Over the Fence

by Mary Monroe

  I had been skunked out of quite a bit of money last week in a Labor Day poker marathon at one of the roadside jook joints, and I had been spending the rest of my money like mad since then. Now all I had was forty-four cents to my name. I could have borrowed from somebody else, but I didn’t want to have to pay nobody back. I could have snuck a few bucks out of the funds me and Yvonne had saved up to use in case we had to skip town in a hurry or for some other emergency. But because of Odell, I didn’t.

  * * *

  The grill had been super busy since I’d walked in the door this morning. I’d flipped more burgers in one hour than I usually did in three. Since I didn’t have no transportation of my own, I had to depend on taking buses, catching rides with other folks, or borrowing somebody’s wheels. Instead of walking a quarter of a mile to the nearest bus stop and catching a bus to go into town to take care of my business with Odell, I decided to approach one of our regular patrons and see if they’d let me use their car or truck.

  The first one I seen was lanky, freckled-faced Marvin Kelly, a long-term customer at the grill and a frequent guest at my house. He didn’t hesitate to let me borrow his wheels. As soon as he gave me the key, I bolted out the front door, jumped into his dusty old truck, and shot off down the road like a bat out of hell.

  Black-bottomed clouds blocked out the sun, so I knew we was fixing to have a granddaddy of a storm. A few minutes later, the wind started howling and the windows in the truck was rattling like mad. For the rest of the ride, thunder boomed nonstop, lightning flashed, and it rained so hard, the windshield wipers couldn’t wipe fast enough. Because of that, I couldn’t drive as fast as I wanted to.

  By the time I reached the street MacPherson’s was on, my lunch hour was almost half over. But at least it had stopped raining. The closest parking spot was a block away, so when I piled out of the truck, I had to do some trotting. Odell’s Ford Model T, which he always kept spit shined, was parked in front of the store. I was going to ignore his two busybody cashiers so I’d save even more time.

  I went in the front entrance and walked real fast, with my head down, toward Odell’s office. When I got there, the door was open, so I just strolled in. His face froze when he seen mine. I closed the door so we could have some privacy.

  “Greetings, old boy,” I greeted, giving him a salute.

  A frown popped up on his face. “Milton, what you doing here?” he asked in a mean tone. His thick black eyebrows raised up so high, I was surprised they didn’t touch his forehead. As usual, he wore a dark suit with a white shirt and a blue tie. In that outfit, with the miserable look on his face and his slicked-back hair, he looked more like a undertaker than a store manager.

  “Is that any way to greet one of your best friends?” Even though Odell was acting real cold, I still gave him one of my warmest smiles.

  He was at his desk, reared back in his chair like he didn’t have nary a care in the world. A pile of pig-feet bones and some hushpuppy crumbs was on a saucer on one side of his desk. An empty Nehi pop bottle was on the other end. I didn’t wait for him to ask me to sit down. I flopped down in the chair he always kept in front of his desk.

  “Be quick, because I’m busy,” he snapped, wiping pig juice and crumbs off his lips with a napkin.

  “I can see that,” I said with a smirk.

  The same clipboard with a scratch pad that he carried around when he was on the main floor was laying on his desk. He’d been playing tic-tac-toe on it again. For Odell to be a grown man, he sure had some childish ways. The last time I visited his office, I seen them tic-tac-toe thingies on his pad. Another time I’d walked in on him licking a Popsicle. Just knowing what a cushy job he had made me sick. I worked my fingers to the bone, cooking away in a stifling hot kitchen five days a week and bootlegging seven days. But I still didn’t make nowhere near the kind of money Odell made.

  “I need another favor.”

  He shot me a wild-eyed look. And then he shook his head so hard, I was surprised his neck didn’t snap. “So now putting the bite on me is what you call a favor?”

  I hunched my shoulders. “Yup. What do you call it? And don’t say blackmail, like you done them other times,” I warned, holding up my hand. “That word makes me nervous.”

  “I’m paying you hush money so you won’t blab my business with Betty Jean to my wife. If that ain’t blackmail, I don’t know what is.”

  CHAPTER 8

  MILTON

  ONE THING I HAD PROMISED MYSELF WHEN I DECIDED TO TAKE Odell was that I wasn’t going to waste my time arguing with him over details. No matter what he said, it wasn’t going to make no difference, because I was the one holding all the cards.

  “Odell, you can call it whatever you want, my man.” I blinked and scratched the side of my neck. “To me it’s still just a business arrangement.”

  “I been keeping my end of the ‘business arrangement,’ which is more than I can say for you. I agreed to pay you eight dollars a week,” he whined. That tone went right along with the puppy-dog look on his face.

  I nodded. “True. And that’s still good enough.”

  Odell rolled his snaky eyes and gawked at me like he wanted to hurt me real bad. “Look, I been paying you off every Wednesday since July, like I agreed. Today is Monday.”

  I nodded again. “That’s true, too. And I expect you to keep on paying me off every Wednesday.”

  He looked confused. “Then if I give you money today, I don’t have to pay you Wednesday, right?”

  “Wrong. What I need today ain’t part of our arrangement. There is a poker game happening this evening over at Joe Sampson’s house, with some pretty high stakes, see. The players is some fools from Lexington. They known for getting so drunk they can’t tell one card from another, so they get skunked all the time. Them is the kind of idiots I like to play with. I figured I’d swing by Joe’s place on my way home from work and see how good my luck is.” The way Odell was staring at me, you would have thought I’d sprouted another head.

  “Milton, as much as you lose, don’t you think it’s time for you to stop gambling or at least slow down?” he snapped.

  “Why should I? I ain’t hurting nobody. And I don’t know why you getting so hot and bothered. All I’m asking for is five dollars. And don’t tell me you ain’t got it! That’s pocket change to a man running a store like this one,” I said as I made a sweeping gesture with my hand.

  Several nearby businesses had closed because of the Depression the country was still in. But MacPherson’s hadn’t slowed down at all. They stocked almost everything a person needed: groceries, clothes, meat, and other everyday items. Only a few colored folks had wheels, so they couldn’t get to some of the bigger stores. But they could hop on a bus that dropped off and picked up passengers less than half a block from MacPherson’s. This place was a gold mine, and all I wanted was a few pieces, so I couldn’t understand why that even bothered Odell as much as it did.

  He blinked and started breathing through his mouth. “I swear to God, I don’t know how much longer I can put up with this. It’s been only a few weeks, and I’m already about to lose my mind,” he complained.

  I could understand how Odell got hisself in such a pickle with another woman. He had the kind of looks women went for. He was more than six feet tall and built like a prizefighter. His skin tone was dark brown and didn’t have no wrinkles in sight, even though he was thirty-six. If all that wasn’t enough to put him at the top of the heap, he had thick, curly black hair and shiny, cat-like black eyes. Mother Nature had played a prank on me by making me look like a gnome compared to Odell. I was two years younger than him, but I looked older. My looks didn’t bother me, because I still had to beat women off with a stick. But it bothered me that “pretty boys” like Odell always got the cream of the crop when it came to women. His wife didn’t count. That big-boned plain Jane was all about money—and was going to have a heap more when her mama and daddy kicked the bucket. But Betty Jean, Odell’s spare, was one of the most
beautiful women I’d ever took a gander at.

  “Man, can I ask you something?” Odell’s loud tone broke into the thoughts that was doing somersaults in my head.

  I hunched my shoulders. “You can ask me anything you want.” I smiled again because I wanted him to see that I was still in a good mood.

  “What do you tell Yvonne about all the extra money you have these days?”

  I rolled my eyes and snickered. “Pffft! She’ll believe anything I tell her, so I ain’t got to worry about her no more than you have to worry about Joyce. Now, let’s finish up this meeting so I can get back to work.” I held out my palm, with all five fingers wiggling. From the scowl on his face, you would have thought he was gazing at a cow’s hoof. “Well?”

  “I don’t have no extra money on me right now. The meat vendor will be here in a few minutes, and all I got is enough to pay him.”

  “I know you don’t think I’m fool enough to believe a man like you walk around with just enough money in your pocket to pay a vendor.”

  “What I mean is, I don’t have enough on me now to pay him and you. I’ll have to go to the bank first.”

  “Can’t you take it from one of the cash registers?”

  “I don’t touch that money until I close up. If I start plucking any of it out before then, my nosy cashiers will start asking questions. And the next thing they’ll do is put a bug in—”

  I didn’t want to hear no more excuses, so I cut him off. “You don’t need to go into that. I get the picture.” I stood up. “I’ll tell you what. Mosey on over to your bank when you can and bring me my five dollars this evening. No, make that six for making me wait. I’ll have to skip getting in that game on my way home from work and get in later. But that’s only if you bring me my money before they stop playing.”

  “Why don’t you use some of your own money until I can get some to you?”

  “If I wanted to do that, I wouldn’t be standing here right now! I don’t dip into them funds unless I really have to. Now, you get my money to me this evening, no matter what time. Do you hear me?”

  “I hear you, God damn it!”

  “Excellent, old boy! Bring Joyce with you this evening and hang around for a little while. If you keep hitting and running like you did last Wednesday and the Wednesday before that, Yvonne will get suspicious sooner or later.” I reached out my hand again. “You want to shake on it?” This time Odell looked at my hand like it was a live grenade. Him refusing to touch my hand hurt my feelings! “Okay, I’ll see you this evening. Come around six, before we get real crowded.” No matter how civil I was being, Odell was still glaring at me, so I was anxious to leave now.

  “We finish?” he snarled.

  “Just one more thing. Can you at least give me a dollar now?”

  With a huffy sigh, he reached in his pocket and pulled out a fistful of change and counted out three quarters, two dimes, and a nickel. It was bad enough he had disappointed me by saying I had to wait until he went to the bank to get more money. Now here he was offering me coins!

  “I’ll give you the other five dollars this evening,” he griped as he handed over the change.

  “Six.”

  “I just gave you a dollar. All you asked for was six, so all I’m going to give you this evening is five!”

  I shook my head. “Six. I need this dollar to get some gas for the truck I borrowed to come see you.”

  “You don’t need no whole dollar for gas! You didn’t have to use that much to get here!”

  “I know that. But being that I’m as broke as a haint now, having a little something extra in my pocket to fall back on sure makes me feel better.”

  “All right! I’ll give you six dollars this evening!”

  Just to show that I wasn’t too hard-hearted, when I started backing toward the door, I gave him another salute and told him, “Have a blessed day.”

  CHAPTER 9

  YVONNE

  I TRUSTED MILTON AS MUCH AS I COULD TRUST ANY MAN. BUT I wasn’t stupid enough to believe everything he told me. If he ever lied to me, I knew it would be because he had a good reason.

  I loved making money and having a good time as much as he did. Which was why our business was doing so good already. We brung in decent money, and we spent it as fast as we made it. Usually on things we bought at the spur of the moment. Like our red piano and them new skillets I just had to have. The only way we was going to stay out of the poorhouse was to come up with ways to make even more money, or learn how to control our spending. Meanwhile, I was going to keep enjoying life with Milton, because he was my life.

  * * *

  We usually took our lunch breaks together around noon. Since the grill was so out of the way, we didn’t leave the premises unless we had to. Most days, we would find a cozy spot on the side of the building, or if there was a empty table on the main floor, we’d eat there.

  When Milton told me five minutes before noon today that he had to go take care of some business in town, I didn’t bother to ask him what it was. “Ain’t you going to eat nothing before you leave?” I asked, walking him outside to the truck parked by the side of the dirt road that one of our regulars was letting him borrow.

  “I been nibbling since I got to work, so I ain’t that hungry just now. But if them greedy railroad workers don’t eat up all them turnip greens, save me a mess.”

  At 12:55 p.m., while I was still sitting on the grill’s front porch steps, finishing up a bowl of neck bones, Milton returned. He parked on the edge of the parking area, next to a mule wagon that one of our customers had come in. He piled out and ran toward me, swatting at gnats and flies circling his head.

  I set my bowl down and stood up. “Baby, you ain’t got to be in such a hurry. You still got a few minutes left before you have to relieve Jasper so he can go to lunch.” Jasper Hardy was one of the other cooks that helped Mr. Cunningham prepare the meals.

  When Milton got close enough, he wrapped his arms around my waist and kissed me on the lips.

  “Did you get everything took care of?” I asked, rubbing his arm.

  “Uh-huh. It wasn’t nothing important,” he replied, glancing to the side. Then he started blinking hard and fidgeting, shifting his weight from one foot to the other. These was things he didn’t do that often, and when he did, I got nervous.

  “Milton, I know you don’t like it when I badger you. But I got a feeling you trying to hide something from me. Now, I don’t care what business you had in town. I want to know what it was.” My heart was beating hard, and I could feel sweat oozing in my armpits.

  He gave me a sorry look. “I don’t like to keep you in the dark. Um . . . I went to see Dr. Mason.”

  My head started throbbing right away, and my heart felt like it was going to explode. The thought of my man having a health problem was something I was not prepared to deal with. I had relatives scattered here and there, but I wasn’t half as close to them as I was to Milton. Some I hadn’t seen in years. If something happened to him, I’d probably stay single for the rest of my life, because nobody could replace him.

  “You ain’t been sick since I met you. Why did you go see the doctor?” Before he could answer, three customers came out. We moved to the side to let them pass. When they got in their car, I whirled around and stared into Milton’s eyes. “You sick?”

  He shook his head and grinned. “It would take a bolt of lightning to get me down. And it would have to strike me more than one time.”

  “If you ain’t sick, why did you go see Dr. Mason?”

  “See, I been having dizzy spells for the past few days. The kind my granddaddy used to have before he died.” Milton gave me a hug and a quick peck on my jaw. “Come to find out, it ain’t nothing but high blood pressure.”

  “Did the doctor give you something to take for it?”

  “Naw. He just told me to slow down on eating chitlins and other pig parts.”

  “I guess you’ll have to give up drinking, too, huh?”

  Milton rolled
his eyes, scrunched his lips to the side, and let out a sharp laugh. “How many bootleggers you know that don’t drink? Humph! It’d take more than dizzy spells to make me stop drinking. I will start eating healthier, though.”

  I was relieved. “I’m glad it ain’t nothing you’d have to go into the hospital for and be laid up for a while. But you wouldn’t have to worry, because I could run our business by myself.”

  Milton stared off into space for a moment, and then he gave me a strange look. “What make you think you could bootleg without me?”

  “Because you taught me everything I know when it come to making money.”

  “Yeah, I taught you everything you know.” He paused, and a mysterious look I’d never seen before spread across his face. “But I didn’t teach you everything I know.”

  I tried to act like that last comment didn’t faze me, but it did. A little voice in my head told me I had to keep my eye on Milton, and that was one thing I had learned on my own. Not just where he was concerned, but with everybody else—especially Joyce and Odell Watson next door. They was still nice enough, but now it seemed like they was snootier than ever. We had just started calling them the Queen of Sheba and Prince Charming behind their backs, not to be mean, but because them nicknames fit them. We still enjoyed their company, because they gave us something to talk and laugh about when we was alone.

  “Yvonne, let’s stop by the Watsons’ house on our way home this evening and invite them to come over tonight to hear some of them new records we got. Odell is a fool for that Bobbie Holiday.”

  “Billie.”

  “Billie who?”

  “That’s that new woman singer’s first name.”

  “Oh. Anyway, if they don’t make it tonight or tomorrow night, I’m sure they’ll come over by Wednesday,” Milton said with a sniff. “I swear to God, that couple take the cake and the crumbs. It’s a sport just listening to them talk about how good they got it.”

  “Tell me about it. Well, we better get back to work.” I was already heading toward the entrance, with Milton close behind. “There was a mighty big crowd inside when I came out here. A bunch more done arrived since then.”