Read Online Getting Mother's Body by Suzan Lori Parks - Free Book Online Page A

never done. The kiss is wet. Not practiced. He gets out the bus, walking down the steps backwards. The Driver moves in quick, taking his seat. Outside, Uncle and Aunt stand together. She leans against him a little.
    â€œTake your seat,” the Driver says.
    I walk back, past the empty seats up front, toward the back. Three other folks back there. All men. All sleeping.
    There’s an empty seat on the side of the bus that looks out over to the other side of the Main Bully, over at Miz Montgomery’s side. I sit there, close to the window, looking across the double rows of seats, across the body of a sleeping man, his long legs unfolding out into the aisle, his head back and mouth open, but not snoring. Through his window I watch June and Teddy searching the windows for my face. The Driver cuts the engine on.
    â€œThis is a Mid-land-bound bus, now!” the Driver yells. No one wakes up. “Midland!” he yells again.
    Uncle Teddy runs around the back of the bus, just reaching my side before we take off. He squints up his eyes, finding me through the window, and waves hard, hard enough for both him and June. I wave back at him, and as I look out across the aisle I see June, still looking for me on the other side, squinching up her eyes and leaning harder on her crutch, not seeing me but waving anyway.
    We go.
    East to Monahans then Odessa then Midland. In Midland the north-bound bus is waiting for us. It’s silver like a icebox, with the running dog painted on the side. I could try sitting in the front, where the view’s better, but Uncle Teddy’s right, that could cause trouble. Sitting in the back’s easier and I don’t mind. The driver says we gonna be in Texhoma by three. I got my dress in my lap, right where I can see it. The box is pretty and white with a red long-stemmed rose sculptured on the cover, such a nice-looking box someone might try to steal it. We head north. Stanton, Tarzan, Sparenberg, Patricia. Grandview, New Home, Lubbock, Slide. The bus fills with people. We cross the Brazos River. New Deal, Becton, Happy Union, Plainview. Mostly folks are quiet. There’s a man two seats ahead, listening to country music from a yellow plastic transistor radio.
Yr cheating heart,
he sings. He’s got a pretty good voice. I’m hungry. Mother tolt me that carrying a baby makes you sick all the time, but I ain’t been sick yet. I think if I eat with the bus moving I might get sick so I wait until I’m too hungry to wait. Just before we hit Deaf Smith County I open the sack to just look at the chicken and end up gobbling both the wings and the Baby Ruth too, stuffing the bones and the candy wrapper in the paper sack and toeing it all under the seat in front of me. There’s a little spot of grease from the sack on the top of the box and I wipe at it but it don’t wipe off. Snipes ain’t gonna be looking at the box. I feel underneath the lid. My dress is laying there quiet and soft. I’m lucky, cause inside, the grease didn’t go through. When Snipes sees this dress he won’t believe it. I bet lovemaking feels like lovemaking once yr married.
    I got a seatmate, a church lady about my color, with a salt and pepper Betty Boop wig on that’s pushed back on her scalp a little. She’s sleeping and when we get near Wildarado she wakes up, opening her big patent leather pocketbook and looking inside.
    â€œThis yr first time on a bus?” she says to me, still looking into her pocketbook.
    â€œNo, ma’am,” I says. “I rid the bus quite a few times.”
    â€œThis is my first bus ride, old as I am,” she says. She takes out some screaming-red lipstick and runs it across her mouth.
    She sneaks a glance at my belly then tries to get a look at my left hand, to see if I got a ring or not, but I’m quick. I had my hand hiding underneath my leg from the second she woke up.
    â€œWildarado!” the Driver yells.
    The church