Where the Line Bleeds Read Free

conversation out, ask her questions until she would beg
off the phone.
    But once when she'd come home during the summer of their sophomore
year, a kid named Rook from St. Catherine's had said something dirty
about her at the basketball court down at the park while they were playing
a game, something about how fine her ass was. Christophe had told Joshua
later the particulars of what Rook had said, how the words had come
out of Rook's mouth all breathy and hot because he was panting, and to
Christophe, it had sounded so dirty. Joshua hadn't heard it because he was
under the net, digging his elbow into Dunny's ribs, because he was the
bigger man of the two. Christophe was at the edge of the court with the ball, trying to shake Rook, because he was smaller and faster, when Rook
said it. Christophe had turned red in the face, pushed Rook away, brought
the ball up, and with the sudden violence of a piston had fired the ball
straight at Rook's face. It hit him squarely in the nose. There was blood
everywhere and Christophe was yelling and calling Rook a bitch and Rook
had his hand under his eyes and there was blood seeping through the
cracks of his fingers, and Dunny was running to stand between them and
laughing, telling Rook if he wouldn't have said shit about his aunt Cille,
then maybe he wouldn't have gotten fucked up. Joshua was surprised
because he felt his face burn and his hands twitch into fists and he realized
he wanted to whip the shit out of dark little Rook, Rook with the nose that
all the girls liked because it was fine and sharp as a crow's beak but that
now was swollen fat and gorged with blood. Even now Joshua swallowed
at the thought, and realized he was digging his fingers into his sides. Rook,
little bitch.

    Joshua felt the wind flatten his eyelids and wondered if Cille would
be at the school. He knew she knew they were graduating: he'd addressed
the graduation invitations himself, and hers was the first he'd done. He
thought of her last visit. She'd come down for a week at Christmas, had
given him and Christophe money and two gold rope chains. He and
Christophe had drunk moonshine and ate fried turkey with the uncles
on Christmas night in Uncle Paul's yard, and he'd listened as his uncles
talked about Cille as she left the house after midnight. She'd sparkled in
the dark when the light caught her jewelry and lit it like a cool, clean
metal chain.
    "Where you going, girl?" Uncle Paul had yelled at her outline.
    "None of your damn business!" she'd yelled back.
    "That's Cille," Paul had said. "Never could stay still."
    "That's cause she spoiled." Uncle Julian, short and dark with babyfine black hair, had said over the mouth of his bottle. "She the baby girl:
Papas favorite. Plus, she look just like Mama."
    "Stop hogging the bottle, Jule," Uncle Paul had said.
    Joshua and Christophe had come in later that night to find Cille back
in the house. She was asleep at the kitchen table with her head on her
arms, breathing softly into the tablecloth. When they carried her to bed, she smelled sweetly, of alcohol and perfume. The last Joshua remembered
seeing of her was on New Year's morning; she'd been bleary and puffy
eyed from driving an hour and a half to New Orleans the night before and
partying on Bourbon Street in the French Quarter. He and Christophe
had walked into the kitchen in the same clothes from the previous day,
fresh from the party up on the Hill at Remy's house that had ended when
the sun rose, to see Cille eating greens and cornbread and black-eyed peas
with Ma-mee. Ma-mee had wished them a Happy New Year and told
them they stank and needed to take a bath. They had stopped to kiss and
hug her, and after he embraced Ma-mee, Joshua had moved to hug Cille.
She stopped him with a raised arm, and spoke words he could still hear.

    "What a way to start off the New Year."
    He had known she was talking about his smell, his hangover, his dirt.
He had given her a small,