Ibby was embarrassed. “That’s not what I meant.”
Her pulse quickened when T-Bone came and stood next to her. His T-shirt was soaked through, leaving a V-shaped spot in the middle of his chest.
Birdelia cocked her head. “Okay, then. Better hurry. Chicken drop gone start in twenty minutes.”
As T-Bone was helping Ibby into his black Camaro, she saw Wiley Waguespack drive by and give her a double take. She gave Wiley a big wave, which caused him to almost swerve into another car.
As T-Bone started the car, Ibby asked, “What exactly is a chicken drop?”
“Oh, it’s just a silly betting game they invented over in Tremé,” he explained. “They throw a hen in a cage with a bunch of numbers painted in circles on the floor of the coop. If the chicken poops on your number, you win.”
When they drove up to the Trout residence, all the lights were off and the street was dark. Ibby didn’t see Birdelia sitting on the stoop until she jumped up and ran over to the car. T-Bone drove a few blocks before stopping in front of a white stucco one-story building with a metal awning. There were hordes of people of all ages milling about on the sidewalk.
T-Bone dropped Birdelia and Ibby off by the front door. “Y’all go on in while I park.”
Ibby and Birdelia went inside the lounge, where music from a jukebox sifted through the smoke-filled room. When Birdelia held up three fingers at the bar, an older woman wearing a flowered dress and a white apron handed her three plastic cups.
Ibby followed Birdelia over to a table in the corner.
T-Bone came in shortly. “Placed your bets yet?”
“We waitin’ on you.” Birdelia slid one of the cups toward T-Bone.
He picked it up. “It’s almost time. Let’s go out back.”
A side door led to an outdoor courtyard, where the main attraction was a cage made of chicken wire perched on wooden legs. A stout man in a T-shirt and suspenders with a cigar dangling from his mouth was collecting money from patrons eager to place bets. T-Bone handed Ibby and Birdelia a slip of paper.
“Just put your name and a number on the betting slip,” he said. “Don’t worry about the fee. My treat.”
“Five minutes!” the man called out.
When all the bets were in, the man with the cigar plucked a fat hen from a pen in the corner of the yard and put it inside the cage.
“Chicken, do your shit!” he shouted loud enough for everyone in the courtyard to hear.
The bird sat in the same spot for several minutes despite people sticking their fingers through the wire mesh trying to prod it. It cocked its head a few times, then moved three steps and sat down again. Each time the chicken moved, there was hollering and jeering. This went on for a good twenty minutes until finally the chicken scrambled over to the corner of the cage and pooped.
“Number four! Right on the edge!” the man yelled through his stubby cigar.
“Did you win?” Ibby asked T-Bone.
“Naw. I ain’t never won. Just for fun,” he said.
When they went back inside, a white girl about Ibby’s age was sitting at the bar, leaning on her elbow as she took a drag from a cigarette.
The girl was watching Ibby in the mirror behind the bar. She turned around. “Why, Ibby Bell. That you?”
“What are you doing here, Annabelle?” Ibby asked.
Annabelle smiled in a sickly way that let Ibby know she was drunk out of her mind. She almost fell off the stool when she pointed at T-Bone. “You with that stableboy? And that little nigger girl you always hang out with.” Annabelle put her hand over her mouth, realizing her faux pas at using the word nigger in a black bar. She lowered her eyes toward T-Bone’s crotch, then looked back up toward his face. “You know what they say.”
T-Bone took a step back. “Miss Annabelle, this ain’t a good place for you. You want us to take you home?”
“With you?” She closed one of her eyes and tried to wink.
“You with anyone?” he asked, looking around.
“No, man,” a man smoking a joint at a table nearby said to T-Bone. “That skank drove up, parked out front, and came in all by herself about an hour ago.”
“Why she here?”
He squinted in her direction. “Why you think, brother? She been here before, lots a times.”
“You messing with me, Shorty?” T-Bone said.
“No, man. You want some, you stick around.” Shorty cocked his head in the direction of the door. “All you got to do is take her out to her car. She do it right in the backseat. She don’t care.”
Annabelle grabbed T-Bone by the shirt and pulled him toward her. “What was your name again, stableboy?”
He tried to move away, but she was clenching his arm.
“Let’s go.” Birdelia tugged on T-Bone’s sleeve. “I don’t want nothing to do with that piece a white trash. Come on, T-Bone. She’s nothing but trouble.”
Annabelle pointed at T-Bone. “You’ll be back.”