The Wilful Daughter (38 page)

He stood behind a clump of bushes and watched as Minnelsa walked from the house with the baby in her arms, Peter walking devotedly beside her. June weakly, almost limply, left the house with Miss Fannie and Miss Ella to see her sister and brother-in-law off.

When June ran into the woods, she ran right past him. He waited to see if Millie was going to follow but for once she wasn’t around. Certain that they were alone, he ran after her. Maybe there was a way to take her mind off the baby and make her smile again.

* * *

Cora didn’t question where her boy was. After all, as Toby and Ella and Fannie, and even Old Ma, were fond of telling her-he was grown. She didn’t know that he had bathed earlier and hidden his white shirt in the woods so that she would never know where he was going. By the time Cora’s head hit the pillow Michael had changed his shirt in the woods and was standing at the edge of the path right near the big house waiting for June.

He wondered what she would wear, how her hair would look, if she had painted her lips. He wondered what the place would be like. He wondered about a lot of things and was scared as well as excited. His excitement built when he saw a figure coming towards him that looked like an angel.

“
It’s the only thing I have to wear out that fits right. My. . .” She looked at Michael’s awkward excited expression and then said: “Most things are still too tight on me, because of the baby. I hope I look alright.”

“
You look wonderful.” Dumbfounded happiness filled his face at the sight of the figure in the cream colored dress.

“
It’s not the sort of thing you wear to a place like this, but, well.. . ” She slipped her shoes on. “Is it far?”

“
No,” and they began to walk.

It took all of fifteen minutes of traveling in deep dark woods the opposite direction of the white folk’s town before they heard the music. June was frightened out of her wits most of those fifteen minutes. “Only times I’ve gone to places like this in Atlanta I was in an automobile.” He held her hand tight.

She didn’t have to listen to the real night sounds. She nearly jumped out of her skin when they came face to face with darkness around three sets of bright beady eyes. She held onto Michael thinking it was the devil himself, until he explained it was just a family of possum looking for dinner. By the time she heard the music she was almost too tired to think about the excitement of the place.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

In five more minutes they were inside a small building shaped like a barn that sat on the banks of nowhere. The place was filled to its unpainted rafters with people as if it wasn’t Friday night but Sunday morning and they were there to worship the Lord. In the loft, from the rafters, sitting on beams, on left over chairs with no backs and some with no seats, on the hay covered floor, leaning against the walls, were people she had seen and people she hadn’t seen since she had come to live there. In the middle of the room a man strummed his guitar and sang: “You better come into my kitchen, ’cause it’s gonna be raining outdoors.”

June moved in further to find a place to sit for a while-a patch of floor, anything-so that she and Michael could watch the bluesman at work. Off to the side of the tables was a long piece of wood covering three or four tall barrels. Behind that stood a pale man, half Indian, half colored, with a bright red vest on, cleaning glasses and smiling. He beckoned to June and Michael, whose mouth had not closed since they had walked in, to come to him. As the man sang, the barman whispered: “Its two bits to hear Mister Talltree play and you get a drink.” He was talking to Michael, since Michael was the man. But Michael was lost in this world that he had never seen before. June reached into the pocket of her pretty dress and pulled out the money to pay. The bartender was about to set up two drinks but June protested, “Nothing hard.”

“
Sure thing, Miss June,” the man said and pulled out two bottles of chilled Coca Cola soda that had been laying in a pool of cold water surrounded by big lumps of ice. June didn’t care how he knew her or how they got ice out to a place like this. She handed Michael the soda and downed hers thirsty from the frightful walk in the woods. She reached into her pocket to pull out more money to buy another but the bartender put up his hand to say no and handed her another bottle. She gave him a grateful smile and held onto the small bottle for a while before taking a sip.

Michael’s face bore the same wonder that she felt the first time Ross had taken her to a place like this. Wonder that this was alive and kicking when it was everything they had been told was wrong. Drinking, men and women dancing and close with each other, singing until dawn. A pure wonder.

It wasn’t church, that was for sure. But it was a kind of worship. It was the worship of freedom, of being able to sit in the woods in a place where nobody could ring a bell, crack a whip or send them to fetch something. She had always felt the freedom, getting away from her father and family, getting away from things that she thought made no sense.

She was one with these people now. She had something to forget.

June knew she wasn’t going to forget Ophelia, but she was going to try and not think about her for just a little while, just a few minutes. Not think about her in that pretty little room that Minnelsa had made for her. Not think about the Piano Man giving her a bottle. She was going to think about herself and getting back to being herself, whoever that was. She looked at Michael who was nodding polite hellos at all the people he knew, who had fought off the “So your mama finally let you out” jokes that came past him, who was leaning proudly against the makeshift bar happily because he was a man and this was where men belonged. The old man stopped singing and applause filled the space.

Then someone got to the piano and starting playing as if his life depended on it. Michael was patting his foot to the beat when Ken Miller came over and grabbed June and said: “Lets dance.” Before she could answer she was out on the floor. Michael reached for her but was out of luck. “Got to be quick when you after a fine woman like that.” The bartender grinned and Michael leaned back trying not to look angry or surprised.

She was with him. At least she was supposed to be. That meant-what did that mean in a place like this?

He watched how Miller eyed her and touched her and Michael tried to remain calm. He could say to Miller: “Leave my woman alone.” But if June said she wasn’t his woman, or, if Miller laughed in his face, what was he going to do? So he just watched and waited, waited for the right moment to go get her and make his intentions clear.

It wasn’t long before the tone of the music changed and the couples on the floor were rubbing their bodies together in harmony. As soon as he saw Miller hand slip down the curve of June’s back to her hips he was on the floor standing right next to them. June saw him before Miller did. She gave him a faint smile.

“
What you want, Michael?” Miller said never taking his eyes off June’s face.

Michael tried to think of what to say, to not stumble over words. But he wasn’t sure how he was supposed to address an older man who was dancing with his woman.

“
Michael just wants to cut in.” June pulled away from Miller and attached herself like a drape on a pole to the boy. Miller huffed and got ready to complain but June suddenly moved her hips into Michael’s, exciting him so much that he moved back with her. Miller saw what was going on and laughed, retreating into the crowd of dancers to find another, less attached woman.

Michael had never danced like this with a woman. In fact Michael had never danced with a woman at all. He wasn’t sure this was dancing, wasn’t sure what he was doing. But he liked it.

When the song was over, he stopped only because she did. She looked at his face bright with amazement, smiled and told him: “I think we’d better go.”

“
But I thought you wanted to come here.”

“
Thanks for bringing me, Michael. We can come back another time, another Friday, Michael. I think we should go now.” She walked to the door and he followed, like a scared puppy. Once he got outside and breathed air he was familiar with, he looked back at the juke joint as if to say it was a pleasure meeting a whole new world that he knew nothing about.

“
Did you like it, Michael?” she asked as they walked back into the dark woods.

“
Like it? Yeah, I liked it. I didn’t know some of the people I see every day could move like that. Why they seemed so, so. . . I guess they were. . .”

“
Happy?” she asked.

“
Yes, real happy,” he answered and he talked all the way to the clearing near the big house about the people and the night. Once he had kissed her and watched her slip safely and quietly into the big house, he went home enchanted with what he had seen.

He had a woman and a place to take her. He was a happy man.

Michael couldn’t wait until the next week to go to the juke place. It was all that was on his mind. The people, the music, how June had danced with him. He had gotten a few extra hours work from Fannie so that he could buy him a bright colored vest and even another shirt for when they went again. He was far too busy to come to call on June, and Cora was glad of that. She was sure that her son was over that high yeller gal.

But Michael ate, slept and thought June. He couldn’t wait for the moment when they walked alone in the woods again, and she held him close for fear of the night and the sanctity of the dance floor. He wanted to make sure this time ended with more than a kiss.

On Friday morning Michael got to the field house before anybody else. In the rafters he hid his new red vest and new white shirt for that night. At the noon meal, when he was eating with the rest of the people, he would slip in a word to June about what time he should come by for her. Nobody would be the wiser.

Except by noon everyone was the wiser. Ken Miller, who had been away working in another town until that very morning, came by Ella and Fannie’s to deliver a few bushels of vegetables. He politely asked about their health before turning to June and saying: “Will you grace us with your presence tonight? I hear Madman Jeffries is in town. That crazy piano playing Negro gon’ bring the house down.”

June said nothing as she tried to ignore the stares from Ella and Fannie. Miller had no idea that there was anything wrong with young people like June having a good time. Only tired old folks stayed away from the juke. He figured since he had seen June there with Michael, everybody had seen it or at least knew about it.

So when he got no reaction he finished by saying: “Maybe this time you should leave Michael here. He’s still a boy, you know.” He tipped his ripped straw hat and was on his way in the beat up wagon.

Fannie and Ella didn’t get a chance to say a word before Cora tore out of the house, a dirty apron covering her front, flour and batter sticking to her hands. “Did I hear Ken Miller right? Did he just say that this hussy was seen at that juke joint with my boy?”

They tried to calm her down as June tried to slink away from the wrath of the very angry woman, but such a thing was not meant to be. Cora pushed Fannie into the door and grabbed June by the neck of her housedress. June could feel the drying batter crumbling as it rolled down her back.

“
I told you to stay away from my son,” she shouted. The other women in the house were now on the back porch wondering what all the commotion was about. “You slut!” Cora screamed. “Didn’t I warn you?”

June tried to pull away, the women tried to pull Cora off of her as she heaved insults and curses upon the girl. Finally the house dress ripped, a battered piece of it stuck in Cora’s hand. “I don’t want no low life, high yellar bitch that won’t even raise her own baby, trying to get my son to take up with her.”

“
Cora!” Ella screamed. “What’s wrong with you? The children were just out having a good time. They young.”

“
This hussy been trying to lure my boy into her bed ever since she was big with another man’s baby. A man she wasn’t never married to, I might add.”

June stood there in Maude’s protective arms, feeling naked with the back of her dress gone.

“
What you take my boy there for, huh? You trying to make him a man before his time?” Cora reached for the girl, her ragged nails trying to scratch June’s face, her hands trying to pull out June’s hair.

Maude pulled the girl further away from her. “Woman, get a hold of yourself. Ain’t nothing wrong with a boy taking a fancy to a girl. From what I hear tell all they did was dance.”

Cora cut Maude a mean look, as if she wanted to beat her to the ground. “You knowed about this and you didn’t tell me?”

Fannie interceded in a wise tone: “It ain’t necessary for you to get upset with Maude.”

Cora spun around and faced her. “I suppose you knew too?”

Ella sighed. “No, we didn’t know.”

Maude shouted so as to get in on the conversation. “Now all I heard from Toby who heard it from. . .”

Ella raised her hand. “Ain’t no matter who gossiped or who didn’t. We been watching Young Michael and June and we know they like each other. But wasn’t anything to know. They just young lonely people and they. . “

“
I don’t want this girl with my boy. . .”

“
You wouldn’t want any girl with your boy,” Maude suggested, then added: “Why ever since your husband died you been depending on that boy for support, money, love. Sometimes it don’t seem natural. When Madman Jeffries was here before you stopped spending time with him. Told me your children needed you. I told you you was crazy, even if that young man was here for a short time he took a liking to you and a short time love is better than no love a-tall.”