“Soap up my back, Charles,” she said, holding out a pink washrag.
“I — I gotta go, M-Miss Lottie …” My voice was real wavery, like it might not have even been my own to speak with. She glared at me real mad, and snapped I should wash her back or she’d tell Mr. Herm on me. I got scared, then, and took that cloth.
Her skin was warm, and like it seemed to be glowin’. When I started soapin’ the rag, she stood up, the water flowin’ off her and splashin’ on the floor.
“Now here,” she said, running her hands over her stomach. Oh God! I knew this was what she wanted. I felt my tongue get all dry in my mouth, and I started shakin’. She was a tall lady, and she had beautiful legs and body right there in front of me.
She looked at me careful-like, up and down. “My goodness,” she said, real sweetness. “I do believe you’re excited, Charles.”
I din’t say nothing, just kept running that soapy cloth over her. Once my fingers touched the skin and I felt like an eel had grabbed onto me. She was so pretty. Why was she tryin’ to do me so?
I guess I got carried away because my hand kept feelin’, even after I dropped the washrag and it fell in the tub. First with just one hand, then with both. I was lookin’ at her stomach, just feelin’ around and rubbin’ and I was sweatin’ and feelin’ real strange. I started to say, “M-Miss Lottie, you’re so pret …”
That’s as much as she let me get out. She gritted at me, the words comin’ out between her teeth. “Okay, trash, you touched me. Now get the hell outta here. Just wait’ll Herm gets his hooks on you.” She kept on like that, yet kind of ooin’ and ahhin’ ‘cause I kept rubbin’. She tried to back away but I guess I wasn’t thinkin’ because I stuck right with her, leanin’ over the tub and when she slipped and splashed in the tub, I couldn’t help fallin’ in with her, I guess.
“Get off me, scum!” she yelled, thrashin’ all about but I din’t hear her.
I guess I went bad inside, ‘cause I started unbuttoning my jeans and tryin’ to kiss her movin’ shoulders with the wet hair and like that. I don’t remember it all except I did something I never did before. We was flappin’ around in the tub like catfish in a net and for a while she stopped callin’ me “trash” and “scum” and started scratching my back and yellin’ things and moanin’ so’s I wanted to stop but couldn’t. She wouldn’t let me. She locked her legs around mine and kept splashin’ until all of a sudden I stopped and laid there like paralyzed.
I never felt like that before in my life. Then after a minute, we stopped breathin’ heavy and her little noises stopped. She tried to open her eyes but they wouldn’t stay open.
I got scared when I remembered where I was. I climbed up off her and the tub and ran down the stairs with my shoes squishin’ and drippin’ water everywhere.
I din’t want goin’ in the Deepwater like that. My clothes was all wet. I din’t know what I was goin’ to say. When I walked in, everyone just stared at me. Mr. Herm stared and Poppa Jango stared and even old Walker Drummon who was half-corked, even he stared at me like everyone else. And when I looked down, I knew darn well why.
My jeans was still unbuttoned and I was bare there.
Mr. Herm got mad in the eyes and looked like he was goin’ to ask me something. I looked at Poppa Jango, buttonin’ up and feelin’ more scared than before, when all a sudden we heard her yell. It came from down the street. I heard her and they heard her too.
“Hermy!” she screamed. “He did it! He did it, Hermy!”
I got that feelin’ in my throat again and watched Mr. Herm. His face turned all kinds of colors and he started comin’ toward me. He was mumblin’ “dirty scum” and “white trash” and Poppa Jango was wavin’ like “go.”
Next thing, I was out the door runnin’ like a hound. I was flyin’ down the street, past where Miss Lottie was standin’ on her porch in a nightcoat and runnin’ straight for the swamp.
Trees was flyin’ past me and back behind me I could hear Mr. Herm yellin’ and swearin’ and comin’ after me.
He din’t even stop to see Miss Lottie. It was me he was wantin’.
“Rotten stinkin’ white trash sonofabitch!” he was yellin’. “I’ll kill you!”
I kept goin’ fast as I could. The dark was closing in so tight over Deepwater you’d of thought the end of the world was comin’. I ran down streets and through an alley and, all the time, Mr. Herm behind me.
Maybe ‘cause he drank too much or ‘cause I’m younger and faster, I got clean away. I ran right out of town. Down the Sidehill Road and into the swamp back of Gurley’s farm. I saw car lights comin’ over the hill and down the road about ten minutes after I ploughed in, so I had to go deeper.
The swamp ain’t no place for a man. Not in the day, and never, never in the night! There’s stuff you can hear: crickets clicking in the reeds, the fish down deep, bubblin’ slow, and the cottonmouths slitherin’ through the brush. And then there’s stuff you can’t hear — stuff you know comes from Hell and don’t belong to man nor God. Like the swamp dust, like the bog-smell and the quicksand and death all around.
I din’t like goin’ in there, so help me, I din’t. But I was more scared of Mr. Herm than of all that death in there.
The mud was up to my waist but I kept swinging one leg in front the other, pushing forward till the hanging stuff was all around me, till the swamp had closed in like a blanket. Once in a while the water slithered when a moccasin went past near me. An’ once I almost stumbled out of the mud into a bog-patch of quicksand.
I moved all night — I don’t know why I din’t get tired.
I was up on a little island in the middle of the blackwater when the dawn come up. The white mist was rising and the way the island pushed out I could see everything for a hundred yards each way. It’s almost pretty in the swamp in the morning like that. The way the little wigglers skitter across the watertop. The pools are so clear you can see clean through to the bottom. And it was quiet. So quiet that when the swamp-critters was makin’ a huge fussin’, all chirp and bellow and mouthin’ at once, I knew someone was comin’.
I couldn’t move. I was too tired of it all.
I saw Mr. Herm way before he saw me.
He was comin’ through, poling a flatbottom like he wanted nothing else but to get me. A shotgun, twelve-gauge, I’d guess, was stickin’ on up and he was swipin’ them stringers that was hangin’, getting them outten his way. I knew, sudden, that man was happy as he could be. He din’t care none about Miss Lottie — he just wanted at me. Out here, with no one else around, he could beat me till I dropped stone dead.
He spotted me sittin’ on the bank, with my knees hugged to my chest — it was pretty chilly, early then. In the mist, he looked like he was walking on air or clouds. He was workin’ that pole like he couldn’t get to me fast enough.
“Bennett!” he yelled. “Bennett, you scum! I’m gonna kill you for what you done!” He went on like that for the longest time, his bellowin’ echoing through the swamp and all the while glidin’ straight toward me.
I looked around for something to swat with. But there wasn’t nothing on that muddy island. Not even a good rock. Then when he got real close, till he was so big I could hardly see around him, he grabbed the shotgun and jumped on out of that flatbottom. He came down hard on the mud and started running toward me.
I backed up but there weren’t nowhere to go. I just waited.
He took about two steps and that’s all. He just started sinking in and looking all around surprised. He yanked and strained and wanted to come after me — I was only about fifteen feet away up the bank — but he couldn’t make it.