Volume 4 | Issue 3 | July-August
2010 |
Too Late for Tears
Christina Pacosz
It was the time of year when the sun set early. Most of the leaves had fallen and the trees were black bodies silhouetted in the last light. A red glow smoldered in the west. Only a few stars were out. He’d put a fair bit between Sumter and this bramble thicket before dark stopped him.
A bee making one last foray before the long sleep of winter, Roy Plemmons watched light pour like honey through the back window of the small frame house nearby. A woman was inside, fixing supper.
Grits with strong‑flavored yellow cheese, steaming corn bread, side meat fried crisp just the way he liked it. Thick slices of pound cake, topped by homemade strawberry preserves.
He hadn’t eaten since breakfast; his gut was hard to ignore. He broke off a stalk of wild onion and put it in his mouth.
The light from the window went out.
In the morning the woman would roll out a pan of biscuits and fry eggs, their yellows a tad runny. She’d urge him to eat his fill. Ducking his head he’d mumble, “Yes’m,” his mouth full of egg and biscuit. He’d sweeten his coffee with sugar, not molasses like at Juvenile.
This late in the year the onion was bitter. He spit out green pulp and wondered if Sary and Sam would miss him. He’d worked the mules all spring and summer; there was cotton still to bring in. A lot was said about mules and none of it complimentary, but what the beasts did that made folks so mad was in their nature, like being locked up was against his.
He ran away and they caught him. It was a game. Would it ever end?
If he was dead. Maybe then.
Night dug in its heels, promising frost by morning. Roy hunkered down in the loose dirt. What if this was a grave? His grave. He skittered away from that thought like a dry leaf in the wind. Someone he loved was in the ground.
Lavender‑scented arms encircled him. A music box played while a tiny ballerina twirled around and around. A voice whispered, Wind it up again for Mama, honey. Then his father walked in.
That fellow Frost had it all wrong. His daddy’s door was barred against him. There wasn’t anyone, anywhere, that would take him in, unless it was the folks running the show in Sumter, and Juvenile Detention was no kind of place to call home.
Roy blinked his eyes until the water flooding them receded, then wiped his face on the sleeve of his flannel shirt. It was too late for tears.
Who was it said that?
Someone in those cowboy shows he slunk out of bed early to watch. The whippings he got were the price of admission; he’d gladly paid.
In the blue glare of the television he’d make a gun with his forefinger and thumb. Bam, bam. Men fell bloodied at his feet.
A good gunfighter ignored death and casually stepped over the bodies. Tipping his hat to the pretty girl, he swung his leg over his horse, and rode off into the sunset, leaving her there in the twilight, rooted in the mud, alone with the bleeding dead.
Roy shivered and thought of Sary and Sam baring yellow teeth at the boys cleaning out their stalls. The air was cozy with the odor of dried grass and manure. Big bullet heads nodding, the mules fell asleep standing up.
Standing up or sitting down, there wouldn’t be much sleep for him tonight.
Roy wrapped his arms around his chest and set his mind on making it through until first light. It was cold, too cold for mosquitoes. That was some comfort. He hated being on the run in the summer. The nights were warm and he could raid gardens to stave off hunger, but there were ticks and chiggers to contend with. Snakes, too.
He wasn’t sure when was the best time to run. It was in his blood, drumming, “Not one more day, hear.” He kept an eye out for a chance to bolt. It was that simple.
An owl hooted nearby. Roy welcomed the company. The night creatures, owls, possums, coons, whip‑poor‑wills, and fox were his kin. The moon was a dim lantern shining through the lattice of trees. It would be a day or two before she’d ride high enough to light his way. The owl called, further off.
The house was dark. The old lady who lived there believed in that early to bed, early to rise Ben Franklin stuff. Roy heard his grandmother’s voice, “If you ain’t up and dressed and et by 6 o’clock, mister, you might’s well stay in bed. The day’s wasted.”
He listened to a dog bark, the sharp yelp of another. The owl was silent, hunting. He wished it luck. Something would have a full belly tonight. He curled into a low spot beneath the brambles and cradled his head in the crook of his arm. The day‑warmth of the earth beneath him flowed into the night like a creek meeting a river, both rushing on to the ocean.
Maybe the coast, with its rivers spread in the sand like fingers on a giant hand, was where he should have headed. The odor of dirt was thick in his mouth. Too late. He’d be tasting red clay soon.
Roy slept on and off, waking to the glittering stars, the soft footpad of a fox, the rustle of pines overhead. The house sat hunched and waiting. Would morning never come? Then he remembered he was free, and dozed again.
A red bird’s low whistle woke him. A wren warbled, Time’s wasting, mister.
He forced his eyes open and turned toward the east. Watching the dull gray of sunrise, he understood why the Mohammedans prayed in that direction. The light claimed more of the sky, until the globe of the sun popped out. He stood up, wobbly as a calf on its legs for the first time.
The back window glowed. She was in there, eating a bowl of prunes and a slice of dry toast.
A cold wind gusted. Landsford was a piece yet, he should be on his way.
Ghost kites soared on a rope clothesline in the yard. A woman’s private things for her private parts. Roy blushed and swiped at his head, picking bits of twig and leaf from his hair. He didn’t have a comb.
Then he was running, snatching laundry off the line. Clothespins leapt into the air and fell to the ground like wounded birds.
Back in the thicket he stared at what he clutched in his hand, then unbuttoned his shirt, slipped off his pants, and pulled the thick‑soled work boots and heavy wool socks from his feet. The dirt was clammy underfoot. He slung the brassiere around his waist and fastened the metal hooks, turning the thing around the way it was supposed to go. He slipped his arms through the straps like a harness, and remembered bullying Sary and Sam into opening their mouths for the cold steel bit. Just an ol’ mule skinner, that’s what he was.
He grinned and picked up the girdle. Balancing on one leg, then the other, he struggled with the garment. The rubber gripped his buttocks, but his privates were free.
He bent down for a nylon. It was gossamer, sheer and soft, like spider web or fairy work. Men never wore anything like this; he wasn’t sure what to do.
A stout rope swung him out over a creek. He let go and plunged into the welcome of cool water.
Thrusting a foot out, he pointed his toes, rolled the nylon up, securing the top with metal garters, front and back, and repeated the unfamiliar ritual. He stared at himself. It was like looking at a woman’s body.
The brassiere was slack. The girdle grabbed him, the nylons were close‑fitting and smooth. He brushed his fingers against a leg and shuddered. A hand burrowed beneath the rubber cloth.
A sound he’d never heard before came out of him. His pecker looked like a picture he’d seen of a statue of a boy pissing. Only that was water.
Roy kicked dirt over the mess he’d made. He could hear them up at Sumter. Suck dick. Mama’s boy. Fairy.
The rough denim of his jeans slithered over his nylon‑clad legs like a snake on a warm spring morning. He drew the laces taut on his boots, tying knots that wouldn’t come loose. He meant to make it all the way to Landsford, if not that day, the next.
He glanced through the bushes toward the house. The woman, wearing a pink housecoat and fuzzy pink slippers, was standing in her yard, staring at the empty clothesline. Too far away to make out the look on her face, he saw how her hands rested on her hips; he knew what that meant. Roy turned to follow the dip in the land. The brassiere chafed him. The girdle wouldn’t let go.
He’d come up on a creek soon and stop to wash up, then put his mind to breakfast.
Pushing away branches, he ducked his head. Dry leaves crackled beneath his boots. The nylons whispered their slick secret.
Roy sniffed the air and smelled water. He veered in its direction.
Christina Pacosz - Christina Pacosz has been writing and publishing prose and poetry for nearly half a century and has several books of poetry. Born and raised in Detroit, she has lived on both U.S. coasts, New York City, Alaska and southern Appalachia. For the past ten years she has been teaching urban Kansas City youth both sides of the state line; she and her husband of twenty years call Kansas City home.
Web: pacosz.blogspot.com/
