The Little Friend

Ida Rhew, lost in thought, continued to polish the stove top though it no longer needed polishing. “Yesm, it sho is the truth,” she said. “Them trash killed Miss Etta Coffey sure as they’d stabbed her in the heart.” She compressed her lips for several moments as she polished, in small, tight circles, the chrome dials of the stove. “Old Miss Etta, she righteous, sometime she praying all the night. My mother, she see that light burning late there at Miss Etta’s, she make my daddy get out of bed and walk himself right over there and tap at the window and ax Miss Etta has she fell, or do she need help to get up off the floor. She holler at him no thank you, her and Jesus still got business to talk!”

“One time, Edie told me—”

“Yes, sir. Miss Etta, she dwelling at His right hand side. And my mother and my daddy, and my poor brother Cuff that die with cancer. And little old Robin, too, right up amongst them. God keep a place for all His children. He surely do.”

“But Edie said that old lady didn’t die in the fire. Edie said she had a heart attack.”

“Edie say?”

You didn’t want to challenge Ida when she used that tone. Harriet looked at her fingernails.

“Didn’t die in the fire. Hah!” Ida wadded the wet cloth and slapped it down on the counter. “She die of the smoke, didn’t she? And of all the shoving and hollering and people fighting to get out? She old

, Miss Coffey. She so tender-hearted, she not able to eat deer meat or take a fish off the hook. And here ride up these horrible old trash, chunking fire through the window—”

“Did the church burn all the way down?”

“It was burnt good enough.”

“Edie said—”

“Was Edie there?”

Her voice was terrible. Harriet dared not say a word. Ida glared at her for several long moments and then hiked the hem of her skirt and rolled down her stocking, which was thick and fleshy-tan, rolled above her knees, many shades paler than Ida’s rich, dark skin. Now, above the opaque roll of nylon, appeared a six-inch patch of seared flesh: pink like an uncooked wiener, shiny and repulsively smooth in some spots, puckered and pitted in others, shocking in both color and texture against the pleasing Brazil-nut brown of Ida’s knee.

“Reckon Edie aint think that’s a burn good enough?”

Harriet was speechless.

“Alls I know is, it felt good and hot to me.”

“Does it hurt?”

“It sho did hurt.”

“What about now?”

“No. Sometime it itch me, though. Come on, now,” she said to the stocking as she began to roll it back up. “Don’t give me no trouble. Sometimes these hoseries like to kill me.”

“Is that a third-degree burn?”

“Third, fourth, and fifth.” Ida laughed again, this time rather unpleasantly. “Alls I know, it hurt so bad I can’t sleep for six weeks. But maybe Edie think that fire aint hot enough unless both legs burnt right off. And I reckon the law think the same thing, because they never going to punish the ones that did it.”

“They have to.”

“Who say?”

“The law does. That’s why it’s the law.”

“It’s one law for the weak, and another for the strong.”

With more confidence than she felt, Harriet said: “No, there’s not. It’s the same law for everybody.”

“Then why them mens still walking free?”

“I think you ought to tell Edie about this,” said Harriet, after a confused pause. “If you don’t, I will.”

“Edie?” Ida Rhew’s mouth twitched, strangely, with something close to amusement; she was about to speak but then changed her mind.

What? Harriet thought, chilled to the heart. Does Edie know?

Her shock and sickness at the notion was perfectly visible, like a window shade had snapped up from over her face. Ida’s expression softened—it’s true, thought Harriet, in disbelief, she’s told Edie already, Edie knows.

But Ida Rhew, quite suddenly, had busied herself with the stove again. “And how come you think I need to be bother Miss Edie with this mess, Harriet?” she said, with her back turned, and in a bantering and rather too hearty voice. “She an old lady. What you think she going to do? Stamp on they feet?” She chuckled; and though the chuckle was warm and unquestionably heartfelt, it did not reassure Harriet. “Beat them crost the head with that black pocketbook?”

“She should call the police.” Was it conceivable that Edie had been told of this, and not called the police? “Whoever did that to you should be in jail.”

“Jail?” To Harriet’s surprise, Ida roared with laughter. “Bless your heart. They likes to be in jail. Air conditioning in the summertime and free peas and cornbread. And plenty time to idle round and visit with they sorry friends.”

“The Ratliffs did this? You’re sure?”

Ida rolled her eyes. “Bragging about it around the town.”

Harriet felt about to cry. How could they be walking free? “And threw the bricks too?”

“Yes, ma’am. Grown men. Young’uns too. And that one call himself a preacher—he not actually doing the chunking, he just hollering and shaking his Bible and stirring the others up.”