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“A cigarette. A cigarette!”

He looked at me and marched past and into my room.

“God help you if he finds anything else,” Aunt Mae Louise warned, her eyes on fire, “because He’ll be the only one who can.”

3

A Ravishing Sexual Hunger

I was sure a correction officer looking for drugs in the most severe penitentiary didn’t rip apart a prison cell as completely as Uncle Buster took apart my room. All the while I was made to stand in the hallway and wait outride while he went through my things. So miserable and unhappy, I was like an island with the sea eddying around me.

“If he finds any more or anything else, I swear I’ll call the social services people and have them come and take you to be placed in a foster home this very minute,” Aunt Mae Louise threatened.

I fought back the urge to turn and curse her, to shout that I didn’t care and just run.

“You two get to your rooms now!” she snapped at Barbara Ann and Jake.

They hurried away.

“Smoking, and in my house, in my house! Don’t you know how bad it is not only for you but for the people who smell your smoke, especially younger people like Barbara Ann and Jake? Don’t you know that?”

“It was just two puffs of one cigarette with the window wide open,” I said sullenly.

“Don’t tell me that it was just this or just that. Just tike you can’t be a little pregnant, you can’t be a little bad, girl. It’s like a cancer. You don’t cut it out right away, it will consume and destroy you. That’s what the minister said last Sunday.”

“That must have been a very long sermon last Sunday,” I muttered.

Finally, Uncle Buster emerged and shook his head.

“Nothing else there,” he said.

“You sure, Buster? You look good?”

“Go see for yourself, Mae Louise,” he told her, and she stepped up to the bedroom door. Then she turned back to me.

“Get that room looking like it was and then you come out and do the dishes and don’t dare drop anything. We’ll talk about what this cigarette in the bathroom means tomorrow. Your daddy is going to be very disappointed if I tell him. Not here a day and you already break one of the rules. I’m not surprised.”

She stepped back, and I looked in the room. The bed had been turned over, the mattress on the floor. The two pillowcases, the bed sheet, and the comforter had been stripped away and tossed about. All the drawers were emptied, my panties, bras, stockings thrown to the floor. Every garment I had brought was dangling over a chair or over the edge of the bed, especially my bras and my panties.

I shook my head.

“This is sick,” I said. “What did he do, get excited over my clothes?”

“Don’t you be disrespectful. Clean it up,” Aunt Mae Louise ordered again.

I went in and began to put things back. Ten minutes later, she returned and handed me a pamphlet.

“What’s this?”

“This is from the church. It tells young people why smoking is bad for them and why the devil himself wants you to light up. You read it and memorize it. Starting tomorrow night at dinner, I want to hear the first page.”

“What?” I squinted. “That’s—”

“You do what I tell you, Phoebe. I’m taking on my sister’s responsibility and I intend to do it right. You read and memorize that. That’s how you’ll earn your right to eat,” she declared, and left.

I looked at the pamphlet. Memorize? Right to eat? I’d rather starve, I thought, and tossed it to the floor.

Almost an hour later, she came by again and told me to look after the dishes.