Sailor & Lula Read Online Free Page A

or four minutes we hear the kids in the other room hootin’ and hollerin’ and whistlin’. Both this girl and I were hot, right? And like I say, real surprised by it. ‘I guess we better go out now,’ she says to me. We were in a kind of storage room, with pieces of furniture all stacked around us, in some dim red light, and her eyes and lips looked huge. She put her hand on the side of my head and real slowly brushed her fingers through my hair. I tried to kiss her again but she dodged it and ran out. I heard the kids hoot and shout even louder when she came back in the other room. I remember startin’ to wipe her lipstick off with the back of my hand, but I stopped and decided to leave it there. Then I followed her out.”
    Lula tossed her More into the toilet. “You know, there’s somethin’ I ain’t never told you about, Sailor. When I was almost sixteen I got pregnant.”
    Sailor rinsed his face and toweled himself off. He turned around and leaned back against the washbasin.
    â€œYou tell your mama?” he asked.
    Lula nodded. “She got me an abortion in Miami from some old Jewish doctor with the hairiest nostrils and ears I ever seen. He told me after I’d be able to have kids no problem. He did it in a hotel room on the beach and when we were goin’ down in the elevator? And I was almost passin’ out and cryin’ with my mouth closed? Mama says, ‘I hope you appreciate my spendin’ six hundred dollars, not countin’ what it cost us to get here and back, on Dr. Goldman. He’s the finest abortionist in the South.’ ”
    â€œYou tell the boy who knocked you up?”
    â€œIt was my cousin, Dell, done it. His folks used to visit with us summers.”

    â€œWhat happened to him?”
    â€œOh, nothin’. I never let on to Mama about Dell bein’ the one. I just flat refused to tell her who the daddy was? I didn’t tell Dell, neither. He was back home in Chattanooga by then anyhow, and I didn’t see the point. Somethin’ terrible happened to him, though. Six months ago.”
    â€œWhat’s that, peanut?”
    â€œDell disappeared. He’d started behavin’ weird? Like comin’ up to people every fifteen minutes and askin’ how they were doin’? And just seemin’ real spacey and actin’ funny.”
    â€œActin’ funny how?” said Sailor.
    â€œWell, like Mama told me Aunt Rootie—Dell’s mama?—she found Dell up in the black of night all dressed and makin’ sandwiches in the kitchen. Aunt Rootie asked him what he was doin’ and Dell told her he was makin’ his lunch and goin’ to work. He’s a welder? And she made him go back to bed. Then he’d carry on about the weather? Talk about how rainfall’s controlled by aliens livin’ on earth sent as spies from another planet. Also how men wearin’ black leather gloves ’cause they got metal hands are followin’ him around.”
    â€œProb’ly the rain boys from outer space,” Sailor said.
    â€œIt ain’t so funny now, though,” said Lula. “December, before Christmas? Dell disappeared and Aunt Rootie hired a private eye to find him. He was missin’ for almost a month before he wandered back in the house one mornin’. Said he’d been drivin’ to work and the next thing he knew he was in Sarasota, Florida, on a beautiful beach, so he decided to stay for a while. The private eye cost Aunt Rootie over a thousand dollars? Then a little while later Dell run off again to someplace and nobody seen him since.”
    â€œHe don’t sound so crazy to me,” said Sailor. “Probably just he needed to make a change is all.”
    â€œOne thing about Dell?” Lula said.
    â€œWhat’s that?”
    â€œWhen he was about seventeen he started losin’ his hair.”
    â€œSo?”
    â€œHe’s twenty-four now. A