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Benny stuffed his face with a black-bread roll. He let a small grin tickle the right side of his mouth. Yo, but Papa Bear would have loved this. Uncle Charlie's home-grown brewski and sweet black rye bread.
He felt the knife of sorrow cut through his heart. Benny glanced around the huge kitchen of his Aunt Mara's farmhouse for Todd. He grimaced, feeling alone and lonely. Then he spotted the eight-year-old twins.
Benny took a deep breath and slid through the jammed room to the girls.
Sitting on his heels before them, he opened his arms and they fell on him, soaking the white tee shirt he wore with their tears.
"I miss him, too." Benny pulled the girls into a fierce hug.
"We seen her do it, Unca Benny."
Slightly confused, he looked at them. "Saw what?"
"Mean ol' Leda."
"She gave Unca Carl's baby to that snake thing on that ol' 'Stone."
"She like to have caught us, too."
"He saved our asses, Unca Benny," one whispered. "Damn, but why'd he have ta' leave us?" Her green eyes were huge and luminous with tears.
"Hush, Trixie," her sister scolded. "Ain't right you should be a talking like that. He didn't want to go, and Jesus wanted Unca Carl 'cause Unca Carl was a fighting man and God wants fighting men with him."
When the girl paused for breath, Benny scowled at her, then at her sister. "You don't use nasty words," he said, "because they ain't nice. 'Specially from a couple a kids that ain't even nine yet. Got it?" He hugged them and they wailed, "Please, Unca Benny, don't beat us!"
"I'm not gonna beat-"
"You better not," some woman, not one of the ani, Benny knew, snapped at him.
Was this Carl's sister? or just some thrill-seeker crashing a wake, of all things.
"I'm certain they didn't mean it." She gave Benny a look of pure contempt. "Their uncle is dead. Have a little compassion. These poor dears have been through enough, what with having- Having . . . worked at that awful Manse because of you."
"You're making our Unca Benny right sad," one twin said, her eyes shot chills of ice through Benny even though the ugly look wasn't directed at him.
"Yeah."
"Look it him. He's a-crying."
"Yeah."
"Don't-"
"Shaddup, Unca Benny."
"Yeah."
"We don't like you, lady."
"Beat it."
"Now."
"Yeah."
The woman tossed her hair back from her face. "Well. I never-"
"But I bet your folks must a. Cause nobody'd 'dopt an old nasty-"
"Dixie," Benny hissed.
"- like you," she finished in a harder-than-nails voice.
"Yeah," Trixie whispered, her hand reaching slowly towards the butter knives stacked on the table.
The woman glanced into their tear-reddened eyes and shuddered. She tossed her head and tried to sneer at them. "I attempted to do the right thing. Huh. Redskins," she said and marched away.
"Who was that old b-"
"Dixie, such language. In a snobby English accent, Trixie said And from a young leddy." One copper-colored eyebrow cocked up. "Unca Carl wouldn't like it."
Dixie grimaced and nodded.
"You guys feel a little better now?" Benny gently patted their rail thin backs.
They nodded. He smiled softly. Hugging them again, he released the girls and stepped back. "You're both gonna behave now, right?"
They nodded solemnly, crossed their hearts, and looked for a place to spit.
"Don't, no." Benny hastily raised his hands. "It's cool, guys. I believe you- Hey," Benny snapped, "Trixie uncross your eyes. Both of you take off your shoes." They did and he groaned, slapped himself on the forehead and cried, "And uncross your toes, for cripesake. Geez, but when will you two stop trying to find a loop-hole in every promise?"
They gave him tragic looks and giggled behind their hands.
"Guess we're both o' us gonna have to marry Unca Benny, now as Unca Carl's gone, Sis."
Sadly, the other twin nodded and murmured a soft, "Yeah."
Benny glared at them and suddenly felt the room closing in. "Chill with that," he said. "I ain't marrying either one of you."
"Oh, but you got to."
"Yeah."
"We was gonna marry Unca Carl soon's we was old enough."
"But now we can't."
"Why, down 'Bama way, folks do it."
"Sure do."
"Yeah."
Two sets of green, loving moons stared up at Benny.
He swallowed his terror. Growing angry, Benny shook his head.
Geezis . . . .
"Uh." He smiled quickly. "You two know where Toddy is?"
The girls smiled serenely and sighed at him. He glanced from one to the other and shifted his feet, then glanced away. The room was closing in again.
"Him and that Donna-"
"We don't like her," the other put in darkly.
"'Cause they won't let us watch when they swap spit."
"Yeah."
"He ain't no good anyway."
"Yeah."
Benny snickered with them, until one said matter-of-factly, "But you're real good."
"Huh?" He glared at the twins, suspicion niggling in the back of his mind. "Just what do you mean by that?"
The twins giggled. "Oh, we kind o' got to watch you operating at the Manse."
Stooping beside the girls, Benny snarled at them. "Keep it down."
"Daddy Conn had ta make movies o' you all the time, Unca Benny. Them ol' scudses used ta use them ta blackmail folks."
"Yeah."
"All over the world." They nodded and beamed proudly at him.
Benny slapped a hand over his face and groaned. He shook his head and rose, defeat written on his features.
"Gosh, Unca Benny, what's ever a matter?"
"He sure looks sick-like."
"Yeah."
"Who told you they were . . . m-making m-movies of me and m-my clients?" he whispered in a tightly controlled voice.
"Oh, we all had to watch them. Cool, huh?"
The second gave a vigorous nod.
"Ol' bas-"
"Shh, Sis!"
"Oh. 'Scuse me. Uh . . . them ol' so-an'-soes, they used ta make us watch them. And then they sold them all over the place, Mr. Bellisario says."
"Said, silly. Gosh, Sis, the A-rab's deader'n an ol' mack'rel."
Their eyes gleamed at Benny and they giggled.
"Unca Carl says- said you-"
"Hey, I got to go." He glared at them and shook his head. "Where-at you say bro-Toddy is?"
"Hay loft."
"Bed room."
"Maybe."
"Yeah."
They snickered and sighed, "Ain't love beeeoooti-fool."
"You got that right," Benny said sarcastically. "It's for fools."
He slid out of the house. Benny had a close call with Aunt Mara, who glared at Benny, but decided to let him go.
Mimicking the wiping of sweat from his brow, he trotted down to the horse barn. If he had as sweet a piece as Donna-babe, you know he'd be in the loft. The only problem was, so was Uncle Charlie.
Charlie glanced around. Benny dived into a stall.
Uncle Charlie grunted and smiled. No one in sight. Heaving out a bale of hay, Charlie exposed a trap door. The heavy slab of oak groaned up in his hands. He glanced around, then stepped down through the trapdoor.
Benny peered over the planks of the stall. Uncle Charlie popped his craggy head out of the hidden door and looked around, a worried scowl on his pleasantly ugly face. Benny ducked.
Slipping down, Charlie took one final, nervous look, and disappeared from view. Benny frowned, then peered over the edge again. Four, one gallon milk jugs appeared in the stable's aisle way.
Benny's eyes widened. "Yo," Benny whispered. "So that's where the old-one's been hiding the rye. Must be an old manure pit down there."
A sly grin spread over Benny's face.
"Have you a reading on the subject?"
"Roger. Subject has entered the horse barn. Do we move in, sir?"
"Negative. Hold positions, Tillerman. I repeat, hold positions. Just do your job and watch the subject."
"Sir." Tillerman swallowed an acid retort, flattening himself on the sun warmed grasses. A cloud of black gnats swarmed around a pile of cow manure. He stared at it in distaste, remembering his youth on a factory farm near Bellefontaine, Ohio. Filth and stench and endless work that never got him anywhere.
This was all part of the job. He reminded himself of that time and again, but that farm was looking better all the time.
He sidled away. The gnats followed, settling on every square inch of exposed skin, biting until he was red with blood.
Trixie and Dixie watched through fire-red eyes. Smiling, they glanced at each other.
"War," one said.
"All is fair."
©2003 StoriesByEmail.com
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