Page 97 of Moonshine Lullabies

“Man, I wish I was going tomorrow,” Tate said on Friday night.

“I know, buddy,” Cy said.

I looked over an’ Tate looked wistful with his impressive pair of raccoon eye shiners.

“Wish it was summer an’ we could go back to gator huntin’, I wanna go more ‘n just the one weekend next summer. I’m old enough.”

Cy smiled and said, “Oh, you will, buddy. Grandy and ol’ Ham Bone are gettin’ too old for that shit.”

“Well, maybe not Grandy,” Tate said, grinning.

“Ain’t he an’ Ham Bone the same age?” I asked.

“Yeah, but ol’ Grandy ain’t fat,” Tate declared, and Jess snorted against my chest where she lay her head.

Cy guffawed and shook his head.

“Don’t you let ol’ Grandy hear you disrespecting your elder like that, man. He won’t like it,” Cy chided, more for show for Jess.

“Yeah,” Tate said. “I don’t know, though – something about ol’ Ham Bone weirds me out. Guy gives me the creeps an’ always has.”

Jess lifted her head and looked her son’s way.

“What you talkin’ about?” she demanded and even I went very still under her.

“The way he talks about girls.” Tate shrugged. “Not women, butgirls… like my age an’ sometimes even younger. It ain’t right.”

Cypress shifted in his seat in his recliner and asked, “What you mean? Like gimme an example, bud.”

“Like Tracy-Lyn, the girl my age,” he said.

“Ol’ Jerome Pardeux’s kid? The mixed girl?” Cypress asked.

“Jerome’s her Grandy,” Tate said, “And yeah – he was all talkin’ about her chest in her bathing suit. It was gross.”

“Why ain’t you tell someone? Before now?” Jess demanded.

“I did! I told Mawmaw. She told me to pay ‘im no never mind. It was just how he was talkin’ outta turn when he’s drinkin’. She acted like it was normal and said he ain’t no harm.”

Jess laid her head back down, and I felt her go limp and broken with defeat.

“Next time you ever hear a grown-ass man talk about a little girl like that, you come findme,” I said.

“Or me,” Cypress said. “I’d knock his damn teeth in if I heard it myself. That’s not okay.”

He glanced at me and Jess, but she simply lay with her eyes shut, no doubt blocking it out.

“Hell, you go on an’ slap the taste out his mouth in front of God an’ everyone, son. You know we have your back. Ain’t no disrespecting a man that talks like that enough.”

“Ain’t no disrespecting a man like that period,” Cy said. “He ain’t no man. That’s a devil plain as.”

Jess sighed, and I felt it in my bones… I knew she was silently wishing her brother had been paying attention.

I understood it.

A man like thattalks.Hell, ol’ Ham Bone barely ever shut the fuck up, his mouth was constantly runnin’. I was damn sure what he’d said about that girl at Jess’s birthday party weren’t the first time.

The mood considerably dampened and both Cy and I eager for tomorrow, we called it a night shortly after that.

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