CHAPTER 29
Sunlight peeping through the window curtains woke me. Fancy was already awake. “Morning,” she said, eyes wide open.
I slid my arm beneath her head. “And top of the day to you. Did you sleep good?”
“I kept watching the ceiling, wondering if your grandma might visit.” She draped her leg over mine. The odor of sex floated up when the covers moved.
“Can I tell you something, Fancy?”
The sheet slipped down, exposing her breasts. She didn’t move to cover them. “As long as it’s not something bad.”
“When Grandma died at the hospital, I felt her spirit lift out.”
Fancy sat up straight, eyes wide. “What? What do you mean, you felt her spirit?”
“It was strange. I felt this stir of air, soft, like the brush of a bird’s wing, and I knew it was her. Granddaddy was there too. I’ve been thinking about it a long time, trying to make sure it wasn’t my imagination in that hospital room.”
She looked me hard in the eyes. “You ain’t messing with me, are you, Junebug?”
“I never would over something like that.”
Fancy lay back and pulled the sheet up to her neck. “What do you think it means?”
“I took it to mean that this ain’t the end, that maybe we float around in the air, invisible to folks still living.”
“I always thought you’d just close your eyes, then be in heaven.”
“Just didn’t want you to worry about Grandma visiting.”
“Let’s don’t talk about it no more, okay.” She moved the sheet and rolled to face me.
“I ain’t going to let nothing happen to you.” I lifted her leg over my hip, feeling myself getting excited.
Fancy put her nose to mine, staring me in the eyes, whispering. “You know, you’re right pretty for a white boy. Got them crazy blue eyes from your grandma.”
“How many white boys you been this close to?” I pulled our middles together.
She lifted and raked herself against me. “You’ll make one.” I could feel her wetness.
When I slipped into her, she sucked in a sharp breath. “Keep it like that.
“What about when you find a white girl?” We started to move slowly.
“Ain’t looking.”
Fancy closed her eyes, and began to flex her hips. “Don’t worry . . . they’ll come for you.” She stuttered between words. “That feels so good.”
I moved faster, enjoying feeling in control. “Mr. Wilson said you’d ruin me for any proper white woman.”
“Am I?” Her hips moved more urgently.
“I hope so.” I rolled Fancy to her back, gripped my hands underneath her butt, and forced harder. She came back at me with a fury. It became a battle, a war of passion, fighting and clawing and demanding, the slapping sound of the sex making me crazy. When she felt the end coming, Fancy pulled my face down, kissing and grabbing my bottom lip with her teeth. We slammed together like two trains crashing head-on.
Fancy lay back on the pillow, holding me in place. “Damn you, Junebug.”
“I know.”
* * *
After church Sunday morning, I loafed around the house most of the day. When five o’clock came and Fancy hadn’t showed, I got an uneasy feeling. I made myself get in the truck and ride to Durham, turning the radio loud, trying to drown out my worry.
Lightning waited in the same place we’d dropped him off. “Where’s Fancy?”
I shut off the country music. “She never showed up today.”
“Did you go by the house?”
“Hell no! Are you crazy? If she’s got in trouble over something, I wasn’t about to make it worse.”
“Damn it. I wish I could go home. Daddy can start sipping that shine once in a while and sometimes he’ll get mean.”
“You don’t think he’d hurt Fancy, do you?”
“He’s liable to slap her around some, like he does Momma. I don’t know what makes him get like that. Momma says to let it pass, says it’s the inside hurt of a black man always having to bow down to white folks. She said he ain’t got anywhere else to let it out.”
I’d never heard that about Roy before.
“We’ll find out soon enough. By Monday, Daddy has to have his self back right so he can go to work. Fancy will be around tomorrow.”
I picked up the street leading out of town. “Did you find anybody to buy the stuff?” A giant sign above the Wachovia Bank building blinked seven o’clock and eighty-three degrees.
“Oh yeah. I asked around until I got hold of this man called Twin. He used to have a twin brother, but some white policeman killed him a few years back. Now he’s meaner than a no-dick dog, generally don’t like white folks, and hates police. He’s the biggest dope dealer in Hayti, which means he’s got the money. I spoke to him, and he said he would look at a sample when we were finished.”
“You didn’t tell him where, did you?”
“Do I look stupid?” Lightning looped his arm across the back of the seat, sounding important. “All I told him is when we’re done this fall, I’d come to visit him.”
The highway got very dark as we pulled away from the city lights. “You talk price?”
“No use worrying about that until he gets a sample. He’s not going to pay much for rag, but he will for good stuff.”
“How will we know what ours is?”
He smacked the dashboard. “I told you I smoked some back in Georgia, Junebug.”
“Sure hope you know what you’re doing.”
“I got it under control.”
Lightning’s attitude wore on my nerves, acting all-important, like he was our savior. I’d give him his due for growing the crop, but it was on “my” land, with “my” equipment, and all the while I was hiding him in “my” house so those good old boys wouldn’t have a chance to make him an oak-tree necktie.
The next afternoon Fancy did show up. Her right eye was swollen almost shut.
I gripped her by the shoulders. “What happened to you?”
She tried to wave me off. “Ain’t nothing, Junebug, don’t worry yourself.” Fancy twisted away and went into the kitchen.
“Don’t tell me what to worry about.” I followed her.
Lightning walked in. “What the heck are y’all hollering about? I could hear you in the yard.”
Fancy turned her back so he couldn’t see. Lightning walked in front of her. He reached up to touch her eye. “Daddy do this to you?”
She stared at the floor.
“What for?” His voice was loud and demanding.
“Let it go, Lightning. I’m all right.”
I edged between them. “Was it anything to do with me?”
“He was drinking and I reckon he had you and me on his mind, so he made sure I understood I better not be messing around.” Fancy pulled out a kitchen chair, sat down, and put her head in her hands.
I headed to the bedroom. When I came back to the kitchen with the truck keys, Fancy got in front of me and grabbed my arm. “No, you ain’t! You are not leaving this house. I told you I’m all right.”
“Nobody is going to beat on you, Fancy, not for any reason, and for sure not because of me.”
Lightning came beside us. “Fancy’s speaking the truth. This is between a daddy and his child. You got no rights.”
I looked down, heat boiling up from my feet to my head. I let my finger trace the red checks in the tablecloth. The room got quiet. I looked him in the eyes. “Lightning, don’t ever again tell me what I can and can’t do.”
“Junebug, stop it!” Fancy shoved me backward.
I went into the bedroom, slamming the door. I could take my shotgun and solve this shit right now. Seemed like I was the odd man out lately. Nobody was going to push me around in my own house. There was a deep-down angry fire inside me I’d never felt before. I didn’t know if my hands shook because I was mad or if I was scared of how mad I was.
I could hear Fancy’s voice from the kitchen. “You best quit pushing Junebug; he’s got enough to deal with.”
“He needs to mind his own business.”
“I am his business, so you need to get over it or get gone.”
The porch door slammed. Fancy came in where I was and put her arms around me. “I appreciate you wanting to look after me, Junebug, but some things a person has to let pass. My daddy loves me. He doesn’t mean to hurt me or Momma, just sometimes he can’t take it no more.”
I pushed her to arm’s length. “I understand your daddy’s toted his burdens a lot of years. But Lightning is where he is by his own hand, and he ain’t going to run my life.”
“Hush. Enough about all that.” Fancy pushed me back on the bed. “Come here.” She started to undo my belt.
“What about Lightning?”
She laughed as she took off her dress. “Let him find his own woman.”