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Sue gave him a smoking, sidelong glance that promised
nothing and spoke of everything. “Might be, you all deserve a freebee, Mr.
McMasters.” She offered a throaty purr, lowering sooty eyelashes to cover the
chill of amusement darkening her eyes. Behind her lips, only the very tips of
her teeth showed, her smile welcoming and far older than her years allowed.
Long, slender hands moved up, sliding behind her neck
to lift a cloud of thick black hair that was heavy with the damp that chilled
the barren room. Cascading over her arms the curls seemed to have a life of
their own.
Clawing at his pants, he was shuddering and
puppy-eager. He came out with two bottles. The blue bottle was his woody-pills,
the brown one his heart medicine. He chose the blue, his hands shaking and face
graying with a possible heart failure.
The pill went down with a few gasps and chokes.
McMasters cavorted towards her.
She let her teeth show again, this time anything but a
dark angel and McMasters faltered. Snatching up a long shard of a wine bottle,
Sue held it up before her. McMasters stood frozen, horrified by the softness of
her eyes and the gentleness of her voice.
“Then,” she whispered, “let’s do it my way,
man.”
Her tongue ran across the edges of her teeth. The
shard glittered, the sparks of green fire in her eyes striking McMasters. The
shard was lowered to make a thin, delicate red line across the starved muscles
of her stomach.
Too far gone to feel the cut, she held up the shard.
Red ran down the edge. Too many beatings. Too many days of being starved so
JJ’s little girl would attract the big money men. Too much bull. Too many
nights of hearing the ugly little spirits that haunted her dreams whisper of a
better life awaiting.
Die, Sue. Die
and you’ll live.
Tears ran down the old man’s face. He was shaking
and going gray with terror that he was next. She smiled, her head tipping back
to let the long lashes drift down. If he dared to breath, he might be. The only
thing vibrant and strong was the result of the woody-pills. Like his stomach, it
sagged.
A flicker of motion almost distracted her, then a low
snicker. Out of the corner of her eye that kid was there again. Shaggy black
hair, an eye patch that was only just darker. A redskin. Sue shuddered at the
scars.
Then McMasters did something he hadn’t done since
childhood. A thin stream of urine spattered on the floor and his feet and he
began to weep with fear for his life.
“I’m wealthy,” he whispered between choked sobs.
“I’m rich and paid a lot of money to be a principal and I’m not supposed
to . . . to be in this kind of trouble.” Shudders wracked his body and
McMasters dared not look away.
Sue heard a rap of laughter coming from the thing she
imagined to be in the corner. It died to weak hoots and she trembled, fighting
to keep the sweet smile on her face while the old man was slipping into heart
failure-mode.
Gert, an old friend of the streets, whispered from the
hallway. Sue blinked, scowling at McMasters, then the jerk in the corner.
“Oh, just get out,” she snapped, throwing the
glass at the corner. It hit the wall and shattered and by that time McMasters
had his things off the dresser and was racing away.
Was he alive? Dead? Benny felt the fires of hell
running through his flesh. He laughed, giving a mental finger to the Light
shining down from above.
God, if you’re
watching, I still ain’t sorry.
He looked up and a tall, Junoesque woman stalked into
the shack.
Gert gave an ungentle snarl and slapped Sue on one
flank.
“Don’t you be such a baby, girlfriend.” She
tried to daub a little iodine over the glass cut but Sue was hissing and
shivering. She tried again but Sue couldn’t stop. Gert muttered, “Did it to
your own self. Be still till I clean it, hear?" She shot a cold look at
Sue. “Hush that whining.”
She was tall, over six feet and towered above Sue’s
five-two, and plump against Sue’s too thin body.
Forcing herself to still, Sue asked, “Your mama
still smoking the rock?”
Peering at the wound, Gert muttered, “Same damned
color as the iodine. Redskins, bah.” She paused, then said, “So I hear, she
is. Pop, he don’t like me go see the woman. Got tired of it, Sue, mama
promising to stop, but it owns her soul.” A tear ran down one round cheek.
“Her life. Took the thousand Pop and Mama Emma paid her for me and near
OD’ed. Lord knows I’m better off. Pop run me down and paid another K to
bribe a judge to let him adopt me.”
Sue gave Gert a brief hug. “One of us got out, so
you remember that. Soon as Pop finds a church in the sticks you’ll be gone
from this place.”
Laying a clean length of gauze over the wound, Gert
snorted a droll laugh at Sue’s choice of language.
“Serves you right, girl,” she said. Gert stretched
up, her hair almost brushing the scabby ceiling. She glared down a short,
pugnacious nose.
“You come close to giving that old man heart
failure. Why would you want to do that? He ain’t much, but he’s better than
most o’ the white shirts an’ blue collar your daddy makes you take.”
A grin flashed on Gert’s face making the black
freckles stand out. She whooped a laugh and one plump hand cracked on her thigh.
“Lord,” she drawled. “Lord, but that poor old
man.”
Letting herself smile, Sue poked Gert in the ribs
until she moved.
“Got to fix my war paint,” she murmured, staring
into a cloudy mirror. A crack ran across one corner, but it was pretty much out
of the way.
Gert’s humor faltered but was still there. She
slipped from the tiny bathroom, going down the dark hallway to the kitchen to
share a pot of coffee, it was mostly chicory, with Ama.
Ama:ki, Sue’s stepmother and her aunt, was like
Gert’s mother, old and broken by time and years of pain. The dark face was a
mass of wrinkles, the eyes yellowed and dull, the hair, once curled and
beautiful enough to attract a man lay in greasy snarls over the face and
drooping shoulders.
Hair up in a cloud of curls, eyelids now a pale blue
with red glitter, and her legs bare nearly to the crotch, Sue stepped from the
hall to the kitchen and took a cup. Chicory or not, it tasted right. The only
time she ever had the real thing was when a wealthy John took her to his
apartment. It was black and hot and settled a small ache of fear in her stomach.
She felt herself relaxing, smiling while she heard Ama telling Gert about how
they came to Philly when Sue was only two.
Smiling, the woman turned to Sue. “Family honors
family. Had I heeded my mama, I’d o’ stayed in ‘Bama and on the rez. No,
you was too important, child. Better you and Jesus than anything else.”
One brown hand came up, smoothing a stray curl from
Sue’s smiling eyes.
“Child,” Ama said. “Funny how you looks so white
when you got more the redskin in ye than I.”
“Took after ol’ JJ, I reckon, Ama.”
The hand stilled and a cold look entered the wrinkled
face. “I takes a stick to you, you say that again, girl. Hark to me I will.
You ain’t nothing like that piece o’ trash.”
The hand resumed its caress and Ama smiled, then
opened her arms to hug Sue.
“I love you,” Ama whispered, tears and fierce heat
in her voice. “We finds a way. We’ll get out o’ this place yet.”
Harrison would be waiting for her.
Slowly, gently, Sue pulled back. She sat the mug on
the table.
“Reckon I best git,” she said, smiling, trying to
ease the pain in Ama’s face. “JJ, he’s waiting for me at Anton’s
Place.” Giving Ama a quick peck on the cheek, she slipped away from those
loving hands.
She opened the door, wincing at the thin death scream
of rusted hinges and the scrape of wood across the floor. Tiny drops of a winter
rain swept across her feet. She peered out, then leaned on the doorframe. Rain
and sleet mixed with her tears, beading and gliding off the makeup.
“I . . . I think maybe I’m pregnant, Ma. Please?
Don’t let JJ know.”
She slipped away with shoulders hunched against the
rain.
©2003 StoriesByEmail.com
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