A Cup of Dust

by Susie Finkbeiner

  “Does it ache?” I asked, stepping toward her.

  She nodded. “Something awful.”

  “Who hit you?” I stepped closer yet.

  “Pearl Louise,” Mama scolded.

  “No, Mary. It don’t do no good to get after her. She’s got to learn about the ways of men sometime, I reckon.” Mrs. Jones let a tear roll out from her good eye. “I wish somebody would’ve warned me about how they can be.”

  “How who can be?”

  “Men. Husbands.” She let the sore eye close again. “Mr. Jones ain’t been doing so good since Rosie …”

  She didn’t say the word, but I knew what she meant. I was glad she didn’t say it. We all would have broken if she had.

  “I said something wrong. I told him he should’ve been here when Rosie took sick,” she went on. “He took all his sadness out on me. He don’t know what else to do with himself. I can’t hardly blame him, I guess.”

  “Luella, you’re scaring the girls.” Mama nodded at me to go upstairs.

  “I’m sorry.” Mrs. Jones shifted in her seat and looked at me with her one eye. “Girls, I’m sorry.”

  “He shouldn’t hurt you.” Beanie still had the dirty clothes in her arms. “Nobody should hurt nobody else. It ain’t right.”

  Mrs. Jones turned toward Beanie, her mouth wide open. “Sometimes men just get mad. He blames me for Rosie.” She licked her lips, but they still looked dry. “I suppose I could’ve done more for her. I tried my best.”

  “It don’t matter.” Beanie held her dirty clothes tighter against her filthy, stinking nightie. “He shouldn’t hurt you.”

  “He’s not in his right mind.” Mrs. Jones’s voice cracked. “He’s been drinking a lot.”

  “Ain’t you hearing me?” Beanie stomped her foot. “Ain’t nobody got a right to hurt nobody else!”

  She dropped the clothes on the floor and ran out the back door.

  “Pearl,” Mama called to me. “Catch her.”

  I ran out after my sister, leaving Mama and Meemaw to see to Mrs. Jones. I hoped they’d give her something to make that eye stop hurting.

  Beanie wasn’t too far ahead of me and I could have caught her easy, but I reckoned she needed a minute or two all to herself. I slowed down to a walk, keeping my eye on her. Never had I seen her upset like that. She cried so loud I could hear her from ten paces behind. She stumbled a couple times, and I wondered if her eyes were tear-blurred.

  She made it all the way to the courthouse and up the steps. Still in her dingy nightie, she pulled on the doors with all the muscle she had. The doors wouldn’t budge. She slapped them with both of her hands and called for Daddy.

  “He’s not there,” I called to her. “He’s out with Millard.”

  Crossing her legs, she collapsed on the old marble porch, rocking the way she always did, the fabric of her nightgown pulled up too far on her thighs. When I got closer, I could hear her grunting noises.

  If the sounds Beanie made really was the language of angels, like Meemaw said, I hoped they were listening up. And I hoped she talked to them about Ray, too. I wondered if he had an eye that matched his mother’s.

  Taking the steps on tiptoe, I watched my sister. She pinched her eyes shut, clamping them for all she was worth, grimacing like she was in pain. I plopped down next to her and about yelped when the cold steps slapped against my legs.

  She didn’t move or even show that she knew I was next to her.

  “It’s okay, Beanie,” I said, trying to break her trance.

  It didn’t work.

  So, I wrapped both my arms around her shoulders and rocked and swayed right along with her. My body close to hers didn’t make her slow down or quiet her voice. I wondered if she could feel me, even.

  “It’s bad and bad and bad,” Beanie said, still rocking.

  “What is?” I asked.

  “All of it.” She opened her eyes for a second before pinching them together again. “All.”

  “I know.” I thought I knew what she meant.

  I closed my eyes against the sun that beat down on us, feeling the dust-thick air as I breathed it in. We’d had green fields once. And blue skies, too. A long time before, everyone had plenty. More than they needed, in fact.

  With the sun soaking through my eyelids, making behind the lids red, I remembered the days of plenty. It was a hard-to-hold memory, I’d been so little then. Still, I remembered enough to make me long for those easier times.

  When I opened my eyes, all I saw was a land drowning in dust.

  But then I saw something else. Eddie walking down the street, smoking a cigarette. He got to the end of the road and walked off into a field of nothing.

  We were all at supper when Daddy heard about Mrs. Jones’s black eye. He breathed out of his nose and shook his head but kept on eating.

  “Si’s gonna feel real bad about it once he sobers up,” Daddy said, pushing a piece of bread across his plate to sop up the gravy.

  “I don’t believe that man ever is sober,” Meemaw said, pinching her lips tight together.

  Daddy shrugged. “You might be right about that.”

  “Aren’t you going to do something?” Mama asked, her own dinner just picked at. “She can’t live like that. Ray neither.”

  “Not much I can do, Mary. Luella would just say she fell.”

  “She never did fall,” Beanie whispered. “That man hit her hard as he could.”

  We finished eating, just the sound of silverware on plates filling the space between the five of us. Daddy leaned back in his chair and crossed his arms, his eyelids blinking heavy.

  “I don’t like it either,” he said. “Not one bit. It’s just the way of things.”

  Daddy peeked in our room late into the night. Another night of not being able to sleep for both of us, I guessed.

  “Daddy?” I whispered, trying not to wake Beanie.

  “That’s me.” He stepped in from the hallway. “Why aren’t you asleep? Bad dream again?”

  I didn’t say a thing, but I did sit up and crawl to the foot of my bed. Beanie kicked at us in her sleep before curling up in a ball.

  “I don’t know that I could sleep with her kicking me, either.” He smiled at me—I could just barely see it in the dark room. He pulled me close to him and kissed the top of my head.

  “Why do men hit women?” I asked, trying to remember to be quiet for Beanie’s sake.

  “Well, I don’t reckon I’ve got a good answer to that.” He cleared his throat. “You seen Mrs. Jones’s face, didn’t you?”

  I nodded.

  “Was it bad?”

  “Yes. She couldn’t hardly open her eye.”

  “She’ll be just fine once the swelling goes down. I’ve had a few shiners like that myself,” he said. “Not all men hit their women, you know.”

  “Yes, I know.”

  “I’ve never hit your mama. Never would.” He pushed me forward, turning me so I could see right into his face. The in-between place of his eyebrows scooped up toward his forehead. “You never let a man hit you, hear?”

  I nodded and licked my lips. “What if a man does?”

  “Fight back.”

  Daddy held me close, his scent of cigarettes and coffee and sweat wrapping around me. On anybody else, the smell would have made me cover my nose. But on Daddy, it smelled like being safe.

  “I ever tell you about the time I broke up the still over to the other end of town?” His voice changed, dipped lower in tone. His storytelling voice.

  “Yes, but tell me again, please.”

  I hoped the story would get the picture of swelled-shut eyes out of my mind.

  “Well, there was a bunch of bootleggers that came to Red River to make hooch. That’s what they called liquor, you know. Of course, this was when booze was against the law.”

  “Why was it against the law?”

  “Now, that’s a whole other story, ain’t it?” His mouth opened wide in a yawn. “Anyhow, these bootleggers come from Arkan
sas and set up a still. That’s what they made the booze in. Well, the old federal marshal followed them here and carted them all to jail. Folks here in Red River were pretty sore about that.”

  “But they were outlaws, weren’t they?”

  “Criminals making moonshine for a bunch of dry men.” He laughed. “Well I was the one had to go out to the place and break up that still so nobody’d get a mind to make their own booze. I didn’t want some dumb kid killing a bunch of folks with bad liquor. So I took the whole thing apart. You know what I found in there?”

  I shook my head, even though I did know.

  “Pounds of sugar. So much of it, I needed to use a wheelbarrow to move it.” My head bounced on his chest when he laughed. “I took that sugar and gave a little to all the folks around. Kids were following me all through town. It was like a parade. I never did feel more like a hero.”

  He helped me get back to my place in bed, moving Beanie’s foot so I had enough room. The clean sheet pulled under my chin, he kissed my cheek.

  “I do love you, Pearlie Lou.”

  Sleep came fast and with it, dreams. Dreams of my daddy.

  CHAPTER NINE

  The whole summer had passed by without revival coming to Red River. That was fine by me. I never much cared for them anyhow. All the strangers setting up in town and the big tent pitched in one of the old fields. The preachers hollering about the wrath of God and how we all deserved the fires of hell. Then they’d collect the money and move on to the next county.

  It seemed that year all the traveling preachers had forgotten about us, and most of the town didn’t miss the to-do.

  Meemaw, though, she’d gone on and on all summer about it. She determined that a week of revival would come to our small town even if she had to bring it herself.

  When Meemaw made up her mind on something, it was near impossible to convince her otherwise.

  She’d even invited Pastor Ezra Anderson and Mad Mabel to dinner to talk it over with him.

  “This town needs getting brought forth to life,” she’d told him, spooning a second helping of peas on his plate. “We need ourselves a great awakening.”

  “That’s true, sister. It is.” Pastor paused to push his peas into a line on his knife. He stuck his tongue out the side of his mouth in concentration. “Trouble is, we don’t got the money to pay anybody to come out here to preach.”

  Mad Mabel stabbed her peas with a fork, stacking them one on top of another.

  “Then you do the preaching.” Meemaw refilled Pastor’s coffee cup. “You want a little sugar in that?”

  “No thank you,” he said, lifting the knife of peas to his mouth and letting them tumble to his tongue. He chewed a minute and then sipped his coffee. “I guess I could do the preaching. Problem is, we don’t got a tent to meet in.”

  “Yes we do.” Meemaw’s whole face wrinkled with her smile. “Rather, you do.”

  “Sister …” Pastor shook his head and then glanced at his wife. “I know what you’re thinking, and I don’t like it all that much.”

  Mrs. Anderson’s eyes switched back and forth, back and forth like she was seeing something swing in front of her face.

  “Brother. Pastor. I got plenty of thread. I don’t mind patching that old thing up.” Meemaw spread a little soft butter on a slice of bread and put it on Pastor’s plate. Then she sat next to him, leaning close toward him. “Pastor, we got all kinds of folks coming through town these days. They ain’t staying but a night or two, maybe a week. But they’re all hungry. Hungry for bread of flour and yeast and for Bread of Life. Mary and me will make plenty of the rising kind, you got to provide the life-saving one.”

  Pastor folded his bread in half before taking a bite.

  Meemaw’s prayer circle planned a revival like our town hadn’t seen in twenty years. Not that I would have known the difference, but that was what they told everybody. They had arranged for Mama to play the piano and lead the hymn sings. Each night, all the folks that came would take home a loaf or two of bread.

  They had it all figured out. The last part was the tent.

  Less than a week before the revival was to start, Meemaw had Millard and Daddy drag an ancient, shredded tent into our living room.

  “Now, you boys spread it across the floor,” she instructed, a large grin spreading on her face.

  “Yes, ma’am,” Millard said, bundling the edges so they would fit within the walls. “This old thing’s as dusty as—”

  “I won’t hear no complaining. I ain’t asking you to do the mending, am I?”

  “Where’s this from?” I asked, stooping so I could touch the edge of the tent. It was thick canvas, worn soft by use.

  “Oh, Pastor’s had this old thing up in the church steeple since, heavens, I don’t know how long.” Meemaw made her way to the rocking chair and stuck her needle between her lips when she steadied herself to sit. “Hand me that edge, would you?”

  I lifted the canvas, draping it on her lap like a blanket.

  “Thank you, darlin’,” she said. Then she made her fingers busy, threading the needle. “I reckon he put this up there right before he went off to fight in the war.”

  “Tell her how he got it,” Millard said, crossing his arms and grinning. “Pearl, you’ll never believe it.”

  “I’ll tell her soon’s she starts patching this up with me.”

  I crawled closer to the tent and took a needle and some thread from Meemaw’s sewing basket.

  “Back before the war, he traveled around with a circus.” Meemaw’s eyes twinkled.

  “He did?” I was sure my eyes would pop out of my skull and my mouth would get stuck open.

  “Yes indeed,” Millard said. “And I’ll leave you ladies to cluck about it.”

  Millard nodded for Daddy to follow and they left the house. I pushed my needle through the canvas, feeling the thickness of the fabric.

  “Back when we were all much younger, Pastor was the ringmaster of a circus that went all over the country. Never did see such a good show.” She stuck out her tongue, working a difficult spot. “He had a couple clowns and an acrobat and a bearded lady.”

  “Was her beard real?” I asked.

  “Mind your stitches, Pearl.” She nodded at my idle hands. “Yup, her beard was real, all right. It grew right out of her face like a man’s. Always had somebody pull on it to check. She didn’t mind knocking them out when they done that.”

  “What is going on in here?” Mama asked, standing in the front door.

  “It’s Pastor’s revival tent.”

  “It looks like a circus tent.” Mama knelt on the floor beside me, checking my stitches.

  “I was telling Pearl about Pastor’s circus. And the bearded lady.” Meemaw pulled on the tent. “A few of the fellas asked her to prove she wasn’t a man. I do believe she broke a couple noses for that.”

  “Mother,” Mama scolded.

  “There was even a two-headed cat for a while. Never knew if that thing was real or not.” She closed her eyes and chuckled. “I guess one of them heads was real, at least.”

  While I pushed my needle up and down through the old tent, I thought about how much more folks would enjoy church if Pastor had his bearded lady there and the two-headed cat.

  “Mrs. Anderson used to read tea leaves,” Meemaw whispered. “You know what that means?”

  “Now, don’t fill her head—”

  “She’d tell people’s fortunes,” Meemaw interrupted.

  An awed gasp pulled into my lungs.

  “She believed in witchcraft in those days. Not no more, I reckon.”

  I thought of the snakes turned belly up on her fence and wondered if that wasn’t witchcraft, I didn’t know what was.

  “Pastor married her before he found Jesus.” Meemaw went back to her quick stitching. “Both of them turned from their ways. But then Mabel lost her mind.”

  “Is she a witch?” I asked.

  “Pearl, that isn’t something for a girl to say,” Mama said
. “Mrs. Anderson isn’t a witch. She’s touched.”

  “You ever have her potato salad?” Meemaw asked. “Takes witchcraft to cook like that.”

  “How did Pastor find Jesus?” I asked.

  “Well I don’t know exactly. But it happened after the war,” Meemaw said.

  “He find Jesus in all that fighting?” I asked.

  “Nah. I don’t reckon he seen God in any trenches.” She shook her head. “I suspect he found a place God wasn’t.”

  “God’s everywhere,” Mama said.

  “Well, I guess there’s some places He’s harder to see.” Meemaw clucked her tongue. “We never do find a need for Jesus until we’re some place where we can’t find Him so easy.”

  The three of us sewed for a good time, none of us finding a word to say. The sounds of people walking past our house caught my attention. I tried to see them out the window, but they’d already passed.

  What I did see outside was Red River. Streets lined by boarded-up buildings and dead dreams. Ruined fields and falling-apart lives.

  “Meemaw?” I asked, easing back down, the tent weighing heavy on my lap.

  She responded with a humming sound.

  “Is God in Oklahoma?” I half feared she’d get upset at me for the question, but I had to know. “Or did He leave?”

  She lowered her sewing and her hands to rest on her thighs. Then she smiled at me so that I could feel the warmth of it.

  “He didn’t go nowhere, Pearl. He’s here. All’s I got to do is look at you to know it’s so.”

  “But He’s real mad at us, isn’t He?”

  “Well, that’s a question, ain’t it.” She licked her lips. “What makes you think God’s mad?”

  “The dust.” I shrugged and pushed my pin into the canvas. “Pastor says God sent it to punish us.”

  “Darlin’, the dust just came. It’s a thing that happened, that’s sure. But it ain’t judgment, honey.” Clearing her throat, she winced and touched the spot on her neck below her chin. “Pastor says all kinds of things, don’t he? He ain’t right about all of them. He means well. It’s just …”

  I waited for her to finish, not wanting to break the idea she had in her mind.