This Bitter Earth

by Bernice McFadden

  Maybe it was just his father. He always walked heavy, his footfalls upsetting the tiny house Joe had grown up in. His mother had complained about it, fussed all the time and warned him that he would step right through the floor one day.

  Maybe that’s who it was.

  It had been going on for a few nights; the heavy stepping sounds and then the smell, an odd smell that he tried to place even during the hours in the day when he was awake, but couldn’t.

  But tonight his bladder demanded his attention and Joe’s eyes flew open. Those stepping sounds were still with him, even as he stared into the blackness of his bedroom.

  He was awake, he knew that for sure, but the sounds were still with him and then he realized that they were outside his window.

  Joe crept from the bed and moved silently over to the window. The shade was drawn, so Joe pulled at the side so that he could peek out into the night.

  There was a car parked a few feet away from the house. It would have been well hidden behind the bushes that sprouted out along the side of the road, but moonlight was caught in the grill of the automobile, revealing it.

  Joe cocked his head. He couldn’t make out the color, make or model. It probably belongs to someone visiting a neighbor, Joe thought to himself, but the rationalization was unsettling to him.

  He moved to the second window, so that he could see down onto the front of the house.

  The flowering azalea bushes were trembling even though there was no breeze and then Joe caught sight of something. It had moved so quickly in and out of his vision that he could not even begin to decipher what it was or had been.

  Joe’s bladder called to him.

  Joe crossed his legs and peered deeper into the night below him.

  What he saw caused his breath to catch in his throat.

  He knew he hadn’t completely forgotten that face or those stone-cold dead eyes. Well, he had for a while, and then his own flesh and blood came back to Bigelow and reminded him all over again.

  Lappy Clayton stepped into view. He was smiling and nodding as he backed away from the house.

  Joe heard the window in the living room below him close and then the night was filled with the walking sounds that had occupied his dreams.

  Lappy turned toward the road, looked over his shoulder once and waved. The moonlight abandoned the silver grill of the car and attached itself to the gold of his teeth.

  Joe stumbled backward and almost slipped and fell in his urine.

  Seth had seen the footprints coming in off the road, heading back out to the road and pressed into the earth around the flower bed below the first-floor windows. Had seen them but had not said anything to anyone about it. In fact, he’d forgotten about it with each new day and every hour that filtered through it.

  But when he saw his father standing over the flowers, head slightly tilted forward, fingers pulling slowly at the short hairs on his chin, the memory floated back to him.

  “Footprints still there?” Seth asked as he took his place beside Joe.

  Joe’s head seemed to swivel for a moment before coming to a complete stop.

  “You seen them too?”

  “Yeah, for a few mornings now.”

  Joe turned his attention back to the earth. “Stems all broken,” he said, but Seth had a feeling he was talking about something else.

  “A man’s shoe print for sure. I thought it was yours,” Seth said and bent to pluck a weed.

  “Smaller than my feet, but bigger than yours.” Joe didn’t want to say that, but that’s what came out. He wanted to tell his son who he’d seen last night, but he hadn’t convinced himself completely that it was more than a dream.

  “Uh-huh,” Seth sounded and threw a glance over his shoulder. Something felt wrong all of a sudden.

  A truck backfired down the road and then the sound of its sick engine moved closer until Seth and Joe could see the shiny surface of JJ’s broad nose.

  “Humph,” Seth sounded again.

  Joe walked out toward the road to greet his oldest son and after a while Seth followed.

  Joe nodded at JJ and then pulled the passenger side door open before JJ could even get the truck stopped good.

  “I want to go down to the lake,” he said and stepped in just as JJ’s fingers wrapped around the ignition.

  “Hodges Lake?” JJ was baffled.

  “You know of another lake ‘round these parts?”

  Joe scooted close to JJ, so close that their thighs pressed together and each man could feel the other’s body heat. “C‘mon, Seth.” Joe patted the worn vinyl space beside him. “You come along too.”

  Seth hesitated before climbing in beside his father.

  The radio was busted and there was no air-conditioning in the truck so they rode with the windows open and listened to the sound of the tires roll against the road.

  The journey was uncomfortable because of the heat and the silence around them; the twists in the road made it worse as the three bodies pushed against each other with each turn.

  The Taylor sons did not question their father as to why they were headed to Hodges Lake. All three had not been there together since before JJ had enlisted in the service.

  They had come though, alone, or with friends or sweet-hearts.

  Seth had not been there for ten years and he blushed and felt ashamed at the memory of the last time he was there. That was in November of 1955, with Sugar.

  Joe came sometimes, times when he needed peace and quiet and wanted to think about his life and the people death had taken from him one by one over the years.

  JJ still came. He came to hunt the wild deer that drank from the lake and the beaver that made their home closest to the place where the stream called Miracle spilled in.

  They came to a stop at the top of the road. The ground was too soft past that and the truck’s tires would sink fast if they drove in closer.

  JJ and Seth exchanged glances as they followed their father down the slope and toward the lake. The banks were thick and green in places where the leafy canopy had lost a limb, allowing the sunlight to filter through. Everyplace else was bare except for tiny bits of winged garnet that had managed to struggle free from the earth.

  They came close enough to the lake to see the brightly colored bream that moved slowly beneath the water tupelo and cypress.

  Joe looked down and around for some time while Seth realized that Hodges Lake still did have a hold on him, and he wanted so badly to rip himself from his clothes, jump into the lake and yank his brother in by his ankles. He cleared his throat instead and swallowed away that loose youthful feeling.

  “I ain’t done a lot of things wrong, but I guess I done some.” Joe was talking to the trees, but Seth and JJ listened anyway.

  “I’m not saying that Sugar was a wrong thing. No, I’m not sorry she’s here. No, I’m not saying that.” He looked down at the fish and explained. “I know it hurt your mama when she found out what I had done and it hurt her more, me not saying what it had produced ... well, after I known it fer sure and all. But I don’t think anything hurt her more than losing Jude.”

  The sons muttered in agreement.

  “She ain’t gonna be able to take another loss. Not the loss of her sons, me, Sugar or that child Mercy.”

  The brothers’ heads jerked up at the name. Seth wanted to point out that Mercy wasn’t even family, but he just cocked his head and squinted his eyes at JJ.

  “That child Mercy is in danger,” Joe said and turned to face his sons.

  “From what, Daddy?” JJ asked, thinking about the story on his arm and how it matched hers so perfectly.

  “From who, Daddy?” Seth asked, wishing to hell he had asked Gloria to come for him today instead of tomorrow.

  Joe looked up at the trees again before he allowed his eyes to fall on Seth.

  “Lappy Clayton.”

  Joe said his name like he’d been saying it on and off in conversation for ten years.

  JJ screwed his face up at t
he sound of the name. It did something to his insides and made the hair stand up on his neck.

  Seth just stumbled where he stood and then his mouth fell open.

  “You know who that is?” JJ asked him as he reached for his brother’s elbow.

  “He know,” Joe said and started walking back toward the truck.

  It was late May, June was just around the corner, so Pearl was not surprised when she stumbled upon the oval-shaped light-green blotchy shells that lay scattered on the ground at the base of the magnolia tree.

  Mockingbird egg shells.

  It was late May and the mockingbirds were celebrating the birth of the first set. There would be two more hatchings, July and then September.

  Pearl bent down and picked up one of the delicate shells and wondered if Sugar would stay around that long.

  This thing about Shirley had made Pearl feel uncomfortable, ornery even. Her head banged when she thought about it and she was reminded of the days when she bled and she couldn’t stand to even hear the sound of Joe’s voice. That’s how she felt now. Irritated and angry.

  And then there was that damn note she’d found.

  She didn’t know where it came from, but there it was, stuck to the inside of the washing machine Joe had purchased as an anniversary present a year earlier.

  She’d done two loads of clothes, darks and whites. A mixture of clothing from everyone in that house. It shouldn’t have bothered her at all. It was just a wet piece of paper with bleeding blue letters that didn’t make a bit of sense.

  apy id it

  She had spent the better part of the day staring at it, removing it from her dress pocket to study it until her frustration overwhelmed her and she folded it, tucking it away again.

  She could show it to everyone, ask them one by one if they recognized the paper and then demand that they tell her its meaning. But that didn’t seem like a sane act and she had been accused of treading toward madness before, so she kept the paper and its message to herself.

  “Foolish old woman,” she’d reprimanded herself each time she reached for the paper. “It don’t mean nothing,” she told herself, knowing all along that it meant something and probably everything her life depended on.

  Mercy was flying; she was sailing above the tulip poplars and short-leaf pines, inhaling the sweet scent of the blue lobelia and wild hydrangea. She joined an arrow of sparrows that dipped through the blue sky above #9 before tiring and returning to earth.

  Sugar had been watching her from the window. Just seeing Mercy spin ‘round and ’round in those wide crooked circles made Sugar dizzy and every so often she would have to grab hold of something to keep from losing balance.

  She watched her so that her mind could become preoccupied with something other than Shirley Brown. She had scrubbed the sink in the bathroom and even dusted the woodwork in the hallway on the second floor, all of this to keep from walking over to Shirley Brown’s house so that she could look her in the face and maybe see Bertie Mae’s eyes or delicate lips.

  So she swept the front porch instead and then had come to stand at the window to lose herself in Mercy’s wild circles.

  But now Mercy had fallen flat on her behind.

  Down on the ground Mercy stretched her arms out behind her and threw her head back so that the sun could kiss her full on the face. She squinted against its bright rays and then let out a stream of childish laughter that caught Sugar by surprise.

  Mercy still wasn’t speaking and she remained distant, but something was changing about her, something Sugar hadn’t been able to put her finger on yet.

  Perhaps Mercy was getting better, Sugar thought.

  Maybe she would go over and visit with Shirley Brown.

  Maybe coming here was a good thing, the right thing.

  Chapter 26

  THE time they’d spent in one another’s company had slipped by with the patient ease of honey and had been just as sweet.

  It seemed more like a month than a week. The days had rolled past in hours that no one had taken the time to keep track of. They ate when they were hungry and slept when they were sleepy. In between there had been some unrest, but more jubilance than anything else.

  For seven days they had lived by an aberrant schedule that was, for the misfit occupants of #9 Grove Street, fitting.

  The May evening came calling even before the sun had started its slow move east and the crickets’ aria ran a tight competition with the loud laughter that rang out in waves around the kitchen table.

  “He was a scrawny thing, could barely keep his pants up around his waist.” Pearl was laughing so hard that she had trouble taking in enough air to breathe. She was at the end of a story about JJ and Seth, and Sugar found herself reliving each scene as if she’d witnessed it.

  Seth blushed and rolled his eyes at his mother and then looked at Sugar and shook his head. “I wasn’t that skinny,” he said with mock defensiveness.

  “Yes you were, Son,” Joe responded with a chuckle that Sugar found forced.

  When the men had returned from Hodges Lake, their faces looked solemn and preoccupied. Sugar had walked out onto the porch to greet them as they climbed down from the truck, had asked if they wanted some lemonade or something a bit stronger, but they’d all shook their heads no and looked everywhere Sugar wasn’t until she realized that they wanted to be alone.

  They gathered together on the porch, speaking in low tones, Seth and JJ nodding or grunting when Joe mumbled something and pointed down at the flowerbed.

  By the time JJ pulled out for home and Joe and Seth took their places at the table, the air around them had changed, the heaviness of whatever situation they had discussed had lifted enough so that Pearl would not notice that there was something wrong.

  But Sugar knew different and she watched them, father and son, as they spoke to each other with their eyes.

  Mercy seemed to be participating this evening. Her eyes swung from mouth to mouth as if she were reading lips instead of listening. She even smiled in places where the rest of them laughed.

  But her smile seemed too broad and absurd. It reminded Sugar of the smiles painted across the faces of circus clowns and held just as steady, even after the laughter was over and Mercy’s eyes dropped closed, her body beginning a slow tilt toward the floor.

  “She worse than a newborn, she just drop asleep without notice,” Pearl said as she nudged Mercy on her shoulder.

  Seth smirked. He had a newborn and he knew what sleep looked like. What Mercy was doing was a world away from sleep; it was closer to the slow bob and jerk of the addicts that littered the corner opposite his diner. He raised his eyebrows and gave Sugar a questioning look.

  Sugar felt red hot anger begin to well up in her chest. It spread down her arms and through her hands, causing the tips of her fingers to burn. She bit down hard on her bottom lip and clenched her hands into tight fists, which she placed in her lap in an effort to keep them from reaching across the table and strangling Mercy

  After all she had done for that child! All of those hours that piled high into days, stretching into long restless nights.

  All of that time she’d spent sitting by Mercy’s bedside, mop-ping the sweat from her brow and holding her hand when the heroin fought to keep hold of her body.

  Dammit! What a selfish bitch she was!

  Sugar clenched her fists tighter.

  She should have walked away, should have left Mercy right where she’d found her. Mercy wasn’t interested in changing her life.

  Neither were you.

  Sugar’s head snapped around and her eyes fell on Pearl.

  “What did you say?” she asked.

  Pearl drew her head back. “I didn’t say anything.”

  Sugar’s conscience was reminding her of what she had been before she’d come to Bigelow ten years ago and who she’d become by the time she left.

  Pearl had saved her from herself and now Sugar had to do the same for Mercy.

  Sugar’s shoulders dropp
ed in surrender and the anger in her hands cooled. She would stick with Mercy and help her kick the heroin once and for all. But first she would have to find out how she was getting it and from whom.

  “Just like a baby.” Pearl laughed again as Mercy rolled her drowsy eyes over the faces that watched her.

  Angel hadn’t looked at him since he’d walked in. That didn’t disturb him, but the fact that she wasn’t cussing at the meat or swearing at the potatoes she sliced, did.

  Angel was never quiet and her silence plucked at his nerves worse than any loud noise could have.

  And Harry wasn’t working. The chairs were still turned upside down on their seats on top of the tables and the toilet paper rolls in the bathroom were one sheet away from the cardboard scroll.

  Harry was standing beside his mother, staring up at her, waiting for the moment she would say something.

  Normally his presence would have irritated her and she would have chased him away with one swift wave of the knife she had in her hand. But tonight, something in the way her body leaned toward Harry told JJ she needed him there.

  JJ had started to ask her what was wrong, had opened his mouth twice to scold Harry into working, but decided that he would remove the chairs and replace the toilet paper himself while he decided on the best way to approach them.

  He was dusting off the liquor bottles when Angel finally came out of the kitchen and into the bar area. Harry was at her side, his index finger hooked into the waist of her apron.

  “Shit,” was all JJ could think of to say when he looked into her face.

  Her right eye was purplish black and swollen completely shut, her bottom lip was split straight down the middle and there were scratches as deep as rivers on her neck.

  “Oh,” she said, waving her hand at his shocked expression. “It was my fault, I guess. You know me ... ha-ha ... a sucker for a good-looking man.”

  JJ just stared.

  “He said I looked like someone he hated. Some white woman.”

  JJ thought that Angel didn’t look like any white woman he’d ever seen.