Read Online Cavedweller by Dorothy Allison - Free Book Online Page A

Highway 75 and the route to Nashville, but another smiley-face sign indicated that it was also the way to the county hospital. The route south was marked MARIETTA, but the road west was a mystery, with only the silhouette of a chicken beside the smiley face.
    “Where does that go?” Cissy asked.
    “The river,” Delia said. “Farm country. Your Granddaddy Byrd’s place and a lot of truck farms.”
    “What’s a truck farm?”
    Delia shrugged. “I don’t know. Farms. People have always called them that. Maybe they’re places where people truck produce out to the markets.” She rubbed the back of her neck. “Never been much industry here. Mostly dairies and chicken farms and peanut fields.”
    “What does Granddaddy Byrd grow on his farm?”
    “Dirt.” Delia gave a wry grimace. “He an’t farmed in thirty years. He bred dogs for a while, good hunting dogs, people said. But that takes a lot of energy and getting around to talk to folks. He ran out of both around the time I moved in with him. He was living on savings and selling off pieces of land when I got out of school. There may not be much of the farm left.”
    Delia drove along slowly, rubbing her neck every couple of minutes. She pointed out Cayro Junior/Senior High School, from which she had graduated. Past that was the brick hospital that had replaced the one that burned down. Cissy stared glumly. Delia turned the car abruptly and drove them back through Cayro, past the courthouse and the Methodist church. She cruised past the church parking lot, looking around intently, and then swung the car back toward the center of Cayro.
    “Aren’t we going to Granddaddy Byrd’s?”
    Delia stopped the car in front of a little shop with a dirty picture window and a hot-pink sign, Bee’s Bonnet Beauty Salon. “We’ll get there,” she said. She leaned out of the car to peer into the window, which was full of dead plants.
    “I worked there before your sisters were born,” Delia said. “Mrs. Pearlman owns it. She was always good to me.”
    When they finally pulled up in front of the little farmhouse, it was going on noon. The dusty porch was bare, the windows shadowed by faded blue curtains. Delia sat clutching her purse and gazed around with big, dark eyes.
    “Don’t look like he’s here,” Cissy said.
    Delia shook her head. “He’s here. He’s always here.”
    The screen door swung slowly open. An old man stepped out into the hot sun and gave them an angry glare. Slightly bent, chin thrust forward, shirt unbuttoned, he had wild gray hair all over his head. He came down the steps hesitantly, as if he had to tell every separate muscle what to do, but once on the ground he walked toward them firmly. Delia got out of the car and stood waiting by the fender.
    He is not expecting us, Cissy thought as he gave her one long look and slowly walked all the way around the chalk-green Datsun.
    “Pitiful excuse for a car, Delia.” He wiped his face with his sleeve.
    Delia smiled tentatively and reached for him, then dropped her arms as if her energy had run out. Standing there in the heat, she started to cry. The old man winced as she leaned into him and sobbed on his neck. From the front seat of the car Cissy watched, awestruck. She had never seen Delia cry.
    “Slow down now, Delia,” Granddaddy Byrd said. He patted at Delia’s back with one hand, his knuckles knocking her spine like a salesman’s at a strange front door. His eyes shifted to Cissy in mute impatience, as if he expected her to come take her mother in hand. Cissy stayed where she was, pulling her legs up on the front seat and resting her chin on her knees.
    “Now, Delia,” the old man said again, and Delia grabbed him even tighter. Then she pushed herself back and wiped her eyes.
    “I’m sorry,” she said. “It’s been a long trip. Feels like I’ve hardly slept since we left Los Angeles.” She looked at the car. “Cissy, come over here.”
    Cissy sighed and got out of the car. She was