First appeared in Scattered, Smothered, and Covered, Short Story Collection
Copyright © 2011 Bob Strother
The ’29 Ford sedan eased off the road and pulled to a stop in front of a small diner on the south side of Memphis. It was going on eleven, and lights shone through the building’s glass façade like a beacon in the otherwise dark commercial district. The tangy smell of fried pork and onions wafted out from an exhaust fan on the roof and down through the open windows of the car.
Ma squinted up at the sign over the door. “Toddle House,” she said to Fred, who sat behind the steering wheel. “What kind of a name do you reckon that is?”
“Don’t know,” Fred said. “But it looks new and clean, and I’m hungry.” He reached for the car door handle but paused when Ma put a hand on his knee.
“Hold on just a minute,” she said, squinting again, so she could study the motley assortment of late-night patrons huddled on stools at the front counter. There were four altogether, all men, and all shabbily dressed—a common sight in 1934 at the height of the Great Depression. “All right, it looks safe enough. Let’s get something to eat.”
Dorothy glanced up from the grill as the man and woman entered the diner and chose two stools away from the other customers. The woman was in her early sixties, Dorothy guessed, with a plain, square face framed by straight dark hair. The man was younger and wore a suit—something she didn’t see much of—and a felt fedora that hid his eyes. She wiped her hands on a towel, grabbed up her order pad, and took a pencil from behind her ear.
“Y’all want some coffee?” She pointed to a sign hanging on the wall beside the grill. “That’s the menu yonder.”
“I’ll have the BLT,” the woman said, “and some milk.”
Margaret made a notation on her pad and turned to the man. “What about you, sir?”
“I want six eggs, scrambled, a steak, and fried potatoes if you got some.”
“We got hashed-brown potatoes. Do you want regular or fancy?”
The man grinned. He had small, uneven teeth and a thin moustache. “What’s fancy?”
“Well, you can get ’em scattered—that’s chopped up on the grill—or smothered with onions, or if you want, I can cover the whole shebang with cheese.”
The man’s grin widened. “Make it fancy, then, with all three.”
～
Ma finished her sandwich and stuffed her napkin under the plate. She and Fred were the last customers left, and it was nearly midnight. Behind the counter, the waitress wiped sweat from her brow as she used a spatula to scrape the surface of the grill. She was young and pretty, something Ma felt like she’d never been, but there was a sad look about the girl, too. Not that Ma knew much of anything about girls; she’d had four boys. After Fred was born, she’d given up trying.
The door behind her opened, and she and Fred both turned quickly to see who it was. The man had greasy, slicked-back hair and wore a white shirt with Toddle House embroidered on the front over his heart. Ma’s eyes followed him as he stepped behind the counter between them and the girl, and his hand brushed the waitress’s backside as he passed. The girl flinched at his touch and stopped her scraping. Then she recovered, put down the spatula, and turned back to Ma.
“My shift is almost over,” she said. “Can I get y’all anything else before I leave?”
“Nothing, honey,” Ma said. “How much do we owe?”
“It’ll be a dollar and eighty-five cents.”
Fred fumbled in his pocket, came up with a five-spot, and laid it on the counter.
“The rest is for you,” he said. “Them are some good potatoes.”
“That’s too much—”
“Dorothy!” The man in the Toddle House shirt stood at the far end of the counter, glaring.
The waitress flinched again, and her eyes darted in the man’s direction. So did Ma’s and Fred’s.
“If you can see your way to quit jawing with the customers,” the man said, “I need to see you in the back before you go.”
“That’s the night manager,” the girl whispered. “He’s—”
“You want to keep this job?” The man turned toward a door marked Employees Only. “If you do, then get back here.”
The girl rang up the tab with trembling hands and slipped the change into the pocket of her apron. “I’m very sorry. I’ve got to go. I’ll lock up behind you.”
In the parking lot, Ma got into the passenger seat of the Ford and told Fred, “Back up over there out of the light and kill the engine.”
“Ma—” Fred began.
“Don’t Ma me. Just do it.”
Fred did, and they waited. Ten minutes later, they watched as the waitress came out of the back room, wiping her eyes, and shrugged into a light coat. The man came out behind her buckling his belt.
“That son of a bitch,” Ma said. “I knew it.”
As the girl came out the front door, Ma leaned her head out the window. “Honey, come over here for a minute.”
～
Dorothy stared into the darkness, letting her eyes adjust, and then heard the woman say again, “Over here.” She walked slowly toward the car, clutching the lapels of her coat to her chest. As she approached, the man in the fedora got out from the driver’s side and walked past her toward the diner. He carried something close by his side; she couldn’t be sure what it was. He stopped just outside the big front windows and rapped on the glass. The manager looked up from the cash register where he was counting change.
For five seconds—it seemed to Dorothy much longer—the quiet Memphis night was filled with the staccato thunder of the Tommy gun. Glass shattered. Inside the diner, the manager danced like a puppet on strings as bright red flowers blossomed across his chest. Then it was over, the thunder replaced with the tinkling music of glass shards breaking away from the wrecked storefront. The man in the fedora turned and stepped briskly back to the car as the acrid odor of cordite filled Dorothy’s nostrils. When her ears recovered, she realized the woman was speaking to her.
“What I said, honey, was that no job is worth the price you were having to pay. Now, I suggest you get in the car here, and let’s leave while the leaving’s good.”
Three minutes later, they were on Highway 78 south, headed for the Alabama state line. The woman looked back at Dorothy, sitting in the back seat of the Ford.
“We can drop you somewhere if you want us to, or you can come with us on down to Florida. I’ve got a cousin down there owns a restaurant called Gator Joe’s. If I say so, he’ll give you a job paying enough to live on.”
Dorothy stared out the window of the Ford where the city structures were gradually giving way to roadside produce stands and one-pump gas stations. These people were dangerous. That much she knew for sure. Then again, she’d never been outside of Memphis, let alone to Florida. And what did she have to keep her here besides a two-room, third-floor walk-up, a few ratty clothes, and an alcoholic father? Her heart was still thumping inside her chest. She ought to be afraid, but she thought maybe she was excited.
“All right, then, I’ll go with y’all to Florida, if you’re sure you don’t mind. I’ve never seen a palm tree before, except on a penny postcard, or the ocean, either.” Dorothy glanced at the driver, who lit two cigarettes and gave one to the woman. “Are y’all going to shoot anybody else?”
The woman laughed. “Not unless we have to, honey. What’s your name, anyway?”
“It’s Dorothy. Dorothy Cobb. What’s yours?”
The woman used her cigarette to gesture at the driver. “That’s my son, Fred, and I’m Kate Barker, but everybody calls me Ma. You can, too, if you want. Us girls got to stick together.”
Author’s Note: On January 16, 1935, agents from the fledgling government agency, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, surrounded a house in Lake Weir, Florida, and ordered the occupants, believed to be Kate and Fred Barker, to surrender. Fred opened fire, and during the course of an intense, hours-long gun battle, he and his mother were killed. The FBI reported that Ma Barker was found lying on the floor of the house with a Tommy gun in her hands. Many, including family and reputed gang members, suggest that this was a falsehood encouraged by J. Edgar Hoover to justify his agency’s killing of an old lady.
Bob Strother 