Horrible Harvest

Allison Weaver Duffy pulled a pint of Tennessee whisky from her purse and give a pour into her coffee. She held the bottle up, inviting me to put a finger full in my cup, but I give a slight head shake.

“You ain’t a drinker?”

“I am.”

“My whisky ain’t good enough for you?”

“I’m just saving up my drinking time.”

She raised an eyebrow. “What the hell does that mean?”

“Means my liver’s got one last bottle it can take, and I got plans for that bottle.”

She nodded as if that made sense and then scanned the diner. “Hangers-on, is what these people are. Every one of them. My brothers included.”

“Thought you had to catch a train,” I said, growing tired of her company.

“The thing about trains is you miss one, another one comes along. Choo-choo.”

“Choo-choo?”

“It’s my impression of a train.”

“Young miss, if we’ve truly reached the train impressions portion of our conversation, I think you need to cork that bottle and have your brothers escort you to the station.”

“You don’t like trains?”

“I like’em fine. I just don’t speak train.”

She chuckled. “I’ll be damned. You almost made a joke.”

“I’ve got a few in me.”

“Let’s hear another one.”

“I don’t think so.”

“You saving those up, too? You only got but one more laugh your soul can take?”

This time I chuckled.

She sipped her coffee-whisky and said, “You like me, Mr. Tennyson. I know you do. You don’t want to because you got this deep abiding distaste for people in general, but there’s something about me that you find goddamn endearing, and that irks the fire out of you, don’t it?”

“Jesus, I’d rather go back to train noises than listen to this horse shit.”

She laughed again. “Careful now. You’ll spend all your remaining jokes before you know it.”

Her brothers pushed back from their table and stood. Not a one come to the counter to say goodbye to Allison before they exited the diner. They just gave their sister a tip of the hat and out the door they went.

“Shouldn’t you go with them?”

“Nah. There off to that piece of shit moving picture show. I got no interest in seeing it.”

“A what?”

“Moving picture – If you wanna reason why I hate my brothers, there it is. Can’t see why any sane body would waste their time seeing that pile of lies.”

“What are you going on about? What moving picture show?”

“The Clansman – No, wait. That’s the book. The moving picture is called something else.” She dug deep into her memories but couldn’t recall the name. “Hell, I can’t remember what its called. It’s a pile of lies. That’s all I know.”

“Thomas Dixon,” I said. “The Clansman? That book?”

“That’s the one. You read it?”

“I did. I read the whole trilogy, and you’re wrong. It’s not a pile of lies. It’s a pile of shit.”

She snapped her fingers. “You were there.”

“Where?”

“Felix, he told me about a run in he had with the Klan. In Louisiana. You were running with him then. You had to be there.”

“I was.”

She leaned in closer. “Let’s hear it.”

“Hear what?”

“Your side of it. He told me his a few times, but I always felt like he was holding back. I wanna know it all.”

I hesitated. “It ain’t pretty.”

“Good. I hate them sumbitches. I hope they get all the ugly in the world, is what I hope.”

A bell over the front door rang, and I turned to watch an elderly couple walk in. Back to Allison, I said, “I’ll tell you while I walk you to the train station.”

She give my proposal some thought and then stood, “Let’s go. Get your old-ass off that stool. You got a story to tell, and I got a train to catch.”