Nether Regions

by Nat Burns

  Chapter Eight

  Bayou water slapped with gentle insistence against the south side of Salamander House. Sophie listened intently for a few minutes to see if there was a message there. She determined the slapping was just a friendly hello and turned her attention back to Stephen Combs’ words.

  “I don’t know, Clary,” he was saying as his teeth and tongue worried a stringy piece of celery. “I could probably take it a little better if he was honest. It’s the lying that gets to me.”

  “No, you couldn’t,” Sophie interjected. She was separating leaf lettuce from its stalk and did not look at him as she spoke. “And it’s the cheating that is getting to you too. That and the fact he is choosing someone else over you time and again.”

  “But that’s just it, he’s still with me.” He leaned toward her with avid curiosity, still chewing. “What’s that about?”

  Clary, carefully washing watercress at the sink, answered. “It’s just not something we can understand. Some people are plain born unfaithful. I think your Righteous is one of them.”

  “You’ve known him longer than me. Have you ever known him to be with just one person?” Stephen asked quietly.

  Sophie snorted before Clary could answer and Clary gave her a sour look.

  “Hell, the only person he’s ever settled with is you, Stephen. I remember when you came to town driving that beat-up Chevy pickup. He thought the sun rose and set in you. Didn’t he, Sophie?”

  “Umhm,” Sophie agreed halfheartedly. “I remember how it was when they first saw one another. All of a sudden it was like the rest of us weren’t there anymore.”

  Stephen laughed hollowly. “Lord, he was impressive. I remember remarking on how wide his cheekbones were and wondering about his ancestry.”

  “You mean like having Eskimo or Indian blood?” Clary placed a stack of plates on the table.

  “Right.” Stephen moved lazily to spread them across the table. “You don’t see black people with that wide a face. He has to have something else mixed in.”

  “What does he say?” Sophie asked as she studied Clary’s wide cheekbones.

  Stephen shrugged and lifted a handful of forks. “Says he doesn’t know. His grandparents died when he was a boy so what little bit of knowledge they had was lost.”

  “Shame,” said Beulah, laying her hand over her heart in a gesture of remembrance for those who had passed on.

  Stephen’s face hardened. “What I want to know is why he feels like it’s okay to have sex with all the little chickies he runs with.”

  “It’s an easy thing,” explained Sophie. “Get someone new to rub the rod a little, to relieve the pressure. I don’t think there’s love involved. Sensuality and passion of a sort, yes, but it’s not like what you two have.”

  “I know,” Stephen sighed. “It doesn’t make it right, though.”

  “No, but sometimes it’s not up to us to know why someone does what he does. Maybe our job is just to love who we love.”

  “There’s no way to tell you how I feel,” Stephen said abruptly. His fingers began fretting a bowl of Washington State apples that Clary had put out that morning.

  “You’re going to bruise them,” Sophie chided softly, never taking her eyes from her task.

  “I know how you feel,” Beulah said quietly.

  Early June in the Alabama swamp means bugs and lots of them. Beulah sat at the kitchen door, thoughtfully twisting a thread pulled from her sweater and watching the poetry as the insect tribes spiraled around one another in a joyful frenzy of procreation. “You think no man ever cheated on me? I can tell you plenty about how you feel. Why do you think I’ve been hitched so many times? I didn’t get tired of that many men; they just found new pussy more appealing.”

  “Miss Cofe,” Clary scolded. She turned from the sink, eyes wide. “You know better than to say such.”

  “But it’s true,” Beulah protested.

  “True or not, there’s no need for vulgarity.”

  Beulah smiled, her mouth filled with stars in the sudden light of the kitchen as she turned her head and radiance caught her golden tooth. Though she was old, almost ninety by the last guess, her grin revealed the dimpled energy of a young, budding woman. “What’s the matter Clary? Ain’t you got no pussy?”

  “She does, I can vouch for it,” Sophie chimed in, getting into the spirit of play.

  Clary shot Sophie a glance full of ill will. “I leave my pussy at home and that’s where I’ll keep her, thank you.”

  “I’m gonna tell Salty you said that. He’ll think he’s the luckiest man.”

  “What did I say?” Clary spread her wet hands in a gesture of innocence, her round, brown features childlike.

  “Y’all stop,” Stephen said. “I come here for advice and y’all act like fools.”

  “Just calm yourself, honey,” Beulah said, her voice gentle. “No need to fret. What’s the boy up to now?”

  Stephen squirmed. “There’s this new boy, just a baby. Chili Bowling saw them together and told me about it, and I swear Righteous is gonna leave me for him.

  “Now, Stephen, you said that about the last one, that black boy from Minion.”

  “Yes,” Stephen agreed, as if the point he was making was the most sensible thing. “And he almost did.”

  Tears welled in his eyes and he lifted his hands to hide the emotion. “I just don’t know what’s wrong with me. Why can’t he stay in our bed?”

  “There’s nothing wrong with you, boy. He’s only working through his own purpose. What’s up to you is whether you tolerate it or not.” Beulah rolled her chair closer and patted his arm with hands that had birthed and buried a large portion of Redstar. “If you love him enough, you’ll wait for him to come around.”

  “It’s not that simple,” he replied with an annoyed twist of his shoulders.

  Sophie turned from the salad she was combining and studied him. There was a shift in energy, and it disturbed her normal complacency. She too wondered why Righteous, a tall, skinny, not particularly attractive black man, wouldn’t stay at home. Stephen with his blond hair, tanned, even features and muscular build was certainly as good as or better than the bar trash he strayed with. Stephen always appeared perfectly attired as well. Even today, knocking around with friends, he wore a polo shirt and pressed khaki shorts. Brown leather loafers, gently worn, covered his sockless feet.

  “Of course it’s that simple, Stephen,” she said gently. “First you need to talk to him honestly and tell him exactly how you feel about what he’s doing to your life. Then, if he won’t stop, knowing how you feel about it, then you have to decide whether you leave or stay. It is that simple.”

  Stephen stared at Sophie. She saw his face change as he realized the truth of her words. He had no defense and merely tucked his head.

  Clary turned in time to see the exchange. “How is Righteous doing overall, Stephen? Is he still working steady?”

  “Yeah, at Thirsty’s.”

  “He’s still there at the Thirsty Rogue. That’s good.” Clary smiled and nodded at him.

  “But that’s the thing. Why won’t he look for another job? One that doesn’t have all those young boys around? He obviously can’t resist them.”

  “Have you told him that? About the job and what it’s doing to y’all’s relationship?” Clary turned back to the sink before he could answer.

  “Oh yeah. We argue about it every few days it seems. It ain’t doing a bit of good. He likes the job.”

  “He is a good bartender, I hear,” Beulah offered. “Amos Willis told me Righteous never lets a customer go dry.”

  “I’m sure,” Stephen agreed bitterly.

  Clary turned off the faucet with an angry snap. “Give the boy some credit if you do love him. The way you say you do. What he’s doing to you is all wrong, we all know, but it’s like being hooked on booze. Something he fell into and can’t help.”

  “And we’d like to say that if he just didn’t drink, everything would be okay, li
ke not working at Thirsty’s would fix it all,” Sophie added.

  Silence fell, populated only by the whine of the insects and whisper of the water outside. Beulah sighed once and Clary moved to sit next to them at the table. She lifted a glass of iced tea to her lips.

  Stephen sat sullen, studying the watered texture of the sweet tea in his own glass. Sophie watched him, knowing that his dignity was slipping away and that he felt powerless to prevent it.

  “Stephen?” Sophie asked.

  “Yeah.” He sighed and sat back in his chair. “I just don’t like being made a fool of, that’s all.”

  “I know,” Sophie agreed. “It’s in your power to change that. You can’t change him, you know.”

  “I know. I also know I can’t take much more. I won’t take much more.”

  Beulah turned to look at him and rolled her chair away from his side and closer to the table. She began laying silverware out next to the plates. “Whatever you decide, it’ll be all right. We’ll still feed you. That’ll never change.”

  It took a few minutes for the gravity to lift but when it did, Sophie let go a sigh of relief. Clary brought the tuna salad, the potato salad and the watermelon from the refrigerator, balancing the platters precariously until Stephen leaped to take the melon and place it on the table. Sophie brought the pitcher of mint tea and arranged the tossed salad next to the selection of dressings.

  “I’ll get the ice,” Clary muttered as she opened the freezer.

  “Nothing hot?” Stephen asked.

  “Fried chicken from Albert’s. Here, want a leg?” Beulah handed him the bowl.

  “You know I don’t like dark meat, Grandam. How long I been coming here? You should know that by now.”

  Sophie was the first to laugh, puzzling everyone. Gradually the other women got it and laughed as they settled themselves at the table. Stephen watched them, bewildered until he got the joke and blushed, stuffing bread into his mouth.

  “Dark meat. I get it,” he said, his wry expression setting the women laughing helplessly.

  Sophie leaned back in her chair and studied them. Stephen, as usual, was eating with single-minded purpose, heaping potato salad onto his plate. Grandam was picking at a golden chicken thigh, but Sophie could tell she was far away. She’d been slipping away lately and Sophie knew it was almost time for her to pass on. Her body was the only thing anchoring her here and even that was getting smaller and lighter. It was probably a matter of months and it saddened her. She’d be mighty lonely without this old woman who knew her inside and out. It would take years before someone else could catch on to all that Sophie was. Most people these days plain weren’t interested; they were moving to a faster beat that she wasn’t sure she wanted to share.

  “Can I get you anything, Sophie, honey?” Clary asked, leaning across the table and touching her hand.

  “No, no, I’m fine. You go ahead.” Sophie smiled to put the other woman at ease.

  Clary. There’d always be Clary. Though Grandam had saved Clary’s mother’s leg more than thirty years ago, Clary had worked for them since and that would never change. She wouldn’t accept money, either, a good thing as sometimes there just wasn’t enough of that to go around, but she got at least two meals there every day and sometimes stayed over in the room attached out back. These days she was more interested in going home to the small waterborne house left by her mother who had died peacefully in her sleep last year.

  Clary met Salty Davis while shopping at Biggen’s Grocery in Goshen. Clary went there every month, when Grandam’s check came, or in between if they had a real run on amulets, to buy the staples not provided by the bayou families they helped. Clary had once told Sophie, in an embarrassed whisper, that she and Salty felt drawn to one another as soon as they met.

  Salty, a shy, widowed, handsome man of color, worked at Biggen’s as a cashier, and Clary found herself more often than not checking out in his line, even if it was longer than the others. Salty always had an inviting smile coupled with friendly conversation and eventually he’d gotten up the nerve to ask Clary out for a drink. They’d gone to a little bar owned by Sophie’s friend, Angie Bibb. Angie later told Sophie that Salty and Clary were a match made in heaven. Sophie tended to feel the same way. Salty’s two girls, Sissy, now thirteen, and Macy, five, had become family almost overnight and fit as if they’d been there forever.

  Sophie sighed. She was truly blessed. She’d never gone hungry. Never had any real hardship. And her life was filled with people who cared for her and, even better, allowed her to care for them.

  Leaning forward, she took a spoonful of everything. The potatoes in the salad had come from the Paisley family. She had lanced Timmy’s boils and left with a sack of last year’s shed potatoes. The watercress had come from Dame Ada far over to the east side of the bayou. She had called Sophie out for the recurring ringworm that no amount of treatment seemed to help. Sophie believed it was the piglets she let roam about her cabin. She was messing with them all the time, but no matter how Sophie warned her to leave them alone, she just wouldn’t.

  The watermelon had come from Franklin Colby, whose wife Diane had been delivered of a healthy boy last week, and the leaf lettuce and tomatoes had been left at the door, no doubt a gift from one of the many people they’d helped during the years.

  Yes, life was good. Sophie realized this but she couldn’t help the longing that filled her heart. It seemed that, although she dealt with people all day every day, she walked alone. There didn’t seem to be anyone who was hers and hers alone.

  Chapter Nine

  Righteous strolled along Garth Street, his right hand twitching as he remembered the incredibly soft touch of the boy. The boy. Righteous could not even remember his name. He paused on the asphalt as a shiny Ford and a rusted-out pickup slid by. He thrust his hips gently. Righteous felt the boy all over him. Sweet little white boy with eyelashes out to there.

  He thought of Stephen, who had eyelashes just as long and his demeanor changed. Guilt gnawed at his stomach, churning the liquor inside. He sighed sadly and moved on. Rounding the corner, he fished keys from his pocket and plopped into his cold Ford. Sitting silently still in the early morning coolness, he allowed Stephen’s sweetness to fill his mind. He saw Stephen’s face but oddly enough it wasn’t wearing the frown of disapproval that he saw so often these days, but rather the gentle, sweet smile from the days when they’d honeymooned in Bali two years ago.

  Stephen had to be the handsomest, most loving man Righteous had ever met, and he could not understand why he chased the boys when he had Stephen at home. It made no sense. To keep hurting his lover this way was akin to abuse. Righteous set his lips in a grim line, vowing to behave. And to make sure Stephen never found out for sure. What he did not know wouldn’t hurt him.

  He sighed, filled with self-loathing. He pulled his car onto Garth and headed slowly south along Route 46 toward Redstar. Soon Goshen’s lights faded behind him. His mind wove a kind of poetry as he thought of the sexual exploits of the past week. If truth be told, Righteous was bored with the easy access to sex that working at Thirsty’s gave him. Still, he had been doing this a long time and he knew the chickie would go on to someone else, someone who held the power of the moment. Righteous would fade away and there would be someone new for both of them. It was like a game of musical chairs. The only constant in his life was Stephen, and yet he seemed hell-bent on ruining that.

  He thought of his parents, his mother killing his father with the hoodoo and drinking herself into a dead liver from the guilt of it all. They’d gone before he was twelve, and what he’d learned about relationships from them could fit in his grandmother’s thimble. His grandma and grandpa had done all right, together forty years before the big storm had washed them away. By then he was on his own and sleeping with the uncle of one of his friends from school. Then he’d met Stephen. Although the attraction had been fast and fierce, their relationship had grown slow, with Righteous stepping back periodically into his old comf
ortable life with the uncle. He’d never been faithful to Stephen, really faithful, even though they had been together almost three years.

  The lights of Redstar appeared out of the country blackness, and Righteous straightened himself in the seat. He quieted his feelings of guilt and inadequacy and pulled up in front of the trailer that he and Stephen rented from Old Man Beard.

  Stephen had left the little lamp in the living room switched on for him. He always offered such kind gestures.

  Righteous entered quietly and stepped into the bathroom to strip and wash up. Moments later he slid into the warm bed next to Stephen. Stephen turned and pressed a sleepy kiss to Righteous’s forehead then turned back to cuddle into his pillow. Righteous held him close, spoon-fashion, and wanted to cry from the beautiful way they felt together.

  Chapter Ten

  Morning came too soon. Delora heard Rosalie clattering dishes in the kitchen and quickly pulled herself from the bed and into an old chenille robe.

  Rosalie James was still pretty even though her weight was pushing four hundred pounds. Her face was cherubic in its frame of jowl; this face was the one thing that allowed Delora to continue to harbor some feeling of affection for her foster mother. Rosalie had been a harsh mother, not easy to please and making no bones about the fact she’d only taken in Delora and the other children for the monthly stipends provided by the state. Her tone, when she said it, often made Delora wish she had been two children left orphaned instead of only one.

  Rosalie’s lips writhed around a piece of cold bagel as she eyed Delora with judging eyes. “Best get him up now. You know I can’t be helping him with my back the way it is.”

  “Yes, Mama,” Delora said, gulping the orange juice she’d poured while standing at the refrigerator. The cold acid threatened to crawl back up her esophagus as she moved along the hallway. Dark and dim, with peeling wallpaper that smelled of old smoke, the hallway reminded Delora of pounding fights with her foster sisters, sisters who had grown to lanky womanhood and gone off with greasy men with names like Chuck and Billy Ray. These sisters came back periodically, with black eyes and broken teeth. Mama Rosalie, as she had done with Delora, would take them back into the fold and charge them high rent until they found a new man and a new home. It was her duty, after all.