she sayin’ somethin’ wrong?” Clay asked his Aunt Dorie. He couldn’t understand why it was okay for Mommy to say that and for Shannon to get bawled out for saying it.
“That’s completely different, Clay. Only vulgar folks call a woman’s breast a tit. Sugar tit is okay to say.” But Clay couldn’t see what the difference could be since they were both the same word. Dorie looked down to where Shannon had sat down on the top step. “Do you understand, Shannon?”
“Yes, ma’am.” But she didn’t. She just said what Mrs. Waters, her Sunday school teacher, told them to say when somebody asked them a question. ‘Yes, ma’am and no, ma’am. Yes, sir and no, sir.’ She had that down pat and was pretty proud of herself. Even though it wasn’t time for her to go to school yet, she knew stuff too, like Clay did. She could even read some words because of all the newspapers on the wall. Every time they got a new newspaper pasted on the wall, she was always asking her mommy what this word or that word was. Didn’t take her long to learn them. Daddy said she was smart like Clay, Jr. It made her grin a country mile when he said that. Nothing tickled Shannon more than being bragged on.
Aunt Dorie handed the baby to Clay and told him to sit in the rocking chair and rock him while she went inside for a minute. They couldn’t understand why they couldn’t go back in the cabin if she could run in and out any time she wanted to, but Aunt Dorie told them to stay put, so they did. In a few minutes, she was back outside with fresh tears and the glass bottle that Daddy had bought for Nate sometime last month. Mommy hadn’t used it much, but Daddy said something about the baby having teeth now and was getting too big for the tit. Daddy grabbed Mommy and said that he could have them back now. Like Daddy wanted tits when everygody knew men didn’t have no use for tits. Uh, breasts. Sometimes Daddy was so funny.
The bottle was full so Aunt Dorie had to have gone out the back door and to the cellar to get the milk because there wasn’t none in the house. Shannon had looked for some. There was some water in a jar on the table but it smelled funny, so she didn’t drink none, just got her a dipper of water out of the bucket. Nate started drinking the milk like he was starved to death and hadn’t even been fed that morning. Clay and Shannon saw that he was pretty happy sitting there with Aunt Dorie, so they got down off the porch and started running all around the yard playing tag, ducking behind the two pink dogwood trees that weren’t very big. Daddy had planted them when he came back from overseas when the war ended.
They had run around back when Clive came out of the cabin and spoke to Dorie, a look of denial and disbelief on his grief-stricken face. “They’re both gone, Dorie, but I reckon you know that. Wood alcohol, I figure. You sure can smell ’at moonshine and I poured what little was left out back. If’n them kids had got ahold o’ that! Makes me so goddamned mad that I could kill that dirty son o’ bitch where Clay got it if I had hold o’ him right now!”
“Are ya sure, Clive? Coulda been somethin’ else, couldn’t it?”
“What else? They was drinkin’. You smelled it in there, Dorie. Ya had to. Ain’t nothin’ else that’d kill ’em ’at fast. ’Sides, I seen it before, years ago. Lem Manning down on Ten Mile died o’ drinkin’ ’at stuff when I was somewhere ’round twelve or so. He was some kin to Daddy and he took me with him down there when Lem died.”
“I ’spect yer right, then. Lord, these poor young’uns!” She hugged little Nate closer and he snuggled up against her.
“Looks like he went first ’cause she ain’t been dead that long. Clay prob’ly drunk more o’ that stuff than she did and more ’an likely started sooner. By the time he got sick, she was prob’ly too sick herself to do somethin’ ’bout it. I’m surprised they even got to the bed. Musta figured they’d sleep it off.”
“They’ll sleep it off, aw’right, Clive,” Dorie stated facetiously, and Clive gave her a dirty look and then shook his head.
“I saw him down in Big Bend yesterday and I told him not to buy that rotgut offn ’at man, that he wasn’t from these parts, but he wouldn’t listen. He said he’d bought it off’n ’at guy before and there wasn’t nothin’ wrong with it. But that’s the way they do ya. Give ya a good half gallon jar to get ya to buy what he’s sellin’ the next time. No tellin’ what was in this batch. They’ll put anythin’ in it to sell it ’cause they don’t care nothin’ ’bout the folks that buys it. Jus’ filthy lucre, that’s all them dirty bastards thinks ’bout.”
Clive walked over and put his hand around the porch post just looking out front toward the well tended garden that Clay had planted earlier and was just starting to come up good. “I wish to God that Clay hadn’t took up drinkin’ when he was in the Navy. He’d be alive right now if’n he didn’t. Hell, you know I even tried to talk him outta enlistin’ ’cause o’ the kids. I talked till I was blue in the face ’bout him drinkin’ too much, but he said he seen terr’ble things you couldn’t even think ’bout over there and did some things that was even worser so they all drunk to get it off their mind. They went to sleep ever night, he said, thinkin’ it might be them blowed all to hell the next day and sent home in a pine box. Mighta been easier to take if that was the way he went and not like this. Clay changed when he was over there, Dorie. That war did somethin’ to ’im. Never was the same.” He teared up again and turned back toward his wife. “You know, I bet they ain’t the only ones we’re gonna find out that died last night, and that goddam swindler ain’t gonna be nowhere to be found! I told Clay and told Clay to never trust a stranger, but he thought he knew it all ’cause he’d been overseas. I wish I could jus’ turn back the time, Dorie! I’d beat Clay to a pulp before I let ’im buy that stuff!”
“Clive, we cain’t help what other people do. You know ’at.” She wanted to help him so badly, but there was nothing she could do. “Oh Lordy, Clive! I never thought. I been sittin’ here wonderin’ why Macie drunk that stuff. Then it hit me like a ton o’ bricks. It was her birthday yesterday. She told me ’bout it last week and even asked if we wanted to come over, that she was plannin’ on bakin’ a cake, but I knew Clay would prob’ly be drinkin’. Tell the truth, I fergot all ’bout it. We all know Clay drinks more ’an he ought to, but Macie never drinks, Clive. I bet he talked her into it fer her birthday. What are we gonna tell these young’uns? That their mommy and daddy was poisoned? Or if truth be told, that they poisoned theirselves? What are we gonna tell ’em?” She shifted Nate to the other arm. He’d fallen asleep while drinking his bottle.
“We’re gonna tell ’em they went to live with Jesus and that’s all we’re gonna tell ’em, Dorie. I don’t want those kids growin’ up mad at their Mommy and Daddy ’cause some greedy idget sold Clay poison moonshine. If we don’t say nothin’ ’bout it, maybe it’ll all pale in time. Do you ’member much ’bout what happened when you was seven? You’d sure recollect poison, though.” Dorie sat there and shook her head, agreeing with her husband.
“We gotta take the kids home with us fer the time bein’. Since you’re expectin’ and yer mom and dad are so bad off, we can’t keep ’em all the time. I jus’ don’t know what to do, Dorie.”
He walked out into the yard like he had the weight of the world on him and stood for a few minutes just staring down the hill. His head fell down on his chest and Dorie could see his shoulders shaking. She started to get up and go to him, but she had the sleeping baby in her lap and what he was feeling wasn’t nobody on earth that could help him. Only the good Lord and time could do that.
After a few minutes he turned back around and spoke to her, his face ravaged by the pain of losing his only brother. “I reckon I’ll have to write to Jewel and I hate like hell tellin’ her ’bout Clay. The young’uns has got to go to her. She’s the only one that’s got any money to keep ’em with. She’ll have to take ’em in.”
