Billy (8 page)

"Ah ain't be scared," Gumpy yells back.

2

Banes had its back-land folks, them folks that lived out pa
s
t th
e
waterland. Red Pa
s
ko lived out ther
e
on that Pasko land with his wife, Ginger, and his four bo
ys
and daughter. H
e
stayed out th
e
re most of th
e
time, work
e
d hi
s
own fi
e
lds, made his own way, except Saturdays. Come Saturdays, he come into town to get some store-bought goods and
s
om
e
good man-talk from other Banes men who liked to take their Saturdays with a little whiskey.

Banes men remembered Red Pasko from his young
e
r da
y
s
,
him taking off and joining the Army and fighting over there in France against them Germans in th
e
big war. He's b
ee
n walking with that limp ever since, never
s
aid how h
e
got it. He turned a little m
e
an after he come hom
e
, but still lik
ed
his whiskey and some good talk.

19

20 I Albert Fre11ch

Lori Pasko just tu rned fift een, but
sti ll
had her baby face with
it
s crystal-bl ue eyes.
She was
still
runn ing barefoot in the summer, and when
she
ra n, her long reddish hai r flung from her like a flame of fire. She was a tough little girl, had that mean
streak of
her daddy and the quick-talk ing way of her mother, which helped her get in them
schoolyard figh ts
of hers. At home she had her brothers, two
older
and two youn ger. David, the oldest,
was
the only one
could
still outrun her
,
catch her, hold her
down,
tickle and tease her; then, when he let her up, he knew he better run. Her daddy would take a stick to those
boys
in a minute, but, as mean as he
could get,
he never lay a hand on Lori.

Ginger Pasko could
yell
up a storm and keep them boys in line, could keep Lori
remi nded she
was a
girl
and
a
Pasko. Not too many other folks lived out
that way, which was
fine with the Paskos. The
Curra ns lived out there, but
they weren't nothing but Paskos too,
you could
tell they
were kin.
wit h that same red hair. Paskos didn't
bother
anybody
and
made it
clear that they didn't want to be
bothered
at
all.

Summertime, hot days, but there
was always a
little
shade
and
a
place where
secrets could be
told.
It
was Cousin
Jenny that Lori
would
tell her
secrets
to, talk about
da
y
s gone by.
days
coming,
things
they might
have to
sneak and do.
Then, sooner or later, J im my
Tignor
or
Nathan
Bradley's na me would pop up,
them boys at school
that
Lori would
not look at. Down
over
the hill
from tht> fields and far from the
house
i
s
where the big
fat oak sits,
that's
where secrets are told,
where boyfolks
and
mothers won't
be t1
y
ing
to
get
in thei r business.

Neither Lori or her
cousin
Jenny. who
wasn't
much differ ent
than
Lori and onl
y
a
year younger.
would
ever
'>Year
a
dress, u nless i t was
Sunday and
down
at the
Baptist
church

B I L L
y
I
21

and their mamas made them. They felt better in them boys' pants, especially them ones be fitting a little tight. The
y
could both sneak some words and use them too, words the
y
hear them boys using and some of them words their daddies might use when they were all red-faced and swaying with that Saturday-night liquor. Lori
c
ould sneak some of them store-bought cigarettes, them Lucky Strikes kind her dadd
y
would get.

"
What's wrong with you?" Jenny throw
s
her head back to get the hair out of her eyes and then ask Lori again, "What
'
s wrong with you? You ain't said nothin since you
c
ome out. What
'
s ailing you now, huh?" Lori begins to pout, curls her lip up, and says, "Mama been yellin all damn mornin. You know how she gets, every damn mornin she starts."

Lori is making faces and flinging her hands in the air as she is saying, "Every time I turn around she starts
,
Do this, do that, did you do this?, did you do that?, ain't you done this?, ain't you done that? She's probabl
y
still up there yellin and carryin on. I'll be glad when I'm old enough to get out of here, go up to Memphis, just get away from here."

"Oh, hush
,
" Jenny says, "your daddy ain't lettin you go to no Memphis. He'd have a
fit
and you know it."

"Watch me," Lori shouts, "you just watch me, you hear." Lori kept on about Memphis and what she was going to do until Jenny busted in, asking, "You get any cigarettes? Give me one." Lori's still pouting, r
e
aches down in her boy-shirt pocket, and gets a cigarette, then slows her words, jerks her head back, and says,
"
I just got a few. I'm goin to light it.
"

"
Let me light it."

"No." Lori shakes her head. "I'm goin to light it, and if you don't hush, I ain
'
t givin you none. I got the damn th ings, you didn't."

22
I
Albert
Fre11di

The little red tip
of
the match scrapes against
th
e
side of the match box, then burst into a littl e
yellow
flame. Lori
wai ts
unt il the flame
settles
before
she slowly
brings the match up to the
cigarette she
has hold of with her
lips.
She
squints
her
eyes and sucks
on the cigarette till
she
taste the smoke, then flicks the match away and sucks again till
she
has a mouthful of
smoke.
She turns to her cousin and,
without
changing the expression she has
on
her face, blows the
smoke
in Jenny's face. Jenny shouts,
"Yo
u
asshole,
you're
an asshole, Lori."

Now Jen ny is whispering, "Nathan likes
you
and
you
like Nathan, don't you? You just don't want nobody knowin. You like him, don't you, Lori? Just say it."

Lori takes another deep drag on the
cigarette,
holds the
smoke
in her mouth, then blows it
out slowly
and likes the light dizzy
feeling she
is
getting. ''Nathan
Bradley,"
she
is saying, "can kiss my ass."

"Ah,
he's cute," Jenny
yells, "Nathan's cute."