Deacon King Kong(93)

“Is you happy now? Where you live now, Hettie? Is you happy there?”

“Oh, stop whimpering like a dog and be a man.”

“You ain’t got to insult me. I know who I am.”

“Just ’cause you dragged Deems outta the water don’t mean nothing. He was led to ruination by them that raised him, not you.”

“I ain’t frettin’ about him. I’m worried about that Christmas Club money. The church wants their money. I can’t pay them back. I ain’t got nothing to live on myself.”

“There you go again. Blaming somebody else for your troubles. The police wouldn’t be circling around the church now if you hadn’t got drunk!”

“It wasn’t my fault Deems started selling poison!”

“At least he ain’t destroying hisself by drinking hisself to death!”

“G’wan, woman! Leave me be. G’wan. Get along now!”

“I can’t,” she said softly. “I’d like to. That’s the thing. You got to let me.”

“Tell me how.”

“I don’t know how. I ain’t that smart. All’s I know is, you got to be right. To let me go, you got to be right.”



* * *





A half hour later, Rufus walked into the room carrying a bologna sandwich, a can of Coke, and two aspirins. He found Sportcoat sitting up on the battered basement couch, the quart of King Kong moonshine in his lap.

“You ought to eat some food before you hit that Kong, Sport.”

Sportcoat glanced at him, looked down at the quart bottle, then back at Rufus.

“I ain’t hungry.”

“Eat some, Sport. You’ll feel better. You can’t lay around and talk to yourself like you is two-headed for the rest of your life. Never seen a man lay on a couch and go back and forth like you done. You drunk already?”

“Rufus, can I ask you something?” Sportcoat asked, ignoring the question.

“Surely.”

“Back home, where did your folks live?”

“Back home in Possum Point?”

“Yeah.”

“We lived where you lived. Down the road.”

“And what did your people do?”

“Worked shares. Same as yours. Working for the Calder family.”

“And Hettie’s people?”

“Well, you know more than me.”

“I can’t remember.”

“Well, they was working shares with the Calders, too, for a while. Then Hettie’s daddy moved off from working shares and he bought that little piece of land back there near Thomson Creek. Hettie’s family was forward-thinking folks.”

“Are they still living?”

“I don’t know, Sport. She was your wife. You wasn’t in touch with them?”

“Not after we moved up here. They never liked me much.”

“They’re long gone, Sport. Forget ’em. Hettie was the youngest, to my recollection. The parents died out long ago. Most of the rest likely left out Possum Point. Gone to Chicago or Detroit maybe. They didn’t come here, I know that. Hettie might have some kin left down there someplace. Some cousins, maybe.”

Sportcoat sat in silence a moment. Finally he said, “I miss the old country.”

“Me too, Sport. You wanna eat? You don’t want that Kong in your tummy without no food.”

Sportcoat unscrewed the top of the quart bottle of liquor, raised it, then paused, the bottle poised in the air, and asked, “Tell me, Rufus. When you come up here, how old was you?”

“What’s this, Sport? Sixty-four questions? I was forty-six.”

“I was fifty-one,” Sportcoat said thoughtfully.

“I come up three years before you,” Rufus said. “In fact, I was the third member of Five Ends to come up here from down south. The first was my brother Irving. Then Sister Paul, her daughter Edie, and her husband. Then me and my late wife, Clemy. Then Hettie come up. Sister Paul was already here when me and Clemy and Hettie come. You was last.”

“Lemme ask you. When y’all started building Five Ends, what did Hettie do?”

“Other than setting around pining for you? Well, she did day’s work for white folks during the week. On weekends, she dug out the church’s foundation. It was mostly me and Hettie and Edie, them two women at first. Sister Paul and her husband, they done a little. Sister Paul did. Reverend Chicksaw, her husband, he weren’t too fond of digging. Then the Eye-talian came with his men. And some other folks showed up later. Sister Gee’s folks. And the Cousins’ parents. But it was the Eye-talian that got it going good. After he come, that freed us up. That’s when Hettie made that big yard out behind the church that’s all weeds now. She wanted a big garden back there. She said you was gonna come up and fill it with all sorts of collards and yams and even some special kind of flower, something you can see in the dark, I forget what’s it called now . . .”

Sportcoat felt shame climb into his face. “Moonflowers,” he said.

“That’s right. Moonflowers. Course you didn’t come up for three years. And you was sick when you come up. Plus who got time to make a garden? You can’t grow nothing in New York.”

Rufus stood above Sportcoat, still holding the sandwich. “This thing’s gonna grow ears, Sport. You want it or not?”