by Mary Monroe
I had been roaming up and down one dirt road after another and it was getting late, and I was beginning to miss my sweetie. One reason I planned to head back to Branson soon was because the Ku Klux Klan was busier than ever terrorizing and lynching colored men and boys, especially the ones they caught alone on isolated country roads.
It would take me about an hour to get back home, and I didn’t think I could wait that long to get something to eat. I hadn’t had a bite since the oxtails I’d ordered at Mosella’s for lunch. There was a long line of people in front of a place with a sign nailed on the wall outside next to the door that said PO’ SISTER’S KITCHEN. I parked across the street and got in the line. When it didn’t move for ten minutes, I changed my mind. I had spotted another restaurant nearby that didn’t have folks lined up all the way outside, so I decided to go there instead. I turned around to leave and accidentally bumped into a young girl approaching the entrance.
“You must not be too hungry,” she said.
I did a double-take and had to blink a few times because I couldn’t believe my eyes. For the first time in my life, I couldn’t speak. All I could do was stare at the most beautiful girl I’d ever seen in my life, a true redbone. She had smooth, high yellow skin, big brown eyes, full, juicy lips, and long straight black hair. Even in the baggy flowered dress she had on, I could tell that she had a firm, small-boned body with a butt that would have made Jesus throw in the towel!
“Cat got your tongue too?” she asked.
“Oh! I’m sorry . . . um . . . I didn’t realize you was talking to me,” I fumbled. “Yeah, I am hungry but I don’t want to stand here too much longer. I was going to try that place down the street. I think it’s called Pigs, Hogs, and Sows.”
“Yup, that’s what it’s called. They specialize in anything pork from pig snouts to pig tails. But I wouldn’t go there if I was you.”
“Excuse me? Why shouldn’t I go there?”
The girl rolled her neck and eyes at the same time. “Only white folks can eat there. If you still want to go, you have to enter through the back door and you have to order your food to go. And, no matter how mean they treat you, you better not sass none of them crackers.”
I let out a little chuckle. “Humph! That ain’t nothing new to me. I been used to that mess all my life.”
“And another thing: Even if they let you in and nobody ain’t ahead of you, they’ll take their good old time taking your order. If they do at all. And I don’t care what you order, it’s going to include something you didn’t order.”
“What do you mean?” I asked, giving the friendly girl a confused look.
“I guarantee you them crackers will hawk some spit into your food before they give it to you. If a real mean person fixes your order, they might include some rat shit, puke, and no telling what all else.”
My mouth dropped open. I was dumbfounded, but from the look on this girl’s face, she was serious. “Excuse me for asking, but how do you know all this?”
“One of the daughters of the family I clean house for told me. Her boyfriend is the day cook and he told her.”
“And how come she told you?”
“Well, we got the same daddy. My mama used to clean for this same family and when she had me, she had to take me to work with her. Me and that girl used to play together when we was little kids. She don’t claim me as her half sister, but she still likes me and loves to run her mouth. That’s something me and her got in common. I guess you can tell I love to talk, huh?”
I chuckled again. “I kind of figured something like that. Anyway, what you just told me about that other restaurant is hard to believe. I didn’t know anybody, white or colored, could be that low-down and mean.”
“Pffft!” The girl waved her hand and looked at me like I had just crawled out of a crow’s nest. “Where you from? I know you ain’t from up north on account of you don’t sound like it. You talk like the folks in Mississippi. They speak real sharp.”
I shook my head, which was now feeling kind of light and dizzy. Being close to so much beauty was making me feel something I’d never felt before, and it was scaring me. “I was born and raised in Alabama.”
“Then you ought to know better. If you don’t want to believe what I just told you, go on down to that other restaurant and let them racist motherfuckers poison you. In case you didn’t know, if a person eats enough shit or other nasty scum, they could get sick and even die. You seem like a really nice man and I like you, so I’d hate to read about you in the newspaper in the death notice column.”
We laughed at the same time. “Well, you must know what you talking about, so I’ll take your word.” I let out a loud breath and shook my head. “I guess I’ll have to wait until I get back home to eat. But whatever they cooking up in this place, it sure smells good.”
“Come on in with me. I’ll get you fixed up real quick.” Before I could say anything else, she grabbed my hand and pulled me along with her and told me, “I’ll take you straight up to the counter. You can get your food right away.”
“Well . . . I hope it’s all right. I don’t want to make none of these folks in front of me mad.” A bull-faced man directly in front of me turned around and gave me a dirty look. The rest of the folks ahead of me didn’t look too friendly neither. “I really don’t mind waiting like everybody else,” I said loud enough for everybody in front of me to hear.
“Oh, you ain’t got to worry about them. I know every last one of these knuckleheads and they know not to mess with me. Besides, my sister work here and I never wait in line.”
I followed the young girl as she brushed past everybody in front of us. “Alline! I’m here!” she yelled when we got up to the counter.
A slightly older redbone, who was almost as pretty as the one holding on to my hand, came through a side door. “What you want, Betty Jean?” she barked, looking directly at me as she wiped her hands on a soiled apron.
“Can I get a double order today?”
“Yeah, I reckon so,” the second woman drawled, still looking at me. She looked as unfriendly as the folks standing in line, but I smiled at her anyway. I was surprised when she smiled back. “Who is this handsome devil?” she asked, nodding toward me.
“My new friend,” Betty Jean replied with a giggle. “Now hurry up and go get my stuff. We in a hurry.” She whirled around and looked at me. “It won’t be but a few minutes. Can you stay here that long, Mr. . . . uh, what’s your name?”
“Odell Watson, but just call me Odell.”
I was enjoying the unexpected attention, but I was getting uncomfortable. I couldn’t wait to leave. But since my “new friend” had gone to the trouble to help me get something to eat, I decided that the least I could do was show my appreciation by staying with her. Even though I’d never see her again, I didn’t want to hurt her feelings. “I guess I could stay a few more minutes,” I mumbled.
“I’ll be right back directly,” the second woman said before she went back through the door.
Betty Jean gripped my hand even tighter. “I pick up my order at the same time every day,” she told me.
“So your name is Betty Jean?”
“Yup. Betty Jean Bonner.”
“That’s a beautiful name. And it sure enough fits you.”
She gave me a skeptical look. “Do you really think I’m beautiful?”
One thing I didn’t like about pretty women, especially real young ones like the one with me now, was that even though they knew they looked good, they still needed to hear it from other folks. There was no way this Betty Jean didn’t know how good she looked. “Your name fit you like a glove.” I was already feeling like a clumsy fool and didn’t want to sound like one too, so I stopped talking while I was still ahead.
“It was my grandmama’s name.” Betty Jean narrowed her eyes and stared at me for several seconds without blinking. “I been living in Hartville all my life. This is a real small town and I know most of the colored people. I ain’t never seen you around
here before. And I don’t know no Watsons, period.”
“I was born and raised in Branson. I ain’t been over here since I was a young boy. Me and my daddy used to fish in that lake out by the highway.”
“What you doing way over here today?”
“Nothing in particular. My father-in-law sold me his car and I’m still getting used to it. I work long hours five days a week, so I don’t get much free time to drive. I thought I’d cruise around so I could see what it feels like to drive more than a few miles at a time.”
“So you got a wife, huh?”
I nodded. “Joyce.”
“When you get home, tell Joyce I said she is a lucky woman. And she better not let you get loose on account of there’s a heap of women laying in wait to snatch up a man like you. . . .”
Chapter 18
Odell
JUST AS I WAS ABOUT TO ASK BETTY JEAN WHERE SHE LIVED AND IF she had a man, her sister came back out the same door holding a big brown paper bag with grease seeping out on every side. “We didn’t have no more hot sauce,” Alline said, handing the bag to Betty Jean.
“It don’t matter. We got plenty at home. I’ll see you when you get off,” Betty Jean told her sister. Then she motioned with her head for me to follow her back out.
I had no idea why it had even crossed my mind to ask this strange young girl more about herself. There was no reason for me to know where she lived or if she had a man, because I would never see her again unless we bumped into each other by accident. I shook my head to get rid of the thought. “How much do I owe you?” I asked when we made it back outside. The line still hadn’t moved and now there was half a dozen more people in it.
“Don’t worry about it, Odell. It’s on me,” she said, grinning. Everything on this girl was perfect. Her teeth looked like pearls. I couldn’t stop myself from wondering if her lips tasted as sweet as they looked. I sure should have shook this thought out of my head too, but I didn’t. She licked her lips and that made them look even juicier. “The next one’ll be on you.” I could hear Betty Jean talking, but my mind was still on her lips. I just stared at her. “You all right?”
“Oh! Yeah, I’m fine.”
“Did you hear what I just said?”
“Yeah, I heard. You said the next meal’s on me.” I swallowed hard and blew out a loud breath. “The thing is, I don’t know when I’ll be coming back this way.”
“We won’t worry about that for now. But if and when you do come back this way, you owe me.”
“Okay. By the way, what did you order for me?”
“Deep-fried catfish. They soak it in buttermilk first for about twenty minutes. And then they sprinkle it with a little bit of cayenne pepper before they coat it with meal and deep-fry it in lard. It’s the best fish in town. Even the mayor says so. He sends his colored handyman over here at least once a week to pick up his order. Last week that greedy peckerwood had the nerve to come over here hisself to complain about them being stingy with his orders. They gave him another order for free. That’s just how good the food is here.”
“Buttermilk-soaked, deep-fried catfish sure sounds real tasty and I can’t wait to see for myself, Betty Jean.” I looked toward my car. “I guess I’d better be on my way. I got a long drive ahead of me.”
“Well, since I treated you, you can treat me to a ride home. You can eat your order there while it’s still hot. If you wait until you get back to Branson, it’ll be cold and soggy. Come on. I live with my sister just down the road apiece and around the corner to the right. It’ll be the first house you get to.”
“All right,” I mumbled.
We didn’t talk during the short ride to the shabby, tin-roofed house near some railroad tracks. I was glad it was only about half a mile away. I didn’t want to spend too much time alone with this beautiful girl. I was going to gobble up my fish order as fast as I could and be on my way. Before I could even turn off the motor, Betty Jean swung open the door on her side and jumped out. I parked and followed her as she trotted toward the porch, even though I knew that what I should have been doing was running my ass in the opposite direction. But I couldn’t. Either she had already put a spell on me, or I was weaker than I thought.
Once we got inside, she waved me to a plaid couch in the middle of the living room/dining room floor. I eased down and looked around the sorry place. The odor of stale turnip greens was so thick, it seemed like it was seeping through the walls. Every piece of furniture looked like it belonged in the city dump, especially a chair with no legs facing the couch. But everything looked clean and was neatly organized. Several run-over shoes sat in a crooked row on the floor by the front door. If Betty Jean hadn’t been so cheerful, I would have felt sorry for her.
She dropped the bag on top of an empty crate used for a coffee table and then she disappeared behind a flowered curtain in the back of the room. She came back a couple of minutes later with a bottle of hot sauce and two different-size glasses filled with some kind of juice. She plopped down next to me and immediately started telling me about her family. Her daddy had died before she was born and her mama had died three years ago. She had three siblings and a bunch of other relatives scattered all over the state. While we ate our food, which was pretty good, I let her do most of the talking. She hadn’t asked me much about myself yet. And if she did, I hoped she didn’t ask about Joyce. “You look nervous. You ain’t got to be nervous around me. I don’t bite.” She laughed.
“I ain’t nervous,” I declared, with my hand shaking.
Betty Jean took my hand and kissed it. “Like I said, your wife is a real lucky woman.”
“I hope she thinks so too,” I said dryly. I had lost my appetite, but I managed to continue eating. Having to pick bones out of the fish slowed me down, so it was taking longer to finish than I wanted it to. I was walking on some thin ice and it was getting thinner by the minute. When I swallowed my last bite and hawked up a fishbone, I wiped grease off my lips with the back of my hand and then I got nosy. “Where is your man at?”
“What makes you think I got a man?”
“You look old enough and you sure got what every man wants. . . .”
“I do? Well, if you don’t mind, can you tell me what I got that every man wants?”
My laugh was so nervous, I almost choked on it. “Slow down now. You old enough to know what I mean, so ain’t no need for me to say it. And another thing, you moving kind of fast for a man my age. I’m surprised I’m able to keep up with you.”
“You ain’t that old. My ex turned forty on his last birthday.”
“Oh well.” I coughed because my words kept getting stuck in my mouth so it was getting harder and harder for me to spit them out. “Not that it’ll make no difference, but I’m thirty-one. What about you?”
“Old enough to marry but too young to bury,” she giggled. “My grandmama used to say that. She had five husbands. But if you really want to know, I turned eighteen last month.”
She looked more like fourteen, so I was glad to hear that she was grown. If I ever went to jail, I didn’t want it to be for getting involved with a minor.
“I’m old enough and you young enough.” She winked and slid her tongue across her bottom lip. Sweet Jesus! Why did she have to do that? I knew the wink was a flirt, but there was no telling what the lip-licking deal meant. I crossed my legs, hoping she wouldn’t see the bulge between my thighs. But if she got any closer to me, she’d feel it.
“I don’t believe that a girl like you ain’t got a new man yet. Shoot. I just hope he don’t come up in here and coldcock me for being alone with you.”
“You ain’t got to worry about nothing like that happening. I ain’t found me no new man yet.” Up until now, her tone had been real cheerful. Now it was dry and humdrum.
“The men around here must be blind or crazy.”
A sad look crossed Betty Jean’s face. “The one I lost was real good to me. I miss him on account of I sure hate being by myself.”
“Maybe you
should get back with him.”
She shook her head and sniffed. I thought she was going to bust out crying. “He got a wife and four kids. He said I was taking up too much of his time so he decided to cut me loose.” She stared at the wall for a couple of seconds. When she looked back at me, the sadness was still in her eyes. “I want me some kids so bad. How many you and your wife got?”
“One on the way, but we plan to have a bunch.”
“I want a bunch of kids myself someday. What kind of work do you do?”
“I manage a full-service convenience store. Our slogan is: ‘We sell everything from aprons to mens’ pinstripe suits.’ We even have a meat counter and a produce section. It ain’t no real big store, but we usually have enough of anything we need at any given time.”
“Is business good these days? Half of the restaurants and stores we used to have, and all but one bank, done gone under. We have to go all the way to Scottsboro to shop for most things.”
“Business couldn’t be better for us. All the colored people in Branson, and quite a few white folks, come in at least once or twice a week.”
“That’s good for y’all. Things recently started to pick up again in Hartville. I just hope that when we get out of this depression, we won’t have to deal with another one no time soon.”
“I don’t think we will. Roosevelt and his wife keep coming on the radio saying things is slowly getting back to normal.” I didn’t like the way Betty Jean was looking at me. There was another smile on her face and a twinkle in her eye that made my heart pick up speed. I knew I was a handsome man, but I was almost old enough to be Betty Jean’s daddy. A few fast teenage hussies who shopped in the store flirted with me from time to time. That didn’t mean nothing, though. They flirted with Buddy, too. Some women was so hot to trot, they’d pull down their bloomers and spread their legs for any man that asked them to. I didn’t think Betty Jean was like that, but I could tell she liked me. She was looking at me the same way Joyce had the first time I met her. Just thinking about Joyce brung me back to my senses. “Um . . . I think I’d better get going—”