Vignette #203: Earl Wayne

He was just getting used to being twenty when the woman who called herself Beth wafted into his life. Wafted was the best word. She just sort of appeared and lingered in his senses. She got close enough for him to smell her perfume that first time, he breathed her in and his senses locked on then he couldn’t get her out of his system.

She was standing outside the drug store in his little town, just looking up and down the small streets, suitcase beside her and her dark hair pulled back away from her face. He and his buddy Chester walked by her on their way to wherever they were going. She smiled at him, not them, but him. Chester was chattering away about guns or cars, and Earl Wayne, as that was who he was then, was letting the chatter sink in, and smiling now and then enough to encourage his buddy to prattle on.

He never knew the name of that perfume, but the scent and her smile lingered on for two days until she turned up to take his lunch order at Pratt’s two days later. That’s when she stole the rest of his heart. His mother warned him to stay away from her. His father told him to fuck her and forget her, but it was too late.

The whirlwind courtship lasted barely two weeks and Earl Wayne found himself standing in front of the town judge with Laura and hearing the words “You may now kiss the bride.” It was quick, and it was against everyone’s warnings, but he didn’t care. She was a dream come true.

For six months they lived in the little shack on the edge of town that she had rented with a small fistful of dollars from her pocket when she got off the bus. She told him she was from North Carolina, that she had no family and that she was on her way to California to be a movie star.

She was convinced that her mother was Marilyn Monroe and she was going to find her and reunite with her. Colton would just smile and kiss her. He knew that was one of her little imaginative stories, but they did no one any harm. They saved their money, her tips from the diner and as much of his salary as a ranch hand, determined to get to California and make her dreams come true. If that’s what she wanted, that’s what Earl Wayne would provide for her.

What she gave to him filled his heart. She smiled, and made him laugh. Most of all she loved him. She submitted to his every need, physically and emotionally. Each time they made love it was like fire and velvet. They had both been virgins until their second date at the drive in, and she just attacked him. At first it was hot and awkward, but it didn’t take long until they loved the awkwardness away.

Beth kept an eye on finances, daily updating them on how much they needed for bus tickets to Hollywood. Every night after they lit the hot coals of passion and lay naked in each other’s arms, they would dream of what they would do when they got to California. Sometimes she would get the little tin box they kept the cash in and they would count it, earmark the meager little stacks, counting on the fact that they would immediately become movie stars.

Earl Wayne had never even thought about being a movie star. His dreams until that time had been small, a wife and kids, a few horses and a piece of land to ranch, but Beth had convinced him that he was movie star material. She made him think about taking care of his body and what she called his cowboy star looks. She wouldn’t let him drink beer, “You don’t want one of them bellies honey…John Wayne don’t have a gut, and you’re better lookin.”

Spring was just beginning to pop. Laura had told him that by summer they would have enough to be on their way. She was so excited. Their first anniversary would be spent in Hollywood and they would be superstars by then.

He had a bad feeling all day, which became a pounding in his chest when Chester pulled his old truck into the shack’s yard and a yellow cab was there. Chester pulled off and Earl Wayne went in. Beth was sitting there tears running down her beautiful face sitting on that battered little suitcase he first saw her with.

Before she could speak a hard woman with a thick accent popped out of the kitchen. “Now say your goodbye’s girl…” she ordered. The woman grabbed Beth by the arm and made her stand up.

“Bethie, baby, what’s going on?” Earl Wayne asked as he reached for her.

“Bethie?” The woman snorted scowling at his wife. “You are the devil’s child, as usin’ that name.”

Beth, or whatever her name was, cowered as though she were about to be struck. The woman turned back to Earl Wayne. “Boy this girl done lied to you ‘bout ever thang.” She shoved Beth. “You bess be apologizing, too. Hurry now, we gots to go.”

And Beth broke down in sobs.

“Leave it to me to clean up yer mess, girl.” The old woman shoved his bride out of the way. “Look boy, this little girl goin home where she belongs. Sorry for any trouble she cause you, it’s best if you just move along.”

“Lady, I don’t know who you are, but you can’t take her with you. She’s my wife and I’m her family now.”

The woman laughed. “Yer wife? Aw buddy, how old she tell you she wuz?”

“Nineteen” Earl Wayne blinked.

“Honey, you bes be a little more careful about beleivin anything that purdy girls tell you. This girl barely seventeen. Iif you was fool enough to marry this lying little whore, you bes hope the po-lice don’t be arrestin you for shackin up wif a baby.” The woman smacked Laura on the ear, hard enough to have the ring echo throughout the whole little shack. “Come on girl. We be leavin' now…” She snatched up the suitcase and grabbed his sobbing bride’s arm and yanked her in the direction of the door.

Beth broke away long enough to grab Earl Wayne and sob on his chest. “Bethie, honey…” he held her as tight as he could. “I don’t care…I’ll find you baby….”

“Oh no…” the woman broke them apart. “You bes just get that thought right out ya head boy. This girl ain’t nothing but trouble…you find you a good woman…a decent woman” She grabbed and twisted Beth’s arm, forcing her to head to the door. Earl followed them every step of the way to the taxi.

As the cab driver put the battered little suitcase in the trunk, the old woman allowed Beth to kiss her husband one last time. Beth put her arms on Earl Wayne’s shoulders and kissed him. As she was pulled away she whispered “I’ll meet you in California…”

I took two days for Earl Wayne to stop his own sobs, then another to stop the anger. On the fifth day he marched down to the courthouse and told the judge the story. He was told for all intents and purposes his marriage was invalid and that he should just get on with his life. His original thought was to that someone would track down his wife and he could get her back.

His heart barely beat, but his mind raced a thousand miles an hour. There had to be some way he could find her. She had obviously run away once before, this probably wasn’t the first time. Why should it be the last?

He checked to make sure she hadn’t taken their little box of dreams, as they called it, with her. It was still there, not a cent missing as far as he knew. After tearing the little shack apart, in search of any clue as to where she came from or even what her real name was, he packed what little he had and bought a bus ticket to Hollywood. He would meet her there.

To Earl Wayne’s surprise, it wasn’t easy to become a movie star. There weren’t people lined up impressed with his looks eager to give him his first lead role in a movie. In fact what he found was that Hollywood was lined up with good looking young men and women, all with the same dream and not enough lead roles in movies to go around. But he was determined; his best chance at finding his wife was for her to find him, so he stuck to it…and look at him now.

The only thing missing was his Bethie. She was a twinge in his heart from a distant long ago. He never heard from her again. Six months after arriving in L.A. He got a job working for a production company that needed people with experience as ranch hands.

He used that as a stepping stone to actual acting classes and much quicker than it ever should have happened, he began to get work in television. Within two years he landed a lead in a really bad western that didn’t last as long as his marriage, but it lead to a hit a year later.

Then along came Miss America. He was the hot new man in town when the pageant officials contacted the network and asked for a judge for that year’s program. Wanting to promote the network and the new series, they insisted that Earl Wayne, now known to the world as Colton Shores, fill the position. It was just a week he thought, what the hell.

What the hell was right. To this day he can’t remember any of the contestants or who won for that matter. All he could see the entire time was the Southern belle who was giving up her crown after a yearlong reign, Mamie Rae Tipton. Of course, she didn’t even know he existed. Oh she had smiled at him, and was so pleasant and cordial when they were introduced, but to his knowledge he was just someone on the other side of all those matrons that kept her at a distance.

Like a government orphan who turned eighteen, as soon as the new winner was crowned Mamie Rae was turned loose in the streets. Colton was at his hotel room, packing his bag ready to sit there all night until it was time for the limo to take him away when he heard the knock at his door. When he opened it, there she was…Miss America.

She smiled that bright smile that has won her the title the year before and pushed her way right into his hotel room. She shoved him back on the bed and looked him in the eye. “I’ve always been a good girl, but you Mister Colton Shores make me wanna be bad.”

Colton saw no reason to lie. “We’re gonna get along just fine then…”

And that was that until the limo arrived to take him away. Unlike Beth, Tippy was on a flight to L.A. later that day. They never looked back, and by spring they were married.

Now his life was complete and Beth was just a sometimes painful memory relegated to a brown manila envelope whose contents were a picture, a faded marriage license and now a birth certificate Bethie, now identified as Lylah Justyn.

Colton assumed it for years it had been purchased somewhere. The latest shock upon shocks was that it had not been a forgery. It had been stolen from her home in Virginia; Beth Ann Ransom was Ian’s Uncle Nate’s sister, who had died of scarlet fever at the age of three. It was the last piece of evidence they needed to prove to themselves what they all knew. It was coincidental, but the coincidences were far too great to be ignored.

Ian’s own birth certificate was now in that envelope. Jude knew the real father’s name was on the original. None of them doubted the name Earl Wayne Grayson was the man now legally known as Colton Shores. Had Colton stayed in Splintersville just another few short weeks, he would have known he was to be a father.

As hard as Lylah’s family were, they weren’t about to deliberately have a bastard born in the world, but he had left without even saying goodbye to his folks. In fact he had had no contact with them, out of shame and anger until Chester tracked him down in Hollywood to tell him his father had passed.

His mother was not a forgiving woman, but had told him that if he give up the Hollywood nonsense and come home where he belonged all would be forgiven. Colton was the star of his own series by then and was about to become a first time father, so he thought. His answer to her was simple and direct, “Go screw yourself Mama”, and that was the last contact he ever had with anyone in Splintersville.

Although he was grateful now that his Beth had been taken away from him, he was also so grateful that she had been ushered into his life. She was the first of a thousand sweet surprises, the greatest being his beloved Tippy. She never ceased to amaze him. Being alone after the shock of truth subsided. She just took his hand and squeezed his heart with her smile. “Nothing’s changed love, nothing it all. Now we just know why.”