the inevitable

      NAIVE 

 

Her fingers were tired from daily turning the Want Ad pages of the Georgia Gallery. It was a little, dinky paper for dinky  Greenville, Clara's home town. There were about 7000 residents year round, plus at least 50, maybe 60 hobos who rode the rails daily, jumped off when the trains slowed down for crossroads.

 

Clara happened to have been born there twenty-six years ago. In 1941, before Pearl Harbor, her parents bought a shingled private house that looked like 19 others on the same street. When Mr. Withers passed, the responsibility of helping with never ending expenses fell on Clara.
For over a year she was a waitress, and I have been told, a darn good one, in the only decent restaurant in twenty miles. Most likely she brought home somewhere near $125 a week, a pittance toward house upkeep. All the doors and windows needed weatherstripping. The old furnace was just about taking its last breath. The roof leaked. Mrs. Withers wanted to take in laundry but Clara explained that nobody was going to pay her for doing what they can do themselves.

 

The day finally came when she found a want ad that had possibilities. 'Young woman wanted to assist manager of new disco/bar opening soon in Glades Center. Inquire 406-531-4307, 8 a.m. to noon, Mon./Sat.' No question, she called immediately and was lucky enough to get an interview for the next day. Using the moxie Clara learned waiting tables, she exaggerated about her experience at bars but had lots of confidence in her ability to learn fast.

 

After a short preliminary interview she was sent into the office of the manager-to-be. Her long, dark eye lashes, soft, subtle make-up and damn good body for a twenty six year old woman just about convinced Mr. Wexler to give her the job then and there. Did she want the chance? Wow! She surely did!  Her starting salary was to be $150 a week, plus a medical policy, 6 evenings, 5:30 to midnite, off on 
Mondays. She batted those long black eyelashes at Mr. Wexler and was a shoo in. They shook hands and Clara felt a tiny electric shock. Mr. Wexler told her it was from the carpets but she doubted it. 'You might as well call me 'Howard' we are going to work close enough for that.' 'OK, Howard, when do I start?' 'Our big opening is two weeks from now. T.V. ads start at 8 this evening. I would like you to be here before the opening, next Thursday 5 p.m. Can you arrange that?'

 

Harold didn't wait a week to see Clara. He called her the next evening. They chatted for a few minutes until he got to the crux of his call. 'Will you have dinner with me tomorrow evening? Her 'yes' came so fast he had to ask, 'What did you say?' And that was the real beginning of a hot love affair. Decent, in fact, good restaurants were across the Peach river. The world was rosy. The sun lit the sky twenty four hours a day. The disco got off to a fantastic start.

 

The dinky Georgia Gallery covered its front page with two inch headlines, 'Woman's body found near train tracks at cross over 411.'
The story took an entire column. 'Information wanted, a semi- description of the body, contact numbers.' The body was too close for comfort to Clara's mother's house. Fear for her mother made her give up her trysts with Howard. She left the bar before 11 and was home by 11:30 for two weeks in a row. The story faded but was revived with the finding of another body, dismembered and gutted. There was no face to write about. The crime occurred on the banks of Peach River.

 

Within one month there were four murders, each a little different from the others, but all ghastly. They all made the front page of the S. Carolina Charter as well as the Georgia papers. The fifth made the New York Times.

 

This time the body was identified, Clara Withers of Greenville, GA. 'A suspect is being interrogated.'