Free In An Arid Land by Paul Scott Malone Page B

She wanted to go up and ask him where Joboy was, but he seemed threatening, menacing in his uniform.
    Night lurked just above the trees. In the yard behind the foundation she found a blanket, olive drab, soggy on the corner, pressed flat against the ground and covered with a layer of pine needles. She picked up the blanket and shook it out, carried it to the steps. She wondered if this was the wrong day, if she had mixed up the dates. But she had let Mrs. Livermore read the letter and they had agreed, today was the day. I'll just wait.
    Then it was night. She looked out at the street once more to see if Joboy were there, but the street dripped with silence under the trees. Letting her head rest on the old doorsill, she laid down and spread the blanket over her body.
    Memories, yapping at her mind, kept sleep at bay like the hounds that her father used to run when he hunted. They bellowed and howled until even the thought of sleep crawled out of her and hid in the branches of the trees. She recalled a night, a night only weeks before Joboy had left. "Where you been for three whole days?" she had asked him. He had just come in, it was late.
    "Looking for work," he said.
    "No, you ain't looking for nothing. I think you found it."
    "Let me be, woman."
    "Why I should let you be? I'm your wife." He stared at her, his eyes slippery-looking but direct. "Am I not your wife?"
    He stared. He walked toward her, staring, and kissed her.
    "Answer me, man."

    He kissed her, rubbed himself against her. His heavy man odor filled her head and she could just make out his pretty face in the darkened room. He said, "Come on, let's make a baby." She said, "No!" but he touched her, purred for her. And she lay beneath him then. Later, curled warmly in the bed beside him, she had whispered, "Am I your wife, or not?" but he was asleep.
    Now, as her own sleep began to numb her body, she realized that the thumb on her left hand had been rubbing the fleshy skin between the knuckles of her bare ring finger. She made it stop and then everything was calm. Once in the night she woke, chilly and frightened, to a sound in one of the shrubs, a rustling, as if someone were shaking it. When she sat up she saw a bird fight its way out of the leaves and strike off into the darkness.
    IV
    Ruby felt her bones warming. She felt the concrete under her hip and shoulder. She smelled pine needles warming as if in an oven. A car passed on the street, its engine loud, coughing like Joboy in the morning. Her eyes opened to a face, a child's face, peering down at her. The boy held a satchel over his shoulder.
    "It's about time," he said. "I've been waiting on you five, ten minutes."
    "Where's Joboy?"
    His eyes cut into her, questioning. "You better get gone, gal," the boy said. "Daddy says vagrants go to jail."
    Her body hurt and her head seemed to be swimming through a deep, dank pool of water. She looked up at the boy. He was twelve, maybe thirteen. Dark curly hair rose from his head like the crown of a chicken. His face was smooth and clean, but colored with curiosity and a vague meanness.
    "I'm going," she said and groped for the white purse.
    "The police come around and you're in trouble."
    "I'm going," she said and stood up, clutching the purse.
    Ruby walked into the street, glanced back. The boy was watching her, but soon he started off in the opposite direction. She went to the road through the gate in the wall. There was a new guard in the little house and he saw her, scrutinized her, as if she had arrived to ask him a difficult question.
    "Can I do something for you?" he said.
    "I'm here to collect Joboy Johnson. He's getting out."
    "Johnson. Johnson, you say?" He rubbed the folds of neck under his chin. "Don't know of no Johnson. But hang on."
    She could see through the window of the guard shack that he was talking on the telephone. He talked for a long time. "Who are you?" he asked, leaning out the door, the phone in his hand. She told him and he spoke into the