Alligator Bayou - Donna Jo Napoli [45]
“You’ll have plenty of time to go to the post office after you sell all the melons.”
“All?” The wagon is big. “What if people don’t want watermelons?”
“Tomorrow is the Fourth of July. They want watermelons.”
Cirone and I climb into the back of the wagon.
“And, Calogero, when you pass men, remind them I’ll have homemade limoncello in pint jars at the grocery today.”
“Homemade limoncello. I’ll remind them.”
“And don’t say anything about alcohol directly to the ladies, but you two can talk between you in front of ladies about the limoncello. To remind them, too.”
We drive out to the field where Joe Evans is working. Patricia’s uncles, Bill and Paul, are there, too. Francesco said he’s going to use them regular on the fields now. I smile at them, hesitant at first. But they smile back big.
The three of them have already picked the melons and stacked them into a giant pile. It takes us more than half an hour to load the wagon, there are so many. I count as we go, but I lose track. Over two hundred. We’ll make a fortune.
Cirone and I climb onto the driver’s bench on either side of Giuseppe. We start at the northeast corner of town, stopping on every block and selling to every household. Francesco is right: the whole town wants melons. The trouble is, there aren’t two hundred families in Tallulah. So how are we going to sell them all? I shout at the top of my lungs: “Watermelons! Big, ripe, juicy melons!”
The sun beats. I’m sweating so hard, when I carry a melon to a doorstep, I have to hug it to my chest or it’ll slip through my wet hands. We reach the western edge of town, go south a block, then head back across town on East Askew.
“Hey,” calls a boy. He’s with two others, smaller than him. They’ve been following us for the past block.
“Want a melon?” asks Cirone.
“How much?”
“Fifteen cents.”
“Ain’t got fifteen cents,” says the boy.
Cirone looks at me. I nod. “How much you got?”
“Ain’t got no money.”
“Aw, get out of here,” says Cirone. “Go away.”
We sell melons to that block and move on to the next. The boys follow.
There are houses on both sides of the street now, so both Cirone and I have to deliver them. It’s slow going. I hand a melon to a woman and take her fifteen cents when “Bang!” I run back to the wagon.
“Bang, bang, bang!” It’s Giuseppe, shooting his finger like a gun at the back of the boys. They’re running like mad, but they’ve got one of the biggest watermelons, and they’re so little, they have to hold it among them, all three together. I’d laugh, except Giuseppe is shouting now in Sicilian, saying things about where thieves come from and where they ought to go. “Bang!” he shouts, his eyes popping.
And the littlest kid stumbles. The watermelon goes flying. Smash. There’s red juicy melon all over the dusty road.
“Serves them right,” says Giuseppe in Sicilian.
We finish this whole street, turn south, and then go west onto East Green Street. Some houses buy two melons. We’ve sold enough that there’s room for Cirone and me in the back of the wagon now. If the sun wasn’t so hot, everything would be good.
When we get to the western edge of town again, a girl hails us. Tall, with ropy arms, she squints through the sun at us. She holds a big osnaburg bag, long and white, the kind cotton pickers use. She comes up to the back of the wagon. “Who’s boss?”
“Me,” I say. After all, Giuseppe can’t say more than a word or two.
“My brother, he got something to say.”
I look past her. There’s no one there. “Where’s your brother?”
“Hiding behind them bushes.”
I look at her and wait. “Is he going to come out?”
“Not if you yell.”
I wipe the sweat off my forehead. “I won’t yell.”
“Come on out, Jerome.”
The watermelon thief comes out from behind the bush. “You going to shoot me?”
“You know a finger’s different from a gun, don’t you?” I shake my head. “Nobody’s going to shoot you.”
“Bang!” shouts Giuseppe. He cocks his finger at the thief. “Bang, bang!”
The boy runs behind the bush. “Sorry,” he shouts.
“Stop with the