Free Hard Twisted by C. Joseph Greaves

implement he called his maulstick. Then she proffered the paint can, as he had shown her, held in her palm by the bottom.
    Here we go. Keep close but don’t get underfoot.
    He dipped the brush tip, and with one hand holding the maulstick he crossed his wrists and etched a pinstripe border. The line he drew was thin and even and straight as a string pulled taut.
    Stay with me now.
    He stork-walked the stick and dipped again, extending his line to the bottom of the sign and rounding it off at the corner.
    Hmmm, he said to himself.
    Lottie followed like a mendicant as the tall man dipped and dabbed, shuffled and dipped, until at last he’d circumnavigatedthe sign and closed the loop in a smooth and flawless junction. He raised the brush and backed a step to better attend his handiwork.
    I’d say you sure know what you’re doin, Lottie said after a pause.
    He glanced at the girl. It ain’t brain surgery, but I thank you all the same.
    I couldn’t do such as that in a hundred years.
    How do you know?
    Sir?
    He gestured with the brush. If you’ve never tried it, how do you know you can’t?
    I just do, that’s all.
    The man nodded. It’s not your fault, he said, wiping the brush tip on his bib. It’s a curse of the female psyche.
    Sir?
    He bent to the turpentine. I don’t claim to have studied the question, but it seems to me that if you show something new to a boy and a girl both, it’s the boy that wants to take it apart and put it back together again, and it’s the girl that wants to sit and watch him do it. Now why do you suppose that is?
    I don’t rightly know.
    He straightened again and stood beside her. Neither do I.
    They studied the sign together, as though in its newly bordered symmetry some answer might be found.
    Maybe it weren’t broke in the first place?
    He eyed her again.
    How old did you say you were?
    Thirteen.
    Thirteen. I believe I’ve got shoes older than that.
    I’d say that’s the truth, she replied, and he followed her eyes to the end of his pantleg.
    Lucile, is it?
    Yes, sir.
    That fella left with Clint Palmer, he’s your pa?
    Yes, sir.
    He harrumphed.
    They’s gone out to the Palmer place on business. I been there once myself to meet his sister and her daughter Johnny Rae, only we missed ’em when they was out ridin and campin somewheres by some river. So we done chores instead and rode them horses out there that wasn’t saddle-broke yet.
    The man said nothing.
    Sir?
    The man looked to the sign and back again.
    Lucile, let me tell you something. A word to the wise, as it were. I’ve known Clint Palmer and his kin for longer than I’d care to recall, and I can tell you two things you’d best keep in mind. The first is, Clint’s sister Gennie was my wife, and his other sister, Ruby, lives clear out to Little Rock, and ain’t neither one of ’em got a daughter named Johnny Rae. The second thing is, that boy Clint is crazier than a shithouse mouse, you’ll pardon my French. Not that your daddy’s business is any of my business, but if you want some friendly advice from a old paint dabber, I’d say you’d best stick close to your pa, and whatever you do, you’d best watch your backside around that half-pint son of a bitch.
    At five o’clock Lottie returned to the still and empty house. She washed her hands at the kitchen tap and dried them on her pants.She sorted through the tumbled clothes pile, and with arms and chin she carried those that were hers upstairs to the room in which she’d slept. There she found that her bedroll had been tidied, and that a square shape now bulged from under her blanket.
    The package was wrapped in newsprint and tied with a new pink satin ribbon. She crossed to the door and closed it, then sat with the gift in her lap, smoothing the hair behind her ears. She loosened the bow and examined the ribbon and folded it and laid it carefully beside