We Are Three

Eleanor Tippins' family may have been southern aristocrats, but she had to allow that one of her cousins---Ned---was the Tennessee Governor now.

An insouciant, faded, devil may care family, they'd been plundered now by her dissolute siblings. ("Easy Rider" and the 60's upset her generation, and they reformed to drug abuse, then sales). She was well-schooled, cheerful and alcoholic now. If mercurial, then usually within a range of acceptable unpredictability among her friends, and unacceptable predictability among estranged loved ones. Playing to type, perhaps, she was a paper-lantern party girl at night and a Blanch-ed out, suffering-in-silence woman in the morning.

Eleanor's dirty blond hair made an oval around her roundish, kind face. Her features were becoming slightly puffy now from the booze. 40 years old and a childless divorcee, she would laugh at the thought of changing anything about herself because---- couldn't you understand?--- she was old now. And what was the problem, besides a few wrecked cars? (When she laughed she laughed into her closed fist and hunched her shoulders, crazy cute.) She had her bookstore job, she had her Cheekleaf social circle and a reliable beau, Howard Groves of Howard Groves', whose large, multi-plex house she could inhabit as her own when she pleased.
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Full of endearments, she knew all the small shop-keepers in Nashville and remembered the subject of every last joshing encounter with them. To be able to follow Eleanor Tippins was flattering to me (I knew that in some peoples' eyes it was no honor, but they'd understand the friendship if they knew it). This was a pleasant education. She wanted me to fathom the resentments, understand the mysteries, and feel the ghosts of the South who flew around in close rooms but not in shopping mall parking lots.

She adopted me when she heard about my pilgrimages to Andrew Jackson's Hermitage, piping up one day that one of her family names was Robarts, which could make her a relative to Jackson's insulted wife, Rachel. Or rather, to Rachel's first husband who absently failed to finalize the Robarts' divorce before General Jackson and Rachel were married.

Capote, and Tennessee Williams were somewhat suspect to her. Harper Lee's name was spit: To Kill A Mocking Bird was a gift from Capote, it was so obvious! Faulkner, of course, was Grand-Daddy. She introduced me to the Southern Agrarians and had me read what I could stand of "I Take My Stand".

But her prize possession at home was a hundred year old, illustrated Dante's Inferno, which was always open on the low table where we sat on cushions reading to one another and admiring the illustrations. In the gold glowing semi-darkness from her ancient lampshades, this apartment of her's was crowded with overstuffed furniture and family heirlooms, including a hickory walking stick which she presented to me on my birthday.

Frequent nights, we'd agree to meet at one of the Music Row bars. One drink, Eleanor held your hand. Two, she held your hand to her bosom, because you'd said something that touched her deeply. Third drink, you were making out. But it would go no further. Six drinks, Eleanor began to cry about her mother, who had passed away five years earlier.
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This lovely, warm, cloudy June day we took a walk on the tree lined street behind the store (the green waxy leaves of the trees so beautiful, breathing liveliness into the air of my new life). If it were a lunch hour, which we could extend to two hours if neither of us were scheduled for any customer service.

"I could just about died," she laughed. "When that beauty-school drop-out asked Mariah Maye if she'd ever read Toys In The Attic. How did she get hired!? Because she's beautiful?? Oh lord, that big hair."

"I think she was working at Park's deli and Mark Smith made friends with her. 'Big hair??' " I laughed, in 1990. Funny expression.

"What else do you call it? But why isn't she in the cafe, John?"

"She's smart."

"Do you think she's beautiful?"

"She's sweet, she's young. You'll like her. She's a good worker."

"She's too damned perky!"

"We need a perky character. But tell me, why do women love Horror and True Crime so much?"

She ignored my set up. "The Smith Brothers can pull strings and have any woman hired, they want. Women with beauty and brains. By the way, John. Danny Briggs is getting worried about you and me. He wants me to marry him you know."

"What about your boyfriend? Doesn't he worry about Howard?"

"I've told you. Howard and I don't even sleep together any more. We're like an old married couple. It's over, darling. Anyway, I told him you're in love with Mariah."

"Oh. Love. That's a short word."

"I meant your supercalifragilistic expialidosciousness."
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Happy man, infatuated. Mariah only had to be in the building somewhere.
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We stopped at a novelty shop and bought two little green army-men with parachute packs. That afternoon, which was slow, we were on opposite sides of balcony, dropping the soldiers down from the second floor. The parachutes didn't deploy except surprisingly, and when they did, we'd shout.

But usually they fell right to the floor, in Fiction. A customer would look up and smile and I'd run down to pick them up.

I spotted the sheriff, who was hiding behind one of the green "mo-faux" columns, grinning at me. I laughed and pointed him out to Eleanor.

Then we all walked from our three corners and met at the rail. The conversation was like picking up on any other.

"How's Terry like the new clinic?" Eleanor asked.

"Oh," the Sheriff laughed and turned on his cowboy boots, "except for the bomb threats, you mean? No, she's doing great. Comes home a little tired but nothing like her residency."

"You give her a foot massage?" Eleanor giggled into her hand.

"Oh, yeah. And I generally have dinner ready unless I can talk her into coming down to Joe's." Joes was our bar, which was across the street from The Bluebird cafe.

"I was so afraid you two were going back to Oregon."

"Oh, the old Oregon Trail. Not for at least a year. Terry's younger brother is coming to visit, by the way. We'll have to show him a good time."

I don't remember if we stopped playing with the toy soldiers. The sheriff may have joined us. Other supervisors and managers would not have joined us, of course.

I was not known as a very good employee, though I was a good bookseller. My only initiative was social.

The "sheriff" was a Modern Southern Gentleman, a peaced-out Grateful Dead-head who trafficked in the bootleg tapes. He was the most pleasant, good humored,nd easy going drunkard. He was handsome and married to a beautiful young doctor. He was my avuncular bookseller hero.

Before that he'd been a small-town journalist and a boho-beat-nik- hobo.

He was oddly-read, lauding the work of obscure Canuks and Robert Heinlein's "Stranger In A Strange Land".

He sat on the mezzanine, where the grand stairway went right and left and watched the sales-floor, waiting to spot a befuddled customer or bookseller. Patient fisher of men, waiting until the distress required one of his approaches (Sidle along. Step right up. Pretend to be working near-by...) He seemed to know every title in the store, and could hand-sell. He knew every section like it was his own.

He may have joined us. Despite being a supervisor, his book selling skills made him worth his weight in gold. He was beyond reproach, the Sheriff. Two years later, when he and his doctor wife moved to Eugene, signs appeared in the back lunch room and stock areas reading "what would the sheriff do?"
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September, still warm and lovely. Lunch with Eleanor at the Senior Citizens center where we could have "meat and three" everyday and Eleanor was always greeted warmly.

Eleanor told me my cowardice made Mariah livid.

"She says she hates you, John. She says 'I can't stand him'."

"What, now, say that again?"

"By the way, she also told me Carlos is a terrible lover. Ha,ha! And he is! Mariah and I had a blast talking about everyone last night."
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Sunday mornings, Mariah would see me on the floor before opening as I got the international newspapers out and together. She'd join me sometimes. Dropping to her knees beside me on the carpeted sales floor. I'd arranged my schedule to be as near to hers as possible.

"'Morning, John..."

"I don't know..."

"I know you don't know. This is still a strange place for you isn't it?" she said, referring either to the store or the South itself. "Oakapalooka..." her voice wondered and she giggled. "I don't know why that sounds so funny to me. I can't believe I can even remember it."

"She was a homely princess. Her father was Chief Manaska. His statue is on the town square, by the bandstand."

"Manaska. That's on your station wagon's license plate. Iowa. Manaska."

"That's right."

"Shouldn't you have Tennessee tags by now?"

I had an answer in my throat but my heart was pounding it down. Conversing with Mariah Maye was impossible. It'd been almost a year now since she arrived.

She smiled, "We both drive beat up old station wagons. My dad is going to make me get a new car but I love my junk heap."
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In those days I always drank a beer for breakfast. I wondered if she smelled it. Much later, when I asked her about our early days, she said of course everyone always smelled alcohol on you but it was no big deal. We took you as alcoholic. Maybe like a college alcoholic, only you were so quiet we also couldn't believe you even smoked. And you wouldn't come to parties.
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A month later, after Mariah became inventory manager during someone else's angry coup, I was at an upstairs service desk after relieving a pal who had pointed out some paper work the back office needed done. Matching one list of missing books to a master list or something. I was bored with the book I was reading so I picked up the task. It was fun just to look over the unheard of book titles.

The sheriff sprang upon me and began to praise me to the hilt for my initiative. I stood for a moment like a man who is afraid. I began to object but he talked over me until I got the brilliant, life-saving idea to shut up.
He'd been waiting (and waiting) for me to do something right. I'd volunteered to do some inventory work, hadn't I?

He would knock a middle block from the totem of my personality, the fake rebelliousness that had no particular originality or intelligence to match.

He'd spotted the native obsequiousness in me, that part that wanted approval from the grown-ups. People were always spotting something in me that didn't add up.
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The next day, I was invited to a meeting with Mariah and the sheriff.

Her face looked like she'd spent her morning laughing about something.

"Jerry and I agree, you've changed, John."

She might have believed this. It was the Sheriff's word, after all. Or, she knew it could be a self-fulfilling prophecy.

It was simple. I'd do anything for these two because I loved them both.

Mariah because why. (And how, why, 15 years later!! Is she still iconic in my dreams, waking me up, happy or sad.)

Maybe they knew me.

"I'd like you to be my assistant. They're allowing me two. It will be you and Jerry if you accept. Since he's already a supervisor, we'll just call you his deputy or adjutant, " she laughed.

"I got an extra vest at home, John-John!"

"What? I get a vest?" I was serious in my surprise and enthusiasm.His vests were home-made, a denim embroidered in a rich colored psychedelic threads. The sheriff was a Southern Gentleman and a Grateful Dead fanatic. Wavy Gravy as Andy Taylor. And I was to be Barnie.

I did become a good worker. Eventually, even out of sight, I was good. Mariah and the sheriff had made me a stranger to myself.