Then that slurred, weak voice again.
“When doesh shoe… when…”
“Miz Corbett, have you been… have you been drinking?”
Mama shook her head slowly and kept rubbing her forehead. I felt the blood flush through my body.
“Don’t be shilly. I sh… I… don’t…”
I spoke very quietly. “Mama, what’s wrong with you?”
“Ben, you better take your mama home now. Looks like she may have had a little touch o’ the grape.” He forced a laugh.
“My mama never drinks. She must be sick.”
“I’m afraid she is, son. Whiskey sick.”
Suddenly my mother’s knees buckled. She drooped over to one side and then fell to the floor with a heavy thud.
Sam Jenkins turned to the back of his store. “Henry, come up here! I got a lady passed out drunk on the floor.”
Chapter 9
FROM SEPARATE DIRECTIONS CAME two teenage boys. One was white, with red hair. The bigger one was black, as tall as he was skinny.
“Y’all help this boy take his mama out of here,” Sam Jenkins said.
The white boy leaned down to Mama and tried to lift her. She was small, but he couldn’t find the right angle to maneuver her into a standing position.
“Marcus, you gonna help me?”
“Mist’ Sam, I think this lady sick,” said the black kid.
“Nobody asked your opinion,” said Mr. Jenkins. “Just get her out of the store!”
They lifted my mother up and carried her out to the sidewalk, where they set her on a bench near the watering trough.
“Shit. She ain’t sick,” said the redheaded boy. “She’s drunk as a monkey.”
I was trying my best not to cry, but I couldn’t stop the tears blurring my eyes. I was helpless and small, and something was terribly, terribly wrong with my mother. I believed that she might die right there.
The white boy disappeared back into the store, shaking his mop of red hair in disgust.