“Thinking on this got me through, got me out that shack before my big brothers laid a unclean hand on me, it pulled me to this here fine hill-top city. When I hitched up with my Silas and we had us a girl—it was only when the nigger midwife, all compliments, handed me this child in a blue blanket, when the baby looked right at me and I noticed how her eyes matched that very blue—was then I seen that oh, the Lord God of Hosts, Stitcher and Finisher of Our Faith, why He’d give me exactly what I’d asked for. All them nights of wishing on the stars that you could see, due to a lack of roof (nice when it didn’t rain), all them dawns that held up two example ladies in a far-off park—I’d been rewarded.
“So you got to understand how I’m feeling today, nearbout drunk on it. My girl: Virgin Mary herself, pick of the litter. Our Shirley, she’s the answer to a simple woman’s prayer. Shirley is my Amen, with a dust ruffle around it. So you mustn’t think me too set on this one joy I been given. I knew what I wanted and it came true, came true out of my own big body here.—Darling? I’m probably the happiest woman alive.”
A FEW minutes later, the preacher (knowing how crocked his sheep were but not willing to fess up to this and make them all feel guilty), he called us in to see the Holy Play. A few things did go wrong: The star lit up too soon and Bobo Kingston’s shepherd bathrobe fell open, him jaybird naked under it and too drunk to shut the thing by hand. Others, on the front row, helped. Then we found that our Virgin had gulped her own fair share of cider. Fact is, her mom had fetched extras for Shirl. That year the pageant used a real live baby (a little Buxton whose momma had been seen rolling amongst graves earlier). Halfway through the play, came time for Shirley’s speech. A long quiet fell. Even the nodders-off (it was hot in here) woke up for this part.
Shirl’s cheeks burned pink under her white tablecloth veil—she looked more perfect than the plaster manger scenes at Woolworth’s. But soon as she tried talking, she appeared way too looped to recollect a speech memorized with my help and her momma’s. So instead, seated up there in straw as fresh and yellow as her hair, she was—I could tell—going to just make stuff up. “Don’t, stay still,” I longed to holler whilst I chewed my knuckle. Poppa had said we might help Shirl move up in life. I feared that my adopted friend might spoil her reputation forever. I knew something about that.
She spoke finally—sweet if a wee bit fuddled-sounding—she faced her sentimental audience, whilst the little Buxton pretty much behaved hisself in her arms. Went:
“This my own baby boy. He’s new. Nobody’d even let me inside a house to have him. Why, I tore up my own good coat to wrap this poor naked thing in. I had him out here in the straw like a yard dog would. The stable was all I could think of, wasn’t it, Joseph? I said, ‘Well, let’s try the stable,’ and so here we are. Ooh, someday folks will look back and say, Boy, was that ever tacky, not letting them in! Why, we should’ve been ‘obsequious.’ Did we ever slip up! But for now, nobody knows us. One thing, at least the animals have acted real nice and seem interested and peaceful about our being out here. They certainly have warmed things up, too. You need that with a baby this young. It’s cozy enough for now. I want more for this child, though. We’re trying as best we can for our new boy. This,” she held up the living child as he tugged one golden curl from under Mary’s veil for all to see, “this baby here,” Shirl looked out at her audience (her momma, standing near the back door, holding a hairbrush in one hand, weeping, the other hand covering her mouth), “he feels just like my very own little baby. He does. True, we may be mighty poor. And college for him is out of the question. But, you know, I’d just die for this baby. We just love our pretty pink little Christ child almost to death.” Then, overcome, she really hugged him. Our Virgin Mary sat right there and cried and cried. Couldn’t nothing stop her.
The organist came in with a quick low carol to save the day. It almost seemed planned. Shirl’s talk had sounded lots more natural than the stiff words she’d forgot. It reminded you that the gal she played would’ve been this innocent, just a few years older and nearbout as upset. Well, everybody—pew to pew—felt so stirred. Even the twin angels (regular hellions) quit fidgeting with coat-hanger halos, stared out at their mother and daddy—holding hands on the front row. Every person present, drunk as skunks, swore this had been the church’s best play ever.
Yes, it’d embarrassed us when several Lutherans and Episcopalians stopped by earlier, buggies halted in the road before the church, and—for half a hour—watched our accidental shenanigans. They’d trotted off and blabbed it to the entire Christian world, seemed like. Next Sunday, our old choir director led the anthem with both his hands bandaged like a boxer’s and he acted forceful and showed off some, seemed pleased. Then our preacher got up and said it’d been inspirational how—with help from Christmas —everybody’d contrived to use their blighted accidental drunkenness to help them feel as deeply religious as possible.
And ever after, this year became well known. Being small-town people, we did a lot of labeling. This year of Shirl’s perfect local stardom went between the Time When the Tar River Almost Flooded and The Year the War Monument Fell Over One Night for No Good Reason. It was on the list with how Mrs. Tom Yount had a baby, got up and walked around four days, fell over, and—nobody was more surprised than Mrs. Tom Yount herself—had two more. Count them. Shirley’s was the year of the really good show. The year when the tiredest if nicest pageant of the church calendar broke through to something colorful and fresh for onct. I’ve told about the year we cried in church and really meant it. World without end, Amen.
FROM THAT Christmas to April, Shirley practically lived with us. Much as Momma railed against my friend in private, she always treated Shirl polite face to face. (That, if anything, made ladylikeness seem like something I might someday look into.) As spring rolled in, Ma put a silver bud vase on Shirl’s bedside table, kept it pretty with whatever bloomed around our yard. By this time, not one soul spoke to me at school excepting teachers who got paid to. Some mornings, just at dawn when light is glazed the colors of candy, I’d wake, roll over, look at a straight-backed chair—Shirl’s shift hung on the slatted back—sunlight getting through, making a spectacle and hobby of her underthings. I knew someday I would be old then dead and so would Shirley. If she went blind first, I could do more for her. I got tears in my eyes without knowing why.
Things changed when Momma enrolled me and Shirl (I wouldn’t go otherwise) in a Saturday china-painting class. We played hooky from daubing nasturtiums onto finger bowls. Instead, we frolicked in the hayloft of Shirl’s daddy’s livery establishment downtown. He kept white hens underfoot. Hens ate what oats horses spilled. Using eggs he found in straw, her poppa had earlier made us little omelettes (grits ones) on his office wood stove. Off we run, annoying chickens, tussling. We rolled everywheres, stuffing hay down each other’s socks, giggling so hard we got wheezy from fun. I’d been warned everywhichaway about going near horses. Poppa hated farm animals because they lived on farms. Momma called such beasts dangerous and seemed to feel that every horse was male. Whenever we passed one with its manhood lowered into resting position, she’d point out clouds, weather vanes. Rough-housing at the stable, Shirl and me were new to the age of twelve, that giddy minute before your grimmer changes set in with a vengeance. You play then with a rangy energy that lets you guess what waits for you ahead. We kept daring each other to roll across the very spot where the drifter’s corpse got found. We pretended we could smell a human body. Other than our own.
I overturned a bale of straw, we noticed—hunched in a dark corner—one small furred creature. It arched itself, then backed, sissing, against barn wall. It’d been feasting on a stray hen’s egg. White shell was gummed across a snout as black as patent leather. Now its nose gleamed glossy yellow with yolk. “Here, kitty.” Shirl knee-walked closer. Out she reached when the critter spun around. White stripe bristled into view. Up lashed this splendid tail. The thing went off like some alarm clock. We fell blinded into straw. We?
??d been coated in a stench so strong it ended breath and eyesight for some seconds.
Shirl’s dad heard our screams. He rattled up the ladder quick. He got his nose to our level then clattered halfway back down, “Ooo—eee!” We rolled around, hands mashing eyes, we gagged, flapped skirts, fanned our stinging features. “I’ve told you girls about teasing skunks,” he shouted. Honey, the man had never onct mentioned it.
Mr. Williams eased us (one under each arm) from the loft, lugged us into a dark tack room. He backed off, swearing through a hairy omelette-smudged hand. The door slammed on us. We stood near one old bathtub sometimes used as a watering trough, not hooked to pipes. Dark mildewed oats were heaped at one end. Along the far wall, harnesses and the wicked metal bits that hurt all horses into learning right from left.
Her daddy hollered we should clean out that tub, quit our blubbering. Off he cursed towards Lucas’ All-Round Store to seek a cure. He swore what a botherance girls are—like that skunk wouldn’t have squirted boys!
All over the stable, horses whinnied, kicking stalls, rankled by such a stink. Hens set up a coffee-klatch racket just outside the door. Shirl and me stood gasping, arms held out from sticky sides. We studied each other, we sniggered once, then really sobbed. “I look awful,” she cried, laughing while holding out one long curl’s stinky end. “Poor Momma!”
After a knock, her pop asked if we were decent. We didn’t know what he meant and never even answered. Through the cracked door, he handed us, a few cans at a time, one whole crate of tomato juice. Then in came his pocketknife, its opener yanked forth. “Empty every last tin into that tub, shuck off them nasty clothes, kick them out to me for burning. Then you climb in and scrub each other good. Soak till you’re nearbout shriveled from the acid in it. This here’s the onliest way you’ll ever get that evil stink off of you—hear me, rascals?”
First we thought he was joking, a tomato-juice bath? But when he stalked off, muttering, we finally started opening the two dozen cans. We weren’t too good at it. Knowing we had to climb into the grimy tub, we really set to cleaning it. We unfastened our Saturday wash dresses, we used those to scrub stained sides. Shirl sniffed, “It looked just like a kitten, Lucy. And I dearly love kittens and every single one so far has liked me back—till this. No fair.”
“Fair don’t average into it,” said I, smarter than I knew.
After half filling the tub with cold red juice, we kicked free of bloomers and—modest, every finger a fig leaf too narrow—wriggled in, complaining. Upstairs at my house, we undressed for bed without much thought. Today, in this musty dark storeroom, it felt different, we looked barer.
On a nearby saddle pommel, we found one ragged sponge. Full of jokes, we started scrubbing. Shirl claimed that nobody around town would even believe this. We picked which momma and teacher we’d tell first. We guessed what each person would say. Purse-mouth, Shirl imitated the haughty cool Episcopalian Emily Saiterwaite. This scrape with a wild animal would’ve killed her. But us? We’d lived. Baptists are just tougher.
Our only light got filtered through the transom’s dusty glass. Shirley’s dad had stationed a young groom outside to guard us. (Later, when I thought he might have peeked, I nearly perished of the shame.) Shirl settled with her back to me. She scooped every yellow curl atop her head, nodding forward whilst I scrubbed her tapered neck. I told her she should really wear her hair up like this full-time. I hinted she ought to, for a change, buy a plain white dress, not her usual strongish pastels.
“But Momma wouldn’t let me,” she said, simple. And I felt ashamed. Here we were, buck naked, and I was jabbering clothes advice, just like my own society-minded mother would. How strange it felt to be stripped, midday, downtown. Warming, the red juice started smelling summery, it welcomed us like we were our own lunch.
From Main Street close by, you could hear horse traffic clopping. Men talked Commerce and Women. Women talked Bargains, Children, and Disease. We overheard everybody. They could sniff skunk (some remarked on it) but they couldn’t spy two girls sloshing jaybird naked in this strange wet. Even seated, even from the rear, Shirl looked taller than me.
Happy, we grew stiller. Tomatoes’ acid seemed to peel the stink from us and cure a dome of air above our tub. Other smells came forward, shy. You got the nice fustiness of leather harnesses, salty saddles. From two dozen horses, a rankness, half between sharp urine and the sweetness of new straw. I thought I could smell Shirl, too: milk, sachet, melba toast, one housebound kitten too many. Horses still sneezed but were calming some. Even hens forgot to sound hysterical. And skunks eat chickens.
I washed her. I leaned forward. I whispered to her shoulders, “We’re having us a adventure.” I saw her head nod, “An adventure,” Shirl’s low voice added, “like we’re in our tree house. Only, instead of being windy and green, this is more … red and wet.”
“Yeah,” I said, idle. “Wet and red.” I kept thinking I’d forgot something, there was something I was supposed to do now. It concerned Shirl. Of that much, I felt sure. We sat, already sisters in the veins, coated now with outside red. From the waist up, from the back, Shirl still looked mostly angel white, gold, pink, sweet and blank as cake. But from the navel down—liquid could’ve hid most anything, fish scales, a sateen porky tail, raw mystery. Slow, so she wouldn’t spill any bath juice or scare me, Shirl sloshed around, faced my way. She looked determined now, taking up our nappy sponge, commencing to clean my front. She did it pretty hard, no nonsense. Every swipe tried proving this was just required—not much fun—only something that a poppa’d forced on us. But …
My chest knew better. Her long hands got to going over collarbones then scooted down along my many ribs. Shirl dragged coarse sponge across two tender points my front was just coming alive with. They perked: small lights, birthday candles. Shirl didn’t understand how these were definitely noticing, were getting used to their Aunt Shirley’s funny heavy touch. I closed my eyes. I leaned one to nine inches nearer. “You old stinker,” she said, mashing soggy sponge against my ear. Warm juice rushed, skittish, down my neck and front. “Someday,” she said. “The two of us will be sitting on the veranda looking out on a whole yardful of babies, Luce. I imagine our children will be ‘incorrigible’ darlings, and will have names like poetry and will be best friends.”
I smiled, shaky. “Where,” I couldn’t help but asking, “did the husbands get to?”
“The what? Oh, they’ve died by then. Maybe the next war got them. Wars are rough on husbands and ours were nice while they lasted. Now it’s just us. We got willed every cent. All I know is, it’s just us up on a fine porch, plus our yardful of babies. And, Luce? the babies get along.”
“Well, that’s good.”
Then her voice took on some growl. Said I knew, didn’t I, that we’d have to clean each other right, right? I understood, didn’t I?
Then like dreaming in broken English, a farm language, I stammered, “How clean does he wanted us?”
“Well, my momma always says, ‘There’s clean and clean.’ And I believe I am going to want you clean, girl.” I caught the sharp meaning-it tone Shirl used when she was about to win big at “I Am Chicken Little.”
Then she really went to work on me. When I opened either eye, Shirl had moved closer. She’d become Flo Nightingale set loose, after ten cups of coffee, on the whole filthy Crimean War. The war was losing. I heard a sound … it was me, not talking, not breathing—but somewheres on loan in between. I tried speaking but my tone shook. You couldn’t help but to notice (I, I couldn’t) how Shirl’s breasts (where else could you, a short person tubbed with her and facing the front parts, look?), though about as recent as my own, had seen fit to pout a little farther into air—more interested, less stay-at-home. Hers appeared achy—nipples pink as anything, the size of quarters—sad, but extra ladylike. Prim as cameos yet matter-of-fact as drawer-pulls.
Main Street still sounded money-mad, overtrafficked. Shirl’s knees were up so we could both fit in here, so were mi
ne, my knees up, too. We were real close. Just a courtesy, I scrubbed. I got excellent at it. Lucas’ store’s cash register pinged its toylike give-and-take. I loved our town so. Scrub scrub.
Happiness flustered me some. I dropped our sponge. Under the dark juice it sank. Then I had to pat around down there, hunting, fishing. Blind luck, I groped.
By accident, my best friend’s right thigh got touched. By this. By my hand. She didn’t flinch. I did. I pulled back, but Shirl, sleepy-looking, reached under the rich liquid we sat basted in. She lifted my hand, wet with red, Shirl kissed my palm, hoisted the sponge herself. I couldn’t help but notice how her rosy nipples had now closed past nickel size, got down beyond pennies and on towards tightening to perfect dimes. Sponge: four pounds of dripping black wet.