Free My Drowning by Jim Grimsley Page A

jail,” Mama said, and twisted her hands in her skirt.
    But the sound of the voices remained cordial and clear. I retreated to the corner, out of sight. Joe Robbie sat with Alma Laura and me. I felt safe.
    â€œI won’t have anybody,” Mama whispered.
    â€œHow are we going to eat?” Otis asked.
    No answer followed. Mama touched the doorknob once, but Nora said not to open it. After a while Deputy Floyd drove away and Daddy came back inside. He fixed his eyes onMama, and they glittered. “Haden says they picked up Cope in Luma. Got him in the jail. He’s headed there now to bring him back to Kingston. He says they ain’t going to mess with me, so you can wipe that look off your face.”
    â€œCripple bastard,” Mama said, and a tear streaked her cheek.
    He looked at her and blinked. They were looking each other eye to eye. For once they did not say anything.
    WE VISITED UNCLE Cope in Johnston County prison. Mama refused to go. She was getting big with the new baby and swore it would be a hex to be in a prison.
    I had gotten the prison confused with the war, somehow. I was certain that all the people I saw there were soldiers, that this was the army, these strangely dressed people behind the cage-shaped windows where we talked. Daddy sat with Cope and asked him what it was like in prison, and I wondered if Uncle Cope would go to the war with the rest. Daddy and Cope talked about the Japs, as they often did; but I was nervous because I feared the Japs might lurk somewhere very nearby.
    Uncle Cope said the food was good and the people were nice. He was talking to his own daddy, my grandaddy Tote, and to my daddy, and to their sister Tula. They stood closest to the window and the rest of us were bunched behind, and because I was little, I could only glimpse a patch of the bald of Uncle Cope’s scalp. But I could hear his voice, sometimes. “They treat us real good. They got us making things. I can read books if I want to, but I don’t want to. I think I’m going to learn how to make license plates. You can pass the time right well. You-all don’t worry about me.”
    I searched for the faces of the enemy, the slant eyes, the yellow skin, of which I had heard so much on the radio. But the sad faces in the room were all the same color as mine, some browner, some more freckled. When the time was up someone lifted the little ones to kiss Uncle Cope’s cheek. I was barely old enough and large enough to escape brushing my lips against his pale cheek. I could almost taste the clammy skin.
    WE RODE HOME in Uncle Bray’s truck. Aunt Tula and Grandaddy Tote sat in the front, and Daddy declared he was stuck in the back with the rest of the niggers, and laughed at his own joke. I sat between his legs because he made me sit there, and dug his fingers into the space between my ribs. Nora stared at him and me. I felt a strange sickness in the pit of my stomach with him so close. The speed of the truck made a wind that whipped my hair across my eyes, but I sat perfectly still and never made a sound.
    We ate at Grandaddy’s house near Smithfield. Grandaddy lived with his oldest son Erbert, who hated Uncle Cope as much as Mama did and also refused to visit him in jail. Grandaddy’s house was even dirtier than ours, and plainer, with chickens wandering in and out and dropping turds on the floors. But the kitchen overflowed with things to eat, everything from ham for the biscuit to canned vegetables from the summer garden. Nora drank bowl after bowl of clabbered milk and stuffed her face with cornbread. I ate my souse meat and biscuit with the same relish. Nothing had ever tasted so good.
    Before we left, with Uncle Bray yawning and Aunt Tulacomplaining about prison, Uncle Erbert slipped something into Daddy’s hand. It was a paperback book, and I glimpsed a woman with naked titties on the cover before Daddy slid the smooth rectangle into his pocket. He caught me