Roseflower Creek (10 page)

    Melvin hauled Ray up out of the chair by his shirt and held him tight. They was face-to-face now.

    "If it's eating you alive, if that's what's got you drinkin' again, Ray, you best turn yourself in. Beg for mercy, boy, it's the only chance you got."

    "You're crazy. I ain't done nothin'," Ray said.

    "Oh, there's enough bad in you to a' done it, Ray. That I'm sure of," Melvin said. "Trouble is, there ain't enough bad in you to live with it!" He shoved Ray back down into the chair. That's when he seen me standing in the doorway.

    "Git yer things, Lori Jean. Yer' comin' with me," Melvin said. "This one ain't fit to live with."

Mama and me'd been at Melvin and Lexie's place going on near two months. Katherine Alice and Irl were in the tub splashing up a storm. I was scrubbing them down real good. They'd been chasing the chickens after dinner, falling in the dirt mostly when they couldn't catch 'em. Had themselves a mighty fine time running after 'em, laughing all the way. Their birthday come while we was staying with them. Lexie had a real special party. Now they was two years old and here it were September already.

    "Finish up, Lori Jean. You got school in the morning," Mama said and peeked her head around the corner.

    "You best help me dry these little critters off, Mama," I said. "I no sooner get one dry, the other splashes 'im all wet again." There was puddles of water all over the linoleum. It was worn out in spots and most of the color was gone. What was left was gray. There was big cracks in it where the tub stood. The tub, it had these feet looked like lion paws. I liked to climb up in that tub myself. Hang my arms over the side and just wash my worries all away. Soak my troubles up good and let 'em run right down the drain when I was done.

    Right then I was on my knees, hanging over the edge fixing to pull Alice out for the second time and I was about as wet as she was.

    "Here, let me have Alice. You grab Irl," Mama said.

    Alice smiled and rolled her face in the towel. I wrapped it round her and passed her off to Mama. She peeked out and giggled. Alice had the cutest dimples on her cheeks. Melvin was always saying he was gonna gobble them up. He'd make smacking sounds and go after her starting at her neck and she'd bury her face in his chest laughing so hard that it always started the rest of us laughing, too.

    "Hhmmnm cook-eeeee, Nee Nee," Alice said.

    "I promised her a cookie, Mama," I explained, "if she come outa the tub nice like."

    "Cook-eeeee, Nee Nee, cook-eeeee."

    "Let's get yer' nappie and yer' jammies on first." Mama patted her dry all over and headed for Lexie's bed to dress her.

    "No, no, lay down, lay down, Alice." I heard Mama's soft voice coaxing Alice to be still and knew from the sounds of the springs squawking she was paying her no mind.

    There was two things Alice liked to do better than chase the chickens. Run bare-buck naked through the house and jump on Lexie and Melvin's bed. I always laid her out on the small rug on Lexie's floor to dress her, else she never stopped jumping long enough for me to pin her didies on.

    I patted Irl dry and laid him down on that rug now. He was getting tired and weren't no problem a'tall. He yawned and rubbed his eyes 'til they was little red half-moons.

    "Cook-eeeee, Nee Nee." Alice had calmed down but hadn't forgotten her cookie. Mama's christened name was Nadine. But it come out Nee Nee when Alice said it. Pretty good for a baby.

    I liked staying with them. We was kinda like a family. Ray hadn't come around once. It was real nice, even though there wasn't much room. I slept in a sleeping sack on the porch and Lexie made a bed up for Mama on the sofa they got at the secondhand store over in Decatur. It was dark green. The armrests was scratchy and all worn out and it had two cigarette burns on it, but other than that it was a real good one. Only cost ten dollars. With a sheet tucked around it, Mama said it was fine to sleep on. She would of said that though, even if it wasn't. Mama didn't like to be a bother.

    "I think we ought to head on home, Melvin," she said that night after supper.

    "Let him stew good and long, Nadine. Maybe he'll come to his senses."

    "He may not have any left," she said. "The liquor mighta got it all."

    "Give 'im time, Nadine. Let him realize what's important. He'll come around."

    Lexie stared at Melvin and blinked. I don't think she believed it for a hot second. She looked around the small kitchen.

    "It's just—well, we're in the way…" Lexie cut her right off.

    "Nadine, I don't rightly know what I'd do without Lori Jean helpin' out with the twins every day after school. She's a lifesaver, that girl."

    "She could come help out, even if we moved home," Mama said. "She could come by after school."

    "And don't forget the help she give me after supper. Why, it's like I been on vacation." Lexie patted her belly. Her and Melvin done made another baby.

    Melvin was checking on getting them a trailer. They only had the one bedroom where they was and all four of them in it. It wouldn't do with a new baby coming. Now the trailer, it come with two bedrooms and a nice big living room. It even had its own furniture. Melvin was working a deal to help move and set them up after the owner sold them off his lot. They was all used ones, but real nice. I figured we should get us one and put it next to theirs. We'd be a real family, then. Ray could quit drinking and get hisself some work. We'd have the twins and a new baby next door. Yep, we'd be a whole family of relatives. We'd get together on Sundays after church, eat fried chicken and collard greens, buttermilk biscuits, and peach cobbler for dessert. I could see it and taste every bit of it. New baby and everything. Part of heaven right in Roseflower Creek. I might could have my own room even, if we got ourselves one a them two-bedroom kind. And those trailers all had a inside bathroom with a toilet. If only Ray could see what we could have. I might could forgive 'im for what he done to Carolee, seeing how he might not a meant to and all. Yes sirree, I prayed every week I could do that, forgive him. Every Sunday Mama and me headed off ta' church, I said, "Lord, please help me forgive that no-good Ray, so we can be a family." I prayed it on Wednesday night go ta' church meetings, too. And I asked the Lord to help Ray quit drinking. "And Lord," I said, "if 'n you can't see fit to do that, could you just fix it so he throws that stuff up 'fore it goes down, instead a' after?"

    He didn't answer me none, but I figured he was real busy and would get to me if he could. Melvin and Lexie was real busy about then, too.

    Melvin, he was fixing to buy this 1947 Chevrolet automobile from a fella lived in Clarkston selling it to get hisself outa jail. He got hisself all drunk and smashed up the fenders when he run off the road and drove through old man Hawkins's chicken coop. Melvin got some replacement ones lined up and was gonna put them on hisself. The fenders, they was all different colors, but the car worked real good. Chevy engine. Melvin said Chevy engines was the best. If Ray straightened up, we could get us a Chevy automobile, too. I figured there was probably a fella drinking and banging his fenders at that very moment 'cause a whole lot of men folk drank too much. Sure thing, we could get us one of them Chevrolet automobiles, too. We could maybe see the USA, like Dinah Shore said to on the television. It was Mz. Hawkins's favorite show, next to
Ed Sullivan. Sometimes she let me watch it wit
h her. "See the USA in
your Chevrolet." It was a regular family thing t
o do. If 'n we had us a Chevy, we could be a regular family.

    It didn't take long for Melvin to make them arrangements on that trailer. When Melvin said he was gonna do something, it was good as done. The day they moved in, me and Mama helped 'em. I lugged a box that was a bit bigger than me up the steps, then started down for another. 'Fore long I was mighty tired, but there was plenty left to do. Lexie couldn't help much. She was sick with that morning fever a lot of ladies get when they's growing a baby. Mostly Lexie nibbled soda crackers and threw up a lot. Then she drunk the ginger ale Melvin got for her down at Jonah's Crossing and throwed that up, too.

    "Havin' babies is about as much trouble before they get here as after," Mama said.

    I always thought Mama liked babies fine, but she said things that made it seem like she didn't when she was around ladies that was having 'em. Fancy that.

    I about wore myself plumb out that day, hauling stuff up and down them trailer steps. I sat down on the last box I dragged in and watched Melvin wrestle the mattress up the steps all by hisself. Mama had the twins over at our place feeding them dinner, so I was supposed to do her part here 'til she got back. I needed to shake a leg, but my heart just wasn't in it. I kept thinking how nice it'd be if we was moving our stuff in and I was helping Ray and Mama get set up new like. I watched Melvin plunk the mattress down onto the box spring he'd hauled in earlier. They took up most of the space in the back bedroom. I pictured Mama and Ray scooting around each other in the morning, Ray putting on his work clothes, Mama pulling up the covers and patting the pillows into place. They was nice dreams, sure enough. I could see it all plain as pie. Still perched on that box I was resting on, I remembered what MeeMaw always told me.

    "Lori Jean, you can't cross the creek by starin' at the water! Get a move on now."

    That always got things rolling when we had work to do. I figured it might work for dreams, too. You just had to get 'em moving is all. After we carried the last of the boxes in, Mama come back with Alice and Irl. They was rubbing their eyes. It was time for their naps. Mama laid them down on the bare mattress and tucked a blanket around them. They curled up in little balls next to each other, butt to butt. They was so cute. Alice had her thumb in her mouth and the corner of the blanket looped around her fingers. She liked to rub the fabric back and forth against her cheek. Irl, he just liked to hug onto his teddy bear, which weren't really a bear, but a stuffed dog I made him that didn't turn out real good.

    "Well, lookie here, Irl," Melvin said. "Lori Jean done made you a birthday bear." That's how it come to be a bear. 'Fore that it was a dog.

    We tiptoed out of the room, Mama and me. I told her about my dreams.

    "Mama," I said, "we gotta git ourselves a future. Git a nice place like this. And a Chevy car, too."

    "You're dreamin', child," she said.

    "Don't you got dreams, Mama?"

    "I got dreams," she said. "They're old."

    "Still, they're dreams," I said.

    "Lori Jean, old dreams is like fire. Once the flame is out, there ain't much left but the memory."

    "Oh, Mama," I said, "MeeMaw woulda never let that be so."

    Mama was getting herself an ill temper and it come out in her voice.

    "Well, MeeMaw ain't here no more now, is she?"

    "Maybe so, but my dreams are. They're right here," I said and pointed to my heart. "And that's where they're stayin." I stuck my chin right up in the air so she could see I was sorely determined. That soft look come back in her eyes I seen now and then.

    "Sure, honey," she said. "Sure." But it didn't seem like she believed it. I figured I'd have to make a believer out of her. I started working on a plan.

    While Melvin and Lexie settled into the trailer, Mama and me stayed on at their old place. Rent was paid 'til the end of the month. Mama was hoping Ray would come round by then sober, with talk of a job. Truth be known, I was, too. It was the end of October. We only had us a few days left to go and we'd have to move back home for sure whether he was drinking or not. We'd run out of places to stay.

    Melvin wanted Ray to come up in the world as much as I did. He kept getting on him about moving trailers for Mr. Jenkins. What a fine opportunity it was. A body could do real good getting started all over again. Peoples was buying them old trailers up like candy apples at a carnival. Mr. Jenkins had 'em painted all new like on the outside. Two men in white overhauls sprayed them with this hose that had silver paint come out the end. Lots of it sprayed right back on them and they was dotted with silver spots. Even their faces and their hair was spotted. Then Mz. Jenkins, she washed down the insides with suds and lye soap. They was pretty good inside then, pretty next to new.

    I was real excited, but Mama didn't seem to be, or was hiding it good if she was.

    "Oh, Mama," I said, "we're makin' our dreams."

    She kept saying, "We'll see. We'll see."

    "We gonna have us a new home in no time and then maybe that Chevy car and…"

    "Don't go countin' chickens 'fore they're hatched, Lori Jean," she said. "The rooster ain't even near the hen house yet." Roosters, chickens, hen house. We was getting a trailer, what'd I care about a barnyard, nohow? Ray hadn't exactly said he was gonna work for Mr. Jenkins or nothing but Melvin said he wasn't giving up. I knew I could count on Uncle Melvin.