I learned on the day before the harelip was to be released that the tall boy’s moment of weakness had passed, too. It happened so fast I only saw the aftermath. He was being wrestled away by two guards, another running to them across the basketball court. He knelt over a twisted body, lips skinned back and mouth leaking ropes of foam. It was the harelip, lying facedown, arms broken and ears bleeding onto the pavement.
LAURA
Them years Johnny was at Polk County, I couldn’t sleep at night. I had nightmares about him and Mama locked up together in the dark. Sometimes it seemed like I was stuck in a cell myself. I could still feel my brother every day, even after all of our time apart. I wanted to go visit him, but he sent word for me to stay away. I didn’t much want to see him like that anyhow, same as I couldn’t have stood to see Mama.
Me and Clint decided not to stay in school and graduate. I found out I could quit when I turned seventeen, so I done it as soon as my birthday came. With Johnny gone and not coming back, there was no reason for me to be there anymore. I never had fit in right anyway. I still lived with Pauline and Larry. I didn’t tell them I dropped out. I hated lying to them, but Pauline wouldn’t have let me quit. So I took a job at a hamburger place and Clint still worked at the grocery store. We knowed one day we would marry, but we never talked about when.
At the end of April, we was at the breakfast table and Clint drove up. He didn’t have to tell me he was coming or why. Someway I already knowed. I didn’t make him wait. I got up from the table and flew out the back door. I ran across the ground to the driveway without any shoes on and none of my things except Mama’s box. I had took to carrying it in my skirt pocket because I was afraid I was starting to forget her face. Just like school, there was no reason to stay. Percy was gone. Ever since he fell out the window he kept trying to get away. It was like he got a taste of freedom and wanted more. Every time the door opened he darted out. Then one day Larry came home from visiting the sick and found Percy dead in the street. Pauline and Hattie hugged each other and cried. I never thought I’d see them loving on each other. I remembered how Percy felt like a baby in my arms. We buried him out behind the shed. I pictured him under there with spiderwebs in his whiskers. Pauline and Hattie never was the same. They both got quiet. They didn’t fuss much anymore. It was a sad house. Clint was the only one left that loved me. Percy was dead and Mama was gone and whatever love Johnny had for me was buried deep. I’m not dumb as everybody thinks. I went where love was and that was with Clint.
When I got in the car his blue eyes was shining. He pulled me on top of him and kissed my face all over. Backing out of the driveway he seen my feet curled up on the seat. “Lord, baby,” he said. “You ain’t got no shoes on.” The way he laughed made chills all over me. He turned up the radio and we drove off. That was the best day of my life.
“Clint,” I said halfway down the road, “what made you finally come and get me?”
His ears got red. He tapped his fingers on the steering wheel. I didn’t know if he ever was going to tell. Finally he said, “Well, Mama found this set of hair combs I bought for you. I had my eye on them for a long time, ever since I seen them down at Belk’s. They was carved real nice with these jumping dolphins.” Clint cleared his throat and wiggled around in the seat. I could tell he was embarrassed. “When I come in from work I seen Mama had busted them combs all to pieces. Soon as I walked in the door, she went to beating me over the head and shoulders with the box they come in. She said … she said, ‘You ain’t spending another cent on some old girl and us needing groceries.’”
I knowed Clint had cleaned up what his mama said. There was no telling what all she really called me. I didn’t care. All I cared about was me and Clint being together.
“She claimed I’m just like Daddy,” Clint said. “Why, I’d rather be like Daddy than her any day of the week. I swear, Laura, I bellered like a bull, I’s so mad. I snatched her up by the hair of the head and for once she didn’t have a thing to say for herself. I got to feeling sorry for her then and let her go. I reckon I couldn’t hurt a woman, even one as mean as her. But I ain’t never going back to that house.”
“You don’t never have to, Clint,” I said. I put my head on his shoulder. “There ain’t a thing to worry about.” I believed what I told him. I thought our worries was over.
We drove straight to that green trailer beside of the lake. The trees was thick and the water lapped right up to the grass of the yard. Clint carried me down to the sand at the bottom of the hill because I didn’t have any shoes on. He held me there for a long time looking out across the lake. “I ain’t got to swim since Daddy died,” he said. “I stayed in the water so much he said I ort to been borned a fish.” I felt sorry for him. I knowed he was missing his daddy. Then we went up to the trailer. Clint opened the door and the carpet stunk where it got damp and mildewed. We spent most of the day cleaning out garbage. A lot of it was beer cans his daddy left behind. Whenever I seen Clint getting sad I snuck up behind him and tickled the back of his neck. That always made him smile.
Mr. Thompson, the manager at the grocery store, had a cousin that’s a preacher. He said me and Clint could get married at his house, on the back porch overlooking a creek. I asked Larry to perform the ceremony first, but him and Pauline didn’t approve of what I was doing. Clint’s mama didn’t want us to marry either, but I was eighteen and he was twenty, so we didn’t need anybody’s permission. It didn’t matter what they thought.
Me and Clint decided to have the wedding on the first of May. It took a while to get to Mr. Thompson’s house, little and white at the end of a long driveway. Mr. Thompson’s wife met us at the door. She said, “You can call me Zelda, honey.” She led me through the hall to the bedroom. It was cool in there, with thick carpet and roses on the wallpaper. There was a dress laid out on the bed. “Now, this is new with the tags on it,” Zelda said. “I bought it for my daughter-in-law to wear to church, but she was too big for it.” She held it up to me and frowned. “It might be loose, but we could safety-pin it.” It was long and cream with scratchy lace. I didn’t care if it was loose. I liked it anyway.
Louise, the cashier from the grocery store, set me down on the toilet seat and fixed my hair with a curling iron. She put some lipstick on my mouth and rubbed a little on my cheeks to make them rosy. She dusted my face with powder and said, “Your skin’s so pretty, you don’t need much.” Then Zelda and Louise led me through the kitchen out to the deck, where Zelda had arranged her begonia pots in a circle. All of Clint’s friends from the grocery store was gathered around. Somebody had brought their children, two little girls and a boy dressed up in bright colors. They whispered and giggled when I came out but they got shushed. All the talking stopped. Clint was standing with the preacher, a short man with glasses. When I stepped out on the deck in them too-big shoes that belonged to Zelda, Clint turned and looked at me. His face lit up with a grin. Then he did something I didn’t expect. He busted out with great big sobs. They was like sobs of relief, the way somebody might cry if they made it through a bad accident. The preacher patted Clint on the back while he tried to hush. I was embarrassed, but I was happy.