Miss Carmelia Faye Lafayette by Katrina Parker Williams Page A

he was at risk of losing her, he’d wail on her at the least provocation.  Miss Carmelia put up with the abuse, primarily because she had grown fearful of Hawk, and she knew Hawk was crazy.  When he got killed, she was relieved.  Actually, she was glad to be rid of him.  The years of abuse she had suffered at Hawk’s hands had hammered out any affection she had for him.  All she felt for him before his death was contempt.  If the deputy had not killed Hawk, Miss Carmelia surely would have.
     
    Miss Carmelia decided to reopen the Hankering a couple of months after Hawk’s death.  It was a Friday night in late August, and Miss Carmelia had just opened the doors of the Hankering for business.  The patrons had heard of the temporary closing and found other places to hang out, although many not feeling fulfilled. She didn’t have much difficulty getting her customers back, many of them itching for a place to get tore down drunk. 
    Two of her regular customers showed up as soon as the doors opened and seated themselves at the bar, ordering a couple of shots of whiskey.  Miss Carmelia had told them a week earlier to get the word out that she was back in business and bigger and better than ever.  They told her that they had spread the word and the regulars should be heading back, the months the Hankering was closed sending some of them in Wayne County to near dehydration.
    “Good.  We gotta get this place jumping again,” Miss Carmelia said.  “And things gone change.  For the better.”
    Buford Tee entered the joint, noticing a colored couple huddled up in the corner and the two men seated at the bar. 
    “A whiskey, please,” Buford Tee said, walking to the bar and seating himself, nodding to the two men. 
    Miss Carmelia had her head down when Buford Tee sat down.  She didn’t see him come in, but she did recognize the voice.
    “Fifty cents,” she said, sliding the drink to him.
    He pulled the drink close to him and said softly, “How have you been?”
    Miss Carmelia did not say anything.
    “Did you hear me?” Buford Tee asked, unsure if she had heard him.
    “You talking to me?” she asked coldly.
    “Yeah,” he replied.
    “Me, the devil?” she said sharply.
    “Oh, you remember that?” he said, hearing the anger in her voice.
    “Hell, yeah.  You thought I’d forget something like that?” she snarled, the two men now turning around to get a good earful of the juicy conversation. 
    Miss Carmelia turned and walked out back of the Hankering, slamming the door behind her.  Buford Tee sat there, watching the empty space where Miss Carmelia once stood, stunned by her reaction.  The two men sipped on their whiskeys and sat back to watch what would happen next.
    **********
     
    Buford Tee thought back to the first time he ever saw Miss Carmelia.  It was at the Hankering the night her ex-husband was killed.   The Hankering was located down by the railroad in Wayne County, open only on weekends, the only time most coloreds had off work.  It was a place for them to get away from the weightiness of the workweek, and particularly, from their white employers, to enjoy a night or two of drinking, of course, but gambling, a little sex, or rather a lot of sex, and dancing also satisfying the desires of the patrons. 
    Locals made their way to the Hankering in a variety of ways: on horseback, by horse-drawn wagon loaded down with patrons, and even on tractors on loan for the evening from their employers, which pulled flatbed trailers filled with men and women desiring an evening of unbridled pleasure and unadulterated entertainment. 
    The deputy of Wayne County and some of his officers would sit in their Model T Ford squad cars, watching as the colored folk made their way to the barrelhouse. They’d wait until an hour before midnight to raid the place, when most folks were tore down from drunkenness, and as they put it, involving themselves in all manner of sin and debauchery.
    A piano player beat