Long Division(39)

“Y’all came to get them titties, scown?” Gunn asked, like he was ready for nakedness. “The car right over here.”

We walked about 20 yards down the road and we were right next to the car. Gunn was looking funny, like he was laughing or something.

“What you laughing at, Gunn?” I asked him.

“You know I always be laughing, scown,” Gunn said. “Go ahead and get them Waveland titties.”

“Y’all ain’t coming with me?” I asked them.

“Naw, that’s your preacher car, scown,” Gunn said. “Plus, it ain’t no room for three people up in there.”

I went up to the car and looked around to make sure that no one was coming down the road then. “Close the door behind you, scown,” I heard Gunn say.

Soon as I got in, I saw a picture hanging out of the glove compartment. Shay didn’t tell me that there were pictures in the glove compartment. I figured that if what was under the seat was anything like what I saw in the glove compartment, we were in for the freakiest naked pictures we’d ever seen.

Dangling there was a shiny slick picture with a creased breast down the middle of it. I unfolded it and saw this whole dark breast that was full and hanging. The picture cut the woman off at the neck and the waist but the breast hung just right, midway down her stomach, and the dark part around the nipple—I didn’t really know what that part was called—was damn near bigger than my cheeks. It was the first time I’d seen just breasts cut off from a woman’s face and even though the breasts were nice, it was wack to just see breasts and no face. But that was the first time I realized that seeing breasts of any kind was like eating pancakes. Even the nastiest pancake in the world was always better than the best stack of toast you could imagine. Still, I hoped the woman who owned the breasts wanted her head cut off from the picture. If not, it was one of the meanest things I could imagine doing to someone.

“I see titties,” I yelled. “Waveland titties ain’t no joke.”

“Go ahead and bring them Waveland titties out then, scown,” Gunn yelled from way across the street. “Check the glove compartment and under all the seats too. Get all the titties you can.”

I reached under the seat to see if there were any other pictures under there. There were about five issues of King magazine.

“Shay,” I yelled and peeked over the dashboard. “Bring me your phone.”

“Oh. Shay said she gon’ be right back,” Gunn yelled from way across the street. “She gone! Go ahead and get all them titties, scown.”

“I told you I’m getting the titties, man. Damn,” I yelled back. “I don’t know why you faking like you love some titties anyway,” I said under my breath.

I was about to raise up when I heard a weird noise coming from the glove compartment. I hadn’t looked all the way in the compartment, but I hoped there would be at least ten more naked pictures up in there. I stretched out and pulled the compartment open with my right hand. All I saw was a map of Melahatchie. I pushed the map to the side to see what else was in there.

Wasps. Big wasps.

I jumped out the window of the passenger side of the car and the wasps stung me all upside the head.

Gunn was across the street just laughing his ass off, recording it on Shay’s cell phone.

I did it for y’all, I thought as I ran home. I did it all for y’all.





THAT WORK SHED.


When I made it home, Grandma wasn’t there. I was swelling from the stings, but I realized this was my chance to see if that white man was really in the work shed. Grandma kept the key to the shed on her key chain that was on the dresser under her old wigs. The key chain had a million keys on it. Plus, she had this heavy pocket blade connected to her keys. She never let me hold the blade, but you could tell from just looking at it that it could slice many necks if need be.

I took the knife and Grandma’s keys and slowly made my way out to the work shed. The shed was covered in off-white vinyl siding and, like Grandma’s house, it was raised off the ground by cinder blocks. There were two words written on the shed but they had been scratched out with a black marker. Every kid who ever saw the shed said it looked like the color of a second-grade writing tablet. You couldn’t tell how much of the off-whiteness was bought and how much of it came from just being dirty. There were no windows, just four baseball-sized holes in the back, way up at the top. Every Tuesday, from sunup to sundown, my granddaddy used to sweat up a storm in that shed. Tuesdays and Sundays were my granddaddy’s only off days. Tuesdays, he’d make tables, chairs, and cabinets out of wood. Sundays, he’d drink until he couldn’t see straight enough to use anything he’d made. Grandma took all the saws out of the shed when my granddaddy drowned, but she left all the sawdust, wood chips, and cinder blocks on the floor. I liked to mess around in there, knowing I was walking on the same sawdust my granddaddy walked on.

After my granddaddy drowned, Grandma put a deep freezer in the shed filled with ice cream and animal parts. On the walls were these wooden shelves stocked with jars of pickles, preserves, pigs’ feet, and just about anything else Grandma could think of to can. If you ever got hungry, there was always something in that shed to eat, and it was probably going to be something super country like pickled pigs’ feet or raccoon. Or ice cream sandwiches.