Georgia Bottoms

by Mark Childress

  “I thought you forgot it again.” Little Mama opened the jar, put a dot of ointment on her upper lip. She used vats of Mentholatum but never had a cold. Georgia suspected the smell reminded her of all the Kools she used to smoke.

  Mama waved a claw at the TV. “Would you look? Everything she’s got is hanging out!”

  “I know, Ma. You hate poor ol’ Gwen. You’ve hated her for years.”

  “They used to have that nice gal from Evergreen, whatever happened to her? Oh, that’s right—she was white, so they took her off. Everything for the Nigroes these days.”

  “Yes, Mama. You’re right.” You had to agree with her, or she would never shut up.

  “They never let one of ’em have their own show until that Diahann Carroll. Now they done taken over the whole damn TV! I mean, come on! Give ’em a channel of their own, I don’t care. But do they have to be on every last one of our channels too?”

  “Yes, Mama, they do. It’s the law now. They have to be on every channel.”

  “It’s that goddamn Rosa Parks.”

  “That’s exactly who did it,” said Georgia. “They should never have put her in charge of television.”

  “Did you bring my Mentholatum?”

  Georgia peered at her. “Mama. It’s next to your hand.”

  “I thought you forgot it again,” Mama said.

  Georgia didn’t say if it had been a snake it would have bit her. She loved her mother, although when she tried to think of reasons why, all she got was a headache. She hoped Little Mama would have a happy old age, but secretly she also hoped it didn’t drag on and on, like some mothers. Even if you love them, you don’t want them hanging around forever, do you?

  Also, Little Mama was a terrible patient. You could not do a thing to suit her. She used to say, “When I get old, I hope you just take me out in the woods and shoot me.”

  She hadn’t said it lately. Probably thinks I’ll take her up on it, Georgia thought grimly.

  Ah, well, it’s part of the Ant Connection, everybody working for the good of the anthill, the strong ant helping the weaker ant, daughter ant helping mother ant—and Brother ant—daughter ant giving and giving, day in day out, working working working until she gets so exhausted she drops the crumb. Some other ant snatches it up and carries it down the hole. And that’s how the world goes around!

  Georgia turned the shower as hot as she could stand it, to make her skin glowy and warm. She slathered her body with rose milk, sudsed and conditioned and rinsed her hair three times. She dried her hair and brushed it out, tied it back with a silk ribbon. She applied oils and potions, elbow cream, knee smoother. She poured a little puddle of eau de toilette in her palm. Drawing two fingers through it, she painted twin stripes of lavender fragrance up her heel, her calf, the back of her knees. She painted the curve of her rib cage, between her breasts, to the nape of her neck.

  When she smelled even better than God made her, she slipped into the peach linen chemise with clusters of tiny chiffon roses at the bodice. At the waist she fastened a short, scalloped petticoat of cream-colored flannel, followed by a longer petticoat of white-starched cotton, a third petticoat, a fourth. Over these layers she drew a satin dressing gown—the same shade of peach as the chemise—the embroidered silk-velvet belt, and matching slippers.

  These clothes were a gift from the man who would be removing them shortly. He had ordered the complete ensemble for her in three colors—peach, ivory, and a soft rosy pink—from the Civil War reenactors’ superstore in Myrtle Beach. Perhaps tonight he wouldn’t undress her all the way. Some nights he just liked to play part of the game. Some nights the whiskey made him sleepy and he dozed off in his chair while she rubbed his shoulders. Or he might start to undress her carefully, layer by layer, but fall asleep before he got down to bare skin.

  Georgia swished this way and that in front of the mirror, swaying her skirts like a bell. She loved the rustle of stiff cotton against her legs. When the judge wasn’t sleepy, he could be downright frisky.

  A glance at the clock sent her downstairs in a hurry. Whizzy ticked up the hall to greet her.

  “Mama, you need anything? I’m going up to work on my quilt.” Georgia used to take such pains to confine her costumes to the apartment, but these days Mama barely noticed whether it was night or day.

  “How’s the new one coming, baby?”

  “Beautiful.” Georgia kept walking down the hall. “You’re going to love the colors in this one.”

  “Did you bring my Mentholatum?”

  “It’s beside your right hand.” Georgia held the scrabbling dog inside with one foot while the door hissed shut on its piston. She knew it was risky, blowing off her mother that way. One day she would come back to find Mama dead in that chair—God, wouldn’t she feel guilty then!

  But it would be just one or two days of guilt. In exchange for years and years of blowing her off. A decent trade, overall.

  Every year or so, Georgia drove halfway across Alabama, to a bend in the Catfish River where a little settlement of old black women made quilts. Some of the women were so old they were the granddaughters of actual slaves. The quilts were beautiful: brilliant colors, stark geometric designs. Somebody had wised up the women to the folk-art angle, and now they were charging up to two hundred bucks per quilt—but they charged Georgia half that because she’d been buying their quilts in bulk for years.

  She started by giving a few as gifts to well-placed friends. Everybody wanted one after Susan Chastain showed off hers on the Holiday Parade of Homes. Now Georgia sold the quilts with a hefty markup in Alma Pickett’s gift shop, Treasures n’ Stuff, on Court Street downtown. Georgia’s quilts were famous in Six Points. Everyone assumed she made them herself, though she had never claimed that in actual words. Every couple of weeks she would bring a new example of her handiwork downstairs to show Mama and Brother before driving it over to Alma’s shop.

  Everyone in Six Points was eager to believe in Georgia’s quilting ability. People knew to leave her alone in the evenings. That was quilt-making time, Georgia time. The rule was, you didn’t disturb Georgia when she was at work in the apartment unless blood was flowing and the ambulance was already on the way.

  What if those old colored women ever stopped making quilts? She barely knew how to thread a needle.

  She struck a match to light the lamp, and touched it to the paper beneath the firelogs. She turned the A/C to LO. One last glance around the room told her everything was perfect. A perfect night from a hundred fifty years ago. Georgia was good at this game.

  She flipped the switch that turned on the light in the alley. One if by land… That was the signal.

  Immediately she heard a car door slam. She smiled. He was sitting in his Town Car, waiting for the light. Waiting for her.

  Nothing felt quite so stirring as being the object of desire. Georgia had tried most of the known thrills, and this was the one she liked best.

  She met him at the iron gate. His fingers curled around hers. She shushed him, hurried him in, stayed behind to lock the gate. She tucked the key in the pocket of her dressing gown.

  She found the judge gazing down at his mother’s hand mirror, eyes aglow. From the other side of the room he looked forty years old—okay, fifty. You had to get close to see the ruin of years in his face. He had kindly gray eyes and a livid complexion, flushed pink as a ham, blue veins spreading across the crumbly skin of his nose. “My God, woman,” he said, “you are a positive vision of heaven.”

  “Why, Cap’n Barnett, how you do flatter me!” Slipping his seersucker jacket off his shoulders, she steered him to his chair. “I just threw on this old dressing gown till I make up my mind what to wear to Twelve Oaks tonight.”

  He beamed. “Are you going to the barbecue?”

  “Why, you know I am!” she cried. “Don’t be a horrid old fool, Jackson Barnett, you know perfectly well you’re taking me to eat barbecue, and I don’t want to hear another word about it!” She grabbed her Japanese fan an
d swatted him.

  The judge hunched over to untie his shoes. “I’m happy to see you feeling better, Georgia. It looks as if you’ve recovered completely.”

  “A girl who faints in the morning is always more lively by evening.” She poured whiskey from the crystal decanter on the desk. “Just put that silliness out of your mind.”

  “I was afraid you might—thank you, darlin’.” He wrapped a meaty hand around the glass. “After the way you were stricken, I thought you might not feel up to our rendezvous tonight. It made me realize all over again how precious you are to me. There I sat in the dark—in my carriage, you know—waiting like some lovesick swain. Anxiously awaiting the light in your window.”

  “You’re a sweetheart to wait for me, Captain. I’m a very lucky girl.”

  His gaze settled upon solemn old Robert E. Lee astride his horse. “No, I’m the one who’s lucky. Sunday is the best day of my week, by a long shot.”

  She agreed that it was for her, too.

  She was waiting for him to take a swallow of bourbon, to cut the garlic so she could move in closer. Garlic was the major drawback of Judge Barnett. It was not by accident that she saw him on Sunday and kept Monday free… an extra day for airing out the apartment. “Do you think the Yankees can possibly win the war, Captain?”

  His brow darkened. “Not a chance. Our brave boys… Why, it takes three of those Yankee bastards to whip one of ours.” He took a sip from the glass. “I did see a dispatch today with glorious news from the front.”

  “Oh, tell me about it.”

  “Well, it seems General Lee has whipped the Yankees at Chancellorsville. Sent them reeling back into the woods. The obnoxious Joe Hooker was caught with his trousers down. The word around Washington is he’s to be sacked!”

  “Wonderful,” Georgia said. “I can’t keep all the details straight in my little ol’ head, but it sounds like great news for our side.”

  “Oh, it is.” The judge patted his knee. “Come sit, my little flower.”

  “Most gladly,” she said, “but—shouldn’t we be a tiny bit discreet?” She tugged the sash of the curtain, unfurling a velvet curtain across the French door.

  The judge’s eyes brightened. Georgia walked the length of the front wall, letting down each panel in turn, until they were inside a candlelit green-velvet tent. She reached into the armoire to press the button on the CD player. A wistful violin sang the melody of Ken Burns from hidden speakers.

  It’s all about happiness, Georgia thought. Look at the light in his eyes. See the years melt away. It’s the little things—the flickering fire, the glow of the oil lamp, the way velvet muffles the tick of the clock.

  She perched on his knees, slid her arm around his neck. She pressed her lips to his temple. “Hey darlin’,” she said.

  His hand stroked her waist, sneaked up her back. “You’re delicious.”

  “You too.” Like a slice of garlic bread, she didn’t say.

  He patted her shoulder. “But you’re wearing too many petticoats. Please remove them at once.”

  She hopped up from his knee, mock-offended. “Captain! Remember yourself!”

  He laughed. “You’re so good at this. You missed your calling. You should go to New York and be an actress.”

  “New York? Why should I go to New York?” She considered it her duty to stay in character, even when the judge slipped out. “I have no use for Yankees or snow, either one. But Lord, it is so hot down here. I feel a little feverish, do you mind?” She toyed with the topmost button of the outermost petticoat.

  He encouraged her with a grin.

  She undid the buttons and danced over to his hand. With two fingers he snagged the waistband. He held on as she twirled, unwinding herself.

  The judge gathered the lacy cotton to his face and breathed. “Oh, when this cruel war is over,” he said.

  “Try not to think about the war.” She started on the next row of buttons. “Just think about us, here, tonight.”

  The fire crackled and spat sparks, a tiny fireworks display. The violin line turned and meandered, mournful as a gray rainy day, but somehow the room felt cheerful. Georgia really did love the old man in a way. She danced close so he could grab the waistband and twirl her, peeling her—she loved the eagerness in his eyes when they were into the game. He was never this young with anyone else, she knew it. Even a ruined old judge has a right to feel young again, once in a while.

  Thoughts like these—the rightness of her cause, the good she was doing—helped Georgia transform herself most nights. It took a special kind of woman to slip out of her own skin into a man’s fantasy, then back into herself, night after night without losing track of who she was. Sometimes she had to be the most sensitive, sharp-seeing person on earth. Other times it was better to be blind. It took Georgia years to learn this. Right now she had the judge’s motor running, and she knew how to put him in DRIVE. She danced to the bathroom and came back with an oval blue pill and a Dixie cup half full of water. “Here, Captain, a tonic for that big ol’ headache of yours.”

  “Thank you, darlin’, gettin’ bigger every second.” He placed the pill on his tongue, tipped his head back, and tossed it down. “Aw yeah. Where were we?”

  She made a pouty face. “Well, I was going to get myself all beautified, and let you drive me over to Twelve Oaks to eat barbecue. But I believe you have wickedness on your mind.”

  He patted his knee. “Damn right I do.”

  “I don’t think it’s right, you taking advantage of an innocent girl this way.” She batted her eyes. “It’s just not gentlemanly. I may have to tell Daddy!”

  “Long as you don’t tell my wife,” he said with a snort. His large sausagey fingers struggled with the buttons of her second-to-last petticoat.

  Georgia was afraid he would pop them. She closed her small hands around his. “Let me help you.”

  “Ah, you’re not as innocent as you like to pretend!” His eyes gleamed. “You can’t wait to get your skirts off so you can disport yourself like some wild hussy from Savannah!”

  She slapped him on the cheek—hard enough to sting. “How dare you! I am a lady and you will treat me as a lady. Do you understand?”

  He grinned. “You come here,” he growled, yanking her down to his lap, smooching her neck, nibbling up to her ear.

  He enjoyed playing strongman, pinning her in place with one hand. She let herself be pinned. They both knew it was playacting. The judge made the decisions in his courtroom, but in this room Georgia was the boss.

  He lapped at her earlobe, her throat. She floated up out of herself and thought about the male urge to overpower. She saw it all the time, cropping up in different guises through the week. Men love to prove themselves stronger. To overcome female resistance. Nothing turns a man on like a struggle, even in make-believe. Maybe that’s a Darwin thing, an animal thing, an urge all male creatures have in common… part of the great Ant Connection? Are all males rapists in the secret part of their souls? Why else do they like it so much when they get to overcome a woman resisting?

  Darwin might point out that the stronger, more dominant male reproduces more often—the satisfaction that comes with conquering the resisting female is selected into the species—but how would Darwin explain a man pretending to be strong as a pretext for a woman to humiliate him? How would you work that out in an anthill? Men are slightly more complicated than ants—but every anthill is ruled by a queen. Not a king. A queen rules the workers, soldiers, and drones. In the world there are billions of anthills, each one ruled by a tiny female dictator.

  At least that’s how it looked from the perspective of the judge’s lap. Why else would the human race be 52 percent female? Women are winning, that’s why. We’re better at surviving.

  In a surge of lust the judge tried to lift Georgia and carry her to the bed, but lost his strength and toppled back to the chair. Georgia spilled to the floor. “Unruly monster!” She scrambled up. “Control yourself, sir!”

  “My Go
d, you are one hot number.” He staggered to his feet and chased her around the chair, giggling like a boy. “Stop that! Come here and accept your punishment.”

  “You’re not going to spank me again, Captain! I’ve been so good!”

  “You little fornicatress,” he growled. “Following the army—pretending you’re a lady—it’s downright immoral!”

  She wished she hadn’t noticed the glassy strand of drool dangling from the corner of his mouth. Something like that could let all the air out of an evening. You had to avert your eyes, fight off the image, and keep going.

  Georgia was thankful for the blue pill. Really, it was the miracle of the age! It put hours back into her evening. What used to take two or three hours could now be wrapped up inside of forty-five minutes. But you had to be careful—it could also be a little blue hand grenade. Once you pulled the pin and set it ticking, you’d better be ready to move—

  And move they did, more or less together, to the big squeaky four-poster, where the last of her petticoats came off with no help from anybody. Georgia was down to her pale peach chemise. Judge Barnett’s suspenders were hopelessly snarled at his waist.

  She caught a gust of garlic as she clambered over his legs, laughing, pushing his hands away. If she undressed him all the way, it would add at least half an hour to his visit. She couldn’t help thinking of the twelve dozen figs she had to stuff with Gorgonzola and wrap in prosciutto before bedtime. She reached for his zipper and tugged.

  “Wench!” he cried. “Can’t keep your hands off me? What is it you’re wanting?” His face was even pinker—the first flush of the medication. “You can’t even wait to get your—wait, no, let me—let me help you.”

  A discreet glance at the clock told her she had given him exactly thirty-five minutes of top-quality foreplay. It had been a few Sundays since they went all the way, what with his sleepiness and the shoulder rubs and all, so he was really ready. Three or four minutes, tops. She yanked down his trousers and his baggy boxers, hauled out his stubby pink thing, rolled a rubber on it, and climbed aboard.