Ruby (22 page)

But she said it the way pretty women say things they know
people will disagree with. He smiled at the weight of her pride. The roots of her belief in her beauty ran deep, had lasted through over a decade of drought. Maybe, he thought, the tips of her hair remembered.

Ephram had always thought of a woman’s hair as living testimony to her life, her memories. Celia kept hers twisted tight under bobby pins, bound by headscarves and wig nets. His mama had kept hers free and puffy, until, he’d heard, they had made her tie it back at Dearing. He’d silently watched women and the complexity of their hair all of his life. He knew that some memories were better cut out, amputated. He’d seen women freed that way. But his bones told him that Ruby needed her past to find her way home. So he spent the night tending to her hair.

He had no one to ask so he supposed. He started with soap. The first suds turned black. He rinsed her hair with a pitcher, pouring the water into a separate bucket to spare the clear moving warmth of the tub. Then he washed it again and again. By the seventh rinse, the water almost ran clear. It felt like heavy, black wet wool.

The hair started whispering to his fingers. It showed him where to part and what to leave alone. It told him to crush wild ginger and mix it with the peanut oil, to warm it, to slip into the tunnels beneath the tumult and work that concoction along her scalp with his fingertips. He suddenly realized that it had been speaking to him all day while he was cleaning, telling him what to buy, what it needed. It frightened him. He wondered if Supra hadn’t been right after all, that maybe devilment was catching. Maybe crazy was a cold you caught. But then the fear left him and he realized that the whole wide world had been talking to him for years, only he’d stuffed cotton into his ears, packed it
tight until a rail thin storm of a woman had knocked it out with a kick to his head.

So he opened himself up and listened as it told him how to work the conditioner into each corded knot. How to aim not to free the bond, but be content with loosening it bit by bit. It led him to eventually comb the fringed edges, then helped him to work like a craftsman, extracting strands one, two, three at a time.

He kept the kettles on the stove so that the air stayed heavy and moist. He heated the water in Ruby’s bath as slow hours passed. He worked steadily, courteously. He worked in love.

Around two in the morning, he stepped onto the porch as Ruby emerged from the bath naked and golden, and lay herself under clean linen atop the mattress. Ephram covered her with another sheet, slipped a grocery bag under her head and continued working. She tumbled into a sleep so deep, that she forgot to be afraid.

White Rain and oil at the ready, Ephram combed and soaked, teasing out the stubborn fists. At about four in the morning, three-quarters was free. It twisted and curled and waved like a river set loose from a dam. Down her neck, across her shoulders and dripping past her angel blades. Then Ruby’s hair began to do more than guide Ephram’s hands, it began to guide his heart.

It spoke to him in feelings. Each strand holding a story, each knot an event. Trapped bundles of thought, released. Her youth lived at the ends of her hair. Her present life near her scalp. He was midway down her back when suddenly the words
Where is my baby?
seeped into his hands. He felt an empty hollow in his belly. His throat clenched tight. Then
Where is my baby? Where … is … she! What happened?
Then a scream, spreading like a grease fire, until it exploded.
Where you put her body?
Gone.
Taken. Ephram parted her hair through his tears. He worked in fractions.

Exhausted, eyes red, Ephram freed a coiled spool of black. It seemed to bounce lightly between his fingers. He felt his skin soft as gardenia petals. The froth of silk against knees. Lips coated in thickly spread color. He heard the thump of music and felt the sway of his hips keeping perfect rhythm. A man’s firm hand, spinning him, skirt swirling, lifting. Then the eyes of men pausing, watching. He felt a confidence, a certainty in the power of beauty, as the music swelled and laughter bubbled from his throat.

He loosened another strand and felt the blue flame of life in his belly. His body yielding, accommodating, and like a sweet gum tree come autumn, filling with milk. He felt his torso stretch, making way for the building, spinning matter, until it was as heavy as a planet in his womb. Until a sixty-foot wave crashed into the thimble of his body and there the child was, like a damp feather upon his breast, weighted as a new world.

He reached a knot, too tight, too large, it tugged free in his hand. His face grew hot. A terror so strong it busted the wall of reason. Felt himself entered, torn, ripped, bleeding. Felt sweat slick, spit hurtling against his cheek. He felt himself gag, choke then accept. He felt what it was to be mute earth. A dull ache wound through his fingers until he tackled another mass.

As he held tight to Ruby’s hair, his palm itched and then was tickled, so he was forced to smile. Then laugh. Then gasp as his pelvis warmed like honey in the sun, as hot sticky waves swirled, as his entire body tightened, contracted, as a lightning rod of bittersweet ache buckled his flesh. Too, too sweet, embarrassingly so, like a roller coaster crashing to the dip, only to discover it had another hill to climb and dip, and climb and dip. Exploding again
and again and again. When it ended he didn’t know how to fix his face. He wilted like a week-old rose. He released the reins of her hair. He looked up and saw the moon reaching in through the window. Ruby still sleeping and the caw of a lonely crow breaking up the silence.

So this is the life of woman, he thought, and kneeling beside the bed, head on the mattress he fell asleep.

U
nder the blackberry sky, the impartial moon shone on night phlox, evening primrose and lone houses with slanted steps. It also cast upon wolf cubs caught in traps, hidden bones long buried and burning crosses—with the same indifferent grace.

That night, the Dyboù stretched along a ridge of pines moving towards a glowing light in the distance. Dead pine needles shifted under his belly; above him the branches and needles shivered. He liked the way the old trees bowed and groaned, pushed by a stolid might.

When he reached the pit fire, he saw the men in the distance. Eyes on something they had just cast into the fire. It yowled. He smelled the thing being burned alive.

As he slid forward, he could taste the screams of the cat. See her black fur catching and her fangs, screeching, green eyes covered over, then eaten by the hungry flames. It took a while for her to stop fighting, then he gulped in the shaking spirit of the creature, still locked in its scorched body—barely alive. It disappeared inside of him forever. They could have burned something larger. But he had been hungry. It was enough.

One man stood before the others, the leader, soot and blood in the crease of his palms. The others were waiting in the waving heat. The Dyboù lifted high above them, higher, then blasted
down like a grenade upon the circle. They all stumbled and fell back. He lifted again and chose the horse he would ride. They all wanted him, their mouths open, teeth bared and wet, saying the old words until their lips grew white in the corners. He chose the strongest man among them and fell like an anchor upon him.

The Dyboù looked out of the eyes of the man. His man. His horse. He felt the strength of his muscles, the heat of his crotch. He had chosen well. The man was shaking violently on the earth, nose bleeding, drool down his neck, trying to fit the Dyboù into the acorn hull of his human body. The man’s spirit folded smaller and smaller to make way.

The Dyboù waited. Like fucking a virgin, the Dyboù took his time until the man became accustomed to his size. Then he plunged in deeper. He felt the man’s likes, his dislikes, his penchant for menthol tobacco, his favorite tie and suit. He did not smother the man’s soul—he welded to it.

Soon he lifted the man to his feet. He looked at all of the living men, their dumb faces glowing yellow. He smelled the pines. Then he drew back and bit into the skin of the man he was wearing. The man bucked, so the Dyboù sunk his teeth through the muscled arm until he had the faint taste of blood, until it ran down his forearm and his hand. He had been branded.

The circle of men gave him the red bag and a black bottle. It was the reason they had called him. They thought. But it had been his idea all along, planted like brackle in their minds while they slept between white cotton sheets.

Now he felt the soles of his feet on the forest floor. The hush of owls, the quiet of the crickets. The living thicket watched.

The red bag in his palm was heavy with magic, made more powerful by the wet blood that had streamed into it.

Before the powder had found its way into his hand, it had been a mandrake root, baking and drying in the West Texas sun. It had then been gathered when the moon was void, by a left-handed man, and had never since seen the light of day. Then made its trek across Texas earth to its new home in the east, where it had been soaked in gator urine and cooked over a fire. It had been shaved into an open pot then boiled with things such as graveyard dust, red pepper, stagnant water, RIT red dye and things so secret they had only been thrown in during the pitch of night and not looked upon by the thrower. But the strongest ingredient was intention. The ill-will of man whittled to a sharp point, then stirred for forty days in a mash, laid out for one week to dry, and then pulverized to a fine powder. The Dyboù was pleased.

Soon he saw the girl’s land. When he reached it he stepped back. The honey of the earth filled him. So sweet, the land shifted under him. The grass flattened before each footfall, and a dog somewhere began to moan. It smelled like persimmon and apricots stirred with cane syrup. Hundreds of little beings beating, throbbing. The Dyboù bent down and clutched a lump of soil and stuffed it into the man’s mouth. It was like a sugar teat, cotton soaked in the white granules and milk, then given to a baby to suckle. He calmed himself. He knew patience. Whatever small shield the girl had mustered would be washed away come morning.

The house was cracked, soul splinters where it had been blasted apart by sorrow. The Dyboù looked through the window, through the torn curtains, and saw to his surprise that the girl was not alone. The man was asleep, his body draped like a rag against the side of the bed, knees on the floor, his acorn head resting on the pillow. The girl was spread like a starfish on the mattress, hair
like frothing black water all around them. He scooted to get a better view and saw it was the fool he had been following for years, who had dropped the gris-gris and his manhood like a harlot drops her drawers.

He fingered the veined glass and zigzag lines spread beneath his hand. He felt his member swelling, his hand on the weave of the pants rubbing. Fast. Faster. His hand inside of his boxers now, until he grew thick and hard against the thigh. Pleasure rising … saliva pouring down his chin. Almost bursting. The house began to shake. The table bounced and the girl shifted and almost lifted her head.

The Dyboù stopped moments before release. Eyes bulging. The chinaberry shook in the distance. The girl curled onto her side. An old crow cawed.

He walked to the door, creaked it open, then dropped to the floor, knees cutting into a splinter, the Dyboù grinding it deeper. Bleeding. The left hand, spilling the contents of the black bottle upon the threshold of the house, molasses and ox blood. The length of him straining against his zipper. He heard something whispering, calling
to stop
. To stop what he was doing.
To stop. Stop. STOP
—and he looked, it was only the old crow—good for nothing, not even boiling. The Dyboù rumbled low. Then he spilled the contents of the red bag over the sticky dark. He bent to smell the mix and a thick surge of power shot through the body. Yes. It was good and strong. It would weaken the soul of anyone who stepped upon it. Cause their courage to drain from their feet. Cramp their guts and twist their resolve.

The Dyboù pushed open the door and walked into the house. He stood in the doorway. He stepped onto her bedroom floor and grinned. This boy, this mule, was meant to protect the whore?
Like two pill bugs facing a praying mantis, there was no chance they would survive.

He walked away, out the door, down the steps and towards the pines. The man’s nose started bleeding again, his heart pounding too fast. He would not last long, so the Dyboù walked him back to his home, slipped him into his bed, and oozed out of his body. The man would remember only a little, but he would awaken stronger, with a bit more spite and fire in his veins. The Dyboù liked the size and cut of the man. He would ride him again soon.

E
phram woke to tapping. The sun was only peeking over the horizon when he saw Gubber Samuels standing outside Ruby’s door, shifting one foot to the next, and when he caught Ephram’s eye he motioned for him to join him. Ephram slipped his head from the bed and tipped outside.

“Why you clean that whore’s house?” was what he said when Ephram greeted him.

“Gubber go home,” Ephram managed. The day was soft blue and coral pink, too pretty and new for the likes of Gubber. So he repeated, “Go home.”

“Man I know she got good pussy.” Off Ephram’s look he added, “Least that’s what I hear.”

Ephram grabbed Gubber by the shirt sleeve and pulled him away from Ruby’s door. But before Ephram could open his mouth Gubber cut in, “Look Ephram, we been friends too long for me to keep quiet. Folks ’bout to run y’all out of town after what Celia say at church yesterday. Ain’t no joke.”

Ephram looked at Gubber Samuels, his boyhood friend and ally. He was tipped to one side to balance his considerable weight. His creamed corn skin wet with the strain of walking so early. His right hazel eye steady, his left floating, traveling right then left on its own volition. Walled.

“I don’t want to hear you say nothing like that again.”