However, by the time she was fifteen Lorene was the mother of two baby boys. Living in the lounge with her mother’s boy friends always after her, she was tripped up from the start by the men underfoot, and was the fastest thing going, next to her mother, in town. It had not taken Brownfield long to see that Lorene had her kind of crush on him (anything her mother tried appealed to her), and that Josie more than liked him. At seventeen he was well set up between the two of them and the lounge was as much his as theirs. Or so they were quick to assure him.
He got along well with them both and turned his back when they fought over him. Lorene, a smoke-cured slattern who doused herself with cheap perfume and wore her hair a bright new penny red, was as flattering a lay as her mother. For although she looked more like somebody’s brother than anybody’s girl, she had a reputation for toughness that earned her an abundance of respect from youngsters who hoped to grow up to be like her. She was noted for her expert use of the razor, and it was said that she had once cut up a customer’s wife and then run the customer out of the room while his wife almost bled to death. Brownfield enjoyed her also for her language, as when she said of the customer and his bleeding wife, “I was just tryin’ to catch that nigger and tell him to get that bleeding brood sow off my floor. I ain’t gonna kill my ass mopping up after these nasty folks.” Brownfield was happy until he got his first look at Mem.
Mem was cherry brown, not yellow like Josie or dark and hairy like Lorene. She was plump and quiet, with demure slant eyes. When she came home from school she was barely noticed. She stayed upstairs when the lounge was rocking, and when she did come down she kept right on out of the house and out walking, just walking, in the woods. Brownfield tried to talk to her but she answered him shyly, her eyes on the ground, without interest, it seemed to him, and went her way, with him more and more turning to look after her. He had never known anybody to go walking, “just walking,” in the woods, unless they expected to walk up on a good stick.
“Who the hell she think she is?” he asked Josie, frowning at what he couldn’t understand. “I can’t stand for women to go away for two weeks and come back talking proper!”
Part of what he meant was “walking proper,” for Mem certainly had a proper walk. For a while her walk alone mystified him, intrigued him, and in every way set his inquisitive itch on edge. He was not averse to making his person available to all members of the family.
“Aw, quit your going on and get on in this bed,” Josie purred, looking more like a fat caterpillar every day. “Ain’t no need for you looking at that one, she ain’t got no real itch in her pussy. She can’t do for you what I can do.”
Brownfield responded to her soft, sinful old hands by taking her to bed.
“When’s you and me going to get married, lover?” Josie asked, while Brownfield realized that Mem’s bed was just on the other side of the wall, about a foot from her benevolent “mothers.”
In moments of spitefulness, Lorene tried to tell Brownfield that what Josie had said about Grange and her was true. It didn’t make any sense to Brownfield that his father and Josie might have been lovers. Besides, what did he care if he now plowed a furrow his father had laid? Josie’s old field had never lain fallow. And after Mem came, what Lorene or Josie told him about anything didn’t matter. He was interested only in Mem. How to penetrate her quiet strangeness occupied his whole mind.
11
W HAT HE FELT always when he thought of Mem was guilt. Shame that he was no better than he was. Grime. Dirt. He thought of her as of another mother, the kind his own had not been. Someone to be loved and spoken to softly, someone never to frighten with his rough, coarse ways. But he could never successfully communicate his feelings to her; he did not
He got along well with them both and turned his back when they fought over him. Lorene, a smoke-cured slattern who doused herself with cheap perfume and wore her hair a bright new penny red, was as flattering a lay as her mother. For although she looked more like somebody’s brother than anybody’s girl, she had a reputation for toughness that earned her an abundance of respect from youngsters who hoped to grow up to be like her. She was noted for her expert use of the razor, and it was said that she had once cut up a customer’s wife and then run the customer out of the room while his wife almost bled to death. Brownfield enjoyed her also for her language, as when she said of the customer and his bleeding wife, “I was just tryin’ to catch that nigger and tell him to get that bleeding brood sow off my floor. I ain’t gonna kill my ass mopping up after these nasty folks.” Brownfield was happy until he got his first look at Mem.
Mem was cherry brown, not yellow like Josie or dark and hairy like Lorene. She was plump and quiet, with demure slant eyes. When she came home from school she was barely noticed. She stayed upstairs when the lounge was rocking, and when she did come down she kept right on out of the house and out walking, just walking, in the woods. Brownfield tried to talk to her but she answered him shyly, her eyes on the ground, without interest, it seemed to him, and went her way, with him more and more turning to look after her. He had never known anybody to go walking, “just walking,” in the woods, unless they expected to walk up on a good stick.
“Who the hell she think she is?” he asked Josie, frowning at what he couldn’t understand. “I can’t stand for women to go away for two weeks and come back talking proper!”
Part of what he meant was “walking proper,” for Mem certainly had a proper walk. For a while her walk alone mystified him, intrigued him, and in every way set his inquisitive itch on edge. He was not averse to making his person available to all members of the family.
“Aw, quit your going on and get on in this bed,” Josie purred, looking more like a fat caterpillar every day. “Ain’t no need for you looking at that one, she ain’t got no real itch in her pussy. She can’t do for you what I can do.”
Brownfield responded to her soft, sinful old hands by taking her to bed.
“When’s you and me going to get married, lover?” Josie asked, while Brownfield realized that Mem’s bed was just on the other side of the wall, about a foot from her benevolent “mothers.”
In moments of spitefulness, Lorene tried to tell Brownfield that what Josie had said about Grange and her was true. It didn’t make any sense to Brownfield that his father and Josie might have been lovers. Besides, what did he care if he now plowed a furrow his father had laid? Josie’s old field had never lain fallow. And after Mem came, what Lorene or Josie told him about anything didn’t matter. He was interested only in Mem. How to penetrate her quiet strangeness occupied his whole mind.
11
W HAT HE FELT always when he thought of Mem was guilt. Shame that he was no better than he was. Grime. Dirt. He thought of her as of another mother, the kind his own had not been. Someone to be loved and spoken to softly, someone never to frighten with his rough, coarse ways. But he could never successfully communicate his feelings to her; he did not
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