She stepped toward him and he hugged her hard, then let her go and slapped her sharply on the rear.
Don’t, she said. My husband don’t like people messing with me.
You think Luther cares?
You better mind your manners.
That’s right, Luther said. You ought to mind your manners around here.
What’s crawled up your ass? I come over to see you two. I got something I want to propose. And here you’re already giving me a raft of shit.
Well, Luther said. You shouldn’t say that.
What you want to propose? Betty said.
Let’s get out of this wind, Hoyt said. I can’t talk out here.
THEY MOVED INSIDE THE TRAILER AND SAT AT THE kitchen table after Betty cleared a place for her uncle. He took off his cap and set it on the table and ran his fingers through his hair as he looked around. You need to clean this place up, he said. Good Christ, look at it. I don’t see how a person can live like this.
Well, I ain’t feeling very good, Betty said. My stomach keeps hurting me. I can’t hardly sleep at night.
She been taking pills for it, Luther said. But it don’t seem like it makes no difference. Does it, honey.
It ain’t yet.
That don’t mean you have to live like this, Hoyt said. You could do some of it yourself, Luther.
Luther didn’t respond. He and Betty stared across the room as if there were something hanging on the wall they had failed to notice.
Hoyt was still smoking his cigarette. Betty, he said, get your uncle a ashtray. I wouldn’t want to dirty your nice floor.
We don’t have any. Nobody ever smokes in here.
They don’t? He stared at her, then stood up and ran water from the faucet onto his cigarette and dropped it in the sink among the dirty dishes. He sat down again and sighed, rubbing his eyes elaborately. Well, I guess you heard, he said.
About what? Luther said. We didn’t hear anything.
You didn’t hear I lost my job? That son of a bitch out to the dairy laid me off two weeks ago. And that cow wasn’t even marked good. There’s suppose to be orange crayon smeared on her bag. How was I expected to remember she was sick? So I milked her into the tank like you’re suppose to, and the son of a bitch fired me. Then this morning that other son of a bitch over to the apartment house kicked me out.
What happened with him? Luther said.
Nothing. Maybe I was a day or two behind on the rent, but I was about sick of his shit anyway. And he knows what he can do with that goddamn apartment of his. Hoyt looked at them. They were turned toward him, watching him like oversized children. So what do you think about all that? he said.
I think it’s too bad, Betty said. They shouldn’t of treated you that way.
No sir, Luther said. That ain’t right for people to treat you like that.
Hoyt waved his hand. I know all that, he said. I’m not talking about that. I’ll take care of his fat ass one of these days. And he knows it. That much is understood. What I’m talking about is this here. I want to make you a proposition. I’ll come over here and move in with you two, and I’ll pay you some rent while I get on my feet. It’ll be good for all of us. That’s what I’m talking about.
Luther and Betty glanced at each other over their lunchtime dishes. Outside, the wind was shaking the trailer each time it gusted up.
Go ahead, Hoyt said. Feel free to say something. It’s not that difficult.
I don’t know, Betty said. We only got three bedrooms. Joy Rae and Richie sleeps in their own rooms.
They got to have their own rooms, Luther said. And we got ours. We ain’t got no other space.
Just a minute now, Hoyt said. Think about what you’re saying. Why can’t one of them move in with the other one? What’s wrong with that idea? They’re just little kids.
I don’t know, Betty said. She looked about the room as though she’d misplaced something.
What would your mom say? Hoyt said. You not wanting to take in her own brother, not inviting him to come in out of the cold when he needed some help. What do you think she’d say to that?
It ain’t very cold out right now, Betty said.
Are you trying to be smart? That’s not what I’m talking about. I’m talking about you letting me move in here.
Well, we want to help you, she said. It’s just— She gestured vaguely with her hands.
I’ll tell you what, Hoyt said. At least let me take a look. Let’s see what we’re talking about here. There’s no harm in looking, is there?
Abruptly he stood up. They traded glances and followed him down the hallway past the bathroom. Hoyt looked into the bedrooms as he passed, first Luther and Betty’s bedroom, then Richie’s, before coming to a closed door at the end of the hall; he pushed the door open with his foot and walked into Joy Rae’s room. In all the house it alone was neat and clean. The single narrow bed against the wall. A wooden dresser draped with a thin pink scarf. A meager box of jewelry and a brush and comb displayed over the scarf. The faded oval rug on the floor next to the bed.
This here’ll do, he said. At least it’s cleaned up. She can move in with her brother and I’ll stay in here.
Oh, I don’t know about that, Betty said, standing behind him in the doorway.
It’s just for a little while. Till I get going again. Where’s your charity? Don’t you have no heart?
I got my kids to think about too.
How is me moving in here going to hurt your kids?
Joy Rae fixed it up all by herself.
All right, he said. I’m your uncle, but if you don’t want me moving in all you got to do is say get out. I’m not stupid.
I don’t know what to say, she said. Luther, you say something.
Luther looked up the hallway. Well honey, Uncle Hoyt says it’s just for a little while. He lost his own apartment. He ain’t got no other place to go. Seems like we could help him out a little bit.
There, Hoyt said. That’s somebody that cares.
I know one thing, Betty said. Joy Rae isn’t going to like it.
THEY TOLD HER OF THESE NEW ARRANGEMENTS WHEN SHE got home from school that day, and she went immediately to her room and shut the door and lay on the bed and cried bitterly. But that night, as ordered, she moved her things into Richie’s room and hung up her few dresses in the little closet and set out the box of cheap jewelry on the half of the dresser she’d claimed for herself, then picked up his shoes and toys and clothes and put them away.
When she got into bed that night it was too narrow for two of them, even as small and as thin as they were, and in the night after they’d gone to sleep Richie began to dream violently, thrashing in bed, and she was forced to wake him.
Quit your kicking. Quit it, Richie. It’s just a dream, so be quiet.
Then she looked up from the bed and saw her mother’s uncle standing in the doorway staring at them, only his face visible in the shadow. He was leaning against the door frame. She pretended to be asleep and watched him through the darkness, and she could smell him. He’d been out drinking. She had been sitting at the table after supper when he’d asked her father for five dollars. He couldn’t be expected to stay home at night, he’d said, he was still a young man and nobody was about to tie him down. Her father had looked suddenly afraid, and he’d glanced ceilingward for help but none had come, so he’d handed over five dollar bills out of his wallet. Now she kept watching him across the dark, and after a while he left the doorway and went down the hall to her room.
But even after he’d gone Joy Rae couldn’t fall asleep for an hour or more. Then she woke in the morning to discover she was sleeping in a wet bed. Her brother had wet himself in the night and her gown was soaked with it, her legs cold and damp. It made her want to cry. She got up and wiped at her hips and legs with a dirty tee-shirt and began dressing for school. She woke her brother. He whimpered and complained, standing beside the bed.