Ike finished hanging the last strand of lights along the eaves of the newly constructed pink brick house he, Jerry Dale and 8-year-old Priscilla had moved into just two months earlier. It was situated on the corner lot Jerry Dale had coveted for over two years while she and Ike debated whether they could afford to buy a bigger house. Ike could have told anyone that the decision had already been made as soon as Jerry Dale met the general contractor who had built several stylish new houses around town since relocating to oil-booming Dixon five years ago.
Jerry Dale had been busy buying furniture and having drapes made for their new house while Ike put in a lawn and landscaping. Christmas had almost been an afterthought. Ike and Jerry Dale reasoned that after stretching their budget for the new house, they would not exchange gifts with each other but only buy gifts for Priscilla. There were presents under the new aluminum Christmas tree already. One beautifully wrapped box, decorated with a pink fur Santa Claus and pink satin ribbon, held a dress for Priscilla that she would be especially excited to receive. Another present, decorated with a pink angel, held a pair of dressy black patent ankle boots like the ones the teenagers on “American Bandstand” wore.
Ike climbed down the ladder and waved at his neighbor. Jack Breaux yelled from across the street, “Hey, Okie, Joyeux Noel. House’s lookin’ mighty pretty.” Jack and Ike had quickly become friends. Jack was a transplanted Cajun from Louisiana, good-natured and friendly like Ike. Jack called Priscilla “Little Okie.” Priscilla was fond of him. She liked to visit Jack Breaux and his wife because not only didn’t they question her about drinking black coffee, they served an especially strong coffee with chicory she’d developed a taste for. She even allowed Jack to add milk to her black coffee to make café au lait. Occasionally, Mrs. Breaux—Jack called her Chère—served them delicious fried rectangles sprinkled with powdered sugar. Priscilla loved the treat but got shy when she tried to pronounce beignet. Jack told her they were French doughnuts, and that made her feel a whole lot better.
The Christmas spirit had taken hold of Ike, and he’d decided not only to put up lights along the eaves of the house but to decorate the front door, too. He’d been at it all afternoon. He looked at his watch and saw he was almost late picking Priscilla up from school. He opened the door of his pickup, Ol’ Red, and whistled for Midge. The little black-and-white terrier bounded into the cab, and as he pulled out of the driveway, Ike took an assessment of his Christmas display. Poinsettias lined the walk leading to the front door that Ike had wrapped in shiny green paper and put silver letters on, spelling out NOEL down one side and three silver bells on the other side. He remarked to Midge, “Not bad, girl dog.” Priscilla was waiting at the curb in front of Beal Elementary when she saw Ol’ Red coming down the street. Ike pulled up and said, “Come on, Nubbin.” Midge jumped and yipped and licked Priscilla’s face. Priscilla was excited, too, because they were going downtown to see the new Christmas decorations the city was installing on Main Street.
The Downtown Improvement Committee had gone in with the VFW Ladies Auxiliary and the Pink Ladies to raise funds to buy fancy new lights to replace the old-fashioned fat red and green lights. The city’s crew had been installing elaborate new decorations all the way from the Piggly Wiggly way up on North Main to several blocks past the Ford dealership on South Main. And now they were hanging a huge star from the top of the courthouse, right in front of the center window of the third floor. The county jail that only ever held a handful of prisoners occupied the whole third floor of the courthouse. The star was big enough to completely hide the bars that covered the center window. The manger scene that had always decorated the courthouse lawn had even been updated. Mary, Joseph, Baby Jesus and the angel had company now, with a new donkey and lamb.
Blocks before Ike, Priscilla and Midge parked at the courthouse square, they could hear Christmas music coming from the loudspeaker just behind the big star. The star was so bright, it illuminated the whole courthouse square at night. Downtown Dixon had been transformed. Priscilla thought these new decorations were every bit as beautiful as the ones she and Jerry Dale had seen on their shopping trip to Dallas.
Sheriff Perkins and Mary Freeman were coming down the courthouse steps. Joe Perkins and Ike were good friends. Joe had just been reelected to a fourth term. Mary had made an easy run for reelection as Clerk of the Court, a position she’d held for two decades. A gust of cold wind blew Mary’s headscarf off her head and plastered its bright red poinsettias high up on the brick facade of the courthouse. Joe reached up and peeled it off, then waved across the lawn at Ike and Priscilla. He remarked to Mary, barely five feet tall and a hundred pounds, as she wrestled the scarf back around her tight French twist, “Mary, you better get out of this wind before it blows you up against the wall. I’ll see you tomorrow.”
Mary was in a hurry to get home. Nova Lee—Mary and Gary Freeman’s daughter—would be home in a few days for Christmas break. Mary had missed her so. Why Nova Lee had opted for that college way off—over six hours away—she didn’t know.
Nova Lee wasn’t happy away from home. As much as she thought she would enjoy being out on her own, Waxahachie, Texas was nearly a seven-hour drive from Dixon. The Christian college Nova Lee had thought would be just the right fit for her wasn’t. And she had made just one friend all semester—Melba Miller, the daughter of a missionary couple off harvesting souls somewhere in South America. Melba had decorated her dorm room with all kinds of llama stuff her parents had sent from Bolivia and Peru. Nova Lee thought the llama stuff was tacky, but she really liked Melba, and they had a lot of fun together.
Nova Lee saved up the Big Hunks her mother sent her, and late at night, she and Melba would sneak into the Fellowship Hall two floors down, eat Big Hunks and drink Cokes they’d gotten from the vending machine while Melba played rock-and-roll music on the piano.
Nova Lee would dance with a push broom while Melba played “I Found My Thrill on Blueberry Hill.” Dancing was forbidden and so was secular music. Jerry Lee Lewis had been expelled from the school just a few years before for playing a boogie-woogie version of “I Know My God Is Real” on that very same piano. Melba and Nova Lee knew rock-and-roll was the devil’s instrument, and neither one of them cared. Melba was about to graduate at midterm and head to South America to join her parents’ ministry, and that would put an end to Fats Domino and leave Nova Lee without a single friend.
Instead of packing for a two-week Christmas break, Nova Lee loaded up her suitcases with her new wardrobe, then called her mother long distance right in the middle of the day. Mary turned white as a sheet when she accepted the person-to-person collect call. What could possibly be so wrong that Nova Lee would call her at work in the middle of the day when the rates were sky-high? As relieved as she was to find out Nova Lee was not sick or hurt, not in any kind of danger or dire situation, she was just sick to hear Nova Lee wanted to leave school. But no amount of reasoning could change her daughter’s mind. Truth be told, Mary was kind of relieved. Well, truth told, deep in her heart, Mary was thrilled her daughter was coming home. She’d missed her so, off in that college, nearly an eight-hour drive from Dixon.
Mary immediately got Nova Lee a job working for Joe Perkins right there in the courthouse where her own office was located on the second floor. Nova Lee was surrounded by people she’d known her whole life. She was on home turf—didn’t have to try and make new friends. One other bonus—she was the best-dressed young woman in town with the wardrobe Mary had outfitted her with when she went away to Waxahachie. She went back to church, too. Fourth Avenue Church of Jesus. Nova Lee didn’t regret for one second leaving school. She vowed never to leave Dixon again.
Nova Lee Freeman had been a member of Fourth Avenue Church of Jesus since she was in kindergarten. Neither her mother or father attended. Her mother had seized the opportunity for convenient summer childcare when she heard about Vacation Bible School and enrolled her little girl in it. Nova Lee’s father was a house painter and an off-and-on functioning alcoholic, so her family depended on Mary’s job at the courthouse. The little church had been a kind of second home to Nova Lee. The pastor and his wife were devoted to all their members, but Nova Lee held a special place. She spent time after school helping around the church and babysat Little Clarence, the clingy youngest of the preacher’s kids. Nova Lee was the only person who could get the clingy Little Clarence loose from his mother’s dress-tail, and Sister Knott loved her for it. Nova Lee even persuaded her father to donate a coat of paint and some of his time to the church every once in a while. When Nova Lee went off to the Christian college in Waxahachie, Brother and Sister Knott were as proud of her as if she was their own daughter.
Brother Knott had pastored the little church on the corner of 4th Street and Avenue A for years. His ministry was not well-funded like the Baptists and Methodists, Lutherans and Church of Christs. They certainly didn’t have the well-filled coffers of the Episcopalians. The little church was beset by rotting eaves, faulty wiring and leaky ceilings in the Sunday School rooms. The baptismal didn’t hold water and Sister Knott was at it constantly with bleach trying to control the mold. “Woman,” Brother Knott would say to her, “the Good Lord won’t be bothered one bit by our baptismal. Did Elisha not wash seven times in the muddy River Jordan as he was commanded to do?” From the pulpit at Fourth Avenue Church of Jesus, Brother Knott had said to his congregation many times, “We may not have a splendid house of worship, but it is our splendid faith and joy in the Lord that holds up the rafters above our heads.”
Clarence Knott lived with his wife Oleta and their three children in a pitiful and precarious residence next to the church. It was nothing short of a miracle the parsonage hung together at all. Clarence’s stipend for ministering to the congregation was completely dependent on what was collected each Sunday when they passed the plate. He was a plumber by trade and had a fairly thriving business when he got the call to preach. He augmented his meager stipend with plumbing jobs, but his few customers knew a plumbing crisis would always take a backseat to a crisis of faith or his special ministry to wayward souls.
He conducted Jail Church every Sunday afternoon at the courthouse and counted among his victories for the Lord some pretty hard cases.
When Joe and Mary reached the bottom of the steps, they waved at Priscilla and Ike. Mary peeled off in the opposite direction. Joe ambled over to say hello. He leaned over and patted Midge, who was staring down the newly installed donkey in the Nativity scene, then reached in his pocket and produced a pencil that was left over from his campaign. It was printed with the slogan Keep Beal County Safe—Keep Joe Perkins for Sheriff. He handed it to Priscilla, then gave her an emery board with the same slogan and said, “Here you go, gal. Give that to your mama.” Then he leaned in to Ike and said discreetly, “Well. ol’ pal, I’ve got a new guest up there in a cell.” Priscilla went loping across the lawn after Midge, who’d broken loose to chase a squirrel up a tree. When she got back, she heard her daddy say, “Well, Joe, he’s always been no ‘count. Jail’s the best place for him.” With that, he took Priscilla’s hand and said, “Come on, Nubbin, I need to run over and see Paul before we go home. I’ll see you, Joe.”
Ike and Priscilla crossed the street, walked past Powell Drugstore and went three doors down to Gruber’s Jewelry. Paul Gruber looked up from a watch he was working on and came out front carrying a small box in his hand. Priscilla was examining a little gold ring with an amethyst stone, her birthstone, and didn’t notice Ike take the box from Paul and tuck it into his pocket.
It was getting dark already and the new Christmas lights had come on all up and down Main Street. Paul lit a cigarette, and he and Ike started an easy conversation. Priscilla stood at the window, holding Midge and looking up at the big star on the courthouse. Her daddy tapped her on the shoulder and said, “Come on, Sugar Woog, let’s go pick up your mother and head home.”
Ike, Jerry Dale and Priscilla drove extra slow down Main Street. They went through the drive-in window at Mack’s Burger Stand and picked up basket burgers to go. When Ike pulled into their driveway, Priscilla squealed and Jerry Dale began to cry when she saw their beautiful new house lit up for Christmas.
A day or so later, Nova Lee was in a rush to finish up a letter for the sheriff that had to be in the mail by the end of the day. She spun the letter out of the typewriter and hurried around her desk to the double doors that led into the sheriff’s inner office. She knocked, then went inside to the inner sanctum. It was empty. Nova Lee stuck her head out and asked the young deputy Rayford Dunn if he had any idea where the sheriff had gone. Rayford burned his mouth and nearly choked on a swig of hot coffee. He had a crush on Nova Lee. All he could manage was to shake his head and mumble a weak “No.” Nova Lee rolled her eyes, turned on her heel and went back inside Joe’s office. She swept around behind Joe’s big desk and went through a small door, ignoring the Do Not Enter sign. She didn’t know where the door led, but she knew Joe hadn’t just disappeared, and she had to find him.
Nova Lee’s red suede high heels tapped insistently on the linoleum floor as she hurried down the unfamiliar hallway and through another door—a swinging door. She tapped on past a small metal desk that was sitting against the wall with nothing but a telephone on it. Three quick steps later, she became aware there were jail cells lining the walls on both sides of her. She froze. Her breath caught in her throat. The vein in her neck throbbed against the rabbit fur collar of her red cashmere sweater. Her nails bit into the flesh of her palms. There came a loud crack. Light and noise. The Christmas star blinded her. A carol from the loudspeaker deafened her. Combined with the pounding in her chest, her blood pulsing, it threatened to knock her off her feet. She willed herself not to faint as she began to tiptoe slowly backward toward the swinging door.
She smelled him before she saw him. Cigarette smoke. Bay rum. He was sitting easily in the corner of his bunk, leaning up against the cell wall. Black curly hair fell across his forehead above a pair of eyes so green they shone like a cat’s. He was the lone prisoner in the jail. His gaze was paralyzing. He released her with the offhand remark, “Darling, you are a definite improvement over that deputy.”
Nova Lee got hold of herself and fled back down the hall, through the swinging door, back through the little Do Not Enter door, out the big double doors and into the chair behind her desk. She sat, barely breathing, until Rayford sidled shyly over and asked, “You okay, Nova? You find the sheriff?” Just then, like a savior, the sheriff came in the front door of the office and said, “Everybody doing okay up here?”
That night, Nova Lee couldn’t eat a thing. Couldn’t get the row of jail cells out of her mind—or the green-eyed prisoner. Back at the courthouse, the green-eyed prisoner was lying on his back, smoking and studying the ceiling. The blinding light of the Christmas star shone all around, making it impossible to sleep. But sleep was the furthest thing from his mind. He was hatching a scheme, and he was a fast worker.
The Sunday after he’d first laid his green gaze on Nova Lee Freeman, he saw her again and she saw him. Now that she was over eighteen, Nova Lee had promised Brother and Sister Knott she’d join their ministry to the lost—Jail Church. The trio was separated from the lone prisoner by bars. Brother Knott delivered a sincere sermon, beseeching the man to come to the Lord. Then Sister Knott sang a nasally hymn. Nova Lee had been asked to give her testimony. She was at a loss and finally came up with a story about the comfort she’d derived from all the llama decor in the dorm room of her missionary friend when she was back in Waxahachie.
Nova Lee tried to keep her eyes lowered throughout her testimony. She stared down at the black suede kitten-heeled pumps she was wearing. They had little fox terriers decorating the toes. Her mind wandered to how perfectly the shoes set off her black velvet suit, hat and matching purse. But when she looked up, she saw those eyes again. Staring at her from behind the bars. Brother Knott recited the Bible verse “Likewise, I say unto you, there is joy in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner that repenteth, Luke 15:10.” The prisoner gave Nova Lee a wink and said, “Amen, brother.”
The month of December was festive all over downtown Dixon, and every office in the courthouse had Christmas parties. The sheriff’s office was decorated with red chili ristras and, instead of a Christmas tree, Joe brought in a mesquite tree, and the staff decorated it with red chilis, too, and cornhusks tied into bows. The party in the sheriff’s office was the most festive one in the courthouse. Even the lone prisoner in the jail was there. He’d managed to earn the status of trusty and had become a fixture around the office, always willing to help the staff with odd jobs. He joined the circle of deputies when they gathered around to smoke and drink coffee and tell off-color jokes. He charmed women up and down the halls of the Beal County Courthouse. Everyone except Mary Freeman. She saw him for the first time at the sheriff’s Christmas party. She was looking askance at him over a cup of punch when he came up and tried his charm on her. “Aren’t you pretty in that Christmas dress?” he said. “Almost as pretty as Sheriff Perkins’ secretary.” “I ought to be. I’m her mother,” snapped Mary.
For Priscilla, the month of December dragged by. She was more excited about Christmas Eve this year than any other year of her life. Uncharacteristically, Priscilla had swallowed a story told to her by her best friend Suzanne Smith that Suzanne’s big brother Stanley had told her that his best friend Wayne King who had heard it from his cousin who lived in San Antone that at exactly midnight on Christmas Eve animals were granted the ability to speak. The very idea she’d be able not only to talk to Midge but that Midge could speak back to her was a dream Priscilla had had for as long as she could remember, and she couldn’t wait for the night. Priscilla, who had been born with a superstitious bone, stayed true to her promise to Suzanne not to tell another living soul about it because it would be a jinx.
On that Christmas Eve, Ike, Jerry Dale and Priscilla went to see the Christmas display at the Garland house, an annual tradition. A line of cars snaked down the street. Everyone in town waited to drive by to see the front lawn, decorated the same year after year. A little Ferris wheel went round and round carrying dolls and teddy bears and a rubber Indian with a big nose and toothy grin, a scalp in one hand and a tomahawk in the other. Ike had one just like it. Someone had given it to him because he was an Indian, and he had good-naturedly put it on a shelf in his gun cabinet. There were cherubic figures clad in snowsuits and red scarves that danced round and round in a circle of frosty-looking artificial snow, plastic carolers dressed in choir robes, their mouths frozen as if forming the sweet notes of all the carols that played in a loop on a speaker attached to the eaves of the house. As always, Jerry Dale brought Ike’s big thermos filled with hot coffee and homemade fudge wrapped up in waxed paper, and the three of them sat in the car with the defroster running to be sure the windows wouldn’t fog up. Priscilla always wanted to know who Mr. Garland was. Was he rich, did he have any kids, did Ike and Jerry Dale know him? The answers were always the same. William Garland came to Dixon from back East, made a fortune in oil, served as a senator and had a daughter who lived in New York City. He had left instructions in his will that the house be kept as it had been while he and his wife were alive and, as a gift to his adopted hometown of Dixon, the Christmas display was to go on in perpetuity. And yes, both Ike and Jerry Dale had known him but not real well.
When they had gotten their fill of coffee and fudge, they went home and opened all the gifts around the tree. This year, all the gifts were for Priscilla, except the ones Priscilla had put under the tree for her mother and daddy. Every gift had been opened when Ike said he needed to go out to the car to retrieve his thermos. When he came back in, he had a little box in his pocket that he presented to Jerry Dale. It was the small box from Gruber’s Jewelry Store, and inside was a ring. A diamond center stone encircled by smaller diamonds suited her too well, pleased her too much for Jerry Dale to protest about the broken promise of no gifts. Then Ike reached in his pocket and brought out another little box and handed it to Priscilla. Inside was the amethyst birthstone ring she’d been looking at that day. Jerry Dale had broken her promise, too. She brought out a big box for Ike. It was the shotgun he’d been wanting to go quail hunting.
With all the surprises and gift-opening, it was way past midnight—Christmas morning by then—before Priscilla realized that in the midst of her excitement she had completely forgotten to see if Midge could talk.
Way past midnight—Christmas morning by then—the green-eyed prisoner smoked and paced up and down in the dark. Barely, audible footsteps approached. Nova Lee Freeman unlocked his cell door. Together, they slipped along the hallway, down three long flights of back stairs and out a side door that opened onto the courthouse square. They crept along behind hedges, hugging the side of the building, until they broke away and dashed across the lawn to the Nativity scene, hiding there long enough to see it was safe. Then another dash to Nova Lee’s car, the only car parked along the courthouse square.
Clifford Gibson took the wheel, brushed back his curly black hair, lit a cigarette and put his arm around Nova Lee. She unfolded a roadmap. Phoenix, Arizona was circled in red. She started to give directions. Clifford pulled her close and said, “Hon, I don’t need directions. I know Phoenix, Arizona like the back of my hand.” Exhaust from the tailpipe formed a cloud as the car disappeared, headed toward the city limits. The new Christmas decorations on the empty Main Street of Dixon had gone off for the night. A single yellow caution light flashed.
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