He’d gotten rid of his truck. Somehow his tastes had changed.
At home he took a bath and had a couple of sandwiches then he decided to head over to Stubby’s to unwind. He turned the radio where it was set to a classic R&B channel and grooved to Marvin Gaye’s What’s Going On.
The bootleg joint had the same old crowd that was always there each night and they made room for Bodie. Laura came over to stand beside him. He hid a grimace when she tried picking up on him.
To her credit she was what all the good ol’ boys wanted, but Bodie’s flavor had changed.
Over the months, all he could seem to think about were full brown breasts and a certain someone’s succulent lips. None of the girls that had ever interested him before could do so much as to cause him to raise an eyebrow anymore.
Weeks after Shaun’s unceremonious departure from the mountain a half angry Bodie had gone down to Richmond and bought a porno; Black chicks that love white dicks. He watched it until his balls were chaffed. A month later he had charged into the Sherriff’s office and demanded that Lloyd run Shaun’s plates to find out where she lived. He’d sat on the information that came back for another month before he finally tried contacting her.
He wrote a letter and it was the first time that he had ever told any woman that he dreamed of her constantly…
The letter was returned; Undeliverable. No forwarding address found. Yeah, maybe that was a good thing. You don’t write in a letter that you were scared…You don’t admit to a sheet of paper that you had fucked up because it had been so long since you had felt anything…
“Bodie?” Laura called. “Earth to Bodie?”
“Huh?” He looked at the pretty redhead with the striking green eyes that generally captivated any man that she set them on. “I’m sorry. My mind must have wandered.”
She gave him an incredulous look. “Most men don’t say that when I’m around.”
He didn’t have a polite come back to that so he just stayed quiet and after a moment Laura stormed away. Bodie ordered another beer and contemplated the nature of his life on this mountain.
“Well will you look at that…”Merle said from his place behind the bar. JD turned in his stool to look at what had Merle so dumbfounded.
“Fuck me with a stick.” JD said in shock. Then he looked at Bodie. As a matter of fact everyone in the bar was looking at Bodie. Bodie pulled himself out of his reverie at the sudden quiet, he turned and looked over his shoulder at the entrance to the bar.
Standing in the doorway was a very pretty, petite black woman with a very large, very pregnant belly.
Bodie’s jaw dropped.
“Bodie, you better go see about your business.” Merle chuckled. And then everyone was good-naturedly razing him.
Of course everybody on the mountain had heard about the two of them tooling around town together and when Bodie’s temper soured they had all speculated on the reason--had even made jokes at his expense, which soured him even more. But now the focus of that speculation was standing right there in the doorway of a redneck joint, in exactly the spot she had stood over eight months ago.
The petite black woman placed her hands on top of the swell of her belly and sighed as she stared pointedly at Bodie. He scrambled to stand on legs that were now as shaky as Jello. He thought he was going to hit the floor with his first step but somehow he was standing before her.
Her eyes narrowed. “Bodie…whatever your last name is, I just want to know whether or not you’re going to take care of your responsibilities.”
A few people hooted and he shot them a look filled with fire, which quieted the room again.
“Shaun…you’re…” he gestured to her belly.
“Having a baby,” she completed his sentence.
“How many months—oh…I guess I should know that right? It is-?”
“Yours? Yes,” she concluded for him.
He felt faint. “Okay.” With hands that shook slightly he helped her inside and got her seated at a table far away from his friends at the bar. Once they were seated he didn’t remove his hand from hers and the stern look on her face suddenly shattered and her eyes softened as she gripped his big hand.
“Oh Bodie, I’m so sorry! I was really scared,” she said rapidly, not caring about the audience that watched in rapt interest. “I wanted to come so many times-“
“Shaun-“
“I know that being scared was no reason to act the way I did but I’ll do whatever it takes to make it up to you-”
“Shaun.” She quieted and looked at him with teary eyes. “I missed you so damn much. I tried to find you. I sent you letters and they all came back undeliverable-”
She quickly perked. “That’s because Craig and I found a bigger place because of the baby. You…tried to find me, Bodie?”
“Yes.” He took her other hand and leaned in close to her, staring deeply into her dark eyes. “Shaun I wanted to tell you how sorry I was that I didn’t wake up that morning and take you in my arms and tell you how wonderful I thought you were-”
“Bodie,” she whispered as she stared deep into his hazel eyes.
“I wanted to but I didn’t,” he continued, “and it wasn’t because you’re black…I thought later that you might think that, but that wasn’t it. It was just because I’ve been by myself for so long and I truly don’t know how…how to be with you.”
“Oh Bodie! I’m sorry. Every single night since I’ve left I am haunted by how horrible I was. I was scared and I…I was just lashing out!”
“I am so sorry I let you go off like that alone. I knew you were scared, honey. I should have never let you go like that-”
“I was a bitch to you-”
He gave her a stern look. “Hey, don’t call my baby’s mama a bitch. She is a remarkably brave woman.” His frown deepened. “Who makes some crazy decisions—like driving up in these mountains after dark.” He shuddered at the thought of her navigating some of the dangerous turns and sudden drop-offs on those dark winding roads.
She smiled. “One thing about your baby’s mama is that she is very impulsive. Sometimes she will get a crazy idea in her head and nothing can change her mind.”
“What crazy idea did she get in her head this time?”
“That Chicago isn’t the best place to raise a baby.”
His heart was beating like crazy but his frown deepened. “There ain’t no place to raise my baby but right here on Cobb Hill with his daddy and Mama.”
She looked down, smile broadening. “Her.”
“Huh?” he asked.
“We having a baby girl.”
Bodie sputtered and then stood up. “I’m having a baby girl!” he yelled at the top of his lungs. Most everyone laughed and those who didn’t shook their head in secret envy.
People came up to congratulate them. JD suddenly appeared, all smiles.
“I’m Jimmy Dean Jones, ma’am. JD to my friends.” He reached out offering his hand to her and Bodie struck like a snake and gripped his wrist before it could approach his family.
JD gave him a surprised look and then he looked down in shame. But then he felt a small warm hand in his palm. He looked up and Shaun was shaking his hand. Bodie released his grip but he stood by tensely.
“Pleasure to meet you Jimmy Dean-”
He met Bodie’s eyes. “I told you, JD to my friends. I’d be mighty obliged if you call me JD.” He looked back at the pretty black woman and gave her a sincere smile.
“JD it is,” she said, returning it.
She placed her hand on Bodie’s arm. “Honey, lighten up. If we’re going to live up on this mountain together than I’m going to have to get to know these folks.
Bodie’s smile returned as he gazed upon the woman that had his entire future wrapped up inside of her. Then he looked up and addressed the room.
“Alright you rednecks!” he yelled above the sound of the continued congratulations, good-natured ribbing and the juke box that was blasting the usual country and west
ern tune. It wasn’t hard to get everyone’s attention since he would remain the center of attention for some time to come. “I wanna tell y’all something. This here little lady is Shaundea. She’s my baby’s mama. Y’all going to be seeing a lot of her and my daughter…well when she’s born.” The sounds of laughter filled Stubby’s bootleg joint and could be heard for miles up and down Cobb Hill. “Well anyway, that’s all I got to say other than; next round is on me!”
(Untitled)
(Untitled)
~Epilogue~
Derrick sat on the ground beside his brother’s grave. He had spent the night drinking and his head throbbed; though not just because of the cheap wine, which was all that he could afford these days. He looked down at the brass grave marker that the cemetery used to mark the graves of those whose family had no money or didn’t care enough to purchase a gravestone. The guilt caused him to quickly look away. He wished he had the bottle now but even he knew that it was wrong to get trashed on church property.
He had never visited the cemetery in the year since Keegan’s death. If he came here than he would no longer be able to walk around in a fog of denial. Here he could not pretend that Keegan was ripping and running around town somewhere. Here he had to face that his brother had been placed in the ground and the bitter truth as to who was at fault.
It haunted him that the world continued to move forward without Keegan. Sully had taken a plea deal and had avoided getting gassed. Now he was cooling his heels in prison with three hots and a cot. Bodie had married the black girl and he sported her and that baby around town as if…Derek laughed bitterly. Bodie walked around town as if he was actually happy.
He blinked and then looked out into the distance, deep in thought. Today was Sunday and tomorrow would be the fourth of July and that is why he had finally come. The fourth of July reminded him of how much Keegan had loved the fireworks when he was a kid. He would ask Derrick to light his sparklers because his chubby little fingers were too small to work the lighter. Of course it was Derrick that had eventually taught him how to flick the bulb on the disposable lighter. And then years later it would be Derrick that showed him how to inhale the smoke from his first cigarette.
Derrick buried his hands in his hair as he remembered how Keegan would look up at him with wide, worshipping eyes, curious about everything that his older brother did. And most of what Derrick did was nothing worth sharing with a kid that looked up at him like that. And yet Derrick had done just that.
He was responsible for giving his little brother his first drink and within just a few short years Keegan couldn’t go more than a few hours without downing at least a six-pack. Derrick took pills and so of course Keegan did as well. And soon his brother was scraping up cash any way that he could in order to give his last dollar to a pill pusher.
Derrick’s stomach crumbled. Sully had pulled the trigger that ended his brother’s life but Derrick knew that it was he that had killed Keegan. His little brother had emulated him. They had hung out with the lowlifes and acted as bad as possible, donning hoods and thinking they were hotshots when they marched defiantly down Main Street screaming about the pureness of their race.
But in reality, there weren’t many of them fools that he would want to sit down with sober. They were stupid and ornery and just wanted to find some way to cause more misery in someone else’s lives than they had in their own.
He’d figured that out a long time ago. It didn’t take a rocket scientist to see what a bunch of losers they were. But he just continued playing his role as a bad-ass redneck to people who could care less. And then Sully killed his brother over some pills that he hadn’t paid for and he had to face a truth that he had tried very hard to deny; that he and his own kind had done more harm to themselves and to their own loved ones than any black, Mexican, gay or Jew.
Shortly after Keegan’s death he had looked around at the small piece of world that he had carved out for himself and it sickened him. For the first time in his life he could admit to wishing that he had even half the happiness that Bodie seemed to have with his wife and that little baby girl. He would give anything for just a taste of that happiness.
He looked at his brother’s grave in shame. “I’m sorry Keegan…” His brother’s bad choices as well as his untimely death lay squarely on his own shoulders and the guilt of it would be his eternal punishment.
Derek heard the rustle of footsteps approaching and he quickly swiped away at the tears that burned his eyes.
“Derrick?”
He frowned at the girl standing there in cowboy boots and an old, worn but freshly pressed dress. She didn’t back down at the unwelcoming look he bore. He finally recognized her. It was one of Benny’s brood. Benny had been a bit older and once upon a time Derrick had thought he was pretty bad-ass. Benny had shacked up with a woman that had a shitload of kids and he remembered this one because she used to always be around the Jameson boy; the one with the horribly deformed face like it was split in half and then sewn up by a doctor high on meth. Chris was his name. Chris Jameson. Derrick had been friends with his brother Walt before he had died in a drunken accident.
Same thing had happened to Benny a few years later, which in his case might not have been a terribly bad thing. Benny was a mean drunk who enjoyed his role in the Klan more than most. Always wanting to do shit when everyone else was good with just talking shit.
Derrick squinted at the girl. Well she wasn’t a girl anymore; she was a woman that looked to be in her twenties. She’d grown up to be a pretty little thing, but he averted his eyes because thinking like that didn’t seem right when he remembered her with Band-Aids on her knees and pigtails in her hair.
“We’re fixin’ to sit down and eat.” She gestured back at the little whitewashed church. There were two churches up on the mountain; the red church was called such because it was made of bricks and then this white one, which was the most popular for the old timers that still resided on Cobb Hill.
“I saw you sitting out here. You been out here a while. Um...I’m Debbie. Debbie Roberts.”
He nodded. “I remember you.”
Debbie glanced down at the marker that represented Keegan’s final resting place. “Me and Keegan went to school together,” she said in a soft voice. “He was about the only person that didn’t make fun of me for how poor I was. I knew it was because he was even more poor than me.”
Derrick grunted. “I know your Daddy didn’t do much for y’all.” How could he when he spent all his disability money drinking up in the bar with them?
Debbie suddenly stiffened and he gave her a curious look.
“Benny wasn’t my daddy.” He stared into her eyes and saw something there that hinted at a story that he didn’t even want to guess at. It caused a cold chill to run down his back. Yeah, Benny had died in a fiery crash and maybe that was a very good thing…He looked down at his hands.
“We got plenty of food if you want to come up.” When she waited for his response he nodded. He hadn’t eaten in days. He stood and then looked down at his soiled clothes that smelled as if he hadn’t bathed in a month of Tuesdays.
“Don’t worry. Pastor and First Lady don’t care about that.” She held out her hand to him and the sight of her pretty clean hand caused something inside of him to come to a skidding halt. His throat closed and he felt too ashamed of all of his sins to step foot into a church or to touch her clean hand.
She reached out and slowly took hold of his. He wanted to say, Wait. I’m going to make you dirty. But…what if there was something that could make him clean? He allowed her to lead him to the church and it was so white and clean, and as he stepped through the doorway he realized that he didn’t want to be dirty anymore.