The Scandalous Summer of Sissy LeBlanc

by Loraine Despres

  “Where else you gonna sleep? In the fields?” He saw her staring at him, her green eyes wide with fright. “It don’t take that long, sugar.”

  “But with the anesthetics and all …?”

  Bourrée laughed and patted her bouncing knee. “A young thing like you don’t need anesthetics. Just grit your teeth.”

  He pulled up to an unpainted shotgun cottage in the middle of some fields. Sissy stared in horror at the rusting tin roof and the sagging porch with dangerous, decaying stairs. An old Model A Ford missing a fender and a couple of wheels was stuck in the mud. A cracked sink was lying in a junk pile next to it.

  “I’m not going in there.”

  “Course you are,” he said, cutting the lights.

  “I thought you were taking me to a doctor.”

  “What doctor?”

  “My grandmother says there are doctors and hospitals, too, where a girl can go and they’ll certify you were just having a female operation.”

  “Belle tell you the name of any of those brave hospitals or their intrepid doctors?”

  Sissy shook her head feeling stupid, “No, but…”

  “Well, I don’t know ’em, neither.” Bourrée had dropped the speech he used around town and, as he often did in times of stress, had fallen into the raw vernacular of his youth. “Now, don’t you worry none about a doctor. Abortion’s a fact of nature. Girls have been getting rid of their little bundles since before there was doctors.”

  “Girls have been dying…” Her voice caught on the word.

  He laughed, mocking her. “Aunt Sarah’s not gonna kill you, Sissy. Hell, she’s been in business for years and years and never lost a girl that I’ve heard of. So come on, get out. You’ll be fine.”

  Bourrée got out of the truck, walked all the way around in the mud and opened her door. The rain was coming down in sheets. “Get out, girl.”

  Sissy sat looking straight ahead.

  “Dammit, Sissy, get out, I’m getting mired down in all this mud.”

  Sissy didn’t move.

  He grabbed her arm and jerked her out. “Act sensible, girl, ’cause there ain’t nothing else you can do.” And he led her up the rotting stairs.

  “Aunt Sarah.” His voice boomed as he pushed Sissy into the house. The screen door banged behind them. The rain was making a racket on the tin roof, so he called again.

  Sissy tried to pull out of his grip when a stout Negro in a white uniform came out of a back room, wiping her hands on a bloody apron. She was in her late fifties. She squinted at them as she walked through the kitchen. And then a big smile spread across her face. “Mr. Bourrée, I haven’t seen you in a while.”

  “How you been keeping yourself, Sarah?”

  “Busy, real busy.”

  “This here little girl went and got herself in trouble,” he said, pushing Sissy toward her. “Think you can help her out?”

  “I always got time for one of your gals, Mr. Bourrée, you know that, but,” she said, turning to Sissy, “I’m afraid you’re gonna have to wait. I’m working on a little gal right now.”

  Sissy smelled liquor on her breath and wondered how many of Bourrée’s “gals” Aunt Sarah had worked on.

  “That’s okay. Take your time,” Bourrée said expansively.

  Sissy shook her head. “Maybe we better come back tomorrow. My parents think I’m at the library, and they’ll worry if I come home too late.”

  Bourrée laughed and tightened his grip. “Oh, you’ll come up with a story for your parents. I have faith in you.” He winked at Sarah.

  “You all sit down and make yourselves comfortable. I’ll be with you in just a little while.” Sarah went back through the kitchen.

  When she opened the door, Sissy caught a glimpse of a skinny brown leg, tied with a rope to a table covered in old newspapers. Her heart began to race. “I’m not staying here.”

  “Now don’t you worry,” Bourrée said in a calming voice. “If anyone knows what she’s doing, Aunt Sarah does.” He squeezed Sissy’s shoulder reassuringly as he took her raincoat and hung it on the coat rack by the door. He pointed to a chair and said, “Sit down, chère. A girl in your condition shouldn’t be on her feet.”

  Sissy sat down on the edge of an old wooden rocking chair. Bourrée leaned over and patted her on the knee. “Good girl, I’ll be back for you around midnight.”

  Sissy jumped up. “What!”

  “Don’t worry. I’m not gonna leave you here forever.” He opened the front door.

  “Aren’t you gonna wait and make sure I’m all right?” It didn’t look like it. She heard herself pleading, “Bourrée, please don’t leave me alone. I can’t stand it.”

  “Now, honey, I’ve got business to attend to. Besides, what am I gonna do around here while you’re getting yourself fixed?”

  She grabbed the back of his hunting jacket. He turned and took her shoulders in his hands. His voice was harsh. “Be sensible, girl, you don’t have no choice.” And with that, he twisted out of her grip. The screen door banged behind him.

  For a moment she was too stunned to move; then she ran outside, only to see him climb in the truck and slam it into gear. She ran, stumbling, through the front yard. The truck leaped forward and splattered her with mud.

  Sissy went back inside. There wasn’t much furniture in the front room: a couch with a Bleeding Heart of Jesus hanging above it, a couple of chairs with the stuffing coming out, and a scratched coffee table. “At least it’s swept out and clean,” she said aloud, trying to cheer herself up. She sat back down on the old wooden rocking chair, but as soon as she took the pressure off, her leg began to jerk. She had to rock back and forth, back and forth.

  Then the screams began. The terror of the girl tied to the table behind the kitchen called out to her and Sissy answered with silent screams of her own. Her mouth became so dry, her tongue stuck to it.

  She got up and went into the kitchen, where she took a glass out of the drainer. It was coated with a thin film of buttermilk. Behind the curtains, beneath the sink, the trash can was overflowing. Newspapers clotted with blood were hanging from the edge and falling out. Sissy looked down and saw the blood from a balled-up newspaper drip onto her shoe. She screamed out loud.

  Her scream was drowned out by louder ones behind the door. The fear coming from the back room had turned to searing pain. Aunt Sarah sharply ordered the girl to hush up. What was that woman doing? Sissy had no idea how abortions were performed. She’d heard of girls using coat hangers on themselves. The image of a serrated kitchen spoon dripping with blood and buttermilk came unbidden into her mind. “You don’t have no choice.” She wiped her shoe on the sink curtains. When she stood up, a tall boy—a year or two older than she—was standing over her, weaving.

  “Well, well, look who’s come to call. You waiting for my mama?”

  Sissy nodded and tried to say yes, but she couldn’t make any words come.

  “Then I guess I knows what you been doing.” The boy was drunk and thought he was hilarious. He slapped his leg at his own joke.

  Sissy tried to edge out of his way. But as she edged to the left, he followed her, putting up his right arm to cut her off. He leaned over her. She could smell his fetid breath. “Where’s your boyfriend? He take off so he won’t have to partake in the consequences in case my mama’s hand slips?”

  Sissy edged to the right. He almost let her go, but when her back was to the wall he took her by the arm. “You ever try dark meat?”

  Sissy pulled herself up and, in her best imitation of her grandmother doing her high and mighty act, said, “Would you please move aside and let me pass.”

  But the drunken boy was not about to be intimidated. All the constraints that protected white women and kept them safe in colored neighborhoods were inoperative here. Sissy was about to break the law. No white woman could even admit to being at Aunt Sarah’s. To accuse a colored boy of doing something to her there was unthinkable. This boy knew it. “A girl like you ain’t got no cau
se to get your neck all poked out. It ain’t like you was a good girl.” He smiled. His gold tooth glinted in the dangling kitchen light. “You is more a good time girl.”

  She had to think. But how could she with the rain beating on the tin roof and the screams coming from the other room and her heart racing and her head pounding? “Come on, girl, I’ll do you real fast.” He grabbed her wrist. Sissy pulled back. “Hey, sweetmeat, don’t you know it’s your last chance? Once my mama gets through with you, you ain’t gonna want it for some time to come,” he said, toying with her hair.

  “Leave me alone!” She tried to wrench out of his hold, but she couldn’t.

  He smiled and licked his lips, running his eyes over her body. “You ain’t never felt nothing like my gemstones.” Still holding her wrist, he jerked her hand to his fly. Sissy pushed him backward. But before she knew what hit her, she was on the floor. The drain board from the sink came with her, spewing silverware all around her. She screamed. She tried to kick, but only managed to hit the trash can, scattering the bloody newspaper.

  He had her pinned down, his hands on her wrists, straddling her thighs. Maybe she could shame him. Filling her voice with contempt she said, “Let me up, you fool. Are you so pitiful, the only way you can get a girl is to rape her?”

  He was laughing, reveling in his power. “It’s not the only way, sweetmeat, but it’s a good way, a mighty good way!” He rubbed himself against her and pushed up her skirt. Then beneath the laughter and the screams still coming from the back room, Sissy heard her true voice, calm and sure, telling her what she had to do.

  Kicking and flailing, she reached around under the sink. When it was clear there was no way she could buck him off, she let go, her muscles became soft, no longer fighting him. As soon as he felt that he said, “That’s right, girl, relax. You gonna enjoy yourself tonight, for sure.” He took his hand off her wrist to unzip his fly and then, fondling her breast, said, “If I’m lying, I’m dying.”

  In a flash, Sissy had the butcher knife in his crotch, poking his bare skin. “Get up, boy, if you take any stock in those gemstones of yours. Get up!” she screamed.

  She knew he could probably take the knife away from her, he might even use it to kill her, but she was prepared to give as good as she got. With that sure knowledge shining in her face, he just shriveled up and jumped away from her.

  “Hey, gal, all you had to say was no. I don’t want nothing you don’t want to give.” He was zipping up his pants when Sarah stepped out of the back room, her hands dripping with blood. She threw the boy up against the wall, screaming at him about being crazy and ruining her business and getting himself lynched. Then she called for Sissy.

  But Sissy didn’t turn back. She was running through the rain, her coat and purse left behind, her oxfords caked with mud. The butcher knife was still in her hand. Belle Cantrell’s words were pounding away with each step. “You’ve got to take your life in your own hands.”

  She came to the Negro bar and pushed her way inside. The warmth and the music calmed her, comforted her. But the music and dancing stopped abruptly and was replaced by tension as everybody watched this white girl with a bloodstained butcher knife. The crowd parted and let her through.

  A waitress in a tight red dress stepped in front of her. “You looking for somebody?”

  “Just a telephone.”

  “You don’t need that in here.”

  Sissy looked down and saw the butcher knife was still in her hand. She hesitated for a moment and then decided she wasn’t giving it up. Not yet. She dropped the knife by her side, but held on to it. “You got a phone?”

  The waitress pointed to the far side of the bar. The band struck up again, playing slow and soft. The piano sounded like the rain outside, the snare drums followed. But nobody danced. The bartender came out from behind the bar and stood in back of her, a towel wrapped around his arm. He eyed her knife. Sissy asked him for a nickel.

  She fingered the hilt of the knife, enjoying the power it conferred upon her as she dialed the LeBlanc residence. She prayed for Bourrée to pick up. She didn’t know what she’d say to Miss Lily. But a male voice answered.

  “Oh, thank God. You’ve got to come get me right away.”

  “Sissy, is that you?”

  “Peewee?” He sounded just like his father.

  “It is you. Oh, my gosh!” He was so nervous he began to babble. “Boy, oh boy, this is my lucky night. Guess what, I got a B on my history test? I was afraid I’d flunked it. It must have been all the studying we did together that did it. I remembered a whole bunch of stuff I never thought I’d remember.”

  He went on and on like that until Sissy screamed, “Peewee!”

  He quieted down then and asked her why she called.

  “I’m in trouble. I need you to come and get me.”

  Chapter 16

  Once a girl says yes, it’s almost impossible to go back and say no. Boys who respected your wishes before become hard of hearing.

  Rule Number Nine

  THE SOUTHERN BELLE'S HANDBOOK

  SISSY DIDN’T SET out to trap Peewee and make him think the baby she was carrying was his. At least that’s what she told herself. But when he parked Miss Lily’s Buick on the side of Highway 10 and lunged at her, she welcomed his attention. At first. She needed someone to hold her and Peewee wanted her so much. It felt nice. Then when things heated up, she tried to stop him, but he wouldn’t stop like normal boys would when she pulled his hand away. He just kept on. She knew she could fight him off and he’d respect her for it, but Sissy just wasn’t up to a fight. So she lay back on the long front seat, her head and shoulders against the door, and just let him kiss her and stroke her and tell her he loved her. It wasn’t so bad. It wasn’t so good either.

  She told herself she got the idea for the deceit the next day, when she heard Peewee bragging about his exploits to Newton Carruthers. She was on her way to cheerleading practice, trying to figure out what to do next, when she heard them talking about her as she rounded the corner of the cement bleachers where they had ducked out of sight behind the equipment shed. She heard Peewee say, “Then she let me go all the way.”

  Sissy quickly stepped back and listened as Newton said, “You are such a liar, boy.”

  “I am not.” Then Peewee went into such smutty detail that Sissy was furious. How could he tell those things about her! She was just about to give him a piece of her mind when he said, “And she didn’t even make me use a rubber.”

  “Are you crazy! What if you get her in trouble?”

  There was a hesitation and then Peewee said, “Well, hell, I’d make an honest woman out of her. I bet you wouldn’t kick Sissy Thompson out of your bed.”

  “You’re stuck on her, aren’t you?” There was wonder in Newton’s voice. “Aren’t you?”

  Sissy imagined Peewee’s ears getting red and then she heard him say belligerently, “What if I am?”

  That’s when Sissy’s inner voice spoke up and said her choices were hard, but she had them.

  She hadn’t much wanted to repeat the experience with Peewee, after the first time, but she found it was hard to tell him no and make it stick. Peewee wanted to make love all the time, if what they did in the backseats of cars could be called lovemaking. At first she thought she could teach him. And Peewee was a very willing student.

  Bourrée had shown her all kinds of things she could do to give a man pleasure, so every time they went out Peewee was always eager to “mess around.” But the night she tried to show him what he could do for her, he was genuinely shocked. “Sissy, nice girls aren’t supposed to like it. A girl does it for a man because she loves him.”

  She tried to do it just for him, but all too often when they parked out by the cemetery, the image of a weasel slipped in between them, grabbing her with skinny arms, sticking his weasel hand between her legs. Only those pale blue Bourrée eyes could banish the disgusting beast.

  She remembered a Sunday school teacher telling her that
companionship and shared interests were what made a good marriage. Sex took up only a small percentage of the time. Sissy hoped she was right. She and Peewee got along fine. He was so happy picking her up after practice, so proud to walk through the halls holding her hand. It was always flattering to be adored, Sissy thought. And she sure wasn’t looking for love.

  It probably didn’t exist anyway. Just lies they put in songs. Unless what she had with Bourrée was love, and if it was, she didn’t ever want any more. She still thought about Parker a lot, but that was so confusing. She’d felt happy, really happy with him. But was that love? She’d always heard love was about suffering and singing the blues. She decided to forget about everything else and concentrate on companionship with Peewee.

  Then one afternoon after school, she saw Bourrée’s truck parked down the street from her house. Her heart started racing and her knees didn’t want to bend.

  But it was at that moment she finally understood all those rules her mother and grandmother had laid down for her. They weren’t just to kill her fun. Good girls have a kind of power. Holding her head straight and concentrating on her posture, she walked right by him. He called her name. She pretended to be deaf. A deaf girl with the posture of a queen.

  And there was nothing he could do! He couldn’t jump out and grab her, force her screaming into his truck, force her to go with him back to Aunt Sarah’s. Not on a street filled with houses and children and bicycles.

  Yes, a girl has power, if she’s prepared to take it. And a girl who obeys all the rules, or pretends to, is safe. Even the rules on proper behavior didn’t seem so ridiculous. They were her mother’s and her grandmother’s way of helping her keep her self-respect. That’s when Sissy realized the Southern Belle’s Handbook did more than help her attract men—it was her survival manual.

  She started accepting Peewee’s invitations to Sunday dinner with the family. It was the main thing she had to look forward to now— sitting there, her hair shining, dressed like a princess, watching Bourrée squirm.