Pynter Bender Read Online Free Page A

apart from the work that Béké fella have to give. And for poor people girl-chile with a lil bit of ambition itwas a good position to start from. So ’twasn’ a nice thing to come home six months after, bawling like hell wid me pride mash down an’ bleedin becuz dat man grab hold of me in de back o’ de kitchen, tell me he will kill me if I make a sound for hi white-’ooman-wife-from-Englan’ to hear ’im. And den, well, he take advantage of my situation. Make it worse, nobody couldn do nothing ’bout it becuz, like I tell y’all, everybody work for Defoe, including my own father.
    â€˜Must ha’ been a week after I decide to go back kind of meek and quiet to that man house. People find it kinda funny. My fadder who never go anywhere widout hi couteau – his special kind o’ knife he use for openin lambie – even he was more surprise than everybody else. An’ that was kinda funny becuz he leave dat knife right on de little table in de room where I used to sleep. Still, you should see de shock on hi face when I tell dem I goin back to John Defoe house.
    â€˜I went back to de kitchen same way, and start doin de cookin and de washin same way, and sure enough I see ’im throwin eyes at me.’
    A soft throaty laugh escaped her.
    â€˜It don’t have a woman who don’ know how to stop a man. For good. Most woman don’ know dey know. But I know. I know it from since I was a girl bathin under the same standpipe with my little brothers. You see, lil girls not de same as lil boys. Y’all tink you know dat, right?’
    She’d turned her eyes on the men: Patty the Pretty’s man-friend, Leroy, Tan Cee’s husband, Coxy Levid – deep-eyed and always with a cigarette and a small smile on his lips, and Gordon and Sloco, who had come to have a couple of quiet words with Coxy.
    â€˜Well, y’all don’t, becuz you don’ know what I going to tell y’all in a minute. You see, lil girls don’ see what lil boys got. Dey see what lil boys got to lose. Is something I learn from early.’
    The visitors shifted on their seats.
    â€˜Y’all think that is that lil dumplin’ y’all got that rule the world. So y’all use it like a gun, like a nail, like a stone, like something y’all got to shame woman with. Y’all hear say that God is a man and God have one, an’ dat give y’all de right to rule woman de way God rule de world. Well, fellas, I got news for y’all. Me – Deeka Bender – I have a cure for God.’
    Coxy placed a cigarette between his lips, struck a match and lit it. Held the burning stick up before his eyes while the flame chewed its way down to his fingers. The fire fluttered there a while, like an injured butterfly just above his nails, and then went out.
    It was the way Deeka told these stories, the events the same, the messages different every time. It might be about daughters who disappeared in secret and returned home with children whose fathers they refused to name, in which case her eyes would keep returning to Elena. Or her tongue might rest and remain briefly on the sorts of women who married themselves in secret and who, for some sin known only to themselves, hadn’t given any children to the world. This time the bony shoulders would be turned away from Tan Cee, for this daughter’s tongue was quieter than hers, her temper very, very slow to wake. But when it did, it knew no respect or boundary.
    The first time Patty brought Leroy to the yard she spoke about girl children who came home with their men, locked themselves up in their bedrooms with them for days, doing what she just could not imagine. She was beautiful then – beautiful and terrible – with the firelight sparkling those dark north-woman eyes, her voice so high and clear it seemed to come from a different person altogether.
    â€˜In fact, I always believe dat what Delilah cut from