When Bill had placed the round in the roasting pan, Mary noticed he’d spilled meat blood on his shirt. They’d been through this before, how spilling blood on yourself was a bad omen in her eyes, so she insisted upon Bill’s changing the shirt. That was the second thing she told him.
“You roll a joint?” she asked.
“No,” Bill said.
“You need to change that shirt. Roll one while you’re down there.”
“You okay?” Bill asked.
“Fuck it,” Mary said.
Bill was taken aback. Mary never used such language. Mary scolded him and Henry Lee for using it, and that was all the time. He looked at her. He thought, and he thought it was a crazy thought, that she was about to cry.
“I’ll roll one soon as I get a coffee. You want one?”
“No,” Mary said. “And stay away from that bimbo over there.”
Bill drew himself a coffee and headed directly downstairs. The only thing he said to Bea was to play him 854 in the numbers. Then he said to play 749 for Mary and not to tell her because he would pay for her.
Bea just nodded as she scratched her breast through the open dress.
Downstairs, Mary didn’t even bother to go into the deep freeze. She sat on the counter like she always did and lit up there.
“What about Tommy?” Bill asked.
“Yeah, what about him?”
“You need anything from the storeroom?”
“Yeah,” Mary said. “You on your knees.”
“Damn it, Mary, you’re scaring me.”
“My kid,” Mary said. “Eddie. He gonna be seventeen soon and he giving me crap ‘bout you. Called you a cracker and told me stay away from Mr. Charlie.”
“Jesus Christ,” Bill said.
“Lord have mercy,” Mary said.
Bill took a couple of hits on the joint but he left Mary to smoke most of it. When she was done, when they’d walked into the hall, Bill asked her if she wanted a drink. Mary nodded and so they walked back inside the meat room. It reeked from the weed and Bill prayed Tommy was busy upstairs.
He watched Mary take a long drink then looked into her eyes which were now glazed over. She was messed up. He’d never seen her like this before though she had seen him messed up lots of times.
“You know I could do the cooking today if you want and you can chill out.”
“Don’t patronize me,” Mary said. “Eddie’s right you know. I should stay away from “the man.”
“Get out of here,” Bill said. “ Don’t start that crap with me.”
“I’ll do whatever the hell I want,” Mary said.
She led Bill into the storeroom and bolted the door from the inside. “Here’s my list,” she said throwing it at Bill as she plopped herself onto a three-case-high stack of canned tomatoes. “You get the shit.”
While Bill started gathering things, Mary reached up her dress and took down her underwear. She left it around her ankles and swung her legs as she always did. Bill laid out the stuff, a bag of onions, a bag of potatoes (not for baking), meat base, chicken base, a sac of rice, three number ten cans of green beans, a jar of oregano, three big heads of garlic, a bag of sugar, a box of salt, a bottle of vinegar and more. Bill put what he could into an empty box and lined up the rest by the box. Finished, and only then, did he turn to Mary. He’d wanted to turn sooner. He’d wanted to say something to her. He’d decided to simply leave it and her alone.
The first thing he saw was her drawers down by her ankles. The next thing he saw was her face, an expression on it he’d never seen before, one he could not read. Hurt? Angst? Desire? Anger? Fear? He didn’t know and couldn’t decide.
“Mary…,” he started to say, but she reached and put a finger to his lips.
“Get on your knees,” she said, “and don’t say anything, white boy.”
Upcoming:
The Ghost Writer, Rose’s Story: A Look At The Worlds We Hide
