"Who's that?" My grandmother shouted, not trusting a four AM knock at her kitchen door.
"Mamma Billie it's me, it's JJ."
The kitchen light went on and the door opened and there was Mamma Billie, bleary-eyed in her red terrycloth robe and her famous pink fluff slippers. She wasn't happy. "JJ getcher ass in here. Whatd'ya doin' knockin' on my door at this time a night? You fuckin' crazy?" She shut the door behind me and her mood softened a bit as she looked me over. I had been crying and I was as scared as I've ever been in my life. I guess it showed. "Sit down JJ." She said, pulling a chair out from the kitchen table and sitting in the one next to it. "Whatsa matter?"
"Oh Mamma, I'm in big trouble, I done something really bad and I don't know what to do." I shook my head and looked everywhere except at Mamma Billie.
"Well don't keep me in suspense," she said, "what the hell happened?"
"I shot Roy Mamma -I shot him dead."
"What?"
"He was all fucked up and he came over looking for my mom, but she wasn't home. I told him she wasn't there but he didn't believe me and he was hollering and threating me. He got so worked up he busted in the door of the trailer and I shot him through the neck with my riffle. He bled to death in the kitchen."
Mamma Billie took all this in without showing any reaction. "Did anyone see?" She asked after a moment. "Were there any neighbors around?"
"Gillins was home, but they don't poke their nose in anyone's business. They sure wouldn't think nothing of hearing a gunshot. Only other trailer near ours is aunt Wendy's, but she's hardly there anymore."
"So what'd you do after you shot him?" She asked.
"Wrapped him up in my old tent," I said, "dragged his ass to the back of my truck and then mopped up all the blood."
"You get it all?"
"Shit yeah, mopped it three times an' then swiffered it too. I was so scared Mamma, I didn't know what to do, but then I remembered how you always said that if grandpa ever showed up again how you'd shoot him inna head an' dump his body down the abandoned mine in Karsh Hollow." I looked at her. "I'm sorry Mamma Billie, I know this aint your problem, but I didn't know where else to go."
"Is his truck still at your place?"
"Yeah."
"Are his keys in it?"
"They must be, they weren't in his pockets."
"Alright," Mamma Billie said, "listen up. Yer lookin' at 25 to life for this JJ, yer in some deep shit. You bring this mess to my doorstep at four in the morning an' you want me to help, well if I help you I'm looking at eight years as an accessory. Family's one thing, but risking eight years in the pen is another..."
"Please Mamma Billie..."
She held up her hand. "I'm gonna help you JJ, but I jus' want you to understand that I aint doin' it out of the goodness of my heart. If I get you outta this, yer ass belongs to me, understand?"
"Mamma Billie you know I'd do anything for you."
"We'll see." She said. "There's a half a joint in that ash tray on the counter, you smoke on that while I get dressed. Yer gonna need some weed in you for what we gotta do today."
We made it down to Karsh Hollow just before dawn and used the wheelbarrow to haul Roy's ass down into the abandoned mine. The local kids had the fence all tore up, so it wasn't hard getting through. About a quarter mile into the mine, Mamma Billie's flashlight hit a yellow gate with a big warning sign on it. She yanked the gate open and pointed her flashlight down into the darkness. "Four miles." She said. "Straight down. Been flooded down there since the eighties. They'd dynamite this whole network before anyone would go pokin' around down there. So dump that sacka shit and lets get outta here."
I upended the wheelbarrow and Roy's body, still wrapped in my tent, slipped out into the dark. I didn't hear him hit the water.
The rest of the day was spent losing Roy's truck. She drove it out of town and I followed her all the way to a black ghetto outside of DC -a five hour ride on the back roads we took. Mamma Billie left Roy's truck in front of a housing project with the window half open and the keys on the front seat. We drove home on the interstate.
When we finally made it back to West Virginia we stopped for dinner at an almost empty Cracker Barrel. We sat in a booth in the corner and talked over who was going to miss Roy first. "The hard part's over." Mamma Billie said. "By the time anyone suspects anything, no one's gonna remember his truck being in front of yer mom's trailer last night. Most people can't remember what they had for breakfast a day ago."
"Thank you so much for helping me Mamma, I don't know what I'da done without you." I said. "I owe you big."
"Nah," Mamma Billie said, "it's deeper than that JJ. We tied together now, an' it's a bond deeper than blood. It's crime and sin and family and loyalty, all wrapped up in a secret that only you and me share. I didn't risk my freedom for nothin' JJ, ya understand? I got my hands dirty dragging yer ass outta this shit. You'da got caught if it weren't for me, so every second you aint in jail is a second you owe to yer Mamma Billie. Yer gonna find out what that means real soon."
Mamma Billie's words scared me a little, but they were also strangely comforting. That night had been the lowest, most desperate night of my life and she'd taken me out of it. She knew exactly what to do, and she wasn't shocked or scared. I was glad we were together. We stopped at uncle Charlie's to pick up a bag of crank on the way back to her house.
It was after nine when we got in and Mamma Billie turned out all the lights in the house and told me to come to her room. It was a strange situation, me and Mamma Billie alone together in her room, but I liked it. I felt closer to her than I ever had in my life.
She threw a bag of weed and some papers on the bed and told me to roll up a joint while she went into the bathroom to change and take a piss. "Go ahead and light it up." She called out while her piss was hitting the water. "I'll be out in a minute."
I took a couple of hits, thinking about the day's events and how nobody knew I was there, getting high in my grandmother's bedroom. She came out in her terrycloth robe and sat in her easy chair. She clicked on the old TV she kept on her dresser and turned the volume all the way down. Her robe was tied loosely and when she moved I could see one of her tits. Mamma Billie was young for a grandma, she was only in her mid-fifties. She didn't have an hourglass figure or anything, but I'd always thought she was good-looking. She had wide hips and big tits that sagged a bit but had a nice roundness to them. Her extra weight was carried in a round belly that protruded out almost as far as her tits. Mamma Billie wasn't shy about wearing clothes that showed off her figure.
She took the joint and hit it, and then got out her pipe and put some of the crank in it. She offered it to me, but I said I'd stick with the herb. By the time I finished the joint I was high as hell, and Mamma Billie must've been even higher. "Mamma, you mind if I crash on your couch tonight?" I asked. "I don't wanna drive home all fucked up."
"You aint goin' home JJ, and you sure as hell aint sleeping on the couch neither. You gonna be sleeping in Mamma Billie's bed from now on."
She was half-smiling, and I thought she was joking. "Whatsa matter Mamma, you lonesome?" I asked, playing along.
"Every good man in the county is either in jail or on the run." Mamma Billie said. "That makes you one hell of a catch JJ." Her legs were opening a bit as she spoke.
"Aw hell Mamma, we're blood." I said. "It's a sin."
"Well so's murder but we crossed that line too huh? I don't believe any a' that Jesus talk an' I know you don't either. You needed somethin' from me an' I gave it to you, now Mamma needs somethin' from you. Mamma needs her cunt licked." She took a big hit off her meth pipe and opened her legs wide, grinning at me.