“What’cha happy about?” Chloe asked.
Nannie pointed at the old sandwich board sign by the road. Large, runny blue letters were painted in bold strokes over the faded “Blue Ridge Country Crafts.” The new sign read, “Victim of Violent Crime. No Solicitors, Curious a Quarter.”
Chloe shook her head. “What’s that say?”
Nannie’s smile did not fade. She tapped the bandages on her left arm, and on her hip beneath her cotton dress. “Crime gonna pay this time, honey. It’s gonna pay for us.”
On the way back into the house for breakfast, Nannie flipped the “Closed” sign on the door back over to “Open.”
At first nobody came. Nannie told Chloe the local folks were not ones to peek too soon, but after a few days there was a trickling of women and men and children, slipping up the driveway and coming hesitantly to the door. The first of the curious pretended to be on church work, bringing along homemade pies and fried chicken. They were anxious to see, but didn’t want to appear anxious. The hands which held the pies and chickens were sweaty hands, and the pockets on those dresses and trousers were full of quarters.
Nannie sat on a stuffed chair in her living room where once her dolls and toys had sat. She wore a loose skirt and blouse. When the quarter was dropped into a can by the door, Chloe would pull up Nannie’s blouse and the curious would ooh and ahh at the ragged, red scars of Nannie’s violent crime. After an uneasy start, the flow became steady for more than a week. People came and paid, acting as though they were embarrassed to be there, making Nannie promise not to tell anyone about their visit, hurrying down to their cars as if they were afraid they would be seen and chastised. Everyone wanted to see; no one wanted anyone to know they wanted to see.
Chloe took the money on her walks. She would be gone a while, and would pick up groceries at the little country store on her way home. Half of the time she bought what Nannie had asked her to buy, the other half she got an odd assortments of pretty shapes and brightly colored boxes and cans. She and Nannie ate well.
Then the money slowed and nearly stopped. Nannie’s scars weren’t so bad anymore. Kids even scowled and rolled their eyes after they saw what their school lunch quarters had bought them.
So Nannie gave the proof of her assault a little boost.
With a keen kitchen knife, she opened several of the healed wounds, making them a bit bigger than they originally were, and the curious came round again. Nannie upped the price to fifty cents, and displayed the red, draining cuts to those who would make crime pay.
Chloe watched the money clank into the can, and she helped Nannie undo her blouse and lift her skirt. In the late afternoons she took her walks. And after supper she sat and played with her doll while Nannie put on the nighttime dressings.
When Nannie took off her first finger, Stony was back in a rage. He would not come up on the porch, but stood at the bottom of the front stoop steps and shook a fist at the woman and the girl.
“You’s crazy! No wonder Chloe ain’t right upstairs, she got it from you.”
“Go home, Stony,” said Nannie.
“They are talking ’bout you at work now. You’re the bathroom talk, Nannie. You’re the lunch room talk! You can’t do this to yourself. Take some money. I can’t handle this shame.”
Nannie licked her lips and patted Chloe’s face with a four-fingered hand. “Go home, Stony. We don’t need you.”
“There’s openings out at the turkey plant. Let Chloe come work there. She might be crazy but she ain’t dumb like you think she is, Nannie. She’s fooling you in a big way.”
“She can’t, Stony. Don’t fool yourself. Go home.
“And why the hell’s she getting so fat these days? She got bad glands or something? Won’t take yourself to the doctor, won’t take her, either, I guess.”
“We’s eating good,” said Nannie. “Chloe’s just a healthy girl. Go home.”
“You pregnant, Chloe?” asked Stony.
Nannie stepped down to Stony. Her good hand shot out and cracked her grandson on the side of the face. “You speak trash on my porch?”
Stony almost exploded. “You ain’t my family!”
“I always knew that. Go home.”
Stony went home.
And so it went. Nannie cut herself in the daytime, while Chloe held a cloth to catch the blood and sometimes put a rag in Nannie’s teeth so she wouldn’t groan so loudly. At night, Nannie wrapped herself up good so as not to bleed to death.
Stony didn’t come back when Nannie took off another finger, nor did he show up when the left big toe came off. Nannie upped the price to seventy-five cents. The locals knew it meant more gore, and coins filled the bucket again with new fervor.
“What’s a ‘r’ look like, Nannie, I forgot,” called Chloe from the sign.
Nannie made broad strokes in the air to show her granddaughter. “Take your time, now, you’ll get it.”
Chloe put the paintbrush to the sign and formed a lopsided V. Then she sat back and painted the length of her forearm with the paint. She held it up to show Nannie. “Pretty!” she shouted.
“Chloe, honey, now you got to wash that all off.”
Chloe brought the can and paint brush to the stoop.
“All done,” she said to the doll on the porch floor.
“That sign looks right nice all done over again,” said Nannie, raising her one good hand and squinting out at the sandwich board. “Now with me asking a dollar, they’ll know they got some real crime to look at.”
Chloe sat on the stoop and rubbed the doll’s face in the paint on her arm.
Nannie turned awkwardly in her chair. Severe shadows shadows cut down the side of her face. She stroked her throat and pulled at the wrinkles. She leaned over and pulled at the end of the sock on her left foot. The sock was orange with drainage. “Threads catching on that gone toe,” Nannie said. “Ought to get me a prop-up chair.”
“Nannie, Stony says I crazy like you.”
“Stony don’t know crazy,” said Nannie. “You and me, we’s just practical. Give me a hug.”
Chloe leaned into the rancid dress and gave her Nannie a hug.
Nannie sat back. She said, “Stony tells me you can do more than I think you can. In a way, he’s right.”
Chloe put some of the yarn doll hair into her mouth to suck. She strummed the now-blue doll’s face.
“I know you can do many things. You can help me move ’round the house. You help me do a little cooking in the kitchen. You paint the signs for me, don’t think I don’t love you for it. But there is something else…” Nannie’s voice trailed. Chloe licked the palm of her hand, and watched her grandmother.
“Want you to do my eyes,” said Nannie. Chloe blinked, and rubbed her own.
“I can hold still I think. If I cry don’t stop.” Nannie scratched at a curly eyebrow hair. Then she took a butter knife from her skirt pocket. “Dull one’ll do better.”
Chloe flinched and she drew back from the knife offered in her direction.
“George Stewart lost a thumb in his thresher last Thursday,” said Nannie, her voice thoughtful and sad. “Mrs. Stewart told me when she come ’round with her money. Ain’t nothing to see gone fingers now.”
Chloe squinched her nose and shook her head.
“Honey, crime got to pay. We got to eat.”
“How I do it?” asked Chloe.
“Just a little twist, like scooping oleo margarine from the tub.”
Chloe put her doll down. She gingerly took the knife.
“Like oleo?”
“Yes,” said Nannie. She leaned over to Chloe and kissed her on the forehead. “I’m the tub, honey.”
Chloe licked the knife once, for luck, she told Nannie.
Stony thundered into the living room, knocking over the can and spilling all the change. Coins rolled in a flurry through the dust bunnies on the floor. Chloe ran around behind Nannie’s stuffed chair. She grabbed her stomach with one hand and the top of Nannie’s head with the other.