see the commotion. “
“Dang .....you is greedy,” the black assistant giggles.
Slick looks up from his stew, playfully glaring at his wife’s assistant. “I got su’m dirty draws fo’ ya ta’ wash niglet.”
Sally smirks as she rolls her eyes, Kelly laughing.
“I’mma burn them bitches - mess’in with me,” she says, walking back in the kitchen.
Slick laughs. “Can’t we get nutha’ maid. One tha’ don’t back talk..?,” he says to a giggling Kelly.
As soon as the words leave his lips, a homemade cheddar biscuit hits the hustler square on the forehead. Plopping in his stew. Not caring, Slick happily samples the new addition. It makes the meal even better.
“I’m tak’in tha out’cha pay niglet,” he calls out to the kitchen.
“Kiss my black ass Slick!,” can be heard from around the corner as everyone laughs.
Settling down, Kelly continues to explain what happen to her, watching as Benjamin gets up from his dinner.
“Where are you going now...?” Kelly asks as the creole rushes off to the kitchen.
All that can be heard is a series of shrill giggles, Sally arriving with more water, blushing, as Benjamin sits back down.
As the creole starts eats, everyone laughs. “Well.....ya’ aint ‘x'cpt hu’r invitation ta’ kiss that fat black ass-I did,” Benjamin chuckles, Sally walking by, kissing the creole on the cheek.
Kelly looks sternly at her brother-in-law. “Get back up again-no dinner,” she says, continuing.
“Well-daddy told him to put his advice where the sun don’t and will never shine.”
“Ole man Jack conjured up some offenses because of my silly brained brother.
“And I was in the pokey-for a week,” Kelly laments, dropping her sliced bread,
understandably upset.
Everyone watching, sally quickly arriving to her friend’s side, rubbing Kelly’s shoulders. She already knows the story all too well.
As the jovial atmosphere in the large dinner room turns dark, mouths stop chewing as spoons are put down. Everyone watches as Kelly spills out her heart.
“You wanna know what they would have done to me if not for my daddy’s connections ?,” the young woman asks with tears in her eyes.
Listening, Benjamin nods his head, the slick talking creole had stopped eating, just as upset as the lady of the house, horrid images of rape and abuse forced from his overactive imagination with a hateful grimace.
Seeing the lose of dignity in his love’s eyes, slick reaching across the table for his dear wives hand, Kelly stubbornly keeping her hands in her lap, thinking back to the horrid events.
Determined, the young woman’s steely blue eyes force back tears with the might of a thousand men. Kelly looks into her soup, seeing the most depraved of images in her mind’s eyes.
“You know what?,” she asks, her voice cracking.
“They raped some colored girl in the cell next to me.”
With this new revelation ringing in his ears, Slick immediately jumps up from his seat, meaning to grab for a new suit of clothes as well as a gun.
“Nawwww muth'a’ fucka’-my wife mane-my fuck’in wife!!,” he yells, nearly knocking over his chair.
“Sum’body bout’ ta’ die ta night!!!
Quickly, benjamin pulls at the furious man’s arm as his eyes motion to a gently sobbing Kelly, her delicate shoulders quaking ever so slightly. Slick sits back down. This is not about his machismo. His wife is in pain.
Sally holds Kelly to her chest, rocking her friend back and forth like a baby.
“They brutalized that young woman’s body right next to me.....” the blonde flapper says.
In Sally’s arms, Kelly looks away from the men. She needs to find her own strength once again, gently pushing away from her assistant.
“Then-when they were finished, they dragged her off.”
“She probably hang’in from some damn tree,” Kelly says with a horrified whisper.
As the bitter words leave the young woman’s twitching lips, Kelly suddenly straightens her shoulders, roughly wiping her tears away.
Hardened a long time ago, the young woman will allow her fear and agony grow into a vine for revenge ripe with bloody fruit.
Glaring at her husband, the woman sends Sally back to eat her own dinner.
“Them bastards. I want to be the one to send them to hell-ya’ hu’r me!”
“All I want yall to do is hold them down-I want what they used to brutalize that girl.”
“I want to wear their balls as damn earrings!,” Kelly yells.
Suddenly Sally runs in from the kitchen, wiping her mouth from her own dinner, quickly holding her friend and employer, one of the few white woman that has treated as an equal.
“Naw-Naw Kelly baby girl,” Sally says as she struggles with Kelly.
“Don’tcha go gett’in all riled up ova’ them bad men.”
“I’m sho’ Slick and Benjamin gon’ see justice be blood red and right.”
With her declaration, the maid looks to the men, daring each to even defy her wish.
“Aint that right fellas.....?,” she seethes.
Benjamin and Slick look to each other, both simultaneously pushing their stew away. Neither is hungry, at least not for food.
“Now hunny-love of my life and loins, that’s pretty dramatic.”
“Don'tcha think love,” Slick says sweetly as his thick Louisiana tongue tries to soothe his wife.
“Ben and I gon’ take care of them fuck’as. Ya’ need not even kno’ how or when. I guarantee ya’ that.”
With Sally still stroking her shoulders, tears streaming down her rosy cheeks, Kelly’s read rises with a hate and malice in her eyes so bright, if the devil was in the room, he would run in the other direction.
“What you say naw’....?,” she seethes, holding on of Sally’s dear hands.
“What you say naw’- answer me Slick!?”
Slick sits back in his seat, shocked. He has never seen his young wife so angry, and rightfully so.
“Darl’in...I was jus’ say’in wha’ yo’.....yo’ kno’ just said.”
“That’s kin’of extreme. We just gon’ do what it is we do-put’em in tha’ ground....”
“Wit’ all they parts...say ay ?”
Kelly knows patronization when she hears it, a stinging notion often soothed over by sweet words. Suddenly, quick as a fierce bull in diamonds and pearls, Kelly shoots up from the table, nearly knocking over her bowl of pea soap.
With her small hand, the woman-of-the-house pounds on the tabletop with a huge thud that seems to shake the house’s foundation.
Sally looks from her friend, trying to calm the young woman down. Silently.
“What say you