I looked at my granny, but she shook her head at me and put her finger to her lips as Aunt Pauline waved us over to the hole where she’d placed the snake’s dismembered body. She bowed her head. Miss Rose followed suit, but I stood there, looking at the bloodstained dish towel until my granny put her fingers on the back of my neck and gently pushed my head down.
“Father God,” Aunt Pauline said. “Father God, we want to ask your forgiveness for causing the death of this creature. He didn’t mean us no harm. He wasn’t nothing but a rat snake crawling in this garden. I don’t know why he was here, Father God, but he gone to Glory now. We ask that You receive him into Your loving arms. We ask that You bless the soul of this poor rat snake right now. In Jesus’s name, Amen.”
“Amen!” my granny said. “Bless him, Lord!”
Other days, I joined the two of them in peeling peaches, which I didn’t like. I never could get the skins to peel thin enough, and it was boring work, because all they did was gossip: Elder Beasley needed a new deacon. Mrs. Alconia Jones knew she couldn’t afford that new double-wide. Mr. Albert Booker T. Crawford Sr. chased young girls down to the American Legion, though he’d lost his nature.
And they talked about my big sister, right in my face.
“Pauline, I want you to keep Lydia in prayer. That girl’s mama don’t even know where she is. She just up and disappeared.”
“Um, um, um. You know the Devil don’t never sleep.”
“Say that! Ain’t it the truth?”
I was afraid to show my anger, but I fidgeted. Instead of sitting on this porch while they low-rated my big sister I could have been up in the Vineyard. I could have been losing my virginity to Chris Tate right that minute.
“Don’t mind the baby,” my granny said. “I think her womanhood finally coming down and it’s making her peakish.”
“Miss Rose, why do you have to say stuff like that?” I asked. “Dang!”
“But you is peakish, ain’t you?”
“I’ve already got my womanhood.” I inserted nastiness into my voice. “I got it three years ago, for your information.”
“Ain’t no excuse for you, then. So why don’t you take your mean self for a walk? Go down to the creek and keep them ghosts company. Mean as you is, they probably scared of you.”
Aunt Pauline laughed. “I know that’s right!”
I walked to the side of the house and picked up a long stick, in case of snakes. It didn’t matter to me whether they were poisonous or not. And if I ever got up the courage to kill one, I damn sure wouldn’t pray over it. At the creek, there was a half circle of citronella pots on the bank, and a patch of dirt where the grass had died. I heard a car and got ready to run, but it was only Baybay James and Boukie Crawford, driving an old Eldorado. Baybay turned off the ignition, but the radio stayed on. When he climbed out, he was inches taller than I was. Seventeen and some change, he’d grown so much since the last time we’d played together.
“What y’all doing out here?” I asked.
“We just riding,” he said. “Miss Rose let us come out, long as we clean up our trash and don’t get in no trouble.”
“But where’d you get a car?”
“My daddy. You like it?” He ran his hand over the hood.
“It’ll do.” I waved at the passenger in the car, but Boukie was silent. “What’s wrong with him?”
“I guess he shy.”
Baybay went to the trunk and took out a blanket. He told his friend, come on out and speak, like he had some home training. Come on, now.
“A’ight, I’ma get out,” Boukie said. “But you tell this girl, don’t nobody like no tattletale. I still ain’t forgot that whipping you made me get when you lied on me.”
“No, I didn’t!”
“Yes, you did!”
“Fine, Boukie. But how many times you gone keep bringing that up?”
“As many damned times as I want. How ’bout that?” He pulled out a packet of weed and papers and began to roll a joint. I sat cross-legged on the blanket as they stood, smoking. Boukie told me, no, I couldn’t have none. So don’t even ask.
Baybay stayed out of it, when Boukie talked smack. As a best friend, he couldn’t openly dispute, even though he had been trying to court me since childhood. When we were little, he’d put his arm around me in lover’s solidarity, but I was of the opinion that he showed his teeth too much, which reduced him to a simpleton. I didn’t want him for my man.