Cynthia Bond - Ruby

He fingered the veined glass and zigzag lines spread beneath his hand. He felt his member swelling, his hand on the weave of the pants rubbing. Fast. Faster. His hand inside of his boxers now, until he grew thick and hard against the thigh. Pleasure rising … saliva pouring down his chin. Almost bursting. The house began to shake. The table bounced and the girl shifted and almost lifted her head.

The Dyboù stopped moments before release. Eyes bulging. The chinaberry shook in the distance. The girl curled onto her side. An old crow cawed.

He walked to the door, creaked it open, then dropped to the floor, knees cutting into a splinter, the Dyboù grinding it deeper. Bleeding. The left hand, spilling the contents of the black bottle upon the threshold of the house, molasses and ox blood. The length of him straining against his zipper. He heard something whispering, calling to stop . To stop what he was doing. To stop. Stop. STOP —and he looked, it was only the old crow — good for nothing, not even boiling. The Dyboù rumbled low. Then he spilled the contents of the red bag over the sticky dark. He bent to smell the mix and a thick surge of power shot through the body. Yes. It was good and strong. It would weaken the soul of anyone who stepped upon it. Cause their courage to drain from their feet. Cramp their guts and twist their resolve.

The Dyboù pushed open the door and walked into the house. He stood in the doorway. He stepped onto her bedroom floor and grinned. This boy, this mule, was meant to protect the whore? Like two pill bugs facing a praying mantis, there was no chance they would survive.

He walked away, out the door, down the steps and towards the pines. The man’s nose started bleeding again, his heart pounding too fast. He would not last long, so the Dyboù walked him back to his home, slipped him into his bed, and oozed out of his body. The man would remember only a little, but he would awaken stronger, with a bit more spite and fire in his veins. The Dyboù liked the size and cut of the man. He would ride him again soon.

Ephram woke to tapping. The sun was only peeking over the horizon when he saw Gubber Samuels standing outside Ruby’s door, shifting one foot to the next, and when he caught Ephram’s eye he motioned for him to join him. Ephram slipped his head from the bed and tipped outside.

“Why you clean that whore’s house?” was what he said when Ephram greeted him.

“Gubber go home,” Ephram managed. The day was soft blue and coral pink, too pretty and new for the likes of Gubber. So he repeated, “Go home.”

“Man I know she got good pussy.” Off Ephram’s look he added, “Least that’s what I hear.”

Ephram grabbed Gubber by the shirt sleeve and pulled him away from Ruby’s door. But before Ephram could open his mouth Gubber cut in, “Look Ephram, we been friends too long for me to keep quiet. Folks ’bout to run y’all out of town after what Celia say at church yesterday. Ain’t no joke.”

Ephram looked at Gubber Samuels, his boyhood friend and ally. He was tipped to one side to balance his considerable weight. His creamed corn skin wet with the strain of walking so early. His right hazel eye steady, his left floating, traveling right then left on its own volition. Walled.

“I don’t want to hear you say nothing like that again.”

“What?” Ephram looked at him sideways so Gubber said simply, “All right man.”

Ephram knew Gubber Samuels had never talked around things. He’d always spoken like rocks falling. When Ephram thought about it, Gubber hadn’t been up before 10:00 A.M. on a weekday since he could remember. So Ephram pointed to a stump across the road and the two men walked over and sat down.

“So what did Celia say?”

“You know how Celia be when she testify. Talk a fly off a fresh pile a’ shit.”

“I know.” Ephram looked back at the house to make sure Ruby was still sleeping. He rubbed his fingers. Their soreness made him smile.

“It ain’t funny. She come in church all tore up right before elections, look like she been ravished. When she commence to talking, you couldn’t knock folks over with a dick.”

A cock crowed somewhere off in the distance as if to emphasize Gubber’s point.

“First she say how she can’t sleep all that night what with hearing demons scurrying across her floor. Then she wake up and find you ain’t sleep in your bed. Then how before she make her Folger’s, one a’ them demons slither around her living room floor on her nice shag carpet with the plastic covers. That demon just keep saying, We done got him. We done got him. When she ast who was they and who they got, that demon start laughing and points to that picture of you when you was little, the one with your daddy up on the wall. Then she say she look at that picture and damn if it don’t bust into flames.”

“Well that’s easy to prove a lie.”

“Oh, she one step ahead, boy. She say when she look back them flames disappear. That’s when she say it’s a warning. Say it means they’s still time.”

“Jesus.”

“Yes nigger, why you think I move my fat ass up here this early in the morning?”

Daylight spit yellow across the heavens while Gubber told the rest of it. “Then she starts out to see you, and see the Devil three times before she got there. Each time he take a different form. First time he a crow, second, a jackal and third, he a toad. And you know how she tell it with that flourish and rhyme and all her Sanctified Saids. Each, every time the Devil say, ‘Don’t mess with that girl, she be my special pearl.’ But she say she keep on walkin’ ’til she get out to Bell land, where she see a snake slithering backwards crost the road. ’Til up she come to the door and touch the knob and it’s cold as ice.

“Then she tell how she begs you leave cuz she seen the Devil’s mark appear, spreading across your left cheek. She paint it so good them niggers was ready to run out the goddamn church and get you. If she’d told ’em, some of them fools would have burned that girl house down to the ground. But then she calm them, tell them it best to trick the Devil with kindness. Try to baptize them under his snare. Try to bring her boy back to Jesus. That the mark faded as quick as it came. There was still time.”

Ephram shook his head against stupidity. “They believe that mess?”

“The best part I ain’t told you. Some folk not saying Amen like she want. So she say the Devil told her he was gone sneak into the minds of the weak in the congregation before she got there and tell them not to believe her. So then, you know ever body was up and stomping and clapping and yelling Amen by the time she talks about the fight she had with the Devil.”

Ephram looked back at the house again. A light purple cloud was arranging itself just above its roof. Gubber let out a belch, cracked his knuckles and said, “If I was you I’d put my johnson back in my pants and get my ass home.”

“I ain’t going back. Don’t know if it’s safe for her with me here, but — I’m not going back.”

“Damn, you always been a hard-up ignorant nigger. You can still fuck her, if the pussy that good. Hell, ever’body else do.”

Ephram gave Gubber a look that let him know it was past time to stop. The look that said his fist could and would connect hard with Gubber’s slack jaw.

Gubber backed down, “Man, do what you want.” He stood to leave. “Only you better be at Junie Rankin funeral this afternoon. You already done missed the wake yester-evening. Supra and them expecting you to stand pallbearer and they gone be hell to pay you don’t cover your corner.”

“Junie were a good man.”

“Only one used to keep them rude-ass Rankin boys in check.”