I jabbed at the bag and it made a dull clunk. A glance at Cecilia gave me the courage I needed to lift it up. Dust from the sack glittered in the sunlight as the specks drifted down over a small pyramid of canned peaches, pickles, green beans, and the like. I took a deep, musty breath and said, “What could bite me here?”
She gave me a big smile. “Fooled you! This is my secret though—all my favorite foods. Just in case.”
“What could happen?”
“You never know when bad times’ll come again. What’s your favorite food there?”
“Peaches.” I sat cross-legged and hefted the top jar, smooth glass and densely packed orange-yellow fruit and syrup. Next I looked at the beans and then pickled green tomatoes, inspecting each one and putting it aside.
I lifted a jar from the back and quickly blew a brown spider off my knuckle. This bottle wasn’t packed full like the others. Inside was a gray tuber with mottled brown streaks; the vegetable skin was split all around and splayed like it had been run over. Jagged white insides poked out like splinters. The dusty sunlight flashed on the glass and I counted roots like five fingers. Mr. Turner’s hand.
Cecilia’s arms went around me and she grabbed the jar before I could fling it away. Screaming, I backed against her while she laughed in my ear. My legs thrashed and knocked over canned goods but nothing broke. I pressed my birthmark against her soft chest; her heart raced as fast as mine.
She set aside the fruit jar containing her father’s mashed hand and rocked me as my breath slowed. “Daddy don’t know where I hid that awful thing. You’ll keep my secret, right?” I nodded against her bodice and she released me.
The whole right side of my face felt hot; blood pulsed in my ear. I said, “That was mean.”
“I never had a little brother to joke with. Don’t be cross.”
“I love you.” I covered my mouth, but the words had flown out like three carrier pigeons.
Her laughter shot them down. She said, “And I love you, little brother. Let’s go before I get a spider in my hair.” Before leaving the shed, Cecilia asked, “You wanna take home them peaches or anything?”
My feelings about Cecilia ran hot and then cold as I walked up our driveway. Every time I decided that she was terrible, though, I’d feel her arms around me and hear her steady heartbeat and, “I love you, little brother.” I knew that she’d never tell my secret. The best way to keep one, after all, was to forget it.
Mama stood on the front porch, hands in her apron pockets. Darlene sat with the old porch swing rocked back; her toes were planted against the flooring. She couldn’t push back any farther and she wouldn’t let herself go forward. The tightness on her face matched Mama’s. A fist squeezed my heart when I noticed that the dogs weren’t around.
I called, “Where’s Sport and Dixie?”
Mama said, “At Uncle Jake’s. He might could use ’em.”
“What about us here?”
“There ain’t no ‘here’ anymore. Ain’t no ‘us’ neither.” She walked inside.
I asked Darlene what had happened, and she replied, “Mama says that Mr. Meriwether raised our rent.”
“He’s kicking us out?”
“Looks that way. We’re going to stay at Grandma’s.”
“For how long?”
“She didn’t say.” She lifted her feet and swayed. The chains creaked like a tree limb that hosted a lynching. I asked her if Mama had given away our cats too, but Darlene said, “Mama says to leave ’em. ‘They’re wild things,’ she says ‘and won’t notice we’re gone.’” She cradled her arms for a moment, as if cuddling a soft, wriggling feline.
The truck bed was loaded with farm tools, a couple of suitcases, and one scarred steamer trunk that Papa had always called the “hope chest.” My clothes and my brothers’ lay on the single-shot rifle, fishing gear, skillets and other kitchen doodads, including Papa’s miracle corn-sheller. Army ants crawled over half-used flour, sugar, and cornmeal sacks that took up still more space. Mama had also added her broken Kodak camera, some letters tied with ribbon, and the Philco radio with its hoop antenna now bent like a saddle from being torn off its perch in a nearby tree. We could ride atop the pile if Mama kept her speed down. I noticed that she hadn’t taken the brooms: it was bad luck to bring a used broom to a new home.
At supper, Mama told us that she’d driven around all day trying to find buyers for our livestock. Mr. Turner had bought Papa’s horse, Dan. No wonder Cecilia’s parents had been extra-nice to me.
“We got almost thirty dollars,” Mama said, “The furniture is Mr. Meriwether’s so it stays.”
Chet asked, “What’s the new rent?”
“Too much,” she said to her plate. “More’n I’m willing to part with.”
“But with thirty dollars plus what we’re bringing home, we’re almost rich.”
“We got no way to work the fields and no milk and no eggs.”
Jay said, “We could buy grocer—”
“And there goes the money.” She snapped her fingers. “Gone. Y’all ain’t making enough to keep a roof over us and put food in our stomachs.”
Chet stared at his fingers, counting. “Mama, we’re bringing in twelve dollars a week.”
“He’s asking too much—now drop it! We’ll find someplace else soon enough. Make sure you don’t leave anything behind.”
While she washed, dried, and packed the supper dishes and utensils, my brothers and I added our slingshots and the cigar boxes of treasures. I envisioned Grandma’s house and wondered if my brothers and I would share the parlor or bed down on the sleeping porch.
We left the front door open as usual before we bounded down the porch stairs into the moonlight. I looked back and expected to see Sport and Dixie, but of course they weren’t there. Gone. I snapped my fingers. Gone. Mama started the engine and called to me, while Jay and Chet tested out places to sit. I remembered my tiny graveyard of teeth and wanted to crawl under the house to fetch them, but Mama leaned on the horn until I’d climbed in the truck bed. The blaring echo bounced across the fields and the woods and thundered back at us. How long would it ricochet inside the house and in what room would it die?
As we rode down the driveway and the connecting dirt road, items in the truck bed kept shifting; I had to find new handholds again and again. Mama braked hard in front of Uncle Stan’s place, nearly pitching me overboard. She leaned out the window and yelled, “Bud, get your stuff. This is your stop.”
My heart slammed around inside my ribs like a possum snatched up in a Croker sack. I said, “I thought we were going to Grandma’s.”
“Me and Darlene are. I told you before, there ain’t no ‘us’ anymore.”
My brothers looked at me as if I’d fallen over dead, which is what I wanted to do. Then they glanced at each other and realized they had the same disease. Jay called, “Why are we splitting up?”
“There’s too many of you. Nobody’s able to take us all in.” When we yelled more questions, she shut off the rumbling truck engine. Lonely sounds of an empty night came to us: crickets and katydids, owls and whippoorwills. She got out, cussing to herself, and fixed her gaze somewhere above our heads as she explained that three of her sisters had each picked one of us. Jay was going to live with Aunt Maxine and Uncle Jake. Aunt Lizzie had chosen Chet.
“So Aunt Arzula picked me?” Ever the good soldier, I reluctantly climbed down and accepted my things from Jay. He mouthed that it would be OK, but he looked relieved at his fate.
“More or less,” Mama said. Her gaze drifted to my aunt’s darkened home. The last time I stood like this, placing the truck between myself and the ramshackle house, Papa was putting his Colt to Uncle Stan’s head and Ry was fixing to become Rienzi.
Chet said, “How long are we gonna live apart?”
“Only until I can set up housekeeping again. You still got your jobs. I’ll see you every other Sunday at your Grandma’s.”
Uncle Stan said from his front porch, “What’s going o
n, Reva?”
“We lost the house, so Bud’s coming to live with y’all. Didn’t Arzula tell you?”
“No, she didn’t, and no, he isn’t. No offense, Roger.”
Mama climbed back inside the truck and slammed the door. Through the open window, she yelled, “Don’t make this tougher than it already is, Buddy.”
She’d never called me that before; I felt as if I’d lost my name along with my home and family. I choked on exhaust and dust as she roared away. My brothers stared at me while they groped for handholds so they wouldn’t fall overboard. Meanwhile, I was adrift.
Balancing my sole possessions—the Blue Cloud cigar box and cypress slingshot balanced atop my town shoes and clothes—I shuffled to Uncle Stan’s porch. He sucked in his lips as he looked down at me. In his usual quiet voice, he said, “Guess that settles that, huh? I ain’t faring too good against your family, Roger.” He rubbed the crooked bridge of his nose and the cartilage made a popping sound. “Well, come on in. We’ll figure out what to do with you.”
Aunt Arzula lit the kerosene lamp in their parlor. Rubbing the bald spot on the side of her head, she said, “Bud, what’s that you’re carrying?”
Stan dropped into a chair. “Reva says you agreed to take him in. Somehow, she lost their house already.”
I set my things near the lamp on the table. “Mr. Meriwether raised our rent.”
Stan said. “He ain’t raised ours in years.”
“It’s too much now. More’n she’s willing to part with, is what she said.”
“Ahhh.” Stan shook his head. “Damn, what a world. So your mama went around today giving away her children?”
“And our dogs, and selling the livestock.” I explained where my siblings were going to live and told Aunt Arzula, “Mama said that you picked me.”
My aunt tugged at the high neckline of her innermost dress. She said, “I sure think I’d recall doing a fool-thing like that. We got no money to raise up a youngun.”
Stan watched the dark rafters for a long time. Finally, he said to the ceiling, “Reva must be splitting a gut about this, dropping Roger here after all I’ve been through with the MacLeods.” To me, he said, “Hope you don’t mind sleeping where you did before, a pallet in the corner. We only got the three rooms.”
Aunt Arzula snapped, “If you’re living under our roof, you’re gonna work. Same as we do.” I told them about my job with the Turners, and she said, “That’ll help pay for your keeping, but I expect you to do chores too. I gotta spend time caring for Eliza Jean, after all.”
Stan waved away any question I was about to ask regarding their long-dead daughter.
CHAPTER 19
I never minded staying busy, and it kept me from thinking about missing Jay and Chet. Every other Sunday, I figured, my heartsickness would be cured in the morning when I got to Grandma’s and return twice as hurtful in the evening when we got split up all over again.
Aunt Arzula made me turn over every penny of the twenty cents I earned each weekday at the Turners’. She took half for my upkeep and saved the other dime for Mama. In addition to doing fieldwork and gardening for Cecilia’s family, I was put in charge of Papa’s stallion.
Cecilia joined me in the stable to brush the huge black horse’s flanks and coo to him while I shoveled his dung. Dan grunted and sniffed her but didn’t try to break her foot or crush her against the stall. Her soap-and-gingerbread smell mingled with the aromas of sweet hay and Dan’s massive heaps of manure. She apologized for scaring me the other day. “If I’d known about you losing your home, I wouldn’t have done it. Are your aunt and uncle nice?”
“He’s real quiet, hardly says a word,” I said. “I can’t feature what he’s thinking. He’ll look over at me kinda funny while we’re eating or doing chores.” I listed all the things Aunt Arzula had me do. “Come next Monday, I’m to help her with the wash before I catch the bus.”
“They’re gonna work you to death. Put down that shovel and take a breather.” She led me out of the stall and squeezed my bicep. “You could knock out two Buck Bradleys now.”
I flexed to make the muscle a little bit bigger and grinned as her eyes widened. Quick as a rabbit, I kissed her smooth, warm cheek.
Cecilia pushed me away, saying, “Silly. Looks like you’re all rested up.” She returned to the stall and kept Dan between us, but she stayed until I finished my clean-up.
*
On Saturday, I had to help Uncle Stan hoe around the last of the pea and bean vines and the thick leaves of collard, mustard, and turnip greens. A cool, steady wind blew dust devils across the field, coating us with sand. The whole day, he rubbed a dusty hand over his mouth time and again, as if wiping away words that wanted to get out.
The sunset looked crimson in the gritty air. After washing his face and neck on the back porch, Uncle Stan didn’t join me and my aunt for supper. Instead, he changed into a clean white shirt and black trousers held up by suspenders. His town clothes suited him much better than the overalls and frayed work shirt. Polished black shoes struck the floorboards in a confident rhythm as he strode out the front door, a big black X across his back. Aunt Arzula watched him go and then plucked a wad from her biscuit, rolled it into a ball, and tossed it under the table.
Her stove hadn’t drawn well because of the dusty wind, leaving the bread and greens undercooked and sandy. Dirt blew into the parlor where we ate, so I closed the door and held it shut by looping bailing wire over a rusted nail. Aunt Arzula said, “Mind you open that before Stan gets home. It ain’t fitting to be locked out of your own house.”
“Does he go out every Saturday night, ma’am?”
“Come hell or high water.” She chucked another biscuit ball under the table.
I wanted to ask if he always came home drunk, but I was only a guest and couldn’t risk getting on her bad side. Besides throwing food under the table, she kept the corners and the space behind each door supplied with dough. She also tossed bread under their bed, where they kept their shoes and a small wooden box that I’d resisted opening. We endured a lot of cockroaches and flies. I wanted to ask why she tossed bread around and how come she wore three dresses, and what was her reason for forty-leven other strange habits. But I knew better.
Instead, I helped her crawl across the floor and lay baking sheets, linoleum remnants, and other flat things, making walkways through the house. In this case, she did explain: “Stan’s gonna bring poisons in on his shoes. Can’t have Eliza Jean crawling across that stuff.”
She took their only kerosene lamp from the parlor to the kitchen to rinse the dishes, leaving me in the near dark. I shuttered the windows against the dusty wind and secured them using the same wire-and-nail fixtures that the door had. With the windows closed, the room turned black. I crossed through the bedroom and stood in the kitchen, where Aunt Arzula dunked each dish three times in her basin as she hummed tunelessly.
The wind wailed through the open kitchen window. Grit sprayed my face and coated the floor. I shouted, “Aunt Arzula! You want me—”
She screamed and dropped a plate into the water, splashing herself. Bending double, she shielded her face with multi-sleeved forearms, palms covering her head. The same way I’d defended myself from Buck Bradley’s punches.
“It’s me! Bud!” I ran to the window, squeezing my eyes shut against a blast of sandy air, and grabbed the shutters. With the window closed, her screaming nearly overwhelmed the hail-like racket of blowing dirt. I secured the shutters on the opposite side of the room and waited for her to calm down. “It’s just me,” I murmured, over and over.
She peeked between her arms. Grabbing up the dish from the water, she said, “Oughta be ashamed, scaring a body like that. Go on before I take a spoon to you.”
I left the only lit room and traipsed to my pallet in the parlor. Sand covered my nightshirt and all the bedding so I carried everything to the opposite corner, stumbling over the walkways we’d laid. I shook out the grit and punched my pillow, holding it up
like I’d grasped a bully by the hair.
Drifting dust made me sneeze as I shuffled back to my corner. I checked to make sure my aunt wasn’t watching, and changed into my nightshirt. Before getting onto the quilt, I wiped off the soles of my feet. At last I was ready for bed. I missed Jay and Chet’s feet bracketing my head, their legs keeping me safe from the haints and booger-men who could be lurking on either side. I’d never had so much elbow room in a bed, and I’d never been so sorrowful. Still, I was dog-tired from working; not even self-pity could keep me awake.
A crash bolted me upright a few hours later. The front door had been forced open and the wind blew dirt inside. A vague white form staggered in the doorway. Uncle Stan cussed his wife for locking him out. He took a step and kicked aside a baking sheet. I thought I was safe in the dark, but his rumpled silhouette pivoted until he faced my corner. In two long strides he was over me.
The white shirt glowed, seeming to float in the air above his black trousers. His shoes landed hard beside my legs as he straddled my pallet. Then he dropped to his knees, imprisoning me, and he leaned down. As the wind howled through the door, his gritty, callused hands clawed over my chest and found my neck.
“I know what you’re playin at. I know why you’re back.” His voice slurred as he throttled me. Dirt from his hair and clothes sifted onto my face, and I felt like I was being buried alive. He squeezed harder.
His thighs immobilized my arms; my legs couldn’t do anything but thrash and kick the air. I gulped through my mouth as his fingers tightened. In another moment he’d crush my throat.
“Won’t you MacLeods let me be? Reva, then Mance, and now you! Jesus Christ, when will y’all stop?”
Aunt Arzula yelled from the bedroom door, “Baby! You’re killing the baby again!”
Stan released me and sat upright, keeping me pinned beneath him. “Shut up! He ain’t your baby.” His hand slammed against my chest as he pushed himself up. Stepping over me, his shoe clipped my birthmark. Finally tears came to my eyes and I sobbed.
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