Natalie Baszile - Queen Sugar

“As long as I’m back before they start the contra flow I’m okay,” John said.

Just then, the screen door creaked, and when Charley looked up she saw Ralph Angel standing on the porch. He paused for a moment with his hands in his sweat suit pockets, then planted himself in the middle of the top step, leaning forward with his elbows on his knees. “Well, if it isn’t Little John.”

“Hello, Ralph Angel,” John said.

Ralph Angel frowned. “Since when did you start calling me by my given name, boy? Show some respect.”

Hot as it was, Charley shivered. She hadn’t seen much of Ralph Angel since they’d argued over the farm, and to be honest, since then she had avoided him. It hadn’t been difficult. Most mornings, she left before dawn, returning home in just enough time to talk to Micah while she worked in the garden before eating whatever dinner Miss Honey left out for her and retiring to her room, where she promptly fell into a deep and much-needed sleep. As best she could tell, Ralph Angel spent his time barricaded in the back room, doing what, exactly, she could only guess; that, or watching old war movies with Miss Honey.

“All right,” John said and sighed. “Hello, cousin. How are you?”

Ralph Angel took a toothpick from his pocket and slid it into his mouth. “You’ve got the nerve to look like a real officer. What kind of uniform is that?”

“Texas Department of Criminal Justice.”

“No shit. A real-life prison guard. Bet you can kick some ass when you feel like it, can’t you, boy?”

“Only when I have to.”

Ralph Angel motioned to Charley. “What do you think, sis? Think John here can kick my ass?”

“I’m not having this conversation,” Charley said.

“Want to try?” Ralph Angel said. His body seemed to inflate inside his sweat suit.

“No, sir,” John said. “I don’t.”

“Is that a real gun? Let me see it.”

“No, sir. I can’t do that.”

Charley looked at Ralph Angel and thought she could track the anger coursing through him.

“Ah, shit, boy. I’ve held a gun before. Let me see it. I’m not going to fire it.”

“I’m sorry, sir. I’m not giving you my gun.”

“Well, fight me, then.” Ralph Angel stood up.

“I didn’t come here to fight.” John pulled himself up to his full height, and Charley thought, this was the man the prisoners at Huntsville saw. This was the correctional officer. His voice remained steady and calm. “I just came to help Cousin Charley cover the windows. Make sure y’all are boarded up and ready for the storm.”

“Yeah, right,” Ralph Angel said. “You came around to make sure I’m not causing trouble. Did I pass the test? ’Cause I know you’ve been spreading rumors about me, talking about me behind my back.”

“I don’t know what you mean.”

“Oh, cut the shit, John. I know y’all told Charley about my last visit. Told her I broke ’Da’s arm. You and Violet and Brother, all running your mouths. I should kick your ass right now.”

John took a step forward. “That’s up to you, cousin. I’ll play this thing any way you want.”

“John, please.” Charley pulled on John’s arm. “Let’s get this wood up before it gets dark.”

• • •

The first sheet of plywood was screwed against the window and they were moving to the second when John said, “Lucky for him Daddy made me promise to stay calm, otherwise I would kick his ass. I don’t care if he is my cousin.”

The wind had picked up and every few seconds, Charley felt a smattering of rain against her face. She told John about the day Ralph Angel recited the Bible verses and negotiated Micah and Blue’s bickering over the Polaroids, how he’d admired The Cane Cutter , how he treated Blue so tenderly. “It’s like he’s two different people,” she said, and looked at the big sheet of plywood nailed against the window. She’d wanted so much to like Ralph Angel. She’d actually sort of resented Violet for not giving him a chance, thought, privately, that Violet was being judgmental, maybe even a little self-righteous. But she’d been the fool, not Violet. And after she and Ralph Angel argued, she called Uncle Brother to say he’d been right when he warned her. She called Violet, too, and apologized for ever doubting her.

John put his arm around Charley’s shoulder and she felt how solid he was. “Be careful, cuz. That’s the first thing they teach us in training. The charming ones are the ones you have to watch. They’ll play you every time.”

At seven o’clock the next morning, the forecasters downgraded the hurricane to a category two. Good news, but they still had to be cautious. In Miss Honey’s den, Micah and Blue broke into the games Charley had purchased when she shopped for groceries, spreading Monopoly money and Uno cards over the floor.

“I’m going out,” Ralph Angel announced, appearing in the doorway.

“But it’s still too dangerous,” Miss Honey said.

Ralph Angel looked past her to Blue. “Mind your grandmother.” And when Blue asked where he was going, whether he could go too, Ralph Angel refused without explanation, which was something Charley had never heard him do. The front door slammed and she could just hear the Impala’s engine below the wind.

By afternoon, the sky was a gray slab filled with a confusion of churning clouds. Wind flurries worried the trees, tossing leaves and small branches across the yard. The outer rainband dumped showers on Saint Josephine in twenty-minute bursts, and when Charley couldn’t stand to watch one more newscast with its high-definition graphics and endless loops of storm footage, she retreated to her dark bedroom, where every few seconds the wind rattled the plywood she and John had nailed over the windows. She lay on the bed, listening to the wind. It really did whistle, she marveled, trying not to imagine how much havoc the hurricane was wreaking in her fields.

The storm made landfall in the dead of night. And though it was much weaker than first predicted, there was no doubting its power to destroy. For eight hours, it tore trees up by their roots, peeled roofs off stores and churches, shredded trailers like tissue boxes, and flooded the streets downtown with dark gray water. Out in the country, sediment churned in the rising tide, and hundred-mile-an-hour winds battered the cane fields until the proud stocks lay flat in submission.

At Miss Honey’s, while she listened to the wind’s high whine as it sliced across the yard, and a downpour that sounded like a thousand coins spilling on the roof, Charley said a prayer. Please God, protect my family. Leave something behind on the farm so I’m not completely ruined. Let me have one chance to see what I can do before you take it all away. As she whispered the words, Charley felt a sense of peace settle over the room.

By morning, the winds had died. The rains had ceased. Sun broke through the clouds in bold rays. Charley unbolted the front door and stepped out onto Miss Honey’s porch to survey the damage

It was as if someone had plucked all the leaves from the trees, then systematically plastered them across the lawn and pasted them to the side of Miss Honey’s house. Branches thicker than a grown man’s arm hung perilously or lay cracked and twisted every few feet, from the woods all the way out to the street. In Micah’s garden, all the plants had been ripped up by their roots. It was an awesome sight, proof of nature’s ferocity and indifference, and standing in the yard, Charley knew she would remember this day for as long as she lived. The wind had torn the metal flashing off one side of Miss Honey’s house and sections of the sunroom were flooded. All in all, though, they came through the hurricane intact. Or so Charley thought until the phone rang and Miss Honey shouted for her that Denton was on the line.