"Is that a fact?" Motsie's eyebrows went up. "What would you do in their house while they're asleep, Cousin Garnet?"
"Oh, well I'd like to sneak in an' cut Thumbellina-the-Whore's damn Toni home permanent right outa her peroxided hair." Garnet was getting sophisticated for eleven, close to becoming an entertaining peer for Motsie who was three years older.
Motsie hadn't brought Vincent to the reunion the first year they'd been friends, seventh grade, but she and Cousin Garnet had come up with the plan to have a separate reunion this year at the Benvenue cemetery to include their dead relatives, and Vincent would make fun company. He was easily spooked and then later told you he enjoyed it and wanted to do it again, like the Ferris wheel.
He hadn't particularly wanted to sit on anyone's actual grave or headstone, but perched on some coping around the edge of a family plot beside a crepe myrtle while Motsie and Garnet stretched out on top of one grave after another, smoking what they'd stolen from Cousin Henderson's closet stash and speculating about which were the laudanum addicts, drunks, and horse thieves in the family. There were no farmers or teachers according to Motsie's and Garnet's family lore, at least not in the version Vincent would be hearing.
"Well, I know a whore too," Motsie launched into a new variation on an old theme. "She's been tryin' to make out with Martin since she transfered to Five Points from R.J Reynolds Jr. High after Christmas." Motsie's string of lies to Garnet had turned to Harlequin romance themes during the las year or two, and Martin was the unknowing protagonist. They'd secretly eloped to South of the Border, and honeymooned in Stumpy Bolton's abandoned Teardrop trailer. Martin and Garnet were never going to meet, after all.
"Her hair's villager-long, an' she just flicks it all around like a sweaty horse shakin' off flies." Garnet was definitely interested, and loaded a big hit for herself while she listened to Motsie. "I was thinkin' I could do her a little favor with some Drano liquid in a sample bottle of Pert shampoo like they hang on your front doorknob sometimes. Plus, no need o' diggin' anybody up."
"So, you wouldn't actually dig up any of your own relatives would you?" Vincent hesitantly tried to suggest a negative reply from Garnet while Motsie fired up a hit. Garnet was younger, and wore leg-braces, so she he figured she ought to be easier to persuade. "Not to mention, by the way, I see you have some black folks living right across the road. They'd prob'ly come get you even if the ghosts didn't. "
"Naw, those coloreds over there are the docile sort," began Garnet. "But I'd prob'ly not try to dig up any o' these up here, with their bein' so well buried." She craned her neck toward the back end of the cemetery where the oldest graves still dangled their C.S.A. standards from shepherd's hooks. "But you see those slabs on down the hill? One of 'em is cracked in half. You can look inside an' tell it's partly sunk in. It might not be too hard to get to some o' those bones."
"But how would you keep their ghosts asleep while you chop off a hand to grind up? You ever think about that?"
"Oh, they wouldn't care, Vincent, it's not like they're gonna be usin' it." This was Motsie's logic as she rolled to her feet and reached down to help Garnet up.
Vincent saw they were pretty close to going down that hill to check things out, and he immediately claimed he needed to go back to the regular reunion, the one with Motsie's alive relatives, to use the bathroom, but Motsie was determined to go see the broken grave and insisted he pee on a tree.
"What? You want me to pee on your great granny's grave? She'll prob'ly come out with a bunch o' switches just 'cause you said that!"
"Oh, I don't think ghost switches hurt a bit. Besides, I heard she used a razor strap to whip children. Do it on the crepe myrtle if you're worried."
"But it's serious, Motsie. I-I-I need to use a real bathroom." Vincent danced a little twist with his thighs clenched together, and it made the girls laugh.
"Well, there's always the one with its slab broken and a hollow place you can sit on. I really doubt I'd dig the the bones up today unless we'd brought some raid for black widows."
"Oh, great! Just what I want on my butt. Thanks a bunch, Motsie."
"A'right, bok-bok chicken, we'll be really fast and then take you back to the alive reunion. Come with, though." She called the last over her shoulder as she followed Garnet down.
Martin squatted behind the Lamm family marker, watching them get littler, Garnet's braces clanking back at him from further down the hill, leaving him to bake in the August heat next to a rainbow hedge of crepe myrtles, his pants still fastened. He was definitely going to blab to Martin the story about Martin and Motsie being married the very next time they played Truth or Dare. He'd also come up with a dare to send Motsie alone after bones from the Cottondale graveyard.
"Maybe black people's ghosts would put some fear of the Lord into you more than these lame Benvenue whites'." Vincent laughed quietly to himself. "Maybe I'll get Sampson to help me set a booby-trap, you crazy Motsie."
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