these,” she said, cupping them underneath and lifting them up. “They ain’t big like that white bitch but they there. Wanna see ’em?”
“No,” Jordan said quickly, and stood. “Let’s go fishin’.”
“Aw, cuz, I don’t wanna do no motherfuckin’ fishin’. That’s all they is to do out here is go fishin’. I wish I was back in town.” She looked south, towards town.
“I know,” she said. “Let’s dance.” She gave a little jump in the air and began grinding her butt in rhythmic circles. She sang throatily, “I got somethin’ that’ll sure ’nuff do you good. Tell me somethin’ good, tell me that you love me, baby.”
Jordan could do nothing but simply stare.
“Come on, cuz, dance,” she implored, and floated over and tried to rub her butt against his. Jordan leaped away. “Come on, boy, shake that booty!”
Jordan ducked and ran out of the cluster of the trees into the open. Butch was up in an instant and then YoYo came out, laughing and whooping, and chased them until they reached the pond.
“Aw, shit! I gots to go home. My folks is home,” she said, looking toward the brick house.
Before Jordan could say anything she took off jogging. “Bye, cutey,” she said over her shoulder.
* * *
That night his grandparents sat across from each other like chess pieces at the kitchen table, drinking Brown Derby beer in a bottle. When they were drinking Jordan liked to pop in, drop a controversial bomb, then return later to see what road the argument was on. Once, he’d offered that Aunt Dorothy’s boyfriend Leo had said Zeke’s garden was scrawny. They took it meekly at first but an hour and a few beers later they were haggling over just how sorry lazy-ass Leo was. Tonight, Jordan dropped in and said that YoYo said Indians eat dogs.
“Don’t listen to that nonsense,” Granny said. “Did you catch any fish today?”
“Whaaat!” Grandpa said disbelievingly, drawing it out, like he hadn’t heard right.
“Oh, Lord, here we go,” Granny said, shook her head, and took a drink.
“Those sumbitches’ll eat anything,” Zeke said. “Carp, gar, nigger quail, rotten possum.”
Zeke seemed inflamed, holding his bottle in the air and pointing his finger around.
“Hush up, Zeke!” Granny said, trying to dismiss the conversation with a flick of her hand. “Talk about something else. I am not going to sit here and listen to this!”
Zeke ground to a halt, mumbled something about possums, and drank, shaking his head. He had a faraway look.
“I tell you one thing, an Indian will outwork a lazy ol’ nigger anyday!”
“Zeke!”
“Humph.”
Sorry he’d said anything, Jordan left the room, brushing back the thin white sheet they hung in the doorway when they were going to stay up late and drink. He lay on the bed with the fan blowing on him and tried to sleep. As he lay awake, he could see through the sheet the silhouetted figures of his grandparents moving about the kitchen. He dozed off once, then woke and crept over to the doorway and pulled the sheet back a slice.
Zeke was standing and pointing a finger at Granny. “Now, Flo,” he said, “I didn’t raise that boy to be a nigger lover.” Jordan went back to bed and heard them talk normal, argue loudly, talk normal, argue loudly until the rhythm, as usual, put him to sleep.
This Saturday, Jordan said he really didn’t feel like going riding around with them. Felt a little sick, he said, when really, he wanted to watch the Reds play the Dodgers. Usually, if he didn’t have a game, he’d go with them out on the dirt roads, riding in the back of the pickup with Butch, and he and his sister or cousin would yell “Bottle!” if they saw a returnable pop bottle lying in a ditch or half-stuck in a mud hole. Zeke would stop and the kids would bail out and race to claim the bottle. When they got a sackful, they would cash them in for pop and candy. It also was usually a good time for Granny to take a leak.
Around one o’clock Jordan went into the front room to turn on the NBC Game of the Week with Tony Kubek and Joe Garagiola. Typically, the channel wasn’t coming in so he had to go out and wrestle the antenna, which was strapped to the side of the house. He twisted mightily to point the rickety thing in another direction and had to repeat the process when he went back inside and found the reception worse.
On this second effort he saw YoYo’s black head bobbing in the tallgrass pasture next to the brick house. Just as she was about to reach the cut field where he would be instantly visible to her, he darted inside and slammed the door. He crouched below the window and peeked over. She was already coming into their front yard. Must have ran, he thought. Before he could get a plan together she was banging on the door.
“Jordan! It’s me, YoYo. Open up the door.”
He was hidden in his bedroom but heard plainly.
“Jordan! I know you’re in there!” She banged hard again. “Open up the damn door.” She was standing on the porch, peering through the window.
Crouching, Jordan snuck up under the window and when she knocked again he jumped up suddenly and pressed his face against the glass, flattening his lips and nose.
YoYo screamed and leaped off the porch and was about to take off running when Jordan opened the door. YoYo saw him, stopped and took a few seconds to catch her breath, then lit into him.
“Motherfucker be playin’ games. Always playin’ motherfuckin’ games!”
Jordan sat on the porch, and she came over next to him. She ran her hand through his hair and even though it pleased him, he blocked her arm.
“I knew you was off in there,” she said. “I saw yo’ grandfolks go by and I waved at them and they stopped.”
“So.”
“So? So they said it was OK for you to come over to my house. Your grandmammy, she said for us to have fun, so we gonna have us some motherfuckin’ fun.” She stood. “Come on.”
“Naa.”
“Naa? What you mean, naa?”
“I’m going to watch baseball.”
“All you thinks about is baseball and fishin’. Come on, you can watch it at my house. We gots a big ol’ TV and air conditioning. They went shopping in Tulsa and won’t be back ’til tonight.” She assumed a pleading tone. “Please, baby, please.” She ran her fingers through his hair again.
“What’s that,” YoYo said, pointing, after Jordan returned from turning off the TV and all the fans and collecting his records.
“It’s my record player,” he said, holding it by its little plastic handle. “You said you wanted to listen to records.”
“I gotta record player, cuz. Leave all that here.”
When Jordan came back with
