Queen Sugar: A Novel (20 page)

“Nice talking to you.”

“Yeah, you, too.”

•   •   •

Three o’clock in the morning. Ralph Angel felt as if cinder blocks were strapped to his ankles as he pushed through the double doors, out into the neon glow.

The woman sat on the curb smoking. She’d traded her cocktail uniform for cutoffs and a T-shirt.

“Thought you’d be home by now,” Ralph Angel said.

“My ride bailed on me.” She waved vaguely and exhaled a stream of smoke. “I hate when this happens.” Flicked ash away and stared into the dark. “One of these days, I won’t have to put up with this bullshit. Gonna buy myself a little pickup, cherry red with a double cab.”

The woman’s skin looked ashier, rougher than it did inside. Sort of like Gwenna’s right before she went to the hospital the last time. Gwenna had had smooth, clear skin once. Like chocolate milk. She wore nice clothes, fixed her hair.
They never meant to lose their house. They never meant to become junkies. They’d just wanted to take the edge off, get that warm feeling—pillows between them and the world.
The day they released Gwenna from the hospital, her skin had cleared up a little, but she was still thin. Weighed ninety-eight pounds; a goddamn sparrow. After their last run, her lungs had filled with fluid, collapsed with infection.
Close call
, the doctor had said. The morning he picked her up, she claimed she felt stronger, but she couldn’t even lift Blue, who’d just turned four.

Ralph Angel looked down the service road for the flare of headlights. Nothing. He felt for his keys. “I can give you a lift.”

“You sure?” But she was already stubbing her cigarette out on the curb.

At the Impala, Ralph Angel cringed, seeing the trash on the floor, clothes strewn across the seat. “It’s a little junky.”

“No worries.”

He waited for her to set her purse on the floor before he closed her door.

•   •   •

Maybe it was some unarticulated relief at having secured a ride home, and maybe it was the feel of the velvety upholstery against her bare legs, Ralph Angel couldn’t be sure, but the gap between them seemed to narrow the farther they drove from the casino.

“I never got your name,” Ralph Angel said.

“It’s Amber.”

“Ralph Angel.”

“Ralph Angel.” She seemed to taste the words. “You a musician or something?”

“An engineer,” he said, then held his breath, startled by the words that had come out of his mouth. He waited for her to laugh or ask where he worked.

But all she said was “Cool,” and dug in her purse. Said, “You mind?” as she held up the cigarette. And when Ralph Angel shook his head no, she lit it, cracked her window, and blew a long stream of smoke as tendrils of her hair lifted in the breeze.

A jazzy melody oozed through the radio, followed soon after by the announcer’s silky voice. Ralph Angel relaxed back against his seat, wondering at what had just happened. He hadn’t planned to lie. All he said was what he
wanted
to be true, what
would
be true if his life had taken a different turn, and she’d accepted it. He didn’t believe in the power of positive thinking or any of that mumbo jumbo, but he felt different having said what he said.

Amber laced her fingers through the rods of his headrest. “I don’t know many engineers,” she said, closing the gap between them. She looked at him again.

And just like that, he was pulling off the road into a clearing beyond the barbed-wire fence, past trees nailed with
POSTED
signs, and Amber was,
Jesus
, already pulling down her shorts, raising her T-shirt to reveal her pale breasts. She climbed into his lap and straddled him, her back arched against the wheel. Ralph Angel closed his eyes, turned his face into her hair. It was curlier than Gwenna’s since Gwenna started giving herself perms, but had the same faintly floral smell. Ralph Angel remembered how once, during the good times, he came home from work and found Gwenna leaning over the kitchen sink, plastic gloves turned inside out on the counter, the lid off the jar of hair straightener.

“I thought that shit burned your scalp,” he’d said.

“I’m used to it,” Gwenna said, groping for the shampoo. He’d pushed the bottle toward her, then changed his mind, poured some in his hand, stood behind her, and massaged the shampoo into her hair, smelling lilac and honeysuckle. He felt her relax, letting him take over. Then he gathered a towel around her head and led her to the couch, watched as she pulled the comb through her hair, then plucked strands from the teeth and twisted them around her finger.

“We should take Blue to see your dad,” she’d said. Beads of cloudy water hung from the tips of her hair.

“Why would I do that?” He’d wiped the drop of water running down the side of her face. “He wasn’t interested in being a dad. Why would he be interested in being a grandfather?” But that was why he loved her. Because she saw his better self even when he couldn’t; because she always pushed him toward the light.
I have more faith in you than I have in myself
, he once told her.

•   •   •

Sonny Stitt played on the radio as the Impala slid over the country road, and Ralph Angel felt that a new day had broken.

Amber lit another cigarette. “What are you thinking about?”

“A poem I used to know.” Ralph Angel kept his eyes on the road. “My daddy taught it to me.” It was really Gwenna’s favorite poem. He’d memorized it when they were still dating and recited it the night he asked her to marry him. But he didn’t think Amber would appreciate that little factoid, that he was thinking about his wife, after what they just did.

“Let’s hear it.”

“That’s okay.”

“No, honest. I want to hear it.”

“Okay,” Ralph Angel said. “Here goes. Don’t laugh.

“
So live, that when thy summons comes to join / The innumerable caravan, that moves / To the pale realms of shade, where each shall take / His chamber in the silent halls of death, / Thou go not, like the quarry-slave at night, / Scourged to his dungeon, but sustain’d and sooth’d / By an unfaltering trust, approach thy grave, / Like one who wraps the drapery of his couch / About him, and lies down to pleasant dreams.
”

“Damn,” Amber said.

“You didn’t like it.”

Amber shrugged. “I don’t know. I kind of like the ones that rhyme.”

They were on the outskirts of town when a car came out of nowhere and pulled on to the road, hung back for a while, but then closed the distance. In the rearview mirror, Ralph Angel made out rectangular headlights, a rack on the grille, the cruiser’s white hood glowing in his taillights. The blue and white lights flashed.

“Shit.”

Amber sat up straight, smoothed her hair as Ralph Angel steered onto the shoulder. He clamped his hands to the wheel, where he knew they’d be visible, watched in his side mirror as the trooper ran his plates then came up alongside the Impala, his palm resting lightly on the grip of his gun. He tried not to blink as the trooper shined the light in his face.

One Mississippi, two Mississippi, three Mississippi, four Mississippi. The arc of light swung past him, over the seat, across Amber’s lap and up into her pale face. Five Mississippi, six Mississippi. Seven Mississippi, eight.

“You all right, miss? You need some assistance?”

“No, Officer, I’m fine,” Amber said, her voice high and strained. Her accent thicker. “Just trying to get home.”

Nine Mississippi, ten Mississippi. Lights in Ralph Angel’s eyes again.

“License and registration, please.”

“Yes, sir.” Slowly, Ralph Angel reached into his back pocket. He thought about the car as he handed his license to the trooper and his mouth went dry as he played out the possibilities. Eleven Mississippi. Twelve Mississippi.

The trooper studied the photo. “California. You’re a long way from home.”

“Yes, sir.” Ralph Angel cleared his throat. “I’m visiting family.”

“This car belong to you?”

“No, sir. It’s a rental.” Thirteen Mississippi.

The trooper studied his license again. “And you drove all the way down here?”

“Yes, sir. Like I said, I’m visiting family.”

Fourteen Mississippi. Fifteen. The trooper looked up the road. “It’s a little late for you two to be out here, don’t you think?”

“Yes, sir. I’m just driving this young lady home.”

“You been drinking tonight?”

Sixteen Mississippi. How should he answer? Be careful. “I had one drink back at the casino, but that was awhile ago.”

Amber leaned forward, raised her hand against the hard beam of light. “He’s telling the truth, Officer. I work there. I’m the one who served him.”

Eighteen Mississippi.

“Because you were doing seventy-two coming into town,” the trooper said. “You know that?”

“No, sir, I didn’t. I guess I’m more tired than I thought.”

Nineteen Mississippi. Twenty. Twenty-one.

The trooper looked from Ralph Angel to Amber. He studied Ralph Angel’s license again, then handed it back. “I’m gonna let you go this time, but I want you to pay closer attention, you hear me?”

“Yes, sir, Officer. Thank you.”

“Y’all have a good night.”

Ralph Angel waited until the cruiser slid back onto the road, watched the taillights flicker as it disappeared over the rise, then let his head fall against the headrest. His heart beat so fast he thought he might faint. He hadn’t felt like that in a long time. Not since that night.

He and Gwenna had never bought from that house before, but word had it the stuff that came out of there was pure. Black tar. None of the cut-up shit those punks down on Central tried to pass off. They bought enough for a three-day run, then went over to the abandoned house down from the market. No gas, no electricity since the owners got evicted. A legless couch and a coffee table littered with stems, matches, and steel wool in the living room. Colder inside than out. They chose a bedroom facing the street so they could keep an eye on Blue, asleep in the car. Before he lit the pipe, he looked at Gwenna. Until the last run, she’d been going to meetings. She said the counselor, Linda, offered a lot of strategies for how to stay clean.
Stay busy
, Linda said.
Surround yourself with positive people.
He knew what that meant: changing the locks. He hadn’t wanted to get clean, but he didn’t want to be locked out either. So he begged her, took her hand.
Come on. Just this once, then get clean if you want.
He’d recited the poem and she’d smiled her crooked smile. He mixed the smack with a drop of water, flicked the lighter under the spoon and caught a whiff of vinegar.

When he woke, the room was dark. It took him a minute to remember where he was.

Baby?

No answer.

Hey, G, get up.

For a second, he thought maybe she’d left him, thought maybe she never took the syringe, drove off with Blue instead. He went to the window and saw the car on the street, its windows black beneath the streetlight. He turned back to the room and that’s when he saw her.

In the car, Blue was awake and crying. He’d soiled his pants. Ralph Angel held him anyway, pulled off Blue’s clothes and used a crumpled napkin to wipe the shit. He found one of Gwenna’s T-shirts in the backseat—it smelled like her—and wrapped it around Blue’s shoulders, dumped the soiled clothes in the gutter. He drove for a long time, not sure where to go. Kept thinking about the way she looked lying there on the floor—He shouldn’t have pushed her. But then again, he’d been so afraid she’d leave him behind. She’d always been the stronger one when it came down to it.

Blue had looked up at him.
Where’s Mommy?

He shook his head.
No more Mommy. Just you and me
.

•   •   •

Ralph Angel and Amber rode in silence the rest of the way now, until Amber pointed to her turnoff.

“So maybe I’ll come by the casino sometime,” Ralph Angel said. “Take you to dinner after your shift.” In the light of her open door, he saw red creases on the sides of her legs where they pressed hard against the seats.

Amber glanced at the house. “No,” she said, “I don’t think it’d be a good idea. It’s nothing personal, honest. You seem like a nice guy.” She tossed her purse over her shoulder. “Thanks for the ride.”

“You bet.” Ralph Angel watched her walk down the driveway, her purse bouncing against her hip. He could still smell her hair.

On the road again, Ralph Angel turned the radio dial, trying to find the jazz station. He still felt jumpy from the encounter with the trooper, couldn’t believe how close he’d come. Nothing left now but to go home. They’d all be getting up soon, dressing for church. If he were religious, he’d say a prayer—
Thanks for keeping my ass out of jail just now
—maybe ask for a small blessing for Blue, ask Gwenna to forgive him. But he wasn’t a believer, hadn’t been for a long time. Ralph Angel rolled his window down and felt the early-morning air against his face. When he got home, he would ask Charley to cut him in on the farm. Because you couldn’t sit around hoping to get lucky or wishing for a miracle. You couldn’t sit around waiting for God’s grace.

Every day since the auction, Charley made a point to arrive at the shop before Denton, and every day she followed his instructions and recommendations to the letter. When he observed that they were low on Pennzoil and 2, 4-D, she was on the phone with the hardware store; when he suggested they tear out the third-year stubble along the highway, she had the three-row chopper hitched and the tractor refueled before he finished reading the day’s farm bulletin. And when he announced, during lunch, they’d soon need lubricant for the drill press, Charley was off to Cyd’s Tractor and Repair in Franklin before he finished his sandwich.

Now, with two gallons of lubricant in a box on the floor, Charley rounded the corner expecting to see Denton’s truck but instead saw an old tractor, not too different from the one she owned, idling in front of the shop. Smoke belched from the exhaust pipe. Music leaked from the cab. As she pulled up, the tractor’s engine sputtered and died, the door swung wide, and a man—muddy overalls hanging from his skeletal frame, clumps of strawberry blond hair sticking out of his baseball cap—climbed down the ladder like a spider at the end of its thread.

Charley couldn’t help but think of Landry’s visit as she stepped from her car. “Can I help you?”

“Where’s Denton?” The man pushed his cap back and gave his forehead a furious scratch, then took one last drag on the cigarette that hung from his lips before grinding the butt into the dirt. “What time is it?”

“Two thirty,” Charley said.

“Well, I sure as hell hope Denton shows up soon ’cause I got to pick up my boys at four,” he said. “Damn day care dings you two dollars every fifteen minutes you’re late. Tell you, I can’t
wait
till September and I can put those two rascals in kindergarten. Don’t care if they’re five or not. Public school, you hear me? Only thing still free in this freaking country.” He lit another cigarette, then squinted out over the cane through eyes the color of frozen pond water. “What time is it now?”

“Two thirty-two,” Charley said.

“Come on, Denton, where are you?”

“I’m sorry,” Charley said. “Exactly who are you?”

The man looked startled. “Alison Delcambre. Denton didn’t tell you?”

“No.”

“Well, I’ll give him till three but then I got to go.”

“Is there something I can help you with?” Charley said. Just then, she heard the low grumble of Denton’s engine and there he was, coming down the road. He parked and ambled over, the same oily cloth from the auction dangling from his back pocket.

“Good to see you, Alison.”

“You’re late, Denton.”

“Sorry. My wife needed a new filter for her car.” He took a small square of fabric, from his front pocket this time, and cleaned his glasses, wiping each lens purposefully.

“Well, I’m delighted to hear you’re such a devoted husband, but I got to be over at the freaking Magic Rainbow by four.”

“How are those boys?”

“They’re fine if you like raising wolf pups.”

Denton slipped his glasses back on and looked at Charley over the rims. “Alison’s wife passed last year and he’s raising their two grandkids. One’s three and one’s four.”

“Their parents are dopeheads,” Alison said. “Well, one’s a dopehead. The other one’s a plain fuckup.”

Charley was surprised to hear Alison speak so harshly, she would never talk about Micah that way, at least not to a stranger, but then she saw Denton suppress a smile and guessed Alison’s rants were a frequent occurrence; heard him say “So, I guess you met Miss Bordelon,” as though Alison had just commented on the weather.

Alison removed his baseball cap. “Not formally, no.”

“Me and Alison worked together over at Saint John back in ’79,” Denton said. “Till Alison quit and started farming for himself. Eleven hundred acres over in Saint Petersville. I asked him to come by.”

“You mean, I
used
to have eleven hundred acres,” Alison interrupted. “You forgot to mention I’m being forced out of business.”

“That’s one way to put it,” Denton said.

“What do you mean, ‘that’s one way to put it’?” Alison said, flailing his arms. “That’s the
only
way to put it. Go on, Denton, you might as well get used to saying it. I’ve sure had to.”

“Alison’s losing his farm,” Denton said, soberly. “They canceled his contract after thirty-some years.”

“I’m sorry,” Charley said.

“He’s one of the best farmers around,” Denton said. He looked weary all of a sudden, like an army captain who’d lost too many men. “Knows everything there is to know about sugarcane and then some. Which reminds me. Guess who I saw up at Groveland’s?”

“Don’t tell me,” Alison said, waving a hand. “I don’t even want to know.”

“Baron and Landry.”

“Those sons of bitches? Jesus, Denton. Now you’ve ruined my whole day.”

Denton winked at Charley. “Yeah, but we got ’em, didn’t we?”

She smiled back, still embarrassed about the way she’d behaved at the auction, but he’d clearly forgiven her. Twice yesterday, he had shown her how to attach the spray rig to the tractor, and twice she’d backed the tractor into the fertilizer tanks. But he hadn’t lost his temper, hadn’t even raised his voice. Charley watched Alison pace an invisible cage. “Do you mind if I ask why you’re losing your farm?”

“’Cause I can’t ever get out of
debt
.” Alison shook another cigarette from the pack. “Hey, look. When I first got into this business you had thirty-eight-cent diesel and cane was twenty cents a pound. Now diesel’s over five dollars and cane sells for nineteen cents.” Years ago, Alison went on to explain, a farmer could make twenty-five thousand dollars a year. “I didn’t get rich but I made a living. Then they started messing with things.”

“They?”

“The mills,” Denton said. “They built warehouses.”

“Sugar warehouses.” Alison leaned against Denton’s truck and gazed at some point in the distance. “Here’s the way we work in this business. Say you’re a roofer, and I hire you to reroof that barn over there. I say, ‘I’ll give you five thousand dollars.’ So you say okay.”

Denton broke in. “But then I say, ‘I won’t give you five thousand straight up. I’ll pay half now and half next year.’”

“‘Unless I have a bad year,’” Alison added, “‘in which case, I’ll only give you fifteen hundred now—that okay with you?’ Meanwhile, you have all the cost of reroofing my barn. And you’re paying interest at a percent and a half a month to stay alive.”

“You see, Miss Bordelon,” Denton explained, “these days, a farmer gets paid over a twelve-month period rather than all at once. The crop you’re trying to get ready for grinding in the fall? The mill won’t finish paying you for that until next September. It used to be the mill paid you within a month of delivery. By January, you had all your money. You’d pay everybody off—the bank, your suppliers—your cost went down. Now they’ve taken that money they owe you and stretched it out.”

“They?” Charley said.

“The
mills
,” Denton and Alison said in unison. “Guys like Landry and Baron.”

Alison pulled his cap down over his eyes. “Freaking capitalist system. That’s why I’m becoming a socialist a little more each day.”

Denton had explained some of this before. It had made sense, but in an abstract way, as if he were explaining how electricity or the Internet worked, which was sort of unbelievable if you really thought about it. But now, hearing Alison’s story, Charley was beginning to understand. “So the mills expect us to carry all the costs?”

“Exactly,” Alison said. “Excuse me, Miss Bordelon, but it sucks.” He turned away and stared out over the fields, as if looking back through the years. “This used to be a good business. You got your money up front. But forget it now. And that dimwit we had in the White House? Jesus. Between the price of sugar and whatever happened with CAFTA—” Alison shook his head. “Let’s hope this new fella’s got more sense.”

“I asked Alison to come over,” Denton said. “We’re in good shape from the auction, but I got to thinking about what we still need. Thought Alison might be interested in striking a deal. And just so you know, he’s hearing this for the first time, same as you.”

“What kind of deal?” Charley and Denton had agreed on a sixty-forty split, assuming they brought in enough cane to make a profit. She wasn’t sure they could afford another partner.

“The way I see it,” Denton said, “we can help each other. Alison’s got two combines, three tractors in pretty good shape, and a handful of cane wagons. That’s equipment you won’t have to buy, Miss Bordelon. We each give up seven and a half percent, Alison lets us use his equipment and comes to work here.”

“Give me a minute to digest this.” Charley walked over to the Volvo and put her hands on the warm hood. She let her head hang as she puzzled through Denton’s scheme. On one hand, she’d be getting the full benefit of Alison’s experience, and heavens knew, she needed his equipment. And why shouldn’t she trust Denton? Didn’t his decisions at the auction prove his judgment was sound? If he said Alison was an excellent farmer, then she had no reason to doubt him. A few yards away, Charley saw Alison light another cigarette. On the other hand, she’d be working with someone she didn’t know, and there was no denying Alison was, well—eccentric.

Charley rejoined the men. “What do you say, Mr. Delcambre?”

“I can’t
wait
to stick it to those sons of bitches over at the mill,” Alison said. “Believe me, Miss Bordelon, it’ll do me good to see those boys get licked. And just wait till they find out they got beat by a black woman.
That’ll
raise a breeze.”

Charley’s heart skipped. If the situation were different, if Alison weren’t having his land yanked out from under him, if he were wearing loafers and khakis instead of those filthy overalls and work boots, would he give her the time of day?

Charley tried to imagine what her father would say.
It’s your land now.
She wished she could ask him, “By any means necessary?” but she knew she had to pull the answer from the ground herself. She turned back to the men and offered her hand. “If you’re in, I’m in.”

“Excellent.” Alison took one last drag on his cigarette and looked Charley square in the eye. “Where do I sign?”

Holiday Hills, the subdivision where Violet lived in the next town over, had a golf course in the middle, with a small, man-made lake filled with water dyed a troubling shade of aquamarine, and a ribbon of walking path that wound past the empty guard booth and out to the patch of woods that stood between the development and the surrounding sugarcane fields. And since Violet still refused to come over to Miss Honey’s, Charley swung by Tortilla Flats, the Mexican restaurant in the casino, and showed up on Violet’s doorstep with shredded taco salad to share and two frozen margaritas.

It was after dinner now, and Charley sat in Violet’s family room admiring her shadow-box coffee table. Violet had arranged an assortment of seashells and plastic crustaceans—lobster and crabs—and brightly framed sunglasses on a bed of sand underneath the glass top.

“First lady of the church
and
an interior decorator,” Charley said, accepting the piece of lemon icebox cake Violet offered her.

“I love flipping through all those home magazines when I get my hair done,” Violet said. “I always find good decorating tips. Then I run over to the Dollar Store to see what I can throw together.”

Charley nodded. Violet’s house wasn’t large; in fact, it seemed to be the smallest home in the neighborhood of Acadian-style brick houses, but it was twice the size of Miss Honey’s: a kitchen filled with shiny appliances overlooking the family room, and a decent-size patio with space for the Rev’s barbecue grill and Violet’s potted tomato plants.

“Mother was angry with me when we moved out here,” Violet offered. “She wanted me to buy Mr. Delrose’s house down the street from her. But I told her, I want to be exposed to new things, meet new people, get some fresh information.”

“This certainly isn’t the Quarters,” Charley said. It was refreshing to sit in a room where every surface wasn’t cluttered and where the air was breathable.

“May as well be the far side of the moon as far as Mother’s concerned. But I like it out here. People are friendly. A group of us neighbors get together every week to watch that TV show where celebrities dress up in skimpy costumes and dance with the pros; you know the one. And the Rev is thinking about taking golf lessons if you can believe it. But enough about me, let’s talk about you.”