CHAPTER 27
Fancy cooked peas, cabbage, bacon, and biscuits for supper. “After you go to church tomorrow, I’m going to take the shovel and dig out the creek so we’ll have plenty of water,” Lightning said.
I stirred my fork around in the food, not having much of an appetite. “All the tools are under the woodshed.”
“Sure would be nice to see Momma and Daddy,” Lightning said to Fancy. “They doing all right, ain’t they?”
“Sounds like it from the bed squeaking all the time. You ever do it with any of them migrant women?”
“Let’s put it this way, everybody shared on the bus. If a man and a woman had an itch, they’d scratch it.”
I’d never had a sister or brother, so maybe this kind of talk was normal. “How’d you keep them from getting pregnant?”
Lightning took on like a teacher, giving the benefit of his worldly experience. “Truth is, if they did, they did. The boss man said the kids would be a free hand when they got big enough to work.” He looked at his sister. “You ain’t pregnant, are you?”
Fancy slapped at his head with a dish towel.
* * *
It was sticky hot in the kitchen; no cross breeze at all came through the open window. “I’m going on the porch.”
Lightning was right behind me. “You got any more cigarettes?”
Why not put a sign on my back that said, EVERYTHING’S FREE AT JUNEBUG’S?
Lightning relaxed. “Sure is mighty peaceful.”
My headache began to ease while the three of us sat and talked. Lightning was full of jokes and stories, teasing Fancy about things from when they were kids. He stood up and stretched. “My bed’s calling. Y’all behave now.”
As soon as we couldn’t hear him anymore, Fancy and me went into Grandma’s bedroom. “When Lightning’s like that, seems he ain’t really gone anywhere.” Fancy cuddled against me. “He went through some bad stuff, but maybe, with enough time, he’ll get back to his old self.”
“It’s them other times that worry me.” I closed my arms around her, needing to feel better about what was happening.
“I’m sleepy,” Fancy whispered.
“Be right embarrassing if Mr. and Mrs. Wilson found us like this in the morning.”
“Mr. Wilson would just be jealous. He’s always watching me out the side of his eye.”
I propped up on one elbow. “Get the hell out of here. Mr. Wilson?”
“A man is a man, Junebug, he’s got needs.”
The conversation between Mr. Wilson and me about not getting involved with Fancy came back. Why, you old bastard. “That’s what Mrs. Wilson is for.” Maybe all those community men sitting in the church pews every Sunday spouting about loving their neighbors might have a whole other meaning.
“Every old cracker man thinks a young colored gal can’t wait to turn up her behind to him. He’ll come around to me one of these days.”
“What’ll you do if he does?”
Fancy hugged her chest, then rolled away from me. “Depends on whether he makes me or not.”
“You mean beat on you?”
“He wouldn’t have to do that. He could just say I go along with him or he’ll kick my folks off his farm.” She sounded angry at my stupidity. “What do you think I can do then? How you think all them high-yellows got that way?”
“You ain’t thinking of us like that, are you?” How cruel was it a person had to live waiting for a devil to come out of the shadows, helpless to fight back?
“Of course not.” Her voice softened. “I’m here because I want to be. We’re just a man and a woman to each other. Either one of us can walk away any time we want.”
“Why would we?”
Fancy pulled the sheet up to her neck and yawned. “Some folks just do, I reckon. Don’t want to be together no more.”
“I’d never walk away from you, Fancy, never.”
Wide awake there in the darkness, feeling the gentle movement of Fancy’s body against me with each even breath of sleep, I considered how so much of dealing with life stuff wasn’t about what a person knew, but what they didn’t know. What Fancy said about the power Mr. Wilson had over her made a knot in the pit of my stomach. I’d seen him staring at Fancy when she walked. How could I have been so stupid not to understand?
My eyes began to close in spite of the tension in my mind. I jerked awake, reaching to make sure Fancy was still beside me. I buried my face into her hair and reached to cover her with my arms, kissing her shoulder, neck, and cheek, letting the touch, smell, and taste of her chase away the nightmare. When I ran my hand over her stomach Fancy stretched and yawned like a big cat. “You best quit that, Junebug, unless you can back it up.” She rolled to face me, at the same time sliding her leg over my hip, connecting us in the warmth of slow, easy, loving sex. As Fancy arched her back to absorb me completely, I whispered to her, “I’ll kill him if he ever touches you.”