Peace is Prettiest

By

Leslie S. Talley

I say to Vallee are you coming to the school board meeting with me? And he says, why would I want to do that for, Doreen?  And I say, it’s his children’s lives, too. And he says, Hell, Doreen, you don't really believe that crap about the earthquake, do you?

We’ve been going back and forth like this ever since October when the Courier-Journal ran the piece about that man, that scientist, the one that predicted the San Francisco earthquake. (You remember, the one during the 1989 World Series, where they dug out some guy from under the freeway after four days and he lived, at least for a little while).  Anyway this scientist said we’d have a major one along the New Madrid fault that would tear up everything from Marked Tree, Arkansas to New Madrid, Missouri on December 3rd, 1990, give or take two days.  That fault runs slap through the middle of my old Kentucky home.

Vallee has this stubborn streak; he wouldn’t help me build the shelter out back when Skylab was going to fall, neither.  Said what if Skylab fell on the shelter, for Christ’s sake?  I said watch your mouth around the kids and he mummed up and growled under his breath.

Anyways, the PTA plans to picket the school board and make them close school on December 3rd.  Vallee says what makes us think the kids’ll be any safer at home than at school.  I say Vallee, if you ain’t never felt the ground move under your feet, just shut up.  He shuts, but not before he tells me again about how he lived through Hurricane Camille.  He likes to tell this story about how he and his friends all threw a big ’Cane Party and stayed in a condo on the beach after everyone else on the Gulf coast had left.  I say a hurricane ain’t no big deal, those weather people on TV tell you days ahead of time when one’s coming and all you have to do is jump in your pickup and outrun it.

He says it wasn’t always that way, that the old Crackers, like he is from Florida, learned from the Seminole Indians how to tell when a ’cane was coming ’cause the crabs left the beaches and moved inland and the saw grass bloomed.  I try to tell him my stories about the Quake of 1812 that my great-grandpa heard tell of from his granddaddy, where the Mississippi River leaped out of its banks and flowed north.  But he says you done told me that, Doreen.

So I remember what my mama always said, peace is prettiest, and I kiss Vallee on the forehead and tell him there’s cornbread, ham, and navy beans in the oven keeping warm for him and I’ll be home to put the kids to bed.  He says it’s a fine thing when a man has to chase cattle rustlers all day and then come home and fix his own supper.

That’s what he does for a living, special deputy assigned to cattle rustling.  See, Vallee was a cowboy down in Florida, says that’s where the name Cracker comes from, cowboys cracking their bull whips.  Says he got restless and was just about to hop on a boat for Argentina when a winter visitor from Kentucky told him our sheriff needed help.

Now I know most people think tobacco, the Kentucky Derby, and basketball when they picture Kentucky, but we raise beef cattle, too, plenty of them.  A few years ago rustling cattle got to be big business.  I guess kids began watching Gunsmoke reruns and took it serious.

Vallee and me met at that country and western place on Highway 31E.  I was lead singer on Thursday nights. I tease Vallee and say if I hadn’t married him I’d be a country and western star by now.  He says, yeah, and he’d be staying home raising the kids while mama was on the road instead of working a decent job at the school cafeteria.

I nose my Ford Escort down the lane that connects to Highway 1406 and stop three miles down the road to pick up Irene and her husband Hubert.  She dashes out the door as soon as she sees my headlights, as usual.  Never gives me time to get out of my car. I figure her kitchen must be a real mess for her to do me that way.

She’s out of breath from running, says Hubert’s too tired from stripping tobacco all day to come.  Of course, Irene has probably stripped all day, too, plus cooked the meals and washed clothes.  I tell her she needs to work at the cafeteria with me so’s she can rest.  She smiles slightly, and I figure she must be tired.

The school board meeting drags on longer than I told Vallee it would until finally Garnet Peace gets up and says if’n any of his kids get hurt at school on December 3rd he’ll sue the whole blamed board.  So they quick vote to close school that day.

I drop Irene off at her gate and remind her about the council meeting two nights away to go over the disaster plan and practice bandaging.

Vallee’s asleep in his chair in front of the TV when I get home, but the kids are in bed, at least.  I dassn’t wake him and ask if they had baths first because we’ve already gone around the bush over that.  He asked me was I going to draw a tub for them all their lives, just because they were eight and nine?  Said I might as well go along on little Harley’s honeymoon someday. 

I turn down the sound on the TV, but I don’t turn off the set because Vallee’d jump awake and claim he’s not sleeping, he’s watching that, even if it’s opera or something.

                                                   * * * *

Two nights later, Vallee says he’ll come along to the council meeting, too, just for laughs.  We pick up Hubert and Irene; Vallee’s already grumbled about that.  He don’t like me hanging out with Irene, why I don’t know: he’s never said. Hubert sits up front with Vallee.  The men folk talk about the latest rustling over to Lawrence Dye’s.  I ask Vallee to turn on the radio, but he says not now, Doreen.  Hubert asks is it true they got away with thirteen head?  Vallee says, yep and they used Lawrence’s own loading chute to carry them off.  Hubert says $13,000 is a lot of pot roast.

Irene doesn’t say much, she just smiles a lot.  I ask her is she using a new make-up, her face looks darker along the jaw line. She looks straight ahead at the back of Hubert’s head and says, no, she put cover-up on a bee sting.  Vallee says a wet wad of tobacco works better, and I say no, baking soda paste.  Hubert don’t say nothing.

Vallee don’t mind the council meeting as much as I feared. Says he never had so much entertainment for nothing.  I ask what does he mean?  He snorts like one of those steers he used to round up and says, God, Doreen, that Mirabelle woman’s burying her jewelry to keep it from blowing away!  Says don’t she know the difference between a ’quake and a ’cane?  I say not everybody has had the advantage of growing up in a state that has alligators swarming all over it.

But we get a lot done, no matter what Vallee says.  A list of who has heavy equipment and two-way radios.  The mayor tells everyone to buy bottled water, flashlights, batteries, canned goods, candles—everything we might need if the power was to be off for days.  Me and Irene want to stay for the bandage rolling, but Vallee says, come on, Doreen, before I bust a gut.

He laughs pretty near all the way home.  Even Hubert, with that face of his like a marble slab over to Makepeace Cemetery, cracks a smile.  Seems Vallee and Hubert got to talking to some guys who have kin in New Madrid, Missouri, and that town’s going to have a Fault Festival called “Shake, Rattle, and Roll.” Says the townsfolk are selling tee shirts with a map on front showing the fault from New Madrid to Marked Tree and “It's Our Fault” on the back.  Vallee says the guy promised to get him one.

I say he’ll be talking out of the other side of his mouth come December 6th.  He says Jeeze, Doreen, the fellow that’s predicted this once wanted to strap hydrogen bombs on the backs of whales and send them to Russia.  I say sounds pretty good to me.

I was pretty busy between Thanksgiving and December 1st, what with packing away all my dishes and everything.  Vallee don’t help none; all by myself, I have to take down that heavy velvet picture of the bullfighter, that me an Vallee bought on our honeymoon in Juarez.  Vallee gets riled a time or two, like when he wants a pot or pan and they’re filled with water.  I tell him, Vallee, we got to have safe drinking water and he says Lord God, Doreen, what’s wrong with the well if’n anything goes wrong with city water?  I say the well might cave in when The Big One hits.  He says yeah, and the pots and pans may turn over, too.

Nothing much happens December 1st and 2nd and Vallee, he hoots and hollers and makes fun because me and the kids wear whistles around our necks.  He says what-in-tarnation good is that going to do you, Doreen?  I say if the roof caves in we’ll all blow our whistles so the rescue workers will know where to dig.  He falls about on the couch, laughing, and I say he’ll feel different when the ground commences to shake like the dog shitting ’simmon seeds. Vallee don’t wear the whistle I bought him; he puts it around the dog’s neck.  The dog worries it off after a couple hours.

Vallee’s actually in a good mood on December 3rd since nothing’s happened, but I say just wait, Vallee, we got two more days to go.  Then I tell him about the earthquake insurance I done took out on the house, and he storms out.  I don’t see him for two days, but I’m so busy what with nailing everything down that I don’t hardly notice.

Vallee comes back on December 5th and says where’s the earthquake, Doreen?  I say it ain't midnight yet.  Then he gets a call, on the phone, not on his beeper, and he says I got to go over to Irene and Hubert’s, Doreen.  I say is somethin’ wrong?  He just says I gotta go.  I say has Hubert lost his cattle?  And he says he’ll see.  I say should I come along?  And he says no, Doreen, you stay here and hold up the roof.

The Big One never hits, at least not this time and not here.  It hits in China or someplace.  I say, see, Vallee, the man was right.  He says Hell, Doreen, I could predict an earthquake will happen somewhere in the world in a certain week.  He says this while I help him pack.  Vallee’s going to work in Louisville.  After he leaves, some folks say that he left because he was afraid of the ’quake.  But that's not so: he doesn't leave till December 6th.

See, Vallee’s had some kind of turn up over to Irene and Hubert’s.  Some people try to tell me Vallee done punched out Hubert: I never do hear the rights of it.  Anyways, Vallee is relieved of his duties.

Besides my job at the school cafeteria, I’m back working at my old country and western place out on 31E.  Waitressing on Friday and Saturday nights, but my boss man says maybe he’ll let me sing a little on Tuesday nights—they’re kinda slow.  We’ll see.

My customers like to kid with me and one of them, a beefy trucker with a big space between his front teeth, says I hear tell Vallee’s poking cows again, and all the rest laugh.  I say that's right, he's working at the packing plant in Louisville.  They all laugh again.

Irene’s done left Hubert.  She’s living in Louisville, too.  I say to Vallee, when he comes home some weekends, why don’t you look up Irene and see how she’s getting on?  He says he has enough to do scratching a living for me and the kids. 

Of course, I'm scratching, too.  Besides my job at the school cafeteria and waitressing at the country and western place, I bake and sell jam cakes and baby-sit some.  But I don't remind Vallee of this.  Peace is prettiest.