Bastard Out of Carolina - Dorothy Allison [89]
“I got an idea,” I whispered into Grey’s ear. “Got a plan to use that hook for something nobody else would have ever thought of.”
Grey grinned at me like I’d grown an extra set of teeth. “Something good, huh?”
“Something amazing, and I want you to help me.” I tried to rub his neck, but he shook my hand off.
“Tell me.”
I hesitated, looking back toward the door where Aunt Raylene might appear any minute. Grey’s face was bland, showing nothing but patience. He wasn’t like his brother. Of the two of them, he was the one who did things, who rarely told secrets even when he was trying to impress someone. I gritted my teeth and then shook my head. I might as well tell him and find out what he would do. I stepped away from him and shoved my hands down in my shorts.
“I want to get up on the roof of the Woolworth’s one night. I got an idea how to get in there without anybody knowing. ”
Now Grey turned his head, looked back at the door. “You’re serious, an’t you,” he whispered. It was not a question. I stood still, waiting.
“Well, hellfire, Bone! You got past Aunt Raylene’s suspicious mind, but grand theft’s a different matter. What makes you think you can get away with it?”
I rocked back on my bare feet, trying to look confident. “There are things I’ve done you don’t know nothing about, cousin. Stuff I an’t never gonna tell you. Just like I won’t never tell nobody what you and me are gonna do.” I tried to narrow my eyes the way Uncle Earle’s would shrink down when he played poker.
Grey pursed his lips, whistled, and leaned over the side rail of the porch. “All right, Bone, all right. But if we get caught, I’m gonna tell ’em it was your idea. You just better know that now.”
I couldn’t help myself. I laughed out loud. Grey grinned back at me, looking only a little puzzled. “Don’t worry, cousin,” I told him, “we get caught and I’ll tell ’em. I promise.” I didn’t mention that there wasn’t a chance in hell anyone would believe such a tale—not with Grey older than me and a boy besides. If we did get caught, I’d be in trouble, he’d be in more, but I had no intention of getting caught. I let him get the hook out from under the porch while I stayed up in the kitchen and kept Aunt Raylene busy.
“Just don’t you tell nobody,” I insisted.
“Won’t tell a soul, Bone,” he promised. “Not a soul.” He grinned so wide I had to believe him.
That night I slept over at Aunt Raylene’s place. After she was asleep, I snuck out to get the hook. I took it back to my room, pried the chain off, and cleaned and polished it. When it was shiny and smooth, I got in bed and put it between my legs, pulling it back and forth. It made me shiver and go hot at the same time. I had read in one of the paperbacks Daddy Glen hid in the garage about women who pushed stuff up inside them. I held the chain and thought about that, rubbed it against my skin and hummed to myself. I wasn’t like the women in those books, but it felt good to hold that metal, to let those links slip back and forth until they were slippery. I used the lock I had found on the river bank to fasten the chain around my hips. It felt sun-warmed and tingly against my skin, as shiny as the sweat on Uncle Earle’s freckled shoulders, as exciting as the burning light behind my eyes. It was mine. It was safe. Every link on that chain was magic in my hand.
I put my head back and smiled. The chain moved under the sheet. I was locked away and safe. What I really was could not be touched. What I really wanted was not yet imagined. Somewhere far away a child was screaming, but right then, it was not me.
13
I carried my hook home in a croker sack with the last of the zucchini and cucumbers from Aunt Raylene’s garden. I didn’t trust Reese enough to risk taking it in the house, so I hid it in one of Mama’s packing boxes tucked up in the rafters over the washing machine. Up there it was safe and out of sight, a talisman against