One House Over by Mary Monroe

Author:Mary Monroe [Monroe, Mary]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Kensington
Published: 2018-01-29T05:00:00+00:00

Chapter 26

Joyce

AFTER ODELL AND I MADE LOVE, WE GOT BACK UP AND ATE THE lima beans and gizzards I had cooked for dinner. He was anxious to meet our new neighbors, so we decided to visit them this evening before it got too late.

“Shouldn’t we take them something else other than them tea cakes you baked?” he wanted to know, standing next to me while I wrapped the plate with the tea cakes in wax paper.

“Like what?”

“Well, like a bottle of wine? That’s what my folks used to take over to new neighbors when I was growing up.”

“Wine?” I laughed. “The Hamiltons are bootleggers. If they are in the business of selling alcohol, I’m sure they already have enough of it on hand already. If they don’t, they won’t be in business too long.” I laughed again.

During Prohibition, which had ended five years ago, people had to make their own alcohol or get it from bootleggers. Even though we had a lot of bars in Branson now, all of the nice ones were for white folks only. The few owned by colored people often ran out of alcohol too soon, or had to close for a few days for one reason or another. Usually when the people got too rowdy. The people I knew preferred to continue dealing with the bootleggers anyway. I could understand why. They didn’t care how rowdy somebody got in their houses, as long as they didn’t kill anybody. Most of them stayed open all hours of the day and night, seven days a week. Also, sitting in a nice house drinking with friends made people feel a lot more comfortable. And, the majority of the bootleggers had shady backgrounds, so they couldn’t get liquor licenses. They bought their alcohol from the local moonshiners and sold it a lot cheaper than the bars and stores.

Yvonne opened her front door and greeted us with a huge smile. “Girl, I was just talking about you. Y’all come on in,” she squealed, waving us into her living room. “You must be Odell.” She grabbed his hand and started shaking it so hard, I was surprised it didn’t fall off. “That’s Willie Frank, our best friend,” she introduced, nodding toward a slender, barefoot white man sitting on the beige couch with a Mason jar in his hand. He had on a dingy white shirt and brown pants rolled halfway up his legs.

“Howdy do,” Willie Frank said, grinning. He stretched out his hand as we approached the couch. He shook Odell’s and kissed mine. He was only in his early or middle thirties, but three of his front teeth were missing and the ones he had left had chewing tobacco stains. He was still fairly good-looking with his baby blue eyes and thick blond hair.

“Nice to meet you,” I chirped as I sat down next to him. His clothes were neat and clean, but he smelled like stale tobacco.

“How you doing?” Odell said cheerfully. There was plenty of room on the couch, but he plopped down at the opposite end.

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