GEORGIE visited Blondola at about 3 p.m. He stayed with her and Desiah an hour. He left money to pay Dr. Pond, he caught the bus to Eatman Avenue. No one was home. Everyone—Rufus, Plumsy, Otho—was at Mrs. Roach’s. George joined em. It was the first time he and Rue had glimpsed each other since early that day. Their eyes hardly saw each other. Guilt was one reason, wine the other. (Rue was so blue-mouthed blotted, he be all blue-blasted.) Then, under a debris field of clouds, Rue left to go shopping.
After talking with Mrs. Roach awhile, George walked to the corner store and bought twenty-five dollars’ worth of groceries, plus baby oil, baby powder, different things. He got home just in time to see Rue unwrap his parcels. George then ask for something for the house.
Rue said, “I’ve spent every dime and dollar of Silver.”
Cranky, George said, “If you ain’t goin to put no cash towards the house or wood, you ain’t goin to eat none.”
Rue chuckled: “I’s goin to eat at Mrs. Roach’s then.” George say, “Go ahead—until I tell Roach bout you and his wife.”
Rue said, “Yeah, and I’m gonna tell Blondola bout you and Lovea. I bet you saw her last night, eh?”
George was flustered. “I got the house full up with food, and it’s goin to stay like that until Blondola comes out the hospital, and I will get some wood on Monday. I’m goin to try hard this winter to see if the house can be kept warm and that the wife and the children has clothes, wood, and food, and you ain’t goin enjoy none of it.”
Rue guffawed. “You know, Joygee, all that money’s tainted: t’ain’t mine an t’ain’t yours.”
Rue laughed more. He opened a box and took out a new fedora—black, with a feather—and put it on. He tried on his new black overcoat, a black scarf, black galoshes on his new black shoes, and posed like a gangster. He admired his new black pants and the silver-buckled black belt (his keepsake of Easter) that set them off so splendidly. He planned now to leave piss-ass Fredericton and go back to pianissimo Halifax. He’d scoop up India and go to Montreal and settle and never banter with bozo Georgie again.
The sun hung before them like a gigantic noose swinging the world. Rue uncorked a slim, glimmering bottle of burgundy—delicious grapes of wrath—got two tumblers and poured a dash for George, a splash for himself.
“George, you did leave the car in Saint John, didn’t you? And you did leave Silver’s body where it was, right?”
George nodded yes and drank the red wine.
Then, Rue sliced him off a chunk of brown bread.