The Wisdom of Hair by Kim Boykin Page B

and say so himself.
    It was nice out that night. Windy. Not too hot. We sat out on the landing after dinner in our lawn chairs and opened a second bottle of wine.
    “Look.” She nudged me, and I shushed her because her voice does carry so.
    Winston was in his drinking room. Judging from the way he looked, he was pretty far gone. He accidentally knocked a picture off the little table beside his chair and then picked it up two or three times because it didn’t seem to want to stay on the table. He went to a cabinet with the liquor canisters on it and poured his drink with one hand while he held the wall up with the other.
    “Oh, honey, you don’t need any more of that medicine,” Sara Jane whispered.
    “We ought not to be watching this, Sara Jane.”
    The way he teetered about the room was suspenseful, like watching a high-wire act at the circus. Neither of us could budge from our seats even if we had wanted to. I was embarrassed for him, but mostly I was embarrassed for myself.
    “He’s just got to get over her. I’m telling you, if he doesn’t, he’s gonna drink himself to death. Look at him. He’s pitiful.”
    “He is not.” I knew she was right. “He’s…he’s…well, he’s gorgeous, for one thing.”
    “He may be gorgeous, but I can guaran-damn-tee you he couldn’t get it up if his life depended on it. I bet he’s got permanent whiskey dick.”
    “He does not.”
    “Oh, just look at him, Zora. You know he gets that way every night. You could do a whole lot better than him.”
    The tiny sliver of moon in the sky made just enough light for her to see me all red-faced with tears running down my cheeks. She knew I wanted Winston and wanted him more than she wanted those men in her books to come and sweep her off her feet.
    She laughed. “Oh, what the hell do I know? I’m dating the yardman.”
    After pouring me another glass of wine, she told me about their first date. Jimmy had taken her to the home of some rich guy he did yard work for. It was right on the ocean. They actually rode horses on the beach in the moonlight. Everything sounded so perfect, at first I wondered if she’d made the whole thing up. I also wondered how Jimmy knew just the right things to do to win Sara Jane’s heart, but the truth was that he had won it the very first time they laid eyes on each other.
    “I pretended we were Dominique Devereau and Beaumont Belliard in
Castaways of Love
. I even told him so. He smiled and told me I could imagine whatever I wanted to as long as he was a part of it. Zora, I think I’m in love.”
    It was obvious she was love-struck by the way her voice quivered when she said Jimmy’s name, the way every tiny thing he did was so amazing to her. I tried not to sound jealous, but I couldn’t believe her luck. “Sara Jane. You don’t even know him.”
    “You don’t have to know somebody to be in love with them. You just are.”
    We both turned back to the scene in the drinking room. Winston was at the liquor cabinet again, teetering from side to side. Iguess he was trying to keep the room from spinning long enough to pour himself another drink.
    He teetered too far to the right and fell. I was sure he was dead by the way his head snapped back when it hit the coffee table. We sat there on the edge of our seats, waiting for him to get up. I pounded my fist on the railing like he was a fallen prizefighter.
    “Get up. Get up.” As he lay on the floor, I prayed like crazy that he was only coldcocked by the whiskey.
    “Oh, my gosh. You don’t think he’s…”
    “No. He’ll get up.” Sara Jane’s voice was steady. We sat there for half an hour, but he didn’t move. “He’s just dead drunk.”
    Dead drunk. It was the term I had used most of my life to describe Mama and the men she lived with. The way the sheriff described my daddy.
    “We ought to do something, even if it’s just put him to bed.”
    “It’s his rule, Sara Jane. We can’t go in there. He hasn’t let anybody in the