Original Sins by Lisa Alther

Author:Lisa Alther
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Open Road Media
Published: 2010-06-15T04:00:00+00:00

Chapter Three

Donny

The apartment in Pine Woods where Donny and Rochelle lived was identical to the one Donny had grown up in except that it was crammed with furniture. Whenever people at the mill wanted to get rid of something, they told Donny. He’d pick it up and bring it home, whether he had any use for it or not. He hated to turn them down—seemed like it made them feel good to give him something they didn’t want no more. But the apartment was starting to look like a junk shop, however much Rochelle tried to make it look nice, with pot plants in the windows and pictures she cut out of magazines on the walls.

Nicole, a year old, often refused to sleep on the Hide-A-Bed with Sue and Billy, Rochelle’s youngest sister and brother. So that Donny, Rochelle, Nicole, and the baby sometimes ended up in one bed together.

“It ain’t that I mind sleeping with my babies,” Donny explained with a grin. They sat watching the news on television. Nicole climbed all over him while Rochelle suckled Isaac. A good-looking man in glasses was referring in a quiet voice to “white devils.” Donny tried to hear what else he was saying, but Nicole was cooing in his ear and bouncing on his lap. His attention became fixed on not allowing her to give him an erection. Sue and Billy sat on the floor playing Go Fish.

“But when does you and me get any time alone together, mama?”

“Look to me like any more time alone together, and this whole place is gon fill up with babies.”

“Yeah, you more like your mama every day.” They laughed. “You get any more like her, and I’m cutting out,” Donny added with a smile.

“Yeah, it’s all my doing, ain’t it?” She smiled back. “Well, I reckon we do need us some more room.”

Donny looked at her and shrugged. “Where we gon get us more room from? Can’t hardly pay for what we got.” It looked like that colored man on the television had got himself shot. Well, you didn’t run around calling white folks devils and expect to live. You could get in plenty of trouble without you called them nothing. Like his grandmaw was always saying, good manners was the best life insurance a colored person could have.

“I’m fixing to go back to maiding soon as I get this one off of my tit.”

“You ain’t never gon get that one off your tit. Appears he likes it there almost as much as I do.” He felt a twinge of jealousy toward this tiny brown usurper, with his greedy little gums and his kneading fingers.

“Your grandmaw’s gon mind them.”

“Yeah, but I was fixing to save your maiding money for a car”

“A car?”

“Yeah, Leon’s selling his Dodge.”

“Shit, honey, we don’t need us no car.”

“It’d save me a heap of time not standing around waiting on the bus.”

“Honey, that’s all you got is time. Why, you don’t need you no car when we can hardly keep food on the table.

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