The Second Doublewide on the Right, part 3

I’m Fixin’ To Present part three of, The Second Doublewide on the Right.

The sudden noisy sound of the opening of the front door of the restaurant caused Leon to tear his gaze from the retreating Candy Sue and reach for his right pocket.

But he instantly relaxed when he saw that it was Ogmulgee County Deputy Sheriff James Earl Murphy, another one of his trailer park tenants. The word was that Deputy Murphy was recently separated which had led him to renting the singlewide directly behind the second doublewide in the park, just two lots past Leon’s place.

Leon had been more than pleased to rent to him. He thought it was a good thing for the other tenants, and any guests, to see a county sheriff’s vehicle parked at one of his trailers—figured it would keep the riffraff from acting up.

Son-of-a-gun wasn’t very friendly though. He simply nodded to Leon when he entered the restaurant. He had a newspaper in one hand and he used the other to remove his hat before he headed to a table on the opposite side of the room.

Leon was puzzled when Candy Sue immediately emerged from her kitchen with a plate in each hand and presented one to the deputy before she brought him his. A wave of jealousy swept over him as he realized she hadn’t even taken his order, had just brought his lunch to him like she already knew what he wanted. What the heck was that all about?

It wasn’t long after that that the front door began popping open every few moments and soon the restaurant was full of hungry people and full of the sounds of different conversations, forks scraping on plates and ice clinking on glass jars.

Candy Sue had brought him a big juicy and tender pork chop with a crunchy brown crust one it. After he finished it off he sopped up the juice from the collard greens and the remnants of the gravy from the creamed potatoes with the crust of the cornbread. It had turned out that he had been hungry after all.

The ice in Leon’s jar of iced tea had melted down and the liquid inside was as weak as branch water, but suddenly Candy Sue appeared with a pitcher of fresh tea in one hand and a dish of peach cobbler in the other. She produced a clean fork and his lunch tab from her apron pocket, and while she refreshed his tea she said in her candy-coated voice, “Thanks for coming, Leon. You can leave the money on the table.”

Then she was gone. Leon studied the bill and saw that it came to a total of seven dollars. He put a 10 dollar bill on the table to cover it. Then on second thought he slid a fifty underneath the dish that had held his cobbler.

“All she had to do was play her cards right and she wouldn’t even have to pay no rent,” he thought to himself as he stood up to depart.

When he got outside he knew exactly what he wanted to do. He wanted to go by the beauty shop and see Marthalene. She wasn’t built like Candy Sue, she was tall and willowy, with a lovely head of hair and gleaming fingernails and toenails, and overflowing with the blossom of youth.

Sometimes when she didn’t have a customer in her shop she would let Leon drop in and chat with her, but he had learned that he had to get her permission first, and always when she didn’t have a customer in the shop.

He knew she was alone right now because when he had walked by the shop on his way back from the restaurant to his office he had seen her through the plate glass window standing next to her styling chair looking into the mirror as she brushed her long and pretty hair.

The drill was that he would rap on the wall between his office and the beauty shop three times. He usually did it with the handle of the umbrella he kept hanging on the wall. If she didn’t rap back he would know she had a customer or just wasn’t in the mood to talk. But today no return knock came. Leon waited and waited with his ear cocked, but the knock never came.

He knew she was over there and he knew she didn’t have a customer, so he sat brooding and listening, wondering why women were so moody.

He tapped three times again, but still no returning tap.

Finally, he could stand it no longer and decided he would just go over there and tell her he was going to increase her monthly rent on the beauty shop and her singlewide. He figured that ought to get a conversation started with her.

But as soon as he stuck his head out of his office door he saw the reason for his frustration. There was a car parked in front of the shop. A customer had arrived since he had walked by. When he laid eyes on the car it really got his dander up, because he recognized it.

The car belonged to that little sleaze bag new preacher who had started that big church in that old barn that everyone was flocking to about halfway up from Apt-To-Miss heading north toward Interstate 20.

“The Reverend Ricky Lee Jones better be fixing to have a fresh haircut when he comes out of there,” Leon muttered to himself.