By Loraine Lafkoff

Willie Wayne Wharton had a plan. The next time his mother dragged him along with her to his grandmother's house, he would help himself. He knew she kept a stash of cash in the house. He'd seen it more than once when Mama was short for the rent. Granny always made a big deal out of giving them some of her money. He also knew she kept a spare key in the kitchen junk drawer. When Granny went away to visit her sister, she gave the key to the neighbor so she could come in and feed the kitty. Well, Willie would get that key so he could feed his kitty, so to speak. "It's time to ante up, Granny," he thought.

Willie couldn't wait until he finished high school next year. He'd be outa here faster than you could blink. Of course, if he could get his hands on some money sooner, then he'd be gone tomorrow. There was always work on the rigs. Maybe he'd even look up his father. But until then he was stuck here with Mama, even if she wasn't home too much anymore. Mama thought that if she worked her tail off at the beauty salon she could save enough money to move out of this mud hole of a trailer park.

Granny finally did that two years ago when her third husband Hank had dropped dead at work from a heart attack. If he hadn't made it down from the top of that telephone pole he would have been some sight, dangling and writhing about as his heart flashed its last warning. Willie wondered what that had felt like. But he missed Hank a little bit. Sometimes they would share a beer when they sat outside, looking at Hank's Smith & Wesson .38. Hank almost made visiting Granny tolerable.

Willie thought about how great it was when Granny finally moved farther away than three trailers. She'd used Hank's death benefits to buy herself a nice little house in a nice little subdivision with nice little weeds growing up through the cracks in the driveway. A starter home they called it. Willie liked to think of it as an ender home. Probably the last one Granny would ever live in. Maybe she'd will it to Mama then.

In the meantime, Mama spent a lot of her free time at Granny's place, drinking coffee and jabbering about nothing important. If Willie wanted to use the car, he had to drive her there and back.

Mama had always spent a lot of time at Granny's, especially when Willie was little. She was waiting for Bill to come back then. But Daddy had decided life was better alone and in Louisiana and hadn't come back at all.

He figured Mama had loved Bill, and she still hoped that he might show up. Maybe walk right in while they were sitting there talking. Granny was the one who did most of the talking now though, always asking him what he was up to or where he was going with Mama's car, telling him to get a job to help support his mother. Spying on him, that's what she was doing. Out of the corner of his eye he would always see her watching him, waiting for him to do something that she could fuss about.

Willie remembered the box of trucks in the corner of Granny's kitchen and how he would drive them along lined linoleum highways. He also remembered snatches of conversation. More than a few times he knew they were talking about him. Something about his name, about being named after Bill. "I'm telling you, he'll end up bad. Naming him like that's the worst thing you could have done. You wait and see. He'll end up bad, just like Vernon."

Granny always got around to that same conversation. Vern was Mama's father, but she never talked to Willie about him. He was gone since Mama was just a little girl. Willie asked about him only once when Granny mentioned him at the table. Granny had told him to shut up and not to listen to other peoples conversations. Told him to think about making something of himself that Mama could be proud of instead of being like his the rest of the men she'd known. Willie drove his car onto the gold shag prairie of the living room then. Someday he'd get in his own car and keep driving right out of here.

***

Today that opportunity had fallen into his lap. He was parked on the couch as usual, watching a John Wayne war movie. Willie loved these old movies but wondered why anyone would want to be a soldier. Like the purple cow in the children's rhyme, he'd rather see than be one. But today Willie was ready to go on his own mission.

In the kitchen Mama was on the phone with Granny, and was eager to hit the pre-holiday sales advertised in this morning's paper. "Pick me up at ten thirty. We can have lunch at the mall." Mama hung up the phone and began to pile on her makeup. "Willie, make sure you pick up them groceries for me when you go out. I'll be back in time to make supper." Then she sat in front of the TV with him to wait for Granny, but as usual, she didn't offer him any money for the groceries. She'd probably already spent this week's paycheck. Granny would have to slip her a couple of twenties again. Willie wished Granny would slip him a few too. "God, she must have over five hundred in that stash of hers," he thought.

Willie made sure Mama saw him pick up her grocery list, then headed out the door. She would think he was headed to Piggly-Wiggly, where his best friend Aaron worked. Instead, he drove to the corner Stop-N-Shop and parked in the lot. He waited twenty minutes before the sun faded blue Toyota passed by. Two biddies on their way to the mall to kill an afternoon with wishes. Willie turned the car toward Granny's house. He had an afternoon to kill too.

He parked right in front and jangled his key ring. Yesterday he'd tossed it on the kitchen table right next to Granny. He'd pocketed the key last week, zipped out to make a copy, and returned it when he went back to retrieve his cap that he had conveniently left in the bathroom. Willie hopped up the three steps and was inside in seconds. He'd be out in minutes, and if anyone recognized his car, he'd just say that he'd forgotten his cap and had gone back for it. It wasn't the first time that had happened, Willie chuckled.

***

"Damn," said Rose, as she reached over and dug through her purse for cigarettes. "I left my check book on the kitchen counter. I'll just swing back and run in and grab it. You never know when you'll find a bargain." She might dip into her cash too, she thought. Rose kept an old telephone bill in her jewelry box. Between the pages of the bill she kept her cash, sort of an emergency fund. "Why not," she chuckled. "Better spend it while I'm still alive to enjoy it."

***

Willie entered the bedroom and went right to Granny's dresser. It held a collection of framed pictures, perfume bottles, and souvenir knickknacks, all covered with a fine layer of dust. Right in the middle was her locked jewelry box. It was cheap cardboard, a Walmart special, turquoise with embossed gold diamonds. Willie poked a bent paper clip inside the lock and it popped open with a tiny click. A real vault, he thought.

The box was stuffed with newspaper clippings, which he tossed aside. Underneath was an envelope and Willie greedily ripped it open. Inside were three mint condition two-dollar bills and a 1957 silver certificate one-dollar bill. Not worth the time it took to get it. Willie stuffed these in his pocket and picked up another tiny envelope, heavy with coins. It held four bicentennial quarters, one Susan B. Anthony dollar, two Kennedy half-dollars and one Eisenhower dollar. Granny the coin collector. "Shit, this stuff is worthless. Where's your money Granny?" he said out loud. Then he riffled through the old phone bill and grinned. This ought to get him a ticket out of here. Someplace really far away.

Slowly counting the wad of tens and twenties, Willie wondered where Hank's gun was. That might be worth something. His eyes scanned the room hoping to see a likely hiding place for it. As his gaze shifted to the pile of clippings he had tossed on the bed, curiosity more than anything else, made him pick them up again. He wondered what was so important that they had to be locked away.

On each neatly clipped piece of newspaper, names were underlined and the date written across the top. Willie read on. The headline was "Murder-Suicide Suspected". Donald Wayne Hemmons was underlined. The next was Chester Wayne Parker: burglarized local storage facility. Gerald Wayne Garber: beat to death another motorist during a traffic mishap. Cory Wayne Gallagher: five people shot at a party, three dead.

Every single one was a crime report. Alleged and convicted. Petty crimes and serial killers. Kenny Wayne Hubbard, gang member, knifes two. Daryl Wayne Foster, the "Lake Kemp Lady Killer": murderer of three teenagers. Huntsville's lifer Elmer Wayne Henley was here too. Photocopies of a 1978 article on John Wayne Gacy and a magazine article about Atlanta's child killer Wayne Williams. "What the hell!" Willie gasped.

Like a bad movie, Willie's brain flashed back to all the conversations he had overheard. It wasn't his first name William that bothered Granny, but rather his middle name, Wayne. Granny saw it as a predisposition to crime, the mark of the devil.

At the bottom of the stack was an old, yellowed article. Willie saw Granny's face, thirty years younger, above the photo caption. "Rose Terrill leaves County Courthouse after her acquittal." The story went on to say that Mrs. Terrill had been accused of fatally shooting her husband, Vernon Wayne Terrill, while he was severely beating her. His death was ruled an act of self-defense.

The hairs on the back of Willie's neck stood up. These newspaper articles were the confirmation that Granny wanted for her silly ideas. He saw her funny looks when they were alone together and understood. Her face didn't say hate, it said fear. She was afraid of Willie and just waiting for him to fulfil his destiny. Granny was waiting for Willie to turn criminal because of the name his mother had given him at birth. He thought that was funny, a real scream. The next time he saw Granny, he thought, he'd start playing Wayne, and see what it got him.

He dropped the papers onto the bed and began stuffing the cash into his pockets. He turned towards the door to go and it was then he saw the gun. He remained riveted to the spot. His eyes focused only on the blued steel muzzle pointed at his chest. "It's a lot bigger than I remember it," he whimpered.

Unable to move, he could hear Granny softly talking, a glazed look in her eyes. "That's my money you have there Willie. Money I use to help your Ma. Money that ain't rightfully yours." She glared at him now, steadying her arm. "I knew you'd end up bad." It was the second to last thing that Willie heard.