Mama told Betty Ann not to listen to Grandmaw’s trash, said she wasn’t right in the head. And maybe that was so, but every night after, Betty Ann ran back in, safe inside before the night caught her, caught her right between the light and dark, fled to the good smell of cornbread and jelly, to the oilcloth mustard-yellow bright, to the table set with cold ham and beans, the cloth still sticky from the noon summer meal. The kerosene lamp warmed her soul, and her mother brought cool cream butter in a bowl and said, “Time you came in, Betty Ann, it’s getting dark again…”
In spite of the prickly sullen heat, Betty Ann, John-William’s mother, feels a chill. She knows what’s happened. She’s waited just a beat, just a breath too long and the dark has caught her there, standing outside her kitchen door. Caught her as the night swept in and drew its cape across the yard and the trees and the house next door, and nearly got Betty Ann, John-William’s mother, too. John-William’s mother doesn’t even look back. Looking back’s like Grandmaw said, when you saw, from the corner of your eye, things that were missing, things that had been there just a blink before.
Betty Ann, John-William’s mother, moves quickly inside, shuts the screen door, snaps the latch, stops, pauses just a minute, listens, almost certain she can hear that great stone clock beat down-down-down, deep in the earth and far away.
Betty Ann checks the meatloaf and the carrots, pulls an Old Gold from the pack on the counter, leans in, and lights it from the stove.
John-William’s mother, Jack’s wife, Betty Ann, gets a jelly glass of water, reaches past the Sunbeam mixer and flips on the Philco radio, watches the dial begin to glow, settles in a breakfast room chair. Old familiar voices make her smile. The Kingfish tries to talk Andy into some fool scheme. Betty Ann knows exactly what’ll happen next. Andy falls for it, like Andy always does. Amos has to come in and straighten the whole mess out.
Lord, they were funny. Better than Benny or Fred Allen, either one. Jack wouldn’t listen, wouldn’t stay in the room if they were on. Said they weren’t even coloreds on the show, said niggers weren’t like that at all. Said they stole stuff fast as you could blink, didn’t matter what it was.
The very next time Betty Ann looks up, the dark has creeped in from outside, hid the catsup and the flour in shadow. All she can see is the dim blue flame below the pot.
If I had any sense, thinks Betty Ann, I’d’ve opened a can of tuna fish instead of heating up the kitchen on a hot summer night. John-William didn’t care, long as there were cookies or pies or something sweet in the house.
John-William’s mother thinks he ought to be home right now. She doesn’t like him out at night, but boys didn’t know about the dark, didn’t know what happens out there when the sun goes down and the day hides out of sight.
Amos ’n’ Andy were gone. The radio plays a song she likes a lot.
She and Jack used to hear it all the time when they’d take his daddy’s big LaSalle out and park. That was when they first began to date, before they even thought about getting married or anything else besides parking, feeling up, and having fun. And even after that, sometimes, before Jack pumped her up like a tub with John-William inside, they’d hear that song and everything would be fine. Betty Ann’s father didn’t trust Jack at all. He knew what they were doing in the back of that LaSalle. Jack didn’t wear overalls, wore a Searsucker suit and a snappy bow tie. He came from Paul’s Valley, which didn’t say much, even for an Oklahoma town. Still, like Betty Ann’s mother Sarah said, anyone don’t have shit on his shoes is worth looking at twice. Well that was a lie, considering Mr. Searsucker suit didn’t hang around all that long after John-William’s mother, Betty Ann, brought two more babies in the world who curled up and died.
John-William’s mother walks from one shadow room to the next. The furniture is dim, like chairs and tables and beds all covered in a ghosty kind of light, the pale green glow like the fireflies John-William’s mother used to capture in a jar.
It was the first brick house she’d ever lived in in her life. The first time she’d lived in town except once. Betty Ann and her mother had moved to Atoka from the farm when Mama Steck took sick and they had to live there till she died. When it happened, Betty Ann was right there, Betty Ann saw it, watched the night come until the room was inky black, watched while it hovered over Mama Steck a while, then plunged down into that dry and withered mouth and sucked her life away. Betty Ann peed her britches right then, and never, ever, told Mother what she saw.
Jack’s wife, John-William’s mother, walks through the dark, walks from one room to the next. To the living room, the big bedroom where she sleeps alone now, through the bathroom and John-William’s room, even in the closets, out through the doorway that leads to the shed that sags against the house. Light from a half-moon slants through the holes that Jack never fixed. Truth to tell, Jack never fixed shit, never put a nail in a wall, never fixed a leak.
Lord, what a mess, thinks John-William’s mother, Betty Ann. It’s like your whole life’s stacked up in there, gathering dust, soaking up time, hours used up and tossed away, moments dead and gone, rusted and frozen where they lay. Jack’s hammers and his nails and his saws and his files and his broken axe, waiting to finish some goddamn thing he never even started at all. John-William’s bike, broken and twisted, one wheel missing and one wheel bent. Wasn’t anyone going to fix it. Why in heaven’s name was she hanging onto that?
Just too much to bother about, thinks John-William’s mother, and not enough time, not any time at all….
Betty Ann, John-William’s mother, perches on the edge of the tub and turns on the hot water tap. John-William’s clothes are wadded in a pile. He’d ridden out for crawdads with bacon on a string, down by the creek behind the park. He’d gotten all soaked, peeled everything off, left it on the floor. John-William’s mother gave him a proper scolding, the boy knew better than that. She’d scrubbed him good, tossed socks and underpants into the bin. Picked up his shirt and shook her head. His brand new Ferdinand the Bull shirt and already ruined for good.
In John-William’s pockets she found a Krazy Kat button and a string from a top, a cap from a Nehi Orange and a broken lead soldier with his legs cut off above the knees. When Betty Ann was fifteen, she stayed with her cousin Helen for a while. One night they drove into Lawton for a picture show and ice cream. Helen took her daddy’s new Packard. They were supposed to be back before dark. They told Helen’s daddy they had a flat. What happened was they met two soldiers in town from Fort Sill. The soldiers were both nineteen. They had a pint of gin and a carton of Wings cigarettes. Helen made Betty Ann drive while she and the best-looking boy sat and giggled in the back. Betty Ann knew they were doing more than that.
Betty Ann and the other soldier spread a blanket on the grass. Helen and her friend never left the back seat. Betty Ann couldn’t stand the taste of gin. She drank a little all the same and smoked a lot of cigarettes. She let the boy kiss her, and he kissed real fine. After a while she let him reach in and touch her breasts. Just on the tops and not any lower than that. She hadn’t meant to but the boy was real nice and he came from out of state. He said he’d like to see her naked. Betty Ann said absolutely not. They kissed a lot more. Betty Ann was flattered he was getting so hot. The cigarettes made her too dizzy to stop. She let him get on top and rub against her through his clothes. His hardness touched her once and that was that. The boy made a noise and walked off in the grass for some time. On the way home, when they’d let the soldiers off, Helen made Betty Ann tell her everything that happened in the grass. Then Helen told Betty Ann things she hadn’t even thought about before.