Family Thang

by Henderson, James

  “Do what?”

  “Hurry up! What you waiting on? Go! Shit! Go!” He pushed Paul out onto the front porch. “Hurry up, you wasting time!”

  Paul slowpoked into the yard and got onto his bike. “Tell her what?”

  “Dammit, boy! Tell her I love her and come back and tell me what she said. Now go! Hurry the hell up!”

  Paul rode off.

  Shirley was three and a half blocks away now. Is she pissed? Gnawing on a knuckle, bouncing on his heels, Eric watched Paul ride past his mother and then turn around and ride alongside her. Paul pointed at him as he conferred with Shirley.

  Too stupid to be genetically linked to me, Eric thought as he watched Paul ride back.

  Shirley was only three blocks away now, but still he couldn’t see her face clearly enough to gauge her temperament.

  Paul stopped his bike three houses short and started chatting with a girl. Eric waved frantically to get his attention.

  “Get yo ADD-ass over here!” Whistled. Paul finally noticed and took his sweet time riding over. “What she say? What did she say?”

  “She said she wanted to ride my bike.”

  “What? Your momma wanted to ride your bike?”

  “Naw, Daddy. Felicia wanted to ride my bike. I told her no. Last time she put it on a flat, didn’t fix it.”

  “Dammit, boy! What did your momma say?”

  “Oh, yeah. She said…uh…I forgot what she said.”

  Eric looked down the road and gulped.

  Shirley was running at full sprint. Something--a shoe?--no, a sandal tumbled behind her to the side of the road like a cup tossed out of a moving vehicle…Shirley didn’t break stride, her arms barely swinging but her legs moving at an incredible clip. The other sandal fell away.

  He couldn’t remember ever seeing Shirley walk fast…and now she was literally running out of her shoes…Running!…all two hundred and thirty pounds of her. She looked like a…a bear…a grizzly bear…a well-fed grizzly bear with fat jiggling and bouncing with each step.

  How in the world could something so big move so swiftly?…How?…She was less than a block away now. Eric saw her facial expression and he completely forgot about bears, grizzlies or otherwise…

  Shirley was pissed!

  * * * * *

  “Telephone,” Lester said, gently nudging his wife.

  Ruth Ann rolled onto her back and gave him a pointed look. “I don’t want to be bothered. Take a message.” She grabbed Teddy and rolled onto her stomach and pressed a pillow over her head.

  “It’s Eric,” Lester said. “He said it’s an emergency.”

  Ruth Ann snatched the pillow away. “Lester, what did I just say? Hello! Take a message, I’ll call em back.”

  “He said it’s an emergency.”

  “Take a damn message!”

  “She’s not here,” Lester said into the cordless phone. “I thought she was here, she’s not…I don’t know when she’ll be back. Huh? Yes, I sure will…No, I won’t forget…I’ll tell her as soon as she comes in…Bye now.”

  “Thanks, Lester. That man is a pest and a worthless bum. I don’t know why Shirley puts up with him. Nothing but trash. Won’t work, won’t hustle, just thinks someone should take care of him. Pitiful.”

  “Go back to sleep, Ruthie. I should not have awakened you.” The doorbell rang, followed by insistent knocking.

  “Lester, I’m definitely not up for any visitors. I don’t care who it is. I feel weak.”

  “Okay, honey, I’ll handle it.”

  Lester was exiting the room when Ruth Ann said, “By the way, what did Eric want?”

  “He said Sheriff Bledsoe gave Shirley the blues and she’ll probably come here to talk to you about it.”

  Louder knocks at the door.

  In a flash Ruth Ann sat up on the edge of the bed. “He said what? Who gave who what? When?”

  A loud noise: someone was kicking the door.

  “Wait a minute!” Lester shouted over his shoulder. “Hold on, Ruthie, let me get the door. That’s probably Shirley.”

  He was closing the door when Ruth Ann flew across the room in two steps and grabbed his arm. “No, wait! Don’t answer it!”

  “Ruthie, you’re pulling on me.”

  “Come on, Lester, let’s make love.”

  “Again? I thought you were feeling weak?”

  “I am. Your lovemaking invigorates me. C’mon, Lester!”

  Loud taps on the front room window. “Okay, Ruthie. Let me get the door first.”

  “Don’t let em in, Lester!”

  “Why not?”

  “We didn’t let your mother in. Why should we treat my family any differently? Besides, I don’t want to be bothered. I just want to lie in bed with my husband.”

  “Ruthie, honey, both vehicles are in the driveway.” Clangalangalangalangalang!

  “What the hell?”

  They both knew what it was: a shattered window. Lester jerked free of Ruth Ann and went to look.

  Ruth Ann closed the door, hurried to the lone window in the bedroom, raised the windowpane and pushed the aluminum screen to the ground. Then she dropped to her knees, clasped her hands and said a quick prayer before scurrying underneath the bed.

  A second later she heard Shirley’s voice inside the house: “Where’s her funky ass at?”

  Lester’s voice: “What’s wrong with you, Shirley? Why you break my damn window?”

  Ruth Ann felt the vibrations of heavy footsteps. The bedroom door swung open and bounced off the wall. Shirley’s dusty sandals came into view, the right one missing the rear strap. Her toenails were long and sharp. One kick, Ruth Ann thought, and I’ll spend the rest of my days in dialysis. The sandals moved toward the bedroom window.

  “Nasty heifer ran!” Shirley said. “Just like Eric.”

  Lester’s steel-toe work boots came into view. “Why you break the window, Shirley? You know how much it’s gonna cost--where’s Ruth Ann?”

  “She heard me coming and jumped her smelly ass out the window and ran.”

  “What? No, she didn’t.” The work boots moved toward the window. “She’s sick. The doctor told her to stay in bed and rest.”

  “When she comes back, tell her that her scuzzy ass is mine!”

  “What’s going on, Shirley?”

  Please don’t tell him!

  “You don’t know, do you?” Shirley said. “Bless your heart.”

  “Know what?”

  “You better sit down.”

  “Shirley, you’re making me nervous. What’s going on?”

  The work boots and sandals came closer to the bed. Lester sat down and the springs squeaked. Ruth Ann noticed a splintered slat a few inches above her head.

  Shirley cleared her throat. “I hate to tell you this, Lester, but you should know.”

  Lester’s right work boot started tapping on the hardwood floor.

  Shirley must have noticed too because she said, “First off, Lester, don’t ding out like you did before. I’m going to kick her rotten ass well enough for the both us. Ain’t no need you hurting yourself or doing something crazy. Okay?”

  “Okay,” Lester said, voice squeaky.

  Ruth Ann’s stomach ached, as if she’d been kicked. She wished she’d jumped out the window: hearing Shirley’s account would be more painful than being seen running through the neighborhood in her pajamas.

  Now both of Lester’s work boots were tapping so rapidly the entire bed vibrated.

  Shirley said, “I’m not sure you can handle this. Maybe I should get one of your family members to break the news.” The sandals started toward the door.

  Thank you, Jesus!

  The sandals stopped. “I’m going to tell you anyway. Ruth Ann…Ruth Ann…” Shirley hesitated. “Ruth Ann…”

  “Killed your father?”

  “No. Why you say that?”

  “I don’t know. I guess I’m thinking the worst.”

  “Lester, it’s worse than anything you can imagin
e. Shameful, too. Shameful and disgusting.”

  Lester groaned, and Ruth Ann stared at the work boots working like two synchronized pistons. “I don’t want to hear it. If it’s gonna hurt my marriage, I don’t want to hear a word about it.”

  “If you don’t want to hear it I won’t tell it.” The sandals were on the move again, almost out the door.

  “Tell me!” The sandals came back. “I’ll go crazy if you don’t tell me.”

  “Exactly why I’m not sure I should tell you, Lester. If you must ding out, don’t go the self-mutilation route again, okay? It’s not your fault.”

  “Tell me, Shirley.”

  Shirley sighed. “Lester, Ruth Ann is a slut!”

  The work boots stopped. “What do you mean?”

  “Just what I said. Ruth Ann is a dirty, rotten, lowlife slut!”

  “You…you can’t mean…She’s your sister. She’s my wife! She’s--”

  “A slut!”

  “Why--what--who…Who told you that?”

  “Sheriff Bledsoe.”

  “Sheriff Bledsoe called my wife a slut?”

  “Not exactly. He told me about Ruth Ann and…and…” A long pause. “And Eric.”

  “Eric who?”

  “My Eric, Lester. My baby’s daddy.” Another long pause. “The man whom I was engaged to marry.”

  “Uh-uh, Shirley. You got it wrong, terribly wrong! Ruth Ann can’t stand Eric. She hates his guts. Sheriff Bledsoe has it wrong too, and I don’t appreciate him calling my wife names.”

  “It’s true, Lester. I didn’t wanna believe it at first. I know it hurts. I’m sorry, Lester, it’s true.”

  “Bullshit!” Lester shouted. “Pure bullshit! It ain’t true! You keep saying it is, I’m asking you to leave my house!”

  “I’ll leave,” starting for the door once more. “Eric almost broke his neck running out the back door. Ruth Ann just had a heart attack, but she’s healthy enough to jump out the window and run when she heard me coming.”

  “Doesn’t mean anything. I know my wife. She wouldn’t stoop so low, mess with her sister’s man. No, Shirley, she wouldn’t debase herself. She wouldn’t, she just wouldn’t!”

  “They both admitted it to Sheriff Bledsoe.”

  “That’s what he says! Who the hell is he, Al Sharpton? He ain’t above lying.”

  “Lester, you believe what you wanna. Tell Ruth Ann I’ll eventually catch her and put a foot up her rancid ass. I mean that! So don’t forget to tell her.”

  “Okay, Shirley. I’ll make sure I tell her.”

  Ruth Ann watched the sandals saunter out the door and disappear down the hallway. Seconds later she heard them click-clocking on the sidewalk out front.

  Would Lester stand by and watch Shirley make good on her threat? Did Lester cultivate a seed of doubt what Shirley had told him. She hoped he did, prayed he did, but knew deep down he didn’t. Somehow she had to plant a seed of doubt in his mind.

  How?

  How about this: she and Eric confessed to an affair because…because…because Sheriff Bledsoe, for some idiotic reason, thought he, Lester, had something to do with her daddy’s murder, and she, his beloved wife, couldn’t stomach the thought of Sheriff Bledsoe hassling her husband over something he knew absolutely nothing about.

  Yes, she thought, it might work. A little weak--weak as hell, really--but it might work.

  She started to crawl from underneath the bed. “Aaaauugggh!”

  She froze. Someone was screaming, and since she and Lester were the only two in the room and she hadn’t uttered a peep…

  “Aaaauuugggh!”

  Her heartbeat drummed inside her ears.

  “Noooo!” The work boots stomped the floor, then disappeared above the bed.

  A pounding noise…a guttural scream…more pounding. What’s Lester beating? Tuffs of cotton floated to the floor. A button bounced onto the floor and rolled underneath the closet door.

  Teddy!

  Her favorite bed partner! Lester’s killing him!

  Teddy landed on the floor, an arm’s length away, mutilated, his right arm missing, small legs bent abnormally behind his back, only one of three buttons remaining on his deflated tummy.

  Ruth Ann considered grabbing him and pulling him to safety. Then Lester pounced on Teddy like a predator attacking small prey and punched him and punched him and punched him and punched him and punched him...

  Ruth Ann winced with each punch. Lester, apparently unsatisfied with the damage he’d inflicted, clamped his teeth on Teddy’s one remaining eye and flailed the eviscerated body in every direction…The eye wouldn’t give.

  Lester started growling, shook his head more violently, and still the eye wouldn’t give. He stopped, Teddy dangling under his clenched teeth by a gossamer, and stared into Ruth Ann’s face.

  She managed a nervous smile and said, “Hello, honey.”

  413

  FAMILY THANG

  Chapter 24

  “Is it too tight?” Robert Earl asked Albert. The boa constrictor, eyes bulging, tongue flitting, flipped and flopped like a worm on a hot plate. “Shoots!” Robert Earl said, and removed the dog collar cinched around Albert’s neck. “I guess it is too tight.”

  Immediately, Albert stopped flip-flopping. Maybe this ain’t a good idea, Robert Earl thought, noticing a dark crease where the collar had been.

  He’d figured Albert had tired of being confined to a box and desired an unfettered view of the great outdoors. So he hooked one end of a ten-foot dog collar to the clothesline, which would have given Albert plenty of wriggle room, and tied the other end to Albert’s neck--well, the area just below the snake’s head.

  The problem was he couldn’t adjust the collar to a proper fit. Too loose, Albert slipped free. A wee too snug, Albert gagged and whipped and then played dead, as it was doing now.

  “You can stop it now, Albert.” The snake didn’t budge. Robert Earl nudged Albert with his hand. Nothing. Pushed it, and Albert rolled halfway on his back.

  He’s never done this before.

  Robert Earl picked it up and the snake hung flaccidly in his hands. “Albert?”

  Just then Estafay called from the back porch, “Robert! Robert, Shirley wants to talk to you.”

  Robert Earl dropped Albert to the ground and pretended to study his neighbor’s yard. “Tell her I’ll call her back.”

  “She’s here.”

  “I’m coming.” He took another look at Albert, a twisted white-and-orange knot on the ground.

  Inside the house, Shirley was sitting at the kitchen table. “Robert Earl,” she said, “I need to borrow a gun.”

  “What you need a gun for?”

  “I’m gonna bust a cap in Ruth Ann’s stanky ass,” Shirley said matter-of-factly.

  “Are you serious?”

  “I sure am. When I get through with Ruth Ann, Eric’s next.”

  “Why? What for?”

  “It’s rather personal. Just go get the gun. I also need to borrow your truck. It shouldn’t take long to do what I gotta do.”

  “You’re joking, aren’t you?”

  Estafay came into the kitchen. “What’s the matter, Robert?”

  “Family business,” Shirley said. “Robert Earl, why don’t you go get it so I can go.”

  “Shirley,” Robert Earl said, biting a thumbnail, “I don’t know if I should do it. I might get into serious trouble. Sheriff Bledsoe just cut me slack on some stuff. I give you one of my guns, you shoot somebody, my butt in hot water again. Sheriff Bledsoe told me the next time my name popped up in some mess, I’m done.”

  “Sheriff Bledsoe played a trick on you,” Shirley said. “The polygraph machine was a--”

  Estafay interrupted her. “Sheriff Bledsoe cut you slack on what, Robert?”

  “I can’t do it, Shirley,” Robert Earl said.

  “Cut you slack on what?” Estafay insisted.

  Robert Earl shook his head. “Nothing, honey.”

  “Why not?” Shirley a
sked. “You don’t like Ruth Ann. Remember when she and daddy laughed at you? Wasn’t no call for her to do that.”

  You laughed, too.

  “I would like to know,” Estafay said, poking him in the chest with two fingers, “what the Sheriff cut you slack on.”

  “Give me a gun, Robert Earl. I won’t kill her. I’ll just give her a limp. Each step she takes she’ll think about what she did to me.”

  Robert Earl held up both hands. “Timeout! Both of y’all ganging up on me. A tag team--it ain’t fair!”

  “Give me a gun, Robert Earl, I’m outta here.”

  “Shirley, I told you I can’t do it.”

  “A rifle, anything that shoots.”

  “I still would like to know,” Estafay shouted, “why Sheriff Bledsoe cut you slack. What did you do? I pray for your sake it wasn’t anything nasty.”

  “That’s it!” Robert Earl shouted. “I’m calling Momma.” He went to the phone in the living room and called his mother.

  Leonard picked up on the third ring. “Harris residence.”

  “Let me speak to Momma.”

  “What’s the matter, Robert Earl?”

  “Put Momma on the phone, will you?” Waiting for his mother to pick up he thought about Albert. Dead! At an early age. No Albert, no gas station and exotic snake farm.

  “Hello,” Ida said.

  “Momma, you need to come get Shirley. She’s over here begging me for a gun.”

  “Lord have mercy! Why?”

  “She said she’s going to bust a cap in Ruth Ann’s butt for something or another.” He heard a thud on the other end. “Estafay is bothering me, too.”

  Leonard: “Robert Earl, what the hell did you say to Mother? She just fainted!”

  “Wake her up.” The line went dead. He returned to the kitchen. “Estafay, Shirley, Momma said for y’all to leave me alone and stop pestering me.”

  “Please, Robert Earl!” Shirley said. “Grow up! What kind of man calls his momma to defend him?”

  “A man like me.”

  “Hmmph. She ain’t my momma,” Estafay said. “She oughta tend to her own heathens before she tell me anything.”