“Figures.”
“What?” Ian was laughing again.
“Just classic Scarlet,” I said. “She’ll get over all that once she’s out in the real world and gets a real job. You can only be militant for so long. Once you have bills to pay, you realize that the revolution isn’t cheap.”
“Sure the hell ain’t,” Ian agreed. “Speaking of the revolution, let me get off the phone, so I can finish grading these papers in time for my class. These kids will organize a coup d’etat if I don’t give these papers back today.”
“Cool.”
“And Rachel—”
“What?”
“Happy Monday again.”
Grammy Annie-Lou had three wigs: her church wig, her doctor’s-office wig, and the wig she put on when she had company. I knew something was wrong when I got to the end of the winding dirt path that led visitors from the road to her house and she was sitting on the porch in her rocking chair with her thin, gray plats exposed. It was cold outside, so she had on a coat, but at the bottom I saw a housedress hanging out over the old winter boots she always wore around the yard.
When I was small, Grammy Annie-Lou seemed larger than life. She was a tall woman with wide hips and hands bigger than my father’s. I’d once seen her mount a horse with no help from a man or step. She seemed to just fly up in the air and land on his back. Dug her heels into his sides and they took off down the road like the men did in all those Westerns. Mr. Durbin, a white man who always stopped by the house when I was a little girl, was beside me in front of the house. I wouldn’t have believed what I was seeing if he hadn’t been right there to confirm it. He spat some red tobacco onto the dirt and said in a way that I probably shouldn’t have heard, “You have to respect a woman like that.” When Mr. Durbin died, Grammy Annie-Lou didn’t go to the funeral, but he left her everything he had. My father said they were lovers. She never once admitted it.
Over the years, Grammy Annie-Lou’s stature, her ability to climb a horse and take off down the dirt road had declined. She seemed so much smaller and slower. Like what she was, the woman who had to be respected, was fading away with time. I didn’t know if it was because I was getting taller or she was getting smaller. I imagined that one day she’d be so small I’d be able pick her up in my arms and carry her to her bed. I’d do that willingly.
“Hey, Pop out,” she said, her arms shaking a little with age and extended to me as she came down the steps to greet me. The house behind her looked like something from an old Civil War movie. It was big and yellow. Had ten windows in the front and a white porch that wrapped all the way around it. It was in the middle of five acres of land my great-great grandfather purchased outright with money he’d saved before the Civil War. Grammy Annie-Lou would tell anyone who’d listen that her grandfather said, “Not one of my seeds gon’ be planted in soil that won’t let it pop out and see all the world.” She always said I was the “pop out.”
“Hey, Grammy.” I kissed her on the cheek and inhaled every scent she could offer in a hug. “Where’s your hair? And why don’t you have anything on your legs? It’s cold out here.” I had on a coat and a hat, but I was still cold.
“You mind your eyes, Miss Ann!” she said, laughing. “We got business out here. I been waiting for you.” She pointed to the cold plate of neck bones. “See? See? King ain’t ate a thing.”
“He’s probably sick.” I walked to the porch and got down on my knees to see him. All I could make out was shadows and some old stacks of bricks. I got up and walked around to the other side of the steps to see if I could spy him out over there. “You sure he’s still under here?”
“I’m old, but not dumb, Pop out.”
I looked up at her and rolled my eyes. “I didn’t say you were dumb.” I squinted a little at something round in the back corner. “You got a flashlight?”
“Yes,” she said. “But you don’t need it. Go on and call him.”
I looked back at the roundness in the corner. “King,” I called, but it sounded more like I was just saying the word than calling him to come to me. “King!” I looked up at Grammy Annie-Lou.
She shrugged her shoulders.
“King!” I waited a second. “King!”
The roundness moved just a little.
I got up again to go around to the back of the porch, so I could get closer to him, maybe coax him out with my voice.
“I’ll go on and get the shotgun in case he come out,” Grammy Annie-Lou announced, going in the other direction and up the steps into the house.
“You ain’t gonna need it,” I said. “He’s sick. I’m just gonna take him to the doctor.”
“He sick ’cause he old. Time to put him down. That’s the best thing to do.”
Grammy Annie-Lou went into the house to get her shotgun that she kept underneath her bed.
“King!” I called as I walked around the porch. “King! King!” As I shouted, I thought of how odd it sounded to hear my voice so loud. In the city, I hardly called anything out so firmly, so directly. Maybe I’d yell at someone cutting me off in traffic, but that was quick and out of anger. Here, in Social Circle, I could scream out loud and no one would care, because no one would hear. Not for a long way. “King! King!”
I got as close to King under the backside of the porch as I could and tried to crawl under the porch, thinking I could maybe pet him or ease him out. It was so cold out there, I was hoping he hadn’t gotten stuck and was freezing to death.
On my hands and knees, I got a few inches cleared under the porch, with my breasts nearly scraping the ground.