they saying?”
“Stuff,” I said. “They saying stuff.” We kissed as we drove down the road and then I started laughing cause he was tickling me and getting me undressed and showing me his sample book and driving all at the same time. His left hand on the wheel, his right hand between my legs. Then we pulled off the road. Then we did it. Now we done.
“I’ll get you a whole damn carload full of panties, girl,” he says. “Them panties you had on is probably along the side of the road somewhere between here and Lincoln.” He smiles and I smile with him. I remember taking them off. The wind was whipping and musta whipped them out the window while we drove. But that was an hour ago.
Now I look down the road, seeing if I can see them. I see somebody down there walking in the dirt and the shimmer from the heat.
“I don’t wanna go home without no panties,” I says.
“You worry too much,” Snipes says.
All the car doors are open and the wind goes through, drying the sweat off the seats.
“I gotta know something,” I says.
“Whut?”
“The man’s supposed to ask the girl,” I whisper. He don’t speak.
We been together since March. Now it’s July. I wanna give him a chance to ask me.
“You said I wouldn’t get bigged the first time we did it,” I says.
“Was our first time your first time?” he says.
“You gonna marry me or what?” I says. The words come out too loud.
He don’t speak. He cuts on the radio but it don’t work when the car ain’t running. He gets out, closing the back two doors, leaving mines open and getting back behind the wheel.
“Sure I’m gonna marry you,” he says at last. “You my treasure. You think I don’t wanna marry my treasure?”
“People are talking,” I says.
“They just jealous,” he says and we both laugh. “Billy Beede got herself a good-looking man and they all jealous.”
When we quit laughing we sit there quiet.
“You my treasure, girl,” he says. “You my treasure, capital T, make no mistake.”
“I’m five months gone,” I says. Too loud again.
He wraps his fingers tight around the wheel. I want him to look at me but he don’t.
Someone comes up, stopping a foot or two from the car to stare at us openmouthed. It’s Laz. He got his wool cap down around his ears and his plaid shirt buttoned to the chin.
“You want yr ass kicked?” Snipes asks him.
“Not today,” Laz says.
“You don’t stop looking at me and my woman, I’ma kick yr black ass,” Snipes says.
Laz looks at the ground.
“You don’t get the hell outa here, I’ma kill you,” Snipes says.
“Being dead don’t bother me none,” Laz says. He got a bold voice but he ain’t looking up from the ground.
Snipes jumps out the car and they stand there toe to toe. Everything Snipes got is better than everything Laz got.
“Go the hell home, Laz,” I says and he turns and goes. Snipes throws a rock and Laz runs.
“Goddamn boot-black-wool-hat-wearing-four-eyed nigger probably wanted to see us doing it,” Snipes goes, getting back in the car and laughing and holding my hand. “Peeping and creeping boot-black-winter-hat nigger.”
“Laz is just Laz,” I says.
“His daddy runs the funeral home but Laz ain’t never gonna be running shit,” Snipes says, laughing hard and squeezing my hand to get me to laugh too and I laugh till his squeezing hurts and I make him let go.
“Today’s Wednesday, ain’t it?” Snipes says. He looks down the road, seeing his upcoming appointments in his head. “I’m free towards the end of the week. Let’s get married on Friday.”
“Really?”
“Friday’s the day,” he says, taking out his billfold. He peeks the money part open with his pointer and thumb, then he feathers the bills, counting. His one eyebrow lifts up, surprised.
“That’s what you call significant,” he says.
“Significant?”
“What year is it?”
“ ‘Sixty-three.”
“And here I got sixty-three dollars in my billfold,” he says smiling.
He pinches the bills out, folding them single-handed. He reaches over to me, lifting my housedress away from my brassiere and tucking the sixty-three dollars down between my breasts.
“Get yrself a wedding dress and some shoes and a one-way bus ticket.”
“I’ma go to Jackson’s Formal.”
“Get something pretty. Come up to Texhoma tomorrow. We can do it Friday.”
“You gonna get down on yr knee and ask me?”
“You come up tomorrow and I’ll get down on my knee in front of my sister and her kids and ask you to marry me. Hell, I’ll get down on both knees. Then we can do it Friday.”
“How bout today you meet Aunt June and Uncle Teddy?” I says.
“Today I gotta go to Midland,” he says.
“It’ll only take a minute.”
“I don’t got a minute,” he says. He looks at me. He got lips like pillows. “Have em come to Texhoma Friday. They can watch us get married. I’ll meet em then.”
“When they come up you gotta ask me to marry you on yr knees in front of them too,” I says. “They’d feel left out if they didn’t see it since you’ll be asking me in front of yr sister and her kids and yr mother and dad—”
“My mother and dad won’t be making it,” Snipes says.
“How come?”
“They’s passed,” he says. He starts up the car, turning it around neatly and pulling it into the road, heading back towards Lincoln. On Friday my new name will be Mrs. Clifton Snipes.
“I was ten when Willa Mae passed,” I says.
“Willa Mae who?”
“Willa Mae Beede. My mother,” I says.
Snipes
