weren’t so hot as I thought. I said, “You OK with that?”
Momma said, “With what?”
“With June coming back.”
“Got to be,” Momma said. Another cloud of smoke bloomed off her head. “I miss that tree,” Momma said.
There had been a red oak in the front yard, big enough to have branches you could touch from where Momma sat, big enough that me and Momma could only barely touch fingers when we hugged it from opposite sides. Last time June got busy saving Momma, she had a man trim some limbs off the oak hung out over the street. Big storm a week later knocked the whole thing over. Bad roots, the guy from extension June called said. Thing blocked traffic, lay there a month across Momma’s yard, right across the steps into Glenda’s yard next door, before Mamaw got somebody to cut it up.
One old lady in the projects down the hill across the road from where the tree trunk lay went and lived with her daughter in Corbin waiting for that tree to get gone. She was afraid the trunk would get loose, roll across the road, and explode the illegal propane tanks between Momma’s house and her apartment. Blow her to Kingdom Come. I don’t blame her. Who can you count on? Thirteen pickup trucks of cut wood come out of that tree.
I said, “Lot hotter out here without that tree.”
“Seems like,” Momma said.
Down below Mamaw lined out more chores for Gene. Her voice was like radio static. Momma peered over. “Who’s that guy?” Momma said.
“Some guy June picked up,” I said.
Momma turned to look at me, her eyebrows riding up her forehead. “Do what?” Momma said.
“Hitchhiking,” I said.
“Oh,” Momma said.
“There she is up there,” I heard Mamaw say. “Not the sense God gave a goose.”
Momma said quiet and tough, “Geese are smart.”
I said, “And they honk a lot.”
Momma laughed, said, “Hubert’s out.”
I said, “Is he reformed?”
Momma sat quiet. “No doubt,” she said with another puff of smoke.
I said, “Why’d they arrest him?”
Momma said, “Who knows?”
“You do,” I should have said out loud instead of just thinking, but I’d been knowing a good while no point asking Momma for something she hadn’t already give you.
The bedroom window pushed open. June held Nicolette back from climbing out there with us. “Hey yall,” June said. Momma snapped a look over her shoulder, turned back to the sky, pushed out another cloud of smoke.
How cold Momma was made me hurt for Nicolette. Nicolette stood at the window, watched her grandmother like she was a biting dog or a flower she’d been told not to pick. I stood up, reached to Nicolette through the window. She put her hand in mine. Her hand was sticky and buzzed with energy, a beehive hand.
June said, “I’m taking her over to see Houston.”
I squeezed Nicolette’s hand. “You like that, honeypot?”
Nicolette said, “I aint no honeypot.”
She let me put my hand on her hair. I curled my fingers over her ear. I lay my hand against her cheek, and that was too much. Nicolette knocked the hand down, said, “Momma Trish.”
My mother turned around. “Hey, baby,” she said. “You going to see your papaw?”
Nicolette said, “You can come too.”
Momma said, “I can’t today, baby. You hug that old goat for me. All right?”
“Yeah,” Nicolette said.
June put her hand on Nicolette’s shoulder. Our eyes met and June said, “We’ll be back.”
I nodded. They left. My mother lit another cigarette. In my mind, my mother’s coal truck heart T-boned mine, a dreadful crash on an empty stretch of road, all shattered glass and twisted metal, no law, no ambulance in sight. I climbed back through the window, set on the stairs,
The air conditioner roared, and there was no way for Momma to know whether I cried or not.
2
RUCKUS
GENE
When Cora finished lining me out over what to do in That Woman’s yard, Brother come got me and we went down to the jail, put twenty dollars on the commissary of this girl from church. I was still inside when I seen Hubert Jewell out in the parking lot. His hair ran across his head in stripes, his eyebrows wadded together like plug tobacco. He was rubbing his arm muscles, which was like rocks. Hubert Jewell wasn’t tall, but he wasn’t nobody to mess with neither. Cats walked the other way when they seen Hubert Jewell. His nephew, skinny Albert Jewell, stooped to talk in his ear and Hubert turned away. Albert was Dawn’s brother. You’d see him in town, moving on all the store girls, gunning his big loud truck through red lights,
I was going to stand there till they passed, but the jail woman said, “Is that it?” and before I thought, I said it was and went outside.
Hubert Jewell said to Albert, “If you don’t know how to do it, you shouldn’t do it.”
I kept my head down, walked towards Brother’s vehicle.
Albert said, “What are you looking at?”
I looked up before I thought and said, “Nothing,” then seen Albert Jewell wadn’t talking to me. Albert said, “I aint talking to you, old dude,” and Hubert said something to him I couldn’t hear.
When I got close enough, Brother said, “Get in the damn car.” When I did, he said, “What are you thinking? It’s a dumbass step in the middle of two Jewells arguing.”
Brother fanned the gas, put the vehicle in gear, bounced over the railroad tracks, and threw gravel pulling out on the Drop Creek road.
“They’s a hundred women in there,” Brother said, pointing at the recovery center next to the jail. “A hundred women separated from mankind. Aint right.” When I didn’t say nothing to that, Brother spit his chewing gum out the window, said, “I heard Albert say that Tricia Jewell is ratting on Hubert.”
I said, “Why would she do that?”
Brother felt of his back tooth with his finger, said, “I’m gonna take them rehab girls some chewing gum.”
I said, “I might go back and work some more.”
