“They was talking, believe me,” Dill says.
Billy comes out on the porch jangling my money in her hand. It don’t sound like three quarters, though.
“I found a silver dollar too,” she says.
I look over at June who is looking at me. The dollar is the first and the last of June’s leg money. “Let yr Uncle keep his old silver dollar for a little while longer,” I tell Billy.
A smile passes over June’s face before a new thought comes to her and she looks down at the floor. “We’ll need that dollar for our own bus fare when we head up after you tomorrow,” she says. And she’s right.
Billy gives me the dollar. “I’ma pack,” she says going inside. June clumps after her to help out.
Dill walks down the steps slow-like, taking one step at a time, placing one foot on the step then the other, standing still, then moving down the next step until she is standing flat on the ground.
“Guess you all won’t be going to LaJunta then,” Dill says.
“Don’t look like it,” I says.
“I shoulda brought Willa back here and buried her in the first place,” Dill says, “then we wouldn’t be worrying about her getting paved over.”
“Water under the bridge,” I says.
“Them diamonds and pearls woulda been nice.”
“Whoever said you can’t take it witchu didn’t know my sister,” I says.
“Willa Mae sure was something,” Dill says, her voice going funny, sad or mad, I can’t tell which.
I had plans that depended on someday getting the treasure my sister had left us. A new church maybe. But maybe not. Maybe just something easier, like a regular house instead of a trailer and land that we owned outright. I feel those plans move away from me, out of my reach. But there’s something I wanted more than a house, something I didn’t know I wanted more until now. My parents are buried in the colored section of the Butler County cemetery and my mind had planned, secretly, without me actually thinking about it, to lay Willa Mae alongside them. It woulda been nice, visiting them all at once.
If I was still preaching I would have something to say about the rightness of the Way and the roughness of the Road, but I just let out a heavy breath.
“How tall you, Dill?” I ask.
“Same as I was last time you wanted to know.”
Dill is over six feet.
“You look like you growd.”
“I’m too old to grow any taller,” she says, hand in her pocket again, fiddling. “Only way I’m growing is out.” But Dill is as tall as she is lean. Nothing ladylike on her at all.
“I’ll tell you when the piglets get weaned,” Dill says. “Then you can come by and pick one out.”
“Sounds good to me,” I says.
“Billy getting married’ll shut a lot of folks’ mouths,” Dill says. She gets in her truck and goes, honking her horn at Laz as she passes him still coming down the road.
Laz shoulda been here by now. He musta stopped.
People been talking all right. June ain’t heard nothing but I know better. They been talking in the beauty shop and in the barbershop, when they get they dry goods, and when they go over to Atchity’s to order from Sears Roebuck. When they come by here to get gasoline, they catch a look if they’re lucky, and tuck away what they seed to gnaw over together in public places, or in they own homes, after the dinner dishes have been cleared away. Old biddies talk. Men talk. Fathers and mothers talk. Billy Beede and her baby-belly and no husband. Billy Beede and Billy Beede’s bad luck: father-she-ain’t-never-knowd run off and dead probably; mother run wild and dead certainly; young bastard girl child tooked in by dirt-poor filling-station-running childless churchless minister Uncle and one-legged crutch-hopping Aunt. Girl growd almost to womanhood, also growd as big as a house with no ring on her finger and no man in sight. Old biddies talk and feel a ripple of delight coming from the satisfaction that they think they seed it coming. Men feel a ripple too. Snipes, Snopes, Snaps? They can’t be sure but one of them seen Billy run across the road without looking for cars to jump into the fella’s arms. None of them cept Laz never gived Billy the time of day but now they all rippling when they think of her and wish they gals and they wives would run across the road towards them like that. They’ve all seen Snipes’ yellow car.
While the father and mother talk over dinner, their children, all born within the confines of marriage, hang around the doorjambs, standing just out of sight, listening. The good girls savor the details of Billy’s business (her swole belly, the housedresses she wears these days that fit tight around the middle). The good boys strain to overhear and savor what, if I was in the pulpit, I would call the intimacies of unmarried intercourse. Those good boys overhear the details with pleasure but hope not to hear their own names mentioned among the lists of possible fathers. Being forced to marry a Beede, for the most part, is pretty bad.
I get an idea that June should ride with Billy tomorrow and I’ll come up alone on Friday. I holler my plan into the house.
“Thanks, but Snipes wants just me to come tomorrow,” Billy hollers back.
Laz has come up in the yard. He’s laying between the two gas pumps with his hands acrosst his chest.
“Someone’s gonna drive up and run over your head, Laz,” I says.
He don’t move for a minute then he gets up and comes to sit on the porch. Laz has a steady way about him. He don’t walk too fast but he walks steady. Most days I wish he was the baby’s daddy. Some days I’m glad he ain’t.
“She gone yet?” he asks.
“She’ll leave on the six A.M. bus.”
He asks if he can tell her goodbye and walks inside, staying just a minute then coming back out.
“She’s got a pearl earring around her neck on a string,” he says.
“One of Willa Mae’s fakes,” I says.
“She says it’ll match her wedding dress,” Laz says.
“I guess it will,” I says.
“I could give her a ride,” Laz says. Texhoma is about four hundred miles to the north. Eight or nine hours drive.
“Billy,” I says, turning my head to holler through the office and into the trailer where June’s got her own hope chest open and is giving Billy things for her trip, “Laz says he’ll give you a ride.”
Me and Laz both sit there waiting for her to holler back.
“Good idea, Laz,” I says. “I didn’t want her showing up to Snipes’ people, getting off a bus.”
Billy hollers back, “I’d rather show up in a bus than in a hearse.”
Laz leans against the porch rail. “I’ll ask my father if I can drive the sedan,” he says, getting up to walk back home and ask even though we both know Israel Jackson ain’t gonna let Laz take the sedan nowheres.
A girl with a baby-belly and no husband makes folks sweat. Wives look sharp at they men, then, finding no fault related to the crime at hand, look even sharper at they sons. Men look at themselves and worry. They find relief in the facts of life: a lustful thought carries no spunk. Everybody looks in their doorways and nobody sees me standing there with my shotgun demanding justice. I wanted to know who I was after before I went shooting.
“Who the daddy?” I asked Billy. This was two months ago. If it had been Laz, he woulda taken responsibility already.
“No one you know,” she said.
“I’ll make him do right by you,” I said.
“Let it alone,” she said. “He loves me. It’ll be all right if you just let it alone.”
So I let it alone and I waited. Then I seen him come up in his yellow car and I seen her run across the road without looking.
I’ve always wondered what happens when you don’t got a mother. Without a mother you don’t get born. But after birth, what then? Over the past six years, watching Billy come up, I’ve had several different thoughts on the subject. Several things happen, and different people take them in different ways. Or maybe just one thing happens and it happens differently to each person it happens to. A mother helps a chi
ld learn the basics. Billy don’t know the basics. Basic: don’t go opening yr legs for a man who ain’t yr husband lest you wanna be called hot trash.
People will talk. Let them talk. I can bear it. I am a Beede. I am a Beede so I can bear the people talking. I can bear pumping gas for Sanderson, I can bear losing my church. June Flowers is a Beede by marriage, not birth, so what June Flowers can bear is another story. I guess what Billy do or don’t do, and what she get or don’t get, is no more than just part of the Plan.
BILLY BEEDE
Lots of buses pass by Lincoln but most don’t stop. Buses stop in Midland, two different ones at five A.M., one going east to Dallas and the other west all the way to Hollywood, California. An hour and a half after they go through, two more stop. One heading southeast towards Galveston and the other one, the one heading north, passes through Texhoma. The north one’s the one I need to get. There’s a old rattling bus that stops in front of Mr. Bub Atchity’s at six every morning, except for Sunday. It’ll get you to Midland in time for your connection. Miss that rattling bus and you gotta walk.
“Texhoma ain’t much bigger than Lincoln,” June says. She got one of her maps folded neatly to the spot.
Bub Atchity’s standing in the doorway of his store wearing his nightshirt under the white doctor’s coat that he puts on when he sells stuff like Scott’s Emulsion. Laz says it ain’t a doctor’s coat but a dentist’s, cause it has the buttons along the shoulder and it hangs just to his hip. Doctor or dentist’s coat Mr. Atchity’s wearing it over his nightshirt with his bare feet and legs poking out underneath. “I’m telling you it stops there,” Atchity says.
“June’s just making sure,” Uncle Teddy says. I stand between them, not saying nothing.
“Come on in and buy a ticket, goddamnit,” Atchity says, retreating inside to write it up.
I give Uncle Teddy my money so it’ll look like he’s treating.
“You be sweet up there with Snipes and his family,” Uncle Teddy says, “so when yr aunt and me come up there tomorrow, we won’t have to impress, we can, you know, just be ourselves.” He looks at me like me being sweet will be hard, but I’m gonna be married so being sweet will come naturally.
“Tomorrow when you get there, head straight to the courthouse,” I tell them. “Me and Mr. Snipes and everybody’ll be waiting for you.”
“That pearl earring looks nice how you’re wearing it,” Uncle Teddy tells me.
“We’re proud of you, Billy,” June says. She pets me on the shoulder and I smile. She’s got a straw hat on, hiding her hair.
“I forgot to do yr hair,” I says.
“I got a pretty scarf I can wear till you get to it,” she says.
“You gonna buy a ticket or you gonna let me go back to bed?” Atchity hollers from inside.
“We’ll take one to Texhoma. One-way, please,” I say into the darkness of his store.
“I’m writing it up,” Atchity yells.
“You want some candy or something?” Uncle Teddy asks me.
“I’m all right with the chicken,” I say, holding up the sack, already a little greasy from the two chicken wings Aunt June fixed.
“Some candy’d go good with it,” Uncle Teddy says and goes inside.
June and me stand there. June’s leaning on her crutch. She lent me her own grip to put my things in. A small brown suitcase with the leather sides all cracked and sun-burned, but the clasps and handle still good. The one she had her everyday things in when her family was traveling to California. I got my own pocketbook. It’s brown too.
“I’d like to get my grip back someday,” Aunt June says.
“Clifton’s gonna get me all new luggage for the honeymoon,” I says.
“Where’s he taking you?”
“It’s a surprise,” I says. I don’t tell her he ain’t mentioned the rings or the honeymoon. “He’s been talking about going someplace exciting. Up to Chicago maybe,” I says.
We stand there quiet, listening and watching for the bus.
“If this bus is late y’ll miss yr connection,” Aunt June says.
“It won’t be late,” I says.
The day is coming up, sunlight crawling up over Miz Montgomery’s House of Style, where I had me a job once. The sun gets to the top of her place and splashes down main street, what on maps is called Sanderson Boulevard but I only ever heard one person call it that out loud. Main Bully, most people say. When Mr. Sanderson comes by every month to check up on how Uncle Teddy’s pumping his gas, he says Sanderson Boulevard a lot. We drove down Sanderson Boulevard to get here. We won’t be taking Sanderson Boulevard home, though. Sanderson Boulevard used to be quite a street but now it needs repaving. Like he’s making up reasons why to say it. And Uncle Teddy nods at Mr. Sanderson and Aunt June looks blank and I want to tell Mr. Sanderson that him and his Sanderson Boulevard can go to hell but Uncle Teddy would just tell me to watch my mouth. Mother told me once that the street’s named for Mr. Sanderson’s father’s father, Gustav Sanderson, who founded Lincoln. Mother said that Mr. Gustav coulda named the town after himself but he wanted to show how fair he was so he named his town after Abraham Lincoln instead. When me and Mother was living with Dill, we seen the younger Mr. Sanderson walking down the sidewalk. He expected us to get off the sidewalk for him and his wife but Mother told him to kiss her behind.
Aunt June shields her eyes from the sun so she can see Main Bully better, looking for the bus. From inside the store I can hear Uncle Teddy paying for my ticket and getting some candy. “Spot me a Baby Ruth,” he says.
“Oh, hell,” Bub Atchity goes.
“Me and June gonna buy two tickets from you tomorrow,” Uncle Teddy says.
“Round-trip tickets too,” June adds, turning her head to yell the news inside.
“Why don’t you buy em right now?” Atchity goes.
“We ain’t leaving until tomorrow morning,” Teddy says.
June leans forward a little on one crutch, getting a better look down the street. The bus will come from the west, from where the night is headed, all bunched up like a dark-blue quilt.
“That bus is late,” June says.
“We could go in and sit and wait,” I says.
“If we inside when it comes it might not stop,” June says.
I used to think that crutch under her arm hurt, but when she don’t wear sleeves you can see she got a patch of skin ringing her armpit, darker than the rest. She says the dark patch is why the crutch don’t hurt, even though she had the dark patch from since she was born and only lost her leg when she was my age. She says it was like something inside her knew she was gonna need that funny-looking skin.
“You leaving tomorrow you should buy yr ticket now,” Atchity says. “Save yrself the inconvenience waking me up at five in the morning.”
“You up anyhow,” Uncle Teddy says and the two of them laugh. Mr. Atchity, he got eight children and Mrs. Atchity is still nice-looking.
When the bus pulls up, the Driver, a gangly white man with red-rimmed eyes, gets out. He stands at attention like he’s in the army or something.
“Link-on!” the Driver barks. Where his shirt is open at the collar there’s a sunburn. I give Aunt June a hug, surprising us both.
“Don’t forget to eat,” she says.
The Driver opens up the underside of the bus, like the belly of a big cow. Uncle Teddy takes my grip and slides it neatly underneath. I hold on to my dress box and food, letting Teddy give the Driver my ticket and help me get on. When I get up the bus steps and turn to wave goodbye Uncle Teddy’s right behind me.
“Here go yr candy,” he says, handing me the Baby Ruth he got.
He’s standing on the steps and I’m standing at the Driver’s seat. The Driver slams the belly-door and comes to get on but can’t. Uncle Teddy’s in his way.
I hold on tight to the dress box and the candy and the chicken.
Uncle Teddy turns toward the Driver, looking down on him from his steps-perch. He holds his pointer finger
in the air like he’s testing the wind direction or the Driver’s worth.
“I don’t want no Freedom Riders, now,” the Driver says, looking past Uncle Teddy to get a better look at me.
“My niece is going to meet her husband up in Texhoma,” Teddy says, establishing me.
The Driver’s face relaxes. “All aboard!” he yells from his place in the dirt.
“Tomorrow me and my wife June’ll be riding with you,” Teddy says.
“Tomorrow ain’t today,” the Driver says, “I got a schedule to keep.”
“You best sit towards the back,” Uncle Teddy whispers to me.
“Yes, sir,” I says.
He gives me a kiss on the forehead. Something he ain’t never done. The kiss is wet. Not practiced. He gets out the bus, walking down the steps backwards. The Driver moves in quick, taking his seat. Outside, Uncle and Aunt stand together. She leans against him a little.
“Take your seat,” the Driver says.
I walk back, past the empty seats up front, toward the back. Three other folks back there. All men. All sleeping.
There’s an empty seat on the side of the bus that looks out over to the other side of the Main Bully, over at Miz Montgomery’s side. I sit there, close to the window, looking across the double rows of seats, across the body of a sleeping man, his long legs unfolding out into the aisle, his head back and mouth open, but not snoring. Through his window I watch June and Teddy searching the windows for my face. The Driver cuts the engine on.
“This is a Mid-land-bound bus, now!” the Driver yells. No one wakes up. “Midland!” he yells again.
Uncle Teddy runs around the back of the bus, just reaching my side before we take off. He squints up his eyes, finding me through the window, and waves hard, hard enough for both him and June. I wave back at him, and as I look out across the aisle I see June, still looking for me on the other side, squinching up her eyes and leaning harder on her crutch, not seeing me but waving anyway.
We go.
East to Monahans then Odessa then Midland. In Midland the north-bound bus is waiting for us. It’s silver like a icebox, with the running dog painted on the side. I could try sitting in the front, where the view’s better, but Uncle Teddy’s right, that could cause trouble. Sitting in the back’s easier and I don’t mind. The driver says we gonna be in Texhoma by three. I got my dress in my lap, right where I can see it. The box is pretty and white with a red long-stemmed rose sculptured on the cover, such a nice-looking box someone might try to steal it. We head north. Stanton, Tarzan, Sparenberg, Patricia. Grandview, New Home, Lubbock, Slide. The bus fills with people. We cross the Brazos River. New Deal, Becton, Happy Union, Plainview. Mostly folks are quiet. There’s a man two seats ahead, listening to country music from a yellow plastic transistor radio. Yr cheating heart, he sings. He’s got a pretty good voice. I’m hungry. Mother tolt me that carrying a baby makes you sick all the time, but I ain’t been sick yet. I think if I eat with the bus moving I might get sick so I wait until I’m too hungry to wait. Just before we hit Deaf Smith County I open the sack to just look at the chicken and end up gobbling both the wings and the Baby Ruth too, stuffing the bones and the candy wrapper in the paper sack and toeing it all under the seat in front of me. There’s a little spot of grease from the sack on the top of the box and I wipe at it but it don’t wipe off. Snipes ain’t gonna be looking at the box. I feel underneath the lid. My dress is laying there quiet and soft. I’m lucky, cause inside, the grease didn’t go through. When Snipes sees this dress he won’t believe it. I bet lovemaking feels like lovemaking once yr married.
Getting Mother's Body Page 5
