‘She funny, huh?’ Domaque asked.
‘Yeah, I guess. She comes right out and says what she thinks and don’t care how it sounds.’
Dom smiled to himself and then closed his lips over his giant mouth. When he did that his lips came together in a point as if he were trying to kiss something very small.
He said, ‘Yeah, that’s why I like her, I guess.’
‘I don’t know if it’s too good always sayin’ anything you feel.’
‘Yeah, but that way you don’t get beholdin’ t’some’un. She teach me how t’read but not so’s that I owe her nuthin’. I know she do it fo’her pleasure, not mine.’
Afternoon was overcast and cooler than it had been. I was feeling better but after we’d walked a few miles I was ready to rest. Dom said that Pariah was only a short ways and I had a bed wailing for me there.
‘A bed where?’ I asked him.
‘Out at Miss Alexander’s.’
‘She any kin to Mouse?’
‘She Raymond’s momma’s sister.’
‘An’ what’s she like?’ I didn’t want to tell Dom about me and his mother, that wouldn’t have been proper. But I didn’t want a repeat of my one night in the woods either.
‘Mouse said you might be worried ‘bout stayin’ there. He tole me t’tell you that you be safe wit’ his auntie.’
When Dom walked he put his right foot forward and reached into the air with his right hand as if he were carrying a staff; his left hip would fall back and then he’d bring the left leg up with a dragging movement, straightening his shoulders as he went. He was able to walk very fast in that odd way. When I asked him what else it was that Mouse said, that walk became even more peculiar.
‘He said...’ Dom couldn’t go on for laughing and drooling.
‘What?’ I was worried that Mouse had told him about Jo and me; that this grinning came just before Dom pulled out his butchering knife.
‘He said...,’ Dom ducked his head.’...that maybe he knows a girl be my friend.’
Pariah looked wilder than the woods. It was a crooked town, not more than two blocks of unpaved red day street and all there was to it was the one street. The north side of town was at least eight feet higher ground than the south side. Crossing the rutted and eroded road between them was more like going up or down hill. All the buildings were made from the same weathered wood and only one of them got to three floors.
There were no telephone wires or cars or any sign at all that we were in the modern age. If people were out in front of a building, on the raised wooden platform they had for sidewalk, and they were sitting in a chair - well, it was a homemade chair, something somebody threw together one morning before breakfast and then they sat in it for the next thirty years.
But there weren’t too many people outside. A couple of women carrying large baskets on their heads and one lone buggy drawn by a spotted mare. The buggy was at such an angle on that slanted road that I expected to see it turn over at any minute. But it didn’t, of course, it’s only cars that need flat pavement.
All the buildings looked more or less the same. You could tell them apart though, by the signs. The church had two white crosses on the front doors and the barbershop had a red-and-white-striped candy cane painted on the wall. The general store, which was also the bar, had a wooden Indian out front.
‘Here we go,’ Dom said when we got to the wooden Indian. ‘Miss Alexander’s general store and music bar.’
It was a country store. Canned goods along the walls and fresh food on a counter at the back. There was one rack for dresses and men’s jackets and a table full of shirts, socks, and shoes. Three men were playing cards and drinking at a table in the centre of the room. It was a big room and, for the most part, empty.
‘Hi, Dom,’ one of the cardplayers said.
‘Afternoon, Domaque,’ hailed a big woman from behind the counter.
‘Miss Alexander!’ Dom yelled. ‘This here is Easy, friend’a Raymond.’
‘Well...’ She smiled and showed us a mouth full of gold-rimmed teeth. ‘I’ve heard a lot about you, baby.’ She smiled again, turning her profile on us. ‘Raymond think the sun rise and set on you.’
‘But he still don’t come out till night,’ I said.
That big, colorful, woman let out a laugh so loud that it almost knocked me over. She was wearing a bright white dress with giant blue flowers embroidered on it, a dress like the Mexicans wear to Carnival.
‘He said that you was all taciturn ‘cause you was sick but he didn’t say that you was funny too.’
She had large eyes that followed everything happening in the room. If somebody raised their voice at the card table she was taking it in. If someone walked in the door her eyes said hello to them but the whole time she was talking to me and Dom.
‘Raymond say he want you t’stay wit’ us a couple’a days,’ she said. ‘I got a room right out back that you can use, an’ on weekends we got entertainment. I mean we ain’t got nuthin’ t’compete wit’ Houston, Fifth Ward, but it’s nice.’
She put her hand on my forearm. ‘You can take some clothes from the rack while I clean what you got.’
‘Thank you.’
‘I hope you like it while you here.’
‘I ain’t too worried ‘bout that, ma’am. I been a little sick an’ I could use some sleep. But when I get better I’ma go get our car an’ head back down t’Houston whether Mouse come back or not.’
‘Oh, he be back fo’ then. Raymond ain’t gonna miss no free ride.’
‘I hope not. But either way I’ma be gone by day after tomorrah at the latest.’
‘Uh-huh, yeah.’ A woman had come in the door and Miss Alexander went over to talk with her. As she left she said to Dom, ‘Show Easy t’his room in the back, honey.’
‘Yes, ma’am,’ the hunchback said.
Dom showed me to a little shack behind the store. It was put together pretty well and there was no need for heat. It had a spring bed against the wall and a crate table in the middle of the floor. There was a big tin pitcher full of water in the corner and sheets and towels neatly folded on the bed. There was a stack of old newspapers next to the door.
‘I’ma leave you now, Easy. Momma want me t’come out to her place an’ see her guests, an’ Raymond might come by.’
‘You tell Mouse t’get his butt down here fo’ I leave him.’
‘He be here soon, Easy. But you know he gotta finish up business wit’ Reese first.’
I wondered how much Dom knew about the crazy violence Mouse had in his heart for daddyReese.
‘Can you read them papers, Dom?’
‘Oh, yeah, I already read mosta them. Not all of it, but what I could. Them is Sweet William’s papers.’
‘Who?’ .
‘Sweet William. That’s Miss Alexander’s entertainment. He’s a barber down in Jenkins but on the weekends he come up here t’play guitar an’ sing.’
‘He reads?’
‘Oh, yeah. William read the whole paper.’
‘Must be a lot in that.’
‘Uh-huh, Easy. Things you couldn’t even believe if you ain’t read ‘em yourself. It use t’be that William read t’us an’ I always say, “No!” like I didn’t believe what he said. I said, “No!” an’ that was it. But since I can read I know that a colored man runned a race in Europe an’ beat all the rest of the runners of the world. Yeah, an’ he was from America just like us. Uh-huh. You know Bunny Drinkwater say that the best thing we can do is run, but that’s just jealousy talkin’. Yeah. Readin’ is sumpin’.’
I wanted to ask him more but I was tired and a little shy of how ignorant I was. Being a young man I felt I should be able to do anything better than a hunchback, and the fact that I couldn’t rubbed me wrong.
After Dom left I laid down on the bed and thought about things again. It was the first chance I’d had to collect myself in a few days and I wanted to get my head straight.