Read Doom Fox for Free Online Page B

kerosene lamp and discovers his presence. He stifles her startled scream with his palm, blurts out his fugitive tale. She weeps to hear it, shares remnants from the barbecue feast with him. She tells him her name is Zenobia. Her child's face is unforgettably sad as she tearfully confides that she is an orphan married to a cheating, brutal husband three times her age. He has gone off to the cabin of his octoroon girlfriend on a nearby plantation, she tells him as she shows a snapshot of the grossly ugly fornicator.
    She gives him an army blanket, buttermilk, a bag of cracklins and cornbread. She leads him to a hiding place in a stand of magnolia trees. He remembers Zenobia, hesitant to leave, gazing into his eyes. Then sudden erotic chemistry melds them, humps them furiously together on a bed of wild daisies. He remembers he didn't see her again until ten years later in 1928 after several stints on plantations and dozens of clandestine redneck sponsored prize fights for miserly fees in Georgia and Mississippi.
    Rediscovered, she is despondent, pregnant and freshly abandoned by Cecil Brown, her second cousin common-law husband. He sees her drinking herself into a stupor in a blind pig moonshine joint in the hills outside Vicksburg. Sees himself rescuing her from mass rape by a hovering, hooched up gang of cotton slaves. He remembers his heart cavorted at the sight of her again, the lovely vision she was in Salvation Army peach lace when they married six months later in a country church. He remembers that a year after Joe Allen Junior was born the family made it by Greyhound to the promised land, Los Angeles.
    And now the sound of Zenobia muttering in her sleep dissolves Joe's reverie. He pours a huge mug of coffee, heavily laced with scotch, and goes back to his chair at the window. Shortly, he rises to soundlessly open the door for Joe Junior. They go up the stairway to Junior's room.
    'Damn, Lil Joe, you had me worried ... better put on your pajamas before Zen wakes up' Senior Joe says as he sits on the side of the bed, sipping from the coffee mug.
    Young Joe quickly shucks out of his street clothes and is putting on pajamas when his father says, with a knowing gleam in his eye, 'You sonuvagun! Those bite marks and scratches on your back tell me you've had a ball with a hot butt chippie.'
    Young Joe frowns as he sits beside his stepfather. 'Pops, you got it wrong ... I had a ball with a pretty, high-class business lady from Chicago. She's got Reba skunked on the figure side,' he says as he air sculpts Delphine's curves with his palms.
    'That's great Son! I'm glad you finally realize that Reba isn't the only pretty girl in the world. I always hated to see you busting your heart strings over Reba since you were twelve with never a Chinaman's chance to be anything to her except a play brother.'
    Young Joe exclaims, 'Oh, me and Delphine got a groovy thing going from the git go. She told me I'm the most striking looking stud she's ever met and the best in bed. She's lonely, cried and told me she needs me. Pops, she sho 'nuff makes me feel goooood!'
    Senior Joe's eyes narrow suspiciously, 'You just saw ... uh, met Delphine tonight for the first time?'
    'Yeah, so what Pops? You and Mama had to meet the first time.'
    'You sound like you falling in love too soon Lil Joe. She might blow cold and dump you like they sometimes do. She could mess up your fighter's head son, if you start dreaming a dream that can't come true like with Reba.'
    'She's for real. She wants to be my fox. She ain't in love with another stud like Reba.'
    'What kinda business lady is she?'
    'Had a beauty shop in Chi, gonna open one in L.A. She's got boo-koos of dough her father left her tied up in court.'
    'She older than you?'
    'Near my age, maybe a year or two older.'
    'Ah! That's bad. She could be a fooling thirty, hardened and laid a zillion times. They come pretty but rotten like that son, high jiving and looking like angels fresh from heaven.'
    'She ain't