby’s face. “Maybe there’s a loophole we overlooked. Right now, I need a big loophole.”
Nonny took a deep breath. “Well, in short, all a person has to do is state his wishes in a sworn affidavit and assign somebody to follow through with it. You can get something like that notarized lots of places. The post office does that. Realtors also notarize things. All kinds of people carry around notary seals.”
“Well, I’ll swan, that’s just what Pa did. I wonder who told him about that dumb law. I swear, who in their right mind would bury one mule, much less two.” Ruby hesitated, then held Nonny’s eyes. “You think insanity is genetic, Nonny? Pa had a sister put away down to Vinita once.”
“I don’t think your dad’s insane, Ruby.” Nonny did not reveal that burying even one mule sounded strange to her. Typically, people had large animals that died hauled to a rendering plant. “Sounds like his memory’s improved though, if he told Sister where Bill and Jack are.”
“But you see, he didn’t. Sister came up with that malarkey on her own.”
“And you can’t remember where they are?”
“Me? Why no, I was just a baby then. But you know how Mack gets when he sets his mind to something.”
Nonny did know how Mack’s mind worked. When he proposed marriage at high-school graduation, she told him she wanted to go to college, to make something of herself before settling down. He had promptly joined the military and disappeared from her life. From what Ruby said from time to time, he had all but disappeared from hers as well.
“Uncle George might know,” Nonny said, turning thoughtful. “He and Pa farmed at the same time, sometimes in fields side by side. If anyone would know anything about those mules, he would. Mack might want to run by and talk to him, he’d love the company. Or better yet . . .”
Nonny let her voice trail off, hoping Ruby would not notice.
“Better yet, what?” Ruby asked.
“Well,” Nonny said, kicking herself for speaking before she thought things through. “There’s a dinner-on-the-grounds tomorrow at Scipio Church. I’m taking Uncle George so he can visit with other old timers. I put a flyer in your mailbag about it just this morning.” She paused, searching for words that would give her a way out. “Still, I doubt Uncle George would remember anything. His memory’s failing, too.”
“A dinner-on-the-grounds. Lord, I haven’t been to one of them in a coon’s age. My work keeps me tied to the house.” Ruby paused, eyes widening. “Why, we’ll just all come—Mack, too. If nothing else, we’ll have ourselves a good old time, forget about this nonsense for a bit.”
Nonny forced a smile. “Guess I’ll see you tomorrow then.” She reached for the door handle.
“That’d be a good time for you and Mack to catch up on old times, wouldn’t it?” Ruby smiled broadly, but the smile faded as quickly as it had appeared. “It’s just that . . . Well, I always pictured things turning out different. I wonder to this day what went wrong, what could’ve caused you two to break up— Oh, there I go, turning sour again.”
Nonny put a smile on her face that felt as authentic as margarine.
Ruby paused, looking thoughtful. “Speaking of throwing away useless mail, I’d like it if you’d throw away anything comes addressed to Grace Anderson. Just throw it in the trash with those Christmas flyers.”
“But, don’t you want to forward it on to her? First-class mail be forwarded.”
“You got an address for Hell?” Ruby snapped. “Because as far as I know, that’s where she is!” As the words left her mouth, Ruby’s face flushed bright red. “Oh, I’m so sorry I said that, Nonny. Just throw anything else to her that comes in the trash. Okay?”
Nonny frowned. “I can’t do that, Ruby. I wasn’t serious about throwing the flyers away. I’d like to, but I can’t break the law.”
Ruby sighed. “You always were a good girl. I shouldn’t have asked you to bend the rules. Let’s just let this whole business go. I’d never break John Law’s rules or ask anyone else to.” She hesitated, her eyes clouding. “You suppose Mack’s broke the law, Nonny? I sometimes wonder if he does his kind of work because he’s on the lam from something bad.”
A yell from Sister saved Nonny from a need to reply, but she heard her conscience ping as she waved to the departing sisters. I can’t speak for Mack breaking John Law’s rules, she thought, but I’ve sure as hell broken a few of another kind.
*****
At the back door of the Piggly Wiggly, Nonny loaded a crate of wilted carrots and sack of potatoes on the verge of rot, a half-bushel of limp green beans and bag of sprouting onions, and drove to the Homeless Shelter on Choctaw Street. The old stone building started life as a grocery, migrated to hardware, then to derelict. It now served those in the same situation. The homeless, the drifters, the down and outers.
The rear door opened as she pulled to the back of the building and a scruffy bearded man came toward her, smiling. Chester Barnes. The administrator, coordinator, janitor, and general-all-around flunky that ran the place.
Nonny had met Chester at Norman, where she had taught English and he taught philosophy. His outgoing manner and sense of humor made him popular with his students, but a late-in-life situation that disclosed a side of Chester he’d kept closeted made him unpopular with the administrators of a university in the middle of the Bible Belt. He came out of the incident bearing scars inflicted by a gang of “straight-laced heteros,” as he called heterosexuals, a heightened appreciation for tenure, and fewer friends. After retirement, he decided to give back to the community rather than live the remainder of his life vicariously watching TV soaps. He returned to McAlester about the same time as Nonny had.
“I about give up on you,” he called out.
“Christmas flyers,” she yelled back. She opened the backend so he could retrieve the produce. “Have to cull some of this stuff, but looks like there’s enough for a good-size pot of soup.”
“Good! I got a pot ready to go, but it’s crowded tonight. We’ll need another pot later. Cold weather up north’s driving people south.” The barrel-chested man set the crate of vegetables on the ground, closed the rear hatch, and looked at Nonny expectantly. “Don’t suppose I could talk you into helping out. People get busy this time of year, so I’m left shorthanded. You up to ladling soup?”
Nonny snorted. “You know the answer to that one. You want, I can peel and chop this stuff and put it on to cook. But that’s all I can handle today.”
“Today?” White teeth glinted through gray scruff.
Nonny shot him a look. “Today, tomorrow, and the day after that,” she snapped. “I figured by this time you’d know better than to ask.” She studied the still-grinning man. “What’s up, Chester? Just say what’s on your mind, I hate it when you get cute with me.”
He folded his hands as if seeking absolution. “I’m thinking that if I keep asking, one of these days you’ll come clean with me.”
“Clean?”
“You know, tell me why you can’t look into the faces of these young drifters.”
“Wha—what?”
“Especially, young women drifters.”
Nonny’s back stiffened. “Think you’re pretty clever, don’t you? I expected more from you, Chester. Do I stick my nose into your affairs?”
Chester feigned a wince and kept on smiling. “Difference is, I’m not running away from my affliction of the flesh. When are you gonna face up to your affliction of the mind, or psyche, or soul, or whatever the hell it is? Take it from one who knows, Nonny. You can run but you can’t hide.”
“You want help or not?” she growled, making a move toward the Jeep.
“Hold up—hold up.” Chester Barnes did the palms-together business again. “You’re on. You cook and I’ll serve.”
Nonny followed Chester inside. An improvised kitchen had been converted from the storeroom of the old store and fitted out with donations begged off the Salvation Army. He immediately disappeared through a door to another room, larger and set up with tables and beds. She heard him in conversation with people, the clink of soup bowls being filled, and turned her back on the commotion.
Washing up at the sink, she grabbed an apron off a hook on the wall and set to work with a paring knife, trying to push Chester’s less-than-subtle philosophizing out of her mind. She knew he meant well, for the man didn’t have a mean bone in his body. He was a caregiver to his core.
She lost track of time, scraping carrots limp as noodles, rubbing skins off onions pushing new sprouts out the end, and scrubbing green beans that looked as though they’d been shat on by a bomb squad of crows. But in the end, she failed to shut down the noise in her mind.
“It’s their eyes, Chester,” she mumbled, hacking eyes from potatoes as though wielding a hatchet. “I looked and looked for that little girl with eyes like mine until I just couldn’t handle it anymore, so . . . ” She paused, breathing deep. “I gave up.”
