BELLE BREZING

Cicadas sing in the coming dusk. Fireflies pulse, then, like magic, melt into stars. It is hot. Powerful hot. The air is liquid and sultry, hanging like rain soaked laundry in a sky too tired to spit rain. Not a lick of wind stirring. Only heat lightning. Angels puffing on fat cigars. The only sound is the eerie clattering of the cicada wings. And the painted ladies of Megowan Street loom large – over-dressed, over-rouged and powdered in the dusk; they wait as street magicians to show their tricks - their flawless beauty - in the shadows of night. Sometime after the cicadas tire of their ceaseless chatter and the wind has faded down to a whisper, twilight illumines the garden. Bathing the roses in a light that hints of something hauntingly beautiful but lost. And in this twilight, another sound rises above the stirring of creatures whose playground appears only in the time of shadows. It is the distant sound of whistling. The kind of whistling that comes straight from the heart of a loyal, fearless paper boy. Only a street away from Megowan, Gil Mabon, skinny and freckle-faced, flies past the town’s 5 and 10 store on his bike, tossing papers out with a practiced grace. A lone maverick on a pony made of tin, he straddles his seat, kicks out his legs and flies. Spinning figure-eights, he rides past the Kentucky Theatre where Gone With the Wind and The Wizard of Oz are on the marquee. Then he makes his way to the corner of Megowan and Main where another paper boy, taller, with a cap pulled down over his eyes, waits. “Tinsley, call it.” “I ain’t callin’ it, Cotton.” “Heads or tails?” Gil takes a coin out of his pocket and jangles it, tossing it high. Tinsley shakes his head. “Jest hit the porch with the paper and run.” “Call it.” “There’s no way I’m callin’ it because I ain’t going up there.” Tinsley slips a BB bat sucker on top of the paper he pulls out from the pile. He ties it with a string. “Heads or tails?” Gil stares into Tinsley’s eyes. “Heads.” Tinsley suddenly swerves his bike and shoves a newspaper at Gil who catches the paper and drops the coin. Tinsley takes off; Gil gets off his bike, leans down and picks up the coin. “Tails.” His voice catches as he slips the coin into his pocket and for the first time brings out a tiger-eyed marble. Then he mutters under his breath, “I ain’t scared of her; and besides I got something I got to do.” He places the newspaper in the bike basket – real gentle like; then he takes out a small bundle of letters and tucks these inside the newspaper. And in a low, solemn voice he says, “All right, lets’ do this.” He unwraps the sucker and sticks it in his mouth. “Ah shucks, horehound.” He spits out the candy, wipes his mouth and slowly turns his bike up the hill. At the top of the hill, a red brick Victorian with a second floor sun porch rises up. Stark. Secretive. A sign in the yard says “AUCTION. For a split second, he considers just throwing the paper up onto the house porch, but changes his mind. Suddenly, the front door opens and a caramel colored hand reaches out and grabs his wrist. “Boy, git in here and eat you some flapjacks.” Gil stares up into the sizzling black eyes of a woman wearing a scarlet turban. He knows then that he doesn’t have a chance of turning around. “You like flapjacks?” It isn’t really a question. Miss Flora, who is about as tall as she is round with gold bracelets jangling on her plump wrists, escorts the paper boy inside. He follows her – trying not to stare through the beads hanging down – separating the hallway from the parlor; but in the parlor there’s a life-size portrait of a nude above the mantel. And it’s like a magnet or one of those funny mirrors in a circus side-show. He can’t not look. And so he stares. He’s never really seen a naked woman. He’s surprised about how white her skin is – and well, she’s kind of fat. Gil catches Miss Flora eyeing him. She’s got eyes in the back of that red turban he figures. Maybe she’s some kind of circus gypsy. Gil blushes. He thinks for a second that she’s smiling at him with those eyes. She ushers Gil through another door into a kitchen. He smells the wonderful, delicious intoxicatingly rich smells of a distant time. Smells of fried bacon and warm syrup and skillets frying up grease. It is a memory that hurts and so he doesn’t go there. Instead he slips off his cap, staring at the ladies who are just now comin’ into focus. They wander into the kitchen, dressed in skimpy negligees and silky things that don’t cover much of anything. One of the girls, tall and black-haired, lights a cigarette. Others sit at the large oak table, sipping their first cup of Sunday morning coffee. Gil, mesmerized, blushes. “Girls, this is . . . ?” Miss Flora turns to the paper boy. “Gil.” He’s surprised at the sound of his own voice. He figured maybe he’d left it outside, with his bike and dag-gone it – where’s the paper? He’ll have to look for it. But not now. “Gil’s from over at the Short Street Orphanage. Where’s that other boy?” “Ah, well . . . Tinsley’s probably wondering where I’m at.” Gil tries to figure out where to look so he won’t be lookin’ at bare flesh. A hand, with red nails, reaches in front of his plate, picks up a slice of bacon. He notices the color of her skin – like cracked walnuts drenched in the summer sun. “Too scared, huh? Tell ya not to go up to that bad house on the Hill?” Miss Flora laughs. It’s a deep infectious laugh. “Gil, you’re acting like you’ve never seen a flapjack before. Lets’ get some of that ink off your hands.” Miss Flora lifts Gil up onto the edge of the sink, washes the ink off of his hands and then gestures over to the table. “Sit.” She puts down a plate filled with steaming hot flapjacks. “Butter and syrups on the table. Pass the bacon to Gill, Sally.” Gil sits. Staring at the plate in front of him. Someone passes him a plate piled high with bacon. “Mornin’, blue eyes. Ya want some bacon? I’m Sally.” “Uh, mornin’, ma’am.”. He glances up; Sally nibbles the bacon then licks it, like she’s licking a lollipop. It makes Gil’s cheeks tingle. She is intoxicatingly beautiful and practically naked.