Queen Sugar: A Novel

by Baszile, Natalie

  Ralph Angel nodded, but was quiet otherwise, and Charley figured maybe the time alone had done him some good.

  From out in the yard came the sound of truck tires rolling to a stop and, over its idling engine, the faint echo of zydeco music. A man’s voice, then Ralph Angel’s saying, “Straight through that door.” Charley poked her head out of her office. That weathered face; those eyes that looked at her as though she were the only woman in town. “Remy.” She would never get tired of saying it.

  “Hey there, California.” Remy took off his baseball cap then leaned forward to kiss her. He ran his hand down her arm, lightly squeezing her biceps, and said, “Those pretty arms,” then took her hand. He smelled of motor oil and grass and sweat, and underneath, citrus. “Thought I’d swing by, see how you did today.”

  “A few setbacks,” Charley said, “but overall, good. And even better now.”

  Remy was about to kiss her again, but over his shoulder Charley saw Ralph Angel hovering just inside the shop door. The thought of him witnessing so private a moment made her pull away. She motioned, reluctantly, for Ralph Angel to come over. She introduced him to Remy. “This is my brother.”

  “Hey, man. How you doing?” Remy said, warmly, extending his hand.

  Ralph Angel responded with a halfhearted shake. He looked Remy over, openly sizing him up. “So, how do you know my sister?”

  “We met at an auction,” Charley said. “Remy’s a farmer.”

  “Oh yeah? No kidding. How many acres?” Ralph Angel said.

  “Twenty-two hundred, give or take,” Remy said. “Mostly over in Saint Abbey.”

  “Twenty-two hundred. I’m impressed.”

  “Plenty of farmers a lot bigger than me.” Remy smiled and gave a modest shrug. “So, you’re Charley’s brother.” He sounded relieved to be asking the questions now. “You driving a combine or something?”

  Ralph Angel slid his hands in his pockets. “Actually, my sister’s got me scrapping cane.”

  Remy laughed. “Get out of here.”

  “Why would I joke?” Ralph Angel said.

  Charley winced. His tone had darkened, reminding her of the way he sounded the day John brought the plywood for the windows.

  Remy looked from Ralph Angel, who stood by with a sour but satisfied look on his face, to Charley, and Charley was tempted to offer an explanation. She hated that Remy was looking at her with a confused expression, as though he were wondering who she was, really, way deep down; wondering if she might be some kind of monster to make her brother do such lowly work.

  “Mr. Denton should be pulling up any minute,” Charley said. “We can wait out front.”

  “That’s okay,” Remy said. The confused expression vanished. “You’re the one I came to see. I thought maybe we’d have a drink to celebrate. A quick one, since we both need to be up early.”

  Nine o’clock at Paul’s Café. Just one drink. Charley would drop Ralph Angel off at home first.

  In the car, Charley was about to turn on the radio when Ralph Angel reached for the book she’d wedged between the seats. This time, he practically tore the pages as he turned them. “This belongs to that guy you introduced me to back there?”

  “As a matter of fact, yes.”

  Ralph Angel closed the book. “Sort of sleeping with the enemy, don’t you think?”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “You know, fucking a white guy. A Southern white guy at that.”

  “It’s none of your business.” Charley’s heart was racing.

  “I mean, there must be at least one black man down here who’s good enough for you. There must be a doctor or a lawyer in one of these towns who meets your high standards.”

  “You’ll be plugging drains tomorrow,” Charley said.

  “Just tell me this: what makes Mr. Twenty-two hundred acres so special?”

  “There’s a five-acre stretch over in Micah’s Corner that had some water on it. Mr. Denton will show you what to do. Don’t forget your gloves.”

  “I mean, what makes you think he sees anything in you but a piece of black ass? That’s the way they do it down here, you know? They always have a little dish of chocolate on the side.”

  Charley’s whole body went rigid. “You should plan on driving yourself from now on.”

  “You humiliated me out there today. I have my pride.”

  “We don’t have time for pride. You brought this on yourself.”

  “Making me walk behind that cracker’s harvester was bad enough, but then to make me pick up dog shit around the shop?”

  “It was the only job left. If you don’t like it, talk to Miss Honey since she forced me to hire you.”

  “And then to be fucking a white boy? I wonder what Micah will say when she finds out what white men in Louisiana have done to black women for centuries. Hell, why limit it to Louisiana? All over the South. I mean, what kind of role model are you?”

  It was as though Ralph Angel had dipped a long stick into the dark pit of her private concerns and stirred up all the muck. And now, all the questions Charley had asked herself about how she and Remy could ever possibly work given the South’s complicated history; given her worries about what people would say—white people but also black people—considering both sides’ sensitivities and prejudices; what her own father would say given all he’d suffered—all of those anxieties rose to the top. This wasn’t the 1950s. She was free to love whomever she wanted. Still, Charley felt as though she was breaking some cardinal rule. She knew Ralph Angel understood her fears, the obligation and the burden she felt. She knew her brother was hurting, that he was desperate, and would likely apologize later, but she hated Ralph Angel for saying what he said just to get back at her. Charley pulled the car over to the shoulder. “Get out.”

  “You could have put me in the office from the start. Let me file papers or something.”

  “I said get out.”

  Ralph Angel stared at Charley for a long moment, then opened his door. “Tell ’Da I missed my ride.”

  “Tell her yourself.”

  Ralph Angel stepped back from the car, but he didn’t close the door. “See you at work tomorrow, sis.”

  “I don’t think so,” Charley said, leaning over to pull the door closed. “You’re fired.”

  26

  In the back room, Ralph Angel stared through the darkness, his body aching after the day’s labor and the long walk home, his mind cycling through memories of all that had happened—Ernest, Miss Honey, Johnny at the bakery, the German, Charley—and the more he thought, the more his stomach churned with the fresh waves of bright, cold fury. It might take a while to find what he needed. The punks he met in Tee Coteau, the ones he bought from after that mess with the German, were better than nothing, but they were small-time operators. He might have to leave town to find guys who could hook him up for real, sell him what he needed to stop the darkness he felt within him from spreading. He slid out of bed.

  “Pop?” Blue raised his head and reached for Ralph Angel’s arm.

  “Go back to sleep.” Ralph Angel dragged the clock radio to the edge of the nightstand. Midnight. He turned it toward Blue. “Don’t move from this bed till you hear the man on the radio say it’s seven o’clock. I mean it.”

  ’Da’s purse was on top of the refrigerator. Ralph Angel took it down, then cleared a place on the table, his heart bucking as he pulled at the tarnished zipper. Inside: old tubes of lipstick, a packet of tissues, an envelope stuffed with store coupons. Everything smelled like her, the sweet, powdery fragrance he’d known since he was a boy. He twisted the clasp on her pink wallet and it yawned open, but there were only two crumpled bills and a handful of coins.

  “Think,” Ralph Angel said to himself and paced the floor. Next door, Miss Marti’s rooster crowed. In a few hours, steel-blue and orange light would bleed thro
ugh the kitchen window to fill the shallow sink and spill over the lip of the counter.

  The Kerns jar was shoved all the way to the back of the cabinet. Ralph Angel untwisted the rubber band, straightened the stack of small bills, and counted them with a bank teller’s speed. One hundred sixty-five dollars. He closed the lid and slid the empty jar back into its place before jamming the roll in his pocket. One hundred sixty-five dollars wasn’t much but it was good for a seven-day run.

  On the way out, Ralph Angel paused. Charley’s door was open but the light was off. Holding his breath, he moved closer and saw, through the doorway, Micah asleep on the air mattress. Charley’s bed was empty.

  In her room, he swept his hand across the dresser, feeling for any coins or bills Charley had left behind, until his fingers grazed the cool base, the square feet. Ralph Angel paused, considered his next move, then eased The Cane Cutter toward him, mindful of its weight. Charley shouldn’t have embarrassed him the way she had. She always had it so easy. Everything given to her while he’d struggled for the crumbs. Pride goeth before destruction, and a haughty spirit before a fall—the passage came to mind before he could stop it.

  On the air mattress, Micah mumbled in her sleep. Ralph Angel froze. He waited. And when all was still again, he slid The Cane Cutter off the dresser and backed out of the room.

  Beyond the porch, the street was alive with shadows. On the porch, the Bible passage came to him. Grace in the eyes of the Lord. Ralph Angel paused. Some people believed they were worthy of God’s grace and some people didn’t. Then he stepped into the darkness, stepped back across the line.

  27

  Miss Honey’s living room was New Year’s Eve before the ball dropped with all the party hats and plastic kazoos, the spiraled tin sparklers and colored streamers draped in scallops, and mylar balloon bouquets everywhere. Charley taped the HAPPY BIRTHDAY banner over the window before everyone hid, until Micah, still sleepy but dressed in her school uniform, opened the bedroom door and headed for the kitchen and they all jumped out and yelled Surprise!

  “But you told me we weren’t celebrating until this weekend,” Micah said when she recovered from the shock. She had asked her two new friends to sleep over, and Charley had agreed to let the girls do beauty makeovers, have cake and an ice cream bar.

  “I couldn’t let your real birthday go by without doing something special,” Charley said. “And since I won’t be home until late tonight, I thought we’d celebrate now.” She would drop Micah at school, then head to New Orleans.

  “Open your presents,” Blue said. “Mine first.” He handed Micah a wad of newspaper tied with string. “It’s Zach,” he said before Micah could untie the knot. When she did, Charley recognized the action figure he played with the day he arrived. It was his favorite, she knew, and gave Blue a hug. “You’re so sweet. Thank you,” she said, knowing Micah would give it back to him.

  Miss Honey gave Micah a new Bible with a bright white cover and real gold leaf on the edge of each page. “Every child who goes through confirmation at Mount Olive gets a Bible just like this. I order them special.” Micah opened the front cover and saw her name in gold letters. “I still have mine, from when I was a girl,” Miss Honey said.

  Then Charley set a large present on the coffee table and they all held their breath as Micah lifted the lid off the cherry-red box and held up the Leica IIIf “Red Dial.” “It has a self-timer,” Charley said.

  “Mom.” Micah stared at the camera. “This looks expensive. Are you sure?”

  Charley nodded. “It’s used. And the man at the camera store said I can pay in installments. He said it still has a lot of life left. I thought you might need something more advanced since you’re in the photography club.”

  • • •

  Miss Honey made grits and eggs, Micah’s favorite breakfast, and they were passing the camera around, taking turns looking through the viewfinder, when Violet, in paint-splattered overalls, on her way to repaint the church bathrooms, rushed into the kitchen. “I wanted to catch you before you went to school. Happy birthday,” she said, and set a box of Meche’s glazed doughnut holes with two containers of chocolate dipping sauce on the table. The doughnut holes were still warm, light as air, and Charley stuck a candle in every one and they sang “Happy Birthday” and Micah made her wish. They passed the doughnuts around and everyone took two, and Micah announced this was her best birthday ever.

  Charley looked around the table. She saw her grandmother, she saw Blue, she saw Violet, she saw her daughter, who looked happier than she had in months, and Charley thought, yes, this was what she wanted. This was what she’d been hoping for.

  “I just wish Ralph Angel were here to celebrate with us,” Miss Honey said. She shot Charley a dark look. “He was pretty upset when he came in last night.”

  It had not occurred to Charley until that moment to wonder about Ralph Angel. Last night, she met Remy for a drink at Paul’s Café and managed to put Ralph Angel out of her mind. She came home late to a quiet house, and this morning, rose extra early to decorate the living room. She didn’t feel like thinking about Ralph Angel; not today, not ever. Charley looked at her watch. In a little while, the sky would be filled with great mushroom clouds of gray smoke as farmers burned their cut cane before loading it in the wagons, and she would see, along the bayou, where the tupelo trees donned leaves of orange and yellow where they had been green before, the China rain trees ablaze in a crown of red blossoms. “We should get going. I want to beat the New Orleans traffic.”

  “I’d like to eyeball that statue one last time since it’ll belong to someone else tomorrow,” Violet said.

  Charley sent Micah to fetch The Cane Cutter from the bedroom, but Micah came back empty-handed. “It’s not there.”

  “It has to be there,” Charley said. “Look again. On the dresser.”

  But when Micah returned empty-handed a second time, Charley went to look herself. She looked on the dresser and in the closet and behind the door. She flung clothes and shoved aside the stack of farm catalogs. She lifted the mattress.

  For the next hour, they searched the house—every shelf, every corner, every box—the whole time the voice in Charley’s head repeating over and over, This can’t be happening, until finally, she told everyone to stop looking. The Cane Cutter was gone. Charley collapsed into a chair. She laid her head on the table. She cried and didn’t think she would ever stop.

  • • •

  Three hours after Charley discovered The Cane Cutter was gone, she still sat in Miss Honey’s kitchen, clutching a wad of paper towel after having cried until she was spent. Hollywood still looked a little crestfallen after learning about her date with Remy, was trying, Charley could see, to put on a brave face. He had stopped by to say hello to Miss Honey and to wish Micah happy birthday, and heard about The Cane Cutter disappearing. Now he held Charley’s hand and tried to comfort her. He refilled her water glass and encouraged her to drink; whispered, “Don’t worry, Miss Charley, I won’t leave you,” which was sweet and kind, but Charley barely heard him. Meanwhile, Violet and Miss Honey debated whether to call the police. Like Charley, Violet was sure Ralph Angel had taken The Cane Cutter. She was sure that if they called the police right now, they could get it back. But Miss Honey kept saying, “No, Ralph Angel didn’t take it; leave the police out of this.”

  “But he did!” Charley said, and blew her nose into what was left of the paper towel, looking for a piece that wasn’t shredded. “No one else knew it was there. No one else had a reason to steal it.”

  “No police,” Miss Honey said, like she was directing traffic. “No police. I won’t allow it. No police. No.”

  “Mother.” Violet’s voice was calm, reasonable. “We have to call the police. If Ralph Angel is innocent, calling the police won’t matter.”

  “Ralph Angel didn’t take it,” Miss Honey snapped. “He is a lot of things, but he’s no
t a criminal. We had a house thief is what we had.”

  Charley leaped up from her chair. “Why wouldn’t he take it?” She pounded her fist on the table. “I fired him, remember? Why wouldn’t he get even?”

  “You were brave, Miss Charley,” said Hollywood. “It took guts to stand up to Ralph Angel.”

  “I’m calling John,” Violet said, taking out her cell phone. “He’ll know what to do.”

  “Call John if you want to,” Miss Honey said, “but we’re keeping this in the family.”

  “By tonight, he’ll be across the Mexico border,” Charley said. “He’s probably a hundred miles from here already.”

  “The day you call the police on Ralph Angel,” said Miss Honey, her voice low as tires on gravel, “is the day you are dead to me. Police don’t ask questions. They just shoot. We’re giving Ralph Angel till tonight and that’s the end of it.”

  • • •

  In the evening during grinding, the sky took on an orangey glow. As night approached, out in the fields, farmers continued to burn their cane before loading it in the wagons, so that it looked to passersby as though long red whips were snaking over the ground. And without the noise of daily life, without the boom boom boom of car stereos, and people calling across the street, Charley heard the mill chugging away in the distance—the low drone of the boilers and a faint whistle signaling the end of each shift. It was a comforting sound that meant people were doing the right thing. It meant life kept rolling forward.

  It was six o’clock when Miss Honey’s front door slammed. Brother stormed into the kitchen like a category three hurricane, all howling winds and thunder. “I knew it would come to this!” He threw his keys on the table. “I tried to warn you. I told you there’d be trouble.” He wore his fast-food uniform—white shirt, white pants with a blue stripe down the side, a little button pinned to his chest that said “Service with a smile.”

  Violet punched Brother’s arm. “Quiet. You’ll scare the kids with all that noise.”