Raney Read Online Free PDF Page B

Flossie's Oldsmobile.
    The funny thing is this: Charles has not gone anywhere with Daddy driving — and Daddy don't always chew tobacco when he drives but last Sunday he did; and what he does when he chews tobacco and drives is use a drink bottle, usually a short Coke-a-cola bottle, for a spitoon. When I saw Daddy bringing a Coke bottle to the car I figured it served Charles right for not wanting to ride in the back with Aunt Naomi.
    See, Charles has a repulsion about anything gooey and slimey. He won't eat boiled okra and he thinks somebody spitting is just awful, whereas I don't see nothing wrong with it as long as it's not on somebody.
    Sometimes if Daddy takes a chew while he's driving, and a Coke bottle's not around, he'll open the car door at a stop sign and spit on the road — which might have been better for Charles on this trip — but when he does that, the tobacco spatters up, and the car door gets to looking like a speckled dog until Mama goes out and cleans it off with Ajax.
    So Sunday, as soon as Daddy gets settled behind the steering wheel, he cuts off this big hunk of Brown Williamson. I buy him four plugs every Christmas and I buy Mama a bottle of Jergen's lotion. Of course that's not all I buy. Last Christmas I bought Daddy a pair of ceramic bird dogs and I bought Mama a off-white shawl which she took back. She takes back most things she buys or you give her. She's always hard to buy for. She'll tell you she's hard to buy for. One Christmas, Ferbie Layton told Aunt Flossie that Mama was pretty and Aunt Flossie told me and Aunt Naomi that she was passing along the compliment to Mama as a Christmas present because for sure Mama couldn't return that. If she does keep something you give her, she'll alter it. One Christmas I gave her a free-hanging plaid blouse which she said she believed she'd take up even though we all told her it was the right length. So she finally said she wouldn't take it up. Aunt Flossie said she bet she would. (I think she did, but we never knew for sure.)
    We hadn't got as far as Paulsen's Gulf when Daddy pulls his Coke bottle up from between his legs and spits in a long string of brown juice. He breaks the spit off by flicking the mouth of the Coke bottle against his bottom lip. Comes clear every time.
    Charles squirmed. I wanted to say Charles if you weren't watching out for yourself so much, you wouldn't have to be up there; you could be back here in the back seat getting to know Aunt Naomi a little better, and Mama could be up front with Daddy so they wouldn't have to argue back and forth across the seat.
    Then Mama says what she always says at the Oak Hill intersection when we go to the beach: "Thurman, you're going to turn to the right here?"
    "Yes I am, Doris."
    "You're not going by the interstate?"
    "Doris, I'll be glad to let you drive if you want to."
    "I just asked, Thurman. Remember we clocked it."
    "I remember we clocked it."
    "Well, it was longer when we went this way."
    "That was early of a Friday morning when the traffic was thick."
    "Thurman, the point is you don't have all them little towns to drive through on the interstate."
    "Doris, I'll be glad to let you drive if you want to."
    "Well, I'm just thinking of how not to take so long to get there. I declare," says Mama to Aunt Naomi, "the 'blacks' stop in these little towns in the middle of the street and talk to whoever happens to be on the sidewalk and you can't blow your horn lest one's liable to come back for all you know and cut your throat." (Mama has started saying "blacks" when Charles is around. And I guess I have too.)
    "I'll be glad to let you drive if you want to," Daddy says.
    "Okay."
    "What?"
    "Okay, I'll drive," says Mama.
    There was a long pause during which the car didn't slow down a bit.
    "I'll drive," says Daddy.
    "Well then," says Mama, "you shouldn't say you'll be glad for me to drive." There was this other long pause. "When you're not."
    Daddy just looked at Charles, shifted his tobacco from one