1 ONE
Rica hid the ax beneath the mattress of the cot in the dining room. She poured lye in a brown paper bag and pushed it behind the kitchen sink. Then she checked all the three butcher knives to make sure they were razor sharp. She knew she could get her hands on a gun in fifteen minutes but ever since she'd seen her brother shot for stealing a bear from the pool hall, she'd been afraid of guns. Besides, Rica didn't want to kill Creed, she just wanted to hurt him.
She hated this raggedy house. Hated this deadbeat town. Hated never having enough of anything. Most of all, she hated Creed. And if it weren't for their five kids, she'd have left him a long time ago.
She sat down at the kitchen table, crossed her thick thighs, and rested her chin in her palms. Am L&M burned slowly in the ashtray next to her now cold cup of coffee. At twenty seven, Rica was as tired as an old workhorse and felt like she'd been through a war. Her face hurt. Her bottom lip was swollen and it would stay that way the rest of her life so that she'd have tuck the left corner in whenever she wore lipstick, which was almost always. It would serve as her trademark, constant reminder that she had quick firing lips.
Her left foot was swollen, too, from the tire Creed had backed over it last night when she wouldn't move. She had gotten up at five o'clock this morning and soaked it in Epsom salts for a whole hour but that hadn't done much good. Now the combination of this pain and the crisscrossing of her thoughts irritated her like an unreachable itch,so she went ahead to take a yellow nerve pill Curly Mae had given her last week. Then she wrapped her foot in Ace bandage,covered it with a fake-fur house shoeand pulled another chair infront of to prop it up. She took a sip of her coffee.
As Rica waited for the pill to work, she stared out the kitchen window at the leafless trees and drew deeply on her cigarette,one strong puff after the other. She twirled her fingers around her dyed red braids,which hang from the diaper she had tried on the head. She patted her good foot against the torn linoleum, something she always did when she was thinking.
The way she figured it there'd been no sense to be too cute last night and get herself killed thoroughly. Creed had smacked her so hard, outside the Red Shingle that she had forgotten her name for a minute or two.
He was the jealous type.
Everyone knew it, but Rica had made the mistake of carrying on a friendly two- minute conversation with Percy Russel. Creed had always despised Percy because ,as rumor has it, their oldest daughter, Freda, wasn't his, and could've easily been Percy's. Both men had skin the colour of ripe bananas and soft wavy hair which Freda had inherited. And both men had high chiseled cheeks, which,as time passed, emerged on Freda's face too.
Rica ignored the rumours and knew that in a town as small as Point Haven people ran their mouths because they didn't have anything better to do. Creed never did come right out and accuse her of cheating as he had been having an affair with Ernestine Jackson off and on for the past twelve years before Rica was even showing with Freda. And before they got settled good in their marriage. He wasn't whorish, except that he had more than eight ounces of liquor in him, which was just about everyday.
And while Creed ran the streets, it was Percy who nailed plastic to the windows in the winter, brought Rica maternity clothes,fixed the drip to the bathroom, and paid the plumber to fix the frozen pipes. It was Percy who had shoveledthe heavy blocks of coal from the shack in the backyard and carried them to the house when Creed was too drunk to stand, and then waited for the fire to pop and crackpe in the stove, it was Percy who hade made sure Rica was warm,who brought her cigarettes,asprins and vitamins,lard and potatoes, and even her light and gas bills,when Creed had done something else with the money but pleaded amnesia.
The three of them had grown up together, though both men were six years older than Rica. Percy had always had a crush on her, but was shy and stuttered so badly that she didn't have the patience to hear out when he tried to express his true feelings for her. So Percy was forced to demonstrate his feelings rather than make them audible, which was a lot easier on both of them. And although Rica always thought of him as kind and mannerly, his slowness and docility annoyed her so much that she never took his intentions seriously, except once.
Last night at that shingle, Creed had barged in,and broken up their conversation and grabbed Rica by the arm and pushed her outside through the silver doors. He'd ordered her to get into the car- a pink and gold '59 mercury- and he jumped in and started gunning the motor. When she didn't budge,he backed the car so fast that it stalled and ran over her left foot. Drunk and aggravated because his anger was being diverted, Creed leaped from the car and hauled off and slapped Rica's face until she thought it was in her best interest to go ahead and get in.
She pulled her platinum wig back in place pulling on the elastic bands and pushing bobby pins against her skullto making sure it was on tight again. Mildred always wore this wig when she went out. It made her feel like she was going someplace, like she was elegant, sophisticated woman being taken out on the town by the man of her dreams. She got into the back seat of the car and pushed herself as far as she could into the corner of the soft pink seat because she didn't want to be within smelling distance of Creed. He climbed behind the wheel without saying a word and slammed the door.
"Just take me home Creed," she said trying hard not to scream or cry, but tears were already streaking her cocoa-colored foundation such that her own lighter skin tone shone through. She rolled her eyes at Creed until her eyes stuck in the corner sockets but Creed couldn't see her or else he would have hauled off and smacked her again. All she could think of now was how she was going to get him when they got home. It only took five minutes, to drive home from the shingle, straight down Twenty-fourth and a left on manual to Twenty-fifth. Rica's mind was clicking like a stopwatch trying to remember where she'd situated the cast iron skillet among the other pots and pans. Was it underneath the boilers? Or in the oven with chicken grease in it? Didn't matter, she'd find it. She pressed her forehead against the cold wet glass and stared at the clapboard houses, most of which, belonged to people she knew, some even family. Creed was barely staying in his lane. Rica knew he was drunk on Orange Rock but she didn't dare say anything to him. She'd been on the verge of being tipsy herself, but the lingering sting of Creed's hand on her face had slowly began to break down her high. Anyway, there were no oncoming cars. Not at this time of the night me. Not in this hick town.
"Am taking you home, alright. Don't worry about that," Creed said trying to keep his eyes focused on the wiggling white line cutting through the two- lane street. " You think you are grown l. Don't you? Think you are so damn grown." He wasnt expecting an answer and Rica didn't give him one.
"You know you're gonna get your ass torn up, don't you? Gon' get enough of flirting with that simple-ass Percy and all the rest of them. You my wife,you understand me? My woman and I don't want nobody to talk to you like you ain't got no man. Especially in front of ma face, cause the next thang you know, I'll be hearing all kinds of mess up and down the streets. You understand me girl? You listening to me?" He looked at Rica through the rear view mirror, his eyes dilated so big that it looked like someone had just taken his picture witha flash cube. Rica simply stared at him,her eyes all dried up now,and kept fumbling with her wig. Her fingers felt like Evening in Paris- between her legs, under her arms,on the balls of her feet and beneath the fake skull of her wig. She didn't utter a word, just tried to ignore the pain in her foot and hissed and sucked saliva through her teeth.
Creed pulledinto the cement driveway andthe light headlight barely missed the bark on the big Oak tree as he cut the wheel and brought the car to an abrupt halt.
