James Hannaham - Delicious Foods

She laid her head back and hit it against the concrete too hard, had to clamp down her jaw to keep from shouting, then start rubbing the sore spot where she thought a knot might pop up. After the pain got tingly and then got boring, I let go her arms and legs to make em relax and she accepted that she gonna have to take a wait-and-see attitude. She visualized that damn purse and getting the purse back until she done fell asleep.

All the same, the purse ain’t never turnt up. Not only did it not materialize, but the harder Darlene tried to reckon out who done lifted it or where it gone, the more some the crew start wondering — to her face — if a crime had took place at all.

Michelle started going, Did you even have a bag? I don’t ’member you having no bag when you was in the van.

Sirius remembered the bag and described it pretty good, but Michelle was not convinced beyond a doubt. Didn’t nobody trust TT or Hannibal, including TT and Hannibal, and Hammer wasn’t nowhere to be seen. Not one motherfucker confessed to the possible theft of the probable bag, and the whole episode made Darlene look bad and wacko ’cause she had accused everybody before hardly meeting em.

Just ’bout two hours after they got there, sleepytime got done and everybody had to get the hell up and start the damn day, even if they ain’t had no rest. For these folks, rise and shine meant get a hit off a dirty pipe, but Darlene ain’t had me or her bag no more, so she had to mooch. After breakfast — aka a hard-boiled egg, a gritty, no-name yogurt, and a half-pint of ’bout-to-go-sour nonfat milk — Jackie unlocked the door to go out and smoke, but she wouldn’t let Darlene search nobody for the pocketbook. When Darlene checked the road, the minibus gone, probably left during the hour or two when she’d drifted off. Hammer must have drove it somewheres. Had he been inside or outside? Had Jackie had the key all this time? Did Jackie snatch the bag?

Darlene snuck a short, angry walk away from the chicken house to breathe some fresh air. She figured out that the building was one of three look-alike connected buildings near the top of a ridge with a dusty road cutting through it all like the part in some old white man’s hair. Once she had scampered up to a higher place, jumping over them potholes, and she could see over the ridge, she turnt to get a look at the farm.

For 360 degrees, the view stayed ’bout the same. Bunch of shiny-ass, frilly leaves of corn be fluttering out to the horizon, like the invisible hand of God ruffling em, and they get small in the distance and morph into a emerald glop. Beyond that was some teeny-tiny gray trees and a long chain of them electrical Godzilla towers in the far far distance where the world start to curve, a crazy distance couldn’t nobody imagine running away to. No wonder they let her walk around during the day.

Darlene gave a nervous look to the chicken house, like she wanna skip out, but then a man she ain’t never seen before come out the nearest building and called her back by name. The way he said her name made her feel like she had did something wrong by wandering off — the second syllable came louder than the first, exactly the way her daddy used to say it when she got him pissed. The sound of the voice alone tugged her back over to the coop and she picked up speed as she went.

Darlene feet going chuff-chuff and stopped in the rocky dirt and the dude pointed at the chicken-house door. In his other hand he had a gun — still in a holster but he got his damn hand on it — and that made her wonder what’s wrong and is he gonna shoot her if she don’t come back?

He told her, They’re gonna dock your pay ten dollars for missing roll call.

Ten dollars ain’t seem like much compared to what she need to make, or her expected salary, so she didn’t hardly notice what he said.

The man was a ethnic type with a round-ass tan body and a face too small for his head that be held in by some elephant earlobes sticking out at almost ninety degrees. He petting his mustache like a kitty cat. He ain’t introduce hisself at that time, but he did take his hand off the gun right as she gone back inside.

Darlene heard the last couple names of the other workers as she going in the sleeping quarters. Jackie had everybody lined up in two rows, one of twenty-three, one of twenty-two, so the new girl seen where to put herself. She filled the empty place and wait for her name but Jackie ain’t never called it. She told the men to divide themselves from the women and that they had a special assignment. While the women waiting, Jackie had herself a private chat with the mustache man who had called Darlene inside. Darlene stepped out the group of women and waited right behind Jackie to ask her a question.

Darlene words come out strange, on account a me, and that she ain’t had much sleep. Jackie, did anybody who…called my bag? I mean, my son. Did anybody find my bag, and can I call my son?

Jackie let out a breath. Nobody got your bag. I don’t think you had a bag. Did you show me your ID? We need to keep your ID on file.

That’s it, the ID was in my bag! And how about my son?

When we’re on detail we can stop at the depot and you can call. She threw her attention over Darlene to the rest of the group. Men to the right, ladies left, please.

What, Darlene said, it’s different work?

Darlene, if you want to get with the men, you could certainly try it. Jackie had this high, edgy note in her voice, tryna sound all businessy.

It’s more money, isn’t it? I owe you six hundred twenty already, I need more money.

It’s only more depending how much work you do, Jackie said. You not willing to work hard, are you? She raised her eyebrows and turnt to count the men as they went together.

Darlene frowned, she shifting her weight, and this grumpy feeling kicked her ass. She cocked her head and walked over to join the menfolk, saying, Of course I’m willing to work hard! At first she stood behind the backs of the tallest dudes, then she got up on tippy-toe to hear Jackie instructions. When the big echoey space swallowed Jackie voice, Darlene decide not to ask her to repeat herself. When she done wore out the patience of the shortest, furthest-back man by begging him to tell her what Jackie said, she decided to mimic the guys as they stiffened they bodies and pulled they holey T-shirts and muddy work pants into place. Those that been there and got theyself the regulation canvas gloves (fifteen dollars at the depot) be tugging em over they rough fingers. Most the men made they way to the door, Darlene marching in with em, getting set for tough labor, hopefully justified by high money. She ain’t had no appropriate shoes, so Jackie found a pair somebody had left behind.

She goes, These boots belonged to Kippy.

It sound like Kippy somebody important. Darlene put the boots on, and she notice that the laces be all stiff with some dark, rusty-colored dust, and it be on the shoes too.

Kippy ran away. Tried to. But he didn’t make it.

Darlene wiggled her toes inside the toe of one boot, and they fit her tight as a rabbit inside a grain silo. Them shoes was too huge, and now she thinking that that rusty dust be Kippy blood.

They caught him. So…Jackie shook her body like she tryna say, Don’t try this at home, kids.

Shortly, ten of em riding in a souped-up school bus. Most the seats had got ripped out, so everybody had to stand up, and the windows of the bus, the kind schoolchildren woulda jacked down and thrown paper planes outta, they been removed, and both sides opened into the air. The front windshield had broke in a spiderweb shape, by somebody the foreman called a crackhead. The guys who worked there longest knew to sit down and hold on to the few seats there was, ’cause when the bus started up and shook in them potholes, you might lose your balance and fall out the open side. A bunch of big-ass light green plastic tubs took up part of the inside the school bus.