“You had enough?” She asked him with a shake to his body.
“You gonna mess with us girls anymore? You gonna kick dirt up when we’re trying to breathe down this nasty dirty little red road everyday?” She was reveling in her power now.
She was surprised that he acquiesced so easily but he just knows when he’s beat she thought to herself. “I’m gonna let you up now and we can all go on home or if you want to mess with me or us girls again, we can do this again.” She saw his face cloud as she knew she’d hit on his plan to try to get even for being so thoroughly bested. Her being a girl and getting the better of him so completely was liable to stick pretty hard in his craw. She knew the boys would not let him forget about it for a long time to come—and she got much satisfaction from that realization also.
Still she unfolded slowly and stood up letting him go and stood above him glaring down. She waited to see if he would try anything—then she turned her back and walked away—and began anew her daily stump home in the hot red heat.
This is my embellished rendition of a story told to me by my mother about how and why she’d put a boy down in the dirt when she was young—for kicking up the dirt on her and the girls as they walked home everyday. She never told me his name—not that it mattered.
But what did matter is that it told me of a childhood that was filled with HARD work that precipitated a HARD life. She was a HARD woman. Even when I ran away from her abusiveness to escape the daily pain, I respected her. Even when I KNEW that her lack of reason prompted her beatings of me and my siblings, I KNEW that there was more to her. The fact that she told me of this fight with a boy when she was a kid meant that there is MORE to remember than the pain she physically inflicted unreasonably on children she clearly did not love.
