Knee-Deep in Wonder (30 page)

“What else you want me to say? You grown now. I can't stomp down every fuss you get into.”

“I didn't get into nothing. And I ain't asked you to go off and slap some schoolboy that I done got in some tussle with. Is I now, is I?” Queen Ester grabbed Liberty's hand, squeezing it. “Is I now?”

“No, this ain't no schoolboy mess,” Liberty said, softly trying to pull her hand away from Queen Ester, but her daughter held her fast, both of their hands growing sticky. Liberty couldn't decide which was worse, the sound of Queen Ester or her touch, since the sound alone—a harsh anguished whisper—allowed her to believe their conversation was simply a dream. No, Liberty thought, it's her touch that's the worst of it.

“I know it ain't. So what you gone do about it?” They stopped again. Queen Ester brought Liberty's hand to her lips, and her mother almost cringed at the gesture.

Liberty looked at her daughter, her eyebrows still raised as if they had been taped to the middle of her forehead. For one brief moment, she almost said, You should be glad you gone have a baby, if that what come of this. Why you care how you got that way? Finally, tugging her hand away from Queen Ester and wiping it on her pants, Liberty said, “Where he at now? You know that much?”

“He in the barn, I think; at least that's where he was fore I start talking to you.” Queen Ester's voice was reproachful, accusing Liberty of not behaving as a mother should, for not responding with heaving anger that would break dishes and chairs while covering the guilty with blood. Liberty turned away from her.

“Where you going to, now, Mama?”

“Where you think?” Racing down the stairs, Liberty almost tumbled on a bucket that sat at the bottom. “I'm gone move that bucket, soon as I take care of…” Her voice dwindled as she snatched the door open.

Liberty ran through the swept yard and into the barn, yelling his name all the while. “You, Chess! You here? You, Chess!”

Pitching hay, he spun around at the call of his name and tossed aside his pitchfork, smiling as he walked toward her. “Girl, here I am.” A pail sat in the middle of the barn, full of cold water and bottled beer. “Guess what? I got to talking with Bo Web and told him I'd cut his hair for six months for a bucketful of beer. And he went on and gave it to me. Sho did. Gave it to me straight out. You should of seen his woman. Hot, I tell you.” He let out a slow easy laugh. But then he looked up at her. “What is it now, girl?”

He ain't acting like he done what she said he done, Liberty thought, but my baby girl ain't gone lie to me. He asked the question again, except now she didn't hear him (or if she did, she heard his voice the way a person hears crickets sawing in the night, faint and constant). She saw his hand resting at the small of his back, his smile faltering but still in place, his eyes shifting back and forth between her face and the pail full of cooled beer. She spoke finally. “What you done done?”

He laughed again. “Girl, you mad that I went to Bo Web's for the beer?” As Chess spoke he moved toward her, swinging low and grabbing two beers in his fist. “It ain't my fault you ain't got beer here. Plus, I got it for us two. I can't drink no bucketful of beer by myself.” He moved with a graceless shuffle full of bravado, the bottles thudding softly against his thigh, still smiling though he smelled her fury.

“You hear me? What you done done?” Liberty said again, quieter this time, stepping away from the door and into the barn.

“Damn, girl, what you mean? I'm out here moving hay for you, not me; got us some beers for when I'm through; and all you can ask me is what I done. I done a lot. What you done done?”

“Don't you, Chess. You hear me?” Liberty closed the distance between them.

“If you ain't got a mind for beer, you don't—”

She cut him off. Lifting a hand, her palm curling inward to make a half fist, she signaled him to silence. “You think I came in here for some beer?”

Chess looked not at her face but at the hand that was raised. “We can share it with Queenie if you got a mind—” He didn't get to finish, because Liberty knocked the beer from his hand.

“There's your beer.” The two bottles fell and rolled to the ground. “Let's talk about what you share with Queen Ester.”

“What you talking bout?”

“She came to me and told me what you done. So, what? We all share with my little girl?” She pushed him, and he fell to the ground.

“You believe her?” he asked, sprawled in the dirt. He's not denying it; he ain't said not me, she thought.

“You get on up.”

“Ain't.” Chess started to pant even though she had only pushed him.

“You get on up, I said.” Liberty put her hand on her hips. “Get on up from there.”

“You the one that got me down here,” Chess said, and Liberty smiled, bending toward him with her hand extended.

“I got you,” she said softly and he took her hand. Chess tried to laugh again, but Liberty smiled and said, “I'm gone beat you to hell.”

He shook and licked his lips. “I'll leave. Go right now.”

“No. You gone stay. Let's see what you done in nine months to my little girl.”

He knew what Queen Ester had told Liberty, but still he went along. “What she done told you?”

“You done pushed yourself on my girl.”

“Ain't done no such a thing. She tell you that? She a boldface lie.”

Liberty spoke on as if she hadn't heard him. “On my little girl.”

“How can I go and push myself on her when she grown like she is? She ain't little no more, Liberty. She grown.” He was whispering now in a soft beseeching voice, his body limp and doll-like against hers.

“That don't matter, she mine.” Her voice trembled. “You got Halle, you got Morning.” She paused. “You got me now. You was spose to be mine. I took you in and gave you me, cause you told me the wife ain't enough, and Morning ain't enough either. So I gave you me and now you lay down with my child, and I might as well say my tree, my table.” Liberty barked out the words. “I know it. If the table would of said you did what you did, I still be out here in this here barn. Cause I ain't enough, and why ain't I?” She wound an arm around his waist, and they stood for a moment gasping together like dogs. “I ain't enough?” She lifted her fist high and brought it down, smashing his mouth. Chess fell to the ground, pulling his knees up, but Liberty bent over him, sawing her fists back and forth across his face, relishing the spread of blood on her hands.

14

BOTH ME AND
Mama had our hands on Chess. Mama had him the longest, but I got him once and that was all it took to get me a little girl and for Mama and me to fall apart. Seem like she can't treat me right less Chess there, stirring shit and smiling at the same time. I told her she got to quit on that, trying to be with me and Chess too, but she told me she can't give Chess up. The only time she pay me any mind is when Chess around, so I guess I don't want her to. Whenever he run off, Mama tear up everything in reach. And I can't make her stop. For myself, I just wanted a piece, a small slice of Chess to chew on. I can't remember when it start, but I done look up and all I can settle my mind on was Chess and how he look in them pants. He got Morning and Halle (for nine years) and Mama too. Lord knows who else he with. I figure a man who can handle that many at once can't mind one more. I want Chess more than I done ever want another thing. He come in from where he was and, well … well, I can't look nowhere else. I been trying my best to do different, but if Mama come in right after him, something rise up in me that I can't push down. I want to knock her out, put her under my foot. Maybe even make her call me ma'am. Lord as my witness, I can't help myself.

Mama fix a meal and I watch over her, make sure she do it just right, you know. Little sprinkle of salt in this or that. Collards can't be cooked for too long. She ain't said nothing, but I think she know. She know I been pulling after Chess. Maybe soon he gone pull after me, cause he a man and can't go contrary to his nature. In the end, though, maybe Mama the one that get to bend over laughing. Cause I didn't really know what I was hankering after and she did. He come to me one night and just lay right on top of me. Don't say a word, just pull on up the covers and slid in. My heart gets to going quick—bang, bang, bang! All I can think is I want what ain't mine to have. But then I smell him. He sweating and I breathe it in. Something sour on his mouth and I feel like I'm gone get sick to the stomach right then and there, and I don't want his laughing mouth all over me. I push on him, but he don't get off. He bite me on my shoulder, humping tween my legs. Like that ain't enough, he pull his head back, open his mouth, and bite on me again like I'm a dog. I open my mouth too, screaming; not a word in my mouth, just a sound.

Chess act like he ain't heard a thing. He rub two fingers over my lips, not like he trying to shush me, though. They just ride my lips back and forth. He go still after a while and slide from the bed. Not get up, you know, pull back the cover and walk away, but slide down to the foot of the bed, like a rug that need to find the floor again. With my gown all pulled up and my legs thither and yon, I ask him right there, “What was that? What was it?” He don't even look back at me. He say, “It was nothing.”

15

FIRST OF ALL
, both of them got they hands on me. I can't get no peace with nobody. All of them fools. Cept my wife, God bless her. Even she was sometimes … Well, I ain't gone talk bad about the dead. Morning done gone crazy, watching me all the time. Liberty wants to fuck me one minute and then be my ma'am the next. And Queenie—I don't know bout Queenie. All that kid shit, sometimes I think that just show. Liberty love her better when she think Queenie can't wipe her own ass. Other times, I think she love her the way she is—a grown-ass woman who been six years old for twenty-five years. That first time we meet she was staring at me like she knew what I ain't told a soul—my daddy's thumb and the mouth it rubbed cross. I ain't never told Liberty, and I tell her damn near everything.

Some days, I don't get a taste for it, you know, a batch of love and hate cooked up all together; then other days I can't think of nothing else. That's why I let Queenie get to me the way she did. She kept after me like she didn't know what to do with herself. I wasn't gone pay her no attention, but then we was sitting in the kitchen together, not saying nothing, and I notice her mouth. Looked real good. You know how you can look at a thing, years and years' worth of looking, and then one day you catch a peek out the side of your eye and it turn brand new? That's what I saw, hurt and happy laying quiet on her mouth all at the same time. She just need somebody to push on it.

I reckon I couldn't help myself. Came to her in the middle of the night, and she was waiting on me. Bedclothes pulled down, legs open. It's dark and I can't see a thing, but her breathing showed me the way. Not a peep out of her, do you hear me? Cept for the shape of her mouth I could have been fucking the dead.

Anyway, maybe she flipped me all of a sudden and I fell out of bed. Knock the wind clean out of me. I almost laughed, curled there on the floor, pants round my ankles. But I don't say nothing. Struggle over to the door, and then she call out to me from the bed, “What was that? What was it?” What's a nigger spose to say? That's me trying to touch what my daddy did all them years ago? And I didn't know I could get it from you till I looked at your mouth? I wasn't gone tell her that's you and me passing over your mama, that's you and me shaming Morning and my dead wife. I knew even fore I was through that I ain't gone let Liberty and Morning go. I figure maybe I done her a favor, give her what her mama been trying to keep her from. But I don't know who broke her door like that. It wasn't fucking me.

16

SHO NOUGH, I
broke Queenie's door. Broke it clean in two cause it let something pass that it shouldn't of. Liberty spend three nights helping Mable pack up and move to Chicago and she leave me in charge and look what happen. Chess walked out the bedroom and Queenie's in the room crying. Look after Queen Ester, she say. Stare at me real hard and put her hand on my cheek. If that ain't saying to watch out for Queenie, I don't know what is.

I owe Liberty, cause she help me out when I come to Lafayette and she ain't asked for a thank-you. I had this run-in with two white men when I was at this place, the Inn in Knoxville, Tennessee, picking up trash. One named Cowlie and the other one name I never did hear. They was talking about something like who's smarter than who. One of them turned to me and said, “Well?” I was minding my own business; can't catch me staring in some white man's mouth. “Excuse me?” Just like that. But him and his friend said, “Well?” Now I can tell both of them mad cause they had to repeat theyselves. “I ain't heard the question. What's the question you done asked me?” I guess they must of thought they heard sass, cause they hauled me outside and the one I never caught the name of pulled a book out of his jacket the size of the Bible and feed it to me, binding too.

I took fever after that, sick all the time. Peeing ink. Wasn't no good for nobody for a while. But Liberty take me in and get me well, though sometimes I think the curing was worse than being sick. Mulberry leaves, sugar, turpentine, and hot water. Like to kill me, but I swallowed it down. Liberty got this way, make you liable to do just about anything to keep her from being mad. Queenie can get that way too.

While I was mending I got to thinking. What in the world them two men could of asked me? Whatever it was, I didn't have no words for it. I figure can't no fight be had from just yeah and sho nough. I laid in that bed getting well and figured them the last two words in the world that got trouble streaked tween them.