The Last Road Home Read Free

half mile to Mr. Seagrove’s farm. It never seemed this far riding in the truck. By the time we got there, both of us were worn out, soaked with dusty sweat, and in a foul mood. “Damn Lightning,” Fancy said. “I know it ain’t this far to Mr. Ferrell’s place.”
    Fancy stood back in the yard while I walked up to Mr. Seagrove’s door and knocked. His wife came to the porch, a big woman, thighs wide as two fat hams and a voice deep as a man’s. She sang in the church choir and you could hear her a mile away. “Junebug, what are you doing here? Is your grandma with you?” She looked out at Fancy.
    â€œNo’um, she’s at home. We’re trying to collect some Coca-Cola bottles to sell, and wanted to see if we could look around your place.”
    â€œYou’re welcome to look. I’d try around the tobacco barn if I was you. Just go down that path.” She pointed beside the house. “When y’all get through, stop and I’ll have some iced tea for you.”
    When we reached the barn, we took a break in the shade of the overhanging shelter before starting the search. I heard a noise and looked up to see a dog standing in the path watching us. He reminded me of Grady.
    â€œJunebug, if we get a sack load how the heck are we going to tote ’em?”
    â€œDon’t know, and right now I wish I’d never brought it up.” We rambled in the bushes and briars around the barn, managing to find fifteen bottles that weren’t broke and a lot more that were. Fancy came across an empty whiskey bottle, screwed off the top, and stuck her tongue inside to taste. “Aaah, that’s nasty.” She smacked her mouth in disgust, then pitched it back in the weeds.
    I began to understand Granddaddy and Grandma’s smile this morning. “I figure we’ve made about thirty cents.”
    The best thing we found was a blackberry patch. Each of us picked a couple of handfuls and sat on the dirt floor under the shelter to eat. Dark juice ran down our chins onto our clothes. The flies wanted a taste. We couldn’t swat fast enough. Fancy got up. “Come on, I’m ready to go home, had enough of this dumb mess.”
    We didn’t bother to stop at Mrs. Seagrove’s house for tea; blackberry juice had quenched our thirst. I carried the half-full sack a ways and Fancy carried it a ways. She talked nonstop most of the walk home, about church or how she was anxious to go back to school so she could be around somebody other than Lightning. With Fancy, life was never lonesome.
    Lightning was already sitting at the stumps. I didn’t see any bottles and he didn’t look happy. “What happened? You couldn’t find any?” Fancy showed him ours.
    â€œI went over to Mr. Ferrell’s and told him what I wanted to do. He told me to get my black ass away from his house, said he didn’t want no niggers nosing around his place.” Lightning wouldn’t look at me.
    My face turned warm and flushed. I held out our bag. “Here, Lightning, you can have my share.”
    He took the sack and went home.
    Fancy got up to follow him. She held her arms out from her sides like she wanted to say she was sorry. “ ’Bye, Junebug.”
    We didn’t meet on the path for a long time after that.

C HAPTER 2
    â€œC an I go with you and lend a hand?” It was November and a bitterly cold day. One of our neighbors, Mrs. Luter, fell off her back porch two days before, broke her neck, and died on the spot. She was eighty-six and everybody in the community called her Granny May. Her ninety-year-old husband had to leave her on the ground until he could walk a half mile to get help. Granddaddy loaded his pick and shovel in the truck. He was headed to the church to help dig her grave.
    The yard grass crunched with morning frost. “You stay by the fire, ain’t enough starch in them fourteen-year-old britches of yours yet