The Last Road Home (6 page)

C
HAPTER
9

G
randma went to bed not long after supper. I eased out the back door and headed to the stumps. A white winter moon was bright as a bulb and had a halo around it, which meant snow if you believed the old wives' tale. Crusty leaves and frozen twigs snapped underfoot. I picked a seat, pulled my coat closer, and tried to roll a cigarette with cold fingers. It being Christmas, Fancy might not show, but Saturday was our time, so I waited. Swaying winter-bare limbs raked and cracked against each other like hands clapping.

I heard traipsing through the brush. “Merry Christmas, Junebug.” Fancy sidled up on the same stump and gave me a little hug. “Cold as a gravestone, ain't it?” She wore brogan shoes, blue jeans, a heavy coat, and a knit hat to cover her head. “Did you have a good Christmas?”

“Real good. You?” A cold breeze rustled the dry leaves and blew a chill down my collar. I sucked on the homemade cigarette, getting a few puffs before it burned my fingers.

“We did. All my aunts and uncles and cousins came to the house and we had a big old time. The men got to sipping and telling funny stories.” Fancy leaned forward with hands in her side pockets, crossed her legs, and pulled the front of her coat tighter. “We had chicken dumplings and collards and sweet potatoes and corn bread for dinner. Good eating, and plenty of it.”

She smelled of wood smoke. “Old Santa find you?”

“Momma made me a new dress for going to school, and Daddy found an old bicycle in Miss May's barn he fixed up so I can ride instead of walk everywhere.”

“Be good when the weather gets warm.”

She stuck her arm through the crook of my elbow, and folded her hand back into her pocket, snuggling. The softness of her was warm. “What did you get?”

I pulled out the buck knife.

“Dang, Junebug.” She snapped the powerful blade open and shut. “Wanna play mumblety-peg?” The bright moon made her white teeth shine in the dark.

“Hell, no, you'd probably stab me in the foot. But we can do this.” I pulled her to follow me to a poplar tree close by, and started carving.

Fancy looked over my shoulder. “What are you doing?”

“Cutting our initials so when folks a long time from now come by, they'll know we were here.” After some grunting and hard scraping, I finally got a big
F
and
J
skinned out.

She admired the work. “Ought to put an
L
too, in honor of Lightning.”

“Have you heard anything from him?” Cutting the
L
proved easier than the other two.

“Not a dang word; you'd a thought he could have at least sent a letter by now.” She ran her hands over the letters. “Nice work, Junebug.” The blustery wind picked up, sharpened to a freezing edge. Fancy exaggerated a shiver. We went back to sit.

“Got something for you.” I pulled the box from my coat pocket.

Fancy rolled the package in her hand. “What's in here, Junebug?”

“Open it and see.”

“Now I feel bad that I ain't got nothing to give you.”

“Didn't expect anything. Had a little extra and just wanted to.”

Fancy took her time removing the wrapping, like Grandma saving the paper from the dress box. Her hands fumbled trying to tear the tape so I snipped it with my knife. The silver of the necklace flashed in the moonlight. I struck a match. “See, it's got your name spelled out right there.”

Fancy put one hand across her eyes. Tears started to spill down. She turned and put her arms around my neck. “Hey, now, I won't trying to make you cry.”

“Will you help me?” She handed me the chain and turned her back. “I don't know how to thank you, Junebug. I'm going to wear this to church tomorrow.”

“Don't let your daddy see it and get the wrong idea. I had enough trouble with him over that candy.”

“Then I'll keep it hid and only wear it when I'm coming to see you.” She clutched it against her chest.

I would have bought her ten necklaces to get that smile.

Fancy turned her face close to mine. “Junebug?”

“What?”

“Can I kiss you?”

I'd sometimes imagined what it would be like to kiss Fancy, but thinking it and doing it were a long ways apart, which made what came out of my mouth seem crazy. “If you want to.”

We faced each other, our noses almost touching. “You ever kissed a girl before?”

My knee started to bounce. “No.” Her breath smelled like sweet potatoes. “But I'm willing to start.”

She laid her hand on my leg to quiet it. “We could try it if you want to, and see what happens.”

I got a vision of Roy walking up while we had our lips stuck together. Maybe it would be worth the pain of an ass beating. “Okay.”

Fancy edged closer. “All right, you ready?” She seemed way too calm.

My brain was screaming,
Stop!
but my mouth wouldn't listen. “If you are.” An owl hooted. I considered running like hell.

Fancy folded her arms around my neck, and then pulled mine up to do the same on her. “Now close your eyes.”

The soft touch of her mouth startled me.

She pulled back. “You all right?”

“Sorry, couldn't see it coming.”

Fancy unzipped our coats and we stuck our arms inside each other's jackets. “This time you'll know what to expect.”

Our lips lay stiff as a day-old biscuit at first, but then we began to move them around. I pulled my head back. “Are you sticking your tongue out?”

“Lightning told me that's the way you're supposed to kiss. Come on, let's try it.” The feeling of our tongues mixing together was weird at first, but got warm in a hurry. We explored, hands squeezing and moving inside each other's jackets, legs stretching and sliding until we almost fell off the stump. My God, could Christmas get any better?

Finally, we pulled apart and zipped up our jackets.

“Well?” Fancy asked.

I sucked in the cold air, wore slam-out from holding my breath. “Well, what?”

“Did you like it?”

“Did you?” If she said no, I would go straight to the woodshed and kill myself with an ax.

“I think we could get real good at it with a little practice.”

I was thinking home run and she acted like it was only a single. But I was all for a little more practice.

“It's getting late. You going to walk with me?” Fancy took my hand and we started slowly toward her house. “I might come visit you tomorrow on my bicycle, if it would be all right with your grandma.”

Despite the cold, beads of sweat rolled down my neck. “Can't think why it wouldn't be.” I was pretty sure what we did was sinful; I'd heard the preacher say mixing races was a road straight to hell. And I knew without a doubt it was dangerous; there wouldn't be forgiveness if anybody, black or white, found out.

When we got to the edge of the woods, Fancy pecked me on the lips. I watched until she made it across.

Walking back through the woods, I tried to pee. The last drops drained and I had a familiar urge. In a minute, jisim shot out, and my knees wanted to buckle. I used to practice behind the barn a lot, but fear made me quit. Lightning told me he'd heard a man could go blind doing it.

In the quiet of my bedroom I worried I'd wake up not able to see shit, having to walk around with a cane and dark glasses the rest of my life. I repeated the Lord's Prayer until I fell asleep.

Daylight came, and I thanked God I could see the ceiling. I put on the new jeans, flannel shirt, and brogans, anxious to get to church and do some praying.

C
HAPTER
10

T
hat ring around the moon thing must have been true. Six inches of snow fell right after New Year's. A few days after the ice melted, Grandma said, “We need to get to killing hogs, Junebug. I'll go up tomorrow and ask Clyde Wilson about helping us. You need to get the scalding-vat from the barn.”

That night I fed the two pigs one last time, and scratched their ears while they grunted and slurped from the wooden trough. I rubbed the pecan-sized knot on Bumpy's head. She'd always followed me around when I needed to get in the pen, sticking her nose under my legs, curious. “You've been a good girl. I'm going to miss you.” She looked up from the trough. If a pig could smile, she was doing it.

At sunup the next morning a crusty layer of heavy frost covered the ground. I dragged the scalding-vat from the barn, filled it with water, and set about building a fire underneath it. By the time Mr. Wilson, Roy, Clemmy, and Fancy got there, steam rolled off the water.

I watched Fancy head toward the house to help Grandma, and noticed how her and Clemmy had the same gait when they walked. I thought about the touch of her mouth and my cheeks burned.

“Mr. Wilson, I never done this by myself.” The three of us stood close together, stomping our feet, blowing clouds of smoke, and warming our hands from the heat off the boiling water.

“Nothing to worry about.” He got busy hanging a pulley over the mule lot gate. I paid attention to everything he did. “First is to keep the water as hot as can be, so keep loading wood underneath when it gets low. Then we pick us a pig. You want to do the shooting since these are your hogs?”

I figured it wouldn't be very manly if I didn't. “I'll do it.”

Bumpy was standing by the fence watching, her snout twitching. Roy went in and she gave him a friendly sniff, but when he grabbed her by the hind legs, Bumpy started squealing. I laid the barrel of the twenty-two between her eyes, and she stared straight at me, like she was pleading. I squeezed the trigger. She made one grunt and hit the ground. I felt sick. Roy slashed her neck to bleed her out.

Mr. Wilson gripped my shoulder. “You all right, Junebug? You seem a mite weak-eyed.” Him and Roy had a good laugh.

Once we slid Bumpy into the vat, each of us took a sharp-edged tin-can lid and scraped off the rough black hair. After that we hooked her to the pulley and hung her upside down. Roy cut open her belly and raked the guts into a washtub. I carried them to the house, where the women would clean them and make sausage casings and chitlins.

The other pig smelled the rusty iron stink of blood and went running to take cover at the back of the lot. Mr. Wilson laughed. “Rest easy, pig, we'll be along for you in a minute.”

Roy and Mr. Wilson showed me how to butcher the meat proper so nothing was wasted from the “snoot to the poot,” as Mr. Wilson said. Within a couple of hours, the only thing left to recognize Bumpy was her head, then damned if Roy didn't cut off her jowls, saying they'd be good for seasoning a pot of greens.

When Roy went after the other pig, she took off around the fifty-foot-long pen, down to the muddy wallow and back again. “Get her, Roy, get her.” Mr. Wilson laughed and hollered encouragement. Finally Roy tackled the pig and I managed to shoot without killing him. They showed me how to salt and store hams, shoulders, and bacon in the smokehouse. It took most of the day to finish.

I stunk of blood, mud, and pig shit. The shower water wouldn't get hot, so I lathered my face, arms, and hands with lye soap while I shivered, scrubbing hard to get off the stink. I took the washcloth and dug inside my ears, trying to drown out Bumpy. Grandma had laid out some fresh clothes on my bed.

She was busy at the stove cooking parts of Bumpy for supper. “Everything go right today?”

All I could picture was Bumpy's eyes. “Know I ain't going to get too friendly with the next pigs; reckon it was sort of like you and Big Red.” I sat at the kitchen table playing with an old penny I'd found, spinning it by holding the top and thumping with my finger. Whenever my mind got sad like it had today watching Bumpy, I thought about Momma, and wished I could hold her hand. I could hear her saying, “Tomorrow your package will be better.” Some days seemed too hard to be a man. Every bite of the pork wanted to stick in my throat.

After supper, I emptied the vat and made sure any hot coals were snuffed. Bumpy's squealing was still in my head. By the time I got the scalding-vat stored in the barn, wet snow began to fall, big flakes, like dogwood petals floating out of the sky. It was coming down heavy, and I lifted my head to catch pieces in my mouth.

Grandma and me sat on the porch and watched the fields and yard turn from brown to white. Not a bird, not a cricket made a sound. The snow slowly smothered the world in quiet. “The Lord sure has blessed us with a pretty sight,” Grandma said. She had a smile on her face, and her gray head nodded like she might be listening to something. She looked as peaceful as the snow.

“Grandma, do you think everything that happens is
God's Will?
”

She gave me a surprised look. “Why, Junebug, what in the world brought that up?”

“Just thinking about what Granddaddy told me after Momma and Daddy died; he thought it must be God's plan. But if that's true, and everything is already decided, why should a person worry about right or wrong, what's the difference if we cuss or steal or even kill somebody? If it's all
God's Will,
seems don't none of them things matter.”

She studied her hands, rubbing them together. “First of all, understand you're at the age when you begin to question things you've always been taught, and that's natural. Here's the way I think about it: When we're born God has a path for us, and, if we obey and live by His Word, we'll find the peace He promised. That's
God's Will
. But each person has his or her own free will. Some people choose to follow another way and give in to sin and temptation, or they're driven by anger or jealousy and have the idea God has abandoned them. In the Bible, Paul says
I can will what is right, but I cannot do it
. He's teaching that we're all weak, and the struggle against sin and evil is forever. When somebody says it was
God's Will,
they really mean they hope the person has lived in a way that God will give him the promised peace.”

It was a lot to take in. I wondered if having sexual thoughts about Fancy was sinful, because I knew for sure it was temptation. Grandma and I watched the snow until it got too dark to see. Before going inside, I stepped outside to the ground and looked up. “Bumpy, you check around for Granddaddy up there, he'll help you along.”

When I went to bed, I tried to push the battle between doubt and trust from my mind, but couldn't.