Hartville was even smaller than Branson, but I’d heard that they had a lot of colored churches and just as many jook joints, bars, and beer gardens, so there was something for everybody to do. They also had some good fishing holes that me and Daddy used to go to.
As much as I enjoyed Joyce’s company, I needed a little space now and then. She felt the same way, so whenever she wanted to go shopping or out to lunch by herself, I didn’t make a fuss the way some husbands did. But whenever I was away from her, she was on my mind. That was why I never stayed away from her too long.
I had been roaming up and down one dirt road after another and it was getting late, and I was beginning to miss my sweetie. One reason I planned to head back to Branson soon was because the Ku Klux Klan was busier than ever terrorizing and lynching colored men and boys, especially the ones they caught alone on isolated country roads.
It would take me about an hour to get back home, and I didn’t think I could wait that long to get something to eat. I hadn’t had a bite since the oxtails I’d ordered at Mosella’s for lunch. There was a long line of people in front of a place with a sign nailed on the wall outside next to the door that said PO’ SISTER’S KITCHEN. I parked across the street and got in the line. When it didn’t move for ten minutes, I changed my mind. I had spotted another restaurant nearby that didn’t have folks lined up all the way outside, so I decided to go there instead. I turned around to leave and accidentally bumped into a young girl approaching the entrance.
“You must not be too hungry,” she said.
I did a double-take and had to blink a few times because I couldn’t believe my eyes. For the first time in my life, I couldn’t speak. All I could do was stare at the most beautiful girl I’d ever seen in my life, a true redbone. She had smooth, high yellow skin, big brown eyes, full, juicy lips, and long straight black hair. Even in the baggy flowered dress she had on, I could tell that she had a firm, small-boned body with a butt that would have made Jesus throw in the towel!
“Cat got your tongue too?” she asked.
“Oh! I’m sorry . . . um . . . I didn’t realize you was talking to me,” I fumbled. “Yeah, I am hungry but I don’t want to stand here too much longer. I was going to try that place down the street. I think it’s called Pigs, Hogs, and Sows.”
“Yup, that’s what it’s called. They specialize in anything pork from pig snouts to pig tails. But I wouldn’t go there if I was you.”
“Excuse me? Why shouldn’t I go there?”
The girl rolled her neck and eyes at the same time. “Only white folks can eat there. If you still want to go, you have to enter through the back door and you have to order your food to go. And, no matter how mean they treat you, you better not sass none of them crackers.”
I let out a little chuckle. “Humph! That ain’t nothing new to me. I been used to that mess all my life.”
“And another thing: Even if they let you in and nobody ain’t ahead of you, they’ll take their good old time taking your order. If they do at all. And I don’t care what you order, it’s going to include something you didn’t order.”
“What do you mean?” I asked, giving the friendly girl a confused look.
“I guarantee you them crackers will hawk some spit into your food before they give it to you. If a real mean person fixes your order, they might include some rat shit, puke, and no telling what all else.”
My mouth dropped open. I was dumbfounded, but from the look on this girl’s face, she was serious. “Excuse me for asking, but how do you know all this?”
“One of the daughters of the family I clean house for told me. Her boyfriend is the day cook and he told her.”
“And how come she told you?”
“Well, we got the same daddy. My mama used to clean for this same family and when she had me, she had to take me to work with her. Me and that girl used to play together when we was little kids. She don’t claim me as her half sister, but she still likes me and loves to run her mouth. That’s something me and her got in common. I guess you can tell I love to talk, huh?”
I chuckled again. “I kind of figured something like that. Anyway, what you just told me about that other restaurant is hard to believe. I didn’t know anybody, white or colored, could be that low-down and mean.”
“Pffft!” The girl waved her hand and looked at me like I had just crawled out of a crow’s nest. “Where you from? I know you ain’t from up north on account of you don’t sound like it. You talk like the folks in Mississippi. They speak real sharp.”
I shook my head, which was now feeling kind of light and dizzy. Being close to so much beauty was making me feel something I’d never felt before, and it was scaring me. “I was born and raised in Alabama.”
“Then you ought to know better. If you don’t want to believe what I just told you, go on down to that other restaurant and let them racist motherfuckers poison you. In case you didn’t know, if a person eats enough shit or other nasty scum, they could get sick and even die. You seem like a really nice man and I like you, so I’d hate to read about you in the newspaper in the
