CASSIDY STREET - GREENHOUSE THREE

Cassidy Street is a librarian's assistant from Falkner, MS. His fiction has appeared in Five on the Fifth and Indigo Lit. He is also the 2015 winner of the Kirk Creative Writing Award sponsored by Blue Mountain College. 

Greenhouse Three
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​“I’ll take three of them geranium pots, and one of them nice white baskets for the begonias if you have ’em, Willie,” Mrs. Norris said, unrolling the dog-eared wad of bills which she had removed from her cleavage.
            Old Willie Jargin’s spectacles fell askew as he eyed Mrs. Norris solemnly.
            “I’ve still got one basket put aside, but it’s got the washin’ in it, and it’s in my bedroom. Cally’s still asleep; jist got her home yesterday—hip replacement, you know—”
            “I understand sackly, Willie-boy,” Mrs. Norris said magnanimously. “Of course I wouldn’t expect the dear to hobble down in that condition. You jist go get that basket and I’ll hop over later to see her…when she’s well enough to sit on the porch, that is.”
            Willie grunted something akin to assent and began moving the geranium pots into the little blue shop which was the foremost structure in the small nursery, his exacting eye never deviating from the rotund blonde and her scarecrow of a daughter, who hummed complacently as she pressed her thumbs diagonally into her navel region.
            Mrs. Norris was never a woman to wait for somebody else’s Yes or No. A door in Hartstop would never close upon her so long as she had a foot to press against the frame. For all her flaws she was still a self-made woman, having conquered and married the owner of the gun-
and-tackle shop up the highway, quite a leap from third child of a carpet cutter’s assistant.
            Mrs. Norris loved people; and, by extension, she loved to assist in their affairs, particularly those of a high profile. When Faith Lovecroft, who organized the church’s annual charity-food drive, had broken her femur, Mrs. Norris was there to direct giver and packer and cook and delivery man alike. There were of course a number of pessimists who questioned her methods, but no one could doubt that as a whole it had gone off tolerably well (though a box of tasteful romance novels and a case of peach and blackberry preserves could not be accounted for in the end). Thereafter Mrs. Norris took charge of the event every year—despite Faith Lovecroft’s protestations—and eventually became secretary, treasurer, substitute Sunday school teacher and lead backsliding investigator for Pure Stone Baptist Church. Mrs. Norris was a walking armrest to all mankind regardless of color or creed, as evidenced by her frequent patronage at Willie Jargin’s nursery. Her own father, a ranking member of the Ellis County Klansmen, would have had a stroke at the thought of his daughter buying flowers from a black man; therefore it was impossible for one to conclude that Mrs. Norris had a racist or unkind bone in her body.
            While she was undoubtedly a natural-born leader, Mrs. Norris harbored a number of personal ambitions as well, including the establishment of her own little clan’s respectability in Hartstop. This included the marrying-off of her four daughters. Mary Jane had been taken up by the constable’s mechanic son, Sharon-Rose by the man who drove the garbage truck (“Fifteen dollars an hour!”), and Smyrna, who had borne two of the mayor’s nephew’s sons, was just as good as married and off Mrs. Norris’s hands.
            “And which one’s this, now?” Willie said kindly, nodding toward the sweet-faced girl whose gaze was fixed longingly on the cornfield on the other side of the highway. “Forgive me
hon, you know how bad I am with names.”
            “That’s Lizabeth,” Mrs. Norris replied rather icily. “She goes to that Hillpine, you know. That’s their college, Hillpine is. A fine place that, Hillpine. For them. Now how’s your son, Willie? He still roomin’ with that night librarian from the ’versity?”
            Mrs. Norris habitually avoided prolonged discussion of her youngest daughter, and she had found through many experiments of trial and error that it was best to divert attention to others’ weaknesses and soft spots.
            “Yes,” Willie said, a little rigidly. “But he’s not gettin’ into trouble like people talk. Fact, he’s thinkin’ o’ turnin’ preacher. He and that Orlando are plannin’ a mission trip this summer, to some wild country called Kiwi Vest or somethin’ like that. Some place where they have the gay ’bomination.”
            “Oh, you don’t have to tell me ’bout that. Gawd, what a judgment on us all! Now show me what you got growin’ in Greenhouse Three, Willie. I’m thinkin’ o’ some nice shrubs and cannas and sich for my patio.”
            And they left Lizabeth alone among the inferior plants spread out upon splintering tables before the little blue shop.
            Lizabeth was a burden and intellectual challenge for Mrs. Norris. The poor woman spent most of her time these days contriving the union of Lizabeth with the preacher’s son, Robert Lee Bragg Mason, who was just as gaunt and quiet as Lizabeth, though rather grim and pimply as a pickle. But for all the drawbacks of his sourpuss visage, Robert Lee maintained a promising future as an English major at the junior college, and of course his family’s social standing completed Mrs. Norris’s intricate mental legacy mural. Mrs. Norris saw the two of them wedded blissfully, or just as good as; Lizabeth less silly, Robert Lee Bragg Mason with an editor’s post at
the South Sentinel (“Newspapers will allus be ’round, o’ course”), exerting all his grimness into
the proper discipline of Lizabeth and therefore kinder-faced to everyone else.
            We cannot begin to imagine the deliciously painful workings of Lizabeth’s mind as she looked out upon the spears of corn on the other side of the highway. Perhaps her mother’s abrupt manner on the subject of herself had conjured up some abstracts from the past; that spring afternoon in kindergarten when Mrs. Norris had screamed at Lizabeth’s teacher for suggesting she be held back; that evening in third grade when her mother had beaten her over the head with a math textbook; that prayer meeting when she was ten during which Mrs. Norris had stood up in front of the congregation and declared, “Dear Gawd, my baby is dumb as a satchel of hammers!” Even now in her brief adulthood, a Hillpine counselor’s rough grasp as they were herded across the street to the public library. Whatever her musings, Lizabeth felt instinctively that others considered her a hardship, a condition which she fought daily in her own way to overcome. The small acts of kindness which quicker intellects considered simplemindedness were nothing more than longings for affection.
            Lizabeth did her best to please Mrs. Norris. She uttered not one complaint or remonstrance as her mother contrived parleys with Robert Lee Bragg Mason, donated cardigans and canisters of vegetable soup to Mrs. Mason, or even as she hinted at a specific dowry to Mr. Mason. Mrs. Norris invited the boy over to every Sunday dinner, after which he sulked with Lizabeth on the patio and read compositions. Mrs. Norris herself had listened to a few of Robert Lee’s poems, such as “The Drunkard Gambler’s Fate” and “The Horrors of the Guilty Soul at Death’s Door,” and declared that her daughter’s intended would make a famous poet someday as well as a godly husband. Lizabeth comprehended very little of the whole affair, but what few revelations did dawn upon her assured her that her future was as grim and rigid as the spine of
the boy who sat reading poetry endorsing public beheadings of abortion doctors without the
benefit of a trial to her on sultry Sunday afternoons.
            Perhaps Lizabeth was mentally tracing the sharp lineaments of Robert Lee Bragg Mason’s face when she first spotted the oily figure emerging from the foremost row of spears. The man was tall and powerfully built, though he sported a weak chin and rather languid features. His blonde hair was slicked back in an almost respectable style, though the oil might have come naturally. He crossed the highway without a glance in either direction and ambled carelessly toward the girl, a worn leather satchel slung over his shoulder, a threadbare guitar case in his hand.
            Lizabeth had heard her mother telling patrons at Mr. Norris’s shop about the man. He was a vagrant who hopped the rails in the traditional sense, believed to be the same one who had tricked a seventy-three-year-old down in Beadle into marrying him and had run off with her money. Until recently he had played the guitar—rather dreadfully—outside the Ellis County courthouse for donations. The constable’s wife had given him twenty-five dollars, three oranges and a religious tract to stop playing—“especially that godawful singing”—and no one had seen him since.
            “No one pities them out-o’-work folk more ’n me,” Mrs. Norris had told her customers, “but the whole lot should be locked up for their own good as well as ourn.”
            Lizabeth harbored a certain fondness for strangers, particularly the musical kind. And while he was no great looker, the guitar player had an eccentrically masculine air, a sort of fatherly demeanor which, while relying on empty flattery as the catalyst, is irresistibly attractive to the vulnerable.
            “Hello there, Lizabeth,” the man said in an obnoxious, sing-song voice.
            Lizabeth was startled.
            “How come you know my name?”
            “I was listenin’ in,” the guitar player said unabashedly, “and plus I’ve bin in your daddy’s shop, heard ’bout sweet little Lizabeth who likes bird-critters so much she wanted to be one. You got a purty name, jist such a purty name, Lizabeth.”
            The girl blushed. The man sidled closer to her and she registered the savory scent of hickory.
            “You’re a little cutie, you are. Don’t you want to know my name?”
            Lizabeth refused to submit to his banter just yet. She felt instinctively that Mrs. Norris would disapprove of her consorting with a man who carried all his worldly goods on his shoulder like a badge of honor.
            “Name’s Paxton,” the man supplied, “Pax for short. You wanna hear me sing like a sweet bird?”
            Lizabeth smiled and nodded approvingly. The man reached into his pocket and retrieved a maroon clay whistle. It was supposed to be in the shape of a robin but had been worn down by extensive usage until it resembled a disgruntled eagle. Pax blew gently and a clumsy, almost apologetic wheezing was released from the thin slit that curved along the bird’s neck. It was neither pleasing nor harmonious, but it spoke to the girl, to whom precious little music of any kind had ever been directed.
            “You know what you need? What we both need?” Pax said, reaching gently for Lizabeth’s trembling hand, “We need us a vacation. Wouldn’t you like that? Wouldn’t you like to see the world with a nice fella like me?”
            Lizabeth glanced sideways in the direction of Greenhouse Three.
            “Now don’t worry ’bout your big fat mama. She’d be happier if you went off for a while.
Come on, don’t you wanna see the great big world? Wanna see all the pretty birds that kin fly away? Wanna be a bird?”
            Lizabeth thought longingly of wings, of rooms without locks and faces that never pity you while your mother snatches you along sidewalks and narrow aisles in the market.
            She nodded slowly but distinctly.
            “Good girl. But now we need some money, and you’ve got to carry your weight if you wanna go off with me. Now jist step into that little shop there and go behind the counter.”
            Lizabeth had given herself up to the prospect of wings. She obeyed the man with an impulse long pent up within.
            “Good. Now you see a little drawer with a handle in there? Show me how you kin pull that out on your own. Show me you kin do it.”
            Lizabeth pulled the battered wooden drawer from its metal sling and dropped it heavily on the counter so that the man could see her work.
            “Good. Now grab all them green papers. Go on.”
            At this stage in the proceedings Lizabeth hesitated. Deep within was a pricking which no beating of wings could alleviate.
            “You want to go off with me, don’t cha?” Pax whimpered.
            Lizabeth nodded.
            “Then take all them green papers. They’re your mama’s anyway. She wants you to be taken care on.”
            Lizabeth reluctantly grabbed the thin roll of bills and pressed her fingers into a tight fist, as though she might compress the sick feeling into a dense point of nothingness.
            “Good girl. Now come on. There’s a freight train leavin’ in fifteen minutes an’ we got to
kitch it. Hop along, ain’t got time for your droolin’.”
            Soon Paxton had traded the threadbare guitar case and the leather satchel for the roll of cash, and the two were off beyond the spears of corn, two birds feasting on a fine summer blast rather than the half-baked kernels of the dry, forbidding land.
 
            “Oh, Willie, it’s jist ungawdly what these kids get in their majentations these days,” Mrs. Norris said tragically as they stood examining a thick spray of honeysuckle outside of Greenhouse Three. Mrs. Norris had just recounted the grizzly assault down in Beadle as described in the South Sentinel in which a mentally ill young man had attempted to force his own medication down his father’s throat. Aware that Willie did not take the Sentinel, Mrs. Norris had amended the story so that the young man had attempted to smash his father’s skull in with a shovel but had only succeeded in dislodging the lower mandible. “You got these punks these days with their jungle music and their jump ropes—”
            “Well, let me get that basket for you,” Willie said, a note of impatience in his voice. “And speakin’ o’ kids, where’s that sweet little girl o’ yours? Up in the clouds with them big green eyes o’ hers?”
            “Oh, I’ll go get her,” Mrs. Norris called over her shoulder, already halfway to Greenhouse One. “She is a dreamer if there ever was one. I think she had an eye on them pretty little posies.”