Hick by Andrea Portes Page A

bunny all the way from Memphis, now just cool your jets about it—”
    “Tell her.”
    Glenda doesn’t look at me. She stares back through him, blowing smoke in his face, keeping cold.
    “Luli, go apologize.”
    Whatever this spider web is I’ve walked into, it has nothing to do with me. These looks, this staring, goes back. This is part of some unspoken rambling going back to before time. Just another fight and looky-me, thrown in the center. I feel right at home.
    I grab the bunny rabbit round the waist and drag it across the floor and out the back. I can hear the flannels snickering as the screen door slams behind me. Outside, the air smells sweet and the grasshoppers hum so loud it’s like they’re gonna take over.They buzz and buzz like they’re some unseen electric army chuffing themselves up for war.
    There’s a run-down, gray-white, one-room house sitting off to the side of the dirt patch behind the alley. Angel sits on the front porch, leaning sideways on the rail, his body bent into a lower-caser. He sees me come out but doesn’t bother to turn his neck. He looks at the moon glowing orange, low in the sky. Harvest moon. Indian summer. The leaves outside fixing to turn red, orange, yellow and then throw themselves off the trees. They got about a month to meet their maker.
    Here’s the thing I didn’t notice before. He’s tall, more intimidating than I’d clocked inside. He dwarfs me, which ain’t hard to do. But I thought he was younger or smaller or less to contend with.
    I set the rabbit up against the steps and start kicking the gravel around at my feet, playing playful. He doesn’t bite. I lean against the other railing, both of us facing out to the moon. The grass-hoppers hum through the silence, plotting their attack while we sit weak.
    “That’s a harvest moon.”
    He doesn’t say nothing. The grasshoppers buzz and buzz again. He starts dragging his shoes through the gravel, a little at a time and then more, in a pattern. I look down and suss out he’s writing some such. He finishes and it says, spelled out in gravel, “I’m mute. Not dumb.”
    I laugh. He smiles a little bit, not wanting to give in too easy.
    “You know, Angel’s a good name for you. You kinda look like an angel, like a Mexican angel.”
    I don’t have to lie or coddle or butter it up. it’s true. He’s big-eyed and dark, stick skinny, like he’s been working dawn to dusksince you could get work out of him. He’s got muscles but they’re tucked away, twined beneath and around the bone.
    “Look. I’m sorry if I made you mad. I didn’t mean to. I was just trying to make an impression or something back there. I dunno. I mean, I never met anyone who couldn’t talk before and I guess I got a little spooked.”
    He writes again in the dirt, finishes and looks up. It says, “BOO.”
    “Ha ha. Very funny.”
    We both sit there, leaning on our respective railings, looking out into the grasshopper hum and the night air, hay sweet, the moon so close, like you could reach out and freeze your fingers.
    I want to apologize to him for his made-silent life. I want to ask him why. I wonder why some people get to have the world on a string and others come up with a shit sandwich and dirt for dessert. I want to make it better. There’s something about him that reminds me of my dad, helpless and still, like the air around him has to be gentle or he just might break.
    “Luli!”
    Glenda interrupts, swaggering out the back, framing herself mid-circle inside the moon.
    “Hope you don’t mind sleeping on the couch cause we ain’t leaving.”
    She throws my bag at my feet and points inside. She turns to Angel.
    “Blane said for you to make up a bed on the couch. You can sleep on the floor or make Luli sleep on the floor, either way.”
    She struts around, heads back, sensing my hesitation.
    “Well. Git. Git going.”
    “You sure, Glenda? Cause maybe we could—”
    “Is there a problem?”
    “No, it’s