montgomery
i didn’t use to be like this. i didn’t use to be afraid. i was bold and strong, i didn’t care about nothing. now i’m goddamn scared. for the past two months i’m feeling snakebit and the medicine ain’t helping. there’s some sort of semen on my woman’s shirt and i think it’s a nigger’s, and i want to take a knife to her throat so i do and the lump over her neck feels like the fabric we used to make love on; fridays and wednesdays, and her stomach was soft, not like a bald head, but soft like the wet dirt where the sheep and the cows are in the morning.
i make love to her. the knife is still on her neck, and if she doesn’t do what i tell her to she’s gonna die.
i come and she is scared. she is fucking scared, it’s in her eyes. i’m asking myself, when did this happen? why is she so scared of me? we used to love each other. now she don’t love me no more. she done shame me and i will punish her. i roll my pants back up and throw the blade on the floor, and she just rolls over to the other side of the bed and i can hear her breathing, breathing like the leaves breathe at night against our window.
on the way back from the nightingale bar i’m thinking. i’m thinking about my wife.
i have to punish her.
there’s a water fountain in front of me. i don’t know. i don’t fucking know what’s going on except that i know that i’m thirsty and my throat is all warm and jiggly which means that i’m drunk. i’m drunk from the bar, i think, from the beer in the bar. there’s a metal, the metal in my shirt pocket, digging into some ribs, and it don’t feel too good and i can’t think too good. i’m strolling forward and my sandals clap against the black ground. the little rocks on the ground sneak into my shoes. i step close and take a drink. the water’s some sort of like snow, slipping out into the cup of my mouth and i swallow hard, swallow the water and i hear some sort of gurgling next to me, some sort of choking almost. it’s a gross slithering grrr and rlaaa and i feel sick, cause i know that the sound’s coming from the other fountain.
i look and there’s a nigger. he’s sipping the water and i can hear him. i hate him with all the muscle in me, and every time i take a breathing it’s full and heavy and swaying down my throat.
i walk towards him. his fingers are pink and wrinkled, and i can’t see his eyes too good cause they like two plump, oily olives, looking all black and ugly. he raises his head and looks at me.
“why you making that noise” i tell the nigger.
“why you care” nigger tell me.
“why, you talk to me like that?”
“i talk to you like what i want.”
“what’s yours name and what yous doing?”
“my names jackson and i drinks this water, over here, like any person wood.”
i take my shotgun out of my pocket and fire two shots into his head.
now there’s blood oozing all over my toes, and they all feel sticky. one of them i think is broke because of that nigger’s head fell right on the big one and there’s this sweatiness in my throat and i think about shooting his back so he’d be dead for sure but i know he’s dead and so i’m running away and i look back and there’s a brown smudge on the end of the sidewalk and i know i’m safe and i know he’s dead.
my wife’s punishment.
i tell you, i didn’t use to be like this. i wasn’t afraid. niggers didn’t use to scare me. my wife’s ain’t scare of no niggers. she slept with them. she slept with jackson. she slept with jackson and i knew she did because i saw them, i saw them do it, and i’m sick and tired and i didn’t want to kill no wife.
i didn’t use to be like this. i wasn’t scared. i didn’t kill no one. now i do. next nigger i see, this bullet’s gonna go right crack through his skull, shooting through the other side, just like bam. i use to be strong. i wasn’t scared. now, i don’t look no nigger in the eye. now i don’t. now i don’t.
