The Dry Grass of August(30)

His question surprised me as much as my answer. “My daddy whipped me.”

“How come?”

“I read Stell’s diary to her boyfriend.”

“What’s a diary?”

“A book where she writes her private thoughts. It was a terrible thing to do.”

“Ain’t like you broke a commandment.”

I laughed. Leesum was saying what I did wasn’t all that bad.

“What’s so funny?”

“Just nothing. Is Leesum your nickname?”

He dove under. I felt him brush by my feet and he came up on the other side of me, blowing like a whale. “My mama gave me that name. She say I was the nearest thing to heaven so she call me Leesum, get it?”

“No.”

“Leesum Fields. Another name for heaven. Paradise. Sumpin like ’at.”

“You told Mary your mama was a hoe.”

His face got hard. “What of it?”

“I—well—it doesn’t make sense. A hoe is a garden tool.”

“We been in different places, Miss June—Jubie. I been right here on earth and you been on the moon.” He dove underwater again and was gone for quite a while, long enough for me to get worried. He surfaced fifteen or twenty yards away, kicking his feet and blowing spray into the air. He swam hard using several different strokes before he turned a wide circle and swam back to me in a strong, rhythmic butterfly with a double-dolphin kick. His muscular shoulders gleamed in the sunlight. When he got to me, he was breathing hard.

“Where in the world did you learn the fly?”

“Boy where I worked at Rozzelle’s Ferry House . . . he were a student at J. C. Smith . . . the college . . . he showed me.” He caught his breath. “Say I were a natural.” I put out my hand to touch his oddly dry-looking hair. He jerked back.

“I wanted to see if your hair was as dry as it looks.”

“Course it ain’t dry. It just don’t slick down the way yours do.”

“May I feel it, please?”

“Yeah, since you ax me so nice.”

It was wet and soft. I’d thought it would be wiry, like a Brillo pad. “So what’s a hoe?”

“You know what a prostitute is?”

I felt a tingle of shock. “A whore. So your mama—” I couldn’t finish the sentence.

He shrugged. “I was born when she was seventeen, and she ain’t but thirty-two now. She has took care me best she could; wouldn’t never put me in a orphanage.”

“And the tea and coke?”

“Marijuana and cocaine. You ever done ’em?”

“No.” I shook my head. “No, no, no-no-no-no, NO!”

“And what would your daddy do if he found you smokin’ tea and sniffin’ coke?”

“He’d kill me!”

“He the one bad.” He went under again and came up a few feet away.

I heard Davie and saw him playing in the surf with Mary, who was dunking him up and down in the shallow water. Every time a wave came in, they whooped and jumped over it. She had kicked her shoes off. Her uniform was wet halfway up her thighs.

“Hey, Jubie girl!” she said when I got to them. “We gone make us a sand castle.” She looked past me. “You and the boy been swimming.”

I glanced over my shoulder. Leesum was walking toward us in the shallow water.

“We came out early.”

“Uh-huh. Don’t reckon nobody else would’ve gone with him.”

Davie grabbed Mary’s hand. “Mary! Shell.”

Leesum and I started gathering shells. We all got outside of Uncle Taylor’s beach. Mary was at the edge of the water, bent over and digging at the wet sand with her hands when Mrs. Willingham walked up. “Be careful, Mary. This is a white beach, you know.”

Mary straightened and left the water. “Yes, ma’am.” She looked up and down the beach. There was no one else out.

“Not that I mind,” said Mrs. Willingham, “not one bit. But others’d get mighty upset if they were to see you or that boy.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“And he needs to get some clothes on. Almost naked.” She looked at Leesum like he was a bug she wanted to step on.

“I’ll tell him.”

“I understand Taylor’s sending him home today.”

Mary looked at me. “We making arrangements, yes, ma’am.”

“Well, that’s good.” Mrs. Willingham smiled her fake smile. “The law’s the law. We’ve had troubles here with folks forgetting who they are, so it’s better if we just keep things separate.” She looked at the shell in Mary’s hand. “Now that’s real pretty.”

“For the castle.” Mary put her shoes on. I didn’t see her outside the fences for the rest of the week, and not once again did she take her shoes off.





CHAPTER 12

Uncle Taylor and Mama were talking about Leesum as I came up from the cabana.

“He can’t stay here, Taylor.”

“I know, but I want to help him.”

“How? Adopt him?” Mama’s lighter snapped open, clinked shut. “Mary’s going to call her pastor—preacher, whatever he is. It’s all arranged.”