Alligator Bayou Read Online Free PDF Page B

cigar with him—what? once a year?—and you think that’s something?”
    “It is something! Dr. Hodge doesn’t own a plantation—he isn’t one of them. He likes us. You leave Dr. Hodge to me. I’ll take care of him in the morning.”
    “You better.” Giuseppe jams his fork in the salad. “You just better.”
    “Eat,” says Carlo. “Everybody eat.”
    I stuff my mouth.
    Francesco pushes his empty plate away. He looks at me. “You still thinking about alligators?”
    I’m so startled, for a second I can’t answer. “A little.”
    “Vicious!” Rosario makes a monster face, wrinkling his big nose and putting his hands beside his cheeks like threatening claws. Then he laughs. “I saw a giant one roped up in the back of a wagon once. Long like you wouldn’t believe. The length of two men standing on top of each other. Still alive. Even when they close their jaws their teeth show.” He leans toward Cirone. “As if they’re smiling at you and saying, ‘Hello, dinner. My, you look tasty.’”
    That’s exactly what the ’gator head over the saloon looks like it’s saying. I grip my fork so tight it hurts. Cirone chews the corner of his thumb.
    “Good eating, though,” says Francesco. “We had them in New Orleans.”
    “The figs will be ripe in July,” says Carlo. “I can make alligator with fig sauce. In autumn I’ll make it with pomegranate sauce. In winter I’ll get oranges from a plantation near New Orleans. Sicilians work there—so the fruit is good.”
    “Figs, pomegranates, oranges.” Francesco rests his elbows on the table and takes a loud breath. “They didn’t have good fruits or vegetables in this state before the Sicilians. Without us, all they’d eat is squirrel and possum and alligator.”
    “And chicken,” says Carlo. “They eat chicken on Saturday nights.”
    Francesco gets an odd, sad look on his face. “It smells good, the way they make it. The way they sit outside and laugh together and play music.”
    “We have fun on Saturday nights, too,” says Rosario.
    “Yeah,” says Giuseppe. “We’ve got each other. Who needs them?”

six
    C irone and I shift from foot to foot as Francesco inspects the new porch floor. We spent all day building it. He checks the edges to see if they’re even. He runs his fingers over the surface to see if we lined up planks of equal thickness to make it level. He grabs ends here and there to see if we put in enough nails so that they won’t jiggle.
    I jam my hands in my pockets. Cirone does the same. I bet his are balled into fists like mine.
    Francesco walks the length, stopping and flexing his knees every few paces. He stamps.
    We flinch.
    Francesco smiles. “Fine job.” He does a dance across the floor. One of the circle dances we do together on a Saturday night.
    Cirone and I hoot and hug each other.
    “Tomorrow you take the old step that used to be in front of the door and you attach it right here.” Francesco taps his foot at the outside edge of the porch across from the door. “Then paint the whole thing white.”
    “White?” I say. “On a floor?”
    Francesco glowers. “What’s wrong with white?”
    I’ve got a stake in this porch. Cirone and I spent all day Thursday choosing the planks, lining them up, planing the irregular ones. And today was all sawing and hammering. My back aches and my hands are ripped up. And that’s two days in a row I haven’t been there to see Patricia walking home from school. She’s all I can think about. “Everyone tramps dirt across a porch. White will look bad fast.”
    Francesco points at Cirone. “And you, what do you think?”
    Cirone hardly ever talks in front of the men, and now with Francesco’s finger aimed like that, he squirms. “Goats run across porches,” he mumbles at last.
    In Francesco’s eyes the goats do no wrong; I’m flabbergasted at Cirone’s daring. So is Francesco—he blinks and pulls on his mustache. It’s not a good sign when Francesco does that. But he