Читать книгу Gonna Lay Down My Burdens - Mary Monroe - Страница 14

Thanks to Crazy Mimi’s advice, I decided to pay more attention to Burl. It sounded like he could be a valuable tool for me to use. Now that I knew he liked me more than I thought, I decided that it would be a shame not to take advantage of the situation.

Burl rarely came to my house, but I decided to increase my visits to his, anyway. Through Kitty, I would make sure her sexy brother, Chester, heard about Burl and me spending so much time together. She loved reporting hot stories almost as much as she liked boys. And knowing how melodramatic Kitty was, I had enough faith in her to believe she would add just enough spice to whet Chester’s appetite.

I had no idea how high a price I would end up paying for using Burl.

I was not fickle like some of the girls I knew. I was focused. Other than Chester, I had other boys on my mind, but not in the same romantic way. My cousin Baby Red, who lived in Mobile, was Chester’s age. Baby Red was the only boy I really felt close to at the time. He was the smartest, most generous, most free-spirited boy I knew. Other than his bike, fine wine, good marijuana, and a few philosophy books, he didn’t care about money or many other material things. Baby Red had a lot to do with the mess I eventually made of my life, but I’ll get to him later.

A few days after Crazy Mimi’s last visit, I decided to visit Burl after school for the third time in three days. I dropped my books on his front porch glider as he led me into his house, grinning and motioning for me to be quiet because his mother was resting. I tiptoed behind Burl through a narrow, gloomy hallway to the living room. Burl had a nice round face with dimples and big gray eyes, but he was a head shorter than I was. He waddled like a penguin, and from behind he looked like one. Thick, curly hair covered his head like a ball of black cotton. His hair, his dimples, and his pretty gray eyes saved him from a life of shame and victimization, a situation so many other unpopular kids had to endure.

Once you saw and got to know Burl’s mama, it was easy to see why Burl was the way he was. Miss Mozelle was old enough to be Burl’s grandmother. When they moved to Alabama from Detroit seven years ago, that’s what we all thought. According to the gossips, Miss Mozelle had left her husband for another man. Once they got to Alabama, the man left her for another woman. That made Miss Mozelle so bitter, she had not been with another man since. She now devoted all of her attention to Burl. She still combed his hair and picked out all of his clothes. “If Burl was to die, they better dig a hole deep enough for Mozelle, too,” Daddy commented one evening over dinner.

Miss Mozelle looked like a full-grown seal. She was stretched out on her couch with her head resting on two pillows, barefoot and wrapped up in a long, throat-high brown flannel robe. She was eating pickled pig’s feet straight out of the jar with her fingers. There was a foot tub full of sudsy water on the floor in front of the couch where she had been soaking her feet. A fluffy yellow towel, some Corn Huskers Lotion, and a box cutter used as a toenail clipper were on the floor next to the foot tub.

Miss Mozelle made a good living cooking for the country club, and she liked to spend it on the things she liked. Each room in her house was full of bizarre furniture, mysterious unmarked boxes, and dime-store odds and ends nobody but her would want. She even had a fake canary in a cage in her dining room, swinging from a rope above a life-sized bust of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. In her living room, with its floral wallpaper, were a battered plaid sofa, two different TVs, some wicker chairs, a red velvet love seat she didn’t allow any kids to sit on, and huge green plants reaching halfway across the room. Hanging from the doorway leading from the living room to the kitchen were orange beads that touched the floor. On the end tables in the living room were framed pictures that looked like mugshots of Miss Mozelle, Burl, and other members of their family. They looked out of place sitting next to pictures of John F. Kennedy, Diana Ross, Jesse Jackson, and Jesus.

Other than Burl, Miss Mozelle didn’t have any other relatives in Alabama. She had a mean older brother in Detroit that I had never met, and from what I had heard about him, I didn’t want to. This beastly man had such a long reach, he was able to control Miss Mozelle and Burl all the way from Detroit. They rarely made a decision without consulting Burl’s uncle first.

Lifting her head a few inches off the arm of her sofa, she cleared her throat and set the pig’s feet jar on the coffee table and squinted at me. Still smacking on the last pig’s foot, she asked in a voice that rattled, “Carmen, how is your mama these days?”

“She’s fine.” I shrugged and blinked stupidly.

Miss Mozelle nodded and cleared her throat again before continuing. “And your daddy?”

“He’s fine, too, Miss Mozelle. My whole family is fine.”

She looked disappointed. She dipped her head, lifted her thick gray eyebrows, and started tapping her fingers on the top of her coffee table, waiting like I was holding back something she thought I should have shared with her. I grinned some more and shrugged again.

Finally, Miss Mozelle dismissed me with a wave of her hand and returned her head to the pillows and growled, “Gal, before you leave here I want you to help this boy fold them clothes I left on the counter in the kitchen. Do you hear me?”

Miss Mozelle’s skin was the same butterscotch brown as Burl’s, but hers was as rough as sandpaper. She was short and thick and had a large, heavy-cheeked face with black, hairy moles dotting her chin like ants. Once a week Mama pressed and curled Miss Mozelle’s thin black-and-gray hair, hiding bald spots that decorated her head like manholes. Miss Mozelle was no queen of Sheba, but she was a proud Christian woman and I liked her. In fact, everybody liked her. Even Chester. Last Mother’s Day, he insisted that she go out to dinner with him and his mama and some of his other female relatives.

“Yes, ma’am,” I said, afraid to sit down. I stood timidly in front of the larger of the two TVs until Miss Mozelle waved me to the side.

“You want to make some taffy?” Burl asked me, still grinning. The more he grinned, the deeper his dimples looked. He didn’t look too comfortable, and it didn’t surprise me. I knew that my mysterious visits confused him. He had his friends and I had mine. He didn’t ask, but I was sure he was wondering why I suddenly started visiting him twice as much as I had before.

“You seen Kitty?” I asked, following Burl into the kitchen, the only room in the house that didn’t smell like cod-liver oil. The soothing aroma of baked goods still lingered from pies and cakes that Miss Mozelle had cooked from scratch several days earlier.

Once he reached a counter that was covered with Mason jars, things floating in them that Miss Mozelle had canned, he abruptly stopped.

Whirling around to face me with a puzzled look on his face, he asked, “Kitty who?” Burl had on the same brown corduroy pants and loose white shirt he had worn to school that day. A few dime-sized mustard stains covered the front of his shirt. I had witnessed him gobble up four hot dogs in the cafeteria that afternoon.

“Kitty next door. Chester’s sister,” I said, motioning with my head toward the Sheffields’ house. “She’s having a Halloween party next week. You going?”

“She didn’t invite me,” Burl said sadly, bowing his head and shaking it. When he was unhappy, his bouncy curls didn’t look like a black cotton ball to me. Instead, his hair looked like a black cloud above his face. He was the only boy I knew who wore his hair parted on the side like an old man. Whether his hair looked like a black cotton ball or a black cloud, it was a shame to see all those curls go to waste on a boy like Burl. I would have traded my long, floppy, nappy ponytail for his hair any day.

“You can go with me. Kitty said I could bring a guest.” Chester was going to be at that party. It was essential for a prop like Burl to be there for me to lean on. “They’ll have a lot of food—buffalo wings, ribs, cracklins’, deviled eggs. All you can eat.”

Burl’s eyes blinked rapidly and his tongue slid across his bottom lip. “All you can eat, huh?” He cocked his head to the side and asked, “What about peach cobbler?”

“All you can eat,” I repeated. My stomach started growling, and I couldn’t wait to get home to dive into the rump roast that Mama was cooking for dinner. “It’s just a Halloween party, but you know how Kitty’s mama likes to cook.” I sniffed. “I’m going dressed as an African queen. Come on, Burl, go with me pleeease.” Begging was out of character for me, but I was not too proud to do it for something I really wanted.

“I guess I’ll go,” Burl said tiredly, smoothing his hair back with his thick fingers. He sighed and stared at me with his head tilted to the side. There was a look of uncertainty on his face.

“You can go as a Zulu warrior. I got a spear you can use,” I said quickly and firmly.

Burl flashed me a smile and bobbed his head, his curls dangling like grapes. “I got some paint we can put on our faces,” he announced excitedly. Just then the red telephone on the wall next to the stove rang. Still smiling, Burl grabbed it. Within seconds his smile faded and he started mopping sweat off of his forehead with the back of his hand. “Uh-huh…no…uh-huh…no…uh-huh. No, sir. Yes, sir. Bye,” he mumbled. As soon as he hung up, he turned to me with a hopeless look on his round face. “That was my uncle Mogen callin’ from Detroit.”

“The scary one?” I asked, scooping up a handful of hush puppies from a cracked plate on the counter and tossing them into my mouth.

“Uh-huh. He calls every evenin’ to make sure we doin’ all right.”

“Oh.” I shrugged. “You wanna go with me to visit Kitty now?”

“Naw.” Burl waved his floppy hand and shuddered. “Not while Chester’s in the house. He don’t like me.”

It was easy to understand why Burl didn’t want to be around Chester. Four years ago Chester had made him eat a rock during a church picnic.

“Well, if we go over there together, Chester won’t bother you,” I said seriously.

Burl sniffed. “Ain’t he still mad at you for hittin’ him that time?” As if he had been told to do so, he grabbed a damp dishrag off the counter and wiped up some crumbs I had dropped on the floor. Then he started looking around the room, like he was looking for something else to clean.

I shrugged. “I don’t care. Kitty is my friend and I am not going to let Chester stop me from visiting her. Shoot!” I exclaimed stomping my foot.

Burl let out a deep groan, neatly folded the dishrag, and gently placed it back on the counter. “Chester got his girlfriend over there now anyway.”

I gasped. A rage-clouded shadow passed across my burning face, and for a minute I thought I would lose control of my bladder. “Girlfriend? What girlfriend?” I snarled, moving back a few steps with my hands on my hips.

“Sandy Baptiste. She just moved here from New Orleans. A real tall, pretty girl so light she look white. I seen him take her in the house just before you got here. He was hugging her around her neck.” Burl sniffed again, this time so hard his whole body shuddered.

My jealousy about Chester being with another girl made my head swim, and I knew I had to come up with a stronger plan. “Oh, you mean that old Creole girl with the bad breath?” I dismissed the thought with a wave of my hand. “Anyway, Kitty told me to stop by today before I go home,” I lied. I didn’t have any problems with telling lies. From what I had observed so far, lying was the quickest and most effective to get what you wanted.

But as I would soon find out, lies got more people in trouble than did sex.