Read Online The Castle Cross the Magnet Carter by Kia Corthron - Free Book Online Page B

socks,” Aunt Pearlie tells my mother. “His letters, he’s always complainin bout his cold feet. You think they’ll let him wear em? Or they say he just gotta stick to the army socks.”
    â€œI’m sure they’ll let him wear em.”
    Jack is eighteen, Aunt Pearlie’s second oldest boy, in France.
    â€œGot up early, felt like I had so much to do. Harry called, said he just had the news on, talkin bout the West Coast blackouts. Harry said he didn’t really believe we need to keep lights out for fear of enemy planes targetin us, said he thinks it’s just the government wantin to keep us reminded we’re at war.” Like my parents, Uncle Harry had served in the Great War and was of the opinion that entitled him to criticize the government whenever he damn well pleased.
    â€œI don’t know if that’s true,” my mother says. Then shrugs. “Even if it is, keepin us reminded we’re at war seems plenty good reason to me.”
    â€œI don’t wanna be reminded!” wails Chris-Joe. “I want my cake!” His ma pops him in the lips.
    â€œToldja I saved some sugar but keep it up, it’ll go to Artie Ray’s birthday September. Hear me?”
    â€œB.J.’s teachin me the sign language, Aunt Bobbie,” says Deb Ellen.
    â€œI saw,” says my mother.
    â€œHe learnt me some words. An the letters. An with the letters he learnt me, I learnt him a couple words.” Around the table are Ma and Benja, B.J. and me, and Aunt Pearlie and her brood: Lily who’s got to be twenty now and her husband Pete John and their toddler girl, Lily holding the newborn baby and Lily’s big and pregnant again. Then Todd Joseph seventeen, Lee Frankie sixteen, Artie Ray going on fifteen, Buppie fourteen, Deb Ellen newly thirteen, and Chris-Joe almost eleven. The three absentees are Ty the firstborn, working at the mill, Jack in the service, and Uncle Harry who got some wartime weapons job in Birmingham and now stays most of the time with his brother and family there. Pa calls Aunt Pearlie The Baby Machine, not when my mother’s around. He also calls the whole family The Hillbillies, which isn’t exactly fair since they live in the valley like us.
    â€œBenja, you heard back from your soldier?” asks Aunt Pearlie. Over at the Methodist church some lady headed up this letter-writing campaign, soldiers with nobody to write to them. Benja signed up fast.
    â€œNot yet. I wrote eleven days ago.”
    â€œBe patient. Sometimes a while fore I hear from Jack, but jus when I start to worry a letter always comes.”
    After dessert, evening’s settling so Deb Ellen and company pull out the sparklers. I don’t know how they smuggled them in, what with all the rations, but those Joneses always seem to have their ways. As soon as B.J. sees them he starts agitating Ma to go home. She tries to tell him the mini combustibles gonna be taken to the other side of the field but he doesn’t care, he wants to leave. He’s always been terrified of even the tiniest firecrackers. Finally she gives up, and stands to kiss Aunt Pearlie and all those nieces and nephews goodbye. Todd Joseph and Lee Frankie take the cue to also stand, both got the early shift at the mill tomorrow. Lily stays at the picnic table to talk with her mother and give the baby a bottle, while Lily’s husband Pete John tosses a big ball with their little girl, and I and the other cousins go off with our handheld pyrotechnics. There are a dozen in the box and five of us. Two apiece and the birthday girl will get a third. A lingering mystery over who gets the final one. “Draw sticks?” I suggest. No one answers. I’ve noticed this with Aunt Pearlie’s kids, on occasion ignoring me. Maybe not deliberately rude, but like some unspoken agreement between them not to discuss that final sparkler yet, something they all understand instinctively and for which I