De’Shawn Charles Winslow - In West Mills

To the reader.

CONTENTS

In October of 41, Azalea Centres man told her that he was sick and tired of West Mills and of the love affair she was having with moonshine. Azaleaeveryone called her Knotreminded him that she was a grown woman.

Stop tellin me how old you is, Pratt said.

Well, I thought maybe you forgot, Knot retorted. She was sitting at her kitchen table, pulling bobby pins from her copper-red hair. She picked up her glass and finished what was left in it. She had barely set it back on the table when Pratt picked it up and threw it against the wall. He then packed all his clothes in the old suitcase hed brought when he moved into her little house a few years back.

Im gettin outta here, he affirmed.

Need some help packin? Knot shot back, and she laughed. It wasnt the first time Pratt had packed that ragged bag. He stared at her, frowning.

Drink yaself to death, if thats what you want to do.

Go to hell, Pratt.

Im leavin hell! he yelled.

A few days later, Knot came home and found a folded note peeping out from under her door. First, she looked down at the signature. When she saw Pratt Shepherd at the bottom, she took a chilled glass from her icebox, poured a drink, and sat down to look over the message. She read most of it. It said that Pratt was at his sisters house, just across the lane. Knot wasnt surprised. Pratts sister and her two little girls were the only family he had in West Mills.

In the letter, Pratt reminded her that he still loved her, still wanted to marry her, and still wanted to start a family with her. He wrote that he would wait around for just one week. Then he was going back home to Tennessee. Thats where Knot stopped reading. She laughed out loud, tossed the paper onto the table, and set her glass down on it. Funnyit was usually the books she used to teach her pupils that got the wet glass.

Knot would be lying if she told anyone that Pratt wasnt a good man. He didnt mind hard work, he picked up after himself, he kept his body nice and clean, and he knew how to give her joy in bed. But the truth was Pratt wasnt much fun to her otherwise. He didnt have much to talk about. And he couldnt hold his liquor to save his life. After two drinks Pratt was laid out, spilling over, or both. Knot liked men who could match her shot for shot, keep her mind busy when they werent drunk, and still do all the other things Pratt could do. Aside from all that, her fathershe called him Pawouldnt like Pratt. If she were ever going to be married, it would have to be a man her pa loved just as much as she did.

Pratts threat to leave West Mills could not have come with better timing, because Knots twenty-seventh birthday was a week around the corner. When the weekend came, she walked down the lanetwo houses to the left of her houseto tell her good friend Otis Lee Loving all about her newfound freedom. And since Knot visited him most Saturday mornings, and knew he would be in the kitchen, she didnt bother knocking.

You need to go on over there and fix things up with Pratt, Otis Lee said. Otherwise, he gon be on the next thing headed west. Otis Lee set a cup of black coffee on the table in front of Knot; his face was angry-looking and peach. He didnt sit down. Just then, his wife, Pep, showed up at the table with a boiled egg and a biscuit, all inside the cracked, sand-colored bowl Knot wished they would throw away.

Pratt can catch the next thing to hell, Knot replied.

Pep pushed the bowl in front of Knot, next to the coffee. She didnt sit down, either. Knot looked up at them and wondered what the days lecture would be about.

Eat, Pep commanded. Even at seven oclock in the morning, her round face looked full and healthy, as though she had slept on a pillow made of air. Not the rough, feather-stuffed pillows Knot used.

I thought I left my mama in Ahoskie, Knot scoffed. Yall got anything I can pour in this coffee? Something sides milk, I mean.

Why you so set on bein lonely, Knot? Otis Lee asked.

Pep looked down at Otis Lee as though he had gone off script. And he looked up at Pep as if to say, I couldnt help myself. The way he and Pep stood there, side by side, made them look more like a boy and his mother than a husband and his wife. Why the two of them behaved so much like old people, Knot never understood. They were only five years older than she was. For Knot, it was Otis Lees being happily married, being too short, and old-man ways that ruined the handsomeness shed seen on him when theyd first met. And that handsomeness, as striking as it was, had never caused the feeling Knot got deep in her stomach when she met a man she wanted to touch, or be touched by, in the dim light of her oil lamp.

Yall know he tried to beat me, dont ya?

Otis Lee and Pep both sighed, at the same time. Knot wondered if they had rehearsed it.

You sit to my table and tell that tale? Otis Lee reproached. Then he began with his You know goodn well this and You know goodn well that. At times like these Knot had to work hard to keep her cool. Because if she didnt, she might tell Otis Lee that if he spent more time worrying about his own life, and his own family, he might know that the woman he knew as his mother, wasnt; she was kin but not his mother. If his real mama is anything like mine, better for him if he dont know. Aint none of my business anyhow.

Tell me one thing, Knot said. Why yall always take his side?

It aint just about Pratts side, Knot, Otis Lee insisted. You need to be nicer to everybody round here. Knot heard bits and pieces of what Otis Lee recounted about how her drinking had gotten out of hand; how she seemed to want to be by herself more than anything nowadaysunless she was at Miss Goldies Place, of course. Knot started nibbling on the biscuit and then on the egg, trying not to hear all the things she already knew about herself.

Otis Lee turned to Pep and mused, You remember when she used to go see the children and they mamas, Pep? Used to visit people just cause she had time. People used to talk so nice about that, Knot. Thought the world of it. Didnt they, Pep?

Yes, they did, Pep replied.

Knot dropped the egg back in the bowl and asked, Aint I sittin here, visitin with yall right now? Knot was certain theyd both heard her question, although neither of them responded.

Now folk say you show up to that schoolhouse smellin like you bathe in corn liquor, Otis Lee went on. Thats bout all they sayin bout you now.

What people you talkin bout, anyhow, Otis Lee? Knot said. She took a sip of the coffee. It was weak.

What you mean, what people?

Yall aint got but three or four hundred folk round here, Knot pointed out. And most of em is white folk who dont know me from a can of bacon grease.

Some days you talk like you dont live right here in this town, Pep remarked. Knot couldnt think of anything to say back.

She knew that some if not all of what Otis Lee was saying was trueabout people whispering. Many times Knot had noticed how some of the women stopped talking when she came near them at the general store. And at the schoolhouse, shed been a bit hurt by how some of the people had seemed as if they didnt want to be seen speaking with her too long when they came to pick up their children. Theyd ask how their little ones were doing with their lessons and then hurry off as though Knot had a sickness they didnt want to catch.