Joe Lansdale - A Fine Dark Line

“You’re such a bad dog,” I said, petting Nub on the head.

As we went out of the woods, the squirrel chattered loudly, calling for me to return his playmate.

4

CALLIE WANTED TO EXAMINE the letters and the journal more closely, but it was almost time for supper, then it would be time to get ready for opening up the drive-in.

Saturday was our biggest night. It was the night Daddy was the most nervous. He took to wringing his hands and drinking baking soda mixed in water for his stomach.

If we had a big Saturday, we sometimes had our money for the week. Everything else, Monday through Friday, was just icing on the cake. But Saturday you had families and dates, the masses turned out to worship the gods on the big white screen.

Since Rosy Mae was off Saturdays, it had become our custom to have TV dinners, or hot dogs, or fried chicken from the concession stand. But this night, perhaps because Mom didn’t want us to forget she could cook when she had to, we had a big dinner of roast ham, bacon-dripped green beans, brown gravy, and mashed potatoes so light and fluffy you could have tossed them skyward and they would have floated like a cloud. It was as if Mom were trying to compete with Rosy. And as amazing as Mama’s food was, competing against Rosy was like trying to play against a royal flush with a busted flush.

We finished eating, and were about to go about our business, when we heard the front door open, which we seldom locked (though that would change), and we heard a voice call out, “You Mitchels in there?”

It was Rosy Mae, calling from the front door. She was leaning in, acting as if she had never been in our house before.

Mom called out, “Come in, Rosy Mae.”

Rosy Mae came, stood in the doorway of the kitchen, clutching her paisley purse to her as if she were holding a kitten.

Her head rag was gone and her woolly hair was twisted up in braids that bounced about her head like sprung bedsprings. Her black face had patches of greater darkness around the eyes and her lips were swollen and there was a cut on her lip, red as original sin. Her dress was stretched at the neck and her right shirtsleeve was torn, ripped to the shoulder.

“My God,” Mom said. “What happened to you?”

“I didn’t want to bother y’all none, but I jes’ didn’t know where else to go. My old man, Bubba Joe, he done beat the tar out of me, and I guess I had it comin’, sassin’ him back and all, but he done scared me this time. Pulled a knife. He tole me he gonna cut me up.”

Mom went to the refrigerator, broke open an ice tray, poured the ice on top of a cup towel, folded it up. “We’ll see if we can bring some of that swelling down on your eye. Poor girl. Did you call the police?”

“Nawsum. Ain’t no use in that. I done tole the po-leece before. They say it’s a personal matter, and a nigger want to beat his woman, that ain’t none of their business. Besides, we ain’t married.”

“Then you don’t even have a license to fight,” Daddy said.

“No suh, we don’t.”

“That’s not funny, Stanley,” Mom said.

Mom led Rosy Mae to a chair at the table, pressed the towel full of ice to the left side of her face, which was the side most swollen. At that angle, her hair looked like knotty snakes; she could have been Medusa.

“This is the worst spot,” Mom said.

“Yessum, he hits me mostly with the right, so it’s the worst. He hits pretty good with the left too. But he likes to hits me mostly with the right. And he got a ring on that hand.”

“What in heaven’s sake could this have been over?” Daddy said.

“I sassed him.”

“About what?” Daddy said.

“What?” Mom said. “Like it matters what. You ought to be able to sass a man and not expect a whipping.”

“Well, some women don’t know their place,” Daddy said.

“Stanley Senior,” Mom said. “I’ll tell you now, my place is pretty much where I put it. You hear?”

Daddy didn’t answer, but it was plain from the color of his face that he was embarrassed, and it was plain from the slump of his shoulders he knew it was time to shut up on the matter. It was he who knew his place.

“A man ever hit me,” Mom said, “he better never go to sleep.”

She looked at Dad as if he might be considering such a thing. He looked back, shocked.

“Yessum,” Rosy Mae said. “That’s what I was thinkin’. I get him when he sleeps. I gots me an ole chicken axe out back under a bucket. I use it to kill my fryers, but I could kill him like a chicken if he was asleep. He have to be asleep. He a big man. I thought too I could throw lye in his mean ole face. Lots of niggers I know throw lye, and it sure work good. Put your eyes out, cut the color on a nigger’s face . . . But I ain’t got no heart to do neither . . . I don’t know why I come here, Miss Mitchel. I jes’ didn’t know no other place for me to go. He prob’ly won’t bother me at a white person’s house. That’s what I’m thinkin’, see.”

“You just sit there until you feel better,” Mom said. “And let me fix you a plate.”

“That’s mighty nice of you, ma’am, but I don’t know I ought to be sittin’ here at y’alls dinner table and you fixin’ me no plate.”

“That’s another thing,” Mom said. “You work for us, you sit at the table from now on and take your meals with us.”

I saw Daddy give Mom a look, but Mom gave him one back that could have sheared the horns off a bull.

“Callie, you get Rosy Mae a fork, knife, plate and napkin. Fix her a good plate. Stanley Junior, you get her ice tea.”

Callie and I got the stuff and brought it over. When Callie set the plate in front of Rosy Mae, she patted her on the shoulder.

“Now, what did he hit you about?” Mom said.

“It doesn’t matter,” Daddy said. “You said so yourself. Just some sassin’.”

“No matter what, he didn’t have call for this,” Mom said. “But why he hit her matters to me. If, of course, you want to talk about it, Rosy.”

“He hit me ’cause I ain’t been givin’ him all the money I make here. He wants it all, but he jes’ gambles and drinks it. He been wantin’ me to go out and do another little work, but I ain’t doin’ it.”

“What little work?” Mom asked.

“Well now, Miss Mitchel, I can’t talk on that with the chil’ren here.”

Mom’s eyes widened.

“Oh,” she said.

“Yesum, that’s the work. And I ain’t gonna do it. He done run him some womens like that befoe, but I’m a good decent woman, and I ain’t gonna do none of that. Not for no one. Even if’n they beat me. He gonna kill me fo’ I do that.”

“He beat you because you told him no?”

“I sorta made it a little too clear, sassy-like. He didn’t ’preciate that none. He’ll cool down, though. He always does. When he gets off the drinkin’ a day or two and sobers up. Then he’ll be pretty good for a time. It’s ’round Fridays, when my payday come, that’s when he gets all swirly-wigged. By Monday, Tuesday, he doin’ better.”

“That gives you maybe two good days a week,” Mom said. “Rosy Mae, you don’t need to go back to him tonight. You eat your dinner, then you’re gonna sleep in the living room. I don’t want you around that man.”

Daddy was sitting with his mouth open, not knowing exactly what to say. Mom removed the iced towel from Rosy Mae’s face, said, “Now, you go on and eat. We’ll eat too.”

Rosy Mae was tentative at first, but pretty soon hunger overtook her.

“How is it?” Mom asked.

“It really good, Miss Mitchel. Needs a little salt in them green beans, but it’s real good and I thank you.”

“Salt?” Mom asked.

“Yesum. Jes’ a little, though.”