Over the Fence

by Mary Monroe

  “Yvonne, Rolene can’t wait on all them hungry folks by herself. And Dotty got sick and had to go home, so you need to shake a leg,” he said in his gravelly voice.

  “Yes, sir.” Yvonne snatched a towel off the counter, dried off her hands, and stuffed her blouses back in the bag. “As soon as I put my stuff away, I’ll get on it. And I’m sorry I got back from lunch late. I’ll take a shorter break tomorrow to make up for it.”

  “Don’t worry about that,” Mr. Cunningham told her. “I didn’t even notice what time you got back, nohow.”

  Yvonne dipped her head and mumbled, “Thank you, sir. It won’t happen again.” She skittered to the back of the room, to a long table where all the employees kept their personal items, and dropped off her bag.

  I waited until our boss was out of earshot before I said anything else. “You didn’t say nothing to Odell about you know what, did you? Him and Betty Jean?” I asked in a whisper as she hurried toward the door with me on her heels.

  She whirled around, with her eyes as big as pinecones. “Naw!” she blurted out so hard and fast, spit flew out of her mouth. “Now, you better get back to work before you get us both in trouble.”

  “You sure you didn’t say nothing to Odell? If you did, he’ll know I was the one that let the cat out the bag. And I . . . um . . . I don’t want to upset him.”

  “Why would you be worried about him being upset? He is the one in the hot seat. We just the witnesses.”

  “Just be careful when you alone with Joyce. I know how you women like to run off at the mouth. Don’t let the wrong thing slide out, the way she do every time she open hers.”

  Yvonne looked fretful and peevish, but that didn’t faze me, because I felt the same way. “Why would I tell Joyce about Odell’s other family? What would be in that for me? You seen them blouses he let me take for free. And what about all the other stuff he give us from the store, not to mention all the things we swipe? Why would I risk losing that?”

  “Okay, I believe you won’t tell Joyce. But I don’t never want you to let Odell know you know the scoop on him.”

  “Honest to God, I won’t,” Yvonne said, crossing her heart.

  “I don’t want him to think I can’t keep a secret,” I went on.

  “You can’t keep a secret!” she hooted. “Yeah, you busted Odell, but you didn’t have to blab to me.”

  “You ain’t got to rub it in. Anyway, I was drunk, and you was torturing me by praising him. So it’s part your fault my lips got loose.”

  Yvonne sucked in her breath and looked at me like she wanted to slap me. “Excuse me. I got customers to wait on!” she snapped as she rushed out the door.

  * * *

  The rest of the day went by fast. Yvonne was busy, but each time she came into the kitchen, she gave me the fish eye.

  Finally, she came up to me and cooed, “Don’t forget Joyce and Odell is coming to supper this evening. I know we’ll have a lot to laugh about after they leave.”

  “I know. But I probably won’t make it home in time.”

  “Oh, Milton. And you the one got them all worked up about them pig ears in the first place.”

  “I know, and I’m sorry. But there is someplace else I got to go.”

  “Where?”

  “Uh, you know Mickey Reese? That husky railroad worker?”

  “Yeah. He eat at the grill several times a week. What about him?”

  “He done set up some crapshoots for this evening behind the railroad station. I want to be there. I’ll eat pig ears with Joyce and Odell some other evening. I’ll even cook them myself, and I’ll use your recipe.”

  Yvonne did a eyeball and a neck roll at the same time. “Don’t you have enough bad luck playing cards?”

  “Yeah. That’s why I might only play craps for a while, before I start back up with them card games.”

  “You lose when you play craps, too.”

  I chuckled and tickled Yvonne’s chin. “Come on now, sugar. I work hard day and night. Don’t you want me to have no fun?”

  “You don’t have fun with me?”

  “You’ll see when I get you in that bed tonight,” I laughed.

  “Don’t stay out too long. What you want me to tell Joyce and Odell?”

  “Tell them my cousin Columbus been having nightmares about getting trampled by them cows. He had a relapse, and I went to see how he doing.”

  * * *

  I didn’t win but a couple of dollars at Mickey’s place, but I still went back again the next night. Within an hour after I got there, I had lost big time.

  “Y’all, I got to get up out of here before I get a serious case of the vapors. I’m so disgusted, I’m already feeling light-headed,” I whined to Mickey and the other two men still squatting down on his kitchen floor, tossing dice like they was shooting marbles. I wobbled up off the hardwood floor and looked from one face to another. “Can somebody give me a ride to town?”

  “What’s wrong with you?” Mickey asked. “We just getting heated up.”

  “I don’t want to walk all the way home!” I hollered.

  “Well, if you can’t wait for us to finish, that’s exactly what you going to do,” Mickey snapped.

  I wasn’t about to argue with him, and since I didn’t want to hang around to watch them play, I left. I was lucky. After I’d walked half a mile, a farmer who was a regular guest at our house came by on his mule wagon. He rode me all the way to my street.

  When I got off at the corner of the block, I was even madder about losing so much money. I cussed under my breath as I walked down the sidewalk. I was too preoccupied to notice I was being followed. By the time I did, it was too late.

  I had just made it to the front of Odell’s house when a man roared, “Bootlegger!”

  Before I could turn around, somebody went upside the back of my head with something hard. The next thing I knew, they clobbered me again even harder, and I hit the ground. My guardian angel must have been with me, because I managed to get up and haul ass. Since I was closer to Odell’s house than to mine, I flung open his gate and ran toward his porch. My attacker was right behind me.

  “How you like that, motherfucker?” a voice different from the first one boomed.

  I made it to the steps and went down face-first. Feet started stomping me all over, and then everything went black.

  CHAPTER 41

  MILTON

  “ARGHH! ARGHH! ARGHH!”

  At first, I thought it was me making them bloodcurdling screams. Then I realized it was a woman. What came out of her mouth next almost made me scream sure enough.

  “Oh, Lord! They done killed my husband!” That was Yvonne’s voice!

  I was dead? Shoot! Oh well. I guessed I shouldn’t have been surprised. When I was eight, one of my uncles warned me that the men on my daddy’s side didn’t live long. He died of a stroke a week later, at the age of thirty-four, the age I was now. And on that side of the family, I didn’t have no men kinfolks left who were over forty-five.

  I hoped that all my praying and Bible reading over the years had earned me enough points so my spirit would end up with God, and not with that other fellow. If this wasn’t a good reason for me to be able to cry, I didn’t know what was. But I couldn’t cry, talk, or do nothing else with nary part of my body—if I was still in it. I could hear people moving across the floor, cussing and praying, so I knew I was in a heap of trouble.

  “He ain’t dead. They just knocked him out.” That was Odell’s voice.

  I smelled blood, and I couldn’t tell where it was coming from. But some of it was on my lips. I finally opened my eyes. “What the hell happened?” I asked. Somehow, I was able to talk, even though my lips felt like they was twice their normal size.

  I could feel my body now, and it was in serious pain. I managed to sit up, anyway, and was happy to see I was on my own living-room couch. Yvonne and Odell was hovering over me. Her eyes was red, and her nose was snotty. Tears was sliding down the sides of her face. I suddenly
remembered running toward Odell’s house when I realized somebody was attacking me.

  “What the hell happened?” I asked again.

  “You got jumped,” Odell told me in a gruff tone. “I found you on my porch.”

  “How long was I on your porch?”

  “I don’t know. I found you twenty minutes ago.”

  I glanced toward the window and seen it was pitch black outside. I was surprised that Odell had just found me twenty minutes ago. “It was still daylight when I got to our street. That was hours ago! Odell, do you mean to tell me I laid on your porch all that time? You didn’t hear no commotion before then?”

  “I didn’t hear nothing, except the usual Halloween whooping and hollering them neighborhood kids make. I figured it was them teenage scalawags that live in the next block. They love to pull pranks. Joyce went to visit a coworker that just had a new baby, so I’d stretched out on the couch to take a nap. When I woke up, I cracked open my front door and seen what I thought was a scarecrow on my porch. That’s how them pranksters spooked a few neighbors last Halloween. I didn’t realize what I was looking at until you started moaning. It scared me to death.”

  “I didn’t hear nothing, neither. Odell picked you up and carried you home,” Yvonne told me.

  My eyes stung as I blinked and scanned the room. I was surprised I didn’t see nobody else. “Where is everybody at? We usually have at least a dozen folks up in here this time of night.”

  “A bunch came by. As bad as we need the money, I told them that we wouldn’t be entertaining tonight,” Yvonne explained.

  There was a gauzy-feeling bandage wrapped around my head, covering a throbbing knot on the back that felt like it was the size of a walnut. I had a small Band-Aid on one of my jaws, and another one by the side of my left eye. When I slid my tongue across my bottom lip, I could feel the split in my skin. “I feel like shit,” I complained, giving Yvonne a hopeless look. “Woman, go get me something for my head!”

  She sprinted toward the kitchen, and Odell sat down on the footstool, facing me. “You lost a heap of blood. Mostly from your nose and lip,” he told me. “Yvonne wouldn’t let me take you to the hospital. But we cleaned you off, slathered iodine on your wounds, and bandaged you up good enough. Did you see who done this to you?”

  “Naw. They got me from behind.” I swallowed a big lump in my throat. I wasn’t just in physical pain; my feelings was hurt. “Them devils was trying to kill me! Why would anybody want to kill me?” I wailed, looking in Odell’s eyes.

  He rattled off the last thing I expected to hear. “Well, as Shakespeare wrote in one of his plays, hell is empty and all the devils is here . . .”

  “So, you a Shakespeare fan?”

  “Naw. That’s something one of my white bosses shared with me when I was still doing farmwork.”

  Yvonne rushed back into the room with a jar of water and handed it to me.

  “Woman, what’s wrong with you?” I yelled, glaring at the glass like it was full of piss. “You know I need something stronger than water. And bring me a straw.”

  “I’m sorry, sugar. I’ll go get you some white lightning.” She twirled around and rushed back to the kitchen.

  I swung my feet to the floor and looked up at Odell. “The way I been putting the screws to you lately, I’m surprised you bothered to help me get home,” I whispered. “Thanks, man.” I was going to give him points for being a caring soul, until I heard what he said next.

  “I couldn’t let you bleed to death on my porch. I wouldn’t stand by and let that happen to a snake I don’t like.”

  Even with my face feeling like it was on fire, I was still able to blow out a sharp laugh. Odell was as grim-faced as a pallbearer, so I cleared my throat and got serious. “If I had gone to meet my Maker, at least you’d be off the hook.”

  “What hook?” Yvonne asked, walking back into the room. She handed me a pint-size jar of white lightning with a long straw in it.

  “Huh? Oh, I was just telling Odell about a ornery catfish I caught when me and Willie Frank went fishing last week. That sucker wiggled until he was off the hook.”

  “Mister, you can forget about fishing again anytime soon,” Yvonne snapped, shaking her fist at me. “Odell, you want something to drink?”

  “Why not? I need to calm my nerves. Anything strong will do.” He sighed and wrung his hands.

  “I’ll fix you up right away,” Yvonne said, rushing back to the kitchen.

  Even after two drinks, Odell was still acting kind of agitated. And he was saying things I didn’t want to hear. “I hope none of our other neighbors seen what happened. They look up to me and Joyce. I’d hate for them to think we done got ourselves involved in a scandal,” he grumbled.

  “I wouldn’t be too concerned about that, Odell. Y’all ain’t involved. Milton was the one that got beat down,” Yvonne pointed out. She was sitting on the arm of the couch, rubbing my shoulder.

  “Yeah, but he ended up on our property, so we involved,” Odell went on, talking out the side of his mouth. “Joyce is going to have a conniption fit when she see all the blood she got to sop up off that porch floor, which she just scrubbed last week.”

  “Tell Joyce I’ll send Yvonne over with a bucket, some lye soap, and a sponge to help her. Next time somebody come after me, I’ll run faster, and maybe they won’t get me until I’m on my own property.”

  “You might not make it nowhere the next time,” Odell predicted in a hollow tone.

  CHAPTER 42

  MILTON

  A HALF HOUR AFTER ODELL LEFT, SOMEBODY ELSE KNOCKED.

  “That’s got to be Willie Frank,” I said with hope.

  Yvonne ran to the window and peeped out. “Uh-uh, Milton. It’s Odell and Joyce. Can they come in?”

  Since I was going to need Odell’s help more than ever now, I didn’t waste no time answering Yvonne’s question. “Yup. Open the door and act normal.”

  She had her hand on the doorknob, but she didn’t open the door right away. “Meaning what?”

  “Don’t get emotional and let something suspicious slip out. We don’t want Joyce to start asking questions.”

  “Shhh!” Yvonne put her fingers up to her lips. “Don’t talk so loud,” she whispered. “If you talking about me letting something slip out about Odell and Betty Jean, why you bringing that up now? You almost got beat to death tonight! This ain’t the time to be talking about that subject!”

  “You in a weak state, and the wrong words might slip out. Now you open that door! We done kept them folks waiting long enough.”

  Yvonne gave me a impatient look before she flung the door open. “Good evening, y’all.” She grinned, waving Joyce and Odell in. “Sorry it took so long for me to answer.”

  “We was beginning to think y’all was trying to avoid us,” Joyce complained, looking around the room.

  “I was using the toilet, and Milton is in too much pain to get up,” Yvonne explained.

  “Oh, Milton, bless your soul! Odell told me what happened,” Joyce wailed, gawking at me like I’d been laid out for my wake. She sat down on the arm of the couch. “We would have come sooner, but Reverend Jessup called to update us about the upcoming Thanksgiving program. Y’all know how long winded he is.”

  Odell stood by the door, with his hands in his pockets and a stupid look on his face.

  “How are you feeling, Milton?” Joyce asked.

  “I’m . . . all . . . right,” I replied, with a moan in between each word. “I appreciate you asking.”

  “You poor thing, you. I declare, Halloween brings out the worst in some people. Did you see who jumped you?”

  “Joyce, I already told you he was attacked from behind,” Odell tossed in. “And I don’t think it had nothing to do with Halloween.” Then he peered at me with that smug look on his face, which I seen too often. “Milton, I hope whoever done it ain’t somebody you disrespected or . . . stole nothing from. I advise you to watch your step from now on. God got his eye on you, and we
all know He don’t like ugly.”

  Odell’s earlier comment about all the devils being here was still ringing in my ears. If I hadn’t heard what he said this time, I wouldn’t have believed it. I looked at him with my mouth hanging open. This sucker had a lot of nerve preaching to me—especially after Reverend Jessup had dressed me and Yvonne down at church last Sunday. Some of the muscles in my body tensed up. I had to press my lips together to keep the wrong words from spurting out. Odell had been a little more sympathetic when he brung me home and helped Yvonne patch me up. Now here he was, showing off for Joyce. He was pushing all my buttons, but I was not about to let him get under my skin.

  I kept my tone calm. “You right about God having his eye on me. But you should have said, ‘He got his eye on all of us.’ ”

  That comment made him flinch.

  I went on. “I ain’t never disrespected nobody, and I ain’t never stole nothing from nobody.”

  “Somebody had to have a reason to attack you,” Odell insisted.

  “They might have got him mixed up with somebody else,” Yvonne suggested.

  “Or they might have been jealous,” Joyce added.

  Blaming alcohol to justify something stupid I’d done had worked before. I decided to get some mileage out of that. “Whatever I done to make somebody mad enough to jump me, I must have been so drunk, I didn’t know what I was doing . . .”

  “I figured that. If that’s true, you weren’t responsible for your actions. Just don’t drink too much the next time,” Joyce advised, giving me a stern look.

  “Speaking of drinks, I sure need one,” Yvonne admitted. Her eyes shifted from me to Joyce. “Joyce, Odell, y’all want something to drink?”

  “Nothing for me tonight. We’re going out for a late snack when we leave here,” Joyce said.

  “I don’t want nothing, neither,” Odell muttered.

  “Milton, did they rob you?” Joyce asked.

  “I don’t know what they done after I blacked out. If it was robbery they was up to, they picked the wrong man, because my wallet was at home. The cash I had on me was in the bottom of my shoe. Robbers is too dumb to search there.” I snorted and rubbed my nose. “Now that you brung up robbery, I remember something. I seen two rough-looking jokers lurking around when the farmer that gave me a ride home dropped me off at the corner. They must have recognized me and suspected I had a pocket full of money, so they followed me,” I blurted out real quick. It could have been a robbery attempt, but it could have been another reason, too. By now almost every other colored bootlegger in town had a ax to grind with me and Yvonne. Especially them ones that used to entertain Lyla and Emmalou. “At least they didn’t hurt me no worse. But in the shape I’m in, I don’t know when I’ll be able to go back to work. I declare, this is going to put a financial burden on me and Yvonne . . .”