“Hope so.”
“She slept with a shotgun every night.”
“Huh.”
“Every night. Well, she burnin up down there now, her and her nasty daughter…”
“Don’t say it, Old Man.”
“Yeah. You right. Shouldn’t rile the dead. But you know I was more scared of Sally than the law.”
“So was I.”
“Law don’t care about no dead colored gal, but Sally Brown, she slept with that shotgun every night waitin for you. Made my skin crinkle to walk past her. And she just about lived in church moanin. Stopped me from vespers altogether. I couldn’t sit there listenin to her berate you. Can you feature that? Pray every Sunday and hold on to a shotgun every night?”
“Where’s the boy?”
“Gone away from here, his folks too.”
“He get his eyebrows back?”
“Never did. Guess his folks figured he couldn’t hide nowhere around here lookin like that. Sally was lookin for him too.”
“I didn’t see his face. All I saw was his asshole.”
“That didn’t have no eyebrows either I bet,”
“I should have made him some with a razor.” They laughed together then and an hour or so passed while Son told what all he’d been doing for the last eight years. It was almost four when Son said, “I didn’t come by myself.”
“You with a woman?”
“Yeah.”
“Where is she?”
“Over to Soldier’s. Can she stay here?”
“You all married?”
“No, Old Man.”
“Better take her to your Aunt Rosa’s then.”
“She won’t like that.”
“I can’t help it. You be gone. I have to live here.”
“Come on, Old Man.”
“Uh-uh. Go see your Aunt Rosa. She be mad anyway you don’t stop by.”
“Scripture don’t say anything about two single people sleeping under the same roof.” Son was laughing.
“What you know bout Scripture?”
“I could have lied and said we were married.”
“But you didn’t lie. You told the truth and so you got to live by the truth.”
“Oh, shit.”
“That’s right. Shit. She’s welcome in my house all day in the day. Bring her back so I can meet her.”
“She’s special, Old Man.”
“So am I, Son. So am I.”
“All right. All right. I’ll go get her and bring her by. Cook up something, then I’ll take her by Aunt Rosa. That suit you?”
“Suit me fine.”
Son stood up to go, and his father walked him to the door. When Son said, “Be right back,” Old Man said, “Wait a minute. Can I ask you somethin?”
“Sure. Ask it.”
“How come you never put no note or nothin in them envelopes? I kept on lookin for a note.”
Son stopped. How hurried all those money order purchases had been. Most of the time he sent a woman out to both buy and mail them. He’d done it as often as he could and sometimes five would be sent from one city and none from any place for six months. How hurried he had been.
“I guess I didn’t want nobody to read em and know where I was…” But it was too lame an excuse to continue with. “Is that why you kept the empty envelopes too?”
“Yeah. They had your handwritin on em, you know. You wrote it, that part anyway. ‘Franklin Green.’ You got a nice handwritin. Pretty. Like your mama.”
“See you, Old Man.”
