Sweeping Up Glass by Carolyn Wall Page A

By midnight I’d struck up an acquaintance with a bottle of sloe gin and three boys from Buelton. When one of them took me out to the car, I dropped into his arms the way I’d fallen into Wing’s. Afterward I cried. He left me blubbering in the parking lot, butsoon the other two came out and kept me so busy I had no room to think. I saw then that this was how it would be. I gave the boys whatever they wanted, and I never stood by the road crying again.
    Through spring and summer, I abandoned the store and school, and spent most of my time at Silty’s. The light was always dim and thick with smoke from the ladies’ cigarettes, so that everything seemed sad and blue. And then Silty hired Wing to play his trumpet on Saturday nights.
    Wing and I never spoke, nor did we look at each other across the dance floor. If he was surprised to see me, he never said, and anyway there was always some gent to slip the bartender two bits for a half hour in the back room. I seldom declined. After a tussle on Silty’s narrow cot, he’d pull up his trousers and light a cigar. While I cleaned myself up, he’d dig out a half dollar. Then I’d wobble out to the bar and climb back on my stool. Finally, I stopped my monthly bleeding. And my bosoms swelled—the gentlemen liked that. They wanted the silliest things—to snap my garters, tear off my drawers, and spank my bottom with the flats of their hands. They taught me to say things that at first sounded awful, but after several drinks became funny.
    By fall, the fellow behind the bar was a new one—not the one that favored me and gave me drinks on the house. The windows were painted black, and the new neon sign that hung from the ceiling sizzled and blinked. In the back corner, Wing lifted his horn, and the room throbbed with its wailing.
    One night, when I sat running a hand over my belly, a laugh ran down the bar, gents taking bets on which of them my baby would look like. Wing’s trumpet whimpered, like all the air had gone out of it. That was the last night he worked there. My disappointment was bitter. I had relished him watching.
    Just before Thanksgiving, the Reverend Timothy Culpepper came in, making right for the counter where I sat, my chin propped in my hand.
    “Miss Olivia,” he said before anyone could toss him out, “this ain’t no place for a young lady.”
    “Lady?” I said. Most of the Reverend’s hair was gone, and his whiskers were grizzled. “You callin’ me a lady, Reverend?” It sounded like a line from a joke, and I laughed.
    He took my elbow. “I’m goin’ to get you home.”
    I shook him off. “You go on now, and save some other poor soul, ’cause I’m just fine.”
    “Miz Hanley don’t think so, Olivia. Nor Love Alice or Junk—they sent me to fetch you. Said for me to bring you up to their place. You can stay with them till your youngun’s born.”
    I could not bear the thought of Love Alice seeing me like this. And anyway, somebody had plugged in the Wurlitzer, and out on the floor the ladies picked up their heels.
    “You wanna dance, Reverend?”
    “Miss Olivia—”
    I put a finger to my lips. “You buy me a drink, an’ I’ll tell you a secret—”
    Above the white collar and tie, his face shone with sweat. “No, ma’am, I don’t want to hear no secrets.”
    “Well, I’ll tell you anyway. You know that fella Percy that comes by, sellin’ stuff?”
    “I seen him, yes.”
    “Well, I tol’ him the baby is his.”
    “That be the truth?”
    “I don’t know.” I shrugged my bare shoulders. “But I told him it was.”
    “Miss Olivia, this fella Percy—”
    “You know what he’s doing right now?”
    “I do not.”
    “He’s in the back room, peeling a cigar band and feeling sorry for himself. Now, go home, Reverend,” I whined. My belly had begun to hurt, and I didn’t want to talk anymore. I turned to the gent on the other side of me, a sweet-smelling fella who had just purchased a half bottle. I smiled at him, sleepy,