Bastard out of Carolina by Dorothy Allison Read Free Book Online Page B

Pontiac. The sun caught his sweat, shiny beads and rivulets, so that he seemed to glitter in the light. He wiped his face, but the sweat kept coming down in tracks, and he looked as if he were weeping. He walked toward us slowly, dropped by the door in a crouch, and reached through the window to take Mama into a tight embrace.
    “Oh Anney,” he whispered. “Anney, Anney.” His voice was a husky tremolo. “You know. You know, I love you so. I can’t wait no more, Anney. I can’t. I love you with all my heart, girl. ”
    His arms stretched over the seat and pulled Reese and me forward, pressing us into Mama’s neck and back. “And your girls, Anney. Oh, God! I love them. Our girls, Anney. Our girls.” He sobbed then, pulling us in tighter so that Reese’s bird bones crunched into my shoulder and the haze of his sweat drifted all around us. His face slid past Mama’s hair, pressed into mine, his mouth and teeth touched my cheek. “Call me Daddy,” he whispered. “Call me Daddy ‘cause I love your mama, ’cause I love you. I’m gonna treat you right. You’ll see. You’re mine, all of you, mine.”
    His shoulders shook, his body reaching through the window seemed to rock the whole car. “Oh, Anney.” He shuddered. “Don’t say no. Please, Anney, don’t do that to me!”
    “Glen,” Mama breathed. “Oh, Glen. I don’t know.” She trembled and slowly stretched her own arms up and around his shoulders. “Oh, God. All right, I’ll think about it. All right, honey. All right.”
    Glen jumped back. He slammed his hands down on the car top, once, twice, three times. The echoes were like shots. Mama was crying quietly, her shoulders heaving back against Reese and me.
    “Goddam,” he screamed. “Goddam, Anney!” He spun in a circle, whooping. “I knew you’d say yes. Oh, what I’m gonna do, Anney! I promise you. You an’t never even imagined!” He spread his arms wide and whooped again. His face looked like someone was shining a hot pink light on it. He pulled the door open and reached for Mama, his hands still shaking as they wrapped around her back. He drew her in so close that she came off her feet, and then he swung her around in the air, laughing and shouting. Reese put her hands on my shoulders and held on. I could feel the vibration as she shook gently to the echo of Glen’s shouts. We both smiled and held on to each other while Glen danced Mama around the parking lot in the shelter of his arms.
     
    “You just don’t like the Waddells,” Mama told Granny. She was standing on Aunt Alma’s porch, wearing a blue-and-white polka-dot blouse Glen had bought her. It showed off the color of her eyes, he’d said. From the look on her face anyone could see that she was making an effort to be patient with Granny.
    “Glen loves me, loves my girls. Don’t matter if his family is stuck-up and full of themselves. Glen’s not like that.”
    “You don’t know what that boy is like, Anney. You just don’t know.”
    “I know he loves me.” Mama spoke with conviction, certain that Glen Waddell loved her more than his soul and everything else would come from that. “I know enough,” she told Granny.
    “That boy’s got something wrong with him.” Granny turned to Aunt Alma for support. “He’s always looking at me out the sides of his eyes like some old junkyard dog waiting to steal a bone. And you know Anney’s the bone he wants.”
    “You just don’t think anybody’s good enough for Anney,” Alma teased. “You want her to go on paying you to keep her girls every day till she’s dried up and can’t imagine marrying again. ”
    It was a continuation of a fight that had been dragging on all week. Now it was Sunday, and Glen was coming over to take everyone out to the lake for a picnic. Granny was refusing to come along even though Mama had packed chicken hash and Jell-O with her in mind.
    “Let it go, Anney, and help me with this camera.” Aunt Alma had a new Brownie and was determined