The old lady gives me the creeps.
It something about the way she stares at you when she’s
talking to you. I swear, she doesn’t blink, she just keeps looking at you. And
sometimes, for no reason, she just goes quiet, and she doesn’t care how long
she stays quiet, either. I mean, most people say something—anything—to fill a
silence. But she seems to grow bigger, in those silences, while you feel
yourself sinking into the ground.
No, that’s not it: you feel like an eagle has swooped down,
clasped you in her talons, and is carrying you off to be devoured.
“We don’t allow smoking on this farm! How dare you! How dare
you bring your filthy habits here, to the very place where the Virgin chose to
make her appearance, and bring her message to the world!”
I had figured out behind the barn was a time-honored place
to light up, and I was dying for a smoke, since I’d been carefully rationing
them out. My grandma, she kept a pretty good eye on me, and cigarettes weren’t
easy to steal—not like other stuff. So I’d kept one pack going for a couple
weeks, now, and I was down to two or three left. So I took a long drag, looked
away, and held the smoke in.
She struck me.
“Listen to me, boy. You think I can’t see? You think I
didn’t know you were trash the moment I lay eyes on you? Yes, you and that
grandmother of yours—nothing but trash. Come here with nothin’ and expect three
square meals a day? Chocolate cake after dinner? Listen, boy, this is a farm,
and we got plenty to do, here. So starting tomorrow, you’re seeing brother
Edwin. He’ll start you on your chores for the day, and he’ll damn sure make
sure you do ‘em. See that whip?”
She had led me into the barn, and now pointed to the central
beam. There was a riding crop hung on a nail.
It wasn’t that she was strong, though she still had me by
the forearm. No, there was something in that gaze that made you unable to
resist: she could have led me into fire, if she had wanted to.
“Ain’t never done a lick of work in yer life, have you? No,
you grew up easy—watching TV instead of going to school, out on the streets
when you should have been studying. Stealing food for your supper, since your
momma wasn’t nowhere. Nobody to make you pay any mind! Grew up with a common
whore for a mother, stealing for your food, lying down every night in your
filthy clothes! Well, none of that here! You’ll put in a day’s work, and get a
hot meal, and you’ll be glad of it!”
“My mother wasn’t no whore,” I told her.
“Oh she wasn’t, was she? Nah, she just believed in “free”
love, which meant that she fucked for food or more likely drugs. Huh—a
respectable whore does better than that. Woman may be on the streets, but that
don’t mean she can’t look after a child, see that he gets three square meals,
and goes to school. No, but your momma didn’t do none of that, did she? Oh, I
seen it all the time! Kids who needed a good spanking and somebody to tell ‘em
what to do, and never had nothing. Who’s your poppa, kid?”
“Disappeared before I was born.”
“Bet he did! Bet he disappeared just as soon as his seed
lodged in your mother’s womb! Hah—maybe before! So some man knocked up your
momma, and she never had nothing to do but keep whoring around! Some women get
some sense in ‘em when the child comes along. Pity yours didn’t!”
Suddenly, she got under my skin.
“You SHUT UP about my momma,” I shouted. “I didn’t come here
to get this kinda flak. You don’t know nothin’ about her!”
“Yeah? I know she ain’t here, and I know she ain’t takin’
care of either her son or her mother. So where is she, punk? She still alive?
She in prison? She on the streets, turning tricks and violatin’ every
commandment put by God? Filling her veins with junk and waking up in her own
puke on the street?”
She was pacing in front of me, speaking real fast, and
getting louder by the minute. I realized, I was terrified of what she’d do
next.
“I don’t think you know, do you, boy? Don’t think you have
the faintest idea, where your mamma is. And you don’t care, do you? ‘Cause
nobody never gave a damn about you—not even your granny, who you dumped here
and ran out for a smoke. Oh, you make a fine pair—old woman one-step away from
the grave, and a smart-aleck brat like you, don’t care about nothin’ or
nobody!”
She stopped, now, and got within an inch of my face. Her
eyes narrowed, and seemed to get darker as they got smaller. I could feel her
breath on my lips.
“No reason I should bother myself with such trash,” she
muttered, as if seeing me for the first time. “The old lady don’t have no work
in her, and it’ll take brother Edwin all his day to make sure you do a thing!
Out! Get offa my property! Just because the Virgin has chosen to make herself
known to me, don’t mean I have to put up with every piece of trash the wind
blows into my yard. Get away, both of you, and go somewhere else. Don’t have no
time for every bum in the country!”
“We ain’t no bums,” I told her. “We don’t have no money, but
we ain’t bums. And my momma, she made sure I went to school, every day. Sure,
sometimes I played hooky, but she’da skinned me alive if she found out. Don’t
you call my momma a whore!”
“Oh, so now I’ve offended little lord Fauntleroy! Yes,
yes—grew up in a Christian home! Probably was an altar boy! You said your
prayers every night, boy? Got down on your knees and begged God for forgiveness
for all your sinning ways? Your momma teach you how to pray?”
“She wasn’t real religious,” I said. “She kinda had it,
since her momma was such a nut about it! But don’t you go calling her a whore!”
“I ain’t calling her a whore—I’m calling her a plain damn
fool, who gave it away instead of charging for it. And I know how she died,
boy, and who was with her when she done it, and who covered up the evidence,
and who took you, in the middle of the night, back to your grandma’s house, and
rang the bell. Stood there until the door opened, then ran like hell before the
old lady could say a word. ‘Cause there was still a lot to do, that night, and
he didn’t have no time to spare with an old lady. ‘Specially one that might ask
questions. Questions that man didn’t feel like answering!”
We’d been here less than an hour—had the old lady wormed it
out of my grandma? Didn’t seem so, but…
…how did she know?
