The Third Life of Grange Copeland Read Free Page B

to his wife.
    “I don’t know nothing about up Norse.”
    “You could learn.”
    “Naw, I don’t believe I could.” There was a sigh in her voice.
    Brownfield came alive. So his cousins had been right; there had been talk about him and his mother going back with them to Philadelphia. Why hadn’t they gone? He felt peeved and in the dark.
    “I didn’t know nobody asked us to go. I want to go up Norse.” His cousins said only the greenest hicks from Georgia said “Norse” like that.
    His mother smiled at him. “And wear your hair pressed down like a woman’s? Get away from here, boy!”
    Brownfield, an admirer of Uncle Silas, was not dissuaded. “I just wouldn’t wear the headrag at night,” he said.
    “My poor sister Marilyn,” his mother muttered sadly, “all bleached up like a streetwalker. The Lawd keep me from ever wanting to brush another woman’s hair out of my face. To tell you the truth,” she continued to Grange over Brownfield’s head, “I don’t even think it was real hair. I felt it when she took it off for me to try on. Just like the hair on the end of a cow’s tail, and when you pulled a strand it stretched.”
    “I like it ’cause it swooshes,” said Brownfield rhapsodically.
    “That’s ’cause you ain’t got no sense,” said Grange.

2
    F IVE YEARS AFTER his cousins’ visit, Brownfield stood on the same spot in the yard watching the approach of another vehicle. This time it was a big, gray high-bodied truck that he knew well. It rolled heavily over the road, blasting the misty quiet of the Sunday morning. The man driving the truck was not the one who usually drove it. As it came nearer Brownfield saw a brown arm dangling from the window. It was Johnny Johnson, a man who worked for Mr. Shipley. The truck stopped at the edge of the clearing and Brownfield’s mother descended. She stood for a moment talking to the driver, then turned and came slowly and quietly toward the house. The truck made a noisy turnabout and disappeared back up the road. His mother took off her shoes and carried them in her hand. She walked gingerly and reluctantly over the dew. So intently was she peering at the ground she did not see Brownfield until she nearly bumped against him. He was taller than she, and bigger, and when she noticed him she jumped.
    “’Morning,” he said coolly.
    His mother carried her shoes guiltily to her bosom, clutching them with both hands. Her beautiful rough hair was loose about her shoulders like a wayward thundercloud, with here and there a crinkly and shiny silver thread. Her dress was mussed, and the golden cross that usually nestled inside her dress lay jutting up atop her collar. Her eyes were haggard and blinked foggily at her son. She gave off a stale smoky odor. With nervous fingers she sought to thrust rumpled stockings farther inside her shoes.
    “Oh,” she said, looking toward the house, “I didn’t see you standing there.”
    Brownfield stood aside, saying nothing.
    “The baby all right?” she asked quickly, her knuckles sharp against her shoes.
    “He all right,” said Brownfield. He followed her into the house and watched as she stood over his little half-brother. The baby was sleeping peacefully, his tiny behind stuck up in the air. The baby was a product of his mother’s new personality and went with her new painted good looks and new fragrance of beds, of store-bought perfume and of gin.
    “Your daddy and me had another fight,” she said, sinking down on the bed. “Oh, we had us a rip-rowing, knock-down, drag-out fight. With that fat yellow bitch of his calling the punches.” She was very matter of fact. They had been fighting this way for years. Gone were the times she waited alone on Saturday afternoons for people who never came. Now when her husband left her at home and went into town she followed. At first she had determinedly walked the distance, or hitchhiked. Lately she had switched to riding, often in the big gray truck.
    “I see he