This Bitter Earth (20 page)

She’d cringed at the “Oooooh, shit, girl!” they’d spout and the long hissing sounds of air they pulled between their teeth after the tips of their penises kissed the damp sweetness inside of her.

But worse of all was the trick’s embrace, the moment they’d brought their arms up and around her shoulders, anchoring themselves in order to burrow deeper inside of her.

It hadn’t felt that way in Seth’s arms ten years earlier, and it didn’t feel that way now as both he and Joe folded their arms around Sugar, sandwiching her between them in an embrace that made her think of blue skies and the first day of winter. It was a pure and clean feeling.

“So proud, so proud,” was all Pearl could seem to say as she stood outside the circle, hugging herself.

JJ stood off to the side, grinning first and then smiling broadly with each compliment patrons stopped to pay him before exiting the club.

“She your sister?”

“Yeah.”

“Well, she sure can blow!”

“Yep, that she can do.”

Mercy was still seated at the table, Sugar’s words still ringing in her ears as people moved around her. Hips bumped her chair on more than one occasion. “Oh, sorry ‘bout that, baby,” some said. Others just looked down on her head and moved on.

Sugar and the rest stood about five feet in front of her and she watched them as she absentmindedly rubbed away at the foundation on her arms.

She was being watched, watched closely. And when those blue-black pin marks and bruised purple veins were uncovered, Lappy Clayton knew just what to do.

He patted his breast pocket. Yes, yes, he had something for this precious little girl, he thought to himself as he began to move slowly toward Mercy.

Chapter 24

SHE kept thinking about his color, so much like hers—nut meg and milk in the winter, cinnamon and cream by the end of August. That’s what her grandmother used to tell her.

She thought his eyes looked cold; perhaps the glint of gray gave them that icy look. His smile seemed warm enough. The gold teeth were a surprise though.

He couldn’t be too bad. He didn’t even ask her for any money. He just set it right on the table and said: “This is for you.”

Mercy just blinked at him.

“Whenever you want more, I can get it for you.”

Mercy looked over at the tight crowd of family members surrounding Sugar.

“You got needles?” he said.

Mercy looked down at the silver ball on the table and heard her grandmother reminding her not to take candy from strangers.

“I’ll leave you one in the flower bed out front the house.”

Mercy wondered how he knew where she was staying.

“Closest to the chrysanthemums,” he said and walked away.

Are those the yellow ones?
she thought as the stranger disappeared through the door.

It hit ninety degrees by noon; everyone took to their to beds around ten after talking all morning about some things while sidestepping those things that had happened in 1955.

Breakfast dishes were soaking in the sink, frying pan still warm and sitting on the stove filled with bacon grease and bits of yolk from the eggs Pearl had fried in it. She was going to leave the pot the grits had been cooked in there too, but put that to soak when she remembered how grits got like cement and glue on the inside of a pot if left to sit.

The top to the jelly jar was still lying on the table, even though Joe had reminded Seth four times not to forget to close it up and put it in the refrigerator. “Flies and ants,” he’d said at the end of each reminder.

There were flies, four sometimes, other times six, around the rim of the jar, gorging themselves on the purple jelly.

Mercy didn’t bother to wave them off; she found it fascinating and searched the floor for ants.

They’d gone off to bed one by one. Pearl first, stretching her hands up over her head, a sleepy smile sitting softly on her face as she ascended the stairs, “good night” sailing behind her even though morning had been in place for hours.

Joe followed, coughing a bit, his eyes red, and stomach bulging slightly over the waist of his pants.

Seth didn’t seem to want to go, even though his eyes kept rolling back in his head and he could hardly keep his neck straight. The call from Gloria and the hot words they exchanged seemed to rejuvenate him and Mercy thought he’d be up for another few hours, but he’d gone off to be by himself on the porch for a while before deciding that he couldn’t bother himself with being angry and upset without a good six hours of sleep and had finally gone off to bed.

Sugar had started out on the sofa. She’d stretched herself out and was telling Mercy something, speaking in snatches of words that got muddled between yawns and finally disappeared altogether behind soft snoring sounds.

“I’m going to go lay down,” she’d announced to Mercy when she found herself turning and almost falling off the sofa.

Sleep had such a hold on her that she tripped all the way up the stairs and bounced up against the walls before turning into the bedroom and falling into bed.

Now Mercy was almost alone. She had the flies and the two ants that had finally heard that someone had foolishly left the top to the jelly jar open, to keep her company.

There was only a latch keeping her in. Nothing else. The windows were wide open, allowing the occasional heated breeze to interfere with the curtains and rustle the edges of the newspaper that Joe had left on the table.

Just a latch: a single hook and circular loop.

Mercy quietly unhooked the latch and stepped out onto the porch just as Fayline drove by, slowed down and then backed up to get a better look at her.

Fayline heard about what had gone on down at Two Miles In and had started out across town to see if what she’d heard was true. She’d driven by the house four times and still could not get up the nerve to pull up to the Taylors’ home and knock on the door.

Hell, Pearl hadn’t been in her shop for a wash and press in ages, and the only words they’d exchanged were during those weeks when the shop had been slow and Fayline decided that she would show her face in church so that she could corner women at service and comment on the sad shape their hair was in.

Her fourth time through she’d seen a man leaning over the flower bed, searching for something. She supposed that the man she’d seen was now inside the house, probably the father of the young woman she was now staring at.

“How you?” Fayline rolled down her window and called out to Mercy.

Mercy could see the glint of the syringe sticking out from the dark Arkansas dirt. He’d arranged it neatly among the flowering azaleas and dying tulips.

Fayline smiled and thought that maybe she could convince the young girl, who looked somewhat enchanted, to maybe straighten those curls that were laying in a mess on her head.

“I’m Fayline, I own the beauty shop in town. Have Pearl bring you by soon,” Fayline said before stepping on the gas and pulling off. She would find out what she needed to know then and decided that the girl didn’t look enchanted at all, she looked more like dumb.

Mercy smiled and even waved before bending down and plucking the syringe from the ground.

Mercy felt stupid. She had foolishly thought that JJ could be a friend. They had similar stories on their arms and she’d assumed they’d visited the same places in their minds.

She laughed at her silliness now as she carefully placed the black ball in the spoon, chuckled out loud and jumped at the sound of her voice.

The dishcloth was the perfect length and tied easily and tightly around her thin arm. She could feel the blood pounding against her flesh, trying hard to push itself through the taut band that prevented it from draining down and into the veins.

Mercy liked that feeling: the blood pounding in her arm and boiling in her brain. It’d been so long, too long.

The flame was low on the stove but heated the spoon quickly and before long the black ball had melted into a cloudy bubbling liquid.

It wouldn’t be long now. Not long at all.

Carefully, so carefully, she set the spoon down on the middle space of the stove and picked up the syringe from the table.

Her heart began to flutter and her hands began to shake as she pulled the head of the syringe back and watched as the liquid was sucked into its pointed silver tip.

Somewhere outside a blackbird squawked just as the needle pierced the soft thin skin of Mercy’s lower arm.

Judging from the looks they got, Pearl was sure that everyone in town had heard by now. They called her name and Sugar’s together, while nodding their heads and commenting on the weather. There were smiles, where ten years ago there had been scowls; wide eyes where there had been slants.

The people of Bigelow decided that the girl, the one that had the far-off dazed look and clear yellow skin, was slow. Fayline confirmed it before she pulled the dryers down over their heads.

“All wood upstairs,” she’d say, tapping her temple with the tip of her index finger.

But they couldn’t bother themselves too much about what was going on in the Taylor home.

The war that was still raging in Vietnam and at lunch counter sit-ins were all that any black person could talk about and warn their young ones against.

Slave times just didn’t seem as far away as most had liked to think. The white men were still taking away their babies, shipping them off to war or locking them away or just hanging them from the closest tree limb.

Yes, there were other things to focus on.

Shirley Brown had been seen butt-naked and wandering the road outside her house, yelling “Cat!” and another name that sounded like Ciel.

Her mind had completely left her and the only family she had didn’t even know she was family, so there was no one to turn Shirley Brown over to.

There were things that Pearl did not like about Shirley; in fact she believed she’d actually grown to hate her over the years that passed since Sugar had come and gone. But now her heart was light and she put aside those feelings of discontent and walked the half-mile over to her house for a visit.

“How you doing?”

Pearl’s voice was bright, song-like, but it did nothing to the darkness that surrounded Shirley’s long blank face.

“You should open a window or two and let some sunshine in,” Pearl said as she slowly pulled the screen door open and stepped in.

Shirley was still dressed in her gown even though the day was halfway through. Her head was tied up in a purple-and-black flowered scarf and Pearl saw the wiry chestnut brown wig Shirley had taken to wearing three years ago resting on the couch.

“You eat today?”

Shirley nodded her head yes and then shook her head no, before she sat down on the couch and began stroking the wig. The television was on, but the sound was turned down and Pearl watched the silent figures fall dead on the screen as some unseen gunman let off four blasts.

“Well, I brought you some salmon cakes, cornbread and fresh snap peas.”

Pearl placed the bowl of food down on the small square table in front of Shirley.

“I’ll set it here so that when you’re ready for it, it’ll be right here.”

Shirley nodded her head yes and began stroking the wig with more intensity.

Pearl started to leave. It was just too sad seeing Shirley like this.

Well, Pearl supposed Shirley had it coming. She had not been the nicest woman and had been a gossipmonger, destroying plenty a reputation with her “You know what I heard?”

Pearl pushed those thoughts aside and took a seat in the chair across from Shirley.

“Sure is hot today,” she said, fanning herself, trying hard not to pay attention to the incessant movement of Shirley’s hand. “Gonna be just as hot tomorrow.”

Pearl wanted to walk over and turn the television volume up. She needed to hear something other than her voice and the steady rubbing sound of Shirley’s hand against the short stiff hairs of the wig.

The heat in Shirley’s house was stifling and Pearl could feel her dress going moist underneath her arms.

“You wanna come on out to the porch to sit? It’s cooler there.”

Shirley shook her head yes and then looked down at her wig and shook her head no. “Cat,” she said and then looked up at Pearl.

“Shirley, that is not your cat, that’s your wig.” Pearl’s words came out in between easy laughter, but she knew that the pity she felt welling up inside of her would soon take that away.

“Hmmmm,” Shirley sounded before looking back at the television.

They sat in silence for a while before Pearl finally stood up to leave.

“Well, Shirley, I’ll come by and check on you again real soon,” Pearl said as she patted Shirley’s hand.

“Soon,” Shirley repeated and pulled the wig onto her lap.

“She that far gone?” Joe asked as he swirled the dish towel ‘round and ’round inside the bowl.

“Seem so,” Pearl responded as she took the bowl from Joe and placed it in the cabinet.

“Sad,” Joe breathed and shook his head.

“Well, we reap what we sow.” Pearl dragged her hands across her apron before bringing them to rest on her hips as she looked around the kitchen for something else to clean.

“Guess so. She ain’t got no family that can come look after her?”

“Nope. Well, she had that child. You know, the one I told you about.” Pearl dropped her voice, as was the custom when speaking on someone else’s imprudence.

“Oh, yes.” Joe sat down and nodded his head. He remembered.

“Well, who knows where she is.”

“You know the name?”

“Uhm ...” Pearl squinted her eyes and tried to force her brain to remember the name of the child Shirley had given up so many years ago. “I think it was Sylvia.”

“Sylvia Brown?”

“Yeah. No, not Sylvia. Lord, it was so long ago that I heard the story.”

“So you really don’t know for sure. I mean, the story is just hearsay then?”

“No, mama told me before she passed on.”

“Sylvia, then?”

“No, no, not Sylvia.”

Pearl bit her bottom lip and looked up at the ceiling.

“Ciel!” The name popped out of her mouth before she even realized it had come to her. “Ciel Brown!” she spurted and snapped her fingers.

“Name sound familiar.” Joe’s voice was low as he picked through his past in search of a face that would go with the name. “Real familiar.”

“Who y‘all talking about?”

Seth walked into the kitchen, Sugar behind him and Mercy beside her.

Pearl couldn’t help but smile. Seeing them all together made her heart soar.

“Shirley Brown,” Joe offered.

“She ill, I hear,” Seth said as he set the quart of ice cream he’d brought down on the kitchen table.

Sugar took a seat at the table, leaving Mercy standing alone near the doorway. “Come and sit down,” she called to Mercy. Mercy shuffled her feet and then turned and walked up the stairs.

Sugar shrugged her shoulders.

“She got family?” Sugar asked as Pearl set a bowl down in front of her.

“That’s what we were saying. She had a daughter, but she ain’t raise her so who know where she is now.”

“I didn’t know that, Mama,” Seth said, surprised.

“Ain’t for you to know everything,” Pearl said and swatted him on his behind.

“The child should be ‘bout as old as me.” Pearl placed two more bowls on the table. “Mercy going to have some?” Pearl looked at Sugar. She loved looking at her, her and those features she shared with Jude.

“Maybe later.”

“Uh-huh. She been acting different lately,” Pearl said thoughtfully as she went for the spoons.

Sugar had noticed it too. Seems as though Mercy dropped off to sleep as soon as she sat down. “I don’t think she’s used to the heat,” Sugar said.

“Boy or girl?” Seth asked.

“What?”

“Was it a boy or a girl, the baby Shirley had?” Seth pushed.