Alligator Bayou - Donna Jo Napoli [46]
“No, it isn’t,” says Giuseppe in Sicilian. “He cost us a melon.”
“Ain’t settled yet.” The sister lifts the bag. “Sweet potatoes. For that melon.”
“We’ve got white potatoes in our own field,” says Giuseppe in Sicilian. “They’re better than those orange things.”
“You keep them,” I say.
“I can’t abide a thief. We got to pay you.”
I take the bag. “Thanks.”
The girl doesn’t go away.
“Well?”
“I need the bag back.”
People save paper bags—they’re expensive. But osnaburg bags are different. And this one is old and beat up. She must work the cotton fields. Maybe her boss makes her pay for a new one. I dump the sweet potatoes in among the watermelons and go to fold the sack when I think better of it and put a watermelon inside it instead. I hand it to her. “That was enough potatoes to pay for two melons.”
“Don’t do that,” she says. “Jerome need to learn thieving ain’t right.”
“Maybe enough for three melons. But I docked you one, for the thieving.”
She takes the sack and looks at me. “Put them potatoes in the fire when you roast your rabbit, or whatever you got, then when it turn to ashes, they be sweet as candy.”
“I’ll do that. You want me to carry this melon to your door?”
“We live outside town. I’ll manage fine. Much obliged.” She turns and goes.
“We got a melon?” Jerome the Thief sticks his head out from behind the bush. “We really got a melon?”
“Get on home,” says the girl. She lugs that melon, following Jerome, who’s laughing and singing, “Melon, melon, we got a melon.”
“You’ve got no stomach for business,” says Giuseppe in Sicilian.
“I saw that,” comes a voice in English.
I turn around. “Good day, Mr. Johnson, sir.”
Fred Johnson runs the general-goods store. He must be walking to work after dinner break. He takes a round tin out of his pocket and stuffs tobacco in his cheek. He points in the wagon. “How many sweet potatoes for that melon?” His tone is sarcastic.
“We’re taking coins, sir,” I say.
“Real business, huh? I just saw otherwise. I just saw an ar-range-ment.” He draws out the word. “That’s what you do with them darkie cotton pickers. Ar-range-ments. They’s no real business with them. Ain’t got no brains, them darkies. They can’t deal in money. They just make ar-range-ments.” He spits in the road. Tobacco spit. It smells good, though it looks like something unmentionable. “Y’all the same, boy? No brains?”
No, sir, I’m thinking. You’re the one with no brains. “If you want a melon, sir, I’ll be happy to carry it home for you.”
“What do I look like, a girlie? Hand me a melon.”
“How about the biggest one, sir?” I say, polite as can be.
Mr. Johnson looks pleased. “That’s right. The biggest one.”
“That’ll be twenty cents, sir.” I dare to look directly in his face, searching for a reaction.
He pays his twenty cents and spits again.
“And remember, sir,” I say, “they’re selling limoncello today at Francesco Difatta’s grocery.”
“Lemon what?”
“You drink it cold. It’s good on a hot day.”
“Like today. It’s hotter than the gates of hell today.”
“Yes, sir. Francesco makes it himself. It takes your mind off your problems.”
“Liquor? Wait’ll John hears about this. You people. Never in my born days have I seen the likes. Selling liquor without a permit. No telling what y’all be up to next.” He walks off with the melon.
“Twenty cents,” says Cirone in Sicilian. “He’s going to be burning angry when he finds out everyone else got a melon for fifteen.”
What I did is a lot worse than overcharging Mr. Coleman for the strawberries. There’s no way Mr. Coleman could know I overcharged. Besides, it was only a penny. But this was a whole nickel, and everyone else knows the price. I must have lost my mind. I wipe sweat from my neck. “Anyway, he got the biggest one.”
We work our way back and forth across town from north to south, till we finish. There are only four melons left. And a pile of sweet potatoes.
I climb up on the bench beside Giuseppe. “We got no one to sell the rest to. And we can’t eat them all.” I