Family Thang (23 page)

Lester entered the room carrying an antique silver breakfast tray. Toast, sausage, scrambled eggs and orange juice.

“Are you hungry?” Lester asked. She nodded and Lester placed the tray on the bed. “Good. I’ve cooked a little something to build up your strength.” She reached for the fork and Lester playfully slapped her hand. “No, I’ll feed you.”

What on earth, Ruth Ann wondered, made me think I could live without this man? So what the skin around his mouth looked like the onset of vitiligo. The man loved her. She could search the world and never again find a man who truly loved her as Lester did.

Lester fed her small bits of runny eggs, half-cooked sausage and burnt toast and waited patiently as she chewed.

“I need to get out of this bed,” Ruth Ann said between bites. “I need to get up and clean this house.”

“No way, honey. The doctor said you need your rest.” He leaned over and kissed her forehead. “Let me take care of you.”

“Lester, you have to go to work.”

“I’ve got it covered. Valerie is coming over when I go to work this evening. She promised me she’ll keep an eye on you when I’m gone.”

“What!” Ruth Ann shouted, bits of eggs flying out of her mouth. “Valerie! Lester, you know how your sister feels about me. I don’t want her in my house! You know I don’t!”

“Honey, she’s not moving in. She’ll look on you while I’m at work.”

“Hmmph! She’ll come in here and press a pillow over my head. You tell her keep her malnourished, crack-smoking ass away from me.”

“We’ll see,” and stuck a spoonful of eggs in her mouth before she could respond.

Ruth Ann chewed quickly and said, “I don’t want her in my house, Lester. I’m sick. I shouldn’t be forced to deal with someone I can’t stand. Around you she pretends she likes me--you and I both know she does not. I don’t want her in my house, Lester. I mean it!”

“I’ll call her and tell her not to come.” He picked up the tray and started out. “I guess you don’t want my mother here, either. She’s on her way right now.”

“What! Bebe? In my house?”
Maybe I should have died.
She absolutely loathed Bebe.

“Yes,” Lester said.

“The same Bebe who stood up in church and called me a whore on Easter Sunday? You’re telling me she’s coming to my house! You forgot what happened the last time she was here? She and I got into a fight, the state police came out and we paid a plumber five hundred dollars to unclog her cheap wig out of the septic tank. Hello? Yo momma psychodrama escaped your memory?”

“Ruthie, honey, she’s concerned, willing to lend a hand.”

“Ha! Please! She thinks I’m suffering, wants to hear me wailing.”

“A mean thing to say, Ruthie. I need someone to watch you while I step out for a few minutes.”

“I can look after myself. I don’t need a gap-toothed buzzard gawking at me, hoping I croak. Where are you trying to run off while I’m here dying?”

“Sheriff Bledsoe requested I come in for a lie-detector test.” Ruth Ann’s jaw dropped. “Momma said she’d be glad to watch you while I’m gone. What happened between you and her was three years ago. She’s not thinking about it. You oughta give her a chance, Ruthie. Let bygones be bygones.”

“You…you talked to Sheriff Bledsoe? You and he talked? About what? What did he say?”

“I didn’t talk to him. Shirley told me he requested everyone at the hospital come in this weekend and take a lie-detector test. I figured to go get it over with so I can come back and look after you.”

“Lester, you weren’t there…at the barbecue. You weren’t in any way connected to what happened.”

“I know that and you know that. Sheriff Bledsoe, apparently, does not. I guess he’s trying to cover all the bases.”

“Don’t go! I mean, call him and tell him you can’t make it.”

“It’s not a problem. I don’t go he’ll think I have something to hide.”

Ruth Ann threw the sheet back and hopped out of bed. “I’m going with you. We’ll both go.”

“No, honey. Lie down. The doctor said you need to rest a few days. What are you doing?”

Ruth Ann ignored him and stepped to the closet. “Fuck that! I’m going!” She angrily slid several dresses back and forth on the rod. “I’m not sitting in bed wondering what’s going on. I need to be there.”

“Why? Why do you need to be there?”

A good question, to which she didn’t have a good answer.

“B-be-because I’m your wife. It’s not fair. It’s not fair at all, Lester. You weren’t at the barbecue…and…and you had nothing whatsoever to do with my father’s death…and I don’t appreciate Sheriff Bledsoe calling you in and grilling you over something you know nothing about. I don’t appreciate it one bit. It ain’t fair, Lester.”

She snatched an orange pullover sweater from a hanger--the one Bebe had given her last Christmas, the one she’d never worn--and flung it to the floor. “It’s not fair, Lester!” she cried, stomping on it. “It’s not fair!”

Lester crossed to her and hugged her. “Relax. It’s all right. If it’ll make you feel better, I’ll call Sheriff Bledsoe and tell him I can’t make it till you’re fully recuperated.”

“May I call him for you?”

“Sure, why not?”

Ruth Ann smiled and allowed Lester to guide her back to the bed.

“Honey,” Lester said, “you need to relax.” He spread the sheet over her. “Really. You can’t go getting yourself worked up.” The doorbell rang. “That’s probably Momma.”

“I’m not up for company.”

“I’ll handle it. You just get some rest.”

When he was halfway out the door, Ruth Ann said, “One more thing, Lester, before you go.”

“Yes.”

“Come closer.” He moved to the bed. “Closer.” Ruth Ann rose up and kissed him, long and hard.

“Momma?” Lester said.

Ruth Ann wrapped her arms around his neck and kissed him again. “She can wait…can’t she?”

“But…” kissing her neck, “she knows…we’re home.” He climbed into the bed beside her.

“Wait, Lester. You’re on top of Teddy.”

Lester got up and put the bear on the table next to the bed.

“Make sure his back is turned,” Ruth Ann said. The doorbell rang again…and again.

“I better answer that.”

“Hold me for a second, Lester.”

He got back into bed and immediately resumed kissing her neck.

“Ruthie…Ruthie…Oh, honey…I love you so much.” He kissed her chin…her nose…her eyes, tightly closed. “Oh baby! Ruthie…oh Ruthie…oh baby!”

His facial skin was coarse, scraping her face, the foul-smelling scent of Magic Shave abused her nostrils.

Again the doorbell rang, and Ruth Ann wondered when the old girl would give up and go home. Lester nibbled on her breast through her Bugs Bunny pajama top.

“I love you so much, Ruthie,” Lester said. “Baby, I want you so bad.”

He unbuttoned the top button and started biting her breast. She could feel his erection pressing against her kneecap. She opened her eyes…Lester’s afro came into view first, and then he turned his head and she saw his mouth clamped onto her breast.

“Oh God,” she groaned and closed her eyes again.

“Ruthie…Ruthie!”

She couldn’t stop him now; she’d let him go too far. A hand squeezed her buttocks, moved along her waist and palmed her pubic.

“Ruthie!”

She let her thoughts drift…and drift…till they settled on that glorious day when she and her father were riding in his ’65 Pontiac, the wind blowing her hair as she sat on the armrest next to him, a half-eaten cotton candy cone in her hand.

They’d just returned from the fair, just she and her father, and he’d allowed her to ride every ride she wanted, had even joined her in a bumper car.

“Remember, Ruth Ann, don’t tell nobody where we went, not even your mother,” her father had said when they returned home.

Lester lifted himself off her, and she returned to the present.

It’s over? Please let it be over.

“Baby,” Lester said, “I know you’re sick…I can’t help it, I want you so bad.”

His mouth sought her breast again.
No, it isn’t over.
With both hands he tried to pull down her pajama bottoms. She knew she would have to rise up if they were to come off, but she let him tug and pull.

Just when she decided to accommodate him, Lester ripped her pajama bottoms off with one violent yank.

“There!” he said victoriously.

She couldn’t help but open one eye now. Lester was butt naked, except for his socks and shoes.

How did he take his pants off without removing his shoes? How?

Not to mention when?
And what’s foaming out of his mouth? Rabies?
No, drool. He caught her looking and she quickly clenched her eyes shut.

“Oh God!”

Lester started kissing her kneecaps, then clumsily worked his way up. At her inner thigh, a few inches from her pubic, he stopped and sneezed.

No, he didn’t! No, he didn’t just come near me and sneeze!

Oh, yes, he most certainly did.

Lester parted her legs…and suddenly he was inside her, bucking and thrashing as if he were riding a mechanical bull.

“Whoa!” Lester whooped, and collapsed on top of her.

Lightning, Ruth Ann thought.
Only lightning flares up and disappears faster than Lester.

Lester stopped gasping to say, “I love you so much, Ruthie!”

Ruth Ann whispered, “I love me, too.”

The doorbell finally stopped ringing.

Chapter 21

“It’s broke!” Sheriff Bledsoe said into the phone. “What you mean it’s broke?”

“Inoperable, damaged, malfunctioned, in need of repair,” Deputy Sheriff Jim Barr said. “Broke is broke.”

“Fantastic, just fantastic! I h
ave a murder case here with twice the suspects in
a
n
Agatha Christie novel, and the only polygraph machine in southeastern Arkansas is broke?”

“I’m sorry, Ennis, it’s been down six months. Sheriff Greene said he was going to send it to the shop up there in Little Rock. It might take two years before he gets around to doing anything about it.”

“Which may be the same time I solve this case.” He sat down and added ruefully, “If ever.”

“Take your suspects to Little Rock and use their machine. Sheriff Hughes, over in Chicot county, took a guy up there last week. Those Little Rock boys are obliging enough. You ask them real nice they’ll even conduct the interview.”