Stories (2011) (23 page)

This time, as before, they sidled up close to the house
where they could hear. The television was on. A laugh track drifted out to
them. That meant Buddy's sister LuWanda was in there watching. If it wasn't on,
it meant she was asleep. Like her mother, she was drawing a check. Back
problems plagued the family. Except for Buddy's pa. His back was good. He was
in prison for sticking up a liquor store. What little check he was getting for
making license plates probably didn't amount to much.

Now they could hear Buddy's mother. Her voice had a quality
that made you think of someone trying to talk while fatally injured; like she
was lying under an overturned refrigerator, or had been thrown free of a car
and had hit a tree.

"LuWanda, turn that thing down. You know I got bad
feet."

"You don't listen none with your feet, Mama,"
LuWanda said. Her voice was kind of slow and lazy, faintly squeaky, as if
hoisted from her throat by a hand-over pulley.

"No," Buddy's mother said. "But I got to get
up on my old tired feet and come in here and tell you to turn it down."

"I can hear you yelling from the bedroom good enough
when your radio ain't too high."

"But you still don't turn it down."

"I turn it down anymore, I won't be able to hear
it."

"Your old tired mother, she ought to get some respect."

"You get about half my check," LuWanda said,
"ain't that enough? I'm gonna get out of here when I have the baby."

"Yeah, and I bet that's some baby, way you lay up with
anything's got pants."

"I hardly never leave the house to get the
chance," LuWanda said. "It was pa done it before he tried to knock
over that liquor store."

"Watch your mouth, young lady. I know you let them in
through the windows. I'll be glad to see you go, way you lie around here an'
watch that old TV. You ought to do something educational. Read the
Reader's
Digest
like I do. There's tips for living in those, and you could sure
profit some."

"Could be something to that all right," LuWanda
said. "Pa read the
Reader's Digest
and he's over in Huntsville. I
bet he likes there better than here. I bet he has a better time come
night."

"Don't you start that again, young lady."

"Way he told me," LuWanda said, "I was always
better with him than you was."

"I'm putting my hands right over my ears at those lies.
I won't hear them."

"He sure had him a thrust, didn't he Mama?"

"Ooooh, you . . . you little shit, if I should say such
a thing. You'll get yours in hell, sister."

"I been getting plenty of hell here."

Wilson leaned against the house under the window and
whispered to Jake. "Where the hell's Buddy?"

This was answered by Buddy's mother's shrill voice.
"Buddy, you are not going out of this house wearing them nigger
shoes."

"Oh, Mama," Buddy said, "these ain't nigger
shoes. I bought these over at K-Woolens."

"That's right where the niggers buy their things,"
she said.

"Ah, Mama," Buddy said.

"Don't you Mama me. You march right back in there and
take off them shoes and put on something else. And get you a pair of pants that
don't fit so tight people can tell which side it's on."

A moment later, a window down from Wilson and Jake went up
slowly. A hand holding a pair of shoes stuck out. The hand dropped the shoes
and disappeared.

Then the screen door slammed and Wilson and Jake edged
around to the corner of the house for a peek. It was Buddy coming out, and his
mother's voice came after him, "Don't you come back to this house with a
disease, you hear?"

"Ah, Mama," Buddy said.

Buddy was dressed in a long-sleeved paisley shirt with the
sleeves rolled up so tight over his biceps they bulged as if actually full of
muscle. He had on a pair of striped bell-bottoms and tennis shoes. His hair was
combed high and hard and it lifted up on one side; it looked as if an oily
squirrel were clinging precariously to the side of his head.

When Buddy saw Wilson and Jake peeking around the corner of
the house, his chest got full and he walked off the porch with a cool step. His
mother yelled from inside the house, "And don't walk like you got a
corncob up you."

That cramped Buddy's style a little, but he sneered and went
around the corner of the house trying to look like a man who knew things.

"Guess you boys are ready to stretch a little
meat," Buddy said. He paused to locate an almost flat half-pack of Camels
in his back pocket. He pulled a cigarette out and got a match from his shirt
pocket and grinned and held his hand by his cheek and popped the match with his
thumb. It sparked and he lit the cigarette and puffed. "Those things with
filters, they're for sissies."

"Give us one of those," Wilson said.

"Yeah, well, all right, but this is it," Buddy
said. "Only pack I got till I collect some money owed me."

Wilson and Jake stuck smokes in their faces and Buddy
snapped another match and lit them up. Wilson and Jake coughed some smoke
clouds.

"Sshhhh," Buddy said. "The old lady'll hear
you."

They went around to the back window where Buddy had dropped
the shoes and Buddy picked them up and took off the ones he had on and slipped
on the others. They were smooth and dark and made of alligator hide. Their toes
were pointed. Buddy wet his thumb and removed a speck of dirt from one of them.
He put his tennis shoes under the house, brought a fruit jar of clear liquid
out from there.

"Hooch," Buddy said, and winked. "Bought it
off Old Man Hoyt."

"Hoyt?" Wilson said. "He sells hooch?"

"Makes it himself," Buddy said. "Get you a
quart for five dollars. Got five dollars and hell sell to bottle babies."

Buddy saw Wilson eyeing his shoes appreciatively.

"Mama don't like me wearing these," he said.
"I have to sneak them out."

"They're cool," Jake said. "I wish I had me a
pair like 'em."

"You got to know where to shop," Buddy said.

* * *

As they walked, the night became rich and cool and the moon
went up and it was bright with a fuzzy ring around it. Crickets chirped. The
streets they came to were little more than clay, but there were more houses
than in Buddy's neighborhood, and they were in better shape. Some of the yards
were mowed. The lights were on in the houses along the street, and the three of
them could hear televisions talking from inside houses as they walked.

They finished off the street and turned onto another that
was bordered by deep woods. They crossed a narrow wooden bridge that went over
Mud Creek. They stopped and leaned on the bridge railing and watched the dark
water in the moonlight. Wilson remembered when he was ten and out shooting
birds with a BB gun, he had seen a dead squirrel in the water, floating out
from under the bridge, face down, as if it were snorkeling. He had watched it
sail on down the creek and out of sight. He had popped at it and all around it
with his BB gun for as long as the gun had the distance. The memory made him
nostalgic for his youth and he tried to remember what he had done with his old
Daisy air rifle. Then it came to him that his dad had probably pawned it. He
did that sort of thing now and then, when he fell off the wagon. Suddenly a lot
of missing items over the years began to come together. He'd have to get him
some kind of trunk with a lock on it and nail it to the floor or something. It wasn't
nailed down, it and everything in it might end up at the pawn shop for
strangers to paw over.

They walked on and finally came to a long street with houses
at the end of it, and the lights there seemed less bright and the windows the
lights came out of much smaller.

"That last house before the street crosses," Buddy
said, "that's the one we want."

Wilson and Jake looked where Buddy was pointing. The house
was dark except for a smudgy porch light and a sick yellow glow that shone from
behind a thick curtain. Someone was sitting on the front porch doing something
with their hands. They couldn't tell anything about the person or about what
the person was doing. From that distance the figure could have been whittling
or masturbating.

"Ain't that nigger town on the other side of the
street?" Jake said. "This gal we're after, she a nigger? I don't know
I'm ready to fuck a nigger. I heard my old man say to a friend of his that
Mammy Clewson will give a hand job for a dollar and a half. I might go that
from a nigger, but I don't know about putting it in one."

"House we want is on this side of the street, before
nigger town," Buddy said. "That's a full four foot difference. She
ain't a nigger. She's white trash."

"Well . . . all right," Jake said. "That's
different."

"Everybody take a drink," Buddy said, and he
unscrewed the lid on the fruit jar and took a jolt. "Wheee. Straight from
the horse."

Buddy passed the jar to Wilson, and Wilson drank and nearly
threw it up. "Goddamn," he said. "Goddamn. He must run that stuff
through a radiator hose or something."

Jake took a turn, shivered as if in the early throes of an
epileptic fit. He gave the jar back to Buddy. Buddy screwed the lid on and they
walked on down the street, stopped opposite the house they wanted and looked at
the man on the front porch, for they could clearly see now it was a man. He was
old and toothless and he was shelling peas from a big paper sack into a little
white wash pan.

"That's the pimp," Buddy whispered. He opened up
the jar and took a sip and closed it and gave it to Wilson to hold. "Give
me your money."

They gave him their five dollars.

"I'll go across and make the arrangements," Buddy
said. "When I signal, come on over. The pimp might prefer we go in the
house one at a time. Maybe you can sit on the porch. I don't know yet."

The three smiled at each other. The passion was building.

Buddy straightened his shoulders, pulled his pants up, and
went across the street. He called a howdy to the man on the porch.

"Who the hell are you?" the old man said. It
sounded as if his tongue got in the way of his words.

Buddy went boldly up to the house and stood at the porch
steps. Wilson and Jake could hear him from where they stood, shuffling their
feet and sipping from the jar. He said, "We come to buy a little pussy. I
hear you're the man to supply it."

"What's that?" the old man said, and he stood up.
When he did, it was obvious he had a problem with his balls. The right side of
his pants looked to have a baby's head in it.

"I was him," Jake whispered to Wilson, "I'd
save up my share of that pussy money and get me a truss."

"What is that now?" the old man was going on.
"What is that you're saying, you little shit?"

"Well now," Buddy said, cocking a foot on the
bottom step of the porch like someone who meant business, "I'm not asking
for free. I've got fifteen dollars here. It's five a piece, ain't it? We're not
asking for anything fancy. We just want to lay a little pipe."

A pale light went on inside the house and a plump, blond
girl appeared at the screen door. She didn't open it. She stood there looking
out.

"Boy, what in hell are you talking about?" the old
man said. "You got the wrong house."

"No one here named Sally?" Buddy asked.

The old man turned his head toward the screen and looked at
the plump girl.

"I don't know him, Papa," she said.
"Honest."

"You sonofabitch," the old man said to Buddy, and
he waddled down the step and swung an upward blow that hit Buddy under the chin
and flicked his squirrel-looking hair-do out of shape, sent him hurtling into
the front yard. The old man got a palm under his oversized balls and went after
Buddy, walking like he had something heavy tied to one leg. Buddy twisted
around to run and the old man kicked out and caught him one in the seat of the
pants, knocked him stumbling into the street.

"You little bastard," the old man yelled,
"don't you come sniffing around here after my daughter again, or I'll cut
your nuts off."

Then the old man saw Wilson and Jake across the street.
Jake, unable to stop himself, nervously lifted a hand and waved.

"Git on out of here, or I'll let Blackie out," the
old man said. "He'll tear your asses up."

Buddy came on across the street, trying to step casually,
but moving briskly just the same. "I'm gonna get that fucking Butch,"
he said.

The old man found a rock in the yard and threw it at them.
It whizzed by Buddy's ear and he and Jake and Wilson stepped away lively.

Behind them they heard a screen door slam and the plump girl
whined something and there was a whapping sound, like a fan belt come loose on
a big truck, then they heard the plump girl yelling for mercy and the old man
cried "Slut" once, and they were out of there, across the street,
into the black side of town.

They walked along a while, then Jake said, "I guess we
could find Mammy Clewson."

"Oh, shut up," Buddy said. "Here's your five
dollars back. Here's both your five dollars back. The both of you can get her
to do it for you till your money runs out."

"I was just kidding," Jake said.

"Well don't," Buddy said. "That Butch, I catch
him, right in the kisser, man. I don't care how big and mean he is. Right in
the kisser."

They walked along the street and turned left up another.
"Let's get out of boogie town," Buddy said. "All these niggers
around here, it makes me nervous."

When they were well up the street and there were no houses,
they turned down a short dirt street with a bridge in the middle of it that
went over the Sabine river. It wasn't a big bridge because the river was narrow
there. Off to the right was a wide pasture. To the left a church. They crossed
into the church back yard. There were a couple of wooden pews setting out there
under an oak. Buddy went over to one and sat down.