The Last Road Home (11 page)

C
HAPTER
21

F
ancy didn't show up and I worried she might have gotten in some trouble. It was way after dark the following night when I heard the porch door open. “Hey. Sorry, I couldn't come yesterday.” She looked mighty good in her shorts and old T-shirt.

“You shouldn't be here at all.”

She stopped and parked her hands on her hips. “You tired of me this quick?”

“Shut up. I mean, what if your momma and daddy wake up one night and you ain't home?”

“Unless he's sipping, Daddy is in bed right after the sun's down good, and sleeps like a log. Besides, Momma and me sat down last night and had a long talk about how boys and girls our age have a natural curiosity. She doesn't want me messing around and end up with a baby in my stomach.”

That's something that never occurred to me. I'd been too busy walking around like a bantam rooster who'd serviced his hen. “A baby? Fancy, don't talk about shit like that!” I slumped back on the couch. “Well, that's the end. No more. No way we can risk such a thing.”

“You're right. I guess we'll have to go back to just being friends.” She pulled a loose string on her sleeve and stared out the window. Silence lay between us like two pouting kids.

“Momma did tell me how to keep from it if the time was to come, though.”

“How's that?”

Fancy made circles with her finger on the couch cushion, like she was deciding whether or not to let me in on the secret. Then she reached into her back pocket and pulled out a little foil package. “Just need to make sure to use one of these.”

I recognized it. Back when I went to school, some of the boys toted one around in their wallet, always bragging. What could Clemmy be thinking to give Fancy such a thing?

She held it by the corner and flapped it like a flag. “Momma says you can buy them at the drugstore, or sometimes they have machines in gas station bathrooms.”

I waved my hand to dismiss that idea. “You can bet your ass I ain't going to ask that woman at the drugstore.” In spite of myself, I started to consider how far the nearest gas station was that had a bathroom, and how long it would take me to walk.

“Momma said it was for in case I ever lost my head.”

“Well, I reckon it's too late for that. How does a person know it fits?”

Fancy looked irked. “What'd you want me to do, tell Momma how big your business was and ask her if it was the right size?”

We stared at each other for a minute before we fell over laughing. I had to wipe the tears from my eyes. “Well, we won't be doing it again.” I held it between two fingertips, like something might rub off. “Here, you keep it.”

Fancy pulled me up from the couch. “You got any more of them store-bought cigarettes?” We sat on the porch and smoked. The night air was soft and still. “Daddy says he don't think you're going to make it trying to farm by yourself, said it'd be too much work for a man, much less a boy.”

I got up from the chair, kicking it backward with my foot. I figured a lot of the folks in the community probably thought the same way. “I ain't scared.”

“You got some guts, Junebug. I wouldn't want to think about living by myself.”

I snorted. “That's because you're a girl. My boy time is over.”

“Don't bite my head off. I didn't say it.”

“Fancy, when a person has his whole life pretty much come apart, he don't need somebody questioning if he's man enough to handle himself.”

She got up and wrapped her arms around me from behind. “I wasn't trying to hurt your feelings. You're man enough for me.”

I opened the screen door and flicked the butt into the yard. “You getting cool?”

We settled on the couch. “Want to thumb-wrestle?” Fancy asked.

“What's that?”

“Give me your right hand.” She hooked our four fingers together, put our thumbs on top, and when she yelled, “go,” one would try to hold the other's thumb down. Fancy caught me every time.

I finally managed to win one, then made the mistake of looking her in the eyes. I moved my face close. Her tongue flicked out. We teased each other, playing and kissing. I moved my fingers to the tips of her breasts. She closed her eyes as I stroked. “You got that thing in your pocket?”

Fancy nipped at my earlobe. “You fixing to try it?”

“Either that or I'm going to bust wide open.”

In the bedroom, I pulled Fancy's T-shirt over her head. We stood kissing and running our hands over each other. Electricity went between us like our fingers were stuck in a socket.

There was less confusion and more of a rush to get to the place we wanted to go. Sex was a new puzzle, not yet understanding how to take what we needed and give to the other at the same time. It was thrashing and grunting and driving of bodies against each other, desperate to make it last as long as possible.

“God almighty.” I pulled Fancy across me. “Just shoot me now. Life can't get any better than this.”

“Damn, Junebug, you're going to make me crazy.” Fancy rolled to straddle my stomach, bending down to run her tongue over my lips. “When you going to Apex?”

“Why?” My fingers tickled up her back.

She arched her back. “Because you need to practice what you're going to say to the lady in the drugstore.”

“We got to be crazy.” I rubbed the back of my finger from her pelvis up to her belly button.

She sucked in a sharp breath, then reached back and ran her fingernails along the inside of my thigh. “Call it whatever you want, but when we're loving I don't care if the whole world knows.”

I cupped her breasts. They were firm and swollen. “Can you use one of those things twice?”

She used her tongue to trace the ridges down my stomach, then gripped me, pulled off the condom, and threw it on the floor. Fancy eased down until I was inside her. She closed her eyes and began to rock back and forth, pulling up and settling back down. It was slow and amazing.

When it was over, Fancy collapsed on top of me. We were soaked with sweat. “I don't want to go home.”

I rubbed her back. “There was some blood on my sheets last time. Were you hurt?”

“A little.” She raised her head and flashed that smile. “But this time you tried to kill me.”

We finally dragged ourselves out of bed and started getting dressed. I picked the condom up off the floor. “What am I supposed to do with this?”

She pulled up her shorts. “Keep it as a souvenir, because if you don't find some more, it'll be your last trip down this road.” She dodged my slap at her butt.

I dropped it in an empty tin can in the kitchen trash. She leaned under my arm as I drove.

Back home, I coasted to a stop in front of the house and sat in the truck, enjoying a cool breeze through the open window, watching a full white moon give life to dancing shadows of treetops playing a game of tag across the yard. I lit a cigarette, laid my head back, and thought about Fancy. She made my life so much better. Fancy had replaced a heart full of pain with hope, helping to push away the darkness that seemed to trail me like a hellhound.

Sally stood at the fence of the mule lot watching me. I opened the truck door and walked across the yard; she blew air through her lips and blubbered a greeting. I reached through the rails to rub her nose and scratch her neck. “Can't sleep either, huh?” Sally shook her head up and down and took a playful nip at my fingers. I popped her on the forehead. “Mighty late to be feeling so frisky.”

I opened the fence gate, grabbed her harness off the hook, slid the bit into her mouth, and held on to her mane while I jumped on her back. “I'm feeling a little frolicsome myself. Let's go for a walk.”

We made an easy pace down the dirt road, going nowhere in particular, the night silence broken only by the gentle plops of her feet. “Sally-Girl, I'm in need of a woman's point of view.” I pulled back on the reins and stopped. “What comes after two people have sex? Does it mean you have to get married?” A few clouds eased by the moon. “I reckon I could marry Fancy if it come down to it; be nice cuddling up in bed every night. You ever had sex, Sally? If you ain't, I'm here to tell you it's the greatest thing I've ever experienced, makes you want to holler like Tarzan.” I looked at the stars, turning my head as far around as I could to appreciate the way they lay over the world like a round roof. “I know my feelings are mighty strong for Fancy. It's just I ain't quite sure where it might lead, feels like it goes against everything I'm supposed to live by, you know, her being black and all.” I scratched Sally's ears. “Grandma could see it coming.” My heels nudged her forward. “You think God really cares about such things, Sally?” She perked up her tail and dropped a load of stinking apples on the road. I threw my head back and laughed. “You could'a just shook your head yes or no.”

By then we were half a mile from the house. I pulled on the bit and turned to head back. I was feeling crazy. I bent my head back and howled at the moon like a lovesick tomcat, just because I felt like it. I slapped Sally's haunches with the leather and she took off in a run toward the barn, me yelling and laughing at the top of my lungs, “I love Fancy Stroud, and I don't give a dang who does or don't like it, especially a fat, lazy mule. You can all kiss my ass.”

If anybody had seen us out there in the dark, they would have been pretty sure I'd lost my mind. And maybe I had.

P
ART
2

C
HAPTER
22

M
y head barely hit the pillow before Fancy showed up in my dreams. The two of us were sitting on a hill looking at the moon. In the next instant we were floating, lifting up, soaring among the stars.

A board squeaked somewhere toward the front of the house. My eyes jerked open. The house always creaked when the wind blew, or if it was heating up or cooling down, but the floor only made sounds when somebody was walking. I heard the noise again. My first thought was Fancy had come back. But she wouldn't do something that stupid. Maybe an animal had gotten in the house. I lay still, listening.

When a chair leg scraped, I reached under the bed, got a grip on my twenty-gauge pump shotgun, and clicked off the safety. I slid my feet quietly along the floor to the open door leading to the living room. I peeked out. Nothing. A thief would have to be stupid to rob the poorest house in the neighborhood.

Like a snake stalking a rat, I slipped past the couch and eased my head around the entrance to the kitchen. The man's outline was backlit from light coming through the window over the sink. He put something in his mouth. Who the hell would break into somebody's house and sit down to eat? My hands shook as I stepped into the opening, the shotgun pointed. “You move and I'll blow your head off.”

He slowly lowered the food back on the plate and raised his hands. “Now, Junebug, don't let your finger slip on that cock-hair trigger.”

I hadn't heard that voice in a year. I lowered the barrel and flipped on the ceiling light. “Lightning?” I leaned over to keep my knees from folding. “What the hell are you doing in my house in the dark? You about got yourself killed!”

He got up and came around the table. “Junebug.” He laughed. “Man, I'm glad to see you.” We hugged and slapped each other on the back. “Didn't mean to scare you. I was going to wait until daylight to let you know I was around, but damn, if I weren't starving.”

I pushed him to arm's length, still not believing it was Lightning. He had an ugly, welted scar running from his left ear to the corner of his lip. He smelled like sweat and dirty clothes and was a lot skinnier since I'd seen him last. “What the hell happened to your face?” It was like looking at a stranger.

He put his hand to his cheek. “Had a little trouble down in Georgia.”

“Appears like more than a little to me.”

Lightning's face was drawn and shallow below his cheekbones. His hair was scruffy and in bad need of cutting. “Some truth to that,” he said.

“Here. Sit down and eat. Ain't much, but you're welcome to it.” I took a jar of milk from the refrigerator and set it in front of him. “Let me go put on some pants.”

Lightning was eating leftover biscuits and ham when I got back. He talked while he chewed. “Stopped in Apex and my cousin told me about your grandma passing. I'm real sorry. She always treated me kind.”

I took a chair across the table from him. “Thanks, she was a kind person. Now, tell me why you're slipping around in the dark?” I couldn't keep my eyes off the scar. “Thought you were picking cotton, not fighting with tigers.”

His eyes looked lifeless, the color of used coffee grounds. He looked a lot older than he should. “White man tried to kill me.”

I tore off a piece of ham and chewed on it. “How come?”

“When we hit lower Georgia last July, the boss man on the migrant bus dropped three of us off with this old white farmer.” He drained the glass of milk. “He put us way deep in the woods to work until the fall. One of the old men with me had stayed the year before and knew what to do. Wasn't hard, just keep these plants watered and looked after.” Lightning leaned the kitchen chair back to rest on two legs. “It was all right, nobody to mess with us.”

I noticed several cuts on his forearms that were scabbed over. “Were you growing tobacco?” The first weak light of day was beginning to show through the window.

“Reminded me of it some.” Lightning used his hands when he talked, like he was trying to twist what he said to get it right. “The stalks got as tall, but the leaves were small and bushy, nothing like tobacco. I heard the old farmer telling the migrant man how during the big war, the government gave out hemp seeds for free and paid farmers to grow the crop; said they used the plants to make ropes for the army and navy. He said when the war ended, the government quit wanting the hemp, putting a bad hurt on farmers. Then this man from Florida came along and showed him how to grow a crop that was just as easy, and one he could sell and make a hell of a lot of money. Farmer said he'd been growing it ever since.”

“What the heck was it?” I was still finding it hard to believe he was sitting at my table.

“It's a kind of smoking tobacco, but different. The old migrant man called it marjeewana, but the African with us said it was marijuana, said he'd smoked plenty of it in his time. Along about the end of September, the old man came one night and we pulled up the plants, loaded them on his truck, and hauled them back to the farm.”

“Why in the dark?”

“Stuff is against the law, like moonshine. Anyway, we hauled about two hundred stalks to a tobacco barn, strung twine across the tier poles, and hung them upside down to dry.”

“That's mighty curious. Did you cure it?”

“Nope, just let it dry out. The plants stayed in the barn about a month. We worked cleaning cow stables and plowing his fields in the meantime.”

“What'd you do then, store it in a pack house?”

“Naw, we cut off the stems and buds and stuffed them in gallon mason jars.” Lightning sat back and locked his hands behind his head, like he was trying to remember everything. “The old nigger in charge said the farmer sold the jars to them folks from Florida; said the old cracker made a killing.”

“Why would people come that far to buy the stuff? How do they use it?”

“Crumble it up fine and smoke it, no different than rolling a cigarette. I smoked some. I'm telling you, Junebug, that shit will make you forget all your troubles. You'll be sitting around laughing your ass off until it wears down. And don't hurt you none, not the way drinking shine licker will. The next morning you don't even have a headache.”

“Wonder why it's against the law when smoking cigarettes ain't?”

Lightning lifted his hands, palms up. “Ain't paying no taxes, same as white liquor.”

“I guess that makes sense. So how'd you catch up with the rest of your crew when you were done?”

“Never did. When time come to settle up, the other two migrants with me got two hundred dollars apiece. The old man tried to say I was too young to have done the same work and he only give me a hundred. I told him I'd worked as hard as the rest and wanted my money. We got to fussing and cussing at each other, him yelling he didn't take shit from niggers. That's when he pulled out a hawk-bill and sliced me, said he'd hang me out there in them goddamn woods.” Lightning's hand rubbed down his scar.

“What was I supposed to do? Blood was running down my face, he'd cut me good. Junebug, he meant to kill me right there. I got hold of the knife Daddy gave me, and went to stabbing on him. 'Fore I knew it, he was on the ground squealing and bleeding like a stuck hog. Everybody was hollering to stop. Then his wife come out the back door of the house, seen what was going on, and let fly with a shotgun, yelling she was going to kill all of us. I jerked the billfold out of his pocket, took the money, and we ran to the woods.” He finished the milk and wiped his mouth with his sleeve. “I had to tie my shirt around my head to stop the bleeding. My face swelled so bad, it felt like I had two heads.”

This story was better than a comic book. “How'd you get back here?”

“The other two migrants and me kept moving, and finally run up on some colored sharecroppers like Momma and Daddy. They hid us out. The woman doctored my face good and sewed it up.” He stopped for a minute and swallowed hard, getting emotional thinking about what happened. “Hadn't been for her, I probably would've died. We finally got to Atlanta, split the money, and everybody went their own way. It took me a long time, hopping trains from one place to another before I hobo'd one to Raleigh. I figured once I got close, I'd walk home, and that's what I did.”

I lit a cigarette and offered him one. “Why'd you come here instead of your house?”

He took it, and I held the match. “I considered if that old farmer died, the sheriff could be looking for me. I didn't want that burden on Momma and Daddy.” He kept his eyes on his plate.

I suspected Lightning might know if the man was dead or not. “So, you come to put the burden on me?” If the law had already got in touch with Roy and Clemmy, Fancy had done a good job of keeping it a secret.

His eyes drooped like a puppy dog's. “Nobody will know I'm here if you don't tell them. I was hoping you'd let me stay, at least until I know for sure.”

This was the person, along with Fancy, who'd been there for me when I needed a friend most. I could never forget that. Lightning had always been given to sulking and being angry if he got on his mind somebody wronged him, but now there was a different edge to him, sharper, colder. “How long you talking about?”

“Guess we should know in a month or so.” He reached into his coat pocket, took out a paper sack, and set it on the table. He smiled at me. “I got a plan, Junebug.”

“What?”

“These are seeds.”

“What kind of seeds?”

“Seeds for growing that marijuana I been telling you about. The old migrant worker told me how to plant them, so I kept some from the field, thinking I might come home one of these days and see if I could grow it. Just happened sooner than I thought.”

I looked in the bag. “You said that shit is against the law.”

“Only if you get caught. If you still got that plant bed out in the woods, all we have to do is go out there where nobody will see us, or be likely to come across it, and plant them.” He stretched his hands across the table. “By September, we pull them up and do the same thing that old cracker was doing. We can make a lot of money, Junebug, and nobody will be the wiser.”

I considered him for a minute. It was probably another one of his stupid ideas, like the time he tried to convince me we could wait for some of the neighbors to leave home, then sneak into their house. I stayed away from him for a long time after that, figuring if he was that desperate something bad was going to happen. As far as I knew, he never did it. “Tell you what. You can stay here a while, give yourself time to find out if the law is looking for you.” I pushed up from the table.

“Appreciate it, Junebug. I'll do my getting outside after dark. Won't nobody know I'm here, and don't worry, I won't do you wrong.”

I hoped to hell I wasn't making a mistake. “You want anything else to go with the ham and milk?”

“I'm good, just so tired of running and hiding; scared to death some white bastard would catch me and I'd be swinging from a limb.”

It occurred to me Lightning showed up at just the wrong time. What would I do when Fancy and me wanted to be together?

He kept yawning. I went to the bedroom and found an old pair of bib overalls, a clean shirt, and drawers. “What you got on stinks. Chuck 'em in the trash barrel and we'll burn them with the other stuff. A bath wouldn't hurt you none either.”

“Sure is good to see you, Junebug.” He shook my hand again. “There were times I thought I never would.”

I got a glimpse of the old brightness in Lightning's eyes, but still couldn't shake the cold feeling. “I'll get you a quilt and a pillow.”

He turned his head toward Grandma's bedroom. “I could sleep in there.”

“That's my grandma's bed.”

He slapped himself on the forehead. “Sorry, wasn't thinking, and I don't blame you. That quilt and pillow will do good right here on this couch.”

I brought them and went to crawl in my bed. All of his story couldn't be true. But I decided I'd help him, for now.