“Miss Dara, how you been?” he asked.
“The kitchen’s not as much fun without you. And no one can carry a tune, though Beauregard continues to try.”
“Sorry about that.”
“We all are, Huddie. How you doing?”
“Writing songs in my head nearly every day—no matter how tired I am. It’s almost me sleepwalkin’ through everything, until it comes time for me to get to my guitar.”
“Well,” I said, doing my best to ignore the urination pantomime, “you look good.”
“The kitchen serves us some mighty fine food here, that’s probably why,” he lied, smiling. He leaned in. “The head cook?”
“He’s keeping to himself. Heard his boy broke his leg, so maybe his mind is occupied.”
Huddie’s shoulders dropped a full inch, and his face relaxed.
“Huddie, I’m so sorry you got in trouble on account of me.”
“It ain’t you. It’s this fire I got inside me. I can’t control it. It’s why I’s here.”
“But so long in the Box—”
Huddie looked hard at me. “Now if he does come for you, you cut him. You work in a kitchen—so cut him.”
Off behind him, I saw the guard on horseback coming back around and Huddie motioned that we ought to finish our conversation.
He pretended to fix himself up while I scooted to the back side of the cactus and dashed straight ahead to the outside wall of the kitchen building, thinking: I will. I will cut that smug bastard if he gets near me again.
× × ×
The next Wednesday, I volunteered to haul in the tomatoes again, to which Beauregard, who also hated lugging that basket, said, “Far be it from me to take away something that gives you so much joy.”
When I walked out, Huddie strolled over to the Wood. I slinked down along the wall of the kitchen building again and dashed over from cactus to guajillo to cactus like a thief. When I got to the side of the Wood he nodded, holding air instead of a penis in his hand, thankfully.
“I was hoping you didn’t have to use the Wood for real,” I said.
He smiled and looked around to be sure we were safe. “Now that would surely be a memory you’d take to the grave.”
“A grave that might come sooner than expected.”
“How’s the cook?”
“Still minding his own.”
“Cut him on the throat and pull across.”
I put my hand up, not needing too much more of that advice.
Huddie smiled and nodded. We stood there for a minute. I knew I wanted to talk with him about life, but I didn’t know what to say. Then I figured what the hell, we only have a moment. So let’s talk. “You ever have a wife, Huddie?”
He nodded slowly. “Married Lethe Henderson when I was young. She was maybe sixteen—maybe eighteen, not sure. She worked taking her clothes off after she’d run off from her mean husband. We got together the first night I saw her and soon had two little ones then—only I’s the kind of father who’s best when he’s not a father. And I’s a worse man to marry. Lord knows how many kids I got total.” He nodded down at his imaginary penis. “This thing has caused me some trouble.”
The crack of the gunshot flew off, and Huddie jumped a full inch in the air. He whispered, “You best go!”
I took off toward the kitchen building, nearly brushing that sneaky jumping cactus on the way. Behind me, several guards shouted, and the dusty ground shook with bodies being thrown down on it.
By the time I pressed my back to the kitchen’s wall, three convicts—two Mexican and one black—were being led to the whipping posts, their hands tied behind them. One white man stayed down in the dirt. There was so much blood on his body and in the dirt that it looked as if they’d dumped buckets of it on him.
× × ×
I didn’t see him for another few weeks—him being mostly out in the fields in the daytime—but every now and again we managed some time. In those moments I learned about how he’d played in the redlight district and worked his way around the country loving more women than either of us could count; and he learned that I missed having coffee with my daddy and that I secretly wanted to be a singer up on a stage.
In this way he replaced my Rhodie, or part of her. He filled the emotional space in me that craved talking with someone about things we loved and things we hated. That connection. Me and Huddie only had small moments together but that made them even more special, the way pressure creates diamonds.
On the days when I couldn’t meet Huddie, I still found a way to be with him. If the wind blew just right—and if we’d finished the noisy work in the kitchen—Beauregard would turn off his radio and we would work quietly and slowly, listening to Huddie’s guitar like we were in church.
MY SOUVENIR
The head cook snuck up while Beauregard and two inmates were unloading a big shipment of rice bags from the loading dock. He dropped his coffee mug and it shattered right behind me, causing me to jump about a mile up.
“Nervous?” he said, his nearly white hair recently shaved around his ears.
I thought about hitting him in the eyes with a handful of soapy water. “No.”
The head cook shifted his feet apart a little more and crossed his muscled forearms in front of him. “Clean that up.”
I squatted so I wouldn’t have to bend and started picking up pieces of the mug. He watched me, and I knew this was the kind of display he appreciated.
“While you’re down there,” he said, tugging at his crotch.
I palmed a thick piece of mug, then took my good God damn time cleaning up the rest of it.
“Come to my office later, before you leave—after Beauregard punches out.”
“I’m meeting my boyfriend then. He’s coming here to pick me up.”
“My office.” As he walked away, he kicked a few of the smaller pieces of mug across the room. “You get those pieces too, now. And you be sure Beauregard goes on his way tonight. He hangs around, and he might find himself looking for work tomorrow—hard to find with a bad reference.”
The rest of the day I was a bit absentminded. Beauregard noticed, him having an eye for the feelings of other people. I brushed it off as a headache does, telling him I drank too much coffee before bed.
“Do like me,” he said with that charming smile of his. “Stick to champagne.”
About ten times an hour I felt my pocket for that sharp piece of mug I’d palmed. When I took out the trash I practiced how I’d swipe at him—or it—when I got a clear shot. Dig under and cut up with a sharp pull of the edge. I cringed. Even though I’d cleaned more fish than were mentioned in the Bible, something about cutting open a penis made my stomach flip. Because, contrary to Huddie’s advice to cut the throat straight across, I wanted to cut him where he’d really feel it.
That afternoon Beauregard walked by me at my station in front of the sink. “You sure look pale though—and not in a fashionable way.”
“Headache does that to me.”
“Get back to it!” the head cook yelled, and I dropped the big metal spoon I was cleaning.
Beauregard picked up the spoon and handed it to me. “Maybe you ought to go home.”
My hands were shaking. “No, I’m fine.”
Beauregard yelled back to the head cook: “Miss Dara here has a headache. She needs to go home. I’ll finish up her part.”
“That’s not how we work here. She’ll stay just the way everyone else with a headache, unless I need to make special amends for ladies. You think?”
I shouted back, “I’m just fine.”
“You don’t forget to come see me before you go. We’ll talk about this headache of yours then.” I heard his lips slap wet, even from that far away. “Now get to work!”
Beauregard ushered his wheeled tray back to where the last pile of food trays was, loaded it up, and pushed it with considerable strain on his lean muscles over to the wall. I was so distracted that I didn’t thank him for offering to finish my shift
; I just kept running my gloved hand along the sharp edge of the mug piece, memorizing where it was so I’d be sure to use the right side. Hopefully, the cut would send the head cook down hard enough so I could run out and yell for a guard to come get me. If not, the head cook would tear me up for certain.
The end of the day came, as it does.
“Going out into the wild yonder!” Beauregard said, snapping his tan-and-white suspenders as he hoisted them up from where they were hanging around his hips. He hung his white uniform shirt on a hook by the time clock. “You all right now, Miss Dara?”
“Goodbye, Beauregard.”
Beauregard nodded and walked off. The door barely snapped shut before the head cook was calling for me to come join him in his office. “Bring you and that female headache of yours in here.”
I pressed the sharp edge of the mug into my thumb, wondering if I should wear rubber gloves or not. I decided not to, in order to get a good grip. Grab under and cut up.
I stepped into his office. It never changed. A desk, a clipboard, a typewriter. No photos, no calendar, nothing on the walls. And it always stank.
“We’re not strangers to this,” he said, smiling. “Shut the damn door.”
I did, only this time I didn’t pin myself against it, but gave myself a good foot to move around. I wondered what would happen once I cut him. Would he die or would he kill me? Would he be fired or would I? Would he go to jail or would I?
The head cook walked over. “Took me a while to figure why a woman would take job in here. First I thought it was to tease the men, especially those niggers—given your relations with Huddie. That was at first.” He reached out and touched my breast, pinched around, found the nipple, grabbed and twisted. I tried to stand still. He pulled his fingers away, dragging out my nipple a full half-inch before letting go.
“Now,” he sneered, “I know what you are. And what you are is something that can be arrested. You could end up working the kitchen as an inmate in one of them women’s prisons—though maybe you’d enjoy that too much.”
He turned and reached back for a file folder on his desk. Smiling, he dumped the file upside down and a bunch of letters dropped out. I recognized Rhodie’s handwriting. They were addressed to me at “Imperial State Prison Farm: Kitchen.” Dammit.
“I’m the second person to read these,” he said, “them having to go through our security and whatnot. Luckily the lady who reads is a friend of mine. I’m not sure how it was for her to get through, but for me, reading these was better than a dirty book. But don’t let me decide on my own,” he said, smiling a wet smile. “Let’s read a few highlights together, you and me.”
I wished there was a word beyond “queasy” to describe the kind of sickness that squeezes up from your guts and covers you inside out, like oil. I pressed my teeth together to stop the panic and the vomit and the screams. I knew my eyes looked wild and my breathing was coming out in harsh puffs, but I couldn’t control it all.
He unfolded the first letter and read the first line: “‘My Dara—Why aren’t you writing back to me? Don’t you love me anymore?’” He sighed. “This is slow startin’, but it ends full on.” His weasel eyes scanned to the bottom, where he read: “‘When I am in bed at night I think of you—many times. Love, Rhodie.’”
My face blazed red. I ran my thumb over the sharp edge.
The head cook laughed and slapped the letter on his leg. “Good hot damn! This here’s the kind of pornography that’ll ship us straight to Satan’s door—”
I grabbed for the letter but he held it up in the air above my head. “Get your damn hands in your pockets, you damn pervert.”
I put my hands in my pockets. Hatred filled me, not just against him but against everyone, including myself, who thought I was filthy because I’d loved Rhodie. It boiled up inside me.
The head cook picked up a second letter, one I noticed that he’d starred, and started reading: “‘There is a dance next month. I’m on the decorating committee. I wish we could go together. You and I could dance with each other and no one would care, as long as we had other companions. I wish you saw that that life is possible. Please write, Dara. You are killing me.’ Aw, ain’t she sweet? What did you do, show her love then leave her in the dust? You harlot.”
He dropped the letter and stepped closer to me then opened his hand and ran it over my tender nipple again.
“This what you want to do to girls?”
“Stop it.” My heart squeezed and stayed that way, curled up inside my ribs.
“How’s your headache?”
I didn’t say anything.
“If you are one of those sick girls who like other girls, then I’m about the best thing to happen to you.” He smiled. “I give you a blanket to hide under so people don’t find out your dirty secret. So let’s get to it. I give you a cover and you give me what I want. Who needs romance when we are just here to serve purposes to one another?”
I held back the urge to knee him in the privates, since I knew that wouldn’t stop him from getting at me before I could run off. I paced myself, waiting until I could cut that bastard wide open.
“It’s filthy what you want to do, you know. Filthy.” He unbuttoned his pants and pulled out his penis. “Maybe you just never had a man before. This will wake up your parts. You a virgin?”
“No,” I lied.
He flopped his penis in his hand. “Seems I might need some help getting started.”
I panicked. It might be too challenging to cut him when he was all soft like that.
“I’ll tell you what to do, and you’ll do it because I am your boyfriend now.”
Behind me I heard the kitchen door open and shut. The head cook missed it, since he was preoccupied with stepping back to give me room to kneel down.
I reached out for his penis and held the smooth, sad thing in my hand. The head cook put his hand on top of mine, moving it up and down. “That’s good, but I prefer other things,” he said, now half-erect. “On your knees.”
My stomach rolled around, filling with heat. I’d never hated anyone so much in my whole life—a hatred that made me want to kill him.
Off in the kitchen, I heard Beauregard telling the guard that he’d forgotten to punch out. He was talking louder than usual. I heard his footsteps running across the kitchen, into the hallway, past the punch clock, and toward the head cook’s office.
I yelled out, “Beauregard!” before I pulled out the broken piece of mug and slashed wildly at the head cook’s member, missing but catching a chunk of flesh on the outside of his hand. The meat cut open and I was hit with a thin spray of his blood. He looked at his hand.
Nearly wild, I scooped the letters up and tucked them into the back of my underwear, under my uniform.
Shaking the blood off, he screamed, “I’m going to strangle the life from you!”
I turned and opened the door just as Beauregard ran up. “Is that blood?”
The head cook screamed, “That wretched creature cut me!”
Beauregard yelled into the kitchen, “Guard!”
The guard—the same jarhead who fed the horses—rushed back. He saw the head cook with his pants down around his knee-high socks, holding his cut hand. “Billy, put your–” he turned to me, then back, then—“Put a part of yourself back in your pants.”
The head cook raised his hand. A thick line of red blood dripped off the edge of it. “My damn hand!”
“Now,” the guard said.
Beauregard looked at the bloody piece of mug in my hand. “You missed,” he said.
I smiled, even though I was shaky. “Those things aren’t easy targets.”
“I never tried to hit one.”
The guard took him by the arm. “Billy, I’m sorry, but we need to see the Warden.”
My eyes welled up. All that panic and anger had to work itself out somehow.
Beauregard and I moved into the kitchen, which glowed in the strange light of the moon through the window. The guard walked by w
ith the head cook, whose entire body was red with rage.
“Bulldyker whore!” he screamed.
Beauregard stepped closer to me. “If he calls me that,” he said, “why, just imagine what he’d call you.”
I forced myself to laugh, knowing that I couldn’t show that the head cook had hit a nerve. I didn’t want Beauregard to see that I might be a bulldyker. We were tight, and I wanted it to stay that way.
Beauregard looked down at my uniform, where all the blood had splattered. “You want that laundered?”
“I want that burned.”
I was careful to keep my letters concealed as I set the ceramic piece on the edge of the huge metal sink and wiped my eyes again. My body calmed.
Beauregard looked at the bloody piece of mug. “Huddie must have rubbed off on you.”
“You think they’ll need it for evidence?”
He wiped his forehead with his hand. “No. The Warden does all he can to avoid reporting violence under his watch. They’ll move him on—right quick—but they’ll be no trial.”
I looked out the kitchen window while I wiped away a tear with my hand, thinking: What will happen to the head cook now? He could be let out tonight and come to my shanty and do God knows what to me. I had Dead Eye, but that was never any guarantee.
“You OK?”
I nodded. “What do you suppose will happen to the head cook?”
“Maybe they’ll transfer him to another prison. I don’t know. The Warden’s a decent man though, to be sure.” Beauregard straightened up and twisted his mustache. “You come stay with me tonight?”
“No, I’ll be all right,” I said, not wanting to be that kind of woman. It was bad enough I was crying in front of him. “Thank you, though.”
He picked up the ceramic piece of mug. “You want to wash the blood off?”
“No,” I said. “I want to leave the blood on it and put it on my bedside table, so I can see it before I fall asleep every night.”
“Miss Dara, I’ve said it before but dammit, I like your style.”
Beauregard walked me down the hot hallways and out into the sunset, him blotting his neck and face the whole way, saying “Whew” every now and again.
Sugar Land Page 9