Devil on My Heels

by Joyce McDonald

  Luellen nods. “Well, now, you got a point, Dove. It’s just them things is so darn expensive. My electric bill would go through the roof.”

  “A ceiling fan might be nice,” Erdine offers. She points toward Luellen’s ceiling and takes a long swallow of her RC.

  I am watching Erdine in the mirror when I catch a glimpse of Luellen’s hair washer staring at me. When I turn around to look at her, she goes back to rinsing the last of the soap out of Mrs. Redfern’s hair. Even after all that shampooing, I can still smell the lotion from her permanent wave all the way across the room.

  The girl wraps Mrs. Redfern’s hair in a pink towel and sends her over to Luellen. Then she leans over the sink and rinses away the soap bubbles. Spidery wisps of pale hair escape from her ponytail and fall across her cheeks. She has skinny arms covered with light freckles. I can’t help but wonder where she’s from. We don’t get many folks moving into Benevolence.

  The girl picks up a towel to dry her hands. She gives me a shy smile. I notice a dark gap where’s she’s missing a tooth on the upper right side of her mouth. She reaches for the broom and sweeps up hair that has formed a little nest around one of the empty chairs.

  Erdine admires her haircut in the mirror while Luellen unties the cloth that has been covering Erdine’s clothes and dumps the hair on the floor.

  I’m getting worried. If Mrs. Redfern is next in line, I’ll never make it to the movie theater in time. Usually Luellen has at least two people working with her on Saturdays, not counting the hair-washing person.

  Just when I am thinking I might have to cancel my appointment, here comes Nona Parker from the back room. She brushes powdered sugar from around her bright red lipstick mouth, smearing a little red to one side. Her uniform is stretched so tight across her chest, the buttons look about ready to pop off.

  Nona is okay with perms and setting hair, but her hair-cutting skills are sorely lacking. I do not want her to come anywhere near me with a pair of scissors. Silently I say a prayer that Nona will set Mrs. Redfern’s hair, leaving Luellen to cut mine.

  Apparently the Lord is on vacation and doesn’t get my message because Nona is suddenly looming over me. She practically pulls me to my feet and steers me toward one of the chairs, the whole time talking a blue streak about how long it’s been since they last saw me, and oh my, wasn’t my hair having a frizzy fit today. Nona stands close to six feet tall in her stocking feet and weighs at least seventy-five pounds more than I do. She is not someone you want to offend, especially when she is packing a pair of scissors.

  I plop into the chair and stare over at Luellen, trying to get her attention. I send her desperate eye signals: Save me, Luellen, and I promise I will always come to your shop to get my hair cut no matter where I’m living, even if I have to travel halfway around the world to get here.

  Erdine gets out of her chair and brushes off her capri pants, even though there isn’t a single strand of hair on them. We both look into the mirror at the same time. Then she leans over and whispers, “Her folks are . . .” Erdine stops talking and blinks a few times, like her batteries have died or something.

  “Are what?”

  “Well, you know . . . migrants.” What Erdine doesn’t say, I hear in the way she says migrants. What she means is “white trash.”

  At first I think she’s talking about Nona. But this can’t be, because Nona has grown up in this town. She graduated from our high school five or six years ago. Her father owns the Gulf station at the far end of Main Street.

  Erdine picks up on my confusion. “I’m talking about the girl—what’s her name?—Rosemary something.” She tilts her head toward where the new girl is now washing plastic perm curlers in the sink and stacking them in a pile on a towel.

  Nona pins her fists to her hips and practically snorts at Erdine. “Aren’t you about done here?” she says.

  Erdine straightens up and pulls her shoulders back. She turns to Luellen, who’s busy winding rollers into Mrs. Redfern’s hair. “I’ll just leave my money up front by the register,” she says. Without waiting to see what Luellen has to say about that, she marches to the front door, plunking down a dollar and some change on her way out.

  I glance at my watch. I’ve got less than fifteen minutes to get to the movie theater.

  5

  Never ask a hairdresser if she can “hurry it up a bit.” Even if you’re desperate and worried your best friend is going to strangle you for making her late for a movie she’s been waiting months to see. Fortunately the shock of my hair is enough to make Rayanne forget I’m late, at least for the moment.

  “What in the Sam Hill kind of hairdo is that?” she says, reaching for what little hair I have left. She tugs at a frizzy lock. “Wait! Who’s that colored man used to dance with Shirley Temple in the movies? Oh, I know! Bojangles. You got yourself a Bojangles haircut.”

  I smack her hand away from my hair. “It’s not that short.” Rayanne’s perfect blond pageboy with not one strand out of place is only making things worse. I want to shake my fingers through her hair till it’s a tangled mess.

  I glance over at the movie poster of Leslie Caron, with her hair all swirled up on top of her head, looking gorgeous as Gigi. And very French.

  “It’s kind of French-looking, don’t you think?” I run my hand through my hair and toss my head back with what I hope is considerable dramatic flare. “Paris. Left Bank. Very artsy,” I say, as if this is the look I was going for all along.

  “Well, you do sort of resemble a French poodle.”

  “Think Audrey Hepburn in Sabrina.”

  “Except frizzy.”

  “The movie’s already started,” I remind her.

  Rayanne looks at her watch and goes right off the deep end. “Oh Lord, we missed the cartoon!” she shrieks. She runs to the ticket window and throws a dollar at Wilma Boyd. “One, and hurry.” Wilma looks over the top of her glasses at Rayanne and throws a ticket and two quarters right back at her. Wilma is not one to take any guff. I slip a dollar her way and she slides a ticket and my change over to me.

  The theater is dark. Billy Tyler, the usher, is nowhere around to show us to our seats. We inch carefully down the aisle, searching for two empty chairs. The place is packed. We finally find two in the first row. In the glare of the light from the movie screen, I can see Rayanne scowling at me. She’s got on her I’m-gonna-hate-you-till-I-die look. I pretend I don’t notice.

  Rayanne is squinting and rubbing her eyes when we step out into the lobby after the movie. “It’s like I got somebody on the inside of my head trying to pop my eyeballs out of my sockets,” she says. She’s still trying to make me feel guilty about those front-row seats.

  I’m doing a little squinting myself. All that afternoon sunlight coming through the glass doors is blinding. I don’t care how many times I’ve been to the matinee, I always come out of the movie theater feeling like the world’s been turned upside down. It takes me a while to get myself righted again.

  Well, I have almost succeeded by the time I step outside, when I spot Rosemary Whatshername across the street in front of Tuckett’s Hardware, which is next door to Luellen’s. And the person standing there talking to her, like it was the most natural thing in the world, is Gator. Suddenly the whole world goes slap upside down again.

  Rayanne tugs at my arm. She leans in close. I can smell jujubes on her breath. “Isn’t that colored boy one of the pickers from your groves?”

  “Gator,” I breathe. I am watching Gator and Rosemary, and I am watching everybody around me watching them. Eyebrows arch. Lips shrivel into tight little lines. Gasps are swallowed before they can reach the air. Everybody knows colored boys do not have casual conversations with white girls on the streets of this town. They do not smile at them the way Gator is smiling at Rosemary. White girls do not giggle and cover their mouths with small freckled hands when colored boys say something funny. But Rosemary does just that.

  “Oh, Dove,” Rayanne whispers. “He shouldn’t be talkin
g to that girl. Doesn’t he know any better?”

  “I don’t think it much matters to him,” I tell her. I notice Gator’s not wearing the red T-shirt. He’s got on dungarees without holes in the knees and a blue shirt with the sleeves rolled up partway. It looks new.

  “He’s just asking for trouble.”

  That’s not what he’s asking for, I want to say. But I don’t. Because I know Rayanne is right.

  “And why’s that girl standing there letting him go on like that?” she asks.

  Just then Gator shifts his eyes in my direction and I stop breathing. Wave after wave of heat rises from the sidewalk, encasing me in a bubble of hot air. I send Gator telepathic messages: Don’t nod at me. Don’t say anything. Things are bad enough. Don’t make them worse.

  My mind races ahead. What do I do if he talks to me? It’s not as if I don’t know the rules. But this is different. Gator works for us. Maybe nobody will think anything of it. Most folks in these parts know he’s one of our pickers. They’ll think he’s just being respectful because I’m Lucas Alderman’s daughter. I relax a little.

  Gator locks his eyes on mine. I look down at the scorching pavement. At the curb. At popcorn somebody spilled in the gutter. A lizard slithers by and dives down the dark drain. I’d follow it if I could.

  When I dare to look up, the danger has passed. Gator’s attention is on Rosemary. He has decided to ignore me. I am suddenly a little put out about that. I am, after all, his employer’s daughter.

  “Well, what was that all about?” Rayanne says.

  “What?”

  “That Gator, watching you like that?”

  “It’s like you said. He’s one of our pickers,” I tell her. “He knows me is all.”

  People walking over by Tuckett’s Hardware have taken to crossing to the other side of the street. Most of them pretend they aren’t seeing what’s happening right in front of their eyes on Main Street.

  And they would have kept on pretending except that Willy Podd and Earl Hubbs, these two creeps who are a year ahead of me in school, come strutting around the corner. They stop in their tracks. Willy nudges Earl. They grin at each other and move closer.

  Both are wearing black T-shirts. They hover around Gator and Rosemary, circling them like turkey buzzards.

  About that time Chase Tully comes out of Tuckett’s. He steps onto the sidewalk, leans his back against the brick wall, digs a crumpled pack of cigarettes from the pocket of his dungarees, slides out a cigarette, and takes his sweet time lighting it. He sucks in a long drag, exhales, and squints at the others through the smoke.

  Willy nods at Chase, but Chase just stares right through him, like he’s not even there.

  By now Earl has his arm around Rosemary’s shoulder. He makes it look as if he’s trying to protect her, but I know better. Willy leans into her face. “This nigger bothering you, sugar?”

  Rosemary’s arms have been hanging limp and defenseless by her sides. Now her hands snap together. Her fingers lock, forming a tight fortress in front of what Delia would call her privates. She stares down at her sturdy white shoes—the ones Luellen makes her employees wear with their blue uniforms—and shakes her head. She whispers something to Willy.

  Folks on both sides of Main Street have stopped walking. They are openly watching—a little too eagerly, maybe—to see what’s going to happen. Although they already know how this is going to end. We all do. I pray that Willy and Earl let them go with nothing more than a few nasty remarks.

  The Lord is apparently still on vacation because he doesn’t catch this prayer, either. I no sooner send those words heavenward than Willy’s leg shoots out, catching Gator in the back of the knees, knocking him off balance. At the same time, Earl gives Gator a hard shove from behind. Gator stumbles sideways. His head catches the brick wall, barely missing the plate-glass window of the hardware store before he lands on the sidewalk. Blood runs down the side of his face.

  Without thinking I start across the street. Rayanne grabs my arm. “Stay out of this,” she hisses. “What’s the matter with you?” I know I should shake off her hand and try to help, but I don’t. Part of me is maybe even a little grateful for her grip on me, although I don’t much like admitting it.

  Chase hasn’t moved from his spot against the wall. He finishes his cigarette, tosses it to the sidewalk, and grinds it with his boot. For one hopeful second I think he is going to put a stop to this. But then he spots Rayanne and me. He’s coming our way. Before he’s halfway across the street, I yell, “Do something! Tell those creeps to lay off Gator!”

  Chase cocks his head to one side and narrows his eyes at me. “Gator knows how to take care of himself.”

  “He’s bleeding, for heaven’s sake!” I shout at him. My body is shaking from head to toe. “What is the matter with you?”

  He looks over his shoulder at the crumpled heap that is Gator. “It’s a head wound. Looks a lot worse than it is. He’ll be okay.” I can tell by the frown on his face that Chase isn’t so sure about that.

  Rosemary is trying to get to Gator. She has yanked off her white apron. It flaps in her hand like a flag of truce. But Earl grabs hold of her wrist and pulls her away.

  The blood is awful. It is everywhere. Tiny streams of it spread, staining Gator’s new shirt and his dungarees.

  Rosemary is crying. She yanks her arm free from Earl’s grip and ducks into Luellen’s beauty shop. Willy gives Gator one good kick in the ribs, then joins Earl. The two of them look around, checking out their audience, and when they spot Chase, they head our way.

  “Let’s go,” I say to Rayanne.

  She ignores me. She is too busy grinning up at Chase. I swear her IQ drops fifty points whenever he’s around. She tilts her head to one side. Her blond pageboy falls over one shoulder. “I’m going over to Whelan’s. You want to come?” she says to him. She bites on her lower lip, which makes her look as if she’s going to burst into tears if Chase says no.

  Willy and Earl have come up behind him. Willy’s hair is slicked back into a DA (short for duck’s ass, which pretty much sums up Willy). It doesn’t look in the least bit cool. It just looks as if he hasn’t washed his hair in a year. He pulls out a comb and smooths back the sides. “Somebody mention Whelan’s? I’m in.” He jerks his thumb over his shoulder without turning around. “I’m starved. Pounding the crap out of niggers who don’t know their place always gives me an appetite.”

  Earl says, “I could eat an elephant.” Earl has a bad case of acne. One of the pimples on his face has exploded. Blood and pus run along his cratered cheek. He winks over at Rayanne, who rolls her eyes in disgust.

  “I didn’t hear anybody inviting you along,” Chase tells them.

  The stupid grin slides right off Willy’s face.

  “You going to Whelan’s, Dove?” Chase asks.

  I don’t answer. I’m watching Gator. By now everybody is going about their business again, although they’re still avoiding the other side of the street. Gator wipes the blood away from his eye with his sleeve. He presses his back against the brick wall and slowly pulls himself to his feet.

  “Dove?” Chase says.

  I ignore him.

  Gator takes a step away from the wall. He stops—I guess to see if he’ll be steady enough on his feet—then moves on down the street. Not once does he look our way. Even from over here, I can see there is blood on the sidewalk where he was sitting.

  “Dove, Chase is talking to you,” Rayanne says. She nudges me with her shoulder.

  “Really? Well, maybe I’m not talking to him.” I start to walk away. “I have to get home,” I call over my shoulder to a speechless Rayanne.

  Chase frowns at me like he doesn’t have any idea who I am.

  And right now, neither do I.

  6

  When I get home, I find Delia sitting on the top step of the back porch. Her arms rest on her knees. One hand holds a cigarette, the other a book. A laundry basket heaped with wet clothes sits next to her. She’s so busy
reading I’m not sure she even hears the screen door slap shut.

  I slide my back down the pillar and pull my legs up to my chest. It’s been almost an hour since Willy and Earl beat up Gator, but the trembling going on inside me hasn’t let up. Every time I close my eyes, I see blood all over the sidewalk. I can’t get that picture out of my head.

  I’m mad as blazes at Chase for not trying to stop Willy and Earl. But I’m even madder at myself. The truth is, I was afraid of what folks might think—me sticking up for a colored man.

  When Delia finally looks over at me, all she says is, “What you gone and done to your hair?”

  “Got it cut.”

  “Well, I can see that.” She takes a long drag from her cigarette.

  I don’t want to get off on some discussion about my hair. I already know it looks bad. I reach over, snatch her cigarette, knocking off the ash, and manage to take a short drag before she grabs it back and slaps my hand. “You are just lookin’ to die, aren’t you? If those cigarettes don’t kill you, your daddy surely will.”

  “You should talk.” I point to the cigarette in her hand.

  Delia ignores me and goes back to her reading.

  “Must be a real interesting book,” I say.

  She keeps her eyes on the page in front of her. I can tell she isn’t in the mood for conversation. But that’s never stopped me before. I bend over so my head comes between her and the book. The scent of Pine-Sol mixed with cigarette smoke drifts up from Delia’s clothes.

  “Poetry? I love poetry.” I pull the book toward me so I can see the cover.

  She slams the book closed so fast she almost traps my nose between the pages. “Spit it out,” she says.

  “What?”

  “You got something on your mind and you’re not going to give me a minute’s peace till you tell me. You’re worse than a starving mosquito with all this hovering.”

  I want to tell her what happened to Gator. That’s why I’ve come looking for her. But I don’t know where to start. Instead I say, “You find out what Travis was here about this morning?”