Page 107 - The Geography of Women

The Geography of Women 93

alive, just like everybody hopes they will be.
“You don’t know it’s so,” I said. “Brian could be
mistaken.”
“I’d die,” Eustacia Rule said. “I’d just die if my son was
one a those people down town.”
“Have you asked Byron?”
“I asked him,” Eustacia said.
“What’d he say?”
“He said he wasn’t one of those people downtown.”
“There,” I said. “That should satisfy you.”
That Byron always was a clever one.
Acourse he wasn’t one a those fruit baskets downtown
in St. Louis.
He never went to St. Louis.
He was like me an Roger Kerby. He stayed home tryin
to figger things out, the way people do when they know
they’re different, like how bein a man’s man or a ladies’
man means somethin different dependin always who’s
sayin it. Like a woman’s woman. Or like a ladies’ woman.
Whyn’t you never hear that?
“Go fix your face,” I said to Eustacia. “Stop jumpin to
conclusions. Even if Byron is somethin like Brian thinks
he is, then you still don’t have to kill yourself, cuz it’s not
your fault. It’s no one’s fault an it’s not the worst thing in
the world. It’s just one a the most private, an some folks
even fancy it. There’s more secret love goin aroun n any-
one ever imagines.”
“You’re so wonderful, Sport, especially talkin about
sin, an this is such a wonderful shebang, I don’t want to
be a party-pooper an ruin it by cryin, but you’re the only
one who could understand.”
I wanted to ask what she meant by that, but I guess
I knew she knew I knew what was a sin an what wasn’t.

©Jack Fritscher, Ph.D., All Rights Reserved
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