Getting Mother's Body (14 page)

We keep walking.

“I'm twenty years old and I'll inherit my father's business,” I says.

“So whut,” she says.

“Let's you and me get married,” I says. I wanted the words to come out sounding more debonair, but they didn't. I stand there, but she keeps walking, she don't stop. I ain't never asked nobody to marry me before and the words are hanging in the air like a clothesline between us. The line is getting longer and longer. I start walking again, kind of trotting to catch up.

“You hear what I said?” I go, not wanting to resay it.

“I heard you,” she says. She turns her heel, almost tripping, then getting her balance back quick.

“I can be yr baby's daddy,” I says.

“My baby don't need no daddy,” she says. Her voice sounds mean but her face is smiling. I don't know how come she's smiling but I smile with her. She stops walking.

“You know what I need? I need me some money.”

“You need a husband looks like to me.”

“I need money.”

“How much?”

“One hundred dollars,” she says. She rests one hand on her belly and rocks back and forth on her heels.

“Thought you was gonna go get yr treasure,” I says.

“I am but that'll take time. Gimme the hundred and I'll pay you back.”

“Whatchu need a hundred dollars for?”

She's quiet, still rocking back and forth. The moon makes her face look like patent leather. “I can't tell what for,” Billy says.

I take a step forward, towards her. Letting her breath get close to my breath, like she is breathing in the air that I'm breathing out.

“I give you the money what'll you give me?” I ask her. I fish in my pocket like I'm gonna pull out the cash.

She just laughs. “You scrounging in your pocket, hell Laz, you don't got no money on you.”

“I do so.”

“Yr folks won't let you carry money cause you eat it,” she says.

Once some tough boys wanted my wallet. I ate a five instead of giving it up. I guess I'll never live that down. “I'm my own bank,” I says.

She laughs and starts walking again. I don't walk. The line of words hanging between us gets longer and longer and sags.

“You marry me, I'll get the money for you,” I say, yelling now.

“I got other plans,” Billy says, laughing and walking away.

I stand there watching her go. Watching the light that says Sanderson's. Not turning to walk home until I figure she's safely reached the filling station, got inside the office, and taken out her pallet from underneath the counter. She tells herself the plan she's got is a good plan, and then she goes to bed.

JUNE FLOWERS BEEDE

Me and Teddy are sitting in the dark of the office when she comes in.

“I'm leaving in the morning,” she says, taking out her pallet and fixing it.

“How much Dill give you?” Teddy asks.

“Plenty for bus fare,” she says, laying down behind the counter so we, sitting in our two chairs, can't see her.

I poke Teddy in the side with my elbow, getting him to ask again.

“How much is bus fare?” he says.

“Dill gived me thirty dollars,” Billy says.

“I stand corrected,” I say.

“Yr Aunt June spent the evening cussing out Dill Smiles,” Teddy laughs.

“I was calling her every name in the book. Now I stand corrected,” I says. I would stand up, to truly be standing and corrected, but I figure they know what I'm talking about without me getting out of my chair.

“I'm leaving in the morning, and I'll be back by Wednesday,” Billy says. It's like she's a haint, talking from her pallet underneath the counter where we can't see her, her voice rising up out of what looks like the cash register.

I give Teddy another poke in the side.

“I don't want you traveling alone,” Teddy says.

“I'll be all right,” she says.

“It's one thing for you to be going just to Texhoma. Going all the way to LaJunta, Arizona, is a whole nother story,” I says.

“It's just a bus,” Billy says.

“This is 1963,” Teddy says. “It ain't safe you going all the way out there all by yrself.”

“I'll be fine,” Billy says. “Willa Mae and me used to go all over, just us two.”

“It ain't safe,” I says. “Especially with the baby.”

“You don't want me going?” Billy says. Now she's raised herself up, just her head over the countertop.

“We're going with you,” Teddy says. “Me and June both.”

“We'll use the money Dill gived you for bus fare. One-way tickets all around. We'll cash in the treasure to pay our way back home,” I says.

“You got it all worked out,” Billy says.

“All sorts of things can happen these days to a young girl on the road,” Teddy says. “Just the other day Aunt June read in the paper where that gal down in Corpus—”

“I'm heading out at four,” Billy says.

“Bus don't leave on Sunday,” I says.

“Be ready at four
A.M
.,” Billy says and ducks her head back down underneath the counter and goes to bed.

Teddy and I call good night to her, but she don't answer. It's like her head hit the pallet and she went to sleep.

Teddy gets up and rubs his knees. “I'ma go tell Gonzales. They can watch the place until we get back,” he says.

“Sanderson's coming on Wednesday for his inspection,” I says, reminding Teddy of what he don't need to be reminded of. When Mr. Sanderson drives up once a month from Austin, everything is spit-polish and me and Teddy stand like army soldiers and Sanderson walks back and forth with his great granddaddy's riding crop underneath his arm and looks everything over. Then him and Teddy go over the month's receipts. Then Mr. Sanderson and Teddy go out onto the porch and Sanderson smokes one of his fancy cigars and Teddy dips his snuff and Billy goes to get some ice and I bring out tall glasses of lemonade. If everything's square, Sanderson gives us the privilege of pumping his gas for another month. He likes to go month to month. It keeps things at a certain level of responsibility, he says. Keeps me and Teddy walking on eggs, I say, though if Sanderson kicked us out, I don't know what we'd do or where we'd go.

“We'll be back in plenty of time for that Sanderson,” Teddy says smiling. “It takes a day to get there and a day to get back and it ain't gonna take but a few hours to dig.”

He goes out into the dark, a quarter of a mile down the road from us, to wake up Mr. Gonzales. Inside the filling station office it's dark, but outside it's darker. Inside there's something, although there ain't much. Outside there's nothing, or everything. Behind the counter Billy snores. Haw Hee Haw Hee Haw Hee Haw.

ROOSEVELT BEEDE

Me and June's standing on the porch in the morning dark. We got one suitcase, neatly packed, between us. A change of shirt for me, a clean dress for June. You leave town you never know who y'll meet. June got her big patent leather pocketbook, a gift I gived her when us two'd been married ten years, stuffed with peppermints and those heavy paper napkins she likes.

“I got my map of Texas and I got my map of New Mexico and I got my map of Arizona too,” June says.

“Billy said be ready at four,” I says squinting into the dark.

“It's four and we're ready,” June says.

I turn around to look through the screen door at Gonzales and his wife and they three children, all washed and ironed, with wet hair neatly combed. Gonzales and the two older sons got on Sunday shirts buttoned to the collar. The wife and the little girl got on frilly dresses, like what you'd wear to a party and they hair's in braids with the ends tied with ribbons.

June watches me watching Gonzales. “We'll be back by Tuesday at the latest,” she says. She reaches her free hand out and, finding my hand, gives it a squeeze.

“He wants to run this filling station,” I says.

“We'll be back in plenty of time,” she says. “Gonzales wanna run a filling station he gonna have to run one someplace else.”

“Whatchu got underneath yr arm?”

“Just my crutch.”

“Looks like a book,” I says.

“It ain't nothing,” June says.

“Looks like your map of the world,” I says.

“You never know,” she says.

“We only going to LaJunta,” I says.

“You never know,” she says. She turns a little bit so I can't see the book. Figuring if I can't see it no more, I won't think about it no more. My wife has brung her favorite thing and she is ashamed for bringing it. Cause she ain't brung it thinking we gonna travel the world, she has brung it thinking there's a chance we ain't coming back.

“Where the hell's Billy at?” she mutters.

“Maybe she left without us.”

“Bus don't run Sunday.”

“Maybe she's paying Laz to drive us,” I says and we both laugh.

At least Billy won't be traveling alone. It ain't safe out there for a Negro gal. It's 1963 and a Negro life is cheap. The life of a Negro man is cheap. The life of a Negro woman is cheaper. The price of everything is always going up though, so could be that the price of a Negro life too will get high. Maybe the price'll rise to reach the value of the cost we brought in slavery times. Not this year though. Not the next. Maybe by nineteen hundred and seventy. Maybe by nineteen hundred and eighty or nineteen hundred and ninety the price will go up. Maybe by the year two thousand, but surely, the world will end by then.

The life of a Negro gal is cheap. The life of a Negro gal with a baby in her belly and no ring on her finger is cheaper. Standing here in the dark morning of the porch, looking down the road into the dark I can see the real reason why I want to accompany my niece. Her safety, yes, but something worse than her safety. Something in me tells me that my niece that I have clothed and fed for these six years might just go out there and find that treasure and she won't never come back. I am going for selfish reasons. June is selfish too, but she's also coming along cause she likes to ride.

“We'll be able to visit family along the way,” I say. “Estelle, Big Walter, and they boy Homer; Blood and Precious, Cornelius and them wives he got.”

“Family's nice,” June says.

I look at my wife and she looks away from me, searching the darkness for Billy. Her family is in California. We don't got no kids between us. She is missing more than a leg, or I am missing more than a wife who is missing a leg. Sometimes I think June's full of children she's just keeping inside her and not letting them out. Sometimes she probably thinks the same of me.

Truck lights come bobbing up the road. Gonzales comes out figuring the truck wants gas.

“I'll fill this one,” I says and he nods but stands beside me with his hands in his pockets like he owns the place. But the place ain't his yet and ain't never gonna be his.

The truck comes up fast, throwing dirt and gravel as it turns into the yard alongside the pumps.

The truck is Dill's. Billy's at the wheel.

She leans over and opens the passenger door.

“Get the hell in if yr coming,” she yells. Her hair is a little wild, like she been fighting.

“Dill lent you her truck?” June asks, moving as quick as she can down the steps. I give her a boost helping her up, tossing our things in the back and getting in beside her.

Billy takes off, leaping back onto the road before I get the door closed good. On the porch, Gonzales and his family don't even got time to wave.

BILLY BEEDE

We're heading west. In a little while the sun's gonna come up right behind us. It'll rise that way till we get where we're headed, then it'll come up in our faces all the way back.

Aunt June sits in the middle and Uncle Teddy by the door. Both of them brought they spades. Uncle Teddy's long-handled one, throwed in the back with their suitcase and my things. Aunt June's got her little trowel, the one she works on her rosebush with, on her lap.

They both look out the window but they can't see nothing yet. Teddy glances at June's trowel. The digging point is turned towards her stomach. He takes it from her, turns the digging point towards the dashboard, then gives it back to her. She smiles.

“It's Sunday,” I say. “We gonna be back by Tuesday. We'll have Tuesday night to get the place ready for Mr. Sanderson.”

“We're gonna need help digging,” Uncle Teddy says.

“We can dig it all by ourselves,” I says.

“Candy and Even can help and I'll do what I can,” Aunt June says, flicking the dirt from her trowel.

Behind us, the sky glows pink. Enough light to see by. June takes out one of her maps, holding it up close to her face, reading.

“Estelle and Big Walter stay in Pecos,” Uncle Teddy says.

“That's on the way,” June says. She takes out a pencil, licks the tip and draws the best circle she can around Pecos. The road is bumps so the circle she draws is bumpy too. I hold my arms straight out to keep the wheel steady.

“They got their son Homer. Maybe Big Walter and Homer can help us,” Uncle Teddy says.

“They help they'll want some treasure,” I says.

“You'll get the lion's share,” Aunt June says.

“That's only fair,” Uncle Teddy adds.

I start to think getting some help would be nice. We won't have much time to dig and the baby makes my back hurt.

“I ain't never met Cousin Homer and them,” I says.

“They're very sophisticated,” Uncle Teddy says and I imagine my father, Son Walker, and his sophisticated three trunks of clothes.

“Dill was real nice to give you her truck,” Uncle Teddy says.

“She didn't give it,” I says. “She only lent it.”

“Dill ain't as tight as some of us think,” Teddy says.

“I stand corrected,” June says, pursing her mouth.