and white checkered table cloth danced under the plates of food. Celeste
held onto her iced tea. It was the only cool thing. She gripped it, hoping
the chill would work its way up her hand to the rest of her body. Seeing the
trees out the back door made her dream of the shade, quick breezes that
shook branches, rustled leaves. It was a memory.
"Those white boys po mommas and daddies never thought this place
could be so hellish as it is." Mrs. Owens got up from the table to spoon out
three servings of peach cobbler. She put them on the table just beside the
still-working dinner plates. Matt eyed the cobbler and continued piling in
the food. His stomach didn't seem to have a bottom, or maybe he was being
polite to Mrs. Owens, since she'd cooked all that food in honor of their
arrival. With that thought, Celeste ate more of the dinner, already feeling
stuffed, sure now that she'd have to use that dreaded outhouse before this
night was over.
"You sure right, Mrs. Owens," Matt said. He looked at Celeste then took a toothpick out of the little box on the table and openly picked his
teeth. She knew that was for her-his way of telling her again not to get
Detroit-siddity in this house. "That Chaney boy grew up here so his people
know all about Mississippi. They been living it."
Celeste wanted to roll her eyes good and hard at Matt, but instead she
studied the kitchen with its shelves-some doorless, some with lopsided
doors-not wanting to see if Matt dislodged some slight string of chicken
or torn piece of collard. The enameled gas stove with side-by-side oven
doors looked rich and out of place. The refrigerator, too. Matt twirled the
toothpick in his mouth like an old man at a shoeshine stand or a would-be
gangster leaning against a corner on some big city summer night.
"Still and all, nobody wants their child to be hurt whether they been
living here or not." Mrs. Owens's eyes grew sad. "That's why I sent my boys
away from here."
"Mrs. Owens got two boys up in Chicago." Matt continued picking his
teeth.
Celeste wondered how anybody kept their children with them in this
place. They should all have been sent somewhere else, especially the boys.
It was right out of the Bible, only Negro people didn't claim it as so. Kill
all the boy children. Find the baby Jesus. Hang them, shoot them, beat them
to death. Not just in Mississippi. All over the place. It was the boys, the
men who brought down the wrath of white people. Leave the women to
manage on their own, to make do, to be the disconnected maids needing
to be familied-in somewhere, somehow. The isolated woman in the small
house on the barren road.
"Anyway, we prayin' they hiding somewhere, scared out of their minds."
Matt put the used toothpick on the side of his plate next to the low hill of
chicken bones, slid the dinner plate to the side, and dove into the cobbler.
"I hope so. I pray so. I just don't think so." Mrs. Owens spoke with a
dreadful finality. The three were dead and Mrs. Owens knew it.
Matt didn't say a word. Celeste did her best to clean both her plates and
felt like she needed to go somewhere and lie down. Early evening light cut
in through the small kitchen window and threw shadows on the walls.
Matt wanted to get on the road to Bogalusa before dark. He hugged
Mrs. Owens at the front door. The older woman remained stiff but needing
at the same time. Celeste walked him to the car, carrying a large metal
pitcher to fill with fresh water from the spigot for her bedroom. He told her to find the pay phones in Pineyville and to check in with the Jackson
office as often as possible. Her church was southwest of the center of town.
Reverend Singleton would be in touch with her tomorrow.
"Be careful." Sudden tears stung her eyes. She wanted to say she was sorry
he'd been beaten, sorry things had gotten so testy between them in the car.
"What about money, Matt? Should I give her some money for food?"
"Naw, naw. The
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