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leftover exhaust, and felt a headache coming on. I wanted to throw myself on the ground and have a good old-fashioned
temper tantrum. Instead, I climbed the steps to the porch, and debated whether to go in or not. From the kitchen came the
raised voices of Uncle Virgil and Aunt Juanita already arguing about something. Oral appeared from out of nowhere, mashing his nose against the screen, giving him a strange, piglike appearance.
He said, “Boy, ain’t it something?”
“What?”
“How you can hear everything so good, even when you
ain’t tryin’.”
He gave me a calculating look. I pulled the door open, and
he stepped backward, grinning.
My voice threatening, I said, “What is it you heard?”
He said, “Her. What all she said.”
“You ain’t heard nothing.”
“Right. Just like she ain’t asking Willie Murry nothing.”
I advanced on him and his smirk grew.
“Traitor,” he whispered.
The raised voices of his parents continued with the persis-
tent drone of a beehive.
I said, “Big deal. You heard a couple things.”
“Yeah, well, maybe I won’t say nothing, but maybe I will.”
The little shit was actually threatening me. He and Merritt
had been watching too much Dragnet.
He said, “You keep quiet and I’ll keep quiet.”
Hands on my hips, I said, “Me? About what?”
“That money your daddy’s got hid. I been searching around.
Found twenty dollars tucked away, and I aim to find more. I
think a pot of gold is behind that there shed, directly.”
“That’s stealing, Oral.”
“No, it ain’t. Finders keepers.”
“It ain’t for you to find.”
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“Your daddy owes my daddy; you heard him.”
“You let me catch you snooping around, see what happens.”
“What happens is I’ll tell’em what you were going to do,
like she said, to your own family. I’ll tell’em you been talking to them agents and it was ’cause of you our house burned up.
Hey, and come to think of it, maybe it wasn’t them Murrys
who messed up the still neither.”
He lifted his chin, confident. I couldn’t speak I was so mad, and could only stare after him as he sauntered into the kitchen.
Uncle Virgil and Aunt Juanita paused at his appearance, and
then picked back up on arguing again. I followed to see what he was about. I didn’t like him thinking he could manipulate me, agitated at the realization he’d heard it. I poured myself a cup of coffee, slopping some of it on the counter when my
hand wouldn’t hold steady.
Aunt Juanita touched the pearls, and said, “You’ll have to
rip them off my neck.”
She was really good at making dramatic declarations.
Uncle Virgil said, “I’ll buy you more when we get straight-
ened out.”
“We ain’t never going to get straightened out. Not when
you can’t keep a job.”
“I got started off on the wrong foot; it ain’t like I ever had a fair chance to begin with. If I’d had what’s owed . . .”
“Jesus! Don’t start on that again.”
Oral grinned at me, nodding ever so slightly, as if to say,
See?
Aunt Juanita glared at me and said, “We’re outta milk and
coffee,” and walked out, the bedroom door slamming seconds
later.
Uncle Virgil said, “Damn it all. She knows just how to piss
me off.”
Oral said, “Why don’t we just do what you talked about?”
Uncle Virgil went to hit him and Oral ducked, then made
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the mistake of laughing. Uncle Virgil sprang up, and Oral
scooted around the table while Uncle Virgil cussed a blue
streak. He reached across and grabbed Oral’s arm, and yanked it. Oral howled while Uncle Virgil delivered several smacks, not caring where his hand landed.
He let him go and said, “Boy, when you gonna learn to
keep that trap of yourn shut?”
Oral rubbed the spots where Uncle Virgil’s hands had
landed while giving me a dirty look, like I was the one who’d beat him. Uncle Virgil dropped back onto the chair while
Oral glared at the tabletop like he wanted to kill something.
Daddy and Merritt had taken the truck, and wouldn’t be
back till late, but I needed to get out of the house, away from every thing and everyone. It wasn’t even dinnertime yet and I was tired enough to want to go back to bed.
I said, “Uncle Virgil, can I use your truck to go get the
coffee?”
He reached into his pocket, handed his keys to me, and
said, “Get me a pack of Luckies too.”
I hated having to get the money out of the tin behind the
sugar canister with them sitting right there. I washed a glass or two, while waiting on the both of them to become preoccupied. Soon Oral was busy picking his nose and Uncle Virgil had his head on the table like he was about to go to sleep. I dug out a five-dollar bill. There was another five and three ones, and with them two around, I needed to keep up with
what was left. I went out the back door wishing I was going
somewhere other than Pearson’s grocery. As I drove down
from Shine Mountain, I imagined going past Wilkesboro,
North Wilkesboro, and on to sights unseen. Going someplace
where no one knew me, didn’t know a thing about me, away
from the worry.
At the store I got the coffee, Uncle Virgil’s cigarettes, and was about to approach a clerk when I saw Mrs. Brewer hold-Ever_9781496717023_2p_all_r1.indd 156
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ing a jar of mayonnaise only a few feet away. She was dressed different, wearing a pair of men’s overalls, shabby and stained, a work shirt, and a big floppy straw hat with a bandanna
around her neck. She saw me too, and approached.
She nodded a greeting, and said, “Sasser.”
“Hey, Mrs. Brewer.”
She gave me the once-over. “You need’n some of that tea.”
“You ain’t got to keep giving it to me. I’m fine.”
“Like hell.”
I was sure I looked the same as I had in school, but she
thought different.
She said, “My house ain’t far. Pay for that and let’s go.”
She marched to the front of the store, slammed her bread
down, and tossed some money to the clerk. Hands on her
hips, she glared about while the clerk developed the same
clumsiness I did under heavy scrutiny. After Mrs. Brewer got her change, which was all dropped by the nervous clerk, I
paid for the coffee and cigarettes. On the latter she gave an evil glare, and I shook my head denying they were mine. She
waved me out the door.
She said, “Hm. Follow me.”
I obeyed. She lived in a nice small house, old but kept up. It was painted pale green, and had a tin roof gone to rust, a yard full of flowers, and a beautiful braided grapevine off to the right, the vines crawling along the old wooden frame. The
root coming out of the ground was as big around as my thigh.
She got out of her old clunker of
a car, pointed at her house, and said, “It was my grandmother’s. I was borned in this here house.”
She had a small, well-laid-out vegetable garden, and there
were chickens running loose in the yard. There was a one-
eyed cat sitting on the rail of the porch who arched his back in greeting as she went up the steps. Mrs. Brewer stopped and stroked down his spine before motioning me inside.
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She pointed at the cat and said, “That’s Popeye.”
Inside the kitchen were what looked like dried herbs hang-
ing in the corners, and her walls were painted light yellow; the cabinets, white metal. The sink was against a wall and had two legs holding up the front. There was a flowered curtain
hiding what was below it. She had an old Philco refrigerator, and on the stove was a dull copper teakettle, and a cast-iron frying pan. The kitchen smelled like sausage, and biscuits. I sniffed again, and my mouth watered. She went to a small
wooden box, almost like a miniature dresser. It was situated below a window, and she pulled on one of the handles and
slid out a wood tray. She took out some dried-up plants and
brought the cluster to a worktable near the sink. She took
down a big knife off a hook and began chopping.
She pointed with the knife and said, “Sit.”
I sat at the small kitchen table, troubled, but curious at the same time. “What’re you doing?”
“Jes’ choppin’ this here. It’s the plant what makes the tea.
Pulled leaves from it the other day. Read the dregs in the bottom of my cup, and they said I’d see you. How you doin’?”
“I’m fine.”
“Somethin’s done knocked you off-kilter.”
I shook my head.
“You ettin’?”
I said, “Yes.”
“Naw, you ain’t neither. You got to et, chile.”
Her voice had gone from being prickly to soft. I watched
her while she kept working, and for once admitted a tiny
truth.
“I eat too much, then feel sick.”
She said, “Start with small meals.”
“I shouldn’t eat at all. I’m too fat as it is.”
Mrs. Brewer set down the knife and said, “Come on with me.”
We went into a small bedroom off the kitchen. It was her
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room, with a peach-colored crocheted bedspread, a dark ma-
ple bureau, and one of those mirrors that sets on the floor
with legs, same wood as the bureau. She pulled me toward it, and with her hands on my shoulders she set me in front of it.
“Look.”
I turned my head away and said, “I know how I look.”
She took hold of the sides of my head, and gently turned it
back to the mirror. “Look.”
I didn’t like a mirror. My heart pumped harder, and then
trembled. I put my hand there.
She said, “It beatin’ funny?”
I dropped my hand and didn’t answer.
Her voice was soft when she said, “All I’m saying, child,
you ain’t fat.”
I didn’t need confirmation to know what I’d seen before. A
mirror doesn’t lie.
She said, “Bones. You ain’t nothing but bones. I’m telling
you the truth.”
I raised my eyes to meet hers reflected in the glass. It was apparent she believed what she said, but I couldn’t.
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Chapter 16
She was an old woman with bad eyes. She was wrong and
plainly couldn’t see I was bloated as a dead coon on the side of the road. No one could tell me different.
Back in the kitchen, Mrs. Brewer said, “I seen gals thinking they’s fat when they ain’t. Getting peculiar ideas.”
“It ain’t what you say,” and I pinched the flesh around my
middle, jiggled it to prove I had meat on my bones, more than enough.
She shook her head and said, “Any old body can do that.”
I let the skin go, unwilling to accept what she said. “You’re being nice is all.”
She said, “I ain’t nice. I’m only wanting you to see straight.”
She scraped the freshly chopped tea into a small container.
She said, “Take it. It’s enough to last a while. Be sure and drink it every day.”
She acted as if it would change me somehow from the in-
side out. I didn’t see the need.
I said, “What does it do?”
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“Don’t worry none ’bout that. Trust me when I say it’s
good fer you.”
Trust. That little thing everyone wanted or needed. I
straightened up, wanting to seem capable, and strong. At six-teen, I could look after myself. I didn’t need anyone helping me, and I sure didn’t need anyone else telling me what I ought to do. She shook it at me, meaning I should take it. I only did to avoid argument. It was exhausting having to conduct myself a certain way for everyone else’s benefit and getting even more difficult to manage my compulsive needs.
“I’ll come check on you in a few days. You up on Shine?”
I didn’t respond, only thanked her for the tea, and left. I
backed out of the driveway and didn’t look to see if she’d followed me or stayed in the house. On the way home I brooded
over what she said, what she claimed, and what I knew. She
denied being nice, but that’s all it was, although why she felt the need to help me was a mystery. Back on Shine Mountain,
I parked the truck, and picked up the container with the tea, lifted the lid off, and sniffed it. She said it would help, but I couldn’t see how.
I heaved a sigh and got out. As I started for the back steps, there was a chopping sound on the hill near the shed. I set
everything down, walked close enough to see Oral making
good on his word, shovel in hand, digging furiously. Near
him were two holes, overturned patches of soil like a dog had been digging at random. He paused only for a second as I approached, then went back to work.
I said, “Oral, what in tarnation you think you’re doing?”
He stopped again, his dark hair stuck up like a porcupine’s
from a recent haircut.
He said, “What’s it look like? I’m doing what I said I was
gonna do.”
“Stop it, right now.”
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He grunted, and tossed clods of dirt off to the side. “I ain’t stopping.”
He jumped on the edge of the shovel, and it went into the
ground easy.
“You ain’t gonna find nothing.”
“I might.”
“You think you can dig up his money and he’s not going
to know?”
“Oh, he ain’t gonna know. See, I’m gonna put this all back
’cause I got that nice chunk of grass there I cut out when I got started. I’ll just set it on these holes, and nobody will be the wiser. Long as you don’t blab, ain’t nobody gonna know.
I ain’t got to learn you again about what all I heard, do I?”
I pictured myself grabbing the shovel and walloping him
with it. I left him stabbing the earth and mumbling as I
trudged my way
down to the house. I picked up the items I’d
left on the steps, entered the kitchen, and confronted a completely different and unexpected situation: Aunt Juanita bent over the sink, gripping the faucets, and Uncle Virgil directly behind her, pants around his ankles, red-faced and puffing.
He yelled, “Get the hell out!” while the traumatic look
on Aunt Juanita’s face had to have matched mine. I dropped
everything and smacked my hands over my eyes. Mortified,
I rushed back outside, but didn’t know where to go, what to
do. I jerked the truck door open, slid inside, feeling dumb-
founded. I turned the key. The gauge for the gas tank said it was almost empty, so I couldn’t go anywhere. I was stuck. I
rolled the window down to let some air in, and shut my eyes
tight, trying to get that image out of my head. I sat that way for several minutes.
“Hot damn!” came from somewhere up the hill.
Off to my left Oral came running out from around the
back of the shed. He had something in his hands, and as he
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passed the truck he didn’t see me watching him. He clung to
a jar, holding it like a treasured object.
He went into the house, the back door slamming, yelling,
“Looky here!”
If Uncle Virgil and Aunt Juanita weren’t done with their
hanky-panky, I was prepared to see him come flying out of
the door like I had, but he didn’t. I got out of the truck, listening. With them, it was always fighting, loud talking, doors slamming. It was too peaceful. I entered the kitchen and no
one was in there. Down the hall my door was shut, while
Merritt’s and Daddy’s were open. I crept forward, and when I got to my bedroom I heard muttering.
Uncle Virgil said, “Holy shit, Son.”
It was the first time in my life I’d ever heard him call Oral something other than “boy” or “stupid.”
Aunt Juanita said, “How much is it?”
Uncle Virgil said, “Well, let’s see.”
There was the sound of a lid being unscrewed, a rustling
noise, and I could picture him rearranging a pile of money
like cards, laying them down on the bed one by one, count-
ing it out.
Uncle Virgil finally said, “About two grand.”
Aunt Juanita said, “Oh my God. What’re we gonna do?”
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