Family Jewels

Tony Hays

Uncle Monroe Higgins came up with the idea.  Aunt Tillie had just set a fresh pitcher of tea on Mama's kitchen table, and Monroe and Daddy were filling up their glasses.  Daddy and him are brothers.  Grandma said they were cut from the same bolt of cloth.  Mama said they were poured from the same bottle of whiskey.  Grandma didn't like it when Mama said that.  But, then, Grandma never liked most things that Mama said.  And even at thirteen, I'd learned that staying out from between those two was an absolute necessity of life.

Anyway, it was Uncle Monroe who first come up with the plan.  "Well, dammit, let's just go and get it."

"Don't belong to you," Mama pointed out while she washed up the lunch dishes.

"Belongs to us more than to them Webbers.  No good, sorry-down-to-the-bone, white trash.  Why should they have the only ex-tant piece of furniture made by Great Grandaddy Burrell?"  We had just come back from Uncle Ephraim's funeral—he was ninety-seven—and the crowd of family had dwindled down to us.  Burrell had been Ephraim's daddy, and when he died, he left everything to Ephraim.  Rightly speaking, Ephraim was more of a great uncle to me, but that wasn't really important.  Kinfolk are kinfolk.

"What right have they got to it?" Monroe wanted to know.

I'd planted myself on the floor, out of the way, and was listening to ZZ Topp on my Walkman, but I heard most of what went on.

"Well," Mama grunted, "none."  It hurt her to admit it.  I could tell that by the way she pretended to drop Grandma's favorite, china, vegetable dish by accident.  I caught a smile hiding behind her hand though as the bowl shattered all over the floor.

Grandma was scraping leftovers off the plates, and she held her breath and counted to ten while Aunt Tillie hustled over and swept up the pieces, kicking me in the shin on her way to stop the grin spreading across my face.  Tillie was especially disturbed; she'd had her eye on that vegetable dish for years, and each family funeral brought her closer and closer to it.  Or so said Mama.

Daddy wasn't talking yet, as was his habit.  He listened to Monroe and he listened to the women.  After a while, he'd quit listening and jump right in, making decisions and ordering everybody around, just like he did at that factory he worked at in Nashville.

"They did see after him those last years," Tillie said, her drying cloth squeaking across a glass.  "That's why he left all that stuff down there, don't you know."

"I'd leave all my things down there, too, if Bessie Webber saw after me the way she saw after Ephraim," Monroe laughed, his jowls shaking and jiggling.  

"Figured she already had," scowled Tillie.

Uncle Monroe was a big man, and he had the sex-drive of a prime-of-life tom cat.  When they were youngsters, Daddy caught him in the barn with a cow wedged into a loading chute.  And they was humping away.  Anyway, the only reason I know that story is because Daddy caught me down to the barn with the same idea in mind.  He told me I'd go blind.  I said he was crazier than shit, and he told me to take a long hard look at Monroe and didn't I notice the fact that he wore bifocals.  But ever since he filled me in on it, I'd noticed Uncle Monroe on more than one occasion standing at the yard fence and staring at a Holstein heifer with a faraway look in his eyes.  By that time, I was set on Mrs. Whitaker, my fifth period geography teacher, who probably wasn't as easy as a Holstein but was damn well prettier.

"Bessie Webber," Mama began, picking up the last piece of the vegetable dish, "has infected every man she's come in contact with, including your Great Uncle Ephraim."

"With what?"  I was curious.  Seemed like people ought to stay away from her if she was infecting everybody, but I got the distinct impression that people weren't doing what they should.  And while I knew something about such things from health class, I'd never heard my folks talking about them out in the open.

"Never you mind."  Daddy entered the fray.

"Why are Webbers `sorry-down-to-the-bone white trash'?"  I retreated to safe ground.

Aunt Tillie looked at me like I was more than half crazy.  She had a nervous tic in her right eye, and it was sure ticking now.  "Webbers wouldn't know honest work if it came up and kicked them in the stomach.  Talk, talk, talk, that's all they know how to do.  Talk and fornicate, that is."

Grandma pushed some white hairs out of her face and squared herself on the assemblage.  "Now, before you forget, Ephraim's wife, a saint on Earth if there ever was one, was a Webber."

"And the only one that was worth her salt," Mama pointed out.  "Not been another sober Webber before or since."

Monroe eyed her steadily.  "That's why we've got to go get that shaving stand."

The shaving stand was a prime jewel in the family crown.  Uncle Ephraim kept it at his house after his daddy died.  It was a fine-looking piece of furniture, all inlaid wood and fancy trimmings.  Great Grandaddy Burrell was a master craftsman, which was more than could be said about Ephraim.  Burrell built a lot of furniture for them big houses in Nashville back around the turn of the century, but this shaving stand was the only piece left in the family.  The story went that Burrell hid away for three weeks while he built it.  Took all his concentration, they said.

Uncle Ephraim was a good enough old man, I guess.  His wife, Aunt Effie, died right after I was born.  Ephraim would travel around from nephew to nephew to niece to niece.  He'd stay one place two weeks, the next three, never really making a nuisance of himself, but, well, Uncle Ephraim was different.

You see, Ephraim never got use to indoor plumbing.  Seems that something about a flush toilet put him off his mark.  But, by the 1960s, most places had flush toilets.  For any other man, that would have been a tough problem to whip.  But Ephraim, always one for his own comfort, found a way to remedy the situation.  He simply brought his own slop jar with him, lugging it around from relative to relative.

But that didn't settle everything by a long shot.  Next came the question of who was going to empty it.  Well, when he showed up on our doorstep, it became obvious that Daddy wasn't gonna empty it, and my oldest brother Elbert, said, "The hell if I'm gonna empty it," and I was doing detention for adding lemon brandy to the lemonade at the school cafeteria when the decision was made.  So, Mama was elected.  And though she grumbled a lot, I got the distinct feeling that she gained a great appreciation for the modern miracle of the flush toilet.

But with Uncle Ephraim dead, and slop jars and chamber pots going for fifty dollars a set, the question arose as to who would get Uncle Ephraim's.  (Not surprisingly, they were the only things of Uncle Ephraim's not up at the Webbers).  Tillie started out the door with one, headed to her and Monroe's car, but Mama tripped her and slid the slop jar out of her hands on the way down.

"I earned it," she grumbled, stowing it away.

Tillie didn't like that much, but there wasn't a whole hell of a lot she could say.

But the question of the shaving stand still hadn't been settled.  Daddy stroked his mustache and Monroe scratched his ass.  Monroe's last pronouncement had laid the issue squarely out in the open and Daddy kept stroking his mustache, and Monroe, now that he had said what he had to say, kept scratching his ass.  I stayed on the floor, substituting Lynrd Skynrd for ZZ Topp, and slipping Uncle Monroe's new copy of Playboy out of his back pocket.

Grandma, as usual, put the thing in perspective.  She looked from Daddy to Monroe and frowned.  "You gonna keep pulling at the hair on your lip?  And are you gonna keep pawing at your butt?  Or are you gonna go get the thing?"

Daddy quit stroking his mustache and Monroe pulled his hand away from his tail.  "You're right.  Let's do it."

*   *   *   *   *

Well, the upshot of the whole thing was that me and Daddy and Mama and Aunt Tillie and Uncle Monroe and Grandma was gonna go up to Webber's Hollow and get the shaving stand.  Just bust by God in and get it.  If the truth be told, they didn't want me to go along at first, but Grandma chimed in on that point.

"He has to go."

"He's too young," Daddy argued.

"Not a one of us can crawl through the window and open the door if nobody's at home," Grandma narrowed her eyes like she was emphasizing the point.

"But, . . ." Daddy began until he saw that "don't backtalk me" look growing on Grandma's face.  He shut up.  Next thing I knew, I was in the back of the truck bumping down the road.

Seeing as how I had my headset on and I was listening to Lynyrd Skynyrd's "Gimme Back My Bullets," I never paid any attention to how all five of them scrunched up in the front seat of Daddy's Mazda King Cab, but when we jerked to a stop in the Webber's yard (scattering four pigs and three little Webbers in our path) I did notice that they sort of unfolded from the truck, and Grandma looked like she had added a wrinkle or two.

The Webber place had seen better days.  Maybe.  No grass in the yard and three car engines lay rusting against a big oak. I climbed down out of the truck and saw a slimy little creek that bordered the yard; something green and scummy covered the water.

Pulling back the headset, an awesome noise replaced the sounds of Ronnie Van Zandt.

"What the hell would you be wanting?"

I'd heard about Virgil Webber all my life, but I sure wasn't expecting what I saw.

He was six foot eight at least, and he looked like he put his overalls on at the age of three and never took them off.  At least, I don't see how he could take them off.  He was leaning against a big white satellite dish, and there must have been a half-dozen little ones hanging on to his legs.  Skinny, little kids wearing not a whole lot more than a smile.

"God almighty," I croaked.  "He's fatter than four cows."  The rolls of flab underneath his arms looked like they were strangling to death in those overalls.

"Watch your manners, boy," Uncle Monroe cautioned, whacking the back of my head.  He belched on me and a blast of Jack Daniel hit my nose.  Seemed like there'd been some liquid fortifying going on in the cab of the truck.

Daddy took a step forward, like he did most every time he met somebody new, scratching at his crotch as he went, and Virgil Webber edged up closer too.  But when Mr. Webber went to return the greeting, he couldn't get past the rolls to get up in there.

Finally, he just stuck his hand out and Daddy sort of looked at it for a minute and then took it in his.

"Hey, Virgil," Daddy smiled.

"Hey, yourself.  Ain't you Ephraim's nephew?"  Mr. Webber's jaws jiggled when he talked, and for a minute or so after he finished, too.

"Yep.  We just had the burying today."

"That's too bad," Mr. Webber said.  His eyes were set real far back in his head and it was hard to see what color they were.  Mama used to call eyes like that "pig eyes."  "Ephraim was a good old man.  Never harmed a soul."

"Yep," Daddy agreed, shuffling his feet some.  "Yep."

"Yep," Virgil agreed, nodding his head and pursing his lips like the preacher does when he's heard some real sobering news.  "Yep."  An idea hit Virgil and it must have been the first he'd had in a while because his eyes sparked a little way back in their holes.  "Yep, we'll miss him right much.  He's always right regular.  First of the month, he'd show up long about the time his social security check did."

Somehow, I got the feeling that Mr. Webber was gonna miss the check more than Uncle Ephraim, but right then didn't seem to be the time to point that out.

"Well, Virgil, the reason we come up here is . . ." Daddy began.

Mr. Webber hoisted up his overalls till the seat rode right up his crack and he propped his thumbs behind the straps.  "Yeah, why don't you get to the point."

I saw sweat bead up on Daddy's forehead.

"We don't have a lot to remember Uncle Ephraim by, and we know he kept his belongings over here to your place.  We was wondering if there might be something of Ephraim's we could have."  Daddy was dancing all around the point.  But I figured that was because he didn't want Mr. Webber to know exactly what he was aiming for yet.

Mr. Webber pulled a hand away from a strap and went to scratching his jaw.  Looked like he was gonna be pretty thorough about it, too, and I was beginning to worry.  We didn't have time for him to do the whole jaw; the sun would be setting in a couple of hours and I had plans for later on.  But, he broke it off in mid-scratch.

"Don't suppose there's anything here left of Ephraim's.  Bessie May took on so after he died that she up and burned just about everything."

"What in the hell'd she do that for?" Uncle Monroe jumped in.

"Ephraim probably forgot to sign his last check over to her," Grandma said, squinting at Mr. Webber.

Mr. Webber's eyes narrowed back down to tiny little specks.  "Which check?"

"Virgil," Daddy began, paying no mind to the check issue.  "You positively certain there's nothing left."

Mr. Webber went back to scratching his jaw again.  "Reckon so," he said after a minute or two.  "Reckon so."

About that time, Grandma moved up beside me.  I felt something kick me hard in the shin.

"Mingle, boy," Grandma hissed.

"Well," Virgil told Daddy as I began strolling by, easing around the far side of the satellite dish, "on second thought, there could have been something taken to the gully out back.  Maybe."

My heart raced a thousand times faster than usual as I circled Mr. Webber.  He glanced at me sideways, snorted a little, and then turned back to Daddy.

"Who are you?"  A smiling, dirty face poked out from under the dish and looked up at me while I caught sight of another one crawling out of a hole in the underpenning of the house.

"Bud Higgins."  I sort of pushed by him and got a good look at the porch.  Three women.  One looked to be about fifty, still well set-up; the second was about thirty-five wearing jeans and a sweatshirt.  She wasn't bad looking either, for being that old.  Reminded me of Mrs. Whitaker in a saggy sort of way.

The third one was downright good-looking.  She was maybe seventeen and wearing real tight Levis and a t-shirt cut down at the sleeves and in front.  Her hair was rusty-brown and hung all the way over her shoulders and down her back.

"Come up here, boy."  It was the middle one that called me, but I was still looking at that young one.  God love her, she was all woman and more.  She stood up once and gave me a side view, and Jesus Christ, I almost fainted.  Her chest stretched that t-shirt to the limit and her tail end filled them jeans up just right.  She could have been a centerfold in one of Uncle Monroe's magazines.

Back behind me, I could hear Daddy and Mr. Webber still yakking back and forth.  Uncle Monroe jumped in every once in a while, but I didn't hear Mama, Aunt Tillie, or Grandma saying much.  I figured they were going to let the men handle it, or mess it up one.

Anyway, I loosened up my pants some and climbed up to the porch.  A chicken squawked and flew off, leaving feathers floating in the air.  I watched where I stepped to stay out of the chicken droppings, but that was wishful thinking.

The older woman had a lot of gray in her hair, but her eyes were a deep brown.  She looked at me real hard and said, "You Ephraim's nephew?"

I swallowed and shook my head.  "Great nephew."

"Same difference.  I'm Bessie.  This here's my sister's girl, Earline.  And that young one is her daughter, Linda Ruth.  Come closer and let me get a good look at you."

I took a step and that young one, Linda Ruth, she opened her mouth a little and let her tongue slide out and across her teeth some.  A cold sweat broke out on my neck.

"He don't look a lot like Ephraim," Earline said.

"Part of him does, or at least looks like it does," said the young one, staring at my pants.  "Don't you think, Aunt Bessie?"

The older woman grinned a little.  "Could be, could be."  She stood up and opened the screen door.  "Come in here, boy.  I got a chore I need done and Virgil can't get up off his fat ass long enough to do it."

"What is it?"  All a sudden, I wasn't sure I wanted to go inside.  Glancing back over my shoulder, I saw  Mama watching me real close and a frown wrinkled up around her eyes and mouth.

"Let's go boy; I hadn't got all day."  She looked back at Daddy and Virgil arguing.  "I didn't burn it all, boy.  Virgil's just being ornery.  Do this chore for me and I'll see that you get something of Ephraim's."

"Yeah, come on, Jordieddd," Linda Ruth said.

Well, hell, I thought about it once or twice, twisted it right and left.  Didn't seem to be any harm.  I mean, I was going to get what we was after.  Well, maybe I was.  And Grandma did tell me to get inside the house.  So, when that gal twitched her tail a time or two and went through the door, I just naturally followed.

And then Mama yelled.

"Lord God Jesus!  Them harlots are taking him to their den of iniquity!"

But I was already in the house by then and I wasn't turning back.

The inside of the house was dark, almost too dark to see much of anything.  Smelled stuffy in there, sort of moist and old, like somebody pissed on all the furniture and it never dried out.  Bessie Webber was trudging through the house.  Earline flopped down on the couch in front of a television tuned to the Home Buying Channel.  Some Elvis impersonator was advertising the official Elvis Presley designer napkin set, each one bearing a scene from an Elvis movie.  I followed Bessie back into the kitchen as Earline reached for the phone.

The sink was piled ten plates high and they were soaking (or I guess you could call it soaking) in a basin of grayish water.  Some round-looking, brownish-green things were floating on top, but I couldn't tell what they were, though they might have been leftover peas from the day, or week, before.

I followed Bessie over to the sink and she stood to the side of it.  "Listen, sugar," she said, "I need you to unstop this drain."

Well, I looked at her, and then I looked at the sink.  I rocked on my heels a might and that rotting linoleum on the floor crackled under my weight.  A gurgle sounded in the sink and it looked like something was moving in there.  I gulped.

"How?"  It was the only thing I could get out.

She crossed her arms underneath her boobs and sort of hefted them up.  "Just stick your hand down in there and unclog it," she said.

There I was.  In the house.  I could still hear Mama and Daddy and Virgil Webber arguing like scalded cats, and they seemed to be getting closer, but I was still all alone.  Sort of.  The sink gurgled again and something slithered across the surface.  But, hard as it seemed, I was taught to respect my elders.  Even Bessie Webber.

Taking a deep breath, I rolled back my sleeve and took a step towards the sink.

Miss Bessie was smiling.

My stomach turned a flip.

I gulped again and stuck my hand over the edge of the basin.

"Goddamnit to hell!"

I yanked my hand back like I'd been snake bit and Bessie Webber almost jumped out of her panties.  She straightened her dress, readjusted her boobs, and looked back through an open door.

"What the hell's wrong with you, girl?"

"I lost my goddamn earring, Aunt Bessie!  Goddamnit to hell!"

"Jesus H. Christ, girl!  You make more noise than a cat in heat."  Bessie turned and trundled into the back room, motioning for me to follow.

Only three pieces of furniture in that room--a cedar wardrobe, a big rumpled-looking bed, and Grandaddy Ephraim's shaving stand.  My eyes got kind of round and big looking at that thing.  It was shorter than I remembered it, but just as finely done.  A shelf stuck out from the front and was held up by two lathe-turned legs.

Then I saw Linda Ruth.  She'd changed into a cut-up  University of Tennessee sweat shirt and short pants that were a size too small, but I wasn't complaining and more than just my eyes were taking notice.

"Where'd it go?" Miss Bessie asked.

Linda Ruth pointed at the shaving stand.  "Under there.  And I can't reach it."

"Jordie'll get it for you, won't you Jordie?" Miss Bessie gave me a knowing look.  "Then he can go back to the sink."

I tried to say "Sure" but it came out in a stutter even I couldn't understand.  I wasn't paying any attention to those other voices, shouting and arguing, and sounding like they were in the front room.

So I dove underneath that overhanging shelf and stuck my hand under the shaving stand.  I felt and felt and felt.  "I can't find it."

"Jordie."

The voice was almost in my ear.  I looked out from underneath that stand and Linda Ruth was bending over and had me blocked in.  She was pretty near nose to nose with me and that orange sweat shirt was hanging down and I could see all the way in.  She had big old titties and the nipples were just, Jesus, it's hard to describe them, all pretty and pink.  And there wasn't no use trying to keep anything from showing; the time for that was long past.  A hard sweat broke around my forehead and my neck.

"You like what you're seeing, Jordie?"

I gulped and nodded.  

"Find my earring and I'll let you squeeze them," Linda Ruth promised, her lips damn near touching mine.

I nodded again and stuck my hand back under that shaving stand.  Nothing, not Mama or nothing, was gonna stop me from finding that earring.  Besides, Linda Ruth didn't move and she had me blocked in.  Just about the time my hand closed around that little earring, all hell broke loose.

"What kind of perverted things are you doing to my baby boy?"  Mama's voice rattled the window casings.  "Frank, they're raping my baby!"

Linda Ruth stood up and I swiveled around underneath there, pulling my knees up against my chest.  "I ain't doing nothing like that," Linda Ruth protested.  "He's helping me with something."

"Jordie!!  Talk to me, boy!" Mama was almost crying, and I heard Daddy hollering from the front room.

I kept my mouth shut and sort of studied some writing on the bottom of the overhanging shelf above my head while the women went at it.  Down there at leg level, I could see Mama's white hose moving in on Linda Ruth's bare legs.

"Get out of my way, you little whore!  Quit perverting my boy!" Mama screamed.  Seemed to me like she must have forgotten her religion a little.

About then, I heard a shout come from the front room.  "Earline, don't grab me there.  My wife's in the next room!"  It was Uncle Monroe.

Mama must have grabbed Linda Ruth then cause all a sudden she was laying on the floor next to me.

Aunt Tillie screamed at Earline, and Monroe told Earline not to get that close to him, but sounded to me like he lacked conviction.

Virgil told Daddy to take whatever the hell he wanted but to get out.

Somebody picked up the shaving stand and there I was out in the open, knees tucked up under my chin.

I caught a glimpse of Virgil, fat flapping, wedged in the doorway and straining like misery to get through.

And then Mama swatted at my britches and I put the earring in Linda Ruth's hand.  She leaned over and kissed me on the cheek, real wet and warm-like and whispered, "Come back later," and that's all it took and then Mama was yelling at me, "You done wet your britches!" and Jesus Christ, I didn't think I was ever gonna get out of there!

I never felt so good and so bad all at once in my life.

*   *   *   *   *

Well, we finally got home.  Aunt Tillie moved into their extra bedroom for a month.  She said that Uncle Monroe encouraged Earline Webber and nothing that that slut had touched was gonna be touching her any time soon.

Mama stayed mad at Daddy for two months, though I was never really sure why.  At least I don't remember any talk of him being touched by anybody, but Mama was still mad at him and she could hold a good grudge.  She made me read the Bible every day for two weeks and then she made me read a bunch of pamphlets about venereal disease and one on obesity.

But the shaving stand was there, sitting in our front hall, and Grandma was pretty pleased about the whole business.  She slipped me five dollars when we got back and told me I'd been a good boy and done what she told me and that I was the reason we got the shaving stand back.  But I noticed she didn't tell Mama that she was the one that sent me in the house.

At first, I intended to tell everybody what I read on the underside of the shaving stand.  But, hell, everybody was already mad at each other and it didn't seem right to tell them that stamped right there plain as day were the words "Made by Cincinnati Cabinet and Wardrobe Company, Cincinnati, Ohio."  No wonder Grandpa Burrell disappeared for three weeks.  Took him that long to go up there and get it.  But, after it was all said and done, I didn't guess it mattered none.  And by then, I was busy trying to figure how to get back up in Webber's Hollow without Mama finding out.

The End