Bastard out of Carolina (33 page)

“What?” Butch muttered in my direction. “A little Carter Family caterwauling? Maybe that one about building your house for the Lord?” He snorted and began to sing a brief off-key chorus of “Will the Circle Be Unbroken.” His breath came out in pale little clouds.

“You can’t sing,” I told him.

“Hell, none of us can.” He passed me the whiskey. “You want a sip? Might warm you up.”

I said nothing, just drank deeply. I liked the taste. It was strong, a little bitter, but warming.

Butch laughed gently, tipped the bottle back, and refilled his cup with Pabst. “Don’t you tell your mama, now. She’d take my head off.”

“Give me some.” I took the cup before he could object and poured as much as I could of the beer down my throat. It tasted mild after the whiskey, but it hurt to swallow, whether because it was so cold or that I drank such a big gulp, I couldn’t have said. For all I knew, beer was supposed to hurt going down.

Butch peered closely at me. “You trying to get drunk?” he asked.

“You think I can?”

“Oh, pretty surely. But I might have to go get another couple of bottles if you want to do it up right.”

“Earle’s in there too. Bet we could get some more whiskey from him or Beau.”

“Whoa, Bone! Girl, you been growing up while I been gone? Drinking beer and stealing whiskey?”

I drained his cup and handed it back. “They still should have had music. Aunt Ruth loved music.”

“Yeah.” Butch knocked the cup against his knuckles, making a low hollow sound. “Yeah. She did. Used to love to play those scratchy old records. Kept them even after D.W. broke her record player. Always planned to buy her another one, but I never seemed to have any extra money. Couple of times I borrowed Earle’s record player for her just so she could listen to it.”

“Earle loaned it to her last summer while I was there. We played a bunch of her stuff.”

Butch smiled. “Don’t tell me. ‘Gospel Train,’ right? A little Hank Williams; the Monroe Brothers, Hazel Cole, and—who was that?—yeah, Blind Alfred Reed, right? Bet she even got out ‘Wabash Cannonball,’ and ‘Where the Soul of Man Never Dies.’ ”

“‘Pistol Packin’ Mama.’ ” I reached under Butch’s seat for the Pabst bottle, took it up, and drained it. He stared at me, unbelieving. “She really loved that one. We sang it together all one afternoon.” I set the empty bottle back under his chair.

His face crumpled slowly. “Goddam,” he whispered. “I forgot that one. Shit.” He dropped his head and covered his face with his hands. I watched his shoulders tighten, feeling far off and a little numb, the liquor like cotton batting all along my nervous system.

“Christ damn,” Butch cursed, and stood up. “I hate this.” He kicked his chair over, kicked it again and knocked it a couple of feet away, went after it, and gave it another kick. “I didn’t think I’d feel like this. When I talked to Deedee, we both swore we weren’t gonna act like this, and there she is up in Mama’s bedroom now, crying like her heart’s broke, like she lost her best friend in the world. And hell,” he almost shouted, turning back to me, “she and Mama couldn’t barely stand each other. ”

I nodded. “It don’t make sense, does it? I always thought Deedee hated Aunt Ruth, she talked so bad about her. But this morning ...” I paused to wipe my face. “It all looked different. ”

“Goddam, you’re drunk.” Butch walked over to me, tilted my face back, and put his down close to mine. His lips pressed my lips, his tongue slipped in and pushed at my tongue, I pulled my head away in surprise.

“How old are you now, Bone?” he asked.

“I’ll be thirteen in May,” I told him.

“Thirteen.” Butch nodded. “I always liked you,” he whispered. “Still do. You an’t always a damn fool like everybody else.” He straightened back up. “So don’t go making more out of this than there is.”

I got to my feet carefully. The back of my skirt was stuck to my legs. I pulled it free with one hand and felt one of the scabs tear loose. I winced, but Butch had bent down to retrieve the beer bottle and didn’t see. I went back inside, walking slowly, placing one foot deliberately in front of the other. It was kind of interesting being drunk. I liked the numb part.

In the overheated house, there seemed to be no good air left. The kitchen was full of women standing around talking and watching over the stove. Mama and Alma were sitting at the table, Alma leaning on Mama’s shoulder. Carr was over at the counter, slicing ham and laying it out on a platter. Temple and Mollie were with her, helping to put more food out. I didn’t see Raylene anywhere. I checked the parlor, but it was full of smoke, the smell of whiskey, and men talking in husky voices. Travis was on the couch with his head fallen back, his cheeks all flushed, the veins on his nose showing blue-purple.

I went down the hall trailing my hands along each wall. This was not hard at all. As long as I moved slowly and kept my head up, there was no problem. I went into the bathroom and looked in the mirror. I was sweaty, flushed. Sure looked drunk to me. I grinned. It was too hot. The window over the toilet seemed to be painted closed. I straddled the toilet, pounded on the window frame until it loosened, and opened it. Cool air washed over my face. I bent down, pulled my panties off awkwardly, skirt up, and without turning around dropped down backwards on the toilet seat. Peeing had never felt so wonderful before. I laid my cheek on the cool porcelain back of the toilet and just enjoyed the release.

The door opened behind me. I pushed up, startled, and slipped, falling back down on the seat. Twisted around, I tried to push up again, but a loud abrupt hiccup plopped me right back on the seat again. Raylene laughed.

“Who slipped you a drink, Bone?” She didn’t sound that angry. She pushed the door closed behind her and steadied me with one hand. “You’re about falling-down drunk.”

“No, I’m not. I only had a little.”

“Uh huh. Yeah.” She laughed and pulled some paper off the roll and handed it to me. “Come on. Let’s get you up.” Her hand was under my right elbow, helping me stand. I tried to back off the seat, but her grip held me.

“Aunt Raylene.” I turned my head to look up at her again, ready to try and persuade her that I wasn’t really drunk. Her expression stopped me. She was looking down at my panties where they draped my left shoe, the brown stains in the seat showing clearly in the bright light. She pulled me back a little, and her left hand lifted my skirt. I tried to push it back down with my numb fingers, but she had a good grip.

“Sweet suffering Jesus!”

A shock went right through me. Suddenly I was terrified, unreasonably, horribly terrified.

“No,” I begged. “No, please.” But the door was open. She was pulling me out. I hung back, but she was unstoppable. She pushed me into Deedee’s empty bedroom.

“Earle,” Aunt Raylene was yelling. “Earle, come here. You and Beau, you come here.”

“No.” I said it again. “Please, please.”

“Be quiet, Bone. An’t nobody gonna hurt you. I swear to you, an’t nobody ever gonna hurt you again.”

Earle pushed through the door. “Raylene, what you yelling about? The kids are asleep upstairs, and you’re yelling loud enough to scare people in the next county.”

Raylene whirled on him. “Shut up and look at this.”

She turned me around and flipped my skirt up. I started to stutter. “No, no.”

“Damn.” Earle’s voice was soft, and scarier than I could have ever imagined. I wrapped my fingers around the back of my neck, dropped my head, and shook all over.

“Leave me alone,” I begged. My panties were still tangled on my left shoe.

“Hush, hush.” Aunt Raylene’s arms wrapped around me like a blanket. She sat on the bed and pulled me up on her lap. “Hush.”

Earle was gone. The door opened again, and Nevil and Beau were there.

“It true?” Beau demanded. “That son of a bitch beat her bloody?”

“Like a dog,” Raylene told him. “Child’s striped all the way down to her knees.” She pulled my panties free of my shoe and threw them at him. “I’d kill him.” She said it in a very matter-of-fact tone that made me believe her.

“No,” I moaned.

“Shit!” Nevil’s voice was barely recognizable. There was a scream from down the hall, a loud crashing noise, and Earle’s voice shouting, “I’ll murder you, you son of a bitch!” Nevil and Beau turned together.

“No,” I pleaded. “Aunt Raylene, please!” But she just held me tight. I turned, started punching her, trying to get free. Mama’s arms came around me so suddenly I almost stopped breathing.

“Mama! I’m sorry. I’m sorry.”

“Hush, Bone.” Her voice sounded just like Raylene’s had. “Just hush, baby. It’s all right.” Still terrified, I clung to her. Thudding, crashing sounds were coming from the front. They had gone out on the porch. Raylene stood with her back to the bedroom door, her arms crossed over her breasts, as if she expected us to try and fight her to get out. Mama just held me and whispered again, “It’s all right.”

After a few minutes, Raylene came over and sat beside us. “Anney.” Her voice was husky. “Anney, did he beat you too? Tell me, did he hurt you?”

“Glen would never hurt me, Raylene. You know that.” Mama pressed her mouth to the top of my head. “He’d never raise a hand to me.” She sighed and hung her head.

“Oh, Anney.” Raylene reached for Mama’s hands, but Mama pulled away.

“Don’t touch me. Don’t.” Mama almost spit. She drew me closer to her. I was shaking in her arms, and she was shaking too. “Oh God, Raylene. I’m so ashamed. I couldn’t stop him, and then ... I don’t know.” Her head bobbed up and down. When she spoke again her voice was fierce, desperate. “He loves her. He does. He loves us all. I don’t know. I don’t know. Oh God. Raylene, I love him. I know you’ll hate me. Sometimes I hate myself, but I love him. I love him.”

I looked up. Mama’s eyes were deep and glittery. Her mouth was open, her lips drawn back from her teeth, her neck muscles high and rigid. Her chin went up and down as if she wanted to cry but couldn’t. “I’ve just wanted it to be all right,” she whispered. “For so long, I’ve just hoped and prayed, dreamed and pretended. I’ve hung on, just hung on.”

“Mama,” I whimpered, and tried to push up to her. “I made him mad. I did.”

“Bone.” Raylene reached for me.

“
No!
” I jerked away and pressed my face against Mama’s arm.

“Hush. Hush.” Mama breathed. I held still and heard Raylene’s hand drop.

We listened to the noises from the porch. Those thuds were Daddy Glen hitting the wall. Those grunts were his. Those curses were my uncles’. I put my fingers in my mouth and bit down. I looked up. Above me Mama’s face and Raylene’s were almost touching, both of them trembling and holding on as if their lives depended on each other.

T
hings come apart so easily when they have been held together with lies. It was that way with Mama and Daddy Glen. Aunt Raylene offered to let us all come stay with her, but Mama wouldn’t consider it. The one day Daddy Glen spent in the hospital, she moved us into an apartment over the Fish Market just a few blocks from the boarded-up windows of Woolworth’s. Every morning, I had to walk past those windows to get to the intersection where the bus picked us up for school. I saw the workmen replacing the shattered display windows with new plate glass panels, and one day I saw a very harassed-looking Tyler Highgarden supervising while box after box of dimestore notions was carried through the repaired doors. He never even looked in my direction, but I still felt the hair on the back of my neck rise up stiff and electrical. If everything hadn’t been so confused, I might have told Mama what I’d done. But Mama and I did not talk at all.

It was a two-room apartment, one bedroom and a larger room that served for everything else. The kitchen was a stove, icebox, and sink in a little alcove to the side of the bedroom door. The bathroom smelled of damp, mildew, and fish, the latter seeping up from the shop below. It was dark, with dirty windows we had to scrub repeatedly to get clean. The only cheerful thing in the whole place was the blue-flowered wallpaper that set the kitchen area off from the rest of the front room. When I sat at the table to do my homework I always faced that wallpaper. I didn’t want to look at Reese, camped out in the bedroom with her coloring books and angry scowls, or at Mama, sitting wordless over on the couch, smoking, wiping her eyes, and listening to the radio.

Mama had left the television set behind, left her washer, most of her furniture and dishes, and all of her knickknacks and good silverware. She had brought the sewing machine, the ironing board, our clothes, and most of hers. Since we hadn’t been there to help her pack, it was hard to figure out how she had decided what to take and what to leave, and since she clearly didn’t want to talk, it was impossible to ask. Reese complained about the television and her bicycle, but Mama just said she’d get us new ones in time. I didn’t question her, didn’t complain, barely spoke.

It was my fault, everything, Mama’s silence and Reese’s rage. I lay in the bed with my hands clutched under my chin and my knees drawn up to my breasts. I kept remembering those last few days like a hurried, confusing dream, not Daddy Glen beating me but the morning Mama told me about Aunt Ruth, not the Woolworth’s robbery but talking to Butch, and not the noise and uproar when Benny, Aunt Fay, and Aunt Carr drove off to the hospital with Daddy Glen but those brief horrible moments when Aunt Raylene showed my thighs to Uncle Earle. I kept trying to figure out how I could have prevented it all from happening, not drunk that beer, not let anyone see, gone to Mama and made sure she knew that I had deserved that beating—kept everything smooth and quiet.

That night at Ruth’s, Aunt Raylene had told me not to brood, that it would take time for Mama to forgive herself. For what? I wondered. Mama hadn’t done anything wrong. I was the one who had made Daddy Glen mad. I was the one who made everybody crazy. No, Raylene told me. I wasn’t to think that way. She had whispered in a rough, strained voice that Mama loved me, that she loved me, that Earle and my uncles loved me. She was insistent, holding me tight to her, but I didn’t listen. I clamped my teeth together and sucked my tongue up so tight to the roof of my mouth that my throat ached. Mama was ashen and silent and wouldn’t look at me. It was my fault, all my fault. I had ruined everything.