Bastard Out of Carolina - Dorothy Allison [62]
“Yeah, the brown cord Travis brought home from the dime store. It should hold up pretty good.”
I nodded without looking at her.
“You get that done, Bone, and we can talk about when you’re gonna come home. Reese’s been missing you pretty bad.”
“I thought I was gonna stay till school started again.” I kept my voice neutral, my head still down. “Aunt Ruth can’t possibly get along without me. She needs me.”
There was a long silence, and then Aunt Ruth cleared her throat. “Bone’s right, Anney. I don’t know how I’d drag my sorry butt out of bed without Bone to wake me up. She gets up in the morning singing along to the radio. Sounds just like Kitty Wells sometimes.” She might have been starting to laugh, but coughed instead.
I looked up then, carefully, trying to keep my face in the shade. Mama was leaning forward into the sun, her fingers laced together on her knees, her eyes squinted against the light but intent on me. Aunt Ruth was leaning back in her rocker, her hand up, almost covering her mouth. Mama pulled her fingers free and dropped her hands down so that her palms cupped her knees.
“Well, I can see how you might not be able to stand the loss of that. But maybe I’ll just bring Reese out on Saturday. Wouldn’t want her to forget what her big sister looks like.”
I spooned loose dirt into the little pot, sprinkled water on the dusty leaves. The cutting drooped already, getting ready to lose half its growth. But the stem was moist and flexible under my fingers. Strong. It would come back strong.
In August the revival tent went up about half a mile from Aunt Ruth’s house on the other side of White Horse Road. Some evenings while Travis and Ruth sat and talked quietly, I would walk up there on my own to sit outside and listen. The preacher was a shouter. He’d rave and threaten, and it didn’t seem he was ever going to get to the invocation. I sat in the dark, trying not to think about anything, especially not about Daddy Glen or Mama or how much of an exile I was beginning to feel. I kept thinking I saw my uncle Earle in the men who stood near the highway sharing a bottle in a paper sack, black-headed men with blasted, rough-hewn faces. Was it hatred or sorrow that made them look like that, their necks so stiff and their eyes so cold?
Did I look like that?
Would I look like that when I grew up?
I remembered Aunt Alma putting her big hands over my ears and turning my face to catch the light, saying, “Just as well you smart; you an’t never gonna be a beauty.”
At least I wasn’t as ugly as Cousin Mary-May, I had told Reese, and been immediately ashamed. Mary-May was the most famous ugly woman in Greenville County, with a wide, flat face, a bent nose, tiny eyes, almost no hair, and just three teeth left in her mouth. Still, she was good-natured and always volunteered to be the witch in the Salvation Army’s Halloween Horror House. Her face hadn’t made her soul ugly. If I kept worrying about not being a beauty, I’d probably ruin myself. Mama was always saying people could see your soul in your face, could see your hatefulness and lack of charity. With all the hatefulness I was trying to hide, it was a wonder I wasn’t uglier than a toad in mud season.
The singing started. I leaned forward on the balls of my feet and hugged my knees, humming. Revivals are funny. People get pretty enthusiastic, but they sometimes forget just which hymn it is they’re singing. I grinned at the sound of mumbled unintelligible song, watching the men near the road punch each other lightly and curse in a friendly fashion.
You bastard.
You son of a bitch.
The preacher said something I didn’t understand. There was a moment of silence, and then a pure tenor voice rose up into the night sky. The spit soured in my mouth. They had a real singer in there, a real gospel choir.
Swing low, sweet chariot ... coming for to carry me home ... swing low, sweet chariot ... coming for to carry me home.
The night seemed to wrap all around me like a blanket. My insides felt as if they had melted, and I could taste the wind in my mouth.