Chauncy walked up to Ruby’s door and knocked. The rain made the sound dull and hollow, so he peeked inside. The place looked like church, clean as a rifle in winter. He figured she hadn’t gone far. Then, sure enough, just to the side, he saw her, hugging against an old chinaberry tree, naked except for a sheet wrapped around her. Chauncy was always amazed at Ruby’s shenanigans. Once he’d come and she had piled a mound of dirt on top of her. She tickled him. He knew she only played at crazy, that it was a put-on thing that let her do the nasty things she liked to do. In all of his visits she’d never once said no.
Chauncy looked at Ruby clinging to the tree, wet sheet sticking to her body. She looked even better than she had that morning, too skinny, but legs as long as the River Nile. Ephram Jennings was no fool. He stood and looked at the girl’s hair, all wet and moving like black oil rolling down her back. It was what folks called talking hair. Everyone had something to say about it. He leaned against the damp of the house and watched her quietly, his hand resting loosely against his crotch.
EPHRAM HAD let the rain wash him clean through. His clothes, down to his drawers, were sopping wet, and he didn’t care. His shoes squished when he walked, his socks smacking against his soles. The Naugahyde bag he had packed hung easily from his left hand. Celia would notice the tracks he had made into her home. There was no way to avoid it. He had been compelled.
Ephram had watched Chauncy huff away, then suddenly he had felt as if the soil beneath him had all but lifted his feet and set them walking, Gubber and the rest calling after. Still he had walked back to Celia’s and swiftly thrown his things into his only piece of luggage, the one he used to accompany Celia to the Holiness convention last April. He had packed like a man in a burning house, grabbing, stuffing only what he would need.
He was out of Celia’s house in less than twenty minutes. The path was wet and in places the color of brick. He collected that good road in the cuff of his slacks, and nearly sprinted to P & K Market. He was glad that Miss P was either a good enough businesswoman or a bad enough neighbor to keep the store open during Junie’s funeral. He would ask her to pack the chocolate ice cream in a plastic bag with ice. That way it would be perfect when he handed it over to Ruby Bell.
RUBY WAS once again the tree. She had slept morning into afternoon and had awakened to soft caws singing through the rain. She’d walked outside and luckily stepped over the streak of wet red powder on her doorstep, not in it, then she’d walked to her chinaberry and the old bird perched on high. She loved how winding and gnarled the roots were, how firmly they held to the soil. Again, Ruby felt her limbs and sternum twist and knot as they pushed deep into earth. A great bank of life rushed through her as she felt herself reaching up, until her branches trembled in the wind and soft rain, the tiny green beads quivering like bells, waiting for birds to pluck them. She felt the crow’s talons holding tightly to one of her branches. The old bird said, Child, I’d watch myself if I was you. Which is how Ruby knew to turn around and face Chauncy Rankin, not two inches from taking off her sheet.
It took her a moment to remember that she was a woman. As a tree she had nothing to fear from Chauncy. The way he looked at her hair made her remember. He reached down and lifted a bit of the damp curls.
Ruby did not want Chauncy. What she wanted was to collect raindrops on her leaves and to nourish her roots. What she wanted was to stand with the wisdom of the chinaberry in her marrow and then walk into the door of her polished home. What she wanted was for the man Ephram to come back to that home and make her coffee, or dish up the ice cream he had promised to bring, or to put a comb through her hair. She wanted to smell the slight musk of him, and watch the purple she had discovered in his eyes. But Ruby was well trained in not following her wants and desires.
She lay upon the wet earth, still as the world around her. He slowly peeled back her sheet and draped it over a branch.
AS CHAUNCY stood, watching the spindle of her sex begin to turn, he felt a prickling along the back of his scalp. He draped his shirt and jacket over a branch, and said low enough for only the nearest blades of grass and stones to hear, “Rub your nasty for me.” She paused. For a moment. Then she pushed the palm of her hand down her body, stopping to slowly cup her breasts. He took a good long moment to admire her, as he grew thick and full. What with the house a clean and proper playground, and now that Ephram had trussed her up like a fat hog for a mayor’s Easter supper, Chauncy would take her in ways he hadn’t imagined when she was lying in ditches and peeing in streets. The burial would last a good two hours, given the hoots and breakdowns the sisters were sure to have. That would give them plenty of time.
The crow flapped above her in the tree, its caw mournful and plaintive.
THE DYBOÙ watched from the trees. The land was a banquet, sweet and salted. He saw his ox standing above the whore. Watched the way he savored, instead of wasting her skills with haste, as any other man might. He smelled the tall man’s gluttony like bacon frying in cast iron, and he stretched across the sunless land until he reached the two.
RUBY THOUGHT of Ephram, the man who had lured her halfway out of madness, the sweet crook of his smile, and knew that he was best not here. None of the killing sweetness and respect ladled upon her, drowning her. She ignored the sob balled up in her throat as she let her hand fall lightly upon the soft black tangle. She knew through wizened experience not to enter, but to gently stroke in preparation. Then her hand, on its own volition, stilled. To her surprise she found that, try as she might, it would not move.
IN SPITE of the rain on his wide shoulders Chauncy felt the warmth of the pit fire. He felt the swell of shadow surrounding him. His arm, the one he must have bitten while having a nightmare, ached. The bandage had begun bleeding through in his fight with the fool Ephram. It did not matter. He felt his might and strength as he watched her hand hovering, tempting. He held on to that — the painful sweet of waiting. Then a misted weight dropped upon him, pushing into him. He remembered in flashes. The Dyboù filling his firm muscles the night before, wearing him like a well-made suit. Chauncy suddenly realized that Ruby had actually stopped. A strength jolted into Chauncy as he swooped down, grabbed Ruby and pulled her up by her hair. He gave her a good slap across the cheek and pushed her to her knees. The Dyboù was fully inside of him now.
RUBY FELT blood in her mouth and suddenly saw the clouded emptiness of a ghost filling Chauncy. The scent of smoke. She had felt the Dyboù inside of her before and knew he wanted more than her body, so she began to fight. Hitting, trying to stand.
The Dyboù and Chauncy pushed Ruby down again; a dot of red wetted her lip. They would as soon kill her if they hadn’t wanted her mouth on them — taking them, drinking them. Chauncy swiftly unzipped his pants.
In one gliding rush, Ruby felt the Dyboù falling through her, melding, joining, reaching for the graves of her children. Ruby pushed with all of her might and Chauncy fell back. The Dyboù was clinging to her, threading through her as she jumped onto the porch, then leapt, sailed into the house, away from her children. Chauncy was on her in seconds, hooking his elbow through her and crashing her to the floor. He did not hit her. He held her shoulders down against the clean wood and simply said, his voice like iron, “Quit.”
Her children safe, Ruby did just that. Her back on the kitchen floor, Chauncy straddled her face, pinning her with the weight of his body. He was angry. Ruby knew it would be difficult to breathe in this position, with this much rage, but certainly possible.