White China

I don’ like it when they come to the door, lookin’ all like they are gonna pin you to your floor and scrub you down so as you look like them. They is always clean and they’s always got your best interests at heart. That’s what they says when they go a-looking at Grandma Hampstead’s white china with the pretty blue flowers. They think I ain’t got taste enough to recognize that china is pretty. They act like I’s gonna do somethin’ wrong with it. Like maybe because I got my bottom teeth tugged out by Doc Flowers that I’m gonna break my grandma’s china.

Then I see their eyes, just a-washing over me like whitewash and plasterin’ me up and down with their ideas about me. I ain’t never killed nobody. I want to tell them so and maybe they’ll look somewhere else. Which suits me, so long as it ain’t at my Grandma Hampstead’s china that they’s lookin’.

I know I’m dirty and probably good for nothin’. My John died five years ago and our boy ain’t been ‘round for a year. I try my best. All the ladies at the Shop ‘N Save says I’m real nice. Not ornery like. But for all the difference it makes, I might as well ‘a been ornery like other folks. I got a bit of money stashed away. Maybe these men won’t look so clean when I been all washed up, too. Maybe Grandma Hampstead’s china won’t look so delicate.

They says they are here “from the church.” I been to the church before. Not lately, I know, but I been there and I know they ain’t no Christians. And if they is, they’s the bad kind that goes bashing you with their Bibles ‘stead of loving you like Jesus. The pastor was real nice. He loved me like Jesus. These fellows don’t. I wish they would love me like Jesus. Instead they’s looking all ‘round suggestin’ things to sell and prices to get so I can live better. I got what I got, I tells ‘em, and I’s better off without much more. I got my pride, I says to ‘em, and I got a job. Put the pride and the job together, and it means I ain’t gonna sell my grandma’s china. I can get by, I says.

They’s a-leavin’ I think, ‘cause they’s moving that way and their voices are getting that sort of strain that comes when a person’s ready to bolt out the door. I think the only thing that’s kept ‘em from running like scared rabbits is some grand notion of themselves as something that they ain’t. I have a mind to tell them I is better than they is, but I don’t think they would listen. And if they listened, they wouldn’t hear. No one really hears me.

I was telling Mary Ellen from the Shop ‘N Save how fine I liked my Grandma Hampstead’s china. Mary Ellen nodded all proper-like. She’s a proper-type person, a young thing that don’ know she ain’t got no place to go and nobody to go there with. She ain’t goin’ to leave this place. She ain’t goin’ nowheres. That is the way things is done, generally, here. She just don’t know it yet. She keeps thinking she’s a-gonna run off with some punk of a boy who ain’t hardly got the sense to drive his car on the right side of the road. A real idiot, and she don’ know it. I learned. I learned the hard way. John weren’t no fine gentleman, I knows that. Mary Ellen will find that out in due time, is the way I figure it. The way things appear from here, it looks like I’s gonna have Mary Ellen as my companion for a long time. So there ain’t no need to be getting her riled ‘bout the truth. Damn the truth, I says, especially if that truth ain’t got no value.

So I tells her about the china again, and she leans on an elbow and says that’s real nice, but that I oughta do my God-damn job instead of talking about God-damn china. I tells her there ain’t no job to be done at that particular moment. Her answer was a sneer. Doc Flowers ain’t never pulled out any o’ her teeth. I give her ten years and three babies ‘fore half them pretty teeth are plucked from her mouth. Maybe that punk will knock ‘em out, maybe they’ll rot ‘cause she ain’t got the money for the dentist. Either way, soon enough she’s gonna be worn out, too. Makes me sad, sorta, or it would if she weren’t such a nasty girl.

Maybe that’s why they came, because Mary Ellen told ‘em. Ratty thing to do. She knows I don’ like people. She knows I don’ wanna sell them china plates. When I look at ‘em, I think of big Easter hats and white shoes. I think of cinnamon and maybe something that tastes like ginger. I don’ know, it has been so long since I was small. But I ain’t no way gonna sell those plates.

I must ‘a scared ‘em off anyhow, ‘cause they bolted just like I thought they might do. And now they are as gone as everything I cared about. But I have a little stash of money, and I is gonna use it, you know, for something real fine. Yessir, before I die, I is gonna use that money for something real fine. Maybe a showcase for Grandma Hampstead’s china.

I can settle down now that I ain’t got nothing to worry m’self about. The county fair is happening down the road, and I see and smell the dust and I can almost feel ice cream tricklin’ down my arm as it melts. I think them lights is gonna keep me up. I wonder if Mary Ellen and her fat mouth is gonna be there. But I think if she was, she would just give me her look. That sorta look that says, “I don’ know you, and I ain’t gonna talk to you. You best pretend you don’t know me, too.”

But I see a light coming along my drive, now, and I know it’s gonna be those men about them plates again. They seemed so intent on ‘em earlier, like they could see how much they’s worth. I don’t think they knows what they know. Here they come, now, just banging on my door.

I don’ know what they want, bangin’ like that. I had better let them in, and see if they want them plates. ‘Cause if they do, they ain’t gonna get them china plates with the pretty blue flowers.

I think I hear them mutterin’. I don’t know what they’s sayin’, but it sounds mean, and I think I won’ let ‘em in. I yells out to them and they says they ain’t gonna do nothin’. Sure ‘nough, that’s what my John said ‘fore he punched me in the gut. So I don’ let ‘em in. I ain’t no fool.

It ain’t the same ones as before, and I ain’t quite sure what they want. But they look as mean as they sound when I peak out the window. Well, they’s got their guns in their pockets and they’s just gonna bust in my door if I don’ let ‘em in, so I’d better just do it. They certainly ain’t no Christians.

“Gimme all ya got!”

“I ain’t got nothing,” I lies.

He don’ believe me. He pulls out a gun. I ain’t scared o’ guns, I got a shotgun a few feet behind me but I don’ wanna shoot these men. They just wan’ money, I wan’ money, too. Only they isn’t gettin’ mine. They is gettin’ more ornery now—see, I oughta be ornery, the ladies at the Shop N’ Save don’t know nothing ‘bout nothing, and here’s proof. If I was more ornery, I would ‘a gotten the shotgun and blammed the guts out ‘o ‘em. No, I ain’t ornery. And now I think they’s gonna kill me, but it ain’t no matter cause I ain’t worth much o’ nothing anyway. But maybe . . . I has got one thing.

“If I give you Grandma Hampstead’s china, will y’ leave?” I demand.

They look at the china and they laugh. They don’ want no china, they says, and they don’ want me around no more, either.

“But it’s fine china.”

“It ain’t worth shit.”

And he shoots, hittin’ me in the arm. I sit down hard and curse like my Uncle Charlie used to do when he was drunk. That don't mean he weren’t a good man, my Uncle Charlie. I ain’t never knowed no man who didn’t raise cane sometime or other. He was awful generous most times, giving me pretty dolls that he couldn’ really afford.

Now I’m cursing like he done. They look at me like I’s a spitting venomous snakes. They don’ like to see me cuss, the dirty bastards, though they cuss like heathens. I ain’t gonna get my gun, I tell myself I ain’t gonna get my gun. But they’s flutterin’ about and I just watch ‘em. I don’ think I got nothin’ they want. Unless they want a loaf of bread. Or a nasty old comforter. There ain’t nothing but my little stash o’ money, and I got it hid too well for these fellas. They couldn’t find their ass if they was sitting on it.

They’s wandering about, but they ain’t real smart: I got the telephone and the gun in sight, but I know which one I’s gonna use, now. I inch toward it and pick it up with the arm that ain’t got a bullet in it. I pull it to my body, grasping it around with my red palm. Sticky blood. Nasty dirty felons. That’s what Mary Ellen called my John when he was sent upriver. I said, no, he ain’t, he’s just a jerk.

I’m poised and ready as one of ‘em comes wandering through, barely botherin’ to look at the bloody ole crone on the floor. Makes me angrier, the blamed idiot. But he doesn’t see I exist, he ain’ ne’er gonna see when I’s mad.

“I think we wasted a bullet,” says the one to t’other. “She ain’t got more than five bucks. Ain’t worth the bullet we put in ‘er to shut ‘er up. God damn. Cummon.”

They’s gotta walk past me, though, and I’s got more to say on the matter. My rifle speaks loud ‘nough for the both of us, blammin’ the one in the gut and scaring the piss outta the other. The other one runs. There’s blood all over, but I ain’t no weaklin’, I ain’t ne’er been called no weaklin’, and at this point in my life I don’t intend to ever be called a weaklin’.

I puts down the gun and pick up the telephone, making a call to the police.

“Yessir,” I says into my phone. “They tried to rob me. Nosir. The one ran off, but the other’s still here, blodyin’ up my carpet. His fault, tried to rob me. Nosir, didn’t take nothing. Didn’t get away with Grandma Hampstead’s china. I ain’t ne’er gonna lose my china, that pretty white china with the blue flowers. It ain’t like I got anythin’ left if it’s gone. Yessir. I don’t value nothing over my pride. They can’t take my china and they can’t take my pride. And that, sir, is why I shot ‘im.”