The Long Game

Chapter Two

Weddings took the typical Traveler garishness to extremes, and this one promised to be even crazier than most. The goal of each family was to outdo every other wedding that had come before it, and since the Sheedys were the wealthiest family in the Village, this would be the most elaborate we’d seen. Pulling together such a big event was no small feat when you thought about the fact that Traveler engagements lasted for no more than a week or two.

As we continued toward the back of the Village, mobile homes were replaced by new-ish houses set back at the furthest end of the clearing. Travelers jumped on any opportunity to display their success to one another but didn’t look kindly on drawing the attention of outsiders. If country people saw all these fancy houses, it wouldn’t be long before questions would be asked about where we got all that money, and questions like that were usually followed by visits from the cops.

Around three-dozen houses had been built over the past 30 years, and like our weddings, they were each larger and more elaborate than the last. One house, the largest mansion in the Village and home to the Sheedys, had a façade of bright red brick interspersed with chunks of black coal that glared in the sunlight.

There were still trailers in this part, but these were usually reserved for in-laws or elderly parents, purchased as a sign of devotion by successful children. They sat scattered around the mansions like foothills at the base of mountains, attached to the larger buildings by the power lines that stretched between them.

I looked away from the window when the truck slowed a second time. A small trailer sat off to the side of the clearing, like it was ashamed to be seen in broad daylight. And it was right to try to hide itself away. Even the most modest mobile home was a palace compared to this tiny travel trailer with its hitch propped up on a pile of cinderblocks. Several yards away was a seafoam green house, larger than some but humble compared to the ones built in the last ten years. The same umbilical lines of power connected this house to the tiny trailer. Even though Jimmy Boy and I tried to keep the exterior of the old place in good condition, its bare lawn and empty flowerbeds were as good as a neon vacancy sign flashing outside a motel.

We pulled to a stop next to an old picnic table. When I was a kid it had been bright red, but the sun had bleached it to a faded brick color and no one had taken the time to do anything about it. I swung the door open and climbed down from the cab. Jimmy Boy made a beeline for the trailer, the door banging shut behind him. That morning, the leg of our foldout table had thrown in the towel and collapsed under our breakfast dishes. I’d hoped the mess would finally convince Maggie it was time to move back into the house and have some real furniture, but she’d just set herself to cleaning up and shooed us off to the hardware store.

Instead of going inside to help, I settled myself on the faded red bench and rested my back against the picnic table’s edge. I stretched my legs out across the patch of grass in front of me and tried to imagine what tonight’s party would look like. In years past, the bride’s family would rent a fire hall or hotel ballroom for the reception, but that was before the clan’s reputation as “a bunch of rowdy gypsies” got us banned from every rental space in St. Tammany Parish.

“Back so soon?”

I turned, startled by the voice behind me. It was all brogue without a hint of slow, Southern drawl. Maggie emerged from around the side of the trailer. Our massive wolfhounds, Yeats and Beckett, flanked her, obediently keeping pace as she strode across the lawn. Their wiry coats were a gleaming variety of blacks and grays, but each had a twin patch of white at his chest as if they’d lain down in a puddle of bleach. The mud on Maggie’s long skirt and the basket of lavender she carried on her wrist told me she’d been digging in her garden out behind the trailer.