The Moonshiner's Daughter. Donna Everhart
poured it full again, and set the pitcher beside him, a little harder than necessary. He winced, turned a bleary eye on me, but I ignored the look. He unfolded the little wax paper packet, tipped the contents in his mouth, and took a big swig of sweet tea. I started washing the cold, now greasy plates.
After a while, he said, “Hey, sourpuss.”
I kept washing and rinsing.
“Hey.”
I put the plate in the drain.
“Hey, you know what? Hey.”
“What, Uncle Virgil?”
He sniggered, his laugh grating, and making my own head hurt.
He said, “You ever heard that saying ‘don’t bite the hand that feeds ya’? That’s something to think about.”
He had no inkling I wasn’t eating, so it was kind of funny what he said.
I stopped washing a plate, and said, “When I see what a fine example you set, maybe that’s got something to do with it, among other things.”
Merritt made some noise.
Uncle Virgil said, “Shoot. Lemme tell you what. Blame your aunt Juanita for that boy of mine liking this fine product of ourn, not me.”
“I can’t see how that’s true.”
“Why sure. She’s the one got him started on it. Used it ever since he was a baby. Teething, here come a little whisky rubbed on his gums. Started to coughing, here come a little whisky, honey, and lemon. Couldn’t sleep, here come a little hot toddy. You ask me, that’s why he’s got the taste for it.”
I waved a hand, dismissing what he said.
I said, “You don’t see Easton drinking.”
Uncle Virgil’s little buzz was wearing off and he said, “Nope. Not the Saint.”
Uncle Virgil slumped on the chair, in no hurry. It was true, many around here used whisky the way he’d described, and Daddy had him a reputation for doling it out to the elderly who couldn’t afford a doctor. Maybe it was true, it might help some people, but it sure didn’t make up for all the other goings-on.
Uncle Virgil burped, and said, “When did he go on his run?”
“Couple hours ago.”
He stood and said, “Reckon I’ll see him tomorrow sometime.”
Relieved he was leaving, I held the back door open and he wobbled his way out. I waited till he got the truck cranked, then shut it. Merritt hurried to escape to his room before I could get started in on about Uncle Virgil’s downfalls. I tidied around the kitchen some more, and by then it was going on ten o’clock. I stared at the refrigerator, then opened the door. There was that one leftover steak floating in gravy. Why not? It would’ve been mine anyway. I reached for it, then remembered why I wasn’t eating. That piece of steak was stained by liquor money. I shut the refrigerator, got more water, and went to my room. I sat at the small wooden desk where the dim light of the lamp cast a yellow glow over papers I’d left spread out. I had trouble focusing on what was in front of me. English was not my favorite subject for one, especially when I was too tired, too hungry, to concentrate. I bent over the work anyway, trying to ignore my discomfort.
When the sound of tires squalling on pavement came, I got up and went to my window. Our house was set back on a hill, and although the road out front was too far away to be seen, we could hear vehicles as they passed by and when someone went into the curve too fast that was the sound we heard many a night. The clock on my bedside table said almost eleven. I pulled the curtain back, but all I could make out was my own reflection and the view of my room behind me. I reached over and turned off the lamp and looked out again, staring at the white line of gravel leading to the house, almost shining under the moonlight.
Within seconds came the low rumble of an engine, and the crunching sound of tires rolling over the shattered small stones. The Oldsmobile Rocket 88 slunk past the house, heading up the hill behind the house. Daddy didn’t have his headlights on, which told me he’d been avoiding someone. I exhaled, partly relieved, partly annoyed. While we stayed at odds, I still worried he’d get in a wreck, or something else would happen. For now, another night was over, and finished. I could go back to my desk, work on the assignment half-finished, and stew over what I couldn’t change. A few minutes later the back door opened, and then he was tapping on my door.
He said, “Jessie? You up?”
The strip of light below my bedroom door showed the shadowy shape of him blocking part of it. I didn’t acknowledge him. A sigh, and a soft good night came from the other side before he went down the hall.
Chapter 4
The next morning I would have bet it was the same ten-dollar bill lying only inches from the gap at the bottom of the door. Sometimes I thought Daddy did stuff like this on purpose to get me riled. I picked it up. Brand-new, crisp, stiff, and perfect. To my mind’s eye it should’ve been grimy and weather worn as the moldy contraptions that bubbled and burped their vile concoctions out in the woods. I was unwilling to fight with him this morning. I brought it into the kitchen and placed it in the tin behind the sugar canister where he’d eventually find it. Or Merritt.
He was sitting at the table asking Merritt how it went over to Blood Creek.
Merritt said, “Fine.”
Without thinking, I opened the metal bread box and stared at the loaf of bread, inhaled the yeasty odor before I let the small metal door slip from my fingers, rattling as it shut. I was absolutely regretting my impulsive decision now.
Irritable, I said, “If you call Uncle Virgil showing up drunk as a coot fine. Which is why Oral didn’t make it neither. Aunt Juanita kept him at the house punishing him for being drunk too. I bet that’s really what that money’s for. Uncle Virgil only wants it so he can hand it over to Aunt Juanita and keep her happy, and only time she’s that is when she gets to gallivant around town spending it.”
Daddy wore a white T-shirt, navy-blue work pants, and white socks. He smelled of aftershave and the bleach I used to wash the whites, mingled in with fresh-brewed coffee and cigarette smoke. He didn’t act too put out.
All he said was, “Never did have a taste for it, myself.”
I poured a cup of coffee and said, “If there’d been anybody around, we made enough noise to get their attention.”
Daddy pushed his chair back. “I’ll say something about it again.”
Merritt said, “I can’t see what’s so bad about having a little taste of it here and there.”
Daddy said, “I ever catch you, it ain’t gonna be a good day.”
Merritt, anxious I’d let on about his little escapade with Oral, gave me a sideways glance. I narrowed my eyes over the rim of the cup, letting him know I hadn’t forgot.
“I need the both of you to come with me later on this evening. It ain’t far where I got to go, but it’s down that road where Virgil said he’s heard them government agents have been seen.”
These rides we went on bothered me as much as making liquor, the idea being if revenuers were on the prowl, we would appear like a family riding to the store, or off to visit somebody. No call for suspicion, no cause to question.
Merritt said, “What time?”
“Don’t worry, you’ll be done with ball practice. It ain’t till after supper.”
Daddy hesitated, but I had nothing to say, and he might have been surprised I didn’t pitch a fit. He went to put on his work shirt and shoes and left five minutes later, not a word about the money he’d left. Not a word about me not eating, not only the night before, but now. Maybe this was his new way of managing what he believed were my shortcomings: ignore them.
Merritt and I caught the