A Piece of Mine Read Online Free PDF

laughter. He was morose and often drunk when he came, whether morning or night. He knew where Teresa was and wanted to go get her but since she had been to the divorce court, they had warned him, so he didn’t, but told everybody she was living in “sin” with Mr. Wellington.
    His attempts at sex with Mrs. Ginny seemed pathetic and heavy. He drunk, she half-drunk. Mrs. Ginny seemed to be reaching for so much, trying to get all of something and he seemed to have nothing to come get. They only continued doing it because they both had a need to be close to sex, however unfulfilling it might be. He needed to show Mrs. Ginny, also, what Teresa was missing, and couldn’t, so he just kept drinking.
    Mr. Rembo’s days became darker … he lost his job after being found drunk there. They tried not to fire him but after a dozen times or so, had no alternative; after all, he was supposed to be a “watchman!” He began to bald but the remaining hair seemed always tangled. His eyes seemed more rheumy and were often matted with the mucus that crawls in the eyes at night. His hands shook as he reached for the bottles of warm beer he liked. His mind was in a thick soupy fog. He hadn’t been over to Mrs. Ginny’s in several days. He didn’t like to think of that last night.
    Mrs. Ginny had held his soft penis in her hand as she stared at the ceiling, listening to his drunken snoring. Tearshad seemed to want to come to her eyes but couldn’t find a place to break through. She had fallen asleep without letting him go. He had awakened later, and lying still to remember where he was, he looked at the faded wallpaper, pieces hanging here and there, a cobweb from the ceiling to the window, a home discarded by some spider. The sheets seemed tired and old and wrinkled and felt damp around him. He felt her hand and removed it, finger by finger until her hand dropped away. Turning his head to the side, staring at the wall, two deep dry sobs shook his body trying to get out of his mouth, which he would not open.
    Morning came and another bottle. Though it had been a year, his rage returned, stronger. He took his knife and cut all Teresa’s clothes and threw them in the yard (which Mrs. Ginny came out and picked through, but because of her size found only a shoulder shawl and a purse that hadn’t been cut).
    Everybody knew Mrs. Rembo was now Mrs. Wellington. Mrs. Ginny still shopped there but Mr. Rembo never went near. Today, though, as he drank his gin and warm beer it was all he could think about. She was still Mrs. Rembo to him! She belonged to him! To him! Not to Mr. Wellington, not God, not nobody but him! He shouted to the house “Me! Me! She is my wife! Mine! I can beat her if I want to! She’s mine! I can kill her if I want to!” The words hung in the air around his head, echoing, from the top of his sodden brain to his sick liver and sour stomach then back to his sodden brain. He cried. Tears and snot mingled as he rubbed his face with his hands. He felt no comfort, only rage. He put his knife in his pocket, and slightly staggering, went out the front door, to the corner and turned right for the two blocks to the Wellington store.
    When he reached the store, he passed looking in from the side. To himself, he had become wise, smart, and slick. He stopped just past the store and tipped back to peer in from the corner of the window. Mr. Wellington was behind themeat counter waiting on a customer. Teresa was not in the store, but he knew the door to the right, just inside the store, led into the main house. When two ladies with children went in, he pressed close behind them and veered off to the right behind the counter and gradually made his way to the door and went through as Mr. Wellington bent down to take something out of the cold storage counter.
    When Mr. Rembo stepped into the nice, clean, fresh-smelling, quiet house, these things stopped him. He felt suspended in time … but in a little more time his aura oozed into the