Tell Them Katy Did Read Online Free PDF Page A

just popped into his head, “You wanna take a ride while I be here? For ole time sake?”
    She snorted. “Listen at the fool. Can’ hardly crawl up the stairs, two women hepin’ him, and he layin’ there thinkin’ ’bout poontang, if that ain’ jes like a man.”
    “I ain’ dead yet, girl. If we was careful, I could…”
    “’Sides,” her eyes narrow, “I ain’ got what you like down there nowadays. Not what I be hearin’, anyways.”
    “Ah, that shit.” He coughed. “People talkin’ queer shit, tha’s all it is. You oughts to know that. Do women all the time, since I’s knee high, always like it jes fine an’ I ’spect the ladies do too, most of ’em acted plenty grateful, seem like. That other stuff, tha’s just prison business, it all you got to do when you in there. But I always thinkin’ ’bout women when I doin’ it, and tha’s no lie. I swear it, most the time, I thinkin’ ’bout you, honey, an’ you wantin’ to know the truth.”
    “You always was full of it.” She looked pleased anyway.
    “Don’ you pay no mind to that shit, is what I’m sayin’. Jes somepin a man gets used to when he inside, is all.”
    “Maybe. Tha’s what you say. What you did, last night, though, you didn’ get used to that in no prison.”
    He tossed his head back and forth on the pillow, like he was tryin’ to get something inside it to come loose. “Fuck. I oughtn’ of done it, I know that, it was like I jes go crazy all a sudden. I don’ know where it come from. Just somepin got into me, come over me out of nowhere. Like the devil done took me over.” She looked unconvinced. “Tha’s the truth, I never even thought of nothin’ like that before, I swear it. It was like somebody else doin’ it, like I wasn’ even there.”
    “Uh huh. Like the devil do it. Don’ make no difference, I’m tellin’ you, they gonna burn your ass for it, make no matter where it come from, burn the devil’s ass too an’ he say anything. Been different if’n it a colored boy. You mighta got away with it if he colored, nobody mind much about a colored boy. But a white boy…”
    “I know, I know. An’ they finds me, they string me up for sure.”
    “’Cept, they finds you here, they be stringin’ me up with you.”
    “I jes didn’ have nobody else to turn to, you know what I’m sayin’?”
    “You already say that. Won’t hep my neck none when they puttin’ a rope ‘round it.”
    “I’m goin’, I swear it. Soon’s I can.”
    She study him over good. “Don’ look to me like you goin’ anywhere, not an’ on your own. How’d you git here, is what I like to know?”
    “I git here, is all. An’ I be goin’, too. I go right now, an’ you say I got to. Jes get me down them stairs, an’ you won’ see nothin’ but my ass on the way out the door.”
    “They be shootin’ your ass, they see you, make no matter whether you is goin’ or comin’. You jes has to wait here till mornin’, is all. I have the boys bring you down later on, ’fore it git light, they carry you over by the railroad track.”
    “Long as it okay with you, is all I’m sayin’.”
    “An’ I ain’ sayin’ it okay, neither, I just saying tha’s how it be.”
    “Tha’s okay, then, tha’s the best thing, what you say. We wait till mornin’, then I be outa here. Ole Rufus’ll hep, won’t he? He wouldn’ turn me in, would he?”
    “Rufus know to keep his mouth shut. He don’ want strung up neither. You didn’ jes make trouble for yoursef, fool, you make trouble for every darkie ’round about here. Everybody scared.”
    “I understan’. I ain’ wantin’ to make no trouble for nobody. They put me by the tracks, is all they gots to do, I can manage the rest of the way. Once it start to get light, I jump me a freight, be long gone, won’ see me no more ’round these parts, I swear it.”
    She looked at the wound in his side. It had stopped bleedin’ but it looked ugly, all red and puffy. Prolly, she