Beauty At The Back Door

There's a screened-in porch in the front, but not in the back. The back's just got a door and a crepe myrtle bush, and a little old dried-up garden, and some woods way on back. There's a hickory nut tree that covers the whole roof. Sounds like hand grenades hitting the tin roof all the time. There's an old wood floor that's bowed-up just about everywhere. It's got a thin coat of white stuff on it, even though it's a dark wood floor. There's a washing machine right outside the back door. It's a ringer washer, the kind they don't use any more. I got my hand caught it in several times and usually got my arse whipped for it, even though I was the one that got hurt. There's a snake stick, that's what they called it anyway, by the back door. 'Cause if you wanted to go outside, you'd usually need it. Everything's green most of the time, except in the winter when you could see the highway. It's not a leaf on the trees. There's an old rock well where we clean the squirrels. I used to sit out there by that and watch the Carbur girl come down the road

She didn't have but one dress and that's all she needed. It was kind of red and kind of grey, kind of tore-up and kind of perfect. She was built like a brick shit house. She had polish on her toenails, it only went about half-way down 'cause they was always tore-up. She used to walk across the side yard right by the well and go stand by the crepe myrtle bush and look in the screen door. She'd usually stand there for about ten minutes, and back then I wasn't sure what she wanted. These days I understand. If I'd have known then what I know now, well, my life might have been pretty different. Well, she was about eight or nine years older than I was when I first started school. I knew there was something. There's something about the south, the air is a lot heavier, and it seems like the women sweat, even when they're not

I don't know if you've ever heard rain on a tin roof or not, but it's kind of tailor made for love. And one day I was in the house and I was looking back toward the back screen-door and there she was. Standing there for ten minutes. The only thing different this day is that my daddy went back there and talked to her. He told her she looked pretty. I thought the same thing, but there's something about the look in his eye that was a little different than the one I had in mine. And he walked outside and they went past the crepe myrtle bush and past the well and out into the green. And I walked to the back door and I watched for a long time. All I could see was trees. And after a time, I really couldn't count, and they came back out. And my daddy was walking way ahead of her, and she was kind of following, almost running. He acted like he didn't want to have anything to do with her and I was wondering why. Why would you be so happy going in and so down coming out? I don't know. That's what I thought then. He didn't act like she was so pretty any more. Now I think I get it. I think I've got it several times