The Cottonmouth Club by Lance Marcum

Author:Lance Marcum
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux (BYR)
Published: 2011-05-24T00:00:00+00:00

It was probably a good thing for Mom that the rest of Saturday was busy. While she got her shopping and hair done in town, Charley and Woody and I hung out at the cafe with Gary and the guys, just like we’d already done for three days in a row.

I twisted around in the booth closest to the jukebox. “If you play ‘El Paso’ one more time, I’ll kill you,” I said to Barry, who was hovering over the Wurlitzer’s red plastic buttons, his index finger poised directly over D-4.

He must have known I meant it, since he immediately but casually moved his finger one to the left. “I was gonna play ‘Crazy’ for Mama.” Aunt Dorothy was grilling burgers for a couple of codgers seated at the counter.

The herky-jerky movements of the selector arm quickly cued a sappy instrumental intro that led to the even sappier voice of Patsy Cline. “Cray-zee … ,” she and Aunt Dorothy sang, unfortunately in different keys.

Standing up, I took the last sip of my cream soda, then put the empty in the wooden R.C. Cola case on top of the stack next to the door. “I can’t handle this. I’ll be back later.”

Actually Aunt Dorothy’s being a Patsy Cline fanatic was okay by me, since it gave me the excuse I’d been looking for to ditch all of them for a while. It had turned out to be almost impossible so far to get away on my own, without Charley and one or four of my cousins tagging along, so I knew I had to take advantage of my opportunities when they arose. Besides, I’d seen Finn and the guys fly by in the Cadillac a little earlier, so I figured there was a better than average chance I could catch them at Dixie’s.

Dixie’s Cafe, like Robert’s, was either the first or the last building in town, depending on which way you were going. And just as they were at opposite ends of Pitkin, they were also completely different in personality. Robert’s Cafe was done in cheap but manly hunting lodge paneling and dark reds; Dixie’s had definitely been decorated by a woman.

Earlier in the week I’d peeked in on the chance I’d see Finn, but none of the customers at the time were under retirement age. What I did see was a painfully bright glare of indoor sunshine: yellow-and-white gingham-checked tablecloths, sunflower wallpaper, and frilly daisy-print curtains that covered the bottom halves of the windows. It was a good thing I’d been able to talk Mom into buying me the sunglasses I’d flipped over at the Pitkin Mercantile.

Finn’s Caddy was parked on the far side of the Mercantile. A quick walk through the store only turned up his parents and a bunch of customers, so I headed down the block. I was checking out the effect of my new shades one more time in the window of Hill’s General Store next door to Dixie’s when Finn and the guys spilled out of the cafe, laughing like hyenas.

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