Walking Through Shadows (13 page)

I asked her to marry me right after our first fight. We had been down to the Cottons’ that night. Mrs. Cotton had turned in with the baby, and Mr. Cotton and me were sittin’ on the back porch smoking. Mrs. Cotton didn’t allow no tobacco in the house, nor any kind of spirits either, so Mr. Cotton kept his hooch down to the barn and smoked his cigarettes outdoors. I wouldn’t live with a woman like that. I’d tell her a thing or two about who was boss of the home, but it didn’t seem to bother Mr. Cotton none to live with what he called a “delicate lady.” We wasn’t talking much. I remember blowing out a smoke ring, watching it rise like a blue halo in the dim light, and here come Sheila out of the house all painted up like a whore. She was wearing a low-cut dress without no brassiere and when she bent over my rocker, I could see her pink nipples plain as day. Mr. Cotton seen ’em too, and he didn’t look away neither. I grabbed her arm. “What you trying to look like in that paint?” I asked her.

Sheila just smiled like I wasn’t hurting her though I was sure I was. “Annette and I were just playing. She’s coming in a minute. I done her hair up and we’se pretending to be moving picture stars on our way to some fancy place Annette heard about in New York City. The Ritzy something or other.”

I didn’t let go of her, but pushed her back as I got outta my chair. “You get that paint off’n you right now. Come on,” I yelled at her. We left then, went down to her room, and when she got inside, I slammed the door and threw her face down on the bed. “You showed your titties to Mr. Cotton,” I said looking down at her with her legs splayed out like she was ready for taking from behind. “You’re mine, and I don’t share what’s mine with nobody.”

Sheila’s eyes watered up, and she scrambled down to the floor and grabbed hold of my ankles. “You whup me,” she said. “I’m bad. I shouldn’t done what I done.”

“I’ll whup you.” I jerked her up by her forearm and slung her back on the bed. I raised my leg and my boot came down on her hump. She didn’t say nothing, didn’t cry out for me to stop, so I gave her another good hard stomp. I thought I’d make her good and sorry she ever put on that paint and whore’s dress. I’d make her cry and beg forgiveness. What happened next is what happened from that time on. She flipped over on her back and held her arms up to me.

“Do it now. Hurry,” she whispered. I saw the look in her eyes then and my breath starting coming out in short pants. She was askin’ me for something I never figured on. A feeling come over me that was just like how I felt when I skinned my first squirrel. I had run my hands over them slick intestines, and dug my fingers into the bloody fur. I licked the brains when I cracked open the head, and now the taste of them was in my mouth. I grabbed her hair and flipped her over. I ripped her dress and my shirt and came away with bits of skin beneath my nail. Then her hump was in my stomach, my head between her legs, and I bit into the soft flesh of her thigh and tasted her blood.

I asked her to marry me that night. I didn’t figure I had no choice really. Somebody had to give her what she needed, and her eyes were set on me, Stoney Barnes, who didn’t have no power against a blonde witch who screamed my name at night and laughed when the sun come up every blast day.

Sheila and me moved into the Cottons’ tenant house the weekend we got married. On a Friday we drove over to Tylertown and got hitched by this old geezer who read out the vows so loud Sheila started giggling and covered her ears with her little hands. I didn’t have no money to buy her a proper ring, but she was tickled to death with the tin band I gave her. It didn’t take much to please her, and that’s one of the reasons I felt I’d picked good for a wife. By the time we got back to our new house, we was so hot for each other, we done it on the floor in the front room. I had a bottle of hooch my brothers had give me, and I was planning on a few celebration drinks, but Sheila didn’t allow me no time to think of it. She was like a wildcat that night, a-screeching and hollering out. She kept shouting “I love you” and such every time we done it. What nobody would believe she done was she tied a string on my peter. We was both used up and ready to get some sleep and I had rolled on my back and shut my eyes when I felt her fingers on me. “What you up to?” I asked her, lifting my head up from the pillow.

She smiled without opening her mouth and kept on with her fingers. When she’d made a little bow on top, she looked up at me. “It’s loose, won’t hurt you none.”

“Okay,” I said. “But what the hell is it for?”

Sheila leaned down and bit the end off the string, held up the piece. “This here is a magic cord. It gives you powers.”

I sat up then to get a better look. The string was tickling my leg and I moved my thigh out to the side. “What kind of powers?”

“To have perfect babies,” she said. “Babies without no humps, smart ones.”

I yanked the string off me. “Tying a hundred strings on me ain’t gonna make no difference ’bout us having kids. Put your lips around it instead,” I said. Sheila looked kinda hurt for a second, and then she smiled, made a big “o” with her mouth and bowed her head to it.

Next morning was more of the same, and we had another whole day and night of loving before Sheila went out to tell her folks about us getting hitched. That visit ruint our first week. Sheila’s papa beat her so bad she couldn’t do nothin’ in the bedroom ’ceptin’ sleep. When Annette pulled up in the drive and helped her in the house, I didn’t have to ask who done it. I got rid of Annette soon as I could. She was crying all over Sheila, shaking, her teeth a-chattering, like it were her who was bloodied up. Sheila didn’t cry; she just laid still on the bed, looked up at me and said, “Papa were mad about us gettin’ wedded.” She whimpered when I tore what was left of her dress off her, but she said she didn’t need no doctor when I offered to go down to the Cottons’ and call for one. “I been a lot wors’n this,” she said. “It’ll be all right. I should’ve said it different. I knowed he was gonna be mad at me.”

I went out to the well and saw Mr. Cotton a-hurrying up to our house, and I figured Annette had spilled the beans about what happened. I waved him away, shouted to him that I would take care of my wife, I’d do what had to be done. He looked like he wanted to come on anyhow, but he waved his hat, turned around and went back toward the barn. I drew some water and went back to the house and bathed the blood off’n Sheila. Then I went to the closet and took out my gun. Sheila cried out when she seen it. “No.”

“You ain’t got no say,” I told her. The hard metal felt good in my hands, and I breathed in the scent of the oil from the barrel. I would smash his head in with the gun before I put a bullet through his heart.

Sheila half fell off the bed and crawled over to me. “Please, please, please. Don’t do it. He didn’t mean it. He just lost his temper is all. He didn’t mean to.”

I understood about losing your temper. I knew all about red eye rages that come over you and cover your head with ruby fog so that you feel like your head is in a vise getting screwed tighter and tighter and you got to do something before your head comes off. I knowed what her papa knew all right, but I couldn’t be a man and let this go without taking action. “He’s got to pay for it,” I said.

Sheila was hanging on my knees, squeezing me hard. “Stoney, he will. I promise. He will, but don’t go over there now.”

I kicked her off. “I’m going.”

She laid her head on the floor. “He ain’t there. Run off. Mama went after him, but she won’t find him. He’ll be gone for days. Done it before when he beat me this bad and the first time after he…”

I gripped the gun tighter. “After he what?”

“Nothing.”

I looked down on her and seen them eyes, big and scared. There was blood on the floor. She had broken open again. I laid the gun down, carried her back to bed. I knowed nothing was something, and I suspected what something was, but I didn’t ask her no more that day. I had my secrets and she had hers. Maybe it was best to leave it that way.

Ma invited us over for dinner the next Sunday. It was supposed to be a celebration dinner to welcome Sheila into the Barnes’ big happy family. I knowed Ma weren’t gonna fool Sheila though; she would see the truth of us right off. It went better than I expected. It were plain as day that Ma had told everybody not to look at my wife’s hump because ever’ time Sheila turned her back to any of them, they ran around to the front of her. Earlene, Hugh’s wife, acted kinda uppity like she always does, but Sheila just smiled and told her how cute her boys were. Hugh and me got into an argument about whether Fords or Dodges was the best automobile on the road. Hugh drove a Ford, and I like the looks of the Dodge, but Hugh let it go this time, and they left without us gettin’ into it. Daddy surprised me too. He acted real nice to Sheila, conversed with her in the polite voice he used when he talked to the preacher’s wife, and that made Ma light up like a bright star. I asked him for a little loan when we were alone in the hall; it seemed like a good time, him being nearly jolly all day. I told him it were for Sheila to set up housekeeping. “She come to me poor as a church mouse,” I said.

He reached in his pocket and pulled out a few bills and handed them right over. “See that you pay it back.” He looked hard at me then with them dark eyes of his that put the fear in me when I was a little boy. “You treat her good. She ain’t strong like Earlene and your ma.”

I wadded the bills up, thought about throwing ’em in his face. But I needed the cash. I stuffed the money in my pocket and said, “You don’t know nothin’ about Sheila, Daddy. You don’t know her a’tall.”

I reckon nobody exceptin’ me really knew her. She had two faces and I was the only one she showed ’em both to. When we was out with folks, she was one way, and then when we’d get back home, she’d turn around and there was the other Sheila who drank whiskey with me and liked the taste of it. Next to me Annette knowed her the best. Them two was always going off somewhere with their heads together. I asked Sheila what was they talking about, and she giggled and said it were girl talk, not for men’s ears. I kept on, thinking they might be talking about me, and finally she says real sweet like that she tells Annette how happy she is being married to a man like me. “She got a crush on you too,” Sheila told me.

“Ain’t you jealous?” I asked her.

We was in the kitchen sitting at the little rickety table Ma had gived us and Sheila reached across and took my hand. “No, I ain’t jealous. She’s my friend.”

I squeezed her fingers real hard. “Well, no friend of mine better be thinking about you. I’ll kill anybody ever touches you.”

Sheila didn’t blink. She nodded real slow and then said, “I know it, Stoney. I know you would.” Then she jumped up and pulled me outside. She said to look up at the moon, it was shaped like a boat full of water, and wasn’t we glad it would rain on our garden come daylight.

We skipped church the first two Sundays after our wedding day, but Sheila was about healed up the third week and we lit out for the service at Mars Hill, where she got saved. Her mama was there and a bunch of the kids, but her papa hadn’t come with them, and I could tell Sheila were glad of it. Mrs. Carruth was a nice lady. I had met her before when Sheila and me visited out to their house before we got hitched. She hugged me and said she hoped we’d be real happy, and then she looked down at the Bible she was carrying, and said she knowed Mr. Carruth would come around to the idea of us. I knowed that were a lie she was telling, but I acted like I believed her. After the service I offered to give them a lift home. Mrs. Carruth didn’t drive, and she and them young’ns had walked the two miles from their house to the church. She looked real scared then, and said, “No, no. You two go on your way. We’ll catch a ride with Mrs. Tucker.” I knew then how it stood between Sheila’s papa and me.

Sheila was right about Annette having a crush on me. I came to see that clear on the day the three of us went to the picture show in Zebulon. Sheila knowed who all the big stars was but she hadn’t never seen one of them on the big screen at the Palace Theater. I’d been to the show lots of times with Kathleen, and before her with Pete and Daniel when Ma would give us a dime each to go. We took Ma once to see Shirley Temple in Bright Eyes, which us boys thought was the dumbest show we’d ever seen, but she loved every minute of it and thought Shirley Temple was “just the smartest and cutest little girl that ever lived.”

We’d been waitin’ a whole year for Gone with the Wind to finally get to the Palace, and when Annette heard it was playing, she come running up to the house, screaming we had to go. There’d been so much talk about it that I didn’t figure it could be as good as what folks were saying. Over in Atlanta there was a near riot over Clark Gable, and I wasn’t too keen on Sheila mooning over him. But she were set on it, told me I looked like Clark, but was more handsome since my ears laid flat on the sides of my head. What cinched us going though was Mrs. Cotton offering to pay our way. I said I’d take the girls on Wednesday night, but Annette’s mama said that Wednesday is Klondike Night, and the jackpot was up to $50, so it would be too crowded. Annette told me and Sheila that her mama’s sister, Miss Leda Bancroft, had been present to win one time and had embarrassed Annette’s mama by jumping up and screaming and showing her garters when she grabbed her jackpot of $32. Annette thought it was a funny story, but her mama didn’t like to talk about it. As it turned out Mr. Cotton wouldn’t let me off early on Wednesday anyway, so we had to go on a Saturday.

Sheila was near beside herself. Her and Annette acted so silly on the way to town, that I told them they better behave or I’d put them out on Carterdale Road. They laughed their heads off at that. Everything was funny: the old men lined up in rockers in front of Johnny Moore’s store, a stray dog with swinging teats, an old lady with her hose turned down around her ankles. When we finally got to Main Street, Annette calmed down some, but Sheila kept on squealing over ever’ thing she seen. She carried on over a dress hanging in Feldman’s window, apples on a stand, a man wearing garters on his sleeve. Ordinary stuff really.

The Palace is on State Street and I found a parking spot just around the corner on Third. We was an hour early for the matinee, but there was already a line of people waiting to buy tickets. I crooked both elbows out from my side, and said, “Ladies, may I take your arms to walk in?” They giggled and grabbed my forearms and the three of us marched into the lobby. Sheila and Annette was both dolled up in church dresses, and I wore my best blue jeans and a white shirt, and I was glad the lights was on ’cause I knowed we looked good walking down the aisle toward the front. I sat between the girls. Annette scooted back in her seat so that her legs dangled into mine, but Sheila had to kneel on her chair to be tall enough to see over the heads of the people in front of us. I could hear her breathing so fast, it sounded like she were a panting dog.

When Clark Gable finally showed up on the sofa at the picnic, I felt Annette’s eyes on me. I guessed she were comparing me to Rhett Butler, and I cocked my head a little to let her see the resemblance. I swear I think she sighed right then. Sheila sat with her mouth open, her tongue tucked in the side of her mouth. When I walked my fingers across the chair arm and down her thigh, she didn’t even feel it. Annette grabbed my arm a couple of times like she were scared of what was about to happen, and I was sure she were just pretending for an excuse to hang onto me, but I let her do it. It was a good show. There might have been more actual battle fighting, but there was plenty to keep me interested. I couldn’t understand how Scarlett could love that pretty boy, Ashley, but I seen how it were between her and Rhett. When Bonnie died, Sheila got so upset, she yelled out. “No. No. Don’t let her be dead.” I shushed her and gave her my handkerchief, which by the end of the movie looked like I had throwed it in a bucket of water.

When the lights come up, I seen Annette were all teary-eyed too. She started talking different, all soft and woo woo like. I could’ve kissed her if’n I wanted to. Sheila was the most carried off though. She couldn’t say nothing, just kept shaking her head, and wadding up my handkerchief in her little palm, but I knowed when we got home, she was gonna come alive. I could near smell her desire for me. I was gonna tease her about Annette having a crush on me, but she didn’t give me no time for talk. We was still in the truck when Scarlett let Rhett know how she really felt.

The next night all hell broke loose over to my house. Me and Sheila was just about to turn in when I seen headlights coming up our driveway. We didn’t get much company as a rule, and hardly none after dark, so I got my gun and went to stand looking out the front door. Then I seen it were my daddy’s truck, and I laid the gun beside the door and stepped out on the porch.

Daddy had brought along Hugh, and I could smell the liquor on them ’fore they come all the way up the steps. Both of ’em was wearing their Sunday hats and long-sleeve shirts, so I figured they’d been in town for something or other and had stopped at Tuck’s for a nip ’fore heading home. I crossed my arms. “Evenin’, Daddy. Hugh,” I said.

Daddy was smiling. He reached in his back pocket and pulled out a bottle. “Hugh and me got a present for you. It’s 150 proof. Just wait till you taste it.”

Hugh was leaning on the porch rail, grinning. I reckoned Daddy was gonna have to drive him home. “Sheila gone to bed?” Hugh asked me.

I looked back and seen she were coming to the door. She didn’t have no robe and her nightdress were thin. She come out anyway and stood with one bare foot resting on the other. “Hey, Sheila,” Hugh said. “You want to join us in a small libation here?” He held up another bottle same as what Daddy had.

Sheila shook her head no and just kept standing there with the light behind her showing the shape of her legs. I stepped in front of her and took the bottle. The hooch burned going down and my eyes watered. Daddy set hisself down on the porch chair, and Hugh slid down on the top step. I took the other chair and Sheila leaned back against the door, but didn’t go in. We started talking about this and that, swallowing along on the bottles. Daddy told a couple of jokes about niggers and mules, and Hugh told a smutty one about a woman screwing a big dog. Sheila laughed along with us, and I wished she would shut up and go inside, but it were like her feet were welded to the porch boards. Once, she said something about it being late and us having to be at work in just a few hours, but I shushed her up with a warning look.

All of a sudden Hugh stood up and held out his hand to me. “I come to get the twenty dollars you owing me.”

I looked at his big hand, his blurry face, and I said, “I ain’t got no twenty dollars.”

Daddy lurched up from his chair then. “You pay your brother,” he said. “You owe me too, and I ain’t forgot that.” It were like every other time he gets drunk. He started yelling, calling me so many ugly names I don’t even remember them all. Worthless, lazy, grifter, shiftless, such as that. I stared hard at him, felt my fist balling up.

I was gonna shut his mouth, but then Hugh seen the way the wind were blowing with Daddy and he started up, calling me worse; liar, cheat, thief. Then he looked over at Sheila and told her she could do better than me, should’ve married someone with “real” nuts. “Stoney ain’t got real ones,” he said. I went after him then. Caught his ear before he could move, and blood come shooting out. Hugh knocked me down and jumped on me. I felt a blow upside my rib and I rolled over and come at his pretty boy face, smashing his cheek. Daddy pulled me off him, then put his boot on Hugh’s leg and kicked him. “Git up. He ain’t worth your fist.”

They left then. Sheila went to get a rag to wipe me up and I made it to the bed. The room was a-spinnin’ like a kid’s top, and my stomach wanted to come up. I told Sheila if’n Daddy hadn’t stopped the fight, I’d of won. Hugh used to always win ’cause he outweighs me by ten pounds, but working at the dairy had made me stronger than I used to be. “I could’ve took him,” I said. “I know I could’ve.”

Sheila were bending over wiping my chin where some blood had dribbled down, and she held the rag up and said, “You owe him money?”

“Yeah. Some.”

“How much you owe your papa?”

“Another twenty,” I said, feeling myself get tense, feeling the red haze coming over me.

“What’d you do with all that money?” Sheila asked. “I ain’t seed none of it, and we needin’ a coffee grinder. That one your mama gived us don’t work.”

Then there weren’t no way out of that red fog; it were all around me, heavy, pushing in on my head. I remembered her standing in the light in that nightdress, the outline of her legs leading up to her sweet place. Daddy and Hugh had seen it all. I remembered that now. I swung at her, then my belt was in my hand, and I swung again. She covered her face, but I got her arm. I heard her yelling, “I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t ask.” But it were too late.

I don’t remember getting back in the bed or falling asleep, but when I waked up, Sheila were lying beside me, stroking my face. I seen the marks on her, and I kissed them every one. “We’re a pretty pair,” she said and laughed real soft.

“Don’t you know it.” I looked into her sweet eyes full of love and pride on being my wife. We were something special together. I knowed that right then. For the first time in my life, I let a woman see me cry. I laid my head between her breasts and cried like a girl. “I love you more’n anything in the world,” I told her, and now I knew I did.

The next Saturday I took Sheila into town and bought her a brand new coffee grinder. She held it up like it were some trophy prize she won and she turned to me, smiled and said, “Oh, Stoney. The fightin’ is worth the makin’ up.”