Chapter Eighteen

THE CRACKER MAFIA

The exterior of B.W. Poston's house was finished with whitish gray brick. It was set about three hundred feet from the road. In front was a long semi-circular paved driveway.

"No holes in the driveway," Wilbur noticed as he pulled the waterbed van to a halt near the house owned by one of the biggest road contractors in the county.

A few workmen near the garage loaded materials into a yellow pickup truck. An electrician walked into the house. A few minutes later a woman walked out the side door.

"You got the waterbed for my husband, B.W. Poston?" she asked brusquely.

"Yes mam," Wilbur answered to the well built woman with slightly gray hair.

Even though she acted tough, she was not coarse. She had on black slacks and a black, white and gray blouse to match. Her glasses were rimmed in light blue.

"Can you get it through the side door?"

"Yes mam," Wilbur replied.

He hauled in the long sidepieces, tilting them through a doorway leading from the pantry adjoining the kitchen, then down a short hall. One direction led to an interior, built-in swimming pool, the other direction went to B.W. Poston's bedroom and bath. The bedroom had pine paneling that was darkened and varnished.

"We need to get that bed as filled as you can," Mrs. Poston instructed Wilbur. "My husband is a big man. He weighs about three hundred fifty pounds. He needs a lot of support."

"Okay, mam. No problem," he answered although he was surprised that such a powerful and rich man had not bought a more expensive mattress to support both of them.

Wilbur's thoughts were interrupted when he saw a young man walking through the house on the way to the pool area. The young man had a reddish brown mustache and a ruddy complexion. The side of his head and an ear were bandaged. When he reached the pool he talked to some younger children who laughed and splashed. A short time later on one of Wilbur's trips into the house, the young man walked back into the house from the pool.

"Need some hep?"

"Yeah, sure."

"Billy, you take it easy, hear?" Mrs. Poston cautioned him.

"I'll be okay, Momma."

"My son got out the hospital the other day. Someone took a tire iron to him. They beat the side a his head till it was like melted butter."

"You're kidding?!" Wilbur exclaimed.

"No," Billy stated. "And I don't hardly remember nothin' of what happened that night. All I remember was hauling a load for my stepdaddy, B.W. Poston's, company and had pulled off the side of the road 'cause I was tired and hungry. It was right over the county line. That's all I remember."

"We're not sure whether someone was following him, or they were waiting for him there where he stopped," Mrs. Poston said. "Someone stopped a while later 'cause they had noticed the B.W. Poston truck along the side of the road with no driver. They wondered where the driver was. When they opened the door, Billy was sprawled on the front seat. His head was covered with blood, and the ham and cheese sandwich he stopped to eat was covered with blood. He was nearly dead."

It made Wilbur immediately think about how Debra must have looked after her fatal crash. He tuned out Mrs. Poston until the name of Arthur Stuart engaged him again.

"You might know the lawyer, Arthur Stuart, B.W.’s first cousin. He told us about the waterbed he got. They’re all related. B.W.’s great grandaddy, Elliot, came to Florida in the 1890’s. He raised cattle. Some say he rustled more than he raised, but that’s for the historians to figure out. Elliot made a fortune selling beef to the United States Army during a little brouhaha called the Spanish American War. Elliot took that money and bought land all over Florida. He expanded his herds of cattle. Then came the meatpacking business. There was plenty of land available so they began grafting orange trees."

She began to chuckle.

"What’s so funny?" Wilbur asked.

Her son, Billy, looked at her also.

"Grafting, that’s a good word for the Postons, the Stuarts, the whole lot of them. You know, a citrus tree that grows wild will only grow so high, and then it will die. Something in the soil kills it. It ain’t strong enough. They have to graft a stronger strain onto it. Then it can grow and bear fruit. That’s what the Postons and their clan have been doing in Florida for most of this century. They’ve attached themselves to most everything. You don’t even know they’re there. But they are. They don’t have relationships either, they have money."

When she finished Wilbur addressed her son.

"You're lucky," Wilbur said.

"Yeah," Billy admitted, nodding his head. "I'm gonna stay out of them trucks for a while. Gonna have to carry a gun from now on. The only thing I remember is that my head hurt like blazes for about a week."

xxx

Wilbur erected the waterbed close enough to the wall to permit only a vacuum cleaner and Mrs. Poston to pass. Billy helped Wilbur do this, and then he left the room. Wilbur noticed a slight crack in the end piece of wood, but when the headboard and the mattress were in place, it was no longer visible. He hurried to fill the mattress, inwardly praying, that it would be sufficient to support the Postons.

B.W. Poston was in the kitchen when Wilbur went there to get a drink that Mrs. Poston offered him. On the way to the kitchen he noticed a light green room with a long, dining room table with high back chairs. Overhead was a chandelier. To the left in a larger room with antique brick walls was a fireplace.

B.W. Poston was as large as the refrigerator next to him. He was dressed in extra large khaki pants and a white shirt. His skin was fluffy and pink. A toothpick stuck out the side of his mouth. He didn't look like the typical waterbed customer to Wilbur.

Wilbur had heard the Poston name but had never met one until then. B.W. Poston looked nothing like he had imagined.

"This man want a Co Cola?" he asked his wife.

"Just a glass of water. That'll do," Wilbur answered.

"We got plenty Co Cola."

"Water is fine."

"Okay."

Mrs. Poston got a glass from the cupboard. Mr. Poston opened the refrigerator and retrieved a Coca Cola for himself from a thirty-two ounce bottle. Mrs. Poston put the empty glass to an opening on the refrigerator door. After the ice came out, she moved it over, and water was sprayed in.

"I've never seen that before!" Wilbur said as he marveled at the invention that would have impressed even Archimedes.

Mr. Poston had already walked into the pantry and was soon outside to supervise the other workmen.

"Oh, we've had it for several years. It's convenient," Mrs. Poston said matter-of-factly.

xxx

Later, when the bed was filled, B.W. Poston wasn't around to test it, but that was okay as far as Wilbur was concerned. He collected his tools, empty boxes, the C.O.D. , and then he departed.

Two months later, to his surprise, Wilbur was back there to take the bed down.

"I will be moving to this address," Mrs. Poston said without blinking an eye.

It was obvious to Wilbur, she was now, or soon to be, an ex-Mrs. B.W. Poston. He knew why they hadn't bought a better mattress. They weren't sleeping in the same bed. She handed Wilbur the address with directions.

"There's been flooding in that area because of all the rain we've had in the last week, but you should be able to get through," she said.

Wilbur dismantled the bed and loaded it into the delivery van. Twenty minutes later he made a right turn onto her new street. The county road went downhill, and the homes had been built in a flood zone. At the head of the road were two, huge bilge pumps working to clear the large ponds of settled water. There was mud everywhere.

Wilbur felt like he had been transported back to a previous era when paved roads were non-existent, and the Postons had not made all their money building roads in the county.

He went slowly, not knowing where there was road support and where there wasn't any. He finally arrived at the last house on the right. It was set far off the road like Mrs. Poston's previous residence, except that the driveway was non-existent. Six to eight inches of muddy, black ooze was all there was as Wilbur worked his way through the slough.

He gunned the motor, and mud rooster-tailed behind him.

On the radio, "Imagine" by John Lennon played. Stuck again, he gunned the motor until he sank into the mud. Then Wilbur repeated the process until he reached the two car garage attached to the house with the muddy white columns in the front. Mrs. Poston's son, Billy, without bandages, was there to greet him.

"Momma got the bed," he said.