Davey’s Part
It started with a newspaper article, written by Judith, an ambitious and insecure reporter at the Lamplighter. Two color pictures—one of me in the hospital, one of Billie donating money at the pitcher’s mound—are positioned beneath the headline: LOCAL TEENS: HELPING OR HURTING? The bold, smaller line below says: Should the youngest Corn Dolly nominee in history be disqualified? The subsequent article has pictures of a Bible, meant to represent Big T’s. Judith has interviewed someone present at the Fork and Spoon the morning we set this thing in motion. Someone who rightfully questioned the authenticity of our claims.
Our threesome marches up the library sidewalk and through the plain glass door. There’s a Save the Harvest Festival flyer taped to the inside bulletin board and an ad for an upcoming chili supper at Community Church. The Marshall County Library: Otters Holt Branch is a festive little place—festive as any building with that many brown items can be. Brown shelves, brown carpet, brown walls. Even the two librarians have brown hair and brown eyes. I wonder if it’s in the job description. Nashville’s libraries have gone white and modern, but this reminds me of Waylan Academy’s reference section. I wish Thom were here to see me try this thing. He’d look up balls in the Oxford Dictionary and read a false definition that included my name.
But Thom is not here, and I have Woods and Janie Lee as my seconds today. The Harvest Festival committee is meeting one last time. Topics on the docket: Billie’s candidacy and discontinuing the festival. We know this courtesy of Abram, who went on a bowling date with Martha Bittlebee. As Woods said, “He rang me up last night and told me the scuttlebutt.” Woods said he used the term “snookie” in the description of Martha, and “Lord-a-mercy” in the description of the committee. Basically, we have a seventy-five-year old informant who is saying if we’re going to act, we need to act now, and he’s willing to put snookie on the line for the matter.
The latest issue of the Lamplighter is spread in front of every member. Twelve in total. Judith sits two chairs down from Ada May Adcock. She has punchy eyes that remind me of a grasshopper’s.
Woods has promised I can do the talking, since I did so little of it when he and Janie Lee formulated and executed this half-cocked plan. I very carefully avoided any form of painkiller this morning so I would be better suited to the task. My arm is throbbing, but that’s not where my mind is.
The committee doesn’t know what we’re here to say, only that we’ve interrupted their sacred gathering. No one seems happy about it. Several eyes drift accusingly toward Martha, who has the reputation of a large mouth.
I set Big T’s Bible on the table and begin when Ada May flourishes her arm, as if we are taking up precious time and should be snappy with what we came here to say. Wilma Frist slides the Bible in front of the paper and begins to thumb through the tissue-thin pages. I try not to get distracted by Big T’s ghostlike presence in this room.
Without going into detail, I paint them a picture as if I am back in debate club and this is my opening argument.
“We have a friend. Her name is Billie. You probably know her,” I say, because they all do. “But . . . do you know she is the sort of person who will be a pallbearer at your funeral, who jumps into snake-infested water, who makes Book Dollies and newspaper couches, who prays, who cleans up elementary schools, who sticks by her friends, even when it costs her public embarrassment?”
I let that land in their hearts.
“She is an atypical candidate,” I add, and then address the paper, picking it up and pointing at the large Times New Roman font. “But she deserves to be a nominee. Even if she doesn’t win.”
“But what about the fire?” someone in the corner says.
“I started that,” Woods says. “It was an accident, but it was all me.”
“And the stunt at Vilmer’s Beam?” someone else presses.
“That was me,” Janie Lee offers.
“Typical,” Judith mumbles, and then gets down to a serious interrogation. “Mr. Winters, did you or did you not lie to Ada May and Wilma about her being in that Bible?”
Everyone except for Wilma leans their bifocals in our direction.
“That was me again,” Janie Lee says.
“It was both of us,” Woods says. He touches Janie Lee’s hand for support. He can’t bring himself to look around the room at so many of his friends.
Before anyone throws another question at us, I say the rest of what I came here to say. “I knew my granddad well enough to say that if he thought this was the last Harvest Festival, he would never disqualify Billie McCaffrey. And what I don’t understand is why this group would waste time on this discussion rather than putting your full attention toward saving the Harvest Festival. You say you care about what Big T wanted, but do you? Because everyone in this room knows he loved that festival. As far as I can tell, only three of us in this room have done something about making sure it lasts.”
Wilma Frist pushes the Bible into the middle of the table and says, “Luke 1:6, ‘Elizabeth was a respectable woman.’ The phrase is underlined. Look at the note,” she tells the committee. They stand. They gather. They read.
We do the same.
Out to the side of Luke 1:6, Tyson Vilmer wrote Billie McCaffrey’s name.
Holy hell. None of us saw that coming.
“It might not say Corn Dolly, but it might as well,” Ada May declares.
And everyone nods.
No one more than Woods Carrington.
We leave the library knowing she might not win, but she won’t be disqualified.
35
There are three things I have always loved about fall in Otters Holt.
The smell.
When I was younger, Grandy had a stellar imagination. She claimed that Otters Holt had weather fairies. Allegedly, the fairy folk poured gallon jugs of Downy fabric softener over a herd of John Rexler’s cattle to make the smell. She then claimed Gene built his old windmill just for the expediency of spreading Aroma-cow over the county. This audacious image returns whenever I take a deep breath of pollen. I love Grandy for it.
The safety.
Small towns have invisible domes that keep the rest of the world out (and most of their people in). We’ll happily tell others what they’re missing. Playing outside, unlocked doors, stopping at a neighbor’s house for a glass of water. We’ll even argue we know what fun is and you don’t. Like watermelon hooch or driving a tractor when your parents take away your car privileges.
Last but not least . . . I love this one perfect day of fall . . . the Harvest Festival.