Read Gone Fishin' for Free Online

touched my arm.
    ‘Oh
yeah, Clifton!’ came Ernestine’s voice from the other
room.
    Momma Jo
said, ‘Come sit’own wit’ me, Daddy. Over here.’
    I looked
over to where Mouse had been sitting but he was gone. There was no
sign of my friend. I remembered that he planned to see someone. I
wondered if he planned to leave me in that house.
    ‘Com’on,
sit’own, Daddy.’ Jo was leaning back on a pile of
pillows, pulling on my thigh. Ernestine was yelling in short coughs.
The armadillos wrestled in the corner. I got weak and fell to my
knees.
    ‘I
ain’t finished my story yet.’ She put her arms around me
and rested my head back against her shoulder. I was too dizzy to
fight her.
    ‘Oooooo-uh!’
The voice was so twisted I couldn’t tell if it was Ernestine or
Clifton.
    ‘You
wanted t’know how Dom’s head came t’be here, din’t
you?’ Jo’s whisper smelled of tobacco and whiskey, of
garlic and sweet chili. When she laid her hand on my thing I realised
it was hard.
    ‘I
cut it off myself,’ she said on a slender breath.
    Ernestine
had settled down into long breathing sighs that cut into the room
like hot spoons into lard, but I didn’t pay much attention. My
stomach had started churning. I was sure that I was going to vomit,
but Momma Jo put her big hand against my chest and pressed, then
released, then pressed.
    She said,
‘Shhhh, baby. Be quiet now,’ so softly that I could
barely hear her over Ernestine.
    I laid
there and let her breathe for me. I could feel her heart pounding
from a vein throbbing in her thigh against my leg. Ernestine was
chanting Clifton’s name over and over. Momma Jo’s hand
was pressing down and letting go. I closed my eyes, wishing my mind
back home.
    ‘My
daddy s’pected Domaque of takin’ me,’ she said.
‘An* Dom was worried. He brought a old woman he called his
auntie out t’take care’ame ‘cause he din’t
come out too much, he was so scared that one’a daddy’s
friends would catch on. An’ Luvia, that was his auntie, started
t’teach me about herbs an’ other things.’
    ‘That
how you become a witch?’ My voice cracked; there was the taste
of bile in my throat.
    ‘It was Domaque made me a witch.’
    ‘Oh-ohhhhh,’ Ernestine softly sighed.
    Momma Jo
pressed my chest, then she moved her hand down over my belly to press
my thing; then she pressed my chest again. She did that over and over
while she said:
    ‘Then
one day Daddy shot ‘im. He got tired’a waitin’ an’
he shot Dom down. He came after Dom with a shotgun fulla buckshot. He
tole Dom t’bring me back but Dom turned his back an’
started walkin’. He din’t say nuthin’; not where I
was or if he had taken me. An’ Daddy kilt ‘im. Luvia tole
me about it an’ she got his body an’ brung it out here
t’me. She knew how wild Dom was fo’me, she knew how Dom
died rather than t’hurt my daddy. She said that if I kept a
piece’a that love wit’ me then I’d be powerful an’
my baby would be healthy, male, an’ strong.’
    She worked
her hand down into my pants as Ernestine spoke my mind from behind
the curtain.
    ‘I
cut off his head an’ put it in a barrel’a salt fo’
five years. Dom Jr. was born an’ Luvia passed on. Daddy died.’
She squeezed me hard when she said that. ‘An’ here we is’
    Her kisses
were salty and thick.

    What I
remember most are the smells: her mouth and her musky armpits, the
strong smell that almost burned from between her legs. Her feet
smelled like earth along with the weak scent of manure. She tasted of
salt. And after Ernestine quieted down, the only sound was the deep
breathing and the rise and fall of Momma Jo’s body. The sound
filled the room like God watching from some dark corner.
    I didn’t
want to do it but Momma Jo was strong; she clenched her arms and legs
around me so powerfully that my ‘No’ was crushed down to
‘Yes.’ She whispered in my ear what she wanted and I lost
my mind for a while; lost it to her desire.
    After