Nervous (13 page)

jonquinette

Daddy wasn’t much of a cook; again, some things never change. He made his best attempt at making spaghetti and it needed major sprucing up. He had no spices in the house at all except salt and pepper so we made do with that.

Flower was the exact opposite of me as a child. She was conversational. Throughout dinner, she told me all about attending first grade at George Washington Carver Elementary School. She explained how he had helped out farmers by inventing more than three hundred uses for peanuts. Without having to tell me, I knew that the school had to be in the black section of town. There was no way white people in North Carolina would allow their kids to attend a school named after an African American; not the part of North Carolina we were in.

I found out that her mother, Allison, was a veterinarian and according to Flower, “the saver of all of God’s creatures.”

I couldn’t remember the last time I had held any form of conversation with a child but I truly enjoyed it. Children are so innocent and full of life. They have no expectations, no misgivings and thus, no frustration.

Daddy was pretty quiet throughout dinner, more than likely still astonished that I had even showed up. It’s like one of those things you always daydream about but become content that it would never happen. His letters over the years had pleaded with me to reach out to him but I refused. I’m glad he never showed up on my doorstep because it would not have turned out the same way. Everything works on God’s timetable, not our own.

As I thought that, I realized it had been too long since I had attended church and there was no excuse for that. I would have to get back to my normal schedule and begin tithing again.

I asked Daddy, “Do you attend church?”

He looked up from his plate. “Every Sunday, like clockwork. You?”

“I try to, but I will admit that lately I have slacked off a bit.”

“Well, how about we all go together this Sunday?” he asked.

Flower squirmed anxiously in her seat. “That would be great, Daddy. Then all my friends from Sunday school can meet my big sister.”

Big sister!
Two little words that spoke volumes and meant big responsibility. Even though I had just met Flower and had absolutely no idea how her mother would react when she met me, or if her mother even knew about me, I made a promise to myself to play a significant role in her life. I would have given anything to have a sibling, older or younger than me, to talk to when I was a child. Parents just can’t understand everything, even though they were once children themselves. Every new generation faces different challenges. People just don’t seem to get it.

Again, some things never change. I realized that when Daddy whipped out a bunch of board games after dinner. He always loved to play games. Monopoly, Trivial Pursuit and Scrabble had been replaced with more modern games like Scattegories, Who Wants to be a Millionaire, and Jeopardy.

We played two rounds of Scattergories, Flower and I against him. We beat him something terrible each time until he gave up.

After that, we made old-fashioned thick milkshakes in a blender, I was surprised Daddy had one, and sat out on the swing on the front porch gazing at the stars. Flower sat between us and did most of the pushing with her feet, even though she was the smallest. She would slide down to the edge of the seat just long enough to push us off and then pull herself back up.

“Gosh, it’s so peaceful here,” I said, after realizing a car hadn’t passed the house in more than fifteen minutes.

“Always has been,” Daddy said.

“How come you never brought me here as a child?” I asked Daddy. “To visit Grandpa?”

He shrugged and didn’t respond.

My paternal grandmother, who I never knew, died before I was born but my grandfather didn’t die until I was in junior high. Still, I never met him, only saw pictures. Daddy had just gotten a phone call one day, came out of his home office announcing that his father had passed, and the next morning he left by himself to return to North Carolina to “give the old man a decent burial.”

I remember the day he left. A torrential rainstorm occurred. Momma was vexed about him driving in such bad weather, but he told her, “I’ve got to do what has to be done,” and left.

He came back four days later and never spoke of it again. That was why everyone found it so bizarre when he ended up back in North Carolina a couple of years later running his father’s auto shop that had lain dormant since his death.

Daddy looked at his watch and then at Flower, who was yawning and had positioned her head on his upper arm. “Flower, it’s after your bedtime. Go ahead and put on your nightclothes and you can take your bath in the morning.”

“Okay, Daddy.”

She started scooting forward to get down off the swing. I teased the bottom of one of her pigtails. “Maybe I can do your hair for you in the morning. Would you like that?”

“Yes,” she replied sweetly.

“I’ll be up in a few minutes to tuck you in,” Daddy said.

“Okay.”

She went into the house and again, I heard her running up the steps. Again, Daddy yelled out at her and then we both laughed.

Daddy rubbed his hand across his face and exhaled. “She’s a handful, I tell you.”

“You seem like you’re doing a good job. She’s an extremely happy child.”

“I never thought I’d find myself sharing custody of a child.”

“Not even me?” He ignored the question so I continued, “Daddy, I understand that whatever went down with you and Momma was ugly and unrectifiable, but why didn’t you fight to see me? I would have loved to spend time with you. I had you for fifteen years of my life and then you just vanished.”

“It wasn’t like that,” he said swiftly. “There are a lot of things you don’t know and can’t know.”

“Why can’t I know them now? I’m a grown woman.”

“It’s best to let sleeping dogs lie.” He paused and said, “Jonquinette, it’s not that I’m not excited about you showing up here, but why now? After all this time? I had completely given up hope.”

I thought about Dr. Spencer and said, “Someone suggested I come visit you.”

He seemed staggered. “Surely, it couldn’t have been your mother. I’ve been writing her for years, too. I got one letter back telling me to burn in hell and that she couldn’t wait to dance on my grave and that was it.”

“Momma was heated,” I said. “But she still shouldn’t have said something that malicious.” I took over Flower’s job and pushed us off. “I didn’t know you had written her letters. She’s never mentioned it.”

“Hmph, why would she? She hates me.”

“How do you feel about her?” I pried.

“Oh, I will always love your mother. I’ll admit that our marriage went through its ups and downs but I expected to be with her forever. Until that sorry-ass bitch showed up on Thanksgiving Day and ruined everything.”

“What about the child she was pregnant with?” I asked.

He raised his voice. “There was no child. I never slept with that woman. In fact, I’d never even laid eyes on her. I tried to find her though, afterward, but after searching every street corner in the hooker district, I gave up. Besides, the damage had already been done and your mother wasn’t trying to hear any kind of explanation. Not that I needed to justify my actions, because I hadn’t done anything.”

Something about the way he talked made him seem like an innocent man. “Daddy, do you swear it wasn’t true?”

“I swear,” he said. “I’m not a perfect man, Jonquinette, but that
I did not do.
I never cheated on your mother and I’ve only been with one woman since. Allison was more of a release than anything else but I’m glad I have Flower. She gives me a basis to live.” He got up off the swing. “I’m going to go tuck her in. I’ll be back.”

“Can I do it?” I asked.

He chuckled. “You sure?”

“Yeah, if you don’t mind.”

He waved me toward the house. “Be my guest but I have to warn you, she expects to be read to before she falls asleep.”

“I can read,” I said jokingly. “Even made it through college.”

“So I heard.”

“From whom?” I asked.

“I have my little spies. At least one of your relatives felt some compassion for me. I even have your graduation pictures from high school and college and copies of the ceremony programs.”

“Who gave them to you?” I kept prodding.

“I’ll never tell. In case you disappear again, I need to know how to keep up with your life.”

I touched him on the arm. “I won’t disappear again, Daddy. I promise.”

I spotted a tear forming in his left eye but he swiped it away before it could land on his cheek.

We didn’t say anything else; I just went into the house to find Flower.

She was in her room watching a rerun of
Sister, Sister
on the Disney channel on a thirteen-inch television. She had on a black Barbie nightgown and a pair of pink slippers. I pulled the slippers off her feet and tucked her into bed.

“You don’t mind if I put you to bed, do you?” I asked.

She shook her head. “Nope. Can you read me a book?”

I giggled. “Ha, how did I know you would say that?”

She wasn’t a stupid child. “Because Daddy told you I would say it.”

“Okay, you got me. I looked around her room, which was the only room in the house that looked like a woman had something to do with it. There were pink sheer curtains, posters of teddy bears in ballerina outfits hanging on the walls, and a few stuffed animals strewn about. “Where do you keep your books?”

Flower pointed to a toy box by the window. I got up and walked over to it.

“Any particular one you want me to read to you?”

“Hmm, how about
Isra the Butterfly Gets Caught for Show and Tell?”

I went through the toy box and located the book by Christine Young-Robinson. After turning off Flower’s television, I sat down beside her on the bed and started reading the book. She was asleep within minutes. I sat there for a while and just stared at her. I thought about my childhood and how confusing it was. My blackouts, all the accusations, all the teasing and bullying.

I started crying and looked up at the ceiling. “Dear God, please guard this child and don’t let her go through the things I went through.”

I pulled myself together and I was about to go back out on the porch to check on Daddy. But, when I passed his room, I heard snoring. I peeked in on him and he was fast asleep. It had truly been a long day and the serious discussion I needed to have with him could wait.

jude

I couldn’t believe she actually went through with it; going to see Henry fuckin’ Pierce. And trying to actually bond with the motherfucker at that. I thought about doing something really foul like climbing into the bed with him buck-ass naked to make the two of them think they had actually fucked each other the next morning. Only one thing saved Jon and the bastard. Flower was in the house. She was a cute little something.

Nevertheless, I needed to seriously blow off some steam, so after Henry and Flower were fast asleep, I located the keys to his Ford Ranger, the only vehicle he had except for his tow truck.

I headed into town, what there was of it, hunting for some action. I stopped by a twenty-four-hour convenience store and there were some lowlifes hanging out front drinking forties of beer. I asked them about the local night life and they all started laughing.

One of them finally told me about a “juke joint” called The Crystal Palace. His friends all looked at him like he was tripping. I should have suspected he was up to no good. The Crystal Palace was down a dark dirt road and I knew something was wrong when I pulled up beside a pickup truck that had Redneck’s Toy fancily painted across the back of the bed.

I sat there and surveyed the place for a few minutes. It was fifteen minutes after one and the parking lot was packed with nothing but pickup trucks and hot rods. I had never seen so many Novas and Chargers in my life. Nor had I seen so many Confederate flags hanging or stickered in windows. Those black men at the store were trying to set my ass up.

Two white boys pulled up on four-wheelers and parked beside a pickup that had a dead deer lying on the back. I had stumbled into
Deliverance;
it was like something right out of the movie.

I didn’t leave, though. The thought of walking into a place full of “good ole boys” enticed me. Whether they wanted to acknowledge it or not, all of them had probably fantasized about fucking a sister at least once.

An inebriated couple stumbled out the front door and started making out in the middle of the parking lot. My voyeuristic side surfaced and I watched them get more and more into it. My eyes followed them as they made their way over to an older model Pontiac on the side of the building. I could still see them from my vantage point.

The girl went down on him with the speed of a bullet and he came just as fast.

“Amateurs,” I said aloud. “This town sucks.”

I waited for them to get into their car and drive off before I got out of Henry’s truck, put on my fuck-with-me-and-I’ll-fuck-youup face, and stormed toward the entrance.

“Something Like That” by Tim McGraw was playing when I went in. The place was off the fucking chain. People were on the dance floor line dancing and a couple of scrawny white girls were on the bar swinging tits and ass they didn’t even possess.

It wasn’t long before all eyes were on me. No big surprise. I knew there wouldn’t be any other black people in the place before I went in. No one else was bold as shit like me to walk into a club full of rednecks. If I had been male, a
brotha,
an instant ass-kicking would have been in order, but since I was female, they didn’t know what to do except stare.

I went over to the bar and waved the bartender over. She acted like she didn’t want to be bothered with the likes of me, but I smacked my lips and she came over taking her little sweet time. I asked for a blow job but her dumb ass didn’t know what it was, so I asked her, “Are you sharp enough to make a rum and Coke? That means you put some ice, rum, and Coke in a glass. Got it?”

She rolled her eyes and then skulked away to get my drink. I watched her like a hawk to make sure she didn’t try any shady shit, like spitting in my glass or being skimpy with the rum.

After she came back with it and told me it was four-fifty, I slammed a five on the bar and told her to keep the change.

The music suddenly stopped and I thought,
Aw hell, they’re about to lynch me up in here, female or not.

I was wrong. Some drunken bastard got up on their little makeshift stage and broadcasted that is was time for the karaoke contest. Now I was really laughing at their country asses. I searched the place for some bingo tables but found none. I was convinced there was a bingo hall in Trinity someplace, though.

The first bitch that took the stage was ghastly. She couldn’t hold a tune if her life depended on it. I was amazed someone didn’t swing a beer bottle at her head. If Dolly Parton had been in the house, she would’ve been justified in doing it since it was her song that was murdered. Someone needed to tell that whore to sit down, so I did. I yelled out, “Sit down, whore! Sit down, whore!” just like the people on
Jerry Springer.

Everyone swung around to look at me. One fat motherfucker at the bar, whose head was bigger than a watermelon, leered at me and said, “Why don’t you shut up? That girl can sing.”

I poked his arm, which was thicker than a country ham, and replied, “If that whore can sing, I’m Halle Berry.”

“Who the hell is Halle Berry?” he asked.

“Never mind,” I said, after smacking my lips in disgust. Then I got curious and started acting straight-up indignant. “Have you ever heard of any famous African Americans? Martin Luther King Jr.? Malcolm X?”

He got cynical with me. “No, but I’ve heard of that colored boy out in California that sliced up his wife and her buddy.”

I rolled my eyes. “He never got convicted.”

He took a swig of his beer and said, “Just shut up and let me enjoy the show.” He must not have been able to resist being nosy because five seconds later, he was asking me, “What you doing in here anyway? You can’t be from around here.”

“What makes you think I ain’t from around here?” I responded in a countrified accent and pretended like I had chewing tobacco in my mouth.

“’Cause you ain’t,” he said. “The coloreds around here know better than to come in here.”

“The coloreds?” I chuckled. “Why’s that? I didn’t see any ‘For Whites Only’ signs on the front door.”

He sneered at me. “Some things don’t have to be said for people to know them.”

“I feel you. I mean, no one has to tell me that you’re a fat fuck for me to know it.”

His friend beside him, who was a complete contrast, and as skinny as the bar rail asked, “What did she just say to you?”

I responded by yelling over the music and horrible singing of the next contestant who was murdering another artist’s song. “I said, no one has to tell me that he’s a fat fuck for me to know it!” The scrawny one just stared at me like he was sizing me up. “You think you can take me? Jump, motherfucker, jump!”

“Leroy, let me handle this,” the fat fuck said, holding his palm up in front of the undernourished one’s face. “Missy, if I were a lesser man, I’d do something mighty ugly to you, but my daddy raised me better than to hit a woman. So I’m just gonna let this one slide.”

I laughed in his face and mocked him with my country accent. “Well, I sure do appreciate it.”

I was growing bored. The karaoke was giving me a headache and the drink was weak because most of the ice had melted. I was about to leave when they announced the next contestant.

“Umph, look at him!” I said aloud.

Fat Fuck turned to me and chuckled. “So you got a thing for white meat, huh? No wonder you’re up in here.” He nudged his friend’s shoulder. “Hey, Leroy, this one over here has that ‘jungle fever’ in her blood.”

“I have a thing for dick
period,”
I said bluntly.

“Boys have dicks. Real men have cocks,” he said.

I shook my head. “A cock is a chicken. A dick is a dick.”

“Well, since you put it like that, I happen to have a dick,” he said, licking his lips. “So does my buddy over here. How about you take the two of us on a little adventure tonight? I got a pickup right outside with a comfy bed on it.”

“Let me guess. Yours is the one that says ‘Redneck’s Toy’ on the back?”

“How’d you know that?”

I scowled. “Figures.”

“So how ’bout it?”

Fat Fuck was distracting me from the hunk on the stage who was the first decent contestant, both in looks and talent. He was singing “These Boots Were Made for Walking.”

“So how ’bout it, Missy?” he asked again.

“First off, you redneck fuck, your stomach is so big that I probably couldn’t even get to your dick and your friend’s so skinny that I’d probably need a magnifying glass to find his. I’m gonna have to pass.”

Leroy leaned in closer and asked, “What did she say?”

I yelled out at him, “Get a hearing aid, pencil dick!”

I stayed for another half-hour until the contest was over. Mr. Boots Were Made for Walking lost to the first whore, who must have been sucking major dick in the men’s room to win because the bitch straight-up couldn’t sing. I decided to be his consolation prize and followed him outside. He was the one driving the Monte Carlo.

“Excuse me, do you have the time?” I asked him when he was about to unlock his ride.

He lifted his wrist close to his face so he could make out the dial. “It’s two-thirty.”

“No, that’s not what I meant.” I climbed up on the hood of his car, spread my legs, and lifted my skirt to give him a good visual. His eyes almost came out of his head. “I want to know if you have the time to tap this ass.”

By three, we were parked side by side in the middle of a field and I was lying on his trunk with his dick inside me getting the much-needed release I craved after Jon’s fucking ass decided to come to Trinity in search of resolutions she would never find.