Doom Fox (15 page)

Joe's silence confesses, whips her to her feet to finish dressing with her milk chocolate cat-body barraging, 'We're through!' vibes.

Half-dressed, he rouses from trance, wild-eyed. He leaps through space, arm shackles her at the cracked door where she fearfully eye-sweeps the lot darkness, infested by portly, black, razor ready shadows haunched in the jungle of guest cars. He roots his face into her pounding clavicle, Paris perfumed.

Like the crotch deep cry of a lynch mob amputee, he squalls, 'I can't let you quit me Marite!'

She struggles, says harshly, 'You fool! Let me go before the police break in here to arrest you and destroy my reputation.'

He shucks his careful grammar to babble, 'Sure, I kilt that redneck. I'll kill him a thousand more times if he could make it back after what he did. I crawfished tellin' you 'bout it 'cause I was scared you was gonna spook and quit me. Lissen, lemme 'splain how I ain't in no true sense a real killer. You woulda kilt him yourself in my place! Lemme 'splain!'

'I'll call you at the plumbing office ... sometime ...' Marguerite wiggles free and streaks across the lot to the sidewalk with her fingertips hiking up her dress hip high, and her shoes tucked beneath her armpits. She halts to double eye-sweep the street before she puts on her shoes and goes to hurtle her car away.

Zenobia sees Joe race from the motel to gun the truck away in pursuit of Marguerite. Zenobia sputters inside the La Salle frustrated by sudden bumper to bumper traffic that prevents her U-turn pursuit. She stares up at the reflection of Joe's truck until it evaporates in the La Salle's steamy rear view mirror.

Twenty minutes after Marguerite's arrival at home, she sees Joe bring the plumbing truck to a grinding stop in front of her house, leap out and dash up the walkway to ring her doorbell and frantically drum his knuckles against her front door.

'Have you gone mad?' she shouts through the double locked door. 'Your wife will give the police your truck plate number for an A.P.B. They will arrest you here, arrest me on charges of harboring a fugitive. Please Joe, go away!'

He shouts back, 'I won't! I've got to talk to you. Now!'

In the racket of doorbell and his door pounding, she mulls calling the police to report his presence to protect herself from arrest. She goes to the phone, lifts the receiver. What if Zenobia hasn't informed the police, she asks herself as she replaces the receiver.

She goes to the door, opens it on chain, says 'I'll give you a few minutes after you move that truck out of my block.'

He turns and goes to drive the truck away. Minutes later she lets him into the crystal chandeliered entrance hall. He follows her into the spacious living room, furnished with expensive contemporary mahogany pieces with an elegantly color schemed cream carpet and rich sable velvet drapes. They seat themselves on a chocolate satin couch before a silver coffee service on a tan leather topped coffee table.

She says 'Cup of coffee Joe?' as she lifts her interrupted cup of black brew to sip.

'No thanks' he says as he scoots close to her.

She turns her face away from his emotion fouled breath.

'Say it quickly Joe. I'm in a terrible strain with you here.' She studies his sweat glossy face impassively from a narrowed corner of her eye.

'I lied about my roots to impress you, Marite,' he confesses. 'My preacher, sharecropper pappy was never a wealthy general store owner down South. He was just a pauper on the forever tab of the general store in town. It was owned by the white man who owned the cotton land we twelve Allens worked for fatback and beans.' He bitterly chuckles as he pauses. 'We were so poor the mice and roaches nixed our cabin ... on my pappy's last day we picked up some beans and molasses and a couple of gunny sacks of dung fertilizer at the general store one July afternoon when I was ten.'

He pauses to light a cigarette with a tan leather covered table lighter. 'Pappy was a half inch shy of seven feet tall, and skinny as a string of cotton with a core of steel wire. He was country clap strutting in swallow tail coat and brand new overalls. He caught the eyes of all the white folks in town when our buckboard, pulled by old Hettie the mare, went through on our way back home.

'Almost all of the God fearing white folks respected him and his thick brass bound Bible he kept tucked under his arm, shining like a slab of gold. He was a Christian showboater to the bone, and the town's Kluxers hated him for it. Oh! He was half God himself with bass drums in his throat and violins in his bosom. He preached his sermons from his pulpit beneath magnolia trees every Sunday morning.' He pauses to wipe tears from his eyes.

'I loved and worshipped Pappy. He was my God!' he exclaims as he continues with his eyes locked on Marguerite's inscrutable face.

'Our buckboard was skedaddling down a narrow dusty road a short piece from home when a rut in the road flung off a bag of fertilizer. It busted when it rolled down a little hill. It hit smack dab into goodies spread out on a tablecloth on the grass beneath shade trees by several of the town's nigger-hating toughs with their wives and kids. Pappy stopped the wagon and we hotfooted down the hill to the picnic spot to apologize and save what fertilizer was left in the busted bag ...'

Marguerite says, 'Excuse me for a moment,' as she rises to go to the bathroom.

Joe pours himself a water glass half full of bourbon from a silver decanter on the coffee table. At first sip, the phone rings on a stand at his elbow beside the sofa. On the throne, Marguerite reaches to pick up the receiver off the wall phone beside her. Joe stares at the silenced phone for a long moment before he eases it off the hook to his ear.

'My dear, I'm in my chamber taking a cigar break. I hope I didn't interrupt something important with my call.' Joe is certain the voice is that of Judge Evans.

'No darling, talking to you is much more important than getting that final fitting by Mrs Phelps, my dressmaker, for the blue sequined cocktail dress I've raved to you about.'

He says, 'Come in' to a faint knock sound. Then to Marguerite, in a stage whisper, 'Honey, a defense counsel just came in. I'll call you after court.'

Joe mops a sudden rash of sweat bubbles off his forehead.

Marguerite returns to sit, blue taffeta housecoated, at the far end of the sofa twanging impatience as she exhales a gust of cigarette smoke, says, 'I don't want to be unkind. But please finish so I can take the bath you interrupted. Now, you and your pap ... uh, father had unfortunately crashed a redneck picnic ...'

He emotes it, replete with face ballet, dialect and poignant hand play as he goes on. 'They all, even their kids, looked fit to kill us when Pappy snatched off his derby hat and said, with his soft drawl and rough English, "Gent'men, Ladies, I 'pologize for that sack of dung that's done spiled yo outin'."

Pappy dug a couple of dollar bills from his frock coat. He held it out to the nearest mean faced white man, Jeff Jenkins. He was rumored to be the head dragon of the local Klan.

'"It sho ain't 'nough to pay for all them vittles that bag ruint" Pappy said as we looked down at the piles of smoked pork chops, ham and potato salad sprinkled with dung dust. "Please take it, Suh, in the spirit of restushin. Ah gwine pay you soon's I can, the 'mount you tell me." Pappy pointed the Bible toward our farm windmill on a slight rise a short piece away. "Stop by after harvessin' an' ah sho gonna pay ya ever penny whut ya'll tell me now ah owes."

'"Whup hell outta 'em!" one of the women said. Pretty soon the rest of them, even the little kids, started shouting, "Whup the niggahs! Whup the niggahs!" while Pappy just stood smiling offering Jenkins the two dollars on his palm.

'I thought the big vein on Pappy's neck would explode when Jenkins spat a gob of tobacco spit into Pappy's hand and broke his silence. "Niggah, we gotta git a piece of you long black ass! ..." Then, Jenkins looked long at Pappy's famous Bible before he said, "Lessen ya puts up colatrul to covah thurty bucks wortha vittles ya done ruint. Niggah, gimme yo Bible 'til harvessin' time!"

'Pappy said, "No Suh! Cain't and ain't gonna do that!" as he stooped to wipe the spit off his palm on the grass. I screamed, "Look out Pappy!" too late for him to duck Jenkins' boot kick to his jaw that cold-cocked him flat on his back with his crooked mouth leaking blood. I got down beside him and wiped the blood off with my bandanna. Last I remember was Jenkins popping Pappy's head with a stone from a pile the brats had been playing with from a gravel pit at the edge of the clearing.

'Then, before I blacked out from a stone to my forehead, I saw and heard all of them laughing and stoning us. Pappy was dead when I came to myself around dusk. I was all alone and Pappy's Bible was still gripped in his cold hand. At the five minute inquest that week, Mama made me describe a gang of strange hoboes instead of the Jenkins mob for fear of revenge.

'Well, every day and night, until I was seventeen, I thought about killing Jenkins. One night I was coon hunting with my dog, old Count, when I got my chance to square accounts with Jenkins. He and his dog had treed a coon. I recognized him in the beam of his flashlight that was aimed up at Mister Coon. Wasn't no use to try to sneak up on him with his dog by his side, excited and barking. So I just sashayed right up to his back and said, "Howdy Mister Jenkins, Suh. It looks like you done had good coon luck." He laughed and without turning his head, not knowing it was me, said, "Sho have boy. Whoopee!"

'I put a 30-06 bullet through his dog's head first before I leaped back a piece. Jenkins spun around to face me with his flashlight on my face. He screamed at sight of my face - the image of Pappy's - and tried to swing 'round his shotgun to blast before I shot out his blue eyes lit up like hell's fire.

'Idus, my oldest brother, sneaked me food where I hid in a cave for a week before a powerful white man Mama cleaned house for brought me safely in for trial. I was just turning twenty-one when I escaped a life sentence from the chain gang.'

Weakened by desperation, he lowers himself to the carpet on his knees before her. He buries his face in her lap. His arms jail her legs as he pleads piteously, 'Say you understand, Marite. Say you're still mine!'

His heart jumps cycle with joy to feel her hands tenderly stroke his neck and shoulders. He raises his hopeful eyes to see love in her face. Instead, he sees only decadent, raw pity that pierces his pride, forcing him to struggle to his feet to crutch his invalided manhood straight and tall.

'Guess we're through with each other, Miss Marite, 'cause I sure don't want you since you don't want me.' He turns away for the front door.

He pauses to pick up and cock his thrift shop blue Homburg at an insouciant angle on his square head.

She murmurs softly to his back, 'You've got the last ounce of my sympathy. I'll keep your secret. Forgive me, but I'm so sorry Joe. I can't risk sacrificing my reputation, my son's life and law practice for us.' Her voice breaks, 'Good luck always.'

He thinks of the phone call from the wealthy socialite Judge. He checks himself before he turns back to lash her. A vision of the truck staked out by cops chills him inside his Robert Hall suit of blue as he moves on marshmallow soft, sable carpet through the richly appointed room. He steps into the night bleaked by the mournful sighs of the Weeping Willow trees flogged by Santa Anas.

At that same instant, bathrobed Baptiste and the pile of his belongings are starkly illuminated on the stoop of Erica's flat by the spotlight of a police cruiser. Young Joe Allen, on his way home from a trick tryst with a Delphine lookalike Central Avenue whore, parks his Ford and joins Reba among the knot of neighborhood gawkers at the scene.

Erica weeps at the doorway as she gingerly fingers a fat, livid bottom lip before she turns and disappears up the stairway followed by a cop.

The other uniformed cruiser cop trembles as he leans his red, hostile face close to Baptiste, 'Boy, you ain't got long to get you and your stuff out of my sight. You heah!?'

Reba sleeve tugs Baptiste a few paces aside. 'That cop is itching to beat you up or kill you. Oh why did you hit that white woman?'

Baptiste growls, 'I slugged her for kicking me and cursing me ... after I caught Harry playing stink finger with her in my Packard behind the store.'

Reba says firmly, 'Well I don't care what you say now, we're moving your stuff in Joe's Ford, to the back house.' She turns to Joe beside her. 'Can we, Joe?'

He shrugs, 'That's okee dokee with me.'

Baptiste drunkenly stares at the heap of his possessions on the sidewalk. Then he gazes lustfully for a moment at the Havelik safe, glossy black lacquered virgin squatted at the rear of the store.

He grins ruefully, his eyes are sparkled by tears. A Jolson fan, he apes his idol with outflung arms, 'Heah I is, Baby Mammy. Take me home! I'm yours!' he whispers into Reba's ear as he embraces her.

Reba laughs as she shoves free. Reba and Young Joe load Baptiste's stuff into the Ford and take it and him to the back house.

Inside the Allen house, elder Joe sits chain smoking in his bedroom after correctly deducing that Zenobia, after shooting her wad of anger on the telephone with Marguerite, has not finked on him to the cops. But he wonders about the whereabouts of Zenobia as he goes to the kitchen.

At that moment, after a fruitless comb of the ghetto for sight of the plumbing truck, Zenobia sees it parked at the house and pulls the La Salle up behind it. She goes wearily into the house, and goes straight to the kitchen at the sound of Joe's movement. He shuts the refrigerator door, turns toward her with a glass of orange juice as she enters the kitchen.

They glare at each other before Zenobia moves a waggling index finger in close to his face. 'Don't evil eye me, Mister Slick Stuff. I gave you fair warning. You gonna make a fool outta me eny mo' with her? What's that fancy butt's name?'

His quivering hand slops orange juice from his glass to the linoleum as he stares at a pipe wrench on the table behind her. He vibrates with lust for the consummate orgasm. Murder.

He smiles hideously as he whispers hoarsely, 'It's all over with ... uh Grace Webb.' He shrugs, 'You win. But I got to remind you, Madame Dick Tracy, that misery that goes around comes around. Will for sure for what you did.'