Living Things Read online

  Viva was on the porch, and, May Fly saw that Fat Greg was there with her. Fat Greg was short and fat and wore shirts and shorts of the same color so that, with his bald head and his thick wrists, he looked like an ugly old baby in pajamas.

  One time May Fly said as much to her mother, and Viva snorted, but then her face was serious, and she said for May Fly not to say anything like that to Fat Greg ever.

  Greg sometimes brought over buckets of chicken, and he licked his fingers when he ate and even when he wasn’t eating, and one time, when Viva was doing something in the bathroom, Greg made May Fly hold his gun even though she didn’t want to. He made her point it at a brown bird that was building a nest up under the porch, and then he said, Pow! And when May Fly jumped, when she dropped the gun, he slapped the back of her head. She was just like her mama. She’d fool around and hurt herself if she wasn’t careful.

  Just now, Greg was taking up the better part of the rusted glider which was one of May Fly’s favorite places. He was smoking, and so was Viva, but when she saw May Fly coming up the road, Viva threw down the cigarette and smashed it under her sandal.

  Took you long enough, Viva said. She came down the cement steps so quick she hung her shoe in a crack. She tripped, and when May Fly felt her mother’s hands on her shoulders, there was weight behind them as if some part of Viva were still falling, still trying to get her balance.

  But Viva kept her feet. It was May Fly who almost went down when Viva yanked hard on her T-shirt. Viva was pulling the shirt nearly up over May Fly’s head, and May Fly felt the sticky billfold peeling off her belly and the hot sun on her bare skin. Even though May Fly was just eight, Viva kept saying they needed to get her a bra, but they hadn’t yet, and now May Fly was sure Greg had just seen her bare chest. She yelled and jerked away, pulling down her shirt so hard the neck got stretched, and ever after, the faces of those princesses were as lined and loose as the courthouse grannies’.

  On the porch, Greg was laughing, a kind of gristled choke that changed to a cough. She thinks, he sputtered. She thinks she’s got something to see.

  May Fly held her shirt down. She pressed her lips into a hard knot.

  Viva had Miss Rawley’s wallet. Let’s see what you got, Viva said. What’s the prize, I mean. She winked at May Fly, and a muscle flinched in her neck. Viva was wearing the necklace she always wore, but something about the beads reminded May Fly of the stuffed dog, the eye that was all wrong.

  Hot out here, Viva said, and when she headed back up to the porch, May Fly kicked at the dirt like she might do something. But then she just followed her mama and sat down hard on the cement steps with her chin on her hand. Her head was hurting as it sometimes did mornings after she drank the cherry syrup. She’d done what she had to do, and she was home now, and nothing had exploded, but a part of May Fly suddenly wished that it would.

  You gonna say hi to your Uncle Greg? Greg said. He sucked on the cigarette.

  Nope, May Fly said.

  May Fly, Viva said.

  He ain’t my uncle.

  Greg blew smoke and squinted at May Fly. Then what am I?

  Viva shot May Fly a look that said shut your mouth. From the wallet, she’d pulled out several white envelopes. They weren’t sealed, and May Fly watched as Viva took out what was inside. Several ones and fives. A ten and a twenty. One fifty even. Viva stuffed the envelopes back in the wallet and held up the cash.

  She grinned at May Fly. Then she bent down and kissed her. You did it, girl. You made the good.

  Can I have that? May Fly said, and she pointed at the wallet.

  Viva looked at it, turned it over as if she was deciding. Then she handed it to May Fly. All yours. Go play shopper, she said. Play like you’re a lady.

  May Fly took the wallet. She’d held it before, but now she really felt it, the smooth leather that was almost like touching something alive.

  Ha! Viva said. She was counting the money. There’s more than a hundred here.

  Ha! Greg said, and he was mocking Viva, making fun of her now. Which means you only need a hundred more.

  It was a little porch, and when Greg reached out and took the money, he didn’t even have to get up. He stayed right where he was, sprawled across the glider, and just reached out and took the cash from Viva. Easy as that.

  May Fly gripped the wallet. She looked back at her mother, waiting for her to do something, but Viva just stood there with her jaw hanging loose and her hand still up in the air, holding a bunch of nothing.

  Mama! May Fly said like she was trying to wake Viva up, and Viva closed her mouth, but she didn’t say anything. May Fly stood up and took the last step so now she was on the porch too, and she said to Greg, Give that back. That’s ours.

  Greg made a face, a kind of terrible grin. Or what?

  Or, May Fly said, and she gritted her teeth, and Greg snorted, but this time, he didn’t choke. This time, he said to Viva, Look at your pup. She’s ready to fight!

  He growled at May Fly. He showed his teeth. Then he barked at her.

  May Fly pulled back, but the noise snapped something in Viva. That’s bullshit, she said. You’re bullshit, Greg, and you know it.

  Greg’s eyes rolled around. What I know is what you owe. And what you owe is a lot more than this.

  I paid already, Viva said.

  You paid a payment, Greg said.

  Viva nodded. Yeah. That’s what I’m telling you.

  Don’t you know? Greg said. Every loan carries an interest.

  Beside the glider was a metal plant stand. May Fly’s grandmother had one just like it where now sat one of Miss Rawley’s red geraniums. But Viva didn’t care nothing about plants. Viva, Mama Powell had said more than once, doesn’t care nothing about nothing.

  There was just an empty stand and metal as it was, nothing really happened. Nothing broke when Viva reached out and turned it over. She worked her mouth like she couldn’t think of what to say. Or maybe there wasn’t anything to say.

  The stand rolled around there on the porch, and they all watched it with a kind of patience, a dull curiosity that occupies those used to watching wheels and anything else that spins. When it finally stopped, when it finally got wedged up against the rail of the porch, Greg said, I know how you can settle up. Maybe even have some left over.

  May Fly was close enough to hear them both breathing. She looked at Viva. The plant stand was all curlicues and whatnots, and it weighed hardly anything. Still, pushing it over had taken something out of Viva. All the sudden, she looked spent. She looked like she might fall down if somebody didn’t find her a chair.

  Mama, May Fly said.

  Greg stuck his thumb in his mouth and pulled it out again. You say the word.

  Viva’s eyes closed, and just when May Fly thought they might stay that way, they opened again. Not now, she said.

  Greg stuck out his tongue.

  Viva took in air. Then not here, she said.

  Greg grinned. His eyes nearly disappeared. He threw down the smoke. Between his fingers was the wad of Miss Rawley’s money. All right then, he said, and he pushed himself to standing. Behind him, the glider moved back and forth like a part of a clock. Deal.

  He took one step, then two. He stopped in front of May Fly, and even though she tried to get away, he reached out and caught her chin. He said, I had me a pup one time.

  Viva had her back turned. She was staring at a crack in the cement.

  She was always wanting to run off somewhere, Greg said. Thought she could make it on her own. So I had to chain her up.

  Greg’s thumb drew a circle around May Fly’s lips. She still kept trying to run off. Thought she’d break the chain if she pulled hard enough.

  Greg, Viva said.

  But all she broke, Greg said, was her own stupid neck.

  Greg’s thumb was on May Fly’s chin. He tapped once, twice. Then he jerked her head in the other direction, twisting her neck hard.

  Stop it, Viva said. She’d spun around and now her fi
sts were balled up and she was hitting Greg in the back—stop it, stop it, stop it—but it was like punching a mattress, something May Fly could do until she wore herself out, and nothing changed except the next day her arms might be sore. You don’t touch her ever, Viva said, and she hit Greg until she was out of breath, until he turned around and looked at her.

  He could hit her, May Fly thought. He could kill her even.

  Greg stared hard and said, Be in the truck. Slowly, whistling, he made his way down the stairs and around the house.

  Viva and May Fly stood there, wide-legged and balled-fisted, panting on the porch, and anyone who saw them would have thought they were the ones fighting, and of course, in some ways, they were and always would be. But when Viva’s eyes lit back on May Fly, she did her best to smile. I’m gonna get us that pizza, she said.

  May Fly turned her head. She looked out toward the tracks. Every day the trains came. She didn’t know where they came from or where they went when they were gone. May Fly watched them from the glider, and sometimes Viva sat with her. Viva said she’d been hearing those trains all her life. She’d been hearing them so long she didn’t even listen anymore.

  Look at me, Viva said and said until May Fly finally turned her head and looked, and she didn’t want Viva to see her face, but there was no way around it. Her nose burned, and she thought again of being in the water, how under the surface, all the sounds were muffled. If she were swimming, she wouldn’t be able to hear her mother. She wouldn’t be able to understand the words, When I get back. While I’m gone. Promise.

  There was hardly any softness left to Viva. She was all bones and angles so that later, when May Fly missed her mother more than she ever thought you could miss a person, she’d press her face against the edge of a table or her school desk until she cut a line in her cheek.

  Sausage or pepperoni, Viva said. Be thinking.

  And then she was gone, sandals slapping against the dirt yard, the pop and slam of the truck door. A plum flash in the sun and from the stereo, a thudding bass May Fly felt as a rattle in her chest. Like Little Charlie Whitehead and every other second grader, May Fly had learned to play the recorder. It was the music teacher that told the class how if you listened to music loud enough, it could hurt your ears. It could actually change the rhythm of your heart. She felt that shifting now, a new calibration that left her short of breath and more than a little dizzy.

  A breeze came up from the south, and in the trees, the leaves shook and turned. May Fly sat down on the glider. She opened the wallet, took out the empty envelopes. She studied them—sniffed the glue. She ran her fingers along the edges until she felt the notches. It took her a minute to figure it out. She closed her eyes. One cut for ones. Two cuts for fives. Three cuts for tens. Four cuts for the twenties.

  This and everything about the wallet made a certain kind of sense. Miss Rawley had a photo identification card. May Fly slipped it out of the plastic sleeve. In the picture, Miss Rawley was wearing pink lipstick, and her teeth were very white, and somehow when the camera flashed, she’d known right where to look.

  It was more than just a breeze. The wind was picking up, and from the square, May Fly could hear someone speaking into a microphone. Clouds were rolling in, and the sun came through in rays, and if you were closer to the center of town, the words would be loud and clear, but this far away, the voice seemed to come from up above, like distant thunder, and you couldn’t understand a thing no matter how hard you tried.

  May Fly had trouble sleeping, which was why she sometimes drank the cherry syrup. Then sometimes she drank the syrup just because it was what there was to do. That afternoon, though, she must have been too worn out all of a sudden to keep herself awake wondering about things like blood in the body and where her daddy was and what would happen if her mama didn’t come home. She must have been too spent to keep her eyes open a minute longer. Otherwise, she would have done more when Mama Powell drove up. She would have thought to hide Miss Rawley’s wallet. She would have made up some better lie about where her mother had gone and when she’d be back.

  As it was, Mama Powell was screaming before May Fly could get her eyes open good. Mama Powell was a small woman who most often wore loose flowered shifts, but she was still dressed for the yard sale, much like old Miss Rawley in her T-shirt and stretch jeans and fanny pack. Mama Powell’s curled wig had slipped down on her head so that her face appeared smaller than it was, and overall, she had the appearance of some furious and rabid rodent shaking Miss Rawley’s ID card in May Fly’s face.

  What are you doing with Miss Rawley’s things?

  This was the question that, like a second hand passing the twelve, Mama Powell kept circling back to between more questions about Viva and where Viva went and who Viva went with and when Viva would be coming home.

  Don’t know, May Fly said until she finally covered her ears and just screamed it with enough force to stop even Mama Powell. Mama Powell looked down at May Fly, and May Fly looked up at her, and it was true that Mama Powell was too young to sit with the great-grannies, but that afternoon, she did look aged in ways that May Fly hadn’t noticed before. Mama Powell’s wig slipped sideways, and her eyes were dark hollows, and when she was finally quiet, her lips sagged as if whatever she was stopping herself from saying bore an extraordinary weight.

  She left with Fat Greg, May Fly said. I don’t know where.

  Mama Powell put her hands on her hips and looked down the street, up and down again, always twice, better safe, she said, than sorry. It was an easy kind of movement, a habit, as if she’d spent a long time looking for Viva to come around a corner. I remember when Greg Ross sold candy for the band, she said.

  May Fly watched her grandmother. It seemed like just another thing Mama Powell said that didn’t much matter.

  Mama Powell let her arms go loose and she sat down beside May Fly in the glider.

  You ate something? she said.

  May Fly scratched her face. In a corner of the porch was a smear of mud where the nest used to be.

  Mama Powell breathed. In her lungs, there was a kind of hum. She was full of odd words and sounds. She smelled like moth balls and the butter lotion she used. I got an extra pie at the house, she said. She patted May Fly on the knee. Mama Powell couldn’t sit anywhere very long. Come on, she said. She looked at the wallet but was careful not to touch it. And bring all that mess with you.

  Mama Powell’s car was still cool from the air conditioning. The carpets had been vacuumed two or three times since they brought the geraniums from Miss Rawley’s. There wasn’t a trace of dirt anywhere.

  It was late in the afternoon, and there hadn’t been rain yet but the wind was still up. The clouds were still building. Mama Powell drove back down around the square where most of the vendors, including Miss Rawley, had already pulled up and gone home. Preacherman’s speakers were gone, but he was still talking to a few people. He raised his hand, waved as they passed.

  I heard him talking, May Fly said, about how the world’s gonna end. How it’s already ending.

  Mama Powell blinked. She rolled her lips.

  You think it’ll just go dark like nighttime? May Fly said. Or will it explode all of a sudden?

  Mama Powell’s head sort of trembled, and she reached up, adjusted her wig. You shouldn’t be listening to all that, she said. You ought to come to church with me.

  He said everybody knows the truth. He’s just brave enough to say it out loud, May Fly said.

  Loud is right. Loud and proud and flashy. Bad as your mama. That’s what he is. Wearing that hat and playing that music. Wants everybody looking at him when we should be looking at the Lord.

  Mama Powell glanced at May Fly, and May Fly was staring back.

  Mama Powell shifted in her seat and got a better hold on the wheel. What I’m saying is, she said, we got to pay attention to young folks. Young folks ought to be the hope of the nation.

  The United States.

  Mama Powell hummed. That’s r
ight.

  That’s in the Bible?

  Mama Powell held her head high so that her chin pointed at the dash. Something like.

  They were off the square now and into a neighborhood. May Fly held Miss Rawley’s wallet. She pressed it tight against her stomach. She was hungry. She knew she was, but she didn’t feel it anymore. She didn’t feel much of anything.

  Makeisha, Mama Powell said, you’ve got to give this up right now. You can’t be taking what isn’t yours.

  May Fly reached for the dash. She wanted to turn on the radio. Sometimes Mama Powell let her turn on the AM. May Fly didn’t care what kind of music it was as long as it was loud, but Mama Powell slapped her hand. Girl, she said, you better learn to listen.

  They were pulling up to Miss Rawley’s now, the falling down house that looked even worse than it did just a few months ago.

  Mama Powell sidled up to the curb and cut the engine. Things inside the car popped and hissed and sounded like the workings of Mama Powell herself.

  You’re gonna give back what you took, she said. You’re gonna say you’re sorry.

  May Fly didn’t move until Mama Powell slapped her leg. March! she said.

  So May Fly opened the car door and got out and shut it. She held the wallet. She stood there long enough for Mama Powell to flap her hand around and say something May Fly couldn’t hear through the glass. Then she turned around and made her way up the busted brick walk and onto the porch.

  All around, the chimes rang like so many odd bells. Somewhere, there was thunder.

  After a minute, Miss Rawley opened the door. She stayed behind the screen, and May Fly said what she was told to say. She said something anyway, but she was thinking about tornadoes, about a story she’d heard Mama Powell telling some of her church friends. Mama Powell got quiet as soon as she saw May Fly was listening, but May Fly had already heard how the tornado had come right down the interstate. A family had taken shelter up underneath an overpass because that’s what they tell you to do if you’re in a car and such a disaster strikes. You don’t have a choice. You get out and you get in the ditch, and that’s what this family did, and when it was over, the mother opened her eyes, and all that was in her arms was a blanket. The baby she’d been holding was gone.