Mercy Train by Rae Meadows Page B

“Nothing.”
    A large red-faced young man sauntered toward them, his blond hair buzzed close to the scalp, his hands in his pockets. Nino stood up straight, puffing out his chest.
    â€œEastman,” he said under his breath, the name of a gang that controlled a section of the Fourth Ward.
    â€œTop of the morning to you, young friend,” the man said, in mocking cheer. “Why don’t you hand over your coin pouch and whatever’s in your pockets?”
    Nino stood stone-faced and crossed his arms. He reached only to the man’s chest.
    â€œFuck off,” Violet said.
    The man laughed and nodded. “I like this one,” he said, and then threw a punch that landed in Nino’s gut.
    Nino doubled over onto the street, a wagon swinging out wide to avoid him. Violet jumped on the man, punching and scratching, until he swatted her off. She landed hard on her knees, the pain shooting up her legs. The man kicked the stack of papers into the gutter and pointed a meaty finger at Nino before walking away.
    â€œFiglio di puttana!” Nino shouted, a vein on his temple bulging blue. He got up to his knees, his thick fists clenched.
    She stood gingerly and limped over to Nino to help save some of the papers blowing about. They sat together on the curb and ate apricots.
    â€œ E chi se ne frega , my father says,” he said. “Pfft. Who gives a damn.”
    She knew it was best not to say anything about it. “You seen them rounding up snipes for the train?” she asked.
    He worked his jaws on the sticky fruit and squinted up at the soap-factory smoke hovering above the neighborhood.
    â€œThink they really get families?” she asked.
    â€œWhat?”
    â€œThose kids that go on the train.”
    â€œI don’t know,” he said, impatient with her questions and annoyed that she was letting her neediness show.
    â€œMaybe I could go on one,” Violet said.
    â€œThey’ll make you do chores and go to church. It’ll be like the shitcan Home all over again.”
    â€œI don’t know,” she said.
    â€œBesides, you’re no orphan,” Nino said.
    â€œSo? Mikey wasn’t either.”
    He spat out a bad apricot onto the sidewalk. She knew he would want to get on the train, too, if his family would ever let him go.
    â€œVamoose. I got to sell at full chisel,” he said. “Rent’s late. They’s banging on the door all the time.”
    â€œSee you around,” she said, punching him in the arm, wishing she could smooth the way for Nino, knowing what they all knew, that he had a year or two at most before he would have to pick a gang to fight for.
    She held her parcel of food to her chest so no one could snatch it and set off toward home. Her knees ached. Above her in the tenements, women pulled in laundry because of the smoke.
    When she returned to the room, coughing from the rotten air and six flights of damp-walled stairs, her mother was gone and so was the money, the open tin lying empty on the bed.
    *   *   *
    There had been a time in Kentucky, before the baby came, that Violet remembered as almost happy. Lilibeth, her belly a hard mound, had been vibrant and girlish, her hair thicker, curlier, blonder, her face full and flush, as she walked to town or gathered blackberries or accompanied Bluford to church.
    â€œFeel it, Vi, can you feel it move?” she said, as they sat together on the banks of the stream, the cool, silty water twirling around their ankles.
    Violet put her hand on her mother’s stomach and felt the whoosh of the baby shifting positions, an elbow here, a foot there. It was funny to her, strange but exciting. A brother or a sister. Even her father seemed less angry at her, less likely to cuff her for burned lima beans or broken eggs or needing a pencil for school.
    â€œHe’s sure it will be a boy,” Lilibeth said, pulling apart a cattail and letting the fuzz blow away.