As an Old Memory by Vic Kerry

Author:Vic Kerry [Kerry, Vic]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: supernatural horror
Publisher: Crossroad Press
Published: 2020-03-14T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter Sixteen

1956

Six weeks after the Massacre

Sim sat on his parents’ couch, smoking a Camel and drinking lemonade that his momma had squeezed fresh that morning. His daddy sat in a rocking chair on the other end, puffing away on a Lucky Strike and drinking a cup of coffee. Sim couldn’t understand why old men drank coffee in the evenings and complained about not being able to sleep like they had when they were younger. The connection between the two should be obvious. Perhaps he gave those men too much credit.

“Explain to me one more time why you let Charlotte have that car,” Sim said.

“Because it seemed to snap her out of whatever it was that had her,” his daddy said. “Plus, you don’t say no to Mr. Archibald Harrington, especially when you work for him.”

“I would have flat-out told him no. The main thing that had Charlotte all balled up on the inside was nigger-loving in the first place.”

“Don’t you talk like that in my house,” his mother said as she came through the door of the kitchen. “You might be a grown man with children, but in my house, you’ll listen to your momma or else.”

“It’s the truth. I’ve got a right to tell the truth. All this nonsense happened because she was fooling around with a nigger.”

A sharp sting on the side of his face made Sim aware that he’d been slapped. Other women had slapped him, and he’d been punched more than few times by men. None of those blows were like this one. It had a sharp sting to it like an insect bite and a thin welt like a bullwhip produced. He put his hand over his injured cheek and looked up at his momma. She patted a rubber-mesh flyswatter in her hand. The look she gave him made Ma Barker look like Martha Washington.

“Say something like that again, smart mouth, and see what it gets you,” she said. “You ain’t so big that your momma still can’t whoop you.”

“There’s no need for that, Trudy,” his daddy said. “He ain’t going to talk like that anymore. Are you, son?”

“Both of you are turning on me because y’all can’t raise your own daughter. My sons will have no regard for those coloreds. You’ll see that.”

“If you want to raise your boys to be like that, fine,” Trudy said. “But I didn’t raise you to be like that, and I ain’t got no idea why you came out such a ways.”

“Life, Momma. It’s no rose garden. Uppity nig—Negroes don’t help anything either.” He looked at his watch. “How long has she been gone?”

“I sent her to the store about half an hour ago, but I told her not to hurry. I don’t need the stuff until tomorrow. None of it will ruin. I told her to take the change and head over to the Cardinal and get her a malted or something.”

“Get a malted. Drive to the store. You realize that she couldn’t walk last week, and before that, she couldn’t do anything without one of us propping her up.

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