Part 26 (1/2)

Sugar had started out on the sofa. She'd stretched herself out and was telling Mercy something, speaking in s.n.a.t.c.hes of words that got muddled between yawns and finally disappeared altogether behind soft snoring sounds.

”I'm going to go lay down,” she'd announced to Mercy when she found herself turning and almost falling off the sofa.

Sleep had such a hold on her that she tripped all the way up the stairs and bounced up against the walls before turning into the bedroom and falling into bed.

Now Mercy was almost alone. She had the flies and the two ants that had finally heard that someone had foolishly left the top to the jelly jar open, to keep her company.

There was only a latch keeping her in. Nothing else. The windows were wide open, allowing the occasional heated breeze to interfere with the curtains and rustle the edges of the newspaper that Joe had left on the table.

Just a latch: a single hook and circular loop.

Mercy quietly unhooked the latch and stepped out onto the porch just as Fayline drove by, slowed down and then backed up to get a better look at her.

Fayline heard about what had gone on down at Two Miles In and had started out across town to see if what she'd heard was true. She'd driven by the house four times and still could not get up the nerve to pull up to the Taylors' home and knock on the door.

h.e.l.l, Pearl hadn't been in her shop for a wash and press in ages, and the only words they'd exchanged were during those weeks when the shop had been slow and Fayline decided that she would show her face in church so that she could corner women at service and comment on the sad shape their hair was in.

Her fourth time through she'd seen a man leaning over the flower bed, searching for something. She supposed that the man she'd seen was now inside the house, probably the father of the young woman she was now staring at.

”How you?” Fayline rolled down her window and called out to Mercy.

Mercy could see the glint of the syringe sticking out from the dark Arkansas dirt. He'd arranged it neatly among the flowering azaleas and dying tulips.

Fayline smiled and thought that maybe she could convince the young girl, who looked somewhat enchanted, to maybe straighten those curls that were laying in a mess on her head.

”I'm Fayline, I own the beauty shop in town. Have Pearl bring you by soon,” Fayline said before stepping on the gas and pulling off. She would find out what she needed to know then and decided that the girl didn't look enchanted at all, she looked more like dumb.

Mercy smiled and even waved before bending down and plucking the syringe from the ground.

Mercy felt stupid. She had foolishly thought that JJ could be a friend. They had similar stories on their arms and she'd a.s.sumed they'd visited the same places in their minds.

She laughed at her silliness now as she carefully placed the black ball in the spoon, chuckled out loud and jumped at the sound of her voice.

The dishcloth was the perfect length and tied easily and tightly around her thin arm. She could feel the blood pounding against her flesh, trying hard to push itself through the taut band that prevented it from draining down and into the veins.

Mercy liked that feeling: the blood pounding in her arm and boiling in her brain. It'd been so long, too long.

The flame was low on the stove but heated the spoon quickly and before long the black ball had melted into a cloudy bubbling liquid.

It wouldn't be long now. Not long at all.

Carefully, so carefully, she set the spoon down on the middle s.p.a.ce of the stove and picked up the syringe from the table.

Her heart began to flutter and her hands began to shake as she pulled the head of the syringe back and watched as the liquid was sucked into its pointed silver tip.

Somewhere outside a blackbird squawked just as the needle pierced the soft thin skin of Mercy's lower arm.

Judging from the looks they got, Pearl was sure that everyone in town had heard by now. They called her name and Sugar's together, while nodding their heads and commenting on the weather. There were smiles, where ten years ago there had been scowls; wide eyes where there had been slants.

The people of Bigelow decided that the girl, the one that had the far-off dazed look and clear yellow skin, was slow. Fayline confirmed it before she pulled the dryers down over their heads.

”All wood upstairs,” she'd say, tapping her temple with the tip of her index finger.

But they couldn't bother themselves too much about what was going on in the Taylor home.

The war that was still raging in Vietnam and at lunch counter sit-ins were all that any black person could talk about and warn their young ones against.

Slave times just didn't seem as far away as most had liked to think. The white men were still taking away their babies, s.h.i.+pping them off to war or locking them away or just hanging them from the closest tree limb.

Yes, there were other things to focus on.

s.h.i.+rley Brown had been seen b.u.t.t-naked and wandering the road outside her house, yelling ”Cat!” and another name that sounded like Ciel.

Her mind had completely left her and the only family she had didn't even know she was family, so there was no one to turn s.h.i.+rley Brown over to.

There were things that Pearl did not like about s.h.i.+rley; in fact she believed she'd actually grown to hate her over the years that pa.s.sed since Sugar had come and gone. But now her heart was light and she put aside those feelings of discontent and walked the half-mile over to her house for a visit.

”How you doing?”

Pearl's voice was bright, song-like, but it did nothing to the darkness that surrounded s.h.i.+rley's long blank face.

”You should open a window or two and let some suns.h.i.+ne in,” Pearl said as she slowly pulled the screen door open and stepped in.

s.h.i.+rley was still dressed in her gown even though the day was halfway through. Her head was tied up in a purple-and-black flowered scarf and Pearl saw the wiry chestnut brown wig s.h.i.+rley had taken to wearing three years ago resting on the couch.

”You eat today?”

s.h.i.+rley nodded her head yes and then shook her head no, before she sat down on the couch and began stroking the wig. The television was on, but the sound was turned down and Pearl watched the silent figures fall dead on the screen as some unseen gunman let off four blasts.

”Well, I brought you some salmon cakes, cornbread and fresh snap peas.”

Pearl placed the bowl of food down on the small square table in front of s.h.i.+rley.

”I'll set it here so that when you're ready for it, it'll be right here.”

s.h.i.+rley nodded her head yes and began stroking the wig with more intensity.

Pearl started to leave. It was just too sad seeing s.h.i.+rley like this.

Well, Pearl supposed s.h.i.+rley had it coming. She had not been the nicest woman and had been a gossipmonger, destroying plenty a reputation with her ”You know what I heard?”

Pearl pushed those thoughts aside and took a seat in the chair across from s.h.i.+rley.

”Sure is hot today,” she said, fanning herself, trying hard not to pay attention to the incessant movement of s.h.i.+rley's hand. ”Gonna be just as hot tomorrow.”

Pearl wanted to walk over and turn the television volume up. She needed to hear something other than her voice and the steady rubbing sound of s.h.i.+rley's hand against the short stiff hairs of the wig.

The heat in s.h.i.+rley's house was stifling and Pearl could feel her dress going moist underneath her arms.

”You wanna come on out to the porch to sit? It's cooler there.”