“Milton, what the hell do you mean by that?”
“We can’t stop being buddy-buddy and have Joyce, Yvonne, Willie Frank, and everybody else asking a bunch of nosy questions. I want you to keep coming to the house for drinks, and I’ll keep coming here now and then for supper and just to say hello. Since we had to skip that Fourth of July cookout, it would be nice if we could do one before it get too cold,” Milton babbled, holding up his hand. “I heard you know how to cook some mean ribs.” The thought of this monkey taking my money and eating my food made my blood boil. If he didn’t leave in the next couple of minutes, I was not going to be responsible for my actions.
“Joyce said something about having a barbecue toward the end of next month. Summer school will be out then and she’ll have a couple of weeks of free time on her hands until regular school starts back up.”
“Good! Just let us know when.” He stood up and stretched. “Your couch is so comfy, I would have stretched out and took me a nap—if you didn’t have to go somewhere. In the meantime, I’d better skedaddle so you can go wherever it is you got to go. When you get there, have fun.” He winked and made a obscene gesture with his fingers.
“You . . . you won’t let me down, will you?” I asked, walking him to the door.
“Let you down how?”
“With the arrangement we made, I ain’t never got to worry about you blabbing my business, right?”
“Not as long as you keep up your end of the deal. And by the way, if you ever need to use me as a alibi, I’m game.”
“Why would I need to use you?”
“Pffft!” Milton dipped his head and crowed like the beast he was. “Brother, your daddy got one foot in the grave and the other one on a banana peel. When he go to meet his maker, where you going to tell Joyce you going when you need to go to Hartville? That day I seen you in that restaurant with your other woman and them kids, Joyce had told us that you was with your daddy. It don’t take no genius to figure out that’s what you got her believing a lot of other times, too. And that fish story you keep using was fishy from the get-go to me.”
“I do go fishing a lot!”
“I’m sure you do. But now that the jig is up, I got a feeling you wasn’t fishing all them times you claim you was. After your daddy is gone, you can tell Joyce you going fishing with me and Willie Frank. We go at least twice a month, and some days we stay five or six hours. That’s more than enough time for you to sneak over to Hartville to play house and get a quickie.”
I gave Milton a doubtful look and shook my head. “I don’t want Willie Frank to know nothing about my business in Hartville.”
“Well, unless you tell him, or he catches you too, he won’t. What I’m trying to tell you is that I do go fishing. Sometime I go by myself. If you want Joyce to think you with me, just let me know.”
“You must be the last person in the world I’d expect to want to help me keep the wool over Joyce’s eyes. Why did you even bring it up?”
“Eight dollars a week is a good enough reason for me. If Joyce was to find out some other way that you been playing her for a fool all these years, you won’t have no reason to keep paying me, and then I’ll be back to having the same financial problems I had before. Now, like I said, anytime you want to use me for a alibi, just let me know.” He opened the door and before he darted out, he had the nerve to give me a playful punch on my shoulder.
I hadn’t planned to visit Betty Jean again until the weekend, but it had been a couple of weeks since I’d seen her on a weekday. Five minutes after I got rid of Milton, I splashed some cold water on my face to calm my nerves, and then I stumbled out to my car and shot off toward the highway. I was so worked up I needed to see her, especially since she was the cause of the pickle I was in. I wasn’t going to tell her what was going on. But she knew something was wrong the minute I walked in her door and didn’t kiss or grope her the way I usually did.
“Odell, what’s the matter?”
“Where the boys at?”
“They outside playing with the kids that live down the road. Sit down before you fall down and tell me why you looking like you seen a haint.” We sat down on the couch.
“Uh, it ain’t nothing for you to worry about.” I swallowed hard and started raking my fingers through her hair.
“If it’s something for you to worry about, it’s something for me to worry about. Now tell me what it is.”
“Um . . . I had to hit somebody today and I feel real bad about it.”
Betty Jean reared back and gave me a skeptical look. “You? You didn’t even want to squash them ants that almost
