A Place Called Wiregrass by Michael Morris Page B

stupid. And him a hundred times smarter than that sorry Luther. So Aaron got by with offering a ‘Yez zir, boss man’ to Luther’s tirades about how horrible it was that I was living with a colored harlot. I reckon if Luther would’ve figured out Aaron was involved, he would have killed him right there on the boat and used him for bait.”
    Miss Claudia dropped her chin and stared over the tops of her glasses. “So you see why I’m so crazy about Missoura? I was the same way by Aaron, don’t you know.
    “Gracious, I saw and heard things in Crazy Nettie’s shack along Howard’s Creek that a girl had no business knowing. But I just chose to look the other way. You might as well say I had to. Missoura would take me to her house in the daytime, and then, before Aaron got home and Luther would have a chance to check up on me, I’d go to Nettie’s for bedtime. Luther said he’d kill every colored in the quarters if I didn’t go back to him. But the day he showed up to take me home, Crazy Nettie was standing on the gapped wooden porch holding two live water moccasins. She jabbered some mumbo-jumbo and claimed she put a spell on Luther. He yelled at her, ‘Get out of my way, you crazy whore.’ He hadn’t made it up the first step when Nettie threw those moccasins at him.” Miss Claudia slapped the arm of her chair and howled with laughter. “Luther fell over his feet trying to get away from there. He was so eat up with meanness the snakes wouldn’t even touch him.”
    “And that’s when you moved to Wiregrass?”
    She pulled at the folds of her robe like she might be exposing herself to a room full of men.
    “That’s when I wanted to move. I was hoping to earn enough money by helping Nettie sew clothes that I could buy a bus ticket and have a nest egg. She made me a better seamstress and complimented me on being a quick learner. Whenever she went into Old Man Maxwell’s store to buy material, I’d sit outside hoping Mama would look out the window so I could mouth her an SOS. She never did.” Miss Claudia straightened the wrinkled armrest.
    “Many a time I’ve wondered if Nettie told Mama I was outside. I felt like a trapped beaver. Maybe worse than that. Believe you me, if I could’ve chewed my leg up for freedom, I would have. Instead, I chose to earn it by making dresses and hemming seams for the folks in the quarters.
    “The day after I bought my bus ticket to Montgomery, I realized it wasn’t just nerves making my cycle late. I really was pregnant. Nettie told me she couldn’t entertain menfolk with a screaming baby in the background. They had already cut back their visits on account of a white girl on the place. Aaron and Missoura begged me to go on with my plans to leave, but that paralyzing fear set in. The kind that whispers to you in the middle of the night. Me with a baby and no means of income, in a strange town and nobody to help care for it while I worked. I let the demons convince me that the hell I knew was better than a potential unknown hell. And when Luther showed up to try and once more talk some sense into me, I gave in. Before sunset, I was back in that house on the bay, washing his dishes, shucking his oysters, and agreeing with him how stupid I was to ever leave. He waited until the second night to whip me for leaving to start with.”
    I was leaning forward with my knuckles resting on my chin. I racked my brain trying to think of a positive direction for the conversation. “What about your baby?”
    Miss Claudia sighed. I was scared to death she was growing tired of me. Then she looked up and smiled. “Little Beth. She was the one piece of joy in those days. She lived two years on this earth.” She looked down and put her hand on the edge of her eyeglasses. “Typhoid fever took her away. Just like it did my daddy and brother.”
    I just sat there looking at the upturned cushion with my bare feet curled under it, wanting to bury all of me inside the padding. My nosy landlady,