Playing With Matches Read Online Free PDF Page A

to feed. If that girl had any sense, she’d take Denver up to Jackson and forget this bunch down here.”
    Miss Shookie was always moving people to Jackson.
    Today we were gathered for Denver Lee’s homecoming.
    “He bringin’ his new wife,” said Plain Genie in her slow voice, grinning with her pink gums and tiny teeth. “We got us a sister-in-law.”
    So we sat on the porch while the dogs slept underneath, and we waited in the heat, not wanting to start on the lemonade till they got there.
    I leaned back on my hands. “Why’s your mama stay in bed so much, Claudie?”
    “She been laid up since we was born.” Claudie waved a hand like the whole thing was of no account. “Our birthin’ was that hard on her. She had no sense, squeezin’ out two more after us.”
    I looked down to the riverbank, where the smallest boys rannaked as jaybirds, their butts caked with clay dust and their bellies round. Claudie got up and called to them, “Y’all come on and cover your bidness now! Clean pants is on the ironing board.”
    “Poor Mama,” Plain Genie said. “She lay in the bed and moan all day and all night. She say she goin’ to die any minute.”
    “Any minute?” I said.
    “For seven years now.”
    But their mama was up today, wearing a bathrobe and peeking out through the porch screen. I said to her, “How you doin’ there, Miz Maytubby? You feelin’ any better this day?”
    “You’re a dear child for askin’,” she said. “Y’all, ain’t that Denver Lee’s car coming up the road?”
    It was, in a cloud of dirt roiling thicker than bees.
    “Hey, y’all!” Alvadene rose out of the rocker, the baby on her hip, a bead of milk on her nipple. The baby set up a terrible fuss.
    “Girl, button your blouse,” her mama said.
    A red car pulled up, with more rust spots than paint. The top was down, and Denver Lee was waving like he was his own parade. He had a big grin on his handsome face, and the lady beside him wore a wide-brimmed hat and gloves and a yellow sundress. A slow buzz rose up. When Denver came round and opened his wife’s door, she stretched out two long white legs, and the whole family drew back.
    “Y’all,” said Denver Lee, grinning, “this here’s my wife, Lucille. Lu, this is Mama, and Alvadene, and Claudie and …”
    The screen door had gone shut.
    Denver rushed his wife up the steps and inside. I heard his voice in the dark kitchen. “Mama, I know Lucille is white, but she’s a real lady, and she’s got fine, wide hips. You got to get to know her, is all.”
    “Well, ain’t we done in now,” Alvadene said. She sat down inthe rocker and flopped that one breast back out, offering it to the squalling boy. The little girl wobbled up the steps, climbed on her mama’s leg, and peeled her shirt away from the other.
    Claudie and Plain Genie shared a secret look. After a long, bare silence Denver came to the door. “Y’all come in now. Supper’s on the table.”
    The boys scrambled in from their game of killing each other.
    I knew this invitation included me too. The kitchen was tiny and filled with the heat of the stove and summer bodies. There were four chairs, a bench, and a piano stool squeezed around that small deal table. Miz Maytubby moved to the stove and back. The chairs were for grown-ups. Lucille was balanced on Denver Lee’s lap. In this crowded house there was no prayer, no hymn, no Thank you, Jesus . Everybody reached and dipped and poured and dug in. Claudie and Plain Genie and I were passed cracked cereal bowls, and we ate with spoons and our fingers, standing up.
    A great pot of black-eyed peas sat in the middle of the table, and Denver Lee rose to dish them out while a platter of corn bread went around, and another heaped with fried potatoes. Nobody said a word. Without Denver’s help, Lucille wouldn’t have got a thing on her plate, because soon conversation rose up about Alvadene’s babies, and nobody spoke to, or about, Denver’s new wife. Like she