We didn’t have any more to say to each other after that. He stayed on his side of the house, I stayed on mine. He stayed on his side of the gallery, I stayed on mine. There wasn’t any dividing line on the gallery—no wall, no fence or anything like that—but there was a board on the floor neither one of us was crossing. When he got hungry he went up to Mrs. Laura Mae to eat. Whether he washed his hands and face up there I can’t tell, but he wasn’t using my washpan and tub any more. I didn’t tell him not to use it, I didn’t care if he did or not; but since we weren’t speaking to each other, he took it for granted I didn’t want him using any of my things.
Monday, in the field, I didn’t have any pity on him. I drove the tractor just like I was supposed to drive it when three people were working back there. When he fell back I threw him a sack that I had brought from the yard. When Freddie, John and I got to the end we rested. When Marcus caught up, I drove off again. John and Freddie didn’t know what to make of it. They could tell that Marcus and I had had a run-in, but they couldn’t tell what it was about.
But working Marcus like a mule no more changed him than Murphy’s one punch or Bonbon’s riding that horse six inches behind his back. He went up the quarter with me at twelve, laying flat on that corn and looking for her just like he had done all the other times. And she was there, too. She was sitting in that chair with one leg tucked under her (like a child ten or eleven), waving a piece of white rag over her shoulders like she was shooing away flies. I didn’t know until later that this signal was to let him know what days he could come there and what days he couldn’t.
Tuesday at one, when Aunt Margaret knocked off, Louise told her to come back the next evening. Aunt Margaret said since she worked Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday mornings, she couldn’t imagine why she had to go back Wednesday. She didn’t say anything then, but Wednesday around four thirty she went back up there and asked Louise what she had to do.
“Take care Judy,” Louise said.
Aunt Margaret still didn’t know why all of a sudden on Wednesday (and in the evening, too) she had to look after Tite. She and Tite sat on the gallery a while, then they walked across the yard under the big trees. They even went out to the store and bought cold drinks and stood on the gallery watching the sailboats on the river.
But inside the store, just before they went out on the gallery, old Godeau, the clubfoot Cajun storekeeper, had given Tite a penny stick of peppermint candy. He always gave Tite a penny candy or a penny gum when she came to the store because he knew she had a bad heart. After handing her the candy, he looked at Aunt Margaret. Aunt Margaret was shaking her head sadly.
“Maybe he give his wife little bit more, that black one down there little bit less, this one don’t come like that,” old Godeau said.
“I don’t know nothing ’bout that,” Aunt Margaret said, and led Tite out on the gallery.
When they finished drinking their cold drinks, they took the empty bottles back inside and told old Godeau good day. But as they went back on the gallery, Aunt Margaret stopped Tite and asked her if she had told old Godeau thanks for the peppermint candy.
“No,” Tite said.
“Go back in there and say, ‘Maa-cee boo-coo, Monshoo Godeau’; then come on back out here.”
Tite went back into the store. “If I don’t tell the poor little thing how to act, she’ll never know,” Aunt Margaret thought. “God knows them two down the quarter don’t ever teach her nothing.” Tite came back.
“You told him?” Aunt Margaret asked her.
“Wee,” Tite said.
They went back down the quarter and sat on the gallery. While Bonbon, Louise and Tite were eating supper that night, Bonbon told Louise he had to go somewhere later on. Louise glanced up at him but didn’t say anything. What could she say? Bonbon had been going somewhere after supper two and three times a week for the past ten years. After he left, Aunt Margaret and Tite went out on the gallery to sit down. They hadn’t been out there five minutes when they heard the dog growling on the left side of the house. Aunt Margaret looked toward the road, but she didn’t see anybody passing by. The dog growled again. “Something in this yard,” Aunt Margaret thought. She got up and went to the end of the gallery, still holding Tite by the hand. She said she had expected to see another dog or a cat outside the fence—but who did she see?
Marcus was standing outside the fence, looking up at Louise’s bedroom window. Aunt Margaret made a loud groan and nearly fell down on the gallery. But she managed to get Tite back before Tite could see him. She led Tite back to the chair and sat down.
Louise went out the back door to lead the dog away. The dog growled and growled, Louise pulled and pulled. Aunt Margaret couldn’t see them, but she could tell from the dog’s growling that he was straining to get to Marcus, and Louise was straining to get him away from the fence. Louise won out. A moment later Aunt Margaret heard the fence sagging and saw it shaking as Marcus climbed over into the yard. Then Louise came back inside—and the same noise from last Saturday started all over again. Looked like they kept picking up that same chair and slamming it against the wall, Aunt Margaret said. Then looked like they pulled out a dresser drawer and slammed that on the floor, then looked like they both jumped on the bed at the same time (feet first), then jumped down at the same time. Then one of them, or maybe both of them, picked up that chair and slammed it against the wall again. “Like she was trying to make up for all the playing she had never had,” Aunt Margaret said.
“Mama kill rat?” Tite said.
“Yes.”
“I want see rat.”
“He might bite you, honey. He’s a big old rat,” Aunt Margaret said.
Then the slamming and falling and jumping stopped. It was quiet now. But not quiet either—because now the spring on the bed started, Aunt Margaret said.
A half hour later, Louise came out the room and went out in the yard again. Aunt Margaret said no sooner Marcus hit the ground, the dog started growling. And it was a good thing Marcus was still nimble at getting over fences because the dog got away from Louise a couple seconds before he was supposed to.
Louise came back inside and out on the gallery where Aunt Margaret and Tite were sitting.
“You can leave, Margaret,” she said.
“Yes’m,” Aunt Margaret said, looking up at her, but not moving.
Louise’s yellow hair stood frizzly on her head. Her blouse was half buttoned and her skirt wasn’t straight. Aunt Margaret said Louise was standing so close to her she could smell the sweat on her body—“the remanents of they tussling.”
“And when must I come back?” she asked.
“Come, Judy,” Louise said.
“How long, Miss Louise, ’fore you holler rape? How long?”
“Come, Judy.”
Tite slid away from Aunt Margaret.
“Bon-swa, Mar-greet.”
“Give Margaret a kiss, baby,” Aunt Margaret said.
Tite kissed her. Aunt Margaret held her a moment against her bosom. While she was holding Tite she looked up at Louise.
“Think of your child,” she said. “Trouble can only hurt her.”
“Come, Judy,” Louise said.