Billy (5 page)

Some
tim
es Cinder be over
LeHoy"
s
place. get some of t hat corn
liquor in her
and
dance too.
She be
twistin
and
t urni n just
lik
e
a
snake,
have her ha mls
all
up i n that long
black
In dian hair
she got.
Folk
s
stop watchin
Lucy Jae.
start watchi n

B I L L Y
f
3

Cinder. Everybody be watchin her, but
she
don't smile, just have that evil look in her eyes like when she sittin in the back of that hot pickin-wagon wit all that dust gittin on her.

Pickin fields, hot days, Mississippi suns, just seem to be there. Been there all the time. Banes County was just Banes County. Summer nineteen thirty and seven was just summer and hot, dusty too if it ain't rained good. Folks didn't come to Banes much, didn't come to stay at all, just pass through like them Yankee soldiers Mister Pete talked about seein. Folks in Banes were not fightin to get out. They had their ways, and movin quick or far wasn't any of them. Banes folk just change with age some, then just die. Most folks didn't count days
,
no sense in that, remember things by the spring of the
year,
floodin time. "Let's see . . . Mister Pete . . . he be dead just before a spring ago. . . ."

Sometimes the train stops down in town at the station, sometimes folks get off, get on, but most of the time the train just be stoppin to get some water, sit there on them tracks steamin up the place, then start to move, wiggle back and forth till it get goin, then everything be just the same way be fore the train came. Biggest thing in town was the courthouse, Banes bein the county
seat,
town folks sorta looked forward to seein one another sooner or later down by the courthouse. Most of the shops were on Front Street, the shoppin
stores,
hair-cuttin shop, Rosey Gray's restaurant, and Mason's
saw
yard down on the other end of the street. On the back street
s,
folks lived, most did their livin sittin on the porch, talki n about their yesterdays. Banes had its Saturday nights and it
s
Saturday-night places. Folks, mostly them young boys,
come
in from all over, get liquored up,
start
chasin them Saturda
y
night women, kept Sheriff Tom busy.

4
.
I Albert Frm1d1

Sheriff Tom was a:,; mean as he was big,
except
when he get dru nk, and t hen he look funny, had that
sheriff
hat sittin so far back on his head
you
wondered how it
stayed
on, and that pistol belt be all twisted, had that gun hangin right down be tween h is legs,
some
folks be hopin
i t
go off one time down there. Sheriff Tom is mean. Shot that old man Henry's boy Sam again after he already shot him once, shot him again righ t in the head, then shot at them dogs that were barki n. Old man Henry's Sam was drinkin and stealin, come at Sher iff Tom wit h one of them corn-liquor bottles. Happened right down by the tracks at the end of Dillion Street.

At the end of Dillion Street and on the other side of the Catfish Creek bridge, most of the colored folks lived, been livin down there since folks could remember. Folks called it the Patch. The Patch had that one road runnin down there. Hot days that road be dusty, rai n time it be just a muddy
stream,
just as mucky as a old horse
stall.
Them shacks and sheds down there seem to be all over the
place,
hafe of them the wood so rotten they look like big
old
termite logs, them kind
you
kick and they fall all apart. Folks down there kept to their ways most of the time, worked them pickin
fields.
Some of them had a little land up behind them shacks, bu t that Patch land was
so
hacked at, it just looked like bare dusty ground, just like that Patch Road
.

Town folks and Patch folks hadn't
started
talkin about Billy Lee Turner
yet.
Billy Lee was Cinder's boy, the
only
thing that woman
cared
about. Town folks didn't know Billy Lee from any other
of
them Patch darky
children.
Patch folks knew Billy Lee was
Cinder's
boy and
s011a
thought he was that Otis's boy, had
some
of them Otis's ways, and that Otis was the only man Cinder let
get
close
enough
Lo touch her. Cinder had her own
ways.
She was beautiful and k nown
for

B I L L Y
I
5

her
copper
-colored
skin and that long black Indian hair.
She
kept
to herself, kept back from folks like they weren't
no
good for her. Even
when
she would be standin right in front of you, she be lookin down or away, but then sometimes
she
turn her head, and real quick,
and
look at
you
with them black fiery eyes she has. You turn away, then all day long
you
remember her that way. Cinder walked gracefully, could
walk
like
somethin she ain
'
t never seen, walked like she was a bal let princess, could prance up on her toes, light with her
steps,
and then a sudden silence would follow her away.

Cinder was Alma's girl. Folks
said
she
was
just like her mama. Sam Turner had Alma livin up there with him behind Stony Mound, said she
could
live there
with
him and he
be
a good man for her, but Patch folks knew Alma was
already
carryin a baby when fore
she
went up there, and
it sure
wasn't gonna be none of that Sam Turner's
child.
Had to be that Grayson boy's,
that
one that was real tall and had that coal-black hair. Them Grayson boys alwa
ys
be comin acro
ss
the creek and tryin to get them sassy Patch girls up to th
e
m fields. Them Grayson boys lived right over there on Dillion Street, just across the Catfish. Grayson boys wern't that bad, not as bad as
them
other Saturday-night
white
boys
comin
down from town all red-faced with that liquor in them.

Alma been dead for a while. Alma's
sister
Katey
says all
them other
children
that Sam Turner had Alma havin
caused
her
dyin, broke her down, made her sick all the tim
e, co
ugh in and spittin herself up. Katey went on up there
and got Cinder
when Alma died. Kate
y
sorta had somethin
special
for
Cin
der
,
bein so different from the others.
Sam
Turner want
ed
to
keep Cinder, but Katey
said,
"Ya
ain't
keepi n t his
child."

Cinder was
stil
l
just a young th ing when her mama di
e
d and Katey come and got her,
she
wasn't much past t
e
n, al-

6
I Albert Fre11di

ready had hair down her hack. Cinder was different. Sure,
you could
look al her,
speak
and yell al her, but you could not
seem
to touch her
,
she
was different;
come
Sunday, down
at
First Star Baptist,
she sit
in that
church
and wouldn't look
at
anybody.
She
might hum, but never sing. Other
girls
her
age
kept away from her, but the boys be sniffin at her skirts
like coon
dogs.
If
one of them get too close, teased her at all,
she
look at
em
with them eyes and
stare
em down to their knees. Then she walk on, and whatever
she
was weari n
v.rould sway
with her
walk, bri ng color
and beauty to that
coarse bare
dusty
road out
in front
of
that
church.

A
Mississippi summer night. Hot. Cinder was sixteen and restless, leanin against the porch
post.
Them night bugs just
wouldn't
leave her be, buzzin and bitin.
She
is not answerin to the
call of
her name.

"Ci nder, Cinder, child, ya
hear me
callin
y
a?"
Katey
calls.
Cinder's
eyes stay in the
night.

"Cinder, child, ya
hear me
callin ya?
"

Cinder slowly
turns her head but does not look beyond her
shoulder. Katey stands
in the
doonvay,
her
face
is
strained, she calls again, "Child, ya
hear
me?"

Cinder
just
don't
answer, been bothered all
day, pickin
out
there in them
pickin fields, yankin at
things that
ain't
movin. Field men hollerin
and chant in all
day lik
e
they
do
every da
y
.
Bu t
Cinder
is
cool now,
the
summer
night's
soothin. She'd
washed
and rinsed
h
e
rself
and just
l
e
t t he
cool water stay and
glisten on her
skin. She put
that
pale-yellow dress on,
the
one she
washed out
and
hung
in
the
summer sun all
day.
Now
it clings to her,
moves and sways with
her.

"Cinder, ya
hear me?"

"l'm
just
standi n
out here."

The nigh t moves
and Ci11der
moves into
it, steppin softly

B I L L }
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I
7

into the yard dirt. She can hear the sounds of her life behin
d
her, Patch children
c
ryin, mamas tryin to hush em, field m
e
n roarin at their women
,
porch-sitters laughin and talkin, t
ry
in to outtalk the hollerin.

Cinder sneaks away and slithers into th
e
dark. She is goin beyond the fences, down weavin paths to the old Patch Road, down the road some, away from them Pat
c
h shacks, past th
e
smell of them summer outhouses, past th
e e
yes of the por
c
h sitters, to where the Catfish flows. She turns from the road
,
feels the cool grass b
e
neath h
e
r
fe
et, climbs up that little grassy hill, then up some mor
e
to where the
g
ras
s
has grown higher
,
to where she sits now, pulls that pale-yellow dre
s
s far above her knees, lets that cool breeze from the creek blow on her legs. She knows he'll come, knows she
'
ll make him come to her. He'll come through the dark
,
stand as she sits, then kneel when she won
'
t look up at him. H
e
'll kn
ee
l to h
e
r, whisper to her, then she'll look into his e
y
es. . . .

Cinder and a cold Mississippi night. Fires burn, smok
e
floats into the darkness. Cinder's scream
s
shatter the silen
c
e
.
Pain comes to her and rips her soul apart, then leav
es
h
e
r twistin and squirmin. She keeps her eyes shut until it
c
omes again. She does not look up into the dark sweaty faces lookin down at her, watchin her twist and shak
e
beneath their
eyes
. The other women are silent, but Kat
ey
pleads.
"
Child
,
don't fights it, don't fights it, let it
c
om
e,
l
e
t it
c
om
e,
Kat
ey
here wit ya, l
e
t it come, cry it out,
c
hild
, c
ry it
o
ut.
"
Kat
ey
closes her eyes, turns away from Cind
e
r'
s
pain
, s
h
e
whi
s
p
ers
to herself and th
e
other women that
co
m
e a
t birthin ti
me,
"This child too tend
e
r for this, hurti n too mu
c
h. Good J
es
u
s,