Triple S, taunting Sam and laughing diabolically when he called out from his fancy car, “Heard from your mama lately, twins?” As much as I know that I shouldn’t go after him, I simply cannot rein myself in. “Just in case I have not made myself clear durin’ our previous encounters, you make me sicker than a case of ptomaine poisoning, Remington Aloysius Hawkins, and… you… you got hair just like Clarabelle’s.” I’ve been dying to say that to him for years.
Remmy grabs one of my braids and reels me in. “You’ll be whistlin’ another tune once His Honor proposes to my auntie Abigail,” he whispers wetly into my ear.
I twist out of his grip, kick him in the shin, and jump out of his reach. “And what exactly is my father going to
Remmy’s rubbing his leg not anywhere near where I kicked him, that’s how drunk he is. He mutters, “Marriage.”
“What did you say?” The smile I gave E. J. is still on my lips.
“You heard me,” Remmy says. “Your daddy’s gonna propose marriage to my auntie this Saturday night.”
I throw my head back and laugh like the lady that dares you to enter the carnival’s Ye Olde Haunted House does. “Did you hear that, E. J.? Remmy here is telling us that Papa’s thinkin’ of marrying Abigail Hawkins,” I say haughty, until I recall how I thought Papa might be falling into her web that afternoon she brought those pies over to the house. Then there’s what good friends my grandfather and Mayor Jeb Hawkins are. His Honor told me the other night in the woods, “Things are going to change around here. You’ll see.” Is this what he meant? Was he telling me that he was intending to marry Abigail?
That thought must be plastered across my face because Remmy rocks back on his heels and says, “That’s right. Now ya got it. You’re always playin’ hard to get, but you can’t fool me, Shenny Carmody. You’re excited as me that we’re gonna be kissin’ cousins.”
The thought of this boy being related to me-it is too much. I ball my fists and take a step closer. I don’t care how big he is. I’ll pound him into a bloody pulp.
Seeing how crazy fired up I am, E. J. jumps in front of me and says, the same way Sam would if he was standing here next to me instead of furiously conversing with Curry Weaver and the sheriff over near the woods, “Count to ten.”
“But he… did you hear what he just said?” I say, outraged.
“Allow me,” E. J. says in a very distinguished way.
I guess just like anything else in life, you can’t predict what’s going to happen next, but I’ll tell you one thing for sure. I didn’t think it would be little E. J. smashing that buffoon Remmy Hawkins in his nose so hard that he knocked him out cold. That fight training he’s been getting from Curry has really paid off.
“Why, thank you, kind sir,” I say, smiling down at Remmy. Grampa Gus couldn’t be more wrong about the Tittle boy. He’s not minin’ sludge. He’s Sir Galahad.
“My pleasure.” E. J. whips his coonskin off his head with a great flourish and a growling stomach. “Better get over to the drugstore now before Vera closes up.”
I say, “Give me a minute to talk to Sam,” but when I look over to where him and the sheriff and Curry were gathered, there’s nobody there. “Where’d they go?”
“You can catch up with him tomorrow,” E. J. says, looking down at Remmy and tugging at me. Remmy’s already coming to. “We got to skedaddle if you want to get Woody something to eat. And that scarf.”
Stepping over Hawkins, I accidentally on purpose genuflect on his gut and he lets out a groan. I ask E. J., “That’s nothin’ more than his usual hot air, don’t you think? Papa has been keeping company with Abigail, but he can’t really be planning on marryin’ her.”
He says, “A course he’s not,” but I know by the way he’s avoiding my eyes as we make our way off the carnival grounds that he’s not being truthful with me. No. E. J.’s lying through his knight-in-shining-armor teeth.
WELCOME banners are hanging from the old-fashioned street-lamps.
Downtown is decked out for the party. Tomorrow these cobble-stone streets will be swarming with folks who’ve come to buy souvenirs. Just about anybody who wants to can peddle pictures of Robert E. painted on velvet and whittled figures of Traveller and stone replicas of Natural Bridge. Every knickknack under the summer sun can be got at the temporary booths that are lining Main Street. The permanent shops are spruced up, too, with MAKE YOURSELF AT HOME signs perched in their windows. Sidewalks are scrubbed clean. Streets swept. Founders Weekend is a big deal, but honestly? I’m dreading the whole darn thing. Feels to me like another storm is bearing down on us instead of a good time. I should be home right now battening down our fort. And it’s not only my sister who is on my mind. You know, we had that blowup with Remmy Hawkins. When he comes all the way to, he’ll start looking for E. J. and me, wanting to even the score. Was Remmy telling the truth or was it just more of his usual foolishness? The thought of Papa marrying Abigail Hawkins… her vile red hair lying on Mama’s percale pillow. Her thin lips drinking out of our mother’s teacup in the morning. Stroking our mama’s things with her stinking gardenia hands. Papa would probably make Woody and me call her
E. J. and I are short-cutting to the drugstore through Mudtown. Negroes young and old are out on their porches sipping out of beer bottles and listening to their bluesy music. A lot of the men are bare-chested and the women have fans in their hands and their skirts hiked up. There’s kids playing Red Rover, Red Rover, Let Billy Come Over. Most everybody shouts out, “Evenin’” or “How do.” They’re used to seeing us come down this street to visit with Blind Beezy, who isn’t out, but the lights are on in her front parlor. She must be knitting and purling like a madwoman. Tomorrow folks will be lined up and clamoring for her loud shawls and sweaters and scarves.
As we turn onto Monroe Street, E. J. gets a twinkle in his eyes and says, “Ya wanna do a sneak up on Beezy? I sure could use a quarter.”
All the years we’ve been trying to take her by surprise, we have never once been successful. I’d love seeing her, but we really shouldn’t. I promised Woody I’d be back soon. Then again, E. J. went out on a limb for me tonight when he popped Remmy in the nose. I owe him.
We come in low-to-the-ground through Beezy’s backyard like we always do. Once past her garage, we make a sharp turn at the peony bushes and tiptoe around her gardening patch. She grows okra, which is flowering nicely. E. J. is in the lead and he’s crouched over so far that his belly is all but dragging on the grass. Once we’re even with the birdbath, E. J. gives me the zipped-lips sign and points up to her parlor window, which is open, of course. The heat of the day has spread into the evening.
Beezy’s talking to somebody. A visitor’s come calling. Could it be Mr. Cole? Forgetting that we’re trying to be stealthy, I almost jump up and say, “Hey!” because I am really missing those nights on the porch with him and Beezy. I could point out some constellations to him real quick, chat about the men going to the moon. That would be nice. Maybe Beezy’s got some chicken pot pie prison-style in the oven. I could take some back to Woody.
“Ya got to do it this way?” Beezy’s croaky voice drifts through the window that we’re hunkered below. She sounds… scared? That’s very unusual. She’s the bravest woman I know.
“Believe me, if there was another way to go about this… Sam asked me to stop by. He doesn’t want you to worry.”
I look at E. J. and he’s as perplexed as me. We recognize that Northern voice. It belongs to Curry Weaver.
“It’s a God-forsaken, horrible thing,” Beezy says. “I never imagined he was capable of planting-” She stops. All I can hear is her radio selling toothpaste and the kids down the block playing Red Rover, until she calls out in her usual trilly way, “Is that chickadees settin’ to…”
Uncanny, I tell you.
Curious as all get out about what the two of them are talking about, but not wanting to be drawn into a long visitation with Beezy, I don’t answer her and neither does E. J.
We just back out of there the same way we came. Sneaky as two rampaging elephants.
It didn’t sound like Curry was asking for a handout like a lot of the hoboes do when they go
