Fat Assassins (20 page)

“There was a battle at Scary Creek? I didn’t know that. Did the troops continue to fight on to Charleston?”

“Shoot no. This battle took place in July. The first civil war casualty of Charleston didn’t happen til the fall. If you can even really call it a casualty. All because a storekeeper refused to sell liquor to soldiers.”

“No way.”

“Yup. I reckon the shopkeeper’s son was trying to protect his dad and accidentally shot one of the soldiers.”

“Oh.”

“He only shot him in the leg, but they still insisted on hanging the young boy.

He was the first life lost in Charleston during the war.”

“Oh. That poor family!”

“War is a sad business.” From the pain on his face, you would have thought he’d been there. I guess he’s kinda like a method actor. “On a different note, Meryl brought some Ketchum grenades out this weekend. So, that was a treat.”

“They had grenades during the Civil War?” I asked.

“Sure.”

“Do you have to pull a pin before you drop, um I mean, throw it?” I looked at Ulyssa thinking about her grenade expertise.

“Nope. They ain’t like these new fangled grenades. They only blow up if they land square on the nose. They were real popular with the Union Army until the Confederates started catching ‘em with blankets and throwing them back.” He chuckled. “Meryl found ‘em in the woods between here and Charleston. He was out with his metal detector looking for treasure. He’s found a couple good ammo stores around town with that detector. I’m thinking about getting me one.”

“Pah. You spend too much time in the 1860s and not enough time here! If you got one of them detectors, I’d never see you.” Maria interjected. 

That’s a pretty true statement. Anyone who names their daughter after a Civil War General is a little too involved in history. I had never asked Ulyssa if it bothered her, being named after Ulysses S. Grant. She seemed to take it in stride and sometimes she even seemed to emulate the General with her bossy attitude.

“Hmmm. Maybe I will git me one then.” He teased her and she smacked him on the arm. “The next big reenactment is at Valley Park over in Hurricane in a few days. If y’all are interested I could get you tickets.”

“Yeah. That would be cool!” I answered. “I’ve never been to a reenactment before.”

Ulyssa groaned. Apparently she’d been to plenty.

“Shasta! So, how are your parents?” Maria asked, steering the conversation away from the Civil War and back to my parents.

“They’re doing good, Mrs. Grant.”

“They have the best produce in town. These tomatoes are from their fruit stand and they’re perfecto.” She gestured towards the stray tomatoes left on the bruschetta plate.

“Thanks. I’ll pass the compliment along.” Since Wicans commune with nature, it seemed a natural fit that my parents would run the Nitro fruit stand. I was just glad that most folks didn’t know about some of the new age ceremonies they held in the back yard to make the produce so good.

“So how’s work going?” Gerald asked Ulyssa.

“Um. Work is good. Things aren’t so good for Rick, the boss though.” Nice deflection! This got their attention.

“Really? What’s wrong? Did that big government contract fall through?” He asked.

“Not so much. His wife found out he was cheating on her and the big reveal happened at Buck’s."

“Dios Mios! An adulterer! You must find somewhere else to work before he tries to snare you in his devil’s net!” This made me inhale soda up the back of my nose.

“You’ll never guess who he was sleeping with….?” Ulyssa paused for dramatic effect. “Emma Cutweiler!”

“JMJ! Does Salvo know?” Maria was totally captivated now.

“Yup. He found out at the same time Sheila did.” Ulyssa spent the rest of dinner explaining the details of last night’s big reveal. Gerald just shook his head not understanding this young generation and Maria seemed to be making mental notes, so she could recount the story at the hair salon.

“How have things been at the salon, mom?”

“Oh, you know. Drama, drama, drama. Peggy wants to change the name.”

“Why? I think it’s a cute name!”

“She wanted something more professional. The Best Little Hair House isn’t drawing the right kind of clientele. Too many men come in asking for happy endings. So, she’s gonna change it.”

“Does she have a new name yet?”

“Not yet. She has a few ideas. She wants something French to draw a more sophisticated customer.”

“She could name it Le Petite Salon or Les Dames!” Ulyssa offered. She took French in high school, while I struggled through Spanish.

“Ohh. Those sound nice. What do they mean?”

“Le Petite Salon means the Little Salon and Les Dames is the Ladies,”

“That would make a good name. You are such a good child! I’ll tell her!” She grabbed a pen and piece of paper. “Can you write it down for me?”

“Sure.” Ulyssa scribbled the phrase down and handed the paper back to her mom. “It’s been fun, but we should probably get going. We’re supposed to meet some friends at the races tonight.” Ulyssa said.

Maria looked at me, “You meeting your date again?”

“Um, it wasn’t really a date.”

“Really? He just make a-booty call? You’re a good girl.”

“No. It wasn’t a booty call. We just borrowed a movie from him. He’s just a friend. We could never date.”

“Why not?”

I immediately realized my mistake and why Ulyssa was so good at conversation diversion. I had given her too much information and now it was inquisition time.

“Lordy-mercy, Maria. Give the girl a break. You weren’t no innocent when we started dating.” He gave me and Ulyssa a wink.

This made Maria blush. “Oh. Hush up!”

“This is interesting. I don’t think I’ve heard any stories about mom when she was a young, wild woman.”

“She used to wear this one little, black mini skirt.” He stood up and held his hand at mid-thigh. “Wawow is all I can say. I had to fight the guys off with a stick so I could date her.”

Maria’s face got redder and she jumped up from the table. “You should hurry if you gotta meet your friends. Traffic might be bad.”

“And she wore this big high heels. A lot higher than you’ve got on Ulyssa. They made her almost as tall as me.” He stood on his tippie toes and wobbled around the kitchen.

Maria practically jerked the chairs out from underneath us and shoved us from the kitchen.

I was still laughing at Gerald prancing around the kitchen looking like a make believe drag queen in overalls when Jesus attacked my other ankle. I kept shaking my leg as Maria pushed us closer to the door, but Jesus wouldn’t relent.

“Thank Saint Rita for your visit. Don’t wait so long before you visit again. I love you.” She shove-hugged Ulyssa out the front door. “You too Shasta!” She ripped Jesus off my leg taking a chunk of my pants with him. Jesus sat in her arms grinning maniacally at me with the chunk of black polyblend hanging from his mouth.

“But we want to hear more about your wild years, mom!” Ulyssa taunted.

Maria slammed the screen door and waved at us. “Bye-bye.” 

Gerald came prancing up behind her still in imaginary drag. “A-bye girls. You watch out for those a-bad, a-bad boys!” He said in his best Italian accent. Maria slammed the main door muffling the rest of his warning.

“You’re parents are so funny!”

“You should trying living with them! It’s a wonder I turned out a normal as I did.”

“Aren’t you carrying a Desert Eagle under your armpit trying to kill someone?”

“Yeah, well….”

“And didn’t you help blow up a bunker yesterday?”

“Yeah.”

“You think that’s normal?”

“Hmmpph!”

Like most things in Nitro, the racetrack wasn’t exactly legal. Beaver, with the help of Cornnut and Ronnie, had carved an oblong dirt track on a parcel of his land and put a makeshift crash wall around the track. It was originally used for them to test cars and practice racing. But as more folks requested to use the track, Beaver realized the income potential and started charging for track time. Cornnut started organizing races with all the folks in town and it grew from there. Beaver even added bleachers two years ago and started charging for parking last year. It was a cheap evening out and had become a big event to go watch the races on Sundays to cheer on the local boys racing their stock cars. This was the first time we’d been to the races this fall and I was surprised to see a couple food and beer stands near the bleachers. Ulyssa turned left into the gravel parking lot and stopped at the folding chair where Tater sat taking money.

“Hey cuz! Save me a seat. I’ll be in at halftime. We stop charging for parking then.” He took our two dollars and waved us into the parking lot.

“Okay. See ya in there.”

We parked at end of the row and stopped by the porta-pottys on the way to the ticket booth. It was much smarter to use them before the race, when they were still clean. It was tough trying to balance on my sexy boots while trying not to touch any part of the plastic outhouse. Ulyssa didn’t sound as lucky because I heard some thuds and a dammit before she finally opened the door. She was standing on one foot with her other foot in the air and a shoe in her hand.

“Do you have any hand sanitizer?”

I dug in my purse and dragged out cleanwipe from KFC. "This is all I’ve got.”

“That’ll do.”

I opened the wipe and handed it to her. She started wiping the bottom of her foot with it.

“My high heel got stuck in one of the floor grates and my foot came right out of it. I lost my balance and had to put my foot down on that nasty floor. I want to at least try to clean it off before I try to put my shoe back on.” She used both sides of the wipe to clean her foot and held it in the air for a few minutes so it could dry before putting it back into her shoe.

Beaver gave us a toothy grin as we approached the ticket booth and handed him a ten dollar bill. “Heyth! Welcome to the Dirty Beaver Racetrack!” He laughed at his clever name choice. “I finally named the track thees year, but theth signs haven’th come in yet.” His oversized front teeth made it difficult for him to say H words.

“Great name!” I said grabbing our tickets.

“Good idea adding the food and beer stands!” Ulyssa added.

The compliments made his grin stretch even wider. “Have fun. Gonna be a good race tonighth!”

“Thanks, Beav!”

We made our way around the front of the bleachers and started looking for seating. We were thirty minutes early thanks to Ulyssa’s dad, so there were still some good spots open. We picked the third row from the front on the end. I preferred to sit on the very end of the row, so I wouldn’t have to climb over people if I needed to leave. We put enough space between us for Mitsy, Sam and Tater and laid our jackets out to save the seats. I hoped they showed up soon or we’d have a fight on our hands trying to save seats. People get kinda crazy about that kind of stuff around here.

I looked over to see who Beaver had working the concession stands. Tamera and Jennifer were working the food stand, but I couldn’t see who was serving beer. Tamera and Jennifer had a lot of side jobs.
How’d they get a job from
Beaver?
They didn’t seem to run in the same circles.

Bubba was sitting two rows behind us and gave us a wave. I’d never seen him at another race before. I guess he was finally immersing himself into the redneck culture.

Cornnut’s wife, Betty, sat down in front of us without even a hello. In his line of business, that was probably a safe approach. We were getting hassled about saving seats when Mitsy and Sam finally showed up. We spread out enough that we could save a spot for Tater without it being too obvious. We could hear some of the cars getting warmed up in the pit area. The rumble of the engines vibrated the bleachers and made it difficult to talk. It was even worse once the races started.

The first race was all the new racers from the surrounding counties and I didn’t recognize any of the names. It looked like this was turning into a full fledged racetrack. Beaver should be careful about extending his customer base outside locals. He could get into a lot of trouble running an illegal track. The car tires kicked up heavy dust and the thunder of the engines created a mob excitement in the stands that continued to build until the final race which had most of the Nitro racers. The races took so long because each racer did a lap on the course while an anonymous voice provided name and stats for the driver over a loud speaker.

“A grand welcome to Rob Taylor, who took first place in the amateur league
last year earning him his first shot in the veteran league this year. Can’t wait to
see what this newcomer can do!!”

Rob wasn’t a crowd favorite, so Tamera was his most vocal fan, screaming from the concession stand and slinging nachos all over the customers. He did his lap and pulled the car into the pit area to idle, waiting for everyone else to finish their intro lap.

“This is the second year of veteran racing for young Nitro local, Mitchell
Foster. His unique racing technique has earned him a couple second place wins,
but he hasn’t been able to grab the first place trophy yet.”
We stood up and cheered as he finished his lap and the next car came onto the track. Tater shoved his way up to the third row and scooted down so he could sit on the other side of Sam.