Mother Knows Best(book 1)

Entry 5

Clouds move over spring like a rolling cotton ball dancing freely in the wind of the fields, and there are two glasses of lemonade, their taste losing from several ice cubes. I remember it. Simply because most springs had been like that. At least midday it was.

I remember it also because a lot of work was being done. Smoothers' mother was hustling her pots full of peeled potatoes back to her kitchen as other mothers, with pots and pans, hurried inside to whip up dinner. Judes and I were now sitting on his porch swing, with his new boots, and my old rusty ones, being kicked up lowly as we swung with tiredness.

And the two tall glasses of lemonade laid by the porch set, a single cold sweat rolling down them. People walk by, scratching at their itchy sweaters or their dry scalps. Blurred sunlight sits at the corner of the sky, huffing and puffing from a long day of burning bright and in front of us, at the big yellow house, is old man Jenkins. Or at least that is what he's been known as for as long as I've been born.

He sits on his own porch chair, rocking as it scrapes the concrete ground, his legs straight ahead of him, chewing a penny's worth of gum, blowing a bubble big as the glowing rocks the soldiers found growing in the old ladies gardens. On his lamp is an old shotgun that has more kick in it than its own owner.

     Down the road at the big store, there's loud bickering calming down from a single gunshot. That happened often, murder wasn't often hidden from the streets, and even if it was, people eventually knew.

     Judes gets up, his feet rubbing against the porch that gives a loud shriek, then pokes me in the chest, just under the neckline of my tearing shirt. "I thought of something, you know, I've heard how kinfolk ought to help each other," he says. He sticks his bottom lip out and blows at a stray curl. "There's a little money gig at the old diner tonight. You could get a couple crumbled bills by wiping tables and doing dishes. A dollar or two per table. Could make a lot, one dollar is already a lot in this town. You know."

     "Only if you do it," I tell him, and he goes nodding, his curls bouncing as his head bobbled. "Then we'll do it."

     He plops back on, taking my right hand in his left and we both pump our legs, push our backs to lift the porch swing. And we swung, giggling softly as the wind caressed our cheeks and tossed our hairs. We continue to swing as the clouds thickened, darkening and fading into a still black night sprinkled with small, blurred lights. Stars. Judes urges me to lay down with him, so I follow, and we lay against the wet grass. And so we lie there and laugh, watching each other's bodies framed beneath the dark sky, his skirt soaked by damp mud and my overalls gently rising from the wind.

    I remember his breath then, it wasn't anything romantic or sexual, it was just a soft reminder of our youth. Our blind, innocent youth.

     I remember when we did the gig at the diner. There were twenty tables, all filled with remains of half hungry customers; in one plate, a bitten loaf with splotches of butter on it, next to a chipped bowl still filled to the brim with watery soup and a few chops of meat inside; another, with a couple of cigarettes crushed amongst untouched green beans, now frozen cold from air; on another, barbecue sauce smeared in spirals where someone slopped it up with something, a nasty smear on the tables and dried drops; on others, globs of gravy dried as gel and encircled by spit out, chewed steak.

Each table had its own mess, some more than others, some less, but still, them as a whole was a complete mess.

"Nasty folks," Judes snorts, then slaps his own thigh. "Grown arses, all making this kind of a mess. I swear people are nasty. I mean I know it's people jobs or whateva' to clean after or get the plates, but this is ridiculous."

I listened to him.
And only cracked him a smile as I stacked up plates, going into the kitchen, and coming back with a bucket of soapy water and two rags. I had him a rag, placing down the bucket where both of us can reach and wiped down tables. He goes on with his rant, telling me more of how people are unbearably nasty, going on about other issues with people, how they worried about his dresses and skirts and not their already child-touching family members.

       What he said was true, nevertheless, I wished he'd clean more instead of talking more. The both of us needed these dollars, me more than him. I edged sandwich crumbs into the palm of my hand with a wet rag. Judes, like he knows my thoughts, had stopped talking and took a rag. He dips it in the small bucket with water swirling around in it.

   He squeezes it gently then tries to erase stains from the table, the first few disappear without an issue, the next cause a tent of his fingers to apply pressure, then causes him to lean into the table. He wiped and wiped until he decides its part of the table and moves on.

    "What did they have in here, a pair of monkeys?" I ask. "Nasty folks."
   "When you rich, here, you dirty," says Judes.
"Not everyone bad and not everyone dirty."

He scoffs but somewhat knew not to go forward with the conversation. He plunged his dishrag in the bucket, turning for the kitchen, as the last thing I see of him is his back and his hips swaying. The boy is too much for himself. I turn to finish my last table, I wipe it down hard that I nearly scraped an elbow, then plunged my dishrag in a now dirty soap bucket.

Around the same time of me finishing the table, Judes is done with the dishes. He's a fast one at chores when you leave him with his thoughts, but once he speaks, that chore isn't being finished until the moon kisses the sun—so never. He comes out, his cheeks pinched red, fingers shriveled up from the hot water, and his hair a bit damped from working hard.

"We finally finished with this dump," He says, then blows a stray strand away. "Thought we'd never finish."
"Now for them dollars. Ten dollars each, we're rich!" I shout.
"Not so loud darlin'"

We soon exchanged smiles, tired and weary, but still smiles. And laughed till the owner of the store comes in, Sandra Carlin, the forty-year-old hanker. She's a tall redhead with a mess of freckles on both cheeks, thin in most places but heading plump in her thighs. The next we see is a mess of a white blouse unbuttoned in the middle, revealing a pink bra and slumped breasts.

All we really know of her is that she's forty years old, sleeping with married colored men, owns this diner, and lives with her grown son and little granddaughter around the corner of my house. But all we cared to know was whether she'd give us them dollars or not.

She wasn't the best of women, or the best of owners, as she was a crook when it comes to paying people. Her sausage looking fingers ain't wanna pay people money, at least that is what the other neighbors say about her.

    "We finished the tables," I said, pinching the straps of my overalls firmly. I pressed my thumb on the loose button, as my eyes scanned the table for courage and for any missed stains.
      Judes moves his finger to my chin, lifting it up as his lips part. "Never place your head down," he told, then turned to Mrs. Carlin. "And the dishes. We did them all, where're our bills?"

      "You ain't warsh them properly. Not to how I like them, I ain't paying for half-arsed jobs," Mrs. Carlin snapped. "The hell, you call those clean??" She points to a table, one I'm sure I wiped down more than twice.
     "They damn right cleaner then you bending down and allowing Mr. Jackson to show you where his thing fits..you ought to give me my earned cash or else, governors son will go tell," Judes barked back. And cause he's pale, he can do or say as he, please.

     And that is one thing I like about Judes, he apologizes for nothing unless he needs to. He will through disrespect right back if you throw it at him or me. He has bigger balls than anyone I know.

-Lilura