I wipe down the tables, mind my own business. I hear him sniffling like he sick. “They captured them slaves and the Freedom Fighter,” he say. “The boy and the girl. The gal they maimed before returning her to her master. The Fighter they hung by his satchel. Tied it around his neck. Burned his body. Left it blackened and hanging. I don’t know about the boy.”
I cain’t breathe.
“And I don’t know what’s worse, burning to death or being left up there with no proper burial. He’s still there. Up the road.”
I have to sit down.
I bow my head over an uncleared table, take a swallow of water left yesterday by somebody else. I whisper, “I thought you said it was safe? That nobody would suspect nothing?”
“He was turned in. Somebody knew the plan. The route. It’s the only way it coulda happened. .”
“It wasn’t me,” I say.
“You didn’t know the route, Naomi. It was a risk for all of us.”
“If he wouldn’t have stopped here for me. .” I say. “Oh! That little girl. That boy. Have mercy, I saw ’em. Jesus! It’s ’cause of me!”
“’Cause of what he believed in,” Albert said. “Cause of the freedom those children deserved. What every person deserves.”
“We should’ve been with ’em.”
“You saved both our lives,” Albert say.
“You stayed ’cause of me?”
Heavy clicks of heeled shoes come up the porch steps behind Albert. Albert leaves directly, down the hallway. The back door opens and closes. The old priest — Preacha Man — is here. He’s wearing a wide-brimmed black hat.
“How do, suh?” I say. “We not open. But Sam’ll be in in another hour or so. I could help you, though. Remember you take bourbon.”
“I came to see Cynthia,” he say, sliding his hat off.
“She might already have a customer, suh. Or sleep. Folks don’t usually come for her or the girls ’til after two. It’s just noon.”
“I’ll wait.”
“If that’s your pleasure.”
I step around the bar and pour him a bourbon. Slide it to him.
He takes a sip and stares at me like he gon’ say something, got questions, maybe about Cynthia or this place. I don’t want him watching me no more so I say, “I’ll go and check on her for you, suh.”
On the way up the hall to Cynthia’s room, I can smell her liquor. I knock on her door. “Cynthia?” and push the door open.
She’s still in her nightgown. Ain’t been dressed yet.
“What the hell you want?” she say with gin spilling out her mouth.
“That priest is here to see you.”
“What the hell for?”
“I told ’im you was busy but he said he’d wait.”
She laughs too loud, snorting now. “A goddamn priest. That’ll be a first. Help me up.”
She throws her robe on and stumbles up the hall in front of me. I say, “Don’t you want to get dressed first? Put some shoes on?” But she keeps walking, her drunken legs crisscrossing in front of her like sticks with no knees to bend with. She’s been drinking more since we stopped talking, since she found out about me and Jeremy.
The first thing she say when she get to the saloon is, “You come for a piece of this, Preacha Man?”
He stands and wrings his hat. She go right up to him with her eyelids drooping, wearing a closed-lipped smile. She grabs his hat-holding hand and puts it between her legs, sliding it back and forth.
When he pulls away, her gin grin becomes a flat line.
“I’ve come to apologize,” he say. “I haven’t been obedient to the word of God and I failed you. I should have been a vessel for your confession the other day, not a hindrance.”
“So you apologizing to me?” Cynthia say.
“Yes, ma’am,” he say, wringing his hat again. “Even the faithful struggle sometimes.”
“I charge by the hour,” Cynthia say. “And since you confessing some bullshit, you’re gon’ have to pay upfront.”
He reaches in his pocket and slides a wad of money across the bar, surprising me and Cynthia both. She flicks through it like she ain’t impressed. “That’ll do,” she say and falls back on the stool in front of him.
From over her shoulder, she tell me, “Get me a drink.”
I make her a shot of gin, the brand she already drinking so she don’t get sick, and after she swallows it down, she say to the priest, “Proceed.”
He unrolls his hat and peels a small sheet of paper from the inside flap and puts it on the bar top. He say, “It’s the address to a temple nearby. Up the road. The rabbi there’s expecting you. Got some from the women’s group you might talk to. Could help.”
“What the hell?” she say. Her whole face, her body, slouches in disgust. “What the mother fucking hell! You speaking for me now, Preacha Man?”
“Maybe you’ll find what you need there,” he say, putting his hat back on.
“You asking ’round about me, Preacha? You’re the one up here in my bar. Drinking my drinks. Smelling the pussy I sell. You’re getting God for me?”
“Have a good day, ma’am,” he say, nodding to me when he go out the door.
“Well, goddamn,” she yell to the empty doorway. “You don’t know me, asshole. Come in here like you’re God. Fuck you!”
She turns to me, grabs my wrist, ripping the stitches on the sleeve of my yellow dress, Jeremy’s dress. My face flushes red. My tears come instant.
She point her long white finger in my face. “Don’t you come get me for no more bullshit,” and she starts toward the hall.
“You should be used to it,” I say, before I can stop myself. Cain’t believe myself, “That’s all that ever comes for you!”
She stops.
“You think you smart?” she say. “First piece of ass you ever had and it’s got your nose open. You think that Little Dick Jeremy is the shit and you the toilet? You think you got that, huh? Well, I been there, done that. That loser will sew you up and sell you for his first bad hand. He ain’t all you think he is.”
“You’re jealous ’cause this is all you have. And you cain’t buy me. You ain’t got no friends, no family, no nothin. And now you cain’t have what I got.”
“No. That’s what I just said. I’ve had that. And like I also said, Little Dick will do whatever he can to get over another bad hand.”
I spit in her face. She slaps me.
“Don’t you touch me!” I say.
Before I can move, she’s got her arms around my neck, throws us to the table. Drinking glasses crash to the floor. She’s drunk and I pull her hair. She won’t let go of me. I send my forehead into her cheekbone. Her hands follow to the spot.
I cain’t see.
“Bitch!” she say.
I wriggle out from under her, wiping the wrinkles out my dress. “Don’t you ever touch me again!” I say. “Not my dress. Not my body. Not ever!”
“This is my house!” she say. “I do what I damn well please and what I’m gon’ do is send your black ass back to Alabama so they string you up for what you did.”
“How about I send your cracker ass back to Charleston for what you did to your own daddy.”
Her eyes widen.
Then a soft voice behind me say, “Mimi?”
I fall into him, crying. “Jeremy.”
He smells of new cologne. This shirt I’ve never seen before. I kiss his lips, see his hair’s combed different. He don’t hold me the way he should. Loose, like. He don’t look at me.
“Sorry I’m late,” he tell Cynthia. “Had to finish helping Geraldine this morning. Was on the road back from Athens yesterday. I appreciate the extra money.”
“Just get to them keys and play something fast and loud,” she say. “Anything. And when you leave tonight, take this trifling whore with you. Ungrateful bitch!”