“Who the hell is Halle Berry?” he asked.
“Never mind,” I said, after smacking my lips in disgust. Then I got curious and started acting straight-up indignant. “Have you ever heard of any famous African Americans? Martin Luther King Jr.? Malcolm X?”
He got cynical with me. “No, but I’ve heard of that colored boy out in California that sliced up his wife and her buddy.”
I rolled my eyes. “He never got convicted.”
He took a swig of his beer and said, “Just shut up and let me enjoy the show.” He must not have been able to resist being nosy because five seconds later, he was asking me, “What you doing in here anyway? You can’t be from around here.”
“What makes you think I ain’t from around here?” I responded in a countrified accent and pretended like I had chewing tobacco in my mouth.
“’Cause you ain’t,” he said. “The coloreds around here know better than to come in here.”
“The coloreds?” I chuckled. “Why’s that? I didn’t see any ‘For Whites Only’ signs on the front door.”
He sneered at me. “Some things don’t have to be said for people to know them.”
“I feel you. I mean, no one has to tell me that you’re a fat fuck for me to know it.”
His friend beside him, who was a complete contrast, and as skinny as the bar rail asked, “What did she just say to you?”
I responded by yelling over the music and horrible singing of the next contestant who was murdering another artist’s song. “I said, no one has to tell me that he’s a fat fuck for me to know it!” The scrawny one just stared at me like he was sizing me up. “You think you can take me? Jump, motherfucker, jump!”
“Leroy, let me handle this,” the fat fuck said, holding his palm up in front of the undernourished one’s face. “Missy, if I were a lesser man, I’d do something mighty ugly to you, but my daddy raised me better than to hit a woman. So I’m just gonna let this one slide.”
I laughed in his face and mocked him with my country accent. “Well, I sure do appreciate it.”
I was growing bored. The karaoke was giving me a headache and the drink was weak because most of the ice had melted. I was about to leave when they announced the next contestant.
“Umph, look at him!” I said aloud.
Fat Fuck turned to me and chuckled. “So you got a thing for white meat, huh? No wonder you’re up in here.” He nudged his friend’s shoulder. “Hey, Leroy, this one over here has that ‘jungle fever’ in her blood.”
“I have a thing for dick period,” I said bluntly.
“Boys have dicks. Real men have cocks,” he said.
I shook my head. “A cock is a chicken. A dick is a dick.”
“Well, since you put it like that, I happen to have a dick,” he said, licking his lips. “So does my buddy over here. How about you take the two of us on a little adventure tonight? I got a pickup right outside with a comfy bed on it.”
“Let me guess. Yours is the one that says ‘Redneck’s Toy’ on the back?”
“How’d you know that?”
I scowled. “Figures.”
“So how ’bout it?”
Fat Fuck was distracting me from the hunk on the stage who was the first decent contestant, both in looks and talent. He was singing “These Boots Were Made for Walking.”
“So how ’bout it, Missy?” he asked again.
“First off, you redneck fuck, your stomach is so big that I probably couldn’t even get to your dick and your friend’s so skinny that I’d probably need a magnifying glass to find his. I’m gonna have to pass.”
Leroy leaned in closer and asked, “What did she say?”
I yelled out at him, “Get a hearing aid, pencil dick!”
I stayed for another half-hour until the contest was over. Mr. Boots Were Made for Walking lost to the first whore, who must have been sucking major dick in the men’s room to win because the bitch straight-up couldn’t sing. I decided to be his consolation prize and followed him outside. He was the one driving the Monte Carlo.
“Excuse me, do you have the time?” I asked him when he was about to unlock his ride.
He lifted his wrist close to his face so he could make out the dial. “It’s two-thirty.”
“No, that’s not what I meant.” I climbed up on the hood of his car, spread my legs, and lifted my skirt to give him a good visual. His eyes almost came out of his head. “I want to know if you have the time to tap this ass.”
By three, we were parked side by side in the middle of a field and I was lying on his trunk with his dick inside me getting the much-needed release I craved after Jon’s fucking ass decided to come to Trinity in search of resolutions she would never find.
25
jonquinette
“How did you sleep last night?” Daddy asked me the next morning when I descended the stairs.
“Like a log,” I responded, since I didn’t remember much about it. All I knew was that I woke up and felt like I was still exhausted. Generally that only happened to me when I had slept too well.
He grinned. “Good. The country air at night does wonders.”
“Yes, it does. I kept my windows open.” I noticed the sun beaming through the panes of the front door and added, “Now the country heat during the day is another matter.”
We both laughed.
“I don’t have much to cook for breakfast. I could go into town and pick up something.”
I leaned on the banister. “Do they have a decent restaurant around here? I’d love to treat you and Flower to breakfast.”
“We don’t have any fancy restaurants, but we do have a pretty good diner.”
“Sounds good to me. Food is food, whether it’s served on china or a paper plate. Remember when you used to always tell Momma that?”
He nodded. “I’m amazed you remember.”
“I remember everything.”
He picked up a hairbrush off the entry table and brushed his hair back. Then he unplugged his cell phone and slipped it into his pocket.
“Flower just got out the bathtub and she’s getting dressed,” he said. “We should be ready to go in about fifteen or twenty minutes.”
“I’ll be waiting on the front porch. I’ve grown fond of that swing. I always wished we had one when I was a child.”
“Really?” He looked at me in bewilderment. “You never told me that.”
I cringed with my back to him as I went out the door. There was so much I had never told him.
“So Flower, what’s your favorite subject in school?” I asked her after we were seated and eating at The Golden Spoon; the first place I had seen fully integrated with all races since I’d hit town. Good food was good food. All of the waitresses were white but I knew who was in the kitchen.
Flower’s bright eyes looked up at me. “Hmm, I guess it would be math, but I’m not sure yet. I’m only in the first grade.”
She was seated beside me in the booth and I admired the great rush job I had done on her hair. “Yeah, well, you have plenty of time to decide,” I said, patting her on the shoulder.
“Thanks for doing my hair again.”
“You’re so very welcome.”
Daddy was quiet. I guess he was just enjoying his two children interacting with each other.
Flower said, “I like music.”
“Is that so? Do you play any instruments?” I asked.
“No, but I want to learn how to play the piano.”
“What a coincidence. I played the piano when I was a little girl.”
“You did?” she asked with disbelief, like she was the only child in America who had ever wanted to play it.
I thought back to how much I had enjoyed taking lessons from one of our neighbors, Mrs. Duncan, a couple of blocks over. Then Robert, the boy who lived next door to her, teased me something horrible one day and I never went back. My mother insisted that I continue, but I just couldn’t. My nerves were shot.