Corregidora (Bluestreak) (4 page)

I sat up in bed and she put a cloth across my legs and the plate on the cloth.

“Thank you.”

She went and sat down on the cedar chest.

“You ate?” I asked.

“Yeah, we awready ate. I looked in before and you was sleeping so hard I didn’t wont to wake you.”

“This is good.”

“Thank you.”

I ate for a few moments in silence, grease on my fingers. It was good to get real food again. My stomach had started caving in.

“You know, every time I cook fried chicken I think of that time Joe Hunn and me was married. My brother-in-law invited us over to a after-wedding supper. He wasn’t married hisself so he cooked it up hisself. He started cooking it when we got there and then said dinner was ready and seem like to me it couldn’t a been more than fifteen minutes, but I didn’t say nothing. And then we sat down to eat, and I bit down on a piece and it had blood coming out of it. And Gus, that’s his brother, was just saying, ‘Good, ain’t it?’ and Joe was saying, ‘Yeah.’ I didn’t know if Joe was crazy too or just didn’t wont to ’fend him. But I put mine back down on the plate and said, ‘I don’t know about y’all, but this going back in the skillet.’ So they let me put theirs back in the skillet too. If they’d have started laughing, I would have sweared it was a joke, but they didn’t even crack a smile. Up to the day we separated, I never would let Joe Hunn fry me no chicken.”

I laughed.

She said, “Here I am talking about that chicken and you trying to eat. I wasn’t thinking I might upset your stomach.”

“Naw, you didn’t upset it.”

“Well, I be in the house if you wont anything. You wont another piece of chicken?”

“Naw thanks, this is fine.”

“I don’t wont to worry you out of my own house. Call me when you through.”

I said I would.

Her chicken was crisp, not bloody. I was thinking how I never did like to get chicken ready to fry. Somebody else get it ready, then I’d fry it. Down home in the country, Mama used to wring the chickens’ necks on a tree stump. I never would look. But when she got it all cut up and washed I’d fry it if she wanted me to. And that time that man sold me that fish and I put it on the tree stump and it started wiggling and jumped in the grass wiggling. I never would fry any more fish after that. Cousin Jesse said she could hear me all the way down the road screaming. She came up to see what was wrong, and then she took it down to her house and fried it for me, but when she brought it back I swear half the fish was gone. That was all right though. I know she wanted to feed them children with it.

Cat came back and took my plate.

“You sure you don’t wont no more?”

“Yeah, I’m sure. I’m not sure what this’ll do. It was good though. Thank you.”

“You got those pills in case you need them, ain’t you?”

“Yeah.”

She took the plate out.

“She sleep?” It was Tad.

“Naw, she just got through eating.”

“Mind if I go in?”

“You just seen her this morning.”

“So?”

“Well, knock.”

He knocked. I said, “Come in.”

“How you feeling?” he asked.

“Okay.”

“She treating you all right?”

“Yeah.”

He stayed near the door. I told him to come on in.

“Naw, I just came to thank Cat for the chicken she sent over and thought I peep in and see how you was doing.”

“I’m okay.”

“Eating solid?”

“Yeah.”

He went back out. I smiled.

I heard the front door close, then Cat came in.

“That nigger both’ring you?”

“Naw.”

“Well, if he bothers you, tell me, and I won’t let him come in here.”

“You know how I feel.”

“I know how you think you feel. But I ain’t going into that no more … He brought Eddy Pace’s group back.”

“Did he?”

“Yeah.”

“That’s good.”

“Be bout time for you to go over there if you was on your feet.”

“Yeah, the after-supper show. Then go back in the evening. You know that.”

She said nothing.

“He across the street?” I asked.

“Yeah, he’s over there.”

“He don’t know I’m here I guess.”

“I guess he don’t.”

“Pull that shade down, will you? And keep it down.”

She pulled down the shade.

“All he wont to do is see you start back to work again. Know you on your feet. So he won’t feel guilty.”

“He got a lifetime of feeling guilty. I don’t know how many lifetimes.”

“It ain’t right you to feel that way. I know he did wrong and you got to suffer the consequences. But he got consequences too.”

“He can go out and give other women babies. What kind of consequences he got?”

“Consequences of loving you.”

“Shit.”

She came away from the window.

“It took you a long enough time to pull that shade down. If you wont him to know where I’m at, why don’t you go over and tell him where I’m at.”

“I don’t care if he know or not, cause it ain’t none of my business. But I guess I don’t wont him to know. ’Cause if he don’t cause trouble,
you
will. All he wonts to do is
see
you. But I don’t know what you wont.”

“All I wont is not to see that nigger. He can go to Kocomo for all I care.”

“Yeah,” she said.

“Yeah.”

“It bother you though, don’t it?” She grinned. “Trying to make it with Tadpole McCormick.”

“I ain’t trying. I have made it, for your information. What’s wrong with Tadpole?”

“It ain’t what’s wrong with
him
, it’s what’s wrong with
you.
And he’s too blind to see it. That’s what’s wrong with him. Every since he got that place and seen you singing there he’s been in love with you. I don’t doubt he
got
the place cause you was there. But you ain’t paid him half a mind till this. It was always Mutt Thomas, Mutt Thomas, Mutt Thomas. I ain’t even going to say nothing about the men, cause that ain’t my place. But if you didn’t have eyes to see
then
, you ain’t got eyes to see
now.
”

“I see what I need to see.”

“Yeah, that’s probably your trouble.”

She turned her ass to me and went out.

“Fuck you,” I said.

“You can’t.”

“Y’all hush.” It was Lurene’s voice. The screen door banged. “You know that woman’s sick in there. You ought to wait.”

“Sick or not sick they’s things she’s got to be told.”

“Shhh.”

Cat didn’t shhh, she talked louder. “I know womens that’s had it out been up by now. I don’t even believe
that
no more. Cause they kept her down to St. Joseph long enough before she even got out.”

“Well, she be up soon, you get evil enough,” Lurene said. “Jeff be up in a little while. I got her down there drying the dishes, and I told her to come on up here. Well, I see you tomorrow morning then. I ain’t hardly got no sleep and they going to have me standing up all night. You know Philip Lorry, the one I said work out there?”

“Yeah.”

“I think he’s started to get sweet on me, honey.”

“Well, you need something to make working out there worth it.”

“Yeah, don’t I though. Well, I see you.”

“Awright.”

“Here she is. You be good now.”

“Yes ma’am. Here the key.”

“You lock it awright?”

“Yes ma’am.”

“Awright, see y’all. Ain’t you going to kiss me?… See you, Cat.”

“Awright.”

“If that nigger love me he wouldn’t’ve throwed me down the steps,” I called.

“What?” She came to the door.

“I said if that nigger loved me he wouldn’t’ve throwed me down the steps.”

“I know niggers love you do worse than that,” she said.

“Miss Catherine, can I have another piece of chicken?” Jeffy said.

“Yeah, go on in and get it. Then you go on in there and sleep on the floor. You got to sleep on the floor tonight.”

“She don’t have to sleep on the floor, she can sleep in here with me,” I said.

Cat said nothing. “Yeah, I said yeah,” she told Jeffy.

When it was time to go to bed, Jeffy came in with a blanket. She started putting her blanket down on the throw rug on the floor.

“Honey, I said you could sleep up here with me. You don’t have to sleep down there on the floor.”

“Miss Catherine said for me to sleep down here.”

“Well, I said you can sleep up here.”

I turned back the sheets for her to get in. She left the blanket on the floor and came and got in the bed. I could smell fried chicken.

“You wiped your hands, didn’t you?”

“Yeah.”

“You yes ma’am your mama and yes ma’am Miss Catherine, how come you don’t yes ma’am me?”

“You ain’t nothing but twenty-five. I got a sister up in Detroit that’s twenty-five. If I yes ma’am her she slap the shit out of me.”

I said nothing.

“You settled?” I asked.

“Yeah.”

I turned the light out.

“I seen your nigger pacing up and down over there.”

“He ain’t my nigger.”

“Well, he used to be.”

“Used to ain’t now.”

“You just scared of him, that’s all.”

“I like to see the day I was scared of Mutt Philmore Thomas.”

“That his middle name?” she laughed.

I said nothing.

“I bet you be scared if I said I was going over there and tell him you was over here.”

“You better not. I might not be that much older than you, honey, but I know how to slap shit too.”

She said nothing. I thought I had hushed her, but then she said, “See if I don’t.”

“See if I don’t tell your mama I seen you over there in Hawkins alley with that Logan boy.”

“Naw, that was Luella you seen with Wayne. I was just watching.”

“Well, that means you twice as nasty.”

“I bet you was fucking before I was born. How much fucking you think you goin do now?”

It was my turn to say nothing.

“It don’t mean you
can’t
,” I explained. “It just means …”

“I heard Mama talking bout women like that. Mess up their minds and then fuck up their pussy.”

“You too young to talk like that.”

“You too young to have it took out of you too. Tha’s what mama said. She said, ‘Ain’t that awful and young as she is too. Jeff, now don’t you go over there both’ring that woman neither, cause she got enough trouble.’ ”

“Nigger, get out of here.”

“You said I could sleep with you.”

“Then shut up and sleep. I told you I know how to slap shit too.”

“You supposed to be sick. You ain’t sick.”

“I will be if you don’t shut up.”

“See if I don’t tell that nigger of yours.”

I started to slap her. I was going to if she said another word. She must have felt it because she didn’t say nothing else. She started breathing hard, and then she must have been sleeping. I turned away from her and slept.

I was drowsy, but I felt her hands on my breasts. She was feeling all on me up around my breasts. I shot awake and knocked her out on the floor. It wasn’t even daylight yet. It couldn’t have been more than three o’clock. There was a smell of vomit in the room, like when you suck your thumb.

“Naw, bitch, you get the hell out of here,” I said. “You take that goddamn blanket and get the goddamn hell out of here.”

She was crying, not from anything I said, but she must have skinned her ass when she hit the floor. I turned on the light and she was sucking her arm and getting the blanket and crying. I kept calling her a goddamn bull, but I didn’t like what else I was wondering. I was wondering how Cat Lawson got her to mind. Because that wasn’t the kind of kid that would respect anybody on account of age.

Jeffy stumbled out the door.

“What’s going on in nere?” I heard Cat say. “What you do?”

Jeffy didn’t say nothing. Catherine came into the room, rubbing her eyes.

“What happen? What she do?” She sat down on the cedar chest, as if she already suspected what she did.

“She started feeling on me all up around here and I knocked her off on the floor,” I said.

“I knowed she was like that, tha’s why I told her to sleep in here on the floor.”

“Well, you should’ve told me she was like that before and I wouldn’t have said she could come in here and sleep with me. Why in the hell didn’t you tell me she was like that before?”

“I told her to sleep on the floor. You should’ve let her sleep on the floor.”

“Well, she seem like she too young to be like that. How the hell was I suppose to know? I didn’t wont the child sleeping on the damn floor and catch pneumonia.”

“It’s a hot night.”

“Well. She can catch pneumonia of the asshole for all I care.”

“Don’t worry, she catch it.”

I couldn’t restrain myself. “What, you goin give it to her?”

She looked at me, drowsy, and hurt and angry.

“I told her to sleep on the floor,” she said.

I said nothing. She got up as if waiting for me to say something, but I still said nothing. Before she left, she cut me a hard look. I gave up wondering. I knew if Jeffy had got in the bed with her and started pulling that shit, she would have knocked her on the floor too. She would have knocked her past the floor.

It wasn’t so much how much fucking I was going to do now, I was thinking, but the consequences of that fucking. Shit. Cat telling me about the consequences of him loving me. Shit. What the hell did that mean? And her story. What about her and Joe Hunn? If I hadn’t stopped wondering when she gave me that hard-as-steel look I would’ve guessed that story. Maybe it’s just a man can’t stand to have a woman as hard as he is. If he couldn’t support her in money, he’d be wanting to support her in spirit. And what if I’d thrown Mutt Thomas down those stairs instead, and done away with the source of his sex, or inspiration, or whatever the hell it is for a man, what would he feel now? At least a woman’s still got the hole. Look, nigger, I still got my hole. Finger-pop it. Your mama’s a bitch, she was laid in a ditch. Naw, dropped you in one. And what they had to do in those days. I always get back to that. The tobacco fields or coffee ones. Hard because you have to be, but still those tender-eyed women and hands tender behind tobacco calluses with their men. Hurt you into tenderness finally. Is it more his fault than mine? Naw, when you start thinking that way. Naw, that nigger’s to blame. What’s bothering me? Great Gram, because I can’t make generations. I remember everything you told me, Great Gram and Gram too and.