Illustration by Day Brièrre

Just I suspected everybody in here nursin drinks. Don’t go on gulpin shit down now. I already exposed y’all for the pussies y’all are. I already knew I was the only nigga in Maycomb who could take whiskey to the head, no nose pinchin. Where the fuck Cooter at? Cooter, where you at? Come out, come out, wherever you are! I’m a fine madame with her twat open. There the motherfucker is. Cooter, you hide right under my nose again and I’m liable to smack you with my good arm. You better turn that stool round when I’m talkin to you. I gotta start swingin my johnson? You don’t know who your daddy is?

You know I’m just gettin on you like I do. Some of y’all in here dumb enough to get all the way riled up.

Cooter, how you doin? Seriously—how you doin? You gonna move a stool over or you drinkin alone tonight? Cooter the only nigga sides me come close to what I do. The rest of y’all niggas here is what we call forty-minutes-a-glass—thirty I’ll give you. Cooter, twenty-eight. He ain’t beatin me no time, but at least he could hang his scarf on that. Louncy, do me a favor and wipe this part of the counter—I finna park here next to Cooter—I don’t want no beady beads under my shit when I’m drinkin it. You know what I’m talkin about—them wet beady beads that be under the glass—don’t nobody want none of that from somebody else glass. I swear y’all play the same shit in here over and over and over, make me dizzy. Alien come to Maycomb think “King Porter Stomp” the only record anybody ever made.

Pour it all in, thank you very much. Don’t mind me checkin for squeaks. Last time I had to scrape a dry booger cuz nobody in the back knew how to scrub a glass down. Cooter, man, how you been? Your boy start walkin frontward yet? Man, that’s what they do all day—you come to tickle they feet, the whole broadside is dirt. How the yield this year? That sure is a whole heap. Say, how much of that you get to keep for yourself? That killed me when I was tillin. Bushels and bushels and bushels. Here, your bushels of peanuts, Mr. Horace. Oh, he let me have some all right, but it was always the ones with the twigs stickin out.

Odd jobs is where it at. I do it all and never too proud. Catch raccoons and all for cold hard green. I stroll down American Legion Drive daylight time where all the junkyard houses is—where the can’t-readin white folks is. Pretend I’m mindin my business chewin my mint stick. Fore long, one of the dirty crackers will spot you. Hey boy, come stack these here tires together. Hey boy, my missus need help scrubbin this outhouse. Hey boy, these ducks here need to be feathered. Hey boy, hey boy, hey boy, hey nigger, hey nigger. That’s how they do it—so they can say that. Make sure they give you money to say, Nigger, don’t get it confused, we better than you. But I snatch all their dollars and I think, You might be better than me, but I seen those things crawl out ya child’s hair.

Cooter, where’s that lady was feelin on the side of your head last time? That lady that wuhn’t your wife? Oh, I get it. You wished I was blind, huh? I was blind till she sat on your lap and you got up and tried to cover up the bulge. Cooter, I ain’t judgin. You know me. All I ask for is the details. The color of the undergarments, what the nipples was like, what she was screamin. That’s all I ask for, then I shut my mouth and throw away the key. This me, this the key right here faraway. Come on, Cooter, you poked her, didn’t you? You sly fox, open your mouth, let me see them jagged teeth. You let her see it, didn’t you? Cooter, come on, I’m dyin here. You know this is what I come down here for. I can’t sit here bein deprived. You gonna stand up here, kiss, and keep to. You know what, Cooter, fuck you.

To think I fucked up my arm and was like I don’t wanna live no more. Replayin it in my head. Should have never listened when Mr. Raymond said reach in and pull out that thread and I said, It’s off, right?, and he said, It ain’t gonna move no how cuz it’s stuck. Doctor wanted to lop the whole thing off and I said no—even had sense then to know whitey want you pickin shit up with both hands. I was real sad. Then of course everybody wanna pick the day after to tell me I should never go stickin my hand in no gin even when the engine turned off. Whole ordeal had me in the back of the cabin sobbin on myself cuz I thought now I was never gonna get any kitty cat. Come to find out women love a retarded arm more than they like scars. And don’t let me get started on shinin the nightstick.

Stop it. Everybody in here shine the nightstick so shut the fuck up about that one right now. When my arm lost the feelin, it was like another person was strokin it.

No, not like that. Like a different person, but a woman.

You know what—nobody tell y’all shit cuz y’all keep tryna mince people’s words.

I don’t like tail? I could tell you about some shit just happened the other day.

Mmm-hmm? Funny how I was just talkin to Cooter, but somehow everybody got their earlobe out. Same people who said I was strange two seconds ago. Oh, look, billiards done freed up, why don’t y’all go over there? Mmm-hmm—tell me a lie now. I’ll let y’all hang out. Even though Louncy warned people about hoverin.

I told y’all about my odd-job hustles. All up Georgia Prince and American Legion Drive. All them families. The Mayfields, the Caugherties, Kit Yarbrough and her old-teeth-chitterin husband, the Cunninghams, the Pullams, and the Ewells all the way off the path. They all can do they own damn chore work, like I said, but me doin it make them feel better about their own station. Never mind their babies is runnin with just draws on and car oil all over they face. Some of these folk front doors is straight up knocked off the hinges. But I don’t mind, long as we scratchin each other’s backs. Most of them ain’t bad—they’ll say, Hey boy, I’d appreciate it if you turn that there stump into wood chips for me, or, Hey boy, lend me a hand settin these beaver traps here, here, and here, and they leave me to my work and the chirpin birds and come out with my quarter when it’s time. I’d say damn near all of them is like that except Mr. Bob and the gotdamn Ewells. They the dirtiest of them all. With Mr. Bob, it’s always Hey, nigger this, hey, nigger that. I don’t mind Hey, nigger, but the way Mr. Bob say it, he say it like he tryna erase you. And the shit he make you do is most ungodly. One time he say by ordinance I must shove my good arm down the drain cuz one of his boys fixed it in his mind to hide a key. Didn’t bother to clear none of the porcelain—I felt green slime that I know ain’t been scrubbed out in years. Another time, he had me climb up to the roof and come down with two dead squirrels and then chastise me, talkin bout if I came Thursday like he said, they wouldn’t of rotted and Mayella could of made them up nice with corn.

Then pretty soon he start gettin the whole family involved, two sons. I’d come on by and the near-grown one would be out linin bottles up neat on a slab of wood and swattin them all down so he could have somethin to do and the small one is out doin nothin but cuttin up duck dung with a stick, and old Ewell would see me comin and put his two gnarled fingers in his mouth and whistle and go, Boys, come over real quick, let me teach you how to be men, and I’d be there thinkin, Why these boys here when it’s high noon and ain’t nothin wrong with the schoolhouse?

Boys, this is how you get stuff done. You gotta have sense. Ain’t logical to go breakin your back and there’s niggers all around you waitin to be told somethin. You gotta remember God made your brains different. He made your brains for givin orders—sayin all this with me in front a them listenin.

He go to smallest one, go, Ford, son, repeat after me: Nigger.

And the boy cast his eye down all shy: Nigger.

Go over yonder.

Go over yonder.

And drill a hole.

And—

Come on now.

And drill a hole.

In that stone.

In that stone.

And as soon as he finished, I’d say Yessir and act like I was trippin over myself to do it even though I knew I was lucky if I got a weak drill and a dirty nickel.

Then the boys got comfortable after a while. One time they said, Nigger, come here, see those two cups, one of them is piss and the other is apple juice, but we can’t seem to tell which one is which. Can you help us out? They threatened to call they daddy and his friends who got rope for days, so I taste the first one and it’d be beyond sour and so would the second. I’d stand there confused as hell while they keeled over laughin talkin bout, I guess they both was urine. I swear I never felt so murderous in my life, and the nineteen-year-old sister Mayella, she’d tell me pull weeds out front or shoo a dog off the property and her thing is—

Shit I’m gettin off track.

So just this past Tuesday, I’m mindin my business on my way to do somethin for Kit Yarbrough and I hear whistlin from the Ewell porch and I turn around and it’s Mayella talkin bout, One second, nigger, and I say, Yes, and she say, I need you to bust up a chifforobe for me. Now I done done chores for Mayella before—like I said, pullin weeds, and she like to be there the whole time till it’s done, and there’d be times I’d turn around to get another trash bag and she’d turn her eyes right back on the porch on whatever she was sweepin up. She got a way of gazin at you like there’s no such thing as self-control. One time it cracked 102 degrees and I kept my shirt on the whole goddamn afternoon cuz if I took it off that bitch would of been liable to catch a heart attack!

Anyhow, so I say, All right, ma’am, or whatever, and go round the back for the chifforobe, maybe old Ewell put it back there for me out by that old wringer, and ain’t none of the Ewells around, and I yell, Mayella, and she go, What, and I go, I don’t see no chifforobe out here, and she go, It’s not out there, and I go, Where it at then, and she go, It’s upstairs, and I get suspicious right there and then cuz who ever heard of bustin up furniture in the house?

You heard of bustin up furniture in a house? Tell me how you figga? You did it? Cooter, your lazy ass ain’t do shit! Your lazy ass wouldn’t get up off the couch if you smelled fire. I bust up furniture for the church and I bust up furniture for my ex-gal who keep inventin shit for me to do. Everybody know you bust it up outside so you got space and cuz it’s goin in the outside garbage.

No, no, no, no, no, no. Bustin it up inside don’t make it easier to carry out the pieces—well, it make it easier, but you want all that bangin inside and it’s hot?—you carry it outside so the noise and all that jazz don’t get to you. Jesus, Cooter, will you just listen to me? Bottom line, bottom line is, this girl invited me in the house, inside. And you know me, I always like seein where shit will go.

But I swear of all the dastardly, decrepitated shit in there, it’s the sturdiest, newest thing they got—I’m tellin you, house doors chewed up from the bottom, a piano in there with no cover and half the keys missin, window screens garbled and oatmeal hardened on tin cups. I look at that chifforobe lookin all new and I go, Miss Mayella, you sure? And she go, Just bust it up. I take the hammer, but I do it slow and I’m about to follow my orders, but somethin don’t feel right about bustin up a perfectly good piece of hardwood, so I turn around and say, You know what Mayella, I’ll be glad to take this chifforobe off—and like clockwork the bitch jumps on my back, the bone of her pussy on my spine.

I know. I know! Same thing I thought! But are y’all gonna let me finish, though? Let me finish! Jesus, y’all a bunch of hounds!

Me too! Me too! I thought the most she was gonna do was brush up on me or say, Here, sit on the bed, and I’d say, That won’t be necessary.

Now here she come rubbin my outline, makin like this, makin like that. Gettin me up.

The bitch face look like rusted tools, but pussy is pussy—don’t pounce on me for that.

What?

If you was blindfolded and your dick was in Josephine or the ugliest bitch, you wouldn’t wanna get out neither, am I right?

Touch me, she go.

Remember, I don’t know this bitch from a tear in the couch. All I know she the gal on Bob’s porch who be sweepin angry sometimes. I hear her from the stove in the window from time to time clangin pots. But that’s it. Only said good morning to her once, that time she was sittin in some abandoned car singin off-key. Now here she is talkin this craziness.

With that hand, she go. And she take my crippled hand and shove the fingers of it in her and I ain’t felt shit in that hand since the accident, but I let her do it a little bit. For the next time Bob wanna teach his sons about lazy nigger hands while I’m right there breakin my back for him, I’ll be thinkin, Lazy hands that your daughter wanted all up in her nethers.

What you’re gonna do is take it out, she says.

Done got the rope slung halfway around my neck!

Mayella, I says—smilin cuz I don’t know what else to do—what is wrong with you?

What?

That’s not what I came here to do, I says. By now, I’m all types of puzzled.

Tom Robinson, she goes, pullin at my middle. Are you a man or not?

Now, fellas, you know me. I like my share, and I’ve had my share, but I know where I am. And I’m not about to get into some mess that not even Maycomb’s best can get me out. So I say to myself, Time out, let me take the same advice I give my sons on the subject of bringin girls down to the shed. And that is, it might feel good in the moment, but it will always have teeth.

I gather myself, and I finna go. You know what the problem was? Problem was I looked back and there she was in the corner. I couldn’t just look past her.

And then she let it all spill out. I hate my daddy. He don’t never let me do nothin. Won’t let me dance or touch the radio. I make him a dish and he got to complain about what’s in it. I can’t do this, I can’t do that. Always comparin her to just like a nigger. How she shiftless like us, how a nigger could figure it out faster.

He mad cuz of my mama and he’s got to put it on everybody, she goes. I ask him, Why ya so obsessed with niggers? That’s why Ma left you? And that’s how I got these.

Big purple welts up and down her thigh.

Remember, this is a girl who idea of adventure is countin pickup trucks. Not to mention what end up happenin to her mother. The girl never seen nothin out in the world. She the type who you have to say we call that dot at the end of the sentence a period. Sittin there trapped in a tower like the damsel that failed.

I let her touch it.

I know, I know. I don’t know what I was thinkin. I let her handle it and I might have let her peck it a couple of times. Fellas, please, please! Don’t celebrate that. She was already touchin and feelin me before and I guess that had me stoked up.

But if you wonderin was there any type of eruption, I’ll stop you right there.

Look at Cooter, confused. Like why he tellin us this.

Because one moment we alone and the next there Bob is at the top of the stairs!

It was like he already knew. He just barged in, grabbed her by the wrist, started smackin her in the face, and let me go out the door. I swear to my whole God.

Cooter, you and I been cuttin the fat for what, seven years now? Ever since the sorry day I met you on Dock 8. And the rest of you. Y’all cuckoo, but okay. We done had many a swell night together drinkin this here poison. Let this stool be my witness.

Somethin strange happened. Yesterday, I was down that same neighborhood and nobody needed a hand with nothin. Not one person. I found it funny cuz it seem everybody there itchin for me to fix toilets they won’t let me use. I go to Kit Yarbrough’s, but there she is hidin behind her screen door. I says, Miss Kit, could you use a hand today, and all she does is growl. I repeat it kinder this time, but same thing, so I just take the hint and back off. Later that night, I sat at home and thought about it. Did Bob say somethin? Mayella? The either or the both of them? What they say?

Fuck it, I don’t regret nothin.

Well, maybe that I shouldn’t of let her peck it.

But what on earth could they have said?

Oh heck, it’s nothin.

The Ewells not the cleanest folks, but they wouldn’t make nothin up.

They not that low.

I been doin work for them a good two years now.

They wouldn’t make nothin up.

They not that low.

It’s prolly nothin.