Annie of Houseboat Chinquapin (eBook)

Chapter 2

Early morning of the next day, it is yet dark. In the kitchen, in the light of the kerosene lamp, Annie, in her nightgown, places a large sandwich, an orange, and several cookies in Robert’s lunch pail, then sets it on the kitchen table next to him. Robert now finishes his breakfast of grits, fried eggs, and bacon. He takes a last swallow of coffee from his mug, wipes his mouth with a napkin, and pushes away from the table.

Annie quickly sets down next to him. He pauses then, as she shows him on a crumpled paper her grocery lists. She has each item listed, its costs, and the total amount added at the bottom. “You see here, Robert,” she says, “the bread, the potatoes, eggs, butter, collards, flour, bar of soap – you see all here, Robert – and I need five dollars and fifty cents.”

“Five dollars and fifty cents!” he exclaims.

“Everything goes up, the bread, it was a penny more last week, and the flour, too, it has gone up, two cents more now.”

Getting up, showing only passing concern, Robert reaches into his wallet, takes out four one-dollar bills, and places them on the table. Then from his pocket, he retrieves a fifty-cent piece and puts it on top of the bills. He places his hand on his lunch pail.

“Robert, that’s not enough. I need five dollars and fifty cents. Everything in the store is going up. Every week, the food costs more.”

Robert pauses and states, “I’m not made of money, Annie. I don’t have it. You’ll have to make do.”

“But, Robert, you don’t understand. You see my list – you can see here!” She runs her finger down the list emphasizing each item, “Eggs, you want eggs, and bread, we have to have bread, and soap, we need for washing – no, no, I can’t get by on four dollars and fifty cents.”

“Annie, you have to make do. I have to go to work now.” He grabs his lunch pail with callused, scarred hands, and leaves.

Annie looks after him for a moment, as he closes the door. She then sits down at the kitchen table and counts the four one-dollar bills and puts them into her dress pocket. She remains sitting quietly at the table, lingering a moment, toying with her coffee cup, in thought. She takes a deep sigh. She picks up the fifty-cent piece from the table, looks around, then goes over to the cupboard, and from a far corner takes out a can marked “flour”, removes its lid, drops the coin inside with the other accumulated coins, replaces the lid, and puts the can back in its place. She now gathers the dirty dishes from the table and places them in the sink.

A half hour later, dawn breaks and the day’s light filters through the houseboat windows and brightens the rooms inside, while Annie moves about her chores.

She opens the icebox door, from inside takes the quart jar of milk and, closing the door, puts it on the table, removes its cap, and stirs in the cream on top. She places two clean plates with eating utensils on the table. She goes to the door of the back bedroom and speaks out, “Denise – up, get up now. Curtis, you, too, up now for school. Denise, you first in the toilet, wash your face. Curtis, after Denise, you wash your face. Hurry for school, get your clothes on, get your books, now get up, hurry, you hear me.” Annie turns back, and in the kitchen hears groaning and grumblings of the two, Curtis the most vocal, as they stir in their separate sleeping pads at opposite walls with Annie’s bed in between.

A half hour later, Annie sees Denise and Curtis out the door with their lunch pails and books. She watches them as they go from the house to the dock, to the landing, to Dora Street, then up to Riverside Avenue, and there to wait for their school bus to carry them to the Annie Lytle Grammar School.

Denise and Curtis now gone, Annie, in her bedroom, removes her nightgown, puts on her faded calico dress. It has a flower design, fits her snuggly, and is a little short, its hem breaking at her knees. She buttons it up the front, but the two top buttons, being tight over her bosom, she leaves unbuttoned, open there, revealing her full breast and cleavage. Now dressed, she continues her house chores, washing dishes, placing them to dry, mopping floors, picking up and putting dirty clothes in a wash hamper, cleaning the toilet’s sink, mirror, commode, and straitening up bed covers and sleeping pads.

Later, her house chores finished, she stands in the toilet at the mirror, touches a little lipstick to her lips, combs her hair, straightens the wrinkles from her dress, then back out in the kitchen she picks up her grocery list and with her money goes outside and locks the door. From the side porch she grabs the handle of the red wagon and with the wagon goes up Dora Street to Riverside Avenue. Here, on the sidewalk, with the traffic at her side, she pulls the wagon up ten blocks toward the City and stops at the A & P Grocery Store. She leaves the wagon in front and goes inside.

Annie, with her grocery cart, moves around the store with her list, selecting shelf items, checking their prices, and putting some but not all into her cart. Then later, in the back at the meat counter she checks the meat behind the glass case and taps the bell. The butcher now comes out from the back in his bloodstained apron and hat, sees Annie, smiles, and says, “Ah, good morning to you, Mrs. Higgins, and what will it be today?”

“Good morning, Mr. McGregor. I see your country sausage here,” she says with pointing finger. “Is it fresh?”

“Yes, ma’am, it is. I made it this morning.”

“I take a pound of your sausage then.” She looks further about the meat case, and says, “And your, pork chops here, I take a pound.”

Mr. McGregor retrieves, weighs out, wraps the sausage and pork chops, marks the price on each package, and places them on top of the counter for her. “Will there be anything else?” he asks.

Annie puts the two meat packages in her cart, and then stands at the counter, facing Mr. McGregor. She pauses, and asks, “Mr. McGregor, would you perhaps have a big soup bone in the back?”

He looks at her momentarily, then says, “I’ll look.” He goes into the back. Annie stands waiting. In a while, he returns to the counter with a large soup bone, which he wraps, marks on it NC, no charge, and places it on top of the counter.

“Thank you, Mr. McGregor,” Annie says, in grateful tone. Shortly, at the checkout counter she pays for the groceries with her four one-dollar bills and gets pennies back in change with her receipt. Outside, she puts her two bags of groceries in the red wagon and pulls it back down Riverside Avenue to Dora Street, turns there, goes down the dirt road past the sycamore tree, out onto the dock, and to her houseboat. Inside, she takes her groceries, puts the staples away in the cupboards and meat in the icebox.

Quietly Annie now sits down at the kitchen table and checks her grocery lists. With a stubbed pencil she marks off the items she got and circles those she did not. She views, reflects long on the items circled. Suddenly, distracted, she looks up, as the quietness is now broken by the sounds outside of a heavy truck’s grinding gears and screeching brakes. Annie gets up and checks at the front door, partially opens it, to see an ice truck backing, maneuvering its way down Dora Street, then stopping at the dock’s edge.

A young driver in his mid-twenties gets out. His hair is curly and thick. His face and jaw is square cut. He wears only an undershirt, showing his well-developed muscular arms and broad shoulders. Sweat soaks his undershirt, at its front and back, and his trousers at its waist. Industriously, he goes to the back of the truck, lifts up, and throws back the heavy rubber tarp from the ice column. With his ice pick, he chips off from the end a block of ice, grabs it with a set of tongs, and moves down the dock’s right side to the first houseboat. There, he knocks, yells out, “Ice man.” The door opens. He then goes inside, makes his ice delivery.

Shortly, the iceman continues, makes his second ice delivery to the second houseboat, and, afterwards, his third to the third houseboat; then on the left dockside, makes delivery to the first houseboat; then goes to second houseboat, knocks, calls out, “Iceman!” Annie then opens the door, lets him inside, and, with the block of ice in his ice tongs, he follows her back to the kitchen where she opens the icebox. From its dark inside, she removes the residual piece of ice, puts it the sink, while the iceman waits. Then he lifts, shoves the block of ice in the icebox, then turns, and faces Annie for payment.

She pauses, looks at him, and asks, “Where is Sam. Is he sick?”

“Sam’s not your iceman any more. I’m Joe. I’m your iceman now,” he replies.

“But – did Sam retire?”

“Sam couldn’t do the work, couldn’t keep up, took too long on his deliveries. The company let him go.”

“Oh, I see,” says Annie. She pauses, looks at him, then says, “I have your money in here.” From the kitchen, she goes to the front room, and there, on top of the big box radio, she gets her purse, and takes out some money. The iceman, Joe, with his tongs in hand, having followed her back to the front room, now stands directly behind her and waits for his payment. She turns around and places a dime in his open palm. “For the ice,” she says. She reaches back in...