“Shut up, Willard,” said Joe Lon bitterly. “It ain’t nothing funny.”
“Don’t tell me to shut up,” said Willard Miller. “I’ll come over there and let you smell you daddy’s fist.”
They sat glaring at each other, but Joe Lon was bored with the game. Seemed it was one game after another.
“I don’t understand,” said Duffy, but he already suspected he did. “Run it by me again.”
“Them two used to be a case here in Lebeau County,” said Willard evenly without ever taking his eyes off Joe Lon. “They used to be a case when Joe Lon here was Boss Snake of the Mystic Rattlers.”
“She’s a fine-looking girl,” said Duffy Deeter.
“The world’s full of fine-looking girls,” Joe Lon said sourly.
“It ain’t full of Berenices,” said Willard. “Was, she couldn’t strike a lick on you like she does.”
“Then it must be my turn,” said Joe Lon. “Git everybody out of the trailer after we eat them snakes.”
“How the hell I’m sposed do that?” said Willard.
“You’ll think of something,” said Joe Lon. “You Boss Rattler now. It’s you goddam job to think of something.”
But he didn’t think of something. He was not the one. It was Susan Gender at the suggestion of Duffy Deeter who thought of something. After they had eaten the snakes and after Lummy had brought another bottle of whiskey and stood around at the back door long enough to tell them how Big Joe had called the store for somebody to come and bury Old Tuffy, and Duffy Deeter had found out that tomorrow night there was going to be a dog fight — champion dogs on which money could be bet — after all of that, during which time Berenice had talked excitedly and in detail about her trip to Europe to study French and Joe Lon had sat listening, choking on both snake and the thought that he had spent his time and life selling nigger whiskey and watching Elfie’s teeth fall out, they were once again cramped into the living room when Susan Gender said: “Hard Candy, let’s go outside and have us a twirl-off. Settle this snake down some.”
Susan Gender was excited. They were all excited, except Elfie, who sat feeding the babies Gerber’s strained food out of little green and yellow bottles. They were excited because they watched Berenice still compulsively talking unaware that they were setting her up to be, as Hard Candy said, ventilated by Joe Lon, who by this time had his game face on and was ready to work.
“We can settle the snake and you can all be judges,” said Susan Gender. “You feel up to a twirl-off, Hard Candy?”
“Always,” said Hard Candy.
“You’re up against a good one,” said Berenice. “My sister is a good one.” She crossed her strong baton-twirling thighs and Duffy Deeter thought Joe Lon would fall out of his chair. They were only waiting for Elfie to finish spooning the last jar of Gerber’s into the older baby. “We both went, you know, to the Dixie National Baton Twirling Institute for two summers. Two summers each, both of us.”
“Jesus,” Duffy said. “Really?” Besides liking the marvelously absurd ring of Dixie National Baton Twirling Institute, he loved the excited enthusiastic way Berenice had been babbling ever since she got there.
“Right,” she said. “It’s on the campus of Old Miss.”
“Dynamite,” said Duffy.
She talked on, a little breathlessly, waving her hands, her eyes turning now and again to check Elfie’s progress with the baby food.
“When we were there the Director of the Institute was Don Sartell. He’s known as Mister Baton, you know.”
“I didn’t know that,” said Duffy. He was wishing he and Joe Lon could double-team her little ass and thereby force her to give up all her secrets.
“I’m done,” said Elfie, turning her ruined smile on them. “This youngan ain’t eatin another bite.”
“Let’s get to that twirl-off,” said Duffy. He looked at Elfie. “Want to take the playpen outside for the babies?”
“Oh, they’ll sleep now they full,” she said. “We can leave’m right where they are.”
They let Elfie pass first through the door followed by Willard, Susan Gender, Hard Candy, and finally Duffy, who cast one lingering look over his shoulder toward Berenice just passing in front of Joe Lon. Joe Lon’s face was gray and tight. He looked a little out of control. Duffy closed the door.
As the door closed Joe Lon took her arm and spun her to face him. “Don’t!” Berenice said. “God, we can’t, not here.”
“Oh, I magine we can,” he said.
She wasn’t listening. She’d already broken one of her nails tearing at his belt. He took her by the wrist and led her down the short narrow hallway to a little room and threw her on the bed.
“Git naked and take a four-point stance,” he said.
The bed was right next to a wall and she braced herself firmly against the window ledge. He struck her from behind like she’d been a tackling dummy.
“You’ll make me holler,” Berenice said.
“Holler then,” said Joe Lon Mackey.
“You know how I always holler,” she said quickly. And then: “Oh, Jesus, honey, honey, honey Jesus.”
“Is that what you gone holler?” he demanded. “Is it Jesus honey!”
She could no longer talk. He had driven her close against the window. The blinds were drawn, but around the edge, through a half inch of warped glass, he could see Hard Candy and Susan where they were twirling off while Willard and Duffy and Elfie squatted on the hard-packed dirt, watching. Elfie kept turning back to stare at the trailer, sometimes right at the window where they were locked together looking out. Berenice’s hair lay in a damp tangle on her neck. Sweat ran on their bodies, darkening the sheet under them.
Joe Lon held the sharp blades of her hip bones, one in each hand, while he looked absently through the window. Berenice slowly turned her head to gaze fondly back at him over her shoulder.
“I must tell you, darling,” she said, “I love Shep.”
He told himself that he didn’t care one way or the other if she loved Shep but that talk of love was the last thing in the world he wanted to hear from her. From anybody. He refused to meet her eyes and finally she turned to gaze with him through the warped glass at Elfie where she still squatted outside the trailer with Willard Miller and Duffy Deeter.
“It doesn’t mean I didn’t love you,” she said.
“I don’t want to hear about it,” he said. “I don’t need that.”
“All right,” she said.
Outside, Elf turned to look quickly back toward the trailer but then she didn’t look any more because Willard put his hand on her shoulder and started talking to her, pointing at the girls, who were taking turns testing each other in complicated little dance routines, their silver batons flashing like swords in the sun. In the other room the babies slowly started crying, almost like singing, a chorus of something sad and interminable.
In a light conversational voice while they watched Susan Gender skip across the bare dirt yard outside, Berenice said: “You know, darling, baton twirling is the second biggest young girls’ movement in America. Did you know that? Uh huh, is though. Girl Scouts is Numero Uno. That means first. But baton twirling is the biggest if you don’t count Girl Scouts.” She turned to smile at him over her shoulder. “The reason is … well, there’s three of them.” She didn’t look back at him, but she braced herself with one hand and held up the other hand with three fingers for him to see. “Three. First you don’t have to go nowheres. You can do it in the living room or like them out in the yard — out in the yard. Second. No expensive equipment. Third. You can practice alone.”
“What good is it?” said Joe Lon.
“What?”