This Bitter Earth Read Online Free PDF Page B

and then shuddered, Susie Clayton screamed, ‘I love you! I love you!’ And Edgar Clayton knew right then that Susie wasn’t his. The Claytons did not love niggers. Through the years they’d owned them, whipped them, hung them, some of the men fucked them and a right few of the women did the same, but not one Clayton had ever loved one.
    “For appearances and because Susie was a white woman, Edgar had the stable boy whipped and then had Susie banished from his house and sent to live in one of the track houses on Clayton land amongst the niggers she loved so much.
    “She’d been with most of the colored men in Bigelow. They talked about it amongst themselves, joked about it every chance they got.
    “ ‘Had some of that white meat ’cross town?‘
    “ ‘Who ain’t?’
    “ ‘Davis ain’t.’
    “ ‘Who say so?’
    “ ‘Heard so.’
    “ ‘From who, Nigger?’
    “ ‘Just heard.’
    “ ‘Well, have you?’
    “ ‘Shonuff!’ the man would yell out, sending the rest of the men into a fit of thigh-slapping laughter. That laughter went on for years, until Susie Clayton’s belly started to push out and the men started denying having been there at all.
    “Susie named her half-breed child after her daddy, Edgar. His name was Edgar Howard Clayton the second, but no one ever called him that, not behind his back or to his face, not even his own mother. He was Shonuff Clayton from the moment he popped his pink head out from between his mother’s legs and even when he was dead and gone, his tombstone would declare the same.
    “Shonuff was an unruly child, stealing apples off fruit carts and chasing the chickens that pecked and scratched in the square. He pulled off the pink bows that knotted the long braids of the dark girls and slapped the close-cut heads of the boys.
    64 People scolded Shonuff, shaking their fingers in his face and speaking to him between clenched teeth. No one, not even his mother, had ever taken a switch to his behind. If they had he might have turned out to be good for something, instead of good for nothing.“
    Sara shook her head and scratched at her chin. Sugar was sitting up now, leaning forward, her feet resting on the floor.
    “Anyway, he grew up and remained much the same. Went from stealing apples to stealing women—most of whom didn’t mind being stolen. He sure was a good-looking man. Tall and as clear as water. He may have looked white but that kinky hair and the way he swaggered instead of walked belonged to every black man that lived in Short Junction.
    “Lots of women, black and white, gave themselves to him, me included,” Sara said as a girlish smile pranced across her lips. “Any woman that hadn’t had Shonuff, dreamed about having him. Every woman except your mama, Bertie Mae.” The name sounded dry in Sara’s mouth and reminded her of the dead garden at the back of #10 Grove Street.
    “Well, even if your mama did want Shonuff, which she didn‘t, Ciel would never have allowed it. If the son of the preacher man came calling on Bertie Mae, Ciel would have chased him off with a butcher knife.
    “Ciel was crazy. There was no getting around it. She only dressed in black and hardly ever combed or brushed her hair. She wandered through the streets talking to herself and yelling obscenities at people. Then there were days when you couldn’t even recognize her. She’d be neat as a pin, hair pulled back, cuss words replaced with ‘hello’ and ’good-day.‘ A smile as sweet as sugar on her lips.
    “She usta tell Bertie Mae that giving birth to her was like pulling a porcupine out from between her legs. Not like her boys, she said. They slid out of her like lard in August. Then she’d spit on Bertie Mae, knock her upside her head or smack her across her face. She hated that child.”
    Sugar blinked back tears. She didn’t want to hear any more. She wanted to shut out what Sara was saying, tell her to stop talking and leave, but something inside of her told her that