on Highway 18 just after you left. Had you been a little later, you’d have seen’em too. They were out scouting around,
looking for trouble. I parked close to where you were, and
waited. You got to learn to drive better’n that.”
What he was aiming at was me learning to drive like a
bootlegger, something Merritt wanted. Far as I was con-
cerned, I had no need for it. He was about to say more when
we heard a shuffling noise near the shed where he’d parked
Sally Sue. He grabbed my arm and pulled me to the other
side of the truck and we ducked behind it. Someone stepped
onto the gravel and went across the drive toward the house.
Daddy motioned for me to stay put and began to creep toward
the shadowy shape of a man. The space between them shrank
until Daddy was almost on top of him and the man suddenly
spun around, lost his footing, and stumbled.
He put out a hand to steady himself on the back-porch rail,
and said, “Shit, I didn’t see you there.”
It was Uncle Virgil.
Daddy said, “What the hell you doing out here?”
“Thought I heard something.”
“Heard something? Like what?”
“Don’t know, something up yonder.”
“Behind the shed?”
Uncle Virgil cleared his throat. “Damn, I reckon. Some-
where near there.”
I had a good idea what he’d been doing.
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Daddy waved a hand at me and said, “Let’s go on in the
house.”
Inside the kitchen light was too bright, and there was a pile of dirty dishes in the sink. If I didn’t get something to eat, I was going to be in a bad way, but I wanted to wait until
every one went to bed. I could at least drink some of that tea, and I went to the cabinet and got the packet out only to find it was empty. I’d had at least enough for three or four more cups. Aunt Juanita came shuffling in, wearing my housecoat,
and another gown. She had on a pair of slippers, new ones I’d never seen before, and she sure hadn’t come here with them.
Even Daddy stared at her feet.
She yawned, motioned toward the sink, and said, “We
done ate supper.”
I waved the packet in the air. “Who drank my tea?”
She turned to me. “Oh. Was that yours?”
I wadded the paper up and threw it in the trash.
Daddy said, “Virgil, what was going on outside?”
Uncle Virgil said, “It weren’t nothing, I reckon. Just thought I heard something is all.”
Daddy said, “Hm.”
Uncle Virgil wobbled, put a hand on the table, and said,
“What? You think I’m lying?”
Daddy said, “Why didn’t you take the shotgun?”
“Hell, I don’t know. I just didn’t.”
“You’ve always carried one.”
Aunt Juanita went and took Uncle Virgil by the arm.
“Come on, Virgil. Let’s go on to bed.”
Daddy said, “You notice anything behind that shed?”
He was thinking what I’d been thinking.
Uncle Virgil pulled his arm from Aunt Juanita’s grip.
He said, “Nothing worth my time.”
Daddy said, “Good. That’s real good.”
Uncle Virgil said, “I’m going to bed.”
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Daddy said, “You need to get out tomorrow and see about
getting a job.”
Uncle Virgil mumbled, “Shit,” before he stumbled off
down the hall, with Aunt Juanita trailing behind, her voice
low and angry, questioning. My bedroom door slammed. I
went over to the sink and scrutinized the clutter they’d made and left for me to clean up.
Daddy said, “He ain’t never had the motivation to do noth-
ing except get a jar and bend his elbow.”
I turned on the hot water. I squirted dish soap, and gritted my teeth, my insides feeling so hollow, I was sure air could blow straight through me. I gripped the cabinet edge to hold myself still, fighting a dizzy spell. Daddy didn’t notice my distress because I had my back to him.
Daddy said, “I’m taking Merritt down to Charlotte tomor-
row. They got that arm of his ready.”
Wishing he’d hurry up and go to bed, my voice clipped, I
said, “All right.”
He said, “You want to go?”
It hit me wrong, partly because he made it sound like a
regular outing, like we were going grocery shopping or to get a fountain drink, and partly because I was about to collapse.
I said, “Why in the world would I want to be part of some-
thing like that? He’s gonna be a cripple the rest of his life all because of you.”
Daddy said, “Jessie. Watch your mouth.”
“Who cares what I say? It ain’t ever mattered before.”
“It matters.”
“I sure can’t see how.”
Daddy walked by me and went out the back door and dis-
appeared into the night. The shed light came on and I was
certain he’d be out there a while. I didn’t care if what I’d said made him mad or offended him. I eyed the refrigerator
as I turned off the kitchen light and pulled the door open.
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My hands trembled. So did my legs. I quickly gathered up
what I could hold, sank onto the floor, and pulled the food
around me like treasure. The ritual took over. I wasn’t thinking anymore. I only attempted to fill the void, working myself into a frenzy, restraint gone, and the rapid mechanical-like movements of hand to mouth became the only things that
mattered. I forgot everything except the urge to keep going.
I forgot about Daddy being outside, about the fact that Uncle Virgil, Aunt Juanita, Oral, or Merritt could walk in at any
moment. I was in my other world, my body demanding more,
more, and more. Comfort came, those spontaneous moments
when I experienced something akin to euphoria, and I built
onto it, layer by layer. Words circled, my mind whispered, It isn’t enough, it isn’t enough . . . until the kitchen light came on, and I was caught.
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Chapter 15
Motionless, I sat on the floor, waiting for whoever had turned on the light to speak.
Aunt Juanita said, “What in God’s name on earth?”
My hair hung in my face, hiding my shame as I considered
the new slippers only two feet from me. So clean, I thought, white with pink roses on top, polished toenails peeking out
from the opening. I felt her staring down at me, but I didn’t look up. Food surrounded me in a little pile. The empty plate, the bowl, smears of jelly on the counter, the milk that had
dripped on the floor, it was all there where she could see and know what I was. Pig. My hand was over my mouth, holding
in the partially chewed food. My chest rose and fell. Each second was a year. Daddy came back in at that moment and saw
me on the floor with Aunt Juanita hovering nearby.
His voice raised, he said, “What’s going on now?”
Aunt Juanita said, “Hell if I know. I come in here to get a
glass of water, and there she was on the floor, cramming food into her mouth like nobody’s b
usiness.”
Daddy said, “Jessie?”
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How would I explain? This would most certainly ap-
pear . . . peculiar. I was sure I would choke if I tried to swallow. I put my other hand up, the need to be sick hitting me
without warning. I rose to my feet, fought off the bizarre dizziness, and with both hands over my mouth, I left the kitchen.
I shut the bathroom door and locked it. I spit out the wad of food into the toilet, and fought down the yearning to get rid of everything I’d had. I could hear them. They were both out there, whispering, making comments I couldn’t understand.
Daddy knocked on the door.
“Jessie.”
All I had to do was convince them it was because of all
the work at the still, lugging supplies, the back-and-forth.
Tell them anything. Don’t let them know. I couldn’t let them know. Without thinking, without any plan on what I’d say, I
unlocked the door.
“What?”
Daddy jerked his thumb toward the kitchen, then at me.
“What’re you doing?”
“Nothing.”
Aunt Juanita had recovered from her initial shock evidently.
“Eating on the floor like a dog is what she was doing.”
I raised my chin. “No, I wasn’t.”
“Sure appears thataway to me.”
Daddy said, “Juanita. It ain’t helping.”
She put her hands up and said, “Fine. I’ve tried to in the
past. Been on the receiving end of that smart mouth of hers.
Can’t nobody tell her nothing. She knows it all.”
She went back to my room and slammed the door. Daddy
exhaled, and I chanced a look at him. He had bags under his
eyes, new lines in his face. He shoved his hands in his pockets and to my mortification began to try and reason why I’d been doing what I’d been doing.
“Is it . . . you know . . . a, uh, certain time?”
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“No! I was hungry is all.”
I followed him back into the kitchen. My belly protested
at being so full and felt distended, like my insides were being pushed out. In the kitchen I hurried to get rid of the evidence.
I picked up the wrappers, the scraps, everything off the floor.
I wiped the counters clean and washed dishes. Daddy sat at
the table smoking a cigarette and paying bills, as if already on to other matters. I wanted to go to bed, but I needed time in the bathroom. I wiped my hands on the dish towel, my pulse
rate ticking like a time bomb.
I said, “Good night.”
“Jessie.”
I stopped, my back to him.
“It ain’t natural.”
Innocent expression fastened on like a Halloween mask, I
faced him and waited.
“Earlier. You, there on the floor like you were.”
“Everyone’s making it out worse than it was.”
“It didn’t look right; you didn’t look right.”
“That might have had a lot to do with what you did, riding
my bumper and scaring me half to death.”
“I told you why I did that. I know how they are; they’ll
keep on till they’re satisfied.”
I didn’t want to talk about any of this, and I reckon it
showed.
Daddy stubbed his cigarette out and said, “Go on to bed,
Jessie.”
Dismissed, I left the kitchen, went into the bathroom, and
shut the door. I ran the tub full of water to help hide the
noises I might make. As it filled, I dropped to my knees as if praying, and gripped the toilet. It took nothing to get started, but I left everything.
In a way, I almost didn’t care if he heard.
* * *
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The next morning, Aubrey came tearing up the drive in her
mama’s car unannounced right after Daddy left with Merritt
to go into North Wilkesboro. She knocked on the front door,
and soon as I opened it, she pushed her way into the living
room. It wasn’t yet ten o’clock. Uncle Virgil, Aunt Juanita, and Oral were still in bed, because getting up before dinnertime was not possible for them. Aubrey’s hand worked on the
tail end of her red shirt, twisting and untwisting it.
She said, “How’re you doing?”
It wasn’t right how she avoided looking at me directly.
“I’m fine. What’re you doing here?”
“Just seeing what you’re up to.”
I said, “It’s early yet. I ain’t doing nothing.”
She twisted the shirt some more and then stopped.
She said, “I came to tell you something. You best be care-
ful.”
I’d been feeling hot, and now I turned cold. “Why?”
She said, “Is your daddy and Merritt here?”
I didn’t explain where they were, I only pointed at the front door, and we went outside.
Out on the front porch, she said, “Willie’s daddy claims to
know how that still of theirs was found.”
I had to work at keeping my voice level, uncaring.
I said, “Oh yeah?”
She said, “Yeah. I overheard him tell Royce, ‘It was the
Sasser girl,’ when I was with Willie the other night. He looked right at me when he said it too. He knows we’re friends.”
My knees went rubbery, bones too, every part of me sink-
ing, folding, collapsing.
She said, “I thought I better come and tell you. It wasn’t
you, was it? I mean, he acted pretty sure,” and then it was like she was studying me, like I was one of those tiny glass slides stuck under the microscope in science class. It was unnerving.
There were plenty of people who might want revenge
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against the Murrys aside from revenuers wanting to clean up
the county. They had enemies up and down these mountains
and beyond.
It could’ve been anyone, and I said as much, and then I said,
“He can’t prove nothing.”
“So you did say something?”
Maybe she was fishing on their behalf for information.
She’d already shown she couldn’t keep what I told her to herself. I remained steadfast to my lie.
“I didn’t say nothing.”
Voices came from inside the house. Aubrey stared at Uncle
Virgil and Aunt Juanita shuffling by on their way into the
kitchen, up surprisingly early for them.
She lowered her voice and said, “What’re they doing here?”
“Don’t you read the paper?”
“Not unless Mama says there’s something about a sale.”
“Their house burned down. Didn’t Willie tell you?”
Aubrey said, “Why would he bring that up?”
I picked at the porch rail where paint was chipping, and
said, “Why wouldn’t he? He likes to brag.”
She said, “You’re saying his family had something to do
with it?”
“That still of theirs made front-page news, and then the
house where my uncle lives burns down, and you don’t think
there’s nothing suspicious about that?”
It was Merritt’s argument, and he’d laugh if he could hear
me. She shook her head, and her hair caught the sun, glossy as oil. I wondered if Aubrey knew how pretty she was, that she
could have her pick of boys in school, yet she was enthralled with the likes of Willie Murry. Such an unlikely pair.
I said, “You don’t want to believe it because of Willie, but he pretty much admitted it.”
“He did not!”
“He sure did. He got on the bus and asked for my year-
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book. Said he would have written : ‘Watch out. There’s more to come.’”
“That could mean anything.”
“It was a threat they’re going to do more, Aubrey.”
“Prove it. Show it to me.”
“I ain’t got it.”
“Then what you’re saying is good for nothing, far as I’m
concerned.”
“Don’t be dumb. You know what he meant.”
“I don’t know nothing.”
“Why don’t you ask him, see how he acts?”
Aubrey’s face grew redder by the second, and she tossed
her hair. I’d seen her do this a million times when she was
ticked off.
She said, “I ain’t asking him nothing.”
“Because you know I’m telling the truth. I can’t believe
your daddy lets you have a thing to do with the likes of him.
They’re sorrier than sorry.”
Her lips stretched out into a thin straight line.
She said, “You best quit acting so high-and-mighty, Jessie
Sasser.”
She stomped down the steps and turned back to face me,
her voice raised. “Don’t forget what you told me. How you
wanted to bust up your own family’s stills. Willie says you
ain’t nothing but a traitor, anyway. He said nobody goes
against their own.”
I hurried down the steps, my voice loud, indignant. “Trai-
tor? You’re the one who talks too much, Aubrey Whitaker!
Some friend you are! I knew you’d told him!”
She rushed to her car and got in. She even rolled the win-
dow up while keeping her face averted as if the sight of me
repulsed her. This was it for our friendship. The End, like in books. I didn’t even care. She cranked the car and was out
onto the road faster than a revenuer giving chase. I inhaled Ever_9781496717023_2p_all_r1.indd 153
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