Burkson Municipal Park wasn’t exactly on the way to the house, but Don was in the mood to see it. When he was a kid none of the town parks had been open to black people except for Mondays—one day a week—but they all made the most of that day. You wouldn’t dare be sick on a Monday, the only day to swing, or run in the large expanse of grass, play on the monkey bars, or catch snippets of the women’s conversations about each other, their husbands, or the sheer folly that they all experienced in having children in the first place. A generation would come before fathers would be at the park alone with children. For Don, being at the park meant having the sure gravity of his mother somewhere in sight. He had tried to sneak away from her many times, but she was on him in a second. One of the tricks of time is that your own ordinary life took on a sweetness in the retelling. Like all kids, they didn’t experience joy then, just the immediacy of the life they were living. Only time made it rich.
The park looked much the same as it had back then. The swing sets and monkey bars had been replaced a couple of times since Don’s time, but the layout was just the same. Don had been many times as an adult with a woman or two foolish enough to think it romantic to have sex out in the open in the grass. But there was nobody at the park yet. Don walked to the swings and he considered for a second or two sitting down on the rubber seat. The thought quickly evaporated. He wasn’t about to be caught swinging alone in a park, an indignity he would not contemplate. Nothing new to see. He had nowhere to go but home.
Don hadn’t meant to go to his trailer but found himself on the Antioch Church road anyway, pulling into his drive. He knew there was a chance, maybe even a big chance, that Jonnie would be there, but somewhere on the road he had decided to take it. Jonnie would be tired after spending most of the morning at the restaurant, but she was never so tired that she couldn’t keep going and doing. Energy the gift to the young. Jonnie was a tough girl. When her time was up she would make it fine. She wasn’t a summer woman, like some men he knew had. Women they tricked into thinking they’d be around forever. Let her nest. Let her spend her little money on a house, decorations on a man they wouldn’t be speaking to six months in the future. Don tried to be as straight up as he could. Besides that, Jonnie had a good mother, a big asset in the world. Something to bank on. Jonnie told the story about her mother going to their basement and seeing wires hanging from the ceiling. Something told her not to touch those wires but go back up the stairs and get the broom to stuff them back into place. As soon as the broom bristles pushed the wires together, sparks flew in every direction. Sure enough it was a trap set by her husband. “Weren’t you afraid, Mama?” Jonnie had asked her mother, trying not to picture the wires’ quick combustion and those inevitable sparkles on her mother’s slick skin. “Naw, honey, your daddy’s too stupid to do the job right and too sorry to kill me his own self.” Jonnie had laughed with her mother, tried to get Don to find the funny in the long-ago incident. Don couldn’t get it. But Jonnie laughed, feeling sure that if her mother believed it, there was nothing to fear.
Don hadn’t gotten out of the car before Jonnie opened the trailer door.
“I missed you today,” she said as she held the door open for Don.
“I’m fine,” Don said, only vaguely aware that he was responding to the wrong question. He crossed the threshold to the little trailer. “The place looks good,” he said as he tried to avoid Jonnie’s eyes. She had cleaned, picked up their litter and discarded clothes. They lived like teenagers.
“How long have you been here?”
“A couple of hours.”
“It looks nice in here,” Don said, appraising the tiny rooms.
“I was hoping we might make something good for dinner. I can go to the grocery store.”
“Been a lot going on, Jonnie. I don’t want to think about that. I just want to rest.”
“Am I bothering you, Don?” Jonnie sounded hurt, though she tried to keep her face unworried.
“My eyes are tired, that’s all. You go on doing what you was doing. I’m just going to sit awhile.”
Don lifted his eyebrows and the side of his mouth, hoped he looked lighthearted, but he couldn’t make his eyes interested. “Thank you for cleaning up.”
“You already said that.”
“I’m old.”
“Why are you thanking me anyway?”
“Let me rest my eyes a minute, Jonnie.”
Jonnie pulled at Don’s arm tried to coax him off the couch. “You don’t have to say anything. You can keep your eyes closed.”
Don pulled her beside him on the couch. The odor of cooking grease from her work was still on her skin. He stroked her hair, soft as cotton on his fingers, ran his coarse thumb along the silky skin on the back of her neck. She was a pretty thing. He felt nothing for her at all. “When I was coming up we all worked for some white people. Did your mama tell you that? This lady I worked for used to fry chicken and give me the wings. ‘I love the wings the best, but I can’t eat a wing.’ You believe she said that to me? ‘I can’t eat a wing.’”
“What did you say to her?”
“I ate the wings. What do you think? Worked all day for a dollar or two.” Don remembered once the woman’s grown daughter had come home. “Why do you cook for them?” she’d asked. Like he was a horde instead of one narrow-tailed young boy. “I don’t know why that came to my mind. Just let me rest here right now.”