Rubyfruit Jungle

by Rita Mae Brown

  “Ha! I got it. Now I’m gonna fix him good.”

  “I don’t see nothin’ but a pile of rabbit turds. What you gonna do? Come on and tell.”

  “Just watch, Leroy, and shut your trap.”

  I scooped up a handful of tiny, perfectly round rabbit turds and put them in the Sunmaid raisin box.

  “Remember the dried raisins that Florence had out on the back porch? You go on down there and steal me a handful and come right back here.”

  Leroy took off like a cement truck, his bulk shimmering in the afternoon sun. Within ten minutes he was back with a precious handful of honest raisins. I put them in the box and shook the contents hard. Then swearing Leroy to eternal secrecy, I started through the woods to Carmine’s fishpond to find Earl Stambach. He was down there all right, sitting there with a stick for a fishing pole waiting for nonexistent fish to bite a string with no bait on it. Earl was pretty stupid. The only way he made it through fourth grade was by brownnosing the teacher. We were now going into sixth grade and he still couldn’t get beyond five on the multiplication tables. Florence said it was because the Stambachs had so many kids that none of them ate enough, so Earl’s brain was starved. I didn’t much care why he was stupid. I was too busy hating him. He was all the time ratting on me in school because I was breaking this rule or that rule. Last time, I was sent to Mr. Beaver’s office for stealing tablets out of the supply room. That was one week before school ended and I nearly didn’t get out of fifth grade because of it. Earl might be stupid but he learned how to survive and he learned at my expense, the mealymouthed weasel.

  Earl heard us coming and looked up. A perplexed shadow ran across his face because he must have thought I was going to whip him for sure. So I smiled and said, “Hey, Earl, hey, you catching anything?”

  “No, but I got a big bite just five minutes ago. It must have been a tuna because it was sure big.”

  “Zat so? You must be a talented fisherman.”

  Earl giggled and his left eye twitched. He couldn’t figure this no way.

  “Earl, I been thinkin’ that we got to stop irritatin’ each other. Now you know I hate it when you stool on me, and I know you hate it when I get mad at you and lay for you on your way home from school. Why don’t we call a truce and be friends? I won’t beat you up if you don’t tell on me when we go back to school.”

  “Sure, Molly, sure. I’d like us to be friends and I swear on a stack of Bibles I won’t tell on you ever again.”

  “Well, here then, I brought you a little present to make it legal. I just got them at Mrs. Hershener’s cause I know you love raisins.”

  “Thanks, hey thanks.” Earl snatched the raisin box, tore off what was left of the top and opened his mouth, tipped the box over it and gulped half the contents in one motion. Leroy started to laugh. I grabbed his left arm and gave him a pinch that would have ruined an orange, “You hush your mouth or I’ll whip your ass,” I hissed.

  “I ain’t worried, Molly, I ain’t gonna laugh.”

  “What you two talking about?”

  “Oh, we was remarking how fast you eat, Earl. We ain’t never seen anyone eat quite so fast. Why you must be the fastest eater in all of York County. I bet you can finish off the rest of the box in half a second. Don’t you think so, Leroy?”

  “Yeah, Earl Stambach has got true speed. He even eats faster than my old man.”

  Earl bloated up with all this praise, and he ruffled out his feathers. “Oh, I can do it in less than half a second, you watch me.” One fierce swallow and the Sunmaid raisin box was tossed into the pond. Earl was beaming and feeling big on himself.

  “Earl, how did those raisins taste?”

  “Like raisins, some were mushy and bitter though.”

  “Mushy, now ain’t that the strangest thing?”

  Leroy exploded with laughter and fell down on the grass next to the pond. “Earl, you are so stupid. You know that, Earl, you are so stupid. Molly gave you a box full of rabbit turds mixed with raisins.”

  Earl’s face crumpled under the blow. “You didn’t do that, did you, Molly?”

  “You bet I did, you sneaking fart. You rat on me one more time and I’m gonna do a whole lot worse so you’d better lay off me, Earl Stambach. Let this be a lesson to you.” I took a threatening step toward him for effect but Earl was so green he wasn’t worried about the outside of his body. “I won’t ever tell on you again. I promise, I promise. Cross my heart and hope to die.”

  “Die’ is the right word, boy. You button your fat lip and if you even breathe a single word that I fed you rabbit turds, you’ve had it. Come on, Leroy, let’s leave him here full of shit.”

  We scurried over the pine needles and Leroy was laughing so hard he could barely keep his footing. I turned around on the rim of the hill to look at Earl down by the edge of the pond retching his guts out and crying at the same time. Fixed him good, I thought, I fixed him real good and he deserves it. How come I don’t feel good about it?

  “He ain’t gonna bother you no more, Molly, you got him this time.”

  “Shut up, Leroy, you shut up.”

  Leroy stopped for a minute and looked at me with amazement, then shrugged his shoulders and said, “We better get on back home before Carrie and the Mouth come looking for us.”

  The summer of my revenge was also the summer that the crops died and Jennifer died too. Jennifer was Leroy’s real mother. She was tall with a face like those ladies in Sunday School books. Her eyes were so big that when you looked at her that’s all you could see. I called her Aunt Jenna although she wasn’t really my aunt, but then none of them were my family. That summer was full of bad things, and it started with Ep’s getting trimmed with a knife.

  Couple of days after I got Earl good, Ep, Jennifer’s husband, came in the house covered with blood. It ran down his face and matted in the thick, curly, blond hair on his huge chest. Jennifer screamed when she saw him, and Florence ran to the kitchen for a bowl of cold water. For all her faults, Florence was always the first to grasp what was needed in any situation. My dad Carl hadn’t come home yet so just us kids and the women were there—with Ep soaking in blood and looking so mad I thought his brains would fry. Leroy’s eyes almost fell out of his head when he looked at his old man all busted up. Ep didn’t notice the two of us standing there, staring. Ted eased his father down into a chair and Florence came back into the room with basin, rags and an air of command. “Put your head back, Ep, and let me get the blood off your face. Molly, go in the pantry and get gauze and merthiolate. Leroy, go pump more water for your father. Jennifer, you sit down, you lookin’ pale as a ghost. Now, Ep, hold still. I know it hurts, but you just hold still. It ain’t gonna hurt nearly as bad as when you got stuck in the first place.”

  Ep gave in and let his head hang back, wincing each time the rag touched his wounds. He didn’t get busted, he got carved. “Ep,” Jennifer said low, “honey, what happened? You went and lost your temper again, didn’t you?”

  Ep’s anger started to drain away and he answered quietly, “Yes, I went and lost my head but I couldn’t help it and I didn’t have one drink, I swear, not one drink.”

  Florence gave him a dirty look but kept on with her business. “Molly, go over to your Aunt Jenna and get her to show you how to make a butterfly stitch out of adhesive tape. Make a lot, he’s got holes in him big as mouths.”

  Leroy padded back into the room and sat a bowl of water on the oil tablecloth. “Hey, Pop, you get him, the guy that got you? You get him, Pop?”

  “Leroy, I wish you wouldn’t ask those questions with such joy in your face,” Jennifer pleaded. She looked old, so old sometimes, and this was one of those times. The color seemed to have left her face and hidden somewhere. The lines around the top of her upper lip were drawn and it made her look strange. She was about two weeks away from having another baby. She looked like a grandmother that swallowed a weather balloon, and Carrie said that Jennifer was only thirty-three years old.

  “What was the
fight about this time?” she asked.

  “Fought about the boys with that bastard, Layton.” That word made me cringe. How come whenever a person was bad they called him a bastard? My face went hot and I didn’t dare look up from my butterfly bandages for fear someone would see my color. “Layton he come on into the shop all puffed up like a banty rooster about his son, Phil. Phil got an appointment to West Point he says; then he gives me this sly look and asks how my boys doing. Well, I told him both Ted and Leroy going to the Point too. After all, I’m a veteran, got a purple heart and they ain’t gonna refuse my boys when they are ready to go. They can’t turn away sons of men shot up in the war. So Layton he roars laughing and says that being the son of a fool got shot up in the war don’t mean they can go to so high a place as West Point. He says everyone on the hill knows my boys are so dumb they don’t know their ass from their elbow. Well Jenna, I couldn’t stand it no more. I told him his son Phil don’t deserve to belong to the army, that pansy sits down to piss … we got into it after that and I laid him to whaleshit. Then he pulls a toadsticker on me and well, there’s not more to tell.”

  “There’s a lot more to tell,” Florence intervened. “The cops gonna come down here and haul you off if you gonna get in fights like trash. How’d you leave Layton? You didn’t kill him, I hope?”

  “Nah, I didn’t kill him though I’d have liked to wrung his neck until his tongue hit the ground. Carl came by the shop on his way home and broke it up. He’s down there now making some kind of peace with Layton. You know Carl’s so good-natured he can get anyone feeling good again. He sent me home because I wasn’t any help.”

  Jennifer got up to check the snap beans cooking on the stove. Ep looked at the floor and studied his dusty shoes. “Honey,” he called out, “our boys ain’t stupid. They’ll do good, you wait. Seeing them do good will make me feel better than pounding on Layton anyway.”

  Jennifer turned from the bubbling water and walked back in the room to give him a kiss. “Sure, they’ll do all right, but I don’t think fighting is an example for them.” A sheepish grin took over Ep’s face, and he put his hand on her bloated belly and kissed her hand.

  Carl came through the door and made a big show out of tossing his gray worker’s cap on the coat rack. He made it and we all gave a cheer. Under his arm he had a big piece of meat wrapped in greasy butcher’s paper. His gold tooth in front glittered as he smiled. “Lamb stew tonight, folks. It was left over after the day and I brought it home. So get out the carrots and celery, we’re gonna have lamb stew.” Carrie sidled over to Carl and whispered in his ear. He patted her on the shoulder and told her everything was fine.

  I ran over and jumped up high to put my arms around his neck. “Come on, Daddy, swing me in a circle till I get dizzy.”

  “All right, pilot to copilot, here we go–o–o.” Carl worked hard and his robust, muscular body already had a taint of early age about it, different from Jennifer’s but bowed some way.

  After my swing, he went over to Ep and asked him how he was doing. Ep looked up to Carl the way boys look up to their fathers even though Carl was only ten years older than Ep.

  “Supper’s on the way, gang. Clear off this table and get these bloody rags out of the way,” Carrie announced later. The stew was brought steaming to the table and Leroy and I fought for a place next to Carl. Jennifer and Ep kept looking at each other over the table and Florence ran her mouth more than usual but there was no edge in her voice this time. She wanted to smooth things out. Leroy forgot to steal meat off my plate and Carrie laughed at everything Carl said. Carl talked more than I remembered him ever doing. He told stories about Sure Mike the burly man he worked for at the butcher shop, and he joked about the president of the United States. The grownups laughed at those jokes more than anything but they didn’t make sense to me. In school they told us that the president was the best man in the whole country but I knew my father was the best man in the whole country; the country didn’t know it, that’s all. So I guessed it was okay for Carl to make fun of the president. Anyway, how did I know the president was for real? I never saw him, just pictures in the paper and they can make those up. How do you know someone is real if you don’t see him?

  Jennifer was losing weight instead of gaining it like you’re supposed to do when you have a baby but she was so close to having the baby that no one paid much attention except Carrie. When it came time for Jennifer to go to the George Street Hospital, things seemed regular enough She had the baby, named Carl after Dad, but the baby only lived two days. She didn’t come home. The grownups paid less attention to us than usual. Coming in from the outhouse, I stopped on the porch and heard Florence, Carrie, and Ep. It was a hot, sticky night. Leroy was on the porch spitting watermelon seeds, so we both sat and listened.

  Ep’s voice sounded like a fuzzy radio show. He sounded worse than when he got cut up. “Carrie, she never told me about no pains. She never told me anything. If she’d let me know how she was feeling, I’d have got her to a doctor.”

  Florence answered him in a calm voice that was even stern, “My daughter, Jennifer, never was one to put herself first. She figured doctors ran too high and whatever was the matter with her had to do with the baby, so it’d be soon gone. Don’t blame yourself, Ep. She did what she thought was right and God knows with all of us working we can’t make hardly enough to keep going. She was thinking about that.”

  “I’m her husband. She should have told me. It’s my duty to know.”

  Carrie came in on it. “Women often get ailments they keep from their men. Jennifer was quieter than most that way. She mentioned to me that she had pains but how were any of us to know she’s shot through with cancer? She didn’t know. You don’t know things like that.”

  “She’s going to die. I know she’s going to die. When it’s all through you like that, you can’t live.”

  “No, there’s no way she can live. These things are in the hands of the Lord.” Florence was resolute. Fate was fate. If God wanted Jennifer then he would have her. Carrie seconded the motion. “The Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away.” It’s not our business, these things, birth and death. We have to keep going on.”

  Leroy looked at me and clutched my arm. “Molly, Molly what does it mean that Mom’s got cancer? What are they talking about? Tell me what they’re talking about.”

  “I don’t know, Leroy. They say Aunt Jenna’s gonna die.” My throat hurt, there was a burning lump in it and I held onto Leroy’s hand and whispered, “Don’t let them know we heard. Nothin’ we can do except stay out of their way and see what happens. Maybe it’s a mistake and she’ll be home soon. People make mistakes sometimes.” Leroy started to cry and I took him out by the lima beans so nobody would hear either of us. Leroy sobbed, “I don’t want my mom to die.” He cried himself sick and then fell asleep. Even the mosquitoes didn’t bother him. After awhile Carrie called us to come in, so I got him up and half carried fat, lumpy Leroy back to the house to his little iron bed. Leroy slept in the same room with Ted, and I slept with Carrie and Carl in my own bed. I’d rather have been in there with Leroy, but people said it wasn’t right, but that made no sense to me at all, especially tonight. “Mom, let me stay in here with Leroy, just for tonight, Mom, please?”

  “No, you’re not sleeping in here with the boys and Ted big enough so his voice is changing. You come where you belong. When you get older you’ll understand.” She hauled me off and I took one last look at poor Leroy, eyes red and swollen and groggy. He was too tired to protest and fell back into a stupor.

  He must have told Ted because next day Ted was more withdrawn than usual and his eyes looked red too.

  Within a week Jenna was gone. The funeral was jammed with the entire population of the Hollow, and people were impressed with the flowers. Ep busted himself on the casket. He got the best there was and nobody could talk him out of it. If his wife was going to be dead, then she was going to be dead right, he said. Florence took charge of everything. Leroy, Ted and
I were banished during the preparations and that was fine with us. Everybody got all dressed up to honor the dead. Leroy wore a bow tie, Ted wore a string tie, and Daddy and Ep had long ties on and coats that didn’t match their trousers, but coats just the same. Carrie rigged me in a horrible dress full of itchy crinolines and patent leather shoes. At least Jennifer was beyond being tormented by itchy dresses. I thought I was worse off than the corpse. The service went on and on, the preacher got carried away with himself over the casket as he talked about the joys of heaven. When they lowered the gleaming box into the ground, Florence swooned and gasped, “My baby.” Carl grabbed her and held her up. Ep had Ted and Leroy by the hand, and he never moved a muscle. He stared straight into that hole and never said a word. Leroy was trying hard not to start bawling again, and I stared at the cowlick on back of his slicked-down hair so as not to start crying myself and show up for a big sissy. The dress didn’t help none, it’s easier to cry in a dress anyway.

  After the casket was in the ground we all went back to the house. Neighbors and relatives from as far away as Harrisburg had come and they brought food. I don’t know why, because no one felt like eating. Ep received people with a pained dignity and Florence almost enjoyed the attention she was getting as mother of the deceased but it was mixed with sorrow. So much of what Florence did was mixed that way.

  Once it got dark, people started to clear out and finally we were left to ourselves. Carrie set the table to try to get us kids to eat. Carl passed the fruit bread and put a hunk on my plate. “The candied cherries are cut up in little red pieces. Take a bite, it’s real good.”

  “I don’t wanna eat, Daddy. I’m not hungry.” I pushed the food around on my plate to make it look as though I’d had some. After a proper amount of time the table was cleared and we went off to bed.