"HARRY & IVORY" – Chapter 9

"Harry & Ivory"

A love story you have not heard before.

   Chapter Nine

    "Sunday School"

    Harry?" Sunday gave his arm a pinch. "You haven't heard a word I said. I just don't see how you can be asleep and drive at the same time."
    "I can drink and drive, too." The empty Corona sailed out of the window, over the cab, and clunked neatly into the back. Harry began to slow down and look for a good spot on the shoulder where he could pull off the highway.
    "Another one?"
    "No. I need to roll a doobie. I can smoke and drive, too."
    "You passed our special place on the Suwannee!"
    "Yeah.... I'm sorry."
    Love Jones rolled to a gravel-crunching stop and Sunday placed a hand on Harry's forehead. "No fever, but something's wrong!"
    "You're starting to sound like a wife, Sunday." Harry got out and dug around in the deep toolbox bolted to the truck bed for the cookie-tin of reefer and paraphernalia. With that, and two tangerines from the cooler, he dropped the tail-gate and sat on it, facing traffic, (if any).
    Sunday plunked down next to him. "I'll roll it for you." She placed the cover up-side-down in her lap. "Goodness, I see we're not going to run out anytime soon. There must be a quarter-pound in here!"
    Harry smiled when he saw her crush a bud and sniff the aroma. "You an expert?"
    "Baby, I used to do this stuff by the boat-load before I found Jesus! I was bad back in those days – bad to the bone!"
    "Those days? You're not that old." Harry watched her roll the best-looking joint without a machine he had ever seen. But after he lit it, she refused a hit. In a minute, he was stoned. The blue of her taffeta dress began to glow.
    "Blue. You always wore white before."
    "Heavenly blue."
    "Oh. Yeah."
    "Like Love Jones here." She leaned forward and propped her elbows on her knees. Harry's eyes followed the neckline of her dress down into the dark cave of her cleavage. He resisted the urge to pull her tits out of the dress right then and there by the side of the highway. "The first thing that goes down the tubes when you smoke shit are your balls."
    "What? Harry...."
    "Seven buttons unbuttoned. I can still count."
    "Oh!" Sunday straightened up and her fingers started at the bottom button.
    "Stop!" Harry grabbed her hand. "No bullshit, Sunday. Chicks always know how many buttons are unbuttoned. Exactly."
    She smiled at him. "I have to pee. Somewhere. Here."
    "Me, too. But I'm glad you didn't ask me where the bathroom was."
    "The Lord will provide."
    "Right." She's got me, there! Harry hid the reefer can back under the tools.
    But it's sure not the church god!
    Hand in hand, they headed off the shoulder of the road toward the woods. The first vehicle to pass by since they stopped, a massive eighteen wheeler, gave them two, short blips of the air-horns. Harry turned and waved.
    "Oh, I hate that when those big trucks do that. They think they own the road!"
    "They bring you everything you own, don't they? Sunday – he was being friendly. Some of them like to see couples, especially holding hands. When they're pissed, they lay on the horns."
    "Harry, he honked because it was a black and white couple going off into the woods to fornicate."
    "Fornicate? Oh, beautiful! At last!" Harry touched the crystal star hanging from his neck. "Lady Luck!"
    Sunday gave Harry's hand a squeeze. "Don't be getting ideas, Mister Harry. The Lord wants me to save that for the man I marry!"
    "What about all the dudes you fucked when you were bad-to-the-bone? Huh?"
    "I'm born again." Sunday released her grip and got behind Harry so that he could lead their way into the thicket.
    "Good. I never had a cherry." Out of sight of the road, they each picked a spot in the palmettoes. Harry finished first and looked over at Sunday, her skirt spread around her as she squatted.
    "Eight buttons now, ha ha!"
    "Harry – will you stop counting them?" Sunday smiled, and pulled some Kleenex out of her purse. "Do you have to watch?"
    Harry turned away. "So if you're born again, what was that you did to me before I dropped you off at your parents' last week?"
    "That was so you wouldn't be tempted to have evil thoughts about other women. I read that Jerry Hall used to do that to Mick Jagger before he'd leave for a party. I wanted you to be satisfied while you were home. I guess you found some other means of satisfaction, though, or you would be all over me now, you horny man."
    Harry had decided to leave Sunday alone on this trip back to Miami, and then begin to work on getting her out of his life. Jesus included. But that was all over now. Sunday gave good, enthusiastic head, and he loved her for it. As soon as she got to her feet he pulled her back down and slid a hand into her unbuttoned blouse. No bra this time – nice! She shoved the other hand, working up her leg, away. "Okay, Harry, you stop! Just lay back – lay back now! Let Mama take care of business."
    Harry lay back and locked his fingers behind his head while Sunday went to work on him. Clouds like creamy-white scoops of ice-cream drifted across the sky.
    "You're in Heaven, Harry."
    "I know. I know. Come on, baby, don't stop now!"
    Sunday's loving fingers and hungry mouth made short work of him. She lay there then, her head resting between his legs, dishing out little nibbles and kisses as he slowly relaxed enough for her to zip his jeans back up. Then she slid up alongside him, wincing as the rough, uneven ground dug into her. After pulling his head between her breasts she began to hum and sing to him. Gospel stuff. Her fingers smoothed and parted his blond hair.
    "I am in Heaven," Harry said finally. He remembered that he was high. Is it her, or is it the reefer?
    But on their way back to Love Jones, Harry found himself comparing Sunday's purposeful strides to Ivory's quick and fluid grace. Suddenly it all became clear, and all the characters were in place: Ivory, Sunday, Perry and Janey, Annie, the Cubans, Ruby sitting on his bed when he was sick so many years before....
    Harry reached for Sunday's hand and squeezed it. They climbed the embankment together.
    Ivory will never love me like this woman does....
    She'll never suck me off like Sunday just did, either.
    Another eighteen-wheeler whooshed by, air-horns splitting the silence. Harry waved after it in the wake of swirling dust and diesel fumes. "He can see us in the mirrors," Harry explained.
    When they were settled, and back on the road, Sunday moved closer to him on the bench seat and rested a hand between his legs. "Don't worry, I'll move back over to my side when we get near the next town."
    "I don't care what they think."
    "Yes, but, you know the people around here. And the cops might have the dope dog out...." Her left hand moved gently and purposefully, and Harry had to adjust his position to make room for his growing erection.
    "Damn, Sunday, you sure know how to make me feel good! When are you going to let me do you, huh?" He took his eyes of the road for a moment. Sunday's eyes were downcast, as if she were shy and embarrassed.
    "The Lord wants me to make you happy."
    When they rounded a bend, the last truck to pass them appeared way up ahead. "Don't pass him, Harry. They can look down inside here." Her magic fingers stopped their work. "I always wondered what it would be like in one of those big trucks.... I sat up in one – it was just parked, you know – but this man, the driver, he said he owned it. It was a big, red, Peterbilt and it had a big, walk-in sleeper and a little 'frigerator and a little color TV.... It was nice!"
    "Did you blow him?"
    "Harry! No. But I was wondering about how it would be, going to California, and New York City, you know. No, Harry, I didn't lay any love on him. But his eyes – he had these bright, blue eyes just like yours!"
    "Is that what it is? Blue eyes?" Harry had to jerk on the wheel suddenly to get off the shoulder of the road. He slowed Love Jones down to fifty-five. He half expected Sunday to bitch about his driving but she was silent for a time. Then:
    "I love you, Harry."
    Harry did not know what to say, He picked up her hand and lifted it to his face and kissed it. Their fingers entwined, but separated back in his lap.
    "You blew that truck driver," Harry said. "Stop! No lies! I don't lie to you and Jesus doesn't want you to lie to me."
    "It was a long time ago. Before I was saved. Besides, you are no one to talk, Harry."
    "How much did he give you for it?"
    silence....
    "He ripped you off, huh?"
    "No, Harry, no.... He said he was going to give me a blue-eyed baby and at that time that was what I wanted more than anything in the world, Harry, a baby that wasn't as black as me, now hush! You don't know anything about these things. He was going to drive us to California where he had this big house right on the ocean and his kids were all grown up and gone, and, but, he couldn't hold it and he was going to come in my mouth and I tried to stop him but he's grabbing me by the hair and shoving it down my throat and then afterwards he said he wasn't feeling good and he needed some Alka Seltzer and when I was gone to get it for him he took off and left me. I know it was dumb but I didn't sleep with him. I was just a kid then, Harry, and I didn't know any better, well, I know better now!"
    "Awww, Sunday...." Harry pulled the pickup off the road and rubbed his fingers through her wooly hair. He reached for the Kleenex dispenser and dabbed at the tears on her face.
    "Now I live for Jesus," she whispered.
    "Whatever, Sunday."
    She straightened up a little. Through the windshield, the green mailbox up ahead said:

VELVET VALLEY STUD FARM

    "We'd better be moving on. They'll want to know what we're doing here."
    "They rent horse cock," Harry said. But he was quick to put Love Jones in gear and get back on the road. Reefer always made him a little paranoid. "A good thing, considering the War on Drugs. Sorry – just talking to myself."
    "You don't believe in Jesus, do you, Harry."
    "Nope. Not as a god, anyway. Watching me everywhere I go, even in the bathroom with the door locked, like the planet is one, big police state with cameras everywhere."
    "God doesn't need cameras, Harry. You're not afraid of Hell? Not even a little?"
    "I think there's maybe a creator, and that's all I can say. If there's a creator, he's too fantastic to be the dumb church-god that has temper tantrums all the time and fries the people he made. Your god is sadistic and juvenile. Sorry, but that's the way I see it." Harry was on his favorite subject and he wished he had a Corona to go with it. He slowed down to pull over again.
    "They serve beer in that barbecue restaurant up ahead," Sunday said. "I'm hungry! You hungry?"
    "Yeah!"
    "Jesus changed all that Old Testament stuff."
    "Nope! The Bible says Jesus is the same god. And god is unchanging. The same god who told Moses it was cool for the Israelites to kill hundreds of thousands of men, women, children – everybody that got in their way to the promised land. Okay to make slaves out of all the little virgins they captured. The same Jesus who told Saint Paul to write down that Christians should treat their slaves well instead of telling them to stop slavery. Huh? What about that? The whole fucking Bible is bullshit, Sunday. It was all written down by a bunch of starving, brain-damaged sand-niggers who lived by raiding other people's territory!" Harry suddenly shut up and pulled Sunday close with his right arm. "I'm sorry, baby, I got carried away. And I didn't mean black people when I said 'nigger' – I was talking about the twelve tribes back then."
    "Mm - hm."
    "They were wild and bad, those people. They had to be. Too many people, not enough good land. They were beaten down and made slaves of themselves so many times. Well, only the quickest and the smartest survived to breed and that's why the Jewish people we have today are so smart and successful. Their ancestors were the survivors. Now if the Germans and the Jews had gotten together before the Second World War – if Hitler weren't such a dumb-ass – we'd all have Russian and Chinese and Japanese slaves now. Today!"
    "Harry, you shouldn't smoke so much dope."
    "No. Reefer makes you think. I drink too much. Alcohol is the poison. It kills brain cells and it's addictive."
    "The Lord wants us to abstain from all drugs, Mister Harry."
    "Tell you what. When The Lord sees fit to update our owner's manual, I'll think about it. It's been almost two-thousand years." Harry grabbed a Kleenex and dabbed at his mouth. "I'm drooling like a fired-up lay preacher. One of those white ones!"
    Sunday did not speak. Harry glanced at her. She was staring straight ahead. They came up on a home-made billboard:

BAR-BE-QUE PIT

4 Florida Miles!

    "They mean: four beautiful miles," Harry said. "I asked."
    silence....
    "I'm sorry, Sunday – what I said about the Bible. At least I wasn't lying. Saying stuff you wanted to hear to get you in bed, you know, like some guys would. I'm always honest with you." Harry tried going back into his memory – to check that one out.
    "It's okay, Harry."
    "Want a blue-eyed baby?"
    Sunday gave Harry's forearm a slap. "I might want to be going along sometime when you start driving that boat-hauler truck you were telling me about!"
    "Yeah?" Harry tensed up. He had been picturing Ivory there beside him when that day came. Picturing her long legs emerging from the cab and flashing down the ladder to the ground, picturing her snaky body stretched out in his sleeper....
    "When do you quit at the boat-yard?"
    "I don't. Same company. They don't have the new trucks yet, so.... Now they say they're going to buy a couple flatbeds, too. I want to get in as soon as they do. We're going to run all states east of the Rockies. Should be more interesting than working in the same place everyday."
    "I went to Atlanta once, with my brother. We flew there! But.... Now that The Lord has provided me with my new Thunderbird – oh, Harry!"
    "The Lord, huh?"
    "Well, He did it through you and your friend. That's how He works."
    Harry laughed. "I can just picture you in it, Sunday!"
    "Oh, I can, too! Thank you, Jesus!"
    At the entrance to the barbecue place, Harry pulled to the side and stopped to allow the eighteen-wheeler exiting the parking lot to get out. There was not enough room and Harry had to back up.
    "He's taking the whole driveway, Harry!"
    "He has to so the trailer wheels don't drop in the ditch. I'm surprised he could get in here at all – I don't think I could."
    "They're hard to drive?"
    "Ha! Hardest thing I ever tried to learn."
    The driver of the semi was cranking hard on the wheel, inching past Love Jones. It was a cab-over Builder's Transport flatbed. A porky but happy-looking white girl was sitting on the passenger side. Suddenly, four sets of hands were up, waving.
    "That's beautiful!" Harry said. "I keep on forgetting that we're salt-and-pepper, too!"
    "I never do," Sunday said. "I know it every minute."

     <end chapter-9>

Humanism with attitude! Rev: 24 March 2005