to confess.
‘That’s good,’ she said. ‘You was lookin’ at my husband, huh, ‘Zekiel?’
I felt her attention burning on me even though she was looking at them.
‘What husband?’ I asked.
‘That’s him up on the mantel place,’ she said, nodding at the row of skulls. ‘I met him more’n twenny-three years ago. I’as just a girl, hardly in my teens. He was a big man with a great big laugh and powerful arms. Ev’rything about Domaque was big.’
A shiver ran through Ernestine.
‘But the biggest thing about him was his heart,’ Momma Jo continued. ‘He loved chirren an’ animals an’ trees an’ even dirt. He used to say that he wanted everybody to know him an’ he wanted to get to know ev’rybody he could.
‘If a man had a job to do and it was too much for him, he’d call on Domaque an’ that job was done. Dom didn’t ask fo’money or barter or anything; if you give him somethin’ he was glad t’take it and if you couldn’t pay, well, Dom knew what it was like t’be poor too.’
The lovers were frozen like startled deer. But every once in a while Ernestine shook.
Momma Jo flashed her yellow teeth and said, ‘Well, you know it’s the same old story over and over again. I was a big girl fo’my age. Matter’a fact I was bigger’n most women by the time I was thirteen, and womanly too. My parents wanted t’fool themselves that I was still a chile, but when I saw Dom my li’l dolls fell away. When I see him an’ hear him laugh, ‘cause he was always ready t’laugh, I’d just swell up inside so it felt like the clothes was gonna split right off me.
‘You know, Dom knew ev’ry fam’ly to a child fo’twenty miles ‘round Pariah. He did work on ev’ry farm an’ backyard we got here but he kept findin’ excuses to be ‘round our place. Dom was what we called a rover. He slept wherever he could in trade fo’labor. He worked a lot at the Fontanot place next to ours or at the Hollis farm down the road. And ev’ry chance he got he’d drop by t’say hi t’Daddy, but you know his eyes was on my woman’s body in that little girl’s dress.
‘My titties stuck straight out when I’as a girl.’ She looked me in the eye when she said that.
‘Fin’ly one day I got t’get away down to the Hollis place when Dom was workin’ to pull a stump from their field. I go down there with some bread an’ sausage an’ I told him ‘bout a place where we could eat. An’ when we get t’my l’ll hideaway in the trees I hand him the paper bag an’ then pull my dress off. That’s all I could think about, I stripped down an’ looked at him. An’ do you know that big man went limp on the ground just like a sack’a bones. I shoulda seen somethin’ was wrong right then but before I got a chance he come over me like a tidal wave.’ She frowned, remembering pain and pleasure at the same time. ‘He got me on my back and on my knees; he made me ride’im like a horse. And once he got in me he didn’t want out, uh-uh. I was sore and raw and bloody but Domaque kept comin’. When I fin’ly couldn’t hold back and started t’cry he got up an’ said, “Gimme that sausage,” an’ I thought he was through an’ had t’eat. But he scooped up the fat that hardened in the paper an’ rubbed it on his thing. Then he started slippin’ hi an’ outta me like a fish. You know they put spices hi that sausage an’ it burns ya if you got a cut. Yeah...’
Clifton had his hand on his crotch and Ernestine hugged her chest but they didn’t touch each other. They looked like tired children, about to throw a fit.
‘That was Domaque. First he taught me how men hurts women and then he started t’cry. He was afraid ‘bout how my daddy would have to fight ovah what happened. Seem like Domaque had a wife down hi Looziana so he couldn’t do right by me and he liked my daddy so he didn’t want t’kil’im.’ She sat back and took a draw on her cigarette.
Momma Jo’s face was handsome and hard, almost like a man’s face but you could see she was a woman. ‘I got a room behind that blanket, Ernestine. Anytime you want you an’ Clifton can go on back there.’ Ernestine was pushing a small homemade pillow down between her legs but she shook her head, no.
‘So he ran off.’ Momma shifted over to me. ‘He come out here when they wasn’t nobody in the swamp and he built this house. And as soon as it was good enough t’sleep in he come an’ got me. I din’t wanna go but he needed me so bad that what I felt din’t seem t’mattah. He took me out here and he started callin’ me a witch. He said that I had spelled him an’ he had t’have me, an’ he did too. Ev’ry night he’d come out here his pants was halfway down by the time he was in the do’. At first I liked it but then it got to be too much, too much...’
‘Uh!’ Ernestine had her hand down the front of Clifton’s pants, pulling back and forth, hard; I didn’t know if he called out in pleasure or pain.
‘You chirren better go on back now. Go on, get in there behind the blanket,’ Momma Jo said, and she walked across the room to pull the blanket back for them. Clifton staggered like a drunk with Ernestine pulling on his dick; she tried to hide what she was doing, but you could tell.
When the blanket swung down they started making love noises. I was on my feet and headed for the front door when Momma touched my arm.
‘Oh yeah, Clifton!’ came Ernestine’s voice from the other room.
Momma Jo said, ‘Come sit’own wit’ me, Daddy. Over here.’
I looked over to where Mouse had been sitting but he was gone. There was no sign of my friend. I remembered that he planned to see someone. I wondered if he planned to leave me in that house.
‘Com’on, sit’own, Daddy.’ Jo was leaning back on a pile of pillows, pulling on my thigh. Ernestine was yelling in short coughs. The armadillos wrestled in the corner. I got weak and fell to my knees.
‘I ain’t finished my story yet.’ She put her arms around me and rested my head back against her shoulder. I was too dizzy to fight her.
‘Oooooo-uh!’ The voice was so twisted I couldn’t tell if it was Ernestine or Clifton.
‘You wanted t’know how Dom’s head came t’be here, din’t you?’ Jo’s whisper smelled of tobacco and whiskey, of garlic and sweet chili. When she laid her hand on my thing I realised it was hard.
‘I cut it off myself,’ she said on a slender breath.
Ernestine had settled down into long breathing sighs that cut into the room like hot spoons into lard, but I
