Natalie Baszile - Queen Sugar

He shook his head. No more Mommy. Just you and me .

• • •

Ralph Angel and Amber rode in silence the rest of the way now, until Amber pointed to her turnoff.

“So maybe I’ll come by the casino sometime,” Ralph Angel said. “Take you to dinner after your shift.” In the light of her open door, he saw red creases on the sides of her legs where they pressed hard against the seats.

Amber glanced at the house. “No,” she said, “I don’t think it’d be a good idea. It’s nothing personal, honest. You seem like a nice guy.” She tossed her purse over her shoulder. “Thanks for the ride.”

“You bet.” Ralph Angel watched her walk down the driveway, her purse bouncing against her hip. He could still smell her hair.

On the road again, Ralph Angel turned the radio dial, trying to find the jazz station. He still felt jumpy from the encounter with the trooper, couldn’t believe how close he’d come. Nothing left now but to go home. They’d all be getting up soon, dressing for church. If he were religious, he’d say a prayer— Thanks for keeping my ass out of jail just now —maybe ask for a small blessing for Blue, ask Gwenna to forgive him. But he wasn’t a believer, hadn’t been for a long time. Ralph Angel rolled his window down and felt the early-morning air against his face. When he got home, he would ask Charley to cut him in on the farm. Because you couldn’t sit around hoping to get lucky or wishing for a miracle. You couldn’t sit around waiting for God’s grace.

Every day since the auction, Charley made a point to arrive at the shop before Denton, and every day she followed his instructions and recommendations to the letter. When he observed that they were low on Pennzoil and 2, 4-D, she was on the phone with the hardware store; when he suggested they tear out the third-year stubble along the highway, she had the three-row chopper hitched and the tractor refueled before he finished reading the day’s farm bulletin. And when he announced, during lunch, they’d soon need lubricant for the drill press, Charley was off to Cyd’s Tractor and Repair in Franklin before he finished his sandwich.

Now, with two gallons of lubricant in a box on the floor, Charley rounded the corner expecting to see Denton’s truck but instead saw an old tractor, not too different from the one she owned, idling in front of the shop. Smoke belched from the exhaust pipe. Music leaked from the cab. As she pulled up, the tractor’s engine sputtered and died, the door swung wide, and a man — muddy overalls hanging from his skeletal frame, clumps of strawberry blond hair sticking out of his baseball cap — climbed down the ladder like a spider at the end of its thread.

Charley couldn’t help but think of Landry’s visit as she stepped from her car. “Can I help you?”

“Where’s Denton?” The man pushed his cap back and gave his forehead a furious scratch, then took one last drag on the cigarette that hung from his lips before grinding the butt into the dirt. “What time is it?”

“Two thirty,” Charley said.

“Well, I sure as hell hope Denton shows up soon ’cause I got to pick up my boys at four,” he said. “Damn day care dings you two dollars every fifteen minutes you’re late. Tell you, I can’t wait till September and I can put those two rascals in kindergarten. Don’t care if they’re five or not. Public school, you hear me? Only thing still free in this freaking country.” He lit another cigarette, then squinted out over the cane through eyes the color of frozen pond water. “What time is it now?”

“Two thirty-two,” Charley said.

“Come on, Denton, where are you?”

“I’m sorry,” Charley said. “Exactly who are you?”

The man looked startled. “Alison Delcambre. Denton didn’t tell you?”

“No.”

“Well, I’ll give him till three but then I got to go.”

“Is there something I can help you with?” Charley said. Just then, she heard the low grumble of Denton’s engine and there he was, coming down the road. He parked and ambled over, the same oily cloth from the auction dangling from his back pocket.

“Good to see you, Alison.”

“You’re late, Denton.”

“Sorry. My wife needed a new filter for her car.” He took a small square of fabric, from his front pocket this time, and cleaned his glasses, wiping each lens purposefully.

“Well, I’m delighted to hear you’re such a devoted husband, but I got to be over at the freaking Magic Rainbow by four.”

“How are those boys?”

“They’re fine if you like raising wolf pups.”

Denton slipped his glasses back on and looked at Charley over the rims. “Alison’s wife passed last year and he’s raising their two grandkids. One’s three and one’s four.”

“Their parents are dopeheads,” Alison said. “Well, one’s a dopehead. The other one’s a plain fuckup.”

Charley was surprised to hear Alison speak so harshly, she would never talk about Micah that way, at least not to a stranger, but then she saw Denton suppress a smile and guessed Alison’s rants were a frequent occurrence; heard him say “So, I guess you met Miss Bordelon,” as though Alison had just commented on the weather.

Alison removed his baseball cap. “Not formally, no.”

“Me and Alison worked together over at Saint John back in ’79,” Denton said. “Till Alison quit and started farming for himself. Eleven hundred acres over in Saint Petersville. I asked him to come by.”

“You mean, I used to have eleven hundred acres,” Alison interrupted. “You forgot to mention I’m being forced out of business.”

“That’s one way to put it,” Denton said.

“What do you mean, ‘that’s one way to put it’?” Alison said, flailing his arms. “That’s the only way to put it. Go on, Denton, you might as well get used to saying it. I’ve sure had to.”

“Alison’s losing his farm,” Denton said, soberly. “They canceled his contract after thirty-some years.”

“I’m sorry,” Charley said.

“He’s one of the best farmers around,” Denton said. He looked weary all of a sudden, like an army captain who’d lost too many men. “Knows everything there is to know about sugarcane and then some. Which reminds me. Guess who I saw up at Groveland’s?”

“Don’t tell me,” Alison said, waving a hand. “I don’t even want to know.”

“Baron and Landry.”

“Those sons of bitches? Jesus, Denton. Now you’ve ruined my whole day.”

Denton winked at Charley. “Yeah, but we got ’em, didn’t we?”

She smiled back, still embarrassed about the way she’d behaved at the auction, but he’d clearly forgiven her. Twice yesterday, he had shown her how to attach the spray rig to the tractor, and twice she’d backed the tractor into the fertilizer tanks. But he hadn’t lost his temper, hadn’t even raised his voice. Charley watched Alison pace an invisible cage. “Do you mind if I ask why you’re losing your farm?”

“’Cause I can’t ever get out of debt .” Alison shook another cigarette from the pack. “Hey, look. When I first got into this business you had thirty-eight-cent diesel and cane was twenty cents a pound. Now diesel’s over five dollars and cane sells for nineteen cents.” Years ago, Alison went on to explain, a farmer could make twenty-five thousand dollars a year. “I didn’t get rich but I made a living. Then they started messing with things.”

“They?”

“The mills,” Denton said. “They built warehouses.”

“Sugar warehouses.” Alison leaned against Denton’s truck and gazed at some point in the distance. “Here’s the way we work in this business. Say you’re a roofer, and I hire you to reroof that barn over there. I say, ‘I’ll give you five thousand dollars.’ So you say okay.”