Ruby Read online

  He was quiet in a way that seemed to say that he understood very well how someone might come to dislike his papa.

  Ruby took in the wreck of his face up close. Bits where Maggie’s knuckles had busted the skin on his cheek wide open. His limp right hand swollen and wrapped like a splint.

  Damn.

  Ruby felt the lonely before it came. Knew that for all she’d have to face when she left this tiny shack, the lonely would be the worst of it. She knew too that it was the thing each of them shared, only it was waiting for them in different places. For Ruby it was a room at Miss Barbara’s. For Maggie it was the minute after Ruby said good-bye. And for Ephram, it was right here, right now. She felt how the lonely never left him, not even sitting beside her.

  Her throat squeezed until her lashes got wet. But she never cried, not since moving away. Not since she’d gotten her room at Miss Barbara’s. She swallowed it down.

  He looked right at her. “I’m fine.”

  “It hurt?”

  “Little bit,” he lied.

  He handed the chocolate back to Ruby and she slid in close to take it.

  “Who look after you?” Ruby asked.

  “My sister Celia—who look after you?”

  “Mama’s up in New York City. She’s gonna send for me next month she misses me so bad. But ’til next month and since my grandmama got all that work to do—this White lady up in Neches take me in.”

  “You working for her?”

  “Sometime.”

  “What you do?”

  “Stuff. Pick up after folk. Take care of her other children too. But she sends me to school and such. She gone a lot. Own a couple a’ shops in Lufkin and Newton.”

  “What kind?”

  “Miss Barbara Brides.”

  “Miss Barbara’s Bridal Necessities?”

  “Think so.”

  “There is where my mama usta work!”

  “Naw! What did she do?”

  “Stitching hems and such. And she a lace-maker too. She real good at it.”

  “Miss Barbara be there?”

  “Sometime. Usta be.”

  “Your mama worked with her? Ain’t that something. Was she—nice to work for?”

  “Miss Barbara was nice enough, I ’spose. She give me candy sometime. Do she you?”

  “Oh yes.”

  “What she give you?”

  “Them gumballs mostly.”

  “I like those. She mostly give me Tootsie Rolls.”

  “I like them.”

  “Yeah, they real good.”

  They sat quiet for a minute. Then Ruby added, “But, if you see her, don’t tell her I said nothing ’bout her. She don’t like being in people’s mouths. She say it uncouth.”

  “I won’t. Promise.”

  “Thanks.”

  MA TANTE walked to the front door and swung it open. “Come on.” Maggie walked in like a scolded puppy. She watched Ruby and Ephram lean against each other on the edge of the bed for a moment. She looked to Ma Tante, busy pulling the black drapes from the windows, then slowly sauntered over to the bed, hoisted herself up and tickled Ruby in her side. Ruby laughed.

  “What y’all doing?”

  “Talking.” Ruby said, “He know Miss Barbara. Say his mama usta work for her.”

  Maggie loosely put her arm around Ruby’s shoulder, drawing her away from Ephram in one easy move. “Now ain’t that something.”

  Ephram looked away and saw that the sky had turned a soot black. Ma Tante lit a kerosene lamp and walked over to the three of them and scooted them from the bed like chicks.

  “Y’all got to leave. I got me a paying customer comin’.” She took the empty cup from Ephram. “Open yo’ right hand to the sky.” And all three turned their right hands up.

  Ma Tante looked down at the three of them. Stupid as dirt before God blowed across it to make up some humans. Dumb as dishwater, light on suds. Three ignorant children with grown up sorrow living inside they eyes. They wasn’t worth her time. Didn’t know why she’d wasted so precious much of it.

  Ma Tante sighed and felt suddenly old. Her whole life a drop of water in a pool. Make a little wave and then fade away to nothing. The eyes were still looking up at her. Palms raised. So she answered them.

  “Ain’t nobody ever gone answer you cries. You can fill a well with tears, and all you gonna get is drowned. You sit there long enough and the crazy man find you. You weep too long, your heart ache so, the flesh slip off your bones and your soul got to find a new home. You wait on answers ’til the scaredy-cat curl up in your belly and use your liver for a pin cushion. And that’s just how you die. Ascared and waiting. And death find your ghost wailing for help. In this life, if someone promise you aid, they a lie. If someone offer they hand, check five time ten to see where they hide the bill. You ain’t nobody but alone. And God come to those with the fight to find It. Ain’t nothing easy. Not for the likes of you.”

  The sky groaned outside. The storm was not over. In fact, it had not yet begun.

  Useless, Ma Tante thought. To give them the gris-gris she’d made. What difference could it make? Didn’t have the juice time would have fed them. She’d made them up quick when she’d smelt the children coming through the rain. Couldn’t stop nothing. Still, it was a sin not to paddle your boat, even in a lake of fire.

  So, into each hand Ma Tante put a teeny Black doll with red cross eyes. No bigger than a child’s pinkie.

  “Don’t peek,” she warned.

  The doll with the crow’s wishbone stitched to its heart she gave to the boy. The one with a woman’s silver ring sewn about its waist she handed to Maggie, and the third—the one with the oval lodestone tied on its back—was for Ruby.

  After a beat she pointed to both Ephram and Maggie and said, “You two. Trade. Don’t look just trade.”

  And Maggie gave over her secret and Ephram did the same.

  “Me make a mistake sometime. Rare. But sometime.”

  There was a knock on the door.

  Ma Tante hissed, “Get!” as she opened the back door and pushed the three into the night.

  The oak, pine and maple trees heard the heavy thud of the witch’s door and took note.

  They watched three children pause, then, one by one peek into the hole of their palm. The piney woods heard a growling scream, “I said get!” Then watched the children bolt out of the yard stumbling. The tall lanky girl jerked ahead. Ruby stayed at the gate with Ephram. He whispered something into her ear, something so soft that even the smallest saplings could not catch. Then she answered, “I already got me a walk home Ephram Jennings and a beau.” She turned to go, then spun about and gave the boy a kiss on his left cheek. The old trees watched as she ran away from him and into their arms. The dark boy stood still as the rain washed his scalp clean. He stood staring after the girl for a very long time. Then, with a crack of thunder he jumped and ran through the woods, to the lake, and grabbed a rusting red wagon. It squeaked double time as he ran all the way home. The old forest caught every tinny creak, only to echo them back some thirty years later, to an old house perched on the edge of the great wood, to a man sleeping inside, curled in the sun like a kitten.

  EPHRAM NEARLY leapt from the bed, leaving all thoughts of pain tangled in the covers. Shrugging off sleep and memory he lifted a nearby floorboard and retrieved a small flask for his right stocking garter and a tied white kerchief. He gently placed them in his right pocket. He then laced his waiting shoes and moved with determination into the kitchen. The wall clock read 3:27 P.M. So much time had passed. There he saw the slice of cake Celia had cut with her special wire blade. It had a white cloth napkin draped over it like a flag of surrender. He carefully removed it, lifting it with both hands at the corners, slipped the three-pronged silver fork under the slice and fitted it like the last piece of a great puzzle into the whole.

  The afternoon sun reached in through the window and slanted against his hands. He felt his breath quicken. He turned and Celia was there, standi
ng behind him.

  “You going somewheres?”

  “Yes’m.”

  “In that shirt? You wrinkled it sleepin’. Take it off and I’ll pass the iron over it.”

  It was a moat he had to leap over. “It’ll be fine.”

  “You sure you ain’t feelin’ too poorly?”

  Tingling began to creep into his left hand. A ring of fire to hurtle through. “I’m quite well.” He took the cake and reached for the glass cake cover.

  Celia spat, “I’ma need that cover later.” She took it out of his hands.

  Ephram swept into an open drawer and retrieved a plaid cloth. The sun pulled at his sleeve. “I’m going Mama.”

  Celia turned quickly and whisked down the hall, tripping and falling into the wall, tilting the Reverend’s portrait. “I told you ’bout this cane!” Drawbridge lifting. He would have to jump. “Help me with this here.” She held the portrait up.

  With the cake perched in one hand he jerked down the hallway, lifted the framed picture and righted it, then leaned and kissed Celia on the cheek. “Love you, Mama.” He unlocked the door with one hand. “What about this here cane? EphRAM!” Drawbridge rising higher. He leapt free onto the front porch, but stumbled on the bottom stair. A pillar of will sent the cake up and out of his right hand. It was falling, flat and hard towards the earth. Time slowed. The yard spun before him. Then he swooped under the falling circle, fell to one knee and caught it in two steady hands. The cake quivered under its cloth but did not crumble. Ephram could have sworn he heard a holy jubilation, a swell of cheers from the passing clouds.

  He turned and it was only Celia. Doubled over in the blackened doorway, guffawing into the open air.

  He lifted himself and almost ran to the front gate.

  “Cain’t make it out the yard much less down the road.” Her laughter barked and cut through the air like flying bullets as he unfastened the latch and scurried down the road.

  “Goin’ courting ’n’ cain’t walk two feet ’thout fallin’ flat. Oooooo hoooo! Ooooooooo hooooo! Even crazy gonna throw that fish back. Ooooooooo hoooooo!”

  Moving. Steady. Moving away. A slim tear in his pants leg, knee bleeding in slow tender drops. Ephram heard her porch laughter as he walked stiffly down the road. It didn’t fade until he had covered nearly a mile in distance, the clay pathway gathering small drops of his blood like bread crumbs.

  Chapter 3

  Ephram felt the sun warm the back of his neck. It glowed against his dark skin, calling forth a thin sheen of sweat. His breath was slowing some. The faint scent of Johnson’s Baby Powder kept him company. Calmed the rocket in his chest.

  He sat on a tree stump beside the road and situated the cake on a tuft of grass, tucking the corners of cloth under the plate, a Maginot Line against red ants. It was then he realized he’d left his old hat. Maybe, he thought, it was best to keep the thinking that had been ground into it, right where it was. Ephram took a quick sip from the flask in his pocket—felt the warm liquid burn and smooth the rough of his throat. He opened the kerchief he’d hidden for over thirty years, and saw the same two dusty Black dolls with red cross eyes. One with a silver ring about its waist, the other with a lodestone tied to its back. He tried not to think about how he came to have Ruby’s in his possession. He closed his eyes against the why of it and pushed it back into a well in his mind. He then slipped the dolls into his front pocket. Still bleeding, slacks torn, he caught sight of his Timex. Three forty-five. Late. But there were still a good three and a half hours of daylight left. He picked up the cake and began walking southwest towards Ruby. Late. But if he hurried, still time enough to stop by P & K for a bit of iodine and cotton. Maybe a needle and some brown thread.

  A few of the Rankin brothers were out working their seventy-two acres when he passed. From this distance, little men in dark coveralls lifted hoes only to let them fall. But up close all seven of the Rankin men towered above six feet. Chauncy Rankin, whom Ephram had secretly envied the whole of his life, was the tallest, boldest and most handsome of all the Rankins. “Six foot fo’,” he often bragged over dominoes and cola. Then said, winking, “Then add two mo’.”

  Supra Rankin, the matriarch, rang the dinner bell. Every man stopped dead still, dropping hoes and bags, and strode like small giants to the Rankin house. Ephram kept walking.

  He saw the stretch of road before him. Narrow and red—too small in fact to fit most four-wheel cars. It had been cleared when the town lived on horseback and bootheels. Most folks viewed it as impolite to go barreling down the road. So the people in Liberty traveled by foot, horse, or mule save when supplies were brought in to P & K and a few other locales. The Red Bus to Newton, taking janitors and housekeepers to work, was another exception.

  He passed the In-His-Name Holiness Church, Pastor Joshua wielding chalk and board in the front yard. Each Saturday the Pastor wrote some headline of scripture pertaining to God’s judgment on the old blackboard and rolled it out to the road, where folks on their way to Bloom’s Juke would be sure to stumble upon it and rethink their almost-sin.

  In Liberty, Pastor Joshua was one of two men well-known for stammering, but if Paul could withstand a thorn in his flesh, like in Second Corinthians, Pastor Joshua was more than happy to oblige God’s will.

  The Pastor was dabbing his forehead against the heat as the cloud of chalk dust settled into his skin. He had almost finished an abbreviated, hard-hitting bit of scripture:

  Because I have called, and ye refused; I have stretched out my hand, and no man regarded … I will mock … when distress and anguish cometh upon you. Then shall they call upon me but I will not answer; they shall seek me early, but they shall not find me. Proverbs 1:24–28.

  It was one of Celia’s favorites.

  Pastor Joshua turned from his work. “Good afternoon Ephram.”

  “Afternoon Pastor.”

  “Where you off to with one of Celia’s cakes?”

  Ephram stared into the Pastor’s eyes and, for the first time since he’d known him, uttered a bold-faced lie, “Mo’s wife is poorly.”

  “Her dyspepsia flaring again?”

  “I believe so.”

  “Well, you give Bessie and Mo my best. They haven’t had a Sunday off since they started working for them Goldbergs in Burkeville.”

  Ephram nodded yes lest he give voice to another lie.

  The Pastor, reviewing his own handiwork, eulogized, “Sh-sh-shame ’bout old Junie Rankin. Donated more than p-p-plenty to the church fund when he c-come last Easter. He will be missed.”

  “He surely will.” Ephram’s heart pinched at the thought while his feet itched to keep walking. He kept his lips pressed tight, lest he inspire one of the Pastor’s on-the-God-spot sermons.

  Thankfully the Pastor said, “Now you boys come nice and early Monday morning to set up for the funeral.”

  “I will Pastor. I got the whole of Monday off from the store.”

  “Good. Good.”

  “Well good evening to you,” Ephram managed as he edged away.

  “Good evening.” Then he paused a moment, his eyes finally taking Ephram in fully. “You always such a help to this church. Set a fine example.”

  “Thank you Pastor.”

  “See you tomorrow son.” At that the Pastor patted Ephram’s back, chalk dust billowing about and sticking to his warm neck.

  Chapter 4

  Five steps away from the church Ephram saw the rooftop of Bloom’s Juke. It stood just across the road and down the rise, brazenly selling bootleg Saturday night straight through to Sunday morning so that good church folks on their way to service passed the weaving and the drunk on their way to bed. As Liberty had been situated in a dry county since Prohibition, it was desperately in need of Ed Bloom, otherwise known as Liberty’s “pocket apothecary.” Ephram remembered how Bloom, a tobacco brown bootlegger from Livingston, had come to Liberty after his brother, Shep Bloom, had been run off by the lobster red sheriff from Newton. But only after Shep had chea
ted the sheriff out of his 50 percent. So Ed had come in his brother’s stead, with a renegotiated 60 percent cut in the lawman’s favor.

  The whole town of men made their way there on Saturday nights. Gathered against stacked lumber and around the pit fire. Inside the one room house, thick with sweat and smoke, men bellowed at the roll of a seven or turn of an ace. Knives lined the backs of trousers and for the men who worked at Grueber’s, or in Newton or Jasper, Friday pay bulged inside work shirts or front pants pockets. Nearly once a month, a few of the working girls from Beaumont would ride down with one of Bloom’s cousins. A Falcon or a Tuscadero with Beaumont plates would alert the men not to spend all of their money on craps and liquor. Bloom partitioned off what had once been a pantry at the back of the house. He’d tacked up a line of string and draped black fabric over it for a door. Put a small kerosene lamp in the corner of the room, which men turned up or down depending on their mood and their need for visuals. Mostly, the lights stayed down. The “girls” were gristle whores, too old for Fair Street in Beaumont, broken from decades of trade. They were two-dollar prostitutes, five with the tight market in Liberty. But sometimes if a man were particularly drunk, they’d go as high as seven dollars. They knew they could get away with it in Liberty. They also knew about the needle of lust that pierces the heart of small church towns. Where Bible quotations were stitched into the lining of panties. And Jesus plaques stared from the headboard of marital beds.

  While the inside of Bloom’s main room was loud and light—full of smoke, the sour scent of new alcohol and old sex—outside was for the quiet drinkers. The men who sipped their rye and whiskey under naked branches and whispering stars.

  Ephram paused as he recalled last Saturday. He had been resting against the flat tire of Bloom’s rusted Buick. He had thrown his hip out while loading groceries into Mrs. Gregory’s mint green Skylark. And the pain had started making the usual rounds to his sacrum, coccyx and femur. The clear rye helped. Bourbon was his favorite. But Bloom didn’t always have that in, and when he did it was a dollar for one small shot. Ed’s home brew was the economical selection. The first sip cleared his nose and watered his eyes. It tingled against the crown of his skull. The second fell deeper, burning hot down his tongue and sizzling against the acid of his belly. The third loosened the girder of his pelvis, let the spring of pain ebb like a pint of peach ice cream in August. By the sixth and seventh he melted against the flat of the wheel. One half a bottle and he could grin at the shades of grass and the lady bugs tucking into the shadows. The crickets whittled in the dark ushering in something akin to peace.