Barry Gifford - Sailor & Lula: The Complete Novels

Table of Contents

You need a man to go to hell with.

Tuesday Weld

Lula and her friend Beany Thorn sat at a table in the Raindrop Club drinking rum Co-Colas while watching and listening to a white blues band called The Bleach Boys. The group segued smoothly from Elmore Jamess Dust My Broom into Robert Johnsons Me and the Devil and Beany let out a snort.

I cant stand this singer, she said.

He aint so bad, said Lula. Carries a tune.

Not that, just hes so ugly. Guys with beards and beer guts aint quite my type.

Lula giggled. Seeins how youre about thick as a used string of unwaxed dental floss, dont know how you can criticize.

Yeah, well, if he says all that flab turns into dick at midnight, hes a liar.

Lula and Beany laughed and swallowed some of their drinks.

So Sailors gettin out soon, I hear, said Beany. You gonna see him?

Lula nodded and crushed an ice cube with her back teeth and chewed it.

Meetin him at the gate, she said.

I didnt hate men so much, said Beany, Id feel better wishin you luck.

Cant all husbands be perfect, Lula said. And Elmo probly wouldnta ever got that second one pregnant you hadnt kicked his ass out.

Beany twisted her blond bangs into a knot on her forehead.

Shoulda put a thirty-eight long in his groin, what I shoulda done.

The Bleach Boys kicked into some kind of Professor Longhair swamp mambo and Beany grabbed a waitress.

Bring us a couple more double-shot rum Co-Colas, kay? she said. Damn, Lula, look at that bitch wiggle.

You mean the waitress?

Uh huh. Bet if I had a butt like hers Elmo wouldnta stuck his dick in every other keyhole this side of the Tangipahoa.

Hard to say for sure, said Lula.

Beanys eyes watered up. I guess, she said. Only Id give up plentyValiums even, maybejust to have me some kind of a butt anyway, you know?

Sailor and Lula lay on the bed in the Cape Fear Hotel listening to the ceiling fan creak. From their window they could see the river as it entered the Atlantic Ocean and watch the fishing boats navigate the narrow channel. It was late June but there was a mild wind that kept them not uncomfortable, as Lula liked to say.

Lulas mother, Marietta Pace Fortune, had forbidden her to see Sailor Ripley ever again, but Lula had no intention of following that order. After all, Lula reasoned, Sailor had paid his debt to society, if thats what it was. She couldnt really understand how going to prison for killing someone who had been trying to kill him could be considered payment of a debt to society.

Society, such as it was, thought Lula, was certainly no worse off with Bob Ray Lemon eliminated from it. In her mind, Sailor had performed a service beneficial in the short as well as the long run to mankind and should have received some greater reward than two years in the Pee Dee River work camp for second-degree manslaughter. Something like an all-expenses-paid trip for Sailor with the companion of his choiceLula, of courseto New Orleans or Hilton Head for a couple of weeks. A top hotel and a rental car, like a snazzy new Chrysler LeBaron convertible. That would have made sense. Instead, poor Sailor has to clear brush from the side of the road, dodge snakes and eat bad fried food for two years. Because Sailor was a shade more sudden than that creep Bob Ray Lemon he gets punished for it. The world is really wild at heart and weird on top, Lula thought. Anyway, Sailor was out now and he was still the best kisser shed ever known, and what Mrs. Marietta Pace Fortune didnt find out about wasnt about to hurt her, was it?

Speakin of findin out? Lula said to Sailor. Did I write to you about my findin Grandaddys letters in the attic bureau?

Sailor sat up on his elbows. Were we speakin? he said. And no.

Lula clucked her tongue twice. I was thinkin wed been but I been wrong before. Sometimes I get like that now. I think somethin and then later think Ive said it out loud to someone?

I really did miss your mind while I was out at Pee Dee, honey, said Sailor. The rest of you, too, of course. But the way your head works is Gods own private mystery. Now what about some letters?

Lula sat up and fixed a pillow behind her back. Her long black hair, which she usually wore tied back and partly wrapped like a racehorses tail, fanned out behind her on the powder blue pillowcase like a ravens wings. Her large grey eyes fascinated Sailor. When he was on the road gang he had thought about Lulas eyes, swum in them as if they were great cool, grey lakes with small violet islands in the middle. They kept him sane.

I always wondered about my grandaddy. About why Mama never chose to speak about her daddy? All I ever knew was that he was livin with his mama when he died.

My daddy was livin with his mama when he died, said Sailor. Did you know that?

Lula shook her head. I surely did not, she said. What were the circumstances?

He was broke, as usual, Sailor said. My mama was already dead by then from the lung cancer.

What brand did she smoke? asked Lula.

Camels. Same as me.

Lula half rolled her big grey eyes. My mama smokes Marlboros now, she said. Used to be she smoked Kools? I stole em from her beginnin in about sixth grade. When I got old enough to buy my own I bought those. Now Ive just about settled on Mores, as you probably noticed? Theyre longer.

My daddy was lookin for work and got run over by a gravel truck on the Dixie Guano Road off Seventy-four, said Sailor. Cops said he was drunkdaddy, not the truck driverbut I figure they just wanted to bury the case. I was fourteen at the time.

Gee, Sailor, Im sorry, honey. I never would have guessed it.

Its okay. I hardly used to see him anyway. I didnt have much parental guiding. The public defender kept sayin that at my parole hearin.

Well, anyway, said Lula, turns out my mamas daddy embezzled some money from the bank he was clerkin in? And got caught. He did it to help out his brother who had TB and was a wreck and couldnt work. Grandaddy got four years in Statesville and his brother died. He wrote Grandmama a letter almost every day, tellin her how much he loved her? But she divorced him while he was in the pen and never talked about him to anyone again. She just refused to suffer his name. But she kept all his letters! Can you believe it? I read every one of em, and I tell you that man loved that woman. It must have broke him apart when she refused to stand by him. Once a Pace woman makes up her mind theres no discussin it.

Sailor lit a Camel and handed it to Lula. She took it, inhaled hard, blew the smoke out and half rolled her eyes again.

Id stand by you, Sailor, Lula said. If you were an embezzler.

Hell, peanut, Sailor said, you stuck with me after Id planted Bob Ray Lemon. A man cant ask for more than that.

Lula pulled Sailor over to her and kissed him soft on the mouth. You move me, Sailor, you really do, she said. You mark me the deepest.

Sailor pulled down the sheet, exposing Lulas breasts. Youre perfect for me, too, he said.

You remind me of my daddy, you know? said Lula. Mama told me he liked skinny women whose breasts were just a bit too big for their bodies. He had a long nose, too, like yours. Did I ever tell you how he died?