Of Love and Dust (18 page)

“Don’t come back here crying you sting your leg on a nettle, you hear me?” she said to Tite.

Tite didn’t answer. Aunt Margaret watched her go across the yard where Marcus was working. Marcus stopped a moment to say something to her, then he started working again. Tite started jumping.

“That child go’n work herself up there and make her heart pump too fast,” Aunt Margaret thought. “Tite?” she called. “Petite?”

Tite jumped again.

“What’s wrong with that child out there?” Aunt Margaret called to Marcus.

“Nothing,” he said.

He got the broom from against the fence and gave it to her. But the broom was so heavy, Tite could hardly move it.

“You see that boy trying to work that child and hurt her,” Aunt Margaret said to herself. “Come here, Tite,” she called.

Tite didn’t answer.

“Tite?” she called.

“Non,” Tite said over her shoulder. “Non, non, non.”

“Like mama, like daughter, huh?” Aunt Margaret thought.
“You don’t know what it is right now, but give you ten, ’leven more years, you’ll be wanting the same thing.… Ehh, Lord, look where my mind at,” she thought. “I ought to do some ironing while I’m up here, save me from doing it next week. But that stension cord won’t reach the gallery, and I got to keep my eyes on that boy.”

Aunt Margaret said she sat there, looking at him and Tite raking the leaves. Tite was having trouble moving the big push-broom, and she started jumping again. Marcus went to the tree to break off a limb.

“Convict, what you think you doing?” Aunt Margaret jumped out of her chair and hollered at Marcus.

“Getting her a little broom,” he said.

He gave it to Tite and Tite started sweeping with that. Aunt Margaret stood at the end of the gallery watching them a while, then she moved back to her chair by the door.

“My heart go’n be worser than this child heart ’fore this day is over,” she said to herself.

Aunt Margaret had been sitting out there about an hour when Louise came out of the bedroom and went back in the kitchen. After getting a drink of water out of the icebox, Louise went out on the back gallery and laid down on the cot. Aunt Margaret could see just her feet, her toes sticking up.

“You can lay down anywhere you want, on anything you want; long as you lay down in the back and he rake them leaves in the front,” Aunt Margaret thought.

Now, she was watching both of them—Louise’s bare feet one second and Marcus raking the leaves the next second. Tite was working right beside Marcus. Every time he pushed out the rake and drew it in, Tite pushed out her little branch and drew it back. Her white hair looked like a white piece of rag stuck up on a stick.

Aunt Margaret said she thought about her ironing again.
She knew the extension cord couldn’t reach the gallery, but if she ironed in the living room, she could always see Louise laying down on the cot. And she figured that watching one or the other was just as good as watching both of them. She had just stood up to go inside when she saw Marshall Hebert’s car coming down the quarter. Marshall slowed up long enough to look at the boy through the fence, then he went on. Aunt Margaret went to the back gallery to get the ironing board. She had to lean over Louise and the cot to get the ironing board out of the corner. Louise was laying there, looking through a magazine. She didn’t look up once. She flipped through the magazine like she had gone through it a thousand times, like she knew all the time what was on the next page even before she got there. Aunt Margaret said after she had pulled the board from among all the shovels and hoes and rakes and axes, she looked down at Louise again. Louise wore a thin green blouse and a white pleated skirt. Instead of buttoning the blouse all the way down, she had tied the two ends in a knot, leaving part of her belly showing. Her white skirt, that didn’t go much farther than her knees when she was standing up, was way up her thighs now. Aunt Margaret looked down at her painted toenails and looked back at the magazine. She wanted to look at Louise’s face, but Louise wouldn’t lower the magazine far enough.

Aunt Margaret went back in the living room with the ironing board. She got the iron off the mantelpiece and connected it to the light socket that hung down from the ceiling. While the iron was getting hot, she went out on the gallery to check on Marcus. Marcus and Tite were coming toward the house.

“Just where you think you going?” Aunt Margaret asked him.

“Water,” he said.

“Hydrant in that back yard,” Aunt Margaret said.

“Tite told me where it was.”

Marcus’s face and shirt were wet with sweat. Two lines of sweat ran down the sides of Tite’s face, too.

As Marcus and Tite went around the house, the dog came from under the house and started barking at Marcus. He followed them all the way to the back, growling at Marcus through the fence.

Aunt Margaret looked through the house now, and she could see that Louise’s toes were pointed the other way. “You see that wench trying to show that boy something he ain’t—” Aunt Margaret said, and started toward the back. When she got back there, Marcus had turned on the hydrant and was letting the water run in the barrel.

“Drink and get on back to the front,” Aunt Margaret said.

“That water hot,” Marcus said.

“It ain’t that hot,” Aunt Margaret said. “Drink and get on back to them leaves.”

“I ain’t scawling myself with that hot water,” he said. “Y’all got anything cold in there—lemonade or anything?”

Aunt Margaret said she didn’t say anything, she just looked at him. She said she didn’t want cuss with the next day being her ’Termination Sunday.

She said all the time Marcus was letting the water run in the barrel, he was looking at Louise laying there on the cot. But Louise pretended he wasn’t anywhere around. Laying there with half of her belly out and with that skirt pulled halfway up her thighs, and still pretending he wasn’t anywhere around. Aunt Margaret said she tried to block out much of Louise as she could, but no matter how she stood, Marcus was still able to see some part of Louise’s body. And from the way Louise was laying down there, looking at her painted toenails could cause as much trouble as looking at her belly.

“Didn’t I tell you to drink and get back to the front?” Aunt Margaret said.

“All right, I reckond it’s cool enough,” he said.

He lowered his head and drank from the hydrant. When he raised up again, Tite asked him to let her drink.

“No, you don’t,” Aunt Margaret said. “She got a cup in here and she got ice water to go in it.”

“Can’t have none, Tite,” he said.

“Dolo,” Tite said, jumping. “Dolo, dolo.”

“That old lady standing on that gallery say you can’t have none,” he said.

“Dolo,” Tite said, jumping. “Dolo, dolo.”

He picked her up and held her to the hydrant.

“Now, duck your head to the side,” he said. “Don’t stick your tongue out like a snake, duck your head to the side. To the side, Tite.”

He put her down. She started jumping again.

“Shut up,” he said, “you go’n have some. Now look at me. See what I do.” He drank. “See?”

“Wee,” Tite said.

He picked her up.

“All right now, duck your head to the side. To the side, to the side, Tite.”

Aunt Margaret said she stood there looking at that convict trying to drown that child, and that woman, the child’s own mon, just laying there with that skirt pulled halfway up her thighs, not saying a word. She said the dog said more—at least he was still growling at the convict through the fence.

Marcus put Tite down again.

“Now, get back to the front,” Aunt Margaret said.

“Got to turn the water off,” he said.

“Turn it off and get back to them leaves.”

All the time he was twisting the knob on the hydrant, he was looking at Louise laying down on the cot. Then Aunt
Margaret saw him grin. She turned quickly to look at Louise. Louise raised the magazine up to her face again. Aunt Margaret turned to Marcus.

“I told you to get moving,” she said. “I mean just that.”

“Come on, Tite,” he said.

Tite took his hand and they went around the house. The dog followed them, barking at Marcus through the fence. Aunt Margaret said Louise was holding the magazine up to her face like she was reading. But Aunt Margaret knew she wasn’t reading, because she could hardly read or write her own name.

Aunt Margaret went back to the front gallery. She could see Tite and Marcus going across the yard holding hands. Marcus picked up his rake and Tite picked up her branch and they went back to work.

Aunt Margaret stood there another five minutes watching them. Marshall Hebert’s car went back up the quarter. As he went by the yard, he slowed up and looked at Marcus through the fence again.

Aunt Margaret moved back inside and started ironing. She had finished two of Bonbon’s white shirts when Louise got up and came out to the front gallery. Louise stood in the door and looked across the yard where Marcus and Tite were working. Standing there barefooted, she looked more like a twelve-year-old child than she did a twenty-five-year-old woman, Aunt Margaret said.

“Judy?” Louise called.

“Wee, Mama?” Tite answered.

“Don’t work too hard,” Louise said.

Aunt Margaret stopped ironing and looked at Louise standing in the door, because she knew it wasn’t Judy, Louise was talking to, it was Marcus. Louise turned from the door and went back to her room. Aunt Margaret started ironing again.

32
 

Aunt Margaret thought about church the next day and started singing. She thought about the people who were going to be there, how they were going to be dressed and where they were going to be sitting. She knew that Aunt Polly Williams liked sitting by that first window near the pulpit. Aunt Polly would come to church before any of the other members just to get that seat. If anybody else sat there before she did, she would be mad all day. Sometimes Glo Hawkins did that just to make Aunt Polly mad. Once they had a fight in the church. Aunt Polly told Glo Hawkins to move, and Glo Hawkins told her to go sit down. Aunt Polly started beating Glo Hawkins over the head with her pocketbook, and it took three or four other people in church to stop her. Aunt Margaret, thinking about Aunt Polly, had to smile to herself. She thought about the other people who wouldn’t be able to come to church because of sickness. Whenever she thought about the sick people, it always made her sad.

Aunt Margaret heard noises in Louise’s bedroom. It sounded like Louise was pushing something heavy across the floor. Aunt Margaret stopped singing and listened a moment. Louise stopped pushing whatever it was she was moving. Aunt Margaret thought it sounded like the dresser. She
started singing again. Louise started moving the dresser again. Aunt Margaret laid her iron on the side and went out on the gallery. But Marcus was raking leaves just like he was supposed to be doing. Aunt Margaret came back inside and started ironing and singing, and the moving started all over again. Aunt Margaret stopped and listened; the moving stopped. She started singing; the moving started. She stopped and faced the door. She was still humming her church song to herself, but she was humming so low she was sure Louise couldn’t hear it. All the time she faced the door, she couldn’t hear a sound.

Aunt Margaret went quickly to the front door, and this time she saw Marcus looking toward the house. She moved toward the end of the gallery just as fast as she had come outside, and looked around the corner of the house at Louise’s bedroom window, but she saw nothing but the curtains. She thought if she stood there long enough she would see the curtains move, but they never did. Aunt Margaret moved away from the end of the gallery and looked at Marcus again. He had gone back to work; Tite was working right beside him.

Aunt Margaret went back inside and started ironing. Everything was quiet in Louise’s room now. Even when Aunt Margaret started singing again, nothing happened in the room.

Fifteen minutes after she had been inside, she saw Marcus and Tite coming toward the house. They went around the house to the hydrant, and a minute later Aunt Margaret heard the water running in the barrel. She stepped back from the ironing board to look at Marcus drinking; then he was holding Tite up so she could drink.

“ ’Nough?” he asked Tite.

“Wee,” Tite said.

Marcus and Tite started for the front, and Aunt Margaret moved back to her ironing board. She hadn’t been ironing a minute, she said, when she heard a loud, booming noise in Louise’s bedroom. She jumped around and faced the door, then she went to the door and asked Louise what was the matter. Louise didn’t answer. Aunt Margaret heard another noise: it sounded like two people moving fast and trying to be quiet at the same time.

“Wait,” Aunt Margaret said. “I know this ain’t what I think it is.”

She ran to the front door and looked across the yard, but she didn’t see Marcus or Tite. She ran back through the house to the back gallery, but she didn’t see them by the hydrant, either. Now, she ran back to the front, and this time to the end of the gallery, to look around the side of the house. Tite was standing outside the fence, letting the dog lick her hand. Marcus was nowhere in sight.