… Gang Aft Agley

Author's Note: 6th in a series of stand-alones. Takes place after "… The Party Will Come to You."

Pa sat in his recliner, drinking beer and watching GameDay ahead of the Wake game, while I packed up the totality of my existence and loaded it into the trunk of my ‘98 Ford Escort. Lee Corso always amused the old man when he put on the mascot heads. Even though Pa barely graduated high school, he loved to watch Wake Forest play. It helped that they were rarely scheduled to start later than noon. He worked five nights a week at Davie Correctional as a guard; he slept mostly during the daylight hours, rarely on a strict schedule. During football season, he’d sleep before the game, watch Corso and Kirk Herbstreit chatter for their last half-hour while he caught up on his tailgating, then flip it over to watch the Demon Deacons lose. Well, not always lose, but usually.

It was the fifteenth of October, 2005, and I was, after almost twenty-two years, moving out from under my parents’ roof. Mama hid in their bedroom crying again—I heard her every time I passed the door—but she could be sensitive about such things. Pa didn’t seem to care, for which I was grateful. Junior sat on the sofa, staring at the television but not drinking because I lost the argument with Pa before it even began.

“I need to borrow the red Chevy,” I’d said Friday evening, the night before. We had three of them, so we specified by color. He didn’t have to work that night; instead, he sat in his recliner watching CNN when I got home from the police academy.

“What for? Having problems with that piece of junk?” He laughed. When it came to vehicles, Pa was a Chevy man. The fact that his baby girl dared to buy a used Ford rankled him.

“No, I need to haul some stuff.”

“I thought you were only taking your clothes to that new place of yours?” He gave me the side-eye.

“Yeah, well,” I hesitated. “I’m buying some furniture from a salvage dealer.” Several furniture and textile manufacturers operated in the Piedmont Triad area—Winston-Salem, Greensboro, and High Point. They all had quality-assurance people who checked for flawed products. Rather than junk those pieces, they’d sell them to men who would repair them if possible and then resell them from junk-filled warehouses or flea-market booths. Not as cheap as buying from the thrift shops, but a far better selection and usually better quality.

“So you need a second set of hands, then.” He gazed over at my brother. “You’re driving the Chevy tomorrow for your sister.” Junior was a twenty-six-year-old man who worked as a court bailiff and still lived with our parents; he had gone on exactly two dates with each and every unmarried adult female from both of Mocksville’s Pentecostal churches since he turned eighteen. I knew he liked women, but he could not talk to any to save his life. Other than me and Mama, of course.

“I don’t need him to drive. I can drive. I am perfectly capable of driving, Papa.” Occasionally, the extra syllable could work miracles.

“You need an extra set of hands.” He dug in his front pocket and tossed a set of keys at Junior, hitting him in the chest. “Make sure it’s gassed up.”

“Papa, please, I can do it myself. I want to,” I whined.

“How do you intend to carry heavy stuff without a second set of hands?” His eyes bored into my soul. I weakened.

“I—” My tongue started stumbling over my words. “I can get one of the other cadets to help.” Not the plan, but he didn’t need to know that.

“And then you’ll have to pay them or do them some sort of favor.” He harrumphed. “Probably sexual. Not my daughter.” He turned to Junior. “Go get a case of Bud while you’re at it. And some Copenhagen.” He had his wallet out and tossed a handful of twenties, all with the lifespans of paper airplanes.

“Pa, I know you don’t believe me, but it is the twenty-first century, and women can do things just as well as men.” I felt my mother come up behind me, still sniffling after her last bout while cleaning the kitchen. “Tell him I can do it, Ma.”

“Now, Joanie, your father’s just looking out for your best interests.” Of course, she defended him. She always did.

“Not you too?” I turned to her, pleading. Her puffy red eyes held no sympathy for the sisterhood. Not for a traitorous daughter.

“It’s okay, Sis,” Junior said. His voice always felt surprisingly soft and kind. “I don’t mind helping. Gets me some exercise.” He stood to gather the scattered money while jingling the keys. “Want to come with, maybe get a snack?”

I definitely needed to get out of the house. “Yeah, sure, thanks.”

* * * * *

The ride to the Circle K was quiet. The radio played country, turned down so low as to be unrecognizable. Junior had his not-talking face showing, and I agreed.

I didn’t need Junior’s assistance because I already had all the help I could ever want. My girlfriend, Cyn, would help me move the furniture. Hell, she would help me pick out the furniture, too. Because they wouldn’t just be mine; they would be hers, too. We were moving into a studio apartment together after dating for nearly a year. She was the first girl—hell, the first person—I ever dated. There was a whole book full of firsts for me with regard to Cynthia. She was studying to be a nurse; I was training to be a police officer.

It would be easy to claim that the lesbian thing was the main obstacle to revealing our relationship to my family. There were two others. The more stereotypical being that she was Black and I was not. Though that seemed to be her family’s biggest problem with me, so I couldn’t feel completely ashamed about that. The other concern was the simplest: we were having sexual intercourse in violation of His Law.

That sort of thing belonged in the previous century. Hell, I could count to nine and knew that Junior’s April birth and my parents’ October wedding did not add up, so it was a bit hypocritical on their part as well. It wasn’t just my father feeling that way, and it wasn’t just my father making my mother do so as well. I could tell: she wanted to believe I was still a virgin. So I let her.

At the store, Junior paid cash for the top-off, the beer, Dad’s dip, and a carton of my cigarettes. The drive home was not silent. “Who’s helping?” he asked as he pulled out of the station.

“A friend,” I said.

“Boyfriend?”

I held back a laugh. “I promise you, this is not a boyfriend.”

He nodded. “We’ll unload the car at your new place. Trade vehicles at the U-Haul. When you’re done, meet me at the Waffle House and we’ll switch back.”

I held back some tears. “Why?”

He shrugged. “Because you’re a grown woman who can make up your own mind.” He glanced sideways at me. “And when you want me to know about him, you’ll tell me.”

I bit my lip and nodded. “I will, Steve. I promise.” I almost never called him that. The name was tainted for me. But whenever the need was there, it was more powerful than the swearing on or crossing of anything between the two of us.

* * * * *

Cyn and I picked out an apartment’s worth of furniture: a dinette set, a queen-sized bed with mattress and box spring, a couch, and a couple of dressers. Whatever flaws they had were invisible to our amateur eyes. Pa had given Junior a few hundred to pay for everything. I let him keep one of the C-notes and used the rest to supplement our budget. We also splurged on a year-old flat-screen LCD TV that couldn’t be wall-mounted and some ding-and-dent appliances for the kitchenette. There were a couple of pieces we could have used Junior’s help with. But it felt better for us to move in ourselves.

Our studio was off of West Market. That was close to NC A&T for her and the downtown police station for me. I would graduate from the academy the following week and start field training the week after. FTO would go on for three months, after which I would be sworn in as a Greensboro police officer. She would finish her nursing degree in the spring and likely get hired on at Moses Cone. With the Courtesy Officer Program, once I took the oath in January, the complex would knock off 20% from our monthly rent. Cyn was still working several nights as a stripper—okay, there was a fourth issue about telling my family—but somehow we’d save money in the long run.

The Sunday after I started field training was my birthday. She took Saturday night off as a present for me, a night full of lap dances in our personal VIP champagne room. I slept so soundly, I didn’t hear the knocking at the door until Cyn climbed out from under me to answer it. My mind was still in a fog, so I didn’t think to warn her to check who was at the door. At least the chain limited the door to a small gap, but it was wide enough to see through.

“Who are you? Where’s Joanie?” My father’s voice reverberated through the small room. I peered out from beneath the still-new sheets, my eyes meeting his. His deputy’s uniform was still on; he’d driven straight from work to surprise me. Us. Himself.

It never occurred to me that he would visit. I didn't think he'd ever leave his kingdom, go outside of his throne room, to see what I was up to. This scenario was a nightmare.

He glared at me. Then her. Me again. The look on his face… I will never be able to describe that look, not for the rest of my life. I have always had difficulty reading faces and body language, but the emotion loaded behind that look….

I tried to get to the door but tripped over the bedding. And I couldn’t go outside without clothes. By the time I got to the parking lot, I could see the blue Chevy already screeching around the corner.

Cyn was upset, both for me and at him. But that wasn’t the worst of it, not by far. I finished off the half-bottle of Korbel sitting on the counter, in need of the courage. I grabbed the receiver off the wall unit and stretched it out to the dinette. Cynthia started to massage my shoulders while the phone rang and continued when I heard the female voice on the other side.

“Mama.” I was trying not to sob but failing miserably. “Papa just stormed out of here.”

She was silent for a moment, then sounded resigned. “Thank you for the warning, Joanie.”

“No, Mama, wait!” She didn’t hang up. “There’s something else, Mama. Something I need to tell you, Mama. Please….”