Chapter Five

Shaun parked next to her husband’s truck wondering why there was only his car parked in the lot. She wrangled the girls out of their car seats—it wasn’t that easy being that she was eight months pregnant. Nobody had told her to expect that each pregnancy would result in a larger belly than the previous pregnancy. Right now she thought that she looked like a bloated whale. Being a petite 5’5” the added bulk made her feel clumsy but she had to work past that because she had a three and a five-year old to wrangle with. Whoever said that girls were the tamer sex?

“Can daddy go to the park with us?” Myisha, her eldest asked.

“Myisha, you always ask that and I always tell you the same thing; Daddy has to work. Hold your sister’s hand.”

“Can daddy go to the park with us?” Madison mimicked looking at her mother expectantly with big grey eyes that looked just like Bodie’s. Shaun shook her head and hid a sigh.

“No Maddie,” Myisha replied in exasperation. “Daddy is too busy.”

It broke Shaun’s heart to hear her daughter say that—but it was true, which is why she liked bringing the girl’s up to the garage to visit with him every so often.

“Go on and find your daddy but don’t get in Mr. Pete’s or Mr. Riley’s way.”

“Yes mama!”

“Yes Mama!” And then they ran off hand in hand to the garage. Shaun went to the back of the truck and retrieved the picnic basket filled with food. She’d spent the morning frying fish and making home fries. She’d even made hush puppies because Pete loved them so much. There was also a jug of sweet tea to keep the boys hydrated in this sweltering weather. The garage had central air but that was blown the minute the large doors lifted to allow cars in and out, so mostly it was just relegated to the private office.

Bodie met her at the entrance of the garage with his dirty hands raised over his head as if he was being arrested. A little girl was latched onto each of his legs as he walked using big steps like he was a giant.

Shaun paused wondering how it was possible for her to love him more than she had the moment before. He was everything. Grease streaked one cheek and his forehead and his usually sun-blonde hair was dark with sweat. A beard covered his cheeks which Shaun liked because it made him look like a bear; a toned muscle bound bear.

“Hi babe.” He greeted her with a hands-free kiss. “How’s my little man doing?” He asked while glancing down at her swollen belly.

“I told you Bodie Matthews that you ain’t about to have that son just yet. You better have that little girl’s name ready.”

He scoffed but didn’t particularly mind having little girls that squealed when they saw him and stared at him as if they were looking into the face of God. Being a daddy humbled him. He couldn’t love his children more whether they were girls or not.

Shaun had walked into the garage to put down the picnic basket and she looked around curiously.

“Where are the boys?”

Bodie walked to the sink to wash his hands, the girls still clinging to his legs and giggling.

“Yeah,” he said. “I was going to tell you about that when I got home tonight.”

“Tell me what?” Shaun followed him to the sink when he took too long to continue.

He glanced at her as he scrubbed his hands. “Petes getting deported.”

“What!” She exclaimed. “Oh no. Theresa and the baby…”

“I know.” He told her what he knew and what he planned to do to help Pete and Theresa.

“Oh this is so terrible.” She crossed her arms and rested them on her belly thinking about how alone Theresa must be feeling. She’d pay her visit. Right now she was probably taking every available second to spend with her man.

Bodie finally pulled her into a hug and it felt good having his big body to lean against. He kissed the top of her curly head.

“I know, honey.” Pete wasn’t just his employee he was family. He rubbed his wife’s back until she looked up at him.

“But where’s Riley?”

Bodie’s lips formed a thin line and then he picked up little Maddie and gave her a bear hug and a big kiss before placing her delicately back to her feet. Then he did the same for Myisha.

“You girls go on to my office. I have a pack of bubble gum in the candy drawer. You can have one each.”

Two little voices could be heard squealing in delight as they ran to their daddy’s office.

Bodie turned to his wife. “I fired him.”

Shaun’s eyes widened. “You fired Riley? Bodie, what happened?”

“Nothing happened.” Bodie walked to the picnic basket and began digging through it. “I fired him because he’s fuc--freaking redneck, wannabe, white supremacist.”

Shaun had followed him. “Are you saying that Riley was behind getting Pete deported?”

Bodie had grabbed a paper plate and had a slice of bread on it. He was piling crispy catfish on top of it. “I don’t know,” he replied. “He said he didn’t.” He topped his sandwich with another slice of bread and then took a big bite. He told her the story of what Theresa had told Pete.

Shaun was shaking her head in confusion. “I don’t understand. You fired him but you’re not sure if he had anything to do with what’s happening to Pete?”

The girls came running out of the office smelling like cherry bubble gum.

“Daddy can you play with us for a while?” Myisha asked.

He bent down until he was eye level with them both and then he began to tickle them.

“Bodie.” Shaun was staring at him with her hands on her hips.

“We’re going to have to talk about this when I get home.”

She sighed but he was right. There was no talking while the girls were getting their much-needed Daddy attention time. But surely Bodie wouldn’t have fired Riley over who he associated with. He was the cousin of one of the most ornery hillbillies on the mountain. But Riley wasn’t a hillbilly. She wasn’t as close to him as she had been with Pete because Riley rarely let down his shields but Shaun was a good judge of character and she thought that he was good people.

She looked into the picnic basket. “Well I made all this fish-”

“And I’ll eat every bite of it,” he replied.

“Well…I’m taking the hush puppies home. I can freeze those.” Although her plan was to actually cover them with mustard and eat them with a jar of spicy chow chow relish—but Bodie didn’t need to know all that. She gave him a meaningful look. “We’ll talk when you get home. Come on girls, it’s time for us to go so that daddy can eat his lunch while it’s still hot.”

“Oh man,” Myisha whined.

“Oh man,” Maddie mimicked.

Bodie gave them a final kiss and tickle. “See you girls at home. I’ll tuck you in tonight.” He stood and kissed his wife. “We’ll talk more later. But I’ve decided that I don’t want people like Riley around me or my family.”

“People like Riley?” she asked with a raised brow.

“People who don’t take a stand. People who are fine with just allowing injustice.”

“You’re talking about white privilege?” She asked in sudden understanding. Her brow gathered and she shook her head slightly. “We’ll talk about this later.” She gestured for her girls. “Come on girls. Time to go. Say bye to Daddy.”

Bodie walked them to her car and got them strapped in to their seats, which made Shaun and her baby bump very happy.

“Don’t worry,” Bodie said while giving her another hug. “It’s going to be alright.”

How is that possible? Shaun wondered. It wasn’t going to be right for Pete and Theresa and Riley was out of a job so it wasn’t right for him. And Bodie was now going to be over his ears in work. How was any of this going to be all right?

 

 

“I think you should call Riley and give him his job back.” Shaun said while standing over Bodie who was kicked back on the couch in just his boxer briefs. He had arrived home just in time to tuck the girls in and he was tired as shit. He had just gotten out of the shower and was not in the mood for this conversation when all he wanted to do was go to bed.

“You’re the person that I thought would understand my decision the most.” He said.

“Because I’m black?” She smirked. “I live in a southern town in Kentucky. I’m still surprised when I meet white people that aren’t out right racist. I’ve lived my life assuming most white people are at least a smidgen racist.” She shrugged. “So I’m not surprised when some white B-list personality is caught using the N-word. Or some redneck city’s police chief has a history of arresting more blacks over whites. I am not surprised by this country’s level of racism. I’ll leave that to the white people who have kept their blinders on for too many years.”

“That’s what I’m talking about, babe.” Bodie said. “I walk into Stubby’s and I hear the same rhetoric about Mexicans and the border, about Jews and Middle Easterners. But the difference is that I don’t just listen to that shit. I call them on their bullshit. I’m correcting their mistakes when they say something stupid. Fuck, it ain’t easy! I’m not a part of ‘them’ anymore. I’m just Bodie that married the black girl and became a liberal. I am not a liberal. I am as conservative as I’ve always been but I also can see bullshit and call it bullshit.”

Shaun sat down next to her husband and rubbed his tensed shoulders and then she leaned against him and placed her head on his shoulder. His arm folded around her and pulled her in tight while his other hand rubbed her belly.

“I love you so much Shaun. I don’t want my children growing up in a world where there is this much hatred.”

“Baby, this is the world that we’ve both grown up in. We have to teach our children what to expect. They have to know that it exists in order for them to be protected against it.”

His arms tightened around her as if trying to shield her from the dangers that they were discussing. “I don’t want to do that. I don’t want them to see this ugliness. They are so innocent and they shouldn’t have to know that just down the street someone is going to call them a nigger or an injun or some other stupid word just because of their race.”

Shaun sighed. “I had to learn it. You had to learn it. And unfortunately, so will our children.”

He didn’t say anything for a long time. “Do you see now why I fired Riley?”

She sat up so that she could place her lips on his cheek. “I don’t agree with what you did. Riley’s always been a hard worker and he’s got to take care of his grandmother because none of those other sorry ass Prangers are going to do it.”

Bodie frowned. “I could give a shit about Miss Jewel. She’s a peckerwood too. She’s a white supremacist like the rest of the Prangers-”

“When you hired Riley you told me all about his family history. But you also told me that he wasn’t like them. That he didn’t use those words and you never saw him join in with his cousins to pick on people. He isn’t Sully, Bodie. He’s not Sully.”

He didn’t respond and then he kissed her temple and got up and headed for the stairs to go to bed. Tomorrow was going to be another busy one. He was definitely going to need some help. He had three cars that he was working on simultaneously because the owners expected to drive a twenty-year old car as if it wasn’t worth more to just scrap. But that is what he did; he pieced together scraps so that his customers could get as much use out of them as possible.

“Bodie?” Shaun said from her seat on the couch.

“Sorry honey, I need to get some shut-eye.”

“What about Riley?”

“Riley can kiss my ass.” His frown deepened. “This is a new time in our history. We don’t keep doing the same things and treating them like a dark dirty secret because that only perpetuates wrong. The only way to make this world better is for whites like Riley or even me to speak up and take a stand. I told him that I don’t trust him and I don’t. If he can’t take a stand against the wrong he sees in his own friends and family then how can I expect that he won’t allow something to happen to you or to my children, that he won’t take a stand against that? Fuck him. Sorry for the language but that’s how I feel.” He went upstairs while Shaun stared until he disappeared.

Yeah, honey. But what if you just pushed him into being just like the rest of them?