Bent Road - Lori Roy [109]
Evie sits on the edge of her bed where she can see out her bedroom window. It is nearly dark, but through all the trees that have dropped their leaves, she can still see the road. A truck drives over the top of the hill. So many cars since everyone started to die. And phone calls. First Olivia the cow died. Evie doesn’t like her anymore. She brought death to them and now it has settled in for a good long stay. She’s probably not even all the way dead yet because of the cold. It will keep her for a while, that’s what Ian said before he was dead. But not Julianne. She died all alone, all the way dead, in a little bed in a strange house, and now she’s buried, still all alone. How did they dig it up, the frozen ground? Will the same two Negro men dig Ian’s grave? They are small graves. Not so much digging. What if Aunt Ruth’s baby comes too early and it’s blue and it doesn’t wake up in the oven? That will be a very small grave, but Aunt Ruth’s will be regular sized, almost regular.
The truck is still driving down the hill toward their house. Daddy says there’s black ice. It’s the most dangerous. The truck knows it, too. It drives slowly, and at the bottom of the hill, it stops, white smoke spilling out of its tail end. Then the truck, the red truck, drives slowly past.
Chapter 32
Standing on the back porch, Daniel watches Jonathon, who is squatting near the door, a pane of glass balanced on his two palms. At first, Jonathon doesn’t notice Daniel standing there. Daniel could push him down with one kick in the butt and he’d topple over and the glass would shatter all over him. It might even kill him, and he’d never find cabinets for his new house. Then there would be room for Daniel to be a man. Jonathon is a pocket clogger. That’s what Dad called the men who worked in the car factories and made sure not to work too fast or too slow. Lots of the men complained about the Negroes taking jobs. Dad only complained about the men who did just enough to keep on working. Dad said they took a job from another man, a better man, who would take pride in his work. They were the pocket cloggers. Jonathon is a pocket clogger—clogging up the spot that Daniel should have.
“Hey,” Jonathon says. Balancing the glass on his two flat palms, he begins to stand. “You going out?”
Daniel nods but doesn’t answer.
“Getting dark,” Jonathon says, glancing outside. “Want some company?”
Across the porch and beyond the screened door, the gravel drive isn’t white anymore. All the cars coming and going have ground it down to dirt again. One thing is for damn sure. This roof won’t collapse because he cleaned off every speck of snow himself.
“Na,” Daniel says to Jonathon because he most definitely does not want his company.
“Cold out there.” Jonathon slides the glass into place. “Would you look there in that toolbox?” he says, motioning toward a silver box on the floor. “You see a small can in there?”
Daniel flips open the lid with his foot. He shakes his head.
“Well, damn it all. Forgot the glaze.” Jonathon lifts the glass out again and lays it back on the cardboard box it came in. “A lot of banging around for nothing. You want to help me put