Trouble the Waters by Sheree Renée Thomas

Author:Sheree Renée Thomas
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Third Man Books
Published: 2021-08-15T00:00:00+00:00

SPIRITS DON’T CROSS OVER WATER ‘TIL THEY DO

JAMEY HATLEY

Rabbit Grace had been on his second tour of Vietnam long enough to start getting mail. There were letters from his mother that he answered as quickly as he could, brimming with false cheer. Some from his sisters that he answered as if he were talking to all of them at once. It was Rabbit’s turn to sort through the “Dear Soldier” letters and get his first choice. Amber Hawkins was going on and on as he always did. Hawkins looked like his name. He was tall and brown and solid like he was lit from within with gold. Hawkins was one of those guys with a thick neck but keen features that looked like he had been carved with a chisel. He was telling a story about some long-dead uncle of his who had been a big gangster back in the day. A numbers runner whose downfall was a Woe.

“A hoe? Every nigga’s downfall is hoes,” said one of the new recruits, baby-faced Davis from Arkansas.

“Not a hoe. A Woe. You Bamas don’t know shit. You don’t have Woes?” said Hawkins.

“The fuck is a Woe?” Davis asked and a groan rose up from the mess hall.

“Please, please don’t get him started,” said Rabbit. “Please! Here, take a letter from one of these nice ladies from Chicago.”

Hawkins’s story went that where he was from, every so often an island rose from the middle of the river full of naked women who sang you to your death or granted your every wish. Water Women he sometimes called them. Or mostly: Woes.

“Man shut up that noise,” the other soldiers would tease.

“I was named after my uncle. If I make it out of here, I’m gonna do what my namesake didn’t,” said Hawkins and counted his goals off on his fingers. “One. Keep all of my money. Two. Catch me a Water Woman. Three. Keep her. Four. Stay alive.”

“Nigga, is you crazy? Who wants a woman like that?”

“You can catch them though. I told you that,” said Hawkins.

“Plenty of crazy broads out here that don’t need catching, Blood.”

Rabbit chuckled to himself; it was something that Two used to say to him. Why would I want anybody don’t want me of my own free will?

“Look here, unless that bitch come with a pot of gold, she can keep her ass in that water.”

“All I need is this,” Hawkins said and shook the sugar packets from his tray at them. Hawkins was crazy for sugar. Always hoarding it. Drank his coffee like syrup.

“Just dust their tails with sugar and they’ll do whatever you say. I’m gonna be one of the only niggas to get me one of those Woes and live to tell it. Just wait and see.”

“You mean to tell me you dust their asses with sugar? What kinda freak shit is that?”

Rabbit laughed along with the rest of the unit, but the Woes stayed on his mind.

Why would I want anybody don’t want me of their own free will?

Free?

Free.

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