‘I didn’t know you were back in Pariah, Raymond. Why is that?’
Whether she was asking why she wasn’t told about Raymond’s return or she just wanted to know why he had come back I couldn’t tell, but Mouse didn’t even try to figure it out.
‘Dom axed me t’ax you t’keep Easy here for a night ‘cause Easy’s sick. Come on up here, Ease, an’ let Miss Dixon see ya.’
I moved up to his side, looking as hard at that little old woman as she was at me.
‘Anyway,’ Mouse continued, ‘Dom has got business down in Jenkins an’ he wanted Easy someplace where he’d be warm. You know he’s got the grippe an’ that can come to pneumonia in a second.’
‘Don’t I know it,’ she said.
‘Dom said that he gonna come get Easy tomorrah if he can please stay in some ole corner t’night.’
‘Domaque asked you this?’
‘Yes, ma’am.’
‘And how am I to know that Domaque asked you this?’
‘Well you know ma’am that Dom an’ me is the best of friends...’
‘I know,’ she interrupted, ‘that you are a sinner, Raymond Alexander, and a bad influence on the ground you trod. I was hoping that you were gone forever and that that sweet poor chile Domaque was free of your evil ways.’
‘I’m just visitin’, ma’am.’
She looked at him and then at me. ‘Why, this boy could be as bad as you. How’m I to know?’
She moved to dose the door but Mouse spoke up again. ‘Ma’am, I’m not lyin’ to ya. Dom wants Easy t’stay wichyou ‘cause Easy got the grippe, an’ if you don’t believe me then you feel his head an’ see if I’m lyin’.’
She looked suspicious for a minute but then she pushed open the screen door and came toward me. I moved back a halfstep, out of reflex I guess, but Mouse grabbed me and made me stand still.
Miss Dixon was a small white woman with pale hair that was pulled straight back against her head. She wore a floor-length flat green dress that had long sleeves and a neckline at the throat. She was very thin but not brittle-looking like many old white women; she could’ve been made from solid bone from the way her hard hand felt against my forehead.
‘Lord, he’s burnin’ up!’
‘I tole you,’ Mouse said.
‘You a friend to Domaque, son?’ she asked me.
The porch beams started shaking gently before my eyes, like leaves on a breeze.
‘Yes, ma’am,’ I said.
‘Dom come over by noon, ma’am,’ Mouse said. He already had a foot down the stairs.
‘You tell him to bring Mr. Dickens’ book, Raymond,’ she said to him. Then to me, ‘Come on inside.’
I turned to say something to Mouse, but he was going down the stairs with his back to me. He was whistling and moving fast. I almost called to him but then a feeling came over me: I wanted Mouse to be far away and I didn’t care what happened to him or his family; I didn’t care about weddings or a good time anymore. I just wanted to sleep.
‘What’s your full name, son?’
‘Ezekiel Rawlins, ma’am.’
‘Well come on in ‘fore you burn a hole in my porch.’
The entrance to her house had three coat racks, six umbrella stands, and more mirrors and knickknacks on the wall than I could count. There was a darkwood chair of a different make against each wall and on either side of the door. It was a small entrance room and so crowded with furniture that we two could barely fit in it at the same time.
She led me quickly through to the parlour.
This was a large room with blue velvet wallpaper from the ivory-carpeted floor to the cream-colored ceiling. There was a blue sofa, with a matching chair, and a red love seat with two matching chairs. There was a yellow couch and a brown one too. Each of them had matching chairs. The sofas and chairs were so dose together that you couldn’t sit on them.
There were the coffee tables: maple, cherry, pine, and mahogany; all of them stacked with every different kind of tea setting and little china sculpture that you can imagine. She had bureaus and cabinets, one behind the other; some of them had glass doors and you could make out the piles of plates and stacks of teacups.
I looked at that old woman again - she must’ve been in her late seventies.
I’d seen it happen before. The oldest member of the family outlives all of her husbands and siblings, and even her children sometimes, and all the belongings of all the families come to her in a big lonely house. She lives with five houses’ worth of furniture and dishes, old clothes, and knickknacks.
‘Come on, Ezekiel, you’re in my charge now.’
The next room was the music room. There were three upright pianos and different leather bags in the shapes of guitars, fiddles, and even a tuba.
‘Go on, take your clothes off and get in that tub.’ She opened a door that led to a small washroom. I hesitated a minute but she just shook her hand back and forth to show how impatient she was and I went in.
‘You’re lucky I take my bath on Wednesdays; I just filled the tub,’ she said, leaving me to my toilet. ‘And I have clothes from my uncle you can wear, he was ‘bout your size.’
The washroom smelled of soap. There was a brass sink and a commode and a large washtub on lion feet. Next to the sink was a table with a giant clamshell on it. The clamshell was filled with hundreds of little flowers made from soap. Red, green, and yellow soap, and violet and blue too. Each one hinted of a different spice but mostly they smelled like soap.
I took off my clothes and realised how bad I smelled after the last two days. I tried to pile them in a corner where the smell wouldn’t be too offensive in that sweet-smelling room, and then I jumped into the tub.
‘Ow! Oh!’ The water was so hot that I nearly jumped up. I thought she was trying to kill me.
‘Nice an’ hot, huh, Ezekiel? Secret to a long life is a hot bath twice a week and no liquor,’ she called through the closed door.
I got used to the water after a bit. The heat along with fever made me even more light-headed and tired. The sun was shining in through the lace curtains on the window. Miss Dixon - I found out later that Abigail was her first name - turned on a radio somewhere in the house and it was playing big-band music. The house was filled with the sound of scratchy clarinets and pianos. That was the finest living that I had ever experienced up to that time.
I’d wake up now and then and look at how my fingers and toes wrinkled in the water. Finally the water turned cold and I started shivering. So I got out and put on the green suit Miss Dixon had hung outside the door.
‘Welllll... don’t we look so much better,’ she said when I came into the kitchen. ‘Clean and scrubbed is halfway back to health.’
‘Yes, ma’am.’
‘You hungry, Ezekiel?’
‘Yes, ma’am.’
‘Well you just sit down and I’ll give you some stew.’
There was already a plate on one of the three tables she had in the dinette. I went to a chair next to that setting but she yelled, ‘Not there! Sit at one of the other tables.’
I didn’t know what she meant but I went to the pine table near the back door and sat down.
‘You know I cain’t sit at the same table with you, Ezekiel,’ she said as she put a bowl of beef stew in front of me. ‘You know it’s not proper for white and colored to sit together. I mean it’d be as much an insult to your people as mine if we were to forget our place.’
I watched her go to her separate seat and I thought to myself that she was crazy but I couldn’t keep my mind on I it because that was the first food I’d had in almost a whole day. It was good stew too. I can still remember how it tasted of black pepper and wine.
‘How do you know Domaque, Ezekiel?’
‘Well, uh, well I wanted t’learn t’read bettah, an’ Mouse, I mean Raymond, tole me ‘bout him.’ I was lying but I wasn’t, not really.
‘Do you read?’