Over the Fence

by Mary Monroe

  “As long as you pay Odell back, he ain’t got no reason to start saying no,” Yvonne assured me.

  “That’s right, baby.”

  “I doubt if he’d ever turn you down. A man like him—”

  I held up my hand and cut Yvonne off. “Um, keep my food warm. I need to go sit on the commode for a while.” I didn’t have to use the toilet, but I couldn’t stand to hear Yvonne go off on another tangent about the magnificent Odell no more this morning.

  CHAPTER 22

  MILTON

  THE FOLLOWING SATURDAY, ANOTHER LETTER CAME FROM AUNT Nadine to let Yvonne know she’d be dropping the kids off on the coming Monday. I was grateful that Joyce had volunteered to take off the day and help show them a good time. I sure didn’t want to do it, because them little devils gave me a run for my money. I never complained, because Yvonne felt bad enough not having her kids with her.

  Whenever a letter came saying that the kids was coming for a visit, we never knew what time of day they would be dropped off. The last time, Uncle Sherman had dropped them off at 7:30 a.m. the day after one of our most hectic nights. I had had a few drinks too many the night before and had woke up with one of the worst hangovers I ever had. Not knowing what time they was coming today, and me not being in the mood to deal with them, I made plans to make myself scarce. I decided to leave for work a hour and a half earlier. If I was lucky, I’d be gone by the time they arrived. When I told Yvonne, she wasn’t too happy about it.

  “Milton, why did Mr. Cunningham ask you to come in early to help him get the chicken feet ready when he usually do it by hisself?”

  “I don’t know, baby. When the boss man ask me to do something, I don’t ask him why. And don’t you bring this up to him.”

  “I won’t. But it’s a shame that he asked you to come in early the last times the kids came, too.”

  “That wouldn’t happen if the kids came on a weekend.”

  “I hope the next time they come, it will be a weekend, so you can spend time with them, too.”

  What Yvonne didn’t know was that whenever she told me the kids was coming on a weekday, I went in early to help Mr. Cunningham prepare a mess of chicken feet, our lunch special every day. I’d cut the toenails, scrape off calluses, and then they had to be boiled up to two hours. I didn’t mind helping do that ungodly chore—and not because my boss asked me to. The reason was so I could leave the house early so I wouldn’t have to deal with them kids.

  I liked Yvonne’s babies and treated them as good as I would have my own. But they hated my guts. Aunt Nadine and Uncle Sherman had spoiled them rotten, so they was as wild as jackrabbits. They didn’t have a lick of respect for me and had even called me a thug to my face one time. They came only two or three times a year, but that was too many times for me. No matter what I told them to do, they always told me, “Aw, hush up! You ain’t my daddy!” It didn’t help for me to be nice and generous to them. I’d borrow Willie Frank’s truck and take them on long rides, give them candy and toys and other stuff. But they never thanked me or showed no appreciation at all, so I stopped.

  * * *

  Ten minutes after I got to the grill, I told Mr. Cunningham I had to take a longer lunch so I could go see a man in town about some new furniture. I asked him not to mention it to Yvonne in case I decided to buy it, because I wanted to surprise her. I had been looking for some new furniture, but I couldn’t get that until I had more money. I was actually going with Willie Frank to unload the stuff we’d stole from Oscar.

  “How much do you think Eugene will pay us?” Willie Frank asked as we cruised along in his truck. He had met me behind the train station fifteen minutes after 12:00 p.m. so nobody would see me with him, or the swiped equipment in the bed of his truck, which was covered up with a tarp.

  “I don’t know,” I replied, scratching my head. “I know we won’t get whatever it’s really worth. But some money is better than none. I sure do need it.”

  “Buddy, you know you can always bum a few bucks from me—if I got it. It seem like the more I give them lazy kinfolks of mine, the more they want. But if you need it more, I’ll hold them off. You always pay me back when you say you will. They don’t.”

  “I hope I don’t have to ask you for a loan no time soon.”

  I borrowed from Willie Frank every now and then. I didn’t like to, because once I paid him back, I was back in the same hole he’d pulled me out of. I didn’t know what I’d do without the money I was getting from Odell and from other scams me and Willie Frank pulled off. But until I stashed enough cash away or learned how to manage it better, hustling was the only way I was going to keep me and Yvonne out of the poorhouse.

  I didn’t know how long the kids would be at our house, so I planned on getting in a few card or crap games this evening. I hoped that by the time I got home, they’d be gone or too tired to give me a hard time. Another problem I had was that we couldn’t entertain guests with children in the house. We had promised Aunt Nadine and Uncle Sherman from the get-go that we never would. Every thirsty soul we didn’t let in the house meant more money we’d be out! I hadn’t planned on putting the squeeze on Odell again too soon, but I would if I had to.

  “That’s the place,” Willie Frank blurted out, cutting into my thoughts. He turned onto a narrow dirt road and drove toward a big house with red paint peeling, a tin roof, and tar paper covering one of the front windows. There was a wraparound porch with a silver glider on it. A shiny black truck was parked in the front yard.

  “Well, do say,” I commented, staring in awe. “From the look of things, this Eugene ought to be good for some sweet money.”

  Before we could park and get out, the front door swung open. A stocky man in his sixties shuffled out. He was so fair skinned, I thought he was white. But when he got close enough for me to see how nappy his hair was, I realized he was just another colored person with a cracker on the family tree.

  “It’s about time y’all got here,” he boomed, walking toward us. His dusty bare feet looked like uncooked chickens.

  After we piled out, Willie Frank introduced me to Eugene Scruggs.

  “Nice to know you. I hope we can make a right good deal today.” I greeted him with one of my most businesslike smiles and shook his hand.

  “I hope so, too,” Eugene replied in a gruff tone. I didn’t like the skeptical look on his face. “Let me see what y’all got.”

  We unloaded everything and laid it on the ground at his feet. That skeptical look was still on his face as he looked from one item to another.

  “Hmmm. I don’t know how much y’all want, but I ain’t got but four dollars.”

  I couldn’t believe my ears. “Now, look here, Eugene. I don’t know what this much stuff sell for in a store. But I got a feeling it’s more than four dollars,” I said in my sternest tone. “We can do a whole lot better than that.”

  “Then why don’t y’all? It ain’t no skin off my nose,” he snickered.

  “Look, buddy, we took a big risk getting this stuff. And you said you needed it. Can’t you be a little more generous than that?” Willie Frank piped in.

  “All right. I’ll throw in a bushel of potatoes,” Eugene added.

  “Potatoes? Man, do we look hungry to you!” I snapped, talking so fast I almost choked on my words. “There’s so many fields around here, we could swipe enough potatoes to last us from now on. We need money. If you don’t want to give us nothing fair, we’ll find somebody that will.”

  Eugene lifted his hands in the air like we’d just pulled a gun on him. “All right then. I’ll throw in another fifty cents, and that’s only because y’all seem like nice young men,” he snapped.

  Me and Willie Frank looked at each other at the same time and hunched our shoulders.

  “Well, at least it’s four and a half bucks more than we got now,” he said with a heavy sigh. “Besides, I have to get this stuff off my truck before some nosy snoop sees it.”

  “You right about that,” I agreed.

&
nbsp; After Eugene handed us two dollars and a quarter apiece, we started to get back in the truck.

  “Wait a minute!” he hollered. “I got a bad back. I can’t tote that stuff by myself. My field hand ain’t coming again until tomorrow, and I ain’t about to let this stuff lay on the ground until then.”

  “So?” I said.

  “So, y’all need to load it back on that truck and haul it around to my barn,” he whined, like he was the one that had just got gypped.

  “That’ll cost you another fifty cent,” Willie Frank said.

  If I had said the same thing, it wouldn’t have got the same results it got coming from a white man. Eugene smiled at Willie Frank and gave me the stink eye before he rooted around in his pocket and pulled out a couple more quarters.

  CHAPTER 23

  YVONNE

  THE OLD TRUCK MY UNCLE OWNED WAS ALMOST AS LOUD AS A train. I could hear it coming up our street Monday morning, a few minutes after 10:00 a.m., while I was in the kitchen, cutting up some collard greens. I wiped my hands on my apron and ran to the front door.

  Uncle Sherman parked in front of our house with one front tire up on the curb. But him and Aunt Nadine didn’t get out. They never did. It wasn’t because they was too lazy; it was because that old truck was so rickety, once the motor was turned off, it could take up to a hour or longer to crank it up again. If that wasn’t bad enough, that truck couldn’t go no faster than thirty miles a hour, so the forty-five- to fifty-minute drive from Mobile always took them quite a while.

  My aunt and uncle had enough money to buy a better vehicle, but they refused to do so. They was both retired but still did a few jobs on the side for extra money. Uncle Sherman did handyman work for various wealthy families. Aunt Nadine took in washing and ironing, and she done a lot of daywork for rich white women while the kids was in school. As much as I missed my babies, I was still glad that they was in a more wholesome environment. They had nice clothes and more toys than they needed, and they never complained about spending several hours in church every Sunday. They was living by the golden rules. But I didn’t get my hopes up too high that they would grow up to be upstanding, law-abiding citizens. I’d been raised by them same rules, and look how I’d ended up.

  The kids piled out of the truck bed and whooped and grinned as they ran toward me as I stood on the sidewalk. “Cousin Yvonne,” they yelled at the same time. Just hearing the word cousin made my heart skip a beat. I couldn’t wait for the day they would call me Mama.

  Cherie, who had turned thirteen back in July, got to me first.

  “Happy belated birthday, sugar! I’m tickled to death y’all came!” I was crying and laughing. I wrapped my arms around her and kissed her forehead. “Girl, you almost as big as me. Did you enjoy your birthday?”

  “Yes, ma’am. I got two new dresses!” Cherie gushed, twirling around for me to gaze at the dark brown smock frock she wore over a beige cotton dress.

  “You look so pretty!” I complimented, fluffing her long silky ponytail.

  “You should have seen me yesterday!” She twirled around again. “I wore my other new dress to church!”

  I kissed her forehead again, and then I hugged my eleven-year-old sons, Jimmy James and Ishmael.

  “You smell like lard,” Ishmael noted, fanning his face and wiggling his nose. Both boys had on overalls and plaid shirts.

  “Watch your mouth, boy. You know you ain’t allowed to disrespect grown folks,” Uncle Sherman scolded, raising his thick gray eyebrows.

  “I do smell like lard,” I acknowledged with a laugh. “Milton bought me some new smell goods last week. I’ll splash some on as soon as we get in the house.”

  The only things my kids had inherited from me was light skin and good hair. Everything else had came from their good-looking, no-good daddies.

  “They done ate breakfast already,” Aunt Nadine yelled. This was the first time they had visited since we’d moved. She eyed my house with a pinched look on her face. “That’s a right smart house. Bigger than I expected. And I just love that picket fence. Me and Sherman had one around our first home after we got married. I spent a lot of my time leaning over it to chat with my neighbors.”

  “I love our fence, too. But we have company so often, somebody always forget to close the gate.”

  “How many bedrooms y’all got?” Aunt Nadine asked.

  “Three. All the rooms is on one floor. Every house on this street got a nice big attic. The landlord had every room painted before we moved in. I wish y’all could come in and see how nice it is inside.”

  The pinched look was still on my aunt’s jowly, tobacco-colored face. “I wish we could, too. But you know if Sherman turn off this motor, there ain’t no telling when we’d get back home,” she snapped, glancing toward the house again. “Where Milton at? Still in the bed?”

  “He went to work. He wanted to take off today, too. But until we save up some money, we can’t afford for us both to take off the same day without pay.”

  “Both of y’all working at that roadhouse grill and bootlegging, and y’all still got money troubles?” Uncle Sherman asked in a gruff tone.

  “Uh-huh. Our rent is a lot more over here,” I explained. “We been saving up as much as we can so we can get a car, new furniture, and a few other things.”

  “Do you mean to tell us y’all moved into this lovely house with all that same old broke-down furniture?” Uncle Sherman grunted. “Girl, with your good looks, you could have got a man that had way more to offer you than that broke-ass mud puppy you settled for.”

  I couldn’t figure out why some folks felt they had to remind me that Milton wasn’t drop-dead handsome and rolling in dough. If I had married a man like the one my folks thought I deserved, I doubted if I would have been able to hold on to him. Handsome men with money usually didn’t stay with the same women for too long. I didn’t care how much Odell loved Joyce. He would have been singing a different tune if she hadn’t been born to well-to-do parents. He probably wouldn’t have married her in the first place.

  “I love my ‘mud puppy,’ and he is good to me,” I declared. I didn’t want to hear no more comments about Milton, so I ended the conversation as fast as I could. “I don’t mean to rush off, but I’m going to take the kids inside so we can plan our day.” I turned to the kids. “Didn’t y’all bring no changing clothes?”

  Uncle Sherman answered for them. “Naw. They can’t stay long. Have them ready for us to pick up by seven o’clock this evening. We’ll go visit some of our old neighbors here and do a little fishing until it’s time for us to come back.”

  “I thought they was going to spend the night!” I wailed.

  “We said they could spend the day with you, not the night. We need to get back home in time for these kids to finish the chores they should have finished yesterday. So you better have them ready when we get back here. Do you hear me, girl?” Aunt Nadine growled.

  “Yes, ma’am,” I muttered with my head hanging low.

  “Kids, if y’all don’t behave, there’ll be some whuppings coming,” Uncle Sherman warned.

  They said their good-byes and took off, and me and the kids headed toward the house. I looked over at Joyce’s window. Sure enough, she was peeping from it, something she and Odell did on a regular basis. I waved at her. She waved back and suddenly disappeared. Before I could get the kids inside, she popped out her gate and skittered through mine.

  “Come on over and meet my little cousins,” I told her.

  She was grinning like a fool as she followed us into my living room. “My goodness! These kids are so precious and cute! Just look at all that pretty hair and white teeth. Who’s who?” she asked, wringing her hands and looking from one face to the other.

  “I’m Cherie.” My daughter introduced herself with a wide smile and a gleam in her eye. Joyce was at least a head and a half taller than she was, so Cherie had to crane her neck to look up at her. So did the boys.

  “I’m Jimmy James, but they call me JJ.
”

  “My name is Ishmael, just like in the Bible.”

  “I’m Joyce, from right next door.” I knew she loved kids, but this was the first time I’d seen her so giddy. I couldn’t imagine how much she fawned over them students she worked with.

  The kids didn’t seem that impressed with her, so I jumped in and told them something I thought they’d like to hear. “Miss Joyce is going to treat us to lunch today.”

  “Is that all?” Ishmael mumbled, looking disappointed.

  I laughed, but then I went on in a stern tone, “Boy, let me give you some advice that I hope you’ll remember the rest of your life. Don’t never look a gift horse in the mouth. Times is still hard, so if you can get something for free, give thanks to the Lord. Miss Joyce’s folks own a big store a few blocks from here. They got all kind of nice things for kids.”

  Joyce was still grinning and eyeballing my babies like she wanted to kiss their feet. “We even got candy and toys,” she added. The kids started grinning just as hard as Joyce.

  “When can we go to that store?” Cherie asked.

  “Well, that’s up to your cousin. My husband drove our car to work, so we’ll have to walk down the street apiece to the bus stop.” Joyce turned to me with a anxious look on her face. “Yvonne, I’m ready to leave whenever you want. I just need to run back home and get my purse and lock up.”

  We left a few minutes before 10:30 a.m. Since we had to walk to the bus stop and wait for the bus—which was fifteen minutes late—it was 11:30 a.m. when we got to Mosella’s. Me and Joyce got the oxtail plate, and the kids wanted burgers and fries, a treat Aunt Nadine hardly ever cooked. She was more into serving pig body parts, corn bread, and greens four or five times a week.

  “This is a real nice restaurant for colored folks,” Cherie said, looking around. “Nice tablecloths, clean floor, plates that ain’t got no cracks, a record player—and I ain’t seen no flies or roaches yet.”