Gather Together in My Name - Maya Angelou [27]
“Marguerite.” L.C. Smith's face hung above me like the head of a bodyless brown ghost.
“L.C, how are you?” I hadn't seen him since my return, and as I waited for his answer a wave of memory crashed in my brain. He was the boy who had lived on the hill behind the school who rode his own horse and at fifteen picked as much cotton as the grown men. Despite his good looks he was never popular. He didn't talk unless forced. His mother had died when he was a baby, and his father drank moonshine, even during the week. The girls said he was womanish, and the boys that he was funny that way.
I commenced to giggle and flutter and he took my hand.
“Come on. Let's dance.”
I agreed and caught the edge of the table to stand. Half erect, I noticed that the building moved. It rippled and buckled as if a nest of snakes were mating beneath the floors. I was concerned, but the sloe gin had numbed my brain and I couldn't panic. I held on to the table and L.C.'s hand, and tried to straighten myself up.
“Sit down. I'll be right back.” He took his hand away and I plopped back into the chair. Sometime later he was back with a glass of water.
“Come on. Get up.” His voice was raspy like old corn shucks. I set my intention on getting up and pressed against the iron which had settled in my thighs.
“We're going to dance?” My words were thick and cumbersome and didn't want to leave my mouth.
“Come on.” He gave me his hand and I stumbled up and against him and he guided me to the door.
Outside, the air was only a little darker and a little cooler, but it cleared one corner of my brain. We were walking in the moist dirt along the pond, and the café was again a distant outline. With soberness came a concern for my virtue. Maybe he wasn't what they said.
“What are you going to do?” I stopped and faced him, readying myself for his appeal.
“It's not me. It's you. You're going to throw up.” He spoke slowly. “You're going to put your finger down your throat and tickle, then you can puke.”
With his intentions clear, I regained my pose.
“But I don't want to throw up. I'm not in the least—”
He closed a hand on my shoulder and shook me a little. “I say, put your finger in your throat and get that mess out of your stomach.”
I became indignant. How could he, a peasant, a nobody, presume to lecture me? I snatched my shoulder away.
“Really, I'm fine. I think I'll join my friends,” I said and turned toward the café.
“Marguerite.” It was no louder than his earlier tone but had more force than his hand.
“Yes?” I had been stopped.
“They're not your friends. They're laughing at you.” He had misjudged. They couldn't be laughing at me. Not with my sophistication and city ways.
“Are you crazy?” I sounded like a San Francisco-born debutante.
“No. You're funny to them. You got away. And then you came back. What for? And with what to show for your travels?” His tone was as soft as the Southern night and the pond lapping. “You come back swaggering and bragging that you've just been to paradise and you're wearing the very clothes everybody here wants to get rid of.”
I hadn't stopped to think that while loud-flowered skirts and embroidered white blouses caused a few eyebrows to be raised in San Diego, in Stamps they formed the bulk of most girl's wardrobes.
L.C. went on, “They're saying you must be crazy. Even people in Texarkana dress better than you do. And you've been all the way to California. They want to see you show your butt outright. So they gave you extra drinks of sloe gin.”
He stopped for a second, then asked, “You don't drink, do you?”
“No.” He had sobered me.
“Go on, throw up. I brought some water so you can rinse your mouth after.”
He stepped away as I began to gag. The bitter strong fluid gurgled out of my throat, burning my tongue. And the thought of nausea brought on new and stronger contractions.
After the cool water we walked back past the joint, and the