“You ever seen a youngun die?”

“First person ever I saw die was a youngun. A Negro girl name of Charlene. I nursed her two weeks before she passed on. The day she was took bad, they had to go hunting her mama. She cleaned house for a big shot in Justice town. He wouldnt even let her stay by her youngun’s sick bed. When Charlene took to breathing hard, I knew she wouldnt make it until we could fetch her mama. But she did. She just stared up at that ceiling and breathed until her mama walked in the door. Then she turned her face to her mama and died. I walked right out of that room. And I aint been scairt to die since, not since I seen how that youngun did it. I just wonder where we go, and what it will be like.”

“And it didnt make you mad?”

“I werent mad. I was just perplexed. But I did git drunk that night. Only time in my life I drunk liquor.”

He laughed. “I’d like to seen that.” Then he grew quiet. After a time, he said, “I seen men die. Seen my dad’s buddy die when I was just a youngun. Made me mad as hell. Not mad at God, mad at the company. And I seen a union organizer murdered. Gun thugs throwed him right into a furnace. Seemed like he leaped right outen his body before they threw him in. Like he went off somewheres else.”

“A union organizer?”

We stopped walking and stared at one another.

“That’s right,” he said.

He took my hand, led me on down the road a ways, stopped again.

“Carrie, can I come up to your room and set for a spell?”

My insides quivered. “Sure,” I said.

Dogs charged from beneath houses and barked as we walked back down the rows. Lloyd sang softly, an old fiddle tune.

“Polly’s in the garden sifting sand,

Sue’s in bed with the hog-eyed man.

I’m going home with Sally Ann,

I’m going home with Sally Ann.”

He turned to me.

“Your name Sally Ann?”

I giggled. “Hit’s Carrie Lee.”

“Close’t enough.”

My thoughts were all awhirl as we climbed the clubhouse steps. What would I say if he did this or that? When should I say no? What would Flora advise? What would a good girl do?

I looked at his face in the lamplight, felt the weakness in my legs, and knew it would be impossible to say no to him.

I sat down on the sofa. He will go to the chair, I thought. But he sat beside me, lay back on the lumpy cushions.

“You ever been kissed, Carrie Lee?”

“No,” I whispered.

“Hit’s about time.”

He put his arms around me, pulled me closer, and kissed me on the mouth. Then his moustache tickled my neck and he slipped one hand inside my blouse. Every muscle in my body relaxed and in one magical moment I was on my back and he stretched full length on top of me.